Shaman or Priest?

[Ðeceased]

As Djarid pointed out already Earth shield is a very useful tool.. The agro gain on a paladin tank through it is nuts, depending on the amount of +healing you have ofc. easy way to calculate ur threat boost would be to divide the amount healed per proc (lets assume 1k hp for a second) by the time between each proc (is the CD set at 6 seconds? I'm not too sure) so ur tps on each mob would increase by 1000/6 = 167
please insert correct values in there as i haven't a clue how much it actually ticks for.
as for other benefits with the huge dps buffs available I'd say they make up for any shortcomings.

Edit: pity it's not a 4 shaman team tho :P grounding totem > dispel :P mostly

[Nixi]

I was running a pally healer and then tried to make my shaman heal when I was having difficulties dealing with the lack of pally AOE heal. Even with chain heal, the shaman is not a "hit one button and solve all your healing problems" kind of healer where a priest has that capability with Prayer of Healing. I run a lock in my group and she's just screaming at me to switch my priest from holy to shadow and let the shaman heal, but I'm just not having it. Ever since I leveled a priest to tuck inside the group and ditch my warrior tank and move the pally from healer to main, it's been easy street. Running a multi-diciplinary team is hard enough without adding more micro management.

Both healers are great, but think of it this way: The shaman will add micro-management, all that utility doesn't come without having to include a multitude of new buttons to push. The priest will reduce micro management. All the priests benefites are more or less buff and forget. I love my shaman, but it's hard to take him outta his 'spam lightning bolt' dps role that he's so good at.

[Nixi]

Just thought of something: Does Prayer of Healing with the priest hit pets too?

I run a lock in my group, but I have demonic sacrifice so I'm always sacking my imp for spell dmg. I've never checked to see if Prayer of Healing hit pets, if it does i'd take the priest as a no-brainer with 3 hunters. When you start using pets to offtank a shaman/pally isn't going to heal 8 targets effectively.

[Otlecs]

>Just thought of something: Does Prayer of Healing with the priest hit pets too?

Yes, it does. Likewise with Circle of Healing and Holy Nova. You can also use Prayer of Mending on pets.