Totem Talk is the column for shamans. Matthew Rossi plays a shaman, and he wants more people to play them. Why? Well, if as many people played shamans as play, say, hunters, maybe we would see some better mail for shamans out there. He's a selfish jerk, that Matthew Rossi.

Why are there so few shamans in the game? If you look at the numbers we first saw in Mike's post this week, it's glaringly obvious that there are fewer shamans than any other class in the game by a huge margin. The next two lowest classes, fellow hybrids both in the form of druids and paladins, each have 2% or so more of the player base both in general and at level 70 than do shamans, roughly 40 to 50 thousand players at level 70 per class. Why is this? Why are people staying away from the shaman in droves?

Part of the problem might lie in the original class balance: shamans were the horde only class, and paladins were the alliance only class, so it makes sense that fewer people played either class than classes that either faction could make use of. Similarly, while druids (the third hybrid) also had a low population, to some degree that was caused by the fact that they had such a limited racial selection. If you want to play a druid, you're a night elf or a tauren, and that's it.

Similarly, since shamans and paladins were originally faction limited, that meant that dungeons and raids had to be balanced around the idea that there would either be a shaman or a paladin, but never both, and that a large percentage of the player base would be unable to have one or the other on a run. You can't make a boss who is practically unbeatable unless you can Earth Shock him reliably when there's no way an alliance raid can bring a shaman along.

Still, since the release of The Burning Crusade, shaman population clearly hasn't taken off. Why? It may be true that there's always going to be a class at the bottom of the totem pole (ouch, sorry, that was bad) is there a reason beyond simple demographics to explain why shamans are dead last? If they're so amazingly overpowered (as people still maintain from time to time) then why isn't anyone playing them? Are those of us playing shamans at 70 just stubborn? Why are shaman players so upset that they riot on their forums and start guilds that have every class but shamans?