as a guy who has gotten legend with shaman only many times including this season and is currently at 6k wins with shaman these are the changes I would make to shaman at its current state
make floated mana reduce overloaded crystals make it so the cast last turn with elementals and spells can also be done on the current turn to activate
Anyone who thinks shaman is in a good state right now is flat out wrong. I dont understand how they cant look at game stats and see theres need for a change. Shamans honestly awful rn and its sad because you can see the potential. We need a better reason to Overload the cards are just underwhelminglike its soooo bad ill be playing some shit player barely piloting correctly and they still just sweep because there cards are just like like multitudes better then anytyhing i have access to. Look at mage and demon hunter its actually hilarious the value they can generate in one turn. SHAMAN NEEDS A BUFF
I don't think this would even be OP, I like this idea.
Could make for some interesting cards too, maybe something like: 1 Mana, deal 1 damage to all enemy minions now and at the end of your turn, Overload (1), If you Overload (meaning you didn't float mana) deal the second 1 damage to all enemy minions at the start of your next turn instead.
Shaman will most likely get buffed in the upcoming balance changes. Book of Heroes Thrall comes out next month and selling a Shaman pack bundle when the class is borderline unplayable in standard is not a good idea.
Shaman will most likely get buffed in the upcoming balance changes. Book of Heroes Thrall comes out next month and selling a Shaman pack bundle when the class is borderline unplayable in standard is not a good idea.
Yeah that’s a good theory. I’m guessing that during the Barrens bonus pack there will be some pretty op Shaman cards including a draw card.
In a meta where stats + minions mean nothing, apart from maybe rush warrior (pretty much every class has no problem clearing boards these days) , shammys need far better spells than they’ve got. For a caster class in lore the current standard set of spells is so bad. Plus things like a decent card Groundskeeper only has 2 spells that actually activate it and 1 is complete garbage and the other is way too slow. Blizzard must know that shaman is garbage when they’re making design decisions like that.
In a meta where stats + minions mean nothing, apart from maybe rush warrior (pretty much every class has no problem clearing boards these days) , shammys need far better spells than they’ve got. For a caster class in lore the current standard set of spells is so bad. Plus things like a decent card Groundskeeper only has 2 spells that actually activate it and 1 is complete garbage and the other is way too slow. Blizzard must know that shaman is garbage when they’re making design decisions like that.
it is laughable how much of an oversight there has been with shaman.. meanwhile paladin has been getting broke card after broke card
as a guy who has gotten legend with shaman only many times including this season and is currently at 6k wins with shaman these are the changes I would make to shaman at its current state
make floated mana reduce overloaded crystals make it so the cast last turn with elementals and spells can also be done on the current turn to activate
and maybe give some draw... like cmon
This would break shaman bringing them over the top. Lack of card draw, planning turns ahead of time and over load being actually penalizing is part of its class identity and keeping shaman from overshowing the other classes.
Shaman will most likely get buffed in the upcoming balance changes.
I'm hearing this for 4 years, you know... Even DIRECT balance changes (boomsday, reverting nerfes to lil poor sludge slurper, others) didn't make any shit. The two shaman decks were directly nerfed, the galakrond package and evolve with claw.
It's so funny to remember these super quick shaman nerfs when paladin's presence is absolute for like 3 expansions in a row.
My biggest gripe right now is their value generation. You can pack your deck with Guidance, Primordial Studies, and Marshspawn, but you're never actually going to find anything that moves the needle against other control classes. Shaman spells are almost entirely reactive right now. They have no ability to generate board presence through discovers.
Contrast that with a class like Priest, where cards like Raise Dead and Draconic Studies allow you pump out 50+ mana worth of proactive plays every game with no deckbuilding concession.
Trying to build a Shaman deck... It just feels like they're ten cards short of every other class because of how many are either weak reactive cards or tied to a specific archetype that doesn't have enough support.
Elementary Reaction can be compared to Mimic Pod, but I would say it's straight up better. You need to have played an Elemental last turn for it to be 1 Mana cheaper than Mimic Pod, but even if you didn't play an Elemental last turn it's still a 2 Mana draw 1.
Arid Stormer could be compared to a Crabrider with a Smuggler's Run, sure, Crabrider feels stronger because Smuggler's Run isn't the only buff Paladins use on it, but as a 3 Mana, 2/5, Rush Windfury they are the same, only a Paladin pays 2 cards, and a Shaman pays an Elemental last turn.
Lilypad Lurker is just Hex on a stick. Whether you compare it to the old 3 Mana Hex, or the current 4 Mana Hex, Lilypad Lurker is at worst a 2 Mana 4/5. The only downside being you have to have played an Elemental last turn, but this is partially negated through the fact Lilypad Lurker itself is an Elemental, unlike Hex of course. (And you can't Hex your own Minions anymore or Hex on turn 4, but this is really minor.)
Kalimos, Primal Lord is arguably the best 'Elemental last turn' card of all. His Invocations being very strong for his total cost.
Invocation of Earth is most similar to Stand Against Darkness, you do get an extra Minion, so maybe make it cost 6 Mana. Eitherway this would make Kalimos, Primal Lord a 2 or 3 mana 7/7. Though I'm not gonna lie, this Invocation just isn't that good, despite the Mana/Value comparison. Probably better than Onyxia though, for what that's worth.
All those four Invocations with the only downside of an Elemental last turn of course. But the fact you can choose them is a great upside in its own right.
I guess what I'm trying to say with this colourful wall of text is that I believe the Elemental last turn mechanic really isn't as bad as you might think. Though this does depend on the amount of Elementals you have put in your deck of course. But for Wild players like myself, it only gets better and better as more and more viable Elemental cards get printed, even some without the Elemental last turn prerequisite.
Again, feel free to disagree and start a conversation, I'll be happy to discuss.
Also, I didn't go into any Neutral or non-Shaman class Elementals because you did say that Shaman isn't as strong as other classes with its Elementals, so I focused on Shamans Elementals.
Forgot to quote in my last posting..but the message is still the same..Another non shaman player telling us how strong the class is when its trash in standard.My challenge is the same.Build the kick-ass shaman deck your talking about and take it and ladder with it.
From bronze to legend.Prove us shaman players wrong.
Elementary Reaction can be compared to Mimic Pod, but I would say it's straight up better. You need to have played an Elemental last turn for it to be 1 Mana cheaper than Mimic Pod, but even if you didn't play an Elemental last turn it's still a 2 Mana draw 1.
Arid Stormer could be compared to a Crabrider with a Smuggler's Run, sure, Crabrider feels stronger because Smuggler's Run isn't the only buff Paladins use on it, but as a 3 Mana, 2/5, Rush Windfury they are the same, only a Paladin pays 2 cards, and a Shaman pays an Elemental last turn.
Lilypad Lurker is just Hex on a stick. Whether you compare it to the old 3 Mana Hex, or the current 4 Mana Hex, Lilypad Lurker is at worst a 2 Mana 4/5. The only downside being you have to have played an Elemental last turn, but this is partially negated through the fact Lilypad Lurker itself is an Elemental, unlike Hex of course. (And you can't Hex your own Minions anymore or Hex on turn 4, but this is really minor.)
Kalimos, Primal Lord is arguably the best 'Elemental last turn' card of all. His Invocations being very strong for his total cost.
Invocation of Earth is most similar to Stand Against Darkness, you do get an extra Minion, so maybe make it cost 6 Mana. Eitherway this would make Kalimos, Primal Lord a 2 or 3 mana 7/7. Though I'm not gonna lie, this Invocation just isn't that good, despite the Mana/Value comparison. Probably better than Onyxia though, for what that's worth.
All those four Invocations with the only downside of an Elemental last turn of course. But the fact you can choose them is a great upside in its own right.
I guess what I'm trying to say with this colourful wall of text is that I believe the Elemental last turn mechanic really isn't as bad as you might think. Though this does depend on the amount of Elementals you have put in your deck of course. But for Wild players like myself, it only gets better and better as more and more viable Elemental cards get printed, even some without the Elemental last turn prerequisite.
Again, feel free to disagree and start a conversation, I'll be happy to discuss.
Also, I didn't go into any Neutral or non-Shaman class Elementals because you did say that Shaman isn't as strong as other classes with its Elementals, so I focused on Shamans Elementals.
Forgot to quote in my last posting..but the message is still the same..Another non shaman player telling us how strong the class is when its trash in standard.My challenge is the same.Build the kick-ass shaman deck your talking about and take it and ladder with it.
From bronze to legend.Prove us shaman players wrong.
Dude, except for Arid Stormer which I took out cause it was underwhelming, all the cards I mentioned in the post are in my current, favorite, and most played deck. Even the Stone Sentinel in the post below it. I don't know why you just assume I'm a non Shaman player who's trying to make excuses why Shaman is good and doesn't need a change.
I also never said it's some unicorn deck that completely shits on the ladder. I said it's not the worst mechanic and you can have fun with it and even beat strong decks with it.
As for reaching rank Legend with Shaman, I did last month, not with Elementals, but I reached rank Legend with Shaman.
Elementary Reaction can be compared to Mimic Pod, but I would say it's straight up better. You need to have played an Elemental last turn for it to be 1 Mana cheaper than Mimic Pod, but even if you didn't play an Elemental last turn it's still a 2 Mana draw 1.
Arid Stormer could be compared to a Crabrider with a Smuggler's Run, sure, Crabrider feels stronger because Smuggler's Run isn't the only buff Paladins use on it, but as a 3 Mana, 2/5, Rush Windfury they are the same, only a Paladin pays 2 cards, and a Shaman pays an Elemental last turn.
Lilypad Lurker is just Hex on a stick. Whether you compare it to the old 3 Mana Hex, or the current 4 Mana Hex, Lilypad Lurker is at worst a 2 Mana 4/5. The only downside being you have to have played an Elemental last turn, but this is partially negated through the fact Lilypad Lurker itself is an Elemental, unlike Hex of course. (And you can't Hex your own Minions anymore or Hex on turn 4, but this is really minor.)
Kalimos, Primal Lord is arguably the best 'Elemental last turn' card of all. His Invocations being very strong for his total cost.
Invocation of Earth is most similar to Stand Against Darkness, you do get an extra Minion, so maybe make it cost 6 Mana. Eitherway this would make Kalimos, Primal Lord a 2 or 3 mana 7/7. Though I'm not gonna lie, this Invocation just isn't that good, despite the Mana/Value comparison. Probably better than Onyxia though, for what that's worth.
All those four Invocations with the only downside of an Elemental last turn of course. But the fact you can choose them is a great upside in its own right.
I guess what I'm trying to say with this colourful wall of text is that I believe the Elemental last turn mechanic really isn't as bad as you might think. Though this does depend on the amount of Elementals you have put in your deck of course. But for Wild players like myself, it only gets better and better as more and more viable Elemental cards get printed, even some without the Elemental last turn prerequisite.
Again, feel free to disagree and start a conversation, I'll be happy to discuss.
Also, I didn't go into any Neutral or non-Shaman class Elementals because you did say that Shaman isn't as strong as other classes with its Elementals, so I focused on Shamans Elementals.
Forgot to quote in my last posting..but the message is still the same..Another non shaman player telling us how strong the class is when its trash in standard.My challenge is the same.Build the kick-ass shaman deck your talking about and take it and ladder with it.
From bronze to legend.Prove us shaman players wrong.
Dude, except for Arid Stormer which I took out cause it was underwhelming, all the cards I mentioned in the post are in my current, favorite, and most played deck. Even the Stone Sentinel in the post below it. I don't know why you just assume I'm a non Shaman player who's trying to make excuses why Shaman is good and doesn't need a change.
I also never said it's some unicorn deck that completely shits on the ladder. I said it's not the worst mechanic and you can have fun with it and even beat strong decks with it.
As for reaching rank Legend with Shaman, I did last month, not with Elementals, but I reached rank Legend with Shaman.
As many of the cards you mention are wild I’ll presume that is where you got legend, and I believe the conversation is mainly focused on the state of shammy in standard. If you did get legend in standard with shammy then I’m apologise and gz, you’re obviously some sort of hs genius being able to get the current dumpster fire of a class to work.
Well, the topic is about Shaman having bad mechanics, and I made the argument that Elementals aren't necessarily as bad as you might think. Nowhere was it mentioned that we were talking about Standard or Wild.
But then razor565 made an uncalled for angry post about how I'm "Another non shaman player telling us how strong the class is when its trash in standard."
So I told him how it was.
Now that I read it again I see that he was talking about Standard and that's my fault, cause the cards I talked about and reaching rank Legend is all stuff in Wild. But still. I was just trying to make an argument about Elemental Shaman in good faith.
As for evolve/devolve, I wish they stopped printing those cards, I dislike both the random outcomes and the flavour.
I'm a recently new f2p shammy main, got serious w the game since Gala.... and although i didnt play when HS first came i followed Toast streams so i know a bit.....
Firstly, idk why did evolve ever became a thing for shaman. I think it appeared in 2017 with KotFT, and that was a design flop with murlocs, freeze and evolve and minor overload synergy, it was a mess. It only become an archetype when repeated controlled transformation could be done in AoO, but thematically Shaman and Evolve is not so good.
They should just make evolve a permanent shaman mechanic. Apart from pure aggro, ‘cheating’ is the name of the game in modern HS and evolve mechanics seem a perfect way to bring shaman up to speed.
but now since we cant undo past mistakes i agree with maintaining evolve as evergreen mechanic. Other classes has Deck of Lunacy or Deck of Chaos, and Shammy's awful hero power by itself is a RNG based gamble, so why not its core archetype?
I know evolve works well w battlecry mechanic since those minions are understated to begin with, and Corrupt the Waters and Shudderwock abuses that, but for standard now, go listen to the first 5 seconds.
“The beginning of wisdom is the statement 'I do not know.' The person who cannot make that statement is one who will never learn anything. And I have prided myself on my ability to learn.” — Thrall
As others have stated, Shaman is not bad because overload is a failed mechanic or has an atrocious hero power, but because it lacks steam/power cards.
Rogue has a 3 mana better Auctioneer and Secret Passage, plus additional card draw and card generation.
Priest does not draw much, but it can generate, in theory, a virtually infinite supply of cards.
Paladin has incredible tutoring and deck thinning mechanics, but also incredible minions to play as a midrange deck, very rarely running out of steam.
Warlock has life tap, although it is one of the weaker classes (like shaman, it lacks power cards, and relies mostly on reactive tools, hoping it has the luxury to end games with Tickatus or Jaraxxus).
Mage has 6 cards, naturally in their deck, that draw 2 cards or more, sometimes for free, plus a lot of burn and generation.
Hunter has Barak Kodobane for a finisher refill, but also really good tutoring (lots of Beast search plus Tracking) and reach (Quick Shot), so it is very flexible, quick and efficient.
Demon Hunter has a lot of card draw, but mainly Skull, plus a 1 mana card that tutors skull. One skull is usually enough to get them enough steam to end the game, but drawing to the second one is very likely in any game.
Warrior has powerful tutoring and stat cheating mechanics as well, and can opt to run the triple card draw weapon if they really need it. But because the deck plays a midrange style, it often doesn't need that much card draw in the first place.
Druid has really good draw as well, with Guess the Weight drawing you 2 cards most often, and for spell druid, you have a 3 mana draw 3. Plus Guidance, if necessary, or Guardian Animals for a big refill turn. They never really run out of stuff.
So what do you do as shaman? If you run burn, you hope to get to your Doomhammer as soon as possible, and reach for your attack buffs asap. You can tutor the weapon, which is great, but you cannot tutor those spells. You can run all the generation/discovery cards (Studies, Wandmaker, Scorpid), but they just cannot compete for the board, and you will just have to waste your burn spells to not die. And if you go the elemental route, then you just play fair stat minions that again, cannot compete on board. You don't have tempo, you don't have value, and you don't even have the tools to play a drawn out control game anymore. Shaman is missing some really busted cards right now, tutoring or draw can potentially fix their burn archetype.
Yea the elemental arch is just stupid right now. You'll play a conditional card thinking it's good you met the condition only to get outmatched by a cheaper class card of any other class with better stats and card text. Brutal honestly.
As others have stated, Shaman is not bad because overload is a failed mechanic or has an atrocious hero power, but because it lacks steam/power cards.
Rogue has a 3 mana better Auctioneer and Secret Passage, plus additional card draw and card generation.
Priest does not draw much, but it can generate, in theory, a virtually infinite supply of cards.
Paladin has incredible tutoring and deck thinning mechanics, but also incredible minions to play as a midrange deck, very rarely running out of steam.
Warlock has life tap, although it is one of the weaker classes (like shaman, it lacks power cards, and relies mostly on reactive tools, hoping it has the luxury to end games with Tickatus or Jaraxxus).
Mage has 6 cards, naturally in their deck, that draw 2 cards or more, sometimes for free, plus a lot of burn and generation.
Hunter has Barak Kodobane for a finisher refill, but also really good tutoring (lots of Beast search plus Tracking) and reach (Quick Shot), so it is very flexible, quick and efficient.
Demon Hunter has a lot of card draw, but mainly Skull, plus a 1 mana card that tutors skull. One skull is usually enough to get them enough steam to end the game, but drawing to the second one is very likely in any game.
Warrior has powerful tutoring and stat cheating mechanics as well, and can opt to run the triple card draw weapon if they really need it. But because the deck plays a midrange style, it often doesn't need that much card draw in the first place.
Druid has really good draw as well, with Guess the Weight drawing you 2 cards most often, and for spell druid, you have a 3 mana draw 3. Plus Guidance, if necessary, or Guardian Animals for a big refill turn. They never really run out of stuff.
So what do you do as shaman? If you run burn, you hope to get to your Doomhammer as soon as possible, and reach for your attack buffs asap. You can tutor the weapon, which is great, but you cannot tutor those spells. You can run all the generation/discovery cards (Studies, Wandmaker, Scorpid), but they just cannot compete for the board, and you will just have to waste your burn spells to not die. And if you go the elemental route, then you just play fair stat minions that again, cannot compete on board. You don't have tempo, you don't have value, and you don't even have the tools to play a drawn out control game anymore. Shaman is missing some really busted cards right now, tutoring or draw can potentially fix their burn archetype.
Super underrated post, hope devs will see it one day.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
as a guy who has gotten legend with shaman only many times including this season and is currently at 6k wins with shaman these are the changes I would make to shaman at its current state
make floated mana reduce overloaded crystals
make it so the cast last turn with elementals and spells can also be done on the current turn to activate
and maybe give some draw... like cmon
Anyone who thinks shaman is in a good state right now is flat out wrong. I dont understand how they cant look at game stats and see theres need for a change. Shamans honestly awful rn and its sad because you can see the potential. We need a better reason to Overload the cards are just underwhelminglike its soooo bad ill be playing some shit player barely piloting correctly and they still just sweep because there cards are just like like multitudes better then anytyhing i have access to. Look at mage and demon hunter its actually hilarious the value they can generate in one turn. SHAMAN NEEDS A BUFF
I don't think this would even be OP, I like this idea.
Could make for some interesting cards too, maybe something like: 1 Mana, deal 1 damage to all enemy minions now and at the end of your turn, Overload (1), If you Overload (meaning you didn't float mana) deal the second 1 damage to all enemy minions at the start of your next turn instead.
Just an idea off the top of my head.
Just a quick idea
Fuhgeddaboudit
Shaman will most likely get buffed in the upcoming balance changes. Book of Heroes Thrall comes out next month and selling a Shaman pack bundle when the class is borderline unplayable in standard is not a good idea.
Yeah that’s a good theory. I’m guessing that during the Barrens bonus pack there will be some pretty op Shaman cards including a draw card.
In a meta where stats + minions mean nothing, apart from maybe rush warrior (pretty much every class has no problem clearing boards these days) , shammys need far better spells than they’ve got. For a caster class in lore the current standard set of spells is so bad. Plus things like a decent card Groundskeeper only has 2 spells that actually activate it and 1 is complete garbage and the other is way too slow. Blizzard must know that shaman is garbage when they’re making design decisions like that.
it is laughable how much of an oversight there has been with shaman.. meanwhile paladin has been getting broke card after broke card
This would break shaman bringing them over the top. Lack of card draw, planning turns ahead of time and over load being actually penalizing is part of its class identity and keeping shaman from overshowing the other classes.
I'm hearing this for 4 years, you know... Even DIRECT balance changes (boomsday, reverting nerfes to lil poor sludge slurper, others) didn't make any shit. The two shaman decks were directly nerfed, the galakrond package and evolve with claw.
It's so funny to remember these super quick shaman nerfs when paladin's presence is absolute for like 3 expansions in a row.
My biggest gripe right now is their value generation. You can pack your deck with Guidance, Primordial Studies, and Marshspawn, but you're never actually going to find anything that moves the needle against other control classes. Shaman spells are almost entirely reactive right now. They have no ability to generate board presence through discovers.
Contrast that with a class like Priest, where cards like Raise Dead and Draconic Studies allow you pump out 50+ mana worth of proactive plays every game with no deckbuilding concession.
And hell, I think Instructor Fireheart is a handy card, but it also feels objectively worse than say, Sethekk Veilweaver despite being a legendary.
Trying to build a Shaman deck... It just feels like they're ten cards short of every other class because of how many are either weak reactive cards or tied to a specific archetype that doesn't have enough support.
In general, Shaman is weak and unplayable considering other classes.
Simple truth
See post #33
Forgot to quote in my last posting..but the message is still the same..Another non shaman player telling us how strong the class is when its trash in standard.My challenge is the same.Build the kick-ass shaman deck your talking about and take it and ladder with it.
From bronze to legend.Prove us shaman players wrong.
Dude, except for Arid Stormer which I took out cause it was underwhelming, all the cards I mentioned in the post are in my current, favorite, and most played deck. Even the Stone Sentinel in the post below it. I don't know why you just assume I'm a non Shaman player who's trying to make excuses why Shaman is good and doesn't need a change.
I also never said it's some unicorn deck that completely shits on the ladder. I said it's not the worst mechanic and you can have fun with it and even beat strong decks with it.
As for reaching rank Legend with Shaman, I did last month, not with Elementals, but I reached rank Legend with Shaman.
Fuhgeddaboudit
As many of the cards you mention are wild I’ll presume that is where you got legend, and I believe the conversation is mainly focused on the state of shammy in standard. If you did get legend in standard with shammy then I’m apologise and gz, you’re obviously some sort of hs genius being able to get the current dumpster fire of a class to work.
Well, the topic is about Shaman having bad mechanics, and I made the argument that Elementals aren't necessarily as bad as you might think. Nowhere was it mentioned that we were talking about Standard or Wild.
But then razor565 made an uncalled for angry post about how I'm "Another non shaman player telling us how strong the class is when its trash in standard."
So I told him how it was.
Now that I read it again I see that he was talking about Standard and that's my fault, cause the cards I talked about and reaching rank Legend is all stuff in Wild. But still. I was just trying to make an argument about Elemental Shaman in good faith.
Fuhgeddaboudit
I'm a recently new f2p shammy main, got serious w the game since Gala.... and although i didnt play when HS first came i followed Toast streams so i know a bit.....
Firstly, idk why did evolve ever became a thing for shaman. I think it appeared in 2017 with KotFT, and that was a design flop with murlocs, freeze and evolve and minor overload synergy, it was a mess. It only become an archetype when repeated controlled transformation could be done in AoO, but thematically Shaman and Evolve is not so good.
but now since we cant undo past mistakes i agree with maintaining evolve as evergreen mechanic. Other classes has Deck of Lunacy or Deck of Chaos, and Shammy's awful hero power by itself is a RNG based gamble, so why not its core archetype?
Btw, only time Shaman was broken, other than overload in the past is Galakrond cuz tempo and better hero power (Charged Hammer with a body), and evolve with weapon/pirate synergy. Both gone in a flash.
I know evolve works well w battlecry mechanic since those minions are understated to begin with, and Corrupt the Waters and Shudderwock abuses that, but for standard now, go listen to the first 5 seconds.
PS: 1/1 is useless, make it a 1/2 or 1/1 at the end of turn ping 1 enemy face.
“The beginning of wisdom is the statement 'I do not know.' The person who cannot make that statement is one who will never learn anything. And I have prided myself on my ability to learn.” — Thrall
As others have stated, Shaman is not bad because overload is a failed mechanic or has an atrocious hero power, but because it lacks steam/power cards.
Rogue has a 3 mana better Auctioneer and Secret Passage, plus additional card draw and card generation.
Priest does not draw much, but it can generate, in theory, a virtually infinite supply of cards.
Paladin has incredible tutoring and deck thinning mechanics, but also incredible minions to play as a midrange deck, very rarely running out of steam.
Warlock has life tap, although it is one of the weaker classes (like shaman, it lacks power cards, and relies mostly on reactive tools, hoping it has the luxury to end games with Tickatus or Jaraxxus).
Mage has 6 cards, naturally in their deck, that draw 2 cards or more, sometimes for free, plus a lot of burn and generation.
Hunter has Barak Kodobane for a finisher refill, but also really good tutoring (lots of Beast search plus Tracking) and reach (Quick Shot), so it is very flexible, quick and efficient.
Demon Hunter has a lot of card draw, but mainly Skull, plus a 1 mana card that tutors skull. One skull is usually enough to get them enough steam to end the game, but drawing to the second one is very likely in any game.
Warrior has powerful tutoring and stat cheating mechanics as well, and can opt to run the triple card draw weapon if they really need it. But because the deck plays a midrange style, it often doesn't need that much card draw in the first place.
Druid has really good draw as well, with Guess the Weight drawing you 2 cards most often, and for spell druid, you have a 3 mana draw 3. Plus Guidance, if necessary, or Guardian Animals for a big refill turn. They never really run out of stuff.
So what do you do as shaman? If you run burn, you hope to get to your Doomhammer as soon as possible, and reach for your attack buffs asap. You can tutor the weapon, which is great, but you cannot tutor those spells. You can run all the generation/discovery cards (Studies, Wandmaker, Scorpid), but they just cannot compete for the board, and you will just have to waste your burn spells to not die. And if you go the elemental route, then you just play fair stat minions that again, cannot compete on board. You don't have tempo, you don't have value, and you don't even have the tools to play a drawn out control game anymore. Shaman is missing some really busted cards right now, tutoring or draw can potentially fix their burn archetype.
Yea the elemental arch is just stupid right now. You'll play a conditional card thinking it's good you met the condition only to get outmatched by a cheaper class card of any other class with better stats and card text. Brutal honestly.
Super underrated post, hope devs will see it one day.