SatelliteOfLove said:
I've often wondered how long-term Shammies keep going. So many marquee class impact talents softened: bloodlust, REAL windfury, chain heal being a force. Granted, that's the class-centric mindset I have, where each spec has a "ringer" to make them wanted even if their raw XPS goes into the shitter, they'll still get play, but yah.
Oddly, I'm thinking of going shammy for my Gobbo irreguardless. It's the one class I have either not rolled or borrowed off a friend/guildie account for a few laps.
They make alts. As a Shaman player of 2 or 3 years, I have lived off the hope we'd get something. In BC, we had unique buffs that made us interesting. Those are all gone now and there has been no compensation for the loss. There is something to be said for being a battle mage or a Shaman class at all, but that character is sort of gone. I have always wondered why the mob Shamans always had some sort of voodoo power, while the Shaman class only has hex(a pretty limited long CD CC). Blizz could have reinvigorated the Shaman class by giving it a voodoo angle, but instead its... I don't know. When you spec into any spec at level 10, you normally get a pretty class defining ability that is a part of your rotation from level 10 to endgame, but not the Ele Shaman. They get Thunderstorm, which is a utility spell that only gets used when mana is needed or too many enemies are on you. It's basically a mana pot inbetween pulls or a knockback every so often, and even them its unreliable. Every time you use thunderstorm you fear theres a flower or rock nearby to block the knockback.
Then you get to the totems, which was one unique mechanic from old vanilla, but the mechanic doesn't fit the current style of the game. They don't provide any unique buff anymore and they weaken in mobile fights, and are weakened by being linked to each element. A shaman's defense relies on dropping multiple totems, some within the same element so you override your other totem. Earthbind, Tremor, and Stoneclaw are all earth totems, and you pretty much need all three when having to play defensive. Meanwhile, you've erased the more PVE totems(strength of earth/stoneskin) which provide some defensive and offensive buffs that other classes just turn on before a match and forget about. Within a single fight, a Shaman's stats are dropping up and down as they juggle totems, while the class they are fighting has one or two CD buttons that do the same amount of protection.
Further along the totem problem, is that the Shaman's short term pets are linked to totems and for that reason or some other bizarre one, they aren't given a pet bar for the totems. A shaman has no control over searing totem or an Elemental summon, and no matter what logic they give the totems, the totems are too dumb to follow the logic. Both dps specs rely on Searing as part of their dps makeup, especially Enhance, but Searing's logic (Will attack target with flameshock or stormstrike present) relies on Searing actually checking to do that, which it doesn't always do. If you drop the totem first, before combat, then Searing will often just.. go to sleep. When you drop Fire Elemental, it decides some target is your target and when that target falls... it disappears. Fire elemental will literally quit once it does one job. You could have 10 other mobs around, but fuck it, Fire Ele has to take a coffee break. So it unsummons itself and your 10 min CD was just wasted.
They could just add a pet bar, but never do.
And still like 8 or 10% of the userbase stubbornly plays the class. Maybe having to do all that extra work makes it more interesting, maybe its the underdog status.
