Do Shamans have a place in end game content?

[Monkey]

Well, let's be honest. A lot of the "hybrid" classes in the game aren't really hybrid.

Resto druids are pure healers - heal leather is worthless for tanking or kittyscratching. Tank druids are pure tanks, covered in +sta/+agi/+dodge and incapable of actually shifting out while tanking (or they get splat)...[SNIP]...Hybrids with the actual ability to hybrid within a fight are rare.

While the bit about shaman and paladins might be correct, your section on feral druids isn't. I was healing a Botanica run with my resto druid for a druid tank with a druid cat DPSing on Warp Splinter. Though the cat was doing good DPS, our PuG warlock and shaman were sucking wind and we were having to wear Warp Splinter down (through the heals from the adds*) with just the cat and bear. Here's what happened:
1. I run out of mana and use my innervate.
2. I run out of mana again and get the cat's innervate.
3. I run out of mana a third time, so I trade the bear for a mana potion and the cat heals so I can regen.
4. I run out of mana a fourth time so the cat becomes a bear and taunts off the real bear
5. The real bear innervates me, heals himself and the cat-bear back to full, then taunts off the cat-bear.
6. Warp Splinter finally dies.:w00t:

It's absolutely true that the cat and bear had none of my resto healing power--their healing was a stopgap. It's a fallacy to expect a druid to shift from 'rogue dps' to 'holy priest healing' (and if they have iLoTP you might not want them to shift). But that doesn't mean a cat can't come out and drop a clutch heal, innervate, or rebirth and still have mana to go back to cat or bear. In fact, that's really the definition of hybrid, isn't it?





*Yes, I know you're supposed to kill the adds, that's what we had the warlock and shaman trying to do. They were barely successful enough that we were winning, just very slowly.