Shaman/Shaman vs Warlock/Priest

[Ohitekah]

I need some pushing to decide which of these two combos to level to 85.

I am mostly interested in soloing non heroic content, do 2v2 and do some BGs. I have leveled a warlock/priest to 60, never a shaman. I as well like to contribute in guild PvE as a single too.

warlock/spriest seem to be a powerful and interesting combo, yet shaman seem to be a tad boring (tried one to level 13).

Can anyone give me some info about how both combos are at endgame. Ease of handling, how powerful especially in PvP, fun factor.

Thanks a bunch and have a great weekend!

O.

[zenga]

PVE:

As an Elemental shaman in the pve end game, it's pretty hard to be competitive. It requires quite some experience and perfect understanding of the spec as opposed to other classes that are way more forgiving and still top meters. The rotation, as far as there is one, is very dynamic and you have to make choices all the time; which is a thing that I find fun, not everyone feels the same. I can see why you find it boring at lower levels when you only have a fraction of your abilities and required haste.

Back in ICC the quote: elemental is easy to play but hard to master is no longer true in my opinion. If you don't know what you are doing or make an error and your dps gets gimped a lot.

Destruction locks and shadow priests are topping dps meters at the moment. Shadow priest is one of those specs that I find really forgiving as I play it as an alt, though they are hard to master.

PVP

Elemental shaman is the spec that is in a terrible pvp state. There are so many things not working at the moment that it's unreal that blizz keeps changing other specs while they haven't made a single comment on elemental pvp. On top of that we got nerfed a lot in the latest patch (tremor totem change, purge, hex reduction, bloodlust being removed from arena). While those changes might have been necessary for other specs, it affects ele a lot. Any melee will sit on you and basically you have no way to get rid of them. You'll have to use your best offensive abilities (spiritwalkers grace & elemental mastery) for defensive matters. On top of that bloody warriors and rogues have more selfhealing we do. And haste is too low at the moment to get any casts off. Not to mention that many classes can lock us out completely cause of our nature school. There is a spec that works though (speccing deep into resto tree). I expect that ele will pickup as our haste /mastery will increase (i use for instance a pve trinket for pvp with a 2k mastery proc + the tol barad resistance one.

2x ele in bg is very good, 2x ele in arena is ok for your 5 weekly wins, but anything besides that ain't gonna happen when you face good players.

I don't know how boxable lock / priests are, but the combo works when solo played.

[Kekkerer]

For soloing pve content I'd strongly suggest going double paladin.

I've got a team of 4x demo lock + disc priest, they are immensely fun to play, a lot more fun than 5 shamans. Not sure how well they will do in BGs though, still mid 60s. Purely from a theory-crafting perspective a lock and a shadow priest have far more synergy than 2 shamans.

[Fat Tire]

PVP

Elemental shaman is the spec that is in a terrible pvp state. There are so many things not working at the moment that it's unreal that blizz keeps changing other specs while they haven't made a single comment on elemental pvp.

T1 classes always get the most changes/fixes. Enh shaman(were) and to a greater extent resto shamans are doing quite well.

Sad part is I only foresee them buffing dmg to ele, then we will just repeat the cycle in a few months. Buff/nerf/buff/nerf

Same could be said about Boomkin/SP/Feral/Ret or any hybrid dps.

[Ohitekah]

zenga: wow, thanks a bunch for your lengthy informative reply. I play WoW now for the better part of 4 years and always when I come back to look at shaman it seems that they do not have gotten any love from the devs. I remember the hot discussions during the start of BC. That is why I am still so hesitant to touch shamans.

kekkerer: I have a paladin/paladin team and they definitely rock. But I have played them for a while and was thinking to try something new. The warlock/spriest team is pretty awesome, as you said, there is a lot of synergy, yet the casting times and cool down not always sync. Yet they are a lot of fun to play. I guess with the insight statement from zenga i will go with this warlock/sspriest combo. Thanks for your input.

fat tire: yes, i have to agree. my favorite class is the feral druid, but at this moment in time it is just no more fun to play. this whole nerf of the core capability escape roots just destroyed this fun class. Thanks for your input.

O.

[zenga]

T1 classes always get the most changes/fixes. Enh shaman(were) and to a greater extent resto shamans are doing quite well.

Sad part is I only foresee them buffing dmg to ele, then we will just repeat the cycle in a few months. Buff/nerf/buff/nerf

Same could be said about Boomkin/SP/Feral/Ret or any hybrid dps.

tbh if they going to buff dmg to ele than we're going to be OP in a bit cause of the mastery & haste that we'll get with the next tear. The main problem is lightning bolt and being locked out of our nature school + a defensive CD. My suggested fixes are pretty easy:

- put spiritwalker's grace into feedback talent, together with elemental mastery (i.e. per cast of lb / cl your remaining cd gets reduced by 1-2-3 seconds).
- bring back ancestral something, 30% (?) reduced dmg taken while feared, stunned, silenced
- reduce the innate cast time of lightning bolt by 10% (talented), which will both work for pve & pvp, when you dare to cast it now you risk getting locked out of 75% of your abilities while it takes 1.8s and hits for < 10k on geared pvp'rs. 10% might sound not enough, but I've the 4 set pve bonus which reduces 10% lb cast time and it's such a big difference ...

That 'd fix way more than inventing new abilities/mechanics all the time and would prevent having to change damage coefficients. If rng gods are with you shaman has some incredible burst no other class has.

GL with the priest / lock combo. If it was me I'd go ele / priest btw ;)