Staff or board and mace for shamies?

[Lyonheart]

Arena2 Caster Staff seems like a better choice for more spell DPS..tons of crit/more int and hit. Most people use the mace/shield combo.. I guess for protection? I'm using a prot paly and I rarely pull agro.. when I do he gets it back in a snap.. if not, I'm screwed anyway. So a shield would not make that scenario any better. Just wanting to know If i have stinky thinking on this. Should i get the one hander and shield combo ? If so why ?

[entoptic]

I hear a lot lean towards the axe/mace/dagger and shield options.

My main has a dagger and a shield but all my alts have just a staff. So far it works for me. If my main loses aggro its not that hard to get it back, but for pvp i think a shield is key.

[Gurblash]

Imo people use 1h/shield combos is cause they PvP. You want that ability to block a melee attack. And since its usually counter-productive to save up another 25k honor for another weapon to be used in PvE when they could be buying armor instead... most just tend to stick with shields.

Besides shields get +stam enchants

[Hokusai]

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32963 + http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33313 is not quite as good caster stat wise as the staff, but you get over 5500 armour more, which means better chance of living, shame there isn't any crit on the gavel. At least that's as much as I understand at the moment.

[Lyonheart]

Well when a melee gets on me that i cant dispatch right away. I'm screwed even with a shield it seems. It seems like your losing so much crit that the dps loss would be worse. But I'm competing at a lower level than full epics atm. Or is it a matter that its easy to reach a crit cap so the crit on the staff is not missed ? Just wanting to make sure before I buy.

[Littleburst]

shield. A dead shammy does bad dps. It's like taking cloth instead of mail, because it's better for dps

[Mendicant]

People don't take the shield for the block, they take it for the armor. It will add a very nice % mitigation. Even though I'm not 70x5 yet, the choice is obvious.

[Depherios]

If you take Sheild + Main Hand "spell damage" its almost ALWAYS more spell dmg and spell crit than a staff.

1 + 1 > 1

I've been tempted to go staff many times, and the manin hand + sheild has always been superior stat wise.

Yup, for PvP, Shield always, but otherwise, whatever you can get more +dmg out of. Although, like entoptic said, I tend to keep the leader with a shield right now.

[Lyonheart]

Well I went with sword and board P. I should have read some more.. i picked the spellblades not the gavel 8( oh well! I been top of the charts in AV 95% of the time.. i cant imagine how crazy ill be with some better gear. I'm at 700ish now 8) oh and i farmed the 40 spell damage to weapon enchant! Just need 12 stam to boots and ill have all i need for my chanter!

[Ðeceased]

I have to say for me it has to be 1h+shield.. don't think there is even an option tbh :P those extra 3k+ on your armour make all the difference
especially if you are taking some cloth items to begin with!

It is a shammies great advantage over other casters and should be used it feeds into the whole "Siege Tank deployed!" thing :P