Be A Little Different
Posted on April 13th, 2008 by Gavin under Alliance, General Tips
Sometimes, people are just creatures of habit. They get stuck in ruts, and trying new things is not going to be something they will do easily. I’m more of a risk-taker. I look at what other people are doing and what I see a lot of times with wow is that people are taking the easy way out. But it always leaves them under-prepared for the end-game content.
One of the most sought-after members of a raid team is a true tank. That guy who can take all the beating in the world so that the other members don’t have to. Met a warrior the other day with more than 16,000 life! That’s just insane. He was good because he was hyper-specialized. There are other players that are good because they are more diversified. It’s not always easy to figure out which way to be, but let’s look at one way you can be both.
I want you to consider using something that is the least-used for alliance players. Go roll you a new Dranei Paladin or Shaman. Especially if you’ve been Horde all your WoW life and want to really show off how to play a Shaman to us poor Alliance saps. Now, I do not believe that people aren’t using the Dranei race because it’s not as good, it’s just unfamiliar, and the starting area is a little odd. People don’t like to try new things right? So be different and you just might turn out to have a better character in the end.
Dranei have one of the coolest racial skills in the game – Gift of the Naaru. It’s a heal-over-time spell that scales with your character as you level; so it’s almost always good for 25%-50% life rejuvenation. So even if you’re thinking about another warrior or hunter, it’s nice to be able to heal yourself in an emergency when you’re flying solo. It can also be useful in a party when the boss is almost dead and you need that last little bit to take him down before everybody wipes (especially if your healer already bit the dust).
Combine the fact that very few people use the Dranei as a race with the fact that not a lot of people play a Paladin, and even fewer Alliance use the Shaman, and you’ve got yourself a nice little niche to fill, especially if you choose a Shaman. The gift of the Naaru spell gives both of these classes one more heal in their bag of tricks, so it’s like having an extra 500-1000 mana at level 70.
Now, playing a paladin can be almost as complicated as playing a hunter. There are just tons of blessings and healings and auras; it can really make your fingers get tied up. But once you get used to it, it’s not really that bad. Shamans are only slightly less complicated as they have a lot of different totems they can use and have that odd hybrid thing where they are both melee and caster at the same time.
But both classes are a ton of fun to play and incredibly versatile, which makes them especially valuable to raid groups. You might be looking at carrying two or three sets of gear around to be able to fit in either the tanking/DPS role or a healing role, but really, it makes rolling on loot a little more fun in outlands because you really CAN use a lot of different items; much more so than say a rogue or a hunter.
In all reality, as a Shaman you probably have the best chance to get some really nice gear since no other healer/Caster class uses mail armor. So you won’t be competing with anyone for things you really can use. Blizzard put the same amount of gear in for Shamans, and Horde players have been using it for years, but on the alliance side, you’ll be in your own little wonderland.
You might be asked to be the healer more often than not in a group, but considering you’ll be wearing mail and plate armor it can be a lot less painful than being a priest. It will take some practice to heal as well as a priest, and you’ll have to specialize for it, but you will never ever have to worry about getting an invite to a dungeon run. So hop over to Azuremyst Isle and get started on one of these guys, you’ll be glad you did.
Odd, there’s no shortage of draeneis, paladins, or draenei paladins on my server–they’re actually the second most common race beside blood elves, and paladins are the most common class choice for draenei characters. Maybe it’s the attractive female draenei physique. But I’d like to see that Gift of the Naaru’s scaling is so that it gets weaker as you grow stronger. While GotN seriously owns at lower levels, is almost always forgotten at the higher levels. At level 70, GotN should be healing about 1.2k-1.5k health over 15 seconds–that’s equivalent to 80-100 HPS (heals per second). If you play a healing class, *any* healing spell in your repertoire at that level will be outhealing that by several factors, and the 1.5 seconds spent casting GotN could have been used to cast something else. Sure, it’s free to cast, but the fact that its power heals at best only 20% of a level 70 character’s health and at worst less than 10%, and that casting it can interrupt whatever healing spell rotation that you’ve made for yourself, makes it so that the spell can only practically be cast when you don’t plan on casting anything else for a while after that or when you run dry on mana.
Even if you don’t play a healing class, a netherweave bandage would have roughly 375 HPS compared to GotN’s 80, provided that you are not in combat.
However, the passive draenei racial Inspiring/Heroic Presence just becomes better and better as you enter higher level dungeons, however, as it seriously reduces the need for +hit/+spell hit equipment, allowing draenei tanks more room for tank stats, draenei DPS more room for damage stats, and er…no effect for healers, since they can’t miss heals anyway. Bummer. The draeneis’ +skill to jewelcrafting is nice, too, though I’m not really a fan of the profession myself.
All in all, draenei racials are very nice, and are quite balanced compared to other racials, and their class selection makes for a solid choice.
Ashtari–68 draenei paladin, Moon Guard US
I agree with much of what you said, especially the benefit of Gift of the Naaru and being a Shaman. As a 65 Prot Warrior, I find using Gift immediately before a fight is much better since (1) casting during a fight takes a lot of time I need for building agro, (2) the HoT gives me universal agro at the beginning of the fight when I need it most, (3) it lets the healers do less healing at the beginning of the fight – and less competing agro, and (4) at the end, the slow HoT doesn’t do sometimes heal enough to help you survive, so you don’t get all the benefit you could have.
I also have a 70 Healadin and a 63 Rogue. Can’t tell you how many times I see in the guild raid that there are 5 Pallies, 5 Warriors – but only 1 (or sometimes none!) Shaman. The Shammy has NO problem getting into the raid for their totems alone and obviously they get all the Shammy items that drop.
Good advice….
Thanks Gavin! I like to take risks too so I rolled a pally Dra a few months ago. I wanted to get my hunter to 70 so he’s been chillin in the Inn. Thanks for the intersting article! Now I wanna roll a Shammie too!!
“Playing a paladin can be as complicated as a hunter.”
False. I have a lvl 70 of each, and maybe it’s because I’ve been playing a Hunter longer, but Paladins are much more complicated. Sure, a hunter can kite-kill, controls a pet, and manages ammo comsumption, but a paladin has to worry about spell mats, Seal/Judgement combinations, spec combinations (leveling as a Prot pally is very different from a Ret pally, and both is not worth it sometimes), buffs, coordinating healing, fearing undead, AoE tanking or damage, to say a few. A hunter has one defined goal, to kill, and multiple ways of doing it, whereas a paladin can heal, tank, or kill, and only has a few ways of doing each, if not only one, and you have to highly specialized to do each.
Here’s my comments, sorry to repeat some things from other comments: At 70, gift of the naruu is not very good at all, although heroic presence or w/e that is IS good. Second, on most server’s i’ve been on, draenei as a race are not lacking ALTHOUGH 70 raiding shammys ARE! every guild i’ve been in has always been dying to get a shammy (although they usually want the shammy to heal) In my opinion the dead classes/specs (for raiding) are GOOD, non pvp geared warlocks. At least on my server they are quite absent. They all go to pvp (because they pwn at it) but they can pwn JUST as much as a mage in raids, IF they know how to spec…and do tailoring for lower end raids. never underestimate tailoring
It seems as though since I originally drafted this article, there has been quite a surge of Dranei Paladins Ash, which was not the case for quite a while after the release of BC. It is also true that GotN scales down quite a bit, but Leeroi gives a great tip on still using it quite effectively.
But the number of Dranei Shaman is still crazy low, and everything here applies all the more to the totem-bearers.
As for the complicated comment. Kelzekal I probably SHOULD have said MORE complicated, except for the fact that if you really play your crowd control, saves, pulls, and pushes properly, you can get really busy as a hunter as well. As with all classes, once you settle on a spec, things tend to narrow down a bit for you. To me, hunters can be more complicated in bad pulls, and paladins moreso before and in the early stages of pulls. In the saving bacon department it might be a push, but honestly the number of totems a shaman has at his disposal can be pretty hectic to manage as well.
Sigh, we’ll just wipe the slate clean and say that properly played toons of nearly every class can be complex until you really hone your skills. Once your timing is down and you’ve practiced all the permutations for a while it sort of becomes second nature, kind of like that hunter you played.
I think i’ll have to disagree with the first paragraph, True Tank, 16k HP and he’s the one thats the individual?, All MT’s have a stupid amount of health, they shove a solid star of elune into every socket possible. My Mains an avoidance tank fully kara geared but iv’e gone for a little more damage mitigation and less HP’s and if the healers can deal with healing ’spikey’ damage i can outlast the biggest tanks and conserve the healers mana at the same time. I’d say thats not following the pack
Also building my drainei shammy at the mo, went enhancement….any of you hordies out there (with your vast experience) got any tips on controlling aggro on them suckers?
Ive been playing a shammy for quite a while now. I find the biggest problem with aggro is generated from the wind fury effect. If you pulling too much aggro change to flametongue or rockbiter weapon. Also avoid using frost shock if you don’t have to, this spell generates a lot of aggro. When attacking a mob just start slow and work your way up making sure the warrior is using high aggro attacks such as sunder etc.
Thats my advice but then again Im a bit of an aggro whore when it comes to my enhancement shammy and i love the windfury. I just make sure i have a good tank with hopefully better gear than me.
I have to say that the whole “going against the pack” thing really should be take to all levels of play. There are so many things that people just forget to do, or don’t do because they were told it isn’t worth it.
Running Heroic Sethekk Halls, I discovered that priests seem to have the whole Prayer of Mending thing down, but Prayer of Healing seems to be completely gone from their thought process. Other players tell them it is mana-inefficient, and no worth the time, so they stop using the spell. Yet, when AoE bosses go nuts (like the Talon Lord, for example), that single spell could have saved the group from wipes. Checking WoWwiki, I see paladin tanking gear suggestions that almost completely forget the fact that said paladin needs mana and spell power to snag and hold aggro.
People really need to stop following everyone elses lead and make their own path. The paths that were figured out so far are “tried and tested”, but there are so many other possibilities, so many other options. Take into consideration that all those “tried and tested” paths were experimentations in the first place, and many of them hold biases held over from before even 2.0.0. Make your own way, people!
I totally agree with Smiley, play your own stlye and if for example you like a specific talent build or like particular gear, dont listen to other people who say ‘go resto or affliction is only for leveling’ Stay with whatever you like. Thats how i feel anyway – possibly why i dont get many group invites lol.
Smiley makes a great point, which was my thesis exactly in another article. You really need to use all of your skills A LOT. Skills you don’t use will just get lost in the shuffle.
While it may be true that for most cases Prayer of Healing is not a great spell to use, it is also equally true that there are times when no other spell will do the trick.
I very rarely see hunters use frost trap very effectively, although in some situations it is just as helpful as a freeze trap. If your timing is good you can let the frost trap pop and still set out your freeze trap, and even double trap if you have any points at all in the trap skills.
Every class probably has a half dozen examples like that. Train every possible skill the trainers have to offer, and then learn to use them all effectively, you’ll be a much better player.
Another point here is that you will hear some power players chewing people out for showing a lot of action bars, don’t listen to that crud. Out of sight, out of mind. I personally play with 7 bars showing. I resize them smaller, of course so they still only take up a very small section of screen real estate, but I can put nearly every skill in the world out there where I can easily get to them.
Then spend some time getting all of those bars hotkeyed in a way that makes sense to you. A buddy of mine still mouse clicks every skill, and that works great for him, he’s an amazing player. The point is, get all your skills out and use those suckers.
Lol, i thought i was the only person who still mouse clicks everything.
Mouse clicking is the only way to go!
I believe people should use the skills that work for them. The problem with many people’s attitudes in WoW is they think there is only one “proper” way about playing a class, or even the game as a whole. So what if humans get a bonus to spirit, other races can be a disc. priest too.
In repsonse to earlier posts about Gift of the Naaru: It is a fantastic spell earlier in the game and when facing dranei in BG’s (With my BE Palidin) I have to use my own racials to counter them or an otherwise even fight is lost. I predicted that its value would go down when people got end game gear and the high levels of stamina.
Belfs racial mana tap also starts off good at low levels but gets increasingly less effective at higher levels, arcane torrent on the other hand is very useful even if used not to gain mana but just for the countering – real pain in the ass in arena battles.
Well on my server draenei are everywhere.. TBC release day our outlands server was down for almost a day due to overload int eh starter area and hellfire Pen..
Back to the Draenei race. I think people overlook the other racial of the Heroic Presence. As a Hunter to me is was silly NOT to roll draenei, sure I give up AGI from NE, but the healing and +hit to my pet far outweigh that. The Heroic is up 100% of the time for my pet, free dps! The big BM spreadsheet also shows that after adding pet DPS I am higher combined DPS as a Draenei than a NE.
I have seen 500+/tick healing from Gift on my pet when he was tanking, not bad for a class that it’s big weakness on WOW website is no healing.
I then added JC so then I had statues to drop and heal myself if things got dicey leveling..
I did that all TBC release day LATE, all I was seeing was 70% shamy and a smattering of other classes. I saw ONE hunter int eh 1st week of play.. But I do not regret it and ran straight to 70, leaving a 50NE hunter to become a bank alt..