Alliance meet Shaman. Horde meet Paladin.

As someone who has both a level 60 shaman and a lvel 60 paladin, I don't know how I feel about this.

Well this is the most heavy handed way blizzard could handle all the bitching. I still think its weak instead of balancing out shaman's / paladins that they offer them to both sides.

I dont think there is any way people would feel that the classes would be "balanced", so it's a good idea imo.

I just wonder if they're gonna let blessings and totems stack (assume no).

edit - Just read up on it a bit, and they are letting pally and shaman buffs stack . . . with a few exceptions. =p

Again, as someone who has both a 60 shaman and paladin, I feel qualified to say this without bias:

For PvP, they are both powerful, yet fill different roles. Shamans are better killers, paladins are better support. Comparing them is apples to oranges.

For PvE, however, they both fill the same role, and paladins are better in every way.

I don't think they could ever make the two classes equal in PvE power without either completely revamping shamans, or nerfing the everliving shit out of paladins. The blessing system is infinitely superior to the totem system. This was really the only way to make the two factions equal. This solution removes a little bit of the cool-factor from the game, but completely solves the faction balance problems. The Alliance DID have an advantage, and it was a significant one.

To be honest, I was kind of looking forward to having a new class to mix things up, but it's still a very good solution to the problem.

This and Cross-realm bg's make this game MUCH better.

I'm looking forward to it, too. I'll be rolling a dranai shaman the day the patch comes out, and hopefully making it my new main.

you'll be one of the only ones, with the 23987209384 people wanting to roll a blood elf. =p