Feedback: Shaman

#1 - July 19, 2022, 11:53 p.m.

With the Shaman talent trees in Dragonflight, we want to hone in on some core concepts that are unique to the class. Totems have long been a special thing for Shaman, and we’re giving some new options to manipulate your totems position, radius, duration, cleanse poisons, or even potentially reset the cooldown. We’re bringing back Alpha Wolf for Enhancement Shaman, spreading some Stormkeeper functionality to Restoration Shaman, and trying out a new variation of Elemental Blast for Elemental Shaman, where it replaces Earth Shock as a more expensive Maelstrom Spender. All three of the Shaman specializations have a distinct style of play, and we’re hoping the new talents allow you to focus on your important totems, utility, and style of damage or healing you enjoy.

Please use this thread to post feedback on the Shaman class, once you’ve tested it in the Dragonflight Alpha.

Thank you!

#7 - July 20, 2022, 8:31 p.m.

The intent with these talents is that getting the first will grant you the ability, such as Healing Stream Totem, or Stormkeeper. Acquiring the second will instead grant you a second charge of these abilities, similar to how the live version of Echo of the Elements grants Restoration Shaman a second charge of Healing Stream Totem.

This may not currently be functioning, but that is the plan for these.

#24 - Aug. 3, 2022, 12:53 a.m.

Hello again, Shamans!

In today’s new build of the Dragonflight Alpha, we have several adjustments to talents in the Shaman Class Tree intended to reduce the overall defensive and mobility kit of Shaman, which has crept up due to the new system allowing for previously impossible combinations. We’re happy with new talent combinations, but the mobility and defensive power in the tree exceeded our target for Shaman, and individual talent power was above budget compared to other classes.

Elemental
We’ve continued to make minor tweaks to the Elemental tree, based on feedback. This week we focused on improvements to Primordial Wave. It’s generally avoided outside of AoE in the current design, so our aim is to improve its overall value in various game modes to increase build diversity.

We attempted to address node pathing pain points for Storm Elemental with Primal Elementalist. There is now a path available towards Primal Elementalist that doesn’t require sinking more than a couple points into talents unrelated to a Lightning-focused build.

Electrified Shocks is an experiment we’re excited about for Icefury in AoE, and we’re continuing to make adjustments to it. We’ve increased the duration of the Icefury buff which should be an overall improvement to its gameplay given the window was previously hard to fit your Frost Shocks in. We’ve also reduced the number of targets hit and increased the duration of the debuff on enemies, as the intent is for there to be weaving gameplay between Chain Lightning and Frost Shock.

Flames of the Firelord is a niche talent, mainly used for PvP or some AoE builds and we felt it best to combine its functionality with Flames of the Cauldron.

Magma Chamber has moved as its generally more versatile than Searing Flames. Its damage bonus has also been increased.

Talent changes for Elemental:

• Flames of the Firelord has been removed, and its effect is now attached to Flames of the Cauldron.
• Flames of the Cauldron now reduces the cooldown of Flame Shock by 1.5 seconds and Flame Shock deals damage 15% faster.
• Icefury buff duration increased to 25 seconds (was 15 seconds).
• Electrified Shocks makes Frost Shock hit 3 additional targets (was 4), and the debuff duration increased to 6 seconds (was 4 seconds).
• Magma Chamber Damage bonus increased to 0.7%/1.5% per stack (was 0.5%/1.0% per stack).
• Tumbling Waves has been removed from Elemental and replaced with Rolling Magma.
• Rolling Magma causes Lava Burst and Lava Burst Overload damage to reduce the cooldown of Primordial Wave by 0.5/1.0 seconds.
• Splintered Elements increases Haste by 10% per stack (was 6%).
• Fire Elemental once again increases the duration of Flame Shock by 100% while active.
• Coming soon:
  • Heat Wave - Casting Primordial Wave triggers Lava Surge immediately and every 3 seconds for 12 seconds.

Restoration
We also made some adjustments to the Restoration tree to improve accessibility to damage/utility focused talents without needing to talent into throughput.

We’ve swapped Resurgence and Lava Surge to allow for damage-focused builds to not require talenting into increased mana regeneration.

Thanks again for your testing and feedback!

#47 - Aug. 19, 2022, 9:53 p.m.

Enhancement Shaman,

Several changes are coming in the next build you receive, in addition to several bug fixes. We also removed a -35% damage and healing modifier to your spells that benefit from Maelstrom Weapon in an effort to make your spells more impactful, but may have to reintroduce this as tuning goes on.

Talent Changes:

• Primal Primer is no longer an option in the tree.
  • Primal Primer and Primal Lava Actuators were two different ways of making Lava Lash better. We opted to keep Primal Lava Actuators.
• Hailstorm now provides your next Frost Shock a bonus for up to 10 Maelstrom Weapon charges spent to better work with Overflowing Maelstrom. The maximum bonus targets is still limited to 5.
• Stormstrike now replaces Primal Strike.
• Doom Winds now does some immediate damage when you activate the ability.
• Ice Strike’s Frost Shock buff now highlights Frost Shock.
• Alpha Wolf now works with Chain Lightning, rather than Crash Lightning so you do not have to take Crash Lightning to get the benefit.
• Ascendance now is now a choice node vs Deeply Rooted Elements.
• Thorim’s Invocation now remembers whether you most recently cast Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning, and uses that spell when you use Windstrike, rather than always using Lightning Bolt.
• Chain Lightning (rank 2) functionality baked into Crash Lightning/Chain Lightning interactions.
• New 1-point talent: Crashing Storms: Crash Lightning damage increased by 40%, and Chain Lightning strikes 2 additional targets.
• Gathering Storms has been consolidated down to a 1-point talent.
• Hot Hand has been converted to a 2-point talent with the same total values.
• Feral Spirit cooldown has been reduced to 90 seconds.
• Elemental Spirits no longer reduces the cooldown of Feral Spirits.
• Several talents have shifted around due to the above changes.

Thank you all for the continued feedback and testing.

#54 - Aug. 25, 2022, 1:18 a.m.

From the development notes for today’s Alpha update:

• Elemental
  • Earthquake – Damage reduced by 25%.
  • Chain Lightning – Damage increased by 25%. (Elemental only)
  • Lava Beam – Damage increased by 25%.
  • Lightning Bolt – Damage reduced by 20%. (Elemental only)
  • Lava Burst – Damage reduced by 20%. (Elemental only)
  • Earth Shock – Damage reduced by 20%.
  • Elemental Blast – Damage reduced by 20%. (Elemental only)
  • Lightning Rod – Deals 20% of Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt damage (was 25%).
• Enhancement
  • Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
  • Stormstrike now replaces Primal Strike.
  • Doom Winds now does some minor damage when you activate it.
  • Ice Strike’s Frost Shock buff now highlights Frost Shock
  • Alpha Wolf now works with Chain Lightning, rather than Crash Lightning.
  • Improved Stormbringer renamed Stormblast.
  • Unruly Winds chance raised to 100%.
  • Ascendance is now a choice node with Deeply Rooted Elements.
  • Thorim’s Invocation now remembers whether you last used Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning, and will use that spell instead of always Lightning Bolt.
  • Chain Lightning Rank 2 has been added into the Chain Lightning/Crash Lightning interactions and is no longer a talent.
  • New Talent: Crashing Storms – Chain Lightning jumps to 2 additional targets, and also increases Crash Lightning damage by 40%.
  • Forceful winds is now 45% damage per stack (was 35%).
  • Gathering Storms is now a 1-point talent (was 2). Value increased to 15%, and there’s a maximum of 10 stacks of Gathering Storms.
  • Hot Hand is now a 2-point talent (was 1).
  • Elemental Assault adjusted to be 10/20% Stormstrike damage (was 7/15%). Maelstrom weapon chance is now 50/100% per rank.
  • Lava Burst is affected by Enhancement mastery.
  • Primal Primer is no longer an option on the tree.
  • Hailstorm now gains bonus damage from up to 10 Maelstrom Weapon charges spent to work better with Overflowing Maelstrom. The bonus targets is still capped at 5.
  • Nature’s Fury now works correctly with the immediate damage from Ascendance.
  • Feral Spirits is now a 90 second cooldown.
  • Elemental Spirits no longer reduces Feral Spirit cooldown.
• Restoration
  • Water Totem Mastery – Consuming Tidal Waves reduces the cooldown of Cloudburst, Healing Stream, Healing Tide, Mana Spring, Mana Tide, and Poison Cleansing Totem by 0.5 seconds (was 0.25 seconds).

#64 - Sept. 2, 2022, 8:37 p.m.

Enhancement Shaman,

Some changes are coming to a build you will receive next week, and we wanted to discuss that here.

• Stormbringer is now just something you know starting at level 10 as an Enhancement Shaman alongside your Mastery.
• New 1-point talent in Stormbringer’s Spot: Storm’s Wrath. Increases the mastery bonus chance for Stormbringer and Windfury to activate by 100%. This is a multiplier, not additive.
  • Note, this only increases the bonus proc chance from Mastery, which is 0.64% without any gear, and does not affect the elemental damage bonus from Mastery.
• Improved Maelstrom Weapon is now a 2 rank node, up from 1, for the same total benefit.
• Focused Maelstrom has been removed.
• Raging Maelstrom now increases the damage bonus to Maelstrom Weapon by an additional 5% in addition to increasing maximum stacks by 5.
• A fair number of talents in rows 4-8 on the right side of the tree have shifted around in position.
• Lashing Flames has added as a talent on the right side of the tree.
• Alpha Wolf now procs from either Crash Lightning or Chain Lightning, rather than just Chain Lightning.
• Legacy of the Frost Witch has had its design adjusted a bit and is still 2 ranks: Every 10 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon consumed resets the cooldown of Stormstrike and increases the damage of your physical abilities by 5%/20% for 5 sec.
• Feral Spirits, and the Elemental Spirits talent have been adjusted:
  • Each Feral Spirit type now grants you +15% damage to the related element. Normal Feral Spirits count as Physical.
  • The extra frost damage from the frosty feral spirits has been removed, but frosty feral spirits now increase your frost damage by 15%.
  • The extra Lava Lash damage from fire feral spirits has been removed.

Thank you for the continued feedback and testing.

#102 - Sept. 9, 2022, 11:48 p.m.

Enhancement Shaman,

Some minor changes coming in your next build:

• Feral Lunge has moved to a spot below Windfury Weapon.
• Windfury Totem is once again 20%.
• Swirling Maelstrom has been lowered from 2 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon, down to 1, however the tooltip has been clarified now grants 1 stack of Maelstrom Weapon per Fire Nova eruption.
• Crash Lightning has had some significant adjustments:
  • Crash Lightning cooldown increased from 9 to 12 seconds.
  • Crash Lightning’s buff from hitting 2 or more targets has increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
  • Ice Strike can now also cause the bonus damage from Crash Lightning.
  • The initial damage, as well as the bonus damage from Stormstrike, Lava Lash, and Ice Strike has been increased.
  • The initial damage as well as the bonus damage from Stormstrike, Lava Lash, and Ice Strike now deals reduced damage when you are fighting more than 6 targets.

#151 - Sept. 16, 2022, 9:29 p.m.

Enhancement Shaman,

A minor change is coming next week for Elemental Blast and Lava Burst interactions in the Enhancement Shaman tree.

Elemental Blast and Lava Burst on their own are not changing. If you take both talents, Elemental Blast will replace Lava Burst, and Elemental Blast will have 2 charges.

Elemental Blast and Lava burst are not changing for Elemental Shaman, they will remain separate spells. This is an Enhancement specific change.

#300 - Oct. 1, 2022, 12:03 a.m.

Hi Enhancement Shaman,

A change is coming next week to how Windfury Totem works. These changes have no impact on the Windfury Weapon imbue, nothing is changing with how that works.

For some quick context, in Shadowlands, Windfury Totem can only activate from main-hand auto-attacks, and causes a main-hand auto-attack swing when it activates.

The next build you receive should have Windfury Totem changed to work this way:

• Main-hand auto attack interaction is unchanged, except for the miss note below.
• Off-hand attacks can proc an off-hand Windfury attack. This is an actual real “auto attack”, which means things like Flametongue Weapon, or whatever other effects may activate from off-hand attacks, can now potentially happen from this bonus attack.
• Windfury Totem extra attacks can no longer miss. This has very little impact on 2h users, as an Arms Warrior or Retribution Paladin almost never see a miss in their combat log, however dual-wield users have a high miss chance. In Shadowlands, this miss chance both applies to the chance to get the Windfury Totem’s extra attack, and the extra attack itself can then miss. Targets can still dodge or parry these attacks, they are just no longer able to miss.
• Bonus bug fix: Enhancement Shaman who are under the effects of Ascendance can now benefit from Windfury Totem if they are auto-attacking from outside of melee range range with Windlash.

We will be monitoring any unintended side effects from this change, but this should help make Windfury Totem more valuable to more specs within the game.