I've debated on answering this post because I hate talking about shamans on forums. Everyone is a critic, and everyone else is an expert. I believe I have a pretty good handle of the shaman class, not just by means of sending people fleeing, but I can actually kill a large number of people with a shaman. (Thanks to 3 years of expirimentation (sp) after an IC coaching session from Gareth at the urging of Shokai.

Its apparent to me that the IMMs are lowering your chances of being ganked. They made gang bang lag less, they added succumb, they got rid of flee;sleep;flee;sleep. Stacking damnation is, by and large, a gank strategy. AND HERE I GO:

Lets say your fighting one on one with your shaman. Doesn't matter what class your fighting, there is a sure-fire strategy that will kill them. Spending time hoping your damnation has the right affects is time that could be spent landing sups that have a definate, immediate and useful affect. I submit that stacking damnations in a one on one fight is an inferior fighting technique. If this technique was succesful it would be a result of luck, not skill.

Where stacking damnation comes in useful is when a party is sleeping. Shamans have no way to sleep, and thus your talking about a 2 on 1 at minimum. Just about any class that can put you to sleep has a fair shot at killing you afterwards. Enter shaman, and you've got yourself a VERY VERY GOOD shot at killing someone, even with out stacking damnations. There is nothing cheaper or more ganky than a knock out trap, having your con damned, and getting rotted. Does this require skill? Nope. None whatsoever.

Did shaman take a hit in the power deptartment? Not at all. Is it harder to gank someone? Yup. Learn to use ALL the shaman supplications and you'll never miss stackable damnations.

Having said that, I think it would be cool if you could pick what your damn does (ridding con loss as an option) similar to how a healer picks his "protection heat" etc.

Now here come 1000 experts to tell me just how wrong I am.