The War Within Beta: More Shaman сhanges and Skyfury raid buff
In a recent blue post on July 2, Blizzard announced some Shaman changes coming to tomorrow’s The War Within Beta. Aside from that, these adjustments include the new Skyfury ability raid buff!
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Tomorrow’s new Beta build will include major updates to the Shaman talent trees and a brand new Skyfury raid buff. Blizzard wants to share some thoughts with the community by emphasizing its goals for the upcoming changes. Let’s take a closer look at what is waiting for us in TWW Beta!
New Skyfury raid buff
Inspired by the raid buffs’ discussions throughout the development of the current Dragonflight expansion and The War Within, the Developers want to make Elemental and Restoration Shamans more recognizable in PvE activities like raids by replacing the Windfury Totem with a brand new one called Skyfury.
Once you learn this ability at level 17, it now combines the old Windfury Totem effect of triggering extra auto-attack swings with a slight Mastery boost. Additionally, the previous restriction that applied only to your party is now removed, and it now guarantees a raid-wide impact:
- Skyfury: With the might of the Windlord, you can boost your teammate’s Mastery by 2% and give their auto attacks a 20% chance to hit twice for 1 hour immediately. If your ally is in the group, everyone in the group will also benefit.
Class tree changes
Regarding the Shaman talent tree, Blizzard decided to cut down on the number of defense and throughput nodes. Why, you ask? By implementing this change, the Development Team wants to allow you to focus more on picking up various utility options. Plus, adding some cool things like new toys will help you improve group utility and personal survivability.
As for pathing, it has also undergone some improvements, making it easier to pick up talents like Gust of Wind, Spirit Walk, and even Earth Shield. This means you have more freedom to make other vital choices without sacrificing movement or defense too much, which sounds neat.
Elemental Shaman
Moving on to the Elemental Shaman changes, Blizzard revamped this spec’s talent tree so you can try out different builds and playstyles. What does it mean for you? Since Elemental’s recent updates are about making your abilities more reliable, whether you are fighting a single target or multiple ones, spells like Lava Burst will play a more significant role in your rotation.
Aside from that, Blizzard wants to let Elemental Shaman players specialize in lightning, lava, or a mix of all these elements, with unique talent combinations for each to change how you deal damage.
Restoration Shaman
But what about other changes made to the Restoration specialization? To give you more freedom to choose healing abilities, Blizzard reduced the number of damage-focused nodes and moved core nodes like Ascendance and Tidebringer to more accessible places. Aside from Healing Rain, which is getting some new bonuses that will make it even more effective, the Developers also gave Healing Surge and Spirit Link Totem the following improvements:
- Healing Surge: It will now have extra bonuses to make it more powerful, bound up with new and redesigned abilities.
- Spirit Link Totem: Blizzard brings back the Spouting Spirits azerite trait with a twist of splash healing to make it stand out in any group content.
Enhancement Shaman
When it comes to the Enhancement specialization, Blizzard has mostly been content with how their tree and talent diversity are doing. Taking a gentle approach, the Developers focus on adjusting some of the Elemental’s main spells and utility within the specialization to offer more choices in both the Core and Spec trees.
For more information about the incoming Shaman changes, be sure to check out Blizzard’s official post here:
Final words
Since Shamans haven’t seen many updates compared to other classes, except for some tweaks to the Healing Tide Totem, hearing about such significant changes is excellent news. We’re hoping that Blizzard keeps making updates based on community feedback, as it not only makes us feel like we’re not neglected but also gives us a chance to share our thoughts on class development with Blizzard.
What are your thoughts on these changes? Do you have any suggestions for improvement? Share your opinion in the comments!
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