Why do many of the top guilds have a high priority on recruiting elemental shaman?

[MSioni]

Ranged AOE as well as Healing Offset; Both of which are really strong right now.

Basically this, and even if it wasn't so strong its still a good combo.

[pkm]

Balance/resto druid does it better than shaman I believe. Balance isn't handicapped with spread AoE and has decent single target burst.

[Tehterokkar]

Balance/resto druid does it better than shaman I believe. Balance isn't handicapped with spread AoE and has decent single target burst.

Except Resto Druids are shit.

Shamans are the best raid healers and have the most CDs: 2x SLT, Ascendance, HTT and Primal Elementalist(if specced for). Resto Druids have Tranq and Ironbark. HTT by itself is far more useful than Tranq because you can use HTT while moving, or you can use HTT and cast other stuff(Chain Heal). Plus Shamans still have their own Aspect of the Fox in 6.2(which lasts way longer than Fox anyway), where Resto Druids are always forced to sit still for tranq.

In the world we live in, raid CDs are extremely valuable, a single Shaman can cover almost a single encounters worth of CD usage alone. An example is Flamebender Firestorms, we used CDs of 2-3 healers on first one, and then save the CDs of our Shaman for the 2nd one(though these days we only get 1 Firestorm anyway).

[Deleted]

Except Resto Druids are shit.

Shamans are the best raid healers and have the most CDs: 2x SLT, Ascendance, HTT and Primal Elementalist(if specced for). Resto Druids have Tranq and Ironbark. HTT by itself is far more useful than Tranq because you can use HTT while moving, or you can use HTT and cast other stuff(Chain Heal). Plus Shamans still have their own Aspect of the Fox in 6.2(which lasts way longer than Fox anyway), where Resto Druids are always forced to sit still for tranq.

In the world we live in, raid CDs are extremely valuable, a single Shaman can cover almost a single encounters worth of CD usage alone. An example is Flamebender Firestorms, we used CDs of 2-3 healers on first one, and then save the CDs of our Shaman for the 2nd one(though these days we only get 1 Firestorm anyway).

Anyway, Balance >> Elemental atm.

[Marolen]

The top players are usually the most active ones, sometimes covering every class (look at their RL for example.)

You mean Sco, who makes everyone switch classes to optimal classes except for himself?

[Deleted]

You mean Sco, who makes everyone switch classes to optimal classes except for himself?

Sco wasnt Methods RL in WoD, afaik. It was this mage who "supported" the guild with his balance druids. Also look at Riggnaros or whatever his name was, he had every tank geared.