Spectral Wolf AxedFollow

Translation: It is in our vision for the game design that Shaman always be vastly inferior to Druids, the other nature-based three-role hybrid.

There are already plenty of classes in the game with talents and core abilities that mimic other class' talents and/or core abilities, but apparently the Shaman class having a damn good and much needed one just isn't in the cards as far as Blizzard is concerned. Instead, we're back to totems again, which is awesome because we can still get feared and then have our Tremor Totem destroyed before it pulses. Now Enhancement Shaman get to double their pleasure.

Note: I am really, really hoping that the "clear all snares" description from Koraa was an absent-minded one and that s/he really meant to say "clear all movement impairing effects". Otherwise Enhancements are right back to the root-fest that was TBC in addition to their now un-relieved and re-agitated issue with snares.

Further notes: I lost the post and couldn't find it again, but apparently initial testing is showing Enhancement and Resto Shaman DPS/HPS being vastly inferior not only in comparison to other classes in beta, but to current performance on live as well. Elemental is apparently still stacking up well despite a problem with Thunderstorm, though any dreams of a rotation involving Lightning spells and Flame Shock/Lava Burst have turned out to be a pipe dream, as I suspected it would. LB spam is still ruling all, from what I hear.

Edited, Sep 10th 2008 12:42pm by Gaudion

I can agree with downing a mage and a hunter, our burst potential is great, but ok so earthbind pulses now and removes snare, and i hope all movement impairing effects. But buff the totem, have it recieve a bonous from our stamina or max health.



why not put a balance on Ghost Wolf, like have it be immune for the first 5 sec to snares/movement impairing effects... i dont know but it pisses me off that once again they get our hopes up of all the improvements, and now they start to remove the better ones... Its better now than the first patch after release, because i would completly pissed if i got to use the new talents for 2 weeks and then have raped from me...

Edited, Sep 10th 2008 4:17pm by NomaakEarthshaker

The developers probably forgot about the rule against making shaman viable in pvp. It was probably intended as one of those April Fools jokes, but got put into the wrong pile and mistakenly added to the Beta. This is just the resulting PR cover-up.

While not being a great expert in PvP myself (OK, I usually stay away from it) I still think some things said here are not 100% true/in place.



OK, this is very (VERY!) picky, but Druids can spec into one role more than Shamans (tanking). That's really not important, but as a Druid player it really caught my eye. And still, your comparison is in place.



Before WotlK is launched, it's hard to say Blizzard "decided" to ***** any one class or the other, numbers are being twinked all over the place, bugs are still very common etc. Things as "elementary" as numbers tend to change quite fast IMO, so it's too early to sweat about it yet.

About the other concern of yours, Shamans being inferior in live in DPS/HPS, can you try to direct me where to look for it? It really interests me. Thanks in advance.



What about adding a "death effect" to Earthbind Totem? Meaning it would pulse one last time when destroyed.
Would you think this will balance it?

One last thing, you seem to be quite pissed the ENHANCEMENT is not viable in PvP, but from what I heard (reminder, I hardly PvP :)) Elemental does quite OK which means Shamans have a talent tree that is quite successful in PvP (please correct me if I am wrong here), and well, isn't it common? Druids do badly in Feral, Warriors only succeed in Arms, Rogues are quite weak at Assassination... (PvP-wise)
My point is, many classes have talent trees that are more suitable for PvP than others, don't they?

Have a nice day and try to be calm,
Yuval.

You're quite right. Druids can choose from four roles, the only class that can do this.


Welcome to the forum.

If it were only all about WotLK then our lives would be much easier. But it isn't. Shaman got the shaft from the second TBC launched, and we have had to endure having said shaft firmly lodged in our orifaces for the entire duration of TBC. "It'll get better," we told ourselves. "Blizzard will bring us up to par with the other classes eventually," we said. And now here we are over a year and a half into TBC and looking towards the next expansion wondering not how much better we'll be, but how worse or less worse we'll be compared to other classes.


As I said, I couldn't find the link again when I tried, though I admittedly didn't try that hard. It's on the official beta forums somewhere. In any case, it's not terrible important compared to the fact that you misunderstood me. Shaman aren't horribly inferior on live currently when comparing DPS/HPS to other classes. With the large-scale, widespread changes Blizzard is making to the game in WotLK, Shaman are actually performing worse in the beta than they are currently on live with the exception of Elemental Shaman.


And now we come to the fact that, as you've repeatedly stated, you have pretty much no valid experience upon which to base an objective opinion of PvP.

First of all, you can't really compare Shaman to "pure" classes like Warriors and Rogues, because all three of their trees serve a different roll. You could compare, say, an Elemental Shaman to Mages and Warlocks, or an Enhancement Shaman to Warriors and Rogues, but not both. It's apples and oranges.

Because those "pure" classes only have one role, it's only natural that eventually they were going to arrive at the "best" way to accomplish that role and spec accordingly. Now, I'm not saying that's optimal. In a perfect world, I would love to see any class be able to emphasize any tree and still succeed. But those classes, regardless of what they spec, do succeed.

Shaman, as a whole, do not. It is the exception and not the rule that any given spec of Shaman succeeds in any given bracket of the arena, and they are pigeonholed into extremely limited team choices due to their overbearing weaknesses. Shaman have to play to the fullest of their strengths to stay even remotely competitive. Even doing that, they're still overly reliant on their partners to achieve any amount of success. And even doing that, any role they serve can still be served far better by some other classes. (I.E. Resto Druids always > Resto Shaman, Warriors/Rogues always > Enhancement, Mage/Warlock always > Elemental.) The only thing Shaman can do in the arena right now that another class can't is be taken into 5v5 to be used as a Bloodlust/Heroism bot.

Right now, Shaman are Blizzard's whipping boy. We have been Blizzard's whipping boy for the past year and a half since TBC released, and quite frankly, I, at least, am tired of it. I'm not going to go through another two-year expansion the same way I went through TBC.

Edited, Sep 11th 2008 11:43am by Gaudion

There are layers of meaning here just waiting to be disected.

The issue isn't that Shaman mimic other classes or Druids mimic other classes or that any class mimics any other class. All classes mimic other classes. As time goes on, the buffs, debuffs, enrages, snares, roots, CC's, not to mention primary roles, and anything and everything else I could possibly name trend towards homoginization. (Consider the copy/past of Mortal Strike from Warriors to Hunters as an example.) Blizzard has even used the term "homogenize" when talking about their recent rebalancing of raids relative to what classes provide.

The issue here is that Blizzard is, inexplicably, going out of their way to resist homogenization in the Shaman class in this particular instance. (There is the whole issue that they seem to frequently single out the Shaman class alone to resist homogenization overall, but that's a whole other issue. Let's stick to the one at hand.) While that in itself is bearable, the fact that they're replacing said ability (which was arguable the single biggest PvP buff incoming to Enhancement Shaman) with a vastly inferior one inflames the issue immeasurably. Make no mistake: it is a severe nerf. And their only justification, which is an exception to their own rule, is not an acceptable excuse.

Now, something I found particularly interesting in your reply:


Why is our shapeshifting ability throw-away? Because it's the only one we have? Plenty of classes have singular abilities, and they're no less valid. The spell was given to us. It's meant to serve a purpose and no less a valid aspect of the Shaman class than the Druids' shapeshifts. So I ask again, why is it throw-away?

You know the answer as well as I do. Because it sucks. All abilities that suck get thrown away. They don't suck because they lack a purpose, they lack a purpose because they suck. If our shapeshift broke snares like Druids shapeshifts did, then the ability is no longer throw-away. It's useful, it's important. What you and Blizzard are saying here is that, basically, Druid shifts deserve to be useful and worthwhile but a Shaman's shift deserve to suck wind and get shuffled off the cast bar.

How is that fair? And don't tell me it's because Druids are shifting into "Warrior Form" or "Rogue Form". They frequently shift into Travel Form, which is the exact equivalent of a Shaman shifting into Ghost Wolf.

Edited, Sep 11th 2008 11:46am by Gaudion

Yeah, all classes' abilities get blended together, mortal shot and the new feral TBW being the best examples, which imo is too bad. But druids are different. When they shift into bear they get a rage bar. Into cat, energy and combo pts. In their most basic design, the forms (esp bear and kitty) are supposed to be mimics of established classes. This is my point -- complaining druids get core abilities of other classes is like complaining hunters get pets. It's part of what the class IS.

To me, and I think to blizz and most people, a shaman is a totem-dropping killing machine/healer. Ghost wolf is a marginal ability, it doesnt seem as central to the class as totems. Just like barkskin and hibernate are marginal abilities to druids, levitate to priests.... That's not to say it's not useful, just that it's not part of the core of what the class is. (As opposed to druid shapeshifts, which are the core of the class....a lock's demon form will also be marginal to what locks are, though obviously pretty handy and, yes, superior to our own marginal shapeshift.)

I thought Blizz's attempt to buff hunters with aimed shot (and the dispel on arcane) was laughable, because it made no sense. It was a random bonus they pasted on an ability just to try to level the playing field. Now camoflauge, that makes sense for a hunter (though I shudder to fight one who uses it). I'm happy with that in concept. I'm saying I think shamans should get something similar.

PS, I agree with you and many posters on this forum that Blizz has given the class the short end of the stick in PvP, and I am disappointed they are not replacing spectral wolf with something stronger. However, if and when they fix us I want it to be something that makes sense. And I don't want to frame it as "no fair, druids can do it, why can't we?" I want something we can do that druids can't. Maybe that's just because I play a druid and a shaman and want them to remain different. But I also think that framing the debate as how unfair it is we don't have the outs or control of other classes is a losing argument.

but druids *are* unique snowflakes. every class is. druids are unique in the sense that they can dip into aspects of each class at a cost; they sacrifice the raw ability to do things not inherent to that class (and, of course, the mana cost of shifting forms).

no matter how many points you spend in enh, no matter how much straight melee DPS gear you stack an enh shammy can still heal and nuke. a druid in bear or cat form can do neither, and they have to (in the case of bear) literally take off their armor in order to heal. every shaman is still in mail when they heal, just like every pally is in plate (and hence, part of the logic behind the switching of sanc. seals with sheath of light, the other part being ridonkulus spell damage bonus for prot pallies).

as you mentioned, the "iconic" ability of shaman is not ghost wolf, but totems. working thru that medium to give the shaman class an ability is better than trying to half-*** it with an upgraded knockoff of a druid ability (and it *was* an upgrade over druid shapeshifting, and if you cant tell why, then ill be happy to explain it).



given that theyve rolled the dispel mechanic into tranq shot, thus removing it from arcane shot, i think we can agree that the changes did not, in fact, "work". that, and hunters did not see an immediate and/or drastic improvement in their performance; the overall percentage of hunters remained within 2% of what it was before the buff.

in short, wantonly tacking on abilities to skills they dont belong on is a short-sighted and ultimately fruitless method of addressing concerns.

as to addressing shaman concerns, the EB totem buff is a step in the right direction but probably not enough. good suggestions ive seen on the beta forums involved adding the shamans name to the totem (e.g. Gaudrion's Earthbind totem) thereby removing the usage of totem stomping macros and addons, as well as taking stoneclaw totem and reworking it to not be an earth totem. instead, it would be a "neutral" totem with its own cooldown and no actual elemental preference. hence, you could have four totems down plus your stoneclaw, and your other four totems would be protected by the stoneclaw, and thus still have a strong effect on events (but not be uncounterable).

and no, the stoneclaw totem wouldnt need its own "neutral" totem. it would just be a skill you get that protects your other totems, but doesnt take up a totem school like it does now (all other abilities are retained, such as the taunt and stun mechanic).

Edited, Sep 10th 2008 10:16pm by Quor

EL OH EL


you are dumb.

First of all, if you are shifting as a druid to unroot yourself (which is the key point being discussed), you DO NOT USE bear or cat form to break snares. They cost more mana and you move slower in cat/bear vs travel form. You use TRAVEL FORM to break snares either to run away or to close the gap. Period. It's what DRUIDS DO. Travel form doesn't have special abilities. It has nothing to do with the "druid class" aside from moving faster. Guess what... THE SAME IS TRUE OF GHOST WOLF except it doesn't break snares.

Why doesn't it break snares? Hell, you have to spec into it for it to be instant. I think it should AUTOMATICALLY break snares for this reason. You can't even have it instant without putting points into Ghost Wolf. To make it fair, either ghost wolf should break snares... OR travel form shouldn't.

Keep in mind, I have a 70 druid. I have a 70 shaman. At this rate, if things don't change dramatically between what's going on now in Beta and when 3.0 comes out, I won't touch my shaman again.

And as for Totems being "iconic," yes they are. But the sh*tty thing is, I don't even put them down in Arenas. They are gone by the time my global cooldown is finished. For something so ICONIC to the class, thenwhy can't I even use them? It'd be like being able to dispel a druid's shapeshift (ROFL GHOST WOLF) or one shotting a hunter/warlock pet. But guess what.... YOU CAN DO ALL THOSE to a shaman! Totems should AT LEAST have 5 health per level of the shaman ... minimum. Honestly, that's not enough. That would be 350 health at 70 (a vast improvement over 5 health though). I think something like 10 health per level is more in line. The other option I thought about was having negative side effects to destroying totems.

Destruction of Earth = Stun effect
Destruction of Fire = Instant aoe damage (less than nova, but decently significant)
Destruction of Water = Poison?
Destruction of Wind = Slowing Effect

Sure, destroy the shaman totems, but there is an elemental price to pay. At least then I feel that even though I wasted mana on a buff, at least the fact I can't keep buffs up is having some negative effect on the other team.

Edited, Sep 11th 2008 3:29am by Jiade

Its a real shame about the GW buff getting chucked I know blizard wants shaman to really make use of our totems (sometimes I wish they didn't exist).

So totems is suppose to be one of our main class defining skills ok I can buy that, and generally with totems down our abilities in pvp are a bit stronger (its great fighting rogues and warlocks that ignore totems although this is rare in arena). The problem is our core class defining ability is just as easy or easier to deal with in comparison to us dropping them. With 5 hp its not to hard for just about anyone to melee them down or just use macros to make your pet deal with it, and basically waste shaman's mana or for a druid lets say to rank one moonfire it down with ease.

With no way to protect our totems or no counter to the enemy destroying our totems then shaman will always be behind other classes in pvp.

Now I don't think this change to Earth Bind Totem is bad (if I read it right it affects our allies also which is nice) but it is another spell in our nature tree, it now forces shaman to chose between the use of tremor totem in pvp or Earth Bind, and Earth Bind totem if I recall has a cooldown meaning we can not spam it so if destroyed we have to wait (i know its only 10 seconds and if it had no cooldown it could be very OP but this is still a con to the spell).

Totems need some kind of defense mechanism, either make them more resilient or give the enemy some kind of bad affect to make my opponent think twice about killing my totem. Giving shaman a totem UI to set up different groups of 4 totems to drop them all at once or reducing mana cost of our main PvP totems. Eliminating HP on totems and making them require to be attacked 2-3 times before they are destroyed or give totems a stun or a chance to stun affect on destruction or maybe forcing a pulse on some of our totems on destruction. These are all reasonable ideas that would help shaman in pvp that so far blizzard has ignored that has been suggested many times by the shaman community.

Totems are the core of the shaman class and as long as blizzard wants the class to be totem dependent without giving us some way of defending them shaman will always be behind the other classes when it comes to PvP.

so all that shocking you do counts for nothing? the ap/spell damage conversion and int/ap conversion talents are useless for enh? i dont see any of those in the feral tree. in fact, theres only one talent in the feral tree that has anything to do with int and it has no effect on spell damage, whereas the enh tree has two talents that take established stats and convert them at some ratio into spell power. sounds like a much more hybrid style of play than anything a feral druid does. and its for a good reason; a large part of your damage comes from spells. theres even a new talent at the bottom to aid this by stacking a buff to get instant cast LB's or CL's. clearly the infrastructure to utilize spells regularly is there.

now, granted, an enh shammy isnt designed to stand at a distance and nuke something to death, but compared to a feral druid, they have a stronger base to do so. a mage or other casting class will definetely outdo an enh shammy in nuking, but an enh shammy will trump a feral druid without even trying (and be rewarded for stacking int no less!).



you asked for it.

travel form and ghost wolf may seem analogous, and in the hands of a resto shammy and an elemental shammy, they are. they serve the purpose of moving from point A to point B faster than normal running speed while in combat.

in the hands of an enh shammy however, ghost wolf becomes something more. you see, enh shaman derive a lot of their power from their ability to stay close to someone (duh). however, ghost wolf was never really used as a means of closing distance because of the cast time. with the change to instant, it allowed an enh shammy to use it as a maneuvering tool in pvp. this is where any similarity to travel form ends, as travel form, even for a feral druid, is merely a way of breaking snares and roots. ghost wolf that could break snares and roots puts the power of an enh shammy right next to their enemy almost full time with few counters to it.

whats more is that the very playstyle of an enh shammy supports this kind of behavior. as an enh shammy, you tend to use your skills in bursts of 1-3 skills every 5-10s or so. for example, you close the distance on a mage and he novas and backs away. you purge once, drop grounding totem, hit ghost wolf (break nova) and are back on top of him again. he tries to poly as you stormstrike him, but your GT is down, and you know to expect it now, so you get ready on your ES button, and when it does come, you stop the cast, hitting him for a nice big hunk of damage (insert air shock instead of ES if necessary). all the while this is going on youre auto-attacking, proccing windfury, and generally tearing sh*t up. if frostbite happens to proc on one of your attacks, no biggie, you just ghost wolf and get back on top of him again. when the need to SS or ES comes up, you just hit your button (dropping GW) and go about your business.

contrast this with feral druids, who use travel form merely for snare breaking. only, travel form uses the same damage as caster form does, and theres no windfury to think of, and shifting into another combat form (cat, bear) has the cost of more mana than ghost wolf was (25% base for cat/bear vs 17% base for GW) as well as incurring a GCD (dropping GW doesnt incur a GCD, since its cancelling a buff, but shifting into another form does incur a GCD, since youre gaining something).

in sum, shaman who could break snares coming into and out of ghost wolf were higher-armored, more mobile druids who could put out more damage and had stronger anti-CC measures. iconic or not, you cant let that kind of power stay where it is. it was no better than the 10k scourge strike crits DK's were getting, or the 2k+ instant poison procs rogues had.



you dont work any harder than anyone else does. get over yourself.



see above. enh shaman DPS in ghost wolf was >>>>> feral druid DPS in travel form. or really, feral druid DPS in any form. in a pvp situation, spectral ghost wolf gave shaman such a huge advantage over any class with a snare or root effect that it trivialized those effects. when a class just shrugs and says "well, i cant use this key skill against shaman" then you have a problem. this is part of why it was changed.



no totems in arena? then you are missing out my friend. totems being static is both a blessing and a curse. being static means, of course, that they dont move. but this also means you can abuse LoS and still get the buff. in essence, they can be the easiest buffs to dispel, or the hardest, depending on placement. adding the stoneclaw idea I suggested would be an interesting way to change the mechanics of this element, as you could drop the stoneclaw in an isolated area, away from combat, and then drop your totems in the middle of the fight. the enemy would be forced to travel a considerable distance, wasting time and resources killing a protector totem before they could get at your main totems. forcing the other team to waste 5-10s doing something like that is huge in arenas.

and no, 800 health at 80 for totems isnt a good thing, even for shaman. thered be a cost, and after seeing the complaints about how much spectral GW cost, i dont think the shaman community wants that.

but hey, on the bright side, GW will probably go back down to a 120 mana cost now! theres a silver lining in everything.

Edited, Sep 11th 2008 2:45pm by Quor

What non-earth element-based totems are terribly important to destroy? Searing Totem? lolHealing Stream? Poison Cleansing... maybe if it ticked more than once every 5s. Windfury Totem.... would be in THIS expansion, but not in WotLK. Grounding totem is destroyed instantly after 1 cast anyways, so it won't be protected.

The answer you are looking for is that THE TWO totems you would want to protect most are improved Earthbind Totem and Tremor Totem. Hi to you earth-based totems that CAN'T be protected. Of course, if you aren't enhancement, there's no such thing as improved earthbind... so the other two trees are still screwed over anyways (and were before the changes).

Have you played Arena as a shaman? I mean like... above 1500? A GOOD warlock or hunter will insure that your totems don't live beyond 2s and all for no cost to them. No GCD use. No mana use. No wasted time. For something so "iconic" to the class, you can't even have buffs from them in arenas. I can waste all my mana and GCD trying to buff my group (watching everyone die).... or I can give up on totems and try to keep my team alive long enough to kill the hunter/lock destroying my totems. So in essence, I'm a terrible pally with no self protection, no buffs, worse mana efficiency, with a dispelable aoe haste (heroism) and dispelable earth shield. SWEET. Sign me up.

Totems should either INNATELY scale in health as you level (Say 10 health per level, ie 800 health at 80) or a negative consequence should result from the destruction of the totems. 800 health for a totem would just make sure it took a hunter's pet a few hits to kill it, same for a warlock. If there's a negative consequence to killing totems, it would make the other team decide whether it is worth it. Is the totem powerful enough to warrant the side-effect from destroying it? I'm not saying I personally have the solution, but I do know the current state of totems is not functional for pvp when discussing "balance."

Just to jump on this one (why the hell not?) comparing shifting to totems as some kind of mystical 'iconic' ability set is pure lore-fappage. Every class has abilities that overlap in some way or another with other classes. Giving Shaman the precise same transformation as a Druid would have been an iconic crossover, giving them their own visually and mechanically distinct transformation that requires talent investment is not a problem. Both classes are also 'Nature' classes, so I don't see why you'd object on 'icon' grounds unless you're a basement-dwelling nelf Druid called 'Fuurion' and are desperate to get a 3D Print of your masterpiece toon.

Oh, and you cyber in Darnassus too.

Mechanically, Snares are no less trivial against a Spectral-specced Enhance than a Feral Druid, both rely upon a spammable transform to clear spammable snares, it's the same basic premise. By the way Quor, please stop making such stupid comments as "Ghost Wolf DPS > Travel DPS", you're proving nothing but your own desperation to make incontrovertible statements. I don't believe GW (or Travel Form) DPS has ever decided an Arena match, so let's just move along.

Druids are of course blessed with Feral Charge, which levels the field somewhat in their favour. They are able to repeatedly and instantly close distance after breaking a snare. Shamans can't. The positions are in no way equivalent, stop arguing that they are. Shamans have Frost Shock yes, dispellable though and takes other shocks out of action. Again, I am pointing out that Druid and Shaman positions are not equivalent.


Of course, in this entire strange analogy you have, the Feral Druid is immune to bloody Polymorph. So a Shaman needs three abilities to the Druid's one, and of course the Mage can't possible just Wand the totem, oh no, nor can he Iceblock to escape your Stormstrike/ES, nah.

Now you can argue your own opinion about Shamans not deserving a Snare break even with talent requirements, that's fine, but the 'iconic' reason given by Koraa is basically bullsh*t. DKs and locks both have 'Death Coil' that look totally different and have different mechanics; Warlocks also get Demon Form, traditionally for (yet unseen) Demon Hunters. Blizz don't give a crap about icon crossovers in the pursuit of game balance.

Fortunately the new Feral Spirits talents break snares and give you a Windwalk-like increased run ability, so it simply seems that Blizz DO want Enhance Shamans to break Snares, just invest a full 51pt talents to do what Druids can for free.

Edited, Sep 12th 2008 10:41am by Sinstralis