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Enhancement endgame guide
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Post by
Hashshashins
I am aware the title is misleading but it was the best way of wording it I could think of without resorting to the usual variations of "help me plz..."
Basically, my guild need melee for alt runs in ICC and currently my shaman is elemental/resto. I am planning on swapping my resto spec for enhancement in order to make the alt runs easier but I am finding it hard to get an up to date guide. While much of it is common sense like the spec, rotation and basic gearing there are some issues that I haven't seen appear in any of the guides. Things like at what gear level do my priorities change in terms of gemming etc.
If people would like to reply to this topic with their own advice it'd be excellent but all I am really looking for here is a link to a guide that is up to date, doesn't have to be EJ or wowhead or anything, just a guide by a player who knows the spec well enough to write a good guide to it.
Thanks in advance.
PS. I would link armory but I am still gathering gear and am doing it as elemental so it would prove fruitless.
Post by
Eleazer
There is no basic gear guide for enhance shamans. Mainly because it's about personal preference and what gear problems you are running into. On a side note, why remove the resto unless you never heal. Resto shamans are way more valuable to a raid than an elemental.
There are two ways to gem at end game raiding for enhance. Anyone who says gem agility or crit is an idiot and should be treated as such. Granted this is if you have already reached the 14 percent spell hit cap and the 17 expertise needed (26 expertise -
9 expertise
). I have seen this misinformation here a lot you don't need 26 expertise you only need 17 if specced properly.
1.
Straight AP
or
Haste
- AP gives you more powerful hits and is theorized to be better on high movement fights. Haste gives you more hits, though not as powerful (IMPORTANT NOTE: they will be weaker than if you added straight ap, but haste does not weaken your attacks just makes them more often).
2.
AP and Haste gem
- My personal favorite because it puts you right in the middle between maxing out each hit and maxing out the amount of attacks.
As for gearing, you want to maximize the amount of hit/crit/haste/ap on gear. ArP is a complete waste of anything you can get. So if you limit the amount of ArP on gear, while maximizing the important stats that gives you the best available gear.
Post by
Hashshashins
Its still a work in progress, as it is, I love elemental, I know its a very easy spec but I enjoy it, that is why I chose to swap the resto spec out since I haven't even geared it yet.
Now down to the dirty business. Thanks for the quick and informative reply, the main issue with gemming for me was when each stat is more useful than the other as I have heard that once you reach a certain point haste is better than AP but I think I'll take your advice and gem both.
Once again thanks Eleazer.
If anyone has more to add feel free to do so, can never have too much advice!
Post by
Fulgurah
I think most of the advice we could give has already been written in one form or another in the multitude of threads on this forum and on ElitistJerks.
If Enh has been your third spec thus far, I am guessing that your gear is not ToC-25+ quality as of yet. A very crude benchmark of 5k AP (unbuffed) has been what we've been using as short-hand for when to go from pure AP to pure Haste. Going half AP/half Haste from the start is not a bad idea, either. So much of it depends on your gear. I highly suggest that you download Rawr and EnhSim to sim out what gemming/gear is better for you. Nothing will be better for you than to know definitively which stat is better.
Incoming long paragraph: If you're serious about Enhancement, then you will soon find that there are a multitude of ways to drastically improve your DPS and utility in raids. There is a huge difference between a very good Enh Shaman and an absolute show-stopper Enh Shaman. A lot of it will come down to your priority and how you're monitoring your ability CDs and big DPS CDs. Things like having another Shaman Hero/BL when you pop Wolves for the second time (after you yourself used Hero/BL the first time for the raid), making sure to use Fire Ele every fight, getting maximum down-time for Magma and the Flame/Earth shock weaving is paramount to great Enh DPS. Even small things like totem placement (it's possible on fights like Putricide to get very barely outside your starting totem range) are huge for your DPS and the raids.
It takes time. Take a few hours and whack on a training dummy to do nothing but practice the priority and get it down. I don't even need to look at my CD trackers for SS/LL/Shocks anymore, simply because I've done it so often, I have an "internal clock" about it. Practice, practice, practice!
Post by
323965
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Eleazer
I'll just dump a few links from my own notes here.
http://bighitbox.com/bhb/2009/4/14/enhancement-shaman-31-guide.html
http://bighitbox.com/bhb/2009/2/22/enhancement-shaman-hit-rating-faq.html
WOTLK 3.1 Enhancement Shaman PVE guide
All 3 of those are outdated, and the bighitbox site has some huge pieces of misinformation. Just perusing through them. I noticed the following:
1. Imp GW - Bad place to spend two points unless it's pvp or you are leveling. Just a really bad selection.
2. 1 point in Call of Flame - awful just completely bad. It's 3/3 and it's automatic.
3. The advice to not spec in Imp WF if you have a DK in your group is ridiculous. You always spec into imp WF Always unless you are raiding with a 2nd enhance shaman who didn't. Imp WF is 4 percent better than DK Imp ICY Talons.
4. Flametongue weapon has never been a glyph that we would use. The idea behind it even back in 3.1 was bad. WF glyph is the way to go now. SS/Feral/WF - used to have LB or LL glyphed but WF glyph is marginally better now.
5. This information isn't just outdated, but it was bad at the time it was written. Please do not send links that rehash past and bad information.
6. I could continue on with stuff like you don't have Flame Shock in your rotation, you specced into decreased damage on yourself, you don't glyph for feral spirits, you give a pretty bad rotation. The list goes on and on, but I don't have time nor the inclination to continue to list just how far off 80 percent of the information is on all three of those sites.
Post by
MegaVolt
3. The advice to not spec in Imp WF if you have a DK in your group is ridiculous. You always spec into imp WF Always unless you are raiding with a 2nd enhance shaman who didn't. Imp WF is 4 percent better than DK Imp ICY Talons.
6. I could continue on with stuff like you don't have Flame Shock in your rotation, you specced into decreased damage on yourself, you don't glyph for feral spirits, you give a pretty bad rotation. The list goes on and on, but I don't have time nor the inclination to continue to list just how far off 80 percent of the information is on all three of those sites.
A frost DK will provide exactly the same haste buff as the Shaman, 20%.
link
It's only the untalented totem that provides 16% and you spend the 2 talent points to bring it to the same level as the DK buff.
Still your advice is completely right. Frost for DKs is in a very weak spot and does about 1k less dps than blood or unholy. It should really be the Shaman that brings the haste buff so that your DKs can chose another spec.
As far as I know bringing FS into the rotation is almost no difference compared to pure ES spam. I've read something like 50 dps difference with 4t9 on EJ if I remember correctly. I'd say especially when learning enhance it's probably better to skip it because the damage loss due to a messed up rotation is much higher than the possible gain. Once he has a few weeks of raiding experience with his Shaman he can start making the rotation more complex ;)
Post by
Hashshashins
Cheers for all the replies, much appreciated.
Indeed I thought the info from those links was a little strange but there you go. Also an ex guildy of mine found that weaving shocks was too much hassle for a minor dps increase so he had advised me to ignore it.
Once again cheers lads, anything else that has to be added, feel free to post it, you can be sure that it'll be appreciated :)
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