Shaman - Open World

Classes Shaman
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Hey y’all, sorry if this is the millionth thread asking this, it probably is.

How are shaman for open world content? I’m super casual and only really run world content. I currently have a Priest, Warlock, and Paladin at max level and am looking for a 4th to add.

I keep seeing a lot of complaints here and “Shaman bad” and I’m wondering if that’s just for content like raids, m+, or if it’s just the class overall. I don’t want to spend my time playing a class that’s going to struggle in any content at all, regardless of spec so I’m just looking for a little reassurance of fun, and ability and maybe some clarification on the complaints and if they’d even apply to my play style.

Thanks so much!

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In open world we’re perfectly fine.

In M+/Raids we’re fine though sim junkies would argue otherwise.

In PvP you’re going to get trained as your lack of a defensive toolkit, easily counterable CC, and terrible self healing make you the easiest thing to kill outside of a character being naked.

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We do very well in world content because of mail armor, ghost wolf, shield, and self healing. As you get better gear, you also get to kill mobs faster as well. I enjoy shaman for world quests.

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Is “shaman bad”. No.
Could shaman be better? Certainly.

Like most people we’re prone to hyperbole. Shaman are middle to lower end of the pack but will hold their own with enough gear/skill and practice.

Most of Shaman gripes come from Blizzards odd choices in our spells and defensives; and the fact we rarely, if ever, lead the pack in Healing or DPS

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You’ll have a blast, Shaman is a lot of fun in open world content. You can heal and have access to both ranged and melee specs. The toolkit is also amazing, with totems and pets.
Just beware of world pvp, you’re very squishy, especially if you spec into Enhancement.

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Like stealth on a Rogue…Ghostwolf makes it hard having fun questing on other classes.

Also, Ghostwolf works indoors. That is a big deal.

Self healing is pretty nice for a DPS when soloing too.

Definitely questing through SL on my Shaman first.

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If you go full summon/elemental build, then elementals are better than enhancement at soloing world content (if you mean world bosses and stuff, cause warlocks and paladins can just face tank any content really). My shaman switched to elemental, full pet (if you consider elementals a form of pet) build and it was a night/day difference over enhancement.

Problem is, despite wearing mail…my mage with shields (arcane+prismatic shield talent)+leech can face tank mobs without barely any damage (and it has a ton of CC anyway) and my shaman feels like it wears a paper bag for defense. Its weird…like the mail armor shamans wears is made of glass and so is actually worse than cloth. It really feels like even without shields, my mage takes less damage than shamans do. Its weird. But the elemental pets pretty much solve that.

Enhancement gets summons too, but I found the extra oomph of the elementals made it quite a bit easier. Plus enhancement needs to be in melee…in a class with almost no defenses while wearing glass armor…where as elementals can just stand back and use its pets and what not. Granted, earth elemental is a 5 minute cooldown (20% reduction in one of the anima powers in SL)

So 5 minute cooldown for earth elemental (one minute uptime), 2.5 minute cooldown for fire elemental or storm elemental if get the talent (30 second uptime)

If time it right, can have elementals up for a minute and 30 seconds. If summon fire elemental or storm elemental first, then earth elemental after fire elemental is used up, it should only be a minute wait before using fire elemental again.

Its important to use the fire elemental first if want the most uptime and less wait on using elementals. Allows one to solo a lot easier in the harder solo content that most classes can do.

As for self healing. Enhancement self heals are weird. Run out of mana fast (even worse currently in shadowlands but hopefully it gets fixed) and the heal feels really weak compared to what other classes get. Even spamming heals on enhancement still die to harder solo content, compared to warlocks/paladins (destruction warlock face tanks and heals vastly better than enhancement). Elemental is quite a bit better (but still feels kinda weak heals but better than enhancement. Though maybe its cause dont stand in front line taking so much damage), and of course restoration is the heal spec and its heals are amazing…cause well its the heal spec. And restoration is actually one of the best healing specs in the game, and actually pretty easy to solo with. I still prefer soloing as elemental though.

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I would say no we are not bad. Just a tad squishy…and as everyone has already said we are fun and you will have a blast… And as said before pvp is the biggest pain for shamans. But if you can deal with their issues they are fun… And you can surprise people with the dps you can do.

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