Tee
6th January 2007, 06:34
Posted by Ming in
Shaman:
1v1:
One of the strongest classes at retail, the target of countless unjustified nerf calls, the design of this class made it quite vulnerable in TBC. You see shaman is the only class in the game without a single CC. No fear, no stun, no disorient, no sheep, no trap, absolutely nothing. The result is basically a class that has to pretty much eat everything the opponent throws at him. Basically, the enemy has total control of the fight and dictates the tempo from start to finish, the shaman can not break this flow, he can only try to outlast it or counter it with his totems. This is why there has been very little shaman PVP movies outside of big crits.
I believe with the wound poison change, this class is farm status for the rogue. The toughest challenge in Earth Shield shaman is now laughably easy. Elemental shamans are countered by COS, enhancement shamans are countered by evasion. A real slap in the face is that their 41 elemental and 41 enhancement talents are all PVE oriented. Of course, the 10 extra talent points allow devastating combos like Elemental Mastery + Nature’s Swiftness, and the new enhancement shaman must be very fun to play in BGs, cutting down casters with ease. I just believe the rogue has too much control in this fight to lose to a shaman at equal skill and gear. And wound poison (no, the poison cleansing totem is not enough to prevent the stacking of it) makes their healing insignificant. I think it will be like the good old days again when you can just pop AR+BF+SND+evasion and mow them down with ease, COS to block one of his nukes and be immune to all his snares, improved sprint and vanish breaks two more snares. It really shouldn’t be a tough fight.
Maybe one of the high end geared shamans in TBC can prove me wrong, my experience with them is limited as an alliance rogue. I label them farm status for the moment. You see shadow priests at least has a chance to get enough stamina/resilience to get to the dreaded second fear. We will see how this match-up plays when everyone get high end gear, a class with zero CC against a class with most CC’s and counter-measures in the game is a bad match-up.
5v5:
Bloodlust really saved the class IMO. Sure there are offensive dispellers on the other team. Warlock felhunter and mage spellsteal can also be used against it. But a decent shaman is not going to use this first second into the battle. He will probably use it once everyone acquire their target and a warrior with windfury totem, flurry and bloodlust tend to bring back WC2 memories and “WTF just happened” syndrome to the other team. A combat rogue with BF / SND / Bloodlust / Haste Trinkets like Kiss Of The Spider (or the blue ones from TBC), it is like another adrenaline rush as your offhand 1.3 dagger will be like 0.5. 5 bloodlusts is a lot to dispell/purge (7.5 seconds worth of global CD). It is not something the other team can take away simply because they have a priest or shaman on the roster. This ability gave me a real reason to pick a shaman over a paladin.
Elemental shamans can nuke like AP fire mages and still offer excellent healing. Earth Shield Shamans have superior survivability than protection paladins (minus the divine shield, of course), while Earth Shield itself is dispellable, like I said before, just because the enemy has an offensive dispeller, doesn’t mean he gets to dispell it as soon as earth shield is applied. Most high end arena shamans will probably spend nothing in enhancement and dump all their points in elemental/restoration. Some will be offensive minded and some will be defensive minded. It remains to be seen which style is the way to go.
I am not counting enhancement shamans out entirely. The advantage of rage/energy is that they can never be depleted. Can an enhancement shaman fill the role of the second warrior in a 5v5 team? Against heavy physical damage teams he can use shield + one hand maybe even swap on some healing gear. Against heavy caster teams, that is when he really shines. 41 enhancement should give him plenty of lasting power. This is a dark horse build and I really have to experiment. I have never fought on the side of a shaman before so I don’t know how to maximize their strength yet.
Ironically, what makes shamans more valuable than before, is the fact that they can fight alongside of paladins. Paladin/Shaman duos in a 5v5 team may very well be worth more than paladin/paladin. Ultimately I have to see if assist train on a shaman with zero escape options, zero CCs, 40% reduction is enough to kill it. Once again, a team with higher threat targets like mages/warlocks can keep their shaman alive a lot longer. I don’t think shamans have anything to worry about in 5v5, they have plenty to offer for every team.
TBC improvements:
Bloodlust finally gave shaman a buff they can be proud of. I have never seen shaman’s pet in arenas (cooldown is 20 minute?) so I can’t comment on it. Water shield is quite interesting, it should give shamans significant lasting power in mana wars against druids/paladins.
Source:
http://www.worldofming.com/?p=303&page=1
Shaman:
1v1:
One of the strongest classes at retail, the target of countless unjustified nerf calls, the design of this class made it quite vulnerable in TBC. You see shaman is the only class in the game without a single CC. No fear, no stun, no disorient, no sheep, no trap, absolutely nothing. The result is basically a class that has to pretty much eat everything the opponent throws at him. Basically, the enemy has total control of the fight and dictates the tempo from start to finish, the shaman can not break this flow, he can only try to outlast it or counter it with his totems. This is why there has been very little shaman PVP movies outside of big crits.
I believe with the wound poison change, this class is farm status for the rogue. The toughest challenge in Earth Shield shaman is now laughably easy. Elemental shamans are countered by COS, enhancement shamans are countered by evasion. A real slap in the face is that their 41 elemental and 41 enhancement talents are all PVE oriented. Of course, the 10 extra talent points allow devastating combos like Elemental Mastery + Nature’s Swiftness, and the new enhancement shaman must be very fun to play in BGs, cutting down casters with ease. I just believe the rogue has too much control in this fight to lose to a shaman at equal skill and gear. And wound poison (no, the poison cleansing totem is not enough to prevent the stacking of it) makes their healing insignificant. I think it will be like the good old days again when you can just pop AR+BF+SND+evasion and mow them down with ease, COS to block one of his nukes and be immune to all his snares, improved sprint and vanish breaks two more snares. It really shouldn’t be a tough fight.
Maybe one of the high end geared shamans in TBC can prove me wrong, my experience with them is limited as an alliance rogue. I label them farm status for the moment. You see shadow priests at least has a chance to get enough stamina/resilience to get to the dreaded second fear. We will see how this match-up plays when everyone get high end gear, a class with zero CC against a class with most CC’s and counter-measures in the game is a bad match-up.
5v5:
Bloodlust really saved the class IMO. Sure there are offensive dispellers on the other team. Warlock felhunter and mage spellsteal can also be used against it. But a decent shaman is not going to use this first second into the battle. He will probably use it once everyone acquire their target and a warrior with windfury totem, flurry and bloodlust tend to bring back WC2 memories and “WTF just happened” syndrome to the other team. A combat rogue with BF / SND / Bloodlust / Haste Trinkets like Kiss Of The Spider (or the blue ones from TBC), it is like another adrenaline rush as your offhand 1.3 dagger will be like 0.5. 5 bloodlusts is a lot to dispell/purge (7.5 seconds worth of global CD). It is not something the other team can take away simply because they have a priest or shaman on the roster. This ability gave me a real reason to pick a shaman over a paladin.
Elemental shamans can nuke like AP fire mages and still offer excellent healing. Earth Shield Shamans have superior survivability than protection paladins (minus the divine shield, of course), while Earth Shield itself is dispellable, like I said before, just because the enemy has an offensive dispeller, doesn’t mean he gets to dispell it as soon as earth shield is applied. Most high end arena shamans will probably spend nothing in enhancement and dump all their points in elemental/restoration. Some will be offensive minded and some will be defensive minded. It remains to be seen which style is the way to go.
I am not counting enhancement shamans out entirely. The advantage of rage/energy is that they can never be depleted. Can an enhancement shaman fill the role of the second warrior in a 5v5 team? Against heavy physical damage teams he can use shield + one hand maybe even swap on some healing gear. Against heavy caster teams, that is when he really shines. 41 enhancement should give him plenty of lasting power. This is a dark horse build and I really have to experiment. I have never fought on the side of a shaman before so I don’t know how to maximize their strength yet.
Ironically, what makes shamans more valuable than before, is the fact that they can fight alongside of paladins. Paladin/Shaman duos in a 5v5 team may very well be worth more than paladin/paladin. Ultimately I have to see if assist train on a shaman with zero escape options, zero CCs, 40% reduction is enough to kill it. Once again, a team with higher threat targets like mages/warlocks can keep their shaman alive a lot longer. I don’t think shamans have anything to worry about in 5v5, they have plenty to offer for every team.
TBC improvements:
Bloodlust finally gave shaman a buff they can be proud of. I have never seen shaman’s pet in arenas (cooldown is 20 minute?) so I can’t comment on it. Water shield is quite interesting, it should give shamans significant lasting power in mana wars against druids/paladins.
Source:
http://www.worldofming.com/?p=303&page=1