The Naked Fear

Ok, time for a bit of shamzorz rant. As many of you know, I went from 1-80 enh and raided enh for a long time. Went ele since 3.3 to try it out, had fun with it, but... its becoming more and more broken. Shamans as a whole were irreplaceable components of any raid because of the buffs we provide. Even with our lower dps classwide. Our buffs were so powerful that most of our "dps" was the extra that everyone else did. While this is still (sort of) the case, we are slowly becoming less important. Our buffs, which were once unique, and made us worth our low dps, are being handed out to different classes, all of which do higher dps than us. The enhancement melee haste and Str/Agil were given to DKs, (the second average overall dps), 10% attack power to the MM hunters (another high dps class), spell crit to boomkins, a BETTER, Scaling sp bonus to demo locks, etc. All we really have left is cleansing totem, tremor, spell haste (i think), and, of course, Heroism.

Not only are they giving our buffs to higher dpsing classes, but our damage and gear is not scaling. Blizz is still not itemizing gear for us, giving us mp5, spirit, and crit, where all we want are haste and sp. (30% of our damage comes from lava burst, which has a guaranteed crit when flame shock is up. So, crit is 30% less useful for us. Its nice, but our gear could be itemized a LOT better).

We just don't scale as well as other classes.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/class-shaman/blizzard's-confused-view-of-elemental-shaman/

And you know that shiny new t10 that everyone wants? Yeah, not ele.

http://www.wow-track.com/2010/01/12/t10-elemental-shaman-4-piece-bonus/

T9 is WAY better. And Ele shams would keep it but.... Blizz nerfed our t9 4 set bonus when 3.3 came out to "encourage" us to work for t10. If i get t10, its going to my enh set. Enhance t10 is sexy, ele t10 is shit. End of story.

And end of rant :-P

Ahem you are a hybrid class which should as blizz alrdy stated do 5% less dmg than pure classes. Why? because you have more roles you can accomplish than a pure class. You have crazy buffs your class is in essence a buff whore, the fact that a few buffs were sent to other hybrid classes have your panties in a bunch. the second average overall dps overall dps means nothing BOSS dps is important

enhancement melee haste DKs do not grab that unless there is no enh shaman that raids.... reason being a good chunk of dps loss.

Str/Agil were given to DKs rather they use that and allow you to use your other OP totems.

10% attack power to the MM hunters (How many MM hunters raid with us?)

spell crit to boomkins... do they have spell haste or SP totem?

a BETTER, Scaling sp bonus to demo locks... AHEM ITS DEMO LOCK THE WEAKEST OF THE 3 SPECS srsly wtf even with that better SP bonus they dont even compare to destro or afflict.

as long as you have heroism quit complaining ^_^

Well... when WOTLK came out, Blizz announced that they were giving similar buffs to multiple classes to stop the "need" for any one particular class to always be in a raid. A lot of times, classes like warlocks and hunters got f'ed out of raids because they couldn't buff anyone.

So, here we are today. Even though multiple replacement buffs for shaman exist, most times the totem can't be beat. Mana Spring from a resto shaman is more powerful than Blessing of Wisdom. Imp SoE is better than HoW. Unless I'm mistaken, Totem of Wrath stacks with Boomkin aura. Lastly, Ele shams do far superior dps to demo locks. Not to mention shaman buffs either last longer or are more dependable than others (don't have to recast every 3 min, don't need to wait for crits, etc)

When I was raiding Ulduar, I had Ele's pulling 7-8k dps on a single target. Yesterday in TOGC25 the most I could squeak out of my lock was 4.2k.

Then, we go onto heroism. Heroism. Enough said.

The T10 might have gotten a nerf, but the blue posts said they were addressing it. It was the same thing in BC. T4 was completely badass and T5 was weak as hell, so many players chose to stay with T4 (myself included). But at any rate, auto refresh of Flame Shock is decent. It's a free GCD that can be spent on another Lava Burst or Lightning Bolt, thereby increasing your total damage by 20k or w/e ridiculous numbers you hit for.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to cut down your post or anything, I just think it's important to see both sides of the story. And as a lock, I'd rather roll with an ele than respec demo ANY day of the week.

Yeah, last night i was pissed, mainly driven by my random DC's that started to pop up recently (I had enough trouble with internet at my parent's house, why now!!!) It sucks....

After one of these dcs, and after my overall dps not being the best, i looked up what i could do to be better, saw this post, and a lot of it made sense. It is true that we are hybrids (2 roles), but so are DKs (2 roles) and Pallies (3 roles) and they do more dps than us on average. It is true we are a buff class, but so are Pallies (gotta love blessings and auras), DKs (Ebon Plaguebringer is a very powerful buff without sacrificing any dps), etc. But we do do more buffs, and resto shamans are great healers, so i guess the taxes (which are on average higher than 5%) are supposed to be there, but maybe not as harshly. But really, my other point is still valid. We don't really scale as much. Since so many buffs are provided by shamans, and we give ourselves those buffs every time, there aren't many extra buffs between 10 man and 25 man. So, we don't do as much extra. Not that it matters, our totems still get us in raids... but oh well.

Better itemization would be nice though... Less crit and mp5 more haste...

Wanted to input a few points here, both for guildies and anyone interested in applying to TNF:

1. I get tired of reading stories of folks kicked from guilds because of low dps or lack of raid viability. Guilds with elitist attitudes like that make me sick. TNF has never and, as long as I have any input, will never leave people out b/c we feel their dps is subpar. We're not on the cutting edge of progression (but we all will see Arthas die before Cataclysm), but we do our best in a casual manner. In the past we have put the 6 best dps together with 2 strong tanks and 2 healers to check out content prior to the rest of the guild doing it in 25 mans, but in the end the guild still sees the content. So just know that wherever your dps ends up on the dps meters doesn't mean your class will be looked over.

You're right though. Blizzard has alot of issues with Shamans at the moment. Blue posts make it seem like they are working on it though. All I can say is that the shaman community needs to be vocal about what they'd like to see. Shadowpriest dps was horrible in BC endgame, and shadowpriests were one of the most vocal groups about improvement of, not only their dps, but making hybrid and pure dps more in line. I'm very happy with shadow dps at the moment, and evidently blizzard and the shadowpriest community are as well because there have been far fewer changes to the class in wotlk compared to bc. If the shaman community will raise their voice about improving dps and not about losing raiding spots I think blizzard is more apt to respond because dps scaling is their job, and there not here to keep disgruntled raiders happy with their guild.

2. Shamans are awesome. Heroism is by far the best thing since sliced bread, especially since caster classes have gotten haste buffs in 3.3. There's no other class that i can think of that has 3 different trees for 3 very different roles (melee, caster, and healing). I can't count all of the mail armor drops that we have had to DE in raids b/c there weren't any shamans that could use it, so I've always felt that there's tons of gear out there for shamans. The whole spreading of buffs was meant to make the game more casual. This has helped alot of guilds. The only guilds (and said guilds players) that were hurt by it were bleeding edge guilds and their toolbag raid leaders and guild masters who are willing to sacrifice friendship and loyalty over pixelated pieces of clothing and items of no worth in the real world. If anything, blizzard has made it clear that they do not want to give heroism like abilities to other classes. They keep saying that heroism isn't even needed for raiding (pfft....) - heroism is necessary in end game.

3. Dps is the most evenly distributed amongst pure and hybrid classes now than it ever has been. That's saying alot. If the top 10 dps in a 25 man are all within a few hundred dps of each other, then I think blizzard is doing something right, especially if there all relatively close as gear score goes. Blizzard's finally gotten it right in my opinion. Guilds who min/max based on cookie cutter raid makeups from world of logs aren't doing it right anyway. Look up gentlemen's club vent on youtube and listen to how top 10 in the world raiding sounds. I wouldn't want that for anything.

Yeah, that is definately something i love about this guild, No matter how bad i am i still get invites :-P. And you don't see me /deleting my shaman, because i love my shamz. I really hope that they decide the t10 4 set bonus soon. Hopefully its worthwhile. It is rather unfair that they nerfed our t9 so that we would be more likely to get the currently crappy t10. And like i said, itemization could be fixed. Ele isn't the only spec that needs help as far as itemization goes. Since enh shares with hunters, we see a lot of arpen in our gear, etc that we just don't really need because we are still spellcasters. Instead we need more hit, because none of our talents help get us to that elusive 17% spell hit cap.

But oh well. I'll just keep shamming away

(Sorry Unmatched, I gotta point you out =P)
O_O O_O O_O Not to rain on anyones parade, but I seem to remember a certain ele shaman, with less gear then everyone else, topping the dps charts all through TOTC 10/25.

As well, last night devilsapathy (enhance shaman) came with us to GC 10 anub, and was keeping up with our 5.4k+ gearscore players with his 5k gearscore XD.

As far as clearing trash goes.... shamans are at the back of the boss with the healers in the group. (roflnoAE) But, as far as I'm concerned... their dps is more then viable enough for every boss fight. - If not necessary, regardless of heroism.

Sry but as i said earlier amast going by Overall dps is retarded ANY class with real aoe is going to beat you just cause of the spell. I can do 17k with SoC on trash pulls but that means nothing when it comes to a boss fight. If you really wanna measure your dps go by single target / boss >_<

also preach "but making hybrid and pure dps more in line." Pure should always be above hybrid due to the fact that we CANT be healers or tanks.

also demo locks suck!!!

I was going by single target, everything has been based on single target boss encounters. And on a different note, I am levelling a lock right now. Guess what its main spec is and always will be? Demo!!! Why? Because i buff like that :-P

#2131760 Morgi wrote:

also preach "but making hybrid and pure dps more in line." Pure should always be above hybrid due to the fact that we CANT be healers or tanks.

Did I say that morgi? Check what I wrote again. More in line does not mean equal.

Way to make amastaa feel better.

oh im sry preach but when someone goes on a rant i didnt know we were obligated not only to listen but to make the person feel better... so here goes! amast im sure blizz will eventually give shamans lazer eyes and the ability to fly just hang in there buddy!!!

#2133299 Morgi wrote:

so here goes! amast im sure blizz will eventually give shamans lazer eyes and the ability to fly just hang in there buddy!!!

ROFLROFL

The info here is great, though. Helps me appreciate the roles of each class better.

#2133299 Morgi wrote:

oh im sry preach but when someone goes on a rant i didnt know we were obligated not only to listen but to make the person feel better... so here goes! amast im sure blizz will eventually give shamans lazer eyes and the ability to fly just hang in there buddy!!!

Ranting to your guildmates is usually focused on trying to get some sort of encouragement and/or advice. If you want to berate guildmates i hear Gentlemen's Club is recruiting horde side.

Back on topic:

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/22748795690-5-spell-haste.html

This link highlights some of ghostcrawler's comments on shamans recently. The folks at blizz really have a skewed view of raid makeups. His comment about how guilds put too much emphasis on heroism is funny. Poor raid makeups benefit tremendously from heroism, which is what they wanted in wotlk - bring the player, not the class.

Heroism for a melee class is about a 10% boost in dps. A caster gains the main front of its benefits, allowing them to do 15%-18% more dps while heroism is up. It is an important buff, it just doesn't make or break a raid that is on farm. However, it does make or break a raid that isn't.

I can't say it much simpler then.... Shamans can/do top dps charts.

It's kind of like warlocks complaining about their dps being terrible. Have you seen Fascinator and Morgi's dps??? And yes, warlocks do QQ about their overall dps, alot.

Everyone cries about their dps, because everyone would want to be so much better than everyone else
Its just not the way this game works.
something to be careful about is the DPS people tend to say
Like that question in guild MOTD, i was surprised when i saw that
"What is your single target DPS?"
How is it humanly possible to answer to that!
If youre asking for Patchwerk dps, it's irrelevant. How many patchwerk fights are there in the whole expansion? 1. Patchwerk. Its not conclusive to ask people how much dps they would do on that fight because that fight is a unique perfect-conditions fight.
If you're asking whats your average single target dps, average can vary alot in the raids we currently have. For example, Twins fight will let you pull over 10k dps easily. Irrelevant. Faction Champs is not a dps fight. Shamans, paladins or priests linkin damage done and saying "i totaly rocked you all " are stupid, because this is a dispel fight, an interrupt fight, a CC fight.
Hard mode anub, alot of AOE is used. Classes with low AOE damage or with none at all (shamans without a well-positionned totem) will seem very low, although they might have been the most useful player in the raid.
I have a friend who told me after a wipe "i was on top of dps. EAT THAT" and im like "grats, so you didnt dps the adds, which lead to a wipe, and youre proud of that".

What im trying to say through all this mist is that, DPS matters when struggling with enrage timers. You shouldn't be concerned about being on top of the meters if 1. Youre wiping cause of enrage or 2. You're wiping cause of fight mechanics.
Learn the fight, do your job as fast as possible and be a communist.

The guild MOTD is referring to a patchwerk fight. We need everyone above 7.8k dps in order to down Festergut

rotface isnt a patchwerk fight... you have to move ^_^ so not perfect conditions

#2138240 Morgi wrote:

rotface isnt a patchwerk fight... you have to move ^_^ so not perfect conditions

Festergut* And... it's near perfect condition. If you can't do 7.8k on Patchwerk, you can't do it on Festergut.