As for totems only being good because the work on your party and thusly being useless if you have a raid? I actually had a conversation about this in-guild the other evening – a few people were expressing your opinion but as others amongst us pointed out at the time (including our own elemental shaman) was that in a lot of our current raids there is actually little overlap of totems.

In that particular raid we had 4 shamans (an unusual occurence for us – we usually only have one, max two after a long time of having none..) and not a single totem from one shaman would have overlapped range-wise given how far we had to spread out.

Of course, Mount Hyjal involves a lot more ’space’ than most instances but, still. Anywhere that people need to spread out will require more than one set of totems, shouts, auras, etc.

I really don’t think everyone is looking at the system fairly. I think that Blizzard has gone a long way towards making more specs viable and I think they may go further yet.

All I see in your conjecture is that you’re basing your fears on the current raiding situation. You think that because your particular spec feels like it’s not loved enough or that another spec (resto) is ‘op’ then the problem will only get worse but this is not necessarily the case.

Both elemental and resto shamans are changed greatly in the beta – resto is not a one trick pony and elemental dps is being upped. If your guild currently takes you because you’re a skilled player and cool person that’s awesome and, of course, they still will in Wrath. This will mean guilds don’t have to take 5 shamans minimum to every encounter (for healing, heroism or whatever) and that you can mix and match as, hey, the buffs won’t stack anyways so once you have 5/6 people with them the rest can be any class. Of course some hardcore guilds will stack the ‘flavour of the month’ class after that but, to be honest, they’re going to find a way to do that anyway. For other guilds who have a mixed bunch they’ll do as they always did and work best with that they have.

There are *some* problems with switching to a raid-wide buff setup but, here’s something for you to think about: fights should not be about stacking buffs they should be about player cooperation and objective completion. This is something I see Blizzard working towards and given their progress in TBC, it’s something I have great hope they’ll get closer to achieving.

/hug

Seeing as you have a shaman, I’m wondering if you’ve ever tried to land a decent raid spot as DPS. This isn’t a shot against you as I am genuinely wondering if you ever approached a raid asking to be taken as DPS. Now, this isn’t simply “I know I’m your resto shaman mostly, but I’d like to try being elemental this run,” but instead “I’m an elemental shaman and I’d like to join you for t5/6 content.”

You may think that the two are pretty similar. After all, we both bring the same buffs and elemental brings the lovely Totem of Wrath to soft cap people. In part, you’re right. There is definitely a place for both in the raid, but I can tell you from experience that this is true mostly because of totems being group buffs only.

When I raided on my shaman as elemental, I was included partially because I was a skilled player, but mostly because I was lucky enough to find a group desperate for shamans that ran caster heavy. I understand that I was lucky. Now that totems are raid buffs, however, I feel more like a gimmick than I ever did before. Sure, Totem of Wrath is at least decent (I don’t especially like the new non-scaling version) and Elemental Oath is good assuming you don’t have a boomkin, but elemental shaman DPS is simply not high enough to justify more than one to get those buffs. Hell, if you already have the currently superior Boomkin in your raid, I’d argue that the 3% crit probably isn’t worth the raid slot.

This affects not just elemental, as per my example, but resto as well. The shaman class is heavily balanced towards the fact that it buffs the group (or raid in this case). Sure, if you have multiple paladins on, you don’t have to skip raiding tonight as paladins can now handle at least some group healing. The same may not be true when dealing with shamans. Due to their buffs now going raid wide, I’d actually guess that it will only exacerbate the problem.

Now, none of this was meant to be a QQ reply, but instead just something to think about. There IS a real problem with swapping to a raid buff system. There IS a problem with making it so a lot of buffs no longer stack. Will Blizzard figure a way around it? Most probably yes, but I can still remember them saying that any spec should be viable back when TBC came out and wondering exactly what they were smoking when I ended up in Nagrand against a whole slew of nature immune mobs. Just something to think about.

Cay: Aye, doing things with unusual setups usually comes from having a guild with a nicer attitude and them making it easier is awesome.

Soujourner: Thanks for the lovely comment! I’m glad I could make y’feel a wee bit less worried!

/hug

Maybe two warlocks.

And two resto shammies.

We got to glimpse Archie too!

But yea, just because the experts say “Thou shalt have X of Y and Z or be Pwn’d by teh Bosses” really isn’t all that necessary even now. That they’re making it easier to let me raid with my friends?

Awesomesauce.

^.^
Now if only I can get my title before Wrath patch hits >.>