The topic of the thread revolved around the Rogue Subtlety tree and how it’s underwhelming compared to the other trees. But Ghostcrawler’s reply contained something for all pure dps classes to be concerned with. Perhaps it will also be true for other classes that have more than one dps tree too. Here is the interesting reply of Ghostcrawler:

Somewhat related, for the pure dps classes it’s likely that there will always be a spec with the theoretically highest dps. It’s going to be nigh impossible to make multiple talent trees provide identical dps regardless of gear improvement, encounter specifics or group synergies. Our goal instead is just to get things close enough that players are willing to sacrifice a little bit of dps for a playstyle they really enjoy. source

What I understand from this then is that their goal is to design the different pure dps classes so that damage potential is not the deciding factor for their different talent trees but a desired play style. If what I understand is correct, this should be true whether you’re talking about PvE or PvP. We’re seeing this already to a certain degree in the present trees. For example, the Frost tree is usually associated with PvP and AoE farming but steps have been taken to move Frost closer and closer to being competitive to the other specs.

Wouldn’t it be fun to be able to choose your spec because you like how that spec is played and not because it’s the best damage dealer? It’s similar to how a shaman would pick Enhancement because he likes the melee play style and how another would pick Elemental because he likes being ranged DPS. A warlock would pick Destruction because he likes the direct damage while another would pick Demonology because he likes what his minions bring to the table and relies on them more.

I’m not sure exactly how they plan to see this goal through but something tells me that the Mastery talent system coming in the Cataclysm expansion will help. The Mastery system will give players more room to be creative with their talents and not stick to cookie cutter specs. By allowing players more leeway to play around with their specs, this will give them a better opportunity to further customize the trees to fit how they want to play.

Of course this is all just plans and no one knows if we’ll truly get to that “play style rules all” state. But it’s something to look forward to and something to hope for.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

shaman totems

The first Q&A is all about the Shaman class and based on what Blizzard implies, they intend to do the same thing for all the other classes. It’s a great read especially if you play a Shaman as your main character. basically it shares what Ghostcrawler and the rest of the development team have in store for the shaman class for the future and even ideas they’re working to implement, a lot of them are still just ideas they’re playing around with. Below I want to highlight some of those ideas that they’re thinking of adding to the game somehow. Even if it doesn’t make the cut, at least it gives you a look into their heads to understand the direction of the class.

1. Being able to drop all 4 totems at once in one global cooldown

The dev team is looking to implement on a feature that will allow the shaman to drop the four totems one by one like shamans do right now can cost some valuable time in groups or even PvP and can be a major bummer while leveling. Dropping them at the same time could make using totems more attractive.

2. Totem turn in at low level

The totem that Shamans get at higher levels and place in their ranged slot acts as all four totems so the shaman no longer needs to carry around his totems in his bags. The dev team is looking to allow low level shamans to turn in their 4 totems for 1 generic totem like the ones they get at higher levels. This will allow the shamn to free up some bag space.

3. Consolidate totems

Back in the days of Vanilla WoW I thought that shamans had too many totem spells, some of which aren’t used too often. Looks like it’s something some other players and even the devs feel going into today’s game. Ghostcrawler mentioned that they’re going to evaluate the totems and cut out what they don’t need and merge others that need merging. This is similar to when Warlocks did away with Curse of Shadows and made Curse of Elements work for all spell schools.

4. Long term plan to redesign Totems

The long term plan of the dev team is to change all buff totems into spells and make all totems more active (like the healing and damage totems). I’m not sure what this means exactly but if I were to make a guess, maybe the the buff totems would become actual buff spells like the paladin Blessing of Wisdom or the Death Knight Horn of Winter. If this is what they have in mind then at least people won’t need to stay within the range of a totem to get their buffs since the buffs are stuck to the person. But wouldn’t this make them a lot like paladins in that sense?

5. Do something about “Shamans are like turrets”

One of main problems of shamans especially in PvP is their lack of mobility. Ghostcrawler mentioned something about casting shamans being like turrets where they remain stationary around their totems and just keep casting, turning to follow their target or to heal . They’re already looking into some ideas to fix this problem. The idea drop all totems at once would help solve this problem since the shaman can just move and drop the totems again.

6. Try to remove one weapon restriction in Patch 3.2

There’s a feeling that shamans are way to restricted in their weapon choices, making it hard to find upgrades. This is especially true for Enhancement shamans who are pretty much stuck with just daggers since using a two-handed weapon isn’t that viable given the way the talents are setup. Ghostcrawler gave a hint though that it probably won’t be swords. My feeling is swords would have been perfect but probably not very shaman-ish so I’m thinking fist weapons would do the trick!

Go ahead and read the whole piece though since there are a lot more things that Ghostcrawler and the dev team that I left out of this piece on purpose. You can see it here.

Post from: WOW Obsessed