World of Warcraft™

Hello. I recently saw a blue post that wanted us to point out any talent bracket that had little or no choice for a certain spec, but not to post in that forum. I just wanted to take a second and go over the shaman talent tree.

T1: Frozen Power / Earthgrab / Repulsion Totem

This bracket looks good. The powers don't feel amazing, and it's not too exciting but it seems to be a fairly difficult choice. Frozen power can be used when you know 1 target needs to be rooted, earthgrab for multiple, and repulsion looks downright fun. Still a tough choice for all 3 specs.

T2: Nature's Guardian / Stone Bulwark Totem / Astral Shift

Thank you for bringing back Astral Shift, and in an even more amazing form! A half Iceblock that can't be shattered. hopefully non dispelable? Stone Bulwark is great for fights with constant damage, astral shift great for spike damage and pvp. What I don't see the point of is Nature's Guardian. If you look at the resto shaman specs in the game, no one chooses this talent. It's terrible. I thought the goal was to get rid of that kind of talent.
Let's think of it like this: Useless in PVE becuase of threat not being an issue. In PVP you have someone beating on you. Ok, so you drop below 30% and only your max health gets increased. Congrats, you've just been pushed into execute range, because it increased your max health. No one chooses this talent now, why would anyone choose it later?

T3:Improved Ghost Wolf / Windwalk Totem / Totem of the Tranquil Mind

This is a very situational choice. While I feel there is a correct choice for different situations there isn't a choice that is always best, and that's one way this talent tree can work. I'll be using IGW as a default, but that's personal preference and the beauty of this tree philosophy.

T4:Healing Tide Totem / Ancestral Guidance / Fortifying Waters

Another tough decision. My raid is going to make me take healing tide of fortifying waters because i'm the only shaman, but you better believe I'll be soloing and bging with ancestral guidance. Great job on this tier, just make sure that all numbers are tweaked correctly and I'll be happy.

T5:Elemental Mastery / Nature's Swiftness / Echo of the Elements

This is where our tree starts to break down. For Elemental Shamans, we will figure out if EM or Echo does more damage, pick accordingly, and use that one. That's a problem. Resto will choose Nature's swiftness or Echo, depending on which does more healing, and stick with it. Enhancement will choose Echo of the Elements. the 5% attack speed is near useless from nature's swiftness and their nukes are already instant so they don't need elemental mastery. This tier needs to be revised. I play elemental and I don't want my only dps cooldown to go to the talent trees, I just can't see myself picking something else.

T6:Elemental Harmony / Totemic Restoration / Totemic Projection

I get it. We're the totem class. It's our thing. But this. . . It's a mockery. If you wanted us to make a difficult decision you have done so, but only because every choice is bad. Where is our epic spell? Deathknights bring the unstoppable winter to freeze and stun everyone around them while doing massive damage. Druids can respec for 45seconds on a moment's notice. Priests can trade health with a friend, But don't worry guys, I can move my totems. or put down two blue totems. or when a mage can autoattack my totem (the major source of CDs in MoP) I can get it back sooner. I just feel ripped off. I Love playing my shaman, and I understand we're the red headed step children, but I thought that you wanted everyone to feel OP?

T1: Agree, except I think that Frozen Power and Earthgrab are very strong talents. I'm leaning toward Frozen Power, but it's a close call. (I've grown used to using AOE roots.) I PvP mostly and like the idea of FP rooting vs. melee while kiting. Repulsion Totem....I would have to see how it works. Seems a little more useful for Rsham in keeping adds/enemy players off, although it could have lots of other uses too. In PvP, I imagine it would get destroyed very quickly if used to keep people off a flag at a node.

T2: Agree. Nature's Guardian seems very weak compared to the other two. I've never liked the idea of the PvP trinks that give a boost to health, either. For PvP, a sudden boost in health could be good in those OMG moments, but the other two talents in this tier would work much better for mitigating damage in the first place. For end-game PvE, it should be unnecessary most of the time, especially if either of the other two talents can also be used for PvE. Biggest benefit of Nature's Guardian over the other two might be the much shorter cooldown...maybe. Dunno if that would come into play or be necessary for most things.

T3: Indeed, it's iffy. I'm thinking that Improved Ghost Wolf will be my choice, considering what a boost it would be for PvP. The other two could also be very useful although they are situational, but they only last for 6 sec and have a 1 min cooldown. I can see using Windwalk Totem to create a bubble of free movement down the field in BGs; and, Tranquil Mind Totem perhaps for a quick-burn/burst phase, but, really, either is only 6 sec and can be used only once a minute. IGW is full-time.

T4: A very boring tier for me. I'll be going for Ancestral Guidance because I'm an Ele Sham who PvPs in BG mostly. Many fights don't last much more than 3 minutes, so Healing Tide Totem would only get 1 use, maybe 2, and that's only about 11K heals for teammates. Well, that could be very good in some situations, and I don't know how the "squish" is going to look in MoP so I don't know if 11K will actually mean much. (Doesn't at the moment.) Same for Fortifying Waters. I typically don't cast Healing Rain during a fight anyway, although I might occasionally. 10% magic damage reduction is very decent however...IF you are fighting something other than melee during a fight. The more magic using enemies, the better it would be. AG seems likely to have the largest effect for what I do.

T5: A clunky tier. EM of course is great for burst; Nature's Swiftness I could see being useful for Ele in PvP, simply because of the passive haste bonus and the 1 min CD—for adding an extra LB or even a quick self-heal—but Echo of the Elements appears too good to pass up. EoE will be RNGy though, so I'd have to see how it works out in use.

T6: I don't think it's a joke, at least not entirely. I will probably choose Elemental Harmony because I like the idea of having my Earthbind Totem out (if I spec into Frozen Power), my Stone Bulwark Totem out, and being able to drop a Tremor Totem without removing either of those two. Totemic Projection does seem a little odd....because it would require a new way of playing, something we haven't done before. Seems potentially useful for PvP, although deciding on the tactics might present a learning curve. Not at all certain what use it would be for PvE however. I'm mostly not happy with Totemic Restoration, because I'm not sure how things will play out, whether for instance Totes will become targets again (like Repulsion and Earthgrab), or whether being able to reduce the CD on your own Tremor Totem (for example) might become a very nice ability.

The thing is that when you have less than 30% health, and you add 15% health, it leaves you even more vulnerable to death because things like killshot are enabled. I think the level 90 talent should empower totems, or make them unkillable, or something cool like that. as it stands now we just aren't up to par with the awesomeness of other classes talents.

Well while yall think its ok, these talents outright suck for enh, esp compared to some of the more awesome stuff from some of the other classes talent trees. Its like they didnt even try for shamans.

Tier 1 Pretty much useless for pve.

Tier 2 I can understand having a survival tree for being a standard tree in most class trees and its ok but there is not a need for natures guardian. They should remove it and add a more useful spell on par with the others.

Tier 3 As far as im concerned the best talent bracket for shammys for pve. In MoP, since they are adding monks, there will now be 11 classes. This means that when running 10mans you will not be able to take advantage of all of the classes and what they will bring to the raid so leaders will have to choose wisely. Now it used to be that shammys always got priority in raids because they had hero. Unfortunately they turned around and gave it to mages and in some casses hunters. Both of the totems have great potential and will end up bringing much to the raid that, from what ive seen from other talent trees, other classes will not. Though kinda situational, i think both of these totems pretty much reserves a spot for shammys in the 10 man MoP raiding scene. I like the improved ghost wolf but compared to the totems i would probably not even consider getting it.

Tier 4 A joke. Fortifying Waters is pretty much healing only though i guess there is some potential for enh because they can instant cast healing rain but would interupt dps. Probably should be a glyph instead of a talent. Dont even want to talk about the other 2. I know blizzard is trying to make classes that have multiple roles allow for roles to kinda blend the roles a little, great exp is the atrocity of the druid tree, but as a dps, i dont want to heal, i want to dps. Healing is a healers job.

Tier 5 O look a caster talent bracket with only one choice for enh. Only option for enh is echo of elements.

Tier 6 This talent bracket is probably the worst talent bracket in all of the trees cept mabye for the mages poly tree. I know totems are our thing but dont ya think we have enough totem talents. Elemenatal harmony may have had potential if they allowed for fire but of course that would be broken. Making shamans op for once in its life time would be way too much to ask. Totemic restoration is ok but nothing amazing. Totemic projection shouldve been in the game a long time ago but im not about to spend a talent point on some like moving totems as the only totems that would really benifit from this are the elemental totems since they have such a big cd.

I know the trees are still in development but the shaman tree is by far the worst developed out of all of the trees.

The trees are still in beta form so I hope things will get changed up before beta is released.

One thing I do want to complain about it the 6th tier is terrible. Shamans are about the elements we use totems to controll the elements. Tier 6 should have some awesome elemental powers that change due to our spec.

Also I would like to see enhancement get a long cast 10-15 sec cast spell with a huge mana cost that scales with maelstrom to separate us from elemental shaman. Make it look awesome also please. Or more melee attacks, though I feel enhance I'd the "battlemage" of WoW so a spell would be a better feel.

(offensive earth spell) mana cost 65% base mana 15 sec cast time. Slams your target with the fury of earth causing elemental damage.

Elemental won't want it due to its cast time and cost or just make it enhancement only spell.


I like the caster/melee hybrid but I don't think there is anything separating enhance from elemental other then 2 melee strikes ATM.

Crazy idea here, and you'll all prolly hate it, but what if they were to replace either Nature's Guardian or one of the Tier 5 choices with a spec-differentiating Feral Spirits?

With how Feral Spirits is currently (low DPS, only real useful for the healing/utility), having them as a self-heal/mitigation cooldown available to all 3 specs might work...

On the other hand, they could change them like the Druid's Treants, and make them a DPS/Healing cooldown in T5. Maybe the Enhance version deals high DPS with little to no healing, Elemental version deals Fire/Nature damage on hit with little to no healing, and the Resto version deals minor DPS, but heals the lowest X health party/raid member(s) for a large % of the DPS.

At least its one option, unless they actually plan on making them a true DPS cooldown for Enhance...

I completely agree about the complete lackluster nature of the final tier of our tree. I have some complaints about some of the lower tiers as well, but most of them have something worthwhile that grabs my attention, so I am ok with accepting some things I don't like. However, nothing in the lvl 90 tier of talents is appealing in the least. I want to feel epic at 90. I want to get something either extremely useful or something extremely "cool." Instead, we get a utility talent that has little utility. I really hope that the developers have been looking at the player feedback in this issue and make some major changes to this final tier. I'll be sad if when I hit 90 my "ultimate" is getting to place an earthbind and tremor totem at the same time.

Safiyr, that is a great idea. Replace Nature's guardian with wolves. Make them do a small amount of damage and heal yourself. Then give enhancement a real cooldown, maybe make elemental mastery play with maelstrom so that enhance has another choice besides echo of the elements.

Elemental Mastery
3 min cooldown
When activated, your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning or Lava Burst spell becomes an instant cast spell. In addition, your Fire, Frost, and Nature damage is increased by 15% and you gain 20% spell haste for 15 sec. Casts with maelstrom weapon do not remove stacks.

This would have to be tuned down probably, as that is a lot of damage, but it gives enhance a viable ranged option like rogues will have next expansion. Echo of the Elements would have to be tuned to balance, and Nature's swiftness would need more than 5% haste.

Perhaps if Totemic Projection reset the timers on the totems it would be more useful.

You could move your Windwalk Totem or your Tranquil Mind Totem or your Stonework Bulwark Totem and reset the times, getting more use out of them.

Granted, this could potentially be a bit too powerful, although it would be time-intensive to do this and mana-intensive, and, if Totemic Projection affects the GCD it would cut into your DPS or Healing, so it would have those limits. Plus, TP has a 10 sec CD so.....maybe if that were lengthened to 15 sec or 20 sec that would place a limit on how often you could reset your timers for WWT or TMT—at 6 sec each, you'd only get a reset once before having to wait for their 1 min CD to finish.

Naturally, this could be too much for Fire Elemental Totem, virtually enabling you to keep it up 100% of the time. So that would need to be looked at also. I don't think keeping Magma or Searing up 100% of the time would be OP—you end up re-dropping those anyway for 100% uptime. Maybe Totemic Projection would have a 1-time limit on Fire Elemental Totem. Would help in DPS for PvE and in PvP without being too, too OP.

Edit: IF approaching 12 sec uptime on Windwalk or Tranquil Mind might be too OP, perhaps the timers could be reset at half. OTOH, for PvP for instance, trying to get the Totemic Projection cast within the 6-sec window would be quite difficult as-is, considering the silences, CCs, stuns, and so forth, so I'm thinking it might not be OP. Plus, you are losing some time already: Windwalk at 3 sec, moving it would add 6 sec (reset) so that's only 9 sec uptime, for an example.

Edit#2: Stone Bulwark has a 30 sec uptime w/ a 1 min CD. It would need to be looked at as well, perhaps get a 20 sec uptime, more shielding per tick; or a restriction on how many times it can be Projected. In any case, Totemic Projection needs something else to be useful whatsoever in comparison to other talents in that tier (our own and those of other classes.) A timer reset for totes might be the thing.

Totemic projection baseline.

One talent makes it reset CDs on totems

one talent doubles totem durations

one talent doubles totem effects

Totemic projection baseline.

One talent makes it reset CDs on totems

one talent doubles totem durations

one talent doubles totem effects

Totemic Projection baseline is a good idea.

I have just been toying with another idea for improving Totemic Projection. What if, when Totes are projected, this also happened:

1) Your first set, in original location, became a "ghost image," remaining for a few seconds, providing 1/2 the damage/healing + other effects for that duration. Or:

2) A ghost image or spirit image of the Shammy was projected with the new set, drawing threat away from the Shammy to it.

Ooooo or maybe an ability to teleport to your totems? Or trade places with your totems. If they are gonna stay fragile toys glued to ground they might as well be useful

Side-track, but the Projection idea by Skink could be altered a touch...

Perhaps make a non-Talent ability that 'projects' an image of your body running forward up to 20 yd. The image would appear to enemies as you, and all threat would be transferred to the image until it reached the 20 yd mark (or died), when it would disipate. You would remain where you are and could move anywhere in a stealthed state for the duration of the image's life.

Could be a nice escape/closing mechanism...

Side-track, but the Projection idea by Skink could be altered a touch...

Perhaps make a non-Talent ability that 'projects' an image of your body running forward up to 20 yd. The image would appear to enemies as you, and all threat would be transferred to the image until it reached the 20 yd mark (or died), when it would disipate. You would remain where you are and could move anywhere in a stealthed state for the duration of the image's life.

Could be a nice escape/closing mechanism...

That could be folded into the Totemic Projection talent. The projected image would be running toward the new set of Totes.

OTOH, if a spirit image of the Shammy were projected in the center of the new set, drawing threat, that could be very useful for PvE: Adds run toward the spirit image and get rooted by the Earthgrab Totem that was projected there; and, damaged by the Magma totem that was also projected. I think in PvP the better players would grow aware of the ability and not be fooled, although it could cause a little confusion for those just running into battle after rezzing; they too might fall into the Earthgrab trap.

Edit: (Not suggesting that the spirit image would look identical to the Shammy...maybe a faded out version, a spirit or ghostly version....)

well the idea of a shaman image taunting people or dropping aggro wouldn't be too out of the park, we have stoneclaw taunt now and we're losing that. The image would definitely have to be a ghost wolf though, who would believe the shaman running away without it? I think some kind of spirit split would be cooler. Your health is divided in two and you go invisible. Your copy ghost wolf runs toward the totems with half your health. When he reaches the totems he vanishes and gives whatever health he has left back to you.

We're getting really far out here on ideas lol, but maybe someone at blizzard is high enough to pull something out of our mad ramblings

01/27/2012 08:38 AMPosted by Rowku

I'll be sad if when I hit 90 my "ultimate" is getting to place an earthbind and tremor totem at the same time.

lol, completely agree. While I have no doubt that dropping two totems of the same element will be useful at times, it just isn't epic or cool.

I completely agree about the complete lackluster nature of the final tier of our tree. I have some complaints about some of the lower tiers as well, but most of them have something worthwhile that grabs my attention, so I am ok with accepting some things I don't like. However, nothing in the lvl 90 tier of talents is appealing in the least. I want to feel epic at 90. I want to get something either extremely useful or something extremely "cool." Instead, we get a utility talent that has little utility. I really hope that the developers have been looking at the player feedback in this issue and make some major changes to this final tier. I'll be sad if when I hit 90 my "ultimate" is getting to place an earthbind and tremor totem at the same time.

I couldn't possibly agree more.

First, I just want to say that Shaman, along with Rogues and Hunters have yet to see a second pass on talents/specializations. We're still looking at the same iteration we saw at Blizzcon, including a lack of level 87 ability. That being said, I'm going to get back on topic and dive into what I like and don't like about each tier from an Elemental/Restoration perspective (since that's what I'm most familiar with).

1: Clearly a PVP tier with some slight PVE utility. Interesting choices, but looking at it as you level up, 2 of the 3 are useless at level 15. We don't get Frost Shock until level 22, and Earthbind (which Earthgrab replaces) at 26. If these choices do not change, they should be switched to tier 2. I can definately see a tough choice here though, the 2 new totems are intriguing.

2: Nature's guardian is boring. I'd like to see some data on how many shaman actually spec into that talent currently. I like the ideas of Stone Bulwark and Astral Shift, but honestly, I feel we need a defensive cooldown baked in to the class itself.

3: Another PVP tier (already?). Ghost Wolf doesn't seem all that interesting. Perhaps adding another immunity, say, polymorph, would make it a better contender. Both totems are strong contenders depending on your needs.

4: This is the best tier in my opinion. I like each option. Good raid cooldowns for any spec, in either PVP or PVE. I would change Fortifying Waters to have an increased damage reduction, but increase the cooldown of Healing Rain so that it can not be chained.

5: As an Elemental Shaman, I can not stand that my only DPS cooldown is being taken from the base specialization, not to mention that it's current form does not offer a whole lot to Enhancement or Restoration. I could go either way with Nature's Swiftness, though I am positive I would never chose that out of the 3. I am curious to see how Echo interacts with Elemental's mastery, though still having to chose between it and EM breaks my heart.

6: No, no, and no. Elemental Harmony COULD be good, but I don't think it deserves a spot in our lvl 90 tier. With the ease of stomping totems, Totemic Restoration should be baseline. That, or all totems should get a serious buff in health, or add the stoneclaw effect to every totem... You can stomp it but you're going to eat a 2 second stun if you do. Totemic Projection is flawed. It would work currently, and be great; but once we no longer have static aura totems I highly doubt we'll be dropping all 4 totems often. None have a duration significant enough to warrant dropping it before its actually needed. This should be rolled into the few totems that we would want to cast somewhere other than where we are. Earthbind/Earthgrab/Repulsion could benefit decently from projection. Healing tide is a smart heal with 40 yrds range, good enough where you are. Stone bulwark is basically just an active effect on you... I just don't see myself wanting to use Projection for more than one totem at a time.

OK... Rant complete. I have more to say about Specializations but this post is long enough as is.

want me to post again so you can make another post without looking like too much of a rant? you have some good ideas rolling

topic: Fire Elemental


rant away

=P just kidding