Here they are 2.4 notes for Shaman - updated for new stuffFollow

Apples and oranges. Whether or not Rogues were buffed recently (which they have been since TBC released) has absolutely no bearing on the condition Shaman were in before or the condition they're in now after any buffs.


Bull!@#$. You are not going to sit here and quote me a lack of Rogue utility in PvP and expect me to take word one from you seriously. GTFO. Right now.


Forgive me if I fail to see a lack of goodness here. If Rogues had mediocre DPS and no back-up utility to show for it, that would be one thing, but again, the fact that they sport the highest single-target DPS in the game speaks for itself, and fairly loudly.


Those are the raids I need to find, because those are the tasty damn raids.


Heroism affects yourself and four other people (see also: one group). It's nice, but much like the virgin who's just had sex for the first time, you'll find it's not exactly the earthshattering experience it's often hyped up to be. I'm not trying to marginalize it in any way, sex is... I mean, it's a nice buff, but it's certainly not the "we have to bring a Shaman for this" ability.


According to whose math? Outside of 25-man content you'll rarely, if ever, get a group of five boys and girls to whom you can assign pertinent buffs, so more often than not you're half-*** buffing a couple of people and the rest it's wasted on. The buffs aren't worth the loss of CC in heroics by any stretch of the imagination either. How much DPS am I adding? I know an unbuffed Rogue can easily lead a raid in DPS by 10% if he's putting his back into it (or at least until the 'Locks and Mages get to the AoE pulls and boss fights). Am I buffing that much? Am I worth bringing because of it?

I've already said it. Shaman buffs are gravy, but ask any class and aside from maybe Fury Warriors and Ret Pallies who love their Windfury and no one's gonna list a Shaman buff and say, "I must have this."


If there's anything I've learned about Rogues, it's that they're never satisfied. Ever. Right now Shaman are clamboring to reach the status quo. Rogues aren't going to be satisfied until their class is #1 in PvE damage, #1 in PvE utility, #1 in duels, #1 in 2v2, #1 in 3v3, and #1 in 5v5. Honestly, at this point I'm inclined to just let them have it so I don't have to listen to them make mountains out of molehills anymore.

I am happy to be able to damage in Raids, thats a big bonus from before when unless you had some great gear you where a Healbot in raids.

Shaman Bring Utility in raids... Sure I can buy that, but rogues still have there own versions of utility, stuns and interrupts are plenty helpful when you need to prevent a heal or damage spell.

I think what many shaman feel we are getting the short end of stick is lack of tools to save our skin in a PvP environment.

In group PvP we can handle our own, but its only until we are getting hit. Every Other DPS Spec for every other class in the game have tools in PvP to save there skin. All we really have is Ghost Wolf...

Shaman need tools in PvP that make them viable in a 1 on 1 encounter, why, its simple, the tools every class has in a 1 on 1 encounter help them quite a bit in just about every form of PvP. Abilities that will make us more efficient in arena's and BG's like every other class in this game, and something that is useful. It doesn't have to be game breaking, just something to level the playing field.

PS bring back hunter dead zone, whatever blizard did to hunters made them actualy a pain in PvP lol

SV Hunter. Grace of Air. Gimme.

I've had three main (ongoing) experiences with Shaman in my time in WoW. The first was the Shaman on our 3v3 team. She started out speccing resto specifically for arena and then switched back to Enhancement for PvE content. The cost got to be a bit of a burden so she remained Enhancement for Arena as well. Either way, despite so-so gear (it was terrible by current Arena standards) she either healed like a champion or regularly outshined the well geared MS Warrior on our arena team in total damage done. For PvE, we used to run Heroics with her from time to time as Enhancement spec, and she did fine. I was used to running Heroics with only 2 jobs capable of any noteworthy CC.

The second was our Shaman MH for Kara. He used to joke that he had the most boring job in the raid because all he did was stand around spamming Rank 1 Chain Heal. He was great.

The third was the Enh. Shaman we brought along on a couple of Kara raids who was a bit of a QQ nugget, thinking he could re-negotiate threat rules so he wouldn't have to run around so much during the Curator fight. The rest of the raid, he mostly sucked...but that was the player, and not the class.

A while back, I rolled a Shaman on the same PvE realm as my Hunter. I got her to level 11 and lost interest. When I rolled on a PvP realm, for some reason the notion of playing a Shaman was appealling once more. What seems to stump a lot of players is that you start getting all of these wonderful totems that are, quite frequently, more of a pain in the *** than any real benefit. Grinding PvE at lowbie levels and dropping a totem for each fight is tedious and a mana drain, but unless you've got more experienced Shaman telling you otherwise, it seems like the thing to do. I was about level 15 on my current Tauren shammy before I stopped using totems for every fight in solo PvE. Now, I drop totems if things get hairy, or to give me an extra edge in a fight that I might normally have difficulty with if I didn't use them.

I hit level 30 this weekend and not only did I enormously enjoy the 1 hour movement/attack speed buff you get when you get your Air Totem, I also got to experience the joys of Windfury with a kickass 2h axe (Corpsemaker from RFK, if anyone is familiar with it). Last night, my level 32 Tauren Shaman ran up to one of the level 31 mages at the Lordamere Internment Camp in Alterac Valley. I waited until she started to cast, Earth Shock, swing. White crit + Windfury proc (both crit) and the mage was dead. The Warlock friend I was with was astounded. Of all of the classes I've played, Shaman seems to be the one that has the longest grind before things start to get really cool, which is quite possibly why Shaman have such low representation in the overall population. It's not because they're weak, it's because they're a bit confusing to get the hang of (ie. totem now yes/no?) and because they don't have the "omfg c wut I did thar lulz!" factor until level 30.

I originally thought that my Rogue would be the toon I **** to advanced levels on my new PvP realm, but right now my Rogue is sitting at level 25 with over a full level worth of rested xp while my Shaman is forging ahead, and I absolutely love it.

I obviously can't speak to what it's like to play a Shaman of any spec in level 70 PvP. Be careful, however, that your disapproval of a Shaman's effectiveness in anything associated with level 70 doesn't stem from a desire to be better/more powerful than the rest of the classes.

You don't need CC to be viable in Heroics. My normal Heroic group almost always consisted of a dps Warrior...another class with no CC. When he wasn't available, the first person I would ask was our Enh. Shaman friend, not because she was second billing in terms of dps potential but because I was in a guild with the Warrior and the Shaman was in another guild. For any Heroic I've run, 2 competant CC classes (mage/hunter combo worked very well) is enough. For raids, Enh. Shaman would always have a place in any Kara group I've been in...they do plenty of damage, have the same mobility requirements of a Rogue/dps Warrior, and bring along the added bonus of totems.

No class will always be the best at everything they do. When I read about people complaining that they're #1 on the kill list in BGs/Arena and can't really do much about it, my first question becomes, "wtf are the rest of the people on your team doing?" If you know you're going to be the first FF target, build a strategy around it. If you're not running premades for your BGs, I can assure you that you're not the only class with frustrations.

Shaman is a fun, deadly, entertaining class to play. Keep that in mind when you're inclined to complain about what you don't have.

Edited, Feb 18th 2008 10:59am by AureliusSir

One more update: Elemental Shaman are losing 20% pushback resistance on their arena PvP gear. It's now 50% down from 70%.

I'm surprised by ther nerfs to Ele Spec, especially on the PVP front.

Are Ele Shamans THAT OP??

well in 5 mans and 10mans i personally feel ele is kind of overpowered as long as you have a good tank, in bgs we are decent, but in world pvp and arenas i just get crushed.

Shaman still works same way in pvp as they did at 60, heavy burst dmg, the problem is everyone has quite a bit more health now, pvp has become less about how much dmg you can do and has become how much can you control your enemies and how long will you live.

Other then frost shock and earth bind thats the limit to our control, and while earth shock, grounding totem, and tremor help against many casters, it is not anywhere near perfect, anyone in this game can farm pvp gear, but other classes still have much better abilities to prevent them selves from dieing, we have few mainly NS, but we have to go 21 resto just for that.

so is it really balancing us by lowering our dps, our main ability to succeed in bgs? i don't really know but we shall see

Kalgan basically said that he wants to strat turning Ele away from one-dimensional burst, he said the buffs to counteract should be in the patch, but they might not make it until next.

Meh.

Well, in addition to the other changes Shamanistic Rage is no longer a magic effect (read: cannot be dispelled). Enhancement might actually be viable in some arenas now, especially if they tweak Ghost Wolf some more.

And yes, the "We're going to buff you later but right now we're just going to nerf you" crap they like to pull get so very, very old.

LOL too true...

I can just see patch 2.5 now...

-Shaman will have all talent points refunded and all 3 trees will now be replaced by the restoration tree.

-All gear itemization for shaman will now be +Int, spirit, mp/s, stamina, and +healing. Shaman rolling on hunter gear will be a bannable offense.

-Earthshield will be nerfed because allowing shaman to survive or have a useful non-totem buff is unacceptable to other classes and totally imbalences the game making shaman OP.

-Elemental shaman will be given the option of deleting their character, or respecing to restoration.

-Enhancement shaman will now be called restoration shaman who occasionally hit things while healing, because everyone knows shaman have no business meleeing. Blizzard requests shaman leave melee up to proper classes like rogues, warriors, feral druids, some paladins, and hunter pets.

-Shaman will be expected to hang around in the back ranks tossing heals to the real world of warcraft classes as needed. Failure to comply will be a bannable offense.

-Casting earthshield on your shaman will be bannable if another class is in your group/raid/party. Earthshield should be cast on a proper world of warcraft class only.

Edited, Feb 24th 2008 7:03am by Taurrus

Apparently they're trying to make elemental shaman less burst-y, or something. Kalgan wrote something about it on the Oboards, but I don't feel like traumatizing myself by going over there and looking for it at the moment.

And that's exactly why Kalgan's words aren't worth "a drop of hope". I don't have to hope because I already know what they're going to do.

- Are all shaman tauren?? Ya my Drain-eye HoT is great for CC :P, that and a short stun is really great for 5-man and raid CC viability...
- "anything" won't really satisfy WHOM? Seems like it won't satisfy KALGAN, cause I know many shaman that would be satisfied by CC...
- "water down the feeling of distinction" - WTH does this mean?? Distinction from other classes? Oh ya, looks like we ele shaman are being distinguished all right "Hahaha look at the eleMENTAL shaman with no 5v5 team, can't find a heroic grp for CC dependant instances (Durn, Arc etc..), can't get into raids cause they're so distinguished!"
- Well, maybe in the future we'll get groups, sweet!

Ok, venting complete.

Hey, I didn't say I agreed with it, I just meant that it was the reason that was given.


So...all shamans should spec resto? Is that your point? Because I don't know if you've ever seen an enhancement shaman try to heal in their enhancement gear, but it's pretty pathetic. Oh, and sure, that elemental shaman could heal decently in their elemental gear...except then they wouldn't have any mana to DPS with.

Is CC the only thing that could be done to help shaman? Probably not. But it would be one of the easiest to implement, and would at least be a temporary stopgap while we wait for all these buffs that Blizzard "isn't sure when they'll be ready."