This is an sum up i' ve made not only of shaman nerfs, but also our complications we have had with some of our Cm's and further. Hopefully this will make some ppl understand why we are so angry with our situation. Ive probably missed alot, but you get the picture. (Some of this content and information has been taken from other posts.)


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- World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.2.0 (2004-12-21)
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Shaman
- Earthbind Totem: Added a 15-second cooldown.

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- World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.4.0 (2005-04-19)
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- Windfury - Fixed a bug that caused an additional attack beyond what
was intended. In addition, fixed a bug that caused the next normal
melee attack to happen sooner than intended.

- Frost Shock - Now subject to diminishing returns in PvP. This is
considered a slowing effect.

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- World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.10.0 (2006-03-28)
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- Shaman will no longer stop falling when they use a Sentry Totem.

(lol)

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- World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.0.1 (2006-12-05)
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- Rockbiter's weapon functionality has been changed. It is now a damage proc
instead of a flat attack power bonus.

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- World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.1.0 (2007-05-22)
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- Elemental Focus: This talent now reduces the cost of the next
damage spell by 60%

- Windfury Weapon: Mixing two different ranks of Windfury Weapon
while dual-wielding will no longer increase the number of Windfury
Weapon procs.

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- World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.1.2 (2007-06-19)
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- Focused Mind: This ability has been changed to reduce the duration of
silence and interrupt effects, rather than increase resistance to
them.

- Earthbind Totem: This totem will no longer break Rogue stealth.



Chapter 2.


Phase 1 -

Shaman review was supposed to be in patch 1.9 - however the completely gimp state of paladins got through to the devs and they got their patch in that cycle instead. Since paladins at that point in the game had been nerfed into 3rd rate tanks, lowest dps in the game and crappy healers all anyone wanted them for was blessings and cleanse. So this was reasonable. Shamans were told - wait for 1.10

1.10 patch cycle - Paladin buffs make priests cry - Priests get reviewed instead of Shaman. Shaman told to wait for 1.11, mages told they will be in 1.12

1.11 - Mages throw a conniption about the delay - Mage and shaman reviews are combined into the same review cycle. Eyonix is sent to the Shaman forum to start a suggestions and feedback thread and one of the other Devs does the same for Mages.

Phase 2 -

Eyonix goes to E3 - misses about 5 days of work, then at the end of e3 has a gout? flareup and is out sick for several weeks.

Tseric and Caydiem come into the Shaman forums and say they will be gathering feedback in Eyo's place. "search for 'bite sized' to see some of the threads spawned by these posts"

Review period comes to a close - 1.11 patch hits PTR - it contains Mage buffs, Druid buffs and a wide variety of shaman nerfs. There is exactly 1 non resto shaman buff - the craptastic t6 enhance talent is taken out and replaced with +10% melee damage.
Druids get innervate for free ( Edit : that was their last , top tier talent in the resto tree , ie 30 talent points required to get to it !) . Mages get Evocation for free ( Edit : that used to be tier 5 talent powerhouse in arcane treee, ie 21st talent point ! ). Shaman still have to spec 31 resto for mana-tide (despite Mana tide being trainable, bloodlust and hex being the three most common requests during the review period)

Euro forums have a mild eruption - Euro CM looks into the problem and posts there that the Shaman feedback was apparently never submitted to the developers, and it is too late to do so - the patch is going live as is, and shaman have had thier review.

Cross posted to the US shaman forums - general disbelief and outrage occurs.

Phase 3 -

Eyonix gets back from sick leave and pops into the Shaman forum long enough to say "How do you like your review?"

Pure Hatred explodes (including death threats and the "get hit by a bus" statement.

Forum mods spend the next 48hours deleting threads and banning people. Eyonix posts that he will not do anything to help the players because they are not treating him with respect (this seriously happened, search for the blue post archives).


Quote by Vili on the shaman forums:


The problem was, and remains, that we have had "0" feedback/interaction. None. Zip. Nada. Nein. Long before the 0.5 shaman patch came along, shaman were the epitome of professionalism and restraint. We didn't complain because other classes had it worse. Still, we offered suggestions, ways to improve things. We did calculations, gave rational arguments, and were the most mature of any forum.

After many times of having shaman pushed back to a later patch, we finally had our patch coming. We eagerly provided many good arguments on the problems inherent in the shaman class, how they could be reasonably fixed, new suggestions, etc.

We heard nothing.

Some people started getting concerned. Shaman still acted maturely and continued with their suggestions.

We heard nothing.

Suddenly shaman got a post sayin "Here's what your talent review is going to consist of" (sorry about the preposition).

That was it. No "we'll consider your recommendations', or 'what are your suggestions', or 'what input do you have'.

We got told what we were getting. And it addressed NOTHING of any substance. The lack of ANY interaction by a CM or ANY blue at ANY time before, during, or AFTER the talent review, combined with the blindside of a talent 'fix' which IGNORED the problems in the shaman class, made the shaman community very hostile.

So someone makes a juvenile 'bus shock' comment about Eyonix, and THEN he responds. The FIRST and ONLY response by him. To a stupid post. Meanwhile he's not doing his job and completely ignores the VAST majority of substantial shaman suggestions.

So what do shaman want? They want a mature CM who actually interacts with the community. Through that interaction, we would be assured that, yes, they actually do read forum posts. Instead, we get complete and total silence. Maybe once in a while some other CM will pop in and ask for comments and never be heard from again (note: Tseric).

But we have no CM. Haven't for a long number of months now. Long before this stupid 'bus shock' incident. Eyonix is like the guy you hire to do work, and he tells you he's doing work, but you never actually see examples of his work, or proof that he's actually doing work and not sleeping in the back room.

Shaman want interaction. That's it. It could be the worst news in the world, but if a CM explained it, worked with the community, shaman would most likely accept it.

I mean, their frickin' job is to read internet messages and play a frickin' video game! How hard can it be? I don't see them out there delineating wetlands, conducting listed species surveys, or writing environmental impact studies. I don't see any real work being done. Their job is to manage frickin' video game message boards.

And we don't even get that.

That is why we are so very often angry. And justifiably so.

Chapter 3


Eyonix:
Right now the class team is heavily focused on the expansion. We will be announcing details of what's in store for each class in the weeks to come. There are a number of improvements we're considering for Shamans in expansion, such as improved totem UI and functionality. I've also been studying the development of new talents and abilities for each class, and so far I'm fairly excited at what I've seen for the Shaman. [Despite the belief that no one reads the Shaman boards (ironically, our loudest forum), we're fully aware of the feedback that's been expressed here, and will do what we can to address it.] Much of the improvement players are demanding will have to wait until the Burning Crusade launches, which isn't too far off.

Best post Iv seen in a long time mate! Would be nice with atleast some sort of response now from Blizz when all the dot spam seems to have stopped. You kinda posted exactly what started it, and a little tiny 4-5 lines from blizz might calm us down, come an blizzard show us that you care a bit and atleast show your presence!!

/phunk

The sad part is, as soon as we stop dot shocking and whatever we have to do to get attention they simply just forget our forum as soon as they have silenced the most annoying shamans. 10 cents says that this (rather brilliant imo) post wont get any attention at all since it contains no offensive material.

Sticky material. everyone should be able to read this as it has great importance to people who consider rolling shaman.

edit: extra text

Sticky

Eyonix

---

Q u o t e:
Right now the class team is heavily focused on the expansion. We will be announcing details of what's in store for each class in the weeks to come. There are a number of improvements we're considering for Shamans in expansion, such as improved totem UI and functionality. I've also been studying the development of new talents and abilities for each class, and so far I'm fairly excited at what I've seen for the Shaman. [Despite the belief that no one reads the Shaman boards (ironically, our loudest forum), we're fully aware of the feedback that's been expressed here, and will do what we can to address it.] Much of the improvement players are demanding will have to wait until the Burning Crusade launches, which isn't too far off.

---

I remember this, I was so excited - then when the patch notes came through I was like.... umm... disappointed doesn't even come close to describing how I feel right now.

---

Q u o t e:
I remember this, I was so excited - then when the patch notes came through I was like.... umm... disappointed doesn't even come close to describing how I feel right now.

---

You know... Age of conan looks interesting : (


Anyway, a very nice post, I hope they think about it a bit... if our "op" buffing is imbalanced, then nerf that and give us more dmg and survivability abilities...

wow... just wow, this is a great thread, i used to be a shaman but i lost the acc. info so now i'm playing a warlock...
i was 100% sure that i was going to level up a shaman when i had lvl'd up my lock... now i'm not so sure anymore.

One day my brothers and sisters! One day we shall once more rise to greatness!

i have been stunned by a warrior for THREE times and in addition to that been pinned by improved hamstring during the course of 5 @**%ing seconds.

in another occasion i have been cced for a continuous 25 seconds by different classes randomly passing by, not able to control my toon, in an eye of storm bg, in a random flag zerg.

with a 2 minute trinket.

you bet im angry.

New totem ui in the expansion huh? Is there anyone who actually still believes that? I recall blue posts promising us 'a revised totem interface in the upcoming patch' about 2 years ago.

ps. You missed a variety of wf nerfs but your message is loud and clear. Nice post.

---

Q u o t e:
Top this with

* Lightning Bolt: Spell coefficient reduced by $
* Lightning Overload can no longer proc on instant cast spells. (aka NS+CL won't proc it)
* Lightning Overload can no longer critically hit.

---

If those change will pass in the next patch i will stop to play for sure.

---

Q u o t e:
i have been stunned by a warrior for THREE times and in addition to that been pinned by improved hamstring during the course of 5 @**%ing seconds.

in another occasion i have been cced for a continuous 25 seconds by different classes randomly passing by, not able to control my toon, in an eye of storm bg, in a random flag zerg.

with a 2 minute trinket.

you bet im angry.

---

I'm just kinda wondering exactly what classes you think would not have this problem ? cos there's only paladin I can think of. Or your just angry that cc exists at all ?

Also what do you think should happen when a player faces a zerg ? They heroicly defeat all ten oncoming enemies ?

---

Q u o t e:
One day my brothers and sisters! One day we shall once more rise to greatness!

---

And what funny Terrokar Mushrooms might you be on?

Funny Terrokar Mushroom of Denial ^^

This was absolutley the best post Ive ever read, and also when I came to the forum I was about to write an similar post. And you expressed my feelings and the truth so well that I do not feel alone in the world anymore.

I really really do hope that this thread live until an blue answer it with an long and smart answer, even though everyone know that wont happen.

STICKY THIS THREAD

I will bump this thread every day until I get a shaman buff to all three talent speccs and an resonable blue post answer to exactly this post.

Excellent summary and I think something that should be read by everyone who doesn't understand the frustration that's been building up especially on the forums, for so long, since the first "class review" really. The class review was the first indication that shamans weren't really of equal priority to the other classes, and stupid mistakes, turning a deaf ear and sometimes really childish and immature behaviour from CMs have turned "the shaman community" rather angry and cynical.

After two years of being constantly neglected, patronized and ignored on a subject that many really do care about (WoW is the main hobby for many of us) maybe that isn't so strange.

I remember what most seem to think of as "the good old days", when the shaman forums were full of nerf posts and L2P responses and even back then there were cracks showing up in the class design as soon as people started going from blues to epic gear (remember back when shamans were only taken to raids for mana tide and FR/WF totem?). There really was a great deal of patience and understanding of the fact that other classes got looked at before us back then, but that patience and understanding was burned and buried by the class revamps and what followed.

In all honesty, and for the sake of completeness you should maybe add the buffs we were actually given when BC came out. The problem was, and still is, that those are changes that should've been in the class review which got lost; changes that made us a strong and viable PvE class, something we really wasn't until then.

What we're still fighting an uphill battle against now (one year (!) later) is that those changes, and the vast improvements of other classes have severely dented our ability to stay competitive in PvP (and being competitive actually matters with the arena system).

I can imagine this post will be bump spammed until either stickied or locked..
Vote for sticky

Shamans perfomance in pvp is really shamefull atm. I don't understand either why hunters got buffed. I was pretty surprised when I read the patch notes myself.

Its been nearly 3 years... since the day I bought WoW. Shortly after release. PvP was in the beginning a little bit non-existance. Shortly after, Blizzard introduced the Honour system. World PvP started to happen in hillsbrad and even city raids. (good ol days)
BG got introduced, Alteric Valey, followed by Warsong Gulch... etc etc

I have pvp'ed like a lifetime, so I definitely have some experiences on this matter. PvP is certainly more balanced then it was pre-tbc. But its still nowhere near perfect. Of course we don't literally demand ''perfect balance''. Just some fair play.
The problem with this game is that it was intended to be a PvE game. Player Versus Environment. (A bot fest)
But over time PvP was mixed into the game with PvE, and that caused a conflict... wich caused balance issues... wich caused nerfs instead of buffs. Due to PvE being involved with the game. And the game was mostly balanced with PvE in mind.

The game mechanics in WoW are so complex that it ought to cause inbalance issues. Its inevitable curse for a game that tries to mix PvE with PvP.

Blizzard tried to fix their PvE mentality and reputation with the expansion of The Burning Crusade.
Arena was implemented and Resilience came also into the game.

They made progress, but nowhere near the ''fair play'' we so much desire in the PvP aspect of this game.

I don't know how other people feel about this, but being able to kite melee classes from Dawn till Dusk... or untill oom... is not ''fair play'' or balance in my books.

Wing Clip, concussive shot, scare Beast, scatter shot, wyvern sting, counter atack, freeze trap, frost trap, Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot, Gouge, Sap, Crippling Poison, Hamstring, Fear, Fear, Fear and Fear etc etc etc.

All forms of Crowd Control in pvp were reduced to 10 seconds maximum. But its still not enough.


This game is still a PvE game in my books. And wheter Wrath of the Lich King will change my mind for we'l see about that.