Shaman Totems vs Paladin Blessings

[Mavfin]

Wow, this sounds great. Too bad I have never actually run into decent PvP pallys in all my days playing on Azgalor (on the alliance side). Now I know that Azgalor is a lousy server and a bad example, Alliance AVs always looked like kindergarten recess.

I would kill to have some good pallys in an AV with me. Maybe we would have won more often than once per week during my rep grind. When Pallys would grace us with their presence in AVs, all they wanted to do was DPS....rather pathetic.

Looks like this will all be moot in the expansion...

BE Paladins, and Draenei Shaman

[Lissa]

Stop right there. Averice apparently has an abnormal shortage of pallys. You can't balance the game around one guild that has an odd balance. It would be like saying "We only have 2 warlocks, so we can't get Curse of Shadows up. Warlocks need a 10% buff to damage to be competitive."

Fact of the matter is this. The healing spells that the Shaman and Paladin have don't compare properly. HL and HW are close in comparablity, but FoL and LHW are apples and oranges (LHW = Flash Heal for a better comparison). It take BoL to make a Paladin a more efficient healer than a Shaman. And BoL is not always going to be there.

Also, what you fail to realize, is that a lot of Paladin players out there get disgusted with their characters at 60 because all the things they could do prior to 60 they lose, they can't tank end game bosses effectively unlike being able to tank instance bosses, they lose some of their DPS due to debuff restrictions of large group dynamics. Atleast a Shaman has the ability to chose between healing and being mage like while the Paladin's choice becomes Healer/buffbot in the end.

Oh well, you'll get a chance to see some of the issues Paladins have come the expansion.

You guys apparently don't have enough palladins if you don't have a holy one. In any event, since your pallys are so gimped by lack of blessing of light, it wouldn't be a big loss to have one of them go up and whack away to keep it up. I'm not sure what the matter with your debuff control is.

If you read what I said as a follow up, it's that the buff gets knocked off. There is very little room for debuffs on a mob when you have the following going up: Curse of Shadow, Curse of Elements, Curse of Recklessness, Sunder, Thunderfury procs (2 debuffs). There's 8 debuffs that will be up constantly. Some of the other 8 slots take, VE, MF, Rend, Shadow Weaving, Faerie Fire, and random debuffs from procs and the like. See the problem? Suddenly, JoW has little to no space up there and will typically get kicked off by something. Even if there were more control over those last 8 spots, what are you going to tell can't be on the mob vs. what can?

[Kevin]

Oh well, you'll get a chance to see some of the issues Paladins have come the expansion.
If you read what I said as a follow up, it's that the buff gets knocked off. There is very little room for debuffs on a mob when you have the following going up: Curse of Shadow, Curse of Elements, Curse of Recklessness, Sunder, Thunderfury procs (2 debuffs). There's 8 debuffs that will be up constantly. Some of the other 8 slots take, VE, MF, Rend, Shadow Weaving, Faerie Fire, and random debuffs from procs and the like. See the problem? Suddenly, JoW has little to no space up there and will typically get kicked off by something. Even if there were more control over those last 8 spots, what are you going to tell can't be on the mob vs. what can?

JoW stays up fine if you are up there smacking the mob to keep it up a hit from the paladin that put it up seems to slap it right back up to a top priority buff. This is not a good idea on some of the raid mobs though.

It seems to have a higher priority than a lot of stuff but it will get shuffled down and even with 40 seconds from 3/3 lasting judgement if you can't hit the mob it will usually go away in 10-15 seconds. The random procs alone will bump it off in many cases. On Ony I end up having to judge it about every 10-15 seconds even though it can stay up 40 seconds without needing to be refreshed.

[Treesh]

Fact of the matter is this. The healing spells that the Shaman and Paladin have don't compare properly. HL and HW are close in comparablity, but FoL and LHW are apples and oranges (LHW = Flash Heal for a better comparison). It take BoL to make a Paladin a more efficient healer than a Shaman. And BoL is not always going to be there.

Shaman don't have the lasting healing power of the pally though. So it's a trade-off.


For what it's worth, Mogo's lesser healing wave heals for more than Aleri's flash heal on average with fairly comparable gear. *shrugs*

[Lissa]

JoW stays up fine if you are up there smacking the mob to keep it up a hit from the paladin that put it up seems to slap it right back up to a top priority buff. This is not a good idea on some of the raid mobs though.

It seems to have a higher priority than a lot of stuff but it will get shuffled down and even with 40 seconds from 3/3 lasting judgement if you can't hit the mob it will usually go away in 10-15 seconds. The random procs alone will bump it off in many cases. On Ony I end up having to judge it about every 10-15 seconds even though it can stay up 40 seconds without needing to be refreshed.

I've seen it get knocked off fairly easily though as well GG, even with the Paladin that put it up whacking away at the mob. It doesn't seem to be high enough on the priority list to stick even when a Paladin is doing what they need to do to keep it on the mob.

[Kevin]

I've seen it get knocked off fairly easily though as well GG, even with the Paladin that put it up whacking away at the mob. It doesn't seem to be high enough on the priority list to stick even when a Paladin is doing what they need to do to keep it on the mob.

Hmm I've never seen it go away quickly if I've put it up and have kept whacking at the mob. Of course just because I'm near the mob doesn't mean I'm swinging. A lot of the time I will go up there intending to swing but end up healing so much that I don't get another swing in.

[oldmandennis]

It take BoL to make a Paladin a more efficient healer than a Shaman. And BoL is not always going to be there.

Ok, so if they buffed Pallys so that even without BoL, they were still acceptable healers, they would be overpowered with it. Or remove BOL altogeather, and tell one more pally (all indications are that in general there is no shortage of them) to sit at home or reroll, because that is one less blessing that is needed.

If you read what I said as a follow up, it's that the buff gets knocked off. There is very little room for debuffs on a mob when you have the following going up: Curse of Shadow, Curse of Elements, Curse of Recklessness, Sunder, Thunderfury procs (2 debuffs). There's 8 debuffs that will be up constantly.

Well 6 actually.

Some of the other 8 slots take, VE, MF, Rend, Shadow Weaving, Faerie Fire, and random debuffs from procs and the like.

Rend? MF (are you saying mindflay here?)? JoW is from all accounts very powerful, certanly it was a part of the decision to give the horde pallys. Cut some of the crap and tell people to unequip procing weapons if you need to. Or tell one of your pallys to whack away, it shouldn't be too hard to convince them to do it, especially if they are sucky for lack of BoL.

[Lissa]

Ok, so if they buffed Pallys so that even without BoL, they were still acceptable healers, they would be overpowered with it. Or remove BOL altogeather, and tell one more pally (all indications are that in general there is no shortage of them) to sit at home or reroll, because that is one less blessing that is needed.

Nice twisting of words there. The point is this, without BoL, a Shaman is more efficient than a Paladin at healing. If you give the two classes the same amount of mana, the Paladin will run out of mana first trying to heal as much as the Shaman without BoL.

Well 6 actually.

So I can't count... :P

Fact still remains, that doubling of debuff slots Blizzard gave us still isn't enough. Blizzard needs to seperate things out even further for debuff slots.

Rend? MF (are you saying mindflay here?)? JoW is from all accounts very powerful, certanly it was a part of the decision to give the horde pallys. Cut some of the crap and tell people to unequip procing weapons if you need to.

It's not just Procing weapons, it's secondary effects of most spells (the DoT component of Fireball, Deep Wounds, and various others). Name one spell a Mage has that is mana efficient that doesn't have a secondary effect? Get the problem now. It is very easy to knock off a debuff without even trying.

Or tell one of your pallys to whack away, it shouldn't be too hard to convince them to do it, especially if they are sucky for lack of BoL.

Guess you didn't read my comments closely enough. The issue isn't with the Paladin whacking away to maintain the JoW on the mob, it's the fact that it gets knocked off easily and quickly.

Maybe you missed my earlier comments about BoL. BoL is the fourth blessing that goes up out of six. You have to have four Paladins there to even have BoL really used. BoL is powerful, but it isn't worth going with over things like BoK, BoSalv, and BoW.

[Concillian]

Nice twisting of words there. The point is this, without BoL, a Shaman is more efficient than a Paladin at healing. If you give the two classes the same amount of mana, the Paladin will run out of mana first trying to heal as much as the Shaman without BoL.

Assuming he is holy spec-ed, doesn't this depend on the amount of crit a paladin has? I was under the impression that paladin could heal for an incredibly long time if they have the crit talent and a decent amount of crit.

I mean 20% crit becomes 20% of heals completely free... plus 1 every 2 minutes due to divine favor. Even without BoL pallies would seem to be pretty efficient healers if they play to their strengths.

BoL is powerful, but it isn't worth going with over things like BoK, BoSalv, and BoW.

I haven't raided with paladin, but looking at their skillset, I would think paladin would be best utilized like druids... as primarily single target healers. If I were leading healers, I don't think I'd be having paladin doing spot heals, since flash of light is probably not the best option for that. Shaman and priests seem to have a better skillset for that. And then any target of a pally healer would lose one of the top three and gain BoL.

[MongoJerry]

Oh well, you'll get a chance to see some of the issues Paladins have come the expansion.
If you read what I said as a follow up, it's that the buff gets knocked off. There is very little room for debuffs on a mob when you have the following going up: Curse of Shadow, Curse of Elements, Curse of Recklessness, Sunder, Thunderfury procs (2 debuffs). There's 8 debuffs that will be up constantly. Some of the other 8 slots take, VE, MF, Rend, Shadow Weaving, Faerie Fire, and random debuffs from procs and the like. See the problem? Suddenly, JoW has little to no space up there and will typically get kicked off by something. Even if there were more control over those last 8 spots, what are you going to tell can't be on the mob vs. what can?

There's where the raid leader needs to step in and start prioritizing debuffs. It sucks that raids are limited to 16 debuffs slots (and thank God it's not still only 8 slots), but that's all we get, so we have to deal with it. JoW is way too important of a debuff to a raid to be knocked off all the time. So, the raid leader needs to tell the shadow priests to knock it off with the mind flays and vampiric embraces when attacking the big raid boss. They might be fine for the adds, but if you're fighting a tough boss and your raid needs mana, the shadow priests have to bite the bullet and just heal. If there are enough warlocks in the party that Shadow Weaving is worth it, then a shadow priest can be assigned to pump it up with rank 1 SW:Pain in the beginning and then keep it going with mind blasts every time the cooldown is available. Otherwise, they have to stop with the mind flays, because they're hurting the raid with them.

The same can be said for many other dot's and debuffs. JoW's priority should be big enough that it doesn't get knocked off by small effects like fireball ticks.

[oldmandennis]

Nice twisting of words there. The point is this, without BoL, a Shaman is more efficient than a Paladin at healing.

Ok... currently you have two options for what you can do with 4 raid slots. You can bring 3 pallys, and get most of your powerful blessings covered for the whole raid, plus a few groups of auras. You bring a priest in for the 4th spot, and live with the fact that 3 of your members are not super once the fight begins. Or you take 4 pallys, and they are all solid, efficient healers.

Or Pally healing can get a buff, putting them roughly equal to shammys. Now, 3 pallys heal effectivly, and the priest is gravy. Or you bring in a forth pally for BOL, and the four of them are now over powered. Either way, the side that is already overpowered gets better.

Name one spell a Mage has that is mana efficient that doesn't have a secondary effect?

Um... unless I am missing something, the ice bolt debuff doesn't show up on bosses which are immune to it. In any event, JOW is game changing, if you are not able to keep it up, then you need better control of your raid. It sounds like GG doesn't think its too hard to keep up.

[lfd]

If you read what I said as a follow up, it's that the buff gets knocked off. There is very little room for debuffs on a mob when you have the following going up: Curse of Shadow, Curse of Elements, Curse of Recklessness, Sunder, Thunderfury procs (2 debuffs). There's 8 debuffs that will be up constantly.

...Curse of Recklessness?

I know you didn't specify boss mob, but there's very little point in sticking all those debuffs on non-boss mobs, and also generally speaking very little time. And I can't think of any that flee, either, and I doubt you'd want to increase their AP for the duration of the fight. And you can cast it when they're fleeing to bring them back, anyway.

What raid mobs (and it is only raids that you'll be able to get all those listed debuffs, unless your 5-man has 3 warlocks and a TF tank in it) do you use CoR on? I'm honestly wondering if I've missed something here ;-)

[MongoJerry]

...Curse of Recklessness?

I know you didn't specify boss mob, but there's very little point in sticking all those debuffs on non-boss mobs, and also generally speaking very little time. And I can't think of any that flee, either, and I doubt you'd want to increase their AP for the duration of the fight. And you can cast it when they're fleeing to bring them back, anyway.

What raid mobs (and it is only raids that you'll be able to get all those listed debuffs, unless your 5-man has 3 warlocks and a TF tank in it) do you use CoR on? I'm honestly wondering if I've missed something here ;-)

CoR also reduces a target's armor, which can come in handy in some fights.

[KiloVictor]

What raid mobs (and it is only raids that you'll be able to get all those listed debuffs, unless your 5-man has 3 warlocks and a TF tank in it) do you use CoR on? I'm honestly wondering if I've missed something here ;-)

In our case, everything but Broodlord and Huhuran. There are a few bosses you don't want to use it on, which has to do with a game mechanic that I don't completely understand. Some bosses (like Broodlord Lashlayer) have special attacks that multiply weapon damage by a percentage (500% in his case). You don't want CoR on him because it's a really big boost to his special attacks. Similarly, it's not recommended for enraged bosses (Huhuran, Chromaggus, etc) but I haven't seen any good explanation for that.

For any other boss (that's up through Razuvious and Anub for us) you want it up. It's a big boost to melee DPS, and it should be standard (along with Faerie Fire and Sunder) on every mob.

There's a decent thread on the EJ forums talking about CoR too: http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewtopic.php?id=7028

Kv

[lfd]

CoR also reduces a target's armor, which can come in handy in some fights.

That's what I was missing, ta (both you and Kilovictor) ;-)

[Medicine Man]

Also, what you fail to realize, is that a lot of Paladin players out there get disgusted with their characters at 60 because all the things they could do prior to 60 they lose, they can't tank end game bosses effectively unlike being able to tank instance bosses, they lose some of their DPS due to debuff restrictions of large group dynamics. Atleast a Shaman has the ability to chose between healing and being mage like while the Paladin's choice becomes Healer/buffbot in the end.

Oh well, you'll get a chance to see some of the issues Paladins have come the expansion.

I would say right back at you on that last point, Lissa. Once the alliance has had the chance to play with shaman for a while, you'll find out that we aren't all powerful either. Just for starters, we most definately do *not* get the option to play as a ghetto mage, not just because we are expected to heal, but because we don't have the staying power or aggro control of a mage. I can't (and won't) try to dispute any of your comments about pallies, but I can tell you that shaman have significant issues when trying to contribute DPS meaningfully in a raid environment. For the most part, the extent of shaman DPS is alleviating boredom by helping crush trash mobs.

Your guess is as good as mine about where the two hybrid clases are going to go in the expansion.

[ShadowSeer]

...Curse of Recklessness?

I know you didn't specify boss mob, but there's very little point in sticking all those debuffs on non-boss mobs, and also generally speaking very little time. And I can't think of any that flee, either, and I doubt you'd want to increase their AP for the duration of the fight. And you can cast it when they're fleeing to bring them back, anyway.

What raid mobs (and it is only raids that you'll be able to get all those listed debuffs, unless your 5-man has 3 warlocks and a TF tank in it) do you use CoR on? I'm honestly wondering if I've missed something here ;-)

When i was raiding with my lock i never used COR due to my old guild was slightly new into zg/aq/mc.

They told all the locks to take COR off there actionbars, that had me laughing i never used Cor because of the nasty effects it can have on some boss.
For my debuffs i used was COELE, corruption,siphon life and immolate on the ones that was not fire immune in mc.


Now about the paladins&shamans....


alliance finally gets to see how bad horde had it in endgame raids and why shamans are being phased out of endgame along with locks.

Horde get new class that might just make shaman reroll bloodelfs paladins, just to have a roll in endgame raids

i mean alot people that dont play both sides cant stomach the horde shamans they always cry overpowered, now that they have dreanei shamans, let see if they can understand are gripes about why shamans dont really have any usefullness in Pve..

Dont even say enhancement i will kill anything you say on enhancement is gear dependent like that of the feral druids equipment

I played both sides and on scale on 1 thru 10...

paladins are a 9 on the scale for Pve assement and 9 for pvp {when played right}

shaman are a 5 on the scale of Pve assement, but for pvp they are 10 a shaman was ment to pvp{back in to old days they was a monster in pvp you could not kill them much like the paladins who spec holy}
now we have blood elfs paladins, on horde side i hope they can make the shaman and paladins work because as of now shamans are being let out to pasture.

[MongoJerry]

When i was raiding with my lock i never used COR due to my old guild was slightly new into zg/aq/mc.

They told all the locks to take COR off there actionbars, that had me laughing i never used Cor because of the nasty effects it can have on some boss.
For my debuffs i used was COELE, corruption,siphon life and immolate on the ones that was not fire immune in mc.

It definitely depends on the boss, but in some encounters, it definitely helps. CoE and CoS go up first, but after that, CoR can really help your melee and hunter dps if the added attack power given to the boss isn't significantly dangerous.

[ShadowSeer]

It definitely depends on the boss, but in some encounters, it definitely helps. CoE and CoS go up first, but after that, CoR can really help your melee and hunter dps if the added attack power given to the boss isn't significantly dangerous.

yes it really does i know first hand, i had the fun of watching my raid get wiped on a boss that used the attack str of cor.

The poor lock was new to raiding that he didnt know which boss to use it on.

[oldmandennis]

shaman are a 5 on the scale of Pve assement, but for pvp they are 10 a shaman was ment to pvp{back in to old days they was a monster in pvp you could not kill them much like the paladins who spec holy}
now we have blood elfs paladins, on horde side i hope they can make the shaman and paladins work because as of now shamans are being let out to pasture.

That's a bit silly. Even not counting any possible buffs to Shaman mechanics in the expansion, you still need several, and each additional one definatly improves your raid. WF totem is still a very important buff, and mana spring/mana tide are still very nice, even if they are weak compared to BOW/JOW. Shaman don't scale with the number of people in the raid, but they do scale to the number of shaman (up to atleast 8).

If anything it is Pally's who will probably be squeezed for spots. Their buffs scale for the number of people in the raid, becoming somewhat overpowered in 40 man raids. However, they do not scale to the number of palaldins, becoming less attractive after 3 and much less attractive after 4.