With all the talk of how Shaman has left the building when last expansion it started off at the top has led me back to the frustration of quick nerfs on something doing well. True Shaman was maybe oppressive in the first couple days, but at the same time, a couple nerfs sent it to oblivion. A big part of their success was in no small part due to Shutterwok, so I wonder what the state of Shaman would be like now if the nerfs were undone now that Shutterwok is in wild. Why not give them back their thunder as it was first intended and see how they fare.
Curious if others think undoing the nerfs from last expansion would positively or too positively boost Shaman. It's not like with some classes where the cards just don't add up and they're struggling. Shaman was intended to be strong and were brought down.
The Envoke effect from Shamans is still the strongest, so there is future potential.
Technically Shaman doesn’t even have bad cards, good aoe, good healing, good tempo, it’s just not as unfair as others. I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring everything to a unfair level.
Their top two competitive decks Galakrond Evolve Shaman and Totem Shaman are very very very draw dependent. When I played with them it was either you drew the nuts and went off, or you just drew nothing and got stomped. Very polarizing decks with no consistency.
There is always a weakest class during every meta each expansion, but I think they neglected Shaman a little too much in my opinon. They just don't have the tools to consistently be winning. I don't know if "buffs" to their current cards will help all that much. The next expansion has to show love to Shaman in some way though.
Shamans have always been a weak class. They have been like that since Vanilla because their clasic set sucks. Whenever shaman was good, it was because of the expansion set, not their clasic one. And Blizzard nerfed Rockbitter Weapon, Flametomgue Totem and Hex, so yeah, it's kinda hard for them to do something. I would a un-nerf to Invocation of frost and Wolf Pack, but I don't really see it happening, so accept that this is the situation for now.
Their top two competitive decks Galakrond Evolve Shaman and Totem Shaman are very very very draw dependent. When I played with them it was either you drew the nuts and went off, or you just drew nothing and got stomped. Very polarizing decks with no consistency.
There is always a weakest class during every meta each expansion, but I think they neglected Shaman a little too much in my opinon. They just don't have the tools to consistently be winning. I don't know if "buffs" to their current cards will help all that much. The next expansion has to show love to Shaman in some way though.
I think Totem Shaman is just a few cards away from being competitive. Totemic Reflection and Splitting Axe are VERY strong build-around cards imho, the problem is... they don't have good targets. You have to rely on a basic / Mana Tide / EVIL Totem to survive a turn, and it's often just not gonna happen... but worse than that, being 0/X on turn 2 or 3 before being buffed, the opponent can just trade into them with his own minions without losing anything.
I tried building a Totem Shaman in Wild just for fun, putting in old glories like Totem Golem, Tuskarr Totemic and Thing from Below and well... the deck really starts to work - of course I got crushed by legit top Wild decks, but I could see the power level of the deck being definitely playable to very competitive in Standard. Basically it needs one or two decent minions with the totem tag, and something that rewards you for either having summoned totems or having them on board, kinda like Bloodboil Brute rewards Warriors for havign damaged minions.
Shamans have always been a weak class. They have been like that since Vanilla because their clasic set sucks. Whenever shaman was good, it was because of the expansion set, not their clasic one. And Blizzard nerfed Rockbitter Weapon, Flametomgue Totem and Hex, so yeah, it's kinda hard for them to do something. I would a un-nerf to Invocation of frost and Wolf Pack, but I don't really see it happening, so accept that this is the situation for now.
I remember people writing why Blizzard has a secret crush on Shamans since the class was seemingly always strong (I actually read the same thing about Paladins^^) and others responding with , probably because he’s the Green Jesus of the WOW lore or something like that:)
Shamans have always been a weak class. They have been like that since Vanilla because their clasic set sucks. Whenever shaman was good, it was because of the expansion set, not their clasic one. And Blizzard nerfed Rockbitter Weapon, Flametomgue Totem and Hex, so yeah, it's kinda hard for them to do something. I would a un-nerf to Invocation of frost and Wolf Pack, but I don't really see it happening, so accept that this is the situation for now.
I remember people writing why Blizzard has a secret crush on Shamans since the class was seemingly always strong (I actually read the same thing about Paladins^^) and others responding with , probably because he’s the Green Jesus of the WOW lore or something like that:)
They were strong because of the expansion's power level. Like really, and the same goes for Druids.
I agree Shaman needs a nerf. I lost with my Beast Palladin against it. Especially the evolve Weapon is too strong. Even stronger than Wrenchcalibur, which should be HoF'ed immediately! Together with Lackeys and Disguised Wanderer. 9 Attack is to heavy!
After reading more than the subject... Ooops! The nerf-every-card-topics in the last days diseased my mind :D
Explosive Evolution - Transform a minion into a random one that costs (2) more. Draw a card. Gotta find ways to pack a little more card draw into faster Shaman variants without killing tempo entirely.
Shamans have always been a weak class. They have been like that since Vanilla because their clasic set sucks. Whenever shaman was good, it was because of the expansion set, not their clasic one. And Blizzard nerfed Rockbitter Weapon, Flametomgue Totem and Hex, so yeah, it's kinda hard for them to do something. I would a un-nerf to Invocation of frost and Wolf Pack, but I don't really see it happening, so accept that this is the situation for now.
I remember people writing why Blizzard has a secret crush on Shamans since the class was seemingly always strong (I actually read the same thing about Paladins^^) and others responding with , probably because he’s the Green Jesus of the WOW lore or something like that:)
They were strong because of the expansion's power level. Like really, and the same goes for Druids.
Maybe, but i would say this mainly applies to Paladin, at least back in the days before Flamethoung, Rockbiter, Innervate and Wildgrowth got nerfed. Before that these cards were almost autoinclude.
Their top two competitive decks Galakrond Evolve Shaman and Totem Shaman are very very very draw dependent. When I played with them it was either you drew the nuts and went off, or you just drew nothing and got stomped. Very polarizing decks with no consistency.
There is always a weakest class during every meta each expansion, but I think they neglected Shaman a little too much in my opinon. They just don't have the tools to consistently be winning. I don't know if "buffs" to their current cards will help all that much. The next expansion has to show love to Shaman in some way though.
I think Totem Shaman is just a few cards away from being competitive. Totemic Reflection and Splitting Axe are VERY strong build-around cards imho, the problem is... they don't have good targets. You have to rely on a basic / Mana Tide / EVIL Totem to survive a turn, and it's often just not gonna happen... but worse than that, being 0/X on turn 2 or 3 before being buffed, the opponent can just trade into them with his own minions without losing anything.
I tried building a Totem Shaman in Wild just for fun, putting in old glories like Totem Golem, Tuskarr Totemic and Thing from Below and well... the deck really starts to work - of course I got crushed by legit top Wild decks, but I could see the power level of the deck being definitely playable to very competitive in Standard. Basically it needs one or two decent minions with the totem tag, and something that rewards you for either having summoned totems or having them on board, kinda like Bloodboil Brute rewards Warriors for havign damaged minions.
After playing 2 days of Totem Shaman I have to say: day 1 I was getting destroyed all the time, day 2 I even score a bit better than 50% overall. The deck is good against Face Hunters, seems 50-50 against other Aggro like Zoolock, Murlock Paladin, Pirate Warrior and so on, fine against Priest, but gets beaten up badly by Rogue and totally obliterated by DH especially if you play on coin. The main problem is that playing EVIL Totem on t2 or t1 with coin usually backfires. Opponents know they should remove it as Totemic Reflection is coming, and they can mostly do so quite easily. Which means that I normally have to wait till turn 5 to do this combo and try to survive until then with hero power tokens and 1-mana minions. It works in some matchups but almost never against DH. By the way, I play a version with 2xMagic Carpet and I feel it is somewhat superior to running Marshspawn or Serpentshrine Portal.
Their top two competitive decks Galakrond Evolve Shaman and Totem Shaman are very very very draw dependent. When I played with them it was either you drew the nuts and went off, or you just drew nothing and got stomped. Very polarizing decks with no consistency.
There is always a weakest class during every meta each expansion, but I think they neglected Shaman a little too much in my opinon. They just don't have the tools to consistently be winning. I don't know if "buffs" to their current cards will help all that much. The next expansion has to show love to Shaman in some way though.
Well, they had a little bit of shine this expansion, when Totem Shaman was considered "decent". I've never jumped on this hype train, but it worked for short amount of time.
Shaman is bad only this expansion. It's not like with Priest, which was terrible for literally ages. Also Shaman has a long history of being very oppressive. Yes, Shaman is bad now. So what? Let it be. At this point almost every class had a top tier deck and was on the bottom. This is ok. I am totally fine with Shaman being the worst now.
Also it's not like Shaman is so bad. The competition is too strong. Buffing Shaman to match the rest would only add to the powercreep, which is already disgusting in Hearthstone. And I am strongly against powercreeping.
Their top two competitive decks Galakrond Evolve Shaman and Totem Shaman are very very very draw dependent. When I played with them it was either you drew the nuts and went off, or you just drew nothing and got stomped. Very polarizing decks with no consistency.
There is always a weakest class during every meta each expansion, but I think they neglected Shaman a little too much in my opinon. They just don't have the tools to consistently be winning. I don't know if "buffs" to their current cards will help all that much. The next expansion has to show love to Shaman in some way though.
I think Totem Shaman is just a few cards away from being competitive. Totemic Reflection and Splitting Axe are VERY strong build-around cards imho, the problem is... they don't have good targets. You have to rely on a basic / Mana Tide / EVIL Totem to survive a turn, and it's often just not gonna happen... but worse than that, being 0/X on turn 2 or 3 before being buffed, the opponent can just trade into them with his own minions without losing anything.
I tried building a Totem Shaman in Wild just for fun, putting in old glories like Totem Golem, Tuskarr Totemic and Thing from Below and well... the deck really starts to work - of course I got crushed by legit top Wild decks, but I could see the power level of the deck being definitely playable to very competitive in Standard. Basically it needs one or two decent minions with the totem tag, and something that rewards you for either having summoned totems or having them on board, kinda like Bloodboil Brute rewards Warriors for havign damaged minions.
After playing 2 days of Totem Shaman I have to say: day 1 I was getting destroyed all the time, day 2 I even score a bit better than 50% overall. The deck is good against Face Hunters, seems 50-50 against other Aggro like Zoolock, Murlock Paladin, Pirate Warrior and so on, fine against Priest, but gets beaten up badly by Rogue and totally obliterated by DH especially if you play on coin. The main problem is that playing EVIL Totem on t2 or t1 with coin usually backfires. Opponents know they should remove it as Totemic Reflection is coming, and they can mostly do so quite easily. Which means that I normally have to wait till turn 5 to do this combo and try to survive until then with hero power tokens and 1-mana minions. It works in some matchups but almost never against DH. By the way, I play a version with 2xMagic Carpet and I feel it is somewhat superior to running Marshspawn or Serpentshrine Portal.
I played both the Carpet and the Marshspawn version, and I agree with you - the Carpet version is superior. The Marshspawn list, if it's the same I played, was waaay too spell-heavy and prone to spell-only opening hands bricks, 2x Lightning Bolt and 2x Lava Burst was absolutely too much.
Personally I think instead of unnerfing some cards Shaman should get the same treatment Priest got. There are a lot of these garbage spells like Windfury and Ancestral Spirit and no cards that synergize or reward playing with overload cards. I would like to see card like Lava Shock, Overload payoff cards and some elemental synergy in the basic and classic set that would work with already existing cards.
Their top two competitive decks Galakrond Evolve Shaman and Totem Shaman are very very very draw dependent. When I played with them it was either you drew the nuts and went off, or you just drew nothing and got stomped. Very polarizing decks with no consistency.
There is always a weakest class during every meta each expansion, but I think they neglected Shaman a little too much in my opinon. They just don't have the tools to consistently be winning. I don't know if "buffs" to their current cards will help all that much. The next expansion has to show love to Shaman in some way though.
Well, they had a little bit of shine this expansion, when Totem Shaman was considered "decent". I've never jumped on this hype train, but it worked for short amount of time.
Shaman is bad only this expansion. It's not like with Priest, which was terrible for literally ages. Also Shaman has a long history of being very oppressive. Yes, Shaman is bad now. So what? Let it be. At this point almost every class had a top tier deck and was on the bottom. This is ok. I am totally fine with Shaman being the worst now.
Also it's not like Shaman is so bad. The competition is too strong. Buffing Shaman to match the rest would only add to the powercreep, which is already disgusting in Hearthstone. And I am strongly against powercreeping.
I don't know how long you're playing this game but years ago Tempostorm (IIRC) created a special "Shaman tier" only to measure how bad the class was performing. That was long before the days of Aggro and Midrange Shaman during the Karazhan/MSoG metas. Yes, back then Thrall was considered just a meme and there were several periods over the course (*cough* Thrall&Garrosh@VS *cough*) during which he was left far behind the other classes. So please, don't resort to Whataboutism when it's clear that Shaman (and a few other classes such as Paladin to a lesser extent) suffer from serious issues. We should aim for class balance which doesn't either create oppression (pre-nerf DH) or outright unplayable classes. Take Hunter as an example: rarely too good, rarely too bad.
Gotta say, intelligent and thought provoking responses. Thanks for staying positive on this. I like the idea of reworking shaman like they did priest and rediscovering an identity that seems to have spread out too much. Reworking the overload concept while rebalancing the cost of existing cards could help in making shaman more consistent again. Not to change the subject, but a couple classes could use some work. That being said, most classes I think do function as intended but depending on expansion it’s just going to happen that some classes work better than others. Not ideal, but way it goes right?
They nerfed Shaman too hard as most of their problematic cards that allowed them to got for insane turns rotated on April. Just think about it, after the first rounds of nerfs, the cards that allowed Galakrond Shaman to do busted shit were Zentimo, Electra Stormsurge and the biggest offender of all... Shudderwock. Without those 3 cards and with nerfed wolfs and invocation then the deck is kinda hopeless vs almost every single meta deck.
Now that Shudderwock, Spirit of the Frog, Zentimo and Electra rotated, it's fair to consider unnferfing more of Galakrond Shaman's stuff and buffing others.
The Elementals ridiculous conditions of "if you did X last turn" should have a higher upside. I mean, Shattered Rumbler still damages your own minions? Far Sight and Mana Tide should cost 2. They should definitely revert the stupid nerf to Flametongue as well.
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With all the talk of how Shaman has left the building when last expansion it started off at the top has led me back to the frustration of quick nerfs on something doing well. True Shaman was maybe oppressive in the first couple days, but at the same time, a couple nerfs sent it to oblivion. A big part of their success was in no small part due to Shutterwok, so I wonder what the state of Shaman would be like now if the nerfs were undone now that Shutterwok is in wild. Why not give them back their thunder as it was first intended and see how they fare.
Curious if others think undoing the nerfs from last expansion would positively or too positively boost Shaman. It's not like with some classes where the cards just don't add up and they're struggling. Shaman was intended to be strong and were brought down.
Shaman deserved to be at the bottom
The Envoke effect from Shamans is still the strongest, so there is future potential.
Technically Shaman doesn’t even have bad cards, good aoe, good healing, good tempo, it’s just not as unfair as others. I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring everything to a unfair level.
Their current failure is from being a slow class with barely any tempo in a DH meta.
Their card draw sucks ass. Their aggro is currently the worst, and their good healing was rotated into WIld.
They lack the sustain to be functional in such an aggro format now.
From the Shaman games I've played since this expansion I can say 1 thing has stood out above all others:
Their card draw is awful. They have to rely on Novice Engineer Far Sight and Mana Tide Totem. Three very not so great options in the current meta.
Their top two competitive decks Galakrond Evolve Shaman and Totem Shaman are very very very draw dependent. When I played with them it was either you drew the nuts and went off, or you just drew nothing and got stomped. Very polarizing decks with no consistency.
There is always a weakest class during every meta each expansion, but I think they neglected Shaman a little too much in my opinon. They just don't have the tools to consistently be winning. I don't know if "buffs" to their current cards will help all that much. The next expansion has to show love to Shaman in some way though.
Shamans have always been a weak class. They have been like that since Vanilla because their clasic set sucks. Whenever shaman was good, it was because of the expansion set, not their clasic one. And Blizzard nerfed Rockbitter Weapon, Flametomgue Totem and Hex, so yeah, it's kinda hard for them to do something. I would a un-nerf to Invocation of frost and Wolf Pack, but I don't really see it happening, so accept that this is the situation for now.
I think Totem Shaman is just a few cards away from being competitive. Totemic Reflection and Splitting Axe are VERY strong build-around cards imho, the problem is... they don't have good targets. You have to rely on a basic / Mana Tide / EVIL Totem to survive a turn, and it's often just not gonna happen... but worse than that, being 0/X on turn 2 or 3 before being buffed, the opponent can just trade into them with his own minions without losing anything.
I tried building a Totem Shaman in Wild just for fun, putting in old glories like Totem Golem, Tuskarr Totemic and Thing from Below and well... the deck really starts to work - of course I got crushed by legit top Wild decks, but I could see the power level of the deck being definitely playable to very competitive in Standard. Basically it needs one or two decent minions with the totem tag, and something that rewards you for either having summoned totems or having them on board, kinda like Bloodboil Brute rewards Warriors for havign damaged minions.
I remember people writing why Blizzard has a secret crush on Shamans since the class was seemingly always strong (I actually read the same thing about Paladins^^) and others responding with , probably because he’s the Green Jesus of the WOW lore or something like that:)
They were strong because of the expansion's power level. Like really, and the same goes for Druids.
I agree Shaman needs a nerf. I lost with my Beast Palladin against it. Especially the evolve Weapon is too strong. Even stronger than Wrenchcalibur, which should be HoF'ed immediately! Together with Lackeys and Disguised Wanderer. 9 Attack is to heavy!
After reading more than the subject... Ooops! The nerf-every-card-topics in the last days diseased my mind :D
A few cards I'd tinker with to get things moving in the right direction:
Lightning Storm - Change the overload cost to 1. It just feels too prohibitive to use as early removal these days.
Shattered Rumbler - Upgrade the damage to 3. Crazed Netherwing does that and it has an easier trigger condition.
Explosive Evolution - Transform a minion into a random one that costs (2) more. Draw a card. Gotta find ways to pack a little more card draw into faster Shaman variants without killing tempo entirely.
Maybe, but i would say this mainly applies to Paladin, at least back in the days before Flamethoung, Rockbiter, Innervate and Wildgrowth got nerfed. Before that these cards were almost autoinclude.
After playing 2 days of Totem Shaman I have to say: day 1 I was getting destroyed all the time, day 2 I even score a bit better than 50% overall. The deck is good against Face Hunters, seems 50-50 against other Aggro like Zoolock, Murlock Paladin, Pirate Warrior and so on, fine against Priest, but gets beaten up badly by Rogue and totally obliterated by DH especially if you play on coin. The main problem is that playing EVIL Totem on t2 or t1 with coin usually backfires. Opponents know they should remove it as Totemic Reflection is coming, and they can mostly do so quite easily. Which means that I normally have to wait till turn 5 to do this combo and try to survive until then with hero power tokens and 1-mana minions. It works in some matchups but almost never against DH. By the way, I play a version with 2xMagic Carpet and I feel it is somewhat superior to running Marshspawn or Serpentshrine Portal.
Well, they had a little bit of shine this expansion, when Totem Shaman was considered "decent". I've never jumped on this hype train, but it worked for short amount of time.
Shaman is bad only this expansion. It's not like with Priest, which was terrible for literally ages. Also Shaman has a long history of being very oppressive. Yes, Shaman is bad now. So what? Let it be. At this point almost every class had a top tier deck and was on the bottom. This is ok. I am totally fine with Shaman being the worst now.
Also it's not like Shaman is so bad. The competition is too strong. Buffing Shaman to match the rest would only add to the powercreep, which is already disgusting in Hearthstone. And I am strongly against powercreeping.
I played both the Carpet and the Marshspawn version, and I agree with you - the Carpet version is superior. The Marshspawn list, if it's the same I played, was waaay too spell-heavy and prone to spell-only opening hands bricks, 2x Lightning Bolt and 2x Lava Burst was absolutely too much.
However I found this list too https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/totem-shaman-wirer-ashes-of-outland-2/ which is carpet-less but a bit more balanced in the number of spells, and I've had the most success with it. I don't have Vessina tho, subbed another 4-drop in her place.
Personally I think instead of unnerfing some cards Shaman should get the same treatment Priest got. There are a lot of these garbage spells like Windfury and Ancestral Spirit and no cards that synergize or reward playing with overload cards. I would like to see card like Lava Shock, Overload payoff cards and some elemental synergy in the basic and classic set that would work with already existing cards.
I don't know how long you're playing this game but years ago Tempostorm (IIRC) created a special "Shaman tier" only to measure how bad the class was performing. That was long before the days of Aggro and Midrange Shaman during the Karazhan/MSoG metas. Yes, back then Thrall was considered just a meme and there were several periods over the course (*cough* Thrall&Garrosh@VS *cough*) during which he was left far behind the other classes. So please, don't resort to Whataboutism when it's clear that Shaman (and a few other classes such as Paladin to a lesser extent) suffer from serious issues. We should aim for class balance which doesn't either create oppression (pre-nerf DH) or outright unplayable classes. Take Hunter as an example: rarely too good, rarely too bad.
Gotta say, intelligent and thought provoking responses. Thanks for staying positive on this. I like the idea of reworking shaman like they did priest and rediscovering an identity that seems to have spread out too much. Reworking the overload concept while rebalancing the cost of existing cards could help in making shaman more consistent again. Not to change the subject, but a couple classes could use some work. That being said, most classes I think do function as intended but depending on expansion it’s just going to happen that some classes work better than others. Not ideal, but way it goes right?
They nerfed Shaman too hard as most of their problematic cards that allowed them to got for insane turns rotated on April. Just think about it, after the first rounds of nerfs, the cards that allowed Galakrond Shaman to do busted shit were Zentimo, Electra Stormsurge and the biggest offender of all... Shudderwock. Without those 3 cards and with nerfed wolfs and invocation then the deck is kinda hopeless vs almost every single meta deck.
Now that Shudderwock, Spirit of the Frog, Zentimo and Electra rotated, it's fair to consider unnferfing more of Galakrond Shaman's stuff and buffing others.
The Elementals ridiculous conditions of "if you did X last turn" should have a higher upside. I mean, Shattered Rumbler still damages your own minions? Far Sight and Mana Tide should cost 2. They should definitely revert the stupid nerf to Flametongue as well.