Cataclysm Beta - Build 12644

[Buzzinjoe]

To be fair to you....mages AND shamans have probably been the two class's receiving the less care and effort put into enriching their experience. That being said, it doesn't really justify resenting mages because their turn has come. Yes they are being given bloodlust but surely If you are as you say in a top 50 guild since Vanilla you are very well aware that shamans bring so much more than just the 40 seconds of lol once a fight..as for the new argent defender type spell, with the raiding experience you put forward, surely you can see the benefit of extra survivability for the squishies and how it will actually HELP in your raids (bigger picture ). Also i seem to recall some pretty cool changes announced for resto. I can only presume that you are an enh or ele shaman upset before even knowing what super fun changes might still be to come.

Now sadly you speak of the bigger picture being equality...my good man the word you should be using is homogenization. Like it or not that is the direction developers have chosen and the one wow is very firmly set on following. I repeat myself but it seems to be the key point you are missing : Bring-the-player-not-the-class.

Don't get me wrong mages needed some love. But frankly at the moment it's a bit too much. I'm also all for homogenization. But look at all the buffs that have been handed out that used to belong to shaman only. They're all being distributed with a bonus effect. Be it gaining rage/runic power. The way the buff is applied being superior or in the mages' cases getting a speed boost when hitting 'bloodlust'.

Why is it Shaman are stuck with a clunky mechanic that wouldn't be implemented nowadays if it was new the way it is in game currently. That's really what bugs me. Homogenization is fine as long as you keep it equal. Right now a Shaman can bring buffs but they are sub par versions of the buffs others give. So even if, god forbid, they manage to properly balance dps and scaling you'll still want to take the better version of a buff.

That's why I think Shaman should have some sort of higher priority to get overhauled than any of the other classes out there at the moment. It's all a scaling problem and the fact that the Shaman's iconic abilities, read totems, are the biggest piece of clunk and are not fun anymore. They used to be when they were meaningful. Right now we're in a position where, in Cata, we'll be hoping that all our buffs are covered so we only have to use our fire dps totem. That's not right. I want to have an incentive to use my totems. I want them to be good and fun to use.

As to your 'bring the player not the class' statement. Blizzard has always said that is their goal for normal modes, but in heroic modes you will make choices most of the time. I don't really care about normal modes since they're pretty faceroll anyway.

PS: You say squishies having better survivability will be helpful to the raid. Sure if survivability is a key then it probably will be, but I won't be in that raid since as Elemental my survivability is pretty much naught 0 survivability cooldowns.

[Takoshell]

Okay now that I have seen Malfurion's new model....Thrall NEEDS one to top his.

[DOGE]

Not going to wade through 15 pages of comments to see if this has already come up. Given the way the camel gives an achievement (not a Feat of Strength), anyone else think the Tol'vir may be this expansion's Sons of Hodir?