With 2.3 on the horizon and most of the WoW playing population eagerly waiting for the new content and various fixes that come along with each patch, there remain a group of stalwart players that are once again dreading it. Of course – I’m referring to the venerable Shaman.
At one time, the Shaman class was an unmistakable hurricane force in world PvP. Feared by all, this versatile hybrid could burst melee like a warrior, kite like a hunter, and nuke and heal in ways that made druids prowl away in shame. They were *monsters* a horde only superclass and long did the alliance dramakin sing to the devs begging for them to be nerfed.
Somewhere around WoW 2.0 – that wish was granted. Worse, like a spurned ex-girlfriend the devs seemed to find new and entertaining ways to include at least one or two new nerfs in each successive patch. Still stinging from a botched (read ignored) review several patches ago and a string of setbacks that whittled away the classes best tools, Shaman seem to truly have a bitch worth scratching. Today, the Shaman is the least played class in the game and the few remaining stalwarts are hugging their totems and raising a QQ that would make a ret-pally blush.
Tenebreon from the Maelstrom server summed things up pretty well in the official class forums:
This started as a reply to Wylde’s thoughtful, mature post about his take on the state of shamans. He touched briefly and gently on one point, the destruction of enhancement PvP that took place in the transition from old world to new world. The original post is HERE:
My reply follows:
I’m not going to be as nice. You touched on one point that I really want to ram down Blizzard’s throat, so here goes.
To start, yes, I’m posting on my warlock. Yes, he is my new main, at least as far as PvP is concerned. My shaman is a Legionnaire with over 60 days /played, had a TUF before getting it was trivialized, and was, for a very long time, the most enjoyable class I’d ever played.
The implementation of TBC and patch 2.0 destroyed a unique, highly enjoyable, viable play style: enhancement PvP. This is unique in the history of WoW, with the possible exception of the demise of the reckoning bomb, “HIT ME IN THE JIMMIES! AGAIN! AGAIN!” paladin. (And even in that case, the spec remained viable, just changed in play style.)
Many- and by many, I mean tens of thousands- of us rolled shamans expressly because we enjoyed this play style. In fact, I would venture to say that the majority of PvP-minded shamans came to the class with this in mind. Most of the most recognizable names in the history of the class arose from this play style and spec. (Quick word association game: I say “Pre-2.0 PvP shaman video,” you say: _____. If you didn’t say “Unbreakable,” try again.)
To shamelessly quote myself, enhancement shamans were, in the eyes of the alliance, the over-powered boogiemen of the battlegrounds, fearsome killing machines that shot lightning from our eyes and fireballs from our arses. And we loved it.
Okay, so that last bit was from Braveheart. But you get the picture. However, come 2.0, that was gone with nary a goodbye.
Why doesn’t it work anymore? There are a lot of reasons:
1) Enhancement PvP was a burst-based spec, through and through. Snare a clothie, pop the bubble, run in, and flatten them. Lather, rinse, repeat; with WF, SS, and ES, it was *typical* for us to be able to kill cloth in one to two swings.
~nostalgic grin~ There was this one time with a shadow priest in AB… Sorry, I digress.
Our burst, though, did not scale with player HP totals. You can’t WTFPwn even a shieldless mage in blues now. Add in resilience and the staggering life totals from arena gear and the situation gets even worse. A single player *cannot* burst down another player unless there is a substantial gear or spec difference; this is the reason for defensive abilities like CloS, TBW, Blazing Speed / Dragon’s Breath, etc on classes that never needed them previously.
Enhancement shamans never received that defense mechanism, never received any mechanism to deal with being kited or CCed, and by consequence fell far behind the curve.
2) Other classes received talents and abilities to deal with their weaknesses in PvP, while enhancement did not. I touched on this above, but it’s a significant problem. Shamans received no form of CC (even weak CC a la repentance), no way to close the gap, and no way to cope with being focus fired. Given that our targets could weather our burst without issue, even in the chaos of BG PvP, this is a crippling problem.
3) Finally, the nature of “real” PvP changed drastically. As a class / spec with limited closing mechanisms, no CC, and very limited survivability, we extraordinarily dependent on being able to get the first shot in on an unaware or distracted target and swing the fight in our favor from the outset.
That simply doesn’t work in the arena. A decent team will know where you are, and also know that if you are so much as slowed, your contribution to the match will be quite effectively and suddenly ended. This makes for a rather nasty combination with the proliferation of defensive and escape mechanisms granted other classes in 2.0; there is no class in the game at this point that cannot render an enhancement shaman ineffectual, bar only (perhaps) a holy priest.
Maybe these things sound familiar. They’ve all been QQed about before, at great length and many times since TBC beta began. Hundreds if not thousands of posts have been made asking for solutions to one or more of these problems.
“Please give shamans CC, we’re the only class without!”
“Please give shamans anti-CC, we’re getting murdered out here!”
“Please give shamans a way to deal with getting focus fired, we’re so squishy!”I’m sure all three of these topics are represented within the first three pages of both the US and EU forums, so I won’t belabor the point here.
So what?
I’ll just return to my original point:
Blizzard destroyed a unique play style in their treatment of enhancement shamans in 2.0 and TBC. Thousands of players were effected by this set of decisions, and, for many, it was enough to drive them from the class or from the game entirely. Those who remained in the game had, in some cases, *hundreds* of hours of time devoted to their characters invalidated, all without a by-your-leave.
I, for one, am still pissed. Does 2.3 contain buffs to enhancement shamans? Yes. Do those buffs address any of the crippling problems outlined above and make it such that the class spec is once again usable for what so many of us rolled it for? NO. Enhancement PvP is still dead. The closest proxy?
Ret paladin. How’s that for delicious irony?
/rant off
Edit: No, I’m not requesting or recommending a return to the days of 1-2 shotting people; several repliers have gotten that impression. The point is that now that we can no longer do that, we need talents and abilities that will allow us to actually survive a sustained DPS fight. Other burst classes received exactly that sort of buff; enhancement did not.
So what do you think? The official class forums are filled with angry Shaman claiming that unless the class is fixed – and fixed soon – they will either abandon their toons or abandon the game altogether. With no real visible relief in sight are Shaman justified in abandoning the class? Are they in the same boats Druids used to be? So gimped into their hybrid role that they can’t do anything effectively? Has the class truly not kept up with the rest of the game – or are Shaman simply pining for their bygone glory days?
Only time will tell – but with nothing positive being reported from the test realm and with a fairly hard date for 2.3 burned into the collective consciousness of the playing public – patch day may be another dark day indeed for one of WoW’s most recognizable and revered classes.
Shaman are nothing like they used to be…
A healing hybrid should never have burst damage. Shamans originally introduced were OP. Blizzard tuned them and took the advantage that shamans had over other classes away. Some players can’t accept that and all we have left is QQ.
What about feral druids? A feral in cat form (these days anyway) has hella burst. They have to *spec* to get that burst – but they can get it.
My Shaman leveled up as Enhancement, and went Resto to raid in Molten Core and BWL.
When it came time to level up again, he went Enhancement again.
Reaching 70 he had a choice. Heal or Cast. I already played a Tank, so I decided I’d play a Caster for the alt/2nd main.
Because getting my hands on Enhancement gear I’d have to convince a Hunter I needed that set piece (Desolation), I’d have to be running in Heroics to get access to it, and frankly I’m dumbfounded that there are so many well geared, raiding, Alliance Enhancement Shamans. They certainly took the myth and ran with it, never once stopping and asking themselves the foolish question “Since we can heal, we ought to heal,” or worse be told by their Guild Master “Since you can heal, you will heal. Since our Priests are all Shadow now.”
There was a blog, a bit back, called Shamanistic Rage. All about life as an Enhancement Shaman that was raiding. And all the advantages they brought to a raid. And all the gear they had via raiding that I’d never see. This was a Draenei player living the dream, a god in the myth of OP Shamans. They wound up going Resto.
And when I’m not laying down the damage to the best of my ability in Alterac Valley, I’m used as luncheon meat in the other battlegrounds, lately Eye of the Storm. Oh, I get as often as I’m gotten so no regrets there.
The wife played an Enhancement Shaman with my Protection Warrior, but she’s Elemental now, and loving it. Enhancement Shamans actually bother me when I’m tanking. They tend to be massive, furry, and in the way of my vision. Y’all get to the back and single target kill the skulls, k? (Rogues have sense enough to do it from behind, and Arms Warriors simply off-tank their own targets.)
Anyway, back to Shamans. “Look to the gear to see what Blizzard is expecting from us.” I’ve always said this. What does Blizzard think Shamans are doing now? Elemental. Look at Tidefury, the five piece Dungeon 3 set. That’s not a Healing set. There’s healing pieces out there if you know where to look. There’s even a second, eight piece, Elemental psuedo-set that comes out of Normal and Heroic instances. (It looks a little like the old Tier 1 set.)
Back pre-TBC, Tiers 1, 2, then 3, all of it was exclusively for the Restoration Shaman. Now they’ve given us Tidefury and I have no idea what Tier 4 Shaman gear looks like, I see it so seldom. (And when our Resto Shamans come to heal an instance in Tidefury, and don’t even throw an occasional lightning bolt… sigh!)
good points…every single one…
But.
Thrall didn’t wear a dress.
He didn’t dual wield either. I think a lot of folks want a return to *that* kind of Shaman. A bursty 2-Hander Swinging hybrid that *might* heal you – but would be more inclined to mash LITTLE GNOMES to PASTE…
Sorry…sorry….
I think people are just being picky, I have been playing since WoW was released as a lock, hunter and recently rolled a shaman cause they are great for healing, and still have a nasty burst damage. Yeah it isnt what it used to be but im not even fully geared yet (bout 9/16 pvp) but for pvp the only class that can still kill me one on one with that gear is warlock… water shield is imba and earth shock has 5 secs cd (im hybrid build 31/0/30 but have been changing between 40/0/21 and 21/0/40) earth shield is idd useless for pvp as are the other two 41 point talents. They do require a lot more skill to play than a warlock or hunter, maybe this is why people complain ? Either way I think shaman is a much more fun class than hunter even after the patch, I have to think about the fight more and HOW i can help, hunter and lock have a crude form of most the things shamans have, for example purge is a lot better than felhunter or arcane shot. ALL physical damage classes (none hybrid) have MS, obviously shamans dont. Also shamans dont have any crowd control.. But everything else a shaman has is better than the average to make up for it, reliable armor and 1.5 sec high heals are just a start. Water shield regens over 600 mana every 9 secs while ure under attack, at decent gear ure talking at least 6 hpm being 3600 health every 9 secs just from water shield mana regen alone… People seem to be forgetting that shamans didnt have water shield Pre-BC and just how good it is. For arena my current build will be awsome. My healing with lesser healing wave is still brilliant which is usually the best to use in arena and once someone gets low i can earth shock the healer and use an instant cast or none instant cast crit with CL hitting for around 2.2k on high resi, while my dps team mate can still be doing high dps, should be dead before a heal is released. Against 2 dps a shaman should be able to survive due to 1.5 sec high heals, 12k health and a high amount of armor (keeping in mind that MS comes from physical damage classes) in pvp gear. While ofc your mana isnt going as low as a paladins would be, fair enough paladins get bubble, BoF and BoP but they need that bubble tremor totems are fairly underated. Hybrid shammys also get better dps than pallys and natures swiftness, and hate to mention it again but better mana control. Check any of the forums and you will also see nearly every class is complaining that they are underpowered, even rogues and locks (hahaha). People also seem to forget that even with only 30 points in resto shaman healing is hard to beat in resto gear.. Thanks for reading my wall of text ^^
Just a general fact, but Rogues *ARE* underpowered in pvp now. Blizzard likes teasing us and when we use it, they gimp it. They seem to be pointing us more towards raiding now, looking to make hemo a “team helper” then a “rogue dps move.”
Locks obviously aren’t underpowered, though, and neither are shaman, it seems. I was pvping last night in WSG, despite the fact I was 62, the shaman was 65, and spiked my health from full to zip in a matter of 6 seconds or so, now that’s ridiculous.
I would hardly say all classes have crowd control. At least, the Rogues is something that there is more to be desired. Purely because Sap is only useless if you can just on someone that’s not in combat, and is fairly alone. A rogue is mainly a 1v1 pvp class, in BGs, that sucks, and is a rarity. Seems Shamans are just pure rape, being able to do an amazing powerful heal, and heal pretty much the whole party.
I must thank you for vouching at how overpowered your class is, but at the same time, it scares me to think that people actually think Rogues are overpowered/fine in pvp. It’s actually rather funny.
hey i play a shaman i was enhance pre BC and am elemental resto now 40/0/21 the nerfe was gay as hell but we are still one of the best classes in the game and i think they will buff us in The expansion .
For me, the main problem is, that the enh-spec is a awesome leveling and grinding spec. In all the old content till level 60 we do really well.
But do not ever try this on a PVP-Server. It is slaughter. You will get killed even by a group of 2 players 6 level below you. This is no fun.
Another point is, that most players stay enh. for the whole time, while leveling.
After reaching maximum level, this spec is a no-go, at least on PVP-Servers. That hurts.
Our Itemization is very bad, our survivability is nearly not existent and we cannot do burst-damage anymore, because of resilence.
And just as I said, beeing a Shaman on a PVP Server is not funny, its just
frustrating.
Since I do not see the point, beeing slaughtert all the time while doing the dalies for the epic mount and doing bgs for better pvp gear etc etc
I decided it is time to quit.
May your totems prosper again in the futur.