Shaman changes - new

[Akos1896]

I've written shaman change suggestions before but what I want to do now is slightly different. Wanting to theorycraft a 'quick fix' for balance issues and I also want to theorycraft and in-depth change which, in my opinion, would result in a better and more balanced game experience. Instead of taking talents from later expansions used ideas based on what certain builds need. I chose this because Turtle in some ways chose to follow its own path instead of copying retail - decided to go by the same philosophy.

The fundamental philosophy I apply here: shaman as a utility class should never reach the pure DPS or healing output of classes with less utility but shouldn't lag behind too much. Noone likes to play as a walking world buff.

1. Quick changes
I consider bloodlust resto an abomination which exists because of two reasons:
1. Resto talent tree, specially the talents down there are not significant enough.
2. Enhancement shaman has so bad DPS people ask them to rather heal.

Possible changes

Elemental shaman:
Good at PVP, bad at PVE because of bad mana maintenance. Fortunately buffing their biggest weakness doesn't affect PVP that much. Add a good mana regen talent to their tree. They'd become a slightly worse mage using nature damage while having some extra utility.

Resto shaman:
Buff restorative totems. Life totem is basically nonexistent, mana totem kinda dwarves in comparison to pala mana regen buff. Since we upgraded the mana totem, manatide is not needed as much as the final talent. Replace it with something good enough so that resto deep-dives into the talent tree. My suggestion is an aoe heal which recharges x mana which is a fracture of the total amount healed.

Enhancement shaman:
Make improved ghost wolf a learnable talent for all shamans, it frees up two talent slots and insert a CC ability there. My suggestion is an aoe whirlwind (like the one the centaurs make). Would last 5 sec, targets would be immobilized but would receive 80% less damage during this time. Would give time for enhancement shaman to flee fishy situations.
Buff weapon mastery. My idea is 4%-20% instead of 2%-10% for the quick change section but whatever works. To make sure enhancement doesn't lag so much behind at raid DPS distibution.
Would also upgrade weapon buff length from 5 min to 15 min. Not really changing anything, mostly a quality of life improvement.

Itemization changes:
I'd remove the spirit bonus from Earthfury and Ten Storms set and would give strength instead. Spirit is almost redundant for shamans unless we count the 5% mana regeneration while casting meme spec (no talent comboes with spirit and shamans rarely go without casting for 5+ sec). Would help a lot, specifically the enhancement shamans for a higher damage meter.

Would also increase time before oranges despawn by 5-10 minutes. The change is seemingly unrelated to the topic but it's a huge quality of life improvement for each mana classes, including shamans.

2. In-depth changes
I think chain heal and windfury totem narrow down the design space too much. You can bring a resto to the raid and have it put down a windfury totem. You can ask a bloodlust enhancement shaman to spam chain heals. My suggestion is to nerf the base form of these 2 making them less worthwhile while the related builds would enjoy the improved windfury totem and (normal) chain heal that we know today. This also allows us to buff different builds a bit more because some of these buffs can be regarded as compensations for the missing good WF/chain heal.

My main philosophy in this section is to separate the utility the shaman brings and distribute them to different builds. This would make different builds more desirable for different parties within a raid and would also allow stronger build-based buffs as we are also taking away additional abilities (as seen later).

Things I would take away for cetain builds or would nerf in the base form and would only give a good version to a certain build (or just general changes):
* Poison cleansing totem/disease cleansing totem: would increase the poison/disease removal period to 7 sec from 5 sec.
* Windfury totem would work the same way but a wf proc, instead of adding additional attack power would only grant a reduced damage WF hit.
* Windfury weapon would also be nerfed the same way.
* Strength of earth totem: would decrease the strength given, giving party members +20 strength at base form at level 60.
* Chain heal base cooldown would be 3,5 seconds.
* Would remove the additional threat from earth shock.
* Flametongue totem in its current form is redundant, windfury totem is just strictly better and they do not stack. Would change the role of the totem, making it a spell damage totem, adding 10 spell damage at the highest form (if not upgraded by elemental build).
* Flametongue weapon, instead of the fire spell damage, would give spell damage bonus for your next shock spell. capped at 5 melee procs.
* Frostbrand weapon would add a slight frost damage buff and would have a chance on hit to slow down enemy attacking and casting speed for 5-10 seconds. Current added effect is not useful because the possible lowered movement speed by itself is not enough to grant an escape and attack-wise it has very limited uses.
* Windwall totem would protect against ranged attacks and spells, too.
* Improved ghost wolf would be a learnable talent at level 60, making it available for each build.
* Would introduce a weakened version of water shield and earth shield at around level 40.
* Would remove the reagent requirement from water walking and water breathing (quality of life improvement)
* Would slightly buff shamans' racial spells: hex would have a 2 min cooldown (wouldn't greatly affect PVP but would make it a great utility spell), spirit wolves would be instant cast and spirit link would allow to target yourself (good for tauren tanking). Would also make it 5 min cooldown so even at faster dungeon clearences it would mostly be ready for each boss.

With these changes, some of the shaman utility would be severely handicapped. In exchange we can give much better versions of totems and spells for the builds they specialize on the given area.

Generic philosophy behind the changed elemental shaman:

Changed elemental shaman would be a lesser mage DPS-wise, using mostly nature spells. It would lose most of its melee support abilities and would be worse at depoisoning/curing. In exchange it would receive a caster group support role.

Talent tree
What I'd remove:
* Elemental devastation (ele usually doesn't engage in melee) - frees up 3 talent slots
* Earth's grasp (very niche) - frees up 2 slots
* Call of flame (this build would mostly use flametongue totem which doesn't deal damage) - frees up 3 talent slots
* Improved fire totems (both magma and fire nova totems need to be placed at melee range to be effective; not compatible with the caster playstyle) - frees up 2 talent slots
Altogether 10 new talent slots to work with.

What I'd change:
* Storm reach - would include shock spells. That way an ele shaman could comfortably max range cast and use a shock whenever it feels like it.

What I'd add:
* Would separate nature's guidance into two segments and spell hit chance would be in ele tree. Would be a weaker talent but in my opinion it is fine - 3 talent points
* Improved flametongue and tranquil air totem - would increase the spell damage bonus of flametongue totem (improved one would give 34 spell damage). Tranquil air totem would give 35% threat reduction instead of 20. - 3 talent points, 8 spell damage and 5% added threat reduction for each
* Improved mana regen - passive ability giving mp5 for ele shaman (number is up to testing) - 2 talent points
* Improved spell penetration - passive ability giving ele bonus spell penetration (they can't change to frost like mages do for MC or BWL, spell penetration bonus should be high enough that AQ40 wouldn't be an auto-skip for the lightning bolt spammers as shamans have only 1 RDPS build).

How it would change the build:
More mana regeneration - less early oom. Less 'Resisted' seen on screen at later levels. AQ40 would become more plausible. Raids would look for ele shamans for the caster groups. Usual setup would be flametongue + tranquil air totem to avoid pulling from tank despite greater damage.

Generic philosophy behind the changed enhancement shaman:

Enhancement shaman is in a very interesting spot. To keep up symmetry between the factions I'd give shamans a tank build in the in-depth change session. In other words this tree is both for melees and tanks, they have to share talents. My general philosophy is to give enhancement leveling survavibility and some damage while strictly keeping its DPS under 80% of the top performer classes. Tanks receive taunt abilities and incresed protection but they should remain less sturdy than other tanks (again, in exchange of the extra utility they provide).

Talent tree
What I'd remove:
* Ancestral Knowledge - after the changes both melee and tank shamans will be less mana dependent, this is not necessary - frees up 5 talent slots. This is also a slight nerf towards the other builds for balancing reasons.
* Improved Ghost Wolf - should be a learnable talent - frees up 2 talent slots
* Improved weapon totems - Flametongue would be irrelevant for enhancement, WF would be handled in a different talent - saves up 2 talent slots

Altogether 9 new talent slots to work with.

What I'd change:
* Spirit Armor - would raise armor gain from shields (15% from 10% per talent level)
* Ancestral Guadian - dodge chance would stay the same but armor value should go up to 3% from 2% per talent level
* Thunderhead - would keep Improved Lightning Shield as it is, would not include other shields. However, would change Thunderhead. New Thunderhead would lose the mana reduction buff but would allow the shaman to cast lightning shield on itself and on a party member at the same time.
* Enhancing Totems - in this theorycrafting the strength totem would start from +20 strength and would end up as +88 as we know it today for enhancement shamans by learning this talent. This talent would also include damage buff for magma and fire nova totem by 20% per talent level and would increase stoneclaw totem's health by 30% per talent level.
* Elemental Weapons - would change it according to the new concept of flametongue and frostbrand weapons (+ added spell damage for the next shock / increased chance to slow down enemy attacks and casts).
* Stormstrike - would reduce the mana requirement by half. Mostly a quality of life change, except for longer fights where it's a buff.
* Weapon Mastery - would give 2% weapon damage and 1% melee hit chance instead of just 2% weapon damage.

What I'd add:
* Improved Windfury - both WF totem and weapon would look like today once improved. Without these talents WF proc would deal reduced damage during procs - 2 talent slots
* Elemental Gust - enhancement shaman CC ability allowing the shaman to summon whirlwind around himself, immobilizing enemies in a 5 yard area for 5 sec. Immobilized enemies would take 80% less damage during this period. Could be used as a survival ability (Elemental Gust + Ghost Wolf -> Run away) or as a tank CC - 1 talent slot
* Taunting Shock - the tank's bread and butter, would give every shock ability taunt if learned. Allows the tank to be extremely mana efficient taunting with rank 1 shocks. Would prevent runs taking twice as long before the tank is drinking after each pull - 1 talent slot
* Wind Strike - Would give the shaman an AOE strike with the mana requirement comparable to Stormstike with the CD of 2,5 minute -> 30 sec based on the talent level. Damage would be reduced regardless of the talent level (let's say 30-50% of the auto-hit damage amount). DPS could use it to get maximum flametongue weapon shock buff as soon as possible (if fighting several enemies), tank could use it to hit each mobs around it while rockbiter weapon is on to keep threat - 5 talent slots

How it would change the build:
As a DPS:
Better leveling as enhancement with the added CC ability. More added hit chance. Slighly bulkier. Better utility for a melee group (thunderhead on an ally and itself) and added damage mostly via shock spell damage and stronger magma and fire nova totems (these two totems are melee range). Guilds would welcome DPS enhancement shamans for the WF and the bloodlust while being somewhat stronger at the same time.
As a tank:
Mana efficient single-target taunt ability and a way to effectively increase aoe threat around the shaman. Bulkier + better hit chance. Stoneclaw buffs makes it a reliable buddy if Wind Strike is on cooldown. CC ability can be used to immobilize enemies if needed.

Generic philosophy behind the changed restoration shaman:

In my optinion the bread and butter of restoration shamans is chain heal which also defines the build as a 'wide healer'. A restoration shaman should excel at healing the party but should not be optimal as a tank healer/single target healer. Because of the added utility, healing output should be considerably below holy priest.

Talent tree

What I'd remove:
* Nature's guidance - hit chance was added to ele and enhancement, it is not needed for resto - frees up 3 talent slots
* Mana Tide Totem - would improve mana regeneration through other means. Resto shaman needs an ultimate which is good enough so that people want to go deep in the tree for healing - frees up 1 talent slot

Altogether 4 new talent slots to work with.

What I'd change:
* Restorative Totems - serious increase in mana and life gained through these totems. Life totem should almost feel like a HOT, mana totem should restore around 50% more. It would also decrease the poison and disease cleansing totems' proc rate, 1 sec per talent, resulting in a 2 sec proc instead of 7 sec (currently at TWOW it is 5 sec).
* Healing Grace - would also reduce chain heal casting cost from 3,5 sec to 2,5 sec. Decided to put this here and not into Improved Healing Wave so that people need to commit more to the resto tree to get the reduced chain heal ability.

What I'd add:
* Motivational Healing (or whatever) - would give 33% chance per talent point (100% at max) to grant a 3% casting and melee speed bonus to any healed ally for 10 sec.
* AOE healing - in my opinion the ultimate should be a 3 min CD instant cast aoe heal which restores a fraction of the total life healed as mana to the shaman. Could help the shamans go longer without oom while also giving them an additional useful ability - 1 talent slot

How it would change the build:
Restoration shamans would be better with mana regeneration. Their role as 'wide healers' would be further emphasized by the 'mini bloodlust' they spam around with chain heal. Guilds would look for resto shamans for disease/poison cleansing, 'wide healing' and raid party's haste increase.

[Burunduk]

Yes, i've read this wall of text.
Let's start from beginning.

Tell us about the rest healers with less utilities, looks like they are useless in raid.
Poor things...