How cool would it be if they added quests for shamans to bend elementals to their will out in the wild and then they could summon them in combat for different advantages. Shaman Pokemon!
Call me crazy but this is the kinda thing I wish Warlocks could do. I very, very much do not like being forced to use Felguard. Let me go seek out and tame a different monster to basically appearance swap my Felguard.
Would make sense since warlocks are already in the line of "subjugation" more than "taming", and they even already have a (useless) spell called "subjugate demon"
Yes please. All of this. Or let us assign felguard traits to our other demons. My sayaad is literally just eye candy on my char select screen, she deserves better :'(
I'm tempted to play cataclysm classic being one of my favorite expansions (except for that last raid, I hate it with a passion) just for the class quests like shaman totems. I liked the old Ele and Enh playstyles even if they're really not anything special.
I remember having a macro that just dropped them all or w/e. Was just busy work. Would like seeing them as spell effects but having to drop them again isn’t interesting.
I'm surprised we didn't see https://www.wowhead.com/spell=287768/thunderaans-fury make a return in some form for the Totemic hero talents for Enhancement
I made a macro to cast that thing that moves all your totems to @player anytime I cast stormstrike.
Might work for what you want. Only need to cast WF totem every 2 minutes.
Eh it should just be a passive aura taking a gcd every 2m is a bs "skill" Check.
Blizzard should move away from totems being boring passive auras that are just every other classes free bonuses but worse.
I mentioned elsewhere but I think they should be passively summoned as damage boosters by certain abilities. Passive, look cool and something to react to that isn't just a gcd required everytime you walk into a new room that makes you perform as well as every other class.
We had [Call of the Elements](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=66842/call-of-the-elements) that we could cast to put down 4 totems of our choice at once.
That seemed like the perfect solution. Set up your totems beforehand, click a button and plop them down. It may not be the most engaging but it definitely makes you _feel_ like a WoW Shaman.
That's the issue with a lot of things in wow now really. So much "QoL" to ensure people aren't juggling suboptimal mechanics but it sacrifices all the flavour.
Like shit, as much as it was toxic gameplay, at least totem stomping represented different tactics for dealing with an enemy. There always was something with shaman in their circle of totems laying claim to an area and everyone fucking knowing it.
I can imagine the frustration doing M+ with you needing to move totems every 2 seconds though.
Yeah for pvp especially it presented a question of "do you switch targets to get rid of that totem, or do you stay on and deal with the consequences of it being up?" Kind of like the choice between getting a debuff off or not vs using your cooldown for something else. Is there something else more pressing that is worth eating the additional uptime of that problem?
Plus the flavor *was* cool, but yeah, there should be a good middle ground of maintaining QoL while keeping that bit of class identity.
I swear I guess I just don't play the game enough because I feel like the only person who plays shaman and likes it lol.
For what it's worth, it never was an interesting choice, which is why Blizzard built in tech specifically to make it harder to switch to totems - you essentially had to click on it manually, and couldn't switch with tab or a macro. For any melee class, it was worth throwing out a builder on it.
I would say that’s my biggest thing re totems in PvE as an enhancement main. Our rotation is already busy enough - in a good way, mind you - but if we had to use a GCD every x seconds to put a totem down that did some.. passive effect that really isn’t super impactful or noticeable.. that really just feels bad to the flow of the spec imo.
PvP though I definitely think it’s a good class concept/fantasy to have a totem to deal with x issue or control a specific area.
> but if we had to use a GCD every x seconds
Now I've played shaman for quite a while but back when Call of the Elements was a thing, totems lasted much longer. Searing totem lasted 60 seconds for example.
- [Strength of Earth Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=8075/strength-of-earth-totem) - *The totem increases the Strength and Agility of all party and raid members within 40 yards by X.* ***Lasts 5 mins.***
- [Stoneskin Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=8071/stoneskin-totem) - *The totem protects party and raid members within 40 yards, increasing armor by X.* ***Lasts 5 mins.***
- [Flametongue Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=8227/flametongue-totem) - *The totem increases the spell power of all party and raid members within 40 yards by x%.* ***Lasts 5 mins.***
- [Healing Stream Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=5394/healing-stream-totem) - *Summons a Healing Stream Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for* ***5 mins*** *that heals party members within 30 yards for X every 2 seconds*. (Currently 15 seconds)
- [Mana Spring Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=5675/mana-spring-totem) - *... 5 health at the feet of the caster for* ***5 mins*** *that restores X mana every 5 seconds to all party and raid members within 40 yards.*
- [Elemental Resistance Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=8184/elemental-resistance-totem) - *... 5 health at the feet of the caster for* ***5 mins*** *that increases the Fire, Frost, and Nature resistance of party and raid members within 30 yards by X.*
- [Wrath of Air Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=3738/wrath-of-air-totem) - *... This totem provides x% spell haste to all party and raid members within 30 yards.* ***Lasts 5 mins.***
- [Windfury Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=8512/windfury-totem) - *The totem increases the melee and ranged attack speed of all party and raid members within 40 yards by x%.* ***Lasts 5 mins.*** (Currently 2 mins)
- [Searing Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=3599/searing-totem) - *Summons a Searing Totem with 5 health at your feet for* ***1 min*** *that repeatedly attacks an enemy within 20 yards for X Fire damage. The totem will prefer to target enemies that are afflicted by your Flame Shock or Stormstrike effects.* (This would stack Searing Flames and be a huge DPS buff for Enhancement so that it was our mandatory/baseline Fire totem).
We had Earthbind on a 45 second life but it's currently down to 20 seconds. Same with Healing Stream Totem (5 mins down to 15 seconds), and Windfury Totem (5 mins to 2 mins).
All of our major buff totems were on 5 Min CD while our main DPS totems were on 1 minutes; utility totems tended to be 6-20 seconds.
Honestly, the 2 min cast of Windfury is fine. I end up pressing it more often just from moving to new packs (Mythic) than I do from it expiring. Bringing back more totems to make Shaman more unique again would be fine with the longer times though it may require tuning given the Mythic design process of lots of spread out packs and constant moving.
It was 1 button, I’d rather have my totem fort back and deal with the extra button. We even had a seperate ui element just to sell it your 4 totems then plop the fort I loved that. It felt like class identity now I feel like a worse fire mage and hate it
It’s a blood dk spell that summons a copy of the dk’s weapon. In Shaman’s case it could summon copies of ur totems and maybe they do stuff. Or just for show I guess idk. I’m not good at game design stuff
I'm just thinking more of a mobile totem. instead of placing searing totem or whatever in one spot it'd float around you. same with wf or whatever it may be.
Yeah, it was right up there with Paladin buffs being what, 15 minutes? Clicking your Pally Power macro 40 times was not engaging gameplay any more than micromanaging totem placement.
Turning totems effectively into auras based off the player character loses some of the class identity, but in exchange opens up a *lot* of dynamic play for the class during fights with a lot of movement. Class identity that *feels bad* isn't doing anyone any favors or making the game more fun to play.
Unfortunately, that sort of design is really horrible in M+ where you are constantly moving.
Also, if we're being honest, that design is horrible in all avenues of gameplay other than raids (where you can reasonably expect to stand your ground and fight).
Imagine just questing and having to drop 4 totems before killing a mob...
You can at least macro the totem moving talent to something since its off the GCD, so it's more or less every two minutes. Also a useful button if you use the speed boost totem since you can redrop it and extend the buff.
U used to have a totem bar, 4 slots, one totem of each element and a button to summon all at once. Would be one gcd used up for a new pull, I dunno if it would be too strong to take the summon off gcd (tho ofc keep the totem to summon the earth/fire/storm elementals on gcd and as seperate totems not in the totem bar) I would absolutely be fine with that to get the flavour back for my shaman.
Wasn't there a spell at one point to re-cast your totems to a different area with a fresh duration at range? It's not that crazy. People saying it's too much work uninteresting or undoable imo just aren't right.
The only way it'd be workable would be to take it off the GCD, which would then force everyone to macro it into other abilities.
I suppose they could make a purely visual version, like druid treant form.
I wish treant form was off the gcd so I could macro it, but for some reason this purely aesthetic thing has a 1.5 second cooldown. Why?? I just wanna be a tree
Totems really ought to be cooldowns like they are for Resto. When you drop a totem, something cool should happen. If it was ever buffs, it would have to be like aug buffs.
Have the "drop all 4" setups we had in Cata and make Totemic Projection a low CD, should solve that. Maybe slow M+ down some so it's not nonstop movement.
I would have preferred a play style where totems were optional, the way you can Grimore of Sacrifice your Warlock pet.
I don’t want to make totems, I want to shoot lightning at motherfuckers.,
I just hit 70 on my shaman, half the tree feels useless. 3 seconds lower CD on random utility totem? The amazing ability to move totems, those things I don't use in elemental? Even in restro or enhance it seems extremely lackluster.
As a gcd you have to press before doing everything was pretty bad too.
I think the main shaman cd should be dropping 4 totems and they supercharge you for a bit, then make abilities passively summon one every once in a while for bonus effects.
For example make elemental blast the baseline finisher and instead of giving a random buff it drops a totem that gives that buff, storm haste, fire crit, earth mastery.
Maybe even add some synergy talents that cause your abilities with the same element as your active totem to cause an overload from the totem, like Lava burst with the fire totem out causes fire to shoot from your recent fire totem, or if eb summoned a storm totem your lightning bolt is buffed instead.
I don't know why they can't apply new gameplay ideas to old abilities. Old totems sucked but they didn't need to, just compare Lava Surge totem to Searing totem, put a cd and make it not a maintainance buff and it feels good to press.
I understand why blizzard removed buffs in any serious play it just feels like shit not to have so play the puzzle game to get what you need.
But in casual play it is really nice to buff randos. I think it would be fun for blizzard to add open world abilities that doesn't work in raid settings but are fun abilities.
A shaman being able to slam down a windfury totem in the open world to help anyone within 60 yards would be mad fun.
>I understand why blizzard removed buffs in any serious play it just feels like shit not to have so play the puzzle game to get what you need.
I mean evokers are a thing now we should have windfury totem back
>Taking totems away is actually a travesty. Dropping your totems and being buffed felt right. Totems as only situational cooldowns is kinda lame
Since there’s so many issues with dropping a stationary totem in the various avenues of content right now… what I think might be cool is:
• Have a totem effect be a rider on certain abilities that are already part of your combat rotation
• Have an optional Shaman-only class-quest reward be a back item that’s a set of totems (like the ones Tauren have access to already) which match the race-specific totems.
• Have the back item by default appear deactivated/off, but when you use one of the abilities that triggers the totem aura, the back item “activates” and glows or animates or whatever the usual active totem should look like.
So now Shaman get visibly distinct totems on the field and they don’t have to worry about placement or using GCDs to summon/unsummon them, and they don’t have to worry about accidentally forget about one that ends up aggroing a stray patrol. Best of all worlds?
It's because people who didn't play the class would complain that they didn't like Shaman's due to the constant GCD usage for the totems. Which was insane to me because imagine playing Hunter and complaining about pets or Warriors and complaining about rage.
Totemic NOT bringing back the totem bar is ridiculously disappointing to me. Totems, floating "shield" and the weapon enhancement trails are such iconic shaman things. It was also tragic that they removed the weapon enhancements for a few expansions.
What I don't understand is how a shaman can cast stormkeeper, an ability that buffs your lb by like 150% or so, cast lightning bolt, and it looks like a small arc of electricity
Have they updated the Tauren totems? I haven't played in a long time, but I remember up to Shadowlands, tauren shamans still have the vanilla model of the totems, which is honestly the laziest thing ever.
As much as I like the theme, totems are archaic in design. I'm cool with them being temporary but they need to be untargetable since they're just a different flavor of CDs. No other class can have their defensive or offensive CDs destroyed by 1 tick of damage from any auto/spell/pet etc.
Yeah, mechanics wise, they’ve always been a mess. But they’re such a huge part of the class flavor and fantasy, and there’s plenty of precedent for indestructible objects with stuff like monk statues and the like. I’d have been happy with a glyph or something for spells to have a 5% chance to drop a cosmetic totem at our feet.
I've never understood why lightning shield is designed the way it is. Originally, the spell was great at damaging grouped enemies in WC3. It forced players to have to separate their units a bit. Why it was called a shield is beyond me.
Nevertheless, if I'm an elemental shaman in a pve setting, my expectation is that I'm not taking damage.
So just use the spell as it was originally designed - as an aoe damage spell....
Hell, if we want to do more here, make it a shield you put on your totems that deals damage in aoe fashion based on proximity.
Shaman design is so frustrating.
They could just allow you to cast Lightning Shield on someone else... (you know, like the tank).
Yes, it's a bit support-y, but it's minor and shouldn't be a big deal. Augmentation already has a similar mechanic. And resto shamans have been able to Earth shield tanks (anyone) forever.
Shamans *should* be support-y. They were originally advertised as a "jack-of-all-trades, master of none" type of class that did a little bit of everything, and made everyone else better at their jobs while they did it.
Then they stripped most of that utility away because it was supposedly bad design.
Then they gave evokers a utility/buff spec lmao
They stripped all that away over a decade ago. So were paladins and warlocks (debuffers).
So don't really hold Aug against them.... People who are happy with the way classes have played for almost two decades would've been livid if their classes were suddenly supports again.
But yes, spoilers, it's right in the name "Enhancement".
And to be fair, they still do have some minor support... at least Enhancement can bring windfury (and mana spring). Resto still has mana tide, but it's been quite neutered and mainly serves more as a self-cooldown with talents.
That's not what enhancement is referring to. Enhancement means they are using the elements to enhance their weapons/fighting. The class has a spec that uses elements directly (elemental) and a spec that uses weapons, and is enhanced by the elements.
It was literally never a reference to "the spec that enhances their friends."
They should've added a lightning shield rework to the TWW stormbringer talent tree. It was the perfect place for it.
Just make it like a 1 min CD that auto casts chain lightning to x targets around you every second for 6 seconds or something.
It doesn't have to be crazy complicated to be an improvement of the dead spell it is now
> Originally, the spell was great at damaging grouped enemies in WC3.
Ironically, this is how it still works in HotS. Rehgar can put a lightning shield onto allies (or even his own totem) to damage all enemies surrounding said ally/totem.
The odd one out seems to be WoW :(
> Nevertheless, if I'm an elemental shaman in a pve setting, my expectation is that I'm not taking damage.
Well they could do something creative with it. Lightning bolt could power up the shield, and then you could cast it towards a group when its powered up, doing damage and stunning. Or you could consume the powered up shield yourself, making your next totem last 50% longer.
There isn't enough choice in WoW. There isn't enough times where you get meaningful choice on how to "spend" something. Its usually always offense vs defense, or single target vs. AoE.
I wish they'd explore that more.
It should be a self-targeted AOE for Enhance, and it should be placed on an enemy target for Ele, or a friendly target for Resto. Each case it should do AOE damage to enemies within 5 yards of the target (self, enemy, or friendly).
The absolute worst offender in the entire game is the ascendant forms… legit cata mob models that don’t even have full animation. They feel like placeholders that we have somehow been stuck with.
Overall enhancement capstone talents make me sad, wolves are nice, but then I get to choose between Primordial Wave which I dislike and Ascendent which is absolutely ugly. But hey, it makes your abilitirs ranged, which Ret has as a baseline.
They removed the increased melee range talent in their class tree, but ret still has 30 yrd range on Judgement and Hammer of Wrath. They still have the Jurisdiction talent giving Blade of Justice & Final Verdict 20 yard range as well. So almost the entire ret rotation can be done from 20-30 yards away.
baffling choice given that extended melee range is one of the things i see the ret rework praised for the most. the melee/ranged dichotomy is frankly outdated at this point - it's pretty rare for most ranged classes to actually have to give up globals to move, and most of the mechanics that would require that have a gateway ready anyway so the dps uptime balance is skewed extremely heavily against melee classes
I really don't get why Blizzard decided to put Primordial Wave on all of the Shaman Specs and not distribute these Covenant abilities accordingly.
I would have put Chain Harvest for Enhancement, Primordial Wave for Elemental, and Vesper Totem for Resto.
Not to derail too much, but funnily enough when Wraith Walk for DK was introduced in Legion they said it was a WIP animation and they'd have the new one soon.
On topic I think they should get rid of LS and make it a proc when hitting 3 targets with crash lightning. It lasts x seconds per targets hit over 3 or just does more dmg the more you hit and have it act like WC3 LS instead of the weird one we currently have.
Shaman is in dire need of visual updates, as well as more choices for Ghost wolf (maybe rename it to spirit animal if its going to include more animal forms?) and more choices for elementals.
Here's my current wishlist:
**New Ghost wolf/spirit animal forms**
- Changeable in the barbershop like Druid forms
- Include all the animal options already available as soulshape forms
**Unlock Elemental Skins**:
- All Classic types of Fire, Earth & Storm
- Primal Models from Cataclysm (currently used only if you talent into Primal Elementalist)
- Draenor Elementals
- Pandaria Elemental Spirits
- BfA Models such as the Algae elementals, new storm elementals & the Vol'dun Dust elementals
- Unlock certain types by defeating a powerful Elemental Boss or rare
- Also changeable freely in the Barbershop
**New Spell Cosmetic Options**:
- Colors of Lightning Abilities can be changed to White (Based on Xuen, representing Pandaren Shaman), Blue-green (Based on the Setrakk/Galvanized Lightning) or Yellow
- Fire abilities can be changed to Tidal abilities such as Tidal shock, Tidal Burst (Representing Tide Sages and the destructive properties of Water)
- Earthquake can be changed to Hurricane if you desire a more storm & Wind oriented shaman (Former Druid ability)
- Ascendance model updated to have your character levitate with swirls of elements floating around. Glyphs to use the classic Ascendance & Glyphs to only display the element of your choice rotating around your character.
**New ability**
- Storm Archon, based on the Plunderstorm ability but works as direct damage towards a target, no reticle or empower mechanic, moves in a line towards your target.
45 Sec cooldown, heavy damage against primary target & splash damage to nearby mobs. Ability changes each use similar to New Moon. First cast is Fire, second is Earth and third is Storm. Each element provides a different bonus.
Fire: Grants you Lava Surge & extends your flame shock on the primary target.
Earth: Slows enemies and reduces the maelstrom cost of your next earth shock
Storm: Gives you 1x charge of stormkeeper and applies lightning rod to all affected targets.
**Other additions**:
- New Totem models for classic races
- Non Combat flavor totem of each element
Earth: Grants you nutrients from the earth increasing your out-of-combat health regeneration.
Water: Refreshes your shaman with increased out-of-combat mana regeneration & automatically casts water walking on you.
Air: Your Shaman enters a meditative state, granting you levitation as long as you stand still, and automatically casts lightning shield on you.
Fire: Increases your spirit by 4 and can be used as a cooking fire by you and all party members.
Include an ability to drop all 4 flavor totems at once
IIRC, in Mulgore, new tauren ar turned into spirit hawks to be transported by a tauren spiritwalker (shaman). Which makes it even infuriating that shaman do not have a flying ghost animal form.
Of all the shaman things to update, this is pretty low on my list. The ascendance form is criminal. Primordial wave sucks. The ability bloat. But of course an update to these shields would be welcome.
[I think you might be right](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/064kGmgYs21-77537celfmRiXGRBOce88ytBXSxHL7-L-N3KFiAFAdY4t9Y0wtSJSoT6KZruWa_8xa_l5QgRlfQ6FIgiXE8t1oTQpA)
Or the Ascendance form
Or the lava burst
Or the chain lightning
But it's okay, we got a new visual for lightning bolt in legion, spell that we currently do not even use anymore considering we are lava burst spam build now
Chain Lightning gets a pass due to overload though. There's nothing as satisfying as casting chain lightning and having it spread to everyone followed by an immediate chain lightning again, hitting everyone. That shit is epic.
Now if they made an updated version of chain lightning I'm sure it would look *even* cooler.
Okay but they added the jpeg in Legion.
There was a massive selection of fresh, arcing lightning effects from Throne of Thunder. They still look good today and mobs use them all the time. Sometimes mobs use them *for lightning bolt.*
This is one of the main reasons I stopped playing Shaman. There are quite a few... but this is one of them. I'm also disappointed they removed the old Shadow Bolt animation.
Legit reason why I play lava burst build. I despise that animations and graphic. Like just have a single chain lightning bolt instead. Art direction was clearly not working that day.
it's my entire reason that I play Enhancement instead of Elemental. I might switch back for TWW because of that lightning only build that tickles me in just the right way like TBC Shaman did of being big and stupid and ridiculously simple
100% agree made me not enjoy ele shamy anymore cause of that it looks so ugly and there was in mop a updated lighting bolt like the old one but better fx that never made it to rework and it got replaced with that we have now that is rly off putting
Some of the commenters under this post are really playing on some burnt-out hardware at 720p if they think the literal JPEG (ever zoomed in on the flat fucker while hitting a target dummy?) stands the test of time and can compete in the same gaming environment with particle-rich spells like fireball, pyroblast, shadowbolt, or star surge in the year 2024.
Since i dont play resto shaman i forgot about the Water Shield, but yeah, that also looks like in 2004 [Image post updated](https://i.redd.it/23kx5xgyg68d1.png)
To be fair Lightning Shield doesn't really need updating. It's just a lil shocky orb, looks fine as is. Turd Shield definitely needs an update however.
It’s understandable for old zones to be outdated, because they’re not relevant anymore.
It’s inexcusable for an entire class to have such antiquated visuals (and design!)
TB is getting an earthen npc in tww who acknowledges that Dwarves are dicks and it's the biggest non event related change to tb I can think of in a long time.
if an animation/visual/model looks good, I'd rather they don't change it to appease the "outdated!!"-crowd. It's not a given that whatever they replace it with, is going to be better. I still wish I could toggle older models and animations. Not to mention sounds. Every ability used to have a unique, easily recognizable sound until they decided to replace them all with generic "pffffff, tsssssss" sounds because some people were crying they wanted something new.
New for the sake of new is the most useless endeavor ever. Fun fact: they took away the original sound of shadowform (in Cataclysm, I believe), and the "new is always better"-crowd cheered ("sounds so much better!!"). And a few years later, they changed it back to the original sound, but all the newbies didn't know that, they thought it was just a new sound, and again, they cheered "so much better, yay!". QED.
I mean if it looks good, don’t change it in my opinion.
Most people loved the visual spells update back in what (MOP?) I can’t remember. Either way, I am one of the few who did not like that. I’m happy that others did though, I just wish I had an option to enable older spells again.
I actually like how these look even though they are old. Theres some other shaman visuals I wouldn't mind the old visuals instead of the new ones as well.
But any and all efforts to changing any shaman visuals needs to be directed entirely at Ascendance.
Anything else being updated before Ascendance imo is entirely miss allocated resources.
It either needs to be entirely removed and replaced with a glowy effect or entirely reworked to look nothing even remotely what it looks like right now.
It is the ugliest thing in the entire game imo
As far as i can tell they rwmoved all bright yellow effects and reserved that color for damage numbers. Inoticed this in the SOO raid where the yellow numbers are always dominating the screen
Hunter also very dated.
Everyone seems happy about their recent "rework" but there's no real mechanical or aesthetic changes. Don't be surprised if Shaman's is the same.
They should let you customize your totems or pic the forms your spirit wolves and elementals are. No reason orcs and maghar can't use the Dranor elemental models
I hear you on the shields, but in my opinion, the most egregious crime was Blizzard turning the windfury animation from swirling gusts of wind to little baby farts.
Earth shield would be so cool if it looked like a barrier but every time it got hit it solidified and cracked like earth. Same think with lighting shield.
Earth shield could look so much cooler. Like imagine slabs of rock on the chars body, or slabs that flour in from of you and moves in between you and your enemy.
Lightning shield could have this static electricity look coming off your char that jumps out towards an enemy when hit.
Terribly boring atm.
If monks are finally getting a glyph so that tiger palm actually hits with your melee weapon shamans definitely deserve some glyphs for variants of those spells.
Npcs lightning bolt: ball lightning or just launching a straight up mini storm cloud
Player lightning bolt: ugliest vfx line I have ever seen.
Honestly the new dragonflight primalist vfx for spells looks so cool, I wish we got them.
Shamans posting stuff like this as if Lava Burst and Lightning Crash aren't the best visuals any two abilities on any specs have. Top notch cherry picking from the second most melodramatic class in the game.
they add too many elementals and elemental themed enemies every expac for Shamans to be so limited
How cool would it be if they added quests for shamans to bend elementals to their will out in the wild and then they could summon them in combat for different advantages. Shaman Pokemon!
Rag, I choose you! *DIE, INSECT*
Rag Lightlord, I choose you! *LIVE, INSECT*
***TOO SOON, SHAMAN. YOU HAVE SUMMONED ME TOO SOON!***
Call me crazy but this is the kinda thing I wish Warlocks could do. I very, very much do not like being forced to use Felguard. Let me go seek out and tame a different monster to basically appearance swap my Felguard.
Would make sense since warlocks are already in the line of "subjugation" more than "taming", and they even already have a (useless) spell called "subjugate demon"
Yes please. All of this. Or let us assign felguard traits to our other demons. My sayaad is literally just eye candy on my char select screen, she deserves better :'(
Even if there was no combat advantage, but just cosmetic appearances for the elementals they summon.
Yeah! I seems silly having so many elementals out there and they don't want to vibe with one of the greatest shaman who ever lived! (me)
Why can't I have elemental themed Ghost Wolf forms. Druids got a fire boomkin!! Some bullshit
But they updated the totems…and removed 90% of them being out.
You guys got updated totems? *Cries in Tauren*
Yea but i'm not sure if we got a fire totem as i haven't seen it in years.
Oh man. You just brought me back to the totem quests of old. Forgot about those!
I'm tempted to play cataclysm classic being one of my favorite expansions (except for that last raid, I hate it with a passion) just for the class quests like shaman totems. I liked the old Ele and Enh playstyles even if they're really not anything special.
An updated model of the tauren totem even exist, they just choose not to give it to players for god knows what reason.
I'd be okay with a recolored version of the highmountain ones just give me something.
Tauren and Dwarves need to band together on this matter, even though the Dwarf totems came out later in Cata, they've stayed that way since
[I'm with you my Dwarven brother](https://media.tenor.com/r2q66xzJ-wgAAAAM/handshake-tough.gif)
Taking totems away is actually a travesty. Dropping your totems and being buffed felt right. Totems as only situational cooldowns is kinda lame
I remember having a macro that just dropped them all or w/e. Was just busy work. Would like seeing them as spell effects but having to drop them again isn’t interesting.
If casting storm strike dropped wind fury totem that would be enough for TWW
I'm surprised we didn't see https://www.wowhead.com/spell=287768/thunderaans-fury make a return in some form for the Totemic hero talents for Enhancement
I made a macro to cast that thing that moves all your totems to @player anytime I cast stormstrike. Might work for what you want. Only need to cast WF totem every 2 minutes.
Sure. I like the presence of the totems
Eh it should just be a passive aura taking a gcd every 2m is a bs "skill" Check. Blizzard should move away from totems being boring passive auras that are just every other classes free bonuses but worse. I mentioned elsewhere but I think they should be passively summoned as damage boosters by certain abilities. Passive, look cool and something to react to that isn't just a gcd required everytime you walk into a new room that makes you perform as well as every other class.
We had [Call of the Elements](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=66842/call-of-the-elements) that we could cast to put down 4 totems of our choice at once.
That seemed like the perfect solution. Set up your totems beforehand, click a button and plop them down. It may not be the most engaging but it definitely makes you _feel_ like a WoW Shaman.
That's the issue with a lot of things in wow now really. So much "QoL" to ensure people aren't juggling suboptimal mechanics but it sacrifices all the flavour. Like shit, as much as it was toxic gameplay, at least totem stomping represented different tactics for dealing with an enemy. There always was something with shaman in their circle of totems laying claim to an area and everyone fucking knowing it. I can imagine the frustration doing M+ with you needing to move totems every 2 seconds though.
Yeah for pvp especially it presented a question of "do you switch targets to get rid of that totem, or do you stay on and deal with the consequences of it being up?" Kind of like the choice between getting a debuff off or not vs using your cooldown for something else. Is there something else more pressing that is worth eating the additional uptime of that problem? Plus the flavor *was* cool, but yeah, there should be a good middle ground of maintaining QoL while keeping that bit of class identity. I swear I guess I just don't play the game enough because I feel like the only person who plays shaman and likes it lol.
For what it's worth, it never was an interesting choice, which is why Blizzard built in tech specifically to make it harder to switch to totems - you essentially had to click on it manually, and couldn't switch with tab or a macro. For any melee class, it was worth throwing out a builder on it.
I would say that’s my biggest thing re totems in PvE as an enhancement main. Our rotation is already busy enough - in a good way, mind you - but if we had to use a GCD every x seconds to put a totem down that did some.. passive effect that really isn’t super impactful or noticeable.. that really just feels bad to the flow of the spec imo. PvP though I definitely think it’s a good class concept/fantasy to have a totem to deal with x issue or control a specific area.
> but if we had to use a GCD every x seconds Now I've played shaman for quite a while but back when Call of the Elements was a thing, totems lasted much longer. Searing totem lasted 60 seconds for example.
The old buff totems were like 90 seconds to iirc some were 5 whole minutes.
Pretty sure the stat ones and resistance ones were long right?
- [Strength of Earth Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=8075/strength-of-earth-totem) - *The totem increases the Strength and Agility of all party and raid members within 40 yards by X.* ***Lasts 5 mins.*** - [Stoneskin Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=8071/stoneskin-totem) - *The totem protects party and raid members within 40 yards, increasing armor by X.* ***Lasts 5 mins.*** - [Flametongue Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=8227/flametongue-totem) - *The totem increases the spell power of all party and raid members within 40 yards by x%.* ***Lasts 5 mins.*** - [Healing Stream Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=5394/healing-stream-totem) - *Summons a Healing Stream Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for* ***5 mins*** *that heals party members within 30 yards for X every 2 seconds*. (Currently 15 seconds) - [Mana Spring Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=5675/mana-spring-totem) - *... 5 health at the feet of the caster for* ***5 mins*** *that restores X mana every 5 seconds to all party and raid members within 40 yards.* - [Elemental Resistance Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=8184/elemental-resistance-totem) - *... 5 health at the feet of the caster for* ***5 mins*** *that increases the Fire, Frost, and Nature resistance of party and raid members within 30 yards by X.* - [Wrath of Air Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=3738/wrath-of-air-totem) - *... This totem provides x% spell haste to all party and raid members within 30 yards.* ***Lasts 5 mins.*** - [Windfury Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=8512/windfury-totem) - *The totem increases the melee and ranged attack speed of all party and raid members within 40 yards by x%.* ***Lasts 5 mins.*** (Currently 2 mins) - [Searing Totem](https://www.wowhead.com/cata/spell=3599/searing-totem) - *Summons a Searing Totem with 5 health at your feet for* ***1 min*** *that repeatedly attacks an enemy within 20 yards for X Fire damage. The totem will prefer to target enemies that are afflicted by your Flame Shock or Stormstrike effects.* (This would stack Searing Flames and be a huge DPS buff for Enhancement so that it was our mandatory/baseline Fire totem). We had Earthbind on a 45 second life but it's currently down to 20 seconds. Same with Healing Stream Totem (5 mins down to 15 seconds), and Windfury Totem (5 mins to 2 mins). All of our major buff totems were on 5 Min CD while our main DPS totems were on 1 minutes; utility totems tended to be 6-20 seconds. Honestly, the 2 min cast of Windfury is fine. I end up pressing it more often just from moving to new packs (Mythic) than I do from it expiring. Bringing back more totems to make Shaman more unique again would be fine with the longer times though it may require tuning given the Mythic design process of lots of spread out packs and constant moving.
It was 1 button, I’d rather have my totem fort back and deal with the extra button. We even had a seperate ui element just to sell it your 4 totems then plop the fort I loved that. It felt like class identity now I feel like a worse fire mage and hate it
do you remember those NPCs that summoned a weapon to their side? I think they were in SL dungeons in revendreth. That's how totems should work.
Like dancing rune weapon?
is that what the name of the spell was? I'm really not sure edit: googled what that was, yes, exactly like that
It’s a blood dk spell that summons a copy of the dk’s weapon. In Shaman’s case it could summon copies of ur totems and maybe they do stuff. Or just for show I guess idk. I’m not good at game design stuff
I'm just thinking more of a mobile totem. instead of placing searing totem or whatever in one spot it'd float around you. same with wf or whatever it may be.
Yeah, it was right up there with Paladin buffs being what, 15 minutes? Clicking your Pally Power macro 40 times was not engaging gameplay any more than micromanaging totem placement. Turning totems effectively into auras based off the player character loses some of the class identity, but in exchange opens up a *lot* of dynamic play for the class during fights with a lot of movement. Class identity that *feels bad* isn't doing anyone any favors or making the game more fun to play.
Unfortunately, that sort of design is really horrible in M+ where you are constantly moving. Also, if we're being honest, that design is horrible in all avenues of gameplay other than raids (where you can reasonably expect to stand your ground and fight). Imagine just questing and having to drop 4 totems before killing a mob...
Cata at least had the totem hotbar where you could just assign 4 totems to drop in one click. Still sucked to drop them all on every pull though.
We still have to with Windfury totem as Enhancement, admittedly.
You can at least macro the totem moving talent to something since its off the GCD, so it's more or less every two minutes. Also a useful button if you use the speed boost totem since you can redrop it and extend the buff.
U used to have a totem bar, 4 slots, one totem of each element and a button to summon all at once. Would be one gcd used up for a new pull, I dunno if it would be too strong to take the summon off gcd (tho ofc keep the totem to summon the earth/fire/storm elementals on gcd and as seperate totems not in the totem bar) I would absolutely be fine with that to get the flavour back for my shaman.
Wasn't there a spell at one point to re-cast your totems to a different area with a fresh duration at range? It's not that crazy. People saying it's too much work uninteresting or undoable imo just aren't right.
The only way it'd be workable would be to take it off the GCD, which would then force everyone to macro it into other abilities. I suppose they could make a purely visual version, like druid treant form.
I wish treant form was off the gcd so I could macro it, but for some reason this purely aesthetic thing has a 1.5 second cooldown. Why?? I just wanna be a tree
Totems really ought to be cooldowns like they are for Resto. When you drop a totem, something cool should happen. If it was ever buffs, it would have to be like aug buffs.
Most mobs doesn't require you to drop 4 totems for buffs.
Have the "drop all 4" setups we had in Cata and make Totemic Projection a low CD, should solve that. Maybe slow M+ down some so it's not nonstop movement.
That change made me stop playing my shaman. There was just something cool about plunking down four totems that help me and my group for a big fight.
I would have preferred a play style where totems were optional, the way you can Grimore of Sacrifice your Warlock pet. I don’t want to make totems, I want to shoot lightning at motherfuckers.,
I just hit 70 on my shaman, half the tree feels useless. 3 seconds lower CD on random utility totem? The amazing ability to move totems, those things I don't use in elemental? Even in restro or enhance it seems extremely lackluster.
As a gcd you have to press before doing everything was pretty bad too. I think the main shaman cd should be dropping 4 totems and they supercharge you for a bit, then make abilities passively summon one every once in a while for bonus effects. For example make elemental blast the baseline finisher and instead of giving a random buff it drops a totem that gives that buff, storm haste, fire crit, earth mastery. Maybe even add some synergy talents that cause your abilities with the same element as your active totem to cause an overload from the totem, like Lava burst with the fire totem out causes fire to shoot from your recent fire totem, or if eb summoned a storm totem your lightning bolt is buffed instead. I don't know why they can't apply new gameplay ideas to old abilities. Old totems sucked but they didn't need to, just compare Lava Surge totem to Searing totem, put a cd and make it not a maintainance buff and it feels good to press.
I understand why blizzard removed buffs in any serious play it just feels like shit not to have so play the puzzle game to get what you need. But in casual play it is really nice to buff randos. I think it would be fun for blizzard to add open world abilities that doesn't work in raid settings but are fun abilities. A shaman being able to slam down a windfury totem in the open world to help anyone within 60 yards would be mad fun.
>I understand why blizzard removed buffs in any serious play it just feels like shit not to have so play the puzzle game to get what you need. I mean evokers are a thing now we should have windfury totem back
>Taking totems away is actually a travesty. Dropping your totems and being buffed felt right. Totems as only situational cooldowns is kinda lame Since there’s so many issues with dropping a stationary totem in the various avenues of content right now… what I think might be cool is: • Have a totem effect be a rider on certain abilities that are already part of your combat rotation • Have an optional Shaman-only class-quest reward be a back item that’s a set of totems (like the ones Tauren have access to already) which match the race-specific totems. • Have the back item by default appear deactivated/off, but when you use one of the abilities that triggers the totem aura, the back item “activates” and glows or animates or whatever the usual active totem should look like. So now Shaman get visibly distinct totems on the field and they don’t have to worry about placement or using GCDs to summon/unsummon them, and they don’t have to worry about accidentally forget about one that ends up aggroing a stray patrol. Best of all worlds?
It's because people who didn't play the class would complain that they didn't like Shaman's due to the constant GCD usage for the totems. Which was insane to me because imagine playing Hunter and complaining about pets or Warriors and complaining about rage. Totemic NOT bringing back the totem bar is ridiculously disappointing to me. Totems, floating "shield" and the weapon enhancement trails are such iconic shaman things. It was also tragic that they removed the weapon enhancements for a few expansions.
Yea, they updated Dwarf totems. ..in 2010.
What I don't understand is how a shaman can cast stormkeeper, an ability that buffs your lb by like 150% or so, cast lightning bolt, and it looks like a small arc of electricity
Have they updated the Tauren totems? I haven't played in a long time, but I remember up to Shadowlands, tauren shamans still have the vanilla model of the totems, which is honestly the laziest thing ever.
They made an updated Tauren totem model in Legion. As a prop. Tauren shamans still use the vanilla model.
I just don’t understand why we don’t lay down tots anymore
Many totems have not been updated in over a decade. (Dwarf, Tauren, etc.)
It’s either that or be augment level required, most shaman dps don’t wanna sacrifice their own dps for some totems that consistently buff everyone.
As much as I like the theme, totems are archaic in design. I'm cool with them being temporary but they need to be untargetable since they're just a different flavor of CDs. No other class can have their defensive or offensive CDs destroyed by 1 tick of damage from any auto/spell/pet etc.
Yeah, mechanics wise, they’ve always been a mess. But they’re such a huge part of the class flavor and fantasy, and there’s plenty of precedent for indestructible objects with stuff like monk statues and the like. I’d have been happy with a glyph or something for spells to have a 5% chance to drop a cosmetic totem at our feet.
I've never understood why lightning shield is designed the way it is. Originally, the spell was great at damaging grouped enemies in WC3. It forced players to have to separate their units a bit. Why it was called a shield is beyond me. Nevertheless, if I'm an elemental shaman in a pve setting, my expectation is that I'm not taking damage. So just use the spell as it was originally designed - as an aoe damage spell.... Hell, if we want to do more here, make it a shield you put on your totems that deals damage in aoe fashion based on proximity. Shaman design is so frustrating.
They could just allow you to cast Lightning Shield on someone else... (you know, like the tank). Yes, it's a bit support-y, but it's minor and shouldn't be a big deal. Augmentation already has a similar mechanic. And resto shamans have been able to Earth shield tanks (anyone) forever.
You can do that in HoTS as Rehgar their shaman unit, it's pretty neat
Shamans *should* be support-y. They were originally advertised as a "jack-of-all-trades, master of none" type of class that did a little bit of everything, and made everyone else better at their jobs while they did it. Then they stripped most of that utility away because it was supposedly bad design. Then they gave evokers a utility/buff spec lmao
>most of that utility away because it was supposedly bad design *looks at druids* Yup, definitely the classic Blizzard consistency of logic there.
All I can say is I really miss thorns. Playing remix with Mark of arrogance has really made me miss the old days.
They stripped all that away over a decade ago. So were paladins and warlocks (debuffers). So don't really hold Aug against them.... People who are happy with the way classes have played for almost two decades would've been livid if their classes were suddenly supports again. But yes, spoilers, it's right in the name "Enhancement". And to be fair, they still do have some minor support... at least Enhancement can bring windfury (and mana spring). Resto still has mana tide, but it's been quite neutered and mainly serves more as a self-cooldown with talents.
That's not what enhancement is referring to. Enhancement means they are using the elements to enhance their weapons/fighting. The class has a spec that uses elements directly (elemental) and a spec that uses weapons, and is enhanced by the elements. It was literally never a reference to "the spec that enhances their friends."
Please just give me a shaman spec that builds off of what rehgar is in heroes of the storm and I will be happy.
Having it on Elemental never made sense outside of PVP. At least with Enhancement you're in melee and may be taking AOE damage, but even then.
It's directly melee attacks only, so it's only ever if the tank doesn't have threat.
Well, fuck.
It’s one of those things that was probably initially designed with enhance tanking in mind, like Rockbiter and Earth Shock causing additional threat.
Ah, back in the good ol' days of shaman tanks 😭
I think it would be cool if lighting shield was similar to the pally shield of vengeance but instead of an AOE it was a ST
They should've added a lightning shield rework to the TWW stormbringer talent tree. It was the perfect place for it. Just make it like a 1 min CD that auto casts chain lightning to x targets around you every second for 6 seconds or something. It doesn't have to be crazy complicated to be an improvement of the dead spell it is now
> Originally, the spell was great at damaging grouped enemies in WC3. Ironically, this is how it still works in HotS. Rehgar can put a lightning shield onto allies (or even his own totem) to damage all enemies surrounding said ally/totem. The odd one out seems to be WoW :(
> Nevertheless, if I'm an elemental shaman in a pve setting, my expectation is that I'm not taking damage. Well they could do something creative with it. Lightning bolt could power up the shield, and then you could cast it towards a group when its powered up, doing damage and stunning. Or you could consume the powered up shield yourself, making your next totem last 50% longer. There isn't enough choice in WoW. There isn't enough times where you get meaningful choice on how to "spend" something. Its usually always offense vs defense, or single target vs. AoE. I wish they'd explore that more.
It literally worked that way before Maelstrom. Maelstorm is just the old Lightning shield charge build up > spend loop in an official resource form.
It should be a self-targeted AOE for Enhance, and it should be placed on an enemy target for Ele, or a friendly target for Resto. Each case it should do AOE damage to enemies within 5 yards of the target (self, enemy, or friendly).
The absolute worst offender in the entire game is the ascendant forms… legit cata mob models that don’t even have full animation. They feel like placeholders that we have somehow been stuck with.
Overall enhancement capstone talents make me sad, wolves are nice, but then I get to choose between Primordial Wave which I dislike and Ascendent which is absolutely ugly. But hey, it makes your abilitirs ranged, which Ret has as a baseline.
Ret doesn't get ranged melee attacks in tww. All melee have been returned to ass inspection duty.
They removed the increased melee range talent in their class tree, but ret still has 30 yrd range on Judgement and Hammer of Wrath. They still have the Jurisdiction talent giving Blade of Justice & Final Verdict 20 yard range as well. So almost the entire ret rotation can be done from 20-30 yards away.
baffling choice given that extended melee range is one of the things i see the ret rework praised for the most. the melee/ranged dichotomy is frankly outdated at this point - it's pretty rare for most ranged classes to actually have to give up globals to move, and most of the mechanics that would require that have a gateway ready anyway so the dps uptime balance is skewed extremely heavily against melee classes
Blizzard and fucking over melee, name a more iconic pairing.
I really don't get why Blizzard decided to put Primordial Wave on all of the Shaman Specs and not distribute these Covenant abilities accordingly. I would have put Chain Harvest for Enhancement, Primordial Wave for Elemental, and Vesper Totem for Resto.
Not to derail too much, but funnily enough when Wraith Walk for DK was introduced in Legion they said it was a WIP animation and they'd have the new one soon. On topic I think they should get rid of LS and make it a proc when hitting 3 targets with crash lightning. It lasts x seconds per targets hit over 3 or just does more dmg the more you hit and have it act like WC3 LS instead of the weird one we currently have.
Shaman is in dire need of visual updates, as well as more choices for Ghost wolf (maybe rename it to spirit animal if its going to include more animal forms?) and more choices for elementals. Here's my current wishlist: **New Ghost wolf/spirit animal forms** - Changeable in the barbershop like Druid forms - Include all the animal options already available as soulshape forms **Unlock Elemental Skins**: - All Classic types of Fire, Earth & Storm - Primal Models from Cataclysm (currently used only if you talent into Primal Elementalist) - Draenor Elementals - Pandaria Elemental Spirits - BfA Models such as the Algae elementals, new storm elementals & the Vol'dun Dust elementals - Unlock certain types by defeating a powerful Elemental Boss or rare - Also changeable freely in the Barbershop **New Spell Cosmetic Options**: - Colors of Lightning Abilities can be changed to White (Based on Xuen, representing Pandaren Shaman), Blue-green (Based on the Setrakk/Galvanized Lightning) or Yellow - Fire abilities can be changed to Tidal abilities such as Tidal shock, Tidal Burst (Representing Tide Sages and the destructive properties of Water) - Earthquake can be changed to Hurricane if you desire a more storm & Wind oriented shaman (Former Druid ability) - Ascendance model updated to have your character levitate with swirls of elements floating around. Glyphs to use the classic Ascendance & Glyphs to only display the element of your choice rotating around your character. **New ability** - Storm Archon, based on the Plunderstorm ability but works as direct damage towards a target, no reticle or empower mechanic, moves in a line towards your target. 45 Sec cooldown, heavy damage against primary target & splash damage to nearby mobs. Ability changes each use similar to New Moon. First cast is Fire, second is Earth and third is Storm. Each element provides a different bonus. Fire: Grants you Lava Surge & extends your flame shock on the primary target. Earth: Slows enemies and reduces the maelstrom cost of your next earth shock Storm: Gives you 1x charge of stormkeeper and applies lightning rod to all affected targets. **Other additions**: - New Totem models for classic races - Non Combat flavor totem of each element Earth: Grants you nutrients from the earth increasing your out-of-combat health regeneration. Water: Refreshes your shaman with increased out-of-combat mana regeneration & automatically casts water walking on you. Air: Your Shaman enters a meditative state, granting you levitation as long as you stand still, and automatically casts lightning shield on you. Fire: Increases your spirit by 4 and can be used as a cooking fire by you and all party members. Include an ability to drop all 4 flavor totems at once
Blizz, gimme my ATLA RP pls. Aquatic dps visuals instead of fire makes for cool water bending style type of stuff. I like this!
Just waiting for the Bloodbending update smh
I want that spider form so baaaaad
IIRC, in Mulgore, new tauren ar turned into spirit hawks to be transported by a tauren spiritwalker (shaman). Which makes it even infuriating that shaman do not have a flying ghost animal form.
While we're talking about outdated visuals, holy priest still uses heal effects from classic wow on flash heal and heal.
power word: shield too for priests
And Holy Fire too, I think.
Of all the shaman things to update, this is pretty low on my list. The ascendance form is criminal. Primordial wave sucks. The ability bloat. But of course an update to these shields would be welcome.
The 2006 is for the Earth shield, for the Lighting shield is actually 2004
Dear lord 😭
This is from [2003](https://i.imgur.com/78KKFU0.jpeg) so it pretty much goes back to whenever the spell was first made, whenever that was :p
Wc3?
[I think you might be right](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/064kGmgYs21-77537celfmRiXGRBOce88ytBXSxHL7-L-N3KFiAFAdY4t9Y0wtSJSoT6KZruWa_8xa_l5QgRlfQ6FIgiXE8t1oTQpA)
Holy shit. The lightning shield visual is old enough to drink.
Why would you change perfection?
Be careful what you wish for. They "updated" chain heal and completely ruined and removed the most iconic heal in the game.
Or the Ascendance form Or the lava burst Or the chain lightning But it's okay, we got a new visual for lightning bolt in legion, spell that we currently do not even use anymore considering we are lava burst spam build now
Chain Lightning gets a pass due to overload though. There's nothing as satisfying as casting chain lightning and having it spread to everyone followed by an immediate chain lightning again, hitting everyone. That shit is epic. Now if they made an updated version of chain lightning I'm sure it would look *even* cooler.
At least they ruined chain heal. That was cool
What was the passive that let's you shoot stone spears? I know they removed it, but it used to make me feel like an earth bender from Avatar
Earthen Rage
I believe that was our Mastery (in WoD I think?) when they briefly made Multistrike a secondary/tertiary stat.
the real shame is them removing the ball lightning from lightning bolt and replacing it with a stretched out JPEG every time you cast it.
I understand the nostalgia and preference of ball lightning, but I think the 'JPEG' version kinda makes sense for how electricity works
Okay but they added the jpeg in Legion. There was a massive selection of fresh, arcing lightning effects from Throne of Thunder. They still look good today and mobs use them all the time. Sometimes mobs use them *for lightning bolt.*
Or the fact that we did have a good looking arcing lightning bolt ability since classic in *chain lightning*
This is one of the main reasons I stopped playing Shaman. There are quite a few... but this is one of them. I'm also disappointed they removed the old Shadow Bolt animation.
Legit reason why I play lava burst build. I despise that animations and graphic. Like just have a single chain lightning bolt instead. Art direction was clearly not working that day.
it's my entire reason that I play Enhancement instead of Elemental. I might switch back for TWW because of that lightning only build that tickles me in just the right way like TBC Shaman did of being big and stupid and ridiculously simple
Naw the crackling lightning looks good af, especially since we already have another spell that is a ball, the meatball.
I love the newer version tbh
100% agree made me not enjoy ele shamy anymore cause of that it looks so ugly and there was in mop a updated lighting bolt like the old one but better fx that never made it to rework and it got replaced with that we have now that is rly off putting
Some of the commenters under this post are really playing on some burnt-out hardware at 720p if they think the literal JPEG (ever zoomed in on the flat fucker while hitting a target dummy?) stands the test of time and can compete in the same gaming environment with particle-rich spells like fireball, pyroblast, shadowbolt, or star surge in the year 2024.
Look at ghost wolf and Ascendance lol
Please keep all the shaman memes coming. As a shaman main Blizz needs to pay attention to us
Lets not forget that ascendance has had the same visual so long that the expansion the model came from now has a "Classic" version.
Since i dont play resto shaman i forgot about the Water Shield, but yeah, that also looks like in 2004 [Image post updated](https://i.redd.it/23kx5xgyg68d1.png)
Water shield was introduced in BC so 2007
Well if we are being nitpicky about the year the top left picture is of a draenai shaman in T8 so that's from 2009.
When they updated the visual for lighting bolt, it felt like a downgrade to me, imo.
Another day of being the most hated class by Blizz. It's not easy 😔
Nope not easy 😣😞
To be fair Lightning Shield doesn't really need updating. It's just a lil shocky orb, looks fine as is. Turd Shield definitely needs an update however.
Guys just be glad you don’t have to deal with those goofy spinning dog treats they call a Bone Shield ok ?
xd can't argue with this
We’re really going all in on shaman whinge haha
Justified
They should update the turd shield.
Thunderbluff still has 1 mailbox and also floating elevators lol Some parts of wow are super outdated, its been 20 years come on blizzard
It’s understandable for old zones to be outdated, because they’re not relevant anymore. It’s inexcusable for an entire class to have such antiquated visuals (and design!)
>because they’re not relevant anymore. To be fair, that also applies to shaman.
TB is getting an earthen npc in tww who acknowledges that Dwarves are dicks and it's the biggest non event related change to tb I can think of in a long time.
if an animation/visual/model looks good, I'd rather they don't change it to appease the "outdated!!"-crowd. It's not a given that whatever they replace it with, is going to be better. I still wish I could toggle older models and animations. Not to mention sounds. Every ability used to have a unique, easily recognizable sound until they decided to replace them all with generic "pffffff, tsssssss" sounds because some people were crying they wanted something new. New for the sake of new is the most useless endeavor ever. Fun fact: they took away the original sound of shadowform (in Cataclysm, I believe), and the "new is always better"-crowd cheered ("sounds so much better!!"). And a few years later, they changed it back to the original sound, but all the newbies didn't know that, they thought it was just a new sound, and again, they cheered "so much better, yay!". QED.
Shammy FTW.
Power word: shield would have a word
And even some of the "new" visuals look like dogshit. Lightning bolt is one of the most underwhelming spells in the game, same with lavalash
i see two spells that fit the aesthetic of wow and haven't been ruined for the sake of shitting out updates with no real purpose
I mean if it looks good, don’t change it in my opinion. Most people loved the visual spells update back in what (MOP?) I can’t remember. Either way, I am one of the few who did not like that. I’m happy that others did though, I just wish I had an option to enable older spells again.
I get downvoted every time I bring up the fact they ruined chain heal and there's not even a glyph to change it back
shut up and get them 18 new druid forms forced down your throat
I actually like how these look even though they are old. Theres some other shaman visuals I wouldn't mind the old visuals instead of the new ones as well. But any and all efforts to changing any shaman visuals needs to be directed entirely at Ascendance. Anything else being updated before Ascendance imo is entirely miss allocated resources. It either needs to be entirely removed and replaced with a glowy effect or entirely reworked to look nothing even remotely what it looks like right now. It is the ugliest thing in the entire game imo
They haven't changed these because they're already perfect. Earth is a brown rock, it's going to look like a turd regardless of how many polys it has.
dont touch it if its working.
As far as i can tell they rwmoved all bright yellow effects and reserved that color for damage numbers. Inoticed this in the SOO raid where the yellow numbers are always dominating the screen
Hey, don't forget we got an updated icon and visuals for storm strike like seven times in the burning crusade.
Hunter also very dated. Everyone seems happy about their recent "rework" but there's no real mechanical or aesthetic changes. Don't be surprised if Shaman's is the same.
They should let you customize your totems or pic the forms your spirit wolves and elementals are. No reason orcs and maghar can't use the Dranor elemental models
I hear you on the shields, but in my opinion, the most egregious crime was Blizzard turning the windfury animation from swirling gusts of wind to little baby farts.
Rapid fire still looks like a placeholder beta animation
Don’t say that, they’ll just replace all the spell effects with muted “realistic” versions
But the greatest sound effect updates! Elemental sounds so cool
As a mage main, would you shaman players like the shields to look similar to the mage shields with appropriate element visuals?
It's a fair complaint. I would also be angry with poops flying around me.
Earth shield would be so cool if it looked like a barrier but every time it got hit it solidified and cracked like earth. Same think with lighting shield.
Maybe it was just 18 years ahead of its time 🙄
Earth shield could look so much cooler. Like imagine slabs of rock on the chars body, or slabs that flour in from of you and moves in between you and your enemy. Lightning shield could have this static electricity look coming off your char that jumps out towards an enemy when hit. Terribly boring atm.
IIRC they even REMOVED the cool visual effect of windfury weapon, you used to see your character in spinning wind when the effect triggered
I want to main ele so badly but my god this class is fucking neglected
I liked shaman best when totems were their own thing.
If it ain't broke don't fix it 💯
Yes, but they have also dogs which randomly decide whether a parse is 75 or 97 without any input from the player character!
What is perfect doesn't need to be upgraded
If monks are finally getting a glyph so that tiger palm actually hits with your melee weapon shamans definitely deserve some glyphs for variants of those spells.
Need more races for shamans too
They updated almost every spell on shamans. These are the exceptions.
Almost every spell? Elemental shamans still summon cataclysm elementals, the ascendance form, this shields...
Not to mention Lightning Bolt, which has actually suffered a downgrade since Cataclysm.
the first spell u got and the main one somehow got the backhand :))
Yes I said almost. Not all lol
Don’t forgot ghost wolf and ascendance
Earth shield looks like flying cow turds
don't get me started on Ascendant form
Casters comparing spell SFX. Melee martials using the same handful of attack animations.
> Melee martials using the same handful of attack animations. They introduced a bunch of new melee animations since 2006
The same? Dude legion happened lol
Meatball shield
Npcs lightning bolt: ball lightning or just launching a straight up mini storm cloud Player lightning bolt: ugliest vfx line I have ever seen. Honestly the new dragonflight primalist vfx for spells looks so cool, I wish we got them.
Shamans posting stuff like this as if Lava Burst and Lightning Crash aren't the best visuals any two abilities on any specs have. Top notch cherry picking from the second most melodramatic class in the game.