Extra Extra!

Yum....

Skills

• Bloodlust and Heroism now puts a debuff on you preventing you from using gaining the benefits of them for 10 mins. They now have a 5 min cooldown. (Previously had a 5 min debuff with a 10 min cooldown)

Talents

• Improved Stormstrike (Tier 8 ) now has a 50/100% chance to grant you 20% of your base mana when you Stormstrike.
• Stormstrike (Tier 7) now affects the next 4 nature attacks but only lasts 10 secs now. (Previously only affected 2 attacks and lasted 12 secs)
• Unleashed Rage (Tier 6) is now a 3 point talent. It now passively increases your agility by 1/2/3% in addition to causing your critical hits with melee attacks to increase all party and raid members' attack power by 4/7/10% if within 45 yards of the Shaman. Lasts 10 sec.
• Spirit Weapons (Tier 5) now reduces all threat, just not melee threat.
• Toughness (Tier 4) now increases stamina by 2/4/6/8/10% instead of increasing armor value.
• *New Talent* Frozen Power, Tier 6, 2 point talent - Increases the damage done by your Frostbrand Weapon if it is enchanted on your main-hand weapon by 10/20%, and your Frost Shock has a 50/100% chance to root the target in Ice for 5 sec. when used on targets at or further than 15 yards from you.

Ok, the PTR is up.  I think I'm allowed to talk about it now.  I wanted to wait till it was live because I would hardly think that all of these changes would get through or even if this was the complete list.  But I can't contain myself anymore.  Let teh Pif out!  Rawr!

• Bloodlust and Heroism now puts a debuff on you preventing you from using gaining the benefits of them for 10 mins. They now have a 5 min cooldown. (Previously had a 5 min debuff with a 10 min cooldown)

This is somewhat of a nerf, not to yourself but to the raid.  Sometimes, in encounters that last longer than 5 minutes and you had multiple shaman, you would be able to pop HEROISM! twice in a fight.  Now, with the debuff lasting 10 minutes that won't be the case anymore.  I'm not sure why they then just don't make the debuff and the cooldown exactly the same if they just want us to use it every 10 minutes.  Perhaps, the debuff goes away when you die?  I'm not really sure to be honest.

• Improved Stormstrike (Tier 8 ) now has a 50/100% chance to grant you 20% of your base mana when you Stormstrike.
• Stormstrike (Tier 7) now affects the next 4 nature attacks but only lasts 10 secs now. (Previously only affected 2 attacks and lasted 12 secs)

Stormstrike?  Why are they messing with Stormstrike?  Well, we can't complain because it's a pretty nice buff.

Currently, Stormstrike by itself gives a debuff for 12 seconds, gives you 2 charges of a debuff for increased nature damage on the target, and it's cooldown is 10 seconds.  

Currently, Improved Stormstrike with 2/2 points increases the charges of the nature debuff by 2 and also  reduces the cooldown of Stormstrike 2 seconds, down to 8 seconds.

Currently, with 4 charges and a refresh every 8 seconds, you could keep the debuff up on the boss 100% of the time even if you missed one GCD before refreshing your Stormstrike.

On the PTR, Stormstrike by itself gives a debuff only for 10 seconds, gives you 4 charges now, and it's cooldown is still 10 seconds.

On the PTR, Improved Stormstrike returns mana when you hit 50%/100% with 1 or 2 points in the talent, respectively. 

On the PTR, you will still be able to keep those 4 charges on the boss, but following the attack priority list is more important than ever as missing it every ten seconds could result in a significant loss of dps over a long period of time.  

This change moves away from many things I wrote about the importance of Intellect.  Yes, intellect is important for the same reasons I've stated before.  But it's less important.  If you are returning 20% of your base mana on every single stormstrike, you'll be getting a 879 mana return every 10 seconds (Shaman base mana at 80 is 4396.  Multiply by .2 to get 879).  That's a lot of mana.  

In my case though, I don't have mana problems.  Especially in 25 mans.  I know replenishment may be reworked in 3.0.1 and mana may present itself to be a problem later, but when I first read the talent, I was considering skipping it altogether.  When you're wearing higher levels of gear with lots of Intellect, you won't run into a lot of mana problems especially with proper use of Shamanistic Rage.  So I'm leaning towards skipping Improved Stormstrike altogether, keeping a closer eye on that Stormstrike cooldown, and grumbling about the stormstrike nerf I just got.

• Unleashed Rage (Tier 6) is now a 3 point talent. It now passively increases your agility by 1/2/3% in addition to causing your critical hits with melee attacks to increase all party and raid members' attack power by 4/7/10% if within 45 yards of the Shaman. Lasts 10 sec.
  

Now this is the major buff.  I'm happy the shaman community got this through.  I remember writing a post on the damage forums about how 10 points that Enhancement shaman were using for PVE builds, were spent solely to buff up the raid and had no personal benefit for the Shaman him/herself.  It erupted into heated discussions of class balance, qq, shaman hate, and someone even talking about pink vs. blue cotton candy.

But anyway, we spend 2 less talent points in Unleashed Rage now, get the same exact raid buff, and we get a 3% agility buff too.  I might have to revisit what I said about stacking AP over Agi and Int.  Agi is definitely now preferred over Int, but I'll have to calculate AP vs. Agi gems/enchants.

• Spirit Weapons (Tier 5) now reduces all threat, just not melee threat.
  

This is a major major buff.  I shouldn't even call it a buff.  To me, it's a bug fix.  There are fights, Patchwerk immediately comes to mind and the first part of Thaddius too, where you do not in any way want to be anywhere close to the top in threat.  The problem before was that spells were not affected by this spell.  So my earth shocks and lightning bolts would rocket me in the threat meters, so I would spend seconds at a time, windshocking and sitting on MW5 waiting for the tanks to pick up threat so I could resume my priority list, at which point I'd have to stop and just lay out white damage again.  It was a major pain.  We'll have to see on the PTR just how much this really helps, but, as long as it's not bugged, even a little bit will help a lot.

• Toughness (Tier 4) now increases stamina by 2/4/6/8/10% instead of increasing armor value.
• *New Talent* Frozen Power, Tier 6, 2 point talent - Increases the damage done by your Frostbrand Weapon if it is enchanted on your main-hand weapon by 10/20%, and your Frost Shock has a 50/100% chance to root the target in Ice for 5 sec. when used on targets at or further than 15 yards from you.

PVP buffs.  Plain and simple.  The change to toughness is a really hefty bonus in stamina which helps for any melee class in PVP.  You're being expected to run in and smash things and many PVPers understand that an unchecked enhancement shaman will wreak havoc with massive burst.  

The second talent is interesting but also somewhat odd.  Don't get me wrong I can't wait for it to come live and try it out in some BG's.  Frost shock can now root the person ahead of you that's either running away or coming right at you from a distance.  This may allow you to then open up with hex or just outright burst the bugger down while setting up a totem or two.  It will be infinitely useful in PVP.  The thing that confuses me is they're expecting Frost shock to be on the mainhand.  Well, that's where windfury is supposed to be.  Windfury is a huge source of our burst damage which is so important for PVP.  I expect people will complain about this and it will get changed.  If not, and it goes live, I expect people to run with Frostbrand weapon, root, then switch to windfury, and so on and so forth, like a hunter changing his aspects.  I know the talent also increases Frostbrand damage, but it's still not as bursty as a double windfury proc.  

In PVE, we'll have to see how useful it is.  I know that I'm definitely going to ask my raid leader if I can kite the adds on Grobbulus with this talent, and we'll have to see what uses it will have in Ulduar.

So a buff to Unleashed Rage and Spirit Weapons.  A change to Stormstrike that I don't think was necessary and would like for it to change back to what it was.  Some PVP buffs, and no major nerfs.  Can't say it's a bad patch at all.

We'll take a look at the Glyph changes next.

NOTE:  Thanks to Phoenixboy to pointing out some glaring issues I had missed with Stormstrike.  I ain't too proud to admit when I done wrong.

Enhancement vs. Elemental: The Leveling Conundrum

So before even like the beginning of time and stuff, people sat around and debated the age-old question.  Socrates and Plato fought over it.  Leonardo Da Vinci made paintings about it.  Einstein theorized about it.  The question:  Should I level as Enhancement or Elemental?

The simple answer you’ll see out there is that there is no right answer.  Both have their pros and cons.  I, teh Pif, obviously have a bias and strong inclination towards one of the two specs.  I’ll let you guess which one. 

But that’s not the answer you want to hear is it?  Let’s look at it as objectively as possible.

Having leveled a few toons, I look at the following things when determining what is best for leveling:

Downtime – Downtime is bad.  If you can just keep moving and kill mob after mob without stopping, that’s good.  Stopping to drink, dying a lot, having to deal with cumbersome class mechanics, etc. all contribute to downtime.

Damage – Less important than downtime but still important is how quickly the mob will die.  A resto shaman will have very little downtime once they get water shield and if they choose to melee hit instead of cast to kill things.  The resto shaman will also spend 3 and a half hours killing the ten mobs needed to finish a quest. 

Movement – Azeroth is a huge place.  Before you get to Outlands and Northrend, you’re going to spend a big chunk of time going place to place from quest to quest and using your pitiful level 30 mount and flight paths.  Nothing can help the pitiful mount and flight path but there are other tools that help you get from one area in a zone to another to finish multiple quests.

Fun – This doesn’t really determine anything.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I have noticed that among my toons if it’s not fun to level as a certain spec regardless of how efficient or inefficient it is, I won’t level it quickly.  I will always choose to do different things and the leveling process will be super slow.  Take my warrior for instance.  Fury is thought of to be THE leveling spec for many warriors.  I choose to go Prot.  Because it’s more fun.  I like it better.  So choose what’s fun.

Aside from these things there are other things that help you level: the professions you choose, the race/class specials you get, and even where you choose to quest.  There are a lot of factors to quick and efficient leveling.  That’s not within the scope of this guide or this blog as there are several resources dedicated to fast and efficient leveling.

Now let’s look at these characteristics of leveling from each spec.

Downtime

Now many people will say enhancement totally wins here.  And it’s true.  But only to a certain extent.  You have to look at the talent tree, because those people who say enhancement has less downtime is looking at it from a high level where you already have the talents needed for efficient grinding.  Grinding and leveling are similar but they are not the same. 

Elemental Shaman will stand back at max range, cast, and things will usually die before they reach you or you’ll whack them once or twice until they die.  However, because of the poor elemental itemization at low levels (which means your mana pools are really really small), you’ll be drinking a heck of a lot.  Water shield helps but you don’t want things hitting you, now do you?  Because then you’ll be spending mana healing yourself, or bandaging, or eating.  All of that equals downtime.  You know what though? Your drinking downtime is inevitable because there is no way your water shield will keep up while you are casting all those spells.

Enhancement shaman will run in, use their melee attacks and then move on to the next using very little mana in the process.  But don’t be confused, you will have downtime too. Your mana pool is even smaller than the elemental shaman, AND you’re running in there taking more damage than the elemental shaman.  You’ll spend less mana fa sho on abilities and skills but it’s the same difference as using it on healing.  Once you get to level 40 though, with double windfury, things will die super uber fast as enhancement shaman have tremendous burst once we get Stormstrike and Dual Wield.  But before level 40, plan on running in fighting and having to throw on a lesser healing wave or two  or three before the next mob or pack of mobs.

The thing is, while enhancement shaman leveling gets better as your level gets higher, elemental shaman leveling only gets better as your mana pool increases.

The Winner

Very close but I give the slight edge to Enhancement.  Enhancement wins once you reach level 40 onwards. Elemental downtime is only dependent on how much mana you have.  And gear can only afford you so much as you level unless you spend time in the AH which is a total no-no while leveling.

Damage

Now, again the opinions of many I’ve heard in the past hands the damage to elemental.  I, again have to agree but only to a certain extent.  Elemental will make things explode pretty quickly, all the way throughout your leveling process, but once again, when enhancement reaches that magical level 40 mark, their burst damage is outright nasty.

As an Elemental Shaman, you’ve already got all your core abilities available to you at level 10 except for Chain Lightning which you don’t get until level 32.  Things will die before they hit you.  If they don’t whack them once or twice, and then you’ll have a heap of dead mob sitting in front of you.

The core Enhancement Shaman talents, however, don’t come into play until you get to 30 points in enhancement.  Stormstrike and Dual Wield.  You also don’t get the Windfury weapon imbue until level 30, another thing to keep in mind.  This means you don’t have any instant attacks except for your shocks until you get to level 40 at which point you’ll start to get plenty of instant attacks at a steady pace while leveling (lava lash and then maelstrom weapon). 

The Winner:

Gonna have to give it to elemental here.  Like I said, level 40 is the magic level for enhancement shamans, and elemental is pretty consistent with taking down mobs quickly.

Movement:

Both classes and specs take the same flight paths and no tree has a talent that increases mount speed.  The one thing that needs to be talked about is Improved Ghost Wolf.

2/2 points in Improved Ghost Wolf takes the casting time of Ghost Wolf from 2 seconds to 0.  Win.

Now it’s story time:

One time there was this mob.  Then teh Pif came and killed it.  Then teh Pif became turned into a Ghost Wolf.  He ran to another mob.  Then he killed that one.  Teh Pif then turned into a Ghost Wolf again and went over to the other mob.  He was gonna kill the thing, but then the mob’s friends came.  Teh Pif turned dropped an Earthbind Totem, turned into a Ghost Wolf and ran away.

Elemental Shaman can’t do that.  They have to cast the thing for 2 seconds.  I’m telling ya, it just ain’t the same.  Yeah, yeah, they can put seven points into Enhancement and grab the friggin’ thing.  But that means seven levels more to get those higher up Elemental Talents. 

Level 80 Enhancement Shaman, even the really good ones, will forgo 2 points in dps increasing sexily beautiful talents, to keep those two points in Improved Ghost Wolf.  With the changes in 3.1 and the freedom of 3 extra talent points from Unleashed Rage, I’m thinking about doing it too.

The Winner:

The guy who wrote that story!  That was the best story I’ve heard in a long time!

Fun:

They’re both really fun.  Honestly.  And way different.

If you’ve played a caster before (which I didn’t), Elemental will feel like second nature just with different spells and totems.  You’ll enjoy bigger crits than you’ll see in Enhancement.  Lightning Overload and Thunderstorm are seriously awesome leveling talents when you get that high up in the tree.  And let’s face it.  You are shoving lightning bolts into the noses of ugly monsters.

Enhancement is also way fun.  You’ll go in and whack the mobby mobbersons for some decent damage.  The real fun comes when you get your arsenal of stormstrike, lava lash, and maelstrom weapon going.  That’s when you really start to feel the hybridness of Enhancement.

The Winner:

A tie.  I mean, it’s totally up to you how you want to play.  Some people like leveling as Resto for jeebus sakes!

The Score:

Downtime: Enhancement

Damage: Elemental

Movement: The guy who wrote the story

Fun: Tie

So we have a tie breaker here!  For me, in all honesty.  I could’ve been an elemental shaman at 80.  It really was between Thunderstorm and Feral Spirit.  And I have to tell you, Mugsy and Molly are soooo cute.  I could never ever let them go.

So that’s it folks.  Mugsy and Molly makes the last minute three-pointer to win it for Enhancement Shamans.  Hurray!

Disclaimer:  What spec you choose to level with, how you level and where you quest is not anywhere half as important as having fun while you’re doing it.  Do what is fun for you.  If you got a lot of gold, do what I did.  Level as both.  :)

MOAR SPIRIT! NEED MOAR SPIRIT! /bonk

Ok!

We've talked about a lot of things now. We had an overview of what our class is like, our playstyle, our buffs, and even our attack priority list.

It's time to go out and get phat lewtz!

Er, actually no, not yet.  

We've got one thing to talk about before we can talk about our lootz.

Our stats.

YARGH!  STATS!? booooooooooooooooooooriiiiiiiiiiinnnnnngggg!

Yeah, yeah I know.  But we gots to know what we want before we go on getting what we want? right? right!

So first things first, let's look at our main attributes.  I'm talking about Strength, Agility, Intellect, Spirit, and Stamina.

Now let's get this out of the way.  Spirit?  fuhget about it.  Don't look for it, don't wear it, don't gem for it, don't even think about it.  Resto? Elemental?  Same deal, FORGET ABOUT SPIRIT.

Moving on.

Strength:  This used to be the end-all be-all attribute for enhancement shamans.  This is no longer true.  Strength does give you 1 Attack Power and some other things that are totally totally useless as an enhancement shaman.  I'm getting ahead of myself here, but there isn't too much mail or even leather gear with strength on it anyway and there sure ain't no cloth with strength on it.  The only strength then that you could get are from enchants, consumables, gems, or weapons/trinkets/rings/necklaces.  Just don't even bother.  Why? Well, let's look at our other attributes.

Agility:  Now, here's the real sexiness.  Agility in WotLK will now grant 1 attack power and a bit of crit as well.  There's also tons of agility on our mail gear.  It's not necessarily totally awesome to stack agility through gems and enchants, but it's passable.  

Intellect:  Some more sexiness.  Intellect, with 3/3 in Mental Dexterity, will grant 1 attack power, a bit of spell crit, and some mana to boot!  The importance of intellect comes into play when choosing between leather and mail.  The leather piece may totally be superior in many stats but the fact that there isn't any intellect on it makes it vastly weaker.  No mana = no spells or attacks.  You neeeeeeedz mana (on top of the attack power and spell crit).   I can tell you that there are many blue pieces of mail that are way way better than epic leather rogue gear.  Leave that stuffz alone.  I heard rogue leather causes cancer too.  Another reason to stay away from it.

Stamina:  Stamina isn't something we really want to gear for or worry about as an enhancement shaman.  If you're a pvper than that's a different post, but stamina will do nothing to add to your dps.  Many will argue (myself included) that you need to stay alive to dps and stamina is important in that sense, but if you're a dpser the only damage you should be taking is AOE or incidental boss damage.  If you're taking lots of damage, either you're doing something wrong or your raid is doing something wrong.  Regardless, you'll get more than enough stamina from your gear alone.   Enchanting and gemming for it is a loss of dps when you think about it because in place of those enchants and gems, you could be stacking other more useful stats.

It's important to remind y'all that since Strength, Intellect, and Agility all add to our attack power, that you really really want to get all those buffs going.  Blessing of Kings, Strength of Earth totem, Arcane Brilliance, etc.  You want everything.

I tend to prioritize the other stats in tiers.  

Tier 1:  Hit and Expertise

These two stats are your first priority.  You must be at or near the Hit and Expertise cap before you move on to other stats.  Other stats are inferior until you reach that cap.  Reach that cap.  Do it.  Ok?  

Hit

Think of hit in this way: if you can't hit the fricking thing, then you aren't damaging it.  I understand that you're hitting the thing and just missing occasionally, but people much smarter than you and I have done the math and their math tells us that those occasional misses are the single biggest loss of dps we have in fights.  So it's simple, make sure you have enough hit rating to get the job done.

To further complicate things, there are different hit caps we need to reach.  Having 9% hit will ensure we never miss with a yellow damage melee attack.  That means windfury, stormstrike, and lava lash.  But wait, what about earth shock and MW5LB's?  Well, we have a spell hit cap to reach for those.  And the spell hit cap is 17%.  

SEVENTEEN PERCENT!  That's a lot ain't it?  Yeah, go talk to casters how much they love that big number.  But remember we are hybridy.  We're a pseudo caster too, just in melee range.  

Anyway, the magic number for hit: 446

That seems like a really big number to reach, right?  It is.  Thankfully you've got some help.  If in your raid, you have a boomkin druid with Improved faerie fire or a shadow priest with Misery, that'll increase your chance to hit by 3%.  Oh, are you a sexy draenei?  That'll give you another one percent.

Which means we all have several magic numbers

17% - 446 (No buffs and you're a cute silly hordie)

16% - 420 (No buffs and you're a sexy draenei)

14% - 367 (Buffs and you're a ticklish little orc or troll or tauren)

13% - 341 (Buffs and you're a sexy statuesque draenei)

Expertise

Expertise is way way more confusing than hit.  This is what you need to know.  Expertise lowers the boss' chance to dodge or parry.  No mob can parry from the back.  Which is where you want to be.  Like Mobb Deep says: Hit it from the back.

So why worry about Expertise?  Because of the dodge.  Hit will lower your chance to miss.  Expertise will lower the boss' chance to dodge.  That's what you need to worry about.  As it stands, with no expertise at all, a raid boss has a 6.5% chance to dodge your attacks from behind.

Now, expertise is really silly in that it only works in chunk.  There is such thing as 2.25% expertise, but no such thing as 2.29% or 2.33%.  It only works in incrememnts of .25%

To the left is a table (taken from the elitist jerks forums) that gives you those magic numbers.  The rating is how much expertise you get from your gear.  The points are what you see on your character sheet telling you how many expertise points you have.  The percentages refer to the reduced chance to dodge by the boss (also seen on your character sheet when you hover over that number).

Tier 2:  Attack Power

Attack Power

Attack power is in a tier all on its own.  That's because once you've reached the hit and expertise cap, you want to gem, enchant, take consumables, dream about, sacrifice a virgin goat for, and find coupons for attack power.  You wants it.  You wants it a lot.  

The obvious reason is because of Unleashed Rage granting us 10% of our attack power bonus when it's up.  If you have anywhere near 30% crit, which you should be pretty darn close to just through talents and basic gear, it'll be up 95-99% of the time.  

The less obvious reason why attack power is so appealing is because of Mental Quickness.  The more AP you have the more spell power you have.  The more spell power you have the more damage your earth shocks and MW5 LB's do.  Which means the more AP you have, the more babes flock over to you asking when they can get a date with you.  In which case you reply, "Get in line, babe."

The even lesser obvious reason why attack power is so appealing gets really heavy into theorycrafting, but I'll state it here.  Point for point, AP is lesser than Agi and Int.  But that being said, compare these three gems:  

Bright Scarlet Ruby: Grants 32 AP

Delicate Scarlet Ruby: Grants 16 Agility - 16 AP, .19% crit

Brilliant Autumn's Glow: Grants 16 Intellect - 16 AP, .09% crit, 240 mana, and small bit of MP5

What would you rather have, 16 AP or .19% crit?  How about 16 AP or .09% crit, 240 mana, and a tiny bit of MP5?  In that second choice, you could make a case for it, but with all the replenishment buffs going around and Shamanistic Rage, I've never had mana be a problem, even in ten-man or five-man groups.  

The thing is, the way things are itemized, especially in terms of gems and enchants, you'll usually get double the AP from the Agi and Int gems and enchants point for point.  So in terms of gems and enchants, I will always choose the straight AP gems over those other two stats.  

But if I have the choice between 10AP and 10Int or 10Agi, the choice is easy, choose either of those two attributes.  

Tier 3: Haste, Armor Penetration, Crit, Spell Power

Haste

Haste will do a lot for you.  Heavy theorycrafters will say haste is dangerous because of an internal windfury cooldown and plateauing at 1.5% speed and blah blibidy bleeping blah.  That's when theorycrafters go too far spending hours documenting and talking about things that are so moot.  The fact is, with all the procs from flurry, other buffs, boss buffs/debuffs, HEROISM!, windfury totems, and just so much more, your weapon speeds will change like five hundred bazillion times in a raid.  You can try and predict what your speeds will be to a point, but the cost/benefit of going through those calculations are sooooo not worth it.  Trust me, I tried.  

Let's simplify it, shall we?  Haste will benefit two things for you.  More MW procs, and more white damage from your melee auto attacks.  There.  That's all there is to know without bogging it down.

That being said, you don't want to gem, enchant, take consumables for it or even seek it out on gear.  If you have to choose between haste and crit, I tend to choose crit because of all my on crit procs, but there is certainly a threshold of crit where haste would actually benefit more.  I'd say if you're getting over 45% crit fully raid buffed, it's safe to say you have more than enough crit.

Crit 

Ah, crit is so fun.  It's fun to watch those big numbers fly on the screen.  Crit will also proc flurry, unleashed rage, and elemental focus.  Among those things, the most important thing by far is Unleashed Rage.  If you don't have a blood specced DK or MM hunter, then you are responsible for one of the best, if not the very best, physical dps buff in the game.  It's your responsibility to keep it flowing.  How do you do that?  With Crit

I mentioned before, with about 30% crit you should maintain about a 95-99% uptime for Unleashed Rage.

Don't gem or enchant for it or consume foods for it unless you are under that 30% crit mark.  

Armor Penetration

I don't want to talk about armor penetration.  Go read blogs, read wowwiki, read wowhead forums or elitist jerks if you REALLY want to know about it.

I'll sum it all up for you.  Armor Penetration is really really bad.  It stinks.  Don't gem/enchant/consume for it.  It is a totally helpless stat and should not be sought after.  If you have to choose between other stats and this one, always choose other stats.  

Spell Power

I have to mention Spell Power since it is a big part of our damage.  Because of the wway we do damage in WotLK you'll see lots of forum threads about caster offhands, trinkets, or other pieces of caster gear being best in slot for us or otherwise.  Some of it is true. In a very general sense though, spell power is valued much higher when you've reached very high levels of gear and you are running with a fast caster mainhand weapon with the double flametongue imbues on both weapons.  There really is only one weapon worth talking about putting in that Mainhand slot and it's the one I just linked.  Spell power trinkets may prove to be pretty powerful for you.  All I can say is the only way to really know what's better for you is to grab it, wear it, get to a test dummy and see which one is better.  It's a confusing time for enhancement shaman and here's to hoping that the spell power/caster gear on enhancement shaman problem is addressed in 3.0.1

So there we go!  Stats for the enhancement shaman!  Next, we'll take a look at gear for the freshly babyfaced level 80 shaman!

Blog Review: More dots! More dots!

Everyone's got an alt.  Right?  Well, you should, even if it's just for the bank alt which is highly recommended by all the biggest gold makers out there.  

Some people don't just have alts, their whole WoW experience is defined and enriched by the ability to have alts.  Here's one blogger who's not only got some alts, she's got like tons and tons of em!  

Her articles are detailed well-thought totally good reads.  What I like most is that as she gears up her alts and plays with them, she reports about them, giving us insight into what it's like to play the class.  I can totally dig that.

And I totally used her resto guide to try out resto :)

And most importantly for teh Pif, she's a babe.  And babes are what enhancement shamanism is all about. /flirt

http://kdots.blogspot.com/

Attack Priority List: A To Do List

A priority list means that you will always choose to attack with whatever is highest on the priority list as long as the cooldown is up.  If you have the choice between two or more spells, refer to the list and choose whatever is higher up on the list.

So what is this list?

The Attack Priority List

• MW5 LB
  
• Stormstrike
  
• Earth Shock
  
• Lava Lash
  
• Totem Refresh
  
• Shield Refresh
  

We talked ad nauseam about MW5 LB’s here and how Maelstrom Weapon works.  You noticed how MW5 LB’s are the highest on the priority list?  The reason is because we need to keep those Maelstrom Weapon stacks going smoothly and consistently.  Let’s say you have five stacks and DON’T let that MW5 LB loose.  You stormstrike, then earth shock, then lava lash following the list.  During that whole rotation you could have had ANOTHER 5 Maelstrom weapon stacks allowing you to let loose yet another Lightning bolt.  But you didn’t.  Because you still have 5 stacks that you haven’t let loose yet.  Always always always always let loose the lightning bolt when you have 5 stacks.

The Stormstrike seems somewhat obvious.  With the Stormstrike glyph it’ll beef up several of your attacks: Static Shock, Earth Shock and MW5 LB’s. You need that debuff to be on the boss.  The stormstrike debuff increases all nature damage that you put out so it needs to be up 100% of the time and it’s possible to keep that debuff on the boss 100% of the time.    You can do it, so do it.

Earth Shock is our highest damage shock.  I know that it used to be that flame shock with its initial damage and full dot duration was the highest damage, but with our Stormstrike glyph and the debuff being for the enhancement shaman only, Earth Shock totally blows flame shock out of the water.  The only time I use flame shock is in PVP when I’m trying to keep a stealthed person unstealthed.  Sometimes I’ll use it to proc Lava Burst on mobs where Melee Pif would die and Caster Pif has to come to the rescue.  Moral of the story?  Use Earth Shock, and love it.

I don’t know how to put this, Lava lash stinks.  It is so annoyingly bad and it’s only on the list because it’s just another instant attack we can fit into the rotation.  Lava Lash does about 3-4% of my total damage on boss fights.  Lava lash does do more damage with flametongue imbued on your OH weapon and I always run with the Flametongue weapon imbue.  Lava lash will do better damage with a slower OH because it’s based on your weapon’s damage (not it’s dps), but like I said, lava lash is such a bad attack that you don’t want to waste itemization options on your lava lash.  Focus on your other attacks.

This attack is exactly the reason why we have an attack priority list (other than MW5 LB’s being completely random in timing).  Let’s say two minutes into a boss fight and you’re about to lava lash but notice your earth shock cd is available.  You earth shock because it’s higher on the list.  Then MW5 LB is ready so you let that loose.  By that time you’re stormstrike is up so you stormstrike,  THEN you lava lash.  All those things were higher on the attack priority list so they went before lava lash.

After that notice I put down totem and lightning shield refreshes.  To be honest, totem refreshes should be first.  A loss of your totems in the fight is a major loss of dps not only to other classes but to yourself as well.  Now I put it there on the list because if you are watching your cooldowns you can keep up your totems without interrupting your attack priority list.  Stormstrike is an 8 second cd, Earth shock is a 6 second cd, Lava lash is also a 6 second cd. After going through those three attacks you may have one or two GCD’s (global cooldowns = 1.5 seconds for us shaman) free while your just auto attacking.  Use them.  Use them to refresh your totems and lightning shield.  Just make sure you aren’t interrupting your attacks. 

And that, my sexy enhancement shaman brothers and sisters, is our attack priority list.

The Pif Factory

Gonna take a second to pause on the enhancement shaman sexiness and talk about something else.

There are benefits to being an altaholic.  

Some are obvious.  Logging on alt because of the four rogues camping you.  Being able to try out different roles and different classes.  Having a bank alt.  But for me, what I love most is running the daily operations of the Pif Factory!

 

The Pif Factory is fully equipped with a 350 Enchanter for disenchanting Northrend Greens and blues, a 450 Leatherworker, a 450 Skinner, a 430 Scribe, a 450 Herbalist, and a bank alt that sits in Exodar.

The Skinning and Leatherworking belong to the hunter, Pifoah.  

The Inscription and Herbalism is provided by your neighborhood friendly enhancement shaman, Pif.

Enchanting services was power leveled on Pifoo.

So this is how the Pif Factory works.

Pifoah goes out a hunting.  Killing anything that can be skinned and anything that drops the raid food mats I need for the week's raid.

Whilst hunting, Pifoah picks up some Northrend greenies, vendor trash, meat for raid food, and tons and tons of skins.

Pifoah heads back to Dalaran, sells the vendor trash for a nice chunk of change, crafts some leg armor, and heads to the mailbox.

The Northrend greenies get sent to Pifoo, the Enchanter, the leg armors and excess skins get sent to the Bank Alt, and the raid food meat go to Pif, your neighborhood friendly enhancement shaman.

Pifoo disenchants the greenies, enchants some vellum in the Howling Fjord (I know he's level 64), learns new enchants, and then sends the enchanted vellum and excess enchanting mats to the Bank Alt.

Pif gets raid food mats, cooks up some yummy pigs for raid time, learns his new northrend glyph, advertises his Inscription services on trade chat, and then heads out all over Northrend to pick herbs.

Pif gets back, makes some glyphs, vellums, and perhaps a Darkmoon card or two, and then sends the vellum  to Pifoo the Enchanter and everything else to the Bank Alt.

Bank Alt then sells the glyphs, enchanting mats, leg armors, skins, and perhaps a Darkmoon card or two on the Auction House.

Meanwhile, Pif has got raid food, mats for some flasks, and mats for enchanting ready for raids.

Pifoah's sitting tight waiting for his next hunting expedition.

Pifoo is steadily leveling his enchanting at level 64.  

Bank Alt is ridiculously rich for a level 23 paladin.

And the Pif factory chugs along nicely without doing a single daily.

:)

Maelstrom Weapon: More than you ever wanted to know

I was gonna write about our attack priority list, but then found that it was totally worth it to explain our newest playstyle-changing talent for that guide to make sense.

So here it is!  Yay!

Maelstrom Weapon Rank 5 Requires One-Handed Axes, Two-Handed Axes, One-Handed Maces, Two-Handed Maces, Staves, One-Handed Exotics, Two-Handed Exotics, Fist Weapons, Miscellaneous, Daggers When you deal damage with a melee weapon, you have a chance (higher than rank 4) to reduce the cast time of your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lesser Healing Wave, Chain Heal or Healing Wave spell by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec.

Maelstrom Weapon is a proc per minute (PPM) ability.  PPM can get confusing, but all you need to know is that gettting a stack of Maelstrom Weapon can't be helped by crit or how hard you hit or anything like that.  It will stack when you hit for a set amount of times as long as you keep hitting.  The confusing part about this is that it scales with haste effects.  See?  It can get complicated.  What you need to know about PPM are two things:

1. Maelstrom Weapon will proc a LOT and you will see 5 stacks very very often.
   
2. Taking less points in Maelstrom Weapon means fewer procs which means fewer LB's which means lower dps which means babies will cry and kittens will die.  Because of you.  Don't let the kittens die.

There's some simple math to be done here for this ability too.  Each stack reduces the casting time by 20%.  It stacks up to 5 times.  5 x 20% = 100%

From here on out and forevermore, 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon will be called MW5.  What Pif says, goes.

Casting time reduced by 100%?  That means, there's no casting time!  That means our cast is instant!  omaigawsh!  Instant cast lightning bolts!  Instant cast Healing Waves!  It's all instantly instant baby.

Now, some people will argue that you should always stormstrike if the cooldown is up, even if you got MW5.  Their argument is that stormstrike does more damage with the windfury imbue.  But not letting those lightning bolts fly at 5 stacks means a few things.  

First, it means that you aren't giving yourself a chance for more procs.  When it stacks at five, and you keep on hitting you don't gain more MW procs to save for later.  There are no savings accounts, leftover minutes, or to-go boxes.  Each hit you do thereafter is a chance for a proc that you're missing because you're sitting on MW5.  

Also, MW5 LB's may not be your biggest source of damage but it's a big chunk of it.  Not sending out the zeus-like thunder bolt of instantness would be taking out a big chunk of your damage not to mention your stormstrike charges going to waste.  I mean, the thing is instant!  The only thing stopping you from casting it would be mana or some type of boss mechanic where casting = bad.  

One last thing,  a crit on a LB is a chance to decrease the mana cost of your earth shock if you have Elemental Focus which is just win.

So there ya go!  Maelstrom Weapon in a very large and verbose nutshell!  Next, a guide on our attack priority list!  

Enhancement Shamans' Who Am I? A Review

Who Am I? A Review

Who Am I? Part I

1. We are a hybrid class and a hybrid spec and this affects us in many ways
2. Hybridness means our damage comes from melee attacks AND spells and the damage from spells is nothing to cough at.
3. Nearly all buffs of all kinds, add up to help our melee physical damage AND our spell damage.  We needs all of them!
4. Your gear and talents needs to reflect your hybrid nature.  No more strength stacking or just rolling on agility for all that attack power.  We wantz hunter mail!

Who Am I? Part II

1. We provide massive buffs
2. Our massive buffs are the Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem, Mana Spring/Healing Stream Totem, Flametongue Totem (*), and Unleashed Rage
3. We don't cast our buffs on other classes, we place them which means you are responsible not just for putting em down, you gotta make sure the totems are in a place people can use them.
4. Your gear and talent choices don't just need to reflect your hybrid nature, you need to make sure you're offering all the buffs for your raid.  Raid first, you second.

Who Am I? Part III

1. Forget whatever we were in BC, none of that is true anymore.
2. Our damage output is competitive with other classes
3. Our damage is only competitive if you gear accordingly and use the attack priority list.
4. Your gear and talent choices aren't just for your hybridness or raid buffs, they need to make sure that you yourself are putting out the best damage you can do.

Most importantly:

• Every single choice you make adds up into one thing, your skill.

And even Moster importantlyest:

• Putting out the damage and buffing the group makes you sexy and that gets you babes and fast cars.

This just in!

Yum....

I don't want to comment on it until things are more established, like until it's live.  But I don't know if I can contain myself.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=14910002204&sid=1

Read for yourself what they got coming for Shamans.  There's a couple things in there that really make me all spicy and gitty.

Enhancement Shamans' Who Am I? Redemption

As Jackie Chan said in one of his great roles in The Forbidden Kingdom, 

Exactly, how can you fill your cup if already full? How can you learn Kung Fu, you already know so much. No Shadow Kick, Buddha Palm! Empty your cup.

My sentiments exactly, Jackie!

What we were pre-WotLK we are not in WotLK.  In this last issue of Who Am I? we want to look at how we play and take a glimpse at what we're really capable of doing.

Ok, so we understand our hybrid nature and how we are the most hybrid of the hybrids, and we also understand that we bring some very massive buffs which make us very powerful in the raid.

But the mentality of the enhancement shaman in BC needs to change in WotLK.  Where before we would say, "I'm not topping damage meters or even getting close to the top but my buffs make up for it."

Now we should say, "Holy taquitos! My damage is super sexy!"

And it's true.  While we aren't as formidable as some other classes on the meters, we are no longer scrubbing the bottom of the list.  Our damage is competitive as long as you have prepared your gear thoughtfully and you are following the attack priority list.

Now from this we come to two conclusions.  First, we are totally gear dependent.  Sure all classes are gear dependent, but because of the hybrid nature of our spec, we need a good mana pool, lots of attack power, a ton of crit, and all these stats  accumulate to make us competitive.  We need everything we can get in all stats in order to stake our claims on yonder damage meters. 

Second, the attack priority list (soon to be covered in another post), means that we are not attacking willy nilly.  The buttons you push and the order you push them in makes the difference between massive damage and just enough damage.  Don't be that person.  Every single choice you make in gear, attacks, and consumables/buffs/glyphs, will accumulate and add up.  While gear takes a considerable amount of time, a commitment to your guild/raid group, and weeks of instance/raid farming, those other things will define your "skill."

Remember, like Jackie said, forget what you know, learn it right, empty your cup, and get hot babes!  Well, that isn't what he said, but it's close enough.

Enhancement Shamans' Who Am I? Part Deux

In our previous installment of "Enhancement Shamans' Who Am I?" we talked about our hybrid nature and how we compare to other classes.  We can't start to talk about tuning our talents and gear without understanding what we're all about.

In this issue, we'll look at what we have to offer to the raid.

We are a buffing class.  It doesn't matter what your spec is.  All of the shaman specs bring some very hefty buffs and all classes and specs will benefit from the different shaman specs.  In a raid environment, it is very very win to have one shaman of each spec so that the full spectrum of their buffs can be utilized.  Furthermore, we have one of the sexiest buffs  of all time, which no other class can reproduce in this era of buffing homogenization: HEROISM!

Every class brings buffs.  So what do I mean by being a buffing class?  I mean one very very important thing.  The buffs we bring greatly outweigh any personal dps gains we want to make to sacrifice those buffs.  This is very very important.  The talent points we spend, the gear choices we make (specifically in terms of crit), and what we do when we're fighting is all affected by this.  Raid first, you second.  It's the life of the enhancement shaman and it's one that makes us respected and appreciated.  You can theorycraft all you want and use spreadsheets and use simulators trying to maximize your dps but it's very difficult to factor in how much dps you are adding to your raid through your buffs.  In fact, this could be a general rule for all classes and specs, but for us especially since we have a number of buffs we need to be aware of. 

Now, specifically the enhancement shaman provides some very meaningful buffs to the physical dps classes in the group.  Even more specifically these buffs are the Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem, and Unleashed Rage.  These buffs could be argued as the three strongest physical dps buffs in the game and we got all three of them.  Win.

When I say that our buffs are specifically meant for physical dps classes it's because I mean exactly that.  It used to be that our greatest contribution was to the melee classes through totem twisting.  That's no more with the new Strength of Earth totem, and furthermore we cannot forget that all of our buffs provide a hefty buff to hunters and their pets as well (except for our Windfury Totem).   

I didn't mention the flametongue totem because it's a special case.  The flametongue totem boosts spell power and thus isn't a great buff for physical dps classes.  It is, however, a nice little boost for spell casters and they'll appreciate that.  One thing to mention: if you've got an Elemental Shaman in range, then they win because theirs is better.  If not, then drop it like it's hot.  

One more thing, unlike other buffs, we don't simply cast them on a player for them to have.  Many of them come through our totems which means that if we don't put the totem down in the right place, then we aren't doing our jobs. 

Alright.  We understand that we are a great buffing class and as enhancement shaman we provide major physical dps buffs that we are responsible for.

In our last installment of Enhancement Shamans' Who Am I? we'll cover the actual playing style of the enhancement shaman.

Enhancement Shamans' Who am I?

No, this isn't a reference to Jackie Chan's greatest movie of all time.

And I only briefly talked about it before here.

But before I talk about what choices you can make to perform better, we've got to understand who we are.

Enhancement Shaman are the most hybridy hybrids in the game.  Many people say it and don't understand why, and it isn't quite clear until you a) compare it to other hybrid classes and specs and b) start gearing up and you have to make tough choices.  

The pures:  Mages, Rogues, Hunters, Warlocks

All of these classes can only spec to do one thing: bring the pain train.  The specs have totally different playstyles, strengths and weaknesses but none of these classes can really tank or heal in any sort of sustainable way.  Unless you are this dood or this dood.

The hybrids: Warriors, Paladins, Death Knights, Druids, Priests, Shaman

Hybrids can fulfill more than one role.  When I talk about roles I talk about the holy trinity: tank, heals, and dps.

Warriors can tank and dps. Paladins can tank, heal, and retlol.  Death Knights can tank, dps, and do things that no class ought to be able to do.  Druids can tank, heal and dps in TWO different specs. They unfortunately can't be tamed by hunters yet, but enough QQ ought to get Blizz to change their minds.  Priests can heal, dps, and discipline other people (I just have no concept or understanding of that spec).  We shamans, like druids also have two dps specs and a healing spec.   

This makes us a hybrid class.

But what makes the enhancement shaman the most hybrid SPEC among all the specs available to these classes?  Aren't we just a dps spec like any other hybrid's?  Well, no.  The way we do dps is drastically different than other specs, or rather the sources of our damage while we dps is drastically different.  As enhancement shaman our dps comes in the form of hard hitting weapon-imbued dual-wielding weapons in ADDITION to shocks and maelstrom weapon stacked lightning bolts.  We are doing melee physical damage with a huge chunk of our total damage being done by casts and spells.  No other class really behaves in this way.  Hunters have pet damage but so do warlocks.  All those clothies and boomkins dps through their spell casts and if you see a mage daggering bosses, then I'm not sure you want to group with that mage too often.  Rogue poisons technically count as spell damage but all they do is apply it to their weapons.  Retlols and DK's do a significant portion of damage through judgements, consecrate, diseases, and so on, but none of them benefit as much from these spell stats as much as enhancement shaman.  And our spell damage makes up a bigger portion of our total damage than theirs.  So have I convinced you that we are the most hybrid spec of them all?  

The implications are really important for you and needs to factor in to your decision making.  Fish Feasts are the best raid food we can get because of hybrid nature.  There isn't a dps buff under the sun that we don't benefit from.  Boomkin spell crit boost?  Take it.  Elemental shaman totem? Yes, please.  Arcane Brilliance?  Thanks!  Oh yeah, I'll also take those battle shouts, leader of the pack buffs, armor debuffs, and all those buffs I bring myself.  Thank you, thank you, and thank you.  

Your gear choices are also affected.  Don't listen to those conservatives.  Those who say strength is what we should stack, those who say intellect does nothing for us.  They are hate-mongerers and loath to see you succeed!  We are mail wearers and we wants them!  Hunters, back off!  I'm giving a /roll 10000.  

This hybridness makes my gears clink and the brain go choo choo because it makes gearing choices a heck of a lot more interesting.  What we give up in agility we may gain so much more in intellect.  Attack power is a beastly stat for us but sometimes all that int is too much to turn down.  Can you imagine wearing one of these?  I really don't want to but an upgrade is an upgrade.

Next post we'll look at another answer to the question of Enhancement Shamans' Who Am I?

Do what you wanna....

I'm a fan of disclaimers.  It's simple, really.  I give a disclaimer, I get to say what I want, then people bring the pitchforks and torches, I point to the disclaimer and then we all have a fiesta with lemonade and peach pie.  This time, I've got TWO disclaimers.

Disclaimer Number One:  I'm not here to tell you how to play the game, no one should tell you how to play the game, and if you play differently than other people and people give you guff about it, then it just doesn't matter.  This is a game.  Games are meant to be enjoyed.  Some people enjoy making people upset or feeling superior to other people.  It's what the ignore list is for.

Disclaimer Number Two:  I'm not the best enhancement shaman out there, I'm not even close.  Several shaman have years of experience on me in top-end raiding guilds and can kill Kel-thuzad just by /stare and /fart.  

Now, what I am capable of doing is giving you a rundown on what I believe to be a good choice or a bad choice and provide reasoning behind all my decisions.  From that, you should make your own decisions.  What I hope though, is that you don't make decisions blindly and that you make your decisions based on what you know rather than what you see and heard from someone else.  There's an acute distinction there.

All guilds and all groups and raids have different needs.  Your playing style may differ from someone else's.  Your gear make-up will be different.  What you enjoy about playing may be different. Never lose sight of those things, make your choices, and adapt accordingly.  A person's "skill" in WoW is very often determined simply by the gear/talent/glyph/consumable choices he/she makes.  As long as you can defend your choices backed with solid understanding then I got nothing against ya. 

Bigger than the Manhattan Project, the Economic Stimulus package, and Brangelina, COMBINED!

I've got quite a few projects coming up for this budding new baby of a blog.  When does it get out of baby status?  Well, once all of you can effectively get hawt babes and phat lootz through enhancement shamanism, then maybe I'll promote myself to teenage blog.  

But here are some projects I'm planning:

1. A leveling guide for enhancement shaman
2. Gearing up your Shaman for Naxx
3. Raiding in WotLK  as a Shaman
4. Boss Strategies for the Enhancement Shaman
5. Talent Reviews and Builds
6. A super secret delightfully delicious uber project (No! I'm not telling!)

If you have some projects you'd like to see come to fruition, drop a comment and let me know!  Your wish is my command! *Scrunched nose*

It's Not a Skirt.....

I'd like to give a little disclaimer here, because the rest of this entry states otherwise: I like getting phat lootz and upgrading.

But what the heck is THIS

Click on that link.  Look at the picture.  Look at it in 3D.  Why am I wearing a dress!?  I mean, part of my whole mojo is looking good while I DPS.  THAT just does not look good.  I mean, seriously.  It's mail, right?  Can you imagine wearing a flippity SKIRT made of mail?  Mail should go clink clink clink.  I mean, how am I gonna show off my muscular thighs and defined calves?  You know, runway models will tell you that you gotta feel the clothing, and let it define your gait. If I was a runway model I'd be skipping and singing tra-la-la-la-la while doing the Heigan dance.  

But no, I refuse.  I control forces of nature and the elements while slamming my foes with the might of the Windfury and thunder!  RAWR!  

But right now, I'm looking for an iron after each fight because I've wrinkled my skirt all in bunches during the fight....

Here's to hoping the T8 Shaman legs look better than these.