So I'm listening and Amanda brings up being limited by lore in how Shaman put down totems. This is a good point, but I have a small note for you folks.
Shaman are bound by what Blizzard has decided they want to keep. WC3 found Thrall walking around with wolves, Stasis totems and some other fun abilities. Meanwhile Zul'Farak has shaman that turn people into frogs. Polymorph where you can take damage and it won't break.

These are part of the lore, but they aren't included in the class. Hex would be a pretty potent way of CC and might be too much, but the class needs some of their abilities amped up or just added to.

She hit it on the head with the Alar fight. My Enhance Shaman spends most of my time running around on Prince. Get to a middle point between him and dps, drop mana spring, drop strength of earth. Run up and drop windfury, searing and then start attacking. Now this seems like it is a dynamic and thoughtful fight for me. It is, but it is also extremely hard on my personal and the initial DPS of the group. Shaman lack distance closing moves indoors. All that time running out of range of shadow nova enfeebled is wasted time on DPS, and it is also worse because I can't get back in fast. I have precious few GCDs I can use to DPS and having to redrop totems after the fight is underway is only making things worse.

The class may not be broken, but it is certainly in need of some regular maintaining and Blizzard has been applying fresh paint instead of looking under the hood to see why it is making that noise.

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I know nobody will ever read this, since this topic has been thoroughly buried, but I don't care.

I'm listening to the podcast right now, and I've to disagree with what Amanda is saying about the shaman protest. She makes it sound like mages are calmly writing forum posts detailing their problems to get things done, and that shamans are just throwing a tantrum.

However, we shamans have been trying to get our class fixed for AT LEAST 2 years, which is far longer than mages have been complaining about ice block in arenas or whatever it is. We've TRIED writing calm forum posts, listing our issues, making suggestions, backing stuff up with solid data. Many continue to do that as well. But see how rational the mages are when they've been complaining about their ice block problem for 2+ years with very little to show for it.

The Earth Shock nerf that sparked this particular wave of protests was merely the straw that broke the camel's back.

But really what we have here is just a vocal minority raising a stink. Other people have registered their dissatisfaction in other ways; just look at the class population numbers. Some go crazy with rage, some (like me) sit and stew silently, and some just leave for greener pastures.

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Mike:

We were told we were getting buffed during the "review that never happened." We were told they'd actually do the review after doing other people's reviews because mages got so angry and whined enough that their review came before our review.
We were told we would afterward that there would be no reviews again.

Now we see effectively class reviews for every class. Other classes had their input heard and changes were made. Shaman went on for 37+ days pointing out a supposed buff was a nerf and finally the weekend before the patch got a change that was not even a good one. Buffing lower level and geared Shaman while nerfing the high end raiders. Sound fair?

Shaman pointed out itemization issues in the new gear. Constantly. No changes. We sit here pointing out that Enhance Shaman have 1 drop specifically meant for us at level 70. We see hunter gear getting them a good 30% more AP than us for the same gear. We point out badge gear doesn't even have competition to make it so that it would be unfair for Enhance Shaman only gear to drop. We get crickets.

Eyonix said he was excited about balance fixes in WOTLK. Well, I'm paying right now. Why force me to buy an expansion to fix a character I already have? And why should I believe it when they promised TBC would be a fix. Our healing scaled so poorly compared to HPs that is is pathetic to try if not geared and specced to heal. We aren't capable of being "Jack of all trades" because of how poorly itemized hybrid gear is.

Waiting 2+ years for fixes that should have been done in the first 3 months is not a fun way to play a game. I've had to research how to run my toon. I've worked hard in game to get the gear. I should expect people being paid to run a game to do as much research. Apparently they can't be bothered.

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