Shamans are truly second class citizens =(

Classes Shaman
1

My first character was Tauren shaman, i had this illusion elemental would be something around the lines of playing with several spells and boy was i wrong.

I swaped classes in TBC since it was dead clear blizzard had a completely dif vision in what shamans should be compared to what i understood the class fantasy should’ve been.

Fastfoward to Legion, we had some nice reworks and good ideas, still a lot of buggy odd stuff, but hey a good movement nonethless, artifacts looked sick, things looked decent.

I quit in SL, several obvious reasons, didn’t touch my shaman since Legion, i heard about Primalists and the incarnates and thought, well! We might get some cool stuff for shamans, this seems like the xpac to explore more about shaman and elementals and stuff.

Guess i was dead wrong, so many potential glyphs for shamans in S01, so many crazy spells, but guess it went all to plunderstorm.

Big sadge, it’s mind boggling how the shaman dev is just oblivious to great looking spells and some inspiring things shamans could have.

Guess he just hugs the spreadsheets and look at some resto/enhanc blasting and thinks everything’s working as intended.

Please, consider adding like new elemental looks glyphs, new great spells and whatnot.

It’s insane how many missed opportunities the class had this xpac.

I’m just mind blown at the negligence to shamans at this point.

6 Likes
2

Shaman are in a pretty good place right now, and Enhancement is in a better place than I’ve ever seen it.

Resto and Ele could use a little love, but they aren’t doing that bad.

What exactly are you on about?

1 Like
3

Just spell visuals, glyphs and whatnot.

The class theme in general, primal wave as this “one thing” where it looks super crappy but it’s basically the main spell for elemental and enhance( at least this season).

Not going over rotations or meta, etc.

Just the good old looks =(

4

Depends on the content you do. Shamans (enhance and elemental combined) make up about 4% of the dps representation in timed keys of 20 or higher. That puts us above deathknight and roughly on par with priest and monk (keep in mind that priest and monk only have 1 dps spec when shaman has 2).

I’d say we could use some help.

5

What weird leap in logic are you using to claim classes with more than one dps spec should do more dps? Not to mention shaman has always been less represented in higher end content throughout WoW’s history, even when performing really well.

3 Likes
6

That’s not what they’re saying at all. They’re saying that shaman, with two DPS specs, have less representation combined in the M+20 key range than some classes with only one DPS spec available to them. It paints a starker picture for just how unpopular DPS shaman specs are to play in that content.

6 Likes
7

Comparison numbers of representation between two melee specs at higher key levels…

Keys 20 and up

  • Enhancement: 209,992
  • Retribution: 1,125,988

Keys 25 and up

  • Enhancement: 11,979
  • Retribution: 117,007

Keys 30 and up

  • Enhancement: 28
  • Retribution: 1,089

Before you get mad at me, please realize, I’m just posting numbers that reflect actual play-choices made by players. No opinions have been shared in this thread. Just existing data.

I realize that in order to properly visualize/highlight differences in data, often times charts and/or graphs are used. Unfortunately, that’s not a benefit that is afforded to people equally here on these forums. So the hard numbers will have to do.

4 Likes
8

Its not about dps, its about class representation. Enhance and elemental offer two completely different playstyles. Monk and priest offer only one dps playstyle each.

My point is that when a priest or monk’s one dps spec has roughly equal representation to the shaman’s two dps specs combined we may have a problem. Fury and arms are similar enough that they both attract the same playerbase. Fire/frost/arcane are similar enough that they all attract the same playerbase. Enhance and elemental are different enough that they should be attracting two different pools of players- but they aren’t.

Also keep in mind that these three classes (shaman, monk, and priest) are competing for the second least represented dps class in higher keys (first goes to DK by a pretty wide margin).

Edit to add: Also keep in mind that shadow just got some pretty huge buffs and is gaining ground quickly. Monk is an (mostly) unarmed martial artist in a high fantasy game and thus will likely never be super popular unless they are brokenly overpowered.

3 Likes
9

The part that I find the most troubling isn’t necessarily the absolute difference between the two, but how the ratio changes as the difficulty goes up.

At 20 enhancement has 18.6% of the representation that ret has.

At 25 enhancement has 10.2% of the representation that ret has.

At 30 enhancement has 2.5% of the representation that ret has.

This tells me pretty clearly that enhancement has limitations that ret simply doesn’t have to deal with. If enhancement was played less, but the relative numbers stayed the same as difficulty increased you could make the argument that enhancement is fine, but people just prefer ret.

But that isn’t what the numbers show. Enhancement’s dwindling relative representation to ret shows quite clearly that even those that want to play enhancement give up on it at a certain point.

5 Likes
10

I’ll highlight it because it’s apparent some of you have a reading problem.

Furthermore:

why is it every time someone on the forums wants to whine about their class and/or spec, they pick the spec that is completely over tuned as the comparison. First, ret has always had more players. Plate holy warriors are played a lot in every single game they’re in. Second, no kidding ret is played more, it’s significantly over tuned. You’re either being willfully disingenuous or obtuse.

4 Likes
11

Then let’s compare to warrior.

For 20 and up:

warrior- 608,812
enhancement- 209,992
enhancement has 34.5% of the representation warrior does

For 25 aand up:

warrior- 38,571
enhancement- 11,979
Enhancement has 31% of the representation warrior does

For 30 and up:

warrior- 301
enhancement- 28
enhancement has 9.3% of the representation that warrior does

Enhacnement’s relative representation goes down when compared against every other melee as the difficulty increases- not just ret. The only exceptions to this are survival hunter and feral druid and that’s because BM and boomkin are strong in higher end content and they all switch specs. Enhancement could respec to elemental, but elemental’s representation drops in higher content just like enhancement’s does (and for most of the same reasons).

3 Likes
12

He actually didn’t.

He was only saying that basically:

  • If 19% of people prefer enhance to ret at a lower key level…
  • Why do 19% of people not prefer enhance to ret at higher key levels?

It’s not a 1 for 1 comparison - because obviously ret is overtuned, and has nearly the survivability of a tank…but it’s the dwindling nature of the representation that he is pointing out, imo.

The truth is…and I’ll insert opinion here…

People want to play Enhance. They just hit a wall and give it up. The same goes for ele.

7 Likes
13

correct

correct

2 Likes
14

That’s fine to post the actual representation numbers, but you are assuming the “why” of it.

There is no way to know why people play Ret over Enhance in higher keys. Yes, Ret CAN output higher than Enhance when you have two players of equal skill, but that’s not a direct correlation as to why you have one more than the other. You could add in the fact the paladins can do all three roles and Shaman only covers two. You could add the fact that Paladins can battle rez and Shaman cannot. You could add in the fact that while Shaman have lust, other classes also have it and have other useful skills that a Shaman might not have.

There are MANY reasons to bring one class over another, but that doesn’t mean anything as far as this subject goes. Shaman, in general, have always been underrepresented.

2 Likes
15

lol you’re right. That’s why Ret is represented over 10x Enhance. Got it. Now that that’s out of the way – let’s discuss a way to fix it.

2 Likes
16

Very true. This is why we aren’t comparing overall representation by itself. We are showing how shaman representation goes down as difficulty goes up.

When compared to ret, enhance comparative representation at difficulty A its 19%. At difficulty B its 10%. At difficulty C its 2%.

When compared to warrior, enhancement comparative representation at difficulty A is 35%. At difficulty B its 31%. At difficulty C it drops to 9%.

The point we’re making is that if enhancement/shamans in general were fine (just not very popular) then the representation would stay consistent as the difficulties go up, but this isn’t the case.

Shamans simply aren’t taken to higher difficulty content even by those that do want to play them.

2 Likes
17

You’re still assuming causation without correlation.

Let me know when you can connect one set of facts to the other.

So far, you haven’t.

5 Likes
18

As a person that has been regularly doing 20s for the last few months, I can assure you this is not true.

Very often I’m getting invited to groups, mostly because they need someone who can lust. Shaman are absolutely getting invited to higher keys.

You are also talking about causation without correlation.

Across the board, all classes go down in representation as the difficulty goes up. That’s not news, and doesn’t prove anything.

Also, your only metric is 20 and up? Are you aware of how few people across the board do Mythics above 20? Almost everyone in my guild doesn’t see the value in doing anything above an 18. I do 20s because I don’t feel the difficulty is much different between an 18 and a 20 if you have the right comp.

This is the causation without correlation I’m talking about. You’re not proving anything with your numbers.

When you connect the dots without actual hard data (which you don’t have), get back to us.

2 Likes
19

Because that’s not how statistics work, at all.

1 Like
20

It would help if people wanting to suggest things for shaman knew the basics of the class or how tier sets worked.

When people are vocal about their feedback while not understanding how things work, surprise. Bad things are implemented.

Shaman are often their own worst enemies.