now that you bring up mages, how is mages any different pre bc and post bc, tell me that, then look back to your shaman. and since ur mainly addressing the new skills given, and that you bring up mages, take a good look at the new skills given to mages, and re-compare it to shamans.

really, not too much difference in terms of which class is getting screwed over. most screwed? it could be shamans, but i wouldnt be too sure on it.

Just from my point of view, hybrids are there to provide utlities to the group, pve n pvp. I'm not sure as to which aspect of wow ur referencing to but hey shamans are still awesome in both sides. in pve come on, whether its 5man 10man 25man, bloodlust is a winner. That ability alone alwaz warrants a shaman 2-3spots in the (25man)raid. Earth elemental totem is alwaz a winner in saving a wipe in 5mans. Not to mention the best interrupts in the game with an interrupt every 5-6secs.

pvp - shamans reali do need more skill to play with, good judgements calls on totems etc, but hey when i see a good shaman in 2v2 or 3v3 man they can rock.

I have a mage too.

In 5-mans and Heroics, you will always prefer a Mage's Polymorph or Warlock's Seduce to an Elemental Shamans...nothing... You will always prefer a Rogue's Sap or a Hunter's Ice Trap to an Enhancement Shaman's... nothing. You will always prefer a Druid's Cyclone or even a Priest's Mind Control to a Restoration Shaman's... nothing.

Yes, a Shaman brings a variety of buffs to the group. But are these buffs worth the lack of Crowd Control and utility? Would you trade your Vanish, Cloak of Shadows and Feint for Mail Armor? I sincerely doubt it.

Crowd Control is the name of the game now in WoW in both PVE and PVP. Shamans don't have it, nor ways to get out of it (save a 5-minute trinket). We have preventive measures (Tremor Totem / Grounding Totem) which has limitations (ask your guild Shamans how effective Tremor Totems are in PVP). Again, I am not disputing the damage / healing output we can do. It's the survivalbility.

As for Mages: you will always prefer a Mage's ranged DPS to an Elemental Shaman. One: They can maintain high levels of DPS. Two: They can drop aggro via Invisibility. How do Shamans drop aggro? One WoW forum poster suggested that we pull aggro, die and ankh to continue...

Pre-TBC, the main complaints of the Mages were

1) No way of dropping aggro in PVE (<- solved with Invisibility).

2) No scaling regen of mana (<- still a problem, Evocation still depends on Spirit which is a worthless stat to Mages).

3) Being the "glass cannon" class, Mages feel inferior to Warlocks utility and uber DPS (<-nothing to do with Shamans). Do Mages feel inferior to Elemental Shamans?

4) Crap itemization (<- this is a problem affecting everybody. Hello spell damage on melee Enhancement Shaman tier 4/5).

I am not aware of any huge problems affecting Mages in PVP. They still can deal out huge damage upfront, still can crowd control and still have the tools to escape from combat.

Again, I'm not denying the problems of other classes. Just that Shamans have been neglected far too long. BTW it seems we got Tseric fired.

its not just the shamans, hybrids like paladins are still being screwed over, the retribution tree is totally screwed

they did a search once....out of the top 50 Arena teams 3v3 and 5v5 worldwide....there wasnt a single ret spec pally, and ret is supposed to be our pvp/dps tree

CC? Nope dun have that either

dmg output? Nope, not there either

healing, yup we uber, but not every paladin wants to heal.

That's exactly the problem with Shamans at the moment. We give buffs, but there are issues with them. Unleashed Rage, (10% of your Attack Power buff everytime the Enhancement Shaman crits) actually generates aggro to the Shaman. So does the 41 point talent, Shamanistic Rage (mana regen for the Shaman based on AP per hit by the Shaman), since the game treats getting mana = more threat.

Totem of Wrath (41 point Elemental PVE talent for increased crit & hit) is placed under Lightning Overload, an arguably PVP talent (think Windfury for lightning bolt). This is getting fixed soon by making LO procs threatless, but the Totem of Wrath has been calculated to be giving less DPS than the standard Searing Totem; unless the Elemental Shaman is in a group of 4 mages.

No one is disputing the awesomeness of Earth Shield (restoration). However, the PTR made it so that Earth Shield won't proc Ancestral Healing (25% more armor buff). It doesn't do it now, but it was supposed to do in the PTR before it got changed back =/

Bloodlust is a great spell. It's the best buff in the game and the best thing Shamans received in TBC. Unfortunately, that's it =/

It doesn't survive 2 hits in Heroics. And Earthshock is great, but it costs a buttload of mana and only interrupts for 2 seconds =/



This is true for everybody.

This post has been edited by ray123: May 15 2007, 03:16 PM

Man, since you complain so much why are you still playing your shammy?

Uh, all those posts only came up because you guys said (basically) "Shamans are fine l2p". All I did was "Shamans aren't fine, here's the problems". I only bemoan the fact that we got so little attention, simply because some idiot made a crit videos (Unbreakable, the dude running around 1-shotting people with Hand of Rag) and got us nerfed. You would probably defend your class the same way if I said "this class is overpowered/fine/no problems at the moment".

Btw, I don't play my Shaman anymore. It kinda sucks when you played your character up the old PVP rankings (I am a Warlord), get some of the best PVE gear (at the time), get to 70 and found out your class really sucks at endgame.

I love my Shaman. But it's kinda hard to play on, when you know the very future of your class in doubt because there is so little acknowledgement of our problems.

--
Velspar, 70 Troll Shaman
Nominated "True King of Shamans" of Gorgonnash

I doubt Blizz would base shaman nerfing by viewing that Unbreakable video.

I'm probably lazy to defend my class already la. I play a hunter, and I always hear hunter OP bla bla bla. One thing I realise about people is, they always cry that a specific class is OP and yet they don't wanna roll that class. Then if they do roll that class, they say that class sucks cause of this and that and they QQ about their own class.

As a hunter, we are almost unable to kill warriors (charge hamstring = gg), pally (bubble heal, BoF etc) and locks (fear, need I say more?). In fact, if we don't spec BM, we are not able to fight rogues (stunlock, poison), mage (forst nova, dead zone), shadow priest (SW:P can almost tick our health to less than half). In fact, we can't anything without kiting The 3 yard dead zone is kinda pain the ass at times haha and without the extra 6 yards (talent), I don't think we can successfully kite a warlock without it laying any dots on us. :\

This post has been edited by Peanutz: May 15 2007, 04:35 PM

I have a hunter too! And my best friend plays a Hunter.

Nah, doubt Blizz nerfed Shamans because of Unbreakable. Blizz nerfing Shamans because people QQ about Unbreakable's video though, quite possible (btw the dude got his account banned or something lol).

Have you tried BM Melee hunter though? On Gorgonnash we have a very notorious and annoying-to-fight-against Orc HWL Hunter named Farkry. He's notorious for being BM before the big red pet patch.

His video clocks in at 1hour 30+ minutes and over 3gb (high quality version):

http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=35344

Though it was made before TBC, you might find it interesting, lots of clips of meleeing Rogues & Warriors ^^

Edit: You can probably try the livestream or Youtube links (they show the first 10 minutes of his movie) if you can't be bothered with the huge ass download He's still BM now, and seems doing pretty well (13th in 5vs5 arena).

This post has been edited by ray123: May 15 2007, 04:49 PM

sooo shaman is useless?

Like all other classes, Shamans have issues. Unlike other classes however, Shaman issues have yet to be addressed properly. Example:

Developer: "We will look into your mana issue in PVE." (<- actual blue post)
Elemental Shaman: "Yay!"
(later)
Developer: "Elemental Focus bonus will be nerfed from 100% free to 60% free mana cost."
Elemental Shaman: "..."

If you spec BM, warlocks are freefrags for you.

---

Added on May 15, 2007, 5:49 pmYeah, Blizz is just screwing up the shaman class a little too much. I seriously think they should just stop messing with the classes, and just focus on fixing the minor things (which I can't think of atm).



This post has been edited by monkeymafia: May 15 2007, 05:49 PM

Not really, even if I activate TBW I can still be dotted, life drained etc. Only thing is they can't CC me or pet.

---

Added on May 15, 2007, 5:50 pmNot to mention it doesn't get rid of dots that are already on you. Unlike cloak of shadows..

This post has been edited by Peanutz: May 15 2007, 05:50 PM

Yeah so you have to kill the warlock within that 18 seconds.

Like I said earlier in another post, the only thing I can do against a BM hunter is to curse of weakness his pet, load him up with dots while drain tanking, and pray that my hp is enough to last thru that 18 seconds of hell.

Hell? Pfft, if your drain life sucks for 300+ per tick. I don't see how much hell you can receive.

Well, a Hunter's burst damage is better than an Affliction Warlock. You will most probably die to his dots, but you can probably kill him too unless he potted or/and healthstone. Improved Drain is only 70% protection against pushback, a hunter+pet would probably interrupt it quite often.

The MAIN thing affecting ALL classes is the itemization. It pretty much sucks for everybody at the moment.

This post has been edited by ray123: May 15 2007, 06:23 PM

heals for 400 per tick lolz.

strongly agree, is a matter of how the person play the character

but i have good impression on Dranei shaman, almost never stop instance half way, whenever there is a shaman in our group, i'm thinking is it the person play Dranei Shaman wont be a newbie to WoW lol

Shaman skills are really fine but being a hybrid class thats been tweaked non stop from the early WoW stages till now, it means our talent tree are screwed up

We werent mean to dual wield in the first place but we were given the talent to do so in TBC. However, some of the old useless talents still remain in our talent tree such as Shield spec talent and our Lighting Shield which no enha shaman will ever up. Many of us suggested to make lighting shield talent to affect our water shield cause this is the only shield a shaman casts on himself in PvE

Same thing goes to our ele tree where talents are screwed such as talent to reduce getting crit then on the other hand another talent encourages you to get hit to gain Focused Casting.

Resto tree i dont have much to complain about maybe make my mana regen works better. Making Mana Tide wont be able to solve it cause it will make shamans too good in PvE.

Like those said before, Paladin and Shaman are sharing the same problem in their DPS tree. Most raids dont really want you to DPS except you could justify to them what benefits you bring to the raid.

My advice is if you're rolling a Draenei go roll a priest. They have Fear Ward right? If yes then you will be wanted in raid lol. There are quite a few encounters in TBC that needs Fear Ward such as Nightbane and maybe Maulgar. I dont play alliance so i dunno if Fear Ward helps against Maulgar. My guild down Maulgar with half the raid down because MT got feared + lag factor. Gruul has no fear though and imo much easier than High King Maulgar as he doesnt use fear. Well for Horde side thats it

SHAMAN HEALING = WIN!!!
chain heal + mana tide + ancestreal whatever u call it...
they still heal pretty darn good...