Shaman Totems vs Paladin Blessings

[Artega]

You know what I find the most amusing part of this whole "debate" to be?

So many people saying "pallies are the best, pallies are uber, pallies are awesome raid buffers and healers!" and yet...almost no one wants to PLAY one. There are very few pally players I know of who are happy about their end game role (and really, who can blame them) and wished for something more. But from what I've seen, there are tons of shaman, as they are or tend to be a very popular class.

Likely because Shammies are easier and (I'd assume) more fun to play in PvP.

Regardless of spec (be it Retribution, Protection, or Holy), Paladins are always a support class in PvP; if they aren't buffing and healing, they're being subpar in some area. Retribution Paladins do much less damage than Warriors (except perhaps against Warriors, where their Holy damage can eat right through Plate), have no useful debuffs or snares, and really have no special abilities besides Judgements, Hammer of Just Stand There, and - gasp - heals.

In comparison, Shammies can spec Enhancement to go play Warrior (with the recent buffs to the Enhancement tree, Stormstrike builds are now very viable and I've seen Lv.50ish Shammies in my guild rip out 2000+ WF procs followed by a +20% Earth Shock due to the Stormstrike debuff), Elemental to be a Mage (we have a couple of Elemental Shammies in our guild, and they can do some obscene damage; Lightning Bolt becomes lethally effective with the casting time reduction talent and MP cost reduction talent), or Restoration to be a healer (we have no Restoration Shammies, but my Shammy on Mannoroth is specced for Restoration and I find it to be pretty fun.)

Both are very viable PvP classes, but I think Shammies are more popular because they're more fun (I've never played a Paladin, so I can't say from personal experience, however.)