For some people, World of Warcraft is more than a game. They spend countless hours looking deep into the theory side of things, analysing every design move made by the developers, and focussing (perhaps too much) on each minute change.

If you're one of those people, we have a treat for you: the first in a series of class Q&A sessions with Greg Ghostcrawler Street and the development team. Over the next few weeks, they're planning on visiting each of the classes in turn, but right now we're kicking things off with the Shaman - finding out a little more about the design philosophies behind the class, the expectations for it now, and what may lie in store in the future.

As you can imagine, there were about a hundred million questions asked about the Shaman, and Blizzard can only answer a handful of those. We've got the first couple of questions here for you as a sample:

Community Team: We’d like to start things off by asking a question that players often ask in regard to the very purpose of each class. In this case, we’re looking specifically at the shaman, which has seen a variety of changes since the start of World of Warcraft and perhaps doesn’t fit into the original description quite the way they used to.

Q. Where do shamans fit into the larger scope of things currently and where do you see them going from this point forward?

A: The shaman class has a pretty dynamic history. In classic World of Warcraft there was a period where everyone viewed shamans as overpowered. I remember one of my earliest experiences in the Barrens trying to group with a shaman to do a group quest. But he just told me was an overpowered shaman (Frost Shock!) and didn’t need the help.

In vanilla World of Warcraft, shamans at the end-game were healers. Period. By The Burning Crusade, we decided that all three of their trees should have viable roles in the end-game. We also decided that hybrid classes (those that can fill more than one role, such as damage and healing) should do less damage than the classes that could only fill the damage role. This philosophy generally worked, in some cases too well, because Sunwell raids were infamous for stacking lots of shamans.

In Lich King, a primary goal for raiding was to give players far more flexibility in which classes they brought and try to de-emphasize “raid stacking” as much as possible. This meant we needed to share the unique, mandatory buffs among more classes and specs so that, for example, a raid wasn’t gimped if they happened to lack a +spellpower or +crit buff. However, we didn’t want say shamans to no longer be attractive for raiding so we brought up their damage a lot. It might still not be as high as rogues or warlocks, but it’s close, and if you have the right gear and really know how to play, you can even beat those classes on some bosses. No raid worth its salt would turn down an Enhancement, Elemental or Restoration shaman for fear of bringing down the raid.

In PvP, especially Arenas, shamans have never really been a powerhouse class and we view this as a problem. Shamans have always had a place in the 5 vs. 5 bracket, where their buffs are most meaningful spread out among multiple characters. Elemental has sometimes had a niche as the “kill the wounded guy” spec. Currently, however, much of the PvP community is very focused on the 2 vs. 2 bracket, where teams that pack a lot of abilities into a single class tend to dominate. This is something we need to improve for the shaman class.

Shamans have three really distinct roles. Enhancement is melee DPS. Elemental is ranged DPS. Restoration is healing. Once upon a time there was a potential tanking role for shamans as well, but we have pretty much phased that out.

Q. What is it that makes them unique compared to all other classes?

A: Totems, totems, totems!
Okay, that’s the obvious answer, but it goes deeper than that. The weapon enchants are an unusual part of the shaman class, as are mechanics like the shield spells (Earth Shield, Lightning Shield) and Frost Shock. Shaman buffs and utility spells are quite powerful, including the infamous Heroism / Bloodlust, but also their self-rez ability, Reincarnation. As envisioned from the start, shamans were also the “offensive” hybrid. Things have inevitably blurred a bit since then, but they are still a counterpart and complement to paladins – paladins have cleanse, shamans have purge; paladins will let an ally move freely to escape or catch an opponent, shamans will snare an enemy to let their ally escape or catch him or her; paladins will make sure their allies’ casts aren’t interrupted, shamans will interrupt enemy casts; and so forth.

Don’t underestimate the gear either. Shamans are only one of two mail-using classes in the game, and the only non-plate wearer that can use shields. Shaman shields provide a lot of defense and stats for the Restoration and Elemental shaman.

One of the other unusual things about the class is their degree of hybridization. An Elemental shaman can easily throw out heals if a group needs a little extra help. A druid, by contrast, would need to shift forms first, possibly giving up other abilities to do so.

...phew! If you want to know more - lots more about totems and the Shaman class - check out the full Shaman Q&A on the World of Warcraft site.

So! Which class would you like to see next (my money's on mage)? What would you like to know about your class - or about any of the others? Blizzard will be working their way through each one, step by step, over the next few weeks - so get thinking now! Let us know your questions, and if there are any that we think are stellar, we'll hand 'em over to Blizzard. Of course, if you'd prefer to go directly to the source, there's a "Questions" thread in each of the class forums on the WoW website, where you can ask away.