Shaman Feedback

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Aniel
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Re: Shaman and planar conduit

Post by Aniel » Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:16 pm

There are no plans to remove planar conduit from shaman.

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Re: Shaman and planar conduit

Post by fading » Sat Mar 12, 2022 5:54 pm

Aniel wrote:
Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:16 pm
There are no plans to remove planar conduit from shaman.
Why do shamans have planar conduit but none of the other planar summoning spells?

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Aniel
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Re: Shaman and planar conduit

Post by Aniel » Sat Mar 12, 2022 9:15 pm

fading wrote:
Sat Mar 12, 2022 5:54 pm
Aniel wrote:
Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:16 pm
There are no plans to remove planar conduit from shaman.
Why do shamans have planar conduit but none of the other planar summoning spells?
Probably just an oversight.

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Re: Shaman and planar conduit

Post by jomonog » Sat Mar 12, 2022 11:40 pm

Thanks for the reply and providing clarity!

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Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Exordius » Fri Apr 29, 2022 4:51 am

Would it be possible to get rid of the blue glow for all the summons and just leave the partial see through? Elementals don't have the blue already while the animals and planar conduit does and the blue glow is kind of an eye sore honestly, the see through is fine though if its possible to make it a bit less see through that would be great too.

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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Eyeliner » Fri Apr 29, 2022 7:39 am

Gonna be honest I like the option to have that effect and it is cool but I wish it was optional. Shamans have a lot of room for interpretation and I don't think it fits with every concept. Like if I wanted to play my shaman as an elementalist I don't want to have to explain why my elementals are ghosts.

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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by MRFTW » Fri Apr 29, 2022 8:43 am

I'm also not a fan.

If it was optional, I'd use it with some summons and not others, as flavour dictated.

It's also a pretty big flag for metagamers, since shamans, druids and wizards all tend to have similar physical stats when examined. One saving grace is that both shamanic and druidic elemental swarms don't use the ghostly visage fx
Last edited by MRFTW on Sat Apr 30, 2022 11:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Waldo52 » Fri Apr 29, 2022 5:15 pm

I pretty much agree.

It sounds pretty but I really don't like when a class feature locks you into a specific color or aesthetic. Your theme might be orange garb and flame weapons, and suddenly there's this grating blue contrast. Reminds me of a green clad ranger I saw with that red blade thirst activated, he went from the coolest dude in town to looking like the sergeant of the Christmas brigade.

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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Guerra » Sat Apr 30, 2022 2:52 am

It broke my shaman RP. It seems like a change based on a narrow idea of what shamans are. A ghost undead stream with unique humanoid, totemic animal or other tribal theme summons would be something interesting but adding a blue glow to the same bears and elementals everyone else has is more an annoyance to RP around instead of a tool to RP with.

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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Skarain » Sat Apr 30, 2022 7:13 am

My shaman was one who communed with spirits, so it did fit them. However, not every shaman are of their particular brand. A path or other option at lvl 2 woould be more work, but it would allow people to choose their flavor.

That, or ghost stream to undead. :D

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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Ork » Sat Apr 30, 2022 9:18 am

This thread is a bit odd in that all shamans receive spells from commune with spirits. That is the basis of their power. If they're not doing that, they aren't shamans.

Aesthetic arguments are fine, and ghostly Visage vfx is a pretty big tell someone is a shaman - but, if the goal is to avoid metagaming you're going to be discovered primarily from your spell selection anyways.

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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Hazard » Sat Apr 30, 2022 10:50 am

Sounds like the main concern is that they're blue. That's pretty specific and not everyone wants blue stuff following them around all the time.

I like the sound of them just looking concealed/transpartent or ... White?

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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Kalopsia » Sat Apr 30, 2022 10:51 am

I could adjust the VFX to resemble the Spirit of Elg'Nizrul NPCs, if that helps.

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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Hazard » Sat Apr 30, 2022 11:10 am

Kalopsia wrote:
Sat Apr 30, 2022 10:51 am
I could adjust the VFX to resemble the Spirit of Elg'Nizrul NPCs, if that helps.
Cool :3

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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Xerah » Sat Apr 30, 2022 6:03 pm

-setshamanglow [colour]

maybe?

My Shaman communes with spirits, yes, but the animation is based on infusing the undead with fungi and controlling that. Basically simulating a real-world thing called ophiocordyceps unilateralis (or zombie ants)
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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Eyeliner » Sat Apr 30, 2022 7:34 pm

Ork wrote:
Sat Apr 30, 2022 9:18 am
This thread is a bit odd in that all shamans receive spells from commune with spirits. That is the basis of their power. If they're not doing that, they aren't shamans.

Aesthetic arguments are fine, and ghostly Visage vfx is a pretty big tell someone is a shaman - but, if the goal is to avoid metagaming you're going to be discovered primarily from your spell selection anyways.
It's not about metagaming it's about creative options. "Spirits" are a super vague thing in D&D

Maybe a shaman who had/wants tribal barbarians doesn't want them to be spirit warriors or ancestors. Being able to choose the glow or not gives double the options.

Maybe a shaman wants to be a necromancer who raises the dead, not ghostly versions of them. That doesn't preclude using spirit magic.

Maybe they want to be an elementalist in touch with nature spirits but who doesn't summon spirit fire elementals (which I am not even sure what a glowing blue ghost or spirit of an elemental is supposed to be)

It's just about options. Not disregarding the spirit aspect, but you have a class with a lot of creative freedom so why put a straightjacket on it? I don't see shaman role playing widely abused.

And just making standard summons ghosts/spirit versions of the same raises more questions than it answers in my opinion. I would be glad if it was an option but I don't think that's a one-size-fits-all solution.

All that said, I also think shamans should be able to take ranger totems, as being able to summon specific spirit animals is right up their alley.

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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Exordius » Sat Apr 30, 2022 8:02 pm

Unread post by Kalopsia » 30 Apr 2022 10:51

I could adjust the VFX to resemble the Spirit of Elg'Nizrul NPCs, if that helps.
Have not seen that VFX but its worth a shot, try it and lets see how it works out?

Although...
I like the sound of them just looking concealed/transpartent


That works too.

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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Kenji » Sun May 01, 2022 7:49 am

I would say the VFX worked very well as a presentation of what Aniel has achieved on the technical side of things. There were some discussions among the devs about making the summon VFX related to paths (spiritcaller shaman, totem shaman, elementalist shaman, etc) but right now Irongron has expressed that we have many classes that have paths already, and shaman will likely be using a different approach when it comes to "player options".

Nothing is set in stone, yet, but we'll likely have something Soon™ for summoner shamans.

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Re: Shaman ghostly summons...

Post by Exordius » Sun May 01, 2022 7:24 pm

Sounds good, both tweaking the vfx and the summoning stuff.

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Shaman

Post by IYDBYDYWDWYD » Mon May 09, 2022 2:45 am

Hey there,
I started playing arelith after someone told me about the shaman class. My journey with it has been interesting, and I thought I'd share some feedback. I'm fairly used to NWN, having played it for some years. In general I would consider myself adequately competent, or competitive, when it comes to PvP games, even in general. I like to be able to hold my own, as a general gameplay philosophy.

When it comes to rpg class mechanics (any game), there are two aspects that I consider:
1.) How faithfully its mechanics embody the class' narrative angle.
2.) How potent the class is in combat.

Starting off, shaman combat potency was okay at low levels, as my character could don strength gear and be able to smack things alongside their animal or undead summons. This very quickly became underwhelming at higher levels. But with some interesting multiclass synergy, those mechanics embodied enough narrative interest that I figured it was worth playing anyways. I don't need to focus on combat, and so far my character has never really engaged in pvp, except by happenstance.

I think there's something worth highlighting here at the beginning, and that's how the class really didn't (and I would argue, still doesn't) have much mechanical identity unto itself. Certainly when shaman was first introduced, there was nothing that distinguished it from other classes.

Then they got a small buff, and it was okay. The synergy bonuses were made a little better, and some classes were added to the synergy list. Unique bard songs became available with only a 3 bard dip, maxing out at 12 effective bard levels on a 27/3. These bard songs never seemed particularly attractive in combat, except to speed up one's summons when chewing through a large group of mobs, due to the round action to use, short duration, and relatively small buffs they offered. But still, that facet when combined with planar conduit (which became much more attractive than mummy dust and dragon knight) really made the class feel like it was beginning to compare to others. It was no longer terrible! At least, not in pve in-so-far that any summons based class tends to do well in pve. So at this point, compared to the performance of other classes, I would say it was slightly below par. Being melee based still sucked, with all its power being essentially thanks to those summons, but hey! Cool songs to explore made for interesting roleplay, along with the divination access. So the embodied narrative was improved!

Then shamans got a fairly substantial buff, that really made them competitive in pvp. They got access to a lot of new spells. Mage Armor. Divine Power. Divine Favor. Acid Sheath. Their summons started glowing too. This made the embodied narrative elements much more interesting, thanks mostly to the glowing summons, but also a little bit too from interestingly traditional 'arcane' spells. That was also a quality of life change, since Mage Armor potions or scrolls didn't need to be carried. As for combat, the potent buff was in those melee oriented spells (Divine Favor & Divine Power). Now melee could really do something! Fantastic AB, top tier summons (but only if you go Planar Conduit), dispel bait, with mediocre-to-bad AC depending on shield, poor reflex save, and decent damage. Was this too far? Perhaps I can't say, but it certainly didn't seem too far at the time, due to all these other weaknesses. In fact I'd say it still seemed underpowered to more combat oriented builds. In some pvp exchanges my character did exchange blows, but he had no real stopping power apart from Harm, and Planar Conduit. He survived to run away, or regroup with the actual heavy-hitters. This was thanks to high HP and healing spells.

Now the latest change. It lost some of that embodied narrative, by losing unique bard songs. Hopefully the inspiration triggers can still be activated in the world, so as to at least engage with those mechanics, even if not benefiting from them, but this really seems like the first time the embodied narrative took a hit. For combat this was a mostly negligible effect, since bard song synergy scales 1:3, burns a round to activate, and lasts for only a short while. What's more is that shaman lost the spells making them melee viable (or even vaguely ranged viable, since Divine Favor helped that too). They got to keep some of the AB, in a soft buff! Which is cool, though lacking the temp hit-points that Divine Power would have also given. As well then, in exchange for Divine Favor, there came a change to the spell Blood Frenzy, which can be considered a lesser version of Divine Favor, costing a pretty significant penalty of -3 Reflex, and -2 AC, for bonuses only partial to what Divine Favor gave. On the plus side, CL improved, potentially freeing up feats that a multi-classer might normally invest into abj defense.

So here we are, after repeated forced relevels, and continual mechanical changes. I love that the class was made, as I think it offers arelith some valuable narrative perspective. So I hope it keeps changing more!

It becomes really hard to comment on what sort of changes those should be, however, because the class is so tied to OTHER classes. So it's almost like I have to comment on those other classes, in order to say anything about Shaman. And what is there to say? Perhaps in short I would say that the present mechanics feel lacking. On accounts both combat and narrative.

First-and-foremost the lack is in the shaman's embodied narrative. The class has glowing summons, which is certainly something! Others have commented on the color, and I think that's a fair point, though truth be told, I don't really care what color it is. Just the fact that it's sort of ephemeral looking is neat. But take for example how specialist wizards get unique perks, clerics get domain bonuses, and all base arcane classes get unique NPC access. Or how druids get tons of interesting mechanics, hidden goodies, and mechanical power. Rogues, and roguish types galore, can readily access shadow doors, high tier locks & traps, unique NPC's, and guilds therein. Meanwhile, shamans are meant to engage with the neighboring spirits of their world, often on behalf of a community. And yet as far as I can tell, the game is strikingly unaccommodating when it comes to the mechanical embodiment of this primary narrative.

On top of that, melee shaman seems to be back into subpar territory. Especially if they don't have Planar Conduit.

It is however difficult to say what could be improved, just because of all the class synergy. Give them GMW for quality of life? Some manner of epic summons rework? Bard song synergy rework? Extend bard song duration at lower tiers? Swift/free action to activate bard song? Some manner of fun shaman centric mechanics in the world? Maybe a shaman centric custom bard song? SomethingSomething Barbarian? Lessened Blood Frenzy penalties if shaman-or-barbarian levels are present? I don't know. I don't think it really matters, either. Perfect balance will never be achieved. Some classes will be more combat oriented, some will have more narrative utility. I'm cool with either. The issue as I see it is that, to different degrees, the shaman class is lacking in both.

And that's my feedback! Hope it helps. I'm enjoying my time, and think the class has lots of untapped potential!

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Re: Shaman

Post by Skibbles » Mon May 09, 2022 5:06 am

From an outsider's perspective I also find the class to be very confusing as far as its identity goes. I don't really understand the real difference between a cleric and a Shaman other than 'spirits', way better wand making spellbook, and totally opaque build strategy.

From the very few shamans I've met in game they also don't seem to know. I don't think this is a product of poor roleplay, but a limited set of unique features they can use to define themselves in the game world in the same way a barbarian can show you he's not a simple fighter by using rage.

Additionally confusing is all the synergies and multiclass stuff, and this confusion extends well past just Shaman for me.

I feel like I need a PhD degree in Arelith and Excel just to figure out warlock and Shaman and all these little intricacies of build science. I really wish things would just be a little more straightforward and user friendly but classes feel like, to me, they're becoming increasingly complicated and hostile to anyone not heavily involved with the daily meta.

To your point - Instead of four or five class synergies and intricacies I think Shaman would be better suited to just pick one as it's defining characteristic and be that thing. It seems like it would be a lot easier to balance if it did this too.

Edit: I added a paragraph (2nd) that seemed on topic with some of the OP.
Irongron wrote: [...] the super-secret Arelith development roadmap is a post apocalyptic wasteland populated with competing tribes of hand-bombard wielding techno-giants, and strewn with the bones of long dead elves.

So we're very much on track.

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Re: Shaman

Post by Ping14 » Mon May 09, 2022 10:53 am

On the contrary I think its in a good spot right now.

Here's a link from indestructoboy which also discusses class identity in tabletop dnd.

https://youtu.be/uFXnbSBqhBU

For a class designed open to interpretation and made to be made as your own, its bound to have some problems with its class identity.

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Re: Shaman

Post by AstralUniverse » Mon May 09, 2022 11:05 am

my two cents are that this class was becoming a bit too strong and also a bit too much like cleric/fs spellbook.

so instead of nerfing things who would also nerf cleric/fs the idea, I think, was to nerf the ab/ac/damage stats via rotating in/out some spells.

it is still the best class to summon planar conduit on, and that alone puts it in a good place balance-wise.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: Shaman

Post by Kenji » Mon May 09, 2022 11:41 am

I've been busy taking care of my pregnant wife as of late and was not able to post the comprehensive notes on Shaman changes when the update hit live servers.

I'll spare everyone the intricate details and inner workings of the development process and say that the intended change has been discussed for a long while since the first inception of the current change three months ago from now.

A more comprehensive note on shaman changes is to be released along with new builds and calculations to help players understand the changes to Shamans.

As for my personal commentary on the changes to Shamans, the intention was to differentiate the playstyles between Battle Shamans from Battle Cleric/FS (more can be read in the above link). The new modular approach to Shaman is what allows players to define their Shamans better than before, allow me to explain -

Before, v1:
Shamans can only dip barb for synergy, the dip classes for Shamans are limited to either barb or monk for optimal "performance".

Before, v2:
Shamans can now dip monk, bard, and ranger on top of barbarian for more options, but they're still limited to those 4 classes.

Now, v3:
Battle Shamans can build into ANY full BAB class (be it Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Barbarian, Swashbuckler, Blackguard, Cavalier, as long as it's full BAB!) to gain any lost pre-epic BAB as soft AB. The only thing left to do is to build around the 16 pre-epic BAB in order to gain an extra APR.

Because of the above interaction, the next concern is the CL (in general casting or vs dispel) may take a hit. Therefore, Shaman's overall CL has been compensated via synergy bonus that pretty much any 23/4/3 shaman split (as long as Shaman is majority level) will get 28 effective CL on both spellcasting and vs dispel without doing anything else. They can build into AD: Abjuration to get 30 CL vs dispel for battle shamans.

What does this all mean for battle shamans? Mechanics or "Narrative"-wise?

I will leave that question for others to answer as I would like to use my time to work on the following:
  • Shaman update notes
  • Cloistered Bug squashing
  • Mount everywhere, UD included
  • Cavalier Spirited Charge rework
  • Warpriest adjustments
  • New PrC
As much as I want to clarify things for everyone involved, I've decided that my time is best used for development rather than making long posts of reassurances and explanations that others can also help with.

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Re: Shaman Feedback

Post by Kenji » Tue Jun 28, 2022 9:38 am

I am looking for more feedback regarding recent Shaman changes on class synergy, especially player experience when it comes to both PvE and PvP contents.

Please indicate what type of shaman you're playing by noting whether it is a battle shaman or a caster shaman, and go from there, thanks.

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