Shaman weaknesses?

[Numbers]

What are they?

Out of all the classes that I have a tough time beating, it's a shaman. The next would be a mage or druid who knew what they were doing (exploit the deadzone of a hunter.)

But shaman... they're freaking demigods. They kick hunter ass in melee, and they have two extremely effective snares to keep us in melee range. Earthbind and frost shock (which does 500 damage on top of the snare.)

Hunters cannot win in melee. The most we can do is Wing Clip/Counterattack and try to get some distance so we can get into firing range. But the multitude of shaman snares keeps that from happening. If a hunter is running from a shaman, they just need to blast a Frost Shock (even a rank 1 frost shock would slow us down.) The hunter can concussive shot, sure, but the effect will wear off long before the frost shock. Not to mention the cooldown on frost shock is short enough to be able to keep a hunter perma-snared with it. But they don't need to do that. One or two frost-shocks, get into melee range, crap out an earthbind totem, and the hunter is done. The most we can do at that point is scatter shot > kill totem > run away. Then you just start the whole frost shock > earthbind cycle again.

Some shaman say that all a hunter needs to do to win is keep viper sting on that shaman. Except a shaman can simply dispel it for less mana than the viper sting cost. The end result is that I run out of mana long before the shaman does.

Not to mention the shaman can heal. Can self-rezz. And can ghost wolf in case a hunter does manage to get out of range.

I'm seriously curious, for those of you who play shaman. What are your main weaknesses as a class? Are there any glaring weaknesses? Right now shamans and, to a lesser extent, rogues are considered the most overpowered classes in the game, and I'm having trouble disagreeing with that.

[Keller]

Stop being an alliance pussy and you wont have to deal with them.

Simple as that.

[Numbers]

Any serious answers?

[Tsa`ah]

Although I play a Horde hunter, I have thought about it and have come up with nada. Nothing that would make you effective against a shaman and keep you viable against other classes.

Traps are useless because they have to be planted before combat. Since it's nearly impossible to keep distance between an alliance hunter and a shaman (1 on 1), you have to really be a melee whore hunter with beastmastery compliments. Or a beastmastery whore with survival compliments and completely ditch any hopes of ranged efficiency.

So to me, and this means PvP specialization in general, talents should look one of two ways.

(I'm assuming you can only spend 50 talent points)

Melee Dependant with Pet back up.

5pts - precision
1pt - Improved raptor strike
3pts - Lightning reflexes
1pt - Improved wingclip
5pts - Improved mongoose bite
1pt - Deterrence
5pts - Deflection
5pts Savage Strikes
1pt - Counterattack
5pts - Melee Specialization
1pt - lacerate

5 pts - Endurance training
2pts - Improved aspect of the hawk
3pts - Improved aspect of the monkey
5pts - Unleashed fury
2pts - Ferocity

The other route would be to go heavy on beastmastery and back that up with survival. The again, that only works as long as you remain alive.

The melee route is best, in my opinion, for PvP so long as you forget about traps improvements. It gives you the element of surprise for one. Any profession is going to try to gain melee range with a hunter; with a melee setup ... let them. Dual wield fast weapons and let a beefed up pet take chunks out of their ass.

Thinking harder about it yet, it only makes sense for a hunter to take on alchemy and herbalism. It's the only way you can counter the lack of ranged when dealing with spell casters.

I think Shamans are just the albatross of Hunters, much like rogues eat us alive.

- Arkans

[Sean of the Thread]

Arkans is right. The class system has always been rock paper scissors.

[Hulkein]

Question Tsa`ah, why only one point in improved raptor strike?

I'm guessing that lowering it by .2 seconds effectively cuts out that full second wait? My only guess why only 1 pt in it.

[Edited on 6-5-2005 by Hulkein]

[Tsa`ah]

1 point to improved raptor strike in order to beign placing points in the next level, otherwise I wouldn't bother with it.

A fast raptor strike would be nice, but the points vs overall reduced cooldown just don't seem worth it to me.

To take a shaman down fast it would be a cycle like this:
Deterence
Lacerate
Raptor
Mongoose
counterattack
wingclip.

Of course popping them with a mongoose bite and counter attack each time it was available. That would have precedence over a raptor strike. So, putting points into reducing the raptor cooldown is pointless to simply because you'll be using mongoose, counter, and lacerate. By the time you cycle through those, raptor will have already cooled down ... with or without the improvement ranks.

[Hulkein]

Good call.

[StrayRogue]

Hunters generally aren't meant to win in Melee. The moment I ever come into combat with one (as in catch one up) he'll die even if he's a few levels above me. Hunters I would always gauge as the best PvE class and one of the worst for PvP.

[Toxicvixen]

I :heart: Playing a Shaman, come join the Horde side!

[Numbers]

In group/mass PvP, hunters are probably the best. They've been dominating pretty severely on the test server in the Battlegrounds. The only thing that restricts them is their small mana supply and very non mana-efficient shots.

It's 1 vs 1 that's rough. If the other class knows to exploit a hunters deadzone, the hunter is pretty much finished.

Additionally, there's a bug with hunters that may make it into the next patch that's adding weapon speed to the cooldown of our shots. So, let's say you're carrying a ranged weapon with a 3 speed, and let's say the cooldown for Arcane Shot is 6 (not sure if that's right.) With the bug, your cooldown for that shot would now be 9. This bug applies to all of our special shots... arcane shot, multi-shot, scatter shot, aimed shot, serpent/scorpid/viper sting. Considering those shots comprise a bulk of a hunters damage in PvP (since most of them can be used while moving,) it's a pretty big downgrade in our damage output.

[StrayRogue]

Well no offense you can't be good at everything. You say you are good in mass PvP/Raids, which I will sort of agree with (I'd say Mage and other high end AoE casting classes are best), but not so hot in 1 vs 1. Well as a rogue I have it the other way round. I excell in 1 vs 1 but am the most useless class when it comes to raids.

[Guerrin]

Don't beast spec. and its 51pts in talents if I recall.

I won't lie, shamans are a bitch. An ungrateful whore of a class to fight as a hunter. Then again, so are pallies (Such a long ass kite. And they cleanse too).Here's what ya do though.

Minor speed enchant on your boots.

Drop freeze trap.
Ranged (you have 20-26 seconds, frostshock will wear off, get to 41 yards. Shaman range is shit)

Kite them into the freeze trap. stop, aimed shot. send pet while you're aimed shot is 'charging', concussive shot. Once conc shot falls, turn and KITE.

Turn pet to passive, (cheetah if you think you're definitely far enough away from being hit) and either run out of combat range and trap, or, FD + trap.

Aimed shot, pet, kite, rinse, repeat.

If they get close, wingclip (hope it procs) , scatter shot, run right through them.

If you're an engineer you have a second daze/escape, I like to use the 5 yard bombs cause they're real cheap to make and have a great radius.

Oh, even if you're at ranged and have time left on your freeze trap (more than 6 seconds for aimed shot)...med up. Also, this is a great time to taunt them to piss them off even more(Make sure they keep on kiting).

You're alliance, so get totem_killer mod or whatever it's called. It auto-targets totems in the area. Its meant for druids/mages but you could probably adjust it so your pet attacks em.

Hope for crits, use your kite and jump shot. Pray he doesn't have a reaper:lol:

of course this isn't 100% and like it's been said, blizz uses rock/paper to balance pvp.

This is basically how I take on pallies 1v1. I'll usually use viper at least once though to see if they suck (yes, some don't cleanse it).

[Izalude]

I'm not sure what the mana cost for the shaman or paladin remove poison is... but... You could try and hit them with a low level viper sting, if they're overzealous about clensing. That could wear down their mana.

[Parkbandit]

Shaman have very few glaring weaknesses that I can see.

The only way you can beat a shaman as a hunter is to stay the fuck out of melee distance. My main tactic when fighting a hunter is to ignore the pet and rush the hunter. It's never failed me.

[Trinitis]

My undead rogue got into a duel with a like level hunter and I managed to kill the pet then kill the hunter. Man was he pissed :lol:

Hide, sap hunter, kill pet, vanish, ambush hunter, kill hunter. Was a fun fight.

[Parkbandit]

As a shaman, I have very little problem with any class but rogues... and to some extend priests. As a rogue, I have very little problem with any class but warriors and druids.

Fucking druids throwing up weed/faery fire/spam moon... it sucks.

[Xcalibur]

Weakness of shamans? Next update, they're gonna be nerfed SO HARD!

[Hulkein]

This just an opinion or do you have any proof of that claim, X? Kind of sounds like you're stating it like it's a stone cold lock.

[Tsa`ah]

Originally posted by Adredrin
My undead rogue got into a duel with a like level hunter and I managed to kill the pet then kill the hunter. Man was he pissed :lol:

Hide, sap hunter, kill pet, vanish, ambush hunter, kill hunter. Was a fun fight.

That's just a suck ass hunter.

[Parkbandit]

Originally posted by Izalude
I'm not sure what the mana cost for the shaman or paladin remove poison is... but... You could try and hit them with a low level viper sting, if they're overzealous about clensing. That could wear down their mana.

For a shaman.. it's next to nothing. 75 I think. It''s even cheaper if they just drop a poison cleaning totem for you overzealous hunters who think viper sting is all that.

[Tsa`ah]

Viper is more effective in PvE or against classes that don't have the ability to remove it.

As for the kiting of any class, it only works if you're able to drop the traps and gain the distance. Anyone familiar with fighting hunters is going to do everything to prevent that. With shamen it's just not that effective. You can kite only as long as you have the mana to do that. A smart shaman is going to let you kite, take the hits, and just rely on low level healing until you're not able to get anything off but standard auto shots. Then it's over.

I still say the best way to take down a shaman is to take it to them up close. This makes you fodder for melee specialists, but you'll be able to surprise the WoW version of the "semi" class with that can of hunter brand melee.

[Guerrin]

Shaman + arcanite reaper + windfury procs...

and you want to melee them...as a hunter?