Quote:
My point is that if you took eight equally-skilled players, let them each practice their class in Arena for six months, let them all get the same gear level, then their effectiveness in PvP (another immeasurable quantity) would be primarily affected by the class they chose. In that case, with equal gear, skill and experience, it is my sincere opinion that the Shaman player will demonstrate poorer personal effectiveness than any of the other classes, regardless of what spec he chooses. That player simply has three choices that differ only in the degree of mediocrity they impose. If you take skill and gear out of the equation (by making them equal), a Shaman is systematically disadvantaged by their class design.
if thats your argument, then warriors would actually be the most disadvantaged. healing classes win in the 1v1 department simply by virtue of outlasting, and as pvp gear (i.e. resilience) gets better this becomes more true. shaman have arguably the best all-around survivability of the healing classes, tied with paladins. shaman also have the rather unique benefit of being decently viable with all three specs. for instance, no prot warrior or prot paladin will succeed in pvp unless its a forced match vs another warrior or rogue wherein the enemy cant in some way reset things. likewise, fire and arcane mages get eaten for breakfast on account of the lack of their survivability, and non-sl/sl locks face the same problem.
Quote:
Shamans' one saving grace is that they are force multipliers, while they survive they improve the group's effectiveness. This causes them to be the focus of most attacks immediately (and of course Mass Dispel negates the big tomale, Bloodlust) which compounds their vulnerabilty to focus fire and lack of escape or defensive abilities.
exactly, a shaman relies on their group to succeed and to be protected. same as a warrior does, for a warrior sans support is just another kill waiting to happen in the vast majority of circumstances. however, shaman bring much more power to a group than warriors do, so in most situations youll see a shaman under focus fire first. whether or not that shaman survives is a function of how good the shaman is at using the tools available to him/her, and how well s/he can synergize those tools with the tools his/her team has available.
and if it makes you feel better, mass dispel does not specifically target bloodlust/heroism. the only thing mass dispel prioritizes over other buffs are invulnerabilities, i.e. BoP, divine shield and ice block. if your whole team gets heroism/bloodlust wiped in one mass dispel, then you just got REALLY unlucky. i suggest a sacrifice to the RNG gods; roll 3d20 to determine how they must be appeased.
Quote:
Nevermind that they fail spectacularly in 2's, are a workable mediocrity but still a liability in 3's, are pretty much free HK's one-on-one, and no matter what you or Quor or anyone else can say, at the end of the day by namerical statistic they face a substantial underrepresentation at higher-rated arena rankings as a whole, and it's not just because people don't like to play them.
no shaman worth their salt is a "free hk" 1v1. no pvp-specced healing class in pvp gear is to anything; theyre just too durable, and the addition of +damage to +healing gear really helps that out. of course, that still leaves elemental and enhancement, but they counter things and have their counters. for instance, elemental shaman are quite adept at taking out druids of all kinds due to their main source of damage ignoring armor and their ability to purge away all those nice druid buffs. well-timed burst can seal the deal before a druid gets away. enhancement does well vs non-frost mage cloth and tend to suffer vs melee and sometimes hunters, but thats to be expected given their role.
but instead of focusing on all that, ill say this; pvp isn't balanced around 1v1.
as for the numbers, you have one sampling of one seasons worth of data taken about midway thru that season. theres nothing about S1, S2, or the latter half of S3, nor is there anything about S4. i remember back in S1 druids were seen as completely useless in all forms of arena. i laughed when i heard that, because a supported druid is quite strong. i was convinced that people just didnt know how to get druids to work in arena yet. much to my non-surprise, S2 and S3 have proven me right. there are trends in arena; certain compositions rise, experience dominance, are countered by other comps, and then fall from grace. RMP in 3's is a good example of this, and a good way to counter it is double melee + druid, or in some cases, triple physical dps (RRR vs RMP is full of lawls; youve never seen a priest die so fast, or a mage and rogue look so helpless).
shaman were pretty dominant in S2, hence the 2345 setup (to win, press 2, then 3, then 4, then 5!). they are less dominant now than they were before, but they still have a presence, and the oft-laughed at enhancement is making more of a showing in high end 5's than it has in previous seasons. on the other side of things, resto is experiencing a decline compared to its showing in S1 and S2, where it was a pretty dominant force, even in the smaller brackets. resto still has a place in 3's however, where rolling as the RNG death squad (sword MS war, ret pally, resto shammy) proves to be an effective method of dealing with even the dreaded RMP setup.
as with the previous seasons, its just a matter of time till people catch on imo.