What are the intentions with the Shaman class?

[Thefnom]

Bump.

The new sets seem great, but will they make anyone seriously play enhancement? Will the class be looked at?

[Paw]

Best change would be if they could be dwarves.

[Glaive]

What if...what if they got like an instant attack that increased the nature damage they deal to the target...the nature damage debuff could stack up to 5.

Just spitballin' here.

And P.S. make ghostwolf go 100% after a quest at 60. That'd be about square.

[Garab]

I started playing on Turtle wow mostly for Hardcore but now my brother is moving over here aswell and he has no love for Hardcore at all.

When I began playing Word of Warcraft back when it first released I was hell bent on playing a Shaman, and as all of us who did, just kind of accepted the fact that we *had* to play as restoration after level 60. I did not have a problem with that. I picked shaman because I wanted to be a support class. What started to bug me, and eventualy made me switch my main char, was that I could not play my class the way I wanted.

Fast forward to today. As I'm reading the forums it seems like it's pretty much the same.

Personaly I don't have an issue with a hybrid class not topping the dps meters or beeing the best tank. I have no problem with providing my party/raid with utility. But I want to be able to fill a supporting role and still contribute as a damage dealer or offtank.

So, without knowing much about shamans on Turtle (yet) I am hoping that some of the issues you have pointed out un this thread is addresed in some kind od way.

[Charanko]

just make wepon enchants and totems stack for shaman... for example one flametongue on wep and one wf on totem both work on shaman = dps boost... but cap it at one totem

[Fredmonroe]

kek u act like Mana is exclusively useful for doing damage. that capstone ability is for sustainability and survivability its not very good evidence of your fantasy "blizz intent was for enhancement to be a DPS powerhouse"

yes dumbass your position is that Enhancement are NOT CURRENTLY Melee DPS Powerhouses but that they SHOULD BE becuz BLIZZ (in your imagination) wanted them to be so (but failed according to your standards)

What exactly is the claim here - that TBC doesn't show that blizz intended for Enhance to be a DPS spec rather than a support spec?

Let's go through the talent changes in TBC:

1) Dual wield & a Dual wield hit chance increase: OK this is pretty damn strong evidence right out the gate of being a DPS, not support, but let's continue for the fun of it. 1 point for dps. (I realize this is two separate talents, but we'll count it as 1 to be generous to you)

2) Your next shock cost is reduced by 60% after a melee critical strike: OK extremely obviously a pure DPS, not support thing. You have to get a melee crit, and your damaging spells cost less mana. 2 points for dps.

3) Your attack power becomes spellpower and healing: But wait, I hear you say "it gives HEALING - so we really don't know if it's meant to be a support or DPS thing." Even if we respect that argument (which, lmao), the fact of the matter is we have a tiebreaker. Namely, it's ATTACK POWER that's converted, so that points to this being a DPS ability. And what's this - we also have a second tie breaker - it also reduces the mana cost of your shocks (not your "support spells" but your shocks). So again, clearly DPS. 3 points for dps

4) Unleashed rage, AKA shitty battleshout: Listen, I respect you enough to believe you wouldn't say "actually warriors were intended to be a support because they have battleshout," so I don't expect you to argue this point. But just for fun, let's say you did. Ultimately, unlike battleshout, this ability is triggered by a melee critical strike, it only lasts 10 seconds so you have to be constantly attacking and critting, and its effect is based off the Shaman's attack power (10% of the shaman's AP). So there's three separate ways in which it's more obviously a DPS thing compared to battleshout. But I'm feeling generous, let's call it a tie. 3.5 points for dps, 0.5 points for support.

5) Parry reduces your threat generated by melee attacks ONLY. This is purely a buff that lets a shaman deal roughly 40% more melee damage without pulling aggro (because it reduces your threat generated by 30%). It doesn't reduce threat generated by other "supporty" sources (e.g. healing). 4.5 dps, 0.5 support.

6) Finally we have Shamanistic Rage. You point out that 'giving mana'/sustain is not necessarily on the DPS or Support spectrum, because you could use the mana for either purpose. Fair enough, we need a tie breaker. And it's right there in the ability - namely, it regenerates mana on MELEE ATTACK, and the mana regenerated is based on ATTACK POWER. So there we go - if we were unclear about where to put it given that it gives mana which could be used for either, that settles it as a melee dps thing.

Separately, as you may be aware, when you use the ability, you end up generating a shit ton of mana, very often more than you can even spend. So when it's up, you're going full balls to the wall - shocking on CD even if shamanistic focus is down, using stormstrike on cooldown, using fire nova totem and then using another fire totem when it's down, recasting your lightning shield, and twisting in a grace of air (instead of just letting it sit on WF for everybody else). So it very much is a "it's time to do DPS" button. The fact that it gives you damage reduction allows you to actually stay in and do all that damage when the cooldown is up instead of having to run out if you're taking too much AoE damage.

So the final count is 5.5 dps, 0.5 support. TBC talents clearly show, that at least in TBC, Enhance was envisioned to be a DPS in its own right rather than some pure support class. Given that there was the same class designer for both games, and from the "bus shock" incident that a bunch of changes were planned for vanilla but held back for TBC, and it seems fair to see this was the vision of enhance in vanilla as well.

Edit: 7) - I forgot to mention stormstrike was changed. Cooldown was halved, and mana cost was reduced by 62%. Again clearly a DPS change, so 6.5 dps, 0.5 support.

its funneh u clowns smugly pointed to that 3 hour long vid to 'own me' when I can point to that 2005 "Class Panel" video wherein its outright stated shamans were meant to be "CASTERS FIRST and melee DPS SECOND".

Also yes they were apparently at some point in development just Totem dispensers shitting out endless totems. That was their original primary role.

I'd be interested in seeing that video. In any event, the video that was linked to you was an interview with Kevin Jordan, the class designer of Vanilla WoW. From what he's said in interviews, it was a basically a one-man job and he was unfettered in design. So unless that class panel had Kevin Jordan on it (which, it very well may have!) it's superseded by a better authority.

Again, I haven't seen the video, so I'm just going off what you said, but I don't read "CASTERS FIRST and melee DPS SECOND" to be a statement about it being a DPS vs Support class. If they had wanted to stress it was a support, they would have said "HEALER FIRST" or "SUPPORT FIRST," not "CASTER." For example, Mage is clearly a CASTER, but it doesn't strike me as a support.

Honestly, to me, that quote (though again, I'm just going off what you wrote) reads more as saying that Elemental shaman was the favorite child for shaman.

I'd also note that Enhance itself being a Caster first and melee DPS second is not at all contradictory to it being a DPS and not a support class. Consider Wrath shaman, for instance. They cast fire nova every 3 seconds, shocks every 5 seconds, instacast lightning bolts every 3-10 seconds (depending on luck), and lightning shield fairly frequently too (given that it can now apply from melee hits). Compare that to their stormstrike every 8 seconds and lava lash every 6, and it's clear they're casting more caster-style spells than melee DPS spells/abilities. Yet they're still a DPS and not a "support."

Blizz gave countless (mediocre) tools/abilities/skills to Shamans allowing them to Tank (modest difficultly) content. I'd say 60% Effort is "a modicum"

Is the question here whether "Blizzard", that is, Kevin Jordan, intended for Shamans to tank? Because we have his direct answer on that - Shamans were intended to be able to tank up to ST, but no further. So not even endgame dungeons. There's nothing else to really say here - Blizzard/Kevin Jordan did not intend for shamans to be a serious tank.

Good. I like that they are acting at the Support Class that they were clearly designed to be.

Listen, you're welcome to enjoy what you enjoy. But the statement that they were "clearly designed to be" some support is really just not right. Again, you've used the passive voice "they were designed to be." The question is they were designed to be BY WHOM? By Kevin Jordan - and he's said exactly what his intention was. As a separate note about Kevin Jordan, he also said on the podcast that hybrid specs were intended to do "90-95%" of the damage of the pure DPS specs. So it's not really even clear any class was "designed to be a support" in the way you envision.

You want Enhancement Melee DPS Focused Shaman:
Go play WOTLK Classic as its your dream come true.

Have fun, champ!

If you seriously think that the only real/meaningful difference between Wrath and Vanilla is class design, then I really don't know what to say. Frankly, it's shocking to me that somebody who is posting on a Vanilla WoW private server forum could seriously hold this view. And yet, apparently, you do.

[Thefnom]

kek u act like Mana is exclusively useful for doing damage. that capstone ability is for sustainability and survivability its not very good evidence of your fantasy "blizz intent was for enhancement to be a DPS powerhouse"

yes dumbass your position is that Enhancement are NOT CURRENTLY Melee DPS Powerhouses but that they SHOULD BE becuz BLIZZ (in your imagination) wanted them to be so (but failed according to your standards)

What exactly is the claim here - that TBC doesn't show that blizz intended for Enhance to be a DPS spec rather than a support spec?

Let's go through the talent changes in TBC:

1) Dual wield & a Dual wield damage increase: OK this is pretty damn strong evidence right out the gate of being a DPS, not support, but let's continue for the fun of it. 1 point for dps.

2) Your next shock cost is reduced by 60% after a melee critical strike: OK extremely obviously a pure DPS, not support thing. You have to get a melee crit, and your damaging spells cost less mana. 2 points for dps.

3) Your attack power becomes spellpower and healing: But wait, I hear you say "it gives HEALING - so we really don't know if it's meant to be a support or DPS thing." Even if we respect that argument (which, lmao), the fact of the matter is we have a tiebreaker. Namely, it's ATTACK POWER that's converted, so that points to this being a DPS ability. And what's this - we also have a second tie breaker - it also reduces the mana cost of your shocks (not your "support spells" but your shocks). So again, clearly DPS. 3 points for dps

4) Unleashed rage, AKA shitty battleshout: Listen, I respect you enough to believe you wouldn't say "actually warriors were intended to be a support because they have battleshout," so I don't expect you to argue this point. But just for fun, let's say you did. Ultimately, unlike battleshout, this ability is triggered by a melee critical strike, it only lasts 10 seconds so you have to be constantly attacking and critting, and its effect is based off the Shaman's attack power (10% of the shaman's AP). So there's three separate ways in which it's more obviously a DPS thing compared to battleshout. But I'm feeling generous, let's call it a tie. 3.5 points for dps, 0.5 points for support.

5) Parry reduces your threat generated. Unless you're envisioning an enhance somehow generating a relevant amount of threat by healing (lmao), this is purely a buff that lets a shaman deal roughly 40% more damage without pulling aggro (because it reduces your threat generated by 30%). 4.5 dps, 0.5 support.

6) Finally we have Shamanistic Rage. You point out that "giving mana" is not necessary on the DPS or Support spectrum, because you could use the mana for either. Fair enough, we need a tie breaker. And it's right there in the ability - namely, it regenerates mana on MELEE ATTACK, and the mana regenerated is based on ATTACK POWER. So there we go - if we were unclear about where to put it given that it gives mana which could be used for either, that settles it as a melee dps thing.

Separately, as you may be aware, when you use the ability, you end up generating a shit ton of mana, very often more than you can even spend. So when it's up, you're going full balls to the wall - shocking on CD even if shamanistic focus is down, using stormstrike on cooldown, using fire nova totem and then using another fire totem when it's down, recasting your lightning shield, and twisting in a grace of air (instead of just letting it sit on WF for everybody else). So it very much is a "it's time to do DPS" button. The fact that it gives you damage reduction allows you to actually stay in and do all that damage when the cooldown is up instead of having to run out if you're taking too much AoE damage.

So the final count is 5.5 dps, 0.5 support. TBC talents clearly show, that at least in TBC, Enhance was envisioned to be a DPS in its own right rather than some pure support class. Given that there was the same class designer for both games, and from the "bus shock" incident that a bunch of changes were planned for vanilla but held back for TBC, and it seems fair to see this was the vision of enhance in vanilla as well.

its funneh u clowns smugly pointed to that 3 hour long vid to 'own me' when I can point to that 2005 "Class Panel" video wherein its outright stated shamans were meant to be "CASTERS FIRST and melee DPS SECOND".

Also yes they were apparently at some point in development just Totem dispensers shitting out endless totems. That was their original primary role.

I'd be interested in seeing that video. In any event, the video that was linked to you was an interview with Kevin Jordan, the class designer of Vanilla WoW. From what he's said in interviews, it was a basically a one-man job and he was unfettered in design. So unless that class panel had Kevin Jordan on it (which, it very well may have!) it's superseded by a better authority.

Again, I haven't seen the video, so I'm just going off what you said, but I don't read "CASTERS FIRST and melee DPS SECOND" to be a statement about it being a DPS vs Support class. If they had wanted to stress it was a support, they would have said "HEALER FIRST" or "SUPPORT FIRST," not "CASTER." For example, Mage is clearly a CASTER, but it doesn't strike me as a support.

Honestly, to me, that quote (though again, I'm just going off what you wrote) reads more as saying that Elemental shaman was the favorite child for shaman.

I'd also note that Enhance itself being a Caster first and melee DPS second is not at all contradictory to it being a DPS and not a support class. Consider Wrath shaman, for instance. They cast fire nova every 3 seconds, shocks every 5 seconds, instacast lightning bolts every 3-10 seconds (depending on luck), and lightning shield fairly frequently too (given that it can now apply from melee hits). Compare that to their stormstrike every 8 seconds and lava lash every 6, and it's clear they're casting more caster-style spells than melee DPS spells/abilities. Yet they're still a DPS and not a "support."

Blizz gave countless (mediocre) tools/abilities/skills to Shamans allowing them to Tank (modest difficultly) content. I'd say 60% Effort is "a modicum"

Is the question here whether "Blizzard", that is, Kevin Jordan, intended for Shamans to tank? Because we have his direct answer on that - Shamans were intended to be able to tank up to ST, but no further. So not even endgame dungeons. There's nothing else to really say here - Blizzard/Kevin Jordan did not intend for shamans to be a serious tank.

Good. I like that they are acting at the Support Class that they were clearly designed to be.

Listen, you're welcome to enjoy what you enjoy. But the statement that they were "clearly designed to be" some support is really just not right. Again, you've used the passive voice "they were designed to be." The question is they were designed to be BY WHOM? By Kevin Jordan - and he's said exactly what his intention was. As a separate note about Kevin Jordan, he also said on the podcast that hybrid specs were intended to do "90-95%" of the damage of the pure DPS specs. So it's not really even clear any class was "designed to be a support" in the way you envision.

You want Enhancement Melee DPS Focused Shaman:
Go play WOTLK Classic as its your dream come true.

Have fun, champ!

If you seriously think that the only real/meaningful difference between Wrath and Vanilla is class design, then I really don't know what to say. Frankly, it's shocking to me that somebody who is posting on a Vanilla WoW private server forum could seriously hold this view. And yet, apparently, you do.

We can probably all agree on that Blizzard INTENDED more for the class, regardless of how it ended up.
Unfortunately what we think is a skewed POV, what we believe or not "does not matter", the direction in which the devs decide to take the class does however.

This is exactly where we'd need some Twow development people to tell us what's up with the class.

[Fredmonroe]

We can probably all agree on that Blizzard INTENDED more for the class, regardless of how it ended up.
Unfortunately what we think is a skewed POV, what we believe or not "does not matter", the direction in which the devs decide to take the class does however.

This is exactly where we'd need some Twow development people to tell us what's up with the class.

I agree that clarity from Twow development team is needed here.

My post was just intended to show what the intended game design of Vanilla enhance was, which we have extremely good evidence for. Again, we have the words of the class designer himself, and we know the changes he made in TBC and Wrath, and we know that those TBC changes were intended for Vanilla, but held back due to the TBC release. So we know it was DPS, not support.

So, to the extent the Twow team has the intention of building on the Vanilla shaman class fantasy, or the intention of following through the with the intention of the developers, then we should make sure they have the proper data underlying their decision - which in this case is very much DPS and not leaning into being a support (which is what they have done). It seems to me that, supposing they were trying to follow through with the developers intention, that they were simply misinformed, like the person I responded to in my post. So I wanted to clear that up.

[Kingswiftietv]

Bumping to get shamans some love and would love to hear potential redesign plans. Its the only hybrid class that doesn't have a designated tank spec (which is.. fine i guess) but the two dps are not good and the niche that is multihealing is no longer there. Shaman deserve to be more than a totem during a raid.

[Luadoo]

PUMP IT PUMP IT

[Gladeshadow]

Blizzard made shamans as such an awful class in vanilla. They can be fun to play, but are such a struggle. TBC (and Wrath) added a lot of functionality they desperately needed besides being a wibdfury service.

I’d let them have plate armor. Helps them actually tank and makes them have more armor (without a shield) rather than the same as a hunter, which is quite silly when you think about it.

Would avoid giving them dual wield since we already have fury warriors and rogues covering the dual wield melee class. Also, this keeps them similar to paladins, which they are meant to be at least a bit similar to. To help shamans melee, I’d add a few more weapons which help them more than others, based on proc or simply adding something like raw AP. Similar to how some weapons give attack power for druid forms, some weapons could add AP or proc chance for weapons imbued specifically with windfury and it’s earth, fire, and frost flavors.

Also, make flanetongue add to spellpower. This one was of the many good changes to shamans in TBC. I’m certainly not advocating for TBC changed to every class, but a lot of those to shaman were clearly needed; shamans were an afterthought to the bliz devs pushing to finally release the game.

[Harkus]

Give shamans love, rawr rawr RAWR! :D

[Karrados]

Honestly, they need to figure out what they want Enhancement to be because this "Hybrid DPS/Tank" stuff does not work as well as it does for Druids.

Yeah, sure. They can tank up until 60 and then some but they will always be beneath the others. At the same time their DPS is abysmal and the only reason why they are tolerated is because of the Totems and Bloodlust which, if they really want to, a Resto can also provide.

Enhancer has absolutely no identity at this point and the addition / merging of the Tank Talents only reinforced that instead of helping the Spec.

[Thefnom]

We can probably all agree on that Blizzard INTENDED more for the class, regardless of how it ended up.
Unfortunately what we think is a skewed POV, what we believe or not "does not matter", the direction in which the devs decide to take the class does however.

This is exactly where we'd need some Twow development people to tell us what's up with the class.

I agree that clarity from Twow development team is needed here.

My post was just intended to show what the intended game design of Vanilla enhance was, which we have extremely good evidence for. Again, we have the words of the class designer himself, and we know the changes he made in TBC and Wrath, and we know that those TBC changes were intended for Vanilla, but held back due to the TBC release. So we know it was DPS, not support.

So, to the extent the Twow team has the intention of building on the Vanilla shaman class fantasy, or the intention of following through the with the intention of the developers, then we should make sure they have the proper data underlying their decision - which in this case is very much DPS and not leaning into being a support (which is what they have done). It seems to me that, supposing they were trying to follow through with the developers intention, that they were simply misinformed, like the person I responded to in my post. So I wanted to clear that up.

I get you, and I agree. Problem is that we can debate this until we become paladins.. (I believe Twow succeeded with paladins; they're played and the class is thriving)
We had strong indicators of what should've been and also later expansions where this was executed. Twow team has a whole bunch of expansios to look at and learn from if one wants to.

What is enhancement meant to on Twow? (Rhetorical question, unless Twow-dev likes to answer)

Tanks? - Hardly working. Tank shaman is probably the worst tanking spec there is.
Melee DPS? - Well, melee for sure, not so much DPS.
Support? .. Rather have an ele or a resto shaman. Glorified totem bot is kinda what the spec is, whose only purpose is to use a skill that shamans get a level 55. Not at all rewarding. I get the Support aspect, but please let the spec be a little rewarding.
(^ insert gif of Butterbot here)

Where is Twow taking this spec, or the class for that matter? Mystery continues.

WHAT AM I?!
// Enhancement shamans of Twow

[Silb]

Directing totems' aggro to the shaman would fix shamtank's aoe tanking since they already have good single target threat. Their biggest problem from my experience is that they oom really fast, despite elemental focus.

Shamans need some form of mana regen; water shield is nice but it competes with earth/ lightning shield and it doesn't do anything for dps specs. Giving it a passive mp5 like in TBC is a boring solution, but it works.

[Williamson75]

Bumping again wish a dev would comment on if they are seriously looking to buff some of the class or just make gear that gets nerfed because it's too good for other classes. As it is windfury is still why they are scared to buff the class having a higher proc rate then 1 attack would fix the burst problem.

[Thefnom]

Bump give us an identity. Try fix our mana problems.

[Shammylover67]

I think the clearest option is to make enhancement into a much more viable tank. This gives the full options offered by Paladin while retaining class identity. Shaman’s pure DPS spec can be elemental while Paladin’s is retribution. Makes much more sense for the shammy to be hurling lightning than smacking things. Melee enhance already exists with 2h PvP spec and has plenty of flavor to kind of resemble what cat form/bear form is for druids. A two-in-one melee dps/tank spec. Neither better than warrior or rogue while still retaining plenty of unique class fantasy. This also completely solves the PvP balancing issue because increasing tank ability isn’t going to do much on the battlefield.

I’d be extremely happy with shaman consisting of:
Ele - Pure Dps
Enhance - Tank
Resto - Heals

Like it is a cool counter that shaman receives a ranged caster dps to combat paladin’s melee which I think plays so nicely. Does any sham really care that enhance isn’t the greatest melee dps in the game if they also have the option to build a badass tank like Druid can?

[Bigsmerf]

I’d be extremely happy with shaman consisting of:
Ele - Pure Dps
Enhance - Tank
Resto - Heals

Like it is a cool counter that shaman receives a ranged caster dps to combat paladin’s melee which I think plays so nicely. Does any sham really care that enhance isn’t the greatest melee dps in the game if they also have the option to build a badass tank like Druid can?

Well, see, druid can both tank and DPS exceptionally as feral (Not optimally for both but in the vast scope of things a bear-cat build still performs well or you could just spec mainly for one or the other and still do your non preferred role just fine.) and neither enhance tanks or dps are very good at doing purely those roles. They can shit out some totems and throw a bloodlust on the MT, sure, but their dps and general tank toolkit is lacking. I would rework enhance to be both dps and tank like feral is. **MANY** vanilla+ servers have already done this and it seems to work out well. It would take more work than just fixing enhance as a dps spec, but would overall please more people, and keep the option to tank, along with improving it.

[Shammylover67]

Totally hear you but enhance does dominate in PvP lol. Wouldn’t you be happy with a sick enhancement tank even it meant the melee dps wasn’t perfect? I agree though… they have easily fixed Kitty and bear to work perfectly. They could achieve the same thing for enhance. I just think we have to view shaman as the yin to paladin’s yang. Paladin has one tank, one heal, one dps spec. Shaman should equal that and we can’t discount the fact that we have a powerful ranged caster option with ele. We don’t have to be druids

[Bigsmerf]

Yeah, I could definitely get behind the enhance tank being the more prominent side of the talent tree, as someone who's tanked... RFC. That's really it XD. so long as their dps is still improved in comparison to the way it is now. As for their viability in PvP, I don't have any comment on that.

[Shammylover67]

Yeah, I could definitely get behind the enhance tank being the more prominent side of the talent tree, as someone who's tanked... RFC. That's really it XD. so long as their dps is still improved in comparison to the way it is now. As for their viability in PvP, I don't have any comment on that.

I think it’s the perfect elegant solution. Brings more tanks to the population, gels so nicely with the two opposing class fantasies, it’s a win all around. As for enhance pvp… it is psychotic strong lol. Absolutely legendary! Even back in OG vanilla.

Strengthen enhance tank, make ele the pure dps option for people who want to push their raiding damage, and you still get the sweet option of a super fun melee pvp spec.

[Bigsmerf]

Yeah, I could definitely get behind the enhance tank being the more prominent side of the talent tree, as someone who's tanked... RFC. That's really it XD. so long as their dps is still improved in comparison to the way it is now. As for their viability in PvP, I don't have any comment on that.

I think it’s the perfect elegant solution. Brings more tanks to the population, gels so nicely with the two opposing class fantasies, it’s a win all around. As for enhance pvp… it is psychotic strong lol. Absolutely legendary, even back in OG vanilla

Well, I mean, I think sham tanks would really only interest people who already tank, or other sham specs. You can't show a new tanking spec to a lifelong DPS main and expect him to go "Holy shit I've found my calling." People have to be willing to fill the role regularly imo. Sure, there'd be more attraction, but it's not gonna be anything significant. Now, I don't want to discard your claim on enhance's PvP, but I haven't really heard anything from anyone here on the forums. Ele shams, sure. I hear those are broken as heck, but other than that enhancement isn't discussed often, if at all.

[Shammylover67]

Let’s be honest, lifelong pure dps mains know exactly what class they’re playing xD. *cough* warrior, mage, rogue, and hunter

This is definitely to appeal to the niche shaman crowd. It’s like giving the people who will always be paladins no matter what the ability to tank. More options for the hybrid weirdos that we are since we are wayyyy too cool to play the Uber dmg classes :)

Like yes -I- want to be a shaman tank. But that’s one more active tank on the realm helping people gear up. I’m sure there’s many people like me who are like you know what.. I will invest 300 hours into tanking if I can do it on the class I love.

[Thefnom]

Let’s be honest, lifelong pure dps mains know exactly what class they’re playing xD. *cough* warrior, mage, rogue, and hunter

This is definitely to appeal to the niche shaman crowd. It’s like giving the people who will always be paladins no matter what the ability to tank. More options for the hybrid weirdos that we are since we are wayyyy too cool to play the Uber dmg classes :)

Like yes -I- want to be a shaman tank. But that’s one more active tank on the realm helping people gear up. I’m sure there’s many people like me who are like you know what.. I will invest 300 hours into tanking if I can do it on the class I love.

Lifelong DPS might try something different but viable here, such as ret/spell paladin and ele/enh shaman.

I feel like making shaman tank work for raids is such a huge rework in uncharted territory, while whatever enhancements (hehe) have been made in later expansions is literally a cheat sheet to what works and what doesn't.
If Warden is the route Twow takes it, that's fine; Twow can pick any lane that they desire and go with it, but we would collectively love to know WHICH lane.

[Ryo3000]

Here to bump and to say I don't really care what was the Intended vision Blizzard had for Shamans all those years ago.

If the TWOW devs want to make shamans tanks viable or not, dual wielding or not* I want them to say "This is what we see for shaman" not what 2006 Blizzard intended

*(and I'd prefer not dual wielding, make 2h shamans better instead)

[Williamson75]

Two hand enhance is the name of the game. Reworking of imbues is vital and adding a bit more personal DPS to the kit is really all we need for DPS. Not an expert on shaman tanking better people to talk about it than me. We are godly support as is

[Fredmonroe]

I think it’s the perfect elegant solution. Brings more tanks to the population, gels so nicely with the two opposing class fantasies, it’s a win all around. As for enhance pvp… it is psychotic strong lol. Absolutely legendary! Even back in OG vanilla.

I don't mean to be rude, but where do you get this idea that enhancement shaman is insanely strong?

I did a fair amount of ranking on both Nost (horde side) and Elysium (alliance side - on Ely it was serious premade ranking), as well as a bit on classic servers (although, not nearly as much as on pservers). Enhancement shamans were an extremely rare sight, and never something you'd see in a serious premade PvP group.

Why? Well at the end of the day enhancement shaman is:
1) A mostly-melee class with no gap close and no real ability to cleanse CCs, leading to it being insanely kiteable
2) The class with the worst CC in the game (frost shock and earthbind... that's it)
3) A class with absolutely horrendous sustain (your mana bar is depleted instantly, and then you can't really do shit)
4) Poor damage to boot, even if you can somehow deal with problems 1-3 (which are crippling).

As it turns out, all those premade groups and pserver players who had put in thousands in vanilla, did, in fact, know what they were doing in excluding enhance.

And what about duels? Well, we saw the CDL at the start of classic. And let's be clear - this is an absolutely bonkers ideal situation for enhance. It's a duel, so you have to stay near the flag, which reduces kiting. It was at the very start of the server, so people were rocking mostly pre-raid BiS or some mix of that and tier 1 - so the gear differentials that cause enhance to really suffer later on are not present. And there was spellbatching which generally allowed melee to break certain CCs (most importantly, polymorph) with a dark rune. And yet, despite this being the absolute ideal situation for enhancement, their performance in the duel tournament was quite poor.

The fact of the matter is, shaman is terrible in PvP. It's not even decent or good, let alone "psychotic strong."

[Manletow]

As for enhance pvp… it is psychotic strong lol. Even back in OG vanilla.

where do you get this idea that enhancement shaman is insanely strong?

enhancement shaman is:
1) A mostly-melee class with no gap close and no real ability to cleanse CCs, leading to it being insanely kiteable
2) The class with the worst CC in the game (frost shock and earthbind... that's it)
3) A class with absolutely horrendous sustain (your mana bar is depleted instantly, and then you can't really do shit)
4) Poor damage to boot, even if you can somehow deal with problems 1-3 (which are crippling).

Enhancement) shaman is terrible in PvP. It's not even decent or good, let alone "psychotic strong."

First let me say that I won't be responding to that massive essay you wrote in defense of the (obviously wrong) position that Vanilla/TBC Enhancement Shaman was "meant to be a melee DPS powerhouse" and not a "sidelines supporter/caster".

Sorry!
I'll admit you did make half-decent arguments for that (fundamentally misguided/erroneous) idea tho.

As for PvP... "Shammylovers' sentiment is obviously incorrect. Enhancement is bottom Tier.
(not THE bottom mind you: that is reserved for the hopelessly inept Warrior class).

It's pretty certain Shamlover says this cuz he watched popular YouTube clips of 'Windfury proc 'One-Shot' Ownage" which leads people to have a misguided view of the power of the class in PVP.

Just like people watched Swiftys Warrior Vids and so thought Warrior was S-tier in PVP. (LOLno)

I somewhat agree with your 4 points (to an extent) but overall I would say they ARE 'decent' in PVP.
As 'bottom tier' just means 'generally mediocre' not 'useless'.
(Warrior is the only truly 'Trash' class in PVP)

The problem is people want to play Enhancement as One-man-army melee DPS powerhouses, running into the fray with that 2hander ready with Windfury.

They quickly die and often get few to no kills. This game-play style is totally misguided and foolish.

The reason is because Enhancement is (as its name suggests) a support class -- designed to provide help to others (and opportunistically screw over enemies).

It does a half decent job of this -- staying alive a decent time via Shield/Tanking talents.
It's primary weakness being it runs out of mana quite quickly (and if not talented into Resto the mere 20 yard Totem range is painfully restrictive)

[Fredmonroe]

First let me say that I won't be responding to that massive essay you wrote in defense of the (obviously wrong) position that Vanilla/TBC Enhancement Shaman was "meant to be a melee DPS powerhouse" and not a "sidelines supporter/caster".

Sorry!
I'll admit you did make half-decent arguments for that (fundamentally misguided/erroneous) idea tho.

Ha, essay! Edit: removing statements about reading length, given this is not a US forum.

Ok, let me shorten this to something I'm confident can be read in under 5 minutes.

Kevin Jordan was the original class designer of classic, and it was a one-man team. He has stated in interviews that hybrids were meant to do 90-95% of the damage of the pure DPS classes.

He also designed the TBC shaman, and the changes he made there were ready to go as of at least patch 1.11, but potentially as early as 1.9, but they were held back because TBC was going to launch. There's 7 major TBC changes, and every single one of them leans into Shaman being a DPS spec.

When you are stating that the design was "meant to be sidelines supporter/caster" you are saying that is what Kevin Jordan intended, as he was the person who designed it all.

So you are saying "Despite Kevin Jordan denying this, and despite there being 7 talent changes in TBC which all lean into being a DPS spec, Kevin Jordan's intention was "obviously" to have Shaman being a caster/support. " That's just bonkers - you're accusing Kevin Jordan of lying in his interviews, and somehow also just dismissing that all the TBC changes are inconsistent with that.

You also admitted that enhance was meant to be a DPS in wrath. But the changes here are mostly caster: fire nova every 3 seconds, maelstrom giving instant cast and lower mana lightning bolts and heals, and lightning shield being able to be applied on hit. Additionally, the lower shock mana cost talent no longer requires you to land a melee critical hit first. On the melee side, they added lavalash and reduced stormstrike by 2seconds (and refunded mana). Wrath shaman became more caster than TBC, yet somehow TBC isn't melee DPS while Wrath is? (The last major WotLK change was wolves, though I'm not sure this really falls on the melee dps/caster spectrum).

'warrior is the worst'

I guess I wonder what we're talking about here. I agree that Warrior is totally hopeless in the world. But in premade PvP, it's pretty strong. Or, at least, it would be a complete shock to see a premade comp on Elysium or Nost not run a warrior.

This is because mortal strike is simply an insane ability. In a normal WSG teamfight, each side will have 2 or 3 healers. Killing a target that is not mortal struck is extremely difficult. Hell, even killing the mortal struck target (which is often the other warrior, to be fair) is quite hard - but at the very least, it causes the enemy team's healers to use more mana healing, and otherwise be preoccupied casting a heal when they could have used a GCD to cleanse a magic debuff. So mortal strike enables your win conditions of actually killing targets, running the enemy healers out of mana, or sheeping/CCing enough of the enemy line that they can't put up a coordinated resistance.

Enhancement offers nothing like this. And unlike a warrior, it can't charge the backline and hamstring somebody, or let out an AoE fear. Best they got is a frostshock from range every 5 seconds, which is immediately magic dispelled :( (edit, frostshock of course being on a 5 second CD if you put 15 points in elemental, which you can't do if you take the totem range from resto and still want stormstrike)

[Ghola]

going enhance instead of ele for pvp is just trolling

where does this idea come from that hybrid classes must preform at all three roles? like it or not, warrior and priest are both hybrid classes as well

[Shammylover67]

going enhance instead of ele for pvp is just trolling

where does this idea come from that hybrid classes must preform at all three roles? like it or not, warrior and priest are both hybrid classes as well

Shaman should be the horde mirror of Paladin. Paladin has three viable roles now… I would like to see Shaman with three viable roles.

[Ghola]

horde mirror of paladin is extremely boring especially on a server with crossfaction. This is the reason why tbc gave both to both factions, so they could be distinct

If anything, paladin is a flavor of warrior and shaman is a flavor of priest (especially with turtle custom shaman racials - only other class with racials is priest)

allowing shamans to tank solves problems that don't exist

[Shammylover67]

horde mirror of paladin is extremely boring especially on a server with crossfaction. This is the reason why tbc gave both to both factions, so they could be distinct

If anything, paladin is a flavor of warrior and shaman is a flavor of priest (especially with turtle custom shaman racials - only other class with racials is priest)

allowing shamans to tank solves problems that don't exist

You’re taking my post too literally. They are distinct yet enhancement is broken. Paladin having three viable specs and Shaman having two is just not the way to do things. Case closed.

[Ghola]

You’re taking my post too literally. They are distinct yet enhancement is broken. Paladin having three viable specs and Shaman having two is just not the way to do things. Case closed.

agreed, enhancement should be made into a viable DPS spec

role =/= spec