So ST sucks ass for elemental shamans :(

[Tdog]

At least the top floor anyways. I burned right thru the first 2 floors, unlocked the shield for jamalan, ran up to the top floor only to discover that ALL of the dragonkin are highly nature resistant which is like a grand majority of shaman dps. Since I'm running 5x shammy team atm it isn't exactly working out too well :( What sucks even more is that all the best caster gear in ST is on the top floor. Combined all that with all the running around you have to do and I don't like ST for shaman team at all.

Think I'm going to go run BRD instead.

[Anozireth]

I was having similar problems in large parts of Maraudon. I guess that's what we get for putting all our eggs in one basket. :(

[Team Squishee]

Its a major design flaw on Blizzards part. They basically took one class/spec and forced it into a support role for those encounters. (healing?)

You can drop fire totems and use flameshock - but its really not that mana effiecient.

to be fair i dont think they designed those encounters with an all elemental shaman dps dept in mind

[Anozireth]

In my opinion it's more of a flaw with the elemental shaman spec itself. Every other caster has at least one backup school that they can spam and be somewhat effective with if their main school is locked out. Perhaps there will be a new spell in the expansion that addresses this, but for now we're SOL. :(

[NightFire]

Shaman and Paladin both have the same issue. Paladins only have holy spells. They both need to be given one other school that is actually usable.

[Basilikos]

You know, I was wondering about things like this. I recall the first time I took a character through Netherstorm and how ticked I was that my Boomkin couldn't use all of its damage spells on elementals and wraiths.

It just seems wrong. At least the Boomkin have a backup type of damage (nature / arcane) in case one fails. I still can't believe that Ele shammies have squat besides the nature damage. You would think that Blizzard would know better than to do something like that.

[Quix]

so,, I used to Solo these trees in Skettis on my mage,,,, not such a great idea on 5 Multiboxing Shaman...


I agree with the above completely, shaman need another spell school as a backup.

[Korruptor]

I could be wrong but...

I thought that hybrids like Shaman and Paladins trade a second spell school for the melee abilites and better armor. I understand that multi boxing melee is not really a viable option.

[Toned]

You can do it I've done ST with 5x sham and the maraudon princess... Frost Shock on your "Main" for agro, and flame shock on your alts. Then use searing totems and then just heal the main. (I never did this but I did think about specing my main enhancement).

[Tdog]

You can do it I've done ST with 5x sham and the maraudon princess... Frost Shock on your "Main" for agro, and flame shock on your alts. Then use searing totems and then just heal the main. (I never did this but I did think about specing my main enhancement).O I was able to do it. It was just way more of a pain in the ass than it was worth.

[Djarid]

I think Shaman should have Shadow as their backup school

no... hear me out here... Blizzard seems to have got its knickers in a twist over what a Shaman is... we are supposed to commune with spirits. They let us play with the spirits of nature, i.e. elementals but what about those of people? One of the key tenets of shamanism is communing with tribal ancestors.

Invoking the power of dead people surely must come under the shadow school.

It would be pretty cool to have a priest 2x lock 2x shaman team if that was the case :)

[Kaynin]

I think Shaman should have Shadow as their backup school

no... hear me out here... Blizzard seems to have got its knickers in a twist over what a Shaman is... we are supposed to commune with spirits. They let us play with the spirits of nature, i.e. elementals but what about those of people? One of the key tenets of shamanism is communing with tribal ancestors.

Invoking the power of dead people surely must come under the shadow school.

It would be pretty cool to have a priest 2x lock 2x shaman team if that was the case :)

The fact that shamanism eventually turned to warlockism and only recently back to shamanism again, does not mean shadow is a school of shamans.

Shadow is one of the schools that shamans forbid to practice, lore wise.

If any other school should be for shamans, it's either more frost or fire damage (More then already present).

[Djarid]

I was unaware of the lore, I was referring to shamanism IRL ;)

However I have now been educated :) (stupid lore)

[elo]

Totally agree here. I consider myself pretty well locked out of running a full Arc run because of this, there's a 50/50 chance of getting an add at the end boss that's immune to nature. I was able to get through Princess without tooo much trouble but the ~50's encounters are a bit simpler than the 70 encounters.

I've also considered building up the melee gear for such instances, if it's a simple fight then the 5x melee isn't unmanageable but you have to be able to see it coming so you can switch to the melee gear cause otherwise, even with a great weapon, the DPS is the suck. Plus, I have to build up that melee set of gear, /sigh. I don't even have good caster gear yet, let alone a whole other set.

Ah well, still love me some shaman.

[Boom]

I wrote an article about my ST run at level 50, to get my Enamored Water Spirit ('http://www.wowdb.com/item.aspx?id=20503') , you can read it here: Multiboxing the Sunken Temple ('http://www.twentytotems.com/2008/01/raiding-temple-of-atalhakkar.html')

I ran into the same issues of course. At the time, I BARELY killed the green dragons after a pile of wipes. I also had to leave the temple at the feet of the final boss. He just hit too hard. I can't imagine running instances without my Elementals anymore. :)

As for the alternate spell type, I have to agree that only frost or fire would be appropriate. While Shaman are known to commune with their dead, it turned out the ability had nothing to do with their Shaman magic. It was actually caused by K'ure ('http://www.wowwiki.com/K%27ure'), a Naaru who was permanently imbedded into Oshu'gun when Velen ('http://www.wowwiki.com/Velen') and the draenei crashed onto Draenor (now the outlands). (They were running from the Burning Legion)

K'ure ('http://www.wowwiki.com/K%27ure'), though dying over the last few centuries, remained in the crashed ship, which appeared to the Orc tribes as a "holy place". As an Orc Shaman would die, it's spirit would be drawn to K'ure ('http://www.wowwiki.com/K%27ure') instead of drifting away, and that allowed the living Shaman to commune with them. That's it. Nothing "shadowy" or evil.

This if course, is the view provided by the book Rise of the Horde ('http://www.wowwiki.com/Rise_of_the_Horde') , by Christie Golden (love her work) which was published BEFORE TBC. The story we're given in TBC isn't quite as pretty, but it still agrees that Shaman would never touch Shadow magic.

I should totally make this a post on my blog... /runtoblog

Boom