Our guild is trying to figure out how things are going to work in BC. One of the things that's now set in stone, or, clay at least, is that I'm going to be switching my main from my rogue to an enhance shaman.

This presents an issue of blessing count, as there are probably 4 I'd *really* like, but there will likely be 3 pallys at most in some 25 man raids, and 2 or fewer in 10 mans. For healer/caster shaman, it isn't quite as tight a fit (I'm guessing, I dont know), but with enhance melee-buff-bot I'm not sure what to prioritize.

My first guess is, in decreasing importance...

Salvation
Wisdom
Kings
Might

Salvation. With the amount of physical dps, along with shocks, some healing aggro, and (un)lucky windfury crits, salvation really seems to be the most important to me. Whereas a dead rogue's dps = 0, a dead enhance shammy's dps is 0, and his deat will produce up to 20% dps worth of buffs lost off the rogues/warr in the group as well.

Wisdom and Kings. I'm not as sure on this one. On the one hand, with shaman mana efficiency being dismal, wisdom would seem like the clear winner. On the other hand, between judgements and the 41 pt mana-restore talent, perhaps mana will not be as much of an issue, and kings would be more important. I'm guessing mana is going to win out on this one.

Might. Pretty easy to prioritize this one last other than in a completely non-mana-using scenario, in which case it would possibly surpass Kings.

Are there other lines of thinking that I'm missing? Or, if there's another post already on this topic, pls point me that direction and I'll edit this one to read "please SH this post" ;-)

I'm supposing that shamans with their ability to heal, mail armor, lower dps (they better have lower dps than rogues!) and shields are not quite in the rogue boat in terms of the importance of salvation.

I'm thinking mana will still be an issue for shamans, that's just the way the class been designed from day one. So I'd say wisdom first, then kings, then might, then salvation.

Of course, it all depends on the boss you're fighting. If the boss has an aggro reducer, you'll want salvation on everybody, including healers, anyway. On a boss without an aggro knockback, top geared and buffed rogues now have a hard enough time now ripping aggro from tanks (not saying it can't be done, but they more or less have to "try" and pull aggro), so I don't anticipate a conscientious shaman to need salvation.

I have a feeling a lot of horde overrate the worth of salvation after bwl... this coming from a long time horde player who has raided sporadically with alliance.

Edit: Something just occured to me... shaman don't have innate aggro reducer that rogues have... which might put them on equal terms as far as aggro from dps goes. I still don't know that I would change the order though. Going "hard mode" without salvation on a fight that doesn't "need" it will still net you better dps.

I would argue that Salvation is still the most important in raids not so much for the individual but for the raid. Having a Shaman accidentally pull aggro on a mob enough for it to turn and run towards the casters or use its directional attack on the non-tanks just makes a lot unnecessary work for the rest of the raid. Especially since it is easily buffered against with a single spell cast.

In five man groups, I can see how Wisdom would be more beneficial. Unless the Paladin is tanking. :)

Shaman have absolutely no way of controlling or reducing their DPS aggro short of dying or ceasing action. Give them Salvation first or give them a rez after the fight. Unless aggro just isn't an issue, obviously.

Wisdom might not be necessary. Judgement of Wisdom is going to be the greatest source of Shaman mana regen (something on the order of 200-300 mp5 while attacking). An extra 33/5 is nice but I might prefer Might or Kings for the increased crit (Unleashed Rage), AP (Shamanistic Rage), etc. Blessing of Might alone will boost long-term Shamanistic Rage returns by approximately 20-30 mp5 anyway, and increasing their damage to boot.

I think I'd prioritize order as: Salvation (if aggro is an issue) - Might - Kings/Wisdom.

Your order makes a lot of sense there. I would second Salvation as the most important. Shaman DPS may be low, but it's plenty enough to pull aggro when you consider that we're generating 20% more threat than rogue/warriors and have zero abilities to control it. My shaman is in pretty lousy gear, but I'm already amazed at how much I can spike up the threat meter, particularly if 3-4 windfuries go off in a row.

On the second choice, I'd probably go with wisdom(unless it's been judged, then naturally it falls down the list). Assuming you have salvation already, then you're probably blasting away with mana inefficient shocks, storm strikes and possibly heals. With the whole item value system in place you're going to be lacking on mana and it remains to be seen whether shamanistic rage can sustain you on its own.

As a shaman, first thing I'd want is salvation. Lots of chain heals and melee damage add up to a not insignificant amount of aggro. Second is kings, for obvious reason. Last is wisdom. An enhancement shaman has quite a few ways to regen mana in TBC.

On a somewhat related note, can anyone tell me what the designer's note on http://thottbot.com/?sp=20871 is supposed to mean? I suspect it's somewhat of a hint regarding rockbiter's threat mechanics, but I can't figure out what it means.

Or maybe someone can just peg a threat value to rockbiter for me.

This is pretty much exactly what i was going to say. Judgement of Wisdom dwarfs Blessing of Wisdom for an enhance shaman. BoW is last priority, and because of the lack of an aggro dump and innate aggro reduction, Salvation is the top priority.

Something to remember is that blessings affect every member of a class, so the likely scenario (in a raid setting) is that enhancement shaman will recieve salvation/wisdom/kings, because those are the buffs most beneficial to non-enhancement shaman. In a raid with only two paladins you'll be even worse off, as kings is more likely to be dropped than wisdom.

Unless enhancement shaman are the majority on a raid, I can't see ever giving them Might. The only workaround is asking your wisdom paladin to short buff it, which is kind of a pain in the ass.

If it's a pain in the ass for a Paladin to cast a 5-minute buff on one player a few times on a boss fight, I have a set of 1-2 minute duration totems I'd like to shove into the aforementioned ass.

Only the 15 Min blessings affect every member of the class. Much in the same way that you wouldn't bless your DPS wars and MTs the same way, you wouldn't bless Enh shaman and Ele/Resto shaman the same way, nor would you bless Feral Druids and Resto/Balance druids the same way. Whispercasting the 5 min blessings would probably be the best way to handle the crossover. Paladins are the only class who will be using the same amount of regents to buff the entire raid, more infact since the have an extra class to buff now, which is interesting to note. With a 3 Paladin Setup the general Cross over is probably going to be similar to what it is now, Kings, Might/Wisdom, Salvation/Light. Salvation and Kings are to good to pass up, really. In a three paladin situation, Salvation, Kings, and then a single target might. In a two/one paladin situation, if say one paladin isn't there, or the raid requires some stacking and one had to be left behind, then Salvation, and a single target Might, if possible.

I was a Dwarf Priest in a Naxx-raiding endgame guild for a long time before letting the account expire and playing my Shaman full-time. I know all about the evolution of Paladin Blessings, thanks, and occasionally keeping up short-term buffs for this kind of situation was never really a problem for any of our Paladins. Amazing how the occasional Feral druid got Might while his healing brethren had Wisdom from the same Paladin without him whining about how hard it was for him.

Constantly dropping-refreshing-redropping 1k mana worth of totems to keep in range and such is fun. A 5-minute fire-and-forget rangeless buff has got to be downright rough. I feel for Paladins, honestly. You can't quite hear it, but the tugging on my heartstrings is producing a hauntingly beautiful concerto.

That said, I'll probably roll a BE Paladin eventually to play with my girlfriend's future BE Rogue. Self-loathing ftw!

Its not that it was hard, its that it reduced the effectiveness of whatever else your paladins could be doing by spending globals single buffing. Complain about shamans independently and spit your bile elsewhere too, cause the design flaws (corrected, perceived or otherwise) are unrelated.

For enhancement I think
BoS
BoK
BoM

for other Shaman I think
BoW
BoS
BoK

Shaman have to drop 2-3 totems every...two minutes? Three? Paladins, previously, had to rebuff fourty people once every four minutes (four because of the time involved in doing it, as by the time you were finished a minute had passed since you began rebuffing). It wasn't even comparable, which is why it got changed.

Now, assuming there will be a lot of offspecs in BC raids, which isn't a given but does certainly seem likely, you're basically asking that paladins return to that same scenario. Might for the feral druids/enhancement shaman/ret paladins, and salv for the DPS warriors (which we do already, but will be much more difficult with less paladins in a raid). That's anywhere from 4-8 short buffs 2-3 times during a boss fight, all of which is lost healing time for the paladin, not to mention the near impossibility of it if the paladin assigned to certain buffs is ever asked to tank. Just because shaman buffing mechanics are arguably broken- and I don't know for certain that they are as I've never raided horde-side but it's a point I'm willing to concede, doesn't mean paladins should have to suffer in the same way.

At the time most totems didn't have a duration of 2 minutes. The FR totem lasted a whopping 45 seconds, IIRC. Shamans wasted a lot of time dropping totems too.

Except that it is neither ineffective or a waste of a global cooldown. Refreshing Light on any Tank where you cannot use Salvation increases any Healing Paladin's effectiveness somewhat. Putting Might on Feral druids and Ench shaman would increase the overall raid effectiveness but a somewhat smaller margin but it's still a decent dps increase for both classes. And the amount of time, relative to the buff length is 0.333%, 1 second out of 300, almost negliable for the increase in raid and player effectiveness of using a single cooldown at least once every 5 min brings.

edit:
3 maximum, 1 feral, 1 ench, 1 Warrior(Either 1 dps wars or 1 tanking warriors, or none, depending on the setup of the encounter), at most 4 times over the course of a fight, probably 3 actually, how many fights can we honestly expect to be >= 15 min? Probably spaced over 2 Paladins, as the ret pally and prot pally can handle their own reblessings, for a total of 6 seconds spent rebuffing, more then likely. Having your Prot Pally on 15 Min kings saves him the trouble of rebuffing anyone but himself.

Forgot to mention Paladins past and present could drink up to full having buffed the raid having to deal with few to no in-combat buffing expenses, or the exciting 20-yard range of effectiveness, or could buff the whole raid, or the fact that they died if we did...

But this thread isn't about Totems v. Blessings! (Goss, take your mouse pointer off the Quote/Reply button)

I thought that was my point. :(

What did I just say?!

/tar goss
/cast Frost Shock(Rank Something)

If you want more blessings the logical conclusion is to bring more paladins. :)

5min blessings are quite ineffective and annoying. Sure you can use whispercast or something similar for rebuffing 5min buffs on the fly but it's slow, annoying a waste of mana and has global cooldown implications. I highly doubt anyone will enjoy going back to that "bad old way" of doing things especially for maybe 1 raid member (unless they really like you or something lol).

Given 25 man raids how many dps shaman or druids is your raid going to take, I don't think there is going to be more than 1 dps shaman "allowed" in most raids.

Anyway back to the OT, get might rather than wisdom and rely on jow for mana regen imo.

Looking at the spreadsheet that was running around, I think an Enh Sham would have BoW low on the list, IFF JoW could be guaranteed to be permanently on the target. JoW would give alot more mana back, and free's up the Blessing slot for something more beneficial (Salv or Might or Kings).