I think I might be a *********Follow

Resto is great for healing for groups, from what I've seen--it depends on what you enjoy, though. I know an Enhance shammy who switched to Resto because I was so awesome (seriously, his words) and he just couldn't do it. But if you like healing, then it's great. It can also be decent for PvP, I believe, if you put a few points into Enhance as well (instant ghost wolf, yay).

I don't know much about Ele, since I've only run into one Ele shaman so far. He did... insane amounts of damage. Unfortunately, Sunken Temple was not designed with Ele shammies in mind--or maybe it was, and Blizzard has a cruel sense of humor. Anyway, biggest problem with Ele seems to be that there are mobs that are immune/resistant to Nature damage, and of course that's most Shaman spells right there.

Oh, and I think all Shamans are masochists. ;)

You might as well ask us what color to paint your halls. No one can answer that question but you. I will warn you, however, that if you're at all concerned abour effectiveness, Warlocks are better DPS-ers than both Shaman DPS specs, and Druids are better healers than Resto Shaman.


A "Restomental" build has absolutely no place in end-game content. None. In any end-game content. PvP, PvE, 5-mans, heroics, raids, whatever. There is no place or demand for hybrid builds of any kind for any class in end-game content as it stands now. You're going to have to go either full Elemental for DPS or full Resto for healing.


It's truly impossible to understand the strengths and weaknesses of Shaman until you've played one past 70 yourself. There's a lot of fun to be had with it, but it's not all puppies and sunshine. I don't want to chase you away from the class, but I want you to be fully warned, at least in PvP it is extremely rough. Do not make the mistake of thinking that everyone else who's playing the class right now is doing it wrong and you're going to come in and do something different and succeed where so many before you have struggled.

It's all about mechanics. If you like putting on a bunch of curses and throwing shadow bolts, with the occasional charm or banish, then yeah, warlocks are cool. The key is to realize that your Personal DPS may be lower, but with the totems you are putting down the DPS of everyone around you is actually increasing substantially.

So what you don't meet in personal DPS you more than make up for in increasing the DPS of the people around you. Shamans are similar to Druids and Pallies in that they don't do incredible DPS themselves, but they have the ability to increase the DPS of others through their totems, mangle, auras/blessings. You have to ask yourself if you wanna be the all-star or the one making the all-star look even better.

Same can be said for Resto druids vs Shamans. Both are hybrids and so are not necessarily meant to be "the best" (don't get me wrong, both are very good healers) But the difference between HoTs and Chain healing is a matter of mechanics.

The Druid gives the group his aura and has HoTs to throw on everyone.
The Shaman has totems and chain healing/ big heals.



Agree 100%

Actually, I was referring to PvP there. My fault for not specifying.

On the subject of PvE, Resto Shaman do make great raid healers, but all through five and ten-man content I would actually have to say we are probably the worst. Pallies are far more efficient, Priests can provide CC in some content in addition to their versatile healing, and as for Resto Druids... I personally heal alongside Resto Druids (my guild has like three of them) and I assure you that they are extremely mana efficient and effective. It's very hard for me to out-heal them on any content other than that which I can spam Chain Heal which is... well... pretty much limited to raid content and some ten-man content.

"Worst" doesn't mean "bad". We're still quite capable of healing any content in the game. Objectively speaking, we're just not as good tank-healers compared to the other classes, which is really what five and most ten-man content comes down to. We can buff while we heal though, so it's not like we're completely lacking in allure, and raids grab us up like hot cakes.

It's not like Shaman are completely ineffective, but I wanted Mazra to understand that in terms of raw effectiveness, we do tend to be on the bottom half of most scales. That's all I'm saying.

While all true, I'll nevertheless take the time to state the painfully obvious rebuttal.

1. Not all of your opponents are Rogue/Priest teams.

2. Warriors are pretty much the only--no, no, not pretty much. Warriors are the only partners that synergize well with Resto Shaman in the arena. Warrior/Pally/Shaman is pretty popular in 3v3, but... well... "popular" is not always the same as "effective". Ret Pallies are like the ugly girls Resto Shaman have to take to prom because they hitched a ride with their hot Arms Warrior friends.

Always find it interesting that people say Shamans have no anti-CC ability...particularly when they immediately list Tremor and Grounding totems as our strengths.

Assuming you don't throw the totem right before a spell, or hide it away behind cover/LOS-blocking objects, you're still coming out about even usually (their 1.5+ sec wand time vs. your 1.0 sec GCD and ~100 mana)

I certainly don't claim our anti-CC is amazing, because it's not really enough to offset our lack of CC, but to say it doesn't exist at all is incorrect.

This is true, I know one thing that is absolutely true. I have a MS warrior buddy and we rock BG's. People tend to target me which is fine, but usually he can just smack the heck out of all them with a 2-H weapon +windfury before they kill me.

I just attempt to land chain heals on myself and keep the warrior in distance for him to get the second jump from it.

Also we have been running with a rogue lately, he gets the sap/stun on the first person coming towards me, and usually they cant make it too me.

Just to comment on something that happened to me just the other day that relates to the OP.

I was looking for a healer for a Slave Pens run. I had myself at 62 tanking( on my feral druid) , a 62 shadow priest, 63 enhance shammy and a 62 frost mage.

Now normally I would look for 20 minutes and if no healers presented themselves I would just ask a 70 guildy who wasn't busy to run me through.

A level 62 shaman PST'd me and said " Hey, I'll heal. I'm normally enhance but I have a healing set and I'll just go respec real quick"

For a moment I stopped and thought about it and then I remembered healing Sethekk halls at 70 with my elemental gear, still spec'd elemental and I said " Sure man, lemme know when you're ready for summon"

I got the rest of the group to the stone and when he was ready we brought him in.

We proceeded to tear SP apart. We wiped once on the third pull when the ray broke CC early and feared the shammy into another group. After that I made sure to pull further back and we always dropped tremor totem.

Now I know that the shadow priest gives a buffer for any healer, but this normally enhance shammy healed the entire instance, was at 76% of the healing at the end(14% to the shadow priest and 10% to me because of ILotP and frenzied regeneration) and didn't need help once. Between earth shield and throwing lesser healing waves on the rest of the group whenever some AOE popped up, he kept me up and running without fearing death once.

Now you can say that shaman healers aren't as good at 5-man and 10-man content as other healers. But what can you base this off of? Opinion? I have seen shaman healers outheal every other class. It all depends on the skill of the person behind the wheel.

Between the self/group buffing totems and the power of earth shield to keep a tank up. Shammies tend to have a great time healing regardless of if it's a mostly melee or caster group.

Obviously druids are better at throwing those "HoT and forget" heals and Priests can bubble/MC/prayer of mending, but when it comes to overall healing you have to really look at the person behind the toon. We have several shaman healers who compete with the rest for top healer everytime they run Kara/Gruuls/SSC/Mag.

I'm not here to flame or hate anyone, obviously you are, since you can't keep your smart comments out of your opinion.

Either way, regardless of skill of said shammy, any class in which you can take someone who has an offspec and let them respec to heal is a great class for healing. Can druids do it? Yes, I have one. I know. Can a Pally do it? I don't know, I don't have one. I'll roll one and let you know in the future. Can a shammy do it? Yes, I have one. I know.

Earth shield + high MP5 = good tank-healer in my book. You might "think" they are not, but you can't objectively say that that are. I can't say that they are, and I can't say that they aren't, but I won't put my opinion down as fact and spread it out to anyone new who happens along the shaman forum and starts asking what the facts are.





LOL

Please find me this warrior...oh wait, another smartass comment. I'll be sure to let that shaman know that I didn't mean it when I told him he did a great job for respec'ing just to heal for us to finish the quests.





Correct 100% Can't argue mechanics.

I'm not going to argue with you anymore, Mazra has long since stopped reading this post so there's no longer a point in it. I concede to you the fact that I have not been to alot of raids to see Shamans heal and/or whether they main heal in my guild. I have only my experiences from 1-70, doing just about every 5 man I could, to see that shamans were very good healers for them. And with that I give up. You win. Oh and btw, I gave you a mark up on the last post. Enjoy it.

Talking about raid healing seems to have sidetracked Galen's point which (I assume) is that Shaman healers are fine for 5-mans, which they are.

And I've certainly said in the past that offspec shamans can heal instances perfectly fine, at least up til 65, as long as they keep a healing set. They can even heal past that as offspec if their teammates are competant (not overgeared; just competant).

I've always viewed a shaman's weakness at maintank healing as irrelevant to 5-mans. Sure, in the 0.01% of pulls in 5-mans where you wiped because you needed better healing, you'll be sad. But in 100% of your pulls you'll have better offensive buffs than other healers, which will more than make up the time lost to that one wipe.

Content has to be extremely challenging before a shaman's weaker healing capabilities come into play. "Weaker healing" only referring to MT healing capabilities, of course.

My skin is like black dragonscale, mate. And speaking of sarcasm, hopefully you picked the wee sprinkle of sarcasm in my own comment. I haven't actually done Slave Pens with a Warrior healer.

As for the topic at hand, I've been to Blood Furnace (heroic) with a Shaman healer and it went like a hot knife through butter. Smoothly.