They way you can tell if a class's evergreen set is terrible is whether or not that class has historically reasonable representation across all metagames.
Rogue, Mage, Druid, Warrior, Warlock and Hunter are usually around in some form. Sometimes they're unplayable, but they often have at least a T2 or T3 deck.
Priest, Shaman, and Paladin are very highly boom/bust because they depend so heavily on broken cards & synergies from expacs to cover the weaknesses in their evergreen set.
I also think the fact that the vision for these classes is unclear plays a large role in why they suck. Because their evergreen sets are trying to do multiple things, their expacs are often all over the place.
They fixed this in priest, bringing a lot of it's evergreen cards to a playable point and tightening the class's focus. But Shaman and Paladin are still very disparate and below the curve.
To take it a step further, I'd say look at their early game cards:
Armorsmith, Scavenging Hyena, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Flame Imp...
Shaman doesn't even have a 2 cost minion in basic or classic right now. Nobody in their right mind is going to play Dust Devil, and all of their 1 cost spells are reactive. Bloodlust may be one of the best finishers in the game, but it's tough to get there when you're stuck playing neutral cards for tempo early on.
They've got to give Shaman something to do before turn 3 or they're just always going to have to rely on obscure combos.
1
Priest mains just wait for these threads to pop up I swear. But for real what’s the point of 30 minute games.. no fun
-5
Hahaha dh salty all over rn. Peace Rez priest next pls
4
What’s with the state of overload cards. Before shaman would be penalized for a great card with overload. Now the cards and mediocre compared to other class cards, you still get penalized and there’s barely any synergy with the mechanic. Could anyone see a future rework?