Shaman's class identity is occasionally generate fun clips for Trolden with evolve or Bandersmosh highrolls.
Jokes aside, it was kind of expected for the class to be weaker this year because of how busted it was in the Doom of the Tomb event and at the start of Descent of Dragons. The same happened when Shaman was busted during the Karazhan/MsoG and then it was trash during the second half of the Year of the Mammoth (remeber Freeze Shaman?). So either there has to be some balance patches to bring the powerlevel of the top classes down a bit or the next expansion bring some additional tools to refine the current Shaman archetypes.
You've got a point there, but doesn't that tell a lot about the core issue which plagues Shaman (and Priest plus Paladin to a certain degree) ? It suffers from a poor core set of cards, many of which are either unplayable or very situational. Hence the rework of Priest so Anduin doesn't have to rely on good to overwhelmingly powerful support from future expansions anymore. The same has to happen in regards to Thrall unless we want Shaman to remain in the dumpster or witness another era of Shamanstone some day.
Overload Shaman usually succeeds by playing very aggressively but lost most of their synergy cards due to rotation
Murloc Shaman as well as Totem Shaman win by snowballing which is impossible in a meta dominated by Tempo
Galakrond Shaman has been nerfed to oblivion and even VS in their latest report suggest to undo some of the nerfs
Muckmorpher Shaman (similar to Duel Paladin) is just a lesser Big Priest depending on highrolls similar to Evolve
Control Shaman lost both Hagatha and Shudderwock, it cannot compete with the infinite value of Rogue and Priest
The current tempo-oriented metagame is very bad for shaman because it lost most of it's good tempo and early game plays to nerfs or rotation. So it's relegated to being a board-centric class that's worse at fighting for board than the other good classes.
Serpentshrine Portal is the only early game/tempo card that Shaman got. Shaman lost Zap, Voltaic Burst, Invocation of Frost (nerf), Totemic Smash, Earthen Might, Likkim, Menacing Nimbus, and Thunderhead.
With the exception of class cards and neutrals, the only early Shaman cards are Sludge Slurper (good, but overload), Surging Tempest (requires being overloaded), and EVIL Totem (no attack), and Serpentshrine Portal (good, but also overload again). Not only are these cards very few in number, but they're not even that good.
If Shaman gets some tools to get out of the early game without falling terribly far behind, I think it'll actually be fine. Boggspine Knuckles is incredibly powerful if you want to go the tempo route, and the Quest can still generate plenty of endgame value if you want to go the longer path.
People rail on card draw being the biggest issue, and I agree that Shaman's card draw sucks. But I think if you were legitimately contesting the board in the early game, you wouldn't need the card draw to compensate for how far behind you fell.
Seriously, like 2 more good early game cards probably changes a lot for Shaman.
Not to be one of Those People, but... so what if Shaman is bad now? Every class has had its time in the sun, and times when it's much harder to play. If you've played the game for any length of time, you've seen this happen any number of times.
So yes, Shaman is bad now. You have to either put up with its weaknesses, play a different class or drop into Wild. But give it time... soon people will be complaining about Shamanstone again.
And if I'm honest, some of us still bear the scars from mid-range Shaman. *shudder*
I also love playing Shaman but I do think that is not well exploited... I share the list that brought me to Diamond with around 70% WR until now, and I just beaten a Galakrond Rogue in the first game on Diamond...
I took legend with control shaman last month. It performs quite good.
Yeah control shaman is great people just don't play it. Everyday i see a new thread about changing a classes identity or how a class is terrible and has no place in the meta it's so stupid these classes have the makings of great decks no one knows how to build them or play them until a streamer or pro makes one. Also it seems like a lot of players forget that even though the devs are going for a balanced meta year round, hearthstone will always have a class strength cycle. A lot of decks require only a few cards to be very good/"broken" as the community likes to call them.
To respond to OP no shaman is not shut out of the meta. You have control, quest/highlander variants, galakrond, totem/aggro that can make the climb to legend. You also have some meme versions that could destroy some of the slower decks like Doomhammer combos and Maly/Lady Vasj decks.
shaman is useless. Witch's brew is pointless. Why even have it in the deck? Even if you had it in hand you could never play it to get any decent heal because you would spend all your mana on healing and gain no tempo. Shaman is far worse than paladin. It's beyond useless. You can play a meme evolve shaman and cheat out wins for a barely over 50% win rate but witch's brew is so bad it's basically unplayable. If it spawned 2 mana minions on every use it would become only then playable and shaman would still stuck. At least when paladin heals it does it while putting a minion on the board.
You play Witch's Brew on the right turn? DHs and aggro Hunters will concede.
You play Witch's Brew on a dead turn? you have filled you health intead of summoning a totem or something
You are playing a fatigue game? You play Witch's Brew as last card and you win
Have you ever played aggro DH? you are dead on turn 6. You cannot play witch's brew. What happens is you have between 11 and 14 hp on turn 4. This is also the case for tempo DH but aggro DH cuts priestess. At D1 - 5 and legend rankings DH has like 80% win rate vs shaman. You are just dead before you can even play hagatha.
Hit diamond last month with evolve/galkrond shaman. No I can't get past gold (with changes to the deck after losing 12 consecutive games with my diamond deck). Times are hard for shaman players.
You get no tempo with it so it doesn't help you win the game. Compare this to amber watcher or libram of hope which heals you and develops your board. How do you play witch's brew vs aggressive decks to stop dying? You can't since you must develop your board.
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come to think of it, really I did not come across a single shaman for several days ....
:P~~~
You've got a point there, but doesn't that tell a lot about the core issue which plagues Shaman (and Priest plus Paladin to a certain degree) ? It suffers from a poor core set of cards, many of which are either unplayable or very situational. Hence the rework of Priest so Anduin doesn't have to rely on good to overwhelmingly powerful support from future expansions anymore. The same has to happen in regards to Thrall unless we want Shaman to remain in the dumpster or witness another era of Shamanstone some day.
Overload Shaman usually succeeds by playing very aggressively but lost most of their synergy cards due to rotation
Murloc Shaman as well as Totem Shaman win by snowballing which is impossible in a meta dominated by Tempo
Galakrond Shaman has been nerfed to oblivion and even VS in their latest report suggest to undo some of the nerfs
Muckmorpher Shaman (similar to Duel Paladin) is just a lesser Big Priest depending on highrolls similar to Evolve
Control Shaman lost both Hagatha and Shudderwock, it cannot compete with the infinite value of Rogue and Priest
Imo Shaman cards are fine but other classes' cards (especially DH) are so powerful. Shamans can't cope with them.
The current tempo-oriented metagame is very bad for shaman because it lost most of it's good tempo and early game plays to nerfs or rotation. So it's relegated to being a board-centric class that's worse at fighting for board than the other good classes.
Serpentshrine Portal is the only early game/tempo card that Shaman got. Shaman lost Zap, Voltaic Burst, Invocation of Frost (nerf), Totemic Smash, Earthen Might, Likkim, Menacing Nimbus, and Thunderhead.
With the exception of class cards and neutrals, the only early Shaman cards are Sludge Slurper (good, but overload), Surging Tempest (requires being overloaded), and EVIL Totem (no attack), and Serpentshrine Portal (good, but also overload again). Not only are these cards very few in number, but they're not even that good.
If Shaman gets some tools to get out of the early game without falling terribly far behind, I think it'll actually be fine. Boggspine Knuckles is incredibly powerful if you want to go the tempo route, and the Quest can still generate plenty of endgame value if you want to go the longer path.
People rail on card draw being the biggest issue, and I agree that Shaman's card draw sucks. But I think if you were legitimately contesting the board in the early game, you wouldn't need the card draw to compensate for how far behind you fell.
Seriously, like 2 more good early game cards probably changes a lot for Shaman.
Witch brew is such a bad card.
yes, when you dont have board control it's bad, but when you do Tree of Life for face
𝔅𝔶 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔢𝔩𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰 𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔟𝔦𝔫𝔢𝔡!
Not to be one of Those People, but... so what if Shaman is bad now? Every class has had its time in the sun, and times when it's much harder to play. If you've played the game for any length of time, you've seen this happen any number of times.
So yes, Shaman is bad now. You have to either put up with its weaknesses, play a different class or drop into Wild. But give it time... soon people will be complaining about Shamanstone again.
And if I'm honest, some of us still bear the scars from mid-range Shaman. *shudder*
I also love playing Shaman but I do think that is not well exploited... I share the list that brought me to Diamond with around 70% WR until now,
and I just beaten a Galakrond Rogue in the first game on Diamond...
Yeah control shaman is great people just don't play it. Everyday i see a new thread about changing a classes identity or how a class is terrible and has no place in the meta it's so stupid these classes have the makings of great decks no one knows how to build them or play them until a streamer or pro makes one. Also it seems like a lot of players forget that even though the devs are going for a balanced meta year round, hearthstone will always have a class strength cycle. A lot of decks require only a few cards to be very good/"broken" as the community likes to call them.
To respond to OP no shaman is not shut out of the meta. You have control, quest/highlander variants, galakrond, totem/aggro that can make the climb to legend. You also have some meme versions that could destroy some of the slower decks like Doomhammer combos and Maly/Lady Vasj decks.
Google search: Is Hearthstone free to play?
No county for old shamans in this standard meta.
Blizzard killed shaman after galakrond nerfs.
I try on wild in this season.
I suggest same for you all as well.
Try out this Shaman deck, you might have success with it
https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1348248-gaypirates-spell-damage-shaman-legend
$class isnt OP as fck after decades and kids cant get easy wins anymore: mimimi, $class is sooo useless now
shaman is useless. Witch's brew is pointless. Why even have it in the deck? Even if you had it in hand you could never play it to get any decent heal because you would spend all your mana on healing and gain no tempo. Shaman is far worse than paladin. It's beyond useless. You can play a meme evolve shaman and cheat out wins for a barely over 50% win rate but witch's brew is so bad it's basically unplayable. If it spawned 2 mana minions on every use it would become only then playable and shaman would still stuck. At least when paladin heals it does it while putting a minion on the board.
You play Witch's Brew on the right turn? DHs and aggro Hunters will concede.
You play Witch's Brew on a dead turn? you have filled you health intead of summoning a totem or something
You are playing a fatigue game? You play Witch's Brew as last card and you win
.
Nah, Blizzard just invented DH class so that children can reach legend without any skill.
Have you ever played aggro DH? you are dead on turn 6. You cannot play witch's brew. What happens is you have between 11 and 14 hp on turn 4. This is also the case for tempo DH but aggro DH cuts priestess. At D1 - 5 and legend rankings DH has like 80% win rate vs shaman. You are just dead before you can even play hagatha.
Not just Shaman, Control Druid isn't a viable option either, unless you play Spell Druid, which is basically Token Druid 2020
Pala has just one deck viable for the Meta which ironically is aggro / Murlocs, and that fact certainly does the class Identity more harm than good.
Druid and Pala seriously need a Classic / Basic set Overhaul / Buff to ever become competetive classes again.
Shaman on the other hand actually has a decent Classic / Basic Set, but gets mostly weaker cards in Year of the Phoenix.
...however since we are only 1 expansion in certainly not all hope is lost for this class.
Hit diamond last month with evolve/galkrond shaman. No I can't get past gold (with changes to the deck after losing 12 consecutive games with my diamond deck). Times are hard for shaman players.
What's everybody's beef with Witch's Brew?
You get no tempo with it so it doesn't help you win the game. Compare this to amber watcher or libram of hope which heals you and develops your board. How do you play witch's brew vs aggressive decks to stop dying? You can't since you must develop your board.