4th Shaman or sub him out for a Boomkin or a Lock

[blbjtb]

Main Tank is a pally
rest of the team is
2 Elemental
1 Resto

Add in the 4th Shaman OR
go with the Boomchicken
or The Lock

Which one provides the biggest boost to the group and why?

Thanks in advance!!!

[Multibocks]

Lock, easier to /click sequence and they provide the 13% damage buff. Not to mention they do great dps. Boomkins suck, too much micro management.

[blbjtb]

As I look more @ the Boomkin spells I think your right... The Eclipse Procs seem like they would be a total nightmare. But the Boomkins Debuffs seem kind of appealing extra Hit the debuff. Their buffs seem better than just pure hps as well.

[Jubber]

healthstones, soulstones, easy macro setup. More health for the group. Water breathing. Summons. Fire and forget.. Lock FTW.

[Ualaa]

Both the lock and druid offer you the 13% spell power boost.
In the locks case, this is from Curse of the Elements, which works for any spec.
In the druids case, this is from Earth and Moon, which is deep Balance.

For the druid to do comparable DPS to shammies, you'll need to manage Eclipse procs.
The druid also brings, Mark of the Wild, Cyclone, Curse removal, Battle Rez, Innervate, Tranquility, etc.
Most of their unique features you already have; shammies can heal/rez, knockback etc.

The warlock does comparable DPS to shammies, without the need to manage procs.
They add, a pet buff, Health Stones, Soul Stone, AoE/Single Fear, See Invis, and Summons.
You already have Water Breathing.

The druid adds more in incidentals then the lock, but the lock requires much less attention.

I would personally go with 1x Warlock (Destruction) + 3x Shaman (Elemental) + 1x Paladin (Prot).
3x Elemental can handle heals for all 5-man content, you don't need Resto at all.
Or you could dual spec one Elemental/Resto, if your team is very undergeared for your content.

[blbjtb]

Looks like im gonna have to level a lock now hehe poor poor Winde I have a feeling shes gonna get the boot!!!!!

[outdrsyguy1]

i've never used a lock, but i have used boomkin/resto. if you don't need a dedicated healer def go warlock, my boomkin dps sucks and locks look pretty good. I personally use the dedicated healer on some fights still just to make it easier so i swap talent specs a couple times during the clear which is nice with boomkin, you could also do that with shammy though so your choice.

[Ualaa]

You're free to move your shammy to another team.
Elemental adds a ton to casters.
And Enhancement does similar things for melee.

That is assuming you have another team.
The boost could be equally large each way.

[Clone]

I went with boomkin and Ive been mostly dissapointed. If I had the choice again Id go for warlock. My boomkin is my main and he is fully equipped in ilvl 245 gear. His dps is only just on par with my shamans (all ilvl 232) on bosses but behind on trash. All chars do 6-7k dps on target dummy but Im fairly sure that a lock in ilvl 232 gear would do the same

[J6mpsikas]

i have the low dps problem with my boomkin to. Its a lot lower then on shamans even i hold hes gear higher then others.

For now i am thinking to make a new team to Horde side in Grim with new team. The problem is that hordes have only bloodelf paladin, and i dont like them :o. I could pick a druid tank this time or go with 5 shamans till the deathknight lvl and replace one shaman for DK tank. Or maybe should i make 3 ele shaman+ 1 lock + pala tank (and accept that horde has only bloodelf pala :( ).

Anyway have not decided yet, il get my ally team to 70, then i´l wait till i have funds for wotlk upgrade.

[blbjtb]

Heh man the low dps of the Boomkin is such a huge turn off.... All other things being equal I would have much rather gone with the boomkin over the lock at least in my case... The boomkin already had his epic flight he is 80 has ok gear the list goes on of why I would have rather had the boomkin over the lock... Soulstones mean little to nothing to be simply because I hardly ever die and ive got 3 other characters that can ankah and get back to what i was doing. I probably wouldnt ever use a healthstone. Summons are basically worthless to me simply because well I just port around everywhere I need to go. The way im looking at it right now is the druid has alot going for him imho simply due to the fact that its 80 has a 4k Gearscore (although it takes less than a week to get full T9 for my chracters) A bit more versitile. The only downside that Im really seeing is having to manage the eclipse procs but Im thinking if I just use the spam macro for the shamen in both buttons 1 and 2 then this problem should fix it self in my mind.

In the long run I MAY still end up doing the warlock I mean ive got time... My thing is I only have the one team so that being said sadly I cant mix and match everyone so I may just end up rotating people out for what i see fit... Time will tell and im going to keep posting my findings.

BTW just how low are we talking here? I thinking if I can manage the procs then I SHOULD be ok.. (this could be me just trying to convince myself time will tell)

[Clone]

You will be fine with the boomkin dont get me wrong. I have all 5 man content easily on farm. Its just that I am a bit of a lover of min/maxing my characters and it bothers me that I may get an extra 1-2k dps from a warlock and extra HP on my tank.

Combat res is nice to have sometimes and innervate is also really nice. I often find myself innervating my pala tank as he never seems to take damage anymore. I dont find managing the eclipse procs a problem as it comes as second nature to me with the boomkin being my main raiding character. I do what you said and have the click macro on 1 and 2 for my shamans and have a click macro on druid also with key 1 being wrath and key 2 starfire.

[blbjtb]

So heres my question if on tanking on the Pally how do i monitor the eclipse procs on my Moonkin? Is there a good way to do this? im sure theres a mod out there that obviously alerts you when it procs but how can I get that information over to the pally?

I like the whole min maxing thing to and while I agree I would see another 1-2k dps When your taking bosses down in 20-40 seconds max does the little extra really make a difference? Time will tell im sure.

[Fizzler]

MSBT is a handy mod for watching procs although I here something was broken during the last patch in regards to this. I believe Jamba will also announce procs but I have not set this up nothing have a moonkin myself.

[Kicksome]

I know this wasn't one of your options but, you could keep 4 shaman and use a DK tank - it will give you the 13% increase in shaman damage.

[Ualaa]

With the latest patch, a warlock has lost a bit of damage too.

They used to go Immolate + Conflagrate = dead trash, with others casting too.
Now that Conflagrate has lost some of its damage (has become a DoT component, instead of all at once), and the mob is dead before the dot ticks, they don't deal as much DPS on trash.

Not that trash DPS really matters, as you're killing them all extremely quickly.

For a boomkin, if you manage Eclipse accurately, you should have comparable dps to shammies. Take a look at WWS or wowraid reports. The boomkins and elementals, do comparable dps at similar levels of gear. It's just the elementals spam a single button to do it, while the boomkin needs to manage eclipse for similar dps.

For trash dps, which doesn't really count, it will depend on the mob; very low health mobs, will die to a Wrath hit before the Lightning Bolt hits, which will show much higher boomkin dps then shammy. But if LB kills trash before the 2nd Wrath, the DPS will be higher for the shammies.

I think the boomkin brings more to the team, but the warlock does not require anything other then mindless one button (click) spam, which makes them a superior choice for most teams.

[Fursphere]

I know this wasn't one of your options but, you could keep 4 shaman and use a DK tank - it will give you the 13% increase in shaman damage.

The only caveat to this is you have to be an Unholy Tank - which isn't the optimal DK tank spec.

[Fursphere]

Now that Conflagrate has lost some of its damage (has become a DoT component, instead of all at once), and the mob is dead before the dot ticks, they don't deal as much DPS on trash.

If you want DPS on trash mobs, just spam Seed of Corruption (SoC). You can get big DPS this way (and go through mana like water!).

For bosses, my warlock is doing great dps. I'm happy I dropped the boomkin and the stupid eclipse proc. (I miss the utility of the boomkin, but I'll get over it - technically I could still use her, I just *HATE* maganging that stupid proc).