3-4 was about the average from the 10-20 range but as the mobs became stronger and I moved into the 20-30 and especially 35-40, where I eventually gave up, it was becoming literally 1-2 mobs and having to stop to eat and drink.
I actually ended up respeccing and gearing heavily with Intellect gear to try Elemental and I still encountered the same issue. If I dared to use the max rank for spells available to me, I was OOM incredibly quickly. That alone completely killed the progression aspect for me because I suddenly realised that the spell ranks that I was otherwise looking forward to obtain, I couldn’t properly use.
I think I’m probably one of many that wants something in between Classic and Retail. If there were WOTLK servers available, I’d be totally satisfied.
You need to train and manage your resources, that’s part of what makes you a better player. Part of why ppl don’t like Retail is because it’s become kind of a wack-a-mole simulator where blue bars are just fancy colored UI stuff and every class can now self heal like crazy.
I don’t think retail is amazing either but judging by this thread, people are saying that Auto Attacking things is part of the way you get around this particular issue i.e Priests. Managing resources seems to mean ‘don’t use them’ and that just seems so counter-intuitive to a game that is all about obtaining more powerful spells/abilities.
There just doesn’t seem to be any room for skilful play in Classic rewarding you with reduced downtime. That’s if your class is even capable of it, some just have nothing to use in the first place. Be honest was levelling a Paladin a truly fun experience? In my view Ret only became fun in WOTLK when Exorcism and Divine Storm were added to the rotation. I levelled a Paladin to 23 in Classic and it literally seems to be Seal, Judgement and Auto Attacks.
If you mean while levelling yes, you need to either find a way to keep going on on a slow steady way in order to never stop or either know when you can go all out because you are going to have time to get mana back one way or the other.
The typical way is the “just don’t use it” way, as for me for example I learnt to swap to a faster weapon with seal+judgement of wisdom in order to get mana back faster while still farming. Ppl not being able to find a way doesn’t mean it doens’t exist, rather than a lot of them prefer the easy way which, by default, isn’t the skillful one.
Plus, where is the skill-roof in a game that makes resources infinite?
As I said, I just wish there was an option for WOTLK because it just felt like a more fleshed out, better optimised version of the ‘Classic’ combat without feeling like you were being punished but still making you feel like Health + Mana mattered.
Just out of curiosity what do you think of WOTLK era gameplay?
''I love that the world is more dangerous in Classic. I truly love the idea that pulling a bunch of enemies poses a proper challenge - that much I like.
However, when you feel like you’re penalised for utilising your full toolkit in combat it just spoils any sort of enjoyment I would otherwise get.’’
Unquote
These are two contradicting statements. You either have
A) A toolkit consisting of powerful cool downs, to be used sparingly, boosting the power of your character to handle dangerous situations. But these cool downs are long enough, to prevent you from using them on every encounter.
B) A toolkit with cool downs short enough to be used on almost every fight. But then, in order to comply with your first statement. Since the cool downs are almost always available, the relative power of the cool downs must come down. Either by directly nerfing the cool downs, or buffing the monsters.
C) You have powerful cool downs, which can be used on every monster. But then your first statement is invalid. The world is no longer dangerous, because of your readily available cool downs.
In effect, the only way to have powerful cool downs with any real impact. Is to have dangerous monsters, where using the cool downs make a real difference and then have those cool downs have a long enough time between each use. If you can use the cool downs on every fight, you don’t really have cool downs.
I purposefully chose a turn based example because literally all games have a specific pace. Also this is an RPG, even if its action it’s based on combat rolls used in turn based tabletop games.
You gotta understand that enhancement shaman is a melee class first and a caster second. Pretty much like a warrior with less skills but some supporting spells to compensate it. You don’t want to cast spells any more than what is necessary. That means, you use earth shock rank 1 to interrupt spells and heal you up after combat, maybe pull with rank 1 lightning bolt, etc.
If you struggle in combat by using only melee skills then you need to gear up. Enhancement shaman is very gear dependant - your main stat is strength but you also need mostly every other stat as well.
Shamans can also use shields which is a huge benefit compared to any other leather/mail user. More than half of your armor value comes from your shield. That alone makes a huge difference to your downtime.
My advice to you, sir, would be to run lots of dungeons and collect decent gear to make your leveling game much more enjoyable. Shaman is by far the most interesting and fun class to play but only if you take time to gear your character properly. You might have heard of how awful warriors are to level up (that’s not true if you know how to play and gear up). The same applies to shamans as well.
I agree wholeheartedly that some classes are just boring to level up. Priests are wanding machines and paladins rely on auto-attack only. Not very compelling gameplay, imo. Shamans, on the other hand, can fill every single role in a group play. All you need is a proper gear and talents and ability to adapt in a new playstyle.
The bottom line is: gear makes or breaks your gameplay. In retail you gear up automatically but in Classic you have to work for it.
It’s about balancing your killing with your downtime. It’s very much the case that if you want to offload all your spells or abilities every fight, you are going to have to sit and eat/drink. Most people scale back their ability use to ensure they can do this every 3-4 mobs rather than every mob. Unfortunately this is the way it is in this version of the game, resource management is a necessary evil.
Play and undead alchemist rogue. With the benefits from cannilbalise (humanoids only) and lots of potions through alchemy, you can significantly cut your downtime, also make sure your first aid is always as high as you can get it.
It might just be that this version of the game is not for you, there’s no shame in that, we all like different things.
All I see is a person who doesn’t want to go OOM everytime they click Stormstrike + Earth Shock. I’ve never played retail except for a brief stint during August 2019 and I agree with him.
Personally, I think that TBC/WotLK are better than Classic in this sense. Especially when it comes to classes such as Shaman, Druid and Paladin.