06-16-2004, 02:14 AM
Being a Shaman player I naturally looked over the Shaman changes, and overall I am disappointed. I was expecting a boost perhaps, or mana cost reduction, but instead it seems more of a nerf.
Several useless skills got moved to higher levels - Chain Lightning, Disease Cleansing totem, Poison Cleansing totem. Even the Ghost Wolf form got moved up to level 20. Ugh, what are they thinking??
Weapon buffs got some increased damage, but the mana cost also increased for them! Do I want to spend 400 mana for a 5 minute buff? I know Priest and Mage got some expensive buffs, but even though the Priest's Stamina boost costs about 800 mana, it also lasts for 30 minutes. And the only unique weapon buff, the Windfury, which had a chance to disable target for 5 seconds, got changed to just another damage boost.
And one change that surprised me, the effectiveness of healing spells got reduced as well. It costs less mana, but it also heals less. Shaman was already a subpar healer... And now he is even worse. =\
They also nerfed Earthshock =\ It was one of the strengths of having a Shaman in a party, a decent anti-caster spell.
The highly praised new ability to throw down totems on the run seems silly to me, considering that the totem itself is stationary; why would you want to run away from your totem? Still, if need was there (e.g. I was escaping mobs), I could throw down a totem in under .5 sec, so I don't see is as a big deal.
I guess we will have to wait and see if the few new totems and the higher level skills will be enough to overcome the other changes.
Several useless skills got moved to higher levels - Chain Lightning, Disease Cleansing totem, Poison Cleansing totem. Even the Ghost Wolf form got moved up to level 20. Ugh, what are they thinking??
Weapon buffs got some increased damage, but the mana cost also increased for them! Do I want to spend 400 mana for a 5 minute buff? I know Priest and Mage got some expensive buffs, but even though the Priest's Stamina boost costs about 800 mana, it also lasts for 30 minutes. And the only unique weapon buff, the Windfury, which had a chance to disable target for 5 seconds, got changed to just another damage boost.
And one change that surprised me, the effectiveness of healing spells got reduced as well. It costs less mana, but it also heals less. Shaman was already a subpar healer... And now he is even worse. =\
They also nerfed Earthshock =\ It was one of the strengths of having a Shaman in a party, a decent anti-caster spell.
The highly praised new ability to throw down totems on the run seems silly to me, considering that the totem itself is stationary; why would you want to run away from your totem? Still, if need was there (e.g. I was escaping mobs), I could throw down a totem in under .5 sec, so I don't see is as a big deal.
I guess we will have to wait and see if the few new totems and the higher level skills will be enough to overcome the other changes.