I’m sticking with Shaman

Classes Shaman
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I made this shaman in 2005. I played it throughout the end of Classic, and mained it in TBC, Wrath, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor. It was an alt in Legion and BFA. I didn’t play Shadowlands, and I’ve come back and dabbled in Dragonflight on it. I presume you don’t care, I just tell you this to establish I have had this shaman for 19 years and have played it thousands of hours. I’m not going anywhere. I agree that The War Within beta development has been extraordinarily underwhelming for our class. I agree that Farseer feels lazy and underpowered, Totemic feels like a straight up liability for Resto and casting Tempest as a Stormbringer feels like an actual, literal DPS loss. It’s bleak. And after several more rounds of buffs, nerfs and re-works, we now feel all but forgotten. I don’t believe it is an understatement to claim that Elemental is now the worst spec in the game. Perhaps tied with Subtlety.

But we’ve been here before. This isn’t new for us. Shaman have felt like the red-headed stepchild of WoW development for the better part of the 20 years I have been playing the class. TBC was certainly a high point for us, but it’s been mostly downhill since then. The War Within looks like another expansion of shaman mediocrity.

But I’d like to posit that things aren’t as bleak as they seem. For one, the vast, vast majority of people currently claiming to “quit the class” or “unsubscribe” are not 3800 rated in Mythic dungeons, or are they in the Race to World First competition. Shaman has been, and will continue to be, perfectly viable for 95% of the game’s content. You raid normal, maybe some heroic deep into the raid tier. Enhancement will be fine. You do +6 dungeons once a week for vault. People will take your Resto shaman. It’s going to be alright. The people at the absolute bleeding edge of content that have a better right to complain are the type of players with a full roster of characters that chase the meta anyway. I feel like the bulk of the current “doom and gloom” is coming from players that it doesn’t really effect. Whether Elemental is doing 449,000 single target in the first raid or 515,000 single target is probably not going to effect your raid spot.

I’d like to make a second, perhaps more controversial contention - I think the shaman tool kit is strong, fundamentally. In a Mythic+ environment I think that Elemental shaman has one of the best tool kits in the game. Bloodlust, the best interrupt in the game, the lowest cooldown AoE stun in the game, purge, poison cleansing, hex, a low cooldown knock-up effect, two strong mobility options, excellent burst off-healing potential with ancestral awakening and a group-wide sprint effect on a lower CD than stampeding roar. I believe Elemental shaman has a MUCH better tool kit than, say, fire mage. So why are we so much less desirable than them in a group?

Damage.

Our damage sucks. Earthquake doesn’t hit hard enough and it’s ground-targeted so tanks often have to move mobs out of it. We still have no consistent way to spread flame shocks. Shadow Priest’s Shadow Crash now puts VT and SW:P on every mob it hits with a 20sec CD. Warlocks can Seed and Vile Taint to put Corruption and Agony on 10 mobs. Elemental shaman are still chained to Magma Totem or Primordial wave to spread Flameshocks. Feels outdated. Our single target is also lackluster. We need a better ST totem option, stronger elementals, a substantially improved elemental blast, etc. I’d take a better defensive option than Astral Shift. We wear mail armor, often have shields, why is more Warlock twice as tanky?

But again, this all damage. It’s numbers. You guys are clamoring for a re-work. You’re begging for new abilities. We got Ice Fury, you guys absolutely hated it and complain about it to this day. We got Primordial Wave, you guys absolutely hated it and complain about it to this day. I’m seeing substantial negative feedback about having the use Unleash Elements for Farseer. I’m pretty sure you guys would hate most of the reworks or added buttons Elementals could get. Many of you are already complaining about button bloat and you hate half your buttons.

I think Shaman need number tuning, and then we’ll be middle of the pack. With a TON of number buffs, I could see Elemental being an absolutely meta Mythic+ choice and Resto Shaman could easily become a dominate prog raiding option with our mastery and disgusting TWW chain heal potential.

It’s fine, guys. It’s not ideal, but we’re used to the neglect, and those of us that have stuck with the class for two decades are still finding ways to make it work. I am not, remotely, nervous about AotC or Keystone master in TWW Season 1. Why are you?

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You make a lot of good points, and honestly, I don’t think I could ever leave the class either, it’s got too much of my identity in wow tied to it. I play enhancement and honestly love the class. I mostly play PvP, though the highest I’ve ever made it is a little over 2050.

The biggest loser for enhancement right now is that we are very dependent on our self-healing, which I don’t mind, I love the big heals, but because of dampening, the strongest defensive point of our spec is nerfed, and we really only have astral shift and burrow for any real damage reduction.

If dampening went away, enhancement would probably go from C tier to A tier in PvP.

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Have to win faster :smiley:

I think Enhancement is unironically one of the strongest 1vs1 specs in the game. And you’re about to have nearly full uptime on wolves. Your elemental blasts are destroying people on beta. With your excellent interrupt and control options, cheap purge and substantial offensive cooldowns, Enhancement is primed for a great expansion for PvP. Like you said, it’s too squishy. It needs survivability. I could see Turbo Cleave making a comeback though, and Enhancement can compliment a lot of caster comps relatively well, too.

I would like to see a rework of Lightning Shield into a powerful defensive options. 30sec CD, absorption shield of 30% max health, any melee attackers are hit for terrifying shock damage. That would be an elegant solution to the problem.

Glad you’re sticking with it too, brother.

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that’s a lot of yapping just to completely ignore the fact that we’re the weakest defensive class in the game

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Ridiculous position. If Blizzard, tomorrow, gave us a “Dark Pact” 30 sec CD damage absorption shield for 40% of our HP you truly believe all the whining on this forum world disappear? Laughable.

We are suspiciously vulnerable for a mail, shield wearing class with healing potential, yes. But that’s not what the vast majority of crying is about. An additional defensive is not the primary cry of this, or other, forums.

Our defensive tool kit has remained largely unchanged for 6-7 years and throughout several seasons in there shaman, of one spec or another, we’re considered quite viable. It is A problem for the spec, but don’t pretend like it’s THE problem.

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I’m A f* pumper and do absurd overall dmg every single mythic run. So no.

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I don’t think I lost a single dual in DF beta. Our self healing was great, our MSW generation while getting hit seemed higher which was a buff to our heals, lightning shield did real damage, and eleblast was pumping.

I could just whittle my opponent down to about 25% or so then hit them with a 10 stack ele, followed by a PW 10 stack eleblast and it was gg.

We took a huge nerf from beta to live. We will again. Our defensives need a buff, our damage is fine.

Edit: On topic, I will always main my shaman. I will probably complain a lot while doing it, but I’ll do it anyway.

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The only way this could happen would be if Ele did double everyone’s damage like Fire currently does.

Good luck on that. You gained nothing defensively, one of your hero trees has a capstone that is a damage loss to use and the other hero tree has no aoe.

Good luck.

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I’m not reading all of that a TLDR would be nice but I see we’re reaching the acceptance phase

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I heart you bro. For real. You couldnt have said it better. If Shamans were really so bad, we wouldnt be seeing players with 3600 IOs. But we do. For any spec.

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Err, no.

Mages have a much much better defensive arsenal to survive consistent high spikes of damage. They also bring a group buff that not only buffs magic damage dealers but also your healer which is huge. They also bring the same level of control and lust.

Damage is an issue yes, but that’s not why shaman are being left out of groups. It’s because they bring nothing unique utility wise, and have poor defensives. All the utility you mentioned is good utility but it’s not unique, so you can just take another class and also get a boost to the group via their raid buff.

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Honestly this whole post is cracked.

Stockholm syndrome mixed with elitist closed mindedness.

Given the complete lack of a single note for the shaman class in the expansion preview notes while other classes get pages, plus the lack of communication - I think the current level of doom and gloom is appropriate. If people want to pass on this expansion or reroll, that’s their choice.

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I’ve never seen a expansion launch where a class received this few (basically zero) changes. Especially considering the additions of the hero talents, but no spec changes to accomodate them.

Considering every other class receives dozens of changes every week. It’s honestly perplexing.

The only thing that would make any sense is if a big set of changes is coming. Perhaps the Sham Dev also does Hunter (and was working on hunter first)?

Or they are out of time/capacity and we are waiting till 11.1 (ew).

The lack of communication around it (ESPECIALLY considering Hunters received clear communication about class updates just a few weeks ago) is the real disappointment.

The sham community is getting vocal about it, so that is encouraging. Eventually they will have to say something.

I’ve considered playing another class for TWW… We’ll have to see in pre patch just how bad it is.

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Ele is still very much target capped in AoE which is a huge hinderance for M+ regardless of tuning. That’s just a design issue. Earthquake can only do so much when tanks are chain pulling stuff and moving constantly. Chain Lightning and PWave LvB are target capped.

Ele’s utility is largely extremely situational. How often is Poison Cleanse Totem actually useful outside of Afflicted week? Afflicted is being removed in TWW, so even that very small niche is being removed. Same with Tremor Totem, Curse cleansing, etc.

Other classes have stuns, interrupts, and knock backs/ups. Those are hardly unique to ele.

And the biggest problem of all for M+ is the limited defenses.

Ele is never going to be a meta spec with the current design unless they tune the damage numbers to absurd levels.

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Let me preface this by saying, I will always play my shaman. And no, the abilty of the class is not what’s holding me back from completing content. However, that doesn’t mean I am unable to connect the dots.

Completely irrelevant. You will always find people who make it work at the top levels. However, it is abundantly clear that as the content gets more difficult the number of shamans drop off. This has been argued endlessly on these forums and some of the reasons for low population has literally been, people playing shamans have different real life obligations to say ret paladins and that can account for the discrepancy.

Able to complete, and viable are completely different things. Can they do the content, sure, does any group have a reason to bring them over someone else that isn’t as huge of a liability, absolutely not.

Except the overwhelming majority of pugs chase the meta, and for good reason. It is easier to complete content when playing meta. No pug in their right mind is going to take an ele shaman over an equally skilled shadow priest, or an enhancement shaman over an equally skilled evoker.

We are the worst healer for M+, the worst caster class ( yes affliction is worse, but locks can just play destro, eles can’t swit h to a second ele spec). And enhancement is the worst melee, (again, frost can respec to unholy and be viable while still playing melee dk, we can not)

Shaman players have a right to be cranky about the current state going into tww, the lack of communication is astounding.

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Im not, i dont care about rating or viability. I dont even think elemental is going to be behind in mythic plus its a solid choice and so is enhance. Some people are just sick of playing a badly designed class thats gets no attention. All thr problems we have with shaman havent been addressed and its just a drag.

Having to choose between healing urself or keeping up ur damage as enhance is awful, once u get geared enough u can take down mobs faster so it becomes less of an issue but the entire leveling process ur weaker then everyone.

Plus people like playing something fresh with positive changes and playing shaman in tww is just saying “i like when things stay the same and i dont care for hero talents” which is a fine sediment to have but dont expect others to share it.

If the class got a rework that addressed the survivability and had a fun playstyle that was actually altered with hero points not many would care if it stayed middle of the pack. Its behind and it shows.

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I have two Shamans, this one I’ve had since Cata, the other I made this expansion as my dedicated ele shaman; this guy is enhance. I will definitely play Shaman in TWW but without a rework I don’t know if I’ll stick with them.

The class tree is a mess of things that should be baseline for it’s respective specs like flurry, chain heal, lava burst. Really niche utility all of which is impossible to take together. The updates done, was it mid season 1 or early season 2 - made things worse imo.

I like the enhance tree for the most part, it just needs some 2 point node reduction and a sanity check on all the lava lash talents. I wouldn’t mind having an earth based skill again like rockbiter or boulderfist. The Doom Winds builds could use some improvements too. And ascendance, let’s not even go there.

Elemental I am not very experienced with this expansion and have no suggestions, it seems like it would need a lot more changes. Never played Resto.

I think I’m probably going to play Warlock as my main unless they do something for this class. The best fantasy of all the classes I think, but has felt unloved for a long time.

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Shaman has been powercrept and doesn’t really make sense in modern WoW post 2018 , trying to PUG is a miserable experience and it’s so much easier getting to groups on Evoker or Mage

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Ive been playing shaman a similar amount of time as you but as resto and agree you up until the last few points. I’ve loved PW since it was announced for SL, I still really like it, but it feels really good with spec, I don’t think ive seen a resto shaman complain about PW, but the way it works for ele just doesn’t seem to work in a way that flows and is fun. I could be wrong about that but that’s the way it’s come of as to me.

As for farseer and UL while I haven’t had a chance to test it since im not in the beta but just looking at it I can see more than a few flaws the biggest being that it feels like it negates choice, it’s on a choice node but ends up feeling like it removes choice, I don’t have a solution to that, the way the two talents work is fundamentally different so one would probably just win out number wise probably. Also in the way PW naturally flows with spec UL looks like it will flow less with it, for example if people are in good shape and want to use my ancestors to get some extra dps in casting UL will feel unintuitive (not sure if thats the right word to describe it), but I could also be wrong and riptide will summon enough that that is not really an issue.

For the last point, it’s not ideal, and its not that it isnt ideal, its down right pathetic that a company is treating its customer base like that. And honestly they aren’t even treating the whole player base like that its just segments. People spent money to beta test their game, spent time and energy testing, theory crafting, and writing amazing posts what needs to be done, and they haven’t taken the most basic steps to even acknowledge it and honestly it’s sad that they care that much and get ignored.

Overall great post

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See, I completely disagree with this. Resto Shaman is my favorite healer to PuG with. You have so much more control over pulls than most other healers. I can kick, stun, purge, knock-back. In a PuG with absolutely garbage players it’s imperative to be able to carry mechanics yourself. On my Holy Priest I feel utterly incapable of carrying dogs^%# groups. I can only really heal.

For higher keys with guild groups and RealID groups, yes I prefer a healer with better throughput, efficiency and survivability. But you really cannot understate how powerful Resto Shaman is for PuG keys where you often have to drag terrible groups across the finish line.

Elemental is an antiquated spec. It’s a 2012 spec playing in a 2024 world, where many other specs have been revolutionized for better modern applicability. But, its tool kit is robust. Elemental has the tools necessary for high-end play. It doesn’t have the numbers. And whenever Blizzard does try to give the spec new tools, the community absolutely hates them (primordial wave, ice fury, tempest).

That said, elemental has several glaring issues that many players were hoping would be addressed for TWW;

  1. Lacking defensives
  2. Earthquake is undertuned and ground-targeted AoEs are antithetical to modern dungeon design.
  3. We struggle to really hit 10, 15 or 20 mobs effectively. Chain Lightning, magma totem, primordial wave lava burst spread are all severely target capped. High-end meta necessitates huge cleave opportunities and we cannot hang with most specs here (shadow, fire, havoc, ret).
  4. Spreading Flame shock is a persistent problem.
  5. With several classes now bringing a bloodlust effect, elemental doesn’t offer anything particularly unique for group composition inclusion.

Those are very real issues, but the community makes it sound like the spec is unplayable. It’s perfectly fine for what 98% of players in WoW actually do. Will you be invited to many +20 keys this season? No. But only 0.001% of players are doing that anyway. The whining here is disproportionate to the position of the class. People demand new tools when they hate almost every new thing they’re given and are threatening to quit the class to meta chase or quit the game all together because we’re doing 480,000 DPS instead of 493,000 DPS.

It’s exhausting.

Plus, I strongly believe shaman will be addressed in the next 60 days. No, I don’t expect a rework. But I think Ele will be tuned up and Tempest will be fixed. I expect Resto Shaman to be excellent for prog raiding and key pushing. I expect Enhance will be middle of the pack for raid and potentially underwhelming for Mythics.

My wishlist is a better defensive button (for all three specs), better elemental ST and huge buffs to Earthquake and I’d love to see Resto Shaman have more power and efficiency in their toolkit outside of chain heal.

Will we see it? Maybe. I’m not quitting the class if we don’t, though.