Ita a raid buff.
Its not just the damage mage gets. Its the combined damage the whole raid gets.
For example, if you are in a raid group with 1 mage, 10 hunters and 1 warrior… Battle Shout suddenly becomes much more valuable than Arcane Intelect.
But the Shaman Windfury buff will ALWAYS give value. Because every spec has Mastery. Regardless of the comp.
And that is why mages got what they got !
If you’re in a raid group you’re gonna have 4-5 healers (which most likely will carry the encounter due to how raids work) that will benefit from Arcane Intellect so your comparison is invalid, not to mention there will never be 10 hunters in a real scenario, it’s a stupid example.
Name ONE single class whose buff is less beneficial for themselves than for the group members.
Chaos brand from demon hunters. What do I win?
MOTW is debatable too, there are probably classes that benefit more from vers than druids.
You also have 2 tanks.
For the record, there are 11 int specs. And 14 agi/str specs.
And judging by popularity, Hunters and Ret Palas are by far the most popular. So the chances of having int classes in a raid is low.
So the 10 hunter scenario is possible. Just replace “hunter” by any of the 14 specs that dont use intelect. 
Consider imbued weapons/shields, shields (earth/water/lightning), and other buffs as well. Name 1 spec that has that many personal buffs.
And ON TOP Name ONE class that has the utility Shaman has at the moment. Because we already had a massive toolkit. Plus a raid buff… Plus defensives… R Shaman will be tanky as a tank in S1 of WW…
I see nerfs coming our way.
Nice try but all of DHs attacks are magical (except the throwing glaive), even melee hits have a passive that deals additional chaos damage.
Can that happen in a random LFR? Yes.
Is that relevant for balancing? No. Period.
It doesn’t matter how many buffs you have if that doesn’t translate into numbers, Shaman isn’t at the top and even if it was it would have nothing to do with having so many personal buffs.
I agree with that, Shaman has utility and that’s what I like about it, but so do other classes and that doesn’t justify having a buff that does more for your group than for yourself when no other class suffers from this.
I lol’ed.
bro - mastery dependent specs LOVE shaman buff - it’s far from useless and this mastery is kind of like… BIG.
also Arcane intellect was nerfed to 3% 
Mod close this topic please.
bro - “useless for itself” is an emtpy compound of letters.
What does it even mean in your mind?
Useless for itself? Really?
How can you apply it … without any player or anything around? Like what are you talking about? You can’t take the buff into a vacuum and say it’s useless “because it is”. It’s some sort of schizo thinking that I don’t think you yourself understand at this point.
Its a pretty decent buff for most classes in all situations.
Be thankful you didnt get something completely useless like Hunters Mark.
Also this is ridiculous - most casters I’m aware of benefit well from raw mastery. What kind of stupid take are you doing in this thread.
Everyone I know loves the shaman buff and everyone think it’s great but no, Marc the forum dweller is unhappy. Revert the change! Down with Skyfury!
Not much of a team player, are you?
Sorry guys but you really have some serious reading comprehension issues and I can’t be arsed explaining this to you for the 23840972324th time.
Feel free to read my responses as many times as you need in order to understand what I’m saying. The words are there, perfectly placed, every single one of them.
Also please some mod close this topic, it is a waste of time.
How are ALL of these people the ones without reading comprehension and not you? Do you not see that if YOU are the only one that thinks something and everyone else thinks the opposite, while providing numerous arguments with proof, than YOU are the problem here.
Dont. You have more baseline HP than a regular healer. You are the only healer that stacks versatility as main stat.
AND we got 3 major defensives, PLUS earth shield DR, PLUS 2 mini-defensives…
That is just DR with out considering healer CDs like SL.
As for self healing we are up there. We got a shor CD instant cast heal (riptide), best in the game. Plus healing surge. And im not getting into the details of mobility.
Want more ?
You dont get it. When HPala had OP things in S2 it got nerfed to the ground. That is what happens when you are OP in everything.
And it wasent even HPala’s fault. It was Augs fault.
I dont want that for Shamans. I want to be good all expansion. Not OP for 3 weeks of S1 and then forgoten once again.
Shaman isent at the top ? Is that your argument ?
OK. Fair enough.
Then buff the spells that require buffing. You think Lava Burst dosent hit hard enough ? Buff that !
But the problem with raid buffs is the following : It might patch up an Elemental Shaman… but because Skyfury is intended to buff other specs, you have to see what effect it might have on such specs.
Buffing it to patch up lack of performance will create absurd situations. Like if a Mastery dependant spec is OP, with Skyfury it will be even MORE OP. So you affect other specs as well.
And hence, that is why a raid buff cannot be used to patch up individual spec performance.
Its relevant for raid composition. Its called “making a roster”. Even friends and family guilds (mine) do that to a basic degree. Mythic raiders take it to the extreme of detail for performance reasons.
I am forced to do this AGAIN… you keep repeating the same nonesense…
READ what blizz has to say :
Continuing the discussion from Feedback: Shamans:
SKYFURY IS DESIGNED TO BUFF OTHER PLAYERS.
NOT THE SHAMAN.
Is it clear now ?
I mean… If it wasnt clear before, i highly doubt any logic could make it clear. OP just thinks none of us cant read instead because they could never ever be wrong could they?
my brother in Christ.
If you dun goofed in OG post - you can edit it to make it Clear
You expecting everyone to read (now) 70+ posts of you rambling… is inconsiderate?
Of course I’m not going to do this - I check OG post - comment on whatever bad or good take you did and move on.
here you posted cringe by claiming the buff is bad - anyone worth their marbles in WoW likes this buff. It’s more convenient to press buff on urself than replacing the windfury… you don’t have to do a windfury group anymore.
But no, Marc is unhappy - delete the bufffffffffffffffff
Also also
This is a REALLY bad take, mate.
It buffs both raid and yourself.
IDK how you can think it doesn’t buff you. Arcane intellect buffs you and others too!
Why would you care about buffin yourself that much?? 
If you are playing in a RAID your priority is to give people the most out of your class so if that means buff THEM and not you it is completely OK
even if the buff for yourself is just a 0,0000043 % increase DMG
Not everything is about min maxing numbers ffor yourself sometimes it’s about giving your comrades a buff that will help THEM to be BIGGER on Details therefore help you CLEAR bosses .
in other words you not a main character in raids as shaman
This - agree with everything - bumping to make the OP understand he is alone with his weird ideas