Times They Are A-Changin'

I didn't raid as a Shaman in BC.  Or in vanilla.  I'm glad I didn't.  Because it must have been worse than getting a root canal next door to an ice cream stand while on fire with your ex-gf deleting your toons one by one in front of you.  Maybe not that bad.  But close.

I don't know what it was like.  I know that shaman were rolling on Rogue leather.  They were stacking strength gems.  Mail gear that met their itemization needs was scarce.  Enhancement shaman topping damage meters was good cause for a /gasp.   Our only saving grace was that we could be partied with the most hated class of all of WoW-dom (rogues) and give them moar dps.  But times they are a-changin.  And it is a great time to be an enhancement shaman.  

I don't like top-five or top-ten or top-x lists because those lists usually mean I'm ranking something.  Like when I think of my top-five favorite restaurants I can't rank them 1 through 5, I just know what five I think are my favorites.  So here is a top-five-but-not-ranked list of my favorite enhancement shaman changes in WotLK.  

• Totem buffs are now raid-wide.   We aren't simply buffs to our five man group in the raid.  Our totems, and all our other buffs for that matter, now have an effect on the entire raid giving us an even bigger presence as a buffing class
• Agility adds to Attack Power.  With this change we move away from silly strength to agility as one of our primary stats.  No longer are we fighting for rogue leather gear or gemming for strength.  No longer are we seeking out those scarce pieces of mail with strength on them.  Agility becomes a friend to the shaman class.
• Mental Dexterity.  3/3 in this must-have talent gives us 1 attack power for 1 Intellect.  Along with the change to agility granting attack power, shamans have just stepped into a whole new world of gear previously deemed useless.  Hunter gear!  Agi, int, attack power, it's all there baby!  Now if they would just stay away from our one-handers..... 
• Mental Quickness.  We are the most hybridy of the hybrids.  With this talent adding damage to our spells, our swings and hits are only a part of our damage.  Some people are reporting that almost 40% of their damage comes from casts, myself included.
• Maelstrom Weapon.  No singular talent has affected the playing style of our class as much as this talent.  Now after dealing some hefty melee damage, we can instant-cast some high damage lightning bolts for massive dps or heal ourselves instantly.  Combined with the other talents mentioned above, this has become one of our defining talents.

You can come to some important conclusions from all this:

• Hunters and Enh Shamans now officially have waged loot warz on each other.
• Buffs+good dps+looking sexy while doing it = hawt babez, fast cars, big houses with swimming pools and most importantly epic lootz!

Enhancement Shaman: We are bigger and last longer

SHWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!

puk, puk, puk, puk

BOOOOOOOOOSH!

BRAAAAAK!

Crack!

POW!

POW!

POW!

BLARGHWEIJNKDLWNLKLMCSHT!!!!!

That was me putting on my lightning shield, placing my totems, and going through my rotation.

Stormstrike, Earthshock, Lavalash, autoattack, and a super-sexy ultra-sweet instantly-instant MW5 lightning bolt.  

Now somewhere in there was a crit, so we just buffed the attack power of our raid, buffed our own attack speed, and got ourselves some freebie mana for our next spell casts!  Win!

I'm trying to make the case that being an enhancement shaman will get you fast cars and hawt babes.  Which is totally true.  Not only are we putting out some nice dps, we are providing some major buffs to the raid.  Including but not limited to HEROISM!  I can't type HEROISM! without making it in all caps.  It's impossible.  It's just the greatest thing ever.  When I'm bored on my other alts, I just hop onto my shaman, and I go HEROISM! and everything's well with me.

Also, if you're like me, you don't just like doing your job, you like to look good while you're doing it.  And you know what? With my broad chiseled shoulders, big bad arms, and larger-than-life tentacles coming out my chin I know I'm lookin' hawt 24/7 (Oh, and don't forget my delicate hooves!).

So if you ever were thinking about becoming an enhancement shaman.  Just DOOO EEET!  

An Ode to a Real Live US and A Action Hero

So, Hai thar!

I'm gonna be brutally honest. I'm just gonna say it.  Just trying to be candid with all of ya.  Ok? Ok.

I'm starting this blog because of BRK.

My first toon in WoW was a hunter.  And so was my second.  And my third.  And finally I leveled one up to 70 (I started playing in BC).  I won't get into why I loved (and still love) being a hunter. That's the topic of another post.  But I will tell you that I really only understood what I was doing because of that crazy, foshizzling, pro-dwarf, anti-belf, bunneh-hating hunter.  Back then, BRK was making "Bigredkitty Hunter Guide Movies!"  He showed me how to  kite, how to train my pets, how to set up my UI, how to gear up, how to raid in Kara and he even responded to my emails!  Now some people will say, "What a noob you can't figure that out on your own.  GG, L2P, BBQ"  But I'd like to hope that people will remember how daunting this game was when they first played it.  Opening the box, installing the game, creating a character having no idea what choices you were making, getting to that cutscene telling you about your character, then you finally see the behind of your character ready to explore, and you said to yourself, "Um, how do you move?"

If you're like me, you don't like that feeling.  You want to know what you're doing and more than that you want to be one of the best at what you do.  That's me.  And I owe bunches to BRK to scaffolding all of it for me and helping me get to the point where I am now.  I hope to do all of that for you with this here baby blog.  

Now, unlike BRK, I am a complete altaholic.  I have several level 35+ characters on many different servers.  One of those characters is a Shaman.  It's the only other level 80 toon I've got, and dood..... it... is.... SWEET.  I dare not say I enjoy it more than my hunter, but I am already better geared on my Shaman, it's becoming my main toon.  And like on my hunter, I only try to be as good as possible and I don't settle for mediocrity.  No sirree bob, jr.  Good thing is I didn't start raiding until WotLK on the shaman so I don't have that skewed lens that previous enhancement shaman have had before me.  3.0.8 is a whole new ballgame folks, adapt accordingly.

What I hope to do for you is what BRK did for me.  Minus the Hunter Guide Movies, Brain vs. BRK, Daniel-mode, and t-shirts.  But I absolutely approve of bunneh and belf hate. 

An Introduction to the Best Enhancement Shaman Blog ever based out of the Northern Part of Portland

So, *cough*, erm, Yeah.  Is this thing on? 

 

Huh?

 

There’s no mic? 

 

I’m actually typing this? 

 

I’m talking to myself?

 

A blog?  When did I start a blog!?