well known because arguments i make have yet to be refuted.
crying (and lying) about something without making a valid point does not constitute an argument.
me being intellectually superior and managing to outmaneuver my peers does not make me a troll either.
feel free to check the post history btw.
i have admitted and demonstrated my grief about i.e elemental shamans with way of earth and other such BS many times over, while also telling paladins off for sucking at their class (as in; you can literally hear the truck beeping as they WASD around when trying to hit you in melee) - both things which are objectively true.
blizzard had to give them literal instagibs on top of immortality and all of shaman’s toolkit, AND participation trophies in the form of “just try and you get 3 marks” ABs before they even remotely started showing how “skillful” they are at the game, while simultaneously nerfing shaman (a class that is supposed to HARD COUNTER paladin) to the point of today, where we basically can’t even fight back.
Considering you were arguing with me over Horn of lordaeron and BoM in earlier phases and paladins not using it even though it wasn’t actually better DPS output until 60 and was also EXCLUSIVE to BoM. You were pretty adamant they were just being selfish because it shared a rune with divine storm and we could get BoM and horn if they just swapped rune…
So both of these statements are just a little bit of a stretch don’t you think? Intellectually superior? Brother please don’t kid yourself. Half of your balancing suggestions feel like a strange fever dream sometimes, you claim to understand the class was broken in the past and then suggest borderline broken abilities or to reinstate what was deemed as broken back into the game? Contradiction doesn’t scream intelligence to me chief. The amount of defending you were doing of a clearly overtuned class to anyone that wasn’t a delusional shaman enthusiast deemed you as a troll. No one had to give you that moniker you did it to yourself by trying to argue the class wasn’t overtuned for months on end. You just insisted everyone else was just bad at the game, it’s all just misplays and definitely not any type of balancing problem with the class
Yep cause reverting or buffing a bunch of things that made them broken in earlier phases won’t make them broken again now, resulting in those same abilities getting nerfed again and the cycle repeating itself? Nice logic.
So like basically every other spec that has 1 row of runes to choose from for their spec and MAYBE a pvp option if you are lucky. Skullbash might as well not exist for feral druid. Almost every single rune is 1 dimensional and locked to that spec.
The fact you want decoy totem to remove active stuns, sham rage buffs, riptide reverted same with earth shield, insta cast ghost wolf + healing buff on mental dex and spell pushback protection, just for the class to be “Good” speaks volumes.
Welcome to being middle of the pack like basically every other melee is this phase in pvp.
Suffer playing the inferior spec in PvP. (I also choose this from playing feral instead of boomie) Or just play ele/tank hybrid abomination spec until it gets nerfed or other spec gets buffed.
The faint echoes of “Skill issue” and “Git Gud” are heard in the distance
This was the common answer to most complaints others had trying to deal with a clearly overtuned spec in previous phases, and now it will be the common answer to playing a middle of the pack melee into Meta/Fotm specs. Just play better 4Head
The previous zugzugs have retreated to their new orange FoTM chicken class, now only the true shaman players are left with just a husk of their former selves. Salvaging the last remaining fragments to piece together something that just about works. You are left with the tank hybrid pvp spec and that’s about it if you want to play melee.
The whole time this is a thing I highly doubt you will be seeing enhance buffs that would otherwise bleed over and affect this abomination of a spec making it more stupid than it is currently in PvP. You have to remember that every change that you make that could otherwise impact something that is already very strong/borderline broken is a thin rope to walk on. Suggesting very strong buffs that wouldn’t have some restriction or requirement to stop it from being abused by the already broken specs need to be taken into consideration.
This is the reason behind most of the Shaman runes now having some form of limitation on them to stop them having so much synergy between the “Not intended spec” and PvP specs. This isn’t something that was taken into consideration with the initial design choice of shaman runes but is very much something they are taking into consideration now when they nerf/buff things. Hence the shield requirements, Range nerfs, healing nerfs.
Druid frenzy regen having steeper mana costs for boomie/resto now in p5, Survival instincts stating that it doesn’t effect the healing done by frenzied regen in order to not double dip from extra healing increase ontop of HP pool increase. But it allowed resto druids to have a healing CD on an otherwise pretty dead rune slot outside of ST set and this tier. (Not so dead now with dreamstate being on resto druid t2 again) All of the latest changes/buffs/nerfs w/e you wanna call them have some form of a caveat to them instead of just being a flat buff. Blizz are way more mindful of the crossover between runes and non-intended specs using them for PvP.
Downplaying their strengths for months on end instead of just being honest about the class being broken is half the reason we end up in a situation like this in the first place.
Shamans had a lot of people defending them in earlier phases. Now they just defend starfall and 4k+ starfire crits and tell us we are bad and don’t understand how the game works instead. The loud shaman voices disappeared and turned into astral chickens with free action pot casting starfall.
The mass majority will always flock to the easiest class to perform well on it. This isn’t a new phenomenon. Especially not in regards to PvP.
Hence the overwhelming number of shamans in previous phases compared to now. And now the overwhelmingly high number of boomies that just kind of cropped up out of nowhere this phase compared to p4.
Class flew too close to the sun and is paying the price for it now. Sucks but it is what it is.
Hopefully Boomie sees the same treatment soon since everyone hopped ship to that now. If the previous changes for overtuned specs is anything to go by, then maybe in like 2 content patches we might see a nerf. Lmao
Boomies make me sick, their dots does more dps than my entire toolkit as a paladin. Ontop of how good they are it is almost impossible finding ferals for wild strikes
All we wanted was Crusader Strike back, really.
But Blizzard had to implement way too many Runes into SoD, so now we’re all in this mess together coming from one-Button classes to the other extreme, where you might not even have enough time to use more than three out of your five abilities.
I wouldn’t go back to Era tho, where a Ret is genuinely bad to either bring along or play yourself. something in between could be great
Oh no you’re right to point out your class weaknesses and ask for a balancing.
It’s just that the shaman community has been so hypocritical and acting so superior during the last phases that it’s really enjoyable to see them crying now. Especially when your class is more than viable.
I mean, as long as those guys are the most outspoken pro-shaman players on these forums you won’t have a shred of sympathy.
Worried shamans will hog all the sympathy away from your pity party?
Yes yes, everyone is familiar with your song about paladins being the worst at everything, it’s your no.1 hit.
Shamans will be fine. Nothing of value was lost, all the totem-less dregs have moved on to play the FotM.
And as bonus there is just about nothing left to nerf for Shamans anymore(this is reflected pretty well both in the PvP and PvE performance atm).
I guess this is what worries you the most, that the nerf hammer might depart Shaman town and start swinging elsewhere.
Don’t get too anxious, if you are such a dedicated paladin player I’m sure you’ll manage… Oh I forgot you keep asking for 3 min CD on bubble, because you can’t play this class unless immune to everything seemingly. Would be a shame if something happened then, don’t you think?
i am not going to get into another 9 page discussion thread with you.
i will forego responding to any of the numerous points where you include insulting language and insinuations and simply address a few valid bullet points and call it a day.
some suggestions does not mean “do all of this at the same time”.
these suggestions are not meant to be collectively applied.
1-2 of them being applied would go a long way to fix enhancement shaman in pvp and pve.
i don’t care.
this thread is not about feral druid issues.
campaign for fixes to your own class/spec instead of advocating that others should suffer from the same issues you are.
and i’ll repeat; i didn’t mean for all of the suggestions to all be applied simultaneously.
is it an elaboration issue? - possibly.
could this be a deliberate misinterpretation of what is being said, on your part, to make what i am saying seem outrageous? - highly likely.
its just enh shaman and maybe feral kitty tho.
everyone else is fine.
melee in general is by no means “middle of the pack”.
have you seen what a good ret paladin or rogue can do?
have you seen what a good warrior can do?
also, ele/tank hybrid is not good in pvp. its easily kited to death, far easier than enh shaman is cus the spec has 10-20 yards range of effect and no offensive capability.
all it has going for it, is slowly flame shocking things to death while outlasting any incoming punishment.
step away 20 yards and the “abomination” that is ele/tank shaman literally won’t be able to touch you with anything, meaning anything that isn’t strictly a melee class can destroy them with ease without suffering even 1 damage to their hp pool.
i’ll double down on that btw.
paladin players are bad and suffer from MASSIVE skill issues from A to Z.
whether its controlling their character with their mouse (instead of WASDing like a pleb).
whether its putting cleanse in their action bar.
whether its using their blessings to be a team player (yo, maybe BoF that warrior who is frost nova’d?).
many more such examples are APLENTY in this game, and if you wanna deny that, then go ahead and put the blindfold on.
i made enhancement shaman function in pvp despite the gimped state, as i always have, but that doesn’t mean i don’t recognize the issues the class currently has - especially compared to some of the more busted class/specs that currently exist in the meta.
indeed.
this is how i do my pvp with my gimped class btw.
always have, always will.
this isn’t just how i overcome my problems in SOD, its how i have overcome my problems as enhancement shaman for 20 years playing all versions of classic wow.
sometimes, it is in fact a matter of just playing better.
correct.
a good shaman player can still make enhancement work, make no mistake about that cus it works for me, albeit with a lot of extra effort invested, along with unconventional tactics that might cost you a bit of gold.
its the braindead flame shock/lava burst mashing poo poo shamans that never use totems that suffer the most as a result of nerfs to the class.
and mate, please stop posting ziqo stream links. that is just cringe.
ziqo doesn’t play enhancement, he plays ele/tank and ele/tank is the one shaman spec that works very well for anything it does inside of that 20 yard radius of effect.
step 21+ yards away from ziqo and even a nooblet frost bolt spammer/blinker can destroy him.
an ungeared - as in “naked” - hunter using nothing but a bow and his cheetah aspect + concussive shot + traps can in fact kill him without ever being touched.
also, lets not pretend ziqo is the average andy player.
this guy is a professional pvp player ranking among the best players in existence so using him as an example as to how strong shaman is on average, is nothing but a total copout.
all of this is basically true.
not going to disagree with any of that.
what makes me laugh is that blizzard already announced (through insinuations) that they are going to swing the nerfbat at hunter and boomkin next, however they were noticeably quiet in regards to paladin, which is worrisome.
boomkin frenzy regen is total BS tho, and that has to go if they wanna be consistent about not wanting hybrids to practice hybridity (which would include the ability to heal, which is one of those hybrid things shaman can’t do anymore).
said the paladin community without a sliver of irony
This isn’t about me complaining about feral, this is me stating every other class that has multiple roles bundled into certain specs has very 1 dimensional runes with little room to play anything else. I used skull bash as an example. It’s a very cookie cutter system by design. The fact shamans had so much flexibility with this rune synergy in the first place was clearly an oversight. It just feels worse because you had it before and now it’s gone. Other classes never had the choice to begin with.
Then be more specific with stating for certain buffs, when you are effectively just throwing out everything that has been reverted ontop of other buffs it doesn’t sound reasonable.
Clearly stating that 1 or 2 of these things would be enough to change the tides for PvP would be sufficient rather than almost implying that all of it is needed in order to make the class actually viable. Be very specific with it. Just my 2cents.
It’s a ranged meta, Boomie/Hunter/Shaman/Shockadin.
Spriest with the new cassandras tome SW:D batching is kinda nasty too but not oppressive like earlier phases.
The only arguably strong melee in the meta right now is ret/shockadin tbh.
Rogue is kinda 50:50, most people playing them aren’t amazing and the class now actually has windows to counterplay so everyone playing like its era still is just getting dumpstered. The few good ones are a menace for sure but they are so rare rn, at least as alliance, IDK if your experience is vastly different on horde but I wouldn’t have thought so. Half the rogues I see hit into Pala bubble with abilities after its been up for 3/4 seconds so… xd
Warrior WITH support from team is great but I wouldn’t say they are an outlier right now. MS is strong, Glad stance is good, Shockwave is amazing, 5min Shieldwall. But unless BiS geared not really cranking on people though. Amazing front line regardless.
But they aren’t deleting people from the game like boomie.
I won’t downplay rogue and warrior as being good rn. But the lack of good rogues compared to bad ones aren’t making them super oppressive. Bad rogues get clapped. And good warriors with no team are the same. Good warriors can snowball hard though And good rogues can delete healers with no peels still. I will give you that.
Ret/Shockadin are the only “Melee” that aren’t middle of the pack in this meta rn.
Bad boomie is 10x more effective than a good rogue/warrior. And there is no debating it. Hunter is basically getting to that point too. Double chim shot is actually cancer.
Ele tank is insane for spinning flags and soaking damage from melee, its an amazing front line that actually has poke abilities when contested and not just a total damage sponge, interrupts, grounding, tremor, freedom, dogs. Getting healed and being able to frontline they are one of the best for it rn. Shaman + Warrior is nasty to deal with when they are pressuring you as a healer.
If i’m trying to take a node and i have no CC, cant cap during bash and rooting away from flag and shock range doesnt matter anymore with freedom. So its kill or be killed and they are great at stalling the flag in those situations. I don’t play ranged so i don’t know the luxury of just walking up to shaman and deleting them. It’s always war of attrition as melee. Especially if they resist stun on opener.
The problem is, It wasn’t just paladins complaining about shamans in previous phases. It was basically every class in the roster lol. And the same replies of skill issue, or git gud was used in response. Yeah pala players may have been the biggest ones complaining about it, but the reality was everyone got blasted by shamans in previous phases and we got told to just git gud and the class wasn’t overtuned lol…
Now the same thing could be said that ret is very strong with pve set bonuses in PvP. And that these people should just get good and play better. It’s a skill issue.
Not that the pve sets make the class overtuned at all… (Quick delusion check: They do)
Kinda like the rune synergy for shamans in previous phases weren’t slightly broken and overperforming compared to everything else that other specs had.
Sometimes it isn’t a case of git gud and that something generally is overtuned.
Getting hit with a seal twist for 3/4 of your health bar in a single global is no different from the lava burst rail gun experience in earlier phases or the starfire hitting for 4k in this phase. It doesn’t feel good that the room to counterplay is basically none when for them to achieve that output it is basically just W key and press pve rotation.
How does one git gud from perma spell pushback from boomie dots into orbital cannon hitting you for 4k before you even get into range to do anything, and that’s not even mentioning 2pc t2 ZG trinket FaP and starfall being able to just delete 3 people from the game lol
I’ve played cat in PvP for the past 5 phases. If you like the class you play it even when it isn’t the best. Not being meta slave is nice and it feels way more rewarding to dumpster people playing objectively the worse spec. Playing the gimp spec actually has skill expression which in itself is actually rewarding.
But there are scenarios that you are screwed no matter which outcome you pick when the class is so drastically overtuned and your class either lacks damage or toolkit to be able to deal with it.
Take shadowpriest 2 dot driveby into SW:D in earlier phases for example. If you couldn’t dispel or heal and they had dispersion off CD, you lose that fight 99% of the time unless they DC. Where is the git gud against that as a class that cannot do that? Carry shadow protection pots and resto pots with you everywhere to deal with 1 class? rather than the class might just be overtuned and need balancing changes?
This is what most of us have had to do to make the class work, use slightly unconventional means and play a little more outside of the box while other classes just W key at you from start to finish. But if people want the same experience they had from the past phases. I don’t think it’s coming back like that.
I post ziqo links because he IS a good player and his opinions are actually credible when regarding certain topics. You can’t dispute he is a better player than probably 99.99% of the people that frequent the forums and his understanding of the game is insane. He has said many times on stream that the class is still very much broken and very easy to play in PvP and perform well at.
I posted it because the ele tank build exists and the buffs that were suggested for enhance would directly bleed over into this build which is already seriously strong vs melee, So the whole time that spec can do that blizz are gonna be very hesitant on what buffs shaman get in general.
Go watch any of the interfactional dueling tournament that just happened for SoD and you will see shamans not cancelling ghost wolf and getting flash bombed with so many misplays still dumpstering people lol… And that isn’t even playing the ele tank hybrid spec cause it was banned afaik. Only other specs that were dominating that tournament were boomies/shockadin. It’s from a couple of weeks ago so is very much relevant to this conversation. And these aren’t big name pro players. There are even some living flame names on there.
I have read the same things for hunter and boomie but outside of that stealth nerf to frenzy the same time riptide/earthshield got hit for non resto specs. But considering we didn’t even get patch notes for it. It’s debatable when they will actually hit these classes.
Big problem with boomie frenzy is they can run resto gloves for improved barkskin aswell as Survival of the fittest and end up being incredibly tanky even with the higher mana cost on frenzy. So they just end up bark into frenzy, 10% damage reduction from SoTF 20% from Barkskin to physical damage, so they just face tank melee damage. Unless you can mortal strike their frenzy its rough.
The mana increase was a good start but it didn’t really solve the problem. Completely gutting frenzy healing would hurt feral which already doesn’t feel particularly strong in this meta. Monobear is just damage sponge, and cat is kinda just cat. It has its moments to shine but otherwise you are just there and super vulnerable to any hard swap. Frenzy is one of the only things we get as cat to sustain and still be able to actively shift between bear and cat. Wouldn’t be against it forcing you into cat/bear form to use improved frenzy. Or cancelling starfall. That way it doesn’t screw tanks using it in PvE but is a direct nerf to boomie PvP.
The whole hybrid tax thing is basically a meme at this point. It’s only the melee version of hybrids that get shafted, all the caster variants aren’t actually gimped by it anywhere near as bad. Boomie really strong, Shockadin really strong, Ele and ele/tank hybrid really strong, Ret has good burst but its healing output to mana isn’t much better than the other “Melee” hybrids they just have the libram that restores mana which makes it way better than Feral/Enhance.
Numbers wise it isn’t much different than healing touch they just don’t run oom after 2 casts cause crusader strike + libram, if I don’t watch mana and heal too much that I can’t shift into form i’m basically dead anyways.
has to go if they wanna be consistent about not wanting hybrids to practice hybridity (which would include the ability to heal, which is one of those hybrid things shaman can’t do anymore).