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!