How great are shamans, right?

Most players have a favorite class, what makes that class their favorite is usually a combination of what notable characters they've had with what fits their play style the best. My first 50 was a shaman, and I feel like I did pretty good with it, so much so that I've gone back to the class several times over the years, having had a total of five level 50 shamans (All Duergars, go team stunty!). Shamans are a great class for learning, you get locate object so you can discover as a new player where a lot of things are, AND solo the things that have them.

They also do a pretty good job in a pk fight, with the right amount of survivability and offensive capabilities. I started getting pk's reliably and gained a lot of confidence in fights from my time with my shaman. This was of course at a time where shamans were overpowered (I think most people would agree with that statement anyways). They, like all classes with multiple healing spells, lost the ability to use their most powerful healing spell while being targeted in combat, and that definitely stung a bit. But probably the big nerf was losing enhanced damage. I still think they do pretty good though, with enough debuffs and enough durability to be able to win most fights in the hands of the right player.

I ended up following my first 50 shaman with a 50 healer (Phostan, go team Knights!). There was obviously a lot of a similarities, in terms of survivability. The biggest difference between the two I found was that shamans did a lot better in pvp but healers had the edge in solo'ing mobs with a combination of divine retribution and just better healing spells. 

In terms of overall best race for shaman, I am partial to duergars due to the slightly higher strength and constitution versus a human. Whereas drows will definitely have a larger mana pool end game they are going to average out a lot less hp even with all the converts from practices to trains, and suffer a lot from what I'd guess is about 100-200 base hp less. I am unsure about the practicality of a quasit shaman, I'd wager they'd be similar to drow with maybe slightly more hp and even better mana, at a cost of a weaker parry and a poorer selection of weapons due to low strength. Fire giant gains you'll find similar to a duergar but with overall less mana and a lot less converts from them requiring more practices, though if someone invested the time to only put a train or maybe two into most skills or spells, a level 50 fire giant shaman would be quite powerful with the general resistance

to physical and the high strength of 25. End choice, I'd suggest a duergar or a human. 

Anyways, that's my take on shamans with a brief history of my first level 50. Hope you enjoyed, feel free to let me know what your first 50 was and what you prefer to have as a level 50 and for what reasons, either in the comments here or on the inevitable link from Facebook.