And because I want to avoid a tense office place and go to a happy WoW place – a rant about Shamans.

[sparkindarkness]

Ok, this may be sour grapes because I am Alliance and have had too many bloody shamans EAT me in PVP but is it just me or are Shamans just BROKEN? Let us look.



They are a Priest:
They heal, can resurrect people (without a cool down or reagent, unlike the poor Druid who is screwed on that). They can put down totems that cure adverse effects.

They are a Warrior:
They wear mail armour (WHY?! DEAR GODS WHY?!) Carry shields and carry double handed weapons (WHAT?!)

They are a Mage:
They can throw some spells around that make me jealous. Chain lightening? Ouch! Earthshock – an INSTANT CAST, RANGED SPELL INTERRUPT THAT CAUSES DAMAGE AND HAS HOW LITTLE COOLDOWN?! They have Frost shock – instant cast ranged SLOWING spell. What is with this?

They have special godlike abilities of their very own:
The Totems are incredibly good – amazing buffs for the WHOLE party – and horrible weapons (Grounding totem?! That’s just BROKEN). Oh and they get to buff themselves and their WEAPONS as well. Oh and they get to SELF RESURRECT?! SELF RESURRECT?! WTF?!!111!!!

And to finish it off they have a spell to let them walk on water – yeah, because Blizzard recognises how godlike they are.

Broken broken broken. It’s ridiculous how overpowered these guys are. Even aside from being overpowered it cheapens the uniqueness of the other classes because the shaman just steals from all without any real justification.

It also destroys the uniqueness of the SHAMAN. What’s special about the shaman? TOTEMS – they are the druid’s shapeshifting, the hunter’s bow and bet, the mage’s magic, the priest’s healing – this is their specialness. But look at the game – because the rest of the shaman is so overpowered totems are an afterthought. In PvP, except for Earthbind, most of the time they don’t even bother with totems.

My suggestions on how to fix them:
Stuff them in leather armour (if mail armour isn’t justified for the druid then it isn’t for the shaman either, neither mythos supports it) and take away their double handed weapon. (I think they can keep the shield.)

Tone down their spells. Shamans are supposed to be about their totems not godlike magic, so either weaken their spells or make them cost more/have longer cooldowns. This especially applies because they have so many weapon buffs. They should only be able to use attack magic in the same way the druid can – rather poorly. Recognise that self-resurrect and some of their buffs are a touch ludicrous.

Comments

Don't H8 tha Playa!

[speaks.livejournal.com]

Lern 2 Ply!

All Joking aside, I agree. Its somewhat silly. A friend of mine named his Tauren Shaman "EaziMode"

Re: Don't H8 tha Playa!

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

*sheeps you* *problasts you* *presence of mind* *arcane power* *pyroblasts you AGAIN* *fireblast* *cone of cold* *frost nova* *pyroblast AGAIN*

*glares at ashes*

:p

Poor Mages..

[speaks.livejournal.com]

Then the ashes reform into a Tauren Shaman! Hail the power of self rezzing!!

Thunderhoof. FROOOOOOST SHOOOOOCK!

Re: Poor Mages..

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Argh! Defeated by TWINKNESS! I am undone!

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I only recently tried playing a Shaman, and...yeah, you're right. I don't get mail or any of the fancy-schmancy weapons yet, but I basically have a fairly competent melee fighter who can pull and instawhack with great spells, plus party buffs (not that I often party) with the totems. If I weren't so damn tired of running characters through the Barrens, little Zubaida would be a lot higher-level by now.

I, for one, would have no problem with them being stuck at leather (which isn't half bad for melee anyway--ask any rogue!) and toning down some of their spells. It's a bad sign when most of the time I don't even bother to cast totems because I have so many better things to use against an enemy.

[zerika.livejournal.com]

We don't cast totems because they really are not worth the mana and time in most cases. Buff totems, I say. I would not really mind using only leather, either. Shamans are best (comparatively) just after level 40, after that other classes catch up.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Which is wrong. The Shaman should be ALL ABOUT totems. Totems should be extremely cheap (and other magic expensive)

I just don't get why shamans wear mail armour. It would also be better for the game if they wore leather - because then a lot more leather armour with int/spirit buffs (for resto/balance druids as well) would drop, rather than making a druid wade through endless agility buff armour.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I've played other flexibles classes - I've played the druid (which is the class I usually compare to the shaman because they are similar in role) but they don't compare. They have better magic, access to better weapons and when they fill oen role they don't have to give up the others (a balance druid trying to play mage isn't as tough a fweral druid in BEAR form trying to play tank)

It just strikes me that they went OTT, and need to trim some. There's not reason for the shaman resurrection to be so much better than the druid's.


And I also bitch that totems aren't a big enough part of the shaman

The Other Side

[zerika.livejournal.com]

I'm a lurker who doesn't generally comment (but I very much enjoy your writings, both fictional and not), but now I just have to. I'm a WoW addict, too, but I play a shaman. I don't know how serious you are with this post, but these "shamans are so overpowered" posts from Alliance players (who don't really seem to know much about shamans at all) are one of the pet peeves of most shaman players, including me.

Shaman is a hybrid class which has to spec heavily to talent trees to achieve any kind of competence in our three aspects (magical damage, melee damage and healing, all of them have a talent tree). You may have met a shaman who was able to cast huge spell crits fast and another one who swings a huge two-hander with devastating effects, but that is not the same shaman. Both of those require heavy investment to our specific talent trees, and very good equipment, too (the same equipment really doesn't work for both, either). In fact, we have to spend 11 talent points to just be able to wield those two-handed weapons (other than staves which which all casters can use anyway). I've never used a two-hander with my shaman (level 60 on Defias Brotherhood) mostly for that reason. Those of us who spec heavily into healing (like me, 37 points in restoration) don't really do much damage at all while still being inferior healers to druids, priests and paladins, especially in longer fights.

We basically can do many things, but not very well. We can specialize to become decent in one area, but still nowhere near as good as the 'pure' class (mage/warrior/priest). Our strength is flexibility, we can adjust to the situation (which really doesn't help us in end-game PVE as there are enough specialists around to do those jobs better). Compared to druids, we are a bit worse at our roles but we can don't have to change our form when alternating between them, so we are more flexible. And druid's combat resurrection with a cool down and reagent really is no worse our resurrection spell. At least it's unique, three classes have to normal one. Druids are the second best tanking class in the game even with their leather armour while shamans can't tank. And I don't think self resurrection once in an hour (without wasting talents or using a relic) is that special, warlocks can do the same twice in that time. And they are not restricted to using it to themselves.

Few tips about fighting shamans in PVP. You do know that totems have a grand 5 health points? Just destroy them (with wand/arrow/melee attack if you don't want to use mana for that), and if the shaman casts a new one, it uses his or her precious mana. Shaman that keeps casting spells and totems is soon out of mana as we have terribly mana efficiency and regeneration. That grounding totem has a long cool down anyway. Frost shock is affected by diminishing returns, meaning that after few casts it doesn't slow you down at all. If you are melee class don't let us escape and if you are ranged, kite us. I'm really not one to talk about PVP, though, as I tend to avoid 1vs1 and heal in groups (yeah, I should have rolled a priest but I'm working on one now). Some classes are better against others, though, and that cannot be helped (but it can be overcome).

I could start ranting about how stupid and inefficient buffing system totems are in end game raiding, but I don't think it quite belongs under this topic... Suffice to say that the shaman is the worst class in end game raids and PVP is the only thing we are at least somewhat good at. Just my luck that I'm more PVE oriented... Of course I did not know this when I started my shaman. (At least all classes are good for RP.)

PS. Why doesn't the LJ spell checker recognize such a basic word as mana? And sorry for ranting, this thing kind of grew out of proportion. I quite surprised myself.

Re: The Other Side

[kitsuken.livejournal.com]

So anyone going against a shaman should be accompanied by a hunter with viper sting or a warlock with drain mana then?

Re: The Other Side

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

It's true every class is weak against others.

My mage HATES warlocks... but I can see more balance with locks than with shammies

Re: The Other Side

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I have a shaman and even without a specialist talent build they are still very good in combat and with magic. I think it also annoys that they seem MADE for PvP (as you said, they're actually moderately poor in PVE)

What kind of irritates me is the CHARACTER of a shaman. He SHOULD be about totems - and he isn't.


I think part of my irritation stems from the same irritation i have against warlocks - they are very very good against MAGES (my primary character). Of course from a distance and if the shaman hasn't seen me yet he dies quickly - but so does everything

[harald387.livejournal.com]

Caveat: I don't PvP regularly, haven't got the skills, no practice, and so I'm not as good at it as most Rogue players would be.

That said: Shaman is the only class that I regularly beat the living crap out of. I don't even need to catch them by surprise. I rarely need to use a cooldown power. I like hunting Shammies, just because they die easy and everyone else pwns me mightily.

-K

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but rogues rock against ANY mana users (except the pala)

[harald387.livejournal.com]

Heh.

Mages kite me and then hit me for more than my HP with a single go.
Priests just ignore me, or land Psychic Scream then Mind Control me.
Druids shift to bear and are as bad as warriors at that point.
Hunters deal so much damage I'm dead before I know it.

That said, it's been pointed out to me by those more experienced in PvP that most (all) of the Shamans I've been fighting have probably been clueless noobs, and that I should give the class credit for being difficult to play well but terrifying when that's done.

-K

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

See, the problem with that is that they have to SEE your rogue first. If I see ANY class from a distance I can usually toast it before it becomes too much trouble (and then drop dead from the DoT effects the lock has slammed on me).

The reason I (and locks and priests - what i consider the mana/cloth classes) hate rogues is the first we know about you damn shadow huggers is when we're suddenly stunned and by the time we come out fo the stun most of our health is gone and we're poisoned :p

When that happens I know my only real hope is to frost nova and blink (sometimes just blink if I am dying REAL fast)

[kestrelmas.livejournal.com]

I know it's been a few days... had to comment. <3 :)

There's a Troll Shaman on Stormrage whom everyone guns for if he goes into BG's. This one (http://www.meretrixa.net/kestrelmas/WoW_Screencaps/messenger/amy_mess.jpg). I had to show him this rant... ;D One, because you're cool and godly with your lawyerly powers and the Hounds (OMG the HOUNDS)... and two, he finds these amusing without taking offense. :)

He sends lots of Zappy Zappies (http://www.meretrixa.net/kestrelmas/WoW_Screencaps/messenger/zappy_zappy.jpg), and he says Shamen aren't overpowered, he's overpowered. :)

::hugs both sides::

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Evil shaman! He's not tooooo overpowered because he is a Troll. Tauren are extra overpowered because they have more health and can hoof stomp as well (just in case there wasn't enough cheesiness there)

Curse his zappy-zappies, I shall have to get my PoMed Pyroblast ready