What do you think each class's identity is or should be?
I've seen quite a lot of people complaining that class identity is taking a hit with Rastakhan's Rumble, as Priests are becoming more like Rogues while Shamans are becoming more like Mages, etc. I'm relatively new and casual about Hearthstone, but I wondered: what do you consider to be a class's specific identity? What is a Warrior and what makes it different from e.g. a Mage? Curious to hear what you think.
Class identity for me is a class having a clear strenght and an "exploitable" weakness, example if you are playing against rogues you got go wide instead of tall, the reason is that rogues have 0 board clears asides FoK , but if you limit yourself to play a single giant threat per turn against a rogue she will just kill it or return it to your hand using Vilespine Slayer, Walk the Plank, Sap, also rogue has no heals, so the class identity of rogue is that bursty frail class with a lot of sinlge target removals.
Warrior's class identity is anti-aggro, dealing with really wide boards, getting tons of armor but not being able to deal tons of damage, at least not at the same time (yes i'm fully aware tha tpirate warrior still exists in wild).
Priest's identity is similar to warrior, bunch of board clears a bunch of value driven game plans, some bit of combo strapped in, but 0 early game, that's always been priesst's weakness, they're an excellent lategame class but they have no early game whatsoever
As for shamman, i don't know why people are making claims about shamman's identity, Shamman has never ever had an identity in this game and Blizzard has always struggled to give them one, at different points of the game Shamman has either been Paladin 0.5 or Paladin 2.0, i think at one point it was Mage 0.5 as well at some point, but the ugly truth is that Blizzard has forever struggled with shamman's identity.
As a rogue main, I think that removing [card]Conceal[\card] from standard was horrible. It may be one of THE defining characteristics of rogue, in any game. But, alas, people complained so it was removed.
Hunter has the most consistent identity in HS I think, followed by mage. Other classes seem all over the place, but that’s not necessarily bad, but I agree that some consistent identity simply makes more sense from a gameplay standpoint.
Class identity is what makes the class shiny. But its not something static. Class identity is something that can be re-define in each expansion. For example Priest, Warrior and Paladin are minions matter classes. They are good dealing with minions or buffing minions. Also this classes have more duralibity than the others (atleast in theory). But also Priest, Mage and Shaman share other kind of class identity, these classes are also about manipulate minions. They transform minions or take control of minions. I think is a little hard to explain what is similar and different between all the classes but in fact those qualitys are the class identity. In each expansion you can choose reinforce one of the qualitys of each class or make something new.
That is why you sometimes see Paladin going more aggro or sometimes people play control-combo in Paladin. Or Warrior becomes about early game and face damage instead of care about their armor and the ultra late game.
First and foremost, class identity is a full set of variables. Eg. Armor is part of Warrior class identity, but not class-defining on its own: Druid has tons of armor as well (maybe too much), but evidently the two classes do not feel the same at all, in playstyle and theme.
I can speak best for the class i play the most, which is Rogue. Rogue's class identity is made of Tempo swings, small and big, from bare Tempo decks, to Oil and Miracle. Actions that consistently and efficiently interact with board balance. And tbh, Rogue has been very well designed, so far.
As for shamman, i don't know why people are making claims about shamman's identity, Shamman has never ever had an identity in this game and Blizzard has always struggled to give them one, at different points of the game Shamman has either been Paladin 0.5 or Paladin 2.0, i think at one point it was Mage 0.5 as well at some point, but the ugly truth is that Blizzard has forever struggled with shamman's identity.
I'd say Shaman is the Evolve class, and playing 4 mana 7/7s xd
Class identity is what makes the class shiny. But its not something static. Class identity is something that can be re-define in each expansion. For example Priest, Warrior and Paladin are minions matter classes. They are good dealing with minions or buffing minions. Also this classes have more duralibity than the others (atleast in theory). But also Priest, Mage and Shaman share other kind of class identity, these classes are also about manipulate minions. They transform minions or take control of minions. I think is a little hard to explain what is similar and different between all the classes but in fact those qualitys are the class identity. In each expansion you can choose reinforce one of the qualitys of each class or make something new.
That is why you sometimes see Paladin going more aggro or sometimes people play control-combo in Paladin. Or Warrior becomes about early game and face damage instead of care about their armor and the ultra late game.
Perhaps you mean Shaman because Warrior are really bad at buffing their minions
They removed class identity from the game step by step or expansion by expansion, the acutal state is laughable... and will continue becoming worse... which means, they'll mix it up and try to pretend they're creative atcard-design... >.<
I guess this is why Kingsbane is soo good,it enables healing and aoe which are not on a meme level of bad.
Mage identity was always Fireball , tbh i think Mage identity all-around should be that is the class with the strongest spells .... but hey it is not true this statement soo.... i always thought Mage as a best spellcaster class but.... big spell mage exists but i hate a class with only big removals and not big burns mixed in as well like ... Firelands Portal was soo good for Mage. Cannot wait for a minion-less Mage some day.
Hunter identity is pretty clear and actually DK Rexxar is the biggest card in terms of identity cards,alongside traps/secrets.
Warlock was about Demons and self -damage for more power, DK Guldan and spellstones paired with Flame Imp captures the essence of the class.
Paladin ... well you could say that is a buffing minions class as identity and power in numbers(swarming) if you consider Baku.
Warrior is my least favorite class because yeah Armor up is the class identity alongside Frothing Berserker which is an identity card for sure.
Shaman's identity well the only identity it has is a mechanical identity in the form of Overload.
Druid .... i feel like the identity was changed drastically when Ultimate Infestation was released ....but the old Force of Nature + Savage Roar was his identity as a ... Treant -like one but druid is soo versatile that he can have many identity's.
Priest's identity however is one of the worst , stealing things from deck/hands or even boards feels like a bad thing to do or something you do if you have no other options. Resurrection is also one of the worst solely because of Mana Cheating which is extremely unhealthy for this game.
Warrior: Core: Armor for massive health gains, weapons for early removal and powerful tools lategame. Rastakhan's identity: Dragons; big bodies attached to powerful effects.
Shaman: Core: Powerful, undercosted spells for future payment (overload). Synergy with wide boards, both enemy and allied ones. Rastakhan's identity: Draw and generate spells.
Rogue: Core: Single target removal. Lack of heals/clear, but powerful, tempo efficient hero power and spells with easy ways to cycle/draw. Rastakhan's identity: Tempo pirates with rush and synergy with one another.
Paladin: Core: Lack of removal. Board-centric using stat manipulation and other tools (divine shield, weapons) for advantageous trades. Offensive buffs. Rastakhan's identity: Heal and cycle and be rewarded by both with tempo.
Hunter: Core: Powerful beast synergy, cheap removal spells to protect beasts on board, finish fights quickly by being aggressive. Rastakhan's identity: Use cheap spells and minions ASAP, be rewarded by a hand-reload mechanic.
Druid: Core: Skip turns to earn mana, drop big minions with defensive impact to comeback. Countered by constant medium threats. Rastakhan's identity: Use cheap removal tools which cycle thanks to the synergy with hero power attack. Go wide and try to finish fast.
Warlock: Core: Powerful effects paid in unconventional ways (health, discard). Weaker spells overall but strongest hero power. Demon synergy. Rastakhan's identity: Discard early to gain an advantage on board, use discard-recovery cards later to recover from the loss.
Mage: Core: All sort of removal spells, both powerful and relatively cheap. Ability to deal with both tall and wide threats easily. Rastakhan's identity: Elemental synergy, use of hero power for removal as a free spell.
Priest: Core: Healing-centric, synergy with high-health minions. Powerful and cheap, if situational, answers. Centered around surviving to lategame. Rastakhan's identity: Buff minions beforehand in hand and deck and take board with their over-stats.
Class identity has a basis in the Basic and Classic card set. While I understand and accept that class identity can grow and shift over time, I'm a bit annoyed when they move far away from this (like Druid being the "gain a billion armor, a billion mana, and draw their entire deck by turn 8, because fuck you" class).
Druid - the class that uses the power of the forest to overwhelm you. Token Druid - good. Midrange Druid - good. Maly Druid - why?? Taunt/Togg Druid - no plz stahp
Hunter - Punch you in the face with beasts. Topdeck Skill Command every time. Aggro/Midrange Hunter - good. Deathrattle Hunter - um..ok I guess. Late game Zombeast bullshit - what are you doing, go back. Control Hunter - this should never and will never be a thing.
Mage - Spells are fun, sooooo fun. /s I have no complaints with any archetype here. They're good at using spells for damage, for control, for going face. The day they push Token Mage is the day I quit hearthstone.
Paladin - HEALING. DUDES.
Priest - The light shall burn you. The light can do many things - healing things, burning things, and controlling minions. I don't think Priest should have ever been the thief class.
Rogue - Doing tricksy shit, as Rogues do. I like that Rogues are typically not given obviously broken cards but are instead are given challenges - "here's some mediocre crap, find a way to win with it," and they usually do. I don't like the Quest or Kingsbane for that reason.
Shaman - Overload and "the elements will destroy you." They do powerful shit, at a cost. I'm not sure what to think about Shamans with biting jaws and catching claws.
Warlock - Powerful demons at a cost (discard and self damage). Bloodreaver Guldan is dumb because it goes against this identity and provides insane late game.
Warrior - Armor and self damage. And apparently Rush. And apparently now Dragons. Pirate Warrior was stupid and made no sense.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.
Each class has quite a long list of identities. I'm working on a post to show them all.
Take Hunter for example. They have Beasts (generally benefit from having lots of them, rather than single large ones), Secrets, Deathrattles, Spells that summon minions, have conditional/weak draw and generate cards via other means, poisonous, weapons, cards that deal exclusive face damage, rush, Immune effects, 1-cost minion synergy, cards that care about board positioning, weak aoe, and no healing (ignoring DR rexxar).
There, that's a whopping 14 things that fit the Hunter theme.
Warrior: Core: Armor for massive health gains, weapons for early removal and powerful tools lategame. Rastakhan's identity: Dragons; big bodies attached to powerful effects.
Shaman: Core: Powerful, undercosted spells for future payment (overload). Synergy with wide boards, both enemy and allied ones. Rastakhan's identity: Draw and generate spells.
Rogue: Core: Single target removal. Lack of heals/clear, but powerful, tempo efficient hero power and spells with easy ways to cycle/draw. Rastakhan's identity: Tempo pirates with rush and synergy with one another.
Paladin: Core: Lack of removal. Board-centric using stat manipulation and other tools (divine shield, weapons) for advantageous trades. Offensive buffs. Rastakhan's identity: Heal and cycle and be rewarded by both with tempo.
Hunter: Core: Powerful beast synergy, cheap removal spells to protect beasts on board, finish fights quickly by being aggressive. Rastakhan's identity: Use cheap spells and minions ASAP, be rewarded by a hand-reload mechanic.
Druid: Core: Skip turns to earn mana, drop big minions with defensive impact to comeback. Countered by constant medium threats. Rastakhan's identity: Use cheap removal tools which cycle thanks to the synergy with hero power attack. Go wide and try to finish fast.
Warlock: Core: Powerful effects paid in unconventional ways (health, discard). Weaker spells overall but strongest hero power. Demon synergy. Rastakhan's identity: Discard early to gain an advantage on board, use discard-recovery cards later to recover from the loss.
Mage: Core: All sort of removal spells, both powerful and relatively cheap. Ability to deal with both tall and wide threats easily. Rastakhan's identity: Elemental synergy, use of hero power for removal as a free spell.
Priest: Core: Healing-centric, synergy with high-health minions. Powerful and cheap, if situational, answers. Centered around surviving to lategame. Rastakhan's identity: Buff minions beforehand in hand and deck and take board with their over-stats.
Rogue: Thief, steal cards, bounce minions to stay alive, tempo is key...
Paladin: Heal, big minions, strong weapons...
Warrior: armor yourself to high amount of life, big minions, strong weapons
Shaman: Stronger then other classes with the drawback of less mana in your next turn (overload) totem golem is a great example... while other classes have vanilla 3/4 on turn 3 shaman has it in turn 2 with the cost of 1 mana next turn...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffer!
Shaman is a class that requires a lot of thought, because overload is a thing you can mess up your own turns when trying to get some board control and swing the game, in a lot of ways you're a jack of all trades with your spells and you have the board control spells that punish you later and minions that allow you to get a good head start if your opponent doesn't have an answer. By far my favorite shaman deck was evolve just because of the randomness and fun that it would bring to games
As for shamman, i don't know why people are making claims about shamman's identity, Shamman has never ever had an identity in this game and Blizzard has always struggled to give them one, at different points of the game Shamman has either been Paladin 0.5 or Paladin 2.0, i think at one point it was Mage 0.5 as well at some point, but the ugly truth is that Blizzard has forever struggled with shamman's identity.
I'd avoid considering the times when the class has sucked. Focus on the times the class has actually worked and you'll tend to see it's identity.
For example Shaman has mostly worked as the fast Tempo class. They are the folks that grab the board as soon as they can and never EVER let go of it. They were the first to really do the 'endless reload' trick during the Old Gods meta, and what makes even their aggro decks 'work' is that they hit the board at turn 1 then keep throwing things at you. This is why they are one of the few classes that can make Baku work as Shaman doesn't care WHAT they put on the board so long as they put something on the board. It's also why Overload is a 'thing' for them (at least once Blizzard stopped deeming it an advantage that needed to be penalized..and stopped giving them messed up random cards). The idea is that you get to cast the card for cheap early tempo plays, then you have other cheap plays to fill in while you are overloaded.
Their weakness is Tempo's weakness: they need a GOOD start, which their decks tend to not allow all the time, and if they ever lose Tempo completely they just plain die.
There's been times when people tried to make Shaman a stalling control class or a class that focuses on healing: that Paladin 2.0 thing. And it never really worked out. Shudderwock is the one exception, but that combo is completely busted and weird, similar to that time Warriors went full face with Pirates.
Shaman's primary strength comes from Token-fueled decks (see e.g. Bloodlust). As described in the previous post, once they lose the board they tend to crumble because of the lack of a comeback mechanism. Apart from that, slower lists never really worked out except for the dreaded era of Mid Range Tunnel Trogg Shaman. Once that card departed, the deck just fizzled out. And Control<>Overload don't go very well since most of the removal leaves you at a mana disadvantage, allowing your opponent to easily refill the board once again. Also, their core set is just pathetically weak, almost as bad as Priest so they rely mostly, if not entirely on getting support from future expansions.
As for class identity, I'm just baffled by the many failures such as Freeze or Totems T5 apparantely wanted to gain traction. Totem Shaman was dead once Thunder Bluff Valiant rotated, Freeze was never a thing similar to Snowfury Giant combo and Evolve, well... as soon as Evolve and Doppelgangster weren't around anymore, its power level dropped by a huge amount. It seems to me that T5 want Shaman to have RNG as main theme which is bad considering ranked players don't want to rely on random outcomes.
Shaman is a class that requires a lot of thought, because overload is a thing you can mess up your own turns when trying to get some board control and swing the game, in a lot of ways you're a jack of all trades with your spells and you have the board control spells that punish you later and minions that allow you to get a good head start if your opponent doesn't have an answer. By far my favorite shaman deck was evolve just because of the randomness and fun that it would bring to games
seems that you've missed the times of good old shamanstone aka 4 Mana 7/7
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
What do you think each class's identity is or should be?
I've seen quite a lot of people complaining that class identity is taking a hit with Rastakhan's Rumble, as Priests are becoming more like Rogues while Shamans are becoming more like Mages, etc. I'm relatively new and casual about Hearthstone, but I wondered: what do you consider to be a class's specific identity? What is a Warrior and what makes it different from e.g. a Mage? Curious to hear what you think.
Class identity for me is a class having a clear strenght and an "exploitable" weakness, example if you are playing against rogues you got go wide instead of tall, the reason is that rogues have 0 board clears asides FoK , but if you limit yourself to play a single giant threat per turn against a rogue she will just kill it or return it to your hand using Vilespine Slayer, Walk the Plank, Sap, also rogue has no heals, so the class identity of rogue is that bursty frail class with a lot of sinlge target removals.
Warrior's class identity is anti-aggro, dealing with really wide boards, getting tons of armor but not being able to deal tons of damage, at least not at the same time (yes i'm fully aware tha tpirate warrior still exists in wild).
Priest's identity is similar to warrior, bunch of board clears a bunch of value driven game plans, some bit of combo strapped in, but 0 early game, that's always been priesst's weakness, they're an excellent lategame class but they have no early game whatsoever
As for shamman, i don't know why people are making claims about shamman's identity, Shamman has never ever had an identity in this game and Blizzard has always struggled to give them one, at different points of the game Shamman has either been Paladin 0.5 or Paladin 2.0, i think at one point it was Mage 0.5 as well at some point, but the ugly truth is that Blizzard has forever struggled with shamman's identity.
As a rogue main, I think that removing [card]Conceal[\card] from standard was horrible. It may be one of THE defining characteristics of rogue, in any game. But, alas, people complained so it was removed.
Hunter has the most consistent identity in HS I think, followed by mage. Other classes seem all over the place, but that’s not necessarily bad, but I agree that some consistent identity simply makes more sense from a gameplay standpoint.
Class identity is what makes the class shiny. But its not something static. Class identity is something that can be re-define in each expansion. For example Priest, Warrior and Paladin are minions matter classes. They are good dealing with minions or buffing minions. Also this classes have more duralibity than the others (atleast in theory). But also Priest, Mage and Shaman share other kind of class identity, these classes are also about manipulate minions. They transform minions or take control of minions. I think is a little hard to explain what is similar and different between all the classes but in fact those qualitys are the class identity. In each expansion you can choose reinforce one of the qualitys of each class or make something new.
That is why you sometimes see Paladin going more aggro or sometimes people play control-combo in Paladin. Or Warrior becomes about early game and face damage instead of care about their armor and the ultra late game.
First and foremost, class identity is a full set of variables. Eg. Armor is part of Warrior class identity, but not class-defining on its own: Druid has tons of armor as well (maybe too much), but evidently the two classes do not feel the same at all, in playstyle and theme.
I can speak best for the class i play the most, which is Rogue. Rogue's class identity is made of Tempo swings, small and big, from bare Tempo decks, to Oil and Miracle. Actions that consistently and efficiently interact with board balance. And tbh, Rogue has been very well designed, so far.
Whatever the class does and doesn't do in WoW.
I'd say Shaman is the Evolve class, and playing 4 mana 7/7s xd
https://outof.cards
Perhaps you mean Shaman because Warrior are really bad at buffing their minions
They removed class identity from the game step by step or expansion by expansion, the acutal state is laughable... and will continue becoming worse... which means, they'll mix it up and try to pretend they're creative atcard-design... >.<
I do agree that Conceal was one of the best Rogue identity class cards it had in Standard.
Rogue HAS aoe in the form of ehm ehm .... Blade Flurry but that only means paired with Kingsbane and has heal from Leeching Poison.
I guess this is why Kingsbane is soo good,it enables healing and aoe which are not on a meme level of bad.
Mage identity was always Fireball , tbh i think Mage identity all-around should be that is the class with the strongest spells .... but hey it is not true this statement soo.... i always thought Mage as a best spellcaster class but.... big spell mage exists but i hate a class with only big removals and not big burns mixed in as well like ... Firelands Portal was soo good for Mage. Cannot wait for a minion-less Mage some day.
Hunter identity is pretty clear and actually DK Rexxar is the biggest card in terms of identity cards,alongside traps/secrets.
Warlock was about Demons and self -damage for more power, DK Guldan and spellstones paired with Flame Imp captures the essence of the class.
Paladin ... well you could say that is a buffing minions class as identity and power in numbers(swarming) if you consider Baku.
Warrior is my least favorite class because yeah Armor up is the class identity alongside Frothing Berserker which is an identity card for sure.
Shaman's identity well the only identity it has is a mechanical identity in the form of Overload.
Druid .... i feel like the identity was changed drastically when Ultimate Infestation was released ....but the old Force of Nature + Savage Roar was his identity as a ... Treant -like one but druid is soo versatile that he can have many identity's.
Priest's identity however is one of the worst , stealing things from deck/hands or even boards feels like a bad thing to do or something you do if you have no other options. Resurrection is also one of the worst solely because of Mana Cheating which is extremely unhealthy for this game.
Warrior:
Core: Armor for massive health gains, weapons for early removal and powerful tools lategame.
Rastakhan's identity: Dragons; big bodies attached to powerful effects.
Shaman:
Core: Powerful, undercosted spells for future payment (overload). Synergy with wide boards, both enemy and allied ones.
Rastakhan's identity: Draw and generate spells.
Rogue:
Core: Single target removal. Lack of heals/clear, but powerful, tempo efficient hero power and spells with easy ways to cycle/draw.
Rastakhan's identity: Tempo pirates with rush and synergy with one another.
Paladin:
Core: Lack of removal. Board-centric using stat manipulation and other tools (divine shield, weapons) for advantageous trades. Offensive buffs.
Rastakhan's identity: Heal and cycle and be rewarded by both with tempo.
Hunter:
Core: Powerful beast synergy, cheap removal spells to protect beasts on board, finish fights quickly by being aggressive.
Rastakhan's identity: Use cheap spells and minions ASAP, be rewarded by a hand-reload mechanic.
Druid:
Core: Skip turns to earn mana, drop big minions with defensive impact to comeback. Countered by constant medium threats.
Rastakhan's identity: Use cheap removal tools which cycle thanks to the synergy with hero power attack. Go wide and try to finish fast.
Warlock:
Core: Powerful effects paid in unconventional ways (health, discard). Weaker spells overall but strongest hero power. Demon synergy.
Rastakhan's identity: Discard early to gain an advantage on board, use discard-recovery cards later to recover from the loss.
Mage:
Core: All sort of removal spells, both powerful and relatively cheap. Ability to deal with both tall and wide threats easily.
Rastakhan's identity: Elemental synergy, use of hero power for removal as a free spell.
Priest:
Core: Healing-centric, synergy with high-health minions. Powerful and cheap, if situational, answers. Centered around surviving to lategame.
Rastakhan's identity: Buff minions beforehand in hand and deck and take board with their over-stats.
Class identity has a basis in the Basic and Classic card set. While I understand and accept that class identity can grow and shift over time, I'm a bit annoyed when they move far away from this (like Druid being the "gain a billion armor, a billion mana, and draw their entire deck by turn 8, because fuck you" class).
Druid - the class that uses the power of the forest to overwhelm you. Token Druid - good. Midrange Druid - good. Maly Druid - why?? Taunt/Togg Druid - no plz stahp
Hunter - Punch you in the face with beasts. Topdeck Skill Command every time. Aggro/Midrange Hunter - good. Deathrattle Hunter - um..ok I guess. Late game Zombeast bullshit - what are you doing, go back. Control Hunter - this should never and will never be a thing.
Mage - Spells are fun, sooooo fun. /s I have no complaints with any archetype here. They're good at using spells for damage, for control, for going face. The day they push Token Mage is the day I quit hearthstone.
Paladin - HEALING. DUDES.
Priest - The light shall burn you. The light can do many things - healing things, burning things, and controlling minions. I don't think Priest should have ever been the thief class.
Rogue - Doing tricksy shit, as Rogues do. I like that Rogues are typically not given obviously broken cards but are instead are given challenges - "here's some mediocre crap, find a way to win with it," and they usually do. I don't like the Quest or Kingsbane for that reason.
Shaman - Overload and "the elements will destroy you." They do powerful shit, at a cost. I'm not sure what to think about Shamans with biting jaws and catching claws.
Warlock - Powerful demons at a cost (discard and self damage). Bloodreaver Guldan is dumb because it goes against this identity and provides insane late game.
Warrior - Armor and self damage. And apparently Rush. And apparently now Dragons. Pirate Warrior was stupid and made no sense.
Kaladin's RoS Set Review
Join me at Out of Cards!
Each class has quite a long list of identities. I'm working on a post to show them all.
Take Hunter for example. They have Beasts (generally benefit from having lots of them, rather than single large ones), Secrets, Deathrattles, Spells that summon minions, have conditional/weak draw and generate cards via other means, poisonous, weapons, cards that deal exclusive face damage, rush, Immune effects, 1-cost minion synergy, cards that care about board positioning, weak aoe, and no healing (ignoring DR rexxar).
There, that's a whopping 14 things that fit the Hunter theme.
I completely agree with this.
Warlock: self damage, discard... drawbacks in favor of power
Priest: healing, big health minions, keeping his minions alive while removing threads... heal yourself to death!
Mage: spells, minions that are affected by spells, growing as more spells are cast...
Druid: ramp, speed, draw, beasts, raw power...
Hunter: Beasts, speed, damaging spells, hide behind secrets...
Rogue: Thief, steal cards, bounce minions to stay alive, tempo is key...
Paladin: Heal, big minions, strong weapons...
Warrior: armor yourself to high amount of life, big minions, strong weapons
Shaman: Stronger then other classes with the drawback of less mana in your next turn (overload) totem golem is a great example... while other classes have vanilla 3/4 on turn 3 shaman has it in turn 2 with the cost of 1 mana next turn...
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffer!
Shaman is a class that requires a lot of thought, because overload is a thing you can mess up your own turns when trying to get some board control and swing the game, in a lot of ways you're a jack of all trades with your spells and you have the board control spells that punish you later and minions that allow you to get a good head start if your opponent doesn't have an answer. By far my favorite shaman deck was evolve just because of the randomness and fun that it would bring to games
I'd avoid considering the times when the class has sucked. Focus on the times the class has actually worked and you'll tend to see it's identity.
For example Shaman has mostly worked as the fast Tempo class. They are the folks that grab the board as soon as they can and never EVER let go of it. They were the first to really do the 'endless reload' trick during the Old Gods meta, and what makes even their aggro decks 'work' is that they hit the board at turn 1 then keep throwing things at you. This is why they are one of the few classes that can make Baku work as Shaman doesn't care WHAT they put on the board so long as they put something on the board. It's also why Overload is a 'thing' for them (at least once Blizzard stopped deeming it an advantage that needed to be penalized..and stopped giving them messed up random cards). The idea is that you get to cast the card for cheap early tempo plays, then you have other cheap plays to fill in while you are overloaded.
Their weakness is Tempo's weakness: they need a GOOD start, which their decks tend to not allow all the time, and if they ever lose Tempo completely they just plain die.
There's been times when people tried to make Shaman a stalling control class or a class that focuses on healing: that Paladin 2.0 thing. And it never really worked out. Shudderwock is the one exception, but that combo is completely busted and weird, similar to that time Warriors went full face with Pirates.
But most times, Shaman were the Tempo deck.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
Class identity is Blade Flurry getting nerfed and printing Spreading Plague.
Shaman's primary strength comes from Token-fueled decks (see e.g. Bloodlust). As described in the previous post, once they lose the board they tend to crumble because of the lack of a comeback mechanism. Apart from that, slower lists never really worked out except for the dreaded era of Mid Range Tunnel Trogg Shaman. Once that card departed, the deck just fizzled out. And Control<>Overload don't go very well since most of the removal leaves you at a mana disadvantage, allowing your opponent to easily refill the board once again. Also, their core set is just pathetically weak, almost as bad as Priest so they rely mostly, if not entirely on getting support from future expansions.
As for class identity, I'm just baffled by the many failures such as Freeze or Totems T5 apparantely wanted to gain traction. Totem Shaman was dead once Thunder Bluff Valiant rotated, Freeze was never a thing similar to Snowfury Giant combo and Evolve, well... as soon as Evolve and Doppelgangster weren't around anymore, its power level dropped by a huge amount. It seems to me that T5 want Shaman to have RNG as main theme which is bad considering ranked players don't want to rely on random outcomes.
seems that you've missed the times of good old shamanstone aka 4 Mana 7/7