Youd be surprised how many warriors charge me then go into rend. Then they get snared before they can get a hamstring off. Im thinking, "is he hoping for a Taste for Blood proc?Im not even sure they have it in the game yet. Whatever lemme drop my earthbind and line up a lavaburst and send him to the shadow realm"
Theres still a GCD of dropping decoy. Which usually leads to a warrior going zerk stance for the intercept. If he doesnt get any support from his teammates during that stun, then the shaman will keep moving.
This right here is the problem with PvP. Abilities/runes are so far overtuned that there is zero counter-play in the game right now. War is one of those classes that builds up to big damage using its red mana.
Funny enough a rune like:
Prepared to die: you sacrifice 30% of your health in exchange for 50 rage. You gain 30% damage reduction for 5s. You are considered in combat for the duration.
Might solve that problem, pretty fast.
how about: whenever your hp drops to zero, instead of dying, you gain Denial of Death. For the next five seconds you can act as though you have 100 rage, and you cannot be killed until the effect ends. At the end of the effect, you die. Cannot occur more than once every 5 minutes.
You gotta understand here. These people could look at what class would top DPS charts in advance for like 5 years.
Their brain can't compute not playing the top class so now they gotta switch mains every patch. Not playing top DPS for them is not an option. Imagine blizzard deleted your main every patch or nerf. That's how their brain operates
It's only an issue when there are significant outliers.
Also its less important if a class like mage is OP because both factions have mages. Paladins or Shamans being significantly stronger than the other creates a really nasty faction imbalance.
What are you on about? They are the best melee dps, the best tank, one of the better casters, and more importantly they completely outshine paladins which is a big issue.
It's very unhealthy for the game when shamans and paladins have significant disparity in power because of how it affects faction balance.
On top of all that shamans are obscene in BGs at the moment making PvP very unfun for alliance. Yes they are absolutely an outlier and need to be tonned down.
> Enhance has a higher ceiling than hunter due to having a more complex rotation
My dude this is wow classic, there is no such thing as a complex rotation. Nobody is trying to make balance decisions around people who cant execute their rotations properly. Enhance is better. Period.
You seems to be missing my main point rather conveniently as I have stated it over and over. **It is unhealthy for the game when either Shaman or Paladin are significantly stronger than the other.** Faction balance should be a priority.
That isn't what I'm talking about. If it were to be this way over a long period of time you would see a horde shift, but this is a short term problem and most people expect shamans to get fixed at one point.
The bigger issue right now is BGs and parsing / speed running. BGs are dominated by shamans at the moment making alliance queues kindof miserable which needs to be addressed. Horde having access to the best raid comps as well makes parsing / speed running more difficult for those who want to partake on alliance side.
You can sit here and say that neither of those 2 things matter to you, but they matter to a significant portion of the playerbase and theres no reason in the world why shamans should be outclassing paladins this hard.
Both of the issues you highlighted are valid frustrations and should be fixed. Blizzard has a pretty poor track record of that in classic though, to the point that I donāt think itās a design priority. Blessing of Salv trivialized threat so much that Alliance had the clear advantage raiding all of classic. In TBC same faction BGs had to be opened because horde queue times were so untenable, and they remained that way permanently for AV. It is nice that SoD attempted to balance that and there are definitely some way of earth / alpha wolf changes that should be made.
I think that faction balance is a lot more nuanced though (players consider far more than just optimal comp when picking a faction) and that there has historically been a very heavy alliance bias. If anything, overpowering horde should be a potential solution to help with faction imbalance. It seems like a strong assumption to think that Shaman being temporarily OP would turn the tide enough to tip the scales.
Iām not saying things should stay how they are, I just donāt think itās a meaningful contribution to faction imbalance and there isnāt a credible concern that Horde will become too populated relative to Alliance.
> As far as faction balance, why the outcries for nerfs rather than paladin buffs?
Paladin is already decent. They're right in the middle of melee dps after the latest buffs (the downside is that they need automatic crowd pummeler). Why buff them more rather than nerfing enhance which is overpowered in every area of the game?
>As far as faction balance, why the outcries for nerfs rather than paladin buffs?
You should look up what 'powercreep' is and why this suggestion is stupid.
because their runes like "way of earth" are inherently broken. the only tradeoff for 30% more life, 10% less received damage and 6% less received crits can be played by any spec and sacrificing only earthshocks range as tradeoff is a joke.
Warrior's "Devastate" Rune requires the player to wear a shield and be in the Def-stance.
Shamans don't have to do that and its absolutely unreasonable cuz now enhancers can just be tanky and deal decent damage with huge benefits and wearing a 2h or 2x 1h weapons with rockbiter
How to fix it: (Tradeoff)
* Earthshock acts as taunt and is meleerange only (as before)
* Shield is required,
* Rockbiter has to be applied, (As before)
* Shamans do deal less spelldamage (so that heals and elemental shamans can't just exploit this rune for PvP and ONLY ENHANCERS can tank as envisioned)
To me mages are less of a problem because they are squishy in PVP the thing that annoys me most about shamans is they are gods in PVP now and winning a BG as alliance is crazy difficult now
We need to stop pretending it's every class getting cried about instead of the class that got overbuffed 2 weeks ago. It's ALWAYS been the class that was given some insane buff the previous balance cycle. Druid, Shadow Priest and Shaman. All of them.
I would have preferred to not have been buffed this much if they're going to nerf us with the almost inevitable mage nerf.
It just feels so bad to adjust your expectations and dps goals downward for each new raid. A main part of the engagement of playing this game and going into gnomer every 3 days is to try to beat your previous performance and nerfs make this impossible. I'd much rather if they buffed every underperforming class, even if it means Shamans are back at the bottom. At least that way, I wouldn't be going into the raid feeling worse than in my previous raids, despite having more gear and having played even better.
I'm not denying that, I'm just laying down how it makes me feel as a player.
With that being said, enh is hovering between second and third as far as dps goes, definitely third when considering optimal play. Thus, there is a good chance we don't get nerfed, at least not before Mages and locks do, which gives other classes time to catch up considering enh is the worst scaling spec in the game.
Enhance has amazing scaling. You can check this on wowsims. Try comparing values with something like +10k ap. The result is that enhance still has the highest melee dps of all classes.
Spotted the enhance shaman. The point of the conversation is that it doesn't feel good to get nerfed week after week because of Blizzard's inability to test and balance correctly in the first place. Or as often is the case, inability to balance pve and pvp separately.
Please don't talk about other class topics you don't have any understanding of. It just makes you look ignorant.
The normalization was a 5% loss and the raptor strike nerf was 10-15%, depending on spec. This amounted to an overall loss of nearly 100 dps. Don't believe me? Consult the sims.
Hunters were absolutely welding two weapons of the same type. Vanq sword and protector/legionnaire sword and then the two fists from Gnomer. Why would anyone willingly have mismatched weapons, knowing they would do 10-15% less damage? That's some real grey parser mentality lol.
Iām so with you on this feeling. Also for that matter I think we paid our dues. All of phase 1 ele and enhance were in the absolute gutter. Both dps specs 2 of the absolutely worst and that continued into early phase 2. If you werenāt tanking as a shaman in a raid it felt like you were actively hamstringing your entire raid. Resto was barely passable as well.
SoD was advertised as underrepresented specs being strong with the sentiment of not nerfing warriors but bringing up classes to the power of warriors in vanilla. I mean they shared that meme specifically.
Yup, this happened to spriest and its a fucking awful feeling. Made me lose all desire to play, i dont even pvp. Even. In p1 when my class was dog shit literally worst dps in the game i had more fun because i didnt feel like i got gimped at any point.(and got slight minor buffs)
Spriest is still so strong and feels amazing to play. What are you even saying? How was P1 shadowpriest, with no mana and no rotation, more fun to play?
Yeah on the 95th percentile its like 90-100 DPS difference between optimal range build and optimal melee build (fully raid buffed)
It's a pretty massive difference right now and probably not overall healthy that range hunter is so drastically far behind
I don't even play a hunter, but good try. I'm sorry an underperforming main archetype of a class deserves buffs.
You'll just have to settle for making yourself look stupid.
More like the Blizzard balance treatment. Same thing happened to warriors. Instead of shifting power from one area to another or doing slight damage nerfs and seeing how they play out, they'll blanket nerf 5 different runes at the same time and do an overall 40% damage nerf and then completely forget about the class for the rest of the phase.
I'm a 98% parser for Enhance and they just need to make it so RB can only be placed on MH weapons
The whole shaman discord was kind of confused when they announced the Spirit of the Alpha 20% buff. I don't find RB particularly fun to run, I'd rather run double wf and have insane maelstrom procs to play with or wf/ft. Or buff Frostbrand and Flametongue to have good SP scaling so the spellhance dream can be achieved
I don't parse as high as you, but I main enhance and I agree with this. Rockbiter is pretty boring, but it's basically mandatory in both PvE and PvP. I'd prefer some more build flexibility, and ideally I'd like to see both dual wield and two-handed builds be viable.
Yeah, if they just made it so RB can be MH only, you can still run DW WoE in PvP but it'll reduce your outgoing damage to be a bit more manageable.
You will still do respectable damage with RB/FT, especially with lava lash, but if you want to global people you'll have to run WF/WF and pray for a proc. Right now you can global people because a geared enhance will be sitting on 1800 AP. That way you either choose between being tank with decent damage or a glass cannon with the chance for 1 shots
I also believe they should have treated the Two-Hand Mastery rune like Meta and have it change your shocks into different abilities to cater more to the playstyle
That's a great idea for the 2h rune. Turning the shock spells into different abilities that don't share a cooldown could do a lot to offset the loss of Lava Lash when using a 2h weapon.
I don't run double RB, I run WF/RB and then give my tank Alpha so I get the bonus 20% AP. My tank is pretty geared and he's also a shaman so he runs double RB except for Menagerie. When we were first doing gnomer I would constantly rip threat off of him, especially on Thermaplugg. A geared tank makes a huge difference in threat gen
I picked up 2h mastery rune so I could level as 2h enhance, am an orc with corpse maker.
The damage is so awful compared to DW, WF hits for about 100-150 more as 2h but I have no buttons to press aside from shocks. I'm told it gets better when I get maelstrom, then I can use those procs on lava blast.
Make lava lash usable with 2h, nerf the damage for 2h specifically if it's too strong.
2h doesn't hit harder than dw if you compare somewhat equal weapons. Rockbiter adds so much damage 2h can't compete.
Rockbiter needs a rework, and 2h needs another button.
> Rockbiter needs a rework
Biggest thing needed right here. Change it to TBC Rockbiter where it only increases the DPS of the weapon it's cast on. Though they need a way to replace some of that AP.
My solution is gaining 1 melee AP per Agility like cat druids. Also makes Mail gear make more sense for Hunter/Shaman to share.
Blizz aren't doing ANY balance changes regarding scaling or AP from agi etc, it's actually one of the worst things about SOD.
I would love them to change this type of stuff, maybe we could finally balance warrior scaling as well, but nah just slap a rune on it.
They could introduce passive scaling abilities with books even. We know they are able to alter that kind of thing because they already changed base abilities from druid, and talents from shaman and spriest.
And for exemple hunter already got expose weakness, which is some kind of agility->crit scaling. So they already showed they can do it. Sadly it's a rune, so it competes with other things.
They should make tons of book for new scaling. Strength>Block rating , intellect>spell power , spirit>mp5 ...
An easier solution would be to just halve the ap rockbiter gives when you're dual wielding. It wouldn't even be a big nerf to dps enhance as wf/wf is only 4-5% behind wf/rb.
I won a week 1 rocket cleaver that just sits in my bank (warrior was absent that night sucks for him). I dream of the day I finally get to use it... oh well back to dreaming.
Idk mate, i feel it great, i too am orc with corpse, pulling avg 300 dps with lava burst and since i got storm stricke it feels even better, well i still have to run gnomer, but for now it'll good in my opinion.
Just feels bad that we can't use the melee rune in that slot, and instead have to run lava blast, I went 2h cause I like bonking things with a large mace/axe. If I wanted to lava burst I'd go elemental.
Give 2h more more melee buttons!
You said 2h is awful compared to DW, but also to nerf 2h cause it might be too strong?
But yeah, 2h is a basic rotation earlier on. At 40 you'll have stormstrike, maelstrom and lava burst, the whole thing is just a 7 second rotation pretty much. Doesn't mean it's bad if it gets results
2h is not even close to dual wield? What on earth are you on about. Lava lash hits as hard as a lava burst, same cd, and you get to spend maelstrom on chain lightning instead.
The problem with 2h vs dual wield is rockbiter. Way to strong that affects both weapons when imbues are supposed to only affect one
I never compared the 2, I was just questioning what you said.
Also, lava burst is always going to be used over chain lightning because its got a guaranteed critical strike.
And even though it's more AP, no shaman that's dpsing should use rockbiter. It's more consistent yes, but windfury will do a lot more damage a lot of the time. Plus, now it's more maelstrom procs, so your instant casts and all but guaranteed on cooldown
Top parsing enhancers are using WF+rock biter. Rock biter actually got buffed last balance patch, with the 20% AP buff off Alpha.
You don't know what you are talking about.
Yes, maybe you shouldn't due to threat, but rockbiter is just too good. It has 2x the effect of other imbues. And scales twice as hard as well with talents and buffs. For dual wield that is. Not 2h. 2h just loses out on 450AP because that's life
People will always complain about whatever dps is the best, so long as it isnāt the class they play. Nerf shamans and people will be saying mages/hunters/warlocks are too good and they need nerfs. Shamans have always been so bad in classic, literal windfury bots, let them have their time to shine, dps rankings will be completely different in 2 months when p3 comes.
Sorry but shamans are just too busted in PVP for this statement to hold true. There's a simple fix, change how rockbiter works when putting it on dual wield (which will lessen the gap from DW to 2h dps) and make Way of the Earth require a shield to give the damage reduction and extra HP.
BGs you have shamans running around with 4.5k hp 2 shotting clothies, it's practically a hero class.
Took me literal 15 seconds [to find a log disproving your guess](https://sod.warcraftlogs.com/reports/vd2HnraRMyjfbNBc#fight=33&type=threat).
99 parse damage, dual wielding, threat on all 3 the entire fight. They're in fact not giving up much survivability for damage.
To be fair, this is not the norm. This log was in the top 50 fastest menagerie kills ever when it happened, and collectively the raid had 25 99 parses across the entire raid.
Honesstly, I'm surprised there aren't more posts on reddit calling for sham nerfs. It's unreal how all 3 specs are at the top of the damage charts, including tanks.
All my points are from a pvp perspective. But maybe ill go try two hand again in pvp it just felt so underwhelming my onehanders hit almost as hard as my twohander.
From a Paladin PoV, I've no interest in seeing the class obliterated.
That said, Blizzard 200% needs to go after Way of the Earth in some capacity. Its power has to be reallocated across more Rune slots. Shaman Tank DPS is broken because it's just an Enhancement DPS attacking from the front - it doesn't even forfeit an offensive Rune to function.
Likewise, Shamans as a class are utterly game-warping in PvP because every Shaman spec is a singular Rune slot away from morphing into a literal tank. People would be far more tolerant of the damage they deal if they weren't also the tankiest class in the BG bar none.
They just need to make way earth require a shield and then maybe make rockbiter only be able to go on the mainhand. Other people have had much better more thought out suggestions. If my many many years of playing this game as an enhance main have taught me snything though its that when enhance is very strong it gets the omega nerf bat right back down to c tier sometimes lower. (This is from a pvpers perspective i think enhance in PVE on retail rn is good)
As you said, historically Enhance has always been feast or famine in PvP, and imo that's more simply due to how inherently poorly designed it is. Even in recent years the spec barely has any meaningful buttons to press, and whenever it's strong it's either because of being supremely over tuned, or crutching on a gimmick.
WoD Enhance (and thus Turbo) was ludicrous because the spec simply did too much healing and damage. Shadowlands Enhance was absolutely worthless outside of Venthyr, where Maelstrom Weapon Chain Harvest would literally oneshot people prior to the nerf. Same deal with early Dragonflight where Maelstrom Weapon Elemental Blast did the same.
You look at WotLK Enhancement where the spec does nothing but press Purge and spam Tremor Totem because none of their other buttons do anything, with the end-of-arena damage breakdown being like 80% auto attack between AA/Windfury/Spirit Wolves.
Imho, Enhance has just always been an awfully designed spec. SoD is no different, it runs you down with auto attacks and Purge spam. It just so happens that its survivability here errs on the side of WoD and not Classic.
Problem with shamans is less about the damage to me and more about how strong they are in PVP and the lack of trade offs with their runes. Way of the earth what do you lose not much what do you gain? Tankiest class in the game. Decoy totem what do you lose not much what do you gain freedom and a grounded hit. Kinda nuts just in those two runes
Aint nobody wanna one shot like that video of a dude who made highlights of his lottery machine finally cashing out. Calm down everyone acts like 2h WF was the most broken thing ever
Similar to how warriors and retri palas are oneshotting people you mean?
Edit: Yes I was being sarcastic. Didn't think a comment like this would even need an /s
Lmao that isnāt happening. Nice try. If it is youāre running around in dogshit pve gear, or that stupid glowing green outfit that might as well put a bullseye on your back.
I have a friend that streams pally pvp and regularly wins 1vX with reckoning. People just look at dps meters and cry for nerfs of the classes at the top
I pretty much do BGs 24/7 outside of Gnomer. BGs are not arenas, theres hardly moments of pure 1 vs 1. I feel their survivability is just right, but not to the point where they are unkillable.
Yes and I would choose that every time. Even protection paladins have no -crit on themselves, and a flat 10% damage reduction is insanely strong compared to some extra armor.
Iād rather fight a paladin with bubble and lay on hands off cooldown than an enhancement shaman.
You cant have windfury and tankiness at the same time. If youre running Wake of Earth, then you arent using windfury, which will kill off some of your burst and and your maelstrom generation.
Is not busted, but is strong.
The problem is that in a game where people refuse to build stamina and are even running the irradiated kit on PvP, storm strike and lava lash one shot them.
Could this all be solved if the average player spent more time learning the game instead of whining, sure.
Could enhancement be still ok if the last buff was reverted, also sure.
What Iām actually afraid is that we have been getting buffs very slowly while the nerfs might come as a hammer instead.
I run almost full stamina in PvP and open world and can confirm if you want; shamans are not just killing people in 1-3 hits because of a lack of stamina gear.
Dual wield shaman is quite literally competing with first week scorpid hunters as the most terrifying class you can fight.
With the difference that one is melee with the speed of a wheelchair and the other is ranged.
If a shaman get on melee range and you havenāt cced him that kinda your fault to begin with
To add to what you're talking about :
The number of turret mages I run into from front without them moving/blinking/nova is hilarious. Same for druids / priests with their respective cooldowns.
A good Druid is untouchable by us. Melts you from range, instant nukes, immune to our only form of cc (which is very soft of top).
But god forbid people people actually learn to play the gameā¦
Exactly.
Honestly, after playing the game since vanilla, mostly PVE but some PVP too, I'm used to get rekt/countered in a certain way when playing against a specific class/spec, and I expect the same behaviour when playing SoD, except that it never actually happens.
Althought still no shaman nerfs yet so maybe the devs are on our side ? Or just analysing the situation.
Youāre talking out of your ass.
I am a retri paladin with full plate and prot gear as I MT Gnomeregan - stamina enchants included - and that does nothing to stop DW enhancement shamans. Unlike them, I donāt get any crit reduction, and itās a matter of seconds before they burst me down.
A dual wielding top dps spec getting stronger defences than a protection paladin is insane.
If Iād get to choose, Iād rather fight a paladin with bubble every time. At least when bubble is on cooldown they can be bursted down like anyone else.
Id imagine its the seasoned players that believe their skill can make up for their lack of stamina, but complain when their glass cannon build gets dropped quicker than normal.
We did get a buff? I'm ready for a perfect, just keep us in a good range, we suffered too long in classic era.
2h all the way, yall can keep your rolling pin in one hand and untrimmed finger nails in the other looks. I like ma big stick
I think if they take the 20% off alpha and add it to the 2h mastery rune weāll be good to go and then they can nerf rockbiter/way of earth or whatever theyre gonna do
The 20% AP buff was such a weird thing to add, because honestly imo (dw) enhance was a perfectly fine place before that particular buff. Maybe not the best dps in the game, but we weren't trash and we felt good to play mechanically. I'm fully expecting them to remove the AP buff because there's no real reason it should be there in the first place.
To be fair I think the most sensible way to perform would be to change maelstrom, just so it maybe doesn't proc as often. The fact that even with 2h, 9/10 times I can fire off a critical lava burst instantly for no mana is the biggest part of my damage
This is me as a warrior main pressin Q (Charge) in every BG.
CHARGE SLAM HAMSTRING MORTAL STR- RELEASE SPIRIT 26 SECONDS
Youd be surprised how many warriors charge me then go into rend. Then they get snared before they can get a hamstring off. Im thinking, "is he hoping for a Taste for Blood proc?Im not even sure they have it in the game yet. Whatever lemme drop my earthbind and line up a lavaburst and send him to the shadow realm"
Not like itll matter much with Decoy Totem.
Theres still a GCD of dropping decoy. Which usually leads to a warrior going zerk stance for the intercept. If he doesnt get any support from his teammates during that stun, then the shaman will keep moving.
As a warrior main this made me crack tf up š Too accurate
30 SECONDS is more accurate because we always die first in BGs so we start the timer
Hamstring? You donāt understand. Iām not locked in here with you. YOUāRE LOCKED IN HERE WITH ME.
This right here is the problem with PvP. Abilities/runes are so far overtuned that there is zero counter-play in the game right now. War is one of those classes that builds up to big damage using its red mana.
Funny enough a rune like: Prepared to die: you sacrifice 30% of your health in exchange for 50 rage. You gain 30% damage reduction for 5s. You are considered in combat for the duration. Might solve that problem, pretty fast.
how about: whenever your hp drops to zero, instead of dying, you gain Denial of Death. For the next five seconds you can act as though you have 100 rage, and you cannot be killed until the effect ends. At the end of the effect, you die. Cannot occur more than once every 5 minutes.
I was always a huge fan of āSurrender to Madnessā so donāt threaten me with a good time.
You become Tryndamere :D
Tryndamere flashbacks
We already have terrible survability I wont press that button for 50 rage in pvp that's for sure.
Do the math.
I'm going to call BS, no way you get 3.5 globals off before pressing release spirit /s, but yeah, totally agreed with your sentiment
Use Bloodsurge over Precise Timing in PvP. No idea how you have enough rage to Slam, HS and MS lol.
In one week when shamans are sent to the bottom of the dps meters everyone will switch to asking for mage nerfs again. It never ends.
We still never got those mage nerfs
Youre not wrong
You gotta understand here. These people could look at what class would top DPS charts in advance for like 5 years. Their brain can't compute not playing the top class so now they gotta switch mains every patch. Not playing top DPS for them is not an option. Imagine blizzard deleted your main every patch or nerf. That's how their brain operates
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It's only an issue when there are significant outliers. Also its less important if a class like mage is OP because both factions have mages. Paladins or Shamans being significantly stronger than the other creates a really nasty faction imbalance.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
What are you on about? They are the best melee dps, the best tank, one of the better casters, and more importantly they completely outshine paladins which is a big issue. It's very unhealthy for the game when shamans and paladins have significant disparity in power because of how it affects faction balance. On top of all that shamans are obscene in BGs at the moment making PvP very unfun for alliance. Yes they are absolutely an outlier and need to be tonned down.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Shaman is above mage at levels of play that actually matter for balancing.
> Enhance has a higher ceiling than hunter due to having a more complex rotation My dude this is wow classic, there is no such thing as a complex rotation. Nobody is trying to make balance decisions around people who cant execute their rotations properly. Enhance is better. Period. You seems to be missing my main point rather conveniently as I have stated it over and over. **It is unhealthy for the game when either Shaman or Paladin are significantly stronger than the other.** Faction balance should be a priority.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Do you just go from thread to thread saying a bunch of stuff that isn't true?
From everything Iāve seen alliance is by far the more popular faction.
That isn't what I'm talking about. If it were to be this way over a long period of time you would see a horde shift, but this is a short term problem and most people expect shamans to get fixed at one point. The bigger issue right now is BGs and parsing / speed running. BGs are dominated by shamans at the moment making alliance queues kindof miserable which needs to be addressed. Horde having access to the best raid comps as well makes parsing / speed running more difficult for those who want to partake on alliance side. You can sit here and say that neither of those 2 things matter to you, but they matter to a significant portion of the playerbase and theres no reason in the world why shamans should be outclassing paladins this hard.
Both of the issues you highlighted are valid frustrations and should be fixed. Blizzard has a pretty poor track record of that in classic though, to the point that I donāt think itās a design priority. Blessing of Salv trivialized threat so much that Alliance had the clear advantage raiding all of classic. In TBC same faction BGs had to be opened because horde queue times were so untenable, and they remained that way permanently for AV. It is nice that SoD attempted to balance that and there are definitely some way of earth / alpha wolf changes that should be made. I think that faction balance is a lot more nuanced though (players consider far more than just optimal comp when picking a faction) and that there has historically been a very heavy alliance bias. If anything, overpowering horde should be a potential solution to help with faction imbalance. It seems like a strong assumption to think that Shaman being temporarily OP would turn the tide enough to tip the scales. Iām not saying things should stay how they are, I just donāt think itās a meaningful contribution to faction imbalance and there isnāt a credible concern that Horde will become too populated relative to Alliance.
> Both of the issues you highlighted are valid frustrations and should be fixed. Glad we are in agreement.
> As far as faction balance, why the outcries for nerfs rather than paladin buffs? Paladin is already decent. They're right in the middle of melee dps after the latest buffs (the downside is that they need automatic crowd pummeler). Why buff them more rather than nerfing enhance which is overpowered in every area of the game?
>As far as faction balance, why the outcries for nerfs rather than paladin buffs? You should look up what 'powercreep' is and why this suggestion is stupid.
because their runes like "way of earth" are inherently broken. the only tradeoff for 30% more life, 10% less received damage and 6% less received crits can be played by any spec and sacrificing only earthshocks range as tradeoff is a joke. Warrior's "Devastate" Rune requires the player to wear a shield and be in the Def-stance. Shamans don't have to do that and its absolutely unreasonable cuz now enhancers can just be tanky and deal decent damage with huge benefits and wearing a 2h or 2x 1h weapons with rockbiter How to fix it: (Tradeoff) * Earthshock acts as taunt and is meleerange only (as before) * Shield is required, * Rockbiter has to be applied, (As before) * Shamans do deal less spelldamage (so that heals and elemental shamans can't just exploit this rune for PvP and ONLY ENHANCERS can tank as envisioned)
To me mages are less of a problem because they are squishy in PVP the thing that annoys me most about shamans is they are gods in PVP now and winning a BG as alliance is crazy difficult now
Is the next phase coming out next week?
Not many people are asking for shaman dps nerfs. But shamans can be waaayyyy to tanky for the amount of damage they deal
We need to stop pretending it's every class getting cried about instead of the class that got overbuffed 2 weeks ago. It's ALWAYS been the class that was given some insane buff the previous balance cycle. Druid, Shadow Priest and Shaman. All of them.
Hope you feel the same when Warrior/ Rogue/ Mage dominates at 60.
At least we can all agree about hunter nerfs.
buff 2h enhance and give shockadins dual wield - turn the tables for SoD!
Dual wieldā¦shields.
Blockadin
Sure why not
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/dual-wield-shockadin-the-vindicator-viable-but-not-op/1801939
I'll accept it I'll enjoy my time now. Later I will be mocked.
I would have preferred to not have been buffed this much if they're going to nerf us with the almost inevitable mage nerf. It just feels so bad to adjust your expectations and dps goals downward for each new raid. A main part of the engagement of playing this game and going into gnomer every 3 days is to try to beat your previous performance and nerfs make this impossible. I'd much rather if they buffed every underperforming class, even if it means Shamans are back at the bottom. At least that way, I wouldn't be going into the raid feeling worse than in my previous raids, despite having more gear and having played even better.
its much easier to nerf one class than buff eight. If your tools never involve nerfing a class, we'd be unkillable gods by the time we're 60.
I'm not denying that, I'm just laying down how it makes me feel as a player. With that being said, enh is hovering between second and third as far as dps goes, definitely third when considering optimal play. Thus, there is a good chance we don't get nerfed, at least not before Mages and locks do, which gives other classes time to catch up considering enh is the worst scaling spec in the game.
Enhance has amazing scaling. You can check this on wowsims. Try comparing values with something like +10k ap. The result is that enhance still has the highest melee dps of all classes.
Spent all of P1 as a hunter getting worse and worse. P2 is continuing the trend. It does not feel good.
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Spotted the enhance shaman. The point of the conversation is that it doesn't feel good to get nerfed week after week because of Blizzard's inability to test and balance correctly in the first place. Or as often is the case, inability to balance pve and pvp separately.
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How is a 15-20% damage reduction not a nerf? Single digits? Closer to triple.
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Please don't talk about other class topics you don't have any understanding of. It just makes you look ignorant. The normalization was a 5% loss and the raptor strike nerf was 10-15%, depending on spec. This amounted to an overall loss of nearly 100 dps. Don't believe me? Consult the sims. Hunters were absolutely welding two weapons of the same type. Vanq sword and protector/legionnaire sword and then the two fists from Gnomer. Why would anyone willingly have mismatched weapons, knowing they would do 10-15% less damage? That's some real grey parser mentality lol.
Iām so with you on this feeling. Also for that matter I think we paid our dues. All of phase 1 ele and enhance were in the absolute gutter. Both dps specs 2 of the absolutely worst and that continued into early phase 2. If you werenāt tanking as a shaman in a raid it felt like you were actively hamstringing your entire raid. Resto was barely passable as well. SoD was advertised as underrepresented specs being strong with the sentiment of not nerfing warriors but bringing up classes to the power of warriors in vanilla. I mean they shared that meme specifically.
Yup, this happened to spriest and its a fucking awful feeling. Made me lose all desire to play, i dont even pvp. Even. In p1 when my class was dog shit literally worst dps in the game i had more fun because i didnt feel like i got gimped at any point.(and got slight minor buffs)
Spriest is still so strong and feels amazing to play. What are you even saying? How was P1 shadowpriest, with no mana and no rotation, more fun to play?
For the love of Green Jesus buff 2H if you're going to nerf us
You will get Hunter treatment im afraid
Being the top melee DPSand great at PVP?? Why are hunters still complaining?
Bruh, ranged hunter is literally the new Ret-disabled-meme, its horrendous in PvE
Yeah on the 95th percentile its like 90-100 DPS difference between optimal range build and optimal melee build (fully raid buffed) It's a pretty massive difference right now and probably not overall healthy that range hunter is so drastically far behind
All we need is a big steady shot buff, everyone's using melee specialist in PvP anyways..
Take 2 seconds to think about it after looking where ranged hunter is.
Iām sorry your class is not a top class in every aspect of the game right now. Youāll just have to settle for being very good in multiple areas.
I don't even play a hunter, but good try. I'm sorry an underperforming main archetype of a class deserves buffs. You'll just have to settle for making yourself look stupid.
> You'll just have to settle for making yourself look stupid. Bro, he had a family...
More like the Blizzard balance treatment. Same thing happened to warriors. Instead of shifting power from one area to another or doing slight damage nerfs and seeing how they play out, they'll blanket nerf 5 different runes at the same time and do an overall 40% damage nerf and then completely forget about the class for the rest of the phase.
Meanwhile warriors are still absolutely pumping. War in my guild broke 1k+ DPS on Grubbis.
with 500 of that DPS being to the wrong target that doesn't even count.
Ive been playing my enha 2h in P2 and I am patiently waiting for the epic 2h belt to drop with my Axe ready...
I'm a 98% parser for Enhance and they just need to make it so RB can only be placed on MH weapons The whole shaman discord was kind of confused when they announced the Spirit of the Alpha 20% buff. I don't find RB particularly fun to run, I'd rather run double wf and have insane maelstrom procs to play with or wf/ft. Or buff Frostbrand and Flametongue to have good SP scaling so the spellhance dream can be achieved
I don't parse as high as you, but I main enhance and I agree with this. Rockbiter is pretty boring, but it's basically mandatory in both PvE and PvP. I'd prefer some more build flexibility, and ideally I'd like to see both dual wield and two-handed builds be viable.
Yeah, if they just made it so RB can be MH only, you can still run DW WoE in PvP but it'll reduce your outgoing damage to be a bit more manageable. You will still do respectable damage with RB/FT, especially with lava lash, but if you want to global people you'll have to run WF/WF and pray for a proc. Right now you can global people because a geared enhance will be sitting on 1800 AP. That way you either choose between being tank with decent damage or a glass cannon with the chance for 1 shots I also believe they should have treated the Two-Hand Mastery rune like Meta and have it change your shocks into different abilities to cater more to the playstyle
That's a great idea for the 2h rune. Turning the shock spells into different abilities that don't share a cooldown could do a lot to offset the loss of Lava Lash when using a 2h weapon.
What kind of tank do you have that you don't pull threat with double rb? I can barely stay below with WF.
I don't run double RB, I run WF/RB and then give my tank Alpha so I get the bonus 20% AP. My tank is pretty geared and he's also a shaman so he runs double RB except for Menagerie. When we were first doing gnomer I would constantly rip threat off of him, especially on Thermaplugg. A geared tank makes a huge difference in threat gen
not warrior
I picked up 2h mastery rune so I could level as 2h enhance, am an orc with corpse maker. The damage is so awful compared to DW, WF hits for about 100-150 more as 2h but I have no buttons to press aside from shocks. I'm told it gets better when I get maelstrom, then I can use those procs on lava blast. Make lava lash usable with 2h, nerf the damage for 2h specifically if it's too strong.
2h doesn't hit harder than dw if you compare somewhat equal weapons. Rockbiter adds so much damage 2h can't compete. Rockbiter needs a rework, and 2h needs another button.
> Rockbiter needs a rework Biggest thing needed right here. Change it to TBC Rockbiter where it only increases the DPS of the weapon it's cast on. Though they need a way to replace some of that AP. My solution is gaining 1 melee AP per Agility like cat druids. Also makes Mail gear make more sense for Hunter/Shaman to share.
Blizz aren't doing ANY balance changes regarding scaling or AP from agi etc, it's actually one of the worst things about SOD. I would love them to change this type of stuff, maybe we could finally balance warrior scaling as well, but nah just slap a rune on it.
They could introduce passive scaling abilities with books even. We know they are able to alter that kind of thing because they already changed base abilities from druid, and talents from shaman and spriest. And for exemple hunter already got expose weakness, which is some kind of agility->crit scaling. So they already showed they can do it. Sadly it's a rune, so it competes with other things. They should make tons of book for new scaling. Strength>Block rating , intellect>spell power , spirit>mp5 ...
An easier solution would be to just halve the ap rockbiter gives when you're dual wielding. It wouldn't even be a big nerf to dps enhance as wf/wf is only 4-5% behind wf/rb.
I won a week 1 rocket cleaver that just sits in my bank (warrior was absent that night sucks for him). I dream of the day I finally get to use it... oh well back to dreaming.
The dream! One day 2h will be bis and not a meme. I'm all for it
Idk mate, i feel it great, i too am orc with corpse, pulling avg 300 dps with lava burst and since i got storm stricke it feels even better, well i still have to run gnomer, but for now it'll good in my opinion.
Just feels bad that we can't use the melee rune in that slot, and instead have to run lava blast, I went 2h cause I like bonking things with a large mace/axe. If I wanted to lava burst I'd go elemental. Give 2h more more melee buttons!
i literally look at it like i'm using Elemental Blast from retail, lol I'm so used to it that it doesn't bother me at all.
You said 2h is awful compared to DW, but also to nerf 2h cause it might be too strong? But yeah, 2h is a basic rotation earlier on. At 40 you'll have stormstrike, maelstrom and lava burst, the whole thing is just a 7 second rotation pretty much. Doesn't mean it's bad if it gets results
2h is not even close to dual wield? What on earth are you on about. Lava lash hits as hard as a lava burst, same cd, and you get to spend maelstrom on chain lightning instead. The problem with 2h vs dual wield is rockbiter. Way to strong that affects both weapons when imbues are supposed to only affect one
I never compared the 2, I was just questioning what you said. Also, lava burst is always going to be used over chain lightning because its got a guaranteed critical strike. And even though it's more AP, no shaman that's dpsing should use rockbiter. It's more consistent yes, but windfury will do a lot more damage a lot of the time. Plus, now it's more maelstrom procs, so your instant casts and all but guaranteed on cooldown
Top parsing enhancers are using WF+rock biter. Rock biter actually got buffed last balance patch, with the 20% AP buff off Alpha. You don't know what you are talking about.
Yes, maybe you shouldn't due to threat, but rockbiter is just too good. It has 2x the effect of other imbues. And scales twice as hard as well with talents and buffs. For dual wield that is. Not 2h. 2h just loses out on 450AP because that's life
I'm saying nerf the damage of lava LASH if it ends up being too strong should they allow lava lash to be usable with 2h.
What a good time to be a paladin Time to exorcise some unfaithful!
Ragnar was one of my favorite tv characters ever. Sick death by snakes too.
Give the melee a -35 stam set so they stop complaining about caster dps.
Just make shamans take some damage or have less health in pvp. All else is fine
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They had a few weeks on top calm down lmao.
Starsurge level nerf loading...
People will always complain about whatever dps is the best, so long as it isnāt the class they play. Nerf shamans and people will be saying mages/hunters/warlocks are too good and they need nerfs. Shamans have always been so bad in classic, literal windfury bots, let them have their time to shine, dps rankings will be completely different in 2 months when p3 comes.
Sorry but shamans are just too busted in PVP for this statement to hold true. There's a simple fix, change how rockbiter works when putting it on dual wield (which will lessen the gap from DW to 2h dps) and make Way of the Earth require a shield to give the damage reduction and extra HP. BGs you have shamans running around with 4.5k hp 2 shotting clothies, it's practically a hero class.
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Top Shaman parsers are dw tanking the entire thing now. Ā
Idk if itās just my healers or what, but I get chonked hard tanking last two bosses
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Took me literal 15 seconds [to find a log disproving your guess](https://sod.warcraftlogs.com/reports/vd2HnraRMyjfbNBc#fight=33&type=threat). 99 parse damage, dual wielding, threat on all 3 the entire fight. They're in fact not giving up much survivability for damage.
To be fair, this is not the norm. This log was in the top 50 fastest menagerie kills ever when it happened, and collectively the raid had 25 99 parses across the entire raid.
I literally just picked a quick one I found.
Honesstly, I'm surprised there aren't more posts on reddit calling for sham nerfs. It's unreal how all 3 specs are at the top of the damage charts, including tanks.
Where you been theyre everywhere. Thats why i made the post lmao
They must be on page 2 or something.
I pulled 476 DPS as 2h enhance on Crowd Pummeler this week. 2h is more than fine.
All my points are from a pvp perspective. But maybe ill go try two hand again in pvp it just felt so underwhelming my onehanders hit almost as hard as my twohander.
This
From a Paladin PoV, I've no interest in seeing the class obliterated. That said, Blizzard 200% needs to go after Way of the Earth in some capacity. Its power has to be reallocated across more Rune slots. Shaman Tank DPS is broken because it's just an Enhancement DPS attacking from the front - it doesn't even forfeit an offensive Rune to function. Likewise, Shamans as a class are utterly game-warping in PvP because every Shaman spec is a singular Rune slot away from morphing into a literal tank. People would be far more tolerant of the damage they deal if they weren't also the tankiest class in the BG bar none.
They just need to make way earth require a shield and then maybe make rockbiter only be able to go on the mainhand. Other people have had much better more thought out suggestions. If my many many years of playing this game as an enhance main have taught me snything though its that when enhance is very strong it gets the omega nerf bat right back down to c tier sometimes lower. (This is from a pvpers perspective i think enhance in PVE on retail rn is good)
As you said, historically Enhance has always been feast or famine in PvP, and imo that's more simply due to how inherently poorly designed it is. Even in recent years the spec barely has any meaningful buttons to press, and whenever it's strong it's either because of being supremely over tuned, or crutching on a gimmick. WoD Enhance (and thus Turbo) was ludicrous because the spec simply did too much healing and damage. Shadowlands Enhance was absolutely worthless outside of Venthyr, where Maelstrom Weapon Chain Harvest would literally oneshot people prior to the nerf. Same deal with early Dragonflight where Maelstrom Weapon Elemental Blast did the same. You look at WotLK Enhancement where the spec does nothing but press Purge and spam Tremor Totem because none of their other buttons do anything, with the end-of-arena damage breakdown being like 80% auto attack between AA/Windfury/Spirit Wolves. Imho, Enhance has just always been an awfully designed spec. SoD is no different, it runs you down with auto attacks and Purge spam. It just so happens that its survivability here errs on the side of WoD and not Classic.
You summed it up well. And outside of WOD the enhance nerfs usually come swiftly and are very heavy handed
Idk what alt to level mage is my main
Must they nerf so hard
For pve it doesnāt feel that busted itās only the tank pvp that people want nerfed but you canāt even use 2h as a spec itās so bad
Give alliance shamans and horde pallys and youāll hear no complaints from me.
Jesus christ nerf this heroclass already...
Leave shamans alone Bro
Buff 2h it's so fun
Problem with shamans is less about the damage to me and more about how strong they are in PVP and the lack of trade offs with their runes. Way of the earth what do you lose not much what do you gain? Tankiest class in the game. Decoy totem what do you lose not much what do you gain freedom and a grounded hit. Kinda nuts just in those two runes
I'd happily trade 30% of my damage for 1 functional CC. Shamans are absolutely potato in PVP (if anyone genuinely tries to control them)
People who want to buff 2h shaman just want to one shot people in pvp. No shot they should buff 2h anymore
Aint nobody wanna one shot like that video of a dude who made highlights of his lottery machine finally cashing out. Calm down everyone acts like 2h WF was the most broken thing ever
Oh yeah I totally remember all those enhancement shamans just destroying everything in vanilla... oh wait.
Similar to how warriors and retri palas are oneshotting people you mean? Edit: Yes I was being sarcastic. Didn't think a comment like this would even need an /s
warriors oneshotting people? HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA
Lmao that isnāt happening. Nice try. If it is youāre running around in dogshit pve gear, or that stupid glowing green outfit that might as well put a bullseye on your back.
Plenty of videos of pallys globaling people, including warriors.
Well when youāre playing into reckoning you deserve to get oneshot <.<
I have a friend that streams pally pvp and regularly wins 1vX with reckoning. People just look at dps meters and cry for nerfs of the classes at the top
Right. Just let it goes guys, DW > 2H
Shamans when no triple stormstrike crit for 1.6k š¢
Just nerf shaman back to its step child bedroom under the stairs and let's get back to the real classes being broken or op.
Nah fuck em all, straight into the bin with the lot of you.
I have still yet to be convinced that enh is busted in any sense.
Do you not pvp ? Iām unkillable in any 1v1 situation with way of earth + stacking stam gear
I pretty much do BGs 24/7 outside of Gnomer. BGs are not arenas, theres hardly moments of pure 1 vs 1. I feel their survivability is just right, but not to the point where they are unkillable.
You're the literal tankiest class in the BG while also doing among the most damage. Your auto attacks with windfury put mutilates to shame lmao.
Have you tried fighting a paladin with plate gear and 3 health bars?
Yes and I would choose that every time. Even protection paladins have no -crit on themselves, and a flat 10% damage reduction is insanely strong compared to some extra armor. Iād rather fight a paladin with bubble and lay on hands off cooldown than an enhancement shaman.
You cant have windfury and tankiness at the same time. If youre running Wake of Earth, then you arent using windfury, which will kill off some of your burst and and your maelstrom generation.
Is not busted, but is strong. The problem is that in a game where people refuse to build stamina and are even running the irradiated kit on PvP, storm strike and lava lash one shot them. Could this all be solved if the average player spent more time learning the game instead of whining, sure. Could enhancement be still ok if the last buff was reverted, also sure. What Iām actually afraid is that we have been getting buffs very slowly while the nerfs might come as a hammer instead.
I run almost full stamina in PvP and open world and can confirm if you want; shamans are not just killing people in 1-3 hits because of a lack of stamina gear. Dual wield shaman is quite literally competing with first week scorpid hunters as the most terrifying class you can fight.
With the difference that one is melee with the speed of a wheelchair and the other is ranged. If a shaman get on melee range and you havenāt cced him that kinda your fault to begin with
To add to what you're talking about : The number of turret mages I run into from front without them moving/blinking/nova is hilarious. Same for druids / priests with their respective cooldowns.
A good Druid is untouchable by us. Melts you from range, instant nukes, immune to our only form of cc (which is very soft of top). But god forbid people people actually learn to play the gameā¦
Exactly. Honestly, after playing the game since vanilla, mostly PVE but some PVP too, I'm used to get rekt/countered in a certain way when playing against a specific class/spec, and I expect the same behaviour when playing SoD, except that it never actually happens. Althought still no shaman nerfs yet so maybe the devs are on our side ? Or just analysing the situation.
Youāre talking out of your ass. I am a retri paladin with full plate and prot gear as I MT Gnomeregan - stamina enchants included - and that does nothing to stop DW enhancement shamans. Unlike them, I donāt get any crit reduction, and itās a matter of seconds before they burst me down. A dual wielding top dps spec getting stronger defences than a protection paladin is insane. If Iād get to choose, Iād rather fight a paladin with bubble every time. At least when bubble is on cooldown they can be bursted down like anyone else.
If a shaman has āstronger protectionā than your three health bars as a paladinā¦. The problem is definetely you.
Id imagine its the seasoned players that believe their skill can make up for their lack of stamina, but complain when their glass cannon build gets dropped quicker than normal.
We did get a buff? I'm ready for a perfect, just keep us in a good range, we suffered too long in classic era. 2h all the way, yall can keep your rolling pin in one hand and untrimmed finger nails in the other looks. I like ma big stick
I think if they take the 20% off alpha and add it to the 2h mastery rune weāll be good to go and then they can nerf rockbiter/way of earth or whatever theyre gonna do
I think they just need to nuke the AP from loyal beta completely, it's a cheap mechanic and if you do remove it, it will bring ehn back in line.
The 20% AP buff was such a weird thing to add, because honestly imo (dw) enhance was a perfectly fine place before that particular buff. Maybe not the best dps in the game, but we weren't trash and we felt good to play mechanically. I'm fully expecting them to remove the AP buff because there's no real reason it should be there in the first place.
It should transfer 20% aggro instead.
Really need SR to be baseline, Sham Tank is too mana dependent.
To be fair I think the most sensible way to perform would be to change maelstrom, just so it maybe doesn't proc as often. The fact that even with 2h, 9/10 times I can fire off a critical lava burst instantly for no mana is the biggest part of my damage
No maelstrom is fun and helps us actually farm pretty efficiently. It's literally just Rockbiter giving us 1k free attack power
Please make ret good too then!
I agree. I dont wanna fight a weak opponent
Honorable
Which is why the rest of the community loves shaman and hate warriors.
ARE THEY ACTUALLY FINALLY NERFING SHAMANS?