How are shaman at level 80?

[MustacheSnowglobe]

Hi everyone. I have decided that when cataclysm comes out, I will level a goblin to 85. The thing is, I'm stuck between choosing a rogue, or a shaman. I think rogues over-all are a neat class, and I love using energy. On the other hand, shaman are also a great class. If I chose a shaman I would have to be a healer.

I just wanted your guys' opinions on which class I should choose. Would you say resto shaman are more fun than any other healing spec? Do you wish you rolled another class? Give me the pros and cons of being a resto shaman.

Thanks

[Amana]

It really depends on what you like to play.


Personally, I rolled as a shaman to heal, and became an elem-speced. Don't get me wrong: I love healing as a shaman (yet I prefer my priest for that, but well, whatever).
Resto shamans are very polyvalent healers: Chain Heal is the godly jesus-beam, and must be (that's my opinion) the best healing spell in the entire game. Though as it's very powerful you rely a lot on it.
But you have other very useful spells. Earth Shield is awesome, especially on paladins (neat, 12k crit heal), HW get more and more interesting as you get stuff, and LHW is your mandatory flash to get someone up fast. Riptide is a nice instant, yet I use it mostly for the instant heal it gives, not the HoT much.
More importantly, it's the gameplay that is interesting: after each Chain Heal or Riptide, you get Tidal Waves which gives more crit on LHW or hastes HW. This is great for 5 or 10 men raids as you have to switch a lot between all your spells. In 25 men raids, you're probably using Chain Heal a lot more.

The downside of the resto shaman is to not have an awesome button for crappy moments: with the exception of nature's swiftness for one instant cast, you spam chain heal in 25-men content for healing the raid, and you still spam chain heal if you have to bring back a lot of people up. No divine hymn, no tranquility (that will change at cata, as we get healing rain). Yet, it's a very efficient healer, as chain heal is a very efficient healing tool.

Give it a try, test for yourself and see if you like it.

[Deleted]

pro's of being a resto shaman: wide variety of spells, including earth shield (reactive healing), 3 kinds of healing waves (come cata), riptide and chain heal. lot's of utility, with totems and both offensive and defensive dispells. one of 6 specs to bring bloodlust.

cons: no real "OH SHIT" button for when your group takes a lot of damage in a short time and you need to heal them pronto (druids have tranquility, priests have that hymn thingy). bit of unclarity about the preferred role (tank- or raidhealer) a shaman should take.

[MustacheSnowglobe]

It really depends on what you like to play.


Personally, I rolled as a shaman to heal, and became an elem-speced. Don't get me wrong: I love healing as a shaman (yet I prefer my priest for that, but well, whatever).
Resto shamans are very polyvalent healers: Chain Heal is the godly jesus-beam, and must be (that's my opinion) the best healing spell in the entire game. Though as it's very powerful you rely a lot on it.
But you have other very useful spells. Earth Shield is awesome, especially on paladins (neat, 12k crit heal), HW get more and more interesting as you get stuff, and LHW is your mandatory flash to get someone up fast. Riptide is a nice instant, yet I use it mostly for the instant heal it gives, not the HoT much.
More importantly, it's the gameplay that is interesting: after each Chain Heal or Riptide, you get Tidal Waves which gives more crit on LHW or hastes HW. This is great for 5 or 10 men raids as you have to switch a lot between all your spells. In 25 men raids, you're probably using Chain Heal a lot more.

The downside of the resto shaman is to not have an awesome button for crappy moments: with the exception of nature's swiftness for one instant cast, you spam chain heal in 25-men content for healing the raid, and you still spam chain heal if you have to bring back a lot of people up. No divine hymn, no tranquility (that will change at cata, as we get healing rain). Yet, it's a very efficient healer, as chain heal is a very efficient healing tool.

Give it a try, test for yourself and see if you like it.

Thanks a lot for the reply. It seems that shaman healers main "spam" heal is chain heal, do you think that ever gets boring after awhile? And how are resto shaman mana-wise? (meaning do they go oom fast, or are they more like druids)

[Raionen]

resto is fun but after a while its boring cause ur rotation is easier than a arcane mage.

if u want to be shaman to dps = failure.
shamans have big problem with their dps.

if u want to be good in 2 spec (heal and dps) = possible but its not so easy cause gearing for one spec isnt easy and gearing for 2 spec will be pain in ass.

I rolled shammy cause of the last reason but in my opinion healing as shammy is too boring so my main was dps. But dps as enh is so fking hard when u r running that i rerolled.

[BurningStick]

resto is fun but after a while its boring cause ur rotation is easier than a arcane mage.

if u want to be shaman to dps = failure.
shamans have big problem with their dps.

if u want to be good in 2 spec (heal and dps) = possible but its not so easy cause gearing for one spec isnt easy and gearing for 2 spec will be pain in ass.

I rolled shammy cause of the last reason but in my opinion healing as shammy is too boring so my main was dps. But dps as enh is so fking hard when u running that i rerolled.

Healers does not really have any real "rotation" mate?

[Thorold]

pro's of being a resto shaman: wide variety of spells, including earth shield (reactive healing), 3 kinds of healing waves (come cata), riptide and chain heal. lot's of utility, with totems and both offensive and defensive dispells. one of 6 specs to bring bloodlust.

cons: no real "OH SHIT" button for when your group takes a lot of damage in a short time and you need to heal them pronto (druids have tranquility, priests have that hymn thingy). bit of unclarity about the preferred role (tank- or raidhealer) a shaman should take.

on my shaman, i see us as both MT & raidhealer... with ES on the tank, instant if needed etc... a resto shaman bring alot of stability to a healing team, with the lawl 500+ healing totem ticks, you get alot of passive healing, while taking the brood of the dmg with ES.

Overall a very versatile healer.

[Deleted]

Can't speak for cata but right now shamans are pretty fun but get boring easily.
If you raid more, resto has the chain heal which is the #1 spell and in most cases you'll find yourself spamming it.
If you pvp more, shaman is pretty weak in my opinion compared to other healers due to their lack of big defensive cds.

Since I already see you got a mage and a druid on your sig, I'd say don't roll a rogue since feral druids ain't that much different, in my opinion, they are pretty more fun, a bit more demanding, and if I wanted a rogue i'd stick with the feral druid. Just for the challenge, and to avoid the leveling . :-)
Also, I wouldn't either roll a shaman since resto gets old and boring pretty fast, I'd stick to druid for healing or if you wanted to try out elementa, better go with mage/boomkin for caster, and trust me enhancement can be a pain in the ass sometimes and it's not that great on pvp, while on pve it's lacking in dps in movement fights.

But it all comes down to personal taste, every class has it's unique stuff you might prefer over the things other classes have.
That said, I would play the druid if I were you. :-)

Now I do not know if this is appropriate to say in this forum, but it wouldn't hurt to try out shaman/rogue on an instant 80 realm just to see how it is and how the things work.


Edit: If you absolutely had to begin a new char, then that has to do with many things

First: Will you level alone?
If you don't, depends on if your friends will level a tank/healer.
In this case to speed leveling a bit and to avoid rolling same class as your friends, you mist decide accordingly.

Second: Will you pve or pvp mostly?
If you pvp what will your parteners play?

There are too many deciding factors which you have to account for.

And last but not least, since you'll level in cataclysm it would be wise to wait until more information about cataclysm class changes are out, because everything we know so far about cataclysm is subject to change.
Have a nice day.

[Dundebuns]

I enjoy my shaman, it's good to have the versatility of being able to swap to DPS when the guild needs it, though that should say something about how wanted we are compared to other healers.

If you end up spamming chain heal all the time, you will ultimately fail as a resto shaman. While yuo can get by like that, our real power comes from weaving in LHW's and Riptides into our lazer beams of healing. Totems are good also, though now are pretty much a 'push a button once every 5 minutes' thing, with the only intuitive thing coming from changing your loudout when you begin a raid, swap members, or come across very specific bosses. Infact, in cataclysm, be prepared to only drop healing stream in raids.

But after all that QQ, Shaman are a fun class. You'll never be bored with them for PvE. If you want to PvP, be prepared to visit the spirit healer, a lot. Even with 1.2k resilience you'll be biting the dust more often than not.

[Tenderoni]

resto is fun but after a while its boring cause ur rotation is easier than a arcane mage.

if u want to be shaman to dps = failure.
shamans have big problem with their dps.

if u want to be good in 2 spec (heal and dps) = possible but its not so easy cause gearing for one spec isnt easy and gearing for 2 spec will be pain in ass.

I rolled shammy cause of the last reason but in my opinion healing as shammy is too boring so my main was dps. But dps as enh is so fking hard when u r running that i rerolled.

Dreadful advice.
For starters, there is no rotation. Healing in any class is generally harder than playing most DPS specs, let alone an Arcane Mage.
Secondly, why is Shaman DPS a failure? Enhancement is great at higher gear levels, Elemental is generally great all round and we bring a huge amount of utility to raids and groups.

On topic:
Healing on a Resto Shaman is bliss. I use a Resto Druid, Disc Priest and Resto Shaman at 80 and my Shaman is fast becoming my favourite. Ancestral Awakening is fantastic for healing multiple people with LHWs so you don't need to JUST rely on Chain Heal. Chain Heal is affected by various different procs so it's not really a terribly boring spell to spam and I only really spam it when I know there will be large amounts of raid damage. Lesser Healing Wave will probably be your main spell until you get enough mana (and HASTE) to be able to use HW. Riptide, I mainly use for instantly healing group members. This can also proc Ancestral Awakening, which is a great help. As has already been said, Earth Shield is a fantastic reactive heal, probably my favourite of the three classes I play (Druid's Living Seed and Priest's PoM) and you have a couple of good 'OH SHI-' buttons, like instant chain heal/Healing Wave.
Also, the thing I found while gearing was that Shamans don't have many problems at lower gear levels. My mana tide is almost always on CD, I pop Tidal Force if I feel like I need to do more healing in a shorter space of time and that helps proc our mana return from Water Shield.

If you are worried about healing at lower gear levels, run heroics as Ele until you have enough badges and you're confident enough.
Good luck!

[Amana]

Thanks a lot for the reply. It seems that shaman healers main "spam" heal is chain heal, do you think that ever gets boring after awhile? And how are resto shaman mana-wise? (meaning do they go oom fast, or are they more like druids)

Boring, not really, it's not as if you were really spamming 100% of the time your chain heal, it's a bit more complicated and very situationnal (as every healer does in fact).
Mana-wise, I remember it was horrible around Ulduar, I was always trying to get as much intel and mp5 as I could. Nowadays with the mp5 buff we got at ToC and the int/MP5 stuff increase with ilvl, we're really ok, it's really rare that I pop my mana potion, yet I use my mana tide on every fight.

EDIT: Oh and as many resto shamans will state: just watching your Chain Heal everywhere is gorgeous, and worth spamming it.