K, time for a rant post.Follow

you just nullified your ability to complain right there
kk?

fear is one of the sexiest CC's in the game due to the fact that you can be getting ***@#%^ed while feared

and I can agree though that with the increased dmg done by all classes trying to pvp as a lock without resil is pretty suicidal, since on my halfblues/half epics rogue I can drop a t6 warlock in about 15-20 seconds ( combat is good for something it turns out) or back when I was mutilate I got a 3.6k mutilate double crit on a non SL lock

but you wanna know one of the lamest things in existance? a lock with 14khp and 490 resil

YOU CAN'T TOUCH THEM

that is like full venge tho :P

Edit: my hatred of locks is so great I kinda went overboard LOL FEAR DRAIN MANA LOLOLOLOLOLOL WHAT FELHUNTER ATE YOUR SHAMANISTIC RAGE??? LOLOLOLOLOL


Edited, Jan 20th 2008 4:54pm by EvilShenanigans

As the person who started this rant, I can tell you this. I do not lack the skills of pvp. I'm not the best, but I'm definately good at it. I've done hundreds of 1v1 battles. Against locks I can destroy Aff or Dest with eshock and grounding totem. No questions. But, and theres always a but, if they drop that felhunter out, I lose everytime. I can't scratch a decently geared demon lock. Cannot. I've tried every possible elemental build in the game. To the point where i've spent over 500 gold respec'ng. And you know what? Its the same damn thing against every other class there is. The only class we can kite is an enhancement shaman. Thats it. We cannot compare to any other class in the game.

Battles go like this,

vs lock. Pet gets in and starts canceling spells. Fears come out, do not break as dots dont count as combat dmg. Sometimes tremor totem works sometimes not. Game over. Felhunter makes the dif.

Warriors. Joke. Kite? no, charge skips your lowered speed. 3 hits and death is knocking at my door. I have 8k armor, 3 hits. They have 11k health. Takes me bout 9 or 10 lightning bolts. And thats if each one hits. Thats a minimum 18 seconds. Battles overwith way before.

Pallies. We actually have a chance if the pally has already used his bubble. Frost shock works, until they use Blessing of Freedom or whatever. We purge, frost shock again. They hammer of justice. 6 second stun with no chance of break. Game over with big 2 handed mace to the face. Holy pally i hear you say? They simply outlast us. 10-12k armor and 11k hp? Quick heals? Massive healing? Quick talents? Yeah, 2nd most OP class in the game.

Druids? Now here we have a chance. Oh wait, no we dont. I have personally seen a Druid take on a 70 mage and priest and simply outlast them. Yes, we can do the dmg, we can take the spells. No, we can't get out of the roots. No, we cannot take the feral dps and stuns. No, we can't interupt their instant hots. No, no, no. Number 1 OP class in the game. Oh, did i mention the insane HP? What other class has forced Bliz to cap their hp at 25k?

Hunters. Another joke fight. Cannot touch them. If you want me to explain, I'll simply laugh as I let you imagine the spell cancels, or the sleeps, or the silences, or the dazes, or the pet with a 1.5 attack speed or faster. or the freeze traps, or the slowing snakes. You get the picture. No way to win at all. Not even enhancement.

Mages. An interesting fight. They simply wait for us to try a spell then counter. Kite. Frost nova, blink. Yeah, we can cancel their first big spell. And yes, they hate our grounding totem cause if they come out with an instant spell talent ready, it wastes that big pyroblast. But if they are smart, they'll waste the grounding totem with a scorch then use an instant pyro. Pretty much half your life. Oh, did I mention grounding totem has a 15 sec cooldown? Blows. Its a dps race, unfortunately they have us beat in every category including faster spells.

Priests. See locks. minus the pet. Cares even less bout the grounding totem.

Rogues. Yeah, this fight never happens. Its not a fight. We dont have any way to prevent real dmg. No protection. And i Know more bout rogues than i do shamanas.

Simple fact is, we can sit here and go around the table with a "well, if this happens, you do this" Fact is, most fights are over within seconds. Fact is, in pvp, shamans are gimped. Severely. Its not even fun playing them in pvp cause i see whats going to happen. Golden rule to understand as a shaman is simple. In pvp we are god, until we get noticed.

Guadion,.... if we have full PVP/Arena gear, and our opponent also has the same.... then --> what soljourner wrote.

These days, my gear is better,... in BGs, if I see my opponent in gimped gear, I try to fight. If it's another rogue or lock,... I rather use my time to type in the BG chat to call out inc and ask for help.

WHen on the offence.... what do I do,... I TRY to sneak around and find geometry to hide behind before I start spamming LB and CL. Otherwise, once I get spotted, I'm dead. I belief we are the easiest to kill class for warriors and rogues. I always get them zooming in on me.

Ever tried getting off a 1.3 second cast, locked out by all your viable spells, while being WTFPWNed by a Rogue or Warrior? Seriously, we Warlocks actually fight melee'rs more than once every two minutes.

Also, Fear isn't the most useful CC in the game. Stuns have NO CHANCE to break on ANY DAMAGE. Fear has a HIGH CHANCE to break on ANY DAMAGE.



Halving the amount of spells someone can get off is a quite significant delay.



Can I have some of whatever you're smoking? DoTs do break Fears. Oddly enough, so does a PvP trinket.



We're back to the crux of my argument here: I'm not saying Warlocks are underpowered, or Shaman aren't: I'm saying that your arguments have no real strength, because WE don't have any protection against melee classes either.

My point exactly. I'm not ranting about Shaman. I have absolutely no complaints about Shaman. My point is, was, and remains that both of our classes suffer from the same deficiency (ie: no melee defenses). If anything, I'm actually complaining about Rogues and Warriors.

Fear is useless against Warriors. Totally useless unless they're being played by a ******.

Fear is nigh-useless against Rogues, as well. When we're not being stunlocked to death (hell, you guys get Mail) we're either being constantly interrupted or the Rogue has Cloak of Shadows up.



If a Shaman's only offensive spell was his Shocks I would be able to understand your point. As it is, you have Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Stormstrike (if Enhancement) and lots of other offensive moves. Casting an instant spell once every six seconds doesn't stop you casting in the 4.5 seconds you're off global cooldown.



It appears we're running on different definitions of crowd control. I say that if my enemy isn't able to attack me (for example, is being kited by a Frost Mage, or being stunlocked to death) he's under control, and is as such CC'd. This isn't a perfect definition, but you clearly understood what I meant.

iHoT (instant Fear): requires 37 points in the Affliction Tree
Soul Link (20% Health): requires 31 points in the Demonology Tree and a pet that hasn't had it's *** kicked



Stuns cannot be broken by damage. Incapacitate effects can be, and are used in stunlocks to let other moves cool down or position for a backstab.



The only reason a Warlock would have more HP is because he's taken a five-point talent for +15% Stamina. This is made up for in the fact that our spells cost above average amounts of mana, so we have to take away our life to get more.



No, you can't get off another spell while your enemy is unable to cast. However, you can quite easily get off two talented Lightning Bolts while waiting for your Shock to actually cool down.

It's not really fair in the first place for shamans to shoot down the warlocks' complaints by arguing that all warlocks are Demonology spec'd or SL/SL anyway,
because then all your shaman DPS arugments are moot because so many people say that any good PvP shaman is a Restoration shaman.

People are just using different aspects about the two classes to argue against each other when not every warlock has each aspect and not every shaman has each aspect.

There was someone talking about how warlocks get a Voidwalker sacrifice to mitigate incoming damage, but then upon a rebuttal, other people on the shaman side say that any good warlock would already have their Felhunter out. So, then the voidwalker mitigation point doesn't really matter in the first place, no?

Well, then there was the claim that a warlock can summon out a different pet ridiculously fast anyway, but that's a low-tier Demonology talent. And under the claim that all warlocks have that many points in Demonology anyway, there's still the counterpoint that it's a 15-minute cooldown and therefore can only be done in a tight spot in a BG.

And then we once more change parameters to say that Arena is the only 'real' PvP?

Most everyone's point holds true in their own parameters, but you're all arguing different situations, with different gear levels, and different specs.

And for the record, no others class has a spell interrupt that they can cast every 6 (5 talented) seconds. A shaman may never fully cancel an oncoming spell but only delay it so that every other spellcast gets off, but that means you reduce the amount of spells the enemy casts on you by half. Furthermore, it does some decent damage, unlike the silly damage that Kick does. That's why it's balanced to be only a 2-second school lockout.

Earth Shock is not the problem with shaman. It was said long before and I hold to it, the problem with shaman being underpowered in BG (and I do say this) is that it lacks reliable CC and anti-CC. Snares do NOT constitute effective CC, unless it's 15 seconds long and the class has an Intercept move to go along with it.

Indeed, and I don't disagree with you there at all. I think Warlocks should be able to play Demo and Afflict in the arena, just as Shaman should be able to play Elemental or Enhancement.

But the fact of the matter is, Warlocks spec Felguard or SL/SL in the arena almost to the point of exclusion. So if we're comparing a Shaman DPS spec to Warlocks in PvP, that's the only build to compare it to IMO. Do you disagree?


Because it's the truth. BG's are a big cluster!@#$, and honestly, so are 5v5's generally. The only place to accurately gauge how individually effective classes are is in duels, 2v2's, and 3v3's in the arena. All places, you'll note, where DPS Shaman fail.


I've only ever been arguing end-game, fully-PvP-geared, small-scale PvP.


But it is still just a delay. Watching someone kill you over 30 seconds is not much more fun than watching them kill you in 15. Watching someone heal their DPS "pet" to full in between your constant Earth Shocks is not much fun either. One likes to get the impression that one is more than just a nuissance on the battlefield.


Decent (at best) damage, perhaps, but Earth Shock is very mana hungry if it's not down-ranked, which is why most PvP Shaman roll with Earth Shock Rank 1. If we keep it at max rank we tend to run into to the old pre-TBC Shaman problem of beating ourselves by depleting our own mana pool.

If you're up against a healer you will definitely go OOM with max-ranked ES before you kill them or their DPS, and ES's damage alone is not going to be enough to kill that Mage, or Spriest, or Warlock, or whatever before he kills you. At some point you have to try to throw an LB or CL, at which point you get to see what a real silence looks like when they shut you down and then proceed to nuke you to death.


No, Earth Shock is not the problem, but it is still a problem. CC and anti-CC are certainly our most crippling issues, but the multitude of smaller problems still add up, compounding the issue. Right now Shaman are a collection of problems in PvP, Restoration included.

It was never my intent to compare them directly to Warlocks. The Warlocks started that when they came along with their usual mind-numbing drivel of, "Oh, woe is us, look how badly we suck in PvP, so you guys must be fine," nonsense. Again, I really don't think a class that rates as one of the top three DPS'ers alongside Rogues and Warriors is really hurting all that bad, and comparing it to a class that is campaigning for the worst (not even sure if I'd take an Elemental/Enhance Shaman over a Ret Pally in 2v2), is not justified by any stretch of the imagination.

One thing is that Kalgan and the Blizz Class Design Team have balanced classes around 5v5. They say that they're only keeping 2v2 in there so that casuals have a better chance of getting good gear/ratings without as much time spent in as you would coordinating a 5v5.

Also, Shamans were designed to be a support class. All of our buffs, and one of our attacks -- Totems, Bloodlust/Heroism, Chain Heal, Chain Lightning, etc. etc. -- scale with the amount of people with us (capping at 5, of course). Obviously, we are a support class -- not a dueling class.

As you've said, 5v5 requires a lot of coordination that doesn't always cater to or possibly even can't be used by casual gamers.

Take for instance, myself. I 2v2 with an IRL friend of nine years. I dare say I wouldn't even play the game without him. He works nights, unable to get on until 11:00PM-1:00AM depending on how late his job keeps him. 5v5 really isn't an option for us at the moment.

The notion that 2v2 and 3v3 are "allowed to remain" purely as a kind of service to us is also pretty stupid. A lot of people prefer 2v2, and almost every major WoW arena tournament event is held for 3v3.

And it's even harder to get a good rating and gear in 2v2 and 3v3 than it is in 5v5. 5v5 yields more points and is far, far more forgiving in team make-ups than 2v2 or 3v3. 2v2 and 3v3 is where individual class ability is paramount. The smaller the teams get, the more strategy, timing, and even spec and class matrix become important.

If it is indeed the casual gamer that Blizzard wants to appeal to, then they're failing miserably by not giving every class a certain degree of self-sufficiency.

And again, if we get back to the PvE issue, Shaman are more or less shunned in heriocs right now as anything other than a healer. In Kara they're only allowed to come along as a healer, or as DPS if everyone else has already provided all the CC you need. We are a liablity as DPS in the end-game for anything under 25-man raids because of our lack of CC. I personally respecced Restoration last week so that I could collect Elemental gear in heroics. I was tired of being unable to get parties for most heroics, and despite making near-flawless use of every aspect of my class to help my parties, I still had to accept that I was a liability to my party because I couldn't CC a mob. I don't enjoy coming to realizations like that. I even less like feeling that I have really wasted my time by leveling a Shaman to 70 with the intent to DPS.

My class is broken, both for PvP and PvE, and I want it fixed. I am leveling up a Priest right now, and once/if she reaches 70, I don't know that I won't shelve my Shaman completely until WotLK comes out. But then I plan to start a Death Knight... Right now it's looking as though it's quite possible that I will never touch my Shaman again.

Totally frustrating and demoralizing isn't it? I completely agree. Fortunately, my guild takes care of its members and even a dps shamans gets worked around. So in kara I'll have a chance.

Wow, after reading this guys post by the name of Jedik, I believe hes the best damned shaman I know. I will no longer be complaining bout our pvp abilities. He wrote:

It might be difficult to understand why Blizzard does not help our class perform better in 1v1 situations, so bare with me. Blizzard has stated that this is not a 1v1 game and it will not be balanced around 1v1 PvP. If it were, warlocks would be horribly underpowered in 5v5 and shaman would be overpowered in 5v5. I believe that this game is somewhat balanced between the 3v3 and 5v5 bracket of arena. We have to live with the fact that we chose a support class. Totems, group buffs and the ability to quickly turn from dealing damage to healing teammates to providing utility means our class was meant for groups. With such great group abilities, we lack in crowd control, escape methods and defensive tactics. We depend on having a healer behind us to heal us when we’re stunned/feared/etc. and we depend on dps to push out damage that we help buff. The more people there are with us, the better off we are.

And after reading his entire guide, that opened my eyes to a true pvp shaman, I've learned my lesson. Way to go man, your are definately the ****.

P.S, still though, some form of survival would be nice : )