WoW Arena 4 Shamans...resto druid? resto Sham? Preist?

[TMNT]

What would be the ideal healer for a 4 shaman arena? I would like some imput from ellay too :). I was thinking a druid would be nice. thoughts?

[Diamndzngunz]

I was thinking of a healing shaman. Seem OP to me.

[TMNT]

Why another sham? Druid toss hots and goes bear. That sounds OP

[Skuggomann]

Paladin for kings, fast heals and bubble?

[TMNT]

I play a 70 pally, to easy to get locked down. Fast heals? try the slowest in the game. All Direct cast heals. Druid can cast hots and los quick

[TMNT]

Very easy to lock down though. Two fears and hes out.

[Remote]

I am interested in this too. I have a very well geared Disc/Holy priest on my team, but he gets CCed to easily.
I think the paladin would have the advantage there. If the pally can bubble and keep me up for those 10 seconds (or whatever it is), the fight may not last too terribly much longer than that. Or at least by that time two members of the opposing team are down.
Obviously, Ellay's input would be key, here. =)

[unit187]

why would paladin get locked down? improved concentration aura against pummel and stuff and 4 grounding totems in right time - no counterspell/earth shock

[Ellay]

Well there is two major sides to this piece, the best type of healer for Elemental Shamans and skill plays a major role as well. I've chugged through probably 20 different healers for Arenas trying to find the best fit for me.

I would say the weakest healer is sadly the Priest. They have nice AoE heals, a good hot and nice flash heals but they are super squishy, and I would have to say the worst mana efficiency out of all the healers to choose from.

At one point I felt Druids were the weakest class for me, but my mind soon changed when my Druid friend Drwurm and me pulled a 41-2 stomping session going from 1782 rating to 2006 this week. We just foundour synergy and some of the best tools they have come in the form of him stealthing and pouncing a target, locking it down in place long enough for me to take out. Past that they can throw out an NS heal and then another quick burst heal.. but the name escapes me at the moment. Being able to kite and avoid damage all together it really depends on the skill level of the druid you have.

Shamans are awesome, the extra grounding totem, quick NS heals - nice chunky Chain heals combined with a Mana Tide when things get drawn out is a huge plus, their mana efficiency isn't that amazing but the Mana Tide helps. I went 15-0 this week with the one in my video Bubbajiggles, he is flat out an awesome player through his "Self Awareness" which means he knows everything that everyone is doing on the battlefield helps immensely.

Last but definitely not least is Paladins, the BoP on you is clutch if they have a ton of melee, pretty much guarentees a victory. Bubble is huge against 4 DPS teams so they can throw out huge heals without being bothered for the initial burst fest, and their mana efficiency is insane. If the opposing team has a ton of casters though you may be in trouble due to grounding totems getting eaten up, allowing easy access to lock down your healer.

The most important aspect though is that your healer is rarely ever targeted first, most of the Paladins I play with switch into almost full PvE gear so their heals land harder. The determining factor though inevitably will depend greatly on your playstyle and how skilled your healer is.

If I had to sum up it would be Priests are the weakest, and Druids/Shamans/Paladins are the best options, each one has it's pros and cons so not one will be the best, player skill will make the deciding factor for you.

[Xzin]

41-2 is just sick, you know that right?

Agree that priests are weakest in arena (which is, in my opinion, dumb).

I could see a druid in your 4 boxing strat... locking down targets for the kill..... ugh your 2nd player helps so much. No way you could do this with all 5.

Keep it up :)

[LykkeLiten]

Agree that priests are weakest in arena (which is, in my opinion, dumb).


Disc Priests with their bubble are pretty neat right now.

[Ellay]

Yes Disc Priests are awesome but they are used as a support class and not a main healer. Their focus is to throw mini heals / pain supression / psychic scream and most importantly Mana Burn.

[simpletom]

Yes Disc Priests are awesome but they are used as a support class and not a main healer. Their focus is to throw mini heals / pain supression / psychic scream and most importantly Mana Burn.

yep what Ellay said, ive never seen a video with a disp priest main healing, they seem to multi role plenty. Most of the time the main healer is a paladin form the 5v5 videos ive seen.

Resto shaman have earthshield which is removed in one dispell, but this is due to be sorted out, i read somewhere that its going to be on a 30 second cooldown, and immune to dispell effects, or it takes away 2 charges at a time or somthing like that. So i expect shaman to be pretty dam good healers in arena then.

Someone mensioned that druids have hots which take alittle time to build up, well yes that and they have swiftmend too, so you could have your druid healer hideing away, pop up to give some really nice heals, swap to bear form if they get focused, feral charge at a caster, which stops casting for 4 seconds. Druids are awsome. Best of all they dont even need to go full resto spec to do a good job healing.

paladins who have improved concentration aura are going to be a god send to most boxing teams 55% spell cast interupt reduction, and 30% reduction on silence effects, a smart paladin who uses rank 1 blessing of sacrafice (to stop being sheeped), and swaps blessings, who stuns and moves about is pretty awsome, top poster mensioned they have slowest heals(are you healing with the mana hungry pve heals?), well 1.5 seconds is the same as shamans lesser healing wave and priests flash heal, the difference is that they also get stacks more chance to crit, and with your crit totems boosting heals, also makeing their heals far more mana friendly. they should just be able to spam heals.

And they can also put judgements up to slow peoples movement speed which is the only momement impareing effect druids cant shift to remove (or so it was when i was playing a paladin). And your paladin takes mana form your shamans heals so if your paladin is getting mana burned just make a macro, to target heal your paladin witha couple lesser healing waves, will help him out.

in my opinion paladin is the way to go for a 4shaman team, they just go hand in hand so nicely on compliments the other, and not a holy pve spec'd paladin, a proper pvp spec'd paladin who knows how to arena.

[Ellay]

Druids have the fastest burst heals in the game.

Their Nature Swiftness provides them a huge instant cast heal, combined with using Swiftmend consuming any HoT into a blast of HP all at once.

That right there is pretty much what I need to stay alive against some 4 DPS teams.