Berserking - is it worth it?

[Mekkis 0]

Hello!

Since I am Scandinavian and thus have viking roots, I have always been very fond of the trolls' ability to berserk (in addition to it enabling panic heals and whatnot). Over and over again I have also heard that Berserking makes troll the preferred race for a restoration shaman looking to raid once hitting 60.

Recently, however, some mixed signals have made their way to me; signals in the form of tauren praising their AoE stun in tight healing situations and orcs who tell me to gitgud and go for PvP instead. What are your thoughts on this? I know this has already been discussed in several other threads here, but no consensus seems to have been reached. If there is none, I suppose I'll just have to decide what's best myself – and that surely won't workout well...

[gotmilk0112 10]

Really, there's no wrong choice. All of the racials are good.

 

Orc has their OP stun resist and short DPS cooldown, Troll has berserking, and Tauren has short AoE stun. They're all nice.

[Aethelwulf 12]

There are definitely wrong choices. The wrongest choice is in fact playing a Troll. Regeneration is completely worthless and Berserking is extremely negligible. If you are actually low health enough to get the maximum benefit of 30% from Berserking, you would need to auto-attack or chain-cast unimpeded for 10 seconds straight to obtain 3 seconds' worth of extra attacks or spellcasts. If you had 10 seconds of unimpeded attacks or casting right after berserking from low hp, it was a fight you would have won regardless of Berserking. Even from a PvE perspective the benefit of Berserking will typically go unnoticed given the large cooldown and small benefit.

After that there is the Orc. 25% stun resistance is definitely good in PvP but the Shaman's PvP trinket already breaks stuns and if you want you can even carry Living Action Potions to break a second stun or a Free Action Potion to just be immune to stuns and slows and immobilizes for 30 seconds, so you have more dependable ways of dealing with stuns aside from depending on a 25% chance of avoiding stuns anyway. Orcs also get Blood Fury but reducing all heals you receive by 50% is frankly suicidal.

Taurens are the best race, as they have two good benefits. One is the +5% to max health, which is always nice. The other is that they have War Stomp, which is an AoE 2 second stun that does not GCD. This means that on demand you can stun enemies in melee range and get time to cast a lesser healing wave (or chain lightning or lightning bolt, if elemental spec) uninterrupted. The ability to cast a spell while your enemy is stunned can turn around fights in PvP. And the ability to inflict a 2second aoestun has its uses in mass PvP too. Not to mention the Shaman class normally doesn't have any crowd control (stun/sleep/fear/poly/disorient/etc.) at all.

Edited January 14, 2017 by Aethelwulf

[Egregious 1]

PvP: Best race either Tauren or Orc. The choice is between a stun and stun resist. Either is good. The argument that "you can already break stun because class trinket" is a really terrible argument. They stack. Additionally, LAP is a terrible argument because, again, they stack. Additionally, Rogues are one of our toughest opponents, so having stun resist is very strong.

A better argument would be that War Stomp would be the only stun in your entire arsenal, regardless of spec. It's quite useful for getting a second to breathe when you're getting trained by a bunch of melee or interrupting a second heal when ES is on CD.

PvE: Troll for Resto/Ele. Orc for Enh.

Edited January 15, 2017 by Egregious

[Aethelwulf 12]

If you use a Free Action Potion you can get 30 seconds of stun (and movement-impairing effect) immunity. If you're already stunned you can always run a PvP Trinket + Free Action Potion macro. Living Action Potions also give you the same immunities for 5 seconds (while breaking stuns on their own). 25% stun resistance is unreliable and you already possess reliable means to deal with stuns as a Shaman. Not to mention that War Stomp is also good against Rogues since they are sure to enter melee range. That makes Hardiness rather low value compared to War Stomp.

And I did mention that War Stomp is the only CC a Shaman has (although he can get other stuns from weapon procs, goblin mortar trinket, tidal charm trinket, linken's boomerang lucky proc, goblin rocket helm, and grenades).

As for PvE racials, Troll Berserking goes unnoticed and the Orc Blood Fury's 50% heal penalty is not something you want as a melee. Axe skill has its merits if you are raiding as Enhance with a 2H axe, but Hunters are better for swinging Nightfall than Shamans since they can spam rank 1 wing clip on gcd to proc more. Enhance isn't a raidspec, really. You're better off picking your racials for PvP than PvE, which means Tauren.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Aethelwulf

[Mekkis 0]

Thank you all for your input! I've never tried tauren, so perhaps I'll give it the cows a shot.

[Seiki 4]

troll a best because when u stand the upright u are taller than all other race

hordelets mad

[suhail1200 3]

Tauren is best but in gear look the worst.5% health with warstomp is nice since u dont have a stun

Orc is okay if u dont have Lap/Fap or are on the ely/zeth realms since Lap is released when their is ZG then go for orc.