Maybe I am missing some key updates here regarding shaman with respect to tempest strike or general melee, so feel free to disregard if that’s the case.
I have noticed a few things that are common in other (especially melee) trees. First and foremost, it is very hard to get base crit chance for a shaman without sacrificing something pretty major.
Achieving base crit chance for things like Tempest Strike and Gathering Storm feels very difficult on top of the defense issues. Maybe it is a poor comparison, but when compared to void knight or spellblade, the melee potential of these builds just doesn’t feel up to par and the defenses don’t feel as well established.
I would love to see something like base crit per point of attunement in the class passive tree, or at least some base crit added to existing nodes in the skill trees.
It also seems to be commonly discussed that (more) modifiers are generally missing from this playstyle. Rather than going on too long, I would be interested in what others think and if anyone with more experience in this class/playstyle has any more feedback!
I don’t have a ton of feedback, but Critical Hit is more for Druids, which may be why Shaman is lacking it … Druid has a bunch of crit chance nodes in their passive tree, and beastmaster has one node there too, and other ways to increase crit damage.
Where would you even put the crit? Shaman already has:
Shared Cold
Shared Lightning
Melee Ele/Lightning
Virtually no Phys support, so you’re essentially cold/lightning only, while your 3 tree-skills are baseline phys, but don’t worry, 2 convert to Fire!
Totems! (well, 2 of them, the other masteries get a buff one and the base-skill conversion ones are all melee-oriented)
Endurance only when combined with stun
Outside that, only defensive node requires totems
1 strength node for melee cold, 3 attunement ones pushing you towards health regen + endurance, while having no pure defensive nodes aimed towards it.
I’m fine with Shaman being more of a minion & damage over time class, but right now it’s already too spread out to make sense, you’re basically only ever running it for either Totem Spriggan or Avalanche, the latter lacking defensives to push high enough imho.
I’m currently running full totems (thorn, storm, upheaval into totem and warcry into totem) without spriggan form. Kinda squishy at times, but can definitely do 500c and even kill Aby. Just have to kill stuff before they kill me.
Make Gathering Storm node that make it l a ranged spell at increased mana cost a channeling spell generating stacks (removing the increased mana cost as more stacks = more mana spent/s)
And make a real change to Shaman mana regen to stop the Spriggan form mana battery mechanic idk change the mastery -5 mana cost to totems a + flat mana / sec making % inc mana regen meaningful
I guess I am just recommending a more versatile set of passives that allow you to kind of build more the way you like to play. i guess i’ll test out a more volume based scheme and ditch crit altogether and see if that works out, if it does i’d run that as my cycle starter in april
Shaman is just taped together with gathering storm.
Melee? proc bolts.
Spell? proc bolts through spells or just raw dog self cast them!
Totems? oops storm totems its all bolts.
The mechanic works, and its good. but it feel like all shaman build end up at the same place down the road.
Shamans unique defenses that kinda suck I can live with, im a softcore guy and was able to do 300c and abby with ssf gear with shaman no problem and like 8k ehp. The real problem is shaman just feels really boring and tied to storm bolts to a point you just cant do anything else.
Totems are fucking heinous too. Tempest totems are buggy, weak, and turning off tempests just means you get dead totems that suck ass. Thorn totems are good, but again really straight forward and forced into spriggan. And storm totem really plays the best with one specific build path. upheaval totems rely on jank interactions with self buffing themselves to amount to anything, which at that point might as well use them to buff a storm totem!
Shaman just has no variety, no options, and feels bland and uninteresting. Which is a shame for a character that otherwise could has some interesting scaling options since attunement otherwise feels pretty meh as a stat.
yeah, I mean I could even see some potential with a node that says “the higher of increase cold or lightning damage applies to both” or even a unique that does that. it would thematically make big sense. from a pure coolness standpoint the shaman is currently the most appealing class to me, but every direction i try to take it in feels really weird and not totally appealing…
You’re ignoring all of the various diverse Shaman builds that are also very strong … Just check any of the build websites, or youtube channels … People are doing a lot more with Shaman than you are giving credit for.
I dont mean to be rude, but I think a lot of those builds while not turbo bad, also are not great.
I am a casual myself, but half those builds feel really shit early on and dont improve till lots of gear and then they pop off. the only one id say that really is solid is avalanche shaman, and it can proc bolts too of course!
Fire tornado is bad unless its proccing bolts, then you just go fire to get some extra -mana from items, the tornado itself does nothing but shoot bolts.
EQ shaman is just a squishier worse version of BM EQ, cause for whatever reason BM is solid despite its age.
Spriggan totem is actually imo the worst offender, that feel when I need to use druid mechanics of transforming to make my totems viable when the totem class is supposed to be shaman.
Dont get it twisted, shaman isnt unviable, its just a worse version a lot of the time then another class.
The only reason you go shaman for spriggan pop totems or spriggan totems is because of the shaman class passive being decently strong. But druid is still equal to it in many ways.
All the builds shaman plays other then avalanche and just jank versions of main stream builds because shaman just has so little going for it other then its strong class passive.
Ive seen shaman spriggan totem builds that get the least amount of points in their own shaman tree lol…
I dunno anytime I click on shaman, I go “you know this would just work out better on druid or beast master” unless I need to be shaman like for storm totem.
this is my point exactly. i mean everything just feels out of place. what’s crazy is the visual and theme design are amazing. at this point i’m about to just try stacking massive amounts of frostbite and seeing where that takes me… but i’d rather run some kind of tempest strike/maelstrom combo. tempest strike just has way too many decent nodes and not enough great nodes. shaman altogether just feels like it lacks scalability, which is literally what will make or break a build for end game.
I don’t agree with that assessment … Each one of the builds I listed can complete 100% of the content in the game and then some. There’s no reason to dismiss builds that can push 300-500+ corruption.
Okay I’m kinda cherrypicking here but Whaaat! No way in hell is Tornado doing 300-500 corruption on its own without daddy Storm bolts or some other skill to carry it. Where is this Fire tornado build that can do 500 corruption? I need to see it to believe it.
Hmm That’s not Fire Tornado doing damage, I’ve seen the build the main damage is from the Thorn Totems. Its just using Tornado to cast Storm bolts, He even says it at 10:35 “Tornado you just care about getting Gathering Storm procs”.
Anyway I was just asking cos I’ve tried Tornado on my own and I KNOW that skill ain’t doin damage on its own for shit at 300 corruption with its 30% damage effectiveness and barely 2 ignites per second… was wondering if I missed something.
