14) Shamans occasionally die.
15) Shamans can not Karazhan.
...

Some of those are legitimate, but the sum total of it is just the guy upset that he isn't OP. Some of the ones that stuck out for me were 3, 5, 7, and 8 (Tremor Totem?).

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should have said "can not *solo* Karazhan"

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The trend I see about all these comments regarding "issues" with class is that everybody wants to eliminate weaknesses. The slippery slope logic in that is pretty ridiculous. Think of all the arguments for hunters, who are mainly physical ranged dps. As a matter of fact, I'll list my grievances. Listen up Blizz, or I'm quitting this darn game to spite you!

1) We don't have legit spelll damage to dps down someone who is bubbled.

2) We can't melee against a rogue effectively.

3) Where is our cloak of shadows to eliminate all movement imparing affects and spell damage?

4) why do rogues get sprint that isn't dazed when struck in combat, while our aspect of cheetah dazes us?

5) Feign death does not work on non-NPC's. This makes this talent virtually useless in pvp except to interrupt a cast.

6) Don't even want to mention the deadzone, the 3 yards in between 5 and 8 yards. That can be deadly! I can't dps or hurt someone in 3 of 1-40 yard range.

7) Our mana drain is too weak and can be dispelled unlike locks and priests.

8) Hunter itemization sucks. Why the hell are you guys making us stack all these stam?

9) Not enough instant shots to account for all the running around I have to do on Void Reaver to compete with locks. Why do Affliction locks get so much advantage in this fight? Please make my aimed shot instant and get rid of that ridiculous autoshot reset timer or atleast give us Presence of Mind spell like mages.

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Agreed. You can't ask for everything. Here are the ones I feel are possibilities

3) Totems immobility and short range need to be buffed.

Maybe the self buff ones like windfury and air, but not ones that affect enemies like grounding. I already lose half of my frostbolts to totems halfway across the map.


5) Enhancement shaman lack significant ranged combat abilities as well a way to chase down fleeing opponents.

Do they get frostshock? If not then I can understand this.


9) Off-spec Shaman itemization is poor in Karazhan and beyond.

Never really paid attention, but I don't see very much mail spell dmg gear.


12) Shamans need more control over their fire-and-forget Totems to direct them at a specific target or to stop them from breaking cc.

Agree. I feel that all summoned abilities and pets you should be able to control (Treants, Water elemental the other 50% of the time, Totems, Barov family :) )

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So he's asking for totems that follow him around everywhere, CC immunity, a bubble and survivability in a dps spec?

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agree with #3. 90% of these times it's a class bitching about not being overpowered.

Only time these threads have been legitimate are when it's things like the classic 360 degree cleaves that would gib rogues. REAL issues with the game. The only legit issue I can see with this post is the GCD on totems, and even then, it should be shortened and not removed completely.

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also to note...the easiest to level.
both of you.

try a holy priest solo grind....or a prot warrior
w/o help of people....and or going absent on your team
try getting an elite flying mount.

wanna farm...build one of these, wanna raid build a raider

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Some valid points, but few of them are top-tier whining:

5) Enhancement shaman lack significant ranged combat abilities as well a way to chase down fleeing opponents.

Enhancement shamans lose FrostShock? Can no longer drop a slowing-totem? Lose all their distance-damage spells? Give me a large break! Of all the melee classes, enhancement shamans have the BEST ranged combat abilities, far better than warrs, rogues, pallies, or cat-form druids.

7) Shaman have issues handling an assist train. (When someone gets zerged by multiple opponents).

Other than mages and fear-dot warlocks (and maybe protection-spec pallies), what class doesn't have issues handling an assist train? It SHOULD be difficult if you grab 3 equal-level enemies at once!

11) Windfury and Stormstrike demand the shaman using the slowest weapon for maximum dps gain, but that concept is counter to the weapon normalization introduced in patch 1.8.

What a shame, you mean some of your talents work best with a slow weapon? My heart bleeds for you; you're the only class with that problem. Except for every other melee class: warrs (MS, WW, Flurry, and even Slam), rogues (SS, BS), and pallies (pretty much all retribution talents).

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Strange.
PvP-experienced Shamans keep blowing my priest and WL to pieces literally before I can even target them;
Shamans keep killing my Warrior using those damn slow-down-totems and spells ...

So I started reading this thread thinking "Jeez, another stupid whine by someone who thinks 'game balance' means they should be the only person who can kill anything without ever dying."

Seems I was right:
1 Spec affects survivability. What else is new?
2 Some classes are better at grinding. Erm. News?
3 Totems were designed to have short range. So?
4 "Change their playstyle"? You mean warriors no longer use weapons, and mages don't cast anymore? So the shaman is still a totem-setting melee caster in BC ... erm, what is the point of the complaint?
5 Warriors, rogues, paladins don't have significant ranged combat. Shamans have powerful spells but keep crying about them?
6 If your DPS is very high, you may pull aggro off the tank. Erm. It has been like that since, like, day one of the beta. If you can't keep track of your Threadmeter, it's your own bloody fault, not that of the Shaman class.
7 Who doesn't?
(...etc. )

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I don't think fire and forget totems are legit.

They are area affect. I mean seriously, it's akin to paladin tanks asking their consecrate to avoid breaking sheep or other CC. Or how about a mages blizzard smartly avoiding a shackle? Come on! it's an Area affect - you don't get to map out the locations and ask for no GCD. Perhaps if you want to, you should really have longer GCD.

Totem farms are the most impossible locations to penetrate for a group. So we have to use a strategy to overcome that, which is to pull you out of your defensive location. It's a game of chess. Don't make it like a couple of elephants butting heads to no end.

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For those of you who think frost shock is a decent enemy-chasing spell in PvP, you've probably never played a pvp shaman before. Frost shock is dispellable and it only takes the enemy one hamstring/stun/fear to get ahead of you.

And tremor totem? With my experiences in arena it only works half the time (and often after 3-5 seconds)

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Hmm...

As a shadow priest, I'll take #2 (no pushback resistence for Mind Flay), #6 (temporary, and very weak really, threat reduction doesn't count), and #7 (Fear? nerfed to hell and easily trinketed out of leaving only feedback if I'm getting zerged by casters).

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drop windfury for frostbrand, now you can slow down your opponents so they dont get away easily. I guess it's called "making compromises". Drop some of your damage in order to prevent someone from running away.

To be honest I don't understand the shaman whining in most cases. The only issues I have with the class is the time it takes to put down totems and that there is no talent to increase their survivability.

An aggro dump would be nice, but in most cases needing one is merely a sign that someone doesn't play well. Shouldn't pull aggro in the first place.

Also don't see why each class should have a crowd control skill.

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I'd say that it's more along the lines of... Shaman are at a disadvantage as a class because o reasons X, Y, and Z. Here are the PERCIEVED problems with this class. These need to be looked at, and compaired with how WOW has evolved since it's launch.

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1) Fair enough, but don't expect huge changes, every class has a better survivability spec.
2) Agreed.
3) Agreed.
4) Bullshit, no class significantly changed their playstyle, this is an absurdly biased statement.
5) Welcome to melee dps? You do still have frostshock.
6) Agreed.
7) Somewhat agreed.. but so do: warlocks priests hunters and druids.
8) CC is powerful against every class, a buff in shsman totems might address this though, and they have stated shaman will be getting CC in the future. Don't expect to be able to nuke heal melee and anti-CC.
9) Agreed.
10) Agreed.
11) Good luck with this one, nothing will change here, the choice is your over which weapon to use, blizzard isn't going to alter basic game mechanics that affect every class because shamans want 50 more dps.
12) Agreed, I'd love to see some big changes/improvements to totems in pvp.
13) Boo-hoo, welcome to being a caster, every caster has to spend time casting non-offensive spells that use up the GCD, it's up to you to manage your time and make the best choice based on the options you have. Totems will not come off the GCD.

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I'm sick of people who don't play the class at 70 saying those with concerns are just whining. Everything on that list has a bit of truth to it. I play a level 70 shammy, how many of you do? That said a lot of it is not entirely necessary or needs very little change. A skillful player can overcome most of his classes shortcomings, but that doesn't mean that the class is fine. If shamans were fine they wouldn't be the least played class in the game.

And by the way, Frost Shock is still the only snare with diminishing returns, so don't say that it is a good way to keep the enemy in range. Know something about the class before you say the people are QQing.

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The best legitimate complain that I can see is that shaman have no aggro reduction without sacrificing their DPS.

Frost mages can go all out and Ice block if they pull aggro.

Rogues can go all out and vanish if they get aggro.

Huntards can go all out DPS and just click one button every 30 seconds to reset aggro.

Warlocks can go all out, although they are slightly more limited due to their only 50% aggro reduction of soulshatter.

So you're saying shaman need to cut down on their DPS to stay alive? A bit unfair, no? Considering they sacrificed their ability to heal any better than a rogue with a bandage, they should get equal capabilities as a DPS class without the drawbacks.

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Seriously, what's up with people trolling on Shaman who find some issues with their play experience? You'd think that Rogues, Warlocks, Warriors, Druids, Priests, Paladins, Mages and Hunters have never piped up once with their share of the QQ from this post's response.

The original post contains a list of ISSUES Shaman players have experienced. It is NOT a demand to have all of these fixed at once and become the ultimate OP machine. I think most Shaman players would settle for some attention to maybe 3 or 4 items on that list (the ones that affect them most in their playstyle) if only because it shows Blizz is prepared to give us some love.

The sheer fact that there are so many issues (can you think of another class that can come up with quite so many legitimate gripes) shows that Shaman need to have some attention if they are to remain a useful and desirable class to play. I think that's something that ALL players should want, not just those that play the class.

@jasper
"The trend I see about all these comments regarding "issues" with class is that everybody wants to eliminate weaknesses. The slippery slope logic in that is pretty ridiculous."

The 'slippery slope' is actually a classic example of a poor argument that lacks a logical basis. You follow up by giving a fine example of this flawed method. You seem to argue that if Shaman had some buffs - and had some weaknesses removed - then Blizzard would have to buff EVERYONE out of all recognition? Is there any logic in that?

The trolling on WoW Insider has gotten really bad lately. Would you all please make your way back to the official forums where you belong?

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This is a recap of a post in the forums (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1133985382&postId=11338337584&sid=1). How about posting your replies there instead, by the original post? The original author might not see your input here.

As to the post here, whether or not this is a QQ-thread, it's nice to see the recaps.

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The poster mentioned in issue #5 "Enhancement shaman lack significant ranged combat abilities as well a way to chase down fleeing opponents."

I have a low level shaman, who I am currenting specc'ing Enhancement...isn't a good counter to the issue would be using the Earthbind Totem?

http://www.thottbot.com/s2484

I didn't see any additional ranks for it, but seems to me that it would still work on high lvl mobs. I could be wrong since I have never tried it against high lvl mobs...perhaps someone can educate me on this idea?

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