BREAKING NEWS: Shaman's Flame Tongue Weapon buff and Warlock's Life Tap nerf have been reverted on World of Warcraft's public test realm. Show no signs of return. Blizzard cites Arena participation numbers as key determinant. Details at noon.
Ok, I'm not that surprised by the rollback. Blizzard is notorious for announcing big changes, only to baulk on implementation and pull them before patches go live. It is just a bit irritating to see Blizzard quoting "Arena participation numbers", of the top few percent of players, as their reason.
Just a cursory glance at the numbers they provided clearly shows some issues for certain classes. Not to mention, an easily noticed abundance of Warlocks in all brackets. However, I am not going to take the time to poke all the obvious holes in the data provided. I'll just hope Blizzard has someone with a brain looking at more than just what was posted.
I truly hope that Arenas are not the deciding factor in everything that is class balance in WoW.
If anything is true of Patch 2.4, it's been a hell of a roller coaster for Shamans! The patch notes started off quiet, but then Blizzard spilled the beans on their plans to "progressively patch the test realm". Instead of releasing a big list of changes, they decided to slowly roll out various changes to the test realm, announcing them as the test realm updated.
I have to admit, the "progressive" approach is turning out to be one hell of a soap opera. One second Warlocks are finally getting nerfed, the next, its another sad joke on the part of Enhancement Shamans everywhere!
Patch 2.4 isn't as bad as I'm squealing about right now for Shamans. Shamans still receive meaningful updates to Ghost Wolf, Totem cooldown, and the Toughness talent. Shamans only lost an anti-healing buff to Flame Tongue weapon, which would have forced Shamans to lose some burst damage in favor of some anti-heal. Sadly, there is no real change to make non-Restoration (healing) Shamans viable in Arenas.
Oh well, at least Blizzard built the Shamans up a bit this time, before crushing them. At least now, I don't have to get a new offhand weapon for my Shaman, and I can stick with the status quo: WINDFURY OR DIE!!!
/sigh
ReplyDelete/wrists
Non-resto shaman arent viable in the arenas? That's funny, because I see them all the time. Both enhancement Shaman and Elemental Shaman are capable of putting out lots of DPS. And if they're coupled with teammates who benefit from their totems (melee and mage-types respectively), then they're even more deadly.
ReplyDeleteJust like in PvE, you have to learn to work with a classes strengths rather than focusing on their weaknesses. Can a non-resto shaman solo-heal a 5-man dungeon? Certainly. I've seen it done over and over again. Do non-resto shaman get rejected from dungeon groups? Yep. But not because they cant be useful, but because the players are short-sighted and unimaginative.
Same goes for PvP, including the arena.
tholal I'm not just going to come out and call you a liar. Afterall, a Shaman just tanked Karahzan (http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/03/05/can-a-shaman-tank-karazhan/)
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to sit here and debate the Shaman class with you. The numbers speak for themselves. Shaman is the least played class in the game. 2/3 talent builds are non-existent in competitive Arena play. By Blizzards own account, Shamans are scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to Arena teams.
You know what? Fuck that logic too, because this game shouldn't be about fucking Arenas and it is going make me quit again if Blizzard keeps trying to do this shit. It is asinine and serves no purpose. Make private Arena realms, then classes could be balanced without fucking up the WoW I've enjoyed for the last three years.
Come to the darkside HL. Come to Vanguard.
ReplyDeleteThen I would need a /wrists emote for sure :P I'd go to PotBS if anything, something newerish.
ReplyDelete"One second Warlocks are finally getting nerfed..."
ReplyDeletelocks have been repeatedly nerfed in each patch since tbc. however powerful they are in these little arenas is not a indicator of how well the class does across the whole game. your looking at this with your shaman-glasses on, ive got my lock-monocle.
i certainly agree with you that the arena should have no effect on pve players.
I'll agree that Warlocks have changed a lot with TBC, but then so has every other class. Still, the numbers don't lie. Warlocks top PvE and PvP charts, while Shamans top neither unless they are Restoration.
ReplyDeleteI would love to pull up the chart that was made to show the number of class changes made per class, but it would just prove the point further. Warlocks have been changed and tweaked, buffed and nerfed more than any other class. Which to me shows, that they have received a hell of a lot more attention than any other class. That is a big red flag in my book that the class was bumped up a bit too far and needs to be brought back down to earth.
this boils down to the holy trinity. locks are not hybrids. shamans are hybrids. a pure dps class should have higher dps than a hybrid class. every class has the option to be dps, but not every class can heal or tank. if a class is focused completely on dps it should have an advantage in that third slice of pie.
ReplyDeleteif classes were made equal then why have them?
When you start talking about what a classes purpose is, you really have to talk about each specific talent spec individually. The old cliche that an entire class should suffer because of it's hybrid nature is retarded. WoW classes are really three classes in one. Some may be split into three different DPS classes (rogues), while others are split three ways (shamans).
ReplyDeleteWith that said, Enhance Shamans do a great job at DPS. DPS was never the problem. The problem is that Enhance Shamans have never had any tools to effectively dish out that DPS in PvP. Plus, Enhance Shamans have no "oh shit" buttons or skills to save the day.
Rogues and Warlocks are DPS classes and they get all the tools in the world to execute that DPS. They also get the "oh shit" buttons to escape.
This all boils down to how horribly unbalanced WoW is becoming outside of Arenas. Crowd Control is king and Healing is queen. If your class and talent spec can't execute, interrupt, or mitigate CC or Healing, you're simply fucked. Hence, the life of an Enhancement Shaman currently.
It's a sad truth that Enhance and Elemental Shamans are just a second rate class because Blizzard refuses to fix CC or Healing in PvP.
As a Enhancement shaman in the year of 2009 Posting from years of playing a shaman.Enhancement cant kill anything. Due to there armor and defenses being nerfed. They die so fast its not even funny. Shaman has been nerfed every patch from 2006 till now. No one in there right mind thinks shaman who play there class is good at anything. Expecialy when other classes GROOSLY out dps them.
ReplyDeleteGear wise is even worse. There are NO i repeat NO 2.90 weapons or 2.80 there all fast weapons which provide NO critical weapon damage which is required for Enhancement shaman. Elemental shaman have yet to figure out there not entierly Spell caster.
There half melee. But they depend on spell casting so much they forget and have been crying out for more spell damage and saying we dont need defenses we need more spell damage.
Blizzard laughing at this removed all tanking and defense abilities. Shaman cant parry dodge or block they cant be missed in combat. and they are always hit for full weapon damage.
Enhancement are Exploited every day of the year. They wont even step foot in to a battleground. There GONE!
Blizzard has announce Dwarfs to be the new Shamana. And when announce despite what the videos by blizzard make it sound like. The room was DEAD SILENT! You could hear the guy in the front row move his foot. Thats how silent it was. I checked out the videos 2 days later and you can hear chearing in the background now. They actually edited there video to make it sound Good!
Thats how bad there expantions going to be!