| Other Class Discussion For Warlocks that are now playing other classes, or have alts, yet still want to enjoy The Den's atmosphere. |
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June 30, 2009, 10:25 AM
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#1 (permalink) |
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Shammy or Priest for heal+DPS
Let me preface this with my issue. My guild is still small and we are going to start hosting raids in the not too distant future but we are 99% dps. As of right now we have two trees but only one is on very often and only 1 tank. We had another but he decided to switch to dps. I obviously have my afflock. I also decided to finally level my dk for tanking when the guild needs it. I gave him herb and mining so I could at least farm with him (my lock still hasn't made me any gold) when he's not being used. For total utility I've decided to try to level a healer/dps. If it matters this new toon will be dranei jc/alch. That much I've already figured out (to balance the dk mostly and hopefully they will make me some decent gold on the side). So would anyone who has experience with either or preferably both tell me which would be better for raiding naxx and beyond? Keep in mind I want to be able to either dps or heal with this toon. Ive read that shammy's chain heal is changing so its not just spammed anymore and also that shammy's aren't great in ulduar for healing. I've also read that elemental is okay but only mid pack for dps. I've seen that priest are good healers but I keep reading that trees are better with group heals than is holy. I'd probably want to go disc for MT healing though. I've also read that shadow priests were usually taken for their raid utility which has been "nerfed to the ground." Is this true? I was leaning towards the priest because I enjoy my lock so much but I'm not so sure how I'd feel about being a fail dps. One other concern is ease of leveling and survivability. I'm well known in the guild for being the squishiest of the squishy... I can barely survive an add hitting on me with full heals at my back so I was leaning towards the shammy with mail. As you guys can see I am completely torn and will probably end up lvling both at some point but for now I need to focus on one. I'm not going to be pvp'ing at all with these so that's not an issue but I do want to be able to fill in with success if our healer(s) can't make it to the raid and if they are late I will need to be able to dps my weight too. Thanks in advance for all the input. |
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June 30, 2009, 10:42 AM
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#2 (permalink) |
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Re: Shammy or Priest for heal+DPS
I would level a druid. gives you options. Can dps, tank or heal. not hard to level.And there fun. if i didnt have my lock raiding i would raid my druid. |
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June 30, 2009, 11:06 AM
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#3 (permalink) |
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Re: Shammy or Priest for heal+DPS
I have a drenai shammy. I think I do just fine healing MT in OS & Vault. Now. my gear was a mess. for me stacking int. & haste is what made things easier. We don't spam chainheal. at least I don't. I use it quite often when assigned to raid heal & tank healing but I use my faster heal & instant heal a lot also. I can't keep up with lesser geared healers of other clases. Especially not in the AOE department. However while i'm at the bottom of the list for HPS i'm also lowest on the list when it comes to overhealing. On elemental DPS. My shammy is better geared than my destro lock & my lock out DPS's my shammy. I think enhancement is better right now. I'm currently leveling a druid but she isn't even 30. Not sure what i'll do with her just yet. I'd like to try tanking or boomkin eventually. |
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June 30, 2009, 11:18 AM
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#4 (permalink) |
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Re: Shammy or Priest for heal+DPS
I'd have to say Druid as well. Your going to have more than a few occasions (Auriaya in Uld comes to mind) where you are going to want that shaman, but a druid just fills all the niches nicely. |
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June 30, 2009, 11:21 AM
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#5 (permalink) |
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Re: Shammy or Priest for heal+DPS
I'm somewhat biased, playing a Resto shaman and all primarily, but I would say that a lot of healing comes down to practice. (mad skills, yo!) Chain heal is more situational now, but that's a good thing. Shaman have more tools to heal with now, and it adds a lot more variety. 3.2 will change the game even more for Resto Shaman, and I'm really looking forward to it. In Ulduar 10 man, myself and a resto Druid two man heal 10 of the 12 encounters we do. We both have our strengths and weaknesses, and we complement each other very well. I've heard in hard mode things change a bit, but in normal mode, shaman are more than fine for healing in Ulduar. Yes, you need the gear to do it, but that's true of all healers. Knowing how to gear, and getting practiced with healing are easily as important if not more so than the class itself. Shaman are the second least squishy of the healers, only behind Paladins. As a shaman, I've tanked adds (not necessarily by choice) that have one-shot cloth healers. From comments made by Paladins, however, I think shaman are much more interesting to heal with. Due to the water shield I actually LIKE getting hit. Mimiron trash bots, Razorscale adds, Auriaya's swarms, etc, I usually tell the raid to leave them on me because the net effect is a mana gain even when I have to heal myself more often. With dual specs, you can get away with using Resto gear and an Ele spec for solo grinding, or to switch to DPS in a raid if required. It's not optimal, but you can still put out some decent damage. (as a reference, I can push 2.5k-2.9k dps in Ele spec while wearing resto gear on raid mobs, and I'm not particularly good at Elemental. Maybe if I practiced a bit.... nah. TLDR: I like my shaman. We do fine in Ulduar and all preceding raids / 5 mans. Shaman can take a few hits, and often love it.
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Why does my Succubus always say, "I'm with stupid"? |
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June 30, 2009, 11:24 AM
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#6 (permalink) |
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Re: Shammy or Priest for heal+DPS
incoming wall of text __________________________________________________ ________________________________ ok in terms of end game, imo it's infinitely easier to gear up a priest then a shammy, this primary because priest regen is based off spirit and there's about a million item with said stat on it ( as well as spelldmg haste and crit ). the downside of this is you're rolling / bidding against druids, locks and mages. comparitively gearing a shammy is a painful process because spirit to us is junk and there's only so much items in game that has mp5 on it. take for example weapon upgrade. I'm still using the mace from herioc nexus because both naxx 10 and naxx 25 has been unkind to me. /weep the problem of itemisation for a shammy extends across all specs ( ele and enhance ). as ele we do not desire mp5, but you'll be using alot of restoration pieces with said stats on it because that's all you have, like wise enhance shammy value armor pen less cause alot of our damage is magical but you're stuck with it cause you're sharing loot with hunters ( also there's jack all slow weapons in game ). the dps of both spec is also rather underwhleming compared to other hybrids like oomkins in terms of healing, both classes play differently and honestly at the end of the day, I don't favour one or the other. priests in general have a much larger set of tools then a healing shammy. currently priests and druids dominate AOE healing but it looks like 3.2 is nerfing things. I disagree we're not doing well in ulduar, but certainly i think shammy have to work much harder compared to other classes since our spells are inferior to their counter parts. in terms of leveling, I found enhance shammy leveling to be more fun but I've had 3 range dps classes so melee to me was a new aspect of WoW i haven't explored. lvling a priest was "just another caster" to me Last edited by Coud; June 30, 2009 at 11:26 AM.. |
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June 30, 2009, 11:29 AM
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#7 (permalink) |
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Re: Shammy or Priest for heal+DPS
Edfoo: I toyed with druid but we seem to be having an influx of them at the moment and I would rather be a class that isn't quite as popular. Maybe I am just a bit of a glutton for punishment. First a lock, the dk is only used to make gold not really be played, and now... still not sure yet. Sheeba: Thanks. I am much more of a caster mindset though right now but I do kind of like the option to go enchancement dps with the shammy. Would it be viable to try to heal something like Ulduar with a shammy? I have read that itemization is rather bad for shammy's though. I do very much like the idea of not being so squishy and I know that priests are very much so. Swoop: I would like to think that shaman are like locks in that respect. They aren't exactly easy to play but if you know what you are doing then you can do just as well if not better than others. I'm anti-facerolling. Also I love being able to take a hit or two. I still abhor HoL due to not living long enough to get those pants haha. Coud: The itemization is a bit of a concern, but there are pieces out there right? It's interesting you mention that priests have more tools than shaman because I was reading the blues posts yesterday to find that they were deriving preists from clerics mostly and that the shaman was originally a healing class. I'm just curious, could you possibly elaborate a little on what the priest has that the shammy doesn't? I know that disc has the bubble but as far as I can tell most priests are running holy? Keep the wall of texts coming. This is more information, and I'm gonna guess more reliable too, than I've been able to get in 3 days of reading the shammy/priest forums on wow. All insights are welcomed and appreciated. Currently I'm leaning towards the shammy... Last edited by Carnall; June 30, 2009 at 11:42 AM.. |
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June 30, 2009, 12:26 PM
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#8 (permalink) |
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Re: Shammy or Priest for heal+DPS
For shammy resto or elemental you can choose from cahin, leather, & cloth to get your stats. Not everything leather & cloth has spirit on it. I mix & match to get the stats I need. I've taken a few purple pieces with spirit just to upgrade some blues but avoid it if the other stat boosts arn't worth it. I havn't been in ulduar. I was in naxx on a pug & that was as DPS & didn't get far. LOL! I can heal Vault & OS both normal & heroic without issues these days. If you want you can look up Nabu on Durotan Alliance. i'd link the armory but it's still down for maint. My gear is not great. It's decent I think though. |
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June 30, 2009, 12:30 PM
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#9 (permalink) |
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Re: Shammy or Priest for heal+DPS
yea there are, but it depends, for healing shammy using my example, i'm setting my eyes on either the drop from razor 25 or mimiron 10 for healing weapon upgrade. on off spec enhancement i'm eyeing either Yogg10 hardmode or Ulduar 25 which fits the description of a slow weapon AND can be used in the off hand position. options exist, but you really got to work for it and when i say work for it, sometimes you're looking at hardmode or nothing kind of work. comparatively I can waltz into ulduar kill XT and there's a sweet dagger with spirit haste and spelldmg which really isn't that bad for a priest. re priest: I run holy atm, but I've played disc. I lvled my shammy first back in The Burning Crusade and back then we had 3 spells which can be classed as big / small heal, AOE heal. earth shield is kinda wierd I dunno what that falls into. when i started healing on priest i had big heal, small heal, hot, an actualy shield that protects people. Circle of healing was amazing and still is because it's smart, it finds the people with the lowest hp and heals them, that's it. right now our most powerful tool is Prayer of Healing ( which is about to get nerfed in 3.2 mind you rofl ). the healing efficiency of PoH is better then chain heal which is why most shammy are prob sucking in ulduar ( our signature spell is chain heal, our niche is AOE heal but we suck at it? why?! ) in wrath shammy has a hot of sort, it's our 51 point talent called riptide but it's pretty lack luster although it does provide a nice haste component ( assuming you specced into it ). in terms of healing you still won't be using our bread and butter spell ( CH ). it's slow and if it doesn't bounce it's not very effective ( it still is mind you just not that much ). stack int, and heal using Lesser healing wave / riptide and it's pretty cool. the other thing with shammy is that their regen pails in comparision to other healers. until 3.2 launches the item value of spirit is cheaper then mp5, and even after 3.2 the value of mp5 will still won't be 1 to 1 unlike spirit but on the upside we're getting our own pally like on crit return mana return ability in the form of improved water shield procing on all spells we use and not consuming water charges |
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June 30, 2009, 12:46 PM
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#10 (permalink) |
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Re: Shammy or Priest for heal+DPS
Hmmm... Now I'm not so sure. I'm back to being right in the middle of that fence. Part of me was thinking priest because my lock is a tailor and it would be easy to gear him for the most part. At least up to Naxx that is. I'm assuming my new toon wouldn't be 80 until after 3.2 launches so you guys obviously know more about the classes than I. If you were to reroll post 3.2 and beyond given the potential changes what would you roll. Please don't say a druid. =) |
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