12-25-2006, 03:13 AM
So, in preparation for the expansion, I've leveled both a Shaman and Warrior to 49 (both Tauren), and will be keeping them there for some time (seeing as how I run with other twinks and other friends), wanting to avoid the current Lv.60 PvP orgy and the Outland mobbing that's inevitably going to take place as the PvE guilds on our server rush to reach Level 70 and begin the PvE grind all over again (whee?)
Because of this, I've had time to observe the major differences in playstyles, and think about where each class could use some help, and where they might be too strong. Obviously, Blizzard balances for the endgame, but since neither class has any game-changing abilities at 41 points (Earth Shield comes closest, but it's not a significant gamestyle change from what I've heard), I think it's possible to make valid points about class strengths and weaknesses at this point.
Some background: I've played Warriors since the first open beta (and a few combined hours in the closed beta through a friend's account) and am thus naturally better at the class, and definitely biased in their favor; I love the Rage system, despise the Mana system, and prefer beating someone's face in with a hammer to frying them with a spell, turning them into a pincushion with a bow, or shoving a dagger in between their sixth and seventh vertebrae. That aside, I'm trying to stay objective here:)
My Shaman is Level 49 and has very good gear; she wears an epic (Stonerender Gauntlets with +40 Armor), an epic-quality BOE rare (Braincage with +8 Stamina), and has the best possible BOP rares from various instances, including BRD (which, with the three friends I've been leveling with, we did legitly:))
Being part of a nonofficial team (that is, we don't always run together), she's often with at least one other person with equal or better gear (there are several full twinks), so my experience with her in 1v1 combat is relatively limited.
She's almost full Restoration, 33 points, with the other 7 into Enhancement for utility abilities. Major talents include Improved Healing Wave, Nature's Swiftness, full Purification and Healing Way, full Focused Mind, Totemic Mastery, and Improved Ghost Wolf, with Shield Specialization being the pre-requisite. I've found that this build gives her exceptional healing ability (I often pre-stack Healing Way with rank1 Healing Wave on our major tank before we run into combat, since I can quite easily heal through Mortal Strike with a full Healing Way buff active), as well as solid melee abilities (through spellpower-enhanced Flametongue Weapon) and a high degree of mobility with Improved Ghost Wolf. She can also nuke efficiently due primarily to her gear, which affords her a modest amount of spellpower and a significant mana pool.
By far, her primary strength is her versatility. I can use a wide variety of totems to buff and protect party members (Tremor, Grounding, and Poison Cleansing are bound to the same three keys I use for my Warrior's stances), which makes her effective in both melee and caster groups. Because of Purification and healpower on her gear, she heals efficiently and powerfully, and can dispel potentially devastating debuffs like Crippling and Mind-Numbing Poison. Resistance totems help protect from Mages, and Windfury Totem provides a significant buff to our Warriors, though even the 30 yard range is often insufficient, and I find myself recasting it frequently (especially since I drop a grounding totem every time the cooldown is up to help prevent a sheep from landing.) With a 40 yard range, Tremor Totem is extremely effective at negating Seduce and Fear effects, though I wish I could have it pulse a couple seconds more often. She's not relagated to solely healing, however; I often throw rank1 shocks as needed (Frost Shock to slow the melee class trying to chew up a clothie, a flame shock to prevent a rogue from using vanish as a means of escape, an earth shock to interrupt the sheep or seduce), and Purge almost compulsively.
However, she has some significant weaknesses; like my Warriors, she's victim to stuns, slows, and roots, and given her primary role as healer, is even more vulnerable to sheep effects (whereas it's not necessarily a bad thing for my warrior to be sheeped, meaning that a healer or nuker is not sheeped, it's bad for my shaman to be sheeped), and makes me wish my trinket could counter such effects. Unlike my Warrior, she does not have a massive HP pool or armor reduction to rely on (though, with 3060 HP and the ability to heal through most damage, she doesn't die too easily), and isn't as capable in melee combat; while Flametongue can add up fairly quickly, anything except for standard autoattack eats precious mana that could be much better used healing teammates or dispelling enemies. Additionally, she has no form of CC besides War Stomp (which is, of course, a racial ability and not a class ability), which is definitely noticeable when being focused by an opposing organized team; our priests can use their AOE fear (which is trinketable, but it DOES make those rogues blow their 5-minute cooldown, whereas nothing I can do does), our mages can use frost nova and root to buy them a little more time, and our warlocks can seduce, AE fear, or Death Coil people away from them. I, on the other hand, have to healtank them until my teammates can kill them, which eats precious mana.
I think the class is altogether balanced at this point, but I wish I had some non-class-specific way of escaping forms of CC (my warrior, being an engineer, supplies our other engineers with minor and major recombobulators, which helps), specifically the PvP trinket being changed to remove fear, polymorph, and stun effects.
My Warrior is also Level 49, and has even better gear, though I've skipped the highest-end enchants to save money for more important things. He uses a Thrash Blade (with a weapon chain, natch) and an epic shield (Wall of the Dead), and has several high-end BOE rares, including Wyrmslayer Spaulders, Hydralick Armor, and Plated Fist of Hakoo. Like my Shaman, he has the epic Warsong gauntlets (my Shaman has the cloth version since I value spellpower more than AP on her, of course), and pieces from AB and overall PvP.
He's Protection, 0/5/35, with highlights including Concussion Blow, Improved Shield Bash, One-Handed Weapon Specialization, Shield Slam, Focused Rage, and Improved Sunder Armor. Chain Thrash procs notwithstanding (and it's plain sick when it procs itself; things just die when that happens), he relies on Shield Slam for the majority of his damage, and thus focuses on Strength over Agility when applicable. With Sunder costing a mere 9 Rage, everything I fight has a minimum of two Sunders (cloth gets two, leather gets three, mail gets three, and plate gets a full five) since it maximizes both my damage and the damage of my teammates (he runs with the same people, natch.) While I find it endlessly amusing, he does not have Improved Revenge, since I can't really find a way of fitting it into my build without sacrificing more useful talents elsewhere.
Being Protection, his strengths are fairly obvious: with even only one healer he is effectively immune to death. With 4126 HP and 57.16% reduction (and a Block value of 43), he's more or less impervious to physical damage (Hunters, which my Shaman loathes, are nothing to my Warrior), and with his array of stuns and interrupts, he's lethal to spellcasters as well. With healer support, there's nothing he can't do, and the only thing I could want would be the Mortal Strike debuff:)
However, without healer support, he's extremely limited. While he still takes a very long time to kill, he's incredibly reliant on consumables for survival, and is extremely vulnerable to roots, snares, and other forms of CC. While I can break fear with Berserker Rage, it's on a 30 second cooldown, and isn't much use if I get caught unaware, since I'm often found turtling in Defensive Stance with several classes busily trying to beat me into a scrapheap. I'm actually pleased when I eat a Seduce or Sheep, since it means I was apparently enough of a threat to warrant getting it over a priest or other healer. It's a drastic playstyle shift from my shaman, since I often spend my time trying to avoid attention with her.
Being an engineer, I'm often able to make up for my lacks with the various trinkets and consumables it provides me with, but without an effective trinket-management tool like TrinketMenu, it'd be overwhelming. Between my Netomatic, Shrink Ray, Mithril Dragonling, Dragon Gun, and Mortar, I have a lot of trinkets to cycle through, not to mention passive trinkets like the Rune of Duty, Rune of the Guard Captain, and the ubiquitous Insignia. On top of this, both forms of Recombobulators are trinkets, as well as the Flame Reflector, Ice Reflector, and Shadow Reflector (I do not have any of the three, but I believe the Flame and Ice versions are available for use as early as level 47.) Moreover, I go through healing, free action, and swiftness potions like candy, and while I can farm the materials for the potions quite easily (with my shaman being an accomplish weeder, fisherman, and chef, along with the fact that healing potions can be bought from the accessories quartermaster for a mere 9s+1h each), it becomes tedious after a time, and it also cuts into my profits, since the materials used for these potions sell quite well due to their usefulness.
Overall, it seems the Shaman is better for a sort of solo play; while healing others is hardly a solo style of play, she doesn't become exponentially more powerful with the improvement of her team, unlike my warrior. While my shaman's healing and damage capabilities only slightly improve with someone crosshealing her and supporting her, my warrior becomes a veritable freight train with a team supporting him.
You can find profiles for both characters over at CTProfiles; my warrior's can be found here, while my shaman's can be found here. Note that the weaponskills for both characters are at maximum in the profiles, but they're likely a few below maximum in-game. Likewise, professions for both are not 300, but are high enough for the bracket that it doesn't matter:)
Because of this, I've had time to observe the major differences in playstyles, and think about where each class could use some help, and where they might be too strong. Obviously, Blizzard balances for the endgame, but since neither class has any game-changing abilities at 41 points (Earth Shield comes closest, but it's not a significant gamestyle change from what I've heard), I think it's possible to make valid points about class strengths and weaknesses at this point.
Some background: I've played Warriors since the first open beta (and a few combined hours in the closed beta through a friend's account) and am thus naturally better at the class, and definitely biased in their favor; I love the Rage system, despise the Mana system, and prefer beating someone's face in with a hammer to frying them with a spell, turning them into a pincushion with a bow, or shoving a dagger in between their sixth and seventh vertebrae. That aside, I'm trying to stay objective here:)
My Shaman is Level 49 and has very good gear; she wears an epic (Stonerender Gauntlets with +40 Armor), an epic-quality BOE rare (Braincage with +8 Stamina), and has the best possible BOP rares from various instances, including BRD (which, with the three friends I've been leveling with, we did legitly:))
Being part of a nonofficial team (that is, we don't always run together), she's often with at least one other person with equal or better gear (there are several full twinks), so my experience with her in 1v1 combat is relatively limited.
She's almost full Restoration, 33 points, with the other 7 into Enhancement for utility abilities. Major talents include Improved Healing Wave, Nature's Swiftness, full Purification and Healing Way, full Focused Mind, Totemic Mastery, and Improved Ghost Wolf, with Shield Specialization being the pre-requisite. I've found that this build gives her exceptional healing ability (I often pre-stack Healing Way with rank1 Healing Wave on our major tank before we run into combat, since I can quite easily heal through Mortal Strike with a full Healing Way buff active), as well as solid melee abilities (through spellpower-enhanced Flametongue Weapon) and a high degree of mobility with Improved Ghost Wolf. She can also nuke efficiently due primarily to her gear, which affords her a modest amount of spellpower and a significant mana pool.
By far, her primary strength is her versatility. I can use a wide variety of totems to buff and protect party members (Tremor, Grounding, and Poison Cleansing are bound to the same three keys I use for my Warrior's stances), which makes her effective in both melee and caster groups. Because of Purification and healpower on her gear, she heals efficiently and powerfully, and can dispel potentially devastating debuffs like Crippling and Mind-Numbing Poison. Resistance totems help protect from Mages, and Windfury Totem provides a significant buff to our Warriors, though even the 30 yard range is often insufficient, and I find myself recasting it frequently (especially since I drop a grounding totem every time the cooldown is up to help prevent a sheep from landing.) With a 40 yard range, Tremor Totem is extremely effective at negating Seduce and Fear effects, though I wish I could have it pulse a couple seconds more often. She's not relagated to solely healing, however; I often throw rank1 shocks as needed (Frost Shock to slow the melee class trying to chew up a clothie, a flame shock to prevent a rogue from using vanish as a means of escape, an earth shock to interrupt the sheep or seduce), and Purge almost compulsively.
However, she has some significant weaknesses; like my Warriors, she's victim to stuns, slows, and roots, and given her primary role as healer, is even more vulnerable to sheep effects (whereas it's not necessarily a bad thing for my warrior to be sheeped, meaning that a healer or nuker is not sheeped, it's bad for my shaman to be sheeped), and makes me wish my trinket could counter such effects. Unlike my Warrior, she does not have a massive HP pool or armor reduction to rely on (though, with 3060 HP and the ability to heal through most damage, she doesn't die too easily), and isn't as capable in melee combat; while Flametongue can add up fairly quickly, anything except for standard autoattack eats precious mana that could be much better used healing teammates or dispelling enemies. Additionally, she has no form of CC besides War Stomp (which is, of course, a racial ability and not a class ability), which is definitely noticeable when being focused by an opposing organized team; our priests can use their AOE fear (which is trinketable, but it DOES make those rogues blow their 5-minute cooldown, whereas nothing I can do does), our mages can use frost nova and root to buy them a little more time, and our warlocks can seduce, AE fear, or Death Coil people away from them. I, on the other hand, have to healtank them until my teammates can kill them, which eats precious mana.
I think the class is altogether balanced at this point, but I wish I had some non-class-specific way of escaping forms of CC (my warrior, being an engineer, supplies our other engineers with minor and major recombobulators, which helps), specifically the PvP trinket being changed to remove fear, polymorph, and stun effects.
My Warrior is also Level 49, and has even better gear, though I've skipped the highest-end enchants to save money for more important things. He uses a Thrash Blade (with a weapon chain, natch) and an epic shield (Wall of the Dead), and has several high-end BOE rares, including Wyrmslayer Spaulders, Hydralick Armor, and Plated Fist of Hakoo. Like my Shaman, he has the epic Warsong gauntlets (my Shaman has the cloth version since I value spellpower more than AP on her, of course), and pieces from AB and overall PvP.
He's Protection, 0/5/35, with highlights including Concussion Blow, Improved Shield Bash, One-Handed Weapon Specialization, Shield Slam, Focused Rage, and Improved Sunder Armor. Chain Thrash procs notwithstanding (and it's plain sick when it procs itself; things just die when that happens), he relies on Shield Slam for the majority of his damage, and thus focuses on Strength over Agility when applicable. With Sunder costing a mere 9 Rage, everything I fight has a minimum of two Sunders (cloth gets two, leather gets three, mail gets three, and plate gets a full five) since it maximizes both my damage and the damage of my teammates (he runs with the same people, natch.) While I find it endlessly amusing, he does not have Improved Revenge, since I can't really find a way of fitting it into my build without sacrificing more useful talents elsewhere.
Being Protection, his strengths are fairly obvious: with even only one healer he is effectively immune to death. With 4126 HP and 57.16% reduction (and a Block value of 43), he's more or less impervious to physical damage (Hunters, which my Shaman loathes, are nothing to my Warrior), and with his array of stuns and interrupts, he's lethal to spellcasters as well. With healer support, there's nothing he can't do, and the only thing I could want would be the Mortal Strike debuff:)
However, without healer support, he's extremely limited. While he still takes a very long time to kill, he's incredibly reliant on consumables for survival, and is extremely vulnerable to roots, snares, and other forms of CC. While I can break fear with Berserker Rage, it's on a 30 second cooldown, and isn't much use if I get caught unaware, since I'm often found turtling in Defensive Stance with several classes busily trying to beat me into a scrapheap. I'm actually pleased when I eat a Seduce or Sheep, since it means I was apparently enough of a threat to warrant getting it over a priest or other healer. It's a drastic playstyle shift from my shaman, since I often spend my time trying to avoid attention with her.
Being an engineer, I'm often able to make up for my lacks with the various trinkets and consumables it provides me with, but without an effective trinket-management tool like TrinketMenu, it'd be overwhelming. Between my Netomatic, Shrink Ray, Mithril Dragonling, Dragon Gun, and Mortar, I have a lot of trinkets to cycle through, not to mention passive trinkets like the Rune of Duty, Rune of the Guard Captain, and the ubiquitous Insignia. On top of this, both forms of Recombobulators are trinkets, as well as the Flame Reflector, Ice Reflector, and Shadow Reflector (I do not have any of the three, but I believe the Flame and Ice versions are available for use as early as level 47.) Moreover, I go through healing, free action, and swiftness potions like candy, and while I can farm the materials for the potions quite easily (with my shaman being an accomplish weeder, fisherman, and chef, along with the fact that healing potions can be bought from the accessories quartermaster for a mere 9s+1h each), it becomes tedious after a time, and it also cuts into my profits, since the materials used for these potions sell quite well due to their usefulness.
Overall, it seems the Shaman is better for a sort of solo play; while healing others is hardly a solo style of play, she doesn't become exponentially more powerful with the improvement of her team, unlike my warrior. While my shaman's healing and damage capabilities only slightly improve with someone crosshealing her and supporting her, my warrior becomes a veritable freight train with a team supporting him.
You can find profiles for both characters over at CTProfiles; my warrior's can be found here, while my shaman's can be found here. Note that the weaponskills for both characters are at maximum in the profiles, but they're likely a few below maximum in-game. Likewise, professions for both are not 300, but are high enough for the bracket that it doesn't matter:)
ArrayPaladins were not meant to sit in the back of the raid staring at health bars all day, spamming heals and listening to eight different classes whine about buffs.[/quote]
The original Heavy Metal Cowâ¢. USDA inspected, FDA approved.
The original Heavy Metal Cowâ¢. USDA inspected, FDA approved.