WotLK talent/ability speculation

[Pantalaimon]

You have Gurgthock and some other shaman on one hand, saying that the prevelance of fights where the raid takes consistent damage and players can group up really helps resto shaman shine in TBC, but on fights where the raid takes little damage or has to spread out significantly, they are the worst choice for a healer outside of the usefulness of rotating bloodlusts.

I completely agree. Our healing corps shines on fights with little to no raid damage. Kaz'rogal, Anetheron, etc. are all fights where we blazed through, largely for that reason I'm sure. Well, and also the fact the fights themselves aren't as hard as the fights we're learning now:P

The lack of shamans has only come up recently, but from all indications it will only get worse as we carry on. Raid damage is the easiest and most prevalent way that Blizzard tends to make healing "hard".

To be fair though, besides bloodlusts we'd also love to have more to stick them in DPS groups for delicious totems:P

You have healadins on the other hand indicating that outside of MT healing, which priests can also do quite well, they don't bring much to the table except their rather significant buffs, which diminish beyond a third paladin (of any stripe - one healadin, one ret, and one prot satisfies it).

WotLK could change any of that, for sure.

Again, I completely agree here. It's strange, when BC first came out I was playing a holy priest and felt they were the weakest healer - I remember one notable interview where someone important in Nihilim agreed that holy priests "Needed help".

But now that mantle has fallen to Holy Paladins, and as you mentioned, it's often best to bring only one. Priests can do everything they do and better. Haha "everything" <_<... okay, well, should rephrase that. Priests can MT heal better than them - since the regen patch, they have much better longevity, HPS, and extra bonus utility heals.