Shaman vs. Paladin in Classic

[Nyel]

Curious to hear what you think and which you'd choose as they're faction specific.

[kubuntu]

bless,auras and cleanse >totems and purge

[Necromantic]

It depends on what you're going to do.

As a Paladin, you can be a good healer, especially if you have a lot of crit. Along with Blessings, they're a good class. It's too bad Ret was so abysmal in vanilla.

As a Shaman, you have some versatility and totems are always useful.

For PVP, I will pick Shaman any day of the week. There is nothing like wearing a mixture of greens and blues and 1-shotting someone in full epic gear from a double WF crit.

[kappalol]

bless,auras and cleanse >totems and purge

All< Windfurry

[BicycleMafioso]

They function differently in different areas of the game.
Which would I rather have with me in a BG if they are dps? Which would I rather have with me as dps in a raid? An elemental Shaman of course. Which healer would I rather have with me in a BG if I were a Warrior? Shaman.

Which healer would I rather have with me in a BG if I were not a Warrior? Which is the better utility and healer in end-game content? Paladin.

Which would I rather play? Impossible to say. I dabbled with both in actual Vanilla (I have not played private servers so idk how the meta today is), and both are really fun if you understand the classes and where they are wanted. I love the reckoning-healer play style in pvp as well as the elemental levelling and pvp experiences, as well as being a useful member of a party with both. In pve I would rather heal with a Shaman, because I find the play style to matter much more than raw power in terms of personal enjoyment. Enhancement, despite the pvp movies, always felt useless to me. Sorry not sorry.

I vote Shaman, but I recognise that Paladin has more power and sway in terms of PvE

[Nyel]

Yeah I think it pretty much boils down to roles:

Shaman works good as a DPS and very good as a healer - Paladin doesn't really work as DPS. I don't remember how good healing or tanking Paladins in Classic were, I only remember them rebuffing every 5 minutes lol.

[Beatman]

Blessing of Kings and Blessing of Salvation are better than everything a shaman can provide.

[Drusin]

I made a Dwarf Pally Might make a shaman too

[bloodkin]

Chain heal is one of the best aoe heals in the game, and combined with totems shaman healers are very versatile. Sure, blessings are nice but being reduced to a buffbot isn't my idea of having a fun raid night. Pallies are great healers, and ret can be decent in pvp but both ret and prot are not viable in raids. All three shaman specs can work in pvp, and ele and resto are viable for raids, as ele can easily offheal with the right talents.

[Unholyground]

Yeah I think it pretty much boils down to roles:

Shaman works good as a DPS and very good as a healer - Paladin doesn't really work as DPS. I don't remember how good healing or tanking Paladins in Classic were, I only remember them rebuffing every 5 minutes lol.

Shaman can also tank everything up until raiding extremely well, people forget this.

- - - Updated - - -

Chain heal is one of the best aoe heals in the game, and combined with totems shaman healers are very versatile. Sure, blessings are nice but being reduced to a buffbot isn't my idea of having a fun raid night. Pallies are great healers, and ret can be decent in pvp but both ret and prot are not viable in raids. All three shaman specs can work in pvp, and ele and resto are viable for raids, as ele can easily offheal with the right talents.

I will be raiding as enhancement on my shaman and people will deal

[Nyel]

Shaman can also tank everything up until raiding extremely well, people forget this.

I know that Shamans can tank 5 mans but they're missing several aspects from true tank specs - I know that they even have talents and skills dedicated to that yet Blizzard never fully implemented that role for Shamans. I doubt they can successfully tank raids though. They were used as off tanks afaik but even then you could have used a Paladin or Warrior/Druid instead.

[Velerios]

PvE-Paladin
PvP-Shaman

[HordeFanboy]

Both are trash but at least shaman has wf totem

[Unholyground]

I know that Shamans can tank 5 mans but they're missing several aspects from true tank specs - I know that they even have talents and skills dedicated to that yet Blizzard never fully implemented that role for Shamans. I doubt they can successfully tank raids though. They were used as off tanks afaik but even then you could have used a Paladin or Warrior/Druid instead.

The only tank that can defense cap is Warrior, so all the other tanks are off-tanks anyways, I would argue that Shaman are the best at single target off-tanking in a lot of cases and can grab aggro easier than Paladin and Druids with Earth Shock/Rockbiter. It is just about how you play the class, and back in the day no one knew what they were doing half of the time. On top of that private servers were inaccurate so all the builds made from them are moot now.

[TriHard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDZzrikYqTM

Title reminds me of this classic

[Thage]

Yeah I think it pretty much boils down to roles:

Shaman works good as a DPS and very good as a healer - Paladin doesn't really work as DPS. I don't remember how good healing or tanking Paladins in Classic were, I only remember them rebuffing every 5 minutes lol.

Paladins are ludicrously good healers thanks to their mana-efficient heals and their talent that makes spell crits refund mana. You'll probably see at least one on dedicated tank heals and buffing left to other paladins in the raid, dedicated to the job. Tanking, paladins are more than sufficient for 5-man content, and especially shine in Stratholme/Scholomance.

[Theoris]

Shaman, of course. They got Bloodlust!

Seriously though, never played shaman back in Vanilla and only barely got a paladin to level 12 before TBC hit so I'll be checking out both. I like the theme of paladins better, but I'm more curious about shamans, what with their totems' different utilities (never been good at keeping track of buffs, anyway; party buffs less so).

[Ashgaan]

Shaman can also tank everything up until raiding extremely well, people forget this.

- - - Updated - - -

I will be raiding as enhancement on my shaman and people will deal

Cute, but no. Sure they can tank, but so does a Blueberry, or a hunter's pet, or a warlock, or a priest or any other class.
If your dps in the dungeon is auto/attacking or wanding while watching movies, then yes a shaman can hold aggro, if they press buttons, especially in AoE, that shaman won't hold shit.

They function differently in different areas of the game.
Which would I rather have with me in a BG if they are dps? Which would I rather have with me as dps in a raid? An elemental Shaman of course. Which healer would I rather have with me in a BG if I were a Warrior? Shaman.

Which healer would I rather have with me in a BG if I were not a Warrior? Which is the better utility and healer in end-game content? Paladin.

Which would I rather play? Impossible to say. I dabbled with both in actual Vanilla (I have not played private servers so idk how the meta today is), and both are really fun if you understand the classes and where they are wanted. I love the reckoning-healer play style in pvp as well as the elemental levelling and pvp experiences, as well as being a useful member of a party with both. In pve I would rather heal with a Shaman, because I find the play style to matter much more than raw power in terms of personal enjoyment. Enhancement, despite the pvp movies, always felt useless to me. Sorry not sorry.

I vote Shaman, but I recognise that Paladin has more power and sway in terms of PvE

Wrong on almost all points.

Which would I rather have with me in a BG if they are dps? - Slightly shaman favorite due to Ret being not so great, but if that Ret is very good, i will want them due to utility.
Which would I rather have with me as dps in a raid? - Doesn't matter, they both are gimmick specs in pve
Which healer would I rather have with me in a BG if I were a Warrior? Paladin without a doubt, you think that the WF totem is helping you, but unless you reach your target it won't do shit for you. Meanwhile the Paladin has cleanse, all the blessings, extremely powerful healing, bubble, and so on.
Which healer would I rather have with me in a BG if I were not a Warrior? still Paladin, but shaman is a good choice as well, especially the elemental spec so we can oneshot someone from time to time.
Which is the better utility and healer in end-game content? Paladin without a doubt.

But then again, it's your preference i guess, i'm speaking from an efficiency and performance p.o.v.

[Exkrementor]

Blessing of Kings and Blessing of Salvation are better than everything a shaman can provide.

Windfury is pretty good but u cant really use it because you do too much threat as dps. So Salvation is the best buff ingame.

[Unholyground]

Cute, but no. Sure they can tank, but so does a Blueberry, or a hunter's pet, or a warlock, or a priest or any other class.
If your dps in the dungeon is auto/attacking or wanding while watching movies, then yes a shaman can hold aggro, if they press buttons, especially in AoE, that shaman won't hold shit.

I was holding aggro against a rogue, warrior and priest 3 levels higher easily, it isn't hard, stop being a jerkface Shaman tanking is viable until raids and I will be doing it and getting into plenty of groups like I did on the stress test.

People just have to go a bit slower just like with any of the other non warrior tanks, if you don't like it don't play on my server or with me.