I am really sick of being useless at PvPFollow

Quor, precisely. I don't mean to sound like a stuck record here but you are making my point just as well as I am. You know a guy. There will always be individuals who can make something work, there will always be exceptions to any rule. Nobody is saying it is 100% impossible for Shamans to succeed in Arena hence we are talking about underrepresentation rather than a complete absence.

I personally know four rogues, three mages, FIVE Warlocks and three warriors who are in top-slot Arena teams heading for 2000+.

I know one Shaman.

He kicks ***, he beats me at PvP a lot, and has full Merciless gear. People are afraid of him.

But one man's successes are not enough to change the facts that in the same time period, many times more people were able to make other classes successful. You could argue that Shamans require more skill to play or something, but that too is a class imbalance; you shouldn't need additional personal abilities to simply come up to par with other players.

hate to go off topic here but I'd just like to say, I have both classes and I've pvp'd with them both. I wouldn't say disc priests are op but they're pretty tough if you don't have a dispeller (and even if you do) but i've found that pvp'ing on my druid is ALOT easier. The survivability (that isn't dependent on magic buffs) is what I think puts resto druids slightly ahead of disc priests as far as arena is concerned.

just my two cents :p

yeah, you know, aside from all that utility theres absolutely no reason to take along a shaman. when you put it like that, its a wonder why people ever take warriors! all we have is stuff like hamstring/mortal strike/intercept, as well as pummel to negate a few casted spells. other than that theres absolutely no reason to take a warrior along. or hell, why bring a warlock? come to think of it all they do is provide a pet that can interrupt, a few instant cast dots and the odd fear or two.

as for the specific choice of enh shammy, its because of the improved talents for weapon totems making windfurys even more juicy, as well as a dedicated purger (plus all that other niggling stuff like totems and high burst dps). priests are one of, if not *the* most common 5's class, and the best way to make a disc priest useless (or any priest really) is to completely strip them of buffs. no prom, no shield, no renew, no inner fire, no focused will. toss in a WF from the warrior as well as one from the shammy, then a quick ES > NS+CL and youve got one dead priest. if the shammy dies after that, who cares? as long as he pops heroism/bloodlust first hes served his purpose.

and apparently its enough to get to 2100 without too much difficulty.



and i personally know of three shaman who are 2k+. that wasnt the point i was making tho; the point was, "shaman can do great from 1500-2000 and here's an example". 2000, in some battlegroups, will get you gladiator in 5's. the shaman i know happen to be 2k+, with two around the 2100's last i checked, and one around the 2000's. the ultimate point of all this being shaman do not "suck" and are most definetely not "useless" when it comes to pvp.



actually, yeah, i think you should need additional skill to come up to par with other players. i sure as hell wouldnt want a dot monkey sl/sl lock playing druid and having an easy time of it, and for the most part, thats true. managing a shaman at high ratings is a helluva job from what ive seen. youre balancing totem timers, trying to keep people debuffed with purge, kiting as needed, trying to manage use of skills to best counter your opponents moves, managing totems and reading your opponent so you know when to put what down....its quite the ballet. but when done right, its very strong, and when a shaman capable of doing it right has a skilled group at his side, then youd better pray to whatever it is you believe in for help, cause youll need it.

that doesnt mean shaman are "perfect". what it means is that shaman are, imo, nowhere near what seems to be the status quo on these boards. small tweaks are needed, not drastic reimaginings of entire skill sets and talent trees.

oh my lordy, god forbid we have a team work together to protect its teammates! on the one hand, having panic buttons is nice because you can hit them to get some room. but having panic buttons means your balanced around having panic buttons, and said buttons have counters. ask priests how they feel if a warrior + undead rogue + dispeller is on them; in that situation, a shaman is much much better off, because the priest will effectively be buffless while fighting two melee who shrug fear off like its a cool rain pouring down their back. thus, shaman are balanced around not having any panic buttons, which in turn means theyre tied for first in terms of most durable healer in 5's (paladins are more durable, but balanced around their bubble, which any priest can deal with handily).



im gonna have to go with theo on this one.



you and sin arent, but others are, and thats what i was addressing.

and fwiw, 5's *is* small scale pvp. its the arena bracket that blizzard sees as most balanced of the three. 2's is mostly about whos gimmick is best, and 3's is mostly the same as 2's but with a third person tossed in.



what youre saying and what we're saying are two different things. you (and others) are saying that heroism/bloodlust (and all those other niggling buffs) are the only reason to bring shamans into arena and then using that as justification for why shaman suck in arena. we're saying that all those teensy weensy buffs (including hero/blood) are strong enough to warrant an arena spot, and all the utility (especially purge) that a shaman brings to a team is enough to want to focus fire one down ASAP. because if you dont, then youve got a hugely buffed 5-man group tearing your team a new one.

this isnt a problem with the shaman class; they have great utility and buffs so its natural that people would want to remove that as soon as possible. what sets the 2k+ shaman apart from the rest are how well they work with their team and how well their team supports them. in short, shaman are balanced around group pvp for maximum effectiveness.

and like i said some months ago, come on over to the war forums and join the "suck without support, awesome with it" club. we've got a tabard and vent! no guild bank yet tho.

The cookie stall is round the corner, help yourself.

As Gaudion mentions again, there will be Shamans that are good at PvP. There will be more of every other class.


This is a very strange thing to say. Let's assume we can take this nebulous 'skill' and give it a numerical value, which obviously you cant but since you can make a numerical comparison (eg "x has more skill than y") it's not so far off base.

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 you give that Shaman more skill, or better gear, they will begin to succeed as their effectiveness improves. But, again, when those two values regain parity (in top-end Arenas for example) the Shaman will, once again, fall behind.

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.

You can argue that Shamans are good situationally, life being as broad as it is a fucking toothpick is good situationally, but if you average out the wins and losses in high-end Arena and World PvP, I will bet you anything you like that Shamans come out a fair way below the 1:1 win/loss ideal.

~sins

Really? I never see shamans. Maybe that's just me. *shrug*

This.

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.



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.



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.

Are you? This discussion got kicked off again talking about Enhancement Shaman. Not Resto Shaman.


False. Resto Druids are harder to take down in general and both Disc Priests and Paladins can be just as hard to take down as a Resto Shaman and/or Druids depending on the attacker. Not even joking. Your experience as a Rogue is hardly justification for a false blanket statement like that.


Again, I'd like to take the time to remind both you and Quor that this discussion has gone the way of DPS Shaman. Enhancement and Elemental are both rancid in 2v2. And Warrior/Resto Shaman is one of the most powerful comps, but it's still riddled with holes. Warrior/Shaman does well against DPS/healer opposition but almost all 2xDPS teams rape it.

Warrior/Shaman is good. Warrior/Druid is better.

Now, I play Shaman/Warrior. I enjoy it. I'm not arguing that it's effective. But much like DPS Shaman managing to find home in 5's, one spec rocking out in one bracket hardly means the class is a whole is fine. 2/3 of Shaman builds still blow hard in the bracket where the Restos are succeeding most.


O RLY? What popular composition, pray tell, aside from both variations of Warrior/Paladin/Shaman would make people actively seek out a Resto Shaman over a Druid or Priest for 3's? Actually, let's just skip that, shall we? In general both Disc Priests and Resto Druids are both better than Resto Shaman in 3's. Period. And even if that wasn't true... for the third time, I remind you and Quor that the topic immediately at hand is DPS Shaman.


The only thing not up for debate at the moment is your complete inability to get a grasp on the Shaman class beyond your own limited experience and misguided observations. Shaman are focused for three reasons, and you only managed to grab ahold of one. Behold:

1. Left alone, our totems can royally ***** with enemy casters and buff melee DPS through the roof, as well as negate one form crowd control. We'll file that all under "buffs" and congratulate you. This is the one you got.

2. We're almost always the healer, and healers are usually targetted first. This is basic PvP 101.

3. We go down retardedly easy to focus fire from any more than a single aggressor regardless of spec.


Oh, give me a break... you may be unreasonable, Theo, but I know you're not senile. Disc Priests dispels > Shamans. Dispelling Divine Shield is a lot more fun than dispelling BoP or BoF.


You lead a rich fantasy life.

Edited, May 6th 2008 9:51pm by Gaudion

Actually Rogues and Mages qualify better as glass cannons, they do a great deal of their own damage while being very vulnerable when they come under fire. However, they have defensive abilities, the Shaman does not, and the Shaman does not possess burst or sustained damage abilities far enough above those classes to justify their utter lack of escape or defense.

Shamans play more like glass ammo magazines; they are fragile objects that allow other classes (the 'cannon', for the metaphorically challenged) to operate better.

Since this thread is degenerating into a focus-free slanging match, I'd just like to say that having good group buffs does not make up for having terrible personal performance. Totems are the only buff that every class can dispel, have a short range and are relatively mana-intensive. Shamans are are fine demonstration that money's no good if you can't spend it. Burst damaage, nice nuke heals, strong buffs and potential to be a game-winner has no merit if by compensation you are dead before you can bring these abilities to bear. Every match I've seen our Shaman attend sees him pop Bloodlust and perhaps drop two totems before the silence/stunlock rape begins, and in general there is nothing we can do to save him.

That is bad design.

And seriously, Resto Shamans are the toughest 1v1 opponents? I've beaten them soundly on my lock, my Paladin and my Hunter. There's nothing they can do, they simply lack the damage to worry me.

However, as Gaudion states we were attemping to address DPS Shamans, both of which blow even harder in 1v1 and in Arena. Except, before you mention it, in 5man; this is due to the aforementioned group-buffing being a proportionally larger factor.

However, as I said; increasing the effetiveness of other members is not a good substitute for active participation. You might as well have every Shaman spec Resto, stack Stamina out the *******, never heal so as to protect their Nature tree and just drop totems.

In a world of sharp, sharp knives being the sharpening stone is a ****** job.

Hmm... glass canons? ammo magazines? LOL. I thought we agreed that we are 'artillery'? :) (referring to Ele shamans)

Err.. Ops.. Arty is for Ele, err.. what's for Enh and Resto?

Anyway...... I wonder why are shamans one of the least played, especially since they are one of the 'new' classes available to the alliance from TBC.

We see a whole ton of BE Pallies, but the same cant be said of Draenei Shamans.

I'm starting to learn how to play in arena (as Ele). I think I get the idea now. The key is to be a chicken (I think, pls correct me if I'm wrong). Yes... hide and run. The whole idea is to play hide and seek (without the tools like what rogues and druids have).

You will be one of the main focus fire targets.

So? Make yourself obvious (bait) but make them work hard trying to reach u.

This will buy your teammates some time to attack them (and hopefully kill some) and heal you. Meanwhile, if u can, bloodlust, totems, shock, etc. No more instant crit CL, too bad.

If they don't take the bait and focus on your team, MUAHAHHA, time to unlesh the firepower.

Anyway... I still hate the fact that I need a team to keep me alive in PVP. Without them, I'm almost useless. Happens all the time in Sunwell these days..... stupid rogues will just stop what they were doing and come gank me even as I just ride past them. (*@#%&$. SHAMAN = FREE KILL)

BTW, it's hard to find decent shamans in arena. Becoz shaman's PVP is very different from most other clases. We NEED a team to do well. It takes quite a bit of learning curve AND a good team to train such team based shamans.

Most shamans would be too discouraged by initial PVP experience (due to solo, world pvp and less experienced teams) to continue.

You need regular team to get team dynamics working properly and we all know such things are hard to come by. This it is difficult to find good arena shamans.

Those who are good will be kept and valued by their teams already. The rest probably haven't got the chance to reach such a skill level and gave up the idea.

Edited, May 7th 2008 6:12am by waihwang

Hands up if you know what Eurocomp is.

...no? No one?

Second highest represented team in 5v5.

http://www.sk-gaming.com/arena/5/all/all/all/all/

For your edumacation, chief. All classes are viable in 5v5. All specs aren't, but shamans are a hell of a lot more represented in common teams than rogues are in 5s.

Of course, that's just 2200+. Who knows what 1500-2200 is like.

Edited, May 7th 2008 4:11am by Theophany