Enhancement - Is it too tedious?

[Magi]

Heeey!
So, my friends recently got me into this madness of Vanilla WoW and I'm straight up loving it so kudos to you guys for this, it's amazing. However, I'm alittle worried about the state of shamans in general, enhancement particularly.

When me and my mates ding 60 we want to be PvPing aaaaaloooot and raiding some aswell, and I chose a shaman because it wasnt already being played by any of us and I hadn't played it before.
However, as I get deeper and deeper into the class and the server in general I start realizing that things weren't always awesome for hybrids - the gear sets only come in one form and they aren't really raid viable either.

I'm not against having to struggle to get my gear, my raidspots etc, but I must ask you guys is it even worth it? If I do go PVP and I manage to rank up the PVP set is kinda shit for enhancement right? And if I go PvE the shaman sets are even more worthless for enhancement. I can't really seem to find any other way to get decent gear either - armorsmith perhaps?

So what do you guys think? Is enhancement shammy just not worth it? Oh btw, I will not be forced into resto ^^
Thanks!

[Magi]

I'm not sure if this came across but my biggest worry is that I wont be able to get geared up for PvPing on a higher level. Is there any way to do this, either through armorsmithing or perhaps just farming dungeons?

[Throe]

PVP in BG's is just AFK'ing so I wouldn't worry about that.

Also, pretty much every shaman is elemental for PVP. You can raid and pvp with this spec, as well as farm dungeons for gear.

[Aslan]

One of the biggest misunderstandings is the fact that people see enhancement as a melee only specialisation.


So lets think of enhancement as a PvE spec:
In PvE, you have limited spots for 40 man. Enhancement DPS is overall pretty bad, its nowhere near a rogue/warrior/hunter/warlock/mage in a raid, especially not on longer fights due to going oom pretty fast. Of course you might be the one pro player that comes up with some decent and consistent performance but then you might aswell get that kind of player who plays a full DPS class and have more benefit. The thing with "enha provides nightfall and improved totems", a nightfall proc is not worth a debuff slot with the current amount of 8 and later on every single OT will have a nightfall too. The improved totems only benefit 3 players (the 3 melee in your group of 1 shaman, 1 hunter and 3 mdps), you would rather take an additional DPS in a different group and replace the enhancement with a resto.
In short: You might get a casual guild taking an enhancement for fun into a raid, but it is usually not done because its simply not worth it.

Therefore Enhancement as PvP spec:
So I came to the conclusion that enha sucks for pve therefore you dont need to go into melee 100% in order to fulfil your single role in a raid as good as possible (aka you can go "hybrid", as in pvp there is no real specialisation between healer only, dps only and such. You can make much more use of your utily as single player since its not that much of a teamwork between 40 players sorting everything out by tactics).

Hybrid? Utily?:
You claimed the shaman sets to be shit. Welcome to vanilla, they are shit. As shaman you will most likely be using off-tier items throughout all content, but the gear will still be very good, just the fact that you dont have the shiny set like a t2 warrior doesnt change much of your viability. For most classes the sets actually suck dont worry, at least in T1 and T2 content.
What you want to do is to forget about enha being the attackpower/crit/str/agility class. Its only one small part of it.
In a BG with a premade you might be able to equip a big ass 2h, run up to people and 1 shot them yes, but what about 1vs1? A warrior melts through you, casters keep kiting you, rogues keep stunning you, it might suck a lot if you meet a skilled player. You need to be able to switch your gear setup very fast with pre-made keybinds, when you face a warrior or rogue you equip a 1h (weapon chain) and a shield. When you meet a caster you go for the big ass 2h, but dont expect to be able to use it properly. If you manage to get into melee range sure, give him a possible 1 shot, but its highly likely that you will have to beat him with your spells. Enchant your 2 hander with some intellect/spell power once its available, get some different mana enchants you are HYBRID.

There is no forumla or priority list of stats you want to follow, you simply need everything.
-A solid health pool
-A solid mana pool
-A good amount of spell power
-A lot of AP
-Crit all along
-Solid armor, use mail whenever possible


I hope I could help you making your pvp experience a little more enjoyable but in order to PvE you might just have to give resto a shot. Trust me its awesome!

Cheers

[Magi]

You sir have possibly made the best post in the entire forum, well done.
I have to say you completely changed the way I look at the class/specc, thanks alot for that.

I have nothing more to say, you totally aced it. Thanks again, you're awesome sir!
-Thread can be closed on the account of awesomeness boiled down into text.

[DonDeLaVega]

enhancement tedious?

not tedious, but boring yes.
spamming purge, while waiting for skillfury to one-shot people
and waiting for your shock every few seconds...

well, yes, you could say its tedious.

[korrak]

PVP in BG's is just AFK'ing so I wouldn't worry about that.

Also, pretty much every shaman is elemental for PVP. You can raid and pvp with this spec, as well as farm dungeons for gear.

If I wanted to level up by filling my talent points to reach this spec at 60, how would I go about it?
Could you please link the spec? Thanks in advance!

[Throe]

Made the spec quickly and there are a few things you can put points into instead of the stuff I put them into. But to give you a general idea, you want Natures Swiftness and Lightning Mastery.

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#hE0zEzMqZZE00x0xo

[ShaqPack]

One of the biggest misunderstandings is the fact that people see enhancement as a melee only specialisation.


So lets think of enhancement as a PvE spec:
In PvE, you have limited spots for 40 man. Enhancement DPS is overall pretty bad, its nowhere near a rogue/warrior/hunter/warlock/mage in a raid, especially not on longer fights due to going oom pretty fast. Of course you might be the one pro player that comes up with some decent and consistent performance but then you might aswell get that kind of player who plays a full DPS class and have more benefit. The thing with "enha provides nightfall and improved totems", a nightfall proc is not worth a debuff slot with the current amount of 8 and later on every single OT will have a nightfall too. The improved totems only benefit 3 players (the 3 melee in your group of 1 shaman, 1 hunter and 3 mdps), you would rather take an additional DPS in a different group and replace the enhancement with a resto.
In short: You might get a casual guild taking an enhancement for fun into a raid, but it is usually not done because its simply not worth it.

Therefore Enhancement as PvP spec:
So I came to the conclusion that enha sucks for pve therefore you dont need to go into melee 100% in order to fulfil your single role in a raid as good as possible (aka you can go "hybrid", as in pvp there is no real specialisation between healer only, dps only and such. You can make much more use of your utily as single player since its not that much of a teamwork between 40 players sorting everything out by tactics).

Hybrid? Utily?:
You claimed the shaman sets to be shit. Welcome to vanilla, they are shit. As shaman you will most likely be using off-tier items throughout all content, but the gear will still be very good, just the fact that you dont have the shiny set like a t2 warrior doesnt change much of your viability. For most classes the sets actually suck dont worry, at least in T1 and T2 content.
What you want to do is to forget about enha being the attackpower/crit/str/agility class. Its only one small part of it.
In a BG with a premade you might be able to equip a big ass 2h, run up to people and 1 shot them yes, but what about 1vs1? A warrior melts through you, casters keep kiting you, rogues keep stunning you, it might suck a lot if you meet a skilled player. You need to be able to switch your gear setup very fast with pre-made keybinds, when you face a warrior or rogue you equip a 1h (weapon chain) and a shield. When you meet a caster you go for the big ass 2h, but dont expect to be able to use it properly. If you manage to get into melee range sure, give him a possible 1 shot, but its highly likely that you will have to beat him with your spells. Enchant your 2 hander with some intellect/spell power once its available, get some different mana enchants you are HYBRID.

There is no forumla or priority list of stats you want to follow, you simply need everything.
-A solid health pool
-A solid mana pool
-A good amount of spell power
-A lot of AP
-Crit all along
-Solid armor, use mail whenever possible


I hope I could help you making your pvp experience a little more enjoyable but in order to PvE you might just have to give resto a shot. Trust me its awesome!

Cheers

Awesome post, I'm still new to the shaman class and I never really see posts that give much detailed info. Some say go for hunter agility items, others say go for strength, but this post is A LOT more useful and detailed. Salute!