“I don’t know what you people wear, actually.”
Sigh. I hear this a lot. Enhancement shamans are kind of the oddballs when it comes to the shaman trifecta. Elemental shamans drop totems, stand back and cast and wear spell power gear. Resto shamans drop totems, stand back and cast and wear spell power gear. Enhancement shamans drop totems and then proceed to beat the everliving #%$@ out of the boss and wear….hunter gear?
Because of this red-headed stepchild nature of our chosen method of boss disposal, we have to, in a way, ignore our other shaman brethren and hang with the melee group near the swingset. It also can become a pain during raid buffs. ”May I have might instead of wisdom, please?” has become and oft-heard phrase from me. (Although, I will say, last night, the two pallies are my rock stars because one gave me kings and the other gave me might and I didn’t have to utter a peep.)
So, in light of this role we play a few simple rules apply.
- You are melee and, as such, stand BEHIND the boss. Learn to love his backside because that is all you will ever see. This will also make your healers a little happier with you as you are behind him and not taking his cleave or his hateful strike or any other “bash the tank and anyone in front of me” skills.
- You are not a caster. As such, skills such as Chain Lightning, Lava Burst and any of your healing spells are to be reserved for an instant cast opening or an emergency (i.e. the tank is going down and the priest needs an innervate).
- Count to 5 before rushing in to take on the boss. We generate huge amounts of threat with our Stormstrike and Earth Shock abilities and, since we lead our rotations with those, have a very high chance of ripping aggro. Yes, crit happens…but that’s seriously not our fault. Raids are not a time to see if you can make it to the top of the DPS meter.
- DPS meters are meant to be a gauge of what you are capable of – not a contest. Enhancement shammies are goddesses of the single-target takedown and, as such, we will leap nearly to the top on a boss fight. However, we suck at trash pulls and will take a dive on the meters. Since we fluctuate so much, using a meter during a raid and charting everything you do by that probably isn’t the best idea. I do keep mine running for boss fights only and only on bosses I can stand in one spot and go to town like Patchwerk.
- WF/FT. That is all.
- FT loves slow weapons. (More on that later)
- Spell Power and Spirit do absolutely jack for you. (Well spirit does jack for any shaman but that’s besides the point…) You get all your mana back through the clever uses of Water Shield and Shamanistic Rage. All of the spells you will be using in any good rotation are instant cast either by their own virtue or waiting the brief seconds for Maelstrom Weapon to get to a five stack.
- Expertise, Hit, Crit, Agility and Attack Power are your best friends and you need to collect the whole set pretty much in that order. Beat down the hunters trying to take your gear; then get to your caps on the first two then gem/enchant yourself to kingdom come on the others. Then go pound on a training dummy.
- Heroism/Bloodlust. Okay – either at the beginning or at the end or a specified point in the boss fight (such as right after an enrage or a certain phase). Never at some arbitrary percentage. I’ve been in pugs where the shaman pops theirs at a random 57%. What is that? 40 seconds of flurry and haste followed by a dead– wait, no, it’s still alive and has another 35% to go…
- They should be let out to play every three minutes.
There’s probably a lot more to cover with my little corner of the world but those are some basic, albeit very important, rules for Enhancement Shamans and, really, most melee (1, 3 and 4 especially).
This is a fantastic class to play, but, as I’ve found out, people who don’t play shamans have very little idea as to what it is you actually do so, be patient and learn to play your class intelligently.
