Our shaman are, seriously, not allowed to heal on that fight.

Every single time we do, we die. So we heal on the aoe clear, then back to dpsing. I think the other healbots....err..priests/druids are begining to resent us.

I don't disagree, shaman face not a whole lot of gear choices through BWL/early AQ40, and even our AQ40 set it's probably worth passing a few times to let DPS get geared a bit (also imo not worth breaking 5 piece EF till you have at -least- a couple pieces, but I think if we have that discussion again Prae's head will explode). A few swap pieces- the geta esp- are very good to keep on hand, if you can spare the bag space, but overall the survivablity hit just kills me. Even on bosses that I shouldnt' I take a swipe or two, leaving outthose that I deliberately pull onto me (over another healer usually, though occasionally I take pitty on a dps warrior). A to-be-sharded piece for yourself rarely hurts, but I can't imagine taking something out of a priest or a druid's hands.

This thread is about Shaman, not the awesome survival of the Pally. Shaman can use a shield, but can't do the rest of the stuff a Pally can do (well Tauren can stun for 2 seconds).

Although, Shaman can spec to get 10% off fire, frost, and nature damage, so there is a small advantage there.


I think a Pally can easy get away with all cloth (as long as he has a shield), since they have all those defensive abilities. A Shaman not so much, especially b/c their heal threat is not reduced.

Yes, but I can fade when I get aggro, or (sometimes) get lucky and take 1 hit and have 5/8 Trans proc. I've had that save me several times on Naxx trash, or BWL trash. Fade by itself is extremely good if you are fast in hitting it. Druids can drop into bear and probably take a hit or two. Shamans don't have a deggro or a shapeshift, they're left with taking it on with what they have. It's an added safety margin. I know when we wipe and things get out of control that the clothies usually go down in one shot, while shamans can take a few hits. That 5 seconds may just be what you need to get things under control sometime.

That's pretty interesting. Occasionally a bug or two will jump onto our healers, but nothing serious. They don't hit hard at all. Maybe you need to have a talk with your tanks.

Quite a few shamans have mentioned pulling aggro through healing. How do you even do this? I run around with a ton of healing gear, and out-heal priests and druids on plenty of fights, and have literally never pulled aggro under normal circumstances. If you have tanks dying and the mob is running around flattening healers, you have bigger concerns than an extra 500 AC.

Another thing I would like to mention. When we came into AQ, stuff like robes of the guardian saint were getting sharded on day 1. For a guild doing AQ as they are starting BWL, of course this stuff should go to priests or druids. I am saying that it's not wasted on a shaman, and has plenty more use for your guild in a shaman's pack than as a nexus crystal.

I can turn into a bear and equip a warden staff so I end up with 7000-8000 armor and 6k+ health in healing gear doing that.

Priests usually have threat reduction talents and fade. If they do get aggro they're usually fucked.

I don't get this idea that taking non set cloth isnt a good idea just because priests can only wear cloth.

Who are these priests that don't like spirit? Most of the non set cloth in aq/bwl don't have much spirit, with only empowered leggings and those shoulders off the bug family having a decent amount.

People are saying that theres no reason to take a peice of cloth when you will replace it with mail, what priest won't replace the cloth with high mana per 5 and 0 spirit with a peice of t2?

I can cobble together a set with over +1000 healing and over 100 mp/5 with no drops from Naxx. There's a lot of great cloth healing items in AQ40 such as Don Rigoberto's Hat, Robes of the Guardian Saint, Bracelets of Royal Redemption, Gloves of the Messiah and Grasp of the Old God just off the top of my head. There's many different ways for priests to heal with one of them of course being chain casting low rank heals, and the AQ40 cloth pieces are absolutely delicious for it.

There are just some boss fights where you never take physical damage so raw healing gear is technically best. But yeah, you should never take them over a class they are designed for, or even druids (if it is a cloth item). But assuming we get some more nice AQ healer items once our druids/priests have them, I'd have no issue with a paladin snagging up a few choice cloth/leather items for some fights if they want to.

Actually one thing I hope in TBC is that the durable healers really get a chance to use their mitigation in pretty much every fight outside of pvp. ~

Reading through this thread, I'm going to make the same argument I've been making for a while, and am going to disagree with many people.

Right now, there is no hybrid. Except for maybe 2 fights total (re Loatheb, non-resable verson of c'thun), shamans are in no position to dps, tank, or do anything but heal and buff. I don't want to get into the semantics of why that is in this post, so lets not argue that. The sad fact is Mc leather, and a good portion of aq leather rivals earthshatter in +healing. This gear is the best gear available to help shamans do their job; heal. Obviosly it lacks the mp5, but the main stat that healers stack to improve their healing is +healing (I don't wear cloth for the simple reason I've never had a nice piece drop that wasn't bought up by priests).

I've also always disagreed with the Ac argument. If you want to stack gobs of Ac, all the more power too you, but besides three fights in naxx (Gothik, Noth, and Gluth), and one fight in Aq (Saurtra; Fankriss doesnt count, if you get an enraged snake you're dead anyway) ac is worthless. I cant recall the last time a healer pulled agro on any boss. Sure, it improves your survivability on trash, and anyone who tries to argue that is dead wrong, but for most boss fights, it doesn't help you or your raid at all.

I just wish we got a spirit regen talent :(. In any case, now that I'm wearing 5 piece es, I only have one leather item left anyway. For shamans just venturing into naxx or aq though, pick up the leather. You will help your raid in doing so.

I agree with alot what Oneeye is saying (at least for most Shaman, some pull aggro and need to have the AC).

The non-set legs and shoulders from MC alone are almost +100 healing. Of course, remember that druids/priests have priority on items, but if not, then pick it up. Another nexus crystal doesn't help the raid as much as more +healing on a good Shaman.


Shaman don't have a spirit regen talent b/c that would overpower Elemental dps specs (if it was in the tier 2/3 of resto).

Really. 868 with one cloth and one leather? You aren't counting the +350 heal/use from Hibernation Crystal are you? Regardless, could you post your gear? Thanks.

http://ctprofiles.net/64679

That's where my gear was pre-naxx. It's at 848 healing there, I forget where the extra 20 came from.

Yes, also the only non-mail piece I have. I love my armor, I'm 1h+shield all the way, but I'm happy to sacrifice 150-200 armor for that much extra mana/5 and healing compared to any of the other available options. Besides, it helps me to not be tied to 5/8 EF, which I intend to leave behind rather shortly.

I'm seriously down on any shaman who's entirely in cloth and leather, but honestly I think it's a bit close-minded to point and laugh at a shaman or paladin with ANY leather (maybe cloth though). Not everyone has everything available to choose from (I would love to be in Ten Storms bracers/gloves/boots and EF everything else at this stage of our progression, but the drops haven't worked out that way). Our hunter and rogue class officers, who've been with us since the beginning, recently replaced blue items with Nef loot (beaststalker bp to dragonstalker, pads of the dread wolf to boots of the shadow flame). A shaman who chooses cloth and leather over his good mail is one thing, but sometimes it's a matter of what drops vs what doesn't drop.

If the priests and druids pass it and it's an upgrade to the shaman's healing power, it's bad for the raid if the shaman doesn't take it. He/she can always put mail back on for fights where there's a serious chance of being beat on, but in the meantime that extra mana regen or healing is probably helping the raid much more than 200 armor on a shaman. But that's IF the priests and druids pass it.

I can't really see myself ever taking something like Robe of the Guardian Saint anyway, just because it's cloth and it's ugly and I can do my job in EF, but mail healing chestpieces are a huge itemization hole (from Golemagg to C'Thun at a minimum) and I can understand where some would get antsy about a true upgrade in between those. I think it's the lack of non-set mail in many slots (and duplication of non-healing mail in others... ten storms legs, primalists linked legs, sartura legs wtf?) that causes the problems... I'd advise patience, and hope that your dkp system ends up rewarding your shamans' lack of upgrades with a decent stockpile to get early Naxx stuff with.

I notice you have Empowered leggings in your profile and these are one of the items I really see as a major upgrade for a Shaman in a lot of cases. They've been getting sharded since day 1 in our raid as they're pretty much sidegrade from Priest Tier 2, but for all of our shammies they're a great piece of gear situationally. I really don't see how anyone can argue about items like that - Healpoints certainly doesn't.

Sure there are issues with pack space and times when its better to have the armor, but at others, on fights when your only role is to heal and you're not at risk of taking physical damage, EF/TS/SC are not necessarily the best available options. I've never been a total min/maxer so I'll mostly stick to mail but that doesn't mean other options aren't valid.

Also, considering that some guilds like mine have a massive shortage on druids, it's easier to get things like the wild growth spaulders vs a set of EF ones that every one of your shamans is looking for. Very solid shoulders that will last you past those *gulp* TS shoulders.

As previously stated, a paladin has nps wearing cloth - there just isn't the plate itemisation in game to match Robes of the Exalted (a Strat drop) till Redemption. Lawbringer is kind of weak, Judgement pisses away stat points on strength and +dmg/healing - 2 button press (equip shield, aura change) and you're at 5-6k armor in mostly cloth and leather. That said, it'd take a Christmas miracle to pull aggro from healing as a paladin so it's most our druids being ripped into pieces.

From an alliance point of view, we will be getting shamans in the xpack and this thread delivers a great argument. However, I need a clarification on the aggro issue. Since pallies rarely pull aggro from healing, how often to shaman pull aggro from healing? If shaman don't pull aggro that often then let them max the +healing with cloth/leather. But if they do pull aggro then they need the armor.
From my personal point of view, we had the priest leader get upset with the pallies grabbing the robes of the guardian saint, because he wanted one of the priests to have it as a placeholder for trans chest. Which to me is being greedy. Paladins get a crappy tier 1 set that is easily beaten with blues. My paladin has done fine in MC, BWL without a single piece of lawbringer. We killed Fankriss with pallies in the Robes of the Exalted- a Baron Rivendare drop!! Why give a priest a placeholder item when the paladin will not wear something else for a long time? Nonset armor should have a very limited number of class priority tags. Be careful in automatically tagging something for a specific class when it could be more beneficial to another class despite its armor type.
Furthermore, I remember arguments over Razorgore's shoulders where healers wanted them for the extra +healing. Giving them automatically to a DPS class is no better than sharding it, since that caster will shard it anyway upon the death of chromaggus. I found that whole drama on the Mantle of the Blackwing Cabal to be loot whorism at it's worst. Since again. the non set item was used as a placeholder for a set item.

Pallys generate 25% aggro on heals (so they can't heal tank), while the other healers generate 50% aggro on heals, that is why Pallys don't pull heal aggro.

The reasons that some Shaman pull healing aggro is that they don't spec into healing aggro reduction talents like Priests do. Their LHW is almost equal to FH, so a Shaman can really do a lot of healing, especially if they instant heal at the start of an encounter (which may be necessary). So it is good to have most Shaman with mail + shield.

In TBC, the encounters seem to be designed for hybrids, so maybe a Shaman will be needed to tank (so need that Mail armor).

Pally set armor (except Tier 3) is weak on +healing/Priests taking +damage is not nice, but those matters are for another thread.

You incorrect about the Mantle of the Blackwing Cabal. There is a substantial number of DPS casters who will never loot Netherwind, and to whom NW would be a substantial decrease in damage output compared to the Blackwing Cabal Mantle.
Non-set gear for casters has traditionally been better than set gear in many slots.

It is what you would likely expect.

The most likely way that a shaman pulls aggro is healing in the presence of untanked mobs. In the grandscheme this is not so bad as this mob will eventually be hitting a healer and shaman is a pretty good choice comparitively.

Next most likely is in aggro wipe conditions, again a no brainer.

As far as sitting at a boss and having a shaman just outright pull aggro it is a rare scenario unless some tanks have died. Tanks just get so much rage nowadays that they can generate an absurd amount of threat.

There is also just the dumb luck case where your heals are just about always landing for full with very little overheal.

In the end none of these are Shaman specific problems. The lack of a passive threat modifier makes some of them more likely for Shaman though. In the end though I find myself never displaying threatmeter unless I am spamming chain heal as that spell can be very variable (and also out of my control) for its healing/overhealing performance.

Well they have already said Pallies will be getting tanking skills so with both sides then having 3 tanking options with warriors/pallies/bears it seems unlikely that they would want shaman to tank but we will have to see. In 5 mans though Shaman always wind up tanking something. I really look forward to 5-10 mans, I always felt that my character was very powerful in that environment but in a 40 man not so much. We will just have to wait and see what they have in mind for shaman now that Pallies are in the mix.

A brief look at the calendar shows that it is week 34 of the year. Presuming they want to be on shelves for thanksgiving week they need to have things wrapped up by week 46. 12 weeks is not a lot of time, I would be shocked if beta testing had not already begun in some capacity. That information will leak pretty rapidly and we will hopefully get a glimpse of the new talents and abilities in the next couple weeks.

where do you get this TBC encounter design info? i'm curious now