#0 - Oct. 31, 2008, 12:13 a.m.
Shamans once again find themselves at the bottom of the barrel with AoE... nearly every other class has a powerful AoE ability to bring to the raid, except for shamans. Let's compare the abilities shaman has vs other classes...
Druid - As if druids didn't have enough, they get an extremely powerful AoE ability Hurricane, which not only deals a nice 300+ dps, it also has the benefit of slowing the attackspeed of all enemies it hits. In addition, it only needs to be cast once every 10 seconds, very powerful. Tanks can also spam swipes for decent damage, and talent for a multi-target maul.
Mage - Mages have a huge selection of awesome AoE abilities, nothing really needs to be said for them.
Warlocks - Seed of corruption is probably the most powerful AoE tool in the game. Massive amounts of damage in a very short time.
Warriors - Whirlwind hits 4 targets for BOTH weapon melee damage. Essentially this is an AoE stormstrike, that can be used while DWing 2handers...
-Shockwave/Thunderclap, Shockwave especially can deal some crazy damage on large pulls. I've seen warriors instantly dealing 30k + damage from one shockwave...
-And of course BladeStorm. Hits all enemies for weapon damage every second for 6 seconds. Easily capable for doing 1k + dps on all enemies. Really really good.
Paladins - Consecration, Divine Storm, of of course prot blocking talents. Consecration deals pretty nice damage scaling with AP and SP.
Hunters - With volley getting a nice buff, and multi-shot hunters are definately not left behind in AoE damage.
Priests - Holy Nova isn't the best in the game for sure, but it really isn't that bad either. And with the added benefit of also healing everyone in range, its definitely a good ability. Trainable.
Rogue - even ROGUES, who are by design supposed to be single-target, high damage assassins have some form of AoE with blade fury...
Now, look at what shamans have...
Fire Nova Totem - after 5 seconds explodes dealing 727 - 813 damage to all enemies. 33% base mana. 15 second cooldown.
- That's roughly 100 dps... on a 15 second cool down... which requires you to be close the mobs to place it... for a third of your base mana...
Clearly this is just a bad . Even if it were good, Ele shamans will almost never use this totem because they'd have to run up to the mobs to use it, and it's too expensive for enhancement shamans, as most of our mana comes from base mana.
Magma Totem - deals 100 fire damage to all enemies every 2 seconds. 27% base mana.
- Even worse then fire nova. A whopping 50 dps, and the same problems fire nova has.
Neither of these totems outweigh the benefit of Flametongue totem. You'd be doing better dps on AoE pulls through buffing the other classes who actually have AoE abilites then you ever can with our crappy fire totems. The only spell we're left with is...
Chain Lightning - deals 734-838 damage, jumping to 2 nearby targets and dealing 30% less damage each time it jumps. 26% base mana. 6 sec cool down
- This really isn't an AoE spell to begin with, because it only hits 3 targets and even then there's a 60% damage penalty on the third target... compare this to abilities like warrior's whirlwind that hits FOUR targets, with absolutely no damage reduction...
And again, it's an expensive spell for enhancement shamans, and just not worth the mana cost for only 3 targets...
Just look at the spells you have on your bar, look at what shamans have, and draw your own conclusions... We really need a new TRAINABLE spell to help us out on AoE pulls., for BOTH Elemental and Enhancement. I can be #1 on the charts as an enh shaman, but once we start on AoE trash, I quickly fall near the bottom. This isn't a problem of DPS but rather just raw damage done.
And if blizzard won't give us a bandaid in the form of a new spell, then just buff what we already have to be on-par with some of the other classes.
