PvP/PvE : PvE
Specc: Resto/Ele (Ele in resto gear)

I'd like to know why after the first 'vieuws' on the previous patch(es) it was announced that the health and mana totem would be merged, yet i couldn't find any word to 'it's cancelled' or that it was actually implented. (I understand the first vieuw was just a pre-vieuw and wasn't the final details, but i'm certain quite a large amount of the shaman community would want this change, since personally, i'm not not glyphing to the healing stream just to make it a 'decent' heal. And with 2 pala's around my mana stream wasn't usefull either..) I might've missed any information regarding this, but please, do tell

I Also wonder why, after countless of awesome posts of shamans about the totems (go you guys ;)), there hasn't been a word about it. (not just totem stomping macro's today)

As for the PvE-ing resto side of me:
- Why is Chain Heal so far behind on other (aoe) heals?
- Why are half our totems (if not all, I pretty much use none so, I hardly recorded it) still group limited?
PvE-raidwise seen, you're basicly always in a group of 10+, and Pala's Aura's (for example) are raid-wide (with a larger range even and without a time limit)
- Why is Riptide so behind? The HoT hardly has any use, perhaps when it's procced alongside Earthliving, but that's it! they're still different heals and after the 5 seconds (Tier 8) I'll just waste most of the hot

I could probably fish up more questions, but had a tough day, brains aren't working yet =P
Any answer from anyone could be nice,

Khana

General question:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17367876728&pageNo=2&sid=1#36

Every single Resto shaman, and even raid leaders are aware of the issues regarding resto shamans. The "best" players in the world are screaming bloody murder over the issues besieging resto shamans in pvp, and abandoning both the class and its spells, to the point where resto shamans are outright not brought to certain fights since they dont bring something to help the raid, and they are not healingwise able to compete.

Yet in spite of even the top of the top who dont need to "l2p" agreeing with what every healer and resto shaman and ingame data, both live and on paper aknowledge as fact, GC denies the issue exsists and hence also implies that the comunity doesnt know the game they are playing, are whining, or just clueless. How can such behaviour be considered excusable, and are blizzard devs really better at playing the game than the likes of Ensidia?

How do the devs plan to adress the issues of the shaman class if they refuse to aknowledge those issues exsist?

Wryxian, you have to understand a large part of the shaman community are just - almost - clinically depressed at the lack of serious attention shaman get and how redundant we feel in certain areas..

"This kind of comment really doesn't help. Why would we ask for questions if we were only going to ignore them? That seems completely counterintuitive. We are collecting class questions from the all our WoW regions around the world. "

Well, simply put , we have been let down time and time again by reps coming on these boards , the anxiety stems back as far as our failed patch in vanilla , where we didnt even get a proper class review , all we got was a load of lies from a blue poster , who then left blizzards company . Nothing has improved in relations with blizzard staff since then . In fact , the general concensus with just one look at the forums is its degenerating after large amounts of ignore and fail.

I only want , as do everyone else here , the best for our class , but after a myriad of false promises and undelivered words , people are just truely fed up , and dont really beleive anything devs say anymore . Much the same as when people loose faith in politicians ..Of course there are happy moments , but unfortunatley not on these boards , well rarely

There are more reasons , but at the end of the day , lets just hope that the company you work for actually deliver on your word .

Since im playing my shammy for a while now already, I would love to know if youre planning to do something with totems and its GCD. On hardmodes its starting to be really annoying, that it takes me about 3-4 seconds till i can start to dps/heal w/e.

Surely repeating stuff already said but there's 10 pages I haven't waded through.

As a raiding Ele Shammy

1) Too low hp, too low as base, too low on T8/8.5 gear - very vurnerable to AOE

2) The Lava Burst totem (Thunderfall Totem) from XT Heroic is garbage - do the maths. Any Ele Shammy will be using Totem of Hex instead - a whole tier below.

3) ToW needs to scale, Warlocks in my guild already provide a bigger SP buff than me (like 80+ more iirc)

4) Totems (to repeat many others) are no longer unique, are vunerable and are not mobile - in other words - they're weak. For our 'class defining' Element it's frankly disgraceful this has not been addressed.

5) T8/8.5 4 piece set bonus is pretty meh. If I understand the maths of testers from EJ correctly (and no doubt they're close if not on the money) it's about a 2 - 2.5% dps buff. Pretty horrible.

6) Ele damage in general scales poorly. The recent overload buff was helpful but again only a minor increase.

7) Outside of T8 gear - there's very litlte of interest in Ulduar outside Gloves, Belt, 1 ring and (arguably) healer weapons. Wraithstrike was a cool item, Ulduar version of that please.

As raiding Resto

1) AOE healing was awesome in TBC, it's rubbish now. CH is nigh on useless on AOE intensive fights. I'm reduced to LHW, Riptide and spamming a couple of HW.

2) Mana usage is horrible - I have full Valorous + some Ulduar drops and I cannot sustain mana on many fights even with 2 x MT, battery and pot.

3) Re 1 and 2 above, - we have worst mana efficiency and weakest aoe healing - not so populaur in Ulduar.



Probably more if i think about it..

edit : typos and clarifty

i wonder why so many ppl complain about shamans.. i Agree that Chain heal.. is a worthless talent now... i never use it for anything at all... its removed from my action bar

Mana regen : i have no problems at all, to substain my mana trough a 15 min fight in ulduar.... i go out of it with atleast 20- 30% mana left.... just time ur tide totem, and pots :p

Healing - Hps... i have no chance in hell to keep up with Druids, or priests... but thats about it... any other healing class, aint that hard to keep up with... i spam LHW, and Riptide... havent had any problems at all with that....

BUT, i gotta agree.. Shamans are one of the worst healers ingame... Mana regen, is pathetic....
We have no form for Aoe heal anymore, as chain heal is worthless to the bone....

Would be nice to see a change to Chain heal.. Like.. up the Jump range, or implement a diffrent Aoe heal...

And as other ppl have said... Fix the totems... as a resto shaman, i spend like 3- 4 sec placing down totems, in the middle of a fight, when they run out... 3 to 4 sec, that means arround 30 to 37 000 healing gone....

And arent shamans supposed to be able to master Earth, Wind, Fire Water... Where is our other Elementals? Like Wind Elemental, and Water elemental...

Anyhow, all to all.. im happy with my shaman, but would be nice to see some new changes, so we can actually Aoe, without Depending on Lesser healing wave to crit, so we can pump out Ancestral Awakening heals.... its just silly

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Q u o t e:

And arent shamans supposed to be able to master Earth, Wind, Fire Water... Where is our other Elementals? Like Wind Elemental, and Water elemental...

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Yeah one of the annoying things about Shammies is even with the lore - Druids and Locks have more control and power over the Elements than we do.

New Elementals - useful Elementals. Elementals not connected to a totem type. Anyone believe an Ele Shammy is going to use a Fire Ele (or Magma tot :P) rather than buff the 15 dps in his raid with ToW?

AOE - AOE is pants in raids. CL is weak and on cd, running in and deploying Magma Tot.. well see comment above.

Hurricane should've been an Ele spell (sorry Druids) but it should..

Earthquake or similar please..

I play resto pvp and the biggest problem i face is the mortal strike debuff, its just too much nowdays, take into account the massive damage increase that happened with wotlk.

For a class which has no abilities such as shields or damage reduction effects we are the only class that must take the ms debuff into 95% of our defensive abilities.

Personally i would like to see ms debuff down to 25% so warriors could still achieve 50% at times as they are impossible to peel. Possibly a passive talent within natures guardian to reduce the effect of ms.


With regard to totems i would not like to see more hp on them or anything but look at the way earthen power works in the enhancement tree it adds a magical buff every time it pulse with the effect. adding this would also offer us a lot more trash buffs which should increase our survivability. also it would make it harder for priests to fear us( not impossible) with killing totem and dispelling.

Lol and remove totem stomping!


Change toughness to reduces duration of stuns instead of snares, this is useless for resto as nothing is kiteable and is useless for enhancement because they have totem up constantly! I have died in enought rogue stunlocks!


Hex is a very bad cc, either make it instant, or add an effect like reduces healing taken by 100% while hexed, also it locks out our entire healing system when we get csed


I would like to have a short cd "Oh Sh**!" ability not ns, druids get barkskin and ms, class homogenization isnt that bad just give us barkskin;o

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Q u o t e:


Yeah one of the annoying things about Shammies is even with the lore - Druids and Locks have more control and power over the Elements than we do.

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QFMFT

The only Question worth asking is,

Why is it taking so long to get Shaman's Fixed ?

The complaints may seem different at a glance but when u read them you will see its basically the same things that have been around for the last 3years or more.

To ez to CC
No decent CC
Totems to weak
Enhance to weak in PvP
Elemental to weak in PvP
Resto to weak in PvP (more so this season than others)
Mana issues in PvP
! SURVIVABILTY is terrible !

Resto being so weak in PVE as well is like a full slap in the face for every raiding resto Shaman out there dont get me wrong i dont want to just spam chain heal all day but at least make the alternatives stronger and more on par with other healing classes.

The answer's to everything we need is already on these boards and the US boards every fix u have given so far was idea's from the community's so just speed the process up a tad for a change.

Shamans are spiritual visionaries of tribes and clans. These gifted healers can see into the world of spirits and communicate with creatures invisible to eyes of normal beings. They are beset by visions of the future and use their sight to guide their people through troubled times. Although the shaman may seem wise and serene at first glance, he is a formidable foe; and when angered, his wrath is as fierce as those who have a connection to Eternals or nature.

Make us great again plz.

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Q u o t e:

Make us great again plz.

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We are Great.. But many shamans forgot how to play propperly, couse of the Chain heal spam... ( this goes for resto shamans that whines )

As for pvp.. i have no qlue... so yes, i guess they need a buff for pvp

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Q u o t e:


We are Great.. But many shamans forgot how to play propperly, couse of the Chain heal spam... ( this goes for resto shamans that whines )

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it's not really like that ... we are not great ... we are , as they said, balanced as healers - and they try to bring the others to the same balance - the only problem is that they bounce the other classes up and down on the OP scale ... or at least this is my opinion ...

to continue the post back on topic :

don't y'all get your hopes up high --- this is just a Q&A ... nothing will change in the near future and our problems might see some attention in that dark room where devs talk about what to do in WoW 4.0.0 ...

ty Mr Blue for the fact that we are first on the list in the Q&A "program" , but, as a fellow shaman wrote above, we are fed up with WORDS - and your ANSWERS will be just that, WORDS - WE WANT PATCH NOTES ;)

ty again, have fun

I have 1 question and I would really really appreciate an answer.

Do you, Blizzard, seriously believe Enhancement PvP in 2v2 arena, I know I tunnel 2's but that's what I am interested in, is a viable balanced specc?

Enhancement weapon itemisation:

Equiping a 170dps 1.5 speed weapon in the offhand instead of a 143 dps 2.5 speed weapon, results in a giant DPS penalty.

So....why did you normalise flametounge yet did not change the delay on all the first/mace weapons in naxx/ulduar? They are now useless to just about everyone when their main purpose was for shaman....thus leaving us with one of the (if not, the) smallest choice of weapons then any other class/spec.

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Q u o t e:
Enhancement weapon itemisation:

Equiping a 170dps 1.5 speed weapon in the offhand instead of a 143 dps 2.5 speed weapon, results in a giant DPS penalty.

So....why did you normalise flametounge yet did not change the delay on all the first/mace weapons in naxx/ulduar? They are now useless to just about everyone when their main purpose was for shaman....thus leaving us with one of the (if not, the) smallest choice of weapons then any other class/spec.

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rogues need them too don't forget - better poison procs from a fast OH - and therefore we are limited to the slower OH drops - there are several to choose from despite this.

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Q u o t e:



rogues need them too don't forget - better poison procs from a fast OH - and therefore we are limited to the slower OH drops - there are several to choose from despite this.

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80% of all rogues is Assa
There are a LOT more fast weapos that Rogues can use than usable slow weapons (which Rogues also need on - Calamity's Grasp?)

Enhancement shammies need some vital things to go forward

-escape mechanic that dont rely on totems
-a bit more mellee moves other than stormstrike and the off hand thingy
-perhaps the ability to wield 2 hander at pvp and be viable?
(2 weps on a shammie that dont stunlock a target in a place means that weps dont land to have a constant dps , while a 2 hander might be slower but it will land a blow when the target is reached and do a descent amount of damage ,maelstorm mechanic should be rearranged and stormstrike to fit this)

Hello dear reader.

General questions about shamans:

-Why don't we get any "right back at ya!" effect for what we do? For example, a arcange mage's SP boost for getting hit. Warrior spell reflect for shooting at them. Also if you don't wish to give us that why don't we have any other strength like being able to get out of problem like any other for not having any such effect? (The flameshock dispell haste for elemental is very short and not that great in PvP since you mostly get out of range and our slows has such a short range)

-Why have we getten so soft through the expanisons? It was great in vanilla WoW but now we are forced to focus to just keep alive then anything else. Also with no real escape mechanic or impressive defensive abilitys makes the whole thing even worse :/

-Why is most of our dps so concerned around crit in our talents no other stat? Right now it's all about critting to get your damadge going to stay behind all other dps classes? That our dps is around luck is allright! To a degree.

-Talents, abiltys all got buffed and sorted but why has our totems only got nerfed or stayed the same? If it's our thing we do then why is it not improving with the rest?

-Why does purge with it's sacrifice of a global cooldown which comes with leaving yourself exposed cost so much mana and taking such a hell of a time to get rid of sometimes only one buff? With all the new smal buffs and amount of buffs in the game +the dispell resistances it's nearly impossible to get the buff you wanted of before your already dead. (I know you are into this <3)

I heard you are tring and for that I am most thankfull :). I also have some ideas how to solve these things:

"Totem holder": First can carry 1 totem, the later and harder to get one can carry 2totems. Basicly you attach your totem holder to your back and it can hold totem. This will give mobility to the totems but not all. That would be to great and the whole totem thing could just be turned into buffs.

Increase of our defences such as health and armor. As it looks now it's just a !@!#! compared to what you are meeting in PvP.

"Totem payback effect": If a totem is destroyed sooner then X time from when it's casted the destroyer will get an Y effect (such as smal stun,mana burn, health lost, something to make our totems to be a decision and not something you just do)

"Escape mechanic": Who to have it and how to balance it well I haven't come up with. But a reducement of damadge while locked down in anyway is what we really could use so that we won't be the obvious choice and easy -kill.

"Purge improvement": As you are concerned(thanks for this a lot). Increasing amount dispelld/lower mana cost/complete vanquish of buffs for a cost of a CD/deleting dispell resistances might help.

If you read all this I am most thankfull.
/4years of shamaning

-Edited Purge Concern!