Shaman or Priest?

[Ilion Sturmlied]

Hi...

my current "main team" is 1x Paladin, 3x Hunters and 1x Priest.

But latley I'm more and more thinking about adding a Resto Shaman instead of the Priest... but I'm not sure...

Anyone got some advice?

[Eteocles]

Resto Pros: Mana Tide Totem, Lesser Healing Wave is fast and relatively powerful, talents can speed up plain Healing Wave, buff totems to give pala Windfury or Hunters Grace of Air, Fire ele for dps help and Earth ele for tank help
Resto Cons: Totems inflexible, re-cast every move, short-timed/extra burden on an already complicated multi-box healer, Mail itemization is there for healing but not as commonly as cloth is, and Priest spirit regen if done right can sometimes outweigh mana spring/tide, Tranquil Air would be detrimental to the Paladin despite helping shaman/hunters

Priest Pros: PW:Shield, aoe fear for emergencies, FADE, FORT, if alliance = Draenei Priest Racial that gives the entire party some Mana back every few mins(And Pala Tanks need their mana), and solidly-powerful heals, can MC if the right opportunity presents itself(and you can save his high-aggro ass post-MC)
Priest Cons: Squishier, requires a little more micro/hotkeys than a shaman might; MC generates a fuckload of hate in general and will take some work by the pala to regain if done

Tough choice really...I think I'd lean more towards the Priest though, if geared right their mana can last forever or not even have to drink in some cases(my old guild leader had insane regen, never had to drink in any lv70 instance, had tons more mana/lasted longer before oom than other priests/healers in raids; since your tank is a Pala, pw:shield is awesome and doesn't ragestarve him, and fearing mobs doesn't reduce his rage-income. Consider a holy pala though...

Pala Pros: Extra bubble/DI, extra blessing, extra aura, extra LoH, still fairly mana efficient like the shaman, can wear plate and there's a fair amount of pala plate out there, free lv40 mount lol, extra Judgement if you can manage it, and an extra single target 6sec stun(Blessing of Wisdom AND Light, anyone?)
Pala Cons: Likely to go oom on longer fights, flash of light not always that hot(Though Blessing of Light helps that), pretty much just a healer with little in the way of CCs or other assistance

[Otlecs]

The biggest thing I miss when I run without a Priest is instant Circle of Healing. Everything else is "nice to have", but I really, sorely, miss that.

[donfran]

Eteocles said most of it.

Just want to add later on Priests get Prayer of Mending. It bounces everytime someone takes damage. Being in a 3hunter party/warrior/priest , I've seen the 3 hunters (all BM) use their pets to offtank 1 mob each (3 CC), and with renews, mend pet, and an insane! amount of PoM bouncing around Keep them up in most heroic elites. (PoM is dirt cheap mana) . CoH aoe healing FTW

You may want to consider that :P

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Note that pets do not benefit from totems like windfury or flametongue. I can't vouch for whether they'd benefit from stat totems as it's been a couple years since I played mine.

[Dezeral]

Resto Cons: ...Mail itemization is there for healing but not as commonly as cloth is, and Priest spirit regen if done right can sometimes outweigh mana spring/tide...

This is not a con at all. A shaman has access to cloth, leather, and mail healing gear where a priest only has access to cloth healing gear. The only caveat to that is that it obviously can't be class specific cloth or leather. This is actually a pro for shaman and a con for priest.

[Eteocles]

Well shamen don't have that many aggro drop options besides dying and using their ankh lol, but having mail heal gear, however little there is of it that is pure heal, would give them the armor to take another hit or two so the tank has time to grab it back off

And I'd forgotten about the priest-specific heals like their AoE heals and Prayer of Mending...oh my god Prayer of Mending is an absolute god-send and healgasm, best fucking heal ever introduced, my guild leader dwarf priest has saved my ass with it so many times as a boomkin offtank in heroics and raids lol

[sanix]

I've never played a resto shaman but my raiding toon is a holy priest so i'm totally biased but for me (I have played holy pally and resto druid) holy Priests are the most fun healer in the game.
They are also extremely efficient (even before the spirit buff) and the PMC set is amazing. They have very powerfull heals in general and master in aoe healing.
If I were you, I'd stick with the priest, probably easier to manage (1 key for direct heal, 1 key for aoe heal, and bind pom to every attack key you use) in a multiboxing context.

[Stealthy]

[quote='Dezeral',index.php?page=Thread&postID=42540 #post42540]



[quote='Eteocles',index.php?page=Thread&postID=4208 1#post42081]
Resto Cons: ...Mail itemization is there for healing but not as commonly as cloth is, and Priest spirit regen if done right can sometimes outweigh mana spring/tide...[/quote]

This is not a con at all. A shaman has access to cloth, leather, and mail healing gear where a priest only has access to cloth healing gear. The only caveat to that is that it obviously can't be class specific cloth or leather. This is actually a pro for shaman and a con for priest.[/quote]
While it's true that shamans can use cloth & leather, remember they don't get the same benfits from spirit that other classes get. Here's the table:

Class === Mana gained per tick === Mana per 5 sec per spirit

[url='http://www.wowwiki.com/Image:IconLarge_Druid.gif'][/url] Druid (Caster Form) === Spirit/4.5 + 15 === 5/9 (0.555)

Druid (Feral Form) === Spirit/5 + 15 === 1/2 (0.5)

Hunter === Spirit/5 + 15 === 1/2

Mage === Spirit/4 + 12.5 === 5/8 (0.625)

Paladin === Spirit/5 + 15 === 1/2

Priest === Spirit/4 + 12.5 === 5/8

Shaman === Spirit/5 + 15 === 1/2

Warlock === Spirit/5 + 15 === 1/2

[Djarid]

If you are undecided based on their healing ability then you have to look at the secondary contribution offered by each class.

The totems the Shaman can drop are a huge boon to the group and bloodlust will up your hunters damage output. Earth shield is also useful on the tank as the healing from it's proc is aggro on the tank not the healer. Healing stream has limited use and mana spring / mana tide are far less beneficial due to your class makeup. SoE for AP/block, GoA for dodge/crit or WF for additional strikes (with the hunters I would recommend GoA). But perhaps the biggest utility a Shaman will bring is self rez!

The priest has PW:Shield and Stamina buff and dispel magic (Still no curse removal though) No great synergy with the paladin and hunters

I am biased as Shaman are my favourite class but it would definately be my choice, much better utility