Wanted to share a little bit why I am personally on the Warpath for this class to finally get some needed attention and why anything less then addressing the issues will be met with Maelstrom and Brimstone.
One you can find copies or variations of most of the classes in WoW in other games, but there is one class in WoW that cannot be replicated, that’s Shaman.
It’s the Mark Calaway \ Undertaker of the gaming world in the sense that it is a one in a lifetime class its the most unique and cannot be replicated. While some games may have the name Shaman, in no other way are they similar to the Warcraft Shaman.
I have tried again and again to replace this class especially my favourite spec of it, Enhancement. You cannot replace it, it doesn’t exist anywhere else in the gaming world.
But this class has suffered a lot of neglect, has had it’s identity stripped away and replaced by other systems in WoW, without Shamans being restructured and given an improved identity.
Proof? Well look at it through the years, Blood Lust given away, other classes getting support abilities that we had in totems. Totems being stripped away, Blood Lust being given to two other classes.
Name another class that had it’s associated hero in the lore stripped of all their power… for three expansions? Three. There is not one, here’s the proof.
Priests: Velen, Anduin, Faol, and Princess Menethil… I’m missing a few I’m sure of it.
Warriors: Lost Saurfang and Varian. Have Genn Greymane, Baine Bloodhoof.
Mages: Khadgar and Jaina
Druids: Malfurion is probably the strongest mortal to exist at the moment.
Paladins: Lost… Tiron and gained back Turalyon and still have Lady Liadrin.
Deathknights: The Lich King had his hat snatched off of him and now he’s going to beat up your Grand Dad.
Hunters: All three bloody Windrunners live (even though they’re all nutts), Nathanos
Rogues: Everyone in WoW lost Anti Parazi/Reckful (I’m from Asherons Call, he’s best Pk/PvPer, those are the rules) and the rest of your heroes still live.
Monks: Still haven’t lost Chen Stormstout and never will.
Thrall has been stripped of everything for three expansions. So there we are lore wise…
On top of that, lore wise half of our identity isn’t even explained, using Astral Shift as an example. Where did Astral Shift come from? Did we just translocate to the stars are we the communicators with the dead?
That would imply that we have power from the Shadowlands too?? If so, why don’t we have more Spirit based abilities instead of the William Shatner line conduit to the elemental forces or whatever the hell he said.
Are we Totemic Warriors or are we Battle Mages? Because I’m pretty sure I can find Battle Mage NPCs and Suramar and they wield swords and arcane magic.
What are we? Do not used tired all tropes anymore like Enhancement Shaman still make sense, because we barely Enhance ourselves let alone our allies in context to how we REALLY enhanced our allies back in the day.
We keep calling Elemental Shamans, Elemental Shamans; but they’re barely even using all four Elements… they’re supposed to use Fire for their big burst and Lightning for their support. And they only got one damn elemental because a mage has the other one… and nobody seems to know where the bloody Wind Elemental went. It just disappeared into pixel space.
So why is it called Elemental Shaman if it only uses two elements the most with some filler? Wheres the spirit stuff? Why are they not summoning Spirit Eagles and Spirit Honey Badgers, other Spirit like animal stuff?? Why?
Nobody knows why because our identity and theme just blew away in the wind magically from a lore perspective, what did we Shamans do, get in an Earthen Ring drum circle and sneeze ourselves off a mountain? (Im being really rhetorical for those of you who cannot detect it for reasons)
For the record Elemental Shamans I want you to take Earth Elemental from us after Enhancement Shaman gets some survivability or get renamed because we’re not thematically making much sense.
DPS and Survivability have sucked, so unpruning means absolutely nothing if we are pulling the numbers and are going to be stuck mediocre.
I and almost every Shaman on the forums in a collective Shaman fit have explained what needs to change in Shadowlands. We are NOT asking to be over powered gods. We are asking for lore, identity, and a completeness without the need of unnecessary stuff like borrowed power.
Every class can complain on the forums about not being touched, but they can get in line because we have been the most neglected over the course of years. We’re trying to catch up from years worth of neglect of our class, I’ll say it again. We didn’t get our overhaul in Legion, we got it in BFA. Enhance was a mess. We get the least amount of MEANINGFUL and GOOD changes.
Most of all, we stay because there is only one Shaman in all of the gaming industry, I can show you a class in another game similar to any of the other classes in the game, but for us Shaman it does not exist.
Agree, disagree, contribute but most of all I’m doin this for the Shamans of WoW.
