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Shamans as a viable DPS class?Follow

#1 Dec 23 2008 at 10:35 AM Rating: Decent
Recently I haven't heard anything good about shamans. In fact they are the least played class. So I started one. At the moment I am at 42 using elemental spec. Of course I haven't ran many instances because who the hell wants to group for a low level instance when they can get a run and gain no real experience right? So heres my issue.

I rolled a shaman because there aren't enough of them and I love having one in my group whether I'm healing or tanking. But then along comes death knights. I played my death knight for a few days, reached 65, and was blown away by the DPS. And its incredibly simple and easy to play. My original plan was to have a shaman for raids/instance DPS and the death knight for pvp. I'm assuming because of the huge amount of death knights, shamans will be more desirable for groups.

And then there's all this talk about how weak shamans are and how they are one of the lowest in DPS. So I don't want to level this shaman to 80 and not get into any raids or heroics. As far as leveling goes, I leveled a prot warrior (pre-patch) and a holy priest (pre-patch also), and there's no issues at all because I'm not retarded. My personal experience with shamans is awesome. I have never lost a fight, and I level fast.

I'm assuming overpowered classes are meant for players with under powered minds to balance things out. Shamans are by no means easy to play (right that is). I have 2 action bars full of totems, 1 with weapon enhancements, and the rest with offensive spells and heals etc. Knowing the right totem for the job, and which weapon enhancement is best for the occasion can be confusing. So is the lack of popularity because of poor DPS or not being tard friendly?
#2 Dec 23 2008 at 6:39 PM Rating: Good
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574 posts
I dunno about other servers, but people loved my elemental shaman on my realm (Dreadmaul). My guild reserves a spot for my shaman to raid whenever I can make it to raid. Casters in my raid sing praises of my presence and do pole dances around my totems. All this, because I am an elemental shaman.

The point of bringing a shaman is that totem buffs to the whole raid or party FAR OUTWEIGHS personal dps. Judging "skill" by dps is a shortsightedness that many are tainted with.

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So is the lack of popularity because of poor DPS or not being tard friendly?

So the answer your question is NO. Lack of popularity are due to players' ignorance and inability to perceive the big picture. And the tards are ever on the reroll to play classes that they deem "OP".
#3 Dec 23 2008 at 7:06 PM Rating: Default
For Dps, enh is really really good, i think at least.

Give 10% more attack to others(all in raid). Windfury 16% haste, and other totems(to all in raid). Shamans are definalty wanted.

Don't know about elemental, never bothered playing it, got a mage.
#4 Dec 23 2008 at 9:59 PM Rating: Good
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2,079 posts
Enhancement shaman is probably tied with Warriors at the moment for the strongest melee (with DK close behind). Rets aren't far behind that sitting with rogues oddly enough.

Elemental shaman are the lowest dps class of all at the moment by a pretty decent margin. They're getting buffed but... we'll see.

Shaman pretty much sucks at pvp, so...

Pick what you want. :P
#5 Dec 24 2008 at 6:46 AM Rating: Good
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861 posts
Lack of popularity is because they suck at PvP. They are terrific at PvE.
#6 Dec 24 2008 at 8:01 AM Rating: Default
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In fact they are the least played class.


Actually, as a whole the class population that decreased significantly recently was rogues and warlocks.
#7 Dec 24 2008 at 11:14 AM Rating: Good
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2,079 posts
Well, Rogue and Warlock populations were inflated from BC.... so they had the most to lose. Shaman have had a dedicated small player base that rarely shrinks much (because it's already so small).
#8 Dec 25 2008 at 10:44 AM Rating: Default
I always loved playing shaman, I had a tauren shaman pre-TBC and was ele then re rolled drain-eye when TBC came out.

Ele was so powerful during TBC, beating rogues, mages and the like...all but locks on DPS charts in boss fights. Only thing was, they had amazing DPS but the DPM wasn't that good due to massive mana usage unless procs were activated. Now with lava bust I think, my shaman is only 72 i think) the 40% mana reduction can be achieved guaranteed almost every 8 seconds.

Shaman DPS will always be competitive, maybe not the greatest but it will never be shut off.....like mages were in TBC.
#9 Dec 26 2008 at 8:12 AM Rating: Decent
it's good to hear enhancement is still putting out great dps. I was concerned after I found out the other day DK's have a talent that make our windfury totem useless. Does anyone know what that is and can link it? I've been wasting time laying this in groups (and every group has at least one dk in it). Then I got to thinking that this makes shaman kind of obsolete (unless you are healing then you are never obsolete). As two of the biggest group buffs (wf and strength of earth) can be done by DK's and DK's put out better dps. So why bother taking an enhancement shaman? But a guildie assured me enhancement still puts out great dps.

I still am a bit peeved at DK's though. Plus we used to be the only class that can water walk. I just don't like them giving the same buffs we do. Oh well.

Edited, Dec 26th 2008 8:13am by thrashering
#10 Dec 26 2008 at 12:34 PM Rating: Decent
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2,396 posts
The talent you're thinking of is Icy Talons and only Frost Knights will have it, so you're still good to keep laying WFT in the presence of 2/3 of DK's. Unfortunately, they all have Horn of Winter, so SoE is going to be redundant no matter what.

Buffs aside, Enhancement Shaman do put out acceptable DPS. I was averaging 1.2-1.4 and topping out as high as 1800 in the mid-to-low 70's in a mix of greens and quest/dungeon blues, so I would have been right on track to be putting out 1.8-2k average DPS to start Naxx at 80.

Elemental Shaman and scaling beyond 80 I couldn't say.
#11 Dec 29 2008 at 6:46 AM Rating: Decent
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947 posts
My guild has downed everything except Heroic Malygos and at the moment, I am out-DPSing all of our guilds Shamans as a DK.

Im mostly in 10man epics and lvl80 blues, but I am beating out an Enhance Shaman in full T7.5 and an Elemental in half T7. Shamans dont do bad DPS, but a hitcapped DK currently does better.

That said, most DPS are currently clustered within a few % of each other (read: balanced) except Hunters and Warriors which are obscenely overtuned for PvE DPS. People whine about Mages but in my guild I beat all the Mages; on our meters its just a Warrior and two Hunters about 30% more than everyone else equally geared.
#12 Jan 09 2009 at 1:54 PM Rating: Default
As enhance I am top dps in every encounter so far. In 10m Naxx consistently pull 3k+ dps with tops at 4kdps. In 25m dps can reach up to 4.5k-5k dps, this is all dependent on bosses of course. Warriors are the closest class to me in dps terms. A titan's grip warrior is the only dps class right now that stands close to me. DK's do good dps when there are mobs around that they can hit with dnd, but other than that its nowhere near enhance shaman dps.

Top 3 dps classes I have seen in 10m and 25m raiding are enhance shaman, fury warrior and hunters (this is single target dps).

Your dps as an enhance sham is dependent on your gear and talents. I.E. dont spec into something when another class can do it (blood dk abom and horn of winter). While DK's have these same skills as enhance shamans, shamans always have heroism and their totems; poison/disease clensing totems will get you much love in Naxx.

People are also crying about elemental shaman dps, everything seems fine to me. When somone knows how to play the class elemental shams reach 3k dps as well.

Edited, Jan 9th 2009 4:59pm by tbblizzard
#13 Jan 11 2009 at 4:10 AM Rating: Decent
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947 posts
Quote:
When somone knows how to play the class elemental shams reach 3k dps as well.

...but not beyond.

Elemental DPS currently suffers from something that Enhancement does not; scaling issues. Elemental played properly does strong DPS but it doesnt scale at higher gear levels; every Naxx25 we do, the Elemental guy is a little further behind me. My DPS (and yours) scales better with gear than his, so once Ulduar gear arrives he will be incapable of achieving the same DPS at the same gear, if he isnt already.

Unfortunately when people look at Recount they dont care that their DPS number is reasonable; Recount doesnt give you a shiny badge for doing reasonable DPS. As my guild's top Elemental put it recently; "Even with full T7.5, going full out as hard as I can, raidbuffed and foodbuffed with an 80g Flask, I still can't get near [the other guys]".

He's right.
#14 Jan 12 2009 at 1:06 PM Rating: Good
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2,079 posts
Quote:
Quote:
When somone knows how to play the class elemental shams reach 3k dps as well.


...but not beyond.


I've hit 3.85k dps on Patchwerk as elemental and I don't have best in slots in many slots. This being said, my guild is mostly full of roughly equal geared and skilled players and I'm dead last in dps of all the dps. When you have hunters breaking 6k and the "average" dps is almost 5k, not being above 4k shows there is a real problem.
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