In Cataclysm, the mage class will be receiving an ability that duplicates Blood Lust called Time Warp. Blood Lust (for confusion’s sake, also known as “Heroism”) is such a strong ability that very few raids today are without a shaman, and many raid leaders consider the ability a necessity. Currently, no other class – except maybe a paladin – finds itself in the same position of being mandatory in a raid

As a raid leader (and also as a person who loves shaman enough to have three of them), I am very excited with this change. It is a royal pain to feel obligated to scrounge up an obligation shaman for just so you can have the edge on DPS race fights. Sometimes that means taking someone I don’t like or who doesn’t know the fights or who is undergeared, or it can mean excluding someone I really like and who is a good player but doesn’t bring what we “need.” I would love the additional level of flexibility to know that I could choose people based on more criteria than a single unique buff and not feel I was willfully gimping my raid if I choose another class for another reason.

However, this change is highly controversial among shaman, as many of them very much enjoy their status as the sole provider of a very critical buff. Shaman everywhere are concerned that in Cataclysm they will lose their raid spots to mages who put out higher personal DPS once raid leaders are no longer forced to chose them.

Although I can understand why this makes shaman players apprehensive, to me this is an obvious case of “Chicken Little syndrome.” Looking at the current scenario with other duplicated buffs, we have yet to see classes excluded from raiding rosters simply for being redundant (even if the other class does more personal damage). No raid dropped all their warriors because rogues can duplicate the buff or abandoned shadow priests because moonkins also provide the same spell hit. In reality, even if Blood Lust really was the only reason shaman were getting raid spots, you’d find raids taking one obligatory shaman healer and leaving the hybrid-taxed DPS shaman at the door – something which doesn’t happen now. Amusingly, if raid leaders excluded every class that didn’t have a unique buff to offer, then every roster would consist of one shaman and 24 empty spots, because every single raid buff and debuff in the game except bloodlust is already provided by more than one class.

Raid leaders have to fill the roster with people. With only 10 classes to fill 25 raid spots, even after every buff is covered there will still be extra spaces. What’s more, duplicate buff coverage is actually good because it provides a safety net for absences, deaths, phasing and range checks. The point of this change is to give raid leaders flexibility to choose good players or their friends and not get stuck with that atrocious mage just because the raid really need scorch and he’s the only option. If a shaman (or other class) is a good player and a nice person, there’s always going to be a spot in raids, even if every utility they provide can be (or is) covered by someone else, even if some other class does more damage than you. (If you’re a jerk and people are itching to replace you with another class and only haven’t because they need your buff, well, then, that’s a problem with the player, not the buff)

It’s also not insignificant to point out that shaman bring a lot of other abilities and buffs to the table besides ‘lust. The sheer quantity is overwhelming: We offer spell critical strike chance bonus for the raid, a spell damage buff for the raid, spell haste for the raid, melee haste for the raid, an attack power buff for the raid, a strength & agility buffs for the raid, an armor buff for the raid, a clone of Blessing of Wisdom to provide mana-per-five for the raid, a healing stream totem for continuous raid-wide healing, a tremor totem for breaking fears (unique, no less), a grounding totem for absorbing dangerous spells (also unique), magic resistances of all varieties, a ranged interrupt that is off the GCD and on a short cooldown, the ability to remove debuffs from our raidmates and the ability to purge buffs from our enemies. While some of these abilities are spec-specific, most of these can actually be offered by any shaman in some form or another. Additionally, shaman have the flexibility to provide ranged DPS, melee DPS, or healing, a flexibility that can also make shaman highly desirable in competitive raids that like to fine-tune their roster on a per-encounter basis. It is worth noting, as well, that shaman share their armor class with only hunters, and if you’re elemental or resto, your loot is exclusive to you; this makes shaman a good pick for raids wanting balanced loot distribution to help the raid gear up faster.

That’s a lot of very good reasons to bring a shaman before Bloodlust or personal DPS is even considered.

Shaman are not Bloodlust-bots. We are not one-trick ponies. We’re a great class that offers a lot of buffs, abilities and utility to our raids, and we will continue to do so in Cataclysm.