As a Horde guild, pretty much all of the Shamans in my guild are pretty unsure about their role in Karazahn. As healers, they see the ridiculous mana efficiency/longevity of the Paladin,versus them chugging pots, plus the feeling that Pally buffs are better than totems since you can't really stack the groups in a 10 man. And that doesn't even start with the Pally bag of tricks on fights like Moroes or Maiden.

I think a lot of Horde Shamans have always had an inferiority complex regardng the "EZ-mode" Paladin, and so they were predisposed to feel this way when the Paladins finally reached 70 and started raiding. But that doesn't change the fact that we've had Kara raids with 0 shaman and 3 on the bench, while our 1 BE Pally will go every time - it's not all just paranoia on their part.

What can I tell them? As a raid leader, why should I bring a Resto/Elem. Shaman over another healing class if given the option not to? For those who have rerolled Dranei Shaman, why did you? What are you adding to 10-mans that you feel can't be gotten else?

I actually see enhancement as providing a nice combo of raw DPS/utility but I don't think that playstyle appeals to most of our Shamans.

Bloodlust and Windfury Totem being the 2 blatant ones that stand out in my mind. Nothing a paladin has comes close to either of these as far as being able to increase damage output and threat by a ridiculous amount. As long as any of the encounters contain obstacles you have to complete in a specified amount of time, shamans will be welcome.

I am #1 in effective healing in Karazhan every week as a shaman, with very competent and Naxx/heroic/Kara-geared priests and druids alongside me.

On top of that, I offer Bloodlust for every boss, spell interrupts, and my totem buffs. For a Horde guild especially, properly-used Tremor totem (hint: re-drop it reactively) is huge. And so forth.

Would I bring 3 shamans to Karazhan? No, but I wouldn't bring 3 paladins either. Or 3 of anything. Would I bring 1 to every 10-man and 2 to every 25-man? Yes.

Precisely. Don't forget wrath of air for a caster-DPS heavy raid setup, in addition to windfury for a melee-DPS heavy raid setup, both of which are baseline for the shaman.

Resto shamans also bring mana tide and mana spring for the healing party, which is nice for other casters as well as healers. Holy priests only have shadowfiends for themselves. Again, the clear loser in the competition between healers is the priest.

Yea, pretty much paladins provide the defensive utility to the raid, blessings, bubble, etc.

and shamans provide the offensive utlity (windfury, wrath of air, bloodlust)

its best to have both in the group.

Slight derail: Gurg, if I may ask, do you know what percentage of your healing comes from LHW, HW, Chain heal, and Earth Shield? I have been very, very pleased with the performance of Chain heal w/ the improved talent and was just wondering how much you use it in Kara as compared to healing the MT/OT with Healing Way.

I continue to be impressed with everything that pallies can do. That said, for Karaz we have settled into a pretty comfortable groove of having 2 pure healers specced for healing (any class) 1 Shadow priest and a hybrid healer (enhance/feral/ret) for patch heals.

The 2 main healers get a load of mana from the shadow priest and frankly all of the classes seem pretty great at healing.

I am pretty confident that in 25 mans we will at the very least have 1 reso shaman and 1 enhancement shaman. Only time will tell about elemental but adding a second resto shaman will certainly not be an objectionable idea.

Hrm, I honestly can't say offhand. I very rarely use LHW unless it's an emergency situation where NS is down and I don't think my target will be alive in 2.5 seconds without at least a little healing in the interim.

I can let you know after tonight, but I suspect that over the course of a full clear, my healing is maybe 2/3 HW and 1/3 Chain Heal, with the breakdown varying a lot if you look at specific situations.

On multi-mob pulls I probably forego some potential healing from Earth Shield because I'm more concerned with control than heal volume -- I'll cast it on myself so that if I pull heal aggro from a ranged mob or something gets loose, I can heal uninterrupted. On a tank it'll just end up causing someone else to overheal a lot of the time anyway.

Now see, it's funny, cause before Alliance could get Shaman we always said "Damn, I wish we had a Shaman for X-totem".

Pallys are great and all, but having played with Pallys my entire raiding career and never having raided Horde-side pre-TBC, I have always seen Shamans as being easy-mode.

I guess it's just a case of the grass being greener on the other side.

Frankly, I think some of the Pally/Shaman mania will die down once people get used to raiding with both classes available now.

Little side note, and this is a running joke with my buddy... but I pronounce it "Shah-man" he pronounces it "Shay-man"... what do you guys think?

From the way your post is phrased, it sounds like you have a good selection of raiders to pick from. Is there something preventing you from rotating out extra priests and druids and bringing both a paladin and a shaman? Or perhaps getting a 2nd Karazhan group running?

I hate to post in what is essentially a "paladin vs. shaman" thread as the two classes - though like a lot of other classes have overlap - bring a giant selection of differential skills, utilities, and benefits. You'll find benefit in bringing both to a raid.

Paladin's flash of light is more efficient than flash heal. Priests would only use flash heals in an emergency. Greater heal for priests is 2.5 seconds, but holy light is 2.0 seconds for paladins after the first cast (funny; have you seen the tier 4 set bonus for healing priests? LOL). Renew is not that awesome because it is mainly overheal on the tank. Prayer of mending can easily be replaced by shaman's chain heal.

Holy priests have the most variety of heals, but the poorest healing overall, and have little utility outside of some buffs that a shadowpriest can give as well. Paladins and shamans both bring better utility to groups while being healing specced, whereas a healing specced holy priest has less utility than a shadowpriest, paladin, shaman and druid. We're the "master" healers with gimmick talent heals like holy nova, lightwell, and circle of healing which are all pretty much worthless.

I'd love to tell you that priests are great for raids, but the truth of the matter is that we are completely dead last if you want the whole "healer package," because in the game of healbotting, shamans, paladins and druids can top the meters just as well as priests.