To Shaman or not to Shaman, that is the (oft) asked question.

[Ragnarocket]

Not sure which shaman discord you've been going to.

I have to agree - there are very few people who are bullish on Shaman at the moment. Method's Shaman (who contributes to a lot of the guides/discord discussion) is re-rolling due to being competitively useless:

https://twitter.com/CaynaWoW/status/1061072967633911808

Going to Earthshrine or Ancestral Guidance gives me a very negative feeling usually. They are QUITE upset. I remember being online when the 8.1 buffs were announced. It was fun to watch the (if I can quote Taliesin for a minute) shitshow ensue.

[Jotaux]

I have to agree - there are very few people who are bullish on Shaman at the moment. Method's Shaman (who contributes to a lot of the guides/discord discussion) is re-rolling due to being competitively useless:

https://twitter.com/CaynaWoW/status/1061072967633911808

Going to Earthshrine or Ancestral Guidance gives me a very negative feeling usually. They are QUITE upset. I remember being online when the 8.1 buffs were announced. It was fun to watch the (if I can quote Taliesin for a minute) shitshow ensue.

I'm the last shaman left in my guild, the 3 others all swapped. To be honest this tier I've just been phoning it in. I've barely looked at the fights other than Zul (I'm in on that fight to manage the debuff), and was basically carried last week to get my other kills in since we got G'huun the week prior. With all the extra time I have unlocked every hero in HotS now!

[Tikishock]

Im thinking of bailing as well. I want a class with a direction and something that makes sense and has a niche. I love the class fantasy but I'm just sick and tired of nothing really being fixed. I guess I'll shelve the Ele shaman until something is fixed or until I can find another main that gives me joy to play with class fantasy and cool visuals.

[Ryanite]

Shaman is my number 1 most aesthetically pleasing classes but I've yet to have one at max level because again and again they get absolute dirt of attention and consideration for what to many of us are pretty simple things that need to happen. They always seem to have the most scrutiny on what they should be able to do. Oh you can't possibly be good at aoe and single target while having amazing mobility and decent self healing but meanwhile we have demon hunters who seem to not come under that scrutiny.

i'm levelling one along now because I've always wanted a max level decked out Enh shaman but boy oh boy I don't hold out on being any good lol.

My recently levelled assassin rogue is already putting out such absurd single target for ilvl 311, the rotation is very easy and hard to mess up and everything seems to work intentionally. But it's no bad ass shaman.

[CID-77]

As someone who has dropped out of the upper echelon's of WoW, after 15 years in the trenches and maintaining maximum geared characters for the first years/xpacs of the game, I'm still enjoying my Shaman a lot. Yes it needs work and tweaks. But if you aren't playing on the cutting edge certainly give it a go. All three specs have something going for them which is something I ask from my main. All three specs, enh and ele especially, have amazingly rewarding spell effects.

I get my characters to around 365 before focusing on new alts. That's the way I'm enjoying BFA for now, getting some basic level gear and missed tmogs from Legion. Spread those activities over currently 6 toons and I'm entertained enough. Out of all the characters I've leveled I enjoy my Shaman most, so don't write off the class on account of the vibe on forums. Try it, and if you like it go for it.

[Voltsmasher]

I think the doom and gloom towards 8.1 comes from the little hot fix we got when we were promised real attention 3weeks before BfA launched for 8.1

So maybe the numbers will be better but I don't think there rotation out anything is going to change

- - - Updated - - -

As someone who has dropped out of the upper echelon's of WoW, after 15 years in the trenches and maintaining maximum geared characters for the first years/xpacs of the game, I'm still enjoying my Shaman a lot. Yes it needs work and tweaks. But if you aren't playing on the cutting edge certainly give it a go. All three specs have something going for them which is something I ask from my main. All three specs, enh and ele especially, have amazingly rewarding spell effects.

I get my characters to around 365 before focusing on new alts. That's the way I'm enjoying BFA for now, getting some basic level gear and missed tmogs from Legion. Spread those activities over currently 6 toons and I'm entertained enough. Out of all the characters I've leveled I enjoy my Shaman most, so don't write off the class on account of the vibe on forums. Try it, and if you like it go for it.

He pretty much has the right of it. My explanation is purely the bad feeling from how they treated feedback from beta to now

[Kalisandra]

Enhance pvp is also holding strong, we'll see what happens in 8.1 when they're reshuffling / changing some pvp talents.

Now when and where was the last time ele was good, that's another question. In Legion some people enjoyed the "gamble spec" but basically it was only doing well when you got some insane procs, otherwise it was middle of the pack, and tbh not everyone could embrace the joys of extreme rng.

Late Cata, late Pandaria, late Legion. Almost always because of massive AoE damage making up for average single target. And notice the 'late' part - every expansion Blizzard screws Elemental (and usually Resto as well), and takes the rest of the expac to band-aid it into a decent place again, only to fuck it up all over again. This time round has been exceptionally bad, because there's the normal 'fuck Shamans' on top of the 'everyone loses their artefact powers and legendaries'.