R Shaman or R Druid

[Ellay]

I love coming in the next day and seeing genuine thoughtful replies. Thank you everyone I'm going to stick it out with the R Shaman. I'll need to figure out PvP a little more but for PvE the shaman is the clear winner at this point.

[Ellay]

Also from my limited Heroic / Dungeon running a Blood DK seems to tank much better than a Guardian Druid in terms of damage taken for amount healed. As a fresh 90 I was able to do the Arena of Annihilation scenario and required no heals for the entire fight. My second run through I just did 1 tank and 2 dps for a faster finish.

[Ellay]

Did all of Temple of Jade Serpent with 0 issues using a Resto Shaman, that area was actually extremely easy.. I thought the boss was going to be a problem but if you just stay on top of dispels it's a very easy tank and spank. No one went below 75% hp.

Gate of the Setting Sun was a bit of a learning curve on the bosses. I like to just try and go into a boss for the first time and dodge what look like bad things and see how I do, that doesn't really work too well here. After actually reading the fights, I got them all down. The last boss took an extra made macro but went down pretty easy after that.

With that said, Resto Shaman feels like a great choice and continually modifying the layout to further improve.

*These are all Heroic dungeons.*

[Ualaa]

I've found stacking Resto Druids to be very strong.
But running a solo felt weak, because of the ramp up time on the HOTs.

I've never had an issue with a Resto Shaman as my heals.
Stacking Resto Shaman will likely be strong too.

You're asking for a solo healer, not stacking several of either... so between the two, I'd go with the Shaman.
Personally, with the DKs I'd take a Paladin over either... more for their PvP potential, since they have enough heals for the PvE end of it.

[Ellay]

Paladins are strong but Shamans are more offensive, you gain a Heroism and a Stormlash totem for DPS. For defensive nothing really beats Spirit Link totem.

[Ravish]

Good to see you are having some success in heroics Ellay, I'm building up a DK/Shaman team and will be looking to do heroics in the not too distant future.

Just out of interest, what gear level is your team at when you started these?

[Ellay]

Good to see you are having some success in heroics Ellay, I'm building up a DK/Shaman team and will be looking to do heroics in the not too distant future.

Just out of interest, what gear level is your team at when you started these?

They were fresh level 90's. They still are as I haven't gotten much gear yet. I can't decide what I exactly want and the dilemma is killing me.

Overall I am swirling around the idea of 1 Druid, 4 shaman, 4 dk and somehow transforming it into an amazing 5 man pve and pvp team. Trying to decide ultimately what would work best. Mixing 2 sham and 2 dk seems like the easiest choice but they seem to perform better when stacked.

I've done a lot of training dummy testing and for pve purposes the shaman and dk have equal gear. I can get the dk's to a sustained 40k dps and the same applies for the shaman as well. The problem though is the shaman takes about 10-15 seconds to ramp up, where the dk's more or less blow their abilities in the beginning and taper off.

any combo will work great for pve. I love all of the passive healing you get from the shamans. While the dk's have stronger aoe's (shaman can aoe too but it's not as effective)

for pvp nothing beats the fear and snare breaks shaman have up all the time. While the dk's can grip anyone to them and have nice anytime frontal burst but lack a supreme burst and a secondary on demand burst (elemental blast)

For testing I did temple of the jade serpent heroic not trusting the dps parsers...
4dk and a resto shaman drop the last boss with 2 phase splits where you have to kill the adds.
1 resto sham, 3 enhance and 1 guardian bear tank it took 3 phase splits with the third happening at 25%.
I have further refined my enhance dps rotation though and their weapons are slightly lower quality than the dk's so I'd like to retest this.

last note, wondering if I could do a healing Druid for pvp and maybe throw in a dps cat for pve. We'll see but that's what's on the mind.

[Lyonheart]

I have been trying to tweek my enhance shamans dps.. he has about 469 gear score..two agil axes you get from Klaxi at exalted. I have seen similarly geared enhance shaman doing around 50k sustained.. i cant keep him at 25k.. SO i will keep at it.. not sure what i am doing wrong with him. But both enhance and DKs top charts in LFR all the time ( i don't do normal raids so cant compare those )

[Ellay]

get this addon to make macros bigger
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...uperMacro.html

Use this macro, drop Ascendance for PvP, or if you want it on it's own button. Also drop the use items if the trinkets don't have it.
Make sure you use Echo of the Elements paired with Unleashed Elements in the last tier (for PVE), WF mainhand/ FT offhand with Lightning Shield up.

/castsequence [mod] Searing Totem;reset=combat Searing Totem,null
/castsequence reset=target Flame Shock,null
/castsequence [combat] reset=0.3 0,0,0,0,Feral Spirit
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,0,Lava Lash
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,Stormstrike
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,Unleash Elements
/castsequence reset=5/target Flame Shock,Earth Shock,Earth Shock,Unleash Elements
/cast [combat] Shamanistic Rage
/cast [combat] Ascendance
/use [combat] 13
/use [combat] 14
/startattack

I got 37-40k dps sustained on a lvl 85 training dummy in Stormwind after about 10-15 seconds.
I am using an ilvl 463 dagger in main hand and 450 axe in offhand.

[Lyonheart]

get this addon to make macros bigger
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...uperMacro.html

Use this macro, drop Ascendance for PvP, or if you want it on it's own button. Also drop the use items if the trinkets don't have it.
Make sure you use Echo of the Elements paired with Unleashed Elements in the last tier (for PVE), WF mainhand/ FT offhand with Lightning Shield up.

/castsequence [mod] Searing Totem;reset=combat Searing Totem,null
/castsequence reset=target Flame Shock,null
/castsequence [combat] reset=0.3 0,0,0,0,Feral Spirit
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,0,Lava Lash
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,Stormstrike
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,Unleash Elements
/castsequence reset=5/target Flame Shock,Earth Shock,Earth Shock,Unleash Elements
/cast [combat] Shamanistic Rage
/cast [combat] Ascendance
/use [combat] 13
/use [combat] 14
/startattack

I got 37-40k dps sustained on a lvl 85 training dummy in Stormwind after about 10-15 seconds.
I am using an ilvl 463 dagger in main hand and 450 axe in offhand.

I'll give this a shot! thx! You handle Maelstrom procs separately?