New Shammy Changes

[Qwack]

I spent today testing the new changes with all three trees in SCs (Will review grouping in ORvR at another time). It appears to be an attempt to bring a balanced style of Damage/Heals to the class largely via life taps and Waaagh mechanics. There are some good things and bad things to examine. Nothing tested is really game changing though. There is give and take. Lets look at the Pros first:


Pros:

The damage bonus for instas with an iterative Waagh decline is very good, especially for Bunch of Waaagh.
If you cast several heals, you can then hit a 2s damage ability at 1.2s several times in a row.
Ill take that and Fury Green can be cast on the run if Waaagh available.
The AP bonus is noticeable and reasonable.


Mixed Bag:

Ill Take That does 350% more heal for another party member but half on self AND it does less damage (about 25%). If you pick a very soft target like a pet or a forward unguarded Caster this can work for others. Where it fails is trying to use this on front line targets like tanks or guarded targets. The damage reduction is severe enough to make it pointless now. Its very situational.

The 80 ft. range on Fury Green has always made this ability tricky. If you stay back and use it on the front line its marginal at best. If you move forward and practically kiss their front line to get good soft targets in their back, it often ends in your death. The new changes do help a little for this.


Con:

Formerly, a Shammy could do a full damage rotation and have Heal Waaagh built to 5 which would allow for an insta-cast of Group Heal or Bigger, Better. Can't now. This is a BIG negative.

Once a heal Waaagh is built up 5 times from a common damage rotation, you can't eliminate it quickly and start a build on the other side. You have to cast 9 heals in a row to rebuild your Damage Waagh.


Bug?

I did not observe Cleanse having a reduced cooldown on other players.

Overall

For pure healing there is not much help here. When things are really tight, you don't take time to do a little damage to an opponent if your team is about to die . This Waaagh mechanic now has a Tit for Tat feel. As in it seems necessary to do 1 Damage, then 1 Heal in order to get the most out of this change. The problem with that approach is it busts rotations. However, while approaching targets, healing your team 5 times otw, then unloading a 4-5 damage rotation works extremely well. Yet the game seldom cooperates for a precise 5 heal rotation then a 5 damage rotation. Sometimes your team doesn't need heals and you are stuck with a 5 stack heal Waagh that you will have to manually grind down at some point with unneeded heals. Or sit still and do nothing for Waaagh to expire.


Conclusion:

Mixed. Losing an insta-Group Heal off of a damage rotation is a big con. Losing Ill Take That for personal use is ruff (its likely too weak for self now) and is a noticeable con. Gaining an iterative damage bonus for hitting instas if Waaagh is up is a solid "pro". The AP buff is nice, but only marginally noticeable. Waaagh is definitely trickier now, yielding only a mixed result.

My SC numbers for the same precise builds using the new changes verse using the old way (did both ways a number of times) were the same. I did see a few insta spikes that were slightly higher than normal, but is this worth losing an insta-Group Heal? TBD. There is definitely more to juggle now without a significant overall increase.

Recommendation:

Allow the Waaagh state to retain its usual cast-time reduction. The loss of insta casts due to full Waaagh is really painful.

OR

Just keep the old code but, if the aim is to increase a more balanced style, one easy way without all these new changes would be to eliminate the heal debuff from Divine Fury. That would take my DPS Shammy Group Heals from 703 to 879, not huge, but some help. That would allow Heal Spec Shammies to slot Divine Fury and occasionally do a little damage while everyone is healthy. That would leave everyone's playstyle intact without all the new juggling for a questionable return.

[Gachimuchi]

The changes are nice for Shaman/AM DPS and the whole general idea of weaving damage idea might be finally realized, as original devs failed in this regard.

However, KoTBs tripleshatter exists still(and TBQH I don't know why it wasn't addressed in the patch) and Shaman will remain in its position as a 3rd rate healer.

[Azarael]

We thought the M1 root changes were a no brainer and a lot of people came out to complain about them.

Imagine what would have happened if we'd decided Destroy Confidence were no longer to be allowed.

I am considering the following in general:

- I'TT's self debuff value (it's in because I do not want to see HoT -> I'TT! cheese loops in 1on1, but if you guys don't think it will make any difference to the 1on1 performance if that is possible then that's fine - I'm trying to avoid doing any further damage to the 1on1 "meta" if I can avoid it)

- I'TT's interactions with Guard. I warned, a long time ago, in a topic on Guard that Guard's ignorance of attacking stats, undefendable status and strikethrough would have severe consequences for lifetaps. Now we see that. Challenge also presents difficulties. I'm considering making empowered I'TT! either undefendable and changing the Guard handler to prevent Guard from defending any undefendable abilities, or making it simply hit for a smaller amount of raw damage, thus providing a consistent heal value.

The other option here is the one I'm very likely to pursue in the next patch, which is changing I'TT! from healing for 350% of damage dealt to healing for twice its base damage (for a total of 600 at level 40) plus 150% of the damage dealt, to sidestep this issue.

- An ability (implemented via an item with a reasonable CD) which transmutes heal stacks to DPS stacks. This gets into "hack" territory for me because it's a high cooldown effect.

The reason the cast time reduction is static and not like the old-style reduction should be obvious. Building 5 DPS stacks and looping between a DoT and the group heal would allow you to continually group heal on the move.

[magter3001]

I'm trying to avoid doing any further damage to the 1on1 "meta" if I can avoid it)

You can't flip-flop on 1v1s...

If you constantly say that you don't give a **** about 1v1s on this server and then select certain cases where you are indeed considering it, then all your other posts of you being so adamant about not balancing with 1v1 in mind becomes completely irrelevant.

You either stick to balancing around 6v6 or you always keep 1v1 in mind with every balance change.

[Gachimuchi]

I'm trying to avoid doing any further damage to the 1on1 "meta" if I can avoid it)

You can't flip-flop on 1v1s...

If you constantly say that you don't give a **** about 1v1s on this server and then select certain cases where you are indeed considering it, then all your other posts of you being so adamant about not balancing with 1v1 in mind becomes completely irrelevant.

You either stick to balancing around 6v6 or you always keep 1v1 in mind with every balance change.

+1

Also what happened to 'overarching' balance changes before addressing classes individually? What happened to the balance forums opening up? Why has development become so opaque since T4 release?

[Tesq]

the problem regard meccanic it's still the same, it build up to slow, and stuff which take 2 sec cast time still reward you with 1 point

1 point should be given for every 0,5 GCD, if 1 lifetap that is istant cast give you 1 point then a 2sec cast time should give ya 4, the reduction of just 1 it's good but both meccanics point should be gained and should be consumed faster that's why i said in past make points gain in ration 2-1 that would make these classes meccanic a lot more faster.

the is no gain now for this meccanic used in a healing build by ppl who like to play hybrid, So in this regard the maccnic is broken it dont allow you to keep spam aoe heal.

The problem are still the ap consume if you do not add a general ap reduction you can hardly pass from offensive to healing skill like meccanic would like you do.

[Azarael]

I'm trying to avoid doing any further damage to the 1on1 "meta" if I can avoid it)

You can't flip-flop on 1v1s...

If you constantly say that you don't give a **** about 1v1s on this server and then select certain cases where you are indeed considering it, then all your other posts of you being so adamant about not balancing with 1v1 in mind becomes completely irrelevant.

You either stick to balancing around 6v6 or you always keep 1v1 in mind with every balance change.

What is to be read when I constantly say I don't give a **** about it is that the community should not bring it up unless I do, that 6v6 and warband balance will always take priority, and we will not address any existing aspects of the game with a specific intent to solve 1on1 issues.

I truly, honestly, do not give a **** about 1on1, and I wish there weren't a scene for it at all. But I have felt somewhat pressured to avoid increasing the potential of these classes in 1on1 through these experimental changes to the extent that they, to use someone else's phrase, become titans instead of gods. Any negative feedback from any aspect of the game threatens the idea of formalizing a change.

But what I see from what you're both telling me is that the community will accept potential improvements to AM/Shaman 1on1 performance if the group issues are fixed. That suits my stance perfectly, and if the community at large is with me in officially casting 1on1 to the wind for the sake of what the game actually is, I'll drop any and all considerations of 1on1.

Also what happened to 'overarching' balance changes before addressing classes individually? What happened to the balance forums opening up? Why has development become so opaque since T4 release?

If we wait for overarching balance changes we'll never progress. Overarching balance changes includes things like looking at how players and the general game state scale with piling on the bonuses from sets, renown ranks and items, armor stacking, Guard interactions with defense, etc. There will be tons of opposition to everything in this group from players who either don't see the issues with these elements in terms of class balance or don't give a damn about them, either because they benefit or they hold the idea that the 1.4.8 Age of Reckoning meta should never be changed. I'm not interested in wading through that minefield just to make changes which affect a mechanic and not an individual skill - i.e. a change that's a lot more consistent with respect to tier and game state in its performance.

Balance forums opening up - they haven't because:

- We still lack a lot of power. People are going to make tons of suggestions and to most of them, I'm going to have to say "Sorry, can't do it - client is authoritative". Even these changes to the AM/Shaman mechanic are possible ONLY because the server sends a buff representing the cast time reduction for each mechanic point to the client, and the values in that buff are mutable.

- Design by committee / blocking concerns, specifically because this would have been a contentious mechanic if proposed directly. If I had made the mechanic proposals directly, I would have been blocked at every turn based on nothing but theorycraft. "We don't need more dps" "We don't want to lifetap" "Lifetapping is not viable atm" "We need lower cast times, AP cost and setback resistance, ignore everything else" "Mechanic is fine, I can instant cast kb / group heal every so often" "Omg 66% more healing on allies isn't dps am op enough lol" - you get the picture.

I would have been just as screwed from the community perspective, except it would have changed from "You failed to consult the community publicly" to "You ignored our considerations". This was a no win. Some members of the community (i.e. Archmages / Shamans) did get advance access to this mechanic and relayed their concerns, by the way.

How I've always worked on balance before this project is:

1. Community discuss issues and come to a consensus on what issues are.
2. I attempt to solve issues with advice from select members of the community.
3. Community tests solution attempt (i.e. doesn't theorycraft on it, tests), goto 1.

What I don't want to end up happening is that the solutions end up being a total design by committee and people start attempting to assert control over the solutions, and block me, because of what I've said about community involvement in balance.

So before people panic: I do not intend to use internal consultation-only changes liberally. Any such changes will be linked to .ab ex, and they will not be formalized without the community's approval. I do, however, intend to use it for changes which introduce a different style of play entirely to a class if I believe the community would otherwise attempt to knee-jerk block, as I believed for the AM/Shaman mechanic changes and for the Engi/Magus range changes, as neither is a conventional solution in the vein of what a lot of forum members propose (changing damage/heal values, changing cast time, sidestepping mechanics with huge targeted buffs like the one proposed for AM/Shaman, converting heal stacks to cast time / ap / setback reduction thus breaking the mechanic, etc.)

Someone will inevitably mention that these issues don't solve heal AM/Shaman entirely. You're right, of course, and I was told as much internally. The concern there is simple: we would solve heal AM/Shaman in a direct way, and then the mechanic changes, when later proposed, would be blocked based on then overpowering heal AM/Shaman. Mechanic first, heal AM/Shaman second.

Development becoming opaque? You'll have to provide an example here.

[Danielle]

1v1 is like Warhammer tabletop, it's great fun to toy around with it, but it will never be balanced if other aspects of the game are to be balanced (eg.: damage vs. healing), so let's drop it completely from balance discussions as suggested.

Mechanic changes sound interesting I'll admit I haven't tested them, because I was playing my zealot to dodge triple shatter instead. Biggest deterrent to running a shaman remains to be the knight triple shatter tactic (and the fact that running a knight on order is mandatory) as has been mentioned before and is being discussed on balance forums right now. However I don't think the mechanic was ever a big consideration for Shaman in terms of healing output. Efforts towards fixing it can only be lauded, as hybrid classes are actually great fun to play and effective as some of the melee DoKs being the only viable hybrid in game can confirm.

[noisestorm]

1v1 is like Warhammer tabletop, it's great fun to toy around with it, but it will never be balanced if other aspects of the game are to be balanced (eg.: damage vs. healing), so let's drop it completely from balance discussions as suggested.

Mechanic changes sound interesting I'll admit I haven't tested them, because I was playing my zealot to dodge triple shatter instead. Biggest deterrent to running a shaman remains to be the knight triple shatter tactic (and the fact that running a knight on order is mandatory) as has been mentioned before and is being discussed on balance forums right now. However I don't think the mechanic was ever a big consideration for Shaman in terms of healing output. Efforts towards fixing it can only be lauded, as hybrid classes are actually great fun to play and effective as some of the melee DoKs being the only viable hybrid in game can confirm.

I'll quote myself from another topic for you again:

Great to read that! And what does it brins to shamman?.....

Shamans could potentially rethink their way of how to play the class and move away from just hot spamming into proper focus healing single targets with the casual gheal in between. I dont wanna say hots are useless, but most of the time using DSU should be enough actually. Casting Single and Gheal will be more AP-efficient in the long run as well as simply more healing effective as well. But thats just my thought on it

No matter how many TripleShatters you will encounter. Changing your gamestyle for a bit, will drastically improve the output if properly executed.

[Snapsen]

Triple shatter from kotbs - then your top hot in the top of tree with mitigation is gone - cleanse tactic, shattered - the Gheals from shaman are so inferior to what a zealot can bring to a party. Shamans have nothing, except sticky feetz.
So what is the point then of running a shaman? Restorative burst is mandatory for a shaman - you do have run away, but 20% is nothing compared to a 50% snare, you are not getting away, which were a big part of the shaman on live, getting away and then healing. you dry up SO quick which is the main issue with the shaman - were a lot better with the DSU being classified as directheal, to proc RB.
One block/disrupt on the AP drain, and you are going to be sat with no healing when AP pots are on CD.

At least the AM get 50% ap cost reduction, basicly everytime they cast a groupheal - shaman don't so again they will go dry in no time.

Then the all mighty funnel essence, which makes the AM super strong in terms of healing compared to a shaman.

I played a shaman on live, 1 AM with a clue masking an AP drain on a shaman, dead group.

If you are moving towards the shaman being more of a hybrid, and not a healing archtype, then disregard the post - but as it stands, no one wants a shaman in a proper party, and that will not change even if it's a hybrid - as it's just not viable.