Why are you a shaman?

[Argantyr]

I started in Vanilla as an alliance warrior on a pvp server, and I got beat everytime I faced an shaman, then in TBC me and some friends changed faction
and since I didn't have the option to play a shaman before I started leveling one up. And I stuck to it.

[Cai]

Friend told me to level one on the new server he joined. I did and fell in love with it. All 3 specs are fun to play no matter what those crazy gnomes say!

[Mithgroth]

Thrall.

Aaaaand, I fail terribly with normal classes, I can only do well with underdog classes.

[Dorac]

I had an alliance warrior when BC hit, I thought it'd be cool to play a shaman since ally couldnt before. And Iv played the class ever since. I love it, even during the tough times, I love a challenge. Playing mainly resto while also playing enhance/ele as offspecs.

[Draknalor186]

saw a enh shaman named "Thráll" in a slave pens heroic back in burning crusade, and thus "Thréll" was born
and truely wonderful too lvl a enh shaman or retri pala in TBC ^^ no melee attack until like 40-50ish =P

[Tokas]

I'm a shaman because, we're different, we can be melee/caster, no other class can do that to my recolaection, and also, people say that shamans are the the worst class to play, well I try to prove them wrong, even in the current state enhancement shamans are in today, I still use a two hander in BGs, why? because I can and want to re-live the awesome moments and the fun I had with it!

good for you, play the game you like it, not the way some1 forces you. btw druids can be melee and ranged as well

[Salech]

Because it used to be fun to be fun to play, but wrath made me tired of shaman in general all the shit we were getting, but i've played my shaman so much that i would hate to not play it.

And in MoP i will finally be rerolling.

[Volitar]

I liked the idea of being a hard support class and I loved being a ranged dps that could offheal. I leveled with four other RL friends and I thought this would be an amazing class for group play. Although shaman have changed a whole lot since then I like what ele has become.

[akro]

I had an alliance warrior when BC hit, I thought it'd be cool to play a shaman since ally couldnt before. And Iv played the class ever since. I love it, even during the tough times, I love a challenge. Playing mainly resto while also playing enhance/ele as offspecs.

Hey buddy fancy seeing you here. On topic I play enhance because I hatedthe changes they did to hunters at the end of wrath/ early cata and just fell in love with the class when I was leveling it. It's actually one of the only classes/specs I've had fun leveling.

[Deleted]

We didn't have heroism for Sarth+3d and I was the only one that wanted to reroll and was familiar with the class prior.

Stayed shaman since, enjoy the gameplay style the most out of all other healer classes.

[Jeanti]

Because there isn't much shamelem in pvp.

Though this might change because of how blizz seems to want to make us OP.

Am I the only one who's almost sad because we're getting better? I fear that there'll be so many players who will be like "OH HAI I'M A ELEM! I'VE ALWAYZ BEEN ELEM I LOVED IT SINCE VANILLA" although they rolled it yesterday because... you know, chain lavaburst.

Am I beeing like those old weird grandpa in their basement, talking alone 'bout how it was better before?

[Deathcries]

Because it fits me. Always enjoyed the Shaman.

[loki504]

/edit wrong quote

---------- Post added 2012-07-29 at 08:19 PM ----------

Because I came back to WoW in Cataclysm and my guild needed a shaman. Old mains were warrior and mage and I'd rather play either of those, but shaman is OK.

why would you play a class you don't fully enjoy. no wonder people are whining there bored(not say you do)

[Deleted]

In wrath i was just amazed at how many times i got critted by the Lava burst so i decided to level one, then i found out it was a garunteed crit. HURP DURP

[Irisel]

They were hybrid and none of my friends had one. I don't regret it, I love my shaman, through the good times and the bad.

[BirdLady68]

Didn't have a shaman when I came up with a "cool" name. So, I rolled a Tauren Shammy to go with the name Barbeeque...and since I suffer from altholicsm, I leveled her to 85 and basically treat her as an alt of an alt of an alt. (Race changed, so I changed her name too)

---------- Post added 2012-07-30 at 07:02 AM ----------

I'm a shaman because, we're different, we can be melee/caster, no other class can do that to my recolaection,

Druids say Hi

[whyabadi]

Because of its support role, and its tribal/elemental theme.

[Hanyuu]

I was an alliance druid in the first expansion. I had been a necromancer (dps) in Everquest and my friends were a mage, paladin (who thought he could tank), hunter, and warlock. They wanted me to heal. At the time, they all said paladins couldn't heal (and the paladin in the group) and the mage and lock didn't want me to be a priest because they didn't want to share cloth drops! I had this idea that being able to do any role would be pretty neat but in practice, I was druid, the healer that innervated priests. I felt like the other specs weren't supported to the extent they needed to be. Eventually, we all took a break from the game.

When we came back we rerolled horde and I was torn between shaman and mage and eventually decided on mage because I was tired of spamming a rank 4 healing spell and nothing else. I played the mage all through TBC and I felt like I was trapped as just a dps. During this time I played a lock and a hunter and learned alot about the game. My friends again took a break until Wrath launched.

When my group of friends reconnected with an old friend, we all went back to the alliance on a different server. Most of my friends moved their old alliance characters over to his server and one rerolled a death knight, but I decided I wanted to be a shaman since I missed having some flexiblity, he was a druid and I didn't want to copy him, and I looked over the abilities I really liked. Even though I started at 1, I loved leveling as enchancement because I was so efficient at it. (With my mage I had to drink often and my druid basically leveled as restoration because you couldn't easily respec and I wasn't really aware of how awful that really was.) The various shaman buff totems were all really cool because they made me have to understand what class did what buff so I knew what were the optimal totems to drop. I really liked heroism and had seen the power of it as a mage. Tremor totem was basically fear immunity and broke some annoying mechanics completely. Cleansing totem was amazing and took away the tediousness of dispelling. I used to joke when we started spider wing in Naxx that this was my area to be overpowered in! Perhaps because of playing EQ, I really liked to focus on one character and I spent the lionshare of my time playing the shaman and doing achievements. I have around 11k right now. Wrath was the first expansion I didn't take a break in.

As I read about the changes in cata, I was pretty disappointed. I was completely shocked that other classes were getting heroism. Cleansing totem was gone and tremor became a pvp trinket type of thing. I had some much time invested in my shaman that I couldn't possibly change classes though and healing rain I admit was pretty neat. Plus, I thought maybe I'll get to use hex this expansion. The first tier of raiding was tough but I managed to do alright in it. I started becoming more aware of the things the class was lacking. Everyone else in the raid would hit a defensive cooldown on crackle (on nef) and I would basically just eat it (I had stoneclaw totem glyphed and would hit it). On the fights that required the raid to split up, I had a hard time healing. When the healing got rough, at least my mastery kicked in even if I didn't have a defensive cool down. I started pvping when firelands came out and did pretty well and then I understood why shaman weren't getting the pve problems fixed. Firelands was a nightmare for a healer. Most fights had huge gaps of time where I couldn't really cope with healing a split up raid. Rag broke me as a healer. I felt totally useless even tank healing because both tanks were getting hammered. The one stack up phase was great, but it made me realize that healing rain, chain heal, and the relatively newly added spirit link were all stack up dependant. I started leveling a paladin on a lark and as I started enjoying it more and more, I pushed harder and got to 85 in 10 days. I've always made tons of money in WoW, and I was at my highest point for gold (2.4 million), so I decked the paladin out in epics and told my guild leader I wanted to try the paladin out for rag and we got our first kill. I was overwhelmed by having 5 healing cool downs, 2 defensive cooldowns, and the stun was great for the adds on rag to boot. Even for Ds, I didn't go back and the paladin performed with ease. Holy radiance was basically a better version of healing rain since it didn't have a cooldown and I could put it on both the melee and ranged group and even double stack it. I still thought of myself as a shaman though more than anything else.

For Mop, I don't know what I am going to do; accountwide everything really makes me feel freer in switching characters. My shaman, druid, and paladin are all pretty ready to go. I still love the fluidity of how the shaman runs, and I can see many of the problems shaman have being addressed (defensive cool down, throughput cool downs, riptide glyph, totems becoming auras instead of buffs), but I am afraid about Stormlash totem. If it is really good, then raids will stack shamans and I forsee it getting nerfed. If it is balanced so the shaman does less dps for what the raid gains, then the size of the raid matters--aka a 25 man balanced totem will make it weak in 10 and a 10 balanced totem will make it overpowered in 25. I keep reading the beta changes hoping something will give me a clear vision--that is what I want to be.

[Vukey]

Lore, the whole elements stuff.
I can only play rather bad specs in PvP.

[Deleted]

I originally rolled Shaman because I watched videos of World of Warcraft having never played it before and saw they were a supportive class. At the time I was massively into healing and supporting in FPSs and other RPGs, so I felt the ability to not only support with heals but with buffs and special effects was cool. This was at the start of Wrath (first I heard of WoW was a college friend coming into college late having been to GAME to buy Wrath of the Lich King expansion).

I keep playing it because I enjoy it so much, and I feel its really unique in the way it plays, plus I am incredibly attached to my Shaman, what with it having hundreds of hours played on it. I also love the fact I'm a hybrid so I can fill multiple rolls in a raid and PvP enviroment on just one character.