Proeliata

I've had an off-and-on argument with some of my guild members since before TBC as to whether it's ever worth it to downrank armor (wearing cloth if you can wear mail, for example) in order to gain better stats for your role in a raid/party. Mostly the argument has concerned healers--for example, pre-TBC I had a protracted discussion with a guild member about whether Padre's Trousers (http://www.thottbot.com/i18386) were better for a shaman to wear than Earthfury Legguards (http://www.thottbot.com/i16843). In another example, last night, a paladin was talking in guild chat about wearing cloth pants for healing because he had no plate pants with +healing on them.

My guildmates' argument has been that a healer shouldn't be getting hit, and therefore it's worth it to sacrifice some armor to make for stronger heals. My view is that "shouldn't" rarely reflects reality--you can't guarantee that you won't be hit, and although your heals may be weaker in appropriate armor, you can't heal at all if you're dead.

It's an argument that's applicable to other classes as well. I've often considered whether to wear a leather item that's better stats-wise than its mail counterpart. Given the number of "oh crap" moments when both my FD and my CC have been on cooldown and I've had to take a few hits, though, I'm hesitant to lose too much armor.

Obviously this isn't an issue beyond a certain point of progression, once the items you have access to that are armor-class appropriate are clearly superior to the "downgrades," but I'm sure it's something people on the lower rungs of the progression ladder have had to consider. I'm curious what the readers of this board think on this issue--whether I'm completely off base or not.

Oh, and my apologies if this topic has been posted within recent memory--I haven't been around within the last few months, so I might have missed it, and I didn't find it in a search.

Generation 29:
The first time you see this, copy it into your signature on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.
^^ don't ask me why I fell for this.

 

Gajo

I would offer this to the discussion:

Based on my experiences in Karazhan and Gruul's lair, any of the bosses (and most of the trash) can one shot a mail wearing shaman just the same as they one shot a cloth wearing priest. The situations that you describe hinge on an errant pull of aggro or a threat reduction talent not cooled down, both problems more easily remedied by adjusting play style than adding 200 armor points at the cost of necessary stats.

I have both a 70 priest and a 70 shaman on vek'nilash, and can honestly say from months of experience that the small impact armor may have on reduction of physical damage is not worth the sacrfice.

I've had the argument you detailed several times with a variety of classes, and more often than not the other side of the issue is supported by someone more interested in how their armor looks on their toon than how it looks standing next to defeated bosses.

 

Melador

I think the loss of stamina is far more relevant than the loss of armor, especially as a druid who's just choosing between cloth and leather. That said, I'm making myself a primal mooncloth set -- the stats are just too good to pass up -- and I plan on using it in fights where I don't expect to be taking any damage. On fights where more HP will impact my survivability, I'll probably throw on my normal leather stamina gear.

 

Myul

Ofc that topic hat mentioned before, but nevertheless:

Healer: in a raid, wear whatever gives you the most benefit. Only priests have fade, but the other classes should get aggro that often with bos active.
Healer: In 5 man heroics, 10 man without a bos giving paladin: Check your talent points, got all possible -% aggro? Sub enchant on your cloak? Well, shouldn't be such a problem at all on bosses, but the best tank in the world may fail on trashs and some roamer hit's you once or twice (to much), so you should think about highest stats versus own survivability. Priest check for inner fire, paladin/shaman get your plate/armor & shields on, druid put your /chicken macro on #1 of your hotkey bar. Remove thorns/fire shield and move to your assigned tank.
DPS: in a raid, lol you didn't check your ktm!
DPS: smaller raids/5 mans: check your back, get all %absorb you can reach on trash's, aiding your healer and your tank (well, you could even better by not aggroing, dude).
DPS: in general, on bossencounter, get the best gear suitable on (no matter what sort of) and nuke 'em to hell, if your tank fail buy a new one on ebay :/ Seriously, don't draw aggro or get some nice talents/skill to don't die from this immediately (iceblick+invis, fd, vanish, soulshatter).

 

◊ Eej

In raids there really shouldn't be a problem downclassing your AC to potentialy gain more stats. However, in Heroics, you might be called upon to do some weird things. For example, on Wrath-Scryer Soccothrates in Heroic Arc, I had to tank him without deterrence from 21% to 0% after he killed the tank and instagibbed the Shaman.

Of course, those are really weird situations, but in Heroics most people get punched a few times in the face anyways.

 

Elerion

The answer to this is so completely and utterly dependant on the specific situation, there is no "correct" answer. Armor holds some value above 0, but the actual size of that value is dependant on the encounter.

 

Boevis

Well, my counter-argument to any paladin claiming he didn't have healing pants would instantly be:
http://www.thottbot.com/i29342
http://www.thottbot.com/i27748

A pair of that give 96 healing, 11 MP5, and 27 Int when socketed from a level 66 instance quest. And a pair that give a bunch of stats and spell crit (very important to pallies) with decent healing. The argument that "I can't get any plate/mail/leather so I'm going to wear cloth" is a bit silly.

As for downgrading in general, the majority of damage a caster is going to take is magical, making armor meaningless. I wore the cloth NR gear for Viscidus/Huhuran and would have gotten the cloth FrR gear had I gone to Sapphiron. That being said, every piece of epic healing leather is superior to blue cloth, and I don't think it's right to take lower armor if the people restricted to it want it. If everyone has, or no one wants? feel free.

 

BeeLz

not every player or guild uses ktm


OT: A paladin, shaman, druid or priest shouldn't get hit indeed. If they are specced for healing, their task is to heal. Therefor their gear should be optimal for healing, whether it's cloth or plate.

 

dukes

When there are so many bosses that are DPS dependant, the question I would be asking is why not? It's a tool that lets people who consitantly rip agro do the most dps they can do without getting gibbed, and those that don't do the most dps they can because they don't want to rip actually do the dps they should be, regardless of limits.

OT: Wear the best for healing imo and ignore armour type, but give priority to classes based on armour type because otherwise paladins will end up with a lot of loot that is redundant (such as possibly getting the mail shoulders from Curator, and then going to kill aran and getting the paladin ones from there.)

 

Aphyrax

I found that in many heroics stuff one shots me as a healer in cloth and leather. I doubt the bit of extra armor from going all leather would save me any deaths. Now a pally going from all cloth to all plate might be a different story, but for me personally, armor does not factor in my calculations when it comes to PvE.

 

Argat

Plate has saved me on more than a few occasions in BC instances, and I've been making an effort to move from cloth to plate. Prior to BC, I was a very heavy clothadin, and I still have those hideous turquoise robes of the exalted. However, itemization basically demanded that of Paladins at the time - now, there exists more than enough Paladin plate that's available to any aspiring healer that you should work to get the benefits of higher AC. Hell, the decent +heal pally plate is much better itemized for our needs than most everything else anyway, so.

That being said, using a piece or two or cloth/leather/mail b/c of unlucky instance drops or far superior stats shouldn't be too much of a problem in terms of survivability. In Naxxramas, I was using quite a few leather and cloth pieces, and with a shield I still had an AC approaching 8k. The main problem by far was how ridiculous you end up looking.

 

Mosh

Our basic approach is this as well. Obviously a good leather item will work fine on a Shaman, a good cloth item on a Druid etc, but by giving priority to the correct class based on armortype, we avoid giving Paladins essentially 4 times as much available loot as Priests.

 

Proeliata

Off topic: My guild does use KTM.

On topic: Thanks for the answers so far. I figured that the answer may be something along the lines of "it depends," but I've had at least one shaman whom I consider very very good tell me in the past that armor is never worth losing for +healing, and I wanted to see if that was a prominent view overall, or whether I was arguing an unreasonable point with my guildmates.

Generation 29:
The first time you see this, copy it into your signature on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.
^^ don't ask me why I fell for this.

 

Fiola

I like taunting mobs off of clothies in heroics as a substitute for an instant heal. (Not recommended on mobs that can one/two shot you when bubble or HoJ is on CD)


There are certainly situations where the paladin will make use of that extra armor, and it'd take a huge difference in healing stats for me to consider using an inventory slot for a piece of cloth gear when I have an equivalent plate pieces.

 

Chosimu

Like others have said, it all depends on the situation. It would be prudent for healers (and other classes) to have multiple sets of gear such as a stamina heavy set (with appropriate enchants), a max healing set, a mana regen set etc. Then swap out which set you're wearing depending on what you need to be doing at that time. Generally your stamina set should be of the correct armor type intended for your class because in a lot situations where you need stamina, AC might also be a major help.

 

• Shabadu

I have 2 specific instance where healing in appropriate armor makes a good deal of difference. In karazhan, shamans, paladins, and druids are often called on to "tank" certain aspects of encounters. Taking the red beam on Netherspite and tanking Nightbane's smoking blasts both benefit from a less than squishy healer. A paladin or shaman can save a couple hundred damage per hit by wearing high AC healing gear, even perhaps saving more healing in the long run than you would gain by wearing cloth or leather. That's not to say you can't be flexible with obviously and vastly superior gear. I forced myself to break my own personal nothing but mail rule because I was still wearing AQ gear in some slots and I stood to gain quite a bit by taking some leather.

 

◊ Anias

Hi fi!

Moving along - If the mob is going to one shot you, your ac is irrelevant. Druids and priests are going to be one shotted by anything this discussion would be relevant for (any case where the gain in stats is going to matter) and should probably wear cloth or leather as appropriate. I happily wore a robe of the guardian saint (for instance) in naxx, and anyone who played with me can tell you I did my share of running from mobs (yay for druid argo).

Shamans can probably consider the merits of mail vs cloth/leather, but should definitely not give up a shield (blocked hits don't crush!).

Paladins probably want to consider high ac + high stamina as a benefit so they don't die to cleaves when judging stuff, and can use "taunt bubble" effectively.

That said - in a 25 man raid, there will almost always be 4-6 people who can afford to give up some ac for greater healing. Perlin loved himself some cloth healing pieces, that's for sure.

 

Miriam

Generally my "oh shit"- reaction to getting aggro as a druid (when healing :P) is to go bear, run to a tank (or trap) and hope that someone else grabs the aggro. Not like it always works, if it's a boss he will probably hit hard and other healers will take a while to get a grasp of the situation. But with the armor bonus in bear form (I even have the extra talents for it), I suppose it's nicer to get some 1700 bear armor from a leather chest instead of 700 from a cloth one (really not sure about the numbers, just guessing).

But that said, if there is a clear stats update available for my healing gear and it's cloth, then I don't mind grabbing it. Just that the upgrade needs to be clear, and with no priest wanting it, and that situation rarely arises. And I wouldn't feel comfortable wearing more than couple of cloth pieces, even if it was fully viable to wear full cloth as a druid in MC, it surely isn't optimal in TBC.

 

Northerner

Ultimately the question devolves to "should anyone other than the tank need to worry about stats that build survivability?"

Hey, I've been a Mage the vast majority of the time I've played WoW. In most fights I've ever been in, 1HP would be fine. In TBC I want either: 1HP, ~6k, ~10k or ~12k. Gear doesn't offer me those options in discrete chunks but that's my interest level.

As a healer, I want armor and health in five-mans. Yep, I'm that priest that never lets inner fire expire and actually carries a stamina set for situational use. I do that because it might matter! In raids I want mp/5, +heal, spellhaste, crit and the like. If I'm playing a paladin, I'll wear cloth and I don't care a bit for most encounters. Being able to take two hits instead of one from a boss is not meaningful. I'd be better off stacking agility instead of armor and praying for a dodge or parry.

 

RK

I never really cared in 1.x raiding (although my only non-mail pieces ever were Salamander Scale Pants- which was a fantastically itemised piece of gear, and which I wore all the way to AQ40 because blizzard only made elemental shaman legs in mail until tier 3- and the cloth shoes of mana regen from Chromag). More often than not I wouldn't want to wear cloth or leather healing gear because it wasted tons of points on spirit, or I wouldn't take it ahead of actual cloth and leather-wearing classes.

Because by a quirk of fate our guild was destined to not get Malistar's Defender or Red Drgonscale Protector to drop (you can see in the armory that I'm exalted hyrdraxian. I was with the guild from first Lucifron onwards. Guild never had a Malistar's drop in the 20+ Rag ills I was present for, and only one ever), I often used the AV healing off-hand in place of a shield, and that's a WAY bigger armor sacrifice than anything else. I'd always have a shield ready to swap in in certain circumstances, though. Nefarian, for example- as a healer, not going to be caught without my shield on for the phase 3 zerg, but at the same time there was no point gimping myself the rest of the time when the armor simply didn't matter.

As long as you have a survivability set for fights where stuff may well hit you (Razorgore and Sartura are two very different examples of this), wear cloth shoulders the rest of the time if you want. OTOH, if you're a healer and a raid boss is hitting you, having a couple of cloth pieces isn't going to make a difference.

Overall, it's more likely to be the "let the priest get the cloth first" aspect that prevents shaman racking up too much epic cloth/leather than "oh noes, not enough armor value". That and the fact that shaman healing mail in TBC actually EXISTS (which was not a given in WoW 1.x at many stages of progression), and is well itemised for shaman whereas cloth and leather pieces are often spirit-biased.

 

Thelyna

My current healing set has two pieces of cloth (the shoulders from mech and the twin emps bracers), I quite often use the AV offhand for healing (although like RK, if it's anything other than a tank'n'spank I'll have my shield in a handy place) and I don't think my survivability is adversely affected. Hell, I heal-offtanked Moroes a couple weeks ago (with a shield on, obviously - just as obvious is that it wasn't one of our prettier kills, OT basically got instagibbed about halfway through the fight).

Oh, also ... Robes of the Guardian Saint look good, really. Especially combined with Judgement head/shoulders and Peacekeeper gloves. >.> (I was a part-time clothadin during Naxx)

 

Yes

How many paladins back in the day wear
http://thottbot.com/i19385 Empowered Leggings
and Mageblade, and http://thottbot.com/i19145 robe of volatile power, and mana igniting cord and Crystal Adorned Crown/mishundare, and and and!

 

Anaram

There are those occasional raiding situations where a strategy might require that druid, shaman or paladin have some armor on them. While 1-2 lower armor class items most certainly won't ruin this it's important to acknowledge that those situations do occur. A surprising number of boss attacks are mitigated by armor.

Generally speaking everyone *should* pick up all items that can upgrade their stats (regardless of armor class) rather than having those items rot. Then again, those void crystals an epic item might disenchant to can be worth more for progression (of all but most hardcore guilds) than minor stats upgrade especially when that upgrade comes at the cost of armor and is likely to be soon replaced by an item of proper armor class.

Generally speaking I'd give priority on all non-marginal cloth upgrades to cloth classes and similarly for other armor types. This is simply because you don't want to first give cloth pants to a paladin over a priest only to see plate pants dropping a week later.

 

◊ Caithen

Running heroics I have tended to find that more stam helps me a lot more than the moderate increase in mitigation going from leather -> mail.

Of course, given the choice I will go for mail, but I would definitely take equal dps but higher stam leather over similar mail. Initially when gearing at 70 I used a lot of crafted leather with no stam (Fel Leather), and I felt the survivability problem there, but now things are a lot better.

 

Incupsof

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...tus&n=Incupsof

I use cloth legs and leather boots as a shaman because blizzard is bad at itemization. For fights where armor/stam is important to me, I swap in armor/stam pieces. It's that simple.