Shaman Suggestions after ~1000 hours of shaman play

[Fortyz]

Edit: I love this game. It is my favorite ARPG, so nothing here is said with malice or any backhanded tones. I am just doing my part to try and see this mastery get better!

First off, love the changes for shaman in 1.0 and its headed in the right direction for sure.

I have spent almost all of my time in Last Epoch on the primalist class, and of that time about 90% of it is on the shaman.

Defensives
Lets talk about the shaman tree, specifically the elephant in the room. Shaman is very squishy. This is a problem. Often a lot of people will refer to primalist as the king of low life, but shaman is not that. The reason for this, is the spell shaman skills scale with attunement, and as a core stat attunement is far less desirable than any other stat. Every other attribute has a defensive property

Strength grants armor
Intelligence grants ward retention
dexterity grants dodge
vitality grants health and poison/necrotic resistance.
Attunement gives mana?

The problem with this is deep. There is no shaman talent in the tree that has language like “less damage taken per attunement” or “+ x spell damage per attunement” or anything like that. There is a new mana regen node for attunement, which is amazing, but if we are dead because we don’t have damage scaling in the tree for attunement, and we don’t have defensive scaling for attunement, what does it matter what our mana regeneration is. So what can be done since the design around shaman seems to be attunement and +2 mana per?

Get rid of the Ironbark talent in the shaman tree, and add a talent that reads something like “3% less damage taken per 100 max mana”, or “3% less damage taken per 100 mana regeneration”. give attunement a scalable defensive layer.

shaman Talents
What else can be done in the tree?
When shaman isn’t casting totems, what is it? A melee? a caster?
It is both. shaman is a battle mage. Look at tempest strike and gathering storm, both of these have melee and spell aspects. Talents like “lagon’s answer” and “thunder strike” need to be combined. “storm blade” and “ascendant circle” need to be combined (and this should not be a final tier talent)

The new conflux talent is amazing. Its great. But it needs to be changed from less damage taken from shocked enemies, to less damage taken from shocked, ignited, or chilled enemies, and the damage taken (if your not adding another source for shaman) needs to be doubled.

Players like to dual wield on shaman as well. The increased damage taken while dual wielding should be cut in half, if not completely removed

As it stand right now, there is some (and a growing amount) of synergy between shaman abilities calling out other abilities in the talents, but there is hardly any synergy with damage archetypes. I remember one time i had asked on stream around the 0.7 beta why there isnt a lightning conversion to avalanche, and i was told “because we did that for meteor, and it would infringe on storm totem,”…Why is there a lightning conversion for meteor, and if your not a totem enjoyer, but you like to master the elements, avalanche feels bad.

Damage Archetypes & skill talents
Now that’s out of the way, lets talk about some core shaman archetypes. The shaman class fantasy is a master of the elements. Those elements include fire, cold, and lightning. Get rid of physical damage for shamans only abilities. Even elemental resistance is fire, cold and lightning…not physical… Every single shaman core ability should have representation of those 3 elements. Fire is missing on avalanche and storm totem, Cold is missing on earthquake, and tornado, lightning is missing on avalanche. those 3 elements are class fantasy. Leave physical damage to the druid and the Beastmaster. There are a lot of ways to do this and make it unique. For example, you could add a talent in the shaman exclusive section, that converts all physical damage to fire, or cold, or lightning. (picking 1),

there are a lot of abilities that have totem conversion (upheaval, tempest strike, warcry)
You guys should have a conversion from totem to self cast for storm totem, and storm totem should use the storm bolt’s.

Closing and new unique ideas
In closing, please add a bunch of shaman only uniques, and here are some ideas

• Tempest strike
  make tempest strike repeat proc its tempest 2 more times f you only have 1 tempest possible,

• Earthquake
  Convert spell lightning damage node to cold, and make it cast when you leap (boots please),

• Tornado:
  Tornado size, area of effect, damage, and pull strength increased by 300%, 10 second cooldown.

• Avalanche
  Avalanche converted to Necrotic damage, and all sources of cold damage are converted to necrotic for this spell

• Storm totem
  Storm totem now summons a lightning elemental to fight for you, and you may have an addition totem (elemental). All increases to totem damage, totem attack and cast speed, totem armor and resistance are converted to minion equivalent for this skill.

[Pingufan]

I would also like them to rebalance all the offensive and defensive notes.
Every single shaman always puts the same 20 points in beastmaster. And most of us take the 5-10 points of druid as well.
The other 2 classes barely use the shaman tree.

Why don’t they put those “mendatory” points into primalist if everybody is taking them anyway…Ofc they would need to give beasty some new notes but it would allow them to put those sweet flat spell dmg notes into shaman

[Fortyz]

Very good point. Be aspect of the Boar should be part of the core primalist tree

[DiceDragon]

@Fortyz

and storm totem should use the storm bolt’s.

No thank you, storm totem does not need nerfs. Storm bolt change was good for some skills and less then ideal for others. Storm totem is my favorite shaman skill and it should be left alone core mechanics wise.

I think shamans biggest problem is a lack of design cohesion. Like you said, shaman is a battle mage kinda. But nothing in its passives or other skills really push that design.

its got totems, its got stand alone spells, its got stand alone attacks and its got passives that are all over the place.

That being said, some points to scaling damage.

@Fortyz

The problem with this is deep. There is no shaman talent in the tree that has language like “less damage taken per attunement” or “+ x spell damage per attunement” or anything like that.

Storm bolt gains 1 flat damage per attunement. So if you are a storm bolt focused build, building attunement gives you large flat damage, and large mana. said large mana can be converted to more damage in stormbolt. And guess what shaman gets in droves? increased damage, thanks to its totem capstone which gives it hundreds of % damage combined with per totem cold idols.

Shaman is in the perfect situation to scale with attunement when it comes to storm bolt. While shaman is def still squishy, I dont think damage is a problem for stormbolt focused builds at all now.

As for removing physical damage from shaman… that would require so much overhaul I just dont see it happening. primalists core elements in general are phys, cold and lightning. So like tornado does physical, are we reworking it to be cold or something? Gathering storm has a physical conversion that deals with melee/str scaling, changing that to fire randomly seems… like a lot of design shift.

[Fortyz]

@DiceDragon

And guess what shaman gets in droves? increased damage, thanks to its totem capstone which gives it hundreds of % damage combined with per totem cold idols.

Using a single niche isnt a great way to say something is fine. Shaman is not just a totem class, nor is it just a cold class. As far as removing phys from Earthquake, Avalanche, and tornado, maybe that would be difficult, maybe not. I’m not a developer I’m just pushing the shaman class towards the class fantasy, which is those 3 elements.

@DiceDragon

So like tornado does physical, are we reworking it to be cold or something

tornado’s base damage should be lightning.

@DiceDragon

Gathering storm has a physical conversion that deals with melee/str scaling

the best part about gathering storm is the storm bolt, and the str scaling is only applicable to the melee swing. The str scaling node inside gathering storm makes the skill itself even less cohesive, As a melee attack, there is a large gap between gathering storm and swipe, tempest strike, and upheaval. Every shaman build is a storm bolt build whether its direct or indirect casting it.

@DiceDragon

No thank you, storm totem does not need nerfs. Storm bolt change was good for some skills and less then ideal for others.

I might not have been clear about this so i apologize, but let me be more specific. storms totems tree should have an area in it that allows it to use storm bolts in addition to its normal casts.

[DiceDragon]

@Fortyz

the best part about gathering storm is the storm bolt, and the str scaling is only applicable to the melee swing. The str scaling node inside gathering storm makes the skill itself even less cohesive, As a melee attack, there is a large gap between gathering storm and swipe, tempest strike, and upheaval. Every shaman build is a storm bolt build whether its direct or indirect casting it.

@Fortyz

Shaman is not just a totem class

See this is why I think there is a divide in what players think shaman should be, and what the devs think it should be/design it as.

Im pretty sure the devs feel like totems are the same for shaman as they are for beasts for the beast master. You dont have to make them the primary focus, but you should and will be using one to turn on other abilities or because there is not much else to fill out your skills with.

And while we seem to feel like shaman is a battle mage, the design of earthquake sorta flys in the face of this. Earthquake is either a melee skill, or a spell skill. never a hybrid. Tempest strike can be specced around being a spell, or a melee attack as well. And it has much more success as a melee attack with tons of nodes playing up its melee scaling.

Shaman has a problem with its theme just like forgeguard. if you asked what forgeguards theme was, most people would say “uhhh 2hander melee guy? throwing guy? minion guy for sure!” no, when asked the devs say the theme of Forgeguard is manipulation of items. Blacksmith theme. and because thats his theme, all of his mechanics actually make tons of sense. He is cohesive to his theme. but his theme leaves a poor gameplay experience.

I am not really sure what shamans theme is supposed to be. its not caster, they have confirmed that much.

I guess im just rambling, but for shaman to move forward in design and discussion I think the devs need to iron out what we should expect from shaman in its design space. its not typical fantasy shamans, and its not totems per say either.

[Fortyz]

@DiceDragon

You dont have to make them the primary focus, but you should and will be using one to turn on other abilities or because there is not much else to fill out your skills with.

Hard agree with this, well said

Maybe the solution is to bring back adaptive spell damage, but instead of making it apply to all spell types, it gives melee and spell damage =p

[laughing_mad]

I’ve been playing a cold-centered spell Shaman using all the 6+ stack maelstrom talents along with GS and Avalanche. Using Warcry and Fury Leap for survive.
It’s a really fun build until you get to empowered. All the sudden, I can’t tank damage anymore with 52% armor mit and midling resists. I’d like to get more resists, but I can’t find them, and I’m completely reliant on Avarice for elemental leech. Shaman feels like it deperately needs more synergy and more ways to stay alive.
Often in empowereds, I’ll be going along fine until I hit that one mob that crits me/stuns me and I just fall flat. It’s very discouraging.
I feel like Shaman could benefit strongly from having Boar moved to Primalist as suggested and getting some crit avoidance and more health/health recovery in their tree. There seem to be too many different chill/shock lightning/cold minion/self damage splitting nodes in the tree so nodes that should be there for survivability just don’t exist.
And this isn’t even getting into the inconsistent amount of synergy in the tree. If you are a cold shaman you are completely locked out of using certain skills. Physical seems to be in a better spot in that regard, but they don’t get as much support in the mastery tree it seems. Lightning is okay, but again you get locked out of using certain skills because of a lack of synergy.
It really feels like Shaman suffers from a lack of development. I look at Falconer or Warlock, and they have tons of awesome synergy. They are newer classes. Why are they so more developed than others? Because EHG learned how to make a class better. They should apply this knowledge to the older masteries as soon as possible. I really don’t want to be playing ‘flavor of the month meta build’ every single cycle. I’d rather play the build I like every time with slight changes.
Edit: I also agree adding a defensive layer to Attunement would be an amazing change.

[Donovan_The_Majestic]

The issue I have is that aside from some armour, Shaman doesn’t have any defensive synergies. Druid has spriggan pets, healing totems, and spriggan form. Beastmaster has aspect of the boar, endurance, and healing nova on its totem (don’t get me started on that). Shaman getting resistance only when they have totems summoned is just not enough, especially when they have no way of summoning totems automatically outside of idols without dipping into druid.

It says a lot that even Shaman’s amazing totem build needs to dip into spriggan form…

[Irrelevant]

I’ll look at this as someone who played Shaman on and off just to be dissapointed always.

The mastery and it’s interactions picture the shaman as a totem class yet there is only one totem inside of Shaman. I would put Thorn Totem into Shaman as a 5 point skill to begin with so there are at least 2 totem skills in there to adress the main focus of the Shaman is totems.

If there are non totem skills for Shaman those should interact with totems. the ammount of totems as damage multipliers od defence gains and whatnot. I would take an Earthquake totem over the current Earthquake skill every time. On the other hand we could do a PoE interaction where you have a totem that casts whatever skill you skill it for a bit like a Druid Shapeshift tree that is all over the place so you can pick and choose and adjust.

To me the skills of the Shaman are niche to begin with but I like the option to have a totem class. Sadly the options to be a totem class boil down to thorn totem Spriggan Form does better and into Storm Totem. Why isn’t there a tank totem? One of the most generic totems ever? Why are there no adjustable totems I can put on avalanche so the totem is casting it for me? Why isn’t there a melee totem that slaps the crap out of enemies nearby?

There are so many options but Shaman ended up in a mess of a hybrid state that isn’t realy beneficial for one playtyle or the other. Heck if I want to play a melee Shaman with Earthquake focus I can’t even make it a lightning skill because all of the sudden that’s a spell option and I only get 10 Atunement as a bonus from the mastery because everything else is targeted at totems. This suxx big time from start to finish.

I would love to have Totems in the shaman tree from start to finish that are able to become a melee or a spell skill. I would love to strap the Storm Totem to my back to be a walking lightning storm or to have an Earthquake Totem that quakes for me at the place where I conjure it at.

There are so many possibilitys to make Shaman more fun, from my point of view, and to make it shine instead of beeing a statstick for a Spriggan.

[IsleOfTheDeep]

It doesn’t help that a Spell focused Shaman is stuck in Melee, while Lagonian Diplomacy does give you a spammable filler spell those Gathering Storm stacks are going to waste if you hang back. They should add a function to Storm Totem to also project a Storm Bolt zone.

Spell Earthquake is another thing forcing your squishy self in to melee. I like it serving as a big Storm Bolt dump, but I’d like it even more if they swapped the increased lightning damage node to a “cast on target” node instead.

These two changes would allow Shaman to go full backline if desired, which is clearly something devs aren’t against, and if they are, why make Lagonian Diplomacy?

The other thing that feels awkward is the half-hearted fire support, in fire tornado and fire quake. I think a unique for Fire Avalanche would be fun here, if Sorcerer gets to steal big lightning bolts from Shaman, lets have Shaman steal Meteors from Sorcerer. Convert Avalanche to Fire and have a chance to Earthquake on hit with Avalanche or something.

[TyphonBaan]

I think the shaman is a walking natural disaster that happens to use a totem. What I think only matters to me, but I thought I’d throw that out there.

I’ve been trying to get a dual-wield, perma-frenzy/haste, tornado spawning, melee/spell hybrid. No, really. Looks like this;

1. Gathering Storm as (mana) builder, Frostbringer converts it to cold (for freeze), eye of the storm to proc Maelstrom (which it does very poorly).
2. Tempest Strike to proc tornado’s.
3. Tornado is intended main damage. Storm Dervish increases attack speed. I’ll spec out of Thunder Strike if/when I get enough skill points. Charged storm to cast more Storm Bolts, but that’s just me trying to squeeze out more damage from the tornado.
4. Storm Totem converted to blizzard as everything occurs in melee range and an additional source of chill/freeze helps
5. Maelstrom for haste, frenzy and more cold. Healing winds is unexpectedly good for some durability, as I’m really struggling to stay alive.

When it’s all working it’s pretty fun. It’s tedious to keep it working though. Gathering Storm isn’t cutting it as a builder (which means I’ll have to spec into mana regen).

I have every single ability to auto-cast Maelstrom except gathering storm because that is useless in a boss fight. I have four ‘cast maelstrom’ idols. I have Beneath the Waves maxed. I mean, it’s stupid the amount of stuff I have to try to keep Maelstrom +6 and it’s barely working AND an incredible chore.

Added to this, I need to cast the totem every time I move. I’m constantly casting Maelstrom (every three seconds) and the totem (every time I move) in addition to trying to keep on target in melee range. If I was ranged it would be easier, but then I wouldn’t need/want Maelstrom.

Here’s what I want;

1. Give us another node after Beneath the Waves that says, “you auto cast Maelstrom when at max stacks of Lagon’s Slumber”. This alone, I think, would allow me to get rid of the idols and all the auto-cast nodes. Or, you know, make the idols and auto-cast nodes not horrible. Or both.
2. Give us nodes to change Maelstrom to lightning and Tornado to cold (this build would want the cold Tornado).
3. Rending Vortex in Gathering Storm just seems horrible. Either change it to, “you have increased crit strike chance” or “Maelstrom has increased crit chance”. If we’re using Maelstrom and Gathering Storm, Gathering Storm is the builder and isn’t spec’d for damage. No one is specing into this node for a lousy ~5% increase crit chance on Gathering Storm.
4. Give us a node in the storm totem that puts it on my back (carries it with me). I mean you have this in tornado, is it too much to ask to allow my shaman to have the totem on my back? I would very much like to carry a blizzard on my back. Please? I’m going to get greedy here now. If you are going to let me carry the totem, then let all the totem defensive nodes in the Shaman passive tree (example; Iron Bark) apply to me (as the totem doesn’t actually exist anymore). This alone I think would go a looong way toward making a melee shaman more survivable. Probably way overpowered, but I can dream.
5. Gathering Storm isn’t cutting it as a builder. Manafused Storm maxes at 5 which means that it cannot work with Energized by the Skies to give you more mana. I’m dual weilding and have as much attack speed as I can get, AND I’m frenzied and it’s still not topping me up in any reasonable amount of time. Can we get a node in here that scales mana gain per attunement? Anything to make this a better mana builder would be awesome.