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Old 02/22/07, 3:43 PM   #1
Dralmoo
Don Flamenco
 
Orc Hunter
 
Shadowmoon
Resto Shamans vs. Paladins, now with 100% less whining

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.

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Old 02/22/07, 3:49 PM   #2
Roses
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Blood Elf Priest
 
Darrowmere
Resto shamans should have a spot no problem simply due to bloodlust/heroism. Don't forget the amazing utility / synergy in resto and elemental trees that reduce the cost/cooldown of your shocks. Rank 1 earthshock as an interrupt was always among my favorite spells, and I nearly used it every cooldown. Grounding totem is amazing, so is tremor totem. For horde side with no fear ward, shamans are even more deeply entrenched in a raid group.

I've played a paladin, shaman and now priest. I know exactly what you mean about the EZ-mode paladin, and on paper they are certainly the best support healers. However, it's better to bring both the shaman and the paladin (or two paladins for buff stacking), plus a shadowpriest to give back mana/cover buffs. In this scenario you see the clearly missing healer is a priest. Druids can spec feral/resto for dps/offtank, emergency healing and utility. Holy priests are GG.

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Old 02/22/07, 3:49 PM   #3
Cynic
Piston Honda
 
Tauren Druid
 
Cenarius
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.

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Old 02/22/07, 3:52 PM   #4
♦ Praetorian
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Orc Shaman
 
Mal'Ganis
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.

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Old 02/22/07, 3:52 PM   #5
Roses
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Blood Elf Priest
 
Darrowmere
Originally Posted by Cynic View Post
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.
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.

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Old 02/22/07, 3:53 PM   #6
Vilgefortz
Glass Joe
 
Human Warrior
 
Kilrogg
Holy priests are GG? O.o No, no way. Why would you even say that? Priests bring the best heals in the game to your raid group, flash heals, renews, shields, new prayer of mending, not to mention group heals, spirit buff, improved fortitude (which I guess a shadow priest could have too) among other. We have an enhancement shaman at 70 now (alliance), main handing some crafted epic axe, and he is often among the top dps in the raid.

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Old 02/22/07, 3:54 PM   #7
tbone47
Von Kaiser
 
Orc Warlock
 
<DPS>
Bloodscalp
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.

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Old 02/22/07, 3:56 PM   #8
Cynic
Piston Honda
 
Tauren Druid
 
Cenarius
Originally Posted by Praetorian View Post
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.
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.

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Old 02/22/07, 3:57 PM   #9
berg
Don Flamenco
 
Undead Rogue
 
Tichondrius
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.

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Old 02/22/07, 3:59 PM   #10
goss
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Human Paladin
 
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Originally Posted by Roses View Post
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.
This is the 2nd thread you've cluttered up with whining about priests. Priests are fine, they have more healing tools than anyone else in the game, and can still exercise the most control over hp/s, hp/m, and their own mana regeneration rate. Being outclassed on an effective healing meter or whatever else doesn't mean your class is broken.

On topic, I really enjoy having a single shaman in Kara, and wish we had more shamans to play with in 25 mans (soon). I tend to agree that stacking 2 paladins in a Kara group is advantageous, whereas I would really only bring a single shaman, however - and thats unfortunate.

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Old 02/22/07, 4:00 PM   #11
♦ Praetorian
Mike Tyson
 
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Orc Shaman
 
Mal'Ganis
Originally Posted by Cynic View Post
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.
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.

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Old 02/22/07, 4:01 PM   #12
Mencius
Von Kaiser
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Dunemaul
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?

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Old 02/22/07, 4:03 PM   #13
missiletoad
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Mork
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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.

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Old 02/22/07, 4:03 PM   #14
♦ Praetorian
Mike Tyson
 
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Orc Shaman
 
Mal'Ganis
Originally Posted by goss View Post
On topic, I really enjoy having a single shaman in Kara, and wish we had more shamans to play with in 25 mans (soon). I tend to agree that stacking 2 paladins in a Kara group is advantageous, whereas I would really only bring a single shaman, however - and thats unfortunate.
I'm not sure about this. Two resto shamans would be a waste, yes, but I run with one enhancement shaman in a (war/war/rog/hunt/sham) group, and myself in a caster group with two other healers and then the nukers, and it's wonderfully effective. The enhancement shaman is top 3 DPS, and adds a huge amount of damage via his buffs to that group. In the meantime, I can use wrath/tranquil appropriately, and mana spring/tide of course. And having two bloodlusts is immensely useful in a lot of situations.

The only fight in Kara where I'd prefer two paladins is Nightbane, but paladins on Nightbane are stupid in general. And people complain about warlocks on Aran.... sheesh.

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Old 02/22/07, 4:03 PM   #15
Roses
Banned
 
Blood Elf Priest
 
Darrowmere
Originally Posted by Vilgefortz View Post
Holy priests are GG? O.o No, no way. Why would you even say that? Priests bring the best heals in the game to your raid group, flash heals, renews, shields, new prayer of mending, not to mention group heals, spirit buff, improved fortitude (which I guess a shadow priest could have too) among other. We have an enhancement shaman at 70 now (alliance), main handing some crafted epic axe, and he is often among the top dps in the 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.

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