MM Request for Discussion: Shaman, a Year in Review

[keen elk]

in general the playerbase tends to gravitate towards meta classes (and warrior) . I don't think class player count is a great argument, especially when shaman is the newcomer class that most people have not played extensively.

[frozen axle]

new comer

its been a year though

[summer root]

one idea is that i don't really see a lot of skills which involve enemy movement

of course warlock has that snowball thing to drag

[calm sun]

we don't particularly have a good measure on shaman player count

[keen elk]

honestly I just throw albert and it solves 90% of encounters. I only use other abilities when its needed (so like for elites or to rocket jump across the map)

[frozen axle]

how many delve pts

[calm sun]

the metrics we could use are skewed by other factors, as well as the core problem of "it's newer, so any existing players are going to tend towards their base setup"

[summer root]

and ik wynn shaman has aura but there are plenty of other ideas of moving enemies around rather than just totems

[calm sun]

it's quite the frustration with trying to figure out things

[summer root]

could give shaman some unique and fun mobbing niche

[sinful radish]

imo every class' meta is around the same level tbh with maybe rogue and scout having higher ceiling
but most people still main one class and less just being all class master and play whatever is strongest

[summer root]

i know a lot of players like playing with physics, etc.

people liked adhesive, stuff with hauling the totems and landing them

maybe have a big push/kb in one direcction

[keen elk]

well rouge and scout are also generalists that can do just about anything. Its not tempting to switch off of them

[summer root]

could herd things into fire/lightning

[frozen axle]

i mean idk what u want... no game is gonna have the perfect diversity of classes unless they are all near identical

[lucid juniper]

plzzzz bring adhesive back i lov it so much and when it gone it like my baby get kidnap

[lilac axle]

#monumenta-general message

Aristotle seemed to have data on player count of Shaman, as well as a R1 count

[wise salmon]

Give shaman the gmod gun so it can drag mobs around

[frozen axle]

and its not like other classes are unpopular some classes are just... better.

[grizzled kernel]

A physics-based shaman sounds awesome

[lilac axle]

It would be enlightening to see an updated count for comparison

[keen elk]

pretty much anything below 30 gets solved by 1 albert. Sure acutally playing high points will change this but that changes how much effort all of the classes have to put it, including shaman.

[sinful radish]

imagine building the totem like an iron golem

[wise salmon]

What about a targeted push-pull

[calm sun]

and if you look directly above the linked message, you can see the asterisk on the data he has

i'm aware of how he gets it, but we haven't had a means of removing all of the asterisks on the data we have the means to pull

[frozen axle]

i think number wise this is objectively wrong, although pardon me havent actually played a delve in a while, let alone alch but i thought i had a pretty good idea of it considering it hasnt recieved major changes sincei lasted played it

[lilac axle]

"for comparison" implying the two numbers are compared to see relative to each other

[calm sun]

2 numbers with issues in their means of measurement doesn't make for a good number, even if they meet the same problems

[sinful radish]

as a albert player you probably can
it's like 200+ damage, with infusions and stuff probably can hit 250+
depend on how you distribute damage/tank

[keen elk]

I mean mage is not that different, you can toss out 2 spells and it clears all of the trash mobs. Same goes with warlock. magic classes are built around using their reliable splash damage to invalidate groups of normal enemies and its easy to do this on ALL of them.

[frozen axle]

even if its not 100% accurate it holds up to see the a decent ratio of the classes in game. like in a world boss those numbers look about right

[frozen axle]

what would be the cd of this albert

[calm sun]

we can basically just poll the score set at that moment on players, we could use better metrics (and there has been work on that, albeit slow) to be able to make use of it

[frozen axle]

and would any other part of ur class do anything considering ur charm allocation

[sinful radish]

like 6-8 depend on aptitude and charm

[calm sun]

if someone plays a class in 2 regions and another in the third, then the data on that user is fully dependent on which region they last played/class they had set on logout

[keen elk]

so I don't think shaman being able to solve encounters with 1 spell is a problem, when other classes do the same thing. What I think is a problem is the other spells being underwhelming which is preventing them from being useful in the first place.

[sinful radish]

yes actually
harb auto still smacks

[summer root]

like whirlwind totem having a levitate would be flavorful

then combined with some push pull stuff

[sinful radish]

ok imma stop it's getting off topic

[summer root]

lift all then shove

or drag behind you

[frozen axle]

honestly reasonable i can see people getting off shaman by r3

[summer root]

into your fire/lightning totems

[wise salmon]

If only shaman had a spell that could launch mobs

[frozen axle]

still think its quite accurate that shaman is still played less by a notable margin

[calm sun]

not an unreasonable assumption, but my point is more that we just don't have the systems to properly gather data to go beyond assumptions

[summer root]

imagine if you could lift teammates

sounds like massive troll nah

like this kind of positioning cc is something i generally think is not very present in the game aside warlock

[wise salmon]

what about a poll
"have you played shaman in the last month for more than just trying it out" or smth like that
And one for each region

[summer root]

pinning shot

[wise salmon]

Teammates can now stand on your totems and pick them up

and throw them, and stand on them, and throw them, and stand on ok they're flying now

[calm sun]

polls depend on both truthful voting and server wide voting instead of the smaller sample size of people reading the feedback section of the discord religiously

especially with the addition of "discord just hides categories by default because why" and the ability to hide categories completely, data would be sketchy.

[summer root]

i can just imagine the teal video compilations of people playing around with low cd low damage directional push

[wise salmon]

replace the broken voting site with a poll

[lilac axle]

This seems to indicate a lot of mistrust in the value of #player-polling . If polls are still posted there, are they effective, and if not, why are they still posted? If there is a reference to compare against "No I play X class, I play Y class, I play multiple classes including Shaman, I play multiple classes except Shaman", what reservations would you have anout that poll?

[wise salmon]

spartan sandals moment

[sinful radish]

I mean
if we're here to improve shaman
does how many players play shaman matters
well ig it could determine the scale of it

[wise salmon]

It would show how many people are satisfied with it, maybe

[keen elk]

I think its not a distrust thing, but rather the devs not wanting to take poll results too seriously.

[wise salmon]

or at least like it enough to play it a lot

[keen elk]

like they want to use polls as a starting point to gather feedback, but not have them be all they cater towards.

[calm sun]

poll results can be useful, but on something that seems like it's already got a charged up opposition to it, leads itself to concerning results at best. More neutral topics work better in polls because there's not a brigade waiting for it, especially when it's out of nowhere on topics people don't entirely expect to be asked about

[lilac axle]

I can imagine a low player count could be perceived as a poor launch/weak reception and dissuade other developers from attempting their own class design. A class does not have to be for everyone, but a significantly lower player count is likely tied to deeper problems

[summer root]

but like, we kind of already know that shaman has problems

[lilac axle]

Certainly, given the many comments I have compiled in my post further up

[summer root]

which is why this feedback thread is here and most people agreed with your original essay

so what's left is just to spitball

[lilac axle]

I don't believe there were any answers towards the ending questions, which would be nice to hear

[wise salmon]

wait, a charged up opposition to what? Shaman being broken?

*bad

well not bad but

yeah

[summer root]

the ending questions are also like big design problems which probably can't be answered immediately without spending that time on design

which is why we spitball

[lilac axle]

Said questions were not exclusively directed to Zig, but to any devs working on Shaman who wish to comment. Not sure if FrozenEarth has worked much if at all on Shaman given the recent Warlock changes are likely his project, but I don't remember seeing any other developers in this thread

[sinful radish]

Fair
I suppose it also would value the weight of voices in all of this chat since not every shaman player is here

[grizzled kernel]

I offered quite a bit of feedback (zig knows), made Sticky Sap, and pushed for Scattered Stardust to be made (and be the baseline behavior) though that’s about it

[grave nexus]

scattered stardust oh my goodness gracious

[lilac axle]

I agree that these are not simple questions, and don't expect immediate changes to happen to shaman in a rush to satisfy the playerbase instead of logical and methodical design sessions where a proper solution can be implemented.

For each of these questions, I was hoping for something akin to the corresponding responses:

What actions will developers take to address these concerns from the playerbase?

And

What steps will be taken to address the boring and unfun afk gameplay experienced?

A statement(s) addressing various sections of compiled comments and associated section description, with mention given to current skills and the way they interact that contribute towards these issues. Perhaps a few specific comments in the section are addressed directly.

What measures will be used to correct Shaman's scaling and damage imbalance across regions?

Zig (and other developers working on Shaman) has tried the specialization passives idea and has tried to avoid wands as the shaman mainhand, with results previously discussed. An acknowledgement of the matter with potential ideas to correct this design flaw, or a statement with the intent that something must change, would be appreciated.

The specifics on exactly what would be implemented would be unreasonable so soon into this feedback thread's existence. However, many players offered many comments in shaman-discussion addressing these same concerns and asking similar questions and the outcome of where we are with current shaman means that not enough was done to assuage these issues. I would like to have some confidence that whatever is suggested this time, with player experiences and feedback from many more months, is taken.

[wise salmon]

shaman totems now gain +1 damage per skill point, capped at the maximum per region

[coarse root]

what a charm

flesh laurel statted having ass

[lavish peak]

I don't get it. Flesh Laurel is literally better than Greater Splitting Charm, already neglecting the fact that Flesh Laurel is 1* and Greater Splitting Charm is 2*...

[elder spindle]

accidental powercreep

been flying under the radar

[wise salmon]

In a vacuum it looks weird but the idea is that you can stack them

One should not be a whole star larger though

[lavish peak]

A whole star larger AND worse...

[grave nexus]

well lordtomb vs rebootings

rare charms might just have more

[elder spindle]

Lordtomb I'd like to believe is a different case because it vs basics is the same charmpower

so if you have 3 charm power you are gucci

meanwhile Greater Splitting is objectively worse than Laurel

AND is cheaper to use

[grave nexus]

yeah but the rebooting are pretty significantly worse for the compartmentalization tax, id think its a pretty marginal difference

[lavish peak]

I think in this case, it's more fair. At least you need 3* to ensure the charm is better than a Lesser + Greater Rebooting Charm

[grave nexus]

thats what harambe just said

and its rather marginal for how powerful that stat is

(you make space for it)

anyways, distracting point

[forest tiger]

wrt totemic projection voiding your totems: i suppose it might be possible to have totems edge detect?

so it would go like this

1. totems fall from the spot where projection’s snowball lands, with no spread
2. once totems hit the ground, they rapidly spread out (6 m/s), stopping whenever they encounter
   a solid block
   a change in vertical height
   get 3 meters away from the landing spot

i think it would be interesting to change projection’s carrier from a snowball to alchemical artillery’s magma cube (can use a small slime to be different) because that means that you can only land projections on the ground, not in walls or on ceilings

[exotic copper]

this would be 🔥
now most of my totems just drop into abyss if i use projection on bridges and stuff

[forest tiger]

is it possible to land an albert on a wall?

[sinful radish]

Wouldn’t that still voids totems on bridges
I’m missing the point here

[exotic copper]

1 and 2 wouldnt void, slime projectile is just a dif suggestion for wall hitting

[sinful radish]

Like
Totem land on the bridge
And then hit the bridge block so they spread out
And fall off
It didn’t encounter a block
It also didn’t have y velocity until it’s already falling

[exotic copper]

until they find a height change means they stop before a ledge

[sinful radish]

Oh ok
I’m not even getting what should happen
Now I do

[forest tiger]

should i create a diagram

[keen elk]

I like this idea, its much more fluid then just making sticky sap the default for totemic projection (which is something I thought might work out okay)

[near bough]

I think it would the class a lot if the output/downtime was adjusted

[exotic copper]

as fellow word skipper i relate this

[calm sun]

FYI: changes related to tonight's balance update aren't for this chat and are for https://discord.com/channels/313066655494438922/1258617918372184125

[calm sun]

if you want a massive list of PR-y statements, then it's going to have to wait until after the changes are done, as it's just time wasted when trying to read into the ideas and productive discussions in the thread and actually taking actions for the betterment of the class. Maybe someone else from the balance team wishes to spend that time, but only so many hours in the day i can spend on monumenta, and typing in discord takes up too much of that time these days

[keen elk]

shaman got buffed in the new update! huge win for the shaman fans!

devastation is finally good, mine does 300 damage with just a fruit buff in r3 now!

I wish I could give an acutal report but currently, things are a little bit broken with the class

[calm sun]

In general this past update shouldn't really have any major changes, so I'm mostly going to ignore anything that changed off of that. Looking more at the core gameplay here, for any numbers related to the additive change, refer to the additive feedback thread

[keen elk]

oh i'm referring to the fact that right now shaman's damage is bugged.

currently it is doing triple damage

its pretty funny!

[glossy dew]

this is “broken” ? given that some classes can get that with a crit (no bugs) i’d say the scaling is a little strange

[coarse root]

holy shit shaman buff

let's just leave it this way

[rugged sorrel]

It was a bug

[coarse root]

monumenta player detect sarcasm challenge

[dawn sparrow]

I feel that Shaman isn’t balanced for R2 & R3

[summer root]

i think they said that earlier

[frozen axle]

Mags wisdom always leaves me in awe. He is the out of the box thinker this generation needed.

[grave crag]

lets replace it with a new class

we have too many magic classes

not enough projectile /j

in my limited experience with shaman, it shows a lot of promise on paper. but i noticed that while it performs exceptionally well in r1, it tends to be outperformed by other magic classes in r2 and r3.

it tends to plateau as enemies become more advanced in regions 2 and 3. balancing its capabilities to match the increasing difficulty would help it maintain its viability

that or replace shaman with a new class. /j-ish

[coarse root]

"j-ish"

[forest tiger]

shaman really doesn't have good mainhand option directions

the r1 and r2 magic damage percent mainhands are both end-game items

[quasi pawn]

noone force you to use magic item

you can use general melee weapon

[wise salmon]

yeah but for the class with zero melee abilities in r1 and r2 and a single one that even requires you to take magic abilities in r3, magic damage will always help

[rugged sorrel]

play ranged shaman 👍

[wise salmon]

MEMORY MAKER SHAMAN

[barren mortar]

No cookies for melee

[keen elk]

you basically are do to the way damage from totems is calculated. Totems get their damage boosted based on the mainhand's magic damage when they are first casted. So if you switch off, you keep the bonus damage but if you cast totems with another item and switch to your magic damage item no damage bonus. so even if you want to run another melee or ranged weapon you still need a magic dmg sword.

oh regicide and abyssal do NOT work like this and I have no idea why its not consistent. Those enchants will effect totem damage but only when the mainhand is held and will not stick.

[smoky vigil]

That's because totems don't take "snapshot" damage

[keen elk]

yes abyssal is shaman compatible, no it does not help in any meaningful way

[smoky vigil]

This doesn't sound right

I remember asking about if mainhand magic dmg% regarding shaman and I'm pretty sure zig said they don't take snapshot of the dmg stats because he didn't want people cheesing between a tank set and a bis magic set with lockboxes

If you switch off, you should lose the bonus dmg if you cast a totem with a magicdmg% item

[keen elk]

for mainhands it is currently working that way; not for armor though

[smoky vigil]

That's odd

I mean I prefer it works the way it currently is and maybe he thought I was referring to armor when I asked all those months ago

But due to inconsistency with regi and abyssal I'm leaning towards thinking it's a bug

[keen elk]

in gameplay, this mostly means you can use shields more freely, but it really does not change that much if you are only using 1 weapon (which most shaman builds are)

it does make Eschar Dreamcatcher in r3 much better too, to the point where I don't think that weapon is viable anymore if this gets patched

[keen elk]

there is one instance where this is different, which is with wordily protection items. Switching to those at all will nuke your damage and it only comes back when you switch off.

[calm sun]

I believe this changed post release to snapshot due to general class system changes

[smoky vigil]

Cool beans

[frozen flume]

divination orb and khrosmos mainhand!

[forest tiger]

do you mean. the super expensive docks arti which can’t be obtained half the time and the rare from the post-monument dungeon

the way i see it this is solvable by slapping like 7% magic damage on some random early rare

even an uncommon would work

or for valley it would be 4%

like. ashheart dagger

[versed cradle]

magic damage on r1 prismatic blade maybe

[forest tiger]

yeah magic damage on r1 prismatic blade

except prismatic is already pretty damn good

[keen elk]

people use r1 prismatic blade?

also 4% magic damage is too little, even for early game standards. At that point people will just use a weapon with better melee capabilities. Shamans crusher already is slightly weak at only 7% magic damage; but its still ran since it has decent base damage attached.

[exotic copper]

its 8% actually 🤓

[jade palm]

writing up something

I think it would be a great idea to give read only access to #shaman-discussion

[coarse root]

🤔

there's a mode that allows people to make notes but not edit anything

can't remember what it's called but that's a better idea @jade palm

[jade palm]

I cooked again

[dawn sparrow]

Comments?

[jade palm]

does he mean the rework document?

[coarse root]

oh i was expecting a google doc

[jade palm]

yeah lemme do it rq

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gxBdyoiLUpVN017-k_eZIItDjVI0yfhJgINRhSZmIFc

also enabled comments for the zenith doc

totems with abilities are gone

long live activation skills

[keen elk]

why is sooth somehow even worse then it is right now 💔

whirlwind totem in the base kit is uh very very powerful. Even if the skill is nerfed, if you give shaman an inch of CDR it takes a mile. That is why whirlwind totem is the main appeal of soothsayer and is worthy of being a specialization skill. So switching out sooths best skill with a slightly stronger cleansing totem (which is redundant with chain healing) is a massive nerf; especially when hexbreaker is buffed up a lot.

concentration is a decent idea, but it seems quite weak in compassion to hexbreaker having 4 totems able to attack in several ways all at once.

I like this rework concept a bit more then the others though, since it keeps shaman built around totems instead of turning it into mage 2.0. Having the entire base kit expect for 1 spell, need totems to work does seem like it would be to mirco management intensive and also would lead to shaman being completely powerless when totems are on cooldown. Which would only further encourage the perma uptime meta the class already has.

[jade palm]

perma uptime builds are kinda inevitable for classes like shaman

[jade palm]

The rework definitely intends to direct players towards zero downtime builds, which is why I put in so many measures to increase them

Looking at it again I do agree reworked sooth is bit weak

not sure what to give it yet

[rugged sorrel]

Perma uptime is fine as long as dmg and utility output isn't too crazy

[jade palm]

doing so changes to the doc, feel free to suggest ability alternatives

[spiral bone]

Hot take but, soothsayer is better at clearing and at sustain 🤷‍♂️

Hexbreaker just has way too much downtime, even if you perfectly use devastation

[sinful radish]

what stops you from just spamming all skills?
the cd doesn't seem too long
not many decisions to be made still

[jade palm]

cd is short but not zero

plus some don't have instant rewards

[spiral bone]

How to fix Shaman:

Region Scaling: Introduce a Totem Efficiency stat similar to Spell Power which would allow fine tweaking of damage across regions, that also means more items! After the additive change magic percent mainhands (the two that exist) are really bad, you're better off using something tanky such as a situational sword, or an aptitude item. Give players some cool items that are unique to the class, it's kinda sad that your best tanky mainhand is Pureshard Adze (pickaxe) after the Worldy Protection changes. When it comes to damage R3 gives you two options.. Ex Prismatic Blade and that one scythe I can't remember.

Base Skills: Firstly, Shaman is inherently an Area Control class, but as of now it fails at its purpose. You can chuck a flame totem at an area to hold it for 12 seconds but after that you're kinda useless, also not to mention the range on all of the totems is quite awful, I'd ask to change the range back to the one while beta testing.. or at least add charms that can give you more. Secondly, skills such as Earthen Tremor and Chain Lightning are so bad. Chain Lightning used to be good with its previous totem pulse feature but now it's really just there to make zapping sounds. Earthen Tremor's damage is not noticeable at all, and its function works opposite to how you'd want. It... knocks mobs away from you aka your totems. The enhancement has a decent use but realistically no one is gonna invest a point into that. The Crystal pewpew skill is pretty fun and it rewards Shaman's AOE playstyle, I'd like to see some more skills aimed towards supporting your totems. Maybe something like a one time mega grasping claws that grabs mobs from all around and throws them into a totem's damaging radius while not allowing them to escape

or maybe something like an agro totem that debuffs mobs (literally dummy decoy) that you could throw right between your totems to gather mobs.

Charms: Shaman has.. extremely boring charms, like genuinely none of them are special, I'm not trying to be 🐦 or anything they are just so sad. Make a feedback post specifically for Shaman charms so that players can some suggest some unique reworks to already existing ones, similar to how Monarch used to make posts for charm ideas.

The specs are a completely different topic for later..

[jade palm]

devs explicitly said no shaman exclusive weapon

[spiral bone]

That is erm tragic

Players like classes due to weapons sometimes

[calm sun]

can't get class specific mainhands, sorry, that's been a limitation from the start

and for more magic mainhands, it seems as though balance really doesn't like those for earlier progression points

[spiral bone]

Magic mainhands are quite useless now

I logged on today for some testing and EX Prismatic Blade gave me 3 more fire totem damage

[versed cradle]

the scythe you forgot is (most likely) eschar dreamcatcher

[spiral bone]

ended up using Blade of Reclamation for the reflexes

[calm sun]

if there's an issue overall on magic mainhands though, that should probably come up as a feedback point seperate to shaman since that'll impact other classes as well

[frozen axle]

soothsayer looks better in a team cuz yknow it can just support too

[wise salmon]

It's the hycanea one I think

's will

[versed cradle]

literally have never seen anyone other than frozenearth use it so it don't count

[spiral bone]

What can be acted upon right now? (aka you're willing to)

[wise salmon]

Cause it's magic %

[wise salmon]

Yeah fair lmao

[spiral bone]

I think charm reworks could get some spice into r3

[frozen axle]

can alch skill point scaling be recycled here?

[versed cradle]

also there wasn't a reason (that I knew of) to use hycenea's over ex prismatic whereas with eschar you could absolutely fry elites

[calm sun]

Already speccing out some reworks in the class, and some changes to the totem designs. I wouldn't say too much is really off the table, but charms will require running things past item devs, so either an item dev hops aboard and pushes for some, or i can try with limited success probably

mainhands is unfortunately one of those few things that is off the table

[spiral bone]

Any specific reason for that?

[jade palm]

anyways you guys gotta check this out

[spiral bone]

mainhands could revive the class for a lot, you're kinda clueless right now on what to use

[spiral bone]

Mscr is an item dev right..

[barren mortar]

mscr is busy with stuff ain’t he?

[spiral bone]

Yeah but he spends his weekends on monumenta

strip away his free ti- (who am i to do that)

[versed cradle]

I think shaman epic charms are actually somewhat neat (unstable reactor is kinda cool and final herald's lifeblood buffs the one shaman skill that can actually region scale) but god does it feel like shaman has more rare charms that just do not have the juice compared to other classes

[jade palm]

i fucking hate dshot

[versed cradle]

that is fair

[spiral bone]

Unstable Reactor is extremely tragic design wise

[versed cradle]

it's neat and tragic at the same time

[spiral bone]

the negative radius makes it so bad in my eyes

[versed cradle]

how much is it, -30%?

[spiral bone]

yep

[versed cradle]

actually that is kinda a kick to the nuts

[jade palm]

"wow I fucking love worse elemental arrow that have limited interaction with rest of the skills"

this is what some of you sound like

[spiral bone]

At least it has a better sound effect!! (i made it)

[versed cradle]

as much as I love dshot and fhl it is THE most scuffed skill in the game from the bugs to the extremely janky damage scaling

[jade palm]

zig designs confuse me

[spiral bone]

What's so confusing about it?

Shaman literally has a projectile theme

[jade palm]

about some aspects of shaman

[jade palm]

yeah the totems are spawned by projectiles

[frozen axle]

desecrating shot

[jade palm]

people (me) were pointing out issues on the week shaman is out

[spiral bone]

chain lightning is a projectile, crystal pew pew skill is a projectile, desecrating shot, chain healing

[jade palm]

and some of them still exists

[frozen axle]

chain lightning is hitscan isnt it that aitn really a projectile

[spiral bone]

call it a sure hit effect xd

[jade palm]

alch is a projectile class cause uhh you throw pots

[spiral bone]

shaman isn't LITERALLY a projectile class

[spiral bone]

it has a hybrid design for r1 and r2 which somewhat bleeds into r3

[jade palm]

https://discord.com/channels/313066655494438922/1107615287794217000

[jade palm]

they tried to make hybrid design

[versed cradle]

the only shaman rare charms you can probably consider cool are like. scattered stardust and maybe apoc rune

[jade palm]

which doesn't work...

ok but mist of dawn is ok

[spiral bone]

Ngl it's pretty fun to play it hybrid

[calm sun]

Yes, although also busy with life stuff i think.

[spiral bone]

people who call the class "braindead" just spam totems and run around

[jade palm]

almost like thats how its played...

[spiral bone]

I think you could pull it off with suggestions from the gameplay discussion hive mind

[frozen axle]

mscr is just playing tdm he just needs 5 kills to get an airstrike or 3 for uav and he can wipe

[jade palm]

https://discord.com/channels/313066655494438922/1107615287794217000
extremely funny most all of the problems here still exists

[frozen axle]

yeah its been repeated 70 times

[jade palm]

watch zig do nothing about it

[frozen axle]

well

he literally just said what hes gonna do

[jade palm]

(dont worry he can't read this)

[frozen axle]

t

[jade palm]

will believe it when I see it

[frozen axle]

and he did confirm a good change to devastation

damage will scale with remaining totem duration

[versed cradle]

what'd he confirm about deva

oh dang where

[frozen axle]

dont feel liek finding it

he said it

[calm sun]

think it's a good idea if deva stays in the same use case

it's noted for things, but looking at core stuff right now, and we'll see what shakes out where

if deva finds a new use case that it wouldn't make sense for, then it may not happen

[jade palm]

hexbreaker just feels like random abilities put together

[frozen axle]

cant even disagree thats true

[jade palm]

not like sooth is much better but it gets something right

[rugged sorrel]

dshot should be base skill

[frozen axle]

at least they stay in theme and they all have something to offer

[jade palm]

dshot should not exist

[versed cradle]

is it bad that I want to hate this but don't

[long gate]

What if for earthen tremor if a mob hit by it is within the attack range of a totem, it is knocked towards the centre of it. If there's multiple totems it is directed towards the closest one

[jade palm]

they really.should stop with this hybrid thingy

[rugged sorrel]

we already have 3 classes that mainly use magic

[jade palm]

I beg you to play earrow mage instead

[versed cradle]

I think it's funny that if warlock exists as melee/magic hybrid shaman could exist as proj/magic except I'm not sure you can actually pull that off

[jade palm]

or you know, get a high speed bag and pretend its old aa

[spiral bone]

dshot is like shaman's only burst damage besides for devastation

[versed cradle]

I don't even consider dshot burst, I consider it attrition damage

[jade palm]

thats an even bigger rework

[rugged sorrel]

shaman should be proj/magic class imo

[jade palm]

this guy does not build lightning

and it shows

[frozen axle]

well dshot is interesting at least

[spiral bone]

joe mama

[jade palm]

how is it interesting

[frozen axle]

lightning is good specifically to make the class meta but it really is boring

it just felt like a booster shot when the class sucked

[rugged sorrel]

dshot is only shaman ability in r3 that can be made functional on its own

[frozen axle]

bro what is this guy saying

[versed cradle]

dshot is the only shaman ability that region scales

[frozen axle]

nip nop v2???

[spiral bone]

damnn mods get this guy asap

[frozen axle]

shit bro even im doing that pregnant man shit it lowkey fits

[versed cradle]

magic damage is not in a state where it counts as region scaling totems and stuff

[rugged sorrel]

thats a good thing

[jade palm]

shaman should use wand

wand scaling also sucks but it sucks less

[frozen axle]

dshot has one of the very few interesting AND good shaman charms + its an epic, it actually makes the class have a mainhand to base off of, and it uses proj which is a +bias for me and also +in the proj design we were promised

chain lightning is just right click to get instant dmg in aoe and increase totem uptime cuz yeah

[jade palm]

thats the problem of rest of the class being bad

[rugged sorrel]

chain lightning should be changed to be applied on hit

dealing % of weapons dmg

[spiral bone]

trol

[versed cradle]

to be real it's hard to put like -50% skill cooldown on a charm and have it not be good

[frozen axle]

well duh

but its bloodhounds v2

it transforms a skill which is cool

[rugged sorrel]

its like the only other playstyle shaman has

[jade palm]

imagine the relavation you can infuse instead

[frozen axle]

its the charm genre i like the most

completely overhauling a skill

[versed cradle]

(the way bloodhound overhauls qd is absolutely not healthy for... anything)

[frozen axle]

shut up

im sorry

[versed cradle]

I played shako qd since starpoint and still entirely believe this

[jade palm]

I do think nothing short of a total rework could save the class

[rugged sorrel]

for some skills there shouldn't be massive cdr charm

[jade palm]

totems are just too problematic

[rugged sorrel]

lifeblood makes dshot functional

[frozen axle]

i mean i thought that too but i think mostly just a rework to the totems is needed

[jade palm]

"static passive damage zone" would work great as an alch spec not as a class

[frozen axle]

they need to take up less of the class and new stuff should be added in their place that interact with the totem(s)

[jade palm]

(read my rework doc)

[frozen axle]

wink wink make the totems a TOTEM

[rugged sorrel]

give totems leg

[jade palm]

it made totem do nothing on their own but skills can activate on it

[frozen axle]

i mean i still think totems shoudl do dmg in an aoe

thats kinda the whole thing of a shaman

at least in minecraft

[jade palm]

(check my doc I think I have some good points)

[rugged sorrel]

the curse of wynncraft

[frozen axle]

but i do think the best skills are the ones that interact with the totems

[frozen axle]

pro tip no one wants to read a whole shaman rework document

like im sorry im sure you put effort but long form feedback just aint it here

[rugged sorrel]

bold assumption

[frozen axle]

i mean ill take a skim over it since ur so adamant

[jade palm]

I don't think small changes can save the class at this point

[frozen axle]

well yeah but big changes are things us feedbackers can only influence really we cant directly tell zig to do anything big just hints or shoves in the direction you think right

[rugged sorrel]

primary weapons shaman should use is projectile weapons and magic % mainhands

[frozen axle]

for real

[rugged sorrel]

we only have one real projectile class

mage failed with ele arrows

[frozen axle]

could shaman scale off projectile dmg on bows

that would be so confusing

[versed cradle]

scout 2

[rugged sorrel]

chain lightning could proc on hit scaling on the dmg you dealt 🤷

[frozen axle]

you wear magic and then use a bow and the bows base dmg is what u use but u wear magic

[copper bridge]

@jade palm If I see any more messages like the one that was deleted you are getting booted from feedback channels indefinitely

[calm sun]

could be interesting to add some increased custom scaling capabilities

[woeful vessel]

As a playet who have fun and success with tremor u and lighting stack with chain u, I think those 2 are fine

[calm sun]

oh lawdy whats happenin

[frozen axle]

passionate feedback

[woeful vessel]

Bro why I miss it...

[lilac axle]

I guess he is still on the Ignore list

[calm sun]

fun fun... anyways

[versed cradle]

ele arrows is funny it works in r3 because I don't think people actually build all in on arrows it just becomes the secondary damage in starfall builds because it does not awful damage with not that much investment

[rugged sorrel]

also would be funny if you could proc tremor with projectile shot

[frozen axle]

it was that b4

[lilac axle]

Cleric in R3 can achieve a very realized support/projectile class playstyle

[frozen axle]

it got reworked cuz it was jank wasnt it

[woeful vessel]

Anyway I think those skill work for me and work good, but does it fun/need tweak i s other topic

[rugged sorrel]

cleric is jack-of-all-trades

[lilac axle]

And likely is one good weapon away from a proj playstyle in R1

[frozen axle]

cleric projectile can work but it is off meta until more capability is added for it

r3 at lest

[lilac axle]

Hell Callum's spellslinger might be good enough

[frozen axle]

i tried it

it was ogay

[versed cradle]

cl u is pretty good and you can make it into a playstyle (mine is messed up I alternate aether dart cl u and fhl dshot and it kinda works) but without the enhancement it's awful

[frozen axle]

how funny would it be to use bows as slingshots for totems

[rugged sorrel]

the main flaw with shaman is not having much weapon scaling

[frozen axle]

like you would cast it like pred strike and then ur next shot you shoot the totem

[woeful vessel]

U need enhance point to make a basic skill work in r3 is pretty sad and need change I agree

[woeful vessel]

For what purpose u would imagine, like current chain lighting enhance, or buff it in someway

[frozen axle]

just a more interesting way to move my totems

that is more rewarding

[woeful vessel]

It sounds fun honestly

[frozen axle]

i hate totemic projection as it is cast one button wherever u want to instantly maximize your dps in one area

[rugged sorrel]

making chain lightning into split arrow with melee included

[woeful vessel]

Make a hook so we grab our totem back then shoot it to othet location

[frozen axle]

it would feel much more engaging and rewarding if moving totems took more time but was more rewarding

aka shooting it could also cause aoe dmg upon landing or something of that nature

[woeful vessel]

Multishot useagr grow suddenly

[frozen axle]

t

literally just this but to give a more stable mainhand possibly it would require using a bow

totemic SLING

[jade palm]

shaman can just convert to full proj damage but that still didn't make mainhand choices interesting

[versed cradle]

is this partly because of the proj weapon balancing problems

[long gate]

I think totemic projection could be just moved onto every totem by recasting the ability while it's on cooldown and then have that skill freed up for another skill idea

[frozen axle]

i maen yeah

[versed cradle]

(because that's a completely different mess)

[frozen axle]

look at ele arrows

how it scales just makes u use highest proj dmg weapon and ur done

[woeful vessel]

Sounds.good.also

[versed cradle]

don't some freaks tridentball ele arrows

although like. every proj skill scales off of base

[frozen axle]

its not freaky when stormblessed is one of the highest proj dmg

weapons

snowball is just there to bridge the nothing gap of waiting for stormblessed to come off cd

[versed cradle]

so like. it's hard to really justify low proj base weapons in a way

(also contributes to basically every magic% proj weapon being awful)

[frozen axle]

yeah

[versed cradle]

makes me sad that using stuff like herald's cruelty or mycelian crescent for ele arrows or dshot is just worse than going for base damage but proj weapons are another problem entirely

[frozen axle]

mfw low dmg high attack speed literally does not matter

high attack speed low dmg will still take more time then a heavy hitter cuz a heavy hitter still hits fast

[versed cradle]

moment

[jade palm]

mostly causes skill cant use your mainhand base damage well

[rugged sorrel]

some people use screwdriver because ele also includes some flat dmg

[frozen axle]

radio send ur shaman rework i wanna look at it

[lilac axle]

Justifiable and likely advisable on cleric's DJ shots- weaker weapons are noticably worse on mage as Elemental Spirits scales partially off of it as well

[jade palm]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gxBdyoiLUpVN017-k_eZIItDjVI0yfhJgINRhSZmIFc/

still an early draft but you should get the ideas

[calm sun]

something like this is more realistic than being fired by your bow, just because of the obscene speed bows breaking like, every system in the game

if it worked off of aleph you'd see how far back the arrow actually registers the hit off of the wall sometimes

[jade palm]

moving totems individually might be interesting but risks being microing hell

[frozen axle]

Well that's the point no

[jade palm]

I mean yeah we need more micro

[frozen axle]

Bloons td 6 style micro is rewarding

[calm sun]

full circle back to BTD 😛

[frozen axle]

Duh

[lilac axle]

I would hope a commander advertised class would have control over the assets it is deploying

[frozen axle]

Ofc what else is the goal

[jade palm]

yes but I imagine that being super jank in practice ngl

[frozen axle]

I mean if the totems moved like individual squads instead of an army it would be a lot of commanding

[spiral bone]

this ain't league of legends lil bro

[frozen axle]

Yucky

[spiral bone]

Wait desecrating shot works with multishot

also with piercing

holy shit what

[jade palm]

elemental arrow even works with inferno...

[rugged sorrel]

huh

[calm sun]

can't say i tested multi hits on dshot, but also not too surprised if it did

[rugged sorrel]

it has cooldown

[sinful radish]

isn't the cd check on hit

[rugged sorrel]

yea

[spiral bone]

yayy

the cooldown is perfectly in line with shadowstone ballista

[jade palm]

this is literally just my bow cleric build

[spiral bone]

you always have your entire shaman arsenal

also you do realise that 205 magic damage is aoe.

i might've cooked chat

[jade palm]

how big

[frozen axle]

theres gotta be some caveat

[lilac axle]

So why is the magic damage more than triple that of the base projectile hit

[rugged sorrel]

charms

[frozen axle]

theres no way he can outdamage my quickdraws and have aoe too

[rugged sorrel]

and it scales with magic dmg

[spiral bone]

charms

[lilac axle]

Why are charms tripling the damage of a skill that's starts at 0.6 the damage of your base hit

Charms and gear, but seems pretty extreme

[spiral bone]

it's normally a 4 block radius but -1 due to epic charm

[frozen axle]

cuz if you dedicate 12 charm power to one thing i'd sure hope it triples its dmg

actually

[calm sun]

is that a full dshot charm set

[frozen axle]

i take that back

[spiral bone]

kinda but im missing 1 lesser charm

[rugged sorrel]

charms give like 120% dmg

[calm sun]

lawdy.

[spiral bone]

congrats ive fixed shaman

[jade palm]

also why does flame u gives double damage output

[frozen axle]

go try it

[spiral bone]

now it's engaging and has burst damage

[frozen axle]

well u just turned it into better quickdraw if it works

[jade palm]

now I hate dshot more

[rugged sorrel]

dshot shaman is the only real way to play shaman is r3

[spiral bone]

i can literally run piercing 2 arrows and just send a crowd to hell

[frozen axle]

bow alch is back ⁉️

just not an 8 block aoe

so sad

[jade palm]

isnt that just scout

[frozen axle]

i mean it pierces

[spiral bone]

scout with aoe shots

[jade palm]

yeah but its the same for stuff like bow mage/cleric

[spiral bone]

you don't get it

[jade palm]

ok so alchemist

[spiral bone]

each pierced mob procs the 200 damage 3 block aoe

[jade palm]

I mean its prob getting nerfed

[frozen axle]

yeah alchemist is that crazy

my alch pots do 200

[jade palm]

have fun before august

[spiral bone]

bro is a certified hater

[jade palm]

zoetic crying in the corner

[jade palm]

dual scaling tend to get the nerf

fairly sure it happened to earrow

[lilac axle]

Is that with projection (u)

[spiral bone]

yes

it gives 30% damage its so bad

but ill take what i can get

[jade palm]

eternal what do you think about the potential proj (u) + dark explosion burst from my rework doc

[frozen axle]

bro is talking about the theoretical meta

[lilac axle]

Did they change from the last time I read them

[jade palm]

not yet

I might need to

[spiral bone]

ok this just 1 taps dreads/crowds

[frozen axle]

gg

bow alch is back baby

[calm sun]

bumkers out here doing bumkers things

[jade palm]

This is why you don't add dual scaling 🤣

[calm sun]

interesting though, figured it was going to fail the pierce/multishot based on the code

[spiral bone]

XD what have i done

[jade palm]

gg

[lilac axle]

I think the totem shadows are an interesting idea and I proposed something similar with Totem Husks many months ago. Dark explosion looks like a generic damage skill that doesn't help create interesting builds/playstyles for shaman

[rugged sorrel]

[jade palm]

DE is just a damage skill that gets better with more totem

[calm sun]

wonder if there's a way to keep manage the multihits to a lower effectiveness but keep the unique plays

[jade palm]

which is imo something that current shaman needs actually

at least change tremor to that

[jade palm]

ok this is just not balanced

I meam even putting my bias aside

[rugged sorrel]

if dshot is procced multiple time in same tick divide the dmg by the amount of hits were hit

[jade palm]

-50% cd with little to no downside

[spiral bone]

I think multishot should stay but reduce pierce to like 30% effectiveness

[rugged sorrel]

-1 block radius is quite alot when dshot radius is only 4 blocks to begin with

and 4 cp

[jade palm]

it should be -100%

[rugged sorrel]

bro what

stop cooking

[jade palm]

refer to a certain cleric charm

[spiral bone]

it's not that good on solo mobs which makes sense

[rugged sorrel]

you threw the kitchen into the void

[calm sun]

something between those 2, kind of want to lean the effectiveness towards the main shot/first hit shot with falloff, but either way, cool to know on the dshot side of things, it's no secret that i'm not much of a damage stacker

[lilac axle]

Martial Mantra is definitely a charm of all time

[jade palm]

-50% Luminous Infusion Cooldown
-15% Luminous Infusion Damage
-100% Luminous Infusion Radius

3 stars

mfw balance team let the dshot charm slip

[rugged sorrel]

I think theres difference between epics and rares

[jade palm]

they are prob like me and think "yeah dshot sucks lets just give it something good"

I don't think epic charm get more budget

[spiral bone]

werent u just hating on the dshot charm

[jade palm]

correct me if wrong

[spiral bone]

and now you're mad that it's good

[jade palm]

yeah

[rugged sorrel]

they are meant to be gimmicky or allow certain type of playstyle

[jade palm]

bad skill + overpowered charm

whats not to hate?

[rugged sorrel]

you aren't running lifeblood without stacking dshot dmg

[jade palm]

it even comes with free damage...

[frozen axle]

this "allowing" also just makes them have more budget

even if non-intentional there effects are just more potent

[rugged sorrel]

shaman should have something fun

[frozen axle]

yeah

[rugged sorrel]

not just lame-ass totems all the time

[jade palm]

what if we just make the base class good

[rugged sorrel]

hating on dshot is like hating on ele arrows

[jade palm]

...

[jade palm]

wanna guess what I think about earrows?

[rugged sorrel]

shaman is a hybrid class and should encourage different types of playstyles

[spiral bone]

You just had to look deep

I'm technically a hybrid playstyle now

and I'm gaming

[jade palm]

hybrid here means a bunch of random stuff that are held together by duct tape...

[rugged sorrel]

dshot is very hybrid skill

[jade palm]

hex already feels like 3 goblins in a trenchcoat

pretending to have synergy

[frozen axle]

well

[jade palm]

compare to sooth

[frozen axle]

they arent pretending they just dont have synergy

[jade palm]

at least it have somewhat resemblence of a theme

sustain/cdr

[rugged sorrel]

does spec has to be all about synergy?

[frozen axle]

hex is just dmg

theme

[rugged sorrel]

yea

[jade palm]

yes

[rugged sorrel]

hex dlc to shaman's base kit

[frozen axle]

idk some specs dont need to be synergy look at ranger

[rugged sorrel]

which is fine

[jade palm]

ranger very much does have synergy...

[frozen axle]

mmm

sure

[jade palm]

at least it have a consistent theme

[rugged sorrel]

qd and tactical doesn't have synergy 🗿

[jade palm]

"it deals more damage" isn't a real theme

[frozen axle]

i mean ig tactical in to close space

[jade palm]

yeah that

[royal pasture]

qd tactical and the other one dont have synergy at all

melee scout..

[frozen axle]

whirling blade arguably has more synegry with tact

[jade palm]

it does fit scout very well

[rugged sorrel]

also apoth's kit feels kind of out of place

[frozen axle]

you tact in stun mobs and then cc even more following up with whirling

[jade palm]

esp for a mobility/hybrid based spec

apoth is just yellow heart

I think its ok

[lilac axle]

QD with the idea of a faster burst volley would make some sense in a melee scout > hybrid scout playstyle

[jade palm]

I hate how they ruined trans ring but the rest works

[lilac axle]

Recoil QD for even more mobility focus would also make sense, though dependant on an admittedly limited distribution enchant

[frozen axle]

bloodhound should just do some multi-skill stuff

nerf volley possibly

[rugged sorrel]

hex has synergy with shaman's base kit with devastation

and also decaying totem has synergy with shaman's base kit

[jade palm]

deva

aka why I exploded my decay totem

[rugged sorrel]

decay totem gives more base dmg to fire and lightning totem

[jade palm]

why...

cause this screams "feed me damage scaling"

[rugged sorrel]

and

[royal pasture]

-1 multishot arrow

[spiral bone]

decay totem just used to be decay 1 in testing

i asked zig to change it to actual damage

[rugged sorrel]

funny

[spiral bone]

but it used to hit really fast

[rugged sorrel]

hexbreaker's kit is pretty good

[jade palm]

sooth just feels much better in actual gameplay

just throw stuff

and the cdr will mamage it for you

[calm sun]

decay like 5 or something, but yea decay applying decay just didn't work out

[jade palm]

why does decay even exist

(the enchant)

[rugged sorrel]

devastation has a funny thing that it reduces the cooldown of a destroyed totem by 3s

[rugged sorrel]

DoT

having just fire aspect would be boring

[jade palm]

I remember trying to use it and it was fucking bugged

[rugged sorrel]

bugged how

[jade palm]

if you use it with <3 second cd it straight up dont work

should be fixed now

[spiral bone]

decay level only changes the duration of the decay

decay 5 is five seconds of 1 damage ticks

[jade palm]

what

[calm sun]

not quite

[rugged sorrel]

I think it also increases damage tick rate

[calm sun]

changes frequency of 1 damage ticks

[spiral bone]

wait what

[calm sun]

yep.

idk the math

[spiral bone]

damn my monumenta phd evaporated in the 4 months i was crippled

[spiral bone]

wait so its just faster

i was right!! (somewhat)

[rugged sorrel]

one thing I would like to see for devastion having unique effect for destroying specific totem

so people wouldn't just destroy cleansing totems

or about to expiring totems

[spiral bone]

(right in the 1 damage ticks part xd)

you can aim at a totem

and then use devastation to nuke it

[jade palm]

does it do that now

[spiral bone]

yes...

[jade palm]

I remember complaining all day about its qol

it used to only nuke closest

[rugged sorrel]

they changed it while ago

[jade palm]

hmm maybe stuff does change for the better

[spiral bone]

what a wholesome end to this conversation

[jade palm]

also can we bring back eye of the storm in some form

I think a pull ability would fit in so much on shaman

actually

make dshot pull mobs in

I will stop complaining about it if it happens

[rugged sorrel]

whirlwind totem would fit better 🤷

[jade palm]

maybe

furthers proves sooth superiority

[keen elk]

really? I think unstable reactor is an incredible charm. The -Radius is a fair drawback for so much DPS and its not unreasonable to play around -radius at all. You just have to aim projection better (huge learning curve for shaman!). Sticky sap helps unstable reactor a lot since it let you position your lightning totem exactly where you want it; to let it hit the mob more then once. I personally think that -Radius is a cool drawback since it's a fair downside that just requires play adjustment rather then some other epic charms that have ether no or extremely negligible drawbacks (like cry havoc is a 1star charm that gives super good stats and has a super small -20% damage on Tstep).

I suppose its fair to say that Unstable reactor is a bit bland though, it is just a DPS charm in the end.

[spiral bone]

18.9 magic damage every 1.4 seconds and -30% radius VS 28.35 every 2 seconds with no -radius

its literally just bad xd

[keen elk]

they stack and unstable reactor is supposed to work of lightning totem's enhancement

[spiral bone]

eh its nothing special

[keen elk]

I have ran the charm extensively in everything in r3 its pretty good. Its for sure better then the many many, sad rare charms shaman has

[elder spindle]

curious to find out what rare charms for Shaman would be fun beyond "it's fun because I eradicate the mob"

like what concepts/ideas

[spiral bone]

this is a fun one

just becomes a shotgun

[keen elk]

we have talked about this a little bit before. Rare charms should change how skills function more often, to differentiate them from the basic numbers up charms.

[barren mortar]

If only crystalline combos could be activated on demand instead of instantly triggering once you’ve already killed every mob😔

[coarse root]

🔥

[keen elk]

for example I talked about this charm silver medallion. Could possibly be reworked to change how whirlwind totems works (instead of just being a bad charm like it is now). I suggested making silver Medallion get rid of Whirlwind totem's CDR and instead buff up the totem's speed buff by a lot; giving whirlwind totem a different use case. It does no have to be that rework at all; just anything really.

[elder spindle]

let me rephrase, what charm concepts/ideas would change the active play of the class in an interesting way?
For example Will of Ganzir changes Shield Wall from a defensive area denial tool into an offensive spacing tool with higher general uptime

[spiral bone]

I think this is a pretty neat charm

allows for perm totem uptime

[elder spindle]

sure you can have fun passive charms but they are still going to be passive abilities

they rarely change your individual decisions during encounters

[keen elk]

What is the current silver Medallion meant to accomplish? It gives your totem more duration but also decreases its cooldown which makes the effectiveness of its main stat worse. It increases the Radius of whirlwind totem, which might be an attempt to make it a better supporting skill. But bonus radius does not help the shaman who is already in the range of the totem at all times and other players don't value the whirlwind totems support enough and just ignore the totem most of the time. (something else that has been talked about at length

[spiral bone]

#1262332041530179657 message

[keen elk]

For 3 charm notches it really isnt doing much that you cannot already accomplish without using a charm at all.

[spiral bone]

i made use of it here

[elder spindle]

Silver Medallion looks to incentivize using it as a support tool for a team of players rather than fit into the basic rotation of totem vomit'

[spiral bone]

the cycle given is impossible without the charm

[elder spindle]

larger duration and radius allows a much greater flexibility for the team while the longer cooldown makes it more important to use intelligently over just ripping it out asap

[keen elk]

but the charm is not needed to achieve permanent (or effectively permanent) uptime. Thats why I don't think its useful.

[spiral bone]

i mean it kinda is

the charm allows for the last 2 second window of the whirlwind in which you can cast your other totems again

[keen elk]

I think the same thing about mist of dawn, which is a better charms but I still don't have a use for it because I can get lightning totem active at all times without allocating any charm power.

[keen elk]

some charms try to do this but just fail, like this one

funny charm that makes Tremor send mobs flying; its not good but they tried here!

Its not good because you don't acutally want to send mobs flying on shaman. The 45% damage is not enough to make Tremor strong and if it was you could get almost the same damage with a basic charm.

[frozen axle]

that was the only fun shaman charm when i tried r3 shaman

tremor felt like it really had an impact, felt powerful to use

[midnight stirrup]

It might not feel like it, but whirlwind totem is a pretty significant DPS up in a group setting (especially since skill cooldowns are innately going to increase your dps multiplicatively to your damage ups), I designed that charm with boss fights in mind for a support soothsayer set-up, there's not a huge amount of R3 bosses that massively benefit from this atm but the number should increase into the future.

Basically the charm allows for permanent skill up-time, and the radius up is supposed to allow the totem to better cover boss arenas.

I think a bigger issue with the charm is that it feels unimpactful because the whirlwind totem doesn't give the right feeling to the cooldown decreases, but that's just my two cents.

That being said I do think the charm has a genuine place as just a generic soothsayer pick, especially in tankier/slower sets, just due to the utility of the radius increase.

[midnight stirrup]

This one was more designed with hitting breakpoints in mind, I found lightning totem was often overkilling (or with tankier mobs, doing like 70% of their health), so in glassier sets this becomes a massive damage up, it’s just a bit fiddly and takes some care in its use.

I think the specific damage calculations here also accounted for running various charms in combination with each other, I don't remember the precise details but just comparing them one-to-one isn't too useful... At least this was the balance philosophy I took in the multiplicative world, I dunno how this should be appraised in the additive world.

[midnight stirrup]

This one I don't think I designed / don't remember the design philosophy, oh well

[keen elk]

we have gone over whirlwind totem being kind of bad for support in this in the thread already, but I don't blame you for not wanting to read through all of the 1700 messages! To summarize, players just don't stand in the whirlwind totem almost ever. Even if the situation is perfect they just don't recognize that whirlwind totem will help them and ignore it. They do the same thing with cleansing totem, I've seen players that would rather charge the boss with 4 health then heal up for free. You have to forcefully put totems on people for them to benefit from the buffs. But all totems are moved at the same time as projection so thats limited; since you are movign whirlwind alongside your attack totems (which is good for you, but bad for using it as a support skill).

I have no idea if this could even be fixed, its just a skill issue players have. But it does lead to a support soothsayer just being non existent in anything but a coordinated group (and coordinated groups, do not need supports and if they want one they will pick cleric)

[wise salmon]

I mean I think someone suggested multiple keybinds for projection that moved different types of totems, that might help somewhat

[coarse root]

adhesive totems revival

why bother making people stay near totems?

tape them to their back!

[wise salmon]

that's too overpowered we can't have a super tanky class delete everything nearby

[keen elk]

eh, the thing is I would still move whirlwind totem to use it for myself and that would involve putting it near the damage totems anyways because shaman wants to go in deep. That would help cleansing totem more, which is nice since that skill is pretty medicore.

[wise salmon]

player adhesive if it capped out at one would be useful and not too broken I think though

[keen elk]

maybe the problem of whirlwind totem being ignored will just get fixed naturally if more people play soothsayer and it whirlwind totem becomes more widely recognized as worth standing in. But that would have happen after a much needed soothsayer buff (please please please delete sanctuary, everybody wants that sad skill gone, no buffs its boring anyways give sooth something cool)

[wise salmon]

what if,, the totems moved towards enemies on their own..

https://tenor.com/view/wynn-wynncraft-wackolo-seeking-totem-no-morph-gif-26471056

[keen elk]

as of right now I regularly see scout players, who have ranged attacks and can stand anywhere WALK AWAY from the FREE buff from whirlwind totem

Its like they think whirlwind totem is an enemies attack or something. I can't say I blame them with how low soothsayer useage is.

[keen elk]

I mean the charm is bad, but I don't think its poorly designed. Its okay to just have for fun charms in the game. I'm more so just staying that shaman has a lot of weak/too gimmicky charms right now and used it as an example of a charm that is both weak and too gimmicky.

The gimmicks need to be stronger or rethought

[dawn sparrow]

Can we get more damage per skill point plus spec points plus enhance points

[wise salmon]

Level 1: Right click while holding a melee weapon and sneaking to fire a projectile that summons an alchemist totem. The totem throws alchemist potions at a target within range, dealing 6 damage in a 5 block radius. Charge up time: 1s. Duration: 10s. Cooldown: 22s.

[coarse root]

[sinful radish]

new totem
mobs that dies inside the totem range spawns a wolf that targets nearby mobs
spitting balls

[woeful vessel]

https://ohthemisery.vercel.app/builder/m=Eschar Dreamcatcher-4&o=Timerift Stave-4&h=Sentinel's Cap-4&c=Adept's Raiment-4&l=Venomous Folly-4&b=Chains of Legacy-4&charm=Sca-ardust-1-S,Dee-agment-4-S,Pro-Engine-3-S,Fin-eblood-4-S

I honestly don't have problem with earthen tremor, it's enhancement and that charm

Mostly due to how I play and how I use it, it's kb does have problem about kb mob out of totem range, but given the environment r3 has, many time mob will fall to somewhere u don't need care them at all. And due to how fast mob move, they are also likely will walk back in totem range

And for this spefic set I use is also a good way to get stack since it does 60 damage aoe in a massive radius with 10s cooldown which is very enough

Most problem I face when I play is crystal stack sometime waste on single mob left and all my stack is gone, would be good if lv2 or enhancment allow player not lose all stack when trigger shot

[wise salmon]

Smart crystals should be enhancement

[jade palm]

What's the point of crystalline combos..

[keen elk]

Its supposed to incentivize shaman to play more quickly, since if you keep getting kills your combos wont decay. They do a lot of damage but are unreliable to balance things out.

In practice crystyaline sort of does that; it is better if you are more aggro but they are also fine if you play at a slower pace. They also are less effective in multiplayer because of kill stealing (although its not back breaking like it can feel for rouge's viscous combos)

[jade palm]

I don't think its a good idea to push shaman to go too fast ngl

[keen elk]

well totems in general reward fast play since you want to get the most out of their duration and since they attack automatically its better for you to do something proactive then just sit in the corner and twiddle your thumbs.

Shaman not having any mobility skills is an important limiter on its power though. Its just playing fast but is not acutally that fast in the grand scheme of things.

[sinful radish]

What I don’t like about crystalline combos is that you can’t really play around it
It’s just kinda there
It doesn’t really change gameplay
Until crystalline u, that adds some choices to be made which is good

[keen elk]

ya, I don't hate removing combos because of it being just free damage. I dislike havoc for the same reason, does damage for you without changing how you play.

[keen elk]

the scattered stardust charms feels more inline with what crystalline combos is supposed to be. That charm is made much more effective when you are constantly refilling it. Naturally that means its very good in high pt environments and is very tame in easier content.

[woeful vessel]

With current charm, I would said it does change gameplay

Also is still good in "easier" content

[keen elk]

combos also has satisfying ASMR sound effects which makes it much more fun then the completely silent, difficult to even notice do anything interconnected havoc

[woeful vessel]

What I think combo want to achive is make shaman's downtime still has some sort of damage to avoid keep running for life

So I use it with tremor and dshot

[jade palm]

I prefer making zero downtime more accessible instead

so no more shoving in irrelevant skill

[woeful vessel]

U have soothsayer

[keen elk]

to clarify what I mean. In easy content you don't need scattered stardust to fire faster when theres just not enough mobs present for you to acutally need to pump out all of the crystals asap (so that you can start making more).

if theres only like 2 mobs and you know combos will kill them both then it does not matter how fast it shoots; you can simply ignore the mobs and let combos kill them both for you. But when theres 8 mobs, scatted stardust will let combos kill those first 2 mobs quickly so that the next 6 you kill give you progress for your next charge of crystaline instead of going to waste (since you don't gain more combos while the skill is actively firing)

[woeful vessel]

Not agree the u don't need it fire faster part since most of time they have some sort of range attack, but understandable

Still l preety like combo, just need some qol like not waste all stack, stop kill stole etc

What would the change ppl want since some say don't like it because "free damage" which I don't consider it is

[keen elk]

Making crystalline controllable completely redefines the skill. I'm not ageist that happening, but it does erase all of its weaknesses.

[woeful vessel]

Indeed

I just want it won't lose all stack, since in my experience, it can cast one shot to 10hp mob then all gone

Some mercy would be good, maybe 1/4 I guess

Or change to something else, give your teammate shield

[keen elk]

Combos 2 is at minimum 120 damage for doing what you want to do anyways. But since you cannot consistently optimize all of that damage its not reaching its full potential most of the time which limits the skill. Its not something like mages spellshock which does less damage but is completely in the players hands which means its able to reach its full damage potential almost every time; which makes it a much stronger skill despite having weaker numbers.

[woeful vessel]

If trigger but didn't use full stack, given player include u in 6 block radius x absorb last x sec, x is stack doesn't use devide by 4

Something like that I guess

[keen elk]

A combos that controllable would probably need to look different to be balanced. Maybe something like crystalline combos act as a Laser you can charge and fire at 12 stacks; with each stack increasing the duration the laser lasts for. You could have the enhance let the player fire the laser at any time, but with the laser only lasting as long as the amount of stacks you have.

[woeful vessel]

Rn I often use it against colossal, falling creeper, mob swarm like in reverie, which is preety fun and recommend try

[woeful vessel]

Funny beam

[rugged sorrel]

crystalline combos kinda feel like one of those abilities you kinda just pick because its free dmg

making it a trigger ability where you have to shoot them by aiming would be more intresting 👍

[woeful vessel]

I don't consider it free since u need use other skill to get it, at this define other skill is more a free damage

Also what's different between it and other magic proj thing if u gonna cast it and aim it

[rugged sorrel]

by "free" I mean just need to kill enemies to gain a stack

you don't even need to kill with an ability

[exotic copper]

free dmg when a boss has no minions

[rugged sorrel]

either free damage or useless

well I guess every class has one "free" damage skill

[exotic copper]

i either not trigger it, trigger it on a last mob to waste, or chain like 3 in a row

orang chall was goated for that one

[rugged sorrel]

crystalline combos just doesn't feel interesting as a skill

[exotic copper]

it sure does feel satisfying when it triggers at just the right time

though

[woeful vessel]

U pefer more active like I think?

[rugged sorrel]

active skill or a passive that you can build around

[woeful vessel]

Me when it koll falling creeper

[rugged sorrel]

crystalline combos kinda doesn't do neither of those

[woeful vessel]

It ia a skill u can build around I think

And the build I use rn is result

[rugged sorrel]

you need to kill stuff before it would function 🤷

[rugged sorrel]

this would be more interesting imo

[woeful vessel]

It allow me to use other thing to kill mob when totem is down

[exotic copper]

i like looting chests while everything around dies by just looking at me

[woeful vessel]

The main point of my build is u can use totem kill crowd while have combo kill last thing or colossal appear fron spawner I mining, it also encourage player use other skill kill thing to get stack, so I have dshot and etremor, I even use overclocker for speed and aoe

[rugged sorrel]

well if you like the more passive playstyle of shaman then sure

[woeful vessel]

The point is its not passive
I do like your idea, but at the mean time it feel same as other skill

[rugged sorrel]

its conditional passive

[quasi pawn]

what's current shaman power be like

[exotic copper]

still insane in r1

[spiral bone]

really strong in r3

[quasi pawn]

how about r2

[spiral bone]

Last time I touched it in r2 was during beta testing

[keen elk]

It is also pretty good in r2. Blows mage out of the water and competes with warlock and alchemist pretty well. r2 shaman has problems with its builds though (it is locked into using only a couple of items)

hex and soothsayer are also much closer to eachother balance wise in that region. Theres no charms that give hexbreaker an advantage over sooth

[jade palm]

The new inferno paladin

[jade palm]

The issue with whirlwind totem is that its not really a support ability
CDR disproportionately benefits shaman more than any class.
-10% cd on other classes might just be a ~10% increase
-10% cd on shaman is like reducing downtime by half, or even outright removing it

Which is why cleansing totem is much more of a support totem compared to whirlwind

[jade palm]

your totem should never be down

[woeful vessel]

Ok

[jade palm]

would love a summoner, but I think that fits better as a new class or as a third scout spec

[woeful vessel]

First I am talking about current shaman, second I don't like never down totem idea

[jade palm]

Your totem shouldn't be down in normal shaman too

its easy to do complete 0 downtime for sooth

and with hex you have more damage totems

[woeful vessel]

I am talking about hexbraker

[jade palm]

so with some rotation

[woeful vessel]

And don't put your playstyle on me

[jade palm]

I don't think you should have no totem

I am ok with alternate playstyles

but they can not undermine the base class

pushing for these kind of stuff should not be the priority when the entire class is a disorganized mess

Esp. when said "playstyle" is being propped up by a single skill that sticks out like a sore thumb

Melee scout is fine because there are several skills and mechanics that back it up

caster cleric is fine because there are some good magic skills for cleric and the class still have a unique identity compared to other casters classes

dshot is non of these

[rugged sorrel]

ok but how would one skill playstyle be problematic

[jade palm]

because you only get 8 skills

and when the base class is in a suboptimal state

worse in the case of dshot

since its 1/3

[rugged sorrel]

the whole kit of rogue is build around vicious combo

[jade palm]

fairly sure people have been aruging to make vc passive

which is imo a great idea

[sinful radish]

I agree with that making cd the punishment of bad totem management is not the greatest
but not many other things beat it for the better as far as I have seen
just giving perma totem uptime to every shaman player has to come with something else as a punishment

[rugged sorrel]

and also ranger scout is basically just quickdraw

[jade palm]

there should be no "must pick or class straight up don't work" skills

[jade palm]

tbh I've campaigned for quickdraw on base class

[rugged sorrel]

this is one of the biggest problems with shaman

[jade palm]

I think punishing bad management with CD is a good idea

however

[rugged sorrel]

thats why dshot would most certainly be a good skill be in shaman's kit

it removes the "I need all my totems to function"

[jade palm]

said bad management should be "fucking up spellcycle" instead of "not running 3 aptitude pieces"

[jade palm]

that feels like a design flaw

ngl

chain lightning is a much better concept as a connecting skill, even if its execution is questionable

[rugged sorrel]

the perfect case scenario for shaman would be split playstyles between totem-packed shaman and totemless-ish shaman

[jade palm]

I think we should focus on fixing totems first

then maybe allow some other playstyles to slip in via enhancement

[jade palm]

I think maybe single totem vs multi totem can be a good design

at least thats what I tried to do

in my doc

[exotic copper]

crusadeless cleric (only works in azzy)

[jade palm]

support exists

[exotic copper]

👁️👁️

[calm sun]

dshot is meant to kind of be a "use without relation to totems" kind of thing

something to use in offtime/time where the totems are already acting

[jade palm]

refer to arcane strike as a good execution of the idea

[stuck sky]

One of the only things I really find myself wanting more of when playing shaman is knockback/other forms of controlling mob positioning.

• Six-pronged sea stone and propulsion engine are great for that, really fun to play with, but they're really expensive. Sea stone is somewhat "outdated" in the sense that it was made when chain lightning was 2/4 charges, now 3/5 charges with LoS req, but the charm's charm power cost was never updated. It's also slightly weird that it's called "six-pronged" when it's no longer possible to achieve 6 targets without aether dart, only 5 or 7. I'd love to see it bumped down to +1 target with the loss of 1 or 2 charm power for compensation (or just renamed to seven-pronged ). For propulsion engine, I think it should get a little more spice, maybe in the form of reduced radius with a stronger damage bonus. As it stands, Earthen Tremor is difficult to build to a significantly impactful level in R3.
• Interconnected Havoc enhancement is good for CC too, I don't use it at the moment, but I have done previously and I intend to after we get another enhancement point. I don't think devastation deals any knockback right now, I'd like to see it receive a pull effect maybe. For a supposed commander class, it's odd that it has no method of pulling.
• I suppose there's an issue in the fact that, even if these charms are rebalanced, this is just R3. Could always bump up the knockback of some base skills.

For some less CC oriented stuff:

• I've said this before and I will again - I miss the old Earthen Tremor activation. The knock up and delay I don't really care about, but having to shoot a projectile for it was awesome. Paired well with Desecrating Shot, but without the delay and knock up they're certainly very similar skills. If Desecrating Shot is chosen to be reworked, I'd love to see this for Tremor.
• Crystalline Combos is fine, great skill with Scattered Stardust, I just wish it was a skill the player was more conscious about. I want to manually trigger it, in a way similar to that of Rampage. I also still don't understand why it's themed around crystals, it seems rather detached from Shaman's concept.
• Sanctuary as a skill has fallen further in strength after the additive damage rework, especially with level 2's 10% vulnerability being unchanged (I'm aware this wasn't something you had a role in), and I just think it's time for that skill to receive something else. I'm not one for cooking up new skill ideas, but as other people have said, more projectile usage would be great.

[forest tiger]

crystalline combos has a trigger, doesn’t it?

i remember having to rebind it because it’s default bind is something esoteric like sneak swap on bow

[sinful radish]

Only the enhancement

[spiral bone]

the trigger is for the enhancement

you get speed for 6 picoseconds

[spiral bone]

Sanctuary with that 1 star slowness charm is pretty dope

basically traps mobs inside your totems with the slowness

[stuck sky]

Yeah that one's cool

[forest tiger]

Accursed Stake?

isn’t that only 15%

[sinful radish]

Yeah
It’s 35% iirc with the charm
Honestly not bad for a 1 star charm
Until all the cc immune mobs come in

[jade palm]

sanctuary is ok

I want to see it reworked

but its not unusable rn

[frozen axle]

Sanct is just so. Boring.

[jade palm]

as some people say

[frozen axle]

Mob in totem debuffed wow

[jade palm]

at least its totem synergy!

[frozen axle]

I think to encourage holding on to totems instead of spamming them, maybe when placed, mobs in ur totems radius get debuffed harder then what it is now? Instead of aiming for max uptime you can choose to hold on for better burst or smthn. It's better then current sanct at least

[sinful radish]

I think when shaman just came out it’s like this
You’re supposed to choose to either deploy totems one by one or all at once
But then the problem for that is that

1. Some of the skills requires multiple totems to even work
2. The penalty of deploying all at once being you have to wait feels bad
3. aptitude just take the decision part away

[frozen axle]

The idea of one totem that changes its attack starts to sound better everyday

[calm sun]

a pull ability on shaman was knocked down at the time due to overlap with warlock

[frozen axle]

Seriously? L

Why should it even be blocked

[grizzled kernel]

Sanctuary is not beating the debuff allegations

[elder spindle]

does that mean Totems have to be deleted because Illuminate already exists

[calm sun]

wasn't my choice btw, not my doin'

[dusty timber]

if you think about it totems overlap too much with tenebrist's haunting shade

both provide aoe debuffs and buff players in the effective radius

[keen elk]

10% vurn for 2 specialization points is not okay 😭. Its 4 times worse then decay totem for damage and is even worse at slowing then decay totem is. Thats if the slowing even works, every mob you want to slow is IMMUNE to slow anyways and everything else will just die before the slow does anything.

[frozen axle]

It's definitely good

[keen elk]

Theres no saving Sanctuary; it has to be shot

[frozen axle]

It's literally just free cc

But that doesn't mean it's fun or cool

[keen elk]

sanct is less effective then both havoc and crystaline combos when it comes to "free" damage and its a spec skill

[calm sun]

slowness in general is weaker the further in regions you go, as more and more mobs get immunity

slowness and vuln on mobs in an area competes better in groups, where the whole gang can use it to meet those breakpoints

[keen elk]

in multiplayer sanct is 2 spec points to get 20% weak and nothing else since your vulnerability will get overwritten constantly by the scout. 20% weak is not doing a whole lot and sooth already has a better surviveability skill (chain healing) anyways.

Now that alchemist's creepers have been buffed I can confidently say its the single worst skill in the game right now

Even in places like gallery of fear (tons and tons of mobs with high HP and are able to be effected by slow). Its just not worth it

Buffing sanct to make it a more effective skill does not make it any less boring anyways. If Sanct had good slowness, it would be a degenerate skill. If it had good vulnerability then its a silly skill that provides a strong DPS boost you get from doing nothing. If it had good weak it would become a strong skill thats unsatisfying to use since it does nothing when you don't get hit (kinda like smoke bomb)

[frozen axle]

Assuming that every party has a scout is kinda wild

[keen elk]

no its not, scout is a meta class and is realistically going to be in the majority of groups. If its not scout, cleric can also override your vulnerable; even alchemist does a better job at vurn.

I have not once, EVER been in a world boss without a scout. But I have been in many world bosses that don't have warlocks, shamans or alchemists. I've played like 300 strikes and I want to say about 20 of them had no scout.

[frozen axle]

So we balance around 20-30 player world events now?

[elder spindle]

idk man mathematically speaking Soothsayer is the damage spec because of Sanct

higher damage results

[keen elk]

no, decay totem provides a much greater boost to you totems (which matters the most) and hits mobs it self for even more damage.

also hex bringer has 2 other damage skills. I was not being hyperbolic when I said its 4 times worse; it really is that bad.

its probably even worse then 4 times as bad in multiplayer where your vurn gets over written.

[forest tiger]

slowing mobs is vaguely pointless in r3 where half the threats can just teleport or launch themselves

proposal: sanct cancels all movement abilities of hostile mobs in range

[wise salmon]

sanctuary proposal:

[frozen axle]

well at this point is it even a sanctuary u aitn even using it

it should be called totem aura or smthn

ahahahaha

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[jade palm]

why the fuck are so many mobs cc immune

anyways

[frozen axle]

Cuz if they weren't they'd be a joke

Ccing a dread would just be mean

[elder spindle]

split CC immunity into CC resist

[wise salmon]

the monkey's paw curls. all mobs are now affected by cc, but elites and bosses are now immune to projectile and magic damage

[sinful radish]

cc immune spam kinda made the cc dimensionality of balancing just gone
everything except damage doesn't matter cuz what can they do if they are dead

[keen elk]

out of curiosity, would anybody want me to make a tread for shaman builds for all regions? Just for the sake of being able to point to examples

we are currently missing builds for every class, especially shaman.

[barren mortar]

Low player population issue most likely

It’s pretty low already and I’m guessing the ones that do exist aren’t frequent build crafters and if they do exist then they don’t feel like making gameplay build posts

[grizzled kernel]

I mean shaman builds are just BIS magic really

[keen elk]

true that the armor wont vary much, but theres still some variety in charm / skill selection. I'll do r1 and r2 today

[jade palm]

aptitude

[jade palm]

#1184461305780899930 message

[jade palm]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gxBdyoiLUpVN017-k_eZIItDjVI0yfhJgINRhSZmIFc second draft of rework, changed a lot more abilities to be more interesting

[keen elk]

why does discord not let me copy paste text into forum posts ahhhh

I'll only do r1 for now, I think I made it over the word cap by accident

[versed cradle]

what'd you write to hit the 2k char cap

[keen elk]

it was only 3 builds 😭

[keen elk]

oh it was 7022 characters, ya I guess I went a little bit above the word cap. I'll have to figure out how to cut out 5000 characters; without having to get rid of the spaces and make it look ugly.

at this rate if I keep this character count up, It would be 30000 to cover everything 😓

[jade palm]

post as google doc

like me

[keen elk]

maybe, but I want it in the dedicated gameplay builds section

[calm sun]

yea, the amount of cc immune or extreme resistance now has gotten problematic for making anything beyond a damage class

[unborn depot]

that one elite in exalted reverie that ignores all my cc, gets avenger stacks from my aoe and then proceeds run at me at mach 5 to 2 shot me

[frozen axle]

Well mojank has made anything beyond a hard small pull be good

Look at wind bomb u

It is just an active detriment to you and teammates trying to play thr game

[lilac axle]

Doubled pull frequency with less velocity per pill would probably help, and perhaps some slow falling on any enemy pulled by the enhancement to make the movement more fluid

[jade palm]

counterpoint: grasping claw

[frozen axle]

yeah

"a small hard pull"

that what grasping is

but that niche is already taken by grasping so

take a look at other games, ill use my 2 other main games:

gale from brawl stars
hard cc brawler with decent dps, his ability is literally just aeroblast, a super hard push. he is really always meta because that CC is useful against big hp targets because those guys don't die instantly.

bdt6 lightning druid
used against moabs to push them away becauses again they don't die instantly cuz they have a lot of hp

i think the bigger issue here is the fact that the "big hp" mobs in monumenta die instantly

cuz cc would actually be a pretty powerful tool against say a twisted or elite, but it doesn't matter cuz they die in less then a second

idk maybe just removing pull/push cc immunity across the game could do soemthing

shadow is largely hated on but imagine if all those knockbacks we had could counter act that tp it has to push it away

ngl this is way out of the scope of this thread might make another thread about this

[long gate]

I feel like 2 things can have the same idea/niche without feeling too samey, speaking in btd 6 terms, you've got druid of the whirlwind, heli's moab shove, and boomer's moab press that all knockback targets. For shaman I feel like you can have pull abilities without feeling like it's the same or overstepping on roles or whatever

[frozen axle]

Honestly an astral omen type skill but with CC would be cool. Instead of different elements it would be chaining CC onto a mob or something. Like slowing a mob and then pushing them could maybe cause a damage effect of some kind.

For something like this though I would say you need to change all the easy slows on shaman to something a little more dependant on the player. Like an actual casted spell that slows in a unique way.

[wise salmon]

[Trigger] to chain mobs to your totems for x seconds, slowing them increasingly as they get closer to the maximum radius of your totems (this is just sanctuary but active but slightly more thought, lol)

[frozen axle]

I seriously don't like this idea of "mob in totem debuff" it is just so boring. Replace it with an active PELASE

[Trigger] to cast a gust of wind that staggers mobs momentarily and slows them by x%, if the mob is inside your Wind Totem, the slow is doubled in effectivenss and the stagger becomes a small push.

something like that is 10x better then what it is now

still on that "mob inside totem thing" except now you gotta bank on that instead of just getting the bank

[long gate]

[Press Input] to pull all mobs within totems radius' by 60% of their current distance and apply 30% slowness and 20% vulnerability

[frozen axle]

or if u dont care about the extra value u can just use it

[rugged sorrel]

what if sanctuary turned totems into meatshields

[frozen axle]

i mean i was always surprised we didnt see dummy decoy ported to shaman

Wind Clone totem wouldn't be a half bad idea to port it but kinda shoved in by now it just wouldn't fit

[wise salmon]

While your totems are on cooldown, instead release their effects at 10% efficiency centered around you.

and half radius ig

[frozen axle]

honestly shaman could get a lot more of an identity if its passive became what aeroblast is and had some sort of way to slow and push CC immune mobs

i just want aeroblast outside dd

[unborn depot]

eeire eminence moment

[frozen axle]

just port aeroblast and remove sanctuary