I could fight about it for years and years.
Some of it is design philosophy, some of it is just nuts and bolts, most of it just the basic idea of “if it feels bad, if it looks bad, its just bad.”
From design philosophy - Shaman seems to be one of the few, if not the only, classes that is still chained to a basic 1 for 1 balancing system. “You can do X, but it should cost Y” kinds of ideas. Which, on their own, are not bad. But these devs are so militantly incompetent that they either dont understand that, or dont care, or just cycle through who they think should get time in the sun every season, which I do believe is true. The wild swings of “underrepped class gets 30% damage buff across the board, buff buff buff buff suddenly very good” and then either shrunk back down in the next season or left there while everyone else rises up past them is always a transparent clownshow.
But anyway, think of Maelstrom weapon. Get 5 stacks, choose between a damage ability or a healing ability, costs the Maelstrom resource and mana, choosing to use the healing ability sets your damage back, vice versa for choosing damage ability. One or the other.
Now think of any other class that doesn’t have to choose at all. Think of Demon Hunters that can just plow through you with damage way higher than yours, more consistent than yours, harder to avoid than yours, and all while passive leech makes them hard to kill even without accounting for the more numerous and stronger defensives they have and doesn’t cost multiple resources.
(Edit: This goes into a whole different avenue of Blizzcompetence with their reoccurring concept of - Step 1: Establish the rules and confines of the game, like mobility. Step 2: People learn the rules, play by the rules, enjoy the game. Step 3: Create a new class or character that lives outside of the rule we established for the game. Breaks the game as we made it. Has no mobility restriction. Step 4: Why cant we balance this??)
Think of Rogues and how laughable that design is. They used to be a classic example of 1 for 1 balance. Stealth is very strong, therefore you have reduced movement speed. Stealth and Sap is very strong, therefore its hard to land, must be close, must have talent if you want to forego being close. Backstab hits hard, must be behind your target. And now look at it. Completely unshackled from any semblance of “you can do X, but it should cost you Y”. Stealth INCREASES movement speed. clown design. Sap has a longer range than our totems can reach. clown design. They have l a y e r s of CC that can be stacked on top of you one after another. Sap - Sap - Sap - Cheap Shot - Cheap Shot - Cheap Shot - Gouge. Is that, by itself, bad? Not necessarily, no. But should the class that can do that ALSO get to onetap you? Should they also get to 100-0 you before you get to play the game? in what WORLD should Rogues NOT be the quintessential damp comp class? Lock things down until you cant catch back up in the late game? Should Kidney Shot be a death sentence - “trinket this or youre dead, and by the way after you trinket youre just dead in 20 seconds anyway” - no. Thats bad design. And its bad design under their own rules. “we design around 3v3 and esports” types of clowncar sht. If that were true then they should be able to know and recognize that if one class is bringing multitudes of CC and then pairs with two others with even just a little bit of CC, or crushing burst, it will break the game. What do they do? Do they make it so that Rogue CC shares a DR with all CC in the game? Do they make Rogues kings of control but reduced damage output - a 1 for 1? No, they let RMP continue to dominate all the time because of their own flawed design, and their own flawed (fake) design principles. - - Not related, but Stealth and everything like it needs to be a CD. ALL stealth. 1 Minute in, 1 minute out, like how Camo worked for Hunters, Vanish resets the CD.
Think of how our totems work. Cant be used in CC anymore, must be used at perfect times, anticipate enemy player, be a step or two ahead, or just get lucky - reward. Then think about how, knowing that, they gave Death Knights multiple charges of Death Grip. I can think of every single time I perfectly time a Grounding Totem, eat Death Grip, have the Death knight just standing there… Death Grip again. CLOWN development. Shaman has the forethought, Shaman has to play perfectly, Shaman has to time it right, 0 reward. Tremor totem because a Priest is charging in, split second choice, Tremor. Priest just walks over, knows you just got faked because its literally do it or get feared, instant Holy Fire or Shadow Word to kick it over, fear. 0 reward. Laundry lists of examples of other classes unshackled from the 1 for 1, or just given tools to answer what we bring. Think of how long Fire Elemental could be killed at the totem. Think of how in Legion announcements they made a huge deal about our totems getting flat % of our health and being hard to kill and more useful because that was our “class fantasy”. (only to go on to make the summoned companions of Shadow Priest harder to kill and apply an infinite range Mortal Strike.) They obviously understood that having abilities that can be killed means there needs to be a 1 for 1 trade there. They have to be strong if they can be killed. No, actually no, nevermind, they heal very little, they reward little, they require more timing and forethought than anything else, they can be killed, AND we’re giving people the tools to kill them easily or work around them. - - Not related, but I believe that the idea they had for Paladin, that their healing is based on proximity, is what they should have then, or should now, lean into for Shaman. Make the totems meaningful and a core part of the class, make being near them or the Shaman meaningful, make Chain Heal something that actually makes sense because you want to be near your Shaman and your Shaman wants to be next to you. Like whichever blizzard clown said however long ago in response to why Shamans have positional requirements for their AOE healing while everyone else gets smart heals and huge AOE, along the lines of “We keep Chain Heal the way it is because Shamans historically have to look and see the battlefield and see whats going on”. If the totems can be killed they need to be strong enough to require killing or have enough health that killing them isn’t easy. If they become unkillable CDs they can be less powerful but lean into area denial. 1 for 1.
Look at our talent tree. HOW are we left with Astral Shift AND have to choose between a reduced CD or increased effectiveness? HOW is that still real? Is that supposed to be comparable to Warlocks, that have Unending Resolve and a talent choice that also reduces the CD or increases the effectiveness? Unending Resolve makes you immune to interrupts. It is baseline better than what we get and ALSO gets access to the same choice we have to make. CLOWN development. Even WITH the increased effectiveness of Astral Shift you die in openers WHILE timing it right, in Ghost Wolf with full stack damage reduction, hit Astral Shift, get opened on, still go below 20%, still trigger Natures Guardian. HOW is it not a baseline reduced CD AND usable in CC, like Shamanistic Rage was, with AT LEAST a single talent to increase effectiveness? Think of every other healer and how they have personals that can be used in CC - Pain Sup, two Paladin bubbles, Guardian Spirit, Cocoon, Iron Bark and Barkskin. while we have to pretotem, preheal, pre-enter your opponent’s mind to counter them. Because we eat the 1 for 1 design while any other class is unshackled from it.
Complex design isn’t bad on its own, but we are expected to live in this complex design while comically disabled people remove it from other classes. And now, their idea of “Restoration is too complex so we’re ‘fixing’ it” is just Riptide Healing Wave Riptide Healing Wave Riptide Healing Wave Riptide Healing Wave Riptide Healing Wave Riptide Healing Wave Riptide Healing Wave
Anyway, I could go on forever about this and changes and mythics and losing Thunderstorm while Druids keep Typhoon, but whatever I just keep it to denigrating the palsy victims that makes it this way