Some people complain, some people bellyache. Few, very few try to offer analyses and insights in the hope that a satisfactory answer may be found.

This is what World of Warcraft forum member Tulkaz did in response to complaints about Shamans. No invective, no vitriol: his "The Plight of the Shaman Class V2.0" offers an insightful perspective into what it feels like to play as the Shaman as he is now: "underpar and generally unwanted."

As a very longish post and quite detailed in its analysis, it would be far better to refer you to the Read link to take it all in full. As such, we can only offer a short overview of the arguments. Tulkaz goes as far as to detail specs and points in the Enhancement, Restoration, and Elemental specializations of the Shaman. As he observes,

However as the game developed the shaman were torn in three different directions as the devs saw it necessary to make them focus on being just one thing at a time, healer, damage caster, or meleer. But by doing this they have made a broken class, sure, at each particular role the shaman class is more effective than it was before, but at the same time they have to almost give up the other two roles.