The Issues of Shaman

Hello, first time using the forums here, so might not be up to standard; sorry about that!​

Recently, I've regained an interest in Shaman building, because despite it being the last of the classes I played, it has had one of my favorite general feels to it. While the time I've been doing this building has been rather short, there's quite a few things I've encountered; obviously, many of these have been encountered and talked about by other before, some I believe haven't.
To any members of the Content Team, I'm sorry if this comes off in any way as rude or annoying; as stated above, I'm aware plenty of this has been stated before, but hope that I can add some value to the discussion. I also hope that this does not feel like "another annoying post complaining about issues we know about."

It's also worth noting that I did the leveling entirely with Ritualist (with quests, not powerleveling, ironically making Shaman the only class I didn't do some degree of powerleveling on), have only touched Acolyte a small amount, and have not touched Summoner at all.

So, to start, the list of perceived problems I have encountered:
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1. Shaman spell multipliers are frustratingly low.

Of all of the abilities, the standout one is Blood Sorrow, at 800% per second, however, this takes a ton of Blood Pool to cast and is slight negative trade of health that can become Blood Pool again (40% overhealth) as opposed to the 4.666 Aura heals it could be used for, which would grant 140% hp back (with one Totem). Additionally, due to the Blood Pool needed to cast this, it is often not feasible to build it up quickly while casting Aura to maintain health.
Next highest above that is Aura and Uproot, with a grand total of 230% and 240% spell multipliers. If you cycle one of each of these per second, you get a total of 470%. This is where I believe this issue lies.
In comparison, Archer, which has similar Base DPS values on its weapons, can get a Storm-Bomb cycle to 960% + 330% + Shrapnel hits (Boltslinger) and 360% + 320% + Focus + Decimator (Sharpshooter). Those two situations are able to get totals of 1290% and 1394% with ease (Shrapnel and Decimator not counted), ~2.7 to ~2.9 times higher.


2. When fighting a team boss, Totem is often not a viable permanent spell.

Yes, this is referring primarily to the Nameless Anomaly, I acknowledge that this is less of an issue in other bosses, but that is why my proposed solution is an optional node.
In a fight in which the boss and players are traveling around the arena constantly, it leaves Shaman players unable to interact with their Totem in the usual way, as other players will often cause the fight to travel elsewhere in the arena.


3. When using Haul to cycle spell costs, you often more or less follow a line back-and-forth

While this issue can be mitigated by having Rebound and reducing your spell cast rate with that, when casting without it, you often need to cycle at a speed which causes you to be just landing from one Haul before you cast another. As your mobility is very low after getting your momentum drastically shifted and being in the air, you aren't able to reposition yourself before casting another Haul. This results in a cycle wherein you find yourself being launched back-and-forth from two relatively unchanging locations. This isn't a huge issue, but it is rather unfun.


4. Totemic Shatter takes too long to execute.

As it currently works, Totem takes roughly 1.3 seconds to land after being cast on a flat surface, combine that with the 1 second shatter time and you have a spell with a concerning execution time. There are two current solutions available in-game to this dilemma: the Dead Weight major ID and Double/Triple totem. The former works just fine for this, and so I will not comment further on it. The latter comes with a reduction to the damage of Totemic Shatter, but I am also aware that Xavier is aware of this, and so will not make a suggestion. Might make the point redundant to make, but I feel it shouldn't be left out from the list.


5. Aura's travel time is a source of immense damage reduction.

As it stands, Shocking Aura is the sole ability which can fight this. With Shocking Aura, it takes Aura ~0.85 seconds to reach the outermost point of its range. This alone is a major issue with the spell, especially with Rebound doubling the completion time of the spell. Especially with the Ritualist archetype only having one proper damage spell, this massively cuts the damage of the archetype.


6. Hymn of Hate is little more than a convenience in areas you're already strong enough for.

In areas where mobs are weak enough to die to Aura easily, Hymn of Hate is incredible; this is not the case when they do not die to Aura easily. If enemies survive several Aura hits, then they will not be spawning Auras to damage other nearby enemies very often, and if the nearby enemies have similar health, then they are likely dying at a similar rate to the other enemies, meaning Hymn of Hate is not able to contribute significantly to clearing a large amount of enemies as it usually does.


7. Double Totem and Triple Totem cut the healing efficiency of Acolyte.

Without Double Totem, Sacrificial Shrine will grant you 25/30% of your health back in exchange for 15% blood pool. Factoring in Blood Rite, that is 25/30% hp back for 11.111% hp, or 2.25/2.7% hp back per 1 % hp lost.
With Double Totem, this instead becomes 30/36% hp back for 30% blood pool, resulting in 1.35/1.62% hp back per 1% hp lost.
With Triple totem (which is impractical to get, but not impossible), this becomes 37.5/45% hp back for 45% blood pool, resulting in 1.125/1.35% hp back per 1% hp lost.

This can be counteracted by Fluid Healing or the Healing Efficiency ID, but unless you are using Absolution, it is unlikely you get enough of a boost to make these affect self-healing positively.
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That's all of the problems I wanted to comment on, so my 100% veto-able solutions time it is.​

1. These multipliers are very normal for early-game, its really the endgame where they start to fall off. This leaves little room for ideas beyond what other classes have: increases to the base spell multipliers of a spell unlocked further down the ability tree.

2. To fix this problem, I propose a new ability on the tree which would cause players within the Totem's area to be granted a buff which makes nearby enemies target players within the Totem exclusively. This would allow Shaman players to force the fight to stay near their Totem, removing the issue. I would advocate shuffling the ability tree and placing this ability in a way so that is is accessible when having either Storm Dance or Blood Moon. By all means, decide on a different locations, especially if it is determined that it would be better to grant easier access to it to Summoner than Acolyte.
Regarding the concern of phasing out Paladin even further, a Paladin should be able to be withing the Totem, hopefully allowing them to be the agro holder of the team even with this ability active.

3. This might largely go away if other playstyle shifts occur, and it isn't really that big of a deal, but it would be nice if there was some way outside of having high jump height to cause Haul to not launch you upwards significantly, perhaps shift + Haul?

4. As stated above, I do not think I should be proposing another solution to this.

5. I would say the solution is not quite as simple as giving Aura the Meteor treatment of allowing recasts to not replace the other due to one single ability: Invigorating Wave. If you were allowed to cast as many Auras as you want unconditionally, this would likely be the next Manastorm incident. With that in mind, I propose another solution: make recasts enabled by a new ability placed between Chant of the Fanatic and Stronger Tether, and make it be mutually exclusive with Invigorating Wave. I do not think this ability needs to be accessible earlier on, as this issue only really starts to present itself when you approach lategame and benefit from the increased mana sustain available.

6. Obviously, it would be insane to let this trigger the full 50% damage Aura without killing an enemy, so instead I propose that the ability gain a secondary function (or maybe an upgrade, but Ritualist is already currently very tight on ability points and I've already proposed two non-white ability nodes) in which if Aura does not kill an enemy while wearing Mask of the Lunatic, the Hymn of Hate Aura that would spawn instead does only 8% of the normal Aura damage, thus giving it its signature AOE boost without making it overpowered.

7. It seems totally fair that the overall healing quantity would not be left the same per boosted Aura, so I would instead suggest making these two abilities reduce the amount of Blood Pool needed in order to trigger a healing Aura to 9% and 7.5% respectively. If that were to happen, then the rate at which you get Blood Pool would keep its increase, but the health gained per Blood Pool point would remain the same.

Well, that's everything I have to say as of writing this, go wild with the discussion.​

 

ur so real for this

 

shaman is supposed to be a crowd control class not single target
if you want single target use melee
also for number 7, that's the point, you heal others faster but yourself slower

 

Shaman just takes a lot of try hard to get to the same power as other classes

 

But they anyways removed shaman in 2.0.3, so why complain now?