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Druid or Shaman better?
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Post by
Kibbles
Which class is better- Druid or Shaman?
This question was brought up in guild chat yesterday, and I wanted to put it to wowhead. I am asking of four qualities- DPS, Healing, Tanking, and overall. Do not vote just because of your main or current class or what you like better. Give reasons please. Posted in druid and shaman forums.
Post by
66221
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Post by
432494
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Post by
nossy
Druids are tri-brids. They can do all dps/healing/tanks - and they do all reasonably well. They also recieve more loving by Blizzard IMO. WTF? took them 5 years to give us a properly working totem system.
They both have unique play styles and that all depends on YOU. They bring different kinds of utility for the group. IMO i think shamans bring better benefits for a group than druids (more variety) - Bloodlust anyone?. There's no question that Druids are THE healers. For dps, they both are comparable when geared and played properly. Shamans can't tank. I know that our druid and pally healer in our guild loves my poison cleansing totem. Everyone loves bloodlust and tremor totem.
Bottom line, Shamans and Druids can't be compared otherwise why do blizz need to put both classes in the game?
Having a mixture of Sham/Druid/Pally in a group is nice and makes hard-mode much easier.
Our group of Warr/Sham/Druid/Pally/Lock makes emblem runs so fast and easy.
I play both classes and I enjoy playing shammy more - but that's just me.
Post by
320682
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Post by
Kibbles
I understand that. Lets assume there is one healer in a group of 4 tanks in a part of an Ulduar raid. Everyone had the best gear possible for their class, their play style was the same. If you were one of the tanks, which class would you rather have healing?
And which class does highest dps for lowest threat?
And oranges are healthier for you via citrus.
Post by
242691
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Post by
445710
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Post by
Sgtpain
I understand that. Lets assume there is one healer in a group of 4 tanks in a part of an Ulduar raid. Everyone had the best gear possible for their class, their play style was the same. If you were one of the tanks, which class would you rather have healing?
And which class does highest dps for lowest threat?
And oranges are healthier for you via citrus.
It changes with every patch, so saying that one is better than the other is really pointless, becasue by the time you got a character to 80, the whole dynamic could flip flop.
That being said, in current content Druids are the most OP by a long shot. If you look at the top HPS for all boss enounters, druids take up like 80% of the rankings for each enounter.
In terms of DPS, currently kitty DPS surpasses everything that a shaman can do. However, kitty DPS is one of the more difficult rotations to keep up in a raid, so if you are not a great player, then you probably can't do what some people are doing.
I will assume that you are not a great player (because lets face it, most of us are average players), then I Shaman DPS is comparable to anythign you would put out as a druid and since Elemental DPS is pretty much the easiest spec in the game, you will probably do better DPS at end game as an Ele than you will with any other spec (yes, I know enhance can do better DPS at higher levels, but is it also a little bit harder. It is very easy to be a GREAT Elemental Shaman, much harder to be a good enh shaman).
TL:DR - Druids are top healers in current content, and one of the top DPS, but that doesn't mean that YOU will be able to perform the same way, so pick whichever is more fun. Druids seem boring to me.
What this guy said. Feral dps takes alot of timing and there is no set rotation, only priorities and it always changed what you need to do. It can be one of the highest in the game, or it can be one of the lowest in the game with the wrong person behind the keyboard.
Post by
341206
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Post by
nossy
I understand that. Lets assume there is one healer in a group of 4 tanks in a part of an Ulduar raid. Everyone had the best gear possible for their class, their play style was the same. If you were one of the tanks, which class would you rather have healing?
And which class does highest dps for lowest threat?
And oranges are healthier for you via citrus.
To answer your question, basically which-ever one is more effecient for the encounter. I don't think it'd matter as long as the class can do the job. It's just like saying which class is best at tank? If you are a healer, which class would you rather have to tank? In reality they all work. Some class will perform better at certain encounters - but it doesn't mean that it can't be done by other classes.
At the end of the day, you can say that shaman provide the most flexibility in buffs through their totems and it does not matter what spec the shaman is. If there's a DK? Just throw out a stoneskin instead of Str of Earth. If there's a Pally for Wisdom? Throw healing stream instead of mana spring. If there's alot of melee? Throw out windfury totem instead of wrath of air, etc etc. Shamans regardless of your spec can provide benefits to the group. A feral druid only bring melee crit, owl only spell crit, etc etc. And Bloodlust is just plain awesome. Shaman is THE complimentary class to any group and makes THE whole group instantly better. IMO every group should have one shaman. The more diverse your group is, the better buff you will get.
Post by
321419
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Post by
caboosefanatic
I have 2 main toons I play, my lvl 80 Shaman enh/resto and my lvl 80 druid bear/ resto both of them are very well geared in both of there specs. Now if I was putting together a 10man raid and had to choose between two equally geared DPS one shaman one druid, I would take the shaman. The shaman has the raid buffs that are situational,
NR
,
Tremor
,
Fire res
,
Frost
,
Cleansing
,
Eb
not to mention the standard
SoE
,
ToW
,
Wf
,
WoA
and
Bloodlust
. The same applies to healers, If I only had one spot for a healer I would take the shaman.
Dont get me wrong, I love druids. You cant argue the benifit from
MotW
or
Brez
, and I might even go so far as to say that an equally geared druid would put out more DPS than the shaman, but in a raid situation I dont think one mans DPS is as important as the utility he brings.
^^^
agree with ya
I have leveled 2 druids most of the way to 80 on 2 different servers, its a great class and funner once I hit outlands for Balance spec. The second Druid I made on my friends server recently got up to 50 very fast, but I got bored with feral (and balance gear is really rare before outlands so couldn't really do that). I ended up working on my shaman and am loving it.
Like everyone else said, both classes may be similar but they are different in many ways, most notably shamans cant tank but druids can. In the end its going to be up to your personal choices of what your wanting to do end-game....For me its probably gonna be me leveling my shaman all the way first then I will level my druid for healing/tanking and my shaman for dps/healing.
I still love watching
this video
as it shows what a group of just druids can do :P
edit: dunno if this matters but in the upcoming 3.2.2 patch the typhoon ability pushes people back as much as Thunderstorm fyi
Post by
ellmo
To the OP, since you have raised such a subjective question, I'll go with this:
Druids don't change their appearance with gear. Your lvl 30 cat druid will look the same as lvl 80 cat druid which is uncool. Your moonkin will only differ from another moonkin by the weapon he has. I want my character to be flashy, to look like a bad mo-fo, to wear fancy armor and make people say "
wow, u good xD
" and "
2g plzzz
", when I'm passing by.
That's why I rerolled to Shaman, which I consider to be the closest to druid, sans the greatest disadvantage of the Druid.
Post by
367590
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Kibbles
As far as DPS for lowest threat I would say both shaman specs can cover kitty because of the fact that kitty doesn't have a threat reduction talent You SURE youve played a kitty? heard of Cower? And there are trinkets and what-not for that too.
Post by
321419
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Post by
Heckler
Any of you Shamans that are interested in seeing the Druid commmunity's response to this question:
http://www.wowhead.com/?forums&topic=116877&p=1359452
The similarities in response are pretty striking =)
On topic, Cower is pretty useless at reducing threat. Its a fixed value that is actually reduced by Cat Form's built in threat modifier. Its value is so small, that it is rather safe to say that Druids have no on-demand threat reduction device.
Post by
hashmel
As far as DPS for lowest threat I would say both shaman specs can cover kitty because of the fact that kitty doesn't have a threat reduction talent while we shaman have 30% for both specs plus a 6 second cooldown threat reducing skill.
cat form has an innate threat reduction built into it much like rogues and a cower if they still push the threat too high. if it didn't have that reduction they'd have to add a talent to the feral tree for it but cat and bear share so much you don't want a bear having a threat reduction as well so they slapped it on the form itself.
To the OP, apples and oranges...apples and oranges
Post by
321419
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