Do Shamans have a place in end game content?

[Taelas]

As usual Alliera you totally missed the point(s).

No, I didn't. You're the one missing the point.

Yes, you can easily find quite frankly underpowered builds in end-game. Why? Because a lot of people simply play the game in order to play the game, not to min/max their characters. They don't care much about progression. They do want to see more, but what they enjoy is spending an evening with friends downing those big bosses.

To them, it doesn't matter whether or not Retribution paladins are overpowered. That's one of the few remaining reasons why you can find them there.

Oh, and good job ignoring the rest of my post.

(Emphasis Mine)

Actually, it is still an awesome point, it just isn't about why you should use any particular talent build. Theorycraft comparisons of talent trees depend on many assumptions: Primary among those assumptions is that every player is equally and perfectly willing to respec to another talent tree. But the real life is far from ideal and the availability of such 'ideal' raiders is limited.

If we take two non-ideal players:
1. A Retribution Paladin who dedicates himself to proving, night after night, that he can deal competitive DPS
2. A rogue who idly observes, each time the damage meter is posted, how everyone is double his damage.

Who do you take for a DPS role? The Paladin who never gets there or the Rogue who doesn't care?

We can play at Theorycraft all night, but the reality is that finding good people can quickly become the number one challenge of a raid leader. Especially in the increasingly tightly scripted events of TBC. It's true that a Retribution Paladin is not the best DPS that you can squeeze from a raid slot. But that player brings more than DPS (as enumerated elsewhere in this thread) and if they're dedicated they'll carry you further than any one of the many lollygaggers you might otherwise select.

I'm not saying that Retribution paladins should be kept out of raids, Monkey. I'm saying that Retribution paladins need a buff if they are to validate a raid slot, or at the very least a design change.

Yes, you can find yourself in a situation where your only choice is a Retribution paladin. At the moment, that situation sucks. The fact that you can find yourself in that situation does not mean the tree is balanced in any way.