Humph...

[Irisel]

I'm really a bit concerned about a consistent lack of Shaman changes in the MoP beta for the past, like, 2 months. I don't want change, just for the sake of change, but I cannot believe there is NOTHING to tweek/add/subtract; and it's not just one spec, it's all three. I don't want to simply have a thread just to QQ, and I don't want to go on the record for saying "Shaman are always forgotten" or, "Blizzard hates Shaman."

Simply put though, I am concerned.

I'm not active in beta, but I surely know of all the Shaman changes, despite not actually testing things for myself; although, that shouldn't exactly matter. The fact is, Shaman in beta are stagnating, compared to a lot of other similar classes/specs and my question is WHY? I don't have some sort of statistical data to prove my opinion, but it's fairly easy to see that there has not been much change, which to me, compared to others, is alarming.

Is there reason for concern? For those of you with first hand, detailed experience in the beta, what is your opinion? Do you think the "lack" of change is that we're simply in a sweetspot, or are you just as concerned for our class as I am?


I'm sure this is going to be a touchy topic to some, so to be constructive, and try not to get this insta-locked. For me, please Cause I really am curious

[Deleted]

I agree completley the last changes all the classes had something that has changed and shaman are left with nothing.

[Endus]

I'm really a bit concerned about a consistent lack of Shaman changes in the MoP beta for the past, like, 2 months. I don't want change, just for the sake of change, but I cannot believe there is NOTHING to tweek/add/subtract; and it's not just one spec, it's all three. I don't want to simply have a thread just to QQ, and I don't want to go on the record for saying "Shaman are always forgotten" or, "Blizzard hates Shaman."

Simply put though, I am concerned.

I'm not active in beta, but I surely know of all the Shaman changes, despite not actually testing things for myself; although, that shouldn't exactly matter. The fact is, Shaman in beta are stagnating, compared to a lot of other similar classes/specs and my question is WHY? I don't have some sort of statistical data to prove my opinion, but it's fairly easy to see that there has not been much change, which to me, compared to others, is alarming.

Then the issue is that you aren't LOOKING for the changes, because there's been plenty. Seriously, this is why I've been maintaining a megapost, and why I added a changelog to it. Us not having changes in a particular beta build is irrelevant, since we ARE getting tweaks and adjustments. Also; I'm reasonably sure I've missed a few updates here and there, since I've been basing that list and the updates off what's been reported on the front page from datamining, and there's a few changes I've seen recently on the beta that I DON'T have updated in there, meaning they slipped through. The datamining process is never perfect, and it can even miss things that are based on changes to underlying architecture; there's no way for us to tell via datamining if an internal cooldown has been tweaked, for instance.


Also, consider some of the discussion from GC lately, he's recognized that many people are seeing other melee outperforming Enhancement, and he had this to say;

In terms of overall performance, it looks like your performance is about where we want it at 90 in that gear, modulo some fine tuning. If there are others doing significantly more than that (e.g., if there are Windwalkers doing 65k DPS in that gear in that situation), we’re likely to bring them down.
Source

It's Beta. They're just STARTING the numbers balancing. It's not ready for the PTR yet, let alone actual release. And GC said that if "everyone else" is doing better than Enhancment, they'll be nerfing them down to be comparable.

Nor are they done mechanical changes, either. It's just that any such changes are more likely to be to fix the numbers in some way. And there's always bugs; in that beta balance thread I quoted, another Shaman brought up a bug with regards to Enhancement and Ascendance, and that bug has been fixed for a future build now.

They're paying attention and responding. Almost nobody is 100% pleased with the results of the beta. They almost never are, especially when the overhauls are this thorough.

[mordale]

i wish they would let us use the elementals without totems.

of course the elemental would take the take totem "slot" as their element.

[Deleted]

Yeah it´s kinda quite on the shaman site right now. But with the 1st raid boss released, I assume that number balancing is in progress now, so all classes get their numbers fixed and tweaked.

@Maldias; Yeah, I also would like to see that. One can only hope

[pouca]

Like everyone here every time mmo-champion brings us a load of blue posts I madly scroll to the end of the list to see shaman's change, and that's true there was not a lot last few months and I am a bit disapointed....
BUT....
Developers in charge of shaman (at least in a restoration shaman POV) are doing a very good job with a very precise idea to where they want to bring us. They have thoses ideas very soon in the developement phase and they don't change their mind wich is another proof of how good they are and I am rarely disapointed.
Every time I doubted about choices they made, I realized later in the expansion that those modifications were made with a long run perspective.
And because I know every class cannot be perfect or OP every tier of a expansion, I am satisfied.
I am even more satisfied because Rshaman are always very good for the last tier of a expansion wich is a very important thing to me and I thank them !

When I see many changes every week for a class, I consider developers are messing up, changing their mind, testing weak solutions, etc. I prefer the stable developers we have !

[Kisho]

Making changes just for the sake of changes is pointless, nor is it a wise development plan to work on all classes equally over time. Blizz will focus on one class, get that tweaked and sorted, then move on to a different one. Maybe they'll go back to the first one later (or rather, they almost certainly will), but they won't regularly change the class just so the players can say 'yep, they love us, they're working on our class'.

Read Endus' post. That's a smart person right there.

Also, to Pouca: there is no 'developer in charge of Shaman' or anything like that. The guy who works on Rogues is also the guy who works on Shaman, that is to say: it's the same development team for every class.

[pouca]

Also, to Pouca: there is no 'developer in charge of Shaman' or anything like that. The guy who works on Rogues is also the guy who works on Shaman, that is to say: it's the same development team for every class.

I didn't know, I still have the feeling that's Rshaman's developement seemed always made early and in a stable manner, if that's not due to a different developement team I wander why....

[Deleted]

sadly been like this last 3 exp :/

[SpaceJam]

Making changes just for the sake of changes is pointless, nor is it a wise development plan to work on all classes equally over time. Blizz will focus on one class, get that tweaked and sorted, then move on to a different one. Maybe they'll go back to the first one later (or rather, they almost certainly will), but they won't regularly change the class just so the players can say 'yep, they love us, they're working on our class'.

**edited because I don't like him. Nor do I think he's smart.**

Also, to Pouca: there is no 'developer in charge of Shaman' or anything like that. The guy who works on Rogues is also the guy who works on Shaman, that is to say: it's the same development team for every class.

I feel the same way. Without Ascendance and a couple glyphs Shaman are exactly the same as they are on live. Which, IMO, is unacceptable. All the changes they made were for show and most of them weren't needed. I consider numbers irrelevant when considering change because they are absolutely needed. MY only true issue with the Shaman class is how taxing/not fun our glyphs are, and Enhancement being a sack of potatoes.