Raiding Specs and Jobs

[Vandalia1998]

Horde back then had Shamen instead of Paladins how did they help the Raid heal?

[Imbaslap]

There's no easy or 100% right way of answering this. However, it's true that most people of a class would play the same spec for raids. There were off spec raiders for various reasons, but generally, if you want to get into a guild for a trial, you may be best off using these...

Druid - Restoration. A very good raid healer who provides other utilities such as rebirth and innervate. I've seen both Feral and Balance druids in vanilla, but at the most one of each/either in a raid.
Hunter - Marksmanship. Because it provides the highest individual DPS for a hunter. Pets are not very useful in raids.
Mage - Fire or Frost. Depending on the resistance types you have in your raids. I have not seen Arcane mages in raids before TBC.
Paladin - Holy. Very good raid healers and providers of buffs. Not a pro on these since I played horde, but I think maybe some guilds ran with one Retribution paladin. I think Prot paladins had awful mana issues.
Priest - Holy. Excellent tank healers. One of the raid priests should be specced into Prayer of Spirit. Shadow priests did exist, but no more than one in a raid, and only after debuff slots were extended.
Rogues - Combat was most common. Depends on what kind of weapons you want to use.
Shaman - Restoration. Outstanding group healers.
Warlock - Destruction, at least until debuff slots are extended.
Warrior - Protection. Warriors are undoubtedly the main tanking class of vanilla. However, you got away with being Arms or Fury if you had some tanking gear in your bags. For encounters where you need a lot of tanks (Garr, Sulfuron, the fire adds on Rag etc) it was better to have a couple of DPS warriors who could make themselves useful on other encounters while still being able to tank mini bosses.

Basically, if your chosen class has a healing spec, you're expected to play it most of the time.

Druids - Are actually not a very good class in general, they can be good healers but their HoTs overwrite each other meaning 1 druid healer per target, Max 1-2 for an optimal raid comp. Feral Tanks are quite useful in many situations with feral DPS being lackluster untill AQ40 gear, even then its pretty meh. Boomkins are just outright bad, even with the caster buff they bring for a group. Innervate and Brez are the only true value they bring to a raid.

Hunters - MM is used specifically BECAUSE hunters dps is quite low compared to most other classes, you need some for tranq shot so the ones you bring should be MM to provide trueshot aura to the melee. Once a hunter is reaching 500~ agility Survival becomes the best spec, providing more dps through personal gains vs the damage gained from giving a group trueshot. Pets are actually VERY useful with variations of 20/0/30 and 20/31/0 bringing max dps in live vanilla however on Nostalrius in peticular the one pet that made this work is currently bugged and doesnt provide the dps to make this option viable.

Priests - As mentioned above however atleast one priest specced far enough into disc for power infusion is viable, power infusion can be incredibly powerful when used on the right caster DPS

some minor edits

Druids should try 1 of the 4 other healing specs out so they don't gimp other resto druids within the same raid.
(1 51 resto for swiftmend/rejuv priority, HOTW feral build for fresh 60 HT build, moon glow/natures grace HT resto build, and ofcourse the Opieop Regrowth crit build(very mana intensive)).

if you do not know those 4 specs, feel free to check out the druid forums. we have 4 resto druids on the pvp realm for our BWL runs and they all synergize with eachother very well with the above specs.(not taking eachother's hot slots and such)

most druid issues can be solved with communication and proper specs within a guild. you can always pester other druids and see what they like playing.

until pve realm gets 16 debuffs, consider using a PI hybrid priest with shadow weaving. (this is what we used back in the day to apply rank 1 SWP for 5stack SW debuff for warlock buffs) this priest wont be as strong as a holy priest, but can assist healing the "warlock" group with Prayer of healing and such while giving Power Infusion to any caster willing to duke it out. (this takes coordination and competitive raid composition).
our warlocks loved having a dedicated priest healer in their group who can give a damage buff and sustain shadow weaving debuff.

[Saffron]

Horde back then had Shamen instead of Paladins how did they help the Raid heal?

Chain heal is a powerful group heal, and the spell that makes the shaman stand apart from other healers. It bounces between 3 targets, making it an invaluable tool for healing tanks and melee at the same time. A shaman can keep casting a low rank of CH to keep melee topped up during fights with continuous damage, or time higher ranks with incoming damage to a specific group.

With Nature's Swiftness, a shaman can also save someone in a tight spot with a big instant heal. They have a big direct heal and a small direct heal for situations where you can't use CH.

Like priests, a shaman's heals can trigger a 25% bonus armour proc on the target. This should always be active on tanks, and it's not uncommon to have both a priest and a shaman on the tank for this purpose.

Totems are the second unique thing about shamans. Depending on your group, you can provide various buffs to melee, or threat reduction to casters, mana or health back, as well as mana tide totem which affects your whole group and specialised totems like fire resistance or tremor totem. Not as strong as a paladin's blessings (although some totems can do much more than a blessing can), but definitely not as braindead either.

[Toolt]

Mage - Fire or Frost. Depending on the resistance types you have in your raids. I have not seen Arcane mages in raids before TBC.

u have not seen arcane mage in raid before tbc, let me guess u never raided vanilla ?
As a Mage in mc/ony/bwl u want to be arcane/frost and have 1 mage be winterchill for the buff. arcane mages do so much more damge than frost its redic. A blue geared arcane frost can beat a almost fully geared deep frost in damagemeters.
AQ40+Naxx. Fire all mages should be fire.

[Vandalia1998]

let me guess u never raided vanilla ?

I didnt get to Raid Curent content until MoP

[Saffron]

Mage - Fire or Frost. Depending on the resistance types you have in your raids. I have not seen Arcane mages in raids before TBC.

u have not seen arcane mage in raid before tbc, let me guess u never raided vanilla ?
As a Mage in mc/ony/bwl u want to be arcane/frost and have 1 mage be winterchill for the buff. arcane mages do so much more damge than frost its redic. A blue geared arcane frost can beat a almost fully geared deep frost in damagemeters.
AQ40+Naxx. Fire all mages should be fire.

I did raid during vanilla, in a moderately successful guild (up to and including Twin Emps + two bosses in Naxx), but I guess our mages weren't up to speed with the min/maxing if what you say is true.

[Vandalia1998]

Druid - Restoration. A very good raid healer who provides other utilities such as rebirth and innervate. I've seen both Feral and Balance druids in vanilla, but at the most one of each/either in a raid.

Basically, if your chosen class has a healing spec, you're expected to play it most of the time.

I picked Druid for my Horde character. Looks like the life renewing spell might be useful. As well as mark of wild

[actionpigeon]

So really we're gonna summarise warriors with 1 useful spec, others being sub par? I'm shocked nobody has pointed this out...

Warrior - Protection. Warriors are undoubtedly the main tanking class of vanilla. However, you got away with being Arms or Fury if you had some tanking gear in your bags. For encounters where you need a lot of tanks (Garr, Sulfuron, the fire adds on Rag etc) it was better to have a couple of DPS warriors who could make themselves useful on other encounters while still being able to tank mini bosses.

Fury is one of the best DPS specs in the game right now, you just need to be able to gear them like a rogue.

[Cussler]

Mage - Fire or Frost. Depending on the resistance types you have in your raids. I have not seen Arcane mages in raids before TBC.

u have not seen arcane mage in raid before tbc, let me guess u never raided vanilla ?
As a Mage in mc/ony/bwl u want to be arcane/frost and have 1 mage be winterchill for the buff. arcane mages do so much more damge than frost its redic. A blue geared arcane frost can beat a almost fully geared deep frost in damagemeters.
AQ40+Naxx. Fire all mages should be fire.

Put your tiny penis back in its special holder.

If the Mage shoots blue balls, its a frost mage. If it shoots red balls, its a fire mage. None of them spend the fight shooting purple balls, so none are Arcane Mages. This is completely regardless to the number of actual talent points spent.

[Cussler]

So really we're gonna summarise warriors with 1 useful spec, others being sub par? I'm shocked nobody has pointed this out...

Warrior - Protection. Warriors are undoubtedly the main tanking class of vanilla. However, you got away with being Arms or Fury if you had some tanking gear in your bags. For encounters where you need a lot of tanks (Garr, Sulfuron, the fire adds on Rag etc) it was better to have a couple of DPS warriors who could make themselves useful on other encounters while still being able to tank mini bosses.

Fury is one of the best DPS specs in the game right now, you just need to be able to gear them like a rogue.

You are on the PVE server forum.

Using current PVE server gearing levels, fury warriors are sub par. Meaning, just that, below average. I am told they come into their own in a few patches.