I cant choose, ele shaman or balance druid, only pve, prolly will not be doing any mythic + or any of the big stuff
Well druid can do all specs whereas shammy can’t tank. That being said druid has issues. Feral has…issues. And some people get turned off by the complexity of druid. But then shammy has…enhance issues. And tbh they seriously lack cleave uptime. Even their strongest dps spec (ele) can’t hold a candle to most mage or warlock specs. That being said, I’m leveling a shammy cause I wanted a DI toon.
God enhance is so squishy.
Balance and elemental are actually pretty similar in terms of playstyle/feel. I main a balance druid and i’m working on an elemental shaman.
Biggest thing is that balance druid is more DoT based than pretty much any other class I’ve tried (on par with warlock, even better in some cases). Moonfire, Sunfire, Solar Flare, Fury of Elune/Starshards, Starfall, so on and so forth. Balance druids are really, really good at gathering up a ton of mobs and burning them all down with aoe and dots.
Shaman, on the other hand, is definitely more burst damage oriented. They only have one real DoT (flameshock, though earthquake kinda counts as a DoT too for aoe), but they have better burst/up front damage. In a similar manner to balance, they’re also very good at gathering up mobs and doing some serious AoE damage through stormkeeper, chain lightning, and earthquake.
Druid has better overall utility and quality of life features. Travel form is faster than ghost wolf, but cant be used indoors while ghost wolf can. Travel form also works in water and for flying in certain areas, while ghost wolf just sticks to the ground. On the flip side, shamans have water walking, which can be paired with a ground mount for faster aquatic area traversal than druids.
Both are also good off-healers while in their caster specs. I run my druid with restoration specialization and can throw out about 5-6 regrowths before going out of mana, as well as using things like swiftmend for burst heals or rejuv/wild growth for extra HoTs. Elemental shaman only gets healing surge, but it’s still not bad and actually heals for more than resto spec (being their only heal, it scales better).
In terms of group content, I think both are good, but shaman might have the edge for group utility with hex, earth elemental (which really trumps treants aside from the cooldown), and self revive. Druids do have better healing and control though, and can always turn into a psuedo tank if need be.
Whatever the question is, the answer is always druid. Go with the devs favorite pet class and you will never go wrong. They will always ensure it is competitive and has all the best skills to meet every situation, pve or pvp.
If you feel that way, you’re doing it WAY wrong.
And yet all of a balance Druids DoTs only really adds up to about 30% of their overall damage. Their DoTs played a big part of their rotation in Legion, but in BFA they were nerfed significantly in favor of their focus fire attacks.
Are you a big fan of the moon? Druids are. Lovvvvvvvvve it! Every Druid spec has moon stuff. Even feral can be moon kitty. Druids like moons. MOONS!
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This is really what the choice comes down to. Both specs are good and offer nice utility. You just have to decide if you want to be a storm of lightning and lava, or fire moon and sun lazers.
Its plausible to play both in retail.
2-3 main classes is easy to maintain even with low playtime.
So why not both?
I like all three shaman specs and dont like druid other than balance, really.
For PVE the personality and mobility of Balance druid cant be beat. and take a gathering profession or two.
I havent found that to be the case at all. If Im getting pounded because I got aggro somehow, yeah, but all DPS specs are like that.
It doesnt seem to be any weaker than anything else.
In that case though, if you will just be doing mostly casual solo play, druid utility takes the cake. Being able to interact in travel form, having cat stealth whenever you need it, and being much more mobile while casting make druid a much better screw around class.
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And also if you wanna be able to see your mogs, or be trapped as a cat, bear, chicken, glowing abomination, healer.
Druid has MUCH better QoL abilities for when you’re doing anything solo. Stealth, instant flight form, tank spec.
Definitely druid.
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Thank you all for your replies, If I end up maining one of these classes and do join a guild and do the big stuff later on, which would be better for that? or are they both the same still. I also will prolly be playing with a friend who will be either ww or bm monk. This is such a hard choice, I like both classes equally, maybe shaman casting and design more but I love the druid mogs and how many specs it has.
Personally I view their utility for “big stuff” as pretty similar. Druid has some advantages in mobility, brez, removing enrage which I believe is limited to only druid and hunter. My biggest frustration though is not having a proper interrupt, though an aoe interrupt or typhoon talent can be handy as well. Meanwhile Shaman has probably the best interrupt in game (long range, short cooldown) and can dispel magic buffs on enemies, which is not has hard to come by as dispelling enrage, but generally more useful. Earthquake knockdown is nice, capacitor totem etc, and the earth elemental totem can save your life in a pinch. My frustration with ele sham though is being a turret class with low mobility during combat.
Their really is no right or wrong answer. Druid is generally more popular for m+ and is more reliably balanced well patch after patch, whereas shaman tends to be lacking on love from bliz balancing, though at the moment they are doing well.
So I’d still base my choice on aesthetics; Being the volcano storm, or being the sun and moon lazer chicken (or blue sparkle ghost)
I struggled with this same question a while back. I got both an ele shaman and a balance Druid to 120 but only wanted to focus gearing on one, even though I really enjoyed both specs.
Ultimately I chose the shaman for a few reasons.
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Cooler spell animations. I love that the shaman looks like their pulling the lava up from the ground for lava burst and how the lightening looks when it overloads. (This is totally IMO and I wouldn’t begrudge anyone who prefers balance animations). I really like tossing around the elements.
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Stormkeeper. This ability is just so freaking awesome. Kinda ties in with above cause it looks so cool with chain lightening on big packs, but even single target, SK is a very fun ability on a short cooldown.
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I like to do m+ and I prefer the shaman utility kit for small groups (earthquake knockdown is amazing, anhk for death skips, lust/hero, earth elemental, 30 yard ranged interupt on 12 sec c/d, purge). Druids have good utility too I just prefer the shamans in a small group.
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I like the shaman dps cooldown (fire ele) better than the balance Druid one. It’s a slightly shorter cooldown so it’s available more often and it’s visually cooler to me.
All in all I don’t think you can go wrong with either choice but I sometimes hop on the Druid to do some WQ or low level m+ and I almost immediately miss playing my shaman and soon switch back.