"
It's possible health in general is low for shamans" comes the response in a thread about Shamans in PvP. The dev's, we are told, are looking at elemental
and enhancement shamans in 3.1, specifically in the area of their survivability in PvP. Is the culprit too much burst? Are shamans simply too squishy? We're not given any real specifics, but the fact that health is specifically mentioned as possibly the culprit is very interesting. To be honest, I'm not sure how you'd fix it. Putting more stam on Enhamcement mail would mean that Hunters would also go up in health, which to be honest I don't have a clue about. It seems more likely to me that shamans will simply get more benefit from the stamina already on their gear.
At any rate, PvP shamans, something is coming for 3.1, although we have no idea what as yet.
Tags: Elemental-Combat, enhancement, PvP, Shaman
Filed under: Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, PvP, Forums
Feb 4th 2009 at 4:00PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Firestride Feb 4th 2009 4:08PM
Wonder if they noticed a difference between Tauren Shaman and the other races? Since we Tauren get extra health already.
oldwisemonk Feb 4th 2009 4:20PM
My guess is it's still not enough health. Instead of just squishy, you're big and squishy.
Zul Feb 4th 2009 4:21PM
The amount of health you get is near to nothing... Anyways shamans are WAY to squishy (in dps spec). Simply because they don't not have mitigation spells like other classes, or fancy escapes. Mail armor doesn't make a difference what so ever.
Sloegin Feb 4th 2009 4:27PM
One can assume that Bliz 'balanced' shammies around the assumption that all shammies were tauren eg.
1. Lowest base health among all the classes (tauren health!)
2. No 'stun' or CC (warstomp!)
Orcs, trolls, and now blueberries suffer under those original assumptions that haven't been updated since the game launched. At least bringing base health back in line with other classes would be a nice bump.
Robert M Feb 4th 2009 5:32PM
You don't know how they would fix it? Really?
Shamanism-Your Lightning Bolt spell gains an additional 2/4/6/8/10% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus damage effects. In addition your stamina is increased by 1/2/3/4/5%
Maelstrom Weapon-When you deal damage with a melee weapon, you have a chance to reduce the cast time of your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lesser Healing Wave, Chain Heal or Healing Wave spell by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec. In addition, your stamina is increased by 1/2/3/4/5%
WOW Rossi, that was an almost fjucking impossible fix.
Talent trees should also serve the purpose of fixing issues that occur as a result of the new gear itemization model. How hard would it be to adjust some stamina in the trees?
I know Blizzard will give some lame, "we don't like for talents o feel mandatory," but with the scaling issues that were surrounding elementals, isn't shamanism mandatory? Find me an enhancement that doesn't have Maelstrom.
Plan Feb 4th 2009 6:13PM
It's no picnic being Enhancement even if you're Tauren. Warstomp is on a 2-minute cooldown, it has a cast time, and it has a very small radius. It's mostly useful as an extra interrupt or to gain a measly 2 seconds when trying to get a rogue off your back.
Health is part of the issue, but not all of it. We have those fantastic Maelstrom weapon insta-cast heals, but guess what? IF YOU CANNOT HIT YOUR OPPONENT BECAUSE YOU ARE CONSTANTLY CROWD CONTROLLED AND SNARED, YOU CANNOT GET A MAELSTROM STACK. FFS.
Additionally, Spirit Walk DOES NOT WORK. This has been an issue since Beta, and every patch we get vague promises about the tweaking of Spirit Walk, but it remains unreliable and near-useless. And we're talking about the only real escape mechanism for this spec, which lasts only 15 seconds and is entirely dependent on the squishy wolves and their 3-minute cooldown.
The entire situation is a bad joke. PvP for Enhancement remains in exactly the state is was in TBC -- most of the time, you cannot move and cannot get in range of your opponents to do damage to them. Except now, with the multitude of new CCs and stuns in WotLK, the situation is worse than the frustration-fest of TBC.
So many of these issues could have been solved if Blizzard had kept Spectral Transformation in the game. It was sorely, sorely needed. Instead, because one developer (Koraa) decided it was "too close to an iconic Druid ability," Spectral Transformation was dropped entirely and replaced by yet another buggy, "pulsing" totem mechanic that relies on a 5hp totem that can be destroyed without even so much as a GCD by half the classes in the game.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: It's glaringly obvious no one on the development team has played the Enhancement spec in PvP, because if they have played it, there's no conceivable way they'd put up with the frustration themselves.
As a Shaman with 30,000 + HKs, I have stopped playing BGs and Arenas entirely in WotLK because it's an exercise in futility and it requires a reservoir of patience so huge, even Gandhi would be hard-pressed not to go ballistic if he were a WoW player who rolled a Shaman.
And players have been hammering these points home for more than three years now, with no real response from the developers. So honestly, it's not worth engaging in PvP, because if the myriad problems haven't been addressed since 2005, it's hard to believe they'll ever get a serious look in the future.
Call it QQ or whatever you like, but if you play another class, I challenge you to try Enhancement PvP at the level cap and see how long you last before you want to smash your keyboard into a thousand pieces. It just ain't worth it.
Gnosh Feb 4th 2009 4:20PM
Once again, WoWInsider misses the REAL issue.
That being, "Is Shaman armor too ugly in PVP?"
jakeman Feb 4th 2009 4:33PM
I like turtles!
Had to be said.
Mr42 Feb 4th 2009 5:36PM
guess it is part of a solution... give shamans some clown gear and hope they'll pvp less. or is it make shamans one-shot-able and hope the gear looks won't be so bothersome?
Gnosh Feb 4th 2009 8:43PM
If one set of armor has to be ridiculously ugly, it should be druid armor. 90% of druids will almost never see it, and night elf druids don't even have to look at it when they corpse run!
Steve Feb 4th 2009 4:22PM
I know how they can fix this.
Make all classes have exactly the same talents and have access to the exact same gear.
@Firestride
No, they probably have not.
Angus Feb 5th 2009 8:47AM
Or they could make it so people in melee could actually survive what it is like to be in melee.
A mob does a point blank AE:
Warrior has plate and if really, REALLY necessary could switch to a shield and pop shield wall if survival was more important than being useful.
Rogue has high dodge vs melee AE and pops one of 2-3 CDs that let them sit in it while doing DPS.
Ret has plate and can pop thier shield wall or bubble up.
Kitty can go bear to soak melee has high dodge, and can put up barkskin.
Enhance shaman has to use their DPS talent to try an instant heal that isn't going to help very much because of their low health pool and the weak power of the heal.
In Bt my shaman had a good 1-2K less health than an equally geared rogue in almost the same gear, and I was a Tauren.
Saying that shaman wear mail and casters shouldn't have more health is a cop out. Mail does nothing against a 12K pyroblast and the mage can iceblock or invisibility to stop returning damage. Against a melee the shield is just armor and a mage's armor is useful enough that with all their tricks they are simply able to get away while using instants to avoid lock outs and do damage if they are good. Compare that to a shaman "just stand and take it while using things with a cast time" approach and it is easy to see why the only PVP spec for shaman is Resto.
ryanthered Feb 4th 2009 4:30PM
I don't think overall health is the issue. I've stacked my Shaman with Stam and it doesn't make that much difference. They just don't have the damage mitigation other classes have through armor, dodge/parry, escapes, etc. Or they do but you've got to drop 3 totems just to get parity.
Naku Feb 5th 2009 9:18AM
yi put my faith in 3.1 if we are still going to s@ck balls im gonna leave that game.
McRaider Feb 4th 2009 4:31PM
How much do they have, anyway? I see elemental/enhancement shamans so seldom, that I don't even know how much they have hp xD I only know a resto shaman with like 21k mana and +12k hp
Zerounit Feb 4th 2009 8:19PM
Shamans in general have about 6k less health than any other non-tanking class. A lot of the heroics I run with my enhancement shaman have my hp even below mages usually by 1 or 2k.
It's not that mail doesn't have stam, it's that between hit and crit and AP and int and agi AND stam...there's just not enough itemization points to go around on pieces.
Asteh Feb 4th 2009 4:33PM
Oh, please give use a mitigation or escape ability!
Jermayan Feb 4th 2009 4:40PM
Gotta love that Enhamcement!
Shanks Feb 4th 2009 7:13PM
It's the most delicious spec.
Antonia Feb 4th 2009 4:45PM
yeah it think its a little low in PvE also.. i wouldn't say by a lot and that it needs a big up but it needs something more i guess.
yeah I'm sure that means hunter's health is going to go up also when it comes down to enhancement mail but i don't really think hunters will have a problem with that and i'm sure they've even said they die way to fast now in PvP also..
so win/win?