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TorakTue 09-Jun-20 02:47 PM
Member since 15th Feb 2007
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#74222, "Shaman Path feedback"


          

Although it's clear some won't agree, felt like it was worth bringing up some feedback on how paths need to be rebalanced. I've tried out most of the paths at this point, maybe some things have changed over the last few years I'm missing, and considering I got three paths on Theorendus... man do some paths just suck in comparison.

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Let's first start with just the basics of mana cost. Some serious thought should be put into how much these things cost. When you're trying to always keep up sanctuary and protective shield as a bare minimum, you start adding things like oracle and you just cannot keep up with mana costs as anything but either an imperial or a light-armored shaman unless you want to be spamming sleep/slow potions (which I did, battle tested and girded shield was the best edges I took) and even then you cannot use almost half of your abilities. Sure some of it you're not really going to use normally (looking at you, miraculous foresight... which I still cannot figure out what's the point of it unless you don't know areas).... but a lot of times when you want to use it you can't.

Level 29: holy word 88% 100 mana
Level 30: dire omens 91% 40 mana
Level 31: searing ward 82% 80 mana
Level 32: soul citadel 76% 200 mana
Level 33: emblaze 100% 20 mana
oracle 100% 150 mana
Level 34: demonfire 100% 20 mana
Level 37: vivimantic aura 85% 40 mana
sermon of censure 100% 50 mana
Level 38: aristaeia 77% 200 mana
Level 39: miraculous foresight 85% 250 mana
Level 40: wither 88% 175 mana
Level 42: rot 94% 50 mana
Level 43: majesty 86% 200 mana
Level 47: luminous assault 89% 100 mana
Level 48: seal fate 92% 250 mana

Even if the argument wants to be made "but shamans are about managing mana over long fights", I can agree with that but some of these are just egregious. When you start adding in lots of these have timers and are made to be kill "sealers" and require you to basically be winning by the time the fight ends with them running, having mana at the end is almost never going to happen (looking at you, 250 mana seal fate). Against anyone with energy drain or equivalent, you lose almost everything compared to other classes which have much cheaper abilities.

It also makes imperial shamans in general so much more powerful than any other shaman by far.
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Cooldowns - the game is already starved from fights given the lower amount of players and giving reason to not fight is not necessary. Few hour cooldowns like luminous assault is fine. Multiple days or week+ on majesty and seal fate is not (seriously, how many abilities have 200+ hour cooldowns). This goes across a few other paths as well, just feel like cooldowns should be lowered - obviously not spamming smite is the goal but within reason.

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The "good" paths have abilities that hit your group and cabal mates. Seriously, why is this necessary? Sermon and luminous nuking your allies is pretty bad and with all the fear of this going on it ruins a lot of the arsenal. You would think of the angel/archon/light lines, it would have things that don't hurt groupmates. Even desolation and other paths don't do this.

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Holy justice seems to have some very strange criteria. Some examples:

You narrow your eyes and glare in Zodslag's direction.
Holy justice can only be called on the lawless.

You narrow your eyes and glare in Uggumras's direction.
Holy justice can only be called on the lawless.

You narrow your eyes and glare in Vantiglia's direction.
You call upon holy justice to wrack Vantiglia's mind with guilt and remorse!
Your wave of remorse EVISCERATES Vantiglia!

You narrow your eyes and glare in Jormyr's direction.
You call upon holy justice to wrack Jormyr's mind with guilt and remorse!
Your wave of remorse >>> ANNIHILATES <<< Jormyr!
Jormyr is convulsing on the ground.

I tried it on several people, including the nightreaver, war master, other orcs, etc and it almost did nothing or low damage. For whatever reason, it was wrecking Jormyr but I never saw anything above an EVISCERATE on those you think it'd be great against.

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Emblaze I wouldn't change, I disliked it early but it grew on me purely for the fact it had such a low mana/round cost. It's a nice alternative in specific cases or if you're just running out of mana. If you're doing it for the damage, demonfire is much much better and easier when you're chasing which is normal for a shaman fight (emblaze is 2 round lag).

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More strangeness with sermon, sometimes it works, sometimes it sucks, sometimes it's nice. Holy word is almost always better.

You spread your arms wide and channel the divine voice of Einoh as your words drive home the true
and untrustworthy nature of those with chaos in their hearts. Your harshly inspiring words thunder
across the area and cast judgment on all the unharmonious souls around!
No one nearby responds to your sermon.
A large jaette guard is covered with bleeding wounds.

You spread your arms wide and channel the divine voice of Einoh as your words drive home the true
and untrustworthy nature of those with chaos in their hearts. Your harshly inspiring words thunder
across the area and cast judgment on all the unharmonious souls around!
Your divine reprimand MANGLES a chaos runner war magi!
Your divine reprimand DISMEMBERS a chaos runner war priest!

You spread your arms wide and channel the divine voice of Einoh as your words drive home the true and untrustworthy nature of those with chaos in their hearts. Your harshly inspiring words thunder across the area and cast judgment on all the unharmonious souls around!
Nossos yells 'Argh! Cease your agonizing lecturing, Theorendus!'
Your divine reprimand decimates Nossos! (group mate)

You spread your arms wide and channel the divine voice of Einoh as your words drive home the true and untrustworthy nature of those with chaos in their hearts. Your harshly inspiring words thunder across the area and cast judgment on all the unharmonious souls around!
Van stops following you.
Your divine reprimand MANGLES Van! (cabal mate)
The Imperial Vanquisher is gushing blood. (doesn't hit a lot of mobs, including imperials)

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Searing Ward brings you into combat no matter where you are. I was in the Inn and had the guards attack me because the Dracolich respawned and was hit by the ward. It also seems to have no real logic, it'll sometimes hit everything in the room, sometimes the first only, sometimes the second only, and the "tick" seems random... I've had it in a room for a long time and it never triggered. Making it required out of combat ruins almost all practical usage (I could easily see a mummy raiding with a/b/s through it unless it does something amazing to them because it wasn't crazy damage). Also, another overly long cooldown.

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Dire Omens sucks (no reason to use).
Vivimantic aura sucks (should do something against energy drain) and the damage redux is completely negligible (I'd forget I had it on/off versus dracolich since it did nothing).
Soul Citadel needs to last a bit longer (it's so low for the mana cost).
Lifebind is so situational it had no real use for me since the mummy left (again should do something against energy drain).
Charity of the Archons was alright, wish it didn't have the few hour cooldown since the heal was basically a single mend wounds (when you have to spam that on yourself several times). On neutrals, I'd see it move their health 1-2%. I'd actually be fine with it if it had no cooldown but was given lag like frenzy.

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On the positive side, oracle is great and basically the main reason to take revelation. It gives you perfect dangersense on entering zones and when others enter the zone so you basically never need to spam "where" - even works on shifters above you, hidden/camo/etc. It's hard to live without once you get it.

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I'll leave the commentary on my views of all paths off since it seems folks don't agree but just felt like these 2 paths, archon and light were arguably the weakest of them all.

  

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TopicShaman Path feedback [View all] , Torak, Tue 09-Jun-20 02:47 PM
Reply RE: Shaman Path feedback, TheBluestThumb, 09-Jun-20 03:40 PM, #1
     Reply RE: Shaman Path feedback, Torak, 09-Jun-20 11:50 PM, #2
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