This change would help with a few issues that Shaman has with Beasts, and this fits Shaman the best, given that they already have Primal Bond reducing the damage of beasts. This originally was to help Ghol’s Ritualist primarily, but after thinking about it and remembering problems I had with certain Beasts on a Primal Strike build (and remembering there’s also a cold Primal Strike conduit, which would run into similar problems), I realized this is probably just going to be a good change overall.
The goal with this is to primarily improve these for Shaman builds:
Cold builds
Lightning builds
Ghol’s Ritualist and any other acid-centric Shaman builds, such as acid Grasping Vines
Vitality builds would also get a bit of help from this, though I would argue Shaman needs this less than the above do.
Lets take a look at the resistance bonuses of a few beasts:
Kubacabra: 98 cold 105 vit
Bonechill: 93 cold 93 lightning
Chillpincer (crab): 53 cold 98 lightning
Goll the Stormshell: 51 cold 51 lightning 98 bleed
Grundleplith the Hoarder: 68 acid
Aethermane ~ Corrupted: 88 acid
Namadea, the Screecher: 112 bleed 104 vit
Ragrathar Rageblood: 92 cold 68 lightning
Slathsarr Aethergaze: 98 acid and an obnoxious amount of fumble
Grimmaw, Packhound Alpha: 97 cold 37 lightning 78 acid
Leafmane Alpha: 58 acid 65 vit
Every single crab: 53 cold 98 lightning
There’s a couple more, but you get the idea. It’s a common thing for beasts to have high cold/lightning res. Some beasts also have really high vit/acid res, with one of the worst beast bosses you can get being high acid resistance (Slathsarr)
This is to counteract beasts having natural resistances to a lot of the things Shaman supports (cold and lightning especially so) – and has the bonus of giving Ghol’s Ritualist better support as well. There’s quite a bit of support for Acid Grasping Vines, too, so that would be closer to a reality. Overall I think it should help Shaman at least a bit, though I don’t think it would be enough to, say, pick Trickster over Infiltrator for certain cold builds. It should certainly be a step in the right direction, though.
On the one hand, it makes sense. On the other hand, it will make Lightning Vindicators or Bleeding Tricksters even more ridiculous then they are now.
I would rather have beast damage implemented into Will of Rattosh or Yugol or Leviathan or Wendigo. This way only Cold and Vitality builds will benefit from it and insane Vindicator’s power creep doesn’t creep any further.
That is a good point, it is quite dangerous on the Vindicator side of things.
Bleed trickster, yeah, though I want to say they already have a lot of access to %Damage to Beasts overall through Direwolf Crest + Huntress totalling to 33%. So the impact for them shouldn’t be as high. Note that I haven’t really decided on how much %damage to beasts we’d be talking about this, and I doubt it would make for a good reason to max it. Like, if we’re only talking 12% at 12/12 (similar to Inquisitor’s Steel Resolve) then I think it’s not major in regards to bleed trickster.
I’m not sure how to solve Vindicator being so dominant for Lightning, especially in comparison to Elementalist. Demolitionist isn’t a strong point for me on giving feedback, given that I’ve played so few of them. Hell I’ve even seen people take Conjurer over Elementalist and this is outside of pets…
Yes, Bleeding Tricksters already have massive amounts of hate for fluffy Beasts, but giving them even more might push their clear timers even further (they are already at pretty ridiculous 5-5:30 Crucible 150-170 clear marks) which might in itself provoke nerfs to Bleeding or Bloodrager which in its turn will hurt Bleeding meta as a whole. And Bleeding Tricksters are so far ahead in the Bleeding meta, that nerfs might not affect them too much but might sink Bleeding Warders/Archons/Death Knights/Witchblades.
I am just speaking from experience: quite a few of my builds lead to chain reaction of nerfs that hurted weaker class combos more than anything in the end. Giving Vindicators even 10% beast damage might provoke a chain reaction that will hurt a lot of weaker Lightning classes but not actually Vindicators.
So yeah, maybe move Beasts damage to relevant devotions or gear.
Yeah, cause, say, moving the Direwolf Crest damage bonus to Shaman doesn’t really solve anything and just nerfs everything that was using that medal to dual wield already. It would certainly be dangerous overall for bleed builds in general, given that Shaman is already considered one of the best bleed-centric classes if not the best looking individually.
I don’t think it would necessarily push them over the top though, given that undead is probably the big thing that slows down bleed builds overall (I really feel it whenever Alkamos is around…)
Lightning though, yeah. I just don’t have a good solution for that immediately, though I think I can address the whole concern here:
Maybe put it on Stormcaller’s Pact instead? Would only help Lightning/Cold and wouldn’t help Vitality/Acid at all though, nor would it help Ghol Ritualists. But I can’t imagine Vindicator would ever pick that over Aura of Censure… It also wouldn’t buff bleed trickster. (it also fits thematically as like a polar opposite to Primal Bond – offensive exclusive vs defensive exclusive)
I think after my thread that suggested to buff Stormcaller most people agreed with Stun resistance. And knowing Z. something innocent like stun res is a concession he can make. If you ask for some radical buffs right away, chances are, you will be denied.