moonkin vs elemental

[Setup]

I've seen both balance druids and elemental shaman played in naxx.

The druids can't keep up, period. I personally don't believe the utility of an innervate and a battlerez overcomes their considerable damage deficit. I know that their crit aura doesn't because I've run the numbers. At extremely high gear levels, elemental shaman can keep up with warlocks in several fights. Spell penetration gear and several bosses mysteriously lacking nature resistance after AQ makes it work.

Short of that, both specs will be weak in PVE, but both can still heal pretty effectively in those specs. Probably shaman more so than druid.

For PVP, elemental shaman are devastating. Burst damage, burst healing, windfury and tremor totem. You can do really well in PVP with very modest gear.

I can't say as much for moonkin, but that's just my experience as a player with over 15,000 hours in vanilla.

[Stalk]

A good portion of vanilla raid content is resistant to nature damage

This server might have some backwards mechanics in that respect. I would like to read which raid content that you think should be nature immune. Currently, on Nostalrius, half of the Fire Lords and everything else that looks like an earth elemental in Molten Core is nature immune when old videos exist showing nature debuffs on these targets. Also, the elementals and golems should be immune to bleeds but they are not.

[Finalflash]

moonkins are literally trash in pvp

[Larsen]

A good portion of vanilla raid content is resistant to nature damage

This server might have some backwards mechanics in that respect. I would like to read which raid content that you think should be nature immune. Currently, on Nostalrius, half of the Fire Lords and everything else that looks like an earth elemental in Molten Core is nature immune when old videos exist showing nature debuffs on these targets. Also, the elementals and golems should be immune to bleeds but they are not.

I have no idea which exact mobs are supposed to have what resistances. That information is probably lost. I tried to research it once and it's just not something people documented back then. However, it's an established fact that a fair bit of vanilla raid content is/was resistant or immune to nature damage. Some of that is just the baseline resists that endgame mobs have and the lack of a nature resist debuff to reduce this to 0 like you can with the other magic damage types. Some is from content intentionally being immune or very highly resistant, like much of the early fire-based content and the nature-based AQ and nightmare dragons.

[ShaqPack]

If you plan on pvp'ing mostly shaman may be the better route, if you plan on pve'ing as a dps then go druid. Either one will pretty much require that you heal in raids, get VERY acquainted with your guild to the point where they are cool with sliding you some caster gear from raids every now and then and it will likely take a long time before you got most of what you really need. A lot of the worthwhile drops for druids in particular don't start coming until AQ40.

That being said, boomkins have innervate and spirit regen from talents so they have some longevity. It's nowhere near as good as locks or mages, but if you are chugging mana pots and using dark runes it's do-able. That's why they can somewhat work for pve. Shamans don't have any regen tools so once you're oom you better bust out that 2 hander and stat melee'ing. Also shammies can only use nature spells and there's a lot of mobs that are resistant in raids, essentially making you do almost no dps. Boomkins don't really have this problem since Starfire is arcane and very few mobs are resistant to it.

For PvP druids when they get lucky aren't bad, but you need crits to really make a difference and boomkins have no crit or hit through talents, even with gear you will find critting to be a rare thing, when it happens it's good tho. Shammies on the flip side have some pretty solid burst. Druids do have survivability and stealth is huge, and they are great at escaping, something shammies can't pull off nearly as well, but if they are in bearform or travel form they aren't a threat, whereas an elemental shaman has a lot of armor regardless and is pretty much always a threat.

[Killstick]

Shamans don't have any regen tools so once you're oom you better bust out that 2 hander and stat melee'ing.

What kind of build would this ele DPS shaman have to get 11 points into enh for the 2H axe/mace? Unless you are talking about staves XD