I am really sick of being useless at PvPFollow

Just because we agree with you on the fact that yes we provide strong buffs this does not make us the most desired pvp class.

Anyhow I am done in here this seems retarded you just like arguing with the shaman community IMO you should go elsewhere your help is not necessary.

Usually I am pretty worthless in PvP (mostly because I don't do it very often), but I must say I have a fun story to relate.

My shaman is a lvl 44 enh gal. I'm questing out in Tannaris killing stuff and this 45 hunter jumps me from behind. Pet is chewing on me and Im like WTF??/

So i throw down the slowing totem, fire totem, and go after him. Closing the distance was hard, but i kept shocking till i got in range; started swinging for all i was worth; then hit him with 2 windfury crits. He died then I died LOL...the happy part of this story is that he died first.

What I'm not liking about this thread is that theo keeps chaning to topics. And gaudion is forced to pull a Natheniel Hawthorne and bahs us over the heads with facts we can understand (say maybe for theo apparently)"Pearl is the incarnation of the scarlet letter... we get it! Yes we really do!"

And theo, I have a horde character on draka. My fire mage. I was in shat recently and saw about 4-5 resto shamans looking for 5v5s for about 2 hours while playing halo 3 with WoW up. None of them apparently got invites. Doesn't look like too many people on our server want resto shamans.

On another topic, you have the big dogs of the shaman forum against you. So as the big dog of the rogue forum you should know that when this happens it's time to stop.

Edited, May 8th 2008 11:53am by Draeneipally

Imagine our confusion when people who don't even main Shaman, aren't forced to constantly endure their shortcomings, and who choose to only notice or acknowledge nothing but their strengths in casual passing come into our forum and tell us all to, "L2P, n00b!"

Here's a true gem for you:

That about sums up Theo's qualifications to pass judgement on this issue, and you... well... This isn't the first time you and I have been down this road. Your the-grass-is-always-greener-for-Shaman viewpoint has been well-established, which is why I avoided wasting time arguing with you directly.

MY E-PEEN IS BIGGER THAN YOUR E-PEEN!

Do you even have a shaman at 70 that you PvP with?

If not, honestly you aren't even entitled to an opinion on the matter.

Shaman PvP at level 1-69 compared to PvP at 70 with resilience are 2 different worlds. Just because you may rule on your level 49 twink shaman does not mean you know how to PvP with the class.

DPS shaman are the WORST pvp class in the game right now. In a game with 9 different classes, PvP balance across all classes is impossible, one of them must be at the bottom. If shaman are not the worst PvP class right now, then tell me what is. Just because a meager handful of DPS shaman managed to climb the ratings ladder (usually as resto then respec to DPS once they can buy up the gear) does not mean the class is rosy happy peachy goodness for PvP.

"Shaman have the best burst damage potential in the game" - Now completely offset by resilience and vastly increased health of other classes.

"Shaman have the best group buffs in the game" - Great, so while I'm able to bloodlust/windfury my arena team, I get focus fired and die within the first 20 seconds of the match. Basically DPS shamans on an arena team are a liability for the most part, it is the other players carrying the shaman.

You don't even have a clue then. Go try to arena with a DPS spec and watch how fast you get burned down.

This sums up exactly where the issue is in this argument, and frankly I'm glad you said it. The class mechanics, as seen from an alt perspective, of the Shaman class are really quite attractive. It sounds like a litany of desire for a PvPer; "Drop strong group buffs, heal a bit, then move in and crack out some 'sick' DPS". This is the same kind of thinking that leads people to roll Retribution Paladins and suddenly find they're about as useful in Arena as an ashtray on a motorcycle.

Shamans LOOK nice; they look so nice that the Alliance rolled them in droves when the class was first introduced to them. I was sitting there in amazement as dozens of Draenei Shamans rolled across STV, getting picked off by equally-geared Hunters but apparently undeterred. I couldnt help thinking "You guys should really enjoy level 40, cos it's all downhill from there". It was about three months after TBC, when all those rosy-cheeked players had hit 70 and tried to succeed in Arena that the forums exploded with complaints, before that everyone thought Shamans were the dog's *********

A Shaman is like a broken parachute. Sitting next to the other parachutes at take-off it looks the same, feels the same, weighs the same. It's only when you're speeding towards the earth at 100mph that you suddenly realise it doesnt fscking work and has let you down at the final moment.

That is the heartbreak of a Shaman toon. It's fun, it's wonderful, it drips with gooey potential until the very moment you want it to work, endgame Arena. Then it simply fails, and fails badly, and all your arguments that giving four other players a few buffs makes up for it is typically the argument from one of those other players who love teh big numbaz from WF/BL.

The Shaman class is the cocktease of WoW.

Edited, May 8th 2008 11:03pm by Sinstralis

nothing against you personally sin, but this is why theo and i disregard the opinions voiced commonly in this thread. the comparison you made there is, qutie frankly, a horrible one. ret paladins are quite strong in a supported environment, with strong group utility via blessings, a short hammer CD thanks to talents and gearing, and crazy burst damage that largely can ignore armor.

now, im not making a 1:1 comparison between ret paladins and shaman, but the underlying principle remains the same; there are a number of uneducated claims being made by people who have little-to-no experience in pvp and, in many cases, gear unsuited for pvp (and in some of those cases, unwilling to gear themselves for pvp).

so, from our perspective, theres a lot of people with little pvp experience making a number of claims and then attempting to back them up with either outdated statistical evidence or weak analogies (sometimes both).

and while i cant speak for theo, i know im not trying to lord my pvp experience over anyone else. what we're trying to do is provide perspective from what, on the outside, largely seems to be a kind of circle jerk of self pity and "woe is me" attitude, mostly perpetuated by people who just dont know any better and want a place to QQ.

At the risk of derailing this thread even further, there are practically no successful comps (EDIT: in 5v5, the focus of this debate) that include a Ret Paladin. You mention Blessings and the Hammer stun, both of which are provided by a Holy Paladin too, and 'crazy burst damage' that is actually largely crit-dependent (Resi really screws with Retadins) and once again is provided by other classes in equal or greater quantity.

We've gone back to the same misunderstanding; you're saying a car with three small wheels and one big one can technically drive down the road with a careful driver. I'm saying, in a competetive race with all skilled drivers nobody wants to drive that car, it has no place in that 'arena' (see what I did there?).

I really cant think of more analogies (poorly thought out as they may be) to make this any clearer for you.

Edited, May 8th 2008 11:17pm by Sinstralis

Sure you aren't Theo, sure...

Yet you see fit to come to the shaman forum and tell people who have an issue with the class that they need to QQ, L2P, get better gear. The "shaman are fine" argument is tired rhetoric, try to bring something constructive to the discussion.

Yes, you are a prick, but at least you can admit it.

Again, link your shaman...link it, I dare you. Since you seem to be such an authority on everything shaman...If your ratings/PvP stats or gear are respectable, maybe people will listen to what you have to say.

Now scuttle on back to the rogue forums where I would not doubt your knowledge or expertise.




What valid points did you present?

"This one time, I heard of a guy who knew a guy that had a shaman on a 5v5 team that had above a 2k rating, the class is fine, you noobs just need to learn to PvP."




What exactly is your point?

People are pissed off because they spent months leveling and gearing their shaman to find the class is relatively broken for PvP. If you don't like it, why do you even come to the shaman forum?

Again, I love when other classes come here to tell people rolling shaman that the class is fine. If you actually did some arena with a shaman, you would be singing the same tune.



There you have it, while you're enjoying one of the most OP PvP classes in the game, some of us would still like to PvP on our shaman without rerolling.

Try getting a 5v5 invite as a DPS shaman for any heroic or arena team. Try it...see how many invites you get. Typical responses in LFG for any heroic/arena team: "Are you resto?" "No." /ignore."



Edited, May 10th 2008 3:12pm by Taurrus

To be honest I don't believe there's much to be done to overcome the clear hard-on melee classes have for BL/WF. In the end that's all it will boil down to, he wants a Shaman in his comp for that reason alone, I've seen how fast Rogues can build damage with a Shaman around. That the (current) chief proponent of the Shaman class plays a class that greatly benefits from the buffs should come as no surprise.

All I can say is to actually play a Shaman in Arenas past 1700, or rather try to do so. I cannot claim to mega-in-depth experience with them because I dropped the class in disgust at 68 and have played only various Shamans of my guild members in Arena, but whereas you see potential at whatever retarded rating you've played at I see only boredom and continuous, never-ending pride-swallowing.

We are not the most desired class in PvP, we are not the most desired class in any Arena bracket, and we are the least desired class in two out of three. I am clearly referring to DPS Shaman here, before you once again get sand in your vaginas about Resto Shamans, who are also a bit crap at their assigned role.

I'm sorry if you guys find Shaman whining somehow tiresome and unjustified, but that is because you have no emotional investment in the class. You want your buffs for your comp, and the rest of that troublesome stuff is the Shaman's problem. When you roll a toon and then see it torn to bits, it's a bit of a personal hit you take, which is why so many Shamans have rerolled now to classes like Rogues and Hunters which enjoy continued success and are generally more fun to drive around as a main character.

Now, I would like to propose that Occam's razor may apply; more or less the entire Shaman community whines about PvP performance for DPS Shamans. These characters are also conspicuously absent from high-end Arena play. The possible solutions are:

• A) Shamans are all d*ckholes that can't play and just whine all day long
• B) Shaman players are somehow naturally deficient in personal PvP ability
• C) You have played your Shaman alt and discovered some obscure playstyle that solves all class balance issues, rights all wrongs, smites all evils, but that has mysteriously gone undiscovered by the entire playerbase

OR

D) Maybe there is something wrong with how Shamans play out in endgame PvP.

Simplest solution is usually the best.

~sin

EDIT: And by the way; being told "You're good at PvP" is far from being told "You're competetive/scary/powerful" in PvP. The bottom line is this; are you afraid of Shamans in PvP situations, Quor? Do you even respect them as a capable adversary? Because if you do anything other than rub your hands in glee when you see one out farming, I'll eat my hat. I've fought DPS Shamans in TBC on four classes and in each instance found them almost laughably easy to defeat.

Edited, May 10th 2008 3:59pm by Sinstralis

What DPS shaman do you know? Link their armory. What is this mysterious "something" that they do to overcome the glaring deficiencies of shaman in PvP that the rest of the shaman community has apparently missed?

Same tired rhetoric again, "I know a shaman who can pvp and is happy with the class, so you must be fine." Whereas the vast majority of the shaman community has already re-rolled because of the glaring deficiencies of the class in a PvP setting.



Nonsense, but thanks for trying to speak for me. My point was time is better spent gearing other classes than a DPS shaman for PvP. Broken class is still broken, regardless of how much resilience you have. DPS shaman play as if they have about a 200 resilience handicap, go try to arena with one then tell me you're on a level playing field.




As are yours.

This is not the first time that players representing other classes have come to the shaman forum with the argument "we know how to PvP with our class, therefore we must be experts on all things shaman." Link your shaman. If you have respectable ratings as a DPS shaman, I'll gladly bow out of this thread and salute your superiority.



Again, that is an assumption on your part, way to flex your e-peen though, /golfclap. You have no clue how many BG hours or what arena ratings other posters here may have.

If your solution to Shaman pvp deficiencies is "get better gear" your contributions are negligible, but thanks for stating the obvious.




Wall of text crits you for 10K damage!

That was a nice attempt at misdirection though...

When the lead developer for the game says they are going to make enhancement viable for arena, it should be a reasonable expectation that you would be able to arena with the spec. They do make enhancement & elemental PvP gear, so its not all that unthinkable that some shaman may wish to PvP with a DPS spec.



I should feel so lucky!

So, lets assume a shaman gears for PvP as elemental. They can choose to respec resto, or enhance. But look, they would have to completely re-gear their toon since each spec has vastly different requirements. It's not as if you can just respec on a whim and be ready to PvP unless you have the appropriate gear, you have to commit to one spec and stick with it to gear up a hybrid class.


Edited, May 10th 2008 10:45pm by Taurrus

ive actually done something like that. not in /2 exactly, but an impromptu poll of what the higher-rated arena players on my server think of shaman (of all specs) in arena.

the consensus was that they are a group reliant class that brings incredible power in the right composition and with a good supporting cast behind them. that, and there wernt enough shaman for arena.

#1 5's team on my battlegroup runs an elemental shammy in their setup:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ysera&n=Javan

heres the arena team itself:

http://www.wowarmory.com/team-info.xml?r=Ysera&ts=5&t=Annoying+Caster+Train&select=Annoying+Caster+Train&fl=1

#5 team runs a resto shammy:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Archimonde&n=Hitower

and theres another resto at #8 i think.

most of the teams in the top 10 on my battlegroup are currently being held by alts while their true owners sell points, so im not 100% sure what they run atm, but the last time i checked armory before this (about three weeks ago) 6 out of the top 10 teams had shaman in them. the score was 3 resto, 2 elem, one enh. 8 of the top 10 teams had warriors in them, 9 had priests. a ratio of 6:8:9 aint too bad all things considered, but i suppose it could be better. however, the rub is, all 9 priests were deep disc, and all 8 warriors were at least 33 points into arms and 20 points into fury, so in terms of spec variability at the high end, shaman are doing better than two of the highest represented classes in 5's.

now, i suppose on the other 8 battlegroups shaman may be suffering immensely, but on mine thats not the case. what i think is far more likely is that the current trends of arena are in flux; shaman enjoyed a great deal of arena dominance in S1 and most of S2, while in S3 they havent seen as much action due to the creation of other compositions. now new comps are forming that work better against the comps that were created earlier in the season, and more of them are involving shaman.