Why do you play Shaman? Real feedback, please

[slavrix]

the only true reason anyone plays shaman.

Self res and Frost SHock
(and totems)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5mD1n4v2JA

[Nynax]

I miss shazamming people as enhance in mop. It was a cool effect that they took away

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Monk would be a lot closer but sureeeeee

he said "at the time." If that time was Cata or earlier....

Besides, I disagree with you. Sure, monks have the martial arts down...but that's all they have. Without the elements they aren't "benders." In the Airbender world, monks would be like Ty Lee's character.

[derpkitteh]

originally, it was because of the changes to paladin in cataclysm. enhancement was the closest thing to feeling the power of wotlk ret paladin i could get.

but over time, i grew to realy like the thematics of the class. being a primal spiritualist is really cool, the rituals, reverence for the ancestors. the greater cosmology of modern wow has kinda killed the sense of communing with esoteric elemental spiritual beings, because elementals are kinda just low tier and not even really higher beings anymore. but i still like the idea of it, being a simple person that reveres their ancestors and land.

[Stealthyjake]

I miss shazamming people as enhance in mop. It was a cool effect that they took away

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Monk would be a lot closer but sureeeeee

You're joking right? theres no way monk is closer to the avatar than a shaman, shamans use all four elements like the avatar lol

[Kalisandra]

Because restoration shaman feels like the most complete healer toolkit in my personal opinion. Added bonus that I enjoy Elemental a lot as an off-spec, meaning I can dynamically change between the two without being upset about it.

I think that Monks probably have a more complete toolset than ours, and Holy used to (it's lacking some CDs these days). However, the RShaman toolkit is nice and straight-forward, and it hasn't changed in its fundamentals for a long time, which I like, as I've always liked it. My complaint about RShaman healing at the moment is that most of the buttons don't feel impactful, and because everything that's not a direct heal has little power, it's also slow (yes, I know our hard casts need not be slow, but Tidal Waves has less charges than it used to, so it's more likely that it will be). This means that on those rare times when someone does get low and the Mastery will mean something, our cast probably gets sniped by another healer, or by a tank's self-heal, etc.

Another thing is that we used to have a fair number of small HoTs and such that proced off our casts. Combined with Healing Stream having a 100% uptime, there was a lot more background healing going on when we were moving, or throwing casts on other people. This made up for our lack of true shields and freely castable HoTs. Now the only HoT is Riptide, and HST has a 50% uptime (if we even use it), so unless there's a Healing Rain down and people are actually standing in it (and in my experience people tend to go 'ground effect, flee!' when they see it for some reason) if we aren't pumping direct casts into people, nothing's happening. Paladins are similar, though their Glimmer build gets round this and works more like Atonement.

[Shinela]

I think that Monks probably have a more complete toolset than ours, and Holy used to (it's lacking some CDs these days). However, the RShaman toolkit is nice and straight-forward, and it hasn't changed in its fundamentals for a long time, which I like, as I've always liked it. My complaint about RShaman healing at the moment is that most of the buttons don't feel impactful, and because everything that's not a direct heal has little power, it's also slow (yes, I know our hard casts need not be slow, but Tidal Waves has less charges than it used to, so it's more likely that it will be). This means that on those rare times when someone does get low and the Mastery will mean something, our cast probably gets sniped by another healer, or by a tank's self-heal, etc.

Another thing is that we used to have a fair number of small HoTs and such that proced off our casts. Combined with Healing Stream having a 100% uptime, there was a lot more background healing going on when we were moving, or throwing casts on other people. This made up for our lack of true shields and freely castable HoTs. Now the only HoT is Riptide, and HST has a 50% uptime (if we even use it), so unless there's a Healing Rain down and people are actually standing in it (and in my experience people tend to go 'ground effect, flee!' when they see it for some reason) if we aren't pumping direct casts into people, nothing's happening. Paladins are similar, though their Glimmer build gets round this and works more like Atonement.

See, I agree, but the thing is that I genuinely enjoy how Shaman plays right now. The amount of buttons, impactful or not, I genuinely do use all of those.
HST is always on cooldown with me, and does a great impact. Riptide isn't much used for the HoT but for the buff it gives and the hot is a nice added bonus.
The niche of having healing raid and Chain Heal being so packed just suits me, I don't know. Placement of Healing Rain is such a fun thing to manage for me! (And I've never had people run away from Healing Rain in my guild :P)

I mean I get that we have our issues, and mastery is our biggest issue next to a few other smaller ones, but.. I like how little we've changed. It feels pure to me. I would actually genuinely not change resto shaman at all, except for the mastery. Increase our overall output a little equally across the board and for mastery I'd put to something like "Healing a target leaves a stack of Earth Shield healing for x% of the healing done on the next hit they take, up to a maximum of y."

[Rainyhealz]

You're joking right? theres no way monk is closer to the avatar than a shaman, shamans use all four elements like the avatar lol

You're joking right? Monks have all 4 elements as well as agility which the avatar has. He also isnt dropping totems on the ground, hes dashing around. He doesnt turn into a wolf. The idea that you think shaman is more like the avatar when he literally is an air nomad that uses monkism

[Stealthyjake]

You're joking right? Monks have all 4 elements as well as agility which the avatar has. He also isnt dropping totems on the ground, hes dashing around. He doesnt turn into a wolf. The idea that you think shaman is more like the avatar when he literally is an air nomad that uses monkism

Really? you're gonna bring up totems and stuff? lol ok, I don't remember seeing an avatar use brews or ring of peace while fighting lol, that makes no sense what you said tbh. Also, I didn't specifically mention Aang, only the avatar, even though I'd still disagree with you if I did. The Avatar uses all four elements, so does a shaman, a monk I'm pretty sure doesn't, a case could be made for air and water but fire sureeee and earth no.

[Byleth]

Because I always have. The playstyle seems to change every few Xpacs, but my love for them never falters.

I play resto mostly, though lately, I've been Enhancement.

[Kokolums]

Enhance Shaman feels really really fun. The lightning shock visuals and sound are top notch too. I feel like I'm slicing thru butter when it gets rolling.

[Kemsa]

People dont realize that Enhancement Shaman has 1-3 Builds, and 3 worked depending on your azerite traits, and every single one had different rotations and talents.
Thats why people that not main Enha dont know how to DPS properly and when they see a shaman topping on dps they are "OMG HAX" or "OMG RAID DPS SUCK!"

Its a spec that doesnt require you to press 2 buttons, but instead knowing an entire Thesis about how to be Enhancement, pros and cons.

Ele its more straightforward, and as every Caster, they worked when they meet some requirements (zerite, essence, perfect stats)

Probably the only spec that shaman need help... its the healer one, i have reading, hearing, fighting all the god damn resto shamans, because NO AGEAR WORKS FOR THEM.... there was a fucking time that Sylvannas Azerite traits from warfront WAS FRICKING 300% BETTER, what in the fricking world blizzard. Even the spreadsheet on the Shaman Discord its like, yeah dude we have some big problems.

To be honest, i think shamans have the problems of being "the paladin of the Horde" still and they dont have a defined theme. Like wouldnt be better for a shaman to know how to use all elements but every element its just the spec. Earth Tank, Fire Range, Thunder Melee, water healer. And focusing those themes? Because being a fricking avatar and being yeah i know all the elements huho!! really messed up shamans.

[Nahrees]

I really enjoyed battle mages within other RPGs and shaman is the closest to that archetype. I went enhancement since TBC and enjoyed being that totem bot that dropped windfury totems in SSC and made the melee group the best. So a support DPS was the thing I liked the most.

I stuck around with shaman because the visuals are so satisfying for both enhancement and elemental. Throwing out a machine gun level of spells is so cool, even though we don't stack mastery as elemental anymore. Stormstrike is one of the most satisfying abilities in the game to press because of the sound it makes and the lightning hitting behind the weapons.

I want the future of shaman to be the support DPS that gives out buffs now that we kinda lost that outside of a very few PvP talents like Skyfury Totem. I want to see us dropping totems for the group, shooting a ton of lightning, and being that massive burst DPS class.

[Schmilblick]

I started playing Enhancement in TBC and I stopped in BFA, it's just so bad in PvP when compared to other melees.

[Mermeoth]

I liked class fantasy. That's why I started him as my second character during vanilla.
I also liked pvp videos featuring windfury crits

[Nfinitii]

I picked mine up and loved it because of windfury. Too bad that’s not really a thing anymore.

Now chucking lava burst and spamming chain lightning into packs of dudes and watching mastery proc. Pretty satisfying.

[MiiiMiii]

Because I tend to enjoy healing, ranged dpsing and melee dpsing. The fact that I literally cannot tank is great, I don't want to be pushed to play the role I absolutly hate.

Shaman also used to be really cool because of the feel-awesome punch the spells could do. Enhancement WF procs in Vanilla. Elemental CL/LB combos in Vanilla. Elemental Lava Burst in WotLK. Not really true in modern class design, unfortunately.

I actually really enjoyed chain heal in TBC when I started playing it. The whole raiding rotation was to keep up the right totems then "spam CH" in raids. It was nice, satisfying and relaxing.

I also really enjoyed bringing something so great such as TBC - only class to bring Heroism and the really strong totems that everyone loved.

I don't enjoy current design too much, but trying other classes I still appreciate it way more than the other classes in the game.

[Kalisandra]

See, I agree, but the thing is that I genuinely enjoy how Shaman plays right now. The amount of buttons, impactful or not, I genuinely do use all of those.
HST is always on cooldown with me, and does a great impact. Riptide isn't much used for the HoT but for the buff it gives and the hot is a nice added bonus.
The niche of having healing raid and Chain Heal being so packed just suits me, I don't know. Placement of Healing Rain is such a fun thing to manage for me! (And I've never had people run away from Healing Rain in my guild :P)

I mean I get that we have our issues, and mastery is our biggest issue next to a few other smaller ones, but.. I like how little we've changed. It feels pure to me. I would actually genuinely not change resto shaman at all, except for the mastery. Increase our overall output a little equally across the board and for mastery I'd put to something like "Healing a target leaves a stack of Earth Shield healing for x% of the healing done on the next hit they take, up to a maximum of y."

Oh, I largely agree - I love healing on a Shaman, I love that it's the same as it's been since Healing Rain came in. The toolkit is good enough that it doesn't need shields or no-CD HoTs. I actually like the Mastery - I love the way it lets me bring a character up from near dead just like that. What I don't like it the tendency of fights to be hugely and constantly mobile and to require everyone spread to hell and back, so most of the basic Resto toolkit doesn't work. Also, I don't like how weak it feels now, compared to the past. A general overall buff will do, as would buffing the CDs, or giving back the on-crit proced HoT and 100% uptime on HST.

[Vintersol]

I love having the choice between mdps, rdps and healing. Enhancement is a lot of fun and I like having not big dps CDs and stronger sustain dps. Since I don't raid anymore it fits better to my play style.

Also it's flashy as fuck.

[Sevyvia]

This is mainly from a Restoration perspective.

Rolled a Shaman as soon as Alliance had them availabile in TBC. I played both Enhancement and Restoration during TBC. I liked being the buffer/supporter type character with totems and heroism (exclusive to Shaman, at the time), and to be frank, I liked how good Chain Heal was at the time. Pretty cheap, and very effective. So, basically, buff totems and the decent AoE healing without positioning requirements. WotLK ruined the healing aspect with the awful Healing Rain spell, that they continued to insist on pushing.

These days, I ask myself that question whenever I try to return to my beloved Shaman for the nth time. Why do I play this, again? I have to work harder for worse results than other healers in raids and M+ both. I provide no unique buffs anymore - though obviously I do have SL totem. I'm now forced to drag around the abominably clunky Healing Rain spell. I'm taxed on single target healing and mobility, and in return, I still lose in AoE output unless the situation is totally ideal. That is, everyone's stacked up, stationary, for good periods of time. Even then, I may just go even, and I'll still lose to the specs that compete with me in all other situations. But this stacked situation is so rare these days that it's a terrible niche. When a boss consisted of 2-3 mechanics, it was more workable. But then, that era was also when we had better CH and no HR, so who knows, maybe it was always awful, we just didn't feel it.

So, the answer: I don't. Not anymore. I tell myself to give it a try for every other patch or so, having halfway forgotten what it was like. And then I realize all over again that Blizzard just don't have anyone who gives a shit about the Shaman class. Expansion after expansion has just seen Shaman receiving no real love, no fundamental updates that'd let them keep up with the times.

[Axzel]

This is mainly from a Restoration perspective.

Rolled a Shaman as soon as Alliance had them availabile in TBC. I played both Enhancement and Restoration during TBC. I liked being the buffer/supporter type character with totems and heroism (exclusive to Shaman, at the time), and to be frank, I liked how good Chain Heal was at the time. Pretty cheap, and very effective. So, basically, buff totems and the decent AoE healing without positioning requirements. WotLK ruined the healing aspect with the awful Healing Rain spell, that they continued to insist on pushing.

These days, I ask myself that question whenever I try to return to my beloved Shaman for the nth time. Why do I play this, again? I have to work harder for worse results than other healers in raids and M+ both. I provide no unique buffs anymore - though obviously I do have SL totem. I'm now forced to drag around the abominably clunky Healing Rain spell. I'm taxed on single target healing and mobility, and in return, I still lose in AoE output unless the situation is totally ideal. That is, everyone's stacked up, stationary, for good periods of time. Even then, I may just go even, and I'll still lose to the specs that compete with me in all other situations. But this stacked situation is so rare these days that it's a terrible niche. When a boss consisted of 2-3 mechanics, it was more workable. But then, that era was also when we had better CH and no HR, so who knows, maybe it was always awful, we just didn't feel it.

So, the answer: I don't. Not anymore. I tell myself to give it a try for every other patch or so, having halfway forgotten what it was like. And then I realize all over again that Blizzard just don't have anyone who gives a shit about the Shaman class. Expansion after expansion has just seen Shaman receiving no real love, no fundamental updates that'd let them keep up with the times.

I have played Resto shaman for all tiers since Tomb of Sargeras and I disagree with you wholeheartedly. Resto shaman is in a great spot and has been for a long while. If we take Nyalotha as an example, literally the only fight Shamans are subpar is Ilgynoth. On fights like Maut, Skitra, Soccer boss or Hivemind we can pump out huge numbers. We have immense utility; the only healer with interrupt, which was useful for Mythrax mythic, not needing a warlock to micro manage a pet interrupt for the intermission, instead just sending a shaman with the tank. For Jaina mythic, our utility in the form of speed totem, SLT and ress totem were so valuable guilds actually invented the battle shaman just to get more of these invaluable CDs.

I play my Shaman because I love the reactive healing playstyle, and I love the utility. In m+ I agree, shaman feels lackluster. Chain Heal and Healing Rain are for obvious reasons not at their best in 5man content, but the interrupt is fun, and honestly unless you're an MDI player you can manage all 5man content good enough. For raids, like I said, Rshaman is in a great spot. The only reason Rshaman isn't brought in numbers by every single top raiding guild is because Blizzard decided to break the healer meta by creating two healing specs that simultaneously have the most powerful damage reduction CDs and are able to put out stupid amounts of damage passively while not losing out on healing at all.