Ghostcrawler, you said...

#0 - Nov. 19, 2008, 11:38 p.m.

You didn't want people to log into their characters in LK and feel disappointed.

I have 2 level 70 Shaman. I feel disappointed. I tried to level one of them and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. So here I am playing a death knight.

Death Knight is a better designed class, and I'm having fun with it. The design for Shaman needed an overhaul in the way Paladin's received it, and yet..... I'm just left feeling so blah about the two trees; Elemental and Enhancement.

Death Knight is a fresh design. New ways to think about playing and doing things. I like that. Good job. Even Paladin has a bit of that now. I like the overhauled seals and judgement system. Very effective. The decision making is better. Just what was needed, in my opinion (I have a 70 prot pally, on another account though).

But what about both my Shaman? Enhance is a little more fun. But sitting next to my death knight, I have no urge to bother now. Death Knight simply does what an Enhance Shaman could never do, even though they were your original "battle mage" as it were.

I don't care about what's happened in the past. I've been playing Shaman since Jan. 05 and while I feel Shaman were good in the early days following launch, they have forever since been plagued with an issue people loosely refer to as "scaling." And by that I'm not talking about the scaling people are mentioning in the Elemental tree.

Not just numbers. GC... you focus on numbers all too frequently, which is fine.... But what about mechanics, method, implementation... design? The method in which a class does what it does. How actions are carried out. I like totems. But play Warcraft 3. Totems there were amazing because you could 1) Place them wherever you wanted and 2) they friggin ruled. They could turn the tide of a battle.

Totems now? Not so much. There's just so many, the whole system feels sloppy and tired. Old. Archaic. Boring. Not streamlined. Little or no synergy. Dropping 2 to 4 totems every fight? Do you know how long that can take? No thanks, I just skip it these days (and by these days, I mean for years now -- I mean sure I use them as much as I should, but guh, they feel more punishing than rewarding). Needless to say, they don't hit the floor while I'm alone or not dungeoning or raiding. Except in PvP when I need a tremor or grounding totem. Yep, that's it.

Challenge Mode!

Play Death Knight for a few hours. Then try playing an Enhance Shaman.
Play a Boomkin. Then switch to Elemental Shaman.

Do this for PvE and PvP. It rather makes me want to cry, anyway. How do you feel? Sure, I want classes to be different. Of course. That's the whole point of different classes. The last thing I want is my Shaman to feel like my DK. But shouldn't they at least be equally fun? Equally useful in similar situations -- that is as melee DPS... or even ranged DPS (in the Boomkin case)? My issue is not with the numbers, I hope you can tell. I feel busy playing my DK. I feel like my every decision is important and vital to my damage output. I'm engaged.

I'm almost exactly opposite for my Shaman.

As for healing. Can't complain much there. Wish Tidal Waves increased speed on Chain Heals, but I can live without that (I hate spamming CH anyway, a new rotation is welcome). Water Shield maintenance should be looked at (as is I will always avoid Imp Water Shield because I have enough buttons to press and things to worry about, don't need to baby sit Water Shield too -- did you not notice how annoying that would be with Tidal Force and/or our naturally high crit?)

#10 - Nov. 20, 2008, 1:19 a.m.

While that is the goal (that you have fun with your class), we have to be careful with forum posters swinging around fun like a big (Ret) hammer. I have seen several posts where someone essentially said "GC, my class isn't fun. You must add all of these new talents I came up with to make it fun." That's just a cautionary note to everyone that you don't need to preface all of your feedback with "My class isn't fun" or "I'm going to reroll unless...." kind of stuff.

I actually agree with you about totems. They are a really cool idea on paper that has never quite lived up to that concept in reality. We do have some ideas on things we'd like to try with them, but it will require some experimentation and isn't the kind of thing we can just hotfix in. There have been many suggestions from the community on totems already, but feel free to add more. Just know that our vision is not to turn totems into the same kinds of buffs that other classes have. They have to be, you know, totems.

I'm glad you like the death knight. It's nice to see what we can come up with when we are unburdened by four years of baggage on the existing classes. The next step is to strip away some of that existing baggage and get all 10 classes feeling really fun. :)