Nostalrius Begins - Quality wow vanilla realm (1.12)

They're both stupid strong in their own ways.

dumb argument

ur bad

In my opinion the paladin is the strongest healer and supporter in vanilla, by far! The buffs are much better than totems, he can despell, decurse, cleanse poisons and diseases, bubble, he is most mana efficient healer, best tank healer and also quite good in grouphealing when you use a heal monitor and spam flash of light highest rank on the one on the top of the list. With the last mentioned he can do perhaps 50% of shamans group hps if they ones you heal cuddle. Otherwise the paladin is better. Don't even forget do say that a paladin can do that for several minutes without a break and without getting oom. A shamane spamming chain heal is oom very quick. So... and the most important part: Judgment of wisdom and light. Nothing in whole vanilla is as mighty in a raid as those both.

Paladins could bypass Razorgore phase 1.

I'd say Shamans can't cut 50% of a boss fight.

Speaking about PVP:

Healer:
I would say that meavy Paladin is superior because of Magic dispell and Bubble (plate mail aswell is a good thing). Shaman is also good because of totem gameplay, purge, anti-poison totem, wolf....
Shaman and Pala are both great healers, i'd choose Shaman because i like it.

Dps:

Here is the thing. Shaman dps is very very superior, why? it has a huge burst , elemental sham has a lol insane dps. Also you have your totems, that u can use to evade Fears, some spells (Grounding), anti-poison+racialtaurenstun (this makes you get you hp up after rogue opener, if you know how to use it). You also have purge and kick shock (u can use rank1 earth shock just to kick casting and no spend mana). Dps shaman is one of the classes which can face a Shadow priest and Locks.
Enhance is worse by far once you get lvl 60, because you just depend of your Windfury procs. I don't really recommend it, but is not bad at all.

Pala dps. Here we are. First, if you wanna do real dmg, you gotta take full critical gear (which also provides spell dmg and strength, you only will find this gear in endgame or some random epics). Why? So simple, real ret dmg is on Vengeance proc. If you dont get this , your dmg is simply very low. Besides, you depend of your Command's Seal procs to do dmg. Your Hammer of Justice can fail against Orcs (another bad thing). In other way you have good heal spells (But spend a lot of mana) and Dispells which allows you to keep a good party gameplay.

To sum up. I m not saying that Rets are bad, but if you wanna do dmg, and more versatility, specially in 1v1, shaman is so better by far.

This is just my opinion after have tested both classes on Feenix during a long time. Greetings.

Dont forget totems are unreliable, short ranged (unless you run 3/8 t1, but even then, in battlegrounds it has its limits), you need 1 shaman in each group to buff, and the buffs are only up as long as the shaman as alive. Alliance is in general way more convenient, some argue too convenient, anyone who has ever been in a minmaxed raid realizes how valuable the threat reduction is.

alucard001 wrote:Enhance is worse by far once you get lvl 60, because you just depend of your Windfury procs. I don't really recommend it, but is not bad at all.

With that being said, one-shoting something never gets old. "Where did that come ... Oh, I see you Windfury!"
It's hilarious every time it proccs, but in between it's rather meh.

Regarding PvE:
Paladins are so much stronger. It's not even debatable.

Alliance have it easier in PVE exactly because of paladins. They are invaluable in a raid because of the buffs, judgements and sustained healing for long periods of time. But the only viable paladin spec for PvE is holy.
In PvP if you can get your hands on some gear as a ret, with a lucky proc you can 1 shot most classes. But this is very situational and RNG based.

As for Shamans - they are vastly superior in PvP. I dare argue that elemental shamans were even OP in vanilla (watch incredible shaman tricks and you'll understand). Elemental mastery + chainlightning -> boom 2-3k dmg to several people. And of course FROST SHOOOOOCK!
Don't really like enhance because it's even more RNG based than ret paladins.
In PvE shamans are only good for putting down totems and chain healing but they go oom really fast so they're easily outclassed by other healers especially paladins.

Also a video relevant to this thread -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5mD1n4v2JA

Enhancement Shamans were broken in Vanilla. I know because I've played them back in 2006. Just check this video...with Unstoppable Force you'll be doing almost the exact same dmg. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja1j7xWpB3w