Question about horde paladins / alliance shamans

[Vaelorian]

Little backround story:
I've always been Alliance. And I've been GM of a guild for about 5/6 years.
With recruitment it has more or less always been very hard to keep a Shaman in the guild. Now this could just have been my guild. Hence me asking. After a certain amount of time me and my officers thought there was something "wrong" with the Shaman-players.

Now I know this sounds weird but we have this theory:

1. the player atleast once mainchanged, which to us seemed the player lost interest fast in things (this was during TBC upto WOTLK)
2. the player was new and thought he couldn't keep up (seems unlikely from our experience)

So if we go by #1

How does this work? From our experience, shamans generally were not loyal. More or less come and go whenever they pleased. Sure in the beginning they were properly on time, but after a few weeks - they would be late or didn't show. Which in turn lead to a kick.

Now this ofcourse also happened to other classes but not as much - not by far. But atleast until Cata this was a major problem for my guild that concerned the recruitment of shamans.

I've talked to some of the horde guildmasters back in the day about this and most of them had the same issues, but then with paladins.

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To go even deeper... Does this go for a lot of mainchangers in general? Or do these people just flock to Shamans/paladins? Or are these experiences just to myself and we weren't lucky enough with our shaman group?

[Alvito]

To go even deeper... Does this go for a lot of mainchangers in general? Or do these people just flock to Shamans/paladins? Or are these experiences just to myself and we weren't lucky enough with our shaman group?

Ppl that main hop frequently will almost always continue that trend. If the only reason you are running with them is their class then you may want to rethink things.

As far as horde pallies or ally shammies being played like a flavor of the month toon that is frequently jump to and from this hasn't really been an issue since the first year of BC when ppl were checking them out for the first time.

[Icaras]

I'd say its just you/your guild.

I've raided with the same Shammy (Who has since ended up as the GM of my guild) since mid ICC in wrath. Damn good healer, if a bit grumpy sometimes, lol.

[Vaelorian]

I'd say its just you/your guild.

I've raided with the same Shammy (Who has since ended up as the GM of my guild) since mid ICC in wrath. Damn good healer, if a bit grumpy sometimes, lol.

Well I am not saying there weren't exceptions. We've had 1 shaman who we invited at Vashj (tier 5) and sticked witwh us until ICC. But he was the only one who stuck with us for so long. Then around Ulduar we got a loyal Resto shaman. Who stuck with us until today.

But these are the exceptions we had. The rest was just on and off.

[Deleted]

It's more about the player then the class they play in my opinion when it comes to loyalty or how they behave in general.

[Vaelorian]

It's more about the player then the class they play in my opinion when it comes to loyalty or how they behave in general.

Ofcourse - but from my experience a certain type of player chooses such a class perhaps. Like I said, I had more bad experiences with Shamans then with any other class. And it is not like only "kiddies" took a shaman. We've had similar experiences with older guys/girls aswell.

[Chonar]

This theory could have some ground if you came up with it in, say, 2009.

But it's been years since Paladins and Shamans were faction-specific. People have rerolled and rerolled again many times, and switched mains along with it. I don't think there's a connection.

[boseguy22]

Yeah, I think the faction specific stuff is too far removed to play a role. The Horde Paly/Ally Sham has been available since BC, we are talking 6 years ago. My wife and I started in BC, there were less race/class combos, but as far as we were concerned, Horde always had a paladin, and ally always had shammys.

Funny enough my wife rolled a shaman in wrath and has healed ever since.

[mikepic]

I think this is an isolated case.

Are they mostly Enh shamans? Does your guild have a lot of competition in gear for what they would want?

I think there are probably a lot of questions that could be asked to help narrow down why this is happening or it could just be some very coincidental bad luck.

[Sealbinder]

Never had issues with shammies in the guilds I am a member of leaving regularly (though we did have one we had to kick due to them being unpleasant).

As for main hopping I do tend to "main" hop quite a bit, but it tends to be due to guild need. I like to level all classes and have all the needed specs. Because of this I will hop my "main" to work on whatever the guild needs most. For example before MOP dropped the raid team had met and it was decided that I would be focusing on my warlock. A couple of weeks into the MOP release, we had a problem where one of our healers had a change in work schedule so I moved to focus on my priest. Then one our other healers schedules freed up so they came back and now I am on my mage since we need a time warp (since our shammy has been forced to take care of issues with his family since they are moving long distance in not too long). I have also been gearing up a tank in case we ever need. Honestly I don't view myself as having a "main" as much as having lots of characters I like to play and I play what the guild needs most at that time. Right now we seem to have issues with ranged dps (our guild is over flowing with healers and tanks, we lack consistent dps (both in showing up and dps numbers), especially ranged) so I am on my mage giving us that value. Will I ever become the best of the best at my class? Probably not. Do I always have top numbers in whatever role I am in? Yes.

[Vaelorian]

I think this is an isolated case.

Are they mostly Enh shamans? Does your guild have a lot of competition in gear for what they would want?

I think there are probably a lot of questions that could be asked to help narrow down why this is happening or it could just be some very coincidental bad luck.

There were no loot issues. I am speaking in the past cause it was a problem in the past. Once we shrunk to 10 man the problem didn't exist anylonger.

I am just curious if anyone else had these experiences.

@ the people who comment like this post is about "when paladins/shamans we faction specific" - I am (and I thought it was very clear) talking about when that was no longer the case. As said, I had these issues with my guild until the end of WOTLK. So it was an old problem.

[Sj]

I've never seen this issue specifically with one class, personally. I do kind of have the same feelings towards people who switch mains. It just seems to me that if you can't commit to one main, you don't really enjoy what you do; if you don't enjoy it, you probably won't excel at it and be committed to it.

But again, this was never just one class.

[Xs]

Almost every Paladin I raided with back in the days stuck with Paladin, never had any of the problems you're talking about, if they stopped raiding it was because RL got in the way rather than they got bored

[Deleted]

It's true that Blood Elf Paladins are never loyal and don't stick around for long, they always tend to go to where the grass is greener.
Can't say the same about Alliance Shamans, it's just always been an underpowered class, so maybe they get tired of it.

[Stir]

I think it might be due to Shaman being a very shiny class, and therefore attracts many, many players... But not for long. Most people who start a shaman come for the shiny aspect, but shine wears off after a certain amount of time. It always does.
The same, I suppose, goes for Paladin players. Though I think that, with the Protection tree, the Paladin class is simply more versatile, and offers more to different people. Then again, I personally dislike Paladin healing.

Anyway; I feel it's mostly a shiny-related problem.

[Deleted]

I have played my shammy since start of tbc and i have always loved it! even thought i faction changed at the start of Cata to alliance due to a declining horde population. I dont tend to guild hop, but what i do notice is that Shaman's do seem to be a rarity in most progressive raiding guilds. Yes, every guild will have them but not as much as any other class. Most guilds i see are stacking Mages/hunters and druids.

Maybe loyal shamans are now a dying breed

[Vaelorian]

Thanks very much for the insights guys/girls