Shamans and Alliance guildsFollow

I have no first hand knowledge about a Shaman other than a level 20 alt, what you may read here and there and I have never seen them in any raids. But as an Alliance player I know that our guild or as even smaller parties themselves will need to start integrating them into the population. I am wondering though what does a Shaman offer that a Paladin can't provide? What are some of the benefits that an Alliance only player does not see from a Horde prospective? Also will the Shaman class start to become outcasts or even extinct like other MMO's have treated certain classes through the years even as the Horde integrate their own Paladins into the mix?

I know that I'm gonna want shamans for the insane buff totems that elemental shammies are getting in TBC.

I've already petitioned my guild to make sure all our raids have 1 elem shammy just for me.

The new end-game content is supposed to be very brutal in some of the raids and the buffs that pally's and shamans bring to the table will probably be quite necessary along with the usual pots and what not.

It will all balance itself out, just as it has now. Now the Hordes just get to see how much of a pain the **** some of those Shammy's are!

In raids the main thing they'll be bringing is Earth Shield. It is simply insane on the PTR at the moment. My shammy is usually elemental so he doesn't have great healing gear (+180 healing or so) and it was still healing me for 305 every tick and 450 odd on crit heals. I've heard from other reports of people with much better healing gear of it ticking normally for 550+ and crit healing for 800-900 upwards.

For anyone not familiar with Earth Shield it works in a similar way to lightning shield but differs in that instead of damaging the enemy when they hit you it heals yourself instantly instead. It costs around 600 mana at the level 60 ranks and has 10 charges on it. It can be cast on any friendly target (including NPCs it seems). As if that wasn't enough it also gives you a 30% chance to ignore interruptions from damage when spellcasting.

Apparently on the beta its taking a slight nerf to its +healing conversion percentage but even so its still a insanely good spell for dropping on the main tank, especially as all the healing aggro goes to the person with the buff.

Best way to summarize the difference I've found is this. Paladin is the pinnacle of defensive playing. 90% of their buffs buff the parties defensive abilities and help minimize downtime, along with the ability to tank. Shaman is the opposite. Their buffs give a nice dps boost, and are capable of dps-ing themselves. Heck, even the resto side of both classes reflect this. Paladin-shields, quick heals, etc. Shaman-self rez, longer heal, multiple debuff removers. Paladin prevents downtime in their resto, shaman is more focused on recovering after the worst case scenario.

Finally, their spell selection for a tight spot really reinforces this idea. Paladin in a tight spot shields and heals. Shaman on the other hand just starts spamming whatever damage spells are available, throws down more dps oriented totems (such as searing) and starts burning through their mana while giving a large boost to dps (atleast, that's been my experience). This is complete with large weapon buffs on par with good enchants.

They are both capable of doing the other side, to a degree (the shaman CAN heal, does have a defensive totem, etc. The paladin DOES have a few offensive spells, can switch out blessings to be more offensive, etc) but in general they are the extremes of the offensive<--->defensive line.

BTW, I apologize if I am way off base here. This is mostly from my experience leveling both to 30 and watching how people play them in raids and PvP (much more PvP as I only just reached the upper 50s a week or 2 ago).

The only problem I could see with that (which I doubt it will happen but it could be added as a nerf type thing) is if when you're hit with it you gain the same debuff type thing as a paladin/priest shield right now and can't have it (or another shield) used on you again for x seconds. Which would be better, an instant heal every hit for say 300ish, or the full damage absorb from priest/pally? That would be the question if they did something like that. I'd probably say for most fights the heal would be, though the pally bubble when the tank is low on health but high in threat would help I guess, of course keep in mind i'm horde so only going off of the fact I know it makes someone go fully immune but have 1/2 casting/attack speed.



In 5/10 man groups yes, Shammy is more of a DPS/buff then healing, not that they can't heal well enough. But, compared to a pally yes they do bring a bit more DPS... mainly due to shocks imo since both pally and shammy can basically weild (almost) the same weapons afaik.

Not true, the shield can only be active on one target at a time. Casting it on a second target removes it from the first.