Shaman health pools

[Tombstone]

You may want to note how high spirit wolves is in a shaman's priority list. They make a significant source of damage. While it may be proper to say that the are used PRIMARILY as a dps increase, I doubt that it's too far off to say that most shaman use them as such, and that it's not generally not used for health regen. I'm not saying it can't be, I'm saying it's probably not most of the time.


As far as any argument to say that a shaman is bad for not saving(which I know was never said, but if it is), it's equally as easy to say it the other way around. I personally can't think of a situation where I'd rather save wolves for health regen than dps in ICC. This is assuming that the shaman is on top of the encounter, and not having some situational event that I'm going to gimp my dps for in the 1/100th chance that it could save me from something.

I agree in the tier of its abilities it's mainly used for damage, and should be used only for Dps in a raiding situation unless a certain circumstance requires ridiculous healing. But to say that they are only good for Dps is an ignorant statement.

Sorry to derail the topic.

[lllBlackSunlll]

Shaman used to be the class with the least amount of hp on avg. but now its mage. I don't believe any changes have been made since than. I also believe this happed Mid Ulduar release.

[hybris]

The problem isn't the health pool alone, but it's the health pool with a lack of a defensive cooldown when we need it. Even enhance shamans don't really have one because good ones are popping it on cd for extra dps from rpc t10

[Endus]

Fixed and bolded for the main point of my post. Saying they are only used as a DPS boost in PvE is totally ignoring their other function, and that's life return. And using Mimirons Shock Blast, I don't think he's a Warrior but I could be wrong, as a reason to debunk what I'm saying is hilarious, nowhere did I say having wolves out will stop you from being one shot by an ability that's meant to one shot you, I'm saying it's useful for aoe damage that won't one shot you, obviously.

Yes, I didn't bother looking up the exact name of the ability. I described it and figured everyone would know what it was. And clearly I was correct, since you correctly identified the ability I meant.

Yes, wolves are always used for the DPS boost, in a raid environment. They are never used for their very minimal healing. The reason for this is simple; the splash healing you get from healers in your raid doing raid healing will far outdo what your wolves are doing. A better example; I pop my wolves on either Stinky or Precious (both, if they're up, but that's not always the case), and they both do Decimates. Within seconds of a decimate, I am at full health. This is because I toss a MWx5 Healing Wave on myself, and healers are spamming raid heals. The healing from my wolves is entirely unnoticed and unconsidered. The only place I pop wolves for their healing is when I'm soloing Attumen, and even then, they're healing slowly enough that if I take a couple hits in a row, I need to toss a healing spell.

In any raid situation where you would see their healing have an effect, either the raid is taking small enough damage that the healers can easily handle it and the effect isn't needed, or it's taking massive damage (such as the aforementioned decimates) and the healers will be topping everyone off within 4-5 seconds and their healing will see little effect. The only time I've seen the Spirit Wolves' healing have any significant effect on my health in a raid is Phase 3 of Anub'arak in ToC, since if I pop them there, they can heal me up a fair bit through the AoE. This is only because the healers are deliberately NOT healing the raid at this point and trying to get everyone as low as possible so Anub gets healed less; I'd rather NOT have the healing in this case.

I've been thinking over the WotLK raids, and I can't think of a single fight anywhere in there where I would ever want to, or have needed to, pop my wolves for their healing, ever.