WARNING: ALOT OF THE INFORMATION HERE IS OUT OF DATE. FOR EXAMPLE:

1) Rockbiter is viable for a offhand enchant if you have a good amount of haste rating.
2) Windfury 5 on both weapons still do alot of damage on average.
3) Itemization has gotten alot better.

Among other things.

Hello. I am Ral'Garog and i am a shaman. Not just an normal QQing shaman but one that raids and does heroics on a regular basis.

In this thread i hope to be able to give a clear and comprehensive list of problems that i have faced while raiding and running heroics. I will not touch on PvP, and i will not touch on normal instancing.

First off: There is a misunderstanding between what Shaman were, and what Shaman are. Previously, a Shaman was able to spec with a little in each tree and was able to actually perform rather well with casting spells at range, running in to melee as well as healing. Shamans use to be “The true hybrids of WoW.” They were the “Jack of all trades; Master of none.” At one point of time, a Shaman was able to run away from an enemy then attack them at a range then run into melee them and be very effective and efficient at doing so. Also: They was able to heal themselves by a good amount. This was back when from my understanding: 4k health was considered a lot to have.

The Shaman of today are nothing like that. There is a design flaw in the game which prevents Shaman from becoming a jack of all trades. That flaw is two fold: But both of the flaws are hand in hand. The first flaw is Itemization. The other flaw is talent trees. Due to limited raid spots: A Shaman must pick a spec, stick to it, and hope for the best.


Because Shaman have to spec deep into their talent trees to be a viable substitution for the “true form” of the spot they are trying to fill, they must gear themselves accordingly. For example It's currently impossible to have +1500 healing, +850 spell damage, +18% spell crit, +20% melee crit along with also +1200 attack power. Since this is a thread about enhancement, we must stick with the +20% melee crit and the +1200 attack power. That completely gimps my spells and healing.


Itemization:
One of the major problems with enhancement Shaman gear itemization is the fact that blizzard are currently setting us up as if we were offshoot hunters. Even enhancement Shaman specific gear has tons of mp/5 which is almost completely not needed by a enhancement Shaman because of shamanistic rage. [Which is a quite efficient spell when it works as intended.]. Unlike hunters: Shamans need a lot of +hit as so that they can dual wield competently and efficiently: The problem is since there is almost no mail gear in the game [besides desolation] with +hit; Enhancement shamans must roll on leather. Gimp their attack power and critical strike percentage by taking on a a lot of weird gear which has a lot of hit but not much of anything else.

Right now: It can be argued that the Desolation set is better for enhancement shamans than their tier 4 because it has more hit and almost just as much attack power with gems and enchants. In my opinion: that should not be the case. I may be wrong: But a shaman should not have to roll on leather [even high end leather] if they are suppose to inherently wear mail.

The changes made to the tier 4 [and tier 5] on the PTRS are a step in the correct direction: But i have noticed something odd. Last Friday i copied my characters over to the ptrs as so that i can do some battle grounds with the blizzard staff: The only pieces of tier 5 which were upgrades for me were the shoulders and the helm: Chest: downgrade. Legs: major down grade. Gloves: downgrade. All of those are including enchants mind you.

I do not think that my current gear should be able to compare with what i get from 6 or more months of high end raiding. I do know that there is a high chance for our tier 4 – 6 to be buffed before it makes it over to live: but i just wanted to point that out.

There needs to be some kinda implementation of better enhancement Shaman specific gear. Yeah: another class can use it, but it suits the needs of enhancement Shaman much better than the needs of other classes and not a mixture of Hunter and rogue gear on mail. Enhancement Shaman need more crit, more strength, less int [not too less. Just enough], the stamina you place on our gear is just high enough so thats good.

A good alternative would be to remove the mp/5 from our sets. Add armor penetration bonuses,more hit, more critical strike rating(Or agility) and make the sockets Blue and yellow sockets mostly with mp/5 as the socket bonuses: Thus making the mp/5 on our gear completely optional and not forced onto us.

Specialization:
This has been touched on a lot by the itemization section due to the fact that this requires us to work to optimize our DPS. But the problem is in our talent trees, there are a lot of talents which are almost completely unnecessary for a enhancement shaman.

Examples of this would be: Shield Specialization, Ancestral knowledge, Anticipation, Two Hander specialization, Toughness, Mental quickness, Improved weapon totems.

All that i have listed are things which should either be improved: move up a tier [or should i say down a tier?] or completely removed in favor of something which would help us better fulfill the role of a DPS hybrid. Right now i can almost safely say that there is no raiding enhancement shaman who puts more than 50 points into their tree before moving onto another due to the fact that half of the things in the enhancement tree is almost useless and it works against each other. I am not one to cry about how “We did not get our full review.” But there are evidence in our talent tree that blizzard truly still think of a shaman as a full hybrid even when they spec into enhancement, which is not the case.

What you do to improve those talents are completely up to you, but things i think you should keep in mind when changing them. [I have a bias towards raiding enhancement shaman so please excuse any mixups i am to make in any 'useful' talents which i call non-useful.]

1)Ancestral knowledge should also help to increase our attack power and or crit when they spec into it. As a enhancement shaman: If i were to have only 5k mana, AK would only give my +25 mana which does not do much for me. That is not even enough to cast rank one spells. But if it were to increase our intellect and our strength by 5% [or bonuses gained by them by 5%] It would go a long as as to help make enhancement shamans better in terms of optimization of their spec.

2)Shield Specialization should not be in the talent tree of a offensive dps class. Sure: We can wear shield, but it makes almost no difference even when you spec into Shield specialization. It may be a good idea to use this as a way to “Enhance” our defenses. It may be a good idea to combine anticipation and toughness and use that to replace Shield Specialization. Remember: enhancement shamans should not be tanking damage from most mobs in raids and if they do, it's still up to 10k damage or move even with their shields on.

3)Anticipation does almost nothing for a raiding shaman. +5% dodge does not do much for me because as mentioned countless times: It helps classes like Warriors who have the “over power” ability to have the upper hand in a duel with me. Even when pvping, it's truly rare when you dodge a back stab or a garrote or something that can be potentially fatal to the shaman. It may be a good idea to either buff that talent or combine it with toughness.

4)Toughness is actually the most worthless talent we have. It gives the shaman less than 500 more armor. 500 armor reduces damage by so little that i makes no difference at all to the shaman, especially when they are not wearing a shield [which they should not be doing when they are dpsing. It may be a good idea to replace toughness with a completely different talent which reduces base damage taken by the shaman by a certain percentage or maybe even turn it into a actual spell or ability which reduces damage taken by a significant amount for a limited amount of time. You can think of it as the shaman version of the rogue's evasion ability [for lack of better words.]

5)Almost no enhancement shamans use two handers anymore. And when they use it: it's just for heavy burst damage and it's usually a one time thing used for PvP crit and cut videos. Enhancement shamans are almost completely metalloid around Dual wielding with Shamanstic rage and also Unleashed rage. It may be a good idea to Give shamans the ability to use Two handers as a base skill gained at level 40 or 60 [or even from a weapon skill trainer.] and make the talent into something that would give a chance to stun a target or even use it as a slot to give shamans a new ability of sorts.

6) Improved weapon totems makes such a little and slight difference that nobody knows if you have it or not unless they ask you. It would be better to remove that talent from the game and replace it with something that a raiding shaman can actually use to help buff the raid. Maybe use it to give enhancement shamans the ability to add a debuff to a mob which increases damage taken by a Shaman's weapon enchants by a certain amount that is also affect from shaman weapon totems.

7)Mental quickness seems to be in the wrong tree. It's a good talent mind you, but i think it may be a good idea to put it a bit higher up into the talent tree and maybe move a skill as the one i suggested for the two hander or the improved weapon totems part of this thread.

Problems getting into raids:
Enhancement shamans can get into raids, but it's very rare that they do so. The primary reason is that if there is no Paladin in the raid; Enhancement shamans generates an insane amount of threat. With the burst nature of the class, a Enhancement shaman with above average attack power and raid buffs can easily crit a boss or a mob for 5k damage or more. Although it's rare: When it happens, we instantly spike up in damage. There is no way to control our threat so we almost forced to stop dpsing for atleast ¼ of the fight.

Tranquil air totem is flawed in a lot of cases because it prevents enhancement shamans from being in the MT's group because they are unable to buff the main tank properly. Also: The air totem is a HIGHLY valued and wanted totem. Members of the groups bring shamans into the raid for those totem buffs: not a threat reducing buff which is strictly for the shaman himself to be able to dps. So threat is definitely a problem that really needs to be worked out.

Shamans have no CC and very limited anti CC's. Therefore: In my humble opinion, i think a Enhancement shaman should be able to dps on par with a rogue because that is one of the only things that the shaman bring to a raid. His DPS and the totem buffs.

If we are not the class for CC or the class for Anti CC, then we should be the class to fear because of our damage done. We should be a high priority target to CC because we should be able to beat another class to a pulp because thats the only thing that we have to hold our own in a group or raid. [I touched on pvp as a comparison.].

Right now: Although enhancement shamans are pretty boring to play [Drop totems, stormstrike earth shock, auto attack. Rinse and Repeat.] We do a relatively good amount of damage when we gear pretty well. By nerfing our damage again and again, our disadvantages would quickly out weight the advantages of having us in a group. An example of what i am talking about is:

Mage can polymorph a mob and do good dps. Rogues can sap and stunlock mobs and do good dps. Warlocks can banish, seduce, fear and dps. Shadow priests can fear and do good dps. Warriors can fear, stun, offtank [slightly when not spec for it.] and dps. Hunters can confuse, ice trap and dps. Duids can cyclone, hibernate, entangling roots, stun, and do good dps. Shamans....All we have is our dps and buffing.

To take our dps away from us is to take away our reason to be in a raid. Once a Enhancement shaman specs into enhancement, he is no longer a hybrid. He is a melee shaman who's role is almost completely dpsing and enhancing the dps of his raid members.

Enhancement shamans should be either insanely good at dpsing while controlling their threat or insanely good at buffing while being able to help adjust the threat of others while dpsing: An assist class. We all know that wont happen so it would be good to make us a good dpser.

Things i have personally noticed:

1)Enhancement shamans can currently do High End dps once their gear is good enough. They do not suck at dps right now, but it does become extremely boring at times playing one.

2)Enhancement shamans has the least amount of health out of every other dps class. [From what i have seen with the tier gear upgrades, that has changed and i thank you for it.]

3)Enhancement shaman DO NOT do WAY more dps than any other class. In order to out dps rogues and mages, enhancement shamans have to be extremely well geared and also stack on potions.

4)GoA does more Damage then windfury totem in the long run.

5)Shamans Generate the highest threat out of any class in the game. Even when they have salvation on they can generate up to 2k threat in 5 seconds. Most of the time even more threat than that.

6)Enhancement shamans have a heal button: Bandages heal for more than that heal button heals for. So it is not a good excuse to use when talking about why a enhancement shaman should not be able to dps well.

7)Enhancement shaman's itemization is a strange mixture of rogue and hunter. We need mail eith Str, Stamina, Crit raiting, hit and intellect.[but not too much int.]

8)The Devs seem to have enhancement shamans play a lot differently from the way everybody else plays them. What's the theory behind that?

In closing: I have a few questions. Note blue that may read this thread: Try to not respond to any of the guys who are complaining and qqing and throwing out the insults. I know it's hard to ignore them, but responding to them would only distroy this thread.


Questions to Devs:

1)Why was Windfury given a 3 second cooldown?
1a) Why does both hands share the same 3 second cooldown post patch?

2)Why are there not Enhancement shaman specific gear which have the stats which enhancement shamans would need?

3) I have noticed that it seems as if, the “Enhancement” shaman tree was not intended at first to be a melee dps tree. Instead it seem to be a Sub tree which can be used to Enhance the damage the shaman does, the effects of the shaman's totems as well as help the other specs of a shaman. Why have this yet to change when it was found out that the enhancement shaman tree was strictly preferred for melee dps?

4)Why do you think that Enhancement shamans should not have good dps when you choose not to give them any CC or anti CC.

5)Do you think the “Jack of all trades, master of none” saying still apply to the shaman class?

6)Why did you change storm strike as so that it would not stack? Balance druids like using my storm strike charges.

7)Do you foresee any major or minor improvements to the enhancement shaman tree in the near future?

8)Why is there so much mp/5 on enhancement shaman gear?

9)Are you going to buff our tier 4/5 sets again to be on par with random pieces that can be acquired with much less work needed?

10)Do the devs feel that they would break the game by increasing enhancement shaman dps even though they are giving no CC or anti CC to enhancement shamans?


I know there is a high chance i wont see a response from a blue in this thread. But i just wanted to attempt to give you guys some feed back. No: i am not in any high end raids like serpent shrine cavern or the Eye, but i have raided a lot of karazhan and gruul and i also have a lot of heroic and 40 man experience.

I was told by Eyonix to be patient and trust you guys. You have my trust. Even if you dont respond in this thread, i hope that you actually read it.

PLEASE READ:
Tseric made a post later in this thread: Do not be upset with him if you do not understand what he was saying. His comments were directed to me and me alone so i understand what he's saying.

Included is a quote of a post i made on page 23.

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Q u o t e:

Guys: I said it once and i will say it again. Lay off of Tseric for the message i quoted. He was speaking 100% to me and i understand what he was saying 100% and i didint @@##% about it so why should you?

He is responding to a comment i made but deleted when i found out that a blue did post in the thread. In that post which i deleted i never asked for him to respond about the message. I just wanted him to let me know what he's reading and i started to pms because it was kinda odd that he was responding to all of the forum threads but not mines. But again: I understand what he was saying.

The reason why he may come across as arrogant when saying that is because you haven't seen what i have posted before that.

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Links to updates found in later parts of this thread:

Weapon buffs tested: Thoughts on upgraded gear.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=101803011&postId=1026923998&sid=1#125

Enhancement Viability after 2.1.0:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=101803011&postId=1026922634&sid=1#126

How to make Shamans Raid Viable Again
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=101803011&postId=1026752650&sid=1#337
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=101803011&postId=1026752650&sid=1#338

This thread is full of win.

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Q u o t e:
100/10

The best well written Enhancement shaman's concerns post I have seen outside the shaman boards.

Extremely nice job OP I agree with them 100%

Edit: No lets keep the post here, show the community that shamans are not a bunch of crybabies. Were just angry as ____ that posts like this are always ignored.

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I am not like the other shamans who would choose to spam the mage forums or the warlock forums with their concerns. I would also prefer not to spam the main forums with my concerns. I trust that blues actually read our forums enough to see what ever i type there if it's there.

You don't like the mail either eh?

This thread has my approval.

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Q u o t e:
This thread has my approval.

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What I like about this post is that it doesn't just show what shaman don't have compared to other classes. It actually gives some justification for why shaman do or don't deserve certain things.

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Q u o t e:
What I like about this post is that it doesn't just show what shaman don't have compared to other classes. It actually gives some justification for why shaman do or don't deserve certain things.

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Thanks?

An excellent summerization of the enhancement shaman's plight. Thank you for taking the time to write this out Ralgarog!

Best example of enhancement shaman issues......ever really. nicely done

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Q u o t e:
This thread has my approval.

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