Should I go resto shaman?

[Anowyn]

Right now I'm running in a 10-man guild and we haven't begun working on hard modes. We're very laid back and just raid once or twice a week. We actually have access to many healers. Right now we've been primarily running Resto Druid (me), Holy Priest, and Disc Priest (part time shadow). We have a ret paladin also who has a geared holy set as well, but he does really good dps so we usually have him dps.

Anyway, I just leveled my shaman and I've geared him up as resto and he's about 376 ilevel right now. My resto druid is about 383 ilevel. I'm really enjoying resto shaman at the moment, but I'm not sure if he would be better to use. I'm wondering if it might be better to swap my shaman into the raid in place of my resto druid? As I said, the holy priest right now is the other full time healer, with the disc in on some fights. Our paladin only heals if another healer has to be absent for some reason, because he's very good at dps.

Thanks for any input!

[Meejum]

Being completely objective about your raid, running with a shaman would be fine. A resto druid and holy priest are very similar in what they can bring to a raid, with a holy priest being a bit more flexible, so dropping a druid shouldnt hurt. Buff wise, druid bring mark/kings, replenishment and a B-rez (and potentially faerie fire). Shamans bring a multitude of buffs, but the biggest would be 6% SP and hero/BL, which are huge if you dont already have them.

If you are just having fun and want to gear up, take a look at how many people are on each armor token. Does adding a shaman unbalance one particular token? For example, if you are rolling against 2 people as a druid right now, and switch to rolling against 4 if you go a shaman, it might be easier for others in your raid (and yourself) to get gear if you keep certain tokens from getting too crowded.

Being flexible with what toon you bring can help for specific fights, if your raid is working on a specific boss, and this is another consideration.

The biggest factor should be which toon you enjoy playing the most, and you should just go with that one. Using either a resto sham or resto druid should not really matter in a casual setting.

[SpaceJam]

"Very good at DPS" ha haa. Resto Shamans work really well this tier on all bosses. Riptide heals for shitton, there is lots of stacking for HR, and the fight mechanics and environment really favor a Shaman... FINALLY. You can actually take Focused Insight and not have a million jackasses telling you, you just lost 3% spell crit (big fucking whoop).

No but seriously play with what you feel comfortable with. If you're not having trouble with healing in your current comp-- Why try to fix something that isn't broken?

[Anowyn]

Thanks for the input. The token for my druid is actually the most heavily stacked token at the moment and the shaman token is the least -- with one of the two already having 4/5 397 tier, and the other is at 2/5 397 tier. Our guild is mostly RL friends, but we've had one dps spot that has been very inconsistent, so way may end up recruiting someone if we need to -- Maybe I'll watch and see about composition and such and see if a shaman might be beneficial. We have a DK and another druid that often comes so brez shouldn't be too big of an issue. I'll check out the comp and see. To be honest, I enjoy both healers a lot. The only thing I don't like about my druid is having lower single-target throughput. I get worried if I need some big heals on a tank or something, because I can't get that much out, whereas my shaman can already get 70k+ Greater Healing Waves. Over 100k crits if there is predictable damage coming and I toss an Unleashed Elements on the tank first. I feel like my druid's biggest crit ever was like maybe 50k lol :P (I don't know for sure)

A shaman might be more useful with a holy priest than a resto druid. I can always keep him on stand by if we run into healing issues. So far the only place we've had a little trouble with healing is on Madness of Deathwing, primarily with the last platform before his head.

Anyway, thanks for the input, I appreciate it! I'll consider the benefits/losses of switching and decide if my shaman is fun enough to swap :P

"Very good at DPS" ha haa.

I'm not sure why that's funny. He does all of his DPS responsibilities without having to be asked more than once, and puts out great numbers for his class and level of gear. He's actually probably better at dps than healing, but he's a good healer too. He does more dps than any of our healers in their dps specs, or on their alts (though he has much better gear than our dps alts also).

[Alltat]

Well, a shaman is more versatile when it comes to raid buffs, but that'll largely depend on your raid setup. We do bring some very nifty more-or-less-unique healing-related buffs, though. Ancestral Vigor gets everyone +10% max health, which is awesome on most fights, and Ancestral Fortitude reduces tank damage by 10%, though it doesn't stack with priests' Inspiration.

But go with what you like. Both classes are so very close to each other in terms of throughput, so aside from gear and raid buffs it won't really affect your raid either way.