My guild is currently wiping on huhu and a few of the shamans in my guild are getting sick of their well worn earthfury armour. They are busy eyeing up various bits of cloth and leather armour that drop in AQ40. I realise that for healing shamans there are limited choices for upgrades from tier 1.Indeed, having read this forum and others it seems a lot of shamans enter Naxx with plenty of tier 1 armour.

Whilst i can understand the appeal of cloth and leather pieces with plenty of +healing on (say Robes of the Guardian Saint and Bracers of Royal Redemption) it feels wrong to me when people wear non class armour (I realise that is a loaded statement as shamans can wear cloth and leather). It feels wrong, to me at least, because it seems like these people are forcing a role on their character that blizzard didn't intend. Priests are meant to be the ones with lots of +healing, the cloth armour and priest sets reflect this. Shamans are a support class, they can heal very well, but not quite as well as the main healing class; priests. Equally a "nature mage" build shaman could, i am sure, dps very well in an all cloth suit, but it feels backwards to me.

I realise i may be coming across with a "it's my loot, get your own" attitude but that isnt the point I am making. Do other shamans want cloth/leather armour and take the line "blizzard should make better mail armour" or do you accept that you are a hybrid class and can heal, but not quite as well as a pure healing class?

There is plenty of good mail armor out there, but people like to min/max their stats so most the cloth stuff has a ton better stats for healing. Personally I have always picked up my TS set, Stormcaller set, and various mail upgrades ... never really liked to go cloth or leather on anything. Just a personal preference.

oh for fuck's sake.

Let your priests who aren't on the verge of 8/8 trans get the very nice cloth pieces like Guardian Saint and Gloves of the Martyr. Certain Ten Storms pieces are excellent (gloves and bracers especially, but others too). 5/5 SC and 3/8 TS is what every shaman, IMO, should be striving for as they approach AQ. It's an incredibly versatile set that will only get better in 1.12 as they tweak the behavior of chain heal.

The only thing shamans lack as healers is an in-combat regen talent or set bonus. Obviously we also don't have HoTs, but in terms of direct healing, we're as capable as anyone.

I refuse to wear anything but mail, except on special cases (NR gear). I do like the survivability I get from mail, especially in AQ fights like Sartura. I currently wear a mashup of different mail pieces (T1/2/2.5 + Yauj shoulders), anything that is an upgrade in that slot gets bid on. I will however bid max dkp on Don Rigoberto's Lost Hat as hats on Tauren just look too good to not wear it ;)

Edit: what Gurg said...

To be brutally and utterly honest, I chuckle every time I see a shaman in cloth/leather and make a mental note to never, ever invite them into a group I run.

It shows an utter lack of understanding of the class and its role in a competant raid group. Mail healing gear is perfectly obtainable all the way through MC/BWL/ZG/AQ - not just in Naxx, I can't think of one EJ shaman that did not follow that pattern for upgrading gear, I also cannot think of one who would wear cloth/leather as their typical raiding gear.

This very weekend there was a slight mis-communication over pulling assignments on Sartura and I ended up tanking two of her adds after a heal, for 20s or so, now if I was in cloth or leather, I'd have been dead - and ironically would have pulled more heal aggro if I had min/max'd in cloth.

Shamans are a hybrid class and I am willing to bet the people saying that cloth/leather should go to shaman over a class that should get it, will be the people who will be complaining about the lack of a hybrid role for them. Incidently they will probably be the people wearing 5/8 EF as they enter the Dark Portal and wondering why the only sound they can hear is that of a thousand other players mocking them.

We really should have a post sticky'd detailing what kind of posts should be here and ones that really really have been done to death.

I agree with this up to a point.

Shaman are HIGH aggro healers, and we have earthshock. I can't ount the number of times I've pulled a mob/boss onto me instead od antoher healer. It may not have saved the raid, but it certainly delayed the wipe.

I will also say.....any huge +healing with tons of spirit on it item going ot a shaman speicficly fills me with rage. Equip your mana/5 and like it, damnit. Spirit is a bad, bad joke for both classes, though paladins espcially benifit from +healing.

If you want to equip leather/cloth..that's fine, especially for a paladin. You're not gonna pull aggro, you wear plate so even if you do no worries. For a shaman, pulling aggro is a fact of life, so downgrading seems like a good way to get yourself killed. Even though we mostly (hah!) heal in endgame raids I detest sidegrading to lower AC/stam gear.

The only non mail piece I ever really craved for PVE was the salamander legs. They are a really good item compared to peer loots.

I cannot even begin to count the number of times that having close to 7.5k armor buffed has saved my life and in turn benefitted the raid. Aside from surviving unintended aggro, it enables a playstyle that lets me contribute more to the raid than simply healing.

I personally subscribe to the "many sets of gear" philosophy. I have a maxed +healing set which includes several pieces of cloth and leather. There are plenty of fights where the only time I'm taking physical damage means we've wiped. However, to be ignorant of high survivability means you really aren't playing your hybrid properly, and along those lines, I have a fairly well optimized plate set as well. I find myself tweaking gear sets per encounter and even per trash (DK trash gets plate healing, gargoyles get spellpower, Noth gets a mix, Razuvious gets cloth, etc.).

Any cloth items that might be considered healing upgrades would be so situational that they're not even worth losing an inventory slot over. You're gaining a trivial amount of healing stats and losing a non-trivial amount of armor.

Also, cloth is for sissies.

Pre-Naxx, thats patently untrue. The best +healing plate boots in the game prior to Redemption give +33 healing (Redeemed Prophecy), whereas Boots of Pure Thought are a truly massive upgrade to +62 healing.

Right, I'm not going to argue that Geta and Robes of the Guardian Saint and such aren't better than TS/SC on a fight like Patchwerk or a handful of other fights. If they're going to be DE'd and you could use them situationally? Sure, why the hell not. But you have no business taking something that is useful to you in a fraction of situations over someone who'd use it as a full-time upgrade.

Personally, I have no inventory space to spare between Earthshatter, Stormcaller, FR, and NR sets. The last thing I need is cloth/leather too.

You mean you aren't carrying your Earthfury for the 5-piece bonus? :rolleyes:

The closer we get to the expansion release date, the more statements like this make me laught. A lot.
I've had this discussion with a druid in my guild about cloth/leather. He wants to wear it? Go ahead. But none of the shaman will touch the crap unless they've got a crappy blue/green item (new recruit) that they need to upgrade for the time being. I like the fact that I live to the end of encounters.

I really don't understand the shaman in cloth hate around here.

Wearing 1 peice of leather and 1 peice of cloth, I sat at 868 healing before stepping foot into naxx. Roughly 5500 armor unbuffed. Talented HW rank 4 at that +heal hits for 983 to 1045. Thats ~430 hp/s and ~8.8 hp/mana. Pretty damned good.

There are many, many fights where the armor doesn't matter. In fact, for most encounters I use my lei of the lifegiver over either of my shields. On noth, or fankriss, I swap out my flowers for a shield in the case that I get hit by physical damage. Usually, its a non-issue, and I think letting cloth and leather rot when a shaman could pick it up for situational use is just plain stupid.