How is everyone feeling about Sham?

Classes Shaman
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Hey all, just checking in to see how everyone that mains Shammy are feeling. I’ve mained Ele for years and feel like some of these changes have been really unflattering as a whole for the class. I also off-spec Resto and I am curious if it’s just me that feels like we’re missing some things too. I don’t play Enh but I’m also wondering what you Enh mains are thinking?

Ele feels weird right now and I am missing EotGS and wishing they had made Icefury more synergistic and flow better/feel good. I feel like we need another spell or something that helps with maelstrom generation or just the flow of the spec. Idk if I’m playing the current stuff right so please tell me if I’m wrong, but it feels like we are almost ignoring LB/MotE except for procs to buff a spender, and then just spamming Chain Lightning/Bolt and using spenders, outside of CD’s. As someone who always liked Lightning builds more than the Fire builds this feels bland, and I wish they found a way to incorporate both a bit more. I do like the Voltaic Blaze visuals but I am struggling to do good damage and it really sucks that the Purging Flames buff doesn’t stack to 2 or something because when you have a charge of it but go to a new pack, you have no option to spread Flame Shock and utilize the buff outside of overriding it with another Voltaic Blaze cast just to get the buff to even do anything.

Rsham feels too linear/bland with all of the pruning that’s happened. Since the introduction of Hero Talents I thought a Farseer setup was cool in theory but I disliked that they’re just some passive copy of Mirror Image from Mage that does some spells and wish they could do something more or you could interact with them more/in different ways. I know Chain Heal is lackluster right now, but even if they buffed it to be relevant and worth using I still feel like we don’t have much at all to use. I have all of 3 direct healing spells (4 if you count Unleash Life) and then some things that passively heal like Healing Stream Totem and using Ancestral Swiftness, but am I the only one that’s both confused and frustrated with having Riptide, Healing Wave, and Chain Heal as our only core abilities? I never enjoyed playing around Cloudburst Totem but I feel like we need more synergistic spells with Resto.

I’m just curious on how others are feeling as buffs/nerfs/pruning has rolled out and how people are feeling now that we most likely aren’t getting large changes or spells added/pruned given we’re 2 weeks out from launch.

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Just from my own inexperienced experience, rsham feels gutted. I felt like the beauty of the class was there was always something I could be doing to keep folks alive, but now it just feels like I’m just spamming riptide and praying I dont need to hard cast a healing wave cause i’ll most likely just get silenced. I miss earthen wall

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Totemic Enhancement feels absolutely hollow. I just press whatever lights up like a toddler now. No thought, no setup, no payoff. The way cooldowns were condensed makes no thematic sense and feels clunky mechanically, and the melee/caster balance feels like it’s tipped decidedly toward “caster” with the overemphasis on constantly spewing out chain lightnings that keep jumping to crap I’m not in combat with.

To top it off, one of the few things I was feel positive about going into the prepatch – our self-healing with the addition of reliable Earth Shield uptime and Raging Maelstrom splitting off from Maelstrom Weapon – has been nerfed into the ground and Raging has turned out to be incredibly unwieldy to actually use due to the need to weave it with MSW spenders when you need healing.

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I have many many many many issues with how resto shaman is right now. It’s been gutted beyond belief, has no identity, and no real intuitive gameplay. The stuff they added back doesn’t really make the spec any more fun.

The spec works because it has to for launch, but we’re only useful right now because of skyfury and a kick.

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As someone who hasn’t played shaman seriously before… I think it’s in a good spot for people new to the class. So far all I’ve done is world quests as enh and heroic dungeons as resto, so this is coming from a very casual viewpoint. I’m aware many/all veteran shamans are pissed but for me;

Enh is learnable, it keeps me engaged and is pretty fun. I like how healing surge stacks for instant casts quickly and I have rock boy at the ready if things get dicey. I enjoy the rotation and think it’s a flashy spec with useful utility.

Resto is fine, I like it more than holy priest and hpally. All the healers in general seem to be boring and dull, but atleast rsham has kick, lust, cap stun totem, wind rush, a dot that procs, plus other utility. I find it more engaging than priest/pally.

I’ll definitely be playing shammy this xpac, if not maining it. Hard choice between sham and warr.