And no, I’m not talking about loot. I’m talking about my Enhancement Shaman alt. Generally, I’m having a lot of fun with him, but I’m starting to notice a trend.
The ease of fights with him depends a LOT on the good old RNG. If Windfury procs in a fight, it goes pretty quick. If it procs a couple of times, it usually means I’m standing over a corpse. If it doesn’t proc at all, however, the fight can sometimes be painfully slow.
Now, I understand that all fights are in some way beholden to the RNG for success. Warriors love to see a mob dodge, so they can obliterate their foes with Overpower. Feral Druids love to see Omen of Clarity go off, Rogues love to see their poisons proc in succession, and so on and so forth.
With this Shammy, though, I feel like the RNG has a much larger impact on the outcome of a battle. This doesn’t usually translate into whether I succeed or fail, but it can play a big part, especially if I have multiple mobs hammering away at me. (On a side note, I’m also not to sure about my ability to handle multiples…I seem to have had more problems with my shammy than any other class I’ve played when the numbers are against me. But that’s for another day perhaps.)
So is the Enhancement Shammy’s reliance on the RNG a good thing or a bad thing? It can obviously be good on those times when it works in my favor, and a back to back Windfury two shots an equal level mob. It can also cause me huge headaches when I have to lean on shocks and boring white damage whilst fighting multiple enemies. I’m thinking that it also gives me a certain level of unpredictability for other encounters.
Can I take on equal level elites, for instance? Or even elites a level or two below me? With my druid, elites were never a real problem. I had many tricks that I could use against them. With the Shammy, though, I kind of feel like if I attack an elite I have to pray that Windfury does in fact go off.
So, are there any other classes that are as reliant on the RNG for success?
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I have never noticed the windfury proc issue. you just have to make sure your using the slowest 1h wpn possible… 2.5 or 2.6 works best. i remember at 60 i was soloing the lvl 63 elite giants in western hellfire peninsula. also haste rating isnt hurting you either unless you go below 1.5 speed. then the extra attacks dont outweigh the benefit of windfury.
Hey-ya! I relate.
I have an enhance shammy alt and I feel like a gambler when it comes to PVP – 50% chance they die with windfury crits & 50% chance I die due to blah white damage (I do have reasonably bad weapons because I only recently moved to dual wield – this alt harks back to the days of 2hnd windfury destruction – and I have only recently pulled it out of storage and pushed past 60)
I think I am currently running with a slow main hand weapon with windfury on it and a fast offhand weapon with the extra fire damage on it. However I claim to be no expert in new-world shammys
so the problem could be me.
Shamanistic rage + Troll berserk keeps me standing in the face of elites. I have a shield I can switch to for extra armor as I try to land a heal on myself.
Well, I’ll say one thing. My equipment isn’t the best right now. The AH on my server is mad crazy with pricing, and I still have a few subpar pieces of armor. My weapons are both of the blue variety, but my main hand is only like 2.3 speed.
Just as reliant on RNG? Retribution Pally’s and Seal of Casino… I mean Seal of Command.
Just like Windfury… if it goes off, we are good. If it goes of multiple times, Mobs are toast. If not… Judge, white damage, go get a cheesburger…
I can relate to both the ret Pally and the windfury Shammy randomness. My shammy is my part-time banktoon, and I only play him for the halibut… so I went for crit over any other stat so that flurry never falls off. It’s interesting and entertaining to play, feels a little bit like a dagger rogue, but it doesn’t really have any end-game potential. Conversely, my 42 Pally can two-shot mobs his level with if seal of command procs and everything crits… or it can be an even match on an identical mob with nothing but white damage. Yay for pursuit of justice. /runs away!
Evan as a feral cat I can appreciate what you are all saying, though if it wasn’t for the randomness of play, we would loss the excitement of each encounter. If I KNEW that I could 2 shot that oppo. – then the game would be ever so boring.
So I smile when I get the procs (and curse when I don’t), – and am thankfull for the randomness – I am still enjoying WOW, and have been playing for a while
Have fun – M
Sorry for the late comment in an old post. As a piece of advice, from someone who has had his Shaman at lvl 70 for a while, while soloing, always keep that taunt totem (I forget the name) at the ready. If you haven’t thrown a heal out on yourself, it’ll keep a couple of pesky non-elite adds from killing you just long enough for you to kill the first 1. It also comes in handy when you find yourself overwhelmed and you have to run. For extra fun, if you have the mana to burn, drop down the ol’ Fire Nova immediately after. The first totem will over draw that little bit of initial aggro that Fire Nova makes when it is dropped, so they won’t 1 shot it the second it pops out. Grounding totem is pretty helpful whenever you pull some sort of a caster with the group, and Healing Stream has squeezed me through more than 1 close call. Its easy to forget what totems you have available while soloing, since they usually aren’t needed all that much.
As for RNG, I don’t think that there is any other class that is as reliant on a random effect to be successful. I have literally spent 20-30 seconds against a single nonelite mob of the same level with no Windfury procs, and both Stormstrikes being dodged, shocks were resisted…I wanted to stab something. My gear is decent, even pretty darn good for never having raided on it, and virtually no PvP, but watching a mobs health crawl down slowly while you wait for a crit or Windfury or…something….I can’t think of anything more frustrating at this moment. I’d say it happens to me (to some degree) once about every 20 or so mobs. There just seems to be that guy that will not die.