Enhancement Shammy help

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Trixanno

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Ok, so I finally hit the Outlands last night with my Enhancement Shaman. The question now is, do I stay Enhance or do I respec? I do still consider myself as a n00b seeing that this is only my 2nd toon I'm lvl'ing to 70 (had to leave my first on the US server :( only a few weeks after hitting 70).

There seems to be mixed emotions when it comes to Shamans, so my questions are;
* what's the best spec for raiding?
* the best lvl'ing spec up to 58 was Enhance, what is best for 58 to 70?
* how does Enhancement & Elemental rate against the other dps classes out there?
* what gear is best? My toon right now is wearing a mix between mail and leather, trying to stack agi, strength and AP.
* Aldor of Scryers affiliation?

I can't think of more ?'s now, maybe if you guys can give me some answers to my questions and also general help in my quest to get this class mastered.

Much appreciated
Trixy
 
Lets start by what you want to do.

Do you want to heal, DPS melee or DPS ranged ?

Make a choice based on that. I'm enchancement and I'm running thru mobs like a Tank. I did have some mana issues but that was sorted once I got Water shield (62)

I love Melee DPS and I'm topping the Damage meter if I have a good tank. Just be ready to manager your aggro. Enchancement shamans can DPS with the best of them, the thing opreventing this is Aggro. You will be an Aggro machine.

But like I said, play what you want to play, there is a spot for you in raids which ever spec you choose ;)
 
I really love melee dps, the fact that enhance was the best lvl'ing spec really just kept the smile on my face.

Pitbull, what gear do you prefer and what stats are you currently stacking?
 
Trixanno said:
I really love melee dps, the fact that enhance was the best lvl'ing spec really just kept the smile on my face.

Pitbull, what gear do you prefer and what stats are you currently stacking?
Click to expand...

Feel free to check my char on armoury

Skaapbal - Spinebreaker

I'm not really stacking on anything cos I just want to get 70 asap. I have only mail on currently. I try and balance it a little, some healing gear plus DPS gear. Mostly I go for Int. and Crit.

Enchancement spec is a dream. This is the most fun I have ever had with any char ;)
 
I would say best spec for lvl is encha even up to 70. Im currently elemental and loving it, dps is very good but the spec is very gear dependant.

Pm and i'll send you the link to my toon:p
 
I played Enhance till 70 and even a while after I hit 70.

Switched to elemental and struggled with gear for a while (if you want to switch to elemental, rather level 62-70 as elemental or at least choose the elemental gear along the way).

Both Elemental and Enhance are fairly good at dps. As elemental I can go for longer without running out of mana than what I could as enhance and now that I have gear I can also pour out the dps (most lvl 70 mobs don't even get to hit me while I'm solo'ing).
 
* what's the best spec for raiding?

Resto is the most represented/needed. They're also the rarest because every new shammy wants to pewpew.
Currently in Sunwell they will bring anywhere up to 4. Enhance gets a little representation too but generally, raids will only bring 1. Elemental can do decent dps and some guilds use them, but most times they'll rather take another resto. Unfortunately the world is filled with people who rolled Shammies to OMGWINDFURY rather than brainheal, and getting a raidspot as dps is tough. So yeah, sorry to break it to you but guilds arent going to be falling over themselves to recruit yet another dps hybrid, regardless of whether you're Enhancement or Elemental.

* the best lvl'ing spec up to 58 was Enhance, what is best for 58 to 70?

Either Enhance or Elemental, both are good. Going Elemental also means you can heal slightly better in instances on the way to 70 if need be.

* how does Enhancement & Elemental rate against the other dps classes out there?

Enhancement is very strong, correctly geared they can be top tier alongside the likes of rogues and fury warriors. Elemental can do OK but they generally do about the same as mages or slightly worse.

* what gear is best? My toon right now is wearing a mix between mail and leather, trying to stack agi, strength and AP.

If REsto or Elemental, Mail wherever you can - spelldamage mail is built specifically for resto/elemental shamans, and will always have the right stats. Mail enhancement gear though is shared with hunters and tends to stack Agility where a Enhance shammy preferes Strength. Basically as a Enhance shaman, for the most part you will need to itemise for rogue leather.

* Aldor of Scryers affiliation?
Makes no real difference at all, I've found.
 
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Skurm said:
* Aldor of Scryers affiliation?
Makes no real difference at all, I've found.
Click to expand...

For me, it was a choice between the Aldor proc or Scryer proc on the Shattered Sun Pendants :rolleyes:
 
Whatever you do, just keep in mind that the shaman is a support class through and through, whether it be by healing, boosting melee damage or boosting spell damage. They also provide one of the best buffs in the game, Bloodlust. I'm resto specced and my guild is farming Black Temple at the moment, having just seen our first glaive drop. As enhancement, you will never beat the rogues in terms of raw damage per second. You will however, increase melee damage by so much that these days, every hardcore raid group takes along an enhancement shaman. Windfury is just insane. As you raid higher and higher up, you will find Blizzard has done horribly in gearing for Enhancement shamans. The one in our guild actually wears 80% leather at the moment because the mail is just so ****.

You will have a much harder time as elemental. While their spell damage totems and their unique Totem of Wrath does boost caster dps, not to mention the extra Bloodlust, without a great deal of proper gearing, you will fail on the meters. Not to mention elemental is horribly boring, (spamming a Lightning Bolt Chain Lightning rotation with the occasional Flame Shock). So in my opinion, level as enhancement and collect healing and enhancement gear. Try all the specs and see what you like most. Personally, I love healing and hate dpsing but I only found that out at 70 after I'd sampled all the ice cream. Keep in mind you picked the right class. Shamans ftw!
 
So far I'm happy about my choice then, but the thread running now "Warrior: Swords vs Daggers" has also triggered that same question for me, should I use Axes/Maces or Daggers. I'm currently using axes....going by the rule of thumb, slower for max dps and quicker for more crits. I'm critting more than enough with my grace of air totem and windfury enchant and therefore gone for Axes.

Is there a perfect talent tree, or are there more than one "perfect" tree?
 
Trixanno said:
So far I'm happy about my choice then, but the thread running now "Warrior: Swords vs Daggers" has also triggered that same question for me, should I use Axes/Maces or Daggers. I'm currently using axes....going by the rule of thumb, slower for max dps and quicker for more crits. I'm critting more than enough with my grace of air totem and windfury enchant and therefore gone for Axes.

Is there a perfect talent tree, or are there more than one "perfect" tree?
Click to expand...

Axe's or Mace's or a combo of both

And aim for 2.6 in both hands or slower ;)
 
Pitbull said:
Axe's or Mace's or a combo of both

And aim for 2.6 in both hands or slower ;)
Click to expand...

Pitbull speaks the truth. You you want to go for the slowest weapons possible because your main source of damage is going to be Windfury. A couple of patches back Blizz implemented an internal 3 second Windfury cooldown. The problem with this is that offhands take an automatic 50% damage penalty(less with talents I think) and so you don't want your offhand to proc windfury else it will put Windfury on cooldown and your main won't be able to procc it. You want your main to procc it instead as it does alot more damage. To solve this, you need to get weapons that are as close to 3 second speed as possible(they hit slower but do more damage and will result in alot of more damage as your proccing windfury just as the cooldown is up). So general rule of thumb: no daggers as they are all below 2.0 second speed. This might sound a bit anal but its been proven that green 2.6 maces can do better damage than epic daggers because of this whole windfury cooldown thing. Just some food for thought
 
Hehe now that u mention the warrior dagger/sword debate. Enhancement shammy's have the same flurry mechanic so definitely aim slower rather than faster speed and match both hands for optimal pewpew :D
 
Enhancement and Elemental both is there more for support than the DPS they bring. Do not worry if you do not top DPS meters (if you do top DPS meters look for a guild where other dps isnt slacking), most raidleaders knows that you are there for more than you DPS. Be aware however that finding a raidspot and enhance and elemental is not the easiest, as most serious raiding guilds only take 1 of each.

Enhance Gear: Str>AP>Agi>Sta>Int. You do not need spelldamage for your shocks.

Elemental Gear: Spelldamage>Int>MP5>Sta.

Resto: Harder to tell you what stats to get, since it largely depends on your playstyle. I go for Healing>Int=MP5>Sta.

Ninja Edit:

Enhancement Weapons: It does not matter what type (Axes/Maces/Fist) you use since enhance does not have a weapon spec talent like rogues. Just make sure you get a 2.4 to 2.6 weapon. Easily accessible weapons is the badge fists.
 
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Pitbull said:
Feel free to check my char on armoury

I'm not really stacking on anything cos I just want to get 70 asap. I have only mail on currently. I try and balance it a little, some healing gear plus DPS gear. Mostly I go for Int. and Crit.
Click to expand...

No, just no. As enhance you are gimping yourself if you are wearing int and healing gear. The only reason Int should ever be on your gear is because the physical stats is worth it.
 
dakeyras said:
No, just no. As enhance you are gimping yourself if you are wearing int and healing gear. The only reason Int should ever be on your gear is because the physical stats is worth it.
Click to expand...

It's there to minimize my downtime. This toon has been questing one way straight. I'll pimp it with the correct gear at lvl 70 ;)
 
Good thing I'm the only Enhance Shammy in my guild then hey! We are a very casual guild and they only just started going to ZA, so hopefully I can get to 70 asap and start running Kara as much as possible for those tier4 drops and then hit heroics for badges.

Thanks for all the help guys, this has definitely been very informative, now I just need to sort out my talent tree and I'm on my way.
 
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hZxVbdE0sAuqoxbI

Thats pretty much the leveling spec i used, it reduces alot of downtime with talents as instant ghost wolf, 9% chance to hit (afaik makes your specials not miss), faster heals, imp totems for instances.

I used a lot of rogue leather and hunter mail with this spec... no mana? no problem, burn shamanistic rage every cd - with 1k ap, you gain alot back, i even had a macro to use Bladefist's Breadth when i used shaman rage... taking on 3 mobs at once is a cakewalk :rolleyes:
 
You can reach hit hap for special attacks through talents alone. This however includes the +hit talent in the resto tree as well.
 
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