ESNN - Enhancement Shaman News Network

Unleashed Rage now adds 3/6/9 Expertise per talent point.

This is a huge and welcome change!  Considering that the change before was 1/2/3% agility, the expertise ends up being way better. Sort of like how N Sync was way better than Backstreet boys.  Not that I would know what they sounded like.... or care, um... yeah.

The thing is, the agility change was nice, but the Shaman community didn't think it was scaling very nicely at the moment.  While Shaman gear has tons of agility, it was only adding about 20-25 agility for the enhancement shaman in the best of the best gear.  While that's a pretty hefty number think about what getting all that expertise gets us and what it will allow Blizzard to do from now on.

Right now we need a 26 Expertise rating to get to our expertise cap.  We've covered the importance of Expertise rating here.

Now, getting to that cap requires us to seek out some really odd pieces of gear.  Even then, we'd be way far under the expertise cap. So then, we'd gem every single red slot or any other gem slot we could afford with expertise oftentimes forgoing gem socket bonuses that I love so much.  

So instead of gemming every single slot with +16 Expertise gems,  we get to fit those sockets with some of the more fun stuff.  Like +32 Attack Power, or maybe some crit with the +16 Crit gem,  or really whatever you think you're needing at the moment.  But if you go for spirit gems, I'll find you, give you a wet willy, a wedgie, and noogie so hard that your hair will never grow back in that spot.

9 expertise is quite a lot.  That's approximately 74 expertise rating (it depends on how much expertise you already have) which opens up more than four gem slots for other stuff.  I would sure love to have 132 extra attack power from four extra gem slots.  It sounds so delicious, I just drooled on my keyboard and think I need to wipe myself up. brb.

Ok, back.  The other thing this addresses is itemization in Ulduar.  While we share mail gear pieces with Hunters, there are very few pieces of mail gear with expertise because while we Enhancement shamans crave expertise, hunter can't do anything with them unless they want to melee which is really cute and silly and should be attempted pronto right after writing this post.  So since they want us to continue fighting for gear, they want to help us out in the Expertise department since they probably won't plan on making mail gear that is only useful to enhancement shaman and not for anyone else.

Anywho, nice change.  Looking forward to actually seeing some loot from Ulduar to see how it'll pan out.

teh Pif has a weeklong hangover....

Hi.

This is the editor of this here blog.  Sometimes teh Pif likes to take over and I get to take a little vacation.  

Unfortunately, teh Pif seems to like celebrating his birthday over the course of an entire week rather than a day like everyone else.

Teh Pif also likes to drink way more than he can handle, get a whole crowd singing "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men at a karaoke bar, and in the same night, get his microphone turned off for telling members in the audience to do things normally not accepted in the public.  

Teh Pif also has a massive hangover and has decided to take a vacation which makes me in charge of this here blog till he gets back.

But now I'm here to tell you what he's planning in the next few posts.

1. We were going to do a talent guide which would address everything: leveling, soloing, and party/group specs.  But things are changing with the patch so teh Pif will keep giving his thoughts on the latest changes as they make it to the PTR.
2. A gear guide.  He first started the post with a rant about how he hates rogues, so I stopped him and told him to focus it a little better.  I think he gets it now and he'll come up with a comprehensive list for gearing up for Naxx and even a bit for gearing for heroics.
3. Boss Strategy guides, from heroics to raids, what you need to know as an enhancement shaman.

So there's what to expect.  Please leave a comment if you'd like to see something addressed.  Thanks for being patient with teh Pif.