02-26-2006, 03:42 PM
So I sey an improvement to stoneskin would be an improvement to healing. You come back with stoneskin sucks. Maybe that is why I said it needs to be improved? No couldn't be anything like that. I've been saying for a long time that shaman need improvements but since you want to be hostile and I don't care, I'll be hostile back.
Shaman beat the snot out of paladins in most of the ZG encounters. I've done ZG both sides. Poison cleansing totem and tremor totem do some amazingly good things in the MT group, even if you can't have it in the other groups (depends on the shaman). As I've said in several posts in the past, paladin buffs are more powerful than anything a shaman does in a 40 man. This is because blessing of kings and blessing + judgement of wisdom are uber. Hunters don't run out of mana during a fight alliance side. I have to carry mana pots with me and chug them horde side a fair bit as just reapplying the mana drain sting in ZG without using mana for any other attacks can suck a 4000+ mana pool dry and I've got the talent to make the stings cheaper. The extended mana pools that alliance get from paladins, as I've said before make a big difference. The aggro changes the paladins have always had just mean players can be lazier. Kings makes mana pools even bigger and adds 300-700 HP to people too (depending on where they start) that is a huge deal as well because I've healed people and been a person that only had 200 or less HP left. Without kings those are corpses not people that you can heal.
Molten Core, yeah, paladins are better because paladins just have better base buff for raiding. A shaman that isn't playing with silly people (on trash mobs you don't need anyone but priests healing most of the time) should be able to do more DPS than a paladin even if both are healing spec. A shaman brings more to the table in Shazz because they can do ranged damage and a paladin can't. If you are only healing with your shaman in raids and not even doing auto-attacks you are not halping the raid as much as you can, or you are not raiding with the right group of people as they aren't using the shaman as well as they can or they are simply to anal to let people have fun because you don't need ideal groups for raiding and again if that is the case, I'm sorry for you and hope you can find better people to raid with.
I'm sorry your experience with raiding guilds have been so bitter. I've never had anyone tell me what spec I should be with any of the 4 toons that I raid with. I would like to meet all these guilds that say you have to be this spec to their people, I just haven't encountered them, but I don't play with 15 year olds a lot either. I also don't play on the bleeding edge (though we got AQ20 done pretty quickly even I personally have only been in there twice because of personal scheduling issues). I'm pretty sure that CM, the top raiding guild on our server (which has Lurkers in it) doesn't force spec either.
Raid healing isn't any more difficult that 5 man healing. Actually since most raids seem to have more healing than they need, raid healing is usually a lot simpler than 5 man because you don't have to think. As you mentioned you cast one spell over and over again. You might cast it on different people but you pretty much cast your fastest cast heal spell, with mana conserve on and are done with it. Though since I can make great use out of flash of light (2.5 second cast) and healing touch (3.0 and 3.5 second cast versions both) I don't see why a shaman couldn't get use out of healing wave if they wanted to.
In 5 mans, if you are the only healer and you are level appropriate (meaning that the end boss is 2-3 levels bigger than everyone there with you and up to 5 levels bigger than the healer) you do have to make choices on what heal to cast. Since you are the only healer there you have to decide when and how much healing to apply to that person that isn't the main tank, you have to worry about pulling aggro (heal aggro doesn't happen in raids execpt in two situations, the tank gets a big crit right at the start of the fight and his sunder misses, or the tank dies or you're dealing with phase 1 in Razorgore, I still contend that if you get heal aggro in a 40 man raid for any other reason you are doing something wrong, which might be as simply as not trusting the other healers). In a 5 man there are many more ways to get healer aggro so you have to think more.
Shaman are more valuable in the 5 man game and paladin are more valuable in the raid game. I've said that for months as well. However paladins are pretty much less fun to play than shaman, they are less fluid they have fewere choices as to what they can do. Since I've seen elemental shaman push hunter like DPS in lower instances I don't see why they can't do that in MC and only heal on the bosses if they are needed to. I've not seen too a paladin in the same level gearing as a hunter push as much DPS as a hunter. I've seen paladins with significantly better gear than hunters out DPS the hunter. Shaman are amazing in PvP as are well played paladins. They do different things but PvP they both bring some very strong tools to the table.
Shaman need help, but they don't need massive overhauls. Totem mechanics need a rethink because of how end game works. Healing needs tweaking. Many talents need to be changed or fixed. Talent placement in some of the trees needs to be changed and they could even use some new talents. But I'm sorry they aren't as broken as you think.
Really alliance side right now the one class that you can get away with only having one of is a druid and you only need that for the MotW buff. Priests out heal them (and with good gear and paladins around don't need innervates), rogues outdamage them, warriors out tank them. You still want 4 paladins for the buffing they can do. Shaman, yeah I could see only wanting one for most of the encounters as well but, like druids I don't see them being turned away at the door until you get more than four because while they might not be ideal they do bring other stuff to the table that helps.
Shaman beat the snot out of paladins in most of the ZG encounters. I've done ZG both sides. Poison cleansing totem and tremor totem do some amazingly good things in the MT group, even if you can't have it in the other groups (depends on the shaman). As I've said in several posts in the past, paladin buffs are more powerful than anything a shaman does in a 40 man. This is because blessing of kings and blessing + judgement of wisdom are uber. Hunters don't run out of mana during a fight alliance side. I have to carry mana pots with me and chug them horde side a fair bit as just reapplying the mana drain sting in ZG without using mana for any other attacks can suck a 4000+ mana pool dry and I've got the talent to make the stings cheaper. The extended mana pools that alliance get from paladins, as I've said before make a big difference. The aggro changes the paladins have always had just mean players can be lazier. Kings makes mana pools even bigger and adds 300-700 HP to people too (depending on where they start) that is a huge deal as well because I've healed people and been a person that only had 200 or less HP left. Without kings those are corpses not people that you can heal.
Molten Core, yeah, paladins are better because paladins just have better base buff for raiding. A shaman that isn't playing with silly people (on trash mobs you don't need anyone but priests healing most of the time) should be able to do more DPS than a paladin even if both are healing spec. A shaman brings more to the table in Shazz because they can do ranged damage and a paladin can't. If you are only healing with your shaman in raids and not even doing auto-attacks you are not halping the raid as much as you can, or you are not raiding with the right group of people as they aren't using the shaman as well as they can or they are simply to anal to let people have fun because you don't need ideal groups for raiding and again if that is the case, I'm sorry for you and hope you can find better people to raid with.
I'm sorry your experience with raiding guilds have been so bitter. I've never had anyone tell me what spec I should be with any of the 4 toons that I raid with. I would like to meet all these guilds that say you have to be this spec to their people, I just haven't encountered them, but I don't play with 15 year olds a lot either. I also don't play on the bleeding edge (though we got AQ20 done pretty quickly even I personally have only been in there twice because of personal scheduling issues). I'm pretty sure that CM, the top raiding guild on our server (which has Lurkers in it) doesn't force spec either.
Raid healing isn't any more difficult that 5 man healing. Actually since most raids seem to have more healing than they need, raid healing is usually a lot simpler than 5 man because you don't have to think. As you mentioned you cast one spell over and over again. You might cast it on different people but you pretty much cast your fastest cast heal spell, with mana conserve on and are done with it. Though since I can make great use out of flash of light (2.5 second cast) and healing touch (3.0 and 3.5 second cast versions both) I don't see why a shaman couldn't get use out of healing wave if they wanted to.
In 5 mans, if you are the only healer and you are level appropriate (meaning that the end boss is 2-3 levels bigger than everyone there with you and up to 5 levels bigger than the healer) you do have to make choices on what heal to cast. Since you are the only healer there you have to decide when and how much healing to apply to that person that isn't the main tank, you have to worry about pulling aggro (heal aggro doesn't happen in raids execpt in two situations, the tank gets a big crit right at the start of the fight and his sunder misses, or the tank dies or you're dealing with phase 1 in Razorgore, I still contend that if you get heal aggro in a 40 man raid for any other reason you are doing something wrong, which might be as simply as not trusting the other healers). In a 5 man there are many more ways to get healer aggro so you have to think more.
Shaman are more valuable in the 5 man game and paladin are more valuable in the raid game. I've said that for months as well. However paladins are pretty much less fun to play than shaman, they are less fluid they have fewere choices as to what they can do. Since I've seen elemental shaman push hunter like DPS in lower instances I don't see why they can't do that in MC and only heal on the bosses if they are needed to. I've not seen too a paladin in the same level gearing as a hunter push as much DPS as a hunter. I've seen paladins with significantly better gear than hunters out DPS the hunter. Shaman are amazing in PvP as are well played paladins. They do different things but PvP they both bring some very strong tools to the table.
Shaman need help, but they don't need massive overhauls. Totem mechanics need a rethink because of how end game works. Healing needs tweaking. Many talents need to be changed or fixed. Talent placement in some of the trees needs to be changed and they could even use some new talents. But I'm sorry they aren't as broken as you think.
Really alliance side right now the one class that you can get away with only having one of is a druid and you only need that for the MotW buff. Priests out heal them (and with good gear and paladins around don't need innervates), rogues outdamage them, warriors out tank them. You still want 4 paladins for the buffing they can do. Shaman, yeah I could see only wanting one for most of the encounters as well but, like druids I don't see them being turned away at the door until you get more than four because while they might not be ideal they do bring other stuff to the table that helps.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.