Druid v ShamanFollow

thats a tough question, and you're probably going to get a lot of "play what fits your play style" answers. i've only played a druid (well, shaman up to 20.. doesn't really count) so i can only tell you what i have experienced as a druid playing along side a shaman.

druids are versatile, IMHO the most versatile class in the game. they can choose to be a healing class, a pew pew class, a dps class, or a tank class. the last two in the same talent tree! sure the 30 min timer on our rez is a major drawback but with all of the other rezzing classes out there it isn't an impassable obstacle. and prowling is nice.. very, very nice.

shaman are versatile as well. they can be pew pew, dps, or healing spec. although they don't get any spec's to make them tanks, they are allowed chain (post 40) which makes them less squishy healers/pewpew'ers. they also get this nifty ability called reincarnation which is sort of like a SS (from what i've seen). makes them my favorite healer after a wipe ;)

so theres what i know. i play a feral druid and i respect shaman healers more than druid healers, boomkins over elemental shammy's, and enhance always seem to beat me a tad bit on the dps scale. (of course this is a generalization, not every player is as skilled as the next. this is suggesting a player of equal or higher skill level)

oh.. and btw. play what fits your playstyle ;)

thrashering, after reading this and several of your recent posts on the Shaman board I have to say I really don't think you have a clue what the Shaman class is about, which I find rather odd considering you're listing it as one of your favorites.

Shaman have two DPS trees (caster and melee) and one healing tree. That is hardly indicative of a "healing class". Yes, they can settle comfortably into a main-healing role and excel at it if they spec Resto, but the majority of the class' ablities are generally oriented towards offense.

From what I've seen Shaman are a rather exellent DPS class. I love there totems especially when I'm healing. I've beaten them in DPS, healing, and the can't really tank so thats kinda a given but a fair amount of the time the beat me at DPS/Healing too. If you roll a druid you can pick and choose, However if you roll sham expect to be ether DPS or healer most likely the one to save the group from running back after a wipe, even a non-restro sham has this ability.

In other words shaman = less versitlity but Generaly better DPS and some nifty class feutures.

and Druid = more versitility and a heavier reliance on gear for better results (fortunetly said gear is available) with awsome class feutures

was that confusing? if it was tell me and I'll tone it down a bit.

while warriors have more mitigation (thru Block/parry) they still will never have as mouch Health as a druid and will have to stack more +Def than a druid (490 vs 415ish) to become uncritable these differances make them about even, and also remember that a druid can get 23-24k armor (if I remeber corectly) witch is greater than the warrior can generaly muster.

Yeah. Right now im leaning towards the druid because im not a fan of the totems. Just seems to me that they are to easily destroyed. My noobness shining through there. If not, heres another. Does an area of effect spell such a blizzard destroy totems?

Well, i pve more than pvp. Even then when i pvp it was battleground stuff to earn items for pve-ing. I did however enjoy defending the flag in WSG when paired with a Nelf hunter. That frost trap and me as a rogue cheap shoting and kidney shot. Ouch! I had a pretty good record and the opposition never seemed to work it out.



Not sure what you mean but i'll hazard a guess. I'll go with mellee DPS hence the rogue. Reason im looking for a replacement is because im sick of being made of glass. Probably me but if anyone has any good ideas to fix this i'd much appreciate it. Just got to figure out how to link my character. Anyone?

Ok, here he is.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Dath%27Remar&n=Freyr
Hope that worked.

Im glass, any ideas to make him made of a slightly denser metal?

What? I'm gonna guess that you play a Druid primarily and you've never actually played or regularly grouped with a good Shaman, because I just can't come up with any other explanation as to how you could so easily marginalize Shaman buffs and stress Druid buffs.

Yes, Druids have Mark/Gift of the Wild. But that's pretty much it. Thorns is really only useful for a tank. Compare that to Shamans' totems where you've got upwards of a dozen different buffs; you can buff melee or caster classes six ways from Sunday and you've got the option of doing it several different ways to boot.


Ok, yes, that confirms my suspicions.

FreyrNeedsHelp:
Most of this post assumes you are going to party, if you don't party often then I don't think it really matters which one you pick, feral druid did very well for me for soloing, and it's been long since I leveled my shaman(a year and a half now) so I can't really remember how that went, don't recall it being as good though.

Well, you stated you wanted to DPS but not be a glass cannon, that's a bit of a problem. The "pure" DPS classes: Hunters, Rogues, Mages and Warlocks(placed in this order only because I remember characters by armor types, will go on from now on) are all, to some extent glass cannons. Why is that? A class toughness usually comes from either heavy armor: Paladins, Warriors and Druids in bear/dire bear/moonkin forms and also Shamans to some extent. Or from healing: Paladins, Shamans, Druids, Priests.
Yes, I am generalizing, other classes can survive very long via other means(Usually by avoiding taking damage at all for a short duration), bear with me please.

What makes a "pure" DPS class, well, "pure" is the fact that it can't tank, meaning no heavy armor, and can't heal, to compensate that, they get heavier damage. That's how it should work in my book(facts have proven this wrong on more than one occasion). The fact that actually matters is that the "pure" classes, all, have crowd control(priests are an exception, while being "hybrid" they still have serious crowd control). The way it DOES work is that if you are capable of healing, you will be asked to heal very often, if you are capable of tanking, you will be asked to tank very often. When playing my moonkin druid, I have hard time finding PuGs and that's for several reasons:
1) I'm not a tank. Also considering -
2) I'm not a healer. Which only leaves us with -
3) As a DPS class, it doesn't matter how much damage I can deal, the fact that I have almost no crowd control, as beasts are quite rare on 70 instances and dragonkin are nowhere to be found, is what tips the scales against me. Time and time agagin. It is very understandable I have to admit, I'd much rather have a warlock for The Mechanar, and the ability to crowd control at least 2 mobs in shattered halls. Fact is, I can't bring it to the table.
This is 5 man instances talking, as moonkin.
As a feral druid(leveled, and spent quite some time at 70 as feral) I mostly tanked anywhere I've been at, but if you insist on going as DPS you'll still suffer from no crowd control abilities.
Same goes for Shamans , although you can't tank at all(Which makes us skip point 1 entirely), you stated you wanted to DPS, so I assume you're not into healing, which leaves a shaman with the same problem as a druid when being a candidate for an instance, no crowd control whatsoever.

This post starts to get too spread, so let me try to organize things a bit.
If you want to DPS mostly in PvE, both characters will have their problems compared to the "pure" DPS classes which have crowd control.

What I'm trying to say is, if you want to DPS, and do only that, stay with a rogue, rogues have more innate toughness than it seems via cooldowns. If you do decide to turn over to the good side of "hybrids"(I say good side because my first 60 was a shaman and my first 70 was a druid, and my side must be good, right?) then we need more information, as both can melee very well, and each has it's own pros and cons. If you are unsure what exactly do you seek in your character other than survivability and melee, I'd say go with the druid and spec feral because:
1) It's so damn easy to level as one(not entirely sure about enhancement shaman though).
2) You get to melee, as you said you want.
3) At 20 you can prowl. And I think you stated stealth is a big thing in your book.


EvilShenanigans:


I might have missed, but how is the elemental tree being nerfed in 2.3? I've mostly seen buffs.
Edit: Nevermind, I have just noticed the reduction in Lightning Bolt and Chain lightning's base cast time.


While I do agree with your point(Warriors mitigate damage better than Druids) your reasoning can't be more wrong.
I don't have an armor calculator, but when I was feral, and didn't have a single raiding item I had 22K armor, and about 65% damage reduction. A druid in full tier 6 should be able to get quite near the 75% cap. That's a huge difference.

Warriors have higher dodge+parry than Druid's pure dodge, but it's not by THAT far(50% vs 30% as you stated it). I have no practical information about high end druid tanking, but I know a druid in my guild, who only did Kara up to the curator has 35% or so dodge unbuffed, so I assume you can reach 40% in T6 gear.

Factor in defensive stance and blocks and I guess you get to a stance where the Warrior takes ~5-10% less damage, but that's a total guess, not real number crunching.
The decisive fact about a Warrior being able to mitigate damage better is that as long as shield block is up, and he has decent or better gear, he will NEVER, EVER, EVER get a crushing blow, a Druid is always exposed to them on raid bosses. In addition, Warriors take 84% damage from spells while a druid will always take 100%, on top of that Warriors are able to reflect some spell damage back and have much better access to resistance gear.

Also, you assumed 25% dodge and parry on Warriors' acount, IIRC Nihilum's main tank has 56% total in dodge+parry, he's one of the best(if not the best) geared Warrior out there. So this is totally irrelevant to our more casual(and most hardcore raiders I guess), in lower end game, the difference is not that notable, it's mostly on crushing opponents as the spikey damage is very hard on healers.

Edited, Oct 2nd 2007 7:25am by YuvalR

FreyrNeedsHelp:


Yes, but not in such a harsh tone :)

Have fun with both your toons, they rock, honestly.