Why do People overrate Shamans in pvp?

[ShamanWiz]

Simple Question why do shamans overrate shamans in pvp? Im curious because every time i see people talking about "easiest specs"(i looked at the pvp thread "easiest class to play" and a lot were saying elemental!)they aim for shamans...i just want to see everyone else thought on this.

I mean dont get me wrong shamans can be an amazing class IF played right and IF you know how to play one good(cause a lot of other pvpers assume shamans are "easy").

As a shaman in general threw out all specs you have to worry about...

-survivability;shamans have one of the worst survivability in pvp and therefor shamans cant be easy,you have to play a shaman well for the class itself to be good in pvp.

-limited tools;shamans have limited tools compared to every other class in the game, i say this because shamans dont have any "great" tools...cause shamans have plenty of small tools but you cant have JUST small tools to be very effective, good example is this, do you often see a shaman kill someone cause of a tool they have? no you don't, you see a shaman kill someone with damage and skill cause of the fact shamans dont have 1 single "great" tool you have to use them pretty much all of them to have a fighting chance.

-solo;shamans are considered one of the worst solo specs because of there survivability and limits to "major" tools.

-resto;resto shamans are the worst healer in pvp overall(besides holy priest obviously, worst out of the main 4 healing specs)because of the fact you have no defensive CD(no shaman spec besides enh but its not that great compared to other defensive CD's)and your limited to holding pressure well and healing while moving can also be tough for shamans because you only have 1 instant heal and its not that great compared to holy shock, swiftmend ect..

-amount of moves;shamans pretty much have the most moves in the game(besides druids but you dont use all shapeshift abilities for each spec)shamans have totems,wind shear, heals, cleanse,purge, several damage moves, hex, ghost wolf, lust/hero and not to mention 3/4 of those have to have a set focus macro.

-enh;enh is THE worst melee(along with ret)if a spec only has ONE good comp that means there not good in pvp cause of the fact they dont have a wide variety of choices,enh is only amazing with wolves up and without wolves enh can be so hard to play to be effective with it.

-ele;ele is the softest caster in the game and has fewer abilities and moves to gain distance compared to all the other casters, in order to gain range and survive longer you need CC as a range to live...and ele lacks those compared to every other range. After earhbind theres not much else you can do besides ghost wolf, but most melee will have a snare on you so they will still be able to hit you most the time.


Before people start saying im butt hurt or QQing im not, i just want to get this out the way and say that shamans aren't an easy class to play.

Look people dont get me wrong shamans are an amazing class in pvp but it does require knowledge and skill to play one, the difference between potential and skill are TWO TOTALLY different things.

This is also based of the fact i have 4 80s myself and have 2 brothers, 1 has 4 80s other has 3 and we have every single class at 80.
And we all agreed shamans are fairly difficult overall in PvP, with my experience in arena,several years of gaming, 2 brothers which makes a total of every single class at 80. Behind Shaman i would honestly think Warriors,Druids,Hunters take skill after that, i know i said hunter, yes i say hunter because they have a lot of moves to worry about while on the move you loose your main source of damage and the mana system with hunters isnt so nice.

Keybinds on all my 80s my shaman has the most with 53 keybinds, 2nd hunter with 48 keybinds.

thanks, ShamanWiz!

[Deleted]

-enh;enh is THE worst melee(along with ret)

Ret suck? oh wait....

[Kaosadvokit]

I'm not sure if your saying that shaman's are too hard or if shaman are underpowered.. because your post seems to mention both vaguely.

I've PvPed with a shaman quite a bit, and the biggest difference maker that I have noticed between good and bad shaman are simply:

1. Grounding Totem
2. Tremor Totem
3. Purging Correctly

[Shadowviper]

Err. Well to that Shaman are terrible to solo with I must say I did a crap ton of group quests while leveling as a resto shaman because of riptide and earth shield. Enhancement as my offspec while leveling I could mow through mobs because of Windfury and wolves. Now PvP I did restoration Shaman and I have to say it was pretty hard to take me down without 2 friends to help. In all I would say it not the easiest class to play in PvP. Yes if you leave an elemental shaman alone to pump out the dps then yeah you might think its easy but good elementals can handle when a melee comes too close to comfort and still take em out.

[keeb]

Its not that simple.

You really have to divide the shaman into specs to diagnose the problem. But if you force me to reply with a 1 word answer I'll tell you "Elemental" that is why.

The reason people see "Shaman" as strong in PvP is that Every 5 man has an Ele shaman, coroner-stone of the team. And Ele Shaman have many variations of Wiz cleave in 3's.

And Quite frankly I play a 6000+ GS PvP enhancement. I was able to compete at a similar level, with much lower gear score as elemental.

While there is a big diff between good and bad ele (good ones are able to keep melee off them better). It is at the same time rather easy to get in at the ground floor and do well.

[Chimpzilla]

I think the guys 4 boxing ele shamans into the +2000 brackets is a perfect example of what makes them easy (or appear easy to others). Sure you have other various moves as you listed, but when it comes down to it plenty of ele shamans get by with bloodlust and spamming LB, CL, and Lavaburst. I've been playing arenas with an ele shammy every season and the wins more often than not come from the shammy getting ignored and allowing him to blow anything up in a few seconds. Go look at nearly every decently ranked 5v5 team and the thing you'll notice is every one of them has a shammy, and most of them are eles. Is it because they are easy or because they are overpowered? Not for me to say since I don't play one, but I'm just explaining where some of the impressions about them come from.

Edit: I really don't understand what your poll is asking either. How do you spell "you're" right and the wrong right afterwards also?

[Deleted]

once you throw in earthbind, stoneclaw, tremor, cleansing and grounding totems, proper purging and shearing, when to ghostwolf and using your flame and frost shocks (i play ele) properly its not simple. as OP mentioned lack of defensive cd's aside from glyphed stoneclaw, which is a piece of shit lol. Ele is easy in pve id admit. anyone saying enhance is easy compared to most specs must be stuck playing feral dps lol, ridiculous.
not sure what'll happen to ele's team spot in cata when BL gets shared out and burst isnt as upfront like it is now. wait and see

[Sollaris]

I think the guys 4 boxing ele shamans into the +2000 brackets is a perfect example of what makes them easy (or appear easy to others). Sure you have other various moves as you listed, but when it comes down to it plenty of ele shamans get by with bloodlust and spamming LB, CL, and Lavaburst. I've been playing arenas with an ele shammy every season and the wins more often than not come from the shammy getting ignored and allowing him to blow anything up in a few seconds. Go look at nearly every decently ranked 5v5 team and the thing you'll notice is every one of them has a shammy, and most of them are eles. Is it because they are easy or because they are overpowered? Not for me to say since I don't play one, but I'm just explaining where some of the impressions about them come from.

You see all the 5s team with shaman because lust is almost necessary, and you see ele sham because you'd gimp your team too much with an enhance or a resto sham (there are better healers to bring).

[Chimpzilla]

You see all the 5s team with shaman because lust is almost necessary, and you see ele sham because you'd gimp your team too much with an enhance or a resto sham (there are better healers to bring).

I don't need an explanation of arenas or why shit-loads of elemental shamans are there. I don't play an ele shammy, therefor I refuse to comment on whether it is actually easy or not. I was making a point that the 5s bracket is most likely where a lot of the perception about shamans come from (mix that in with beast cleave and RLS and that's a lot of shamans).

You claim that people don't bring ele's or resto shaman to 5s because they would gimp them, but that is not entirely accurate in my opinion. People gravitate to what's easiest and most desirable. In the case of shamans people want to play with elemental shamans. It is easy to find a decent group of people to play with if you are spec'd elemental. As a result more people will play elemental for PvP and thats what people see more of. As a result more people play elemental because it broadens the groups they can join and because they see others having success with it. In turn it also makes it harder to find an enhance or a resto because more people are playing elemental. It's a self fulfilling prophecy.

[Shokzman]

We have
Grounding
Cleansing
Tremor
Stoneclaw

Used right that can be really helpful.
and I agree that Enhance PvP does take skill to play.

[bigjenk]

Op since i know ele's who are 2300 right now that click and dont interupt or use focus frames, and really don't know much about pvp.

[kidd0]

based on current build, shaman's lost pretty much most if not all pvp talents. We must be the only class now that must use glyphs to pvp. Even our stoneclaw totem was nerfed in the recent build.

Its pretty sad liking pvp and being shaman right now. Our class has the least amount of survivability and now it almost has none at this point. I really hope something is done about this, i really do.

[killzwitch]

In general terms the QQ comes from LvB. People without resi, coming to BGs and getting annoyed when LvB hits for 12k followed by some LB 10ks by luck, they come to the forums - don't know what spec did what - and rage.

BGs are the source of PVP envy imo (90% of the time)

[critterkiller]

Ret suck? oh wait....

I didnt get this, cuse rets are F***ing impossible to kill cuse of the damn bubble

[wideawake]

Its pretty sad liking pvp and being <INSERT RANDOM CLASS HERE> right now. Our class has the least amount of survivability and now it almost has none at this point. I really hope something is done about this, i really do.

In beta as live.

[ThorSteinar]

Why are you even discussing this you said it your self in a way... If you play your class good and I mean rly good every other classes would be easy for you to kill in a way till you meat a player with the same skills as you or better... Even if your class gets "nerfed" you are still going to own with it no matter what cuz you know what to do its easy as that... But the things I said are for a perfect world where people know what to do and not whine etc,etc like "omg shamans are no good anymore , or missread something and OMG AFFFI sux or w\e" you get where I am going everything is debatable...



P.S I am talking for a whatever class doesn't matter the whining is the same for every one just different spells and such...

[Flashbomba]

After I've had a break from WoW this spring I returned to my resto/ele shaman and in 3s I just can't keep myself up as resto with 1200 res and almost 30k hp. Ele is a lot of fun in BGs though, but in arena I just get shut down so quickly cause people fear the classcanon effect. I'm easy to take down, especially compared to the dps I can do if left alone. Other specs do similar dps, but are harder to kill, so it's obvious you'd go for the shaman.

Right now I'm taking a break from arena and just do a bit arena or play on other chars.

[Bobzor]

Elemental is faceroll.

[Omanley]

shaman have many baseline abilities but few are actually of use, especially in pvp.
shamans are in fact easy in the sense that they are uncomlicated to play, need no excessive keybinds and are easy to play at full potential, compared to for example a rogue, hunter or mage, who has to put his multitude of awesome abilities to put to use.

while shamans are uncomplicated, it comes from their sheer lack of baseline utility/mobility/survivability ability. so they´re easy to play, but need much more support than other classes to actually be able to get to a high rating. a rogue with all his stuns, blind, vanish, evasion, shadow cloak etc. can support himself and his allies much more than any shaman ever could, so a shaman needs better team mates to make up for that. he also is narrowed down in choices in arena.

shamans are easy to play, yes
shamans are not sucessful against harder to play classes though, if those are played right.

i myself would rather have 10 cooldowns to choose from/to manage instead of only popping wolves/sr/bl on cd and outside of that only frostshock/purge/wind shear, while dropping my weak pvp totems.

elemental can burst. that´s it. if you´re unable to burst your target down as ele, you´re out of options. just because ridiculous burst coupled with the cc of a partner is currently enough to get to a high rating doesn´t mean that elemental is OP, they´re just IMBAlanced. less burst, more baseline survivability/mobility/utility/better selfheal.

with fulmination and lava surge though, blizz focuses more on ele burst than on finesse.