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.