I see the issue as that there is no reason to bring a resto shaman to any hard mode. Some classes bring tank saving CDs. Others bring burst AoE healing or better HoTs or utility like Battle Res. While I don't know of any shaman that has been sat out, I think the potential is there when guilds start stacking raids for hard modes.

An extreme example. Suppose a fight needs 3 healer CDs and 3 burst AoE heals, maximum of five healers. You bring a Pally(CD), Holy Priest(CD/Burst), Holy Priest(CD/Burst), Druid(Burst). One spot left MAX for the Shaman to compete for. And if the raid decides to try it with 4 healers, the shaman will be the first to go.

A DPS shaman and a DK cover just about everything a resto shaman can bring to the raid. Our unique abilities are Mana Tide and Earth Shield.

Folks,
The conclusion of the last few pages comes down to this question...
(Looking for some unbiased opinion please.)

If you're a raid leader and have too many *equally capable" healers on, would you cut the resto shaman from a progression raid?

*edit... assuming Bloodlust can be provided by a different shaman spec

Assuming equally capable healers, I'd say the answer has to be yes at this point. You won't really gain anything but mana tide and earth shield, which really isn't worth bringing the shaman for. Shaman are also one of the worst on the move.

I think the better a raiding guild is, the less the actual class/spec you're playing matters and the more players with good skills can shine. And the worse a raiding guild is, the more officers/raid leaders pick up silly trends like looking at shamans as inferior healers to paladins/priests.

I'm in a guild as well, where 4 raidspots go to priest/paladins and the last 1-2 raidspots to druid/shaman. In my opinion shamans could still need a slight tweaking, but in respect to other classes we're pretty balanced, our strengths just aren't as obvious as CoH burst healing or a Guardian spirit or even the still strong and spammy paladin MT healing.

That's spot on. Adapting your healing style for every encounter, picking up a lot of single target healing assignments are an excellent way to pull your weight. But raid spots are just tougher to earn for a resto shaman in WotLK, that might be the raiding reality for a lot of semi-hardcore raiding shamans. Of course a raid lineup is also very much dependent on lineup-"traditions" and the social position of a raider, most of the time even more than short living class trends.

Last thing: Sixthy seems to do a splendid job at healing hard modes. So I guess the discussion if shamans are viable hard mode healers is pointless. The only thing I'm curious about, do you feel like you'd do a better hard-mode healing job if you were let's say a priest, Sixthy? I personally would surely get more raiding time, but I don't think I'd do a significantly better job, but e better job nonetheless.

On the topic of gems - are you gemming for Int because you are really running out of mana on hard modes or because you get the best bang for your buck with it?

I mean it gives everything you want as a shaman - mana, mana return, crit, spell power.

Right, it does. Obviously if you are not actually running out of mana though, the first 2 are of no use and +sp would grant more throughput than the crit and sp you get from +int. I only ask because my guild has not yet begun doing any serious hard mode encounters and I was curious as far as mana regen needs.

I know what you are referring to (guilds which or whoms Raidleader really suck ) and in some point of view your right, but on the other hand, I'd say it's rather the complete opposite. The better/more succesfull a guild is the less the skills of the players differ. The worse a guild is, the bigger the difference in skill between will be. For example, if u set up the "perfect player" with 100% skill, most of Ensidia will be about 98-100% (biggest difference of 2%) In my guild, which is just an average guild and nothing special there are a lot of more differences and bigger gaps in terms of skill. So maybe the spectrum will be something about from 80%-40%(biggest difference ist 40%).

So while Ensidia will most likely bench the shaman, as they have just healers of "equal" skill, I for myself don't have any worries about beeing benched since I'm on of the top healers in my guild and there are enough Priests, Palas and Droods, that would get benched earlier than me. I just hope that difference will be still big enough when we will come down to hard modes finally

I'm in Nebuk's situation: by dint of sheer effort (I won't say skill), I'm usually one of our top healers, so I won't be sat anytime soon. But I've been watching with some interest our shifting roles in raids, and I'll say that I've been one of the slow ones to adapt since BC. CH still accounts for more than 50% of my healing, which I'm starting to become convinced (especially after watching this thread develop) is a mistake. I've got the highest uptime of any healer in our raid (typically running neck and neck with our lone druid), but my HPS is extremely low, and I feel my efficiency/use - a much more personal measurement - has been suffering. We run with multiple holy pallies/priests, sometimes the druid, sometime another restosham, and me.

My gemming/enchanting has changed recently from SP/haste to a melange of SP/int (with a touch of mp5 in one slot where the hep numbers work to match a socket bonus), which seems to be working okay. But I'm faced with some important decisions based entirely on playstyle: do I give up my 4pcT7.5 for 2pcT8? And what the heck do I do with talents? Right now I've been experimenting with AA and like it (armory), but I don't have Healing Way and I'm only at 3/5 TW (a nod to my CH-spam past).

I confess that when it comes to talents, especially, I'm confused. If I were to experiment with a RT/HW/HW alternating with CH/HW/HW rotation (depending on damage/grouping), where should I be stealing the extra 5 points? Thoughts?

(For what it's worth, I know the obvious candidates for three of the five are Shamanistic Focus and Ghost Wolf, but be gentle - I play a major interrupt role in our raids and PvP on the weekends.)

I apologize that my gear is probably in enhance mode for questing in the armory. Link to a more-or-less accurate model of my resto gear here.

Edited to correct typo and add character model link.

Sixthy said "I think the better a raiding guild is, the less the actual class/spec you're playing matters and the more players with good skills can shine." Look at Sunwell. Guilds stacked classes, not players with good skills. No amount of skill would help the Holy Paladin earn his keep. Very skilled players were benched for shaman that could drop four totems and spam CH.

Blizz has balanced the classes much better in Wrath. It will never be like in Sunwell. But I do feel that Shaman are at the bottom, and need a few tweaks to even things up.

Warcrafter Sandbox -- test away


Gem'ing for int gives your more SP through talents, more crit, and you get more mana back from replenishment.



On the topic of hard modes, can anyone who has a lot of work in with freya hard mode (25) comment on spec changes and glyphs?

I am planning on trying out glyph of stoneclaw totem as well as dropping talents in weapons and imp chain heal for nature's guardian for more survivability. The stam talents in the enhancement tree are a bit out of reach.