Do you think Shaman DPS is low because of us?

[Los]

Its naive to think that there will be no devver what so ever, that runs around thinking that they shouldn't make 'this' spell or that spell to OP in case somebody would multibox the class. They get loads of drama about it, why shouldnt they keep us in mind somewhere.

ot; Rofol @ suvega and vyndree, stop the [s]dramatics [/s]PLEASE its ANNOYING to read

[bodefeld]

I did use ToWx5 a lot -- but I don't find using my characters' abilities (I spent talent points for) an "abuse". Analogously, one could argue that using 3 sheeps in a group with 3 mages is "abusing" a "stacking" CC -- here too, all party members benefit from the "stacking" effect. But this is not the type of discussion I would like to have here. I simply don't like being accused of abusing something that is perfectly within the game mechanics and well-known to the devs.
ToW appealed to me because it served two important purposes in PvE: Firstly, it got my characters spell-hit-capped in PvP gear, and secondly, 51% crit total helped save mana and thus compensate for the lack of mp5 on PvP gear.

In my opinion, ToW stacking was removed, because:
a) most major buffs were made raid-wide, and
b) stacking ToW (as well as many others) would have been OP

I do not think it is likely that Blizz changed the buff system because of a few multiboxers.
It's more of a necessity that came along with all the other changes to classes and the raid- and buff system altogether.

Sad thing is, Blizzard's efforts to balance dps classes seems to be restricted to:
a) level 80 (atm) and
b) raids (where CoE etc. is assumed to be up).

[Multibocks]

I think it was more of a one stone- two birds thing. They were going to nerf stacking anyways, but the bonus side effect was to limit MBers favorite class.

[Xar]

Doubt it's because of multiboxers. Definitely seems because of the homogenizing of the classes and making buffs raid wide. Some classes win big and some not so much until they get a chance to fix things. It definitely means we'll eventually get a dps boost later if the damage doesn't pan out at 80.

[TheBigBB]

Its naive to think that there will be no devver what so ever, that runs around thinking that they shouldn't make 'this' spell or that spell to OP in case somebody would multibox the class. They get loads of drama about it, why shouldnt they keep us in mind somewhere.

ot; Rofol @ suvega and vyndree, stop the [s]dramatics [/s]PLEASE its ANNOYING to read

All a dev would have to worry about is how things stack up in general. Multibox stacking is no different from solobox stacking. If a multiboxer can use something to great success, a group of soloboxers can do it even more substantially with a well-disciplined team of people. The changes to the game take into effect how skills work together on a character basis. Blue posts constantly use this as their justification for multiboxing in general: they design the game around characters, not number of people behind the characters. If there is a dev who somehow sees a difference between stacking as a multiboxer and stacking as a soloboxer, that dev needs to resign. I don't believe such a dev exists.

[Vyndree]

If a multiboxer can use something to great success, a group of soloboxers can do it even more substantially with a well-disciplined team of people

Which is exactly what happened to resto shammies in raids, particularly sunwell.

I'd argue that sunwell raiders (pre-nerf) were some of the most disciplined and well coordinated PvE players in the game, and who exploited class stacking to its fullest. They would also have the most to gain (gear-wise) from such an exploit.

All we multiboxers gain from abusing class stacking is making it easier to get as close as we possibly can to that well-disciplined team.

ToW stacking was nerfed, in part, because the totem was buffed and raid stacking in total nerfed. Regardless of how many players spec elemental (since shaman, in general, are the least played class in the game) -- they have to create a 41-point talent tree for it. Which means they have to think of the needs of normal run-of-the-mill shaman players.

I leveled elemental, despite how weak it was solo and pre-60. I raided elemental occasionally. We have a guild shaman who considers himself elemental, even though he is forced to respec resto for resto shaman stacking in sunwell. To say that multiboxers are the majority of the elemental shaman spec is ridiculous -- it's a popular choice for our community, yes. But even then I doubt we so much as dent the normal populace.

FYI -- solo ele shamans were popular in PvP arenas. They'd blow their NS+CL, heroism, and fall over but they were still popular for just that. Multiboxers weren't the only ones who enjoyed ele burst.

ot; Rofol @ suvega and vyndree, stop the dramatics PLEASE its ANNOYING to read

At least my dramatic opinion is fact-based and logical.

I could argue the same about fancy strikeouts and font styles. You don't have to like the writing. The fact that nobody has directly refuted the actual argument (only the execution of it) is another sign that the argument itself is sound. If you want to have a discussion, discuss. But I have every right to be as [s]snarky[/s] as you are.

[Tsunami]

there are several handicaps that shaman have in general.

1. roles and style of play- shaman are one of two classes that have 3 completely different roles and styles of play. shaman are ranged dps, melee dps and healers. the druid is ranged dps, tank/melee dps, and hearler. most other classes have 1-2 different roles and styles. e.g. the warrior is either a tank (prot spec) or melee dps (arms or fury or both). so the warrior has 2 trees to choose from if you want to do dps. thats 58 talents to choose from. mages basically have only one role. ranged dps and the 3 specs are for either pvp or pve. shaman have been good healers because there are few choices for that role, they are much better melee dps with the new talents, but still suffer in elemental.

2. talents- elemental shaman have only 24 talents to spend there points on, most other classes have 28. shaman talents are more expensive than other classes, if we had 4 more talents than shaman would see an improvement.

3. totems are ineffective- pre BC shaman were a powerful hybrid class. one reason was the buffs and damage that totems provided. at this time half the totems are useless. e.g. sentinel and resistance totems. seering totem at lvl 60 did max 50 damage. post BC most armor and health doubled, but the damage increase to seering totem only went up 20%, max of 60 damage. that 10 extra damage increase means nothing when fighting a warrior with 6k more health and 7k+ additional armor. other totems suffer the same.

4. scalability- shaman don't scale the way other caster classes do. so as gear gets better shaman don't improve at the same rate as locks, hunters, rogues, mages or druids.

5. lack of clear party or raid purpose- elemental shaman are not the best in any role. there are better ranged dps and our buffs can be duplicated by other classes. so why bring a shaman now. we have become filler. need one more to fill the group, " ok, i guess we can bring the elemental shaman, better that than not go at all".

6. burst dps- the shaman can create some good burst damage but they suffer from a good rotation. with the cooldowns, shaman dps actually goes down with if you add too much haste to your gear. you either do nothing while waiting for one of the cooldown to expire, or you cast a lesser damage spell and push back your high damage spell. our cooldowns don't line up very well.

7. shaman were horde only for a long time. shaman were OP pre BC but got nerfed post BC. with the problem listed in 5, it was not the draw that pally was for horde players. so pally numbers went up while shaman numbers went down (as a percentage of class specs)

these are my observations of the numerous shaman handicaps. I think it is a fun class to play, easy to solo, but with most end game content, elemental shaman are the red headed step child.

[Multibocks]

FYI -- solo ele shamans were popular in PvP arenas. They'd blow their NS+CL, heroism, and fall over but they were still popular for just that. Multiboxers weren't the only ones who enjoyed ele burst.

One shaman doing NS/CL doesnt mean much, 5 different people doing NS/CL is better, 1 person doing 5 NS/CL is best. Focus fire is where it's at and if you don't even have to spend time telling your teammates, "FF warrior," "No wait, switch to priest!" This I think is where the rub comes in, gibbing one person a MBer is best. Taking out a whole team, eh not so much. To the average QQer on the forums, "eh that dude just NS/CLd me and I still won lol" to "WTF I just died in .1 secs, that's not fair!" Yes I know there are blue posts on this and yes it's ok... for now. They have changed their stances on big issues before, I just figure I will enjoy it while I can.

[Vyndree]

One shaman doing NS/CL doesnt mean much, 5 different people doing NS/CL is better

I never insinuated otherwise. But several arguers are claiming that the normal elemental population is so low that multiboxers are the ones the developers are nerfing/designing around. I simply pointed out a small case where elemental shaman solo-boxers were prevalent. Because of their burst, they made for better PvPers than raiders, though that's not saying much since survivability of soloboxing shamans in general is relatively poor.

I didn't just roll multiboxed shaman because I saw others doing it (at the time, everyone was locks anyway). I rolled 4 shamans because my main (the 5th) was already 70, and rolled a tank (paladin) to go with them. I never specced enhancement until bt/hyjal/sunwell, and leveled elemental and raided Kara-SSC/TK resto. So I would say my first perspective of shaman would be that of a solo-boxer. Prior to multiboxing, I was Dualist in S1 and quit PvPing to focus on leveling after. My primary perspective, however, was raiding -- and I won't claim to know much about arena'ing anyway since I haven't really kept up with it or made it any sort of primary focus.

I'm horrible with composition names, but several comps included an elemental shaman to just blow their quick burst, throw heroism and as many offensive purges/earthshocks as they can, and then drop dead since they have little survivability. Of course, this was likely because enhancement completely failed at PvP, so elemental was more desirable due to ranged burst.

[Ellay]

Ele Shaman was the core damage dealer for a 2345 / 23456 which reign supreme for almost 3 seasons.
They were non existent though in 2's and 3's.