Patch 5.4 patch notes
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The latest patch 5.4 newsTotem Talk: What's wrong with Shamans?
by Robin Torres 
Jun 21st 2007 at 4:34PM
Every other week, Robin Torres investigates Shaman issues, interviews experienced Shamans and reports her findings in Totem Talk.
First of all, let me get this out of the way. I don't like the sound of Shamans as a plural for Shaman. I much prefer Shaman, but I'm going with WoWWiki, at least for now.
Secondly, I am not a Shaman. I am reporting on Shamans. I am interviewing Shaman veterans. I am provoking Shaman discussions. I am in ur forumz reading ur threadz. You will notice when reading the newspaper or Fark or whatever that these people you are reading are not presidents and soldiers and socialites. They are writing about presidents and soldiers and socialites. And I am writing about Shamans. Regardless, I've been through this before, so my fire resistant gear is equipped.
I am, however, constantly bombarded with all things Shaman because my husband is a rabid, raiding, Level 70 Tauren Shaman. As I write this, he is in Serpentshrine Cavern with his Barbie DreamShield and his cape taken from a little girl and I'm trying to get him to take some screenshots. You may already know him from this story, but right now he is Onnix, the Shammy Healbot from the guild Grim on Daggerspine.
According to Warcraft Realms, the Shaman is the least played class currently among characters played in the last 30 days above level 10. And the Alliance have not raced to make as many Blueberry Shamans as the Horde have made Belfadins. Clearly, the general WoW population considers Shamans the least fun/useful class to play at this time. So I asked Onnix why he thought that was the case. Onnix would rather have answered the question "What is fun about playing an endgame Shaman?", but I was able to put that off to a future column. Instead, he told me the top 5 things that should be changed to make the Shaman a more successful class.
[Onnix]
1. Mana Efficiency: It is the worst of all healing classes/specs. Shamans don't get any bonuses to spirit, so we must rely solely on stacking Mana Per 5 gear and Mana Potions. We also don't have any talents like the Paladin's illumination or the innate mana reduction of the Druid's Tree of Life. All of this is not to say that Shaman are bad healers, we're not. Shaman make great healers, and i think in general are very under appreciated. It just takes a higher level of gear and consumables to heal as effectively as other classes.
2. Aggro: Shamans have no aggro wipe mechanics like other healing classes and the Tranquil Air Totem is useless if grouped with tanks/melee. The Tranquil Air Totem gives a 30% threat reduction, but melee classes generally want DPS enhancing totems, like Windfury or Agility, which is the same element as the Tranquil Air Totem. Also, if grouped with your Main Tank, you don't want the tank's threat reduced at all. Another problem with it is if you're in a caster group, they want Wrath of Air to increase DPS, but again that is the same element. It is really only useful in a pure healing group, but then, honestly, I'd still go with Wrath of Air, because it increases healing as well.
3. Totems: The totem system, while providing great buffs, needs a lot of re-working in mechanics. The global cooldown between each cast is painful, especially in PVP where you don't have the luxury of prepping all your totems before you engage. The two minute duration means you spend a lot of time re-casting totems. This is woefully inadequate when compared to paladin blessings (compare blessing of wisdom to mana spring totem). The totem system is a great idea conceptually, i mean who doesnt want different buffs/defuffs for each element? The problem is with its implementation. Since they have a short 2 minute duration, you want to drop them just before battle, or as you engage to get the maximum benefit out of them, but with the global cooldown, you're spending the first 8 seconds of your fight dropping totems. Ever been killed by a mage in 8 seconds?
The second main problem with totems, is that they are stationary, you have to constantly re-drop totems whenever your teammates run out of range, which is usually more of a problem for PvE than PvP. I've heard people suggest making them mobile, or making them re-castable with one click, or affect more than just your party -- all kinds of useful ideas. I personally don't know what would be best, but a complete re-working of the totem system is definitely in order.
4. Crowd Control: We have no crowd control and we have no anti crowd control.
5. PVP: The Elemental and Enhancement specs are poor PvP specs because of a lack of survivability. Restoration is the best for PvP because of great survivability (not necessarily bad, but makes dps specs less useful).
[End Onnix]
Admittedly, Onnix is a Restoration Shaman with fond memories of his Elemental days. So fond, that he sometimes spends his gold to respec, if only for a few hours. He is not very familiar with the current state of Enhancement and says they have a separate list of issues.
Do you agree with Onnix's list of needed changes for Shamans? Do you have a high level Shaman that you are not playing? And the burning question: which plural of Shaman do you prefer?
Are you a Shaman with interesting experiences or insightful opinions or inside knowledge that you would like to share? Please email Robin.Torres@weblogsinc.com with your Shaman's name and server for a possible interview.
First of all, let me get this out of the way. I don't like the sound of Shamans as a plural for Shaman. I much prefer Shaman, but I'm going with WoWWiki, at least for now.Secondly, I am not a Shaman. I am reporting on Shamans. I am interviewing Shaman veterans. I am provoking Shaman discussions. I am in ur forumz reading ur threadz. You will notice when reading the newspaper or Fark or whatever that these people you are reading are not presidents and soldiers and socialites. They are writing about presidents and soldiers and socialites. And I am writing about Shamans. Regardless, I've been through this before, so my fire resistant gear is equipped.
I am, however, constantly bombarded with all things Shaman because my husband is a rabid, raiding, Level 70 Tauren Shaman. As I write this, he is in Serpentshrine Cavern with his Barbie DreamShield and his cape taken from a little girl and I'm trying to get him to take some screenshots. You may already know him from this story, but right now he is Onnix, the Shammy Healbot from the guild Grim on Daggerspine.
According to Warcraft Realms, the Shaman is the least played class currently among characters played in the last 30 days above level 10. And the Alliance have not raced to make as many Blueberry Shamans as the Horde have made Belfadins. Clearly, the general WoW population considers Shamans the least fun/useful class to play at this time. So I asked Onnix why he thought that was the case. Onnix would rather have answered the question "What is fun about playing an endgame Shaman?", but I was able to put that off to a future column. Instead, he told me the top 5 things that should be changed to make the Shaman a more successful class.
[Onnix]
1. Mana Efficiency: It is the worst of all healing classes/specs. Shamans don't get any bonuses to spirit, so we must rely solely on stacking Mana Per 5 gear and Mana Potions. We also don't have any talents like the Paladin's illumination or the innate mana reduction of the Druid's Tree of Life. All of this is not to say that Shaman are bad healers, we're not. Shaman make great healers, and i think in general are very under appreciated. It just takes a higher level of gear and consumables to heal as effectively as other classes.
2. Aggro: Shamans have no aggro wipe mechanics like other healing classes and the Tranquil Air Totem is useless if grouped with tanks/melee. The Tranquil Air Totem gives a 30% threat reduction, but melee classes generally want DPS enhancing totems, like Windfury or Agility, which is the same element as the Tranquil Air Totem. Also, if grouped with your Main Tank, you don't want the tank's threat reduced at all. Another problem with it is if you're in a caster group, they want Wrath of Air to increase DPS, but again that is the same element. It is really only useful in a pure healing group, but then, honestly, I'd still go with Wrath of Air, because it increases healing as well.
3. Totems: The totem system, while providing great buffs, needs a lot of re-working in mechanics. The global cooldown between each cast is painful, especially in PVP where you don't have the luxury of prepping all your totems before you engage. The two minute duration means you spend a lot of time re-casting totems. This is woefully inadequate when compared to paladin blessings (compare blessing of wisdom to mana spring totem). The totem system is a great idea conceptually, i mean who doesnt want different buffs/defuffs for each element? The problem is with its implementation. Since they have a short 2 minute duration, you want to drop them just before battle, or as you engage to get the maximum benefit out of them, but with the global cooldown, you're spending the first 8 seconds of your fight dropping totems. Ever been killed by a mage in 8 seconds?
The second main problem with totems, is that they are stationary, you have to constantly re-drop totems whenever your teammates run out of range, which is usually more of a problem for PvE than PvP. I've heard people suggest making them mobile, or making them re-castable with one click, or affect more than just your party -- all kinds of useful ideas. I personally don't know what would be best, but a complete re-working of the totem system is definitely in order.
4. Crowd Control: We have no crowd control and we have no anti crowd control.
5. PVP: The Elemental and Enhancement specs are poor PvP specs because of a lack of survivability. Restoration is the best for PvP because of great survivability (not necessarily bad, but makes dps specs less useful).
[End Onnix]
Admittedly, Onnix is a Restoration Shaman with fond memories of his Elemental days. So fond, that he sometimes spends his gold to respec, if only for a few hours. He is not very familiar with the current state of Enhancement and says they have a separate list of issues.
Do you agree with Onnix's list of needed changes for Shamans? Do you have a high level Shaman that you are not playing? And the burning question: which plural of Shaman do you prefer?
Are you a Shaman with interesting experiences or insightful opinions or inside knowledge that you would like to share? Please email Robin.Torres@weblogsinc.com with your Shaman's name and server for a possible interview.
Filed under: Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, (Shaman) Totem Talk
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
tag Jun 22nd 2007 1:26PM
*should have read "no anti-CC"
thush Jun 22nd 2007 4:51PM
Shaman was my first character and I leveled him to 60 pre-BC before re-rolling. I work on him every once in a blue moon two-boxing with a warrior as a resto-spec healbot (yes windfury and str is nice too).
The main problems I agree with are time to drop totems 6-8 sec, ease of destroying a totem for enemies, and mana hogs. After getting to 60 then trying some other classes I came to the conclusion that the Shaman class has THE absolute WORST downtime in the game. I was shocked that even a pally or priest had less downtime. Pallys can AOE grind prot and use seal/judge wisdom to get mana back without stopping the action. Shadow priests can counter mana problems with spirit gear and spirit tap. In PvP, they were fine pre-2.0 with the new talent trees because being 21 points into elemental with enhancement was comparitively good if you didn't want full resto or enhance. Now...enhance sucks for PvP and Resto gives you the poop shield and better mana efficiency.
In short, my suggestions are: 1) fix the totem system. By that I do NOT mean the global cooldown I mean the whole system. If you take away the GC, then druids should get the GC taken out of their shifting. Lastly, fix the enhancement and elemental trees.
Mana efficiency is just something to overcome with gear and talents I guess because Blizzard doesn't want them to be mages. Sorry guys.
Depherios Jun 22nd 2007 6:37PM
I love my shaman. The reason I never play him, is because he does NOTHING when he grinds. Windfury, and auto attack is not in any way fun.
The pally specs prot and pulls 5-15 guys a time, the hunter has a pet and all sorts of tricks, the priest uses at least 8 buttons in a typical fight. Druid has forms. Warlock gets more abilities than any other class in the game...
And my Shaman has... Stormstrike... T_T
Xsevil Jun 22nd 2007 11:36PM
I personaly play an enhancement shaman in kara/gruul/maggy guild and heroic alot and atm there are reasons to take a shammy but they could really use a boost, i mean i can see why allys might not take a shammy with fear ward and such but atm specialy on melee dependant bosses like Aran and in some ways Illhoof I find myself beating most of the other classes by quite a way, alough missing the windfury nerf
personaly the only PVE problem I see with shamans is there terrible aggro problems, too the point where i basicly wont instance without a pally or a maggy tank
alough also see bliz being lazy in alot of places, many complaints and nothing done. atm all id like is possibly change the resto talent to -ALL threat and maybe give enhancement a USEFUL off hand buff like a nerfed version of old rockbiter (+AP) or just give something to buff main hand windfury proc rate, dont say use windfury, since 'to max out windfury damage you want your main hand to get all the hits' also i use the fel edged battle axe (2.2 speed) goes down to below the 1.5 threashold for windfury damage with bloodlust so thats a no no
also notice the pvp problems, gief charge, solves everything :P warrior with mana ftw possibly make tremor half the time of all control removing effects and give it, a % of your hp? say like 7%? giving around 500-1k hp depending on gear
Tollin Jun 25th 2007 1:01AM
I have to agree, why should someone take Me, enhancement shaman, over a mage who can sheep and provide water or a rogue who can sap, or a hunter who can trap?
I have to earn my spot by doing it "all", which a smart, and reactive shaman player can provide the group.
As enchancement, I buffed up my armor, strenght, agility, and stamina. I have as good of weapons as I can get for my level and I have found that I can off tank elites of my own level, just like a paladin would hit, hit, hit, heal, heal, heal etc..
I can also back up to help heal the team during the fight, I save the squishies by pulling the mobs off them.
And I can dps like no one's business, rogues still beat me but I dont care about that.
I use the global cooldown to lay my totem's after the tank has started fighting and that allows him/her time to grab enough aggro, if they are any good different thread all together, for me to roll in and turn into an orc buzzsaw.
I would like to see some more anti-cc totems that are good to use in PvP. My biggest problem in PvP is against BM hunters I stand no chance against them. But all others I win more than I lose but since I have recieved my PvP mount I haven't gone back into it yet.
Grummsh Jun 23rd 2007 4:24PM
I am a raiding, resto-specced Shaman, all up in Kara, gettin' the phat lewts, and I have to say...I rarely ever run out of mana (I keep mana spring and my water shield up constantly), and I have to be very aware of when to heal, and when not to heal...I have always thought that it sucked that all of our best abilities come out of the same totem, Air. Honestly, my fire totem sits in my bag, unless the boss is getting close to dead, and I just feel like dropping Fire Elemental because it's funny. Earth Shield is a great ability, especially for keeping AoE'ers from getting interrupted while they're trying to take care of adds, like during the Illhoof fight. We do need some form of anti-cc, and we need some kind of threat reduction, in a heluva way...I have to be constantly aware of how much threat I'm generating, because if I get aggro away from the tank/offtank/if some extra mob shows up, I'm done. I would also like to point out how idiotic it is that we are the only class in the game that has to spec to use two-handed weapons, and dual-wield. It's like if we want to have any kind of variety with our weaponry, we have to waste points in Enhancement, even if we want to play as spellcasters....Druids don't have to put up with that same kind of crap for their bear/cat forms...Blizz needs to take a good long look at our class, and stop hitting us with the nerf bat every other patch.
Moot Jun 25th 2007 10:55AM
Umm Mages are getting their own column?
Are you kidding me? Look me up on Crushridge. I am constantly top DPS (unless there is a Shadow Priest + Lock combo working against me.) I provide food/water and a great CC.
All the Mages that complain about being underpowered need to grow up. But of course I am all for more Mage buffs.
As for Shaman... Well counterspelling one and watching them panic is always funny. One shotting them is pretty fun too. These guys do need a lot of buff, but lets not make them godly like in pre-BC again.
Pville Jul 3rd 2007 8:56PM
Ya know what i hate... I've been an Ally since day 1.. waiting for us to get the ever so powerful Shammy that I fight against in PvP... When it finally comes, they nerf the f*** out of em. I have a mid lvl shammy now and to tell you the truth.. it kinda blows. I'm hoping he gets better as I get higher, but I had much more fun lvling my mage and hunter. I don't know how much more i can take of doing two PvE battles and sit.. two battles and sit. God forbid I get an add.
I played some PvP and got smoked most of the time. I'm sure I'm not playing him perfectly, but I would like a fighting chance. Get silenced, and it's all over. My other toons at least had some CC so that I could take on a couple of guys at a time. Bolt, shock, mace, mace, shock, attempt heal... get kicked in the yams... respawn... whee what fun.
All in all... shammies COULD be a pretty cool class, but they need some help from the Blizz gods. It just sucks that they nerfed em before I got a chance to play em. I'll probably stick to my huntard.
ThaShiznit Sep 25th 2007 2:04PM
with TBC we are second wife of all other chars.
enhanc is the best in lvl upping to 70.but enhanc has no chance to kill or run from other chars.only thing u can do wait to killed.
blizz must do something about totems as Onnix said.
at least we must have a anti-cc(f*ck Insignia trinket).
oneberd Aug 17th 2007 4:57AM
what can i comment about my shaman class?
It is the easiest class to die when it is being sneak attack compare to all the classes because we cant stealth, cant bubble, dont hv speed aura/ability(unlike hunters or druid or pally), cant fear, we cant blink, and cant stun.
dont talk about earth-binding totems..its slow but its not an effective slow...
i am just frustrated that i just cant find any effective ability to defend/counter other classes.
its not cool being a shaman anymore, i always ended up being rape cause i cannot run away.
i know the aim of shaman is being a magic hybrid class, unlike the pally ( is a melee hybrid class)..
But comparing my shaman to others, i felt being short-change alot by Blizzard in terms of mana deficiency, defensive ability/spell, and i feel like Blizzard is trying to give us, the worst of everything to shaman class..
so, what is so gd about shaman in a raid or pvp, when it is being outclass by each class, and we cant even defend ourself properly.
-we can never tank as gd as a warrior,
-we can never heal as gd as a priest or pally,
-we can never dps as gd as a mage or rogue,
ps: maybe there is totems to counter spells, but it is nvr a significant totem or should i say doesnt make a big impact on us unlike fear for 20 sec, bubble for 10 sec,
i feel my class is so inferior >,
oneberd Aug 21st 2007 3:33AM
What is right about shaman?hmm...
Jack of all trades, Master of none....
Totems is the advantage.
But however is also the disadvantage because currently the whole totem thing/system is like kinda screw up...Doesnt make sense with the global cd compare to other class, and other "ineffective" totems issue..
We get the taste or play all sorts of ability which a warrior/rogue (melee class) can nvr heal themself in battle, or a priest/warlock (magic class)can nvr hv the chance to dps effectively with weapons..
We hv other cool or weird spells like transforming into wolf, getting to play the FOUR important elements, (earth, water, fire, wind)..
The windfury is an advantage but this has been nerf by Blizzard before the release of BC.
Despite all this advantages, i still think Shaman really need a revamp seriously..
Otherwise, Thrall would be so dissapointed to see the Shamans are being such a weak class but in actual sense they should be great protecters and great magic warrior in protecting orgrimmar...lol..