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Is the Shaman a dying class?
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Post by
Coldblooded
I see this all over the place from fellow shamans, and I play an elemental shaman because it was the only spec i felt hadn't been outdone by some other class/spec. Let's start off with the one that is most often thought of as "dead", Enhancement!
Enhancement: Well, this one is just easy. An enhancement shaman is basically dependent on their weapons, as are most melee classes/specs. But the buffs are what drive me off the wall now. An enhance shaman always use to place strength of earth totem down for themselves and other party members in BC, but now that there are death knights, Horn of Winter overpowers SoE, and if you have a frost death knight in your group, your windfury totem will be gone in seconds due to Frost Talons (correct me if the name is wrong). I would love to see enhance shamans get some kind of raid buff, I hardly even see them anymore in a high-end raiding guild.
Elemental: This is my spec and the one i probably won't f*ck up on. Elemental is usually considered easy, you'll cast flame shock, throw a lava burst, hit lightning bolt three or four times and repeat. You'll get good dps out of it now that Blizzard has buffed us up, but it just gets so dreadful after awhile. I've played an 80 ele shaman since December of '08 now, and the Recount meters show that our dps just winds up being terrible on fights that involve movement. On fights like Ignis (we had a newer tank tanking him) I was required to move alot because of the tank moving in the wrong way, him bugging, randomly turning, etc. and my dps was complete crap on the fight, especially with flame jets making me stop every 10-20 seconds. I know our burst dps is still one of the best and elemental can easily top a heroic in dps, but what really makes me want to reroll resto is the fact that our gear is nearly impossible to come by. Our hit cap is pretty hard to hit at first, having to make sure there is hit rating on rings, necklaces, etc., but after that has been achieved, you may notice that there are about 3 pairs of GOOD elemental shaman boots in end-game (by good i meant haste/crit/spell power, like the boots off of heroic Heigan). I still have the Revenant's Boots on my shaman which is in 4 pieces of tier 8. Bad luck for me? Who knows? The last thing I will complain about is PvP for ele. I know enhance has a few problems with PvP, but I've never really done PvP as an enhance shammy. I know we can
destroy
others if they don't see us, but it seems like when we are noticed and are getting silences and stuns and whatnot, we have almost no chance if your attacker is an AVERAGE PvP'er. Don't get me wrong, I love ele in PvP, but it just seems like we are a joke in pvp to other classes.
I may continue on this some other time, but my fingers are killing me right now, and I'm sorry to the resto shamans, but I don't have anything to complain about for you. Leave comments, suggestions, etc. for me and all other shamans reading this! Good luck to all of you and let's pray for a huge shaman buff, eh?
Other ideas:
1. A real shaman aoe that doesn't make ele shamans lose their Totem of Wrath!
(Sorry if I looked like an idiot here, not a regular for posting on forums)
BTW guys: Note that this WAS written before all this stuff about 3.2 came out. Don't bash me too hard because I can't see into the future. kthnxbai :P
Post by
235177
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Post by
Syntaxis
I concur with the first 2 replies: You're not an idiot at all.
I've been playing battlegrounds with my Shaman, who is Restoration geared, as Elemental spec. I have no resilience, I don't even use my PVP trinket, I have no +hitrating and did not even take the talents that add a hit %. And still I generally top the damage meters! It's great fun, but what you also found...
... Is that Shamans are a joke to other classes.
Enhancement lacks controllable burst damage. A triple Windfury crit is nice, but how often does that happen? And does it even make anyone in PVP go: "Oh that hurts! I wish you were a Paladin instead!" -- ? No, of course not. Make Stormstrike guarantee a Windfury proc off your mainhand with an increased critical effect chance, without resetting count of the Windfury hidden cooldown.
Elemental lacks survivability. Bursting others away with Thunderstorm is nice, until they bump into an ant 2 yards away and come to a halt, giving you a grand total of .. nothing .. to get away or even get another cast off. That, and most of our spells are in the Nature school. We'd really benefit from an instant cast direct damage spell that has a low cooldown.
Restoration is just.. well, okay.. I guess. Hard to kill even without PVP gear. The only problems are that there's little or no time to actually play offensive when necessary, and Earth Shield is too easily dispelled or spellstolen. Quite a waste for a spell that's supposed to keep us alive during an assault. Also easily locked down of course. Having all (ALL) your spells have that clock-counter going when silenced is really.. really annoying. Spamming your Riptide button HOPING it will be up in time to save your sorry ass. By which time you'll have eaten an Execute or something.
But still. Fun class.
I like being the underdog. Makes winning that much more satisfying.
Post by
378029
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Post by
etrin
how about removing the cooldown?
Post by
321203
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Post by
Coldblooded
Well, now that resto is getting a huge buff (
which I did not realize that they needed
?), maybe we'll see a DPS shaman buff soon!
Post by
Booterang
Well, now that resto is getting a huge buff (
which I did not realize that they needed
?), maybe we'll see a DPS shaman buff soon!
It was needed. Restoration shamans were the least common/powerful healer in PvP, and struggled to heal classes in PvE hardmodes to the point where healer shamans were shelved in favor of holy priests.
Dps shaman PvP is a bit of a joke, but elemental can produce some great burst, and is deadly if you learn how to ghostwolf kite.
Post by
Eremitt
Have you looked at 3.2?
shamans are going to be the
BEST
healers in the game. Bar none. Get ready to blow away the healing charts.
Post by
235177
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Post by
Booterang
Have you looked at 3.2?
shamans are going to be the
BEST
healers in the game. Bar none. Get ready to blow away the healing charts.
Elaborate on this please. Perhaps you have caught on to something I have not, but it is my opinion that shamans will not be the best healers in patch 3.2, rather they will no longer be underpowered. I would appreciate if you backed up that statement (if we are going to be the best, that would be great).
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219211
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