So right now my main alt is a shaman and so I have heard all the stereo types of being the worst at everything, not being fun to play, ext. But from what I have experienced so far I can’t relate to this at all. Each spec to me has been a lot of fun to play with and has a really cool and interesting theme. Enhance is probably the spec I enjoy the least, but that’s just due to the current best build not being interactive enough for my tastes. But I like the use of Earthen Spike a lot and setting up burst windows, so its nice to see that build getting a buff.
I hear Ele getting a lot of flack right now for just being absolutely terrible dps in M+ and raids. Looking at statistics it shows, but when jumping in random heroic raid pugs, it really doesn’t as there is such a huge variety in player skill, that class really doesn’t matter at all. Not to mention I love playing Ele! It’s a super fun caster that has really cool procs. Watching multiple spells shoot out at the same time just feels good. Then there are also the nice big chunky Earth Shock crits and some pretty strong burst with cds. Though it can be a bit slow some times when starting as with MS and decently long cast times it can feel a bit slow, but one it starts going it goes and that’s what I like. In M+ FS being on a cd sucks, and the MS issue really shows itself, but I’m super stoked for the changes in 8.1. They look really interesting and interactive. I like having choices.
As for Resto, I enjoy raid healing with it. It’s new and interesting to me and having a variety of raid cds makes me feel impactful. As of right now I haven’t felt like I am behind other healers, as using cds right does more for keeping the raid alive then just straight throughput, and in general I don’t see healing meters as something that you need to top so long as the group doesn’t die and you got all the dispels quickly you did your job.
All in all I like shamans right now. They are a really fun alt class to play and thematically they look super cool!
You do not understand the reason of that hate. You assume it is because people think shaman is bad. That is false. It is BECAUSE shaman are bad that we are unhappy.
We care about our class. That is the bottom line, but when we fail to perform where we should shine , resto on raid prog for example. Why would you bring a shaman? You look at the path Blizzard wants elemental to take as an “immoble turret” spec. In most raids, how often do you get to sit and dps without movement? Again… this is the reason for hate.
Shaman at the beginning of bfa where shunned from content. That is why we are unhappy. For a whole CLASS to be behind others enough that the community will kick us / laugh at you… it is a sad day indeed.
Let us move on to buffs. Before bfa even hit… Ion himself stupidly said that 3 specs are behind and will need to wait for 8.1. Those specs… Ele / enh and shadow priest. There was no % healing boost for resto because “they where afraid we might be too strong eventually with our mastery” So again, no buffs because eventually we get strong. How many raid tiers must we sacrifice to be deemed as “good” ?
Look at 8.1. Look at the buffs / mechanical changes we waited almost 6 months for. 6 months for enh to get a 5% buff. How is that acceptable when the specs NEED to be looked at. Again. Another point for hate.
You have an alt shaman, you are not a main. You probably didn’t level at the start of bfa… nor had to gear. Now days, you don’t see all this happening too much… but it did.
There is no stereotype that they are the worst. It is fact. Do not kid yourself into thinking it is false. This does not mean we are unable to do content, but the community impression has already set in seeing the data that we are the weakest in almost every area. We must work far harder than everyone else to even scratch at what they can do by smashing their faces on a keyboard.
I just don’t think people understand the shaman reasons for hating Blizzard and the current situation our class is in. We care about our class. People who don’t main shaman will probably never notice all of this because they are not as invested into it as we are. Why don’t you start a thread or ask other shaman why they are unhappy? Learn from the shaman point of view why things are as they are right now. Perhaps then you will understand why the shaman are displeased. It isn’t the low numbers. It isn’t the disrespect we get for being a shaman. It is because we care, and we want our class to be great in our eyes again.
Thank you for taking the time to write this out. It answers a lot of the questions I’m having. I haven’t changed my main class for a lot of years, but I never tried shaman.
I love playing on Meriweather the same way I did the first time I ever healed a dungeon and realized I wanted to be a healer class. I have loved being a priest, but I want to be a shaman from now on, so all of this is growing important to me and will be increasingly important as I find my group and get into a groove with manning a shaman.
Yeah I was being a bit facetious, but a lot of people that make these posts always claim that their alt shaman isn’t that bad. I’m sad that I’ve had to retire from Shaman, but I’ve kind of realized that the old Enhance playstyle isn’t going to return any time soon, if ever. Just sucks that I can’t find a DPS that I like anymore.
I do find it amusing that you talk about how ele is a immobile turret spec and that it is the worst performer of all specs and how because I didn’t level or do starting content with it I can’t understand or relate. Hate to break it to you, but my main spec sense the start of this expansion has been demo. A spec that is much more immobile than ele and before it got some significant buffs and enough gear to start scaling better it was the worst spec. Even right now with all those buffs and changes, demo is performing similar to ele in raids.
Maybe the grass is always greener on the other side, but I think that people get way too hung up on what is the number one flavor of the month best performer right now and forget to look at the little things that make a spec fun. Unless you are pushing the highest content in the game first, spec performance isn’t too much of a factor as player skill and familiarity with their spec will always be miles ahead more valuable than being the “best” dps spec.
As for why would you take a resto for progression? Is that a serious question? You act like the spec cant put out any heals at all. The world 2nd guild had a resto shaman in it… Not to mention for the vast majority of raiding guilds, doing mechanics properly and being familiar with your class and spec are going to be worth more than playing the “best” healer class.
People have this ridiculous notion that if a spec isn’t the absolute best it must be unplayable and no one should ever bring it to groups, and that is just sad and foolish. That type of thinking only produces a negative and toxic environment for all players.
I’ve played since the mid of legion till the end, I think the issue here is to picture the crystalized version of Shaman after many iteration and corrections at the end of legion, then take the bfa version and compare the two.
This isn’t about grass greener on any sides. This is about the blatant disregard of the feedback and information they have gathered since Legion by the players. They took a good and functional version, and swapped it for a clunky and unfinished version. Why would fans not get pissed about it?
Besides, demo locks have gateway, so how is that more immobile than ele (now that they took away Gust of Wind).
Point out where I said ele is the worst spec of all? Show me it. Show it to me. That is right… I did not claim that. As for the immobile turret spec part. That isn’t what WE as shaman believe. That is what BLIZZARD intends the spec to become. A turret spec with raids like uldir? You won’t do well. This isn’t about flavour of the month. This is about contributing enough so you don’t let your team down.
And guess what? Ele relied on secondary stats. Now you can smack your face on the keyboard and bypass some issues the spec had, not to mention the initial hate waves players had towards shaman. How many pugs have you been laughed at for trying to join now? I bet it is close to 0 right? Gearing now skipped all this, something you clearly don’t experience or understand as an alt.
You asked why the shaman hate. I gave you an answer. The fact that you can’t comprehend it is not my fault, nor problem.
You want to know why it had a resto shaman? Was it the healing? No… The hero /lust? … noooo. It was to cheese a fight. That was it. When your taking classes to cheese rather than because they will be good… Again another problem I really shouldn’t need to explain at this point.
It is about a niche. Resto’s jam is that it should excel at prog fights. That and aoe. When a class fails to perform better than others in the one area it is designed around… well. I shouldn’t need to explain why this is an issue.
You sit here and tell me
So, your telling me that… I apparently believe resto is garbage? I hate to break it to you … But i’m a resto man. I’ve done raids as resto. I know full well when they struggle, and WHY they struggle.
I answered your original question. We shaman want our class to be better. We wish to be competitive in the higher content. It is that simple. You keep harping on about flavour of the month garbage, it sickens me. No one on the shaman forums wants to be top dog. We want to be COMPETITIVE. I will repeat that again. COM-PET-IT-TIVE.
I can’t help the fact you don’t want to understand. That you wish to keep a closed mind to the problems of the shaman. That your “alt” doesn’t get beaten down because you got handed charity gear from a warfront and are out gearing a 2 keystone.
Again, you just assume we all what to be flavour of the month. You are wrong. Plain and simple. Dps issues, mechanical issue… you name it people addressed these concerns a while ago, and Blizzard did nothing. Getting buffs for demo mid patch ? Man the grass sure must be greener on your side of the fence.
Negativity can be a postive thing but if you are going to fail to open your mind and bother to understand this, rather than come back with comments like “Well my class is immobile, except for the warlock gate + circle +burning rush , so your comments on being immobile are stupid”… I can’t help you any further.
Perhaps Bloodmallet will appear in the thread to give you an insanely detailed explanation on the failings and other such issues of Elemental, but you need to drop the flavour of the month notion. None of us are asking for that. Never have. Never will.
Well I almost did make my main a shaman for this expansion, but I decided to stay with my warlock as that has been my main for years and years. I still think about switching, but I have been a lock for so long that I can’t really main anything else.
Gateway is not a mobility talent, it is a positional CD. To use the gateway I still have to stop what I’m doing dps wise, not to mention that it has a 2 min cd time. Being able to move once every 2 min but only to a specific location is not really what anyone should be calling or relying on as strong mobility.
Ele is more mobile than demo simply because there are spells and abilities that can be used while moving to maintain your current dps on the boss or to minimize the dps loss. Demo Is much more of a turret than ele is. Additionally Ele has ghost wolf built in, a very strong movement ability and potential defensive cd. Demo’s option is burning rush, a slower movement ability that costs health to use and makes us choose between it and a defensive ability. That is never a fun choice. Just having fulmination procs, being able to sit on an earth shock because you know movement is coming up and not lose dps, refreshing flame shock, and with 8.1 depending on how icefurry is balanced having 4 instant casts is pretty huge.
Now I will admit, moving during your burst window sucks just as much as demo having to move during its burst window. Both are really bad when it comes to that, but outside of that, ele is a lot more mobile then demo is.
Right there.
A fair few actually, and then when I would out perform them they would shut right up. But I could only do that because I was familiar with the mechanics and the cd’s I was using. Again I will bring up that I have mained demo for this expac and I have gotten tons of flack for it. People saying I should switch to a real spec and all sorts of things.
Except he was in the raid for 7/8 of their first kills…
It feels like you have a mindset where you consider yourself better than everyone because you put in your time playing the “worst” class in the game, and have gone about basing your identity on that. Do you think that maining demo I didn’t find it hard to get into pugs? That I didn’t have to work for my gear just the same as you, if not more given the abundance of dps vs healers? Get over yourself.
If you want to talk about being competitive in terms of raids, for dps it is pretty much broken into two groups. The specs that are over performing, and then the majority of other specs. While ele might be on the lower end of the majority of other specs section, It is still competitive with those specs, only being a few percent behind overall. But comparing yourself to the others in your raid group and other ele shamans on that fight is a much more appropriate way to compare yourself.
As for healers, Resto is competitive, It has nice utility and can help balance out a raid group. Stacking a bunch of the same healers is never ideal, as having a variety of cds and abilities to draw from for a number of different encounters is much more preferred.
Skill and familiarity with a class will always be worth more than being the “best” healer/dps/tank.
You don’t really understand mobility in raid encounters at all. Nor that some of those choices are talents where we have to lose something like defensive, cc, or a heal in order to take. But that’s right the grass always looks greener on the other side. Look at how mobile warlocks are, said no one ever…
I would like that, because I can go just as deep into all the short comings of each warlock spec, and directly compare them to shamans. Every spec has its issues, but from what I am seeing the ones for shamans are being blown way out of proportion. I never said all shamans wanted to be #1 op, just that I didn’t get what people were saying in terms of being not fun, having a bad rotation, being the worst dps or the worst healers. I personally think they are a ton of fun to play and are nowhere near as bad as people make them out to be, IE unplayable.
I get your point here, but look at the bigger picture. And I admit i’m digressing here, but nobody brings a Shaman for their raid because of Ghost Wolf, but Gateway on the other hand…
Not sure about any instant procs or spells for demo locks (never played one), but burning rush seems pretty equal to ghost wolf in this sense, and at least they still can cast in this form. The hp cost probably only matters in pvp, raid wise should be picked up by healers farely easily.
At the end of the day, if demo really suck that hard, there is still the option of the other 2 warlock specs. Switching role from ranged to melee is currently not viable for Uldir.
And it feels like your mindset is “My class is worse than yours, so you can’t complain”. I have tried time and time again to make you understand that early gearing was what showed the problems of shaman specs. Which is masked by over gearing content. I have tried to get you to see that the shaman is not just “A few % behind” But a great deal behind, but let us resort to petty assumptions. Won’t that be an enjoyable experience for everyone.
Again. You still don’t understand the niche part of the shaman aspect. Specs SHOULD outperform others when they are in their desired situation. When a spec does not, they are no longer worth bringing. That is the reality of the situation. Does that mean that a good resto will be behind by leagues? No, but you fail to think of newer players who are yet to grasp the concepts of shaman. It will be extremely hard to gain new shaman when the requirements are stupidly difficult.
As for burning rush in a raid. It makes you move faster than ghost wolf. You are wrong that it is slower. You are wrong that you have poorer mobility. As a shaman I have a choice. Movement, OR dps. I don’t get to hit ghost wolf and dps at the same time. Burning globals to reach a point fast while trying to dps is not a wise idea. The fact that the community wants more mobility is false. The community wants burst mobility back. To get to a point faster than 30% movement speed. Don’t sit there saying you make sacrifices to take mobility then claim we are better because rng may favour us.
And let us touch on the subject you keep mentioning all the time “Skill is clearly more important than gear”. What exactly is your point? Everyone here knows that the skilled shaman can do well, Look at how well Mangymutt is doing in m+. Killing it, but SOMEONE OF EQUAL SKILL On say… a monk will break you in half. You seem to have a strange complex in which you think the shaman on these forums are bad, and that we need to just be better. Subtle insults… Im quite well versed in them myself.
It seems that rather than sympathize with shaman in both lack of mobility and poor damage, you came to these forums to say that you are a demo and are worse off, so we should not be complaining. Or is that poor of me to assume such things? As it stands I have laid out the issues people felt with the shaman, It was on you to read them, and ask further questions to UNDERSTAND THE HATE The sole purpose of your own thread. You shot down every point saying “My spec is worse”. So? … Wasn’t the point of your thread. Or… Mayhaps it was.
That is not what I have been doing and not why I came here. I came here because I thought the negativity and perception around and about the class was misguided and grossly exaggerated. I only brought up playing demo because you tried to accuse me of not being able to understand what its like to a spec that has a bad perception by the community.
This mindset is what creates the problem and only feeds into the negative perception that a class/spec can have. Why can’t you play the spec or class that you want to play? Should groups only ever bring the absolute best specs and just ignore everyone else? No, that’s absolutely ridiculous. The vast majority of players are not doing top tier content, so there is no need to bring the absolute best and min max to such an extreme level. The threshold to complete most content in the game is low enough that playing a lower performing spec wont make or break your success in said content. Learning mechanics and understanding your class have so much more weight to them.
You haven’t showed me anything. You have only talked about how its been so hard for you. How no one wants you in their group, how hard it was to gear up early on, how playing a shaman alt means I could never know what its like to play as a real shaman main, that no other class or spec can compare to us or has had it hard this expansion because I’m a special shaman and I have based my identity on playing the “worst” class in the game. Get over yourself.
Do you think burning rush lets me do dps while moving? What are you going on about? Most movement in fights is just a couple steps to move out of some stuff. Burning a global while doing that is always a dps gain, as opposed to not casting anything. Having a class that has instant casts that you can sit on or use during those times of movement allows a spec to be mobile. To move while performing your role as dps. Classes that have to hard cast all of their spells are immobile. They are unable to perform dps while moving any distance. Shamans might not have the most instant casts or abilities to use while moving, but coming from playing demo and destro it is far more mobile than what I’m use to. But wait I forgot it’s you who plays the absolute “worst” class in the game, so any other class or spec that might be a little worse than a shaman at something must not be true…
Demonic gateway is the only base movement ability that a warlock has. So by default to take any movement or positional ability a sacrifice has to be made in the form of another talent. Those sacrifices are defensive abilities, CC abilities, and a self heal. It’s one or the other. This is a literal example of the grass always being greener on the other side. You only see the shortcomings with shamans while you cherry pick the best parts of other classes ignoring any negative components and say look how good they have it. All specs and classes have their flaws and weaknesses.
I haven’t brought up or said anything about gear. You are definitely projecting here. What I have been saying and have to keep bringing up because it seems way harder than it should be for people to understand, is that unless you are pushing the absolute top tier, hardest content in the game, in the 8.0 state of BFA there was no class that was no class or spec in the game that was so bad that it was completely unplayable. The mindset that everyone has to play the “best” spec or we can never clear this content is asinine.
How many fights is having gateway a “mandatory” part of the strategy? Just one. How many fights is spirit link a must for the strategy? Just one.
But really basing raid utility on just this current tier probably isn’t the best. Each spec has their own niche and utility they bring, and I will tell you, most of the time people want warlocks, it isn’t for their gateway. Its for their summons, followed by healthstones (if people remember to use them), and sometimes soul stones (but having a cast time on a battle rez sucks). Now I will say that as all warlock specs are dps their utility is homogeneous (mostly), where each shaman spec has some of their own unique utility along with their class utility. Though I will admit that it has diminished with time, with the one I’m most sad about being Ancestral Guidance. It is not as strong or impactful as it use to be and that really does make me sad and I feel for that loss or raid utility, a long with Ele dropping healing rains ext. But lets not forget all the other cool utility that shamans bring.
An aoe stun (one of only 2 in game I’m pretty sure)
An aoe slow that you can set up before hand
A ranged interrupt for all specs (other healers don’t even have a melee one)
Purge (not having a cd on this is really nice, especially when they put so many buffs that need to be purged in game this expansion, as a lock I’m super jealous as mine is tied to a pet that not all specs can use and has a super long cd.)
Cleanse
An individual slow
A tank pet cd that taunts everything
The ability to spot heal
Lust/Hero
I’m probably missing some for the baseline ones, now for the talented ones and spec specific ones.
Earth Shield
Wind Rush Totem
Thunder Storm
Ancestral Guidance
Earthquake’s aoe knock down (honestly I don’t know or haven’t seen when it works)
Sundering’s push to the side stun ability
Spirit Link Totem
Earth Grab Totem
Earthen Wall Totem
Ancestral Protection Totem (Definitely Super niche)
Along with all of restos Healer cds
That’s a pretty long list and obviously some of them are mutually exclusive and spec dependent, but there is still a lot of utility there in one class. Now each individual utility ability might not be the best or worst of its kind, it is still all useful and helpful to the group, and using them to their fullest will take creativity and time, but it adds an extra depth to the game play that can make a spec or class that much fun, enjoyable, or interesting to play. Is the utility to the level of druids, definitely not, they have way too much, but is it still a lot of utility? Yes.
Now most groups are desperately trying to get a shaman to join them based solely on one of these abilities (mostly), but as a whole the can help round out and create a balanced group, and balance is much more important when building a group, than class stacking a few classes that are good at one type of content as eventually you will find your group facing content that those stacked classes are not strong at dealing with.
As pretty much all of demos spells are hard cast, same with destro, being able to cast while using burning rush doesn’t amount to much and is effectively the same thing as ghost wolf except it costs health (and isn’t a defensive if talented). In pvp its a no no, and in raids its can be useful but we still have to sacrifice a defensive ability to be able to use it, which always hurts.
This is technically true as warlock is a pure dps class, and that is one of the advantages pure dps classes have over hybrids, we never have the option to pick a different role. Not to mention players don’t always enjoy all of the dps specs that a class might offer, so it can theoretically restrict you just the same, as at the end of the day having fun with what you are playing is much more important then playing a spec you don’t like just because it has bigger numbers. For me personally I don’t enjoy affliction, so I don’t play it unless has a special niche on some fight, like making it easy to solo a side on G’huun.
I Guess last of all what I really want to say, is that thematically Shamans are doing really well. Ele’s overload mechanic is super fun, Enhance has a lot of cool visuals, and resto’s totems and abilities all have a unique flavor, feel, and visual that I enjoy. When I press an ability as a shaman, for the most part, that ability feels rewarding and impactful.
Coming from 6/8 uldir, gateways may not be mandatory, but extremely good quality of life improvement in more than 1 fight.
Mother - Helps rdps beat the wind.
Zekvoz - Helps rdps to reposition to the front of the room.
Fetid (Mandatory) - Helps move to front/back of the room to dps adds, and to dodge the breath.
Mythrax - Helps accurate movement of beam dodging.
Ghuun - Have not reach this, but afaik locks are mandatory here for their gateways.
Ask around and you will see every progression group needs a warlock in the current raid tier. Not so much for ele for sure.
The stun is only ever used in 1 fight, 1 (Zekvoz). In our case, the adds dies so fast its almost pointless to stun them.
Slow is never ever needed as hunters can fulfil this role, and them having immunity makes it so that its better to bring a hunter instead.
A short CD interrupt is indeed one of Shaman strength, but this is usually only good in PVP. Again, this is not a criteria to bring an Ele to a progression raid as every melee/tank does this better.
There is only a grand total of 1 fight where Purge is useful in Uldir, for Zul to dispel the adds. This is easily overshadowed by Blood Elves and Mass Dispels. This is still strong in M+, yet I still have to get an addon to annouce my dispels (people can be blind to your efforts), and this is seldom a criteria people get Shamans for, especially when a Mage can do the exact same thing and yet excel in better CC.
Cleanse is on resto, and every healer can do that. It removes curse and magic iirc, but its weaker than Rdruid, which can soothe enrage. (Which is the main source of burst damage in m+)
Individual slow (Frost shock), Pet taunt, Spot Heals, Lust are all abilities other classes have, on top of raid/m+ criteria skills like Smoke Bomb, Frost Nova, Root etc.
In the best case scenario, that is certainly hoped for, where a Shaman comes and bring in the missing utility. But the state of m+ and raid is such that it is more beneficial to stack certain classes to beat the timing.
E.g. DKs grip makes Zekvoz, Zul adds much easier to handle, as well as mythrax mind control. Subtlety rogues have ridiculous damage in Zul fights.
P.S. On a side note, Moonkins can knock mythrax mind control targets completely out of the orb, however Shaman’s thunderstorm is just registered as normal damage, and only knock them back 1 step. It almost feels like they have forgotten about Shamans here.
Having fun with your class/spec is indeed one thing I can agree on. For me, I enjoy the whole package and play every spec. However, unlike in Legion, the raids in Uldir is so poorly designed that it heavily favors rdps, and I am no longer able to freely switch between melee/ranged as I see fit.
I guess you are glad with your version of Ele you are seeing now as you have not experienced the Legion version:
Back then, everytime you crit with a spell, you gain a temporary buff that boosts the damage of your next spell (Baseline ability). Requiring careful and delibrate monitoring of spells used after each crit or Lava burst. This is especially satisfying to get it correct with Icefury spec.
Earthshock had a cost of 20 to max maelstrom, its power scales to how much resource you dump into it, allowing you to dump lesser maelstrom to pop Explosive orbs in the m+ affix. Combined with the legendaries, there are even other interesting builds like the gambling build which dumps the Earthshock at different levels.
Gust of wind allows burst movement which was not even OP is any sense.
Enhance
They drop the maelstrom cap from 150 to 120, causing us to overcap way too easily.
Resto
Used to be peerless in stacked condition due to Healing rain, but no longer the case even in optimal conditions.
Cloudburst totem was a high skill level ability that requires good timing to pull off, but it is now heavily nerfed till it is no longer viable.
Perhaps there are more that I have forgotten, my conclusion is this: Yes, I am still having fun with Ele and the rest of the specs right now, but I can say with 100% certainty that it is not as fun as the legion version.
I apologize for having to correct you, but Cloudburst was actually buffed compared to legion. It now does… 30% healing absorbed compared to 25% absorbed. It feels weak because the shaman itself has gotten weaker. Since our throughput is lower, cloudburst is lower. When… or if our mastery ever wakes up and decides to work… you will see cloudburst become greater than before… well. Let us just settle for more popular. It is already pretty good.
It was a talent that was… not nerfed itself… but has suffered due to the fall of resto. I don’t think nerfed is the right word but, it was indirectly affected by nerfs.
No worries, as I am no longer healing regularly in raid, have not been keeping up to date on Resto. At the start of the expac, it was made known that Cloudburst no longer feeds from all sources of healing, only direct healing works. It used to take in all sources of healing, even trinkets and legendaries, as well as Ascenstral Guidance. Hence, with just a measly 5% boost, i doubt it can ever be close to what it used to be.
The problem with shaman are…to me…they are just not fun.
Right now, I also have the following 120s - mage, monk, druids (yes more than one), demon hunter, warrior, and hunter. All, are just plain much more fun to play.
Most perform more dps than the shaman despite a lower ilvl.
All dps specs self heal better than the shaman and most don’t even have a flipping heal spec…
Right now…all my shaman is good for is running old content…he just isn’t fun.
He can’t really solo elite world content without a heroic running around self-healing until out of mana and then reengaging the thing he was trying to smack down…or wait for a lame 5 minute cool down for an elemental to help him out…which must also be healed throughout the fight to win.
Meanwhile, my dps dh has redonculous leach and goes toe to toe, my druids run around in leather and take less damage and spam instant castes for dps and has a talented instant paladin like lay on hands ability, my hunter leaches and heals through simple dps, my war…in plate…takes very little damage and auto heals after the fight. My monk can kill elite quest mobs in it’s resto like spec, and mage…we’ll I suck at mage…but it’s mobility and instant burst is fun.
So I don’t want other classes to be nerfed…they are fun. I want shaman to be fun. I want to be motivated to play my shaman, not obligated to log on him because he has the most exalted reps of my toons and I want to like him because he was my first 60 from classic…but is not fun.
Probably the easiest way to make shaman fun…with blizzard just being lazy and all and not reworking anything…would be to give any class with a sha or man in it’s name like 50% baseline versatility.
That would solve a lot of the papermail issues that other classes don’t have because of their built in survivability.
I find Resto like playing in mud they’re so slow. I’m certainly bias, as I main a Holy/Disc Priest which are so strong and mobile, and I have a Holy Pally raiding alt which is strong too.
I love the way Resto Sham spells look, and there is some definite advantage to the utility they bring, but it drives me nuts casting 3 second heals only to watch the Priest swoop in with their insta-holy words and snipe the heals every time. Why bother, Priests just spam shields or binding heals and top the meters - I know, this is what I do on my main.
I only take this Sham toon on alt runs when I don’t feel like healing much. I think if all the Shammy fanboys actually tried Priest or Pally, they’d never look back.