You can see into the future? wow.

Dont make totally unfounded comments just to make yourself seem more knowledgeable.

Edit: Nem beat me to it.

I can certainly make educated guesses based on hints from Blue posters and the talent trees, which is in a way "seeing in the future."

The recently changed Shaman trees were made with TBC in mind, so if you look at the Enchancement tree, you can see that 10 Defense was changed to 5% to dodge (better for tanking), the Shield block talent was buffed a little, and 10% armor talent was lowered a few tiers (easier to pickup).

Also Pallys will have a taunt-like ability.

This leads me to believe that Hybrid classes will be expected to tank some of the new instances, so Mail armor will help that if a Shaman was called to tank.

I don't think that my belief is unfounded.

Until you can figure out how to use capitalization and punctuation, you don't need to be telling others how to post.

His comments were not unfounded at all. Did you not read any of the numerous interviews last week with the dev teams? It was clearly articulated that Hybrid classes will be much more involved in hybrid roles in instances once the Xpac hits shelves. Pallys will be off tanking and shamans will be primarily DPSing.

For those who missed it, I was actually serious, I -am- curious
I haven't been keeping up on TBC info at all lately so if they said anything about fights being designed towards hybrids I was wondering if he, or anyone else, could point me to a source so I could read up on it.
I don't discredit people for no reason when they bring up something I didn't know (yet).

Being Belgian I'm happy to get the spelling right, capitalizing my 'I' is a major problem because we don't do anything similar in dutch.
Also I was not telling anyone how to post. That's your interpretation of my post.

Please interpret this one for me then, because that's what I based my deduction on.

And it's not so much the spelling I was talking about. If English isn't a person's first language, I have no qualms with innocent mistakes. I know I couldn't speak Dutch or French or any other foreign language to save my ass. I just wondered what would possess you to randomly not capitalize the first word in a sentence, then leave out the period at the end, and then turn around and tell someone about our posting rules. I mean, if what you're doing is something common in the Belgium language, you have my apologies.

I realize this seems unimportant and nit-picky, and I believe you to be a nice guy; but if we want standards here, I have to treat each person and each post the same or we'll find ourselves overrun with people who aren't nice and can't communicate for crap. It's a dirty job, and there's a 95% chance I'm going to come across as being some intolerant asshole, but someone has to do it if we're to avoid becoming the next FoH board.

Anyway, I apologize for the derail.

It's because I'm fluent in Belgian.

Point taken as well though. I think we're both on the same page and like I said, I think you're a good guy and intelligent poster, and I'm happy to know our site is a place you like to visit.

I did the numbers a while ago for cloth/leather and mail +dmg gear for shaman as I was wondering if we could push the heady heights of +dmg like warlocks and mages.

The outcome was that the itemization for mail +dmg gear was almost as good as cloth so it wasn't worth pinching +dmg gear from the 'intended classes'.

I should perhaps run the same itemization for +heal and +mana/5 gear it maybe a litle different, as I know a few cloth pieces that beat anything mail hands down.

One bugbear of mine that I always get comments on however is staves, and this notion that shaman MUST use a shield. I guess it's sort of relevant here as it is an armour choice.

Currently I'm running with a Staff of Dominance and the DM Quel'dorai Channeling Rod. Everyone is always on about how I should equip a shield as shamans are best with shield etc. etc.

This is where this diverges a little from the 'body' armour pieces because weapons are a different beast.

The reason I use the above, is that the SoD with +22 int is that it gives me ~973 mana, once I've cast a few heals I swap to the Channeling Rod which has a spirit enchant for the regen.
In my bag however I do have a Rhombeard's Protector, and an Aurastone Hammer. The reason I use the channeling rod is it has the best mana/5s of anything I can get/have gotten. The day I can pickup a malistar's I will, unless I see Jindo's staff, or the AQ40 Augur one before then (still wiping to Emps).
The decision to go with Malistar's however wont be based upon it's armour, but because it combined with the Aurastone has one of the best mana/5s in the game.

This is unique to weapons though and that's what my shield is for, if something gets loose or on say Anub'Rehkan where the impale is physical I will swap out to a shield, but most of the time my staff combination is better. But I can pick and choose on the fly though unlike body piece armour that you can't swap in whilst you're in combat.

Also side note, I love mana/5s because I play from Aust. regular 500+ms ping means a lot of the time my heals land for 100% overheal. Think about 500ms to me raid frame update showing tanks health going down, I cast, then see tank's health go up again and try to cancel you can't after 1 second of a 1.5 second heal as it'll go off before the cancel registers. Sometimes total round trip times means you have 0.5s or less to react. If I'm running ~20% total overheal that's a good number. So my logic is that rather than overheal for more I'd rather get back that wasted mana as quickly as possible. Hence preference for mana/5s over +heal. +Heal is my second favorite stat though :)

Anyway that probably makes no sense, but bottom line is mail itemization is almost as good as cloth/leather, except a few choice pieces, so leave the cloth to the intended classes unless it's going to be sharded.

The shield or stave/offhand issue is quite interesting imo. I see way too many shamans in my guild who stick to their Malistar's or even ZG shield when they can use Lei of the Lifegiver (still one of the best healing offhands imo). I did roll on Malistar's, so I can put it on my weapon switch (finally a use for that 'v' key :) ).

Having extra armor helps nearly nothing in almost every bossfight. Just having your shield on a weapon switch macro and having some quick reflexes (in my case, a sound that goes off when a boss targets me) is more then enough.

Shields are inherently better than offhands because a shield is just an offhand with free AC. Shaman use Malistar's over Lei of the Lifegiver because it is infact better than Lei of the Lifegiver.

Im actually very interested in the question of whether or not its better to have a shield with high armor and decent stats or a shield with more desirable stats but less armor , ie whether its best to hang on to the Gizlock's Hypertech Buckler until you get a better shield with mp5 or plus heal .
Back on topic - as far as mail vs cloth/leather - Id say its best to not worry about cloth or leather , just go for mail items . If something drops and no one wants it , then entertain getting it . Otherwise it just leads to headaches . And the truth of the matter is those healing classes are more restricted when it comes to their armor choices as it is . They dont have the luxury of trying to get mail or even leather healing pieces ( in the priest's case ).
I know on my pally , i tend to wear plate , simply because it plays to the defensive nature of the class but i do have padres trousers stashed away in my inventory in case i need a bit more healing oomph .

Edited for pre sleep spelling errors and mistakes ><

Thank you all for pointing out the shaman aggro. That helps a lot in deciding how to gear up the draneai shaman.

I do not understand all the hate towards clothwearing shamans. I mean if you as a shaman want to go for pvp gear, you will often pick up some of that druid leather in aq40, if you want a high +healing to be able to downrank your heals you will have to take cloth and leather items. Apart from a set of pants from the outdoor dragons and helmet of the lifegiver I still have to see anny pieces with high +healing on them. If you aren't going for setbonuses then it would be a shame not to take deviate growth cap, or robes of the guardian saint. Priests get a really nice set to heal with, shamans, who are forced 100% in the healing role, don't have that luxury.
Is that extra 400 healing going to save the raid more because you are able to pump out alot more healing than the 7k armor? To me this should be a personal choice, since there is no way to be sure. I for one would go for the extra 400 healing.

Since this thread has run it's course, I'm going to go ahead and derail it here.

What is everyone's opinion on the proper time to break 3-piece TS in a raid setting? I find for many encounters I'm using chain heal extensively, and I can't justify losing the 3-piece bonus for a little more +healing/MOT. But I am starting to see a bit more Tier 3 coming my way, just wondering if anyone had some thoughts on the matter.

Should probably wait and see how much the chain heal 'AI' has improved. If it does jump intelligently I think that bonus will have some use for a long time.

I used chain heal extensively on a BWL full clear last night and it worked great. I would cast heals on myself and it would bounce to the people around me that were lowest on health, in or out of party. On the drakes I indiscriminately cast it on rogues and warriors and I noticed no more overheal than usual on out of party casts. It doesn't seem to be a huge improvement, bit just makes it more mindless. There used to be a requirement to pay attention so you wouldn't cast it on a party member if no other party members were nearby and low on health and now you can be indiscrimate.

They made it jump out of party a very long time ago.

No they didn't. As of 1.11, if you cast chain-heal in a raid on someone in your 5-man group within the raid, it would only jump to injured nearby targets within that same 5-man group.

Chain heal is incredible now.

I am happy about the change but now I must prepare myself to be bludgeoned with arguments over the unbreakability of the ts3 bonus instead of ef5.

Is it so good that you use 5 SC + 3 TS more often now (maybe you haven't had enough time to use it)?

There are situations in which it would make a lot of sense to do so, but I am mildly irrational when it comes to set piece selection and generally can't be bothered to mix and match gear other than resist gear for situational use. By way of illustration, I broke up 5-piece Earthfury for four pieces of Ten Storms and never looked back.

Chain heal last night contributed to some of the fastest, cleanest Huhuran + trashs EVER. I can only wait to seet it in action on Thaddius and shudder in delight.