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PVE Enhancement guide
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Edited by Asio on 28/04/11 20:35 (UTC)
How to: Enhancement
Disclaimer: I don’t claim this to be perfect, this is just an overly long piece of writing that is a collection of my experiences over the last few years of being an Enhancement shaman. If anyone is willing to disprove this then feel free, if it’d help me, or anyone else do better, I’m a fan. This guide assumes you have a rough overview already of what all of your abilities are, I’m not going to write down what all your abilities are, if you’re unsure, log onto your Shaman and read the abilities. Hello there, my name's Asio, I’ve been an Enhancement shaman since mid BC in a very casual raiding guild, and I thought I'd try to do a bit of writing on how to be an Enhancement Shaman, so, here it is. How to: Spec The current best specs for Enhancement both raid utility and pure damage wise are.. http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhr0hZffG0s0hRGo This is my personal spec, and is pretty much the only spec going around these days. Seasoned Winds is crap, how often do you interupt a boss spell, and then get hit with the same type of damage again? How to: Glyphs Glyphs are quite straightforward, for Prime glyphs our choices are... Feral Spirit – Gives your Wolves an extra 30% of your Attack Power. This is not taken in a BiS Glyph Setup. Lava Lash – 20% extra damage on Lava Lash. As I will explain later, LL is our best damage attack, this is a flat 20% boost to our best attack. This is taken Lightning Bolt – 4% extra damage on Lightning Bolt. Not Taken Shocking – 1 second off the GCD of our shocks. This is not taken, as often you may notice you have a couple of seconds in your rotation where you actually aren’t doing anything. Stormstrike – Increases the crit chance granted by SS by 10%. This is taken in our BiS setup Windfury – 2% extra chance for WF to proc off each swing. This is taken, especially with the new WF buff (3 attacks extra and not 2) For Major Glyphs, There is extremely little DPS difference between the Major Glyphs, so, it depends a bit on your raid setup, your choices are... Ghost Wolf – 5% increased movement speed in GW. Out of all of the Major Glyphs, I would Recommend GW the most due to the amount of movement required in a lot of boss fights, the faster your move, the more uptime you have on the boss, the more damage you do. Healing Stream – Adds 195 resistance to your HS totem. This one might seem like a healing Glyph, and, well, it is. However, in most Enh shaman totem setups, they will be using Healing Stream Totem; I personally use this glyph as every bit of help we can give to our healers is good. Hex – Decreases the Cooldown on Hex. This is a good glyph for Heroics, where CC is often used (as I’m sure you already know) and for some trash in some raids. It’s a very useful glyph to have for trash; however, can you remember ever hexing on a boss fight? For a boss glyph setup, I would recommend against this, however, for a trash setup, and for being useful for the raid, i would recommend it. Lightning Shield – Your Lightning Shield will never drop below 3 charges. Now, for bosses, there is some incidental damage you cannot avoid, on some bosses anyway, in which case, this glyph is very helpful, as each GCD spent casting a LS is a GCD not doing proper damage. My Recommendation for Major Glyphs for pure DPS is GW, HS and LS. How to: Gems Meta- Agile Shadowspirit Diamond (54 Agility and 3% extra crit damage) there are no exceptions in PVE from a pure DPS standpoint where this gem isn’t the best Meta. Red- Delicate Inferno Ruby (40 Agi) Yellow – Adept Ember Topaz (20 Agi and 20 Mastery) Blue – Either Rigid Ocean Sapphire (40 hit) if you’re well below the hit cap or Glinting Demonseye (20 Agi and 20 Hit) if you’re closer to it. |
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Edited by Asio on 17/02/11 11:32 (UTC)
How to: Gearing up.
So, you’ve got your Shiny new Enhancement shaman, you’ve got the right glyphs, and you know what gems you want, but, what stats do you want on gear, Think Spirit is going to be more useful for you than Agi? Well, here we go. The First thing you should do is get hit capped for spells against bosses, a lot of bosses require interrupts from you, if your Shear gets resisted, that’s 3 extra adds Maloriak has sent through, and ohh noes, you wiped! For a Non-Dreanei you need 1742 rating to be spell capped, for a Dreanei, you need 1639. It is currently not worth getting hit rating over other stats when you’re spell capped, in case you care, the ridiculous amount of hit you’d need to be white capped is 2523 for a Non-Dreanei and 2404 for a Dreanei. So, you’re hit capped, yay! But, ohh no, that sweet Lava Lash crit that was going to kill the boss but instead it got dodged and you wiped on .01%, it’s a nightmare scenario. So, the solution to this is expertise. You need 26 Expertise rating to be undodgeable. That is the second stat you should work towards on gear and reforging. The quick rule of thumb to follow for Enhancement stat weights are as follows. Hit (under spell cap) > Expertise (under cap) > Agility > Mastery > Crit >= Haste > Hit > Intellect = Strength > Spell Power. How To: Reforge Before Hit Cap and Expertise Cap If an item has Expertise, Crit and Haste on it, reforge the Haste to Hit If an item has Hit, Crit and Haste on it, reforge the Haste to Expertise If an item has hit and Expertise on it, don’t reforge If an item has Mastery and no other stats on it, reforge the Mastery to Hit. You’re aiming for the hit cap before the Expertise cap don’t forget. After the Hit Cap and Expertise cap If you are over both caps, Excess Hit is slightly better for you than Excess Expertise, so, you can start to reforge Expertise away to Mastery so long as you stay above the expertise cap, and likewise hit. How to: Abilities So, you’re now pretty happy that you’ve reforged correctly and you’re quite happy that you’re capped for the important stuff and your gear is as correctly itemized as possible, but, Andy the hunter is comfortably out damaging you, and, although you like Andy, you want to be better than him. How do you do that you ask? Well, luckily for you, I’m going to try and help you with that. The first step is making sure you have Windfury on your Mainhand and Flametongue on your offhand, the only possible exception to this is if you’re in a place where lots of slows are needed (the last boss in Grim Batol springs to mind), where you might consider having Frostbrand on your offhand. You never get rid of the Windfury on your mainhand. The second step is making sure Lightning Shield is always up. As an Enhancement Shaman, you have a simple priority system, and it goes as follows: Searing Totem is ST isn’t already up > Lava Lash (5 stacks of ST) > Flame Shock is Unleash Elements Flame Buff is up > 5Stack Maelstrom Weapon Lightning Bolt > Unleash Elements > Stormstrike > Earth Shock > Spirit Wolves > LS if it's fallen off. Note: Stormstrike is ahead of Lightning Bolt in the list if no Stormstrike Buff currently present on your mob Pin that list to your computer screen and watch it while you’re raiding. You as an enhancement shaman are the best option for providing BL to your group too, why? Assuming you aren’t healing, you have an infinite amount of mana, and unless you have a core hound in your raid, the other providers of Lust/Heroism are all mana users that have to worry about their mana, so, expect to be called upon. |
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Edited by Asio on 17/02/11 11:32 (UTC)
How to: Professions
So, you’re now out damaging Andy the Hunter, but, he’s laughing at you, he’s saying that he can shoot lightning out of his hands, just like you! You ask him how, and he tells you that he’s an Engineer. Looking at your profession list, you just see 2 empty spaces. Let’s fix that! So, what’re the bonuses from each profession? Alchemy: You can make your own Flasks, which lasts twice as long, you also get a trinket that gives you in effect 351 agility and a bonus to healing/mana potions that you use on yourself. Blacksmithing: 2 extra sockets, which will give you effectively 80 of whichever stat you choose. Enchanting: Do your own Enchants to save money, and 40 extra agility on both your rings. Engineering: A Helm for which you choose the secondary stats, and a choice of Synapse Springs (480 agi for 10 seconds each minute) which averages out to 80 agility, or Tazik Shocker (4.3k to 5.3k damage on a 2 minute CD that scales with our mastery) on your gloves. Herbalism: Lifeblood (480 haste for 20 seconds every 2 minutes) Averages at 80 Haste (sensing a pattern here) Inscription: Swiftsteel Inscription gives you 80 Agility over the exalted Therazane Shoulder Enchant Jewelcrafting: 81 Extra stat points over the normal gem selection Leatherworking: 130 Agi Bracer Enchant, another +80 over the normal Mining: 120 Stamina Skinning: 80 Crit rating Tailoring: +1000 AP for 15 seconds on a proc, this effect averages out at about 230 AP As you can see, it generally makes very little difference what professions you have, they all give you 80 of your chosen stat, if you’re being the most min/max person in the world, you would go JC and either Inscription, LW, Enchanting or Blacksmithing. However, I would choose to go with either whatever you find the most useful for yourself, or for your guild. How To: Consumables Is your raid leader going crazy at you because you turned up with strength food? Andy the hunter beat you by 1 damage and you don’t like that fact? Well, it’s time for you to learn about Consumables. There is only really one choice Flask/Elixir wise and that is Flask of the Winds which gives you 300 extra Agi For Potions, you want Potion of the Tol’vir which gives you 1200 Agi for 25 seconds. For Food, you’re after whatever version of the 90 Agility food you can get, to get it yourself you want Skewered Eels. So, there is the brief overview of how to be an Enhancement Shaman, if you have any questions, ask them here, as said at the start, I have no doubts that this guide is imperfect, if I've forgotten anything, or, some of the stuff I've written is just plain wrong, feel free to tell me off. I'm also sure there are many mistakes spelling wise and grammatically in this, but, I hope that spell check has been good to me. |
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Nicely done :)
I take it you hold a bit of a grudge against this Andy the hunter :P Also I thought that SS took prio over 5s MW if the buff wasn't on? |
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Edited by Asio on 15/02/11 00:31 (UTC)
updated to add those 2 things ^^
also, report for sticky if you think it's helpful |
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Edited by Shamazi on 15/02/11 00:52 (UTC)
Just reading it now, looks pretty decent :)
Just a bit concerned about: The current best spec for Enhancement both raid utility and pure damage wise is this I personally feel 3/3 Concussion and 2/2 Reverbation is worth going for rather than Elemental Precision; the 3% elemental damage doesn't seem worth it for me, in place of 1 second off our shocks AND interrupt (5 second interrupt can basically keep a boss locked down). And, you don't get ANY hit from your base spirit, it's only spirit from gear, so the second half of that talent is useless for Enhancement. EDIT: I also think Improved Shields is a bigger DPS increase than Improved Fire Nova, but that might just be my opinion. |
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the elemental damage includes lava lash, which is why i like it, and Imp shields would be better if there was no such thing as trash or AoE, unfortunately, in this trash kill shaman world we live in, it's a dps increase overall to have the nova
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What is the best PvE weapon enchant if you don't wanna spend millions for Landslide on random weapons? Both Mh and Oh ofc
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Avalanche on both.
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It does indeed, but are you 100% sure that's a DPS increase over what I mentioned? Since you say there is 'no exception' to the talent spec. Also, you should probably change the part where you say: you get a very small amount of hit from your base spirit As Elemental Precision only gives you spell hit from ITEMS and EFFECTS, meaning not your base spirit. Just in case people don't read the whole thread and just your main posts, and get the wrong idea. |
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How about an enchant overview? Would love to see what mats I should be working on gathering for enchants. :)
Otherwise, pretty nice guide I must say. Love it. |
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Dear Asio.
I usually play Destruction warlock, and so have i done for a cupple of year. I am thinking of ''reroll'' my tbc shaman, curently i am resto but i badly wanna go enhancement. Got any tip for leveling as enhancement and how are enhancement shamans in raids? Apocalypsor. |
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Nice Guide,
But I do like to see one thing changed. The format, now it's like a wall of text. and you don't really see the selections. make use of the Bold/Italics/Underline etc. Ill show you what I mean: Start with: 1. How To: Intro 2. How To: Spec 3. How To: Glyphs 4. How To: Gems 5. How To: Gearing up 6. How To: Reforge 7. How To: Abilities 8. How To: Professions 9. How To: Consumables 10. How To: Afterword Than use the same text at every selection. Also I like the priority list, as a list like this: 1. Searing Totem (if ST isn’t already up) 2. Lava Lash (5 stacks of ST) 3. Flame Shock is Unleash Elements Flame Buff is up 4. 5 Stack Maelstrom Weapon Lightning Bolt 5. Unleash Elements 6. Stormstrike 7. Earth Shock 8. Spirit Wolves 9. LS if it's fallen off. |
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Awesome guide thanks I dinged yesteday and this makes my life a lot easier ^^ <3 anyone a tip which rep tabart I should get first as enha shaman?
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I disagree with the talent choices as well. Yes there is trash to clear in dungeons, but apart from the Phase Mobs in BoT, there are no/few other mobs that even require any kind of aoe dps. Fire Nova is already crap dps, and you're better off taking Improved Shields. You have to be more concerned with what single target DPS you do, rather than AOE DPS.
Elemental Precision is debatable. Yes, it does give a passive 3% boost to our damage, considering the fact that Flame Shock, LL, LB, CL and LS always benefit from it, but the secondary effect is next to useless. Reverberation is a required skill mostly because of the fact that we are the best interrupters, and more frequency of shocks equals more damage, but probably not as good as Elemental Precision. I myself am probably going to remove 1 pt from Improved Shields, and put them in Concussion. With the 4pc t11 bonus, LL is going to be a significant amount of our damage, especially during Bloodlust phase. |
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Edited by Spíne on 18/02/11 14:17 (UTC)
hey just wondering on the weapon front 2 slow, slow MH fast OH or just OH as much DPS as it comes up with speed doesn't matter??
also my personal idea of optimal talent http://wowtal.com/#k=Zb2uyWcFy.aei.shaman. |
hey just wondering on the weapon front 2 slow, slow MH fast OH or just OH as much DPS as it comes up with speed doesn't matter?? Both slow MH & offhand, as in 2.6 - 2.6 |
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dingilz,
this is what i do. my call of the ancestors (the 4 totem thing) is my pve norm one. it drops healing stream, windfury, magma and strength of earth. however my call of the spirits is my pve boss one. it drops searing totem (a must, and make sure you have the searing flames and lava lash talent) which is single target dps, my healing stream windfury and my tremor/Strength of eart depending on the boss at hand. as for pvp, i use healing stream, earthbind, searing and windfury. im probably going wrong somewhere but meh it works for me. as for the main post, i like your talent spec but i would change elemtal precision for reverberation. just preference really:) nice guide tho! |
