It's hard being an Elemental shaman. REALLY hard.

For starters, it's really hard to find a group. Everybody knows that your standard dungeon party has one tank, one healer, and 3 DPS, and there's always plenty of people available for DPS. And to make matters worse, now that most people are doing Heroic dungeons, nobody wants you if you don't have any crowd control. People would rather take a lousy hunter over an excellent Elemental (or Enhancement) shaman (not that I'm saying that I'm excellent).

Ever since 2.3 was released, I haven't been able to get into a group. I've been invited to Kara a few times, but I don't even have my key yet. Getting into Black Morass has been very hard, and now nobody is doing it in Normal mode (I'm just one full clear away from my CoT key) and nobody would take me even if I COULD do it in Heroic.

So instead, I've decided to try PvP a bit. I'm not normally a big PvP fan, but I need better gear, and this is the only way I can do it (and non-PvP Elemental itemization is lousy anyway). But PvP just makes me angry and frustrated, and I really hate it. Every Alliance character I see starts to look like they're mocking me, and I start taking it personally and thinking that every Alliance player is an asshole. And of course all my teammates are complete idiots, or so it seems.

And Elemental shamans just aren't any good in PvP (or at least in Battlegrounds). I can hide in the bushes launching lightning bolts and do some decent damage, but as soon as anyone sees me I basically have to run away or die. All I can do is shoot lightning bolts and a shock every 6 seconds. I don't have any pushback resistance or anti-stunlock. Against hunters, I'm worthless. Against warlocks, I'm just feared forever while they DoT me up. I don't even bother fighting back against rogues anymore. I don't have any CC, I barely have any anti-CC. How am I supposed to deal with this?


Well, today I finally had enough. I can't do what I want to do with Elemental. Just don't bother with it until Blizzard wises up.

I went Resto. God dammit.

I really don't want to be Resto. I was Resto back in my raiding days, back before BC was released. After going through Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Ahn'Qiraj, and halfway through Naxx, I burned out on healing. I don't like being the one whom the success of the group hinges upon. But what choice do I have? I could continue with a spec that I like but doesn't work, or I could go back to doing something I don't really enjoy that is in high demand.

My healing gear is pretty crappy, but at least I'll get into groups. And if I let my groups know ahead of time, I should be able to continue building on my Elem set while I'm healing. I don't really know how long I'll stay Resto, but it may be until WLK comes out.

I'm really starting to consider just giving up on my shaman completely, for the first time in 3 years. The Elemental tree just doesn't work very well in the game as it is right now. There are still serious, deep flaws and overall design problems that keep it trapped in the pre-BC game (not that it was ever very good then, either).

My Hunter is 67, but I'm probably not going to bother trying to do dungeons with him; there are already too goddamn many hunters out there. Same with my 50 warlock, although I'll probably PvP with her at 70 out of revenge, and also because they're basically unstoppable. My next highest is a 44 Prot Paladin, which may become my new "Main" but I just don't know right now. I don't think I like the other classes enough to make any of them my new main. Switching to a Death Knight when WLK comes out sounds damn tempting at this point.

Here's hoping that Blizzard gives Elemental some REAL attention in WLK, and hopefully before then too. The changes in 2.3 were nice, but Elem just isn't viable in its current state.

EDIT: I should point out that I'm not talking about Raiding or Arenas. Just 5-man dungeoning and Battlegrounds.

EDIT 2: I also should point out that this post should be taken with a grain of salt. It's mostly just frustrated complaining (which is why it's in the "Bitching" category). Things are certainly better than I make them sound, though that's not to say that there aren't still problems.