wow Dragonflight Alpha: Hunter and Shaman Feedback: July 20th

[Staff 1,383]

Blizzard answered some questions about double talents in the revamped Shaman talent tree and Hunter's Trueshot in Dragonflight.

Hunter

Blizzard discussed in a blue post the Trueshot Hunter ability.

(Source)

Trueshot is a massively weak major cooldown when compared to the likes of other 2 minute cooldowns such as Combustion or Vendetta

This is an interesting point of discussion. Cooldowns that are significant power swings, such as Combustion, often define your style of play. You likely need to combo in as many effects as possible to skyrocket up your damage in a short timeframe. Whether or not you get lucky with procs and whatever else in that window dictates a lot about your performance over the fight as a whole. You also start feeling much less effective outside of these damage windows, as you peak very high, and then go down into a lower state of throughput until the cooldown is available again.

Not every cooldown needs to be a significant swing. If Trueshot is made stronger, your average damage outside of Trueshot will likely go down to compensate. Should Trueshot be a big damage swing cooldown like Combustion? The current thought is no.

The points made about Precise Shots during the Trueshot window are valid feedback and is something we could work on to make better, but at the same time we’re also currently OK if some things like Precise Shot stacks are “wasted” during this window. Trueshot makes your gameplay feel significantly different while it is active, which is great. If the cooldown was changed to +20% critical strike chance, it remains effective and a good burst window, but doesn’t feel like you’re doing anything special other than getting a few more critical hits. That’s not to say that secondary stats or a percent critical strike buff are bad, it’s just different.

Shaman

Blizzard also responded to Shaman feedback and noted that double talents in the Shaman tree are intentional as the first talent grants you the ability while the second talent provides you with a second charge.

(Source)

Is there two Healing Stream Totem talents because taking both is supposed to give you 2 charges?

there are currently two stormkeeper talents in the elemental tree one at the end of the tree as a choice node and one on the way to the choice node

The intent with these talents is that getting the first will grant you the ability, such as Healing Stream Totem, or Stormkeeper. Acquiring the second will instead grant you a second charge of these abilities, similar to how the live version of Echo of the Elements grants Restoration Shaman a second charge of Healing Stream Totem.

This may not currently be functioning, but that is the plan for these.

[Dejo93 991]

Loving the new Enh shaman tree. Especially the Feral Spirit build

[Rhondis 148]

4 hours ago, Dejo93 said:

Loving the new Enh shaman tree. Especially the Feral Spirit build

I have some issues with it. But I like it overall. There are some nodes that are like, please for the love of god just take this out... lol. MY biggest issue is them still forcing us to still take Ascendance. Like at least move it to the class tree itself and give us a much more exciting ability. Maybe have unleash elements back but have it do some cool stuff with fire and ice instead?! I dunno, they could have easily done more with it.

[Brightamethyst 83]

I'm glad they're acknowledging the "not every spec needs to be focused around burst windows" philosophy. It makes sense for some specs but has been terrible for others (affliction, etc.)