#0 - March 4, 2007, 6:09 a.m.
I'm determined to get something from this post through to the Blizzard devs and changes made to make the class better. Hopefully like the last two threads, people will support this one. If you do, please keep it bumped. The more posts we get the more likely we are to get a blue response. (thats how it usually is, anyways)
Come on Shaman, show your support and post! Let's try and make ourselves heard in as positive a manner as possible.
Table of Contents
1. General Problems and Suggestions to Fix Them
2. Talent Overview
3. The Totem System and My Solution.
4. Conclusions
General Problems and Suggestions to Fix Them
Shaman lack an ability to lock another character down, and are the only class that does not have a stun/CC ability, either through talents or base abilities.
While it would be nice to have a small stun like Hammer of Justice or Concussion Blow, that’d just be copying what the other classes have, and it would be good for the game for the Shaman to have something unique. Maybe the Stasis Ward from WC3?
Stasis Ward
5% of base mana
Water Totem (well, anything other than Air)
1 minute cooldown
Summons a Stasis Ward totem at the caster’s feet that will stun the shaman’s current target for 3 seconds. 10 seconds after the stun wears off, the totem will go on to stun an additional, UNIQUE target for another 3 seconds. Each stasis ward can only stun a person once. 15 yard radius.
Just an idea I was toying with, although I’m sceptical of how practical it is.
Shaman need better anti-CC measures to keep from being so squishy
Personally, I think all that’s needed is to make the Tremor Totem pulse more often and that’d probably be enough. Being able to break Charm, Fear, and Sleep is good, and Grounding Totem can absorb most CC spells.
*NEW!* Shaman, especially Enhancement specced Shaman, are effectively shut down merely by reducing their run speed or immobilizing them.
This is one of the prime concerns facing a lot of Shaman. In PvP, we have no way of catching an opponent if they decide to run from us, and we can't use Frost Shock to slow them for any amount of reasons. Here's an idea proposed by Ennzo to help Enhancement spec Shaman deal with not being able to handle snares and immobilizes as well. (Thanks for letting me put this here Ennzo :3)
Improved Ghost Wolf
Reduces casting time of Ghost Wolf by 1/2 seconds, and gives the Shaman a 50%/100% chance to escape all movement impairing effects. While shapeshifted, the Shaman is immune to polymorph.
It may seem overpowered, but even fully specced it still has a cast time (so it can be interrupted, and even 1 second cast spells are hard to get off when you're getting wailed on), its still in the Nature school of magic so a Counterspelled heal will lock this down, and it can be dispelled by priests and other shaman. This gives us a bit more of an edge, without stepping on the toes of the other classes.
Shaman need more mana regeneration. Once their mana runs out there’s not much they can do.
A big problem I see with Shaman, particularly with Elemental and Restoration Shaman, is that they lack an ability to get mana back quickly WITHOUT investing heavily into Restoration. The change to Elemental Focus that procs Clearcasting on spell crits helps with keeping us from running out of mana, but we need something to help gain that mana back when we run oom during a raid that doesn’t involve going into AoE to trigger Water Shield or sitting around for a minute getting a mere 200ish mana from Mana Spring. A simple fix would be to make Mana Tide a base ability or an 11 point talent rather than a 31 point talent. It would also help avoid the occasional situation where a Shaman is pigeon-holed into Restoration.
Water Shield is nice but doesn’t provide enough mana and doesn’t provide anything when you’re not getting hit!
Water Shield is a good spell, but the amount of mana it returns needs to be tweaked a bit, maybe an additional 20 or 40 per charge. However, how would this address the uselessness of this ability in a group setting where you aren’t getting hit? Add an effect like 30 MP / 5 as a passive bonus as long as the shield is up.
Lightning Shield provides no benefit in group settings.
During a situation where you will rarely, if ever, be struck in combat, our shield spells are rather useless. It would be nice if we could target people to buff them with Lightning Shield (so we can provide a little extra DPS to the party by buffing the tank inbetween heals) or giving it a passive effect like +spell damage. (Boost spell damage by X as long as the shield is up)
Fire and Earth Elemental Totems aren’t worth the 20 minute cooldown
Such a thing is debatable, and I’m sure that people have argued back and forth about it for a while now. Some of the flaws with these two spells are:
-High cooldown
-Tied to a totem (can anyone confirm this?)
-Earth elemental has low HP (seen several people say about 6 to 7k HP, but can’t really confirm for myself)
-Not controllable.
Solution? Make these things normal summoned pets. Reduce the duration to about 1.5 minutes, but also decrease the cooldown to about 5. Give the Earth Elemental a bit more HP, let the shaman control who the pet attacks and what it casts, and have the pet follow the Shaman on Defensive when it is out of combat. Just my opinion on it, and I am aware it can be seen as overpowered compared to their current forms.
Shaman only have one type of spell damage for their sustained DPS spells
Lightning Bolt is our only spell we can use for sustained DPS. Against targets immune to Nature damage, all an elemental shaman has is attacking with a caster-type weapon (which usually has low DPS even with a weapon buff) and shocks, which are horrible sustained DPS. A solution would be to implement a short casting (1.5 sec cast) spell of a different school of magic, either Fire or Frost. However, since Frost tends to carry with it a slowing effect, Fire would be the most obvious choice. Here’s my idea for one solution:
Flame Burst
First rank at 20
1.5 sec cast
Causes X to Y Fire damage to the target.
The Enhancement tree lacks synergy with the other trees.
Unless you’re taking the mediocre +5% mana talent and all the Improved Totem / Lightning Shield talents, the Enhancement tree doesn’t provide much to any other tree, and Elemental / Restoration provide very little for enhancement. (A lacklustre talent that procs based on spell crit to boost melee crit and +3% melee hit). There are many ways that this can be changed, and I’ve seen several great ideas in my last thread.
-Increase attack power based on a percentage of +spell damage. This would give the shaman its “Hybrid” or “Battle Priest” image back. This idea may seem overpowered, but think about it…+spell damage gear is not usually on the same gear that has +ap, +melee crit, +str, +agi, or +melee hit. So while a dual wield shaman decked out in say +400 spell damage gear will be pumping out 800 damage lightning bolts (with a 3 second cast time mind you) he’ll be missing a lot, won’t be critting very often, and will have very poor dodging. This would give Shaman the option of being able to wear gear that boosts their “hybridization” but also let people maximize their character’s melee potential by letting them drop the spell damage gear for more melee focused stats. If having this as a base ability, then I suggest replacing the 2H Axes and Maces talent with:
Spiritual Strength
Boosts the Shaman’s attack power based on their +damage and healing bonus effects, at a rate of 1 AP per bonus damage and 0.5 AP per bonus healing.
(+healing comes in far greater amounts, so reducing the bonus by half balances it out)
I can see how this may be overpowered, but as outlined above, this leaves the shaman with a distinctive lack of crit, hit, strength, and agility. This would merely give Elemental and Restoration Shaman the opportunity to go 11 points into Enhancement to pick up a talent to make them more effective in melee (and, at the same time, not as effective as a shaman who focuses on only melee stats). It would also give Enhancement shaman an alternative to using melee gear, as well as provide them with enough attack power to melee during groups and PvP where they may be in their casting gear and run out of mana.
Below is some math showing the kind of stats a shaman with Tier 4 would have with this talent…
Tier 4
The Enhancement set gives a total of (in terms of melee stats ONLY, including socket bonuses but not the sockets themselves)
-128 Strength (256 attack power)
-34 Crit Rating
-16 Hit Rating
(AND! If my idea were to be implemented, the set would also get an additional 121 attack power from the +spell damage, making it a total of 377)
The Elemental Set
-No melee stats
(If my idea were implemented, the set would give +175 attack power from the +spell damage)
The Restoration Set
-No melee stats
(If my idea were implemented, the set would give +166 Attack Power from the +healing)
The 3-sec cooldown on Windfury is a nuisance to Dual-Wield Shaman. Are there any plans to change this or to make the other weapon buffs more viable for an Enhancement Shaman?
Let’s face it, Frostbrand and Flametongue are only good with high spell damage or against high armor opponents, and rockbiter has just been repeatedly changed so much as to be ineffective compared to its former self. I won’t be getting into any of the math here because so many others ha
