I know I want to main a healer and I’ve narrowed it down to these two. I’ve played both a lot since Wrath (when I started) and I enjoy both equally. Assuming that I’ll roll Horde so both are available and will be wanted. I’d love some advice from the vanilla vets as to which I should I go with?
Why not both? It’s not like Classic will be a one-month event.
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I recommend shaman, because we’re awesome.
For real though, it depends what you want to do. Shaman have better buffs and a more specialized healing kit. Priests have a more generally useful healing kit. Since you said you want to be a healer I assume you don’t care that much about the DPS specs, which is the biggest difference between the classes.
The armor/weapon usage is also a pretty different experience, when you’re not healing. Priest is always a full caster, shaman use weapons as an important part of just about everything, and also wear heavier armor.
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Priest.
They are seen as the best healers and get a nice weapon from classic lfr - MC.
If you want to main healer, don’t mess around. Go priest and thrive.
I’d side with shaman, not only for leveling, but also raiding. You see a shaman does not decline in value as you get more of them, since totems are exclusive to each group. A guild will happily take an 8th shaman because it means the 8th group now gets totems, something it could not have before. Would they want an 8th priest? Quite unlikely. This isn’t to say you can’t get a slot as a priest. Any healer will find it quite easy to get a raid slot. It’s just shamans have a higher max number potential, vs other healers.
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Hmm, if you are wanting to be a PVP healer, Shaman. If you choose priest, you’ll find more success in PVP as a Shadow Priest than a healing one.
For PVE, either one is great.
Priest is my longest running main. Shaman I want to like but I just can’t get into them. I’ve tried several times but meh. Not my thing I guess.
I doubt any raid wants 8 resto shaman’s. You run 13 healers or so in classic raids.
8 shaman’s would leave 5 spots open between druids and priests.
Also fort and spirit buff are pretty amazing. Ontop of that a priest usually specs the shadow debuff to buff your warlocks dps.
I was a healing shaman in vanilla (although I did lots of it as enhancement in resto gear lol,) and am going priest primarily for classic. 1.12 will have super Healing Stream Totems (spell power applies,) so shamans benefit a ton from that, but usually your water totem is used for Mana Spring or Mana Tide.
The main difference, is heal utility vs totem utility.
Priests have more actual heal utility, whereas shamans have more ‘other’ utility in the form of totems.
Both are good, but I’m going priest because I wanna heal the best I can; my grinding alt is either going to be an enhancement shaman or a feral druid…if I go shaman, at some point I can swap the roles of my 2 main characters and go from holy/enhancement to shadow/restoration.
Kinda thinking out loud, but I suppose my point is that there’s room for both.
Since totems left they seem to me to not have an actual identity.
Then again I only liked resto.
As priest, you can level as shadow (dps) and still heal 5 mans just fine. I don’t know about shaman: I only first played one in the stress test. But I loved it! I loved the totems, not having to have a wand, the class quests. It’s a truly unique class.
I don’t know how well they heal, though. Priests get all the healing tools, without having to spec into their holy tree. Do Shamans? I don’t know. Bottom line, always: Play what suits you, what fits you. Then you’ll be great.