What. Are you playing WoW from several versions ago? Enhancement was changed months ago (Windfury 800 AP bonus reduced by half). The next patch is nerfing Elemental (Elemental Focus bonus from 100% to 60%).

In exchange we get fixed Trainer Animations. Whee.

Put it this way. The thing that made Shamans scary in the past: Burst Damage. It's been nerfed, because everyone else has more health and more ways to counter/survive.

It's the same thing for Warlocks. Pre-TBC Warlocks have as much hp as Warriors, but with TBC gear their hp now are about the same as mages. Not that I am saying Warlocks have much to complain about, but the stamina inflation in current gear meant burst damage and killing someone in a few seconds (something Shamans did very well previously) is no longer viable.

This post has been edited by ray123: May 15 2007, 12:02 PM

Shamans get nerfed every patch. It's the truth and it's not "literally". Heck we didn't even get a class review (hence the Bus Shock thingy).

Recently some 300 of us Shamans made level 1 alts and made a line of dead corpses from the Durotar starting zone all the way to the bonfire in Ogrimmar. Not as devastating as the Warriors QQ crashing servers, eh?

You guys don't get it. It's never about the damage or healing output we could do (which the nerfs nerfs are affecting). It's about not getting new skills to help us -survive-. In TBC we get... two new Elemental pets on 20 minute cooldowns and Bloodlust, on a 10 minute cooldown.

Combine the fact that we are given nerfs without being getting adjusted in other areas; thats the reason Shamans are asking for a change.

Endless Rage (Arms), Rampage (Fury) and Devastate (Protection) are 41 point talents. Honestly I don't know much about Warriors (only played mine to 26 waaaaaaaay back when shields, misses and parries give no rage), but I believe new talent trees for each class were introduced before the TBC release.

Fire Elemental, Earth Elemental and Bloodlust were given at TBC. Also given were Water Shield (whee 120 mana x3) and Wrath of Air totem (finally something from us to boost caster DPS).

I am not sure of the Warrior equivalents. Intervene? Spell Reflection? Victory Rush? Commanding Shout?

I did not deny the problems of other classes (none were brought up in this thread anyway), so you don't need to deny/underestimate the problems of the Shaman class. How is it we're not the most screwed; when we only got half a class review together with Mages pre-TBC, but Mages got more changes later on. Where's ours? Do I need to remind you of the Stoneclaw totem change?

I don't know man. There has to be a reason for the Shaman population to decrease (realm info, wowcensus, etc) after TBC despite Alliance access to the class in the expansion.

Personally I think all hybrid classes got screwed royally.

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Added on May 15, 2007, 2:42 pmAgain, I don't know exactly how "awesome" they are. All I'm saying are the Shaman equivalents really suck donkey balls. 20 minute cooldowns meant the Elementals can't even be used in the Arena.

This post has been edited by ray123: May 15 2007, 02:42 PM

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.

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

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 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

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: "..."

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

The Shamatrix:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...6140344&sid=1#0

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Added on May 19, 2007, 8:30 pmI know how terrible Druids were... my second main was a Druid (70 now too). I remember the days of 31 point Balance is Hurricane and 31 point Restoration is Innervate; both of which now became standard trainable skills. I also remember the movies by Ferahgo and RubiX who demonstrated that Druids could be so much more during those old days.

Yeah I was waiting for a patch like that for Shamans. Druids got their trees overhauled and major changes in their class review. I am not "QQing" as you said (refer to my previous saying I only brought it up coz people said Shamans are fine l2p etc), I'm just outlining the fact that Shamans never gotten a full class review. We shared one with Mages. Actually it was Mages who QQed about being the last class to review, and both ended up getting half done

Most of us Shamans have relaxed for quite some time but the recent Stoneclawlol totem change and the upcoming Elemental Focus nerf and Windfury fix without giving us anything else in return seemed to be the last straw that blew up in Tseric's face o.O

This post has been edited by ray123: May 19 2007, 08:30 PM

Elemental mana efficiency. Meaning PVE. Meaning the Shaman who is specced in helping out the raid by maintaining DPS and giving the uber Totem of Wrath (lol) to the group. As said, if the standard Searing Totem can be better than Totem of Wrath, that leaves DPS, since Elemental has no synergies with other classes unlike Enhancement whose auto-attacks can proc buffs for melee classes. Now they are going to nerf Elemental Focus, which was a key to long-term DPS. But hey, if your raid doesn't use Elemental Shamans, that means it's all alright in your world.



Please see what I wrote: "upcoming Elemental Focus nerf and Windfury fix".

Shamans retained their 30% because we don't have instant melee attacks, except Stormstrike which is a 31 point talent and is normalized. Actually there are rumors already saying ours will be nerfed to 25% as well

You can blame Pat PvP Video 2 for this lol, wayyyy back at the 52 talent point bug.

I agree with everything you said. Now compare them to what I've said:

-Itemization sucks ass for everybody.
-Some classes got far more better "toys" in TBC.
-I played my Shaman for 2 years, like your Warrior.
-Like your Warrior, every patch Shamans got nerfed as well, because it's always "hey I got 3-shotted by a triple Windfury crit" and "omfg this Shaman just instant cast 2 spells in a row and crit killed me (Trinket+NS+EM+Chain Lightning and Earth Shock)".
-We still use the same damn spells from release: people still whine about Grounding Totem, Earthbind and Windfury.
-We gave our feedback to a CM who went missing during our class review (Eyonix: "Sorry guys I was sick for a month btw Dev says no changes for you sorry") and we still have crappy talents like Toughness and Shield Mastery in our melee dps tree (Tseric: "Wear a shield while meleeing for damage mitigation"). We still need 5/5 in improving Mana/Health Spring totems to get Mana Tide (lol 5/5 to improve Mana Spring from 14 mp5 to 17 mp5...)
-Goddamn totems are still ranged limited (20 yards, 30 yards talented compared to 30/40 for Paladin Auras). It was a shitty mechanic in AQ40 where most boss fights were mobile, and it is still shitty now.
-Frost Shock still the only snare on DR.

Thus I reiterate: I know other classes got problems, but don't dismiss ours so lightly. I only defended Shamans because someone said L2P.