This is for the devs as feedback on the Shaman class and how it needs to be changed to bring it to a point where it can progress past corruption 300 without rolling your face in a floor of spikes.
Some Objective truths on this topic are as follows:
- Shaman as a melee caster is a fundamentally broken concept. In LE Melee & Spell are two different scaling tags as well as being two different ranges in ARPGs. Last Epoch handles this by skill conversion through nodes but this strategy downgrades the capabilities of a character that uses these conversions because skill points are finite; you get 20 of them and a large part of the endgame content is getting more of them.
The classic example of this problem for Shaman is the Earthquake skill through the Storm Rift node. Great idea in hypothesis but in the endgame when comparing this to standard earthquake it costs you a full point to change it to a spell and not only that LE makes the design mistake of changing it to the elemental that shaman is weakest at using, lightning not cold. A lot of Shaman endgame scaling is driven through Spell Damage and Cold Damage Increases, with 10 totems I can increase my cold damage by 400%, this doesnât exist for Lightning Damage. Even if you do convert the Earthquake skill to a spell you still have to use it in close range or medium range with the Ground Slam node; it doesnât allow you any standoff ability to avoid melee attacks.
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Shaman is weaker in melee & spells than its peers Beastmaster and Druid. Beastmaster has the vast majority of its Melee defences in its tree which supports high end development and can then dip into Druid or Shaman to pick and choose what it wants. Druid on the other hand contains a lot of survivability options in its high-end tree as well as damage options so it can pick and choose which other trees to minor in as well. Shaman is in no such position and must either choose to get melee survivability in BM low end tree and have no damage capability that matches Druid / BM because it canât pick up Druid tree as well. Even if you choose Druid low end tree for damage then your damage output is poor as you donât have comparable options to Druid in your high-end tree.
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Shamanâs core mechanic, Attunement, provides no defensive capability whereas every other stat in the game does. While not a bad design decision from LE per se, to make Shaman spec work, essentially free defensive enhancements must be included in the high end of the Shaman tree to offset this issue. By free I mean added to nodes that have good capabilities for no points cost investment.
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Itemisation in the game for Shaman is vastly poorer thatâs itâs class peers BM & Druid, they both get better items than Shaman by a large margin. The most glaring example of this issue is Hakkarâs Phoenix.
HK adds +2 to Melee Skills each so +4. Skill points are the most valuable things in the game. My BM has 30 points in swipe with and I donât have to spend any of them on nodes that offset the issues listed above like Wrath of the Wild and Storm Scour which allows me to focus on getting all multiplicative damage buffs.
Melee Fire damage for you and your minions, not spell damage, not cold or lightning damage, fire damage for minions that BM gets more of, nuff said.
More Melee damage. yay? Fire penetration? Two lots of it? Not a core shaman element.
Solutions to these problems:
- Focus the Shaman spec on spells and range, I am not saying remove melee from shaman entirely, but the truth is that BM does it better with almost all the same skills and that avalanche is a spell only with no melee conversion and storm totem is a minion which is neither melee nor spell. Shaman needs to be a ranged caster with some melee considerations.
To achieve this the following, and perhaps things Iâm not seeing, need to be done:
All Primalist totems that reference shaman spell casts on nearby targets should be changed to closest visible enemy, this will allow things like avalanche balls to slam onto targets without forcing the shaman into melee combat.
Storm stacks should start with a 10m range not nearby which I think is 4m, this will allow a shaman much greater flexibility in positioning at range while still applying damage as you can increase the 10m to 15m with in place nodes. If this breaks melee combat then make it conditional on Lagonian Diplomacy.
Lagonian Diplomacy in the Gathering Storm skill should significantly increase the radius of directly cast storm stacks through Gathering Storm to allow better cleaving with the skill at range.
The Shaman high end tree needs a Damage Reduction that works consistently at all ranges without investing in the BM tree; conflux tries to do this but 8% just isnât enough. The DR on the Conflux node should be doubled to 16% and apply to both shocked and chilled targets.
Shockfury node in the Storm Totem skill should give both Melee and Spell lightning damage.
- Shaman have a distinct problem with power scaling in endgame, BMs scaling is driven through Crit / Crit multiplier / Attack speed / Melee Damage scaling. Shaman scaling needs to follow a similar path Crit / Crit Multiplier / Cast Speed / Spell Damage scaling. This works well with Avalanche balls double cast as well as core damage, from gathering storm, storm stack and spriggan forms Spirit Thorns.
Dervish can cover cast speed, Ascendant Circle can be tuned up so that ten totems deliver 480% spell damage which is about what high end aspect of the shark delivers in melee damage equivalent at 10 stacks.
Rythm of thunder / Thunder Strike can be unliked with Dervish and deliver Crit chance / Crit damage multipliers based on how many active totems you have. This can be the shaman equivalent of aspect of the lynxâs effect.
Storm blade can be converted from the impractical Melee damage per totem, which is terribly low compared to aspect of the shark even with 10 totems (320% versus 1350%), to armour shred chance on spell cast. This will also increase Shaman damage scaling which you can tune up other passives to add this shredding to totems.
Increase the damage multipliers on the Shaman Avalanche nodes. Right now itâs the worst of all Primalist DPS abilities and itâs the only core Shaman Spell.
- Add a four point bonus to Protective circle giving the shaman increased armour per attunement of 4%. This, along with 16% conflux DR above significantly improve shaman survivability while also freeing up some item affixes which are currently being used for armour. Creating this bonus means it will apply to every shaman that exists because who doesnât want to not care about resists when your totems are running?
As general survivability improvements we can modify the stinking piles of garbage Sky Armour and Ironbark passives.
Sky Armour changed to 5 point passive, 40 Points of Armour per point, 2% parry per point with a 2H weapon, 1% block chance per point & 200 block effectiveness per point with a shield.
Ironbark renamed to something cool like Fury Reborn? Not druids am I right? Changed to 5 point passive, +30% totem Health & totem Armour per point, +10% chance on totem cast to be summoned with all previous buffs from the Eternal Storm passive if it wasnât destroyed or expired. The wording here would probably need to be changed but mechanically if you cast totems and previous versions of those totems existed then the buffs they had individually from Eternal Storm would be applied to the new versions of themselves, not to all new totems. This would create survivable totems and actually make the Eternal Storm passive quite useful for the shaman on the move rather than losing them when we recast them every 9-10 seconds.
- Make some new cool shit for shaman or just change whatâs in place. BMâs run with companions and dual wield stuff in melee, Druids smash things in mighty forms and rip things to bits with cold, Shaman fire cold balls and storm rocks while drawing on spiritual energy from their totems with a 2H weapon or a 1H and shield.
P.S.:
Create a seond high shaman ability please? I would like to turn into a Cold Stone elemental and shasm stuff ⌠I really would. 