Enhance shaman doesn't seem very meaningful

[Argothman]

So I made my enhancement shaman a while ago, and I've been learning to play. I play a lot of bgs, and it's somewhat fun. I do a small amount of consistent damage, with a bit of burst from my two melee strikes. Today however, I decided to play arena, and it sucked. First of all, I did no damage. Even 5 stack Lava Lash didn't hit very much, and wolves were less than normal mobs. Not only did I not do damage, but I died fast. I had 108k hp, while all my opponents had 130k. I couldn't even dent DK/Pala hp. Am I doing something wrong? Do I need full tiered gear to do any damage, and if so, is it really worth it to play enhancement shaman?

[Hrimfaxi]

http://forum.molten-wow.com/showthread.php?t=192788

Maybe this will help you if you're referring to PvP Enhancement Shaman. :)

[DrGreen]

is it really worth it to play enhancement shaman

if you are not addicted to this class - no, do NOT play it, roll some dk or mage, and there you have it - facerolling.

[blackwaterpark]

So I made my enhancement shaman a while ago, and I've been learning to play. I play a lot of bgs, and it's somewhat fun. I do a small amount of consistent damage, with a bit of burst from my two melee strikes. Today however, I decided to play arena, and it sucked. First of all, I did no damage. Even 5 stack Lava Lash didn't hit very much, and wolves were less than normal mobs. Not only did I not do damage, but I died fast. I had 108k hp, while all my opponents had 130k. I couldn't even dent DK/Pala hp. Am I doing something wrong? Do I need full tiered gear to do any damage, and if so, is it really worth it to play enhancement shaman?

omg what u talking about. u don't have gear 108k health is ****. lava lash is op. if u don't have gear no class will help. L3GI0NW teach this guy something...

[Bizz]

It's just your gear. Get your gear up a bit and you will be critting 60K on 3800 resiliance players in no time.

[Argothman]

k, thanks guys, I think I'll stick with it and get some gear. :)

[KADAMA4]

Enhancement Shaman excluding the Burning Crusade has always been a PVE and 2 vs 2 class, that's were Enhancement Shaman shines. The reason for this is we have no defenses aside from Shamanistic Rage for reduced damage and we are a melee caster that uses mana. Chances are for most 3vs3 and 5vs5 games there is going to be at least 1 priest, if you're even a mediocre type of player you would know a enhancement shaman oomed is useless. At the moment the only good thing enhancement shamans are good for 2 vs 2 or for "fun".

I want you to know where am coming from I've been playing Shaman for 7 years and I've always been resto main spec and enhancement offspec.

Enhancement used to bring at the burning crusade: 1. bonus atkpower 2.earth totem for shamans gave more agiilty and atkpower due to a talent in the talent tree, so they separated themsevles even among other shamans, 3.bloodlust (atkspeed) 4. windfury totem used to give players a 0.5 windfury proc on all melee a weaker windfury is you will.They used to be a huge buff to melee characters. But then WOTLK hit and they changed shaman totems and nerfed their passives.

Fastfoward to Cataclysm. What can a enhancement shaman bring to a raid?

10% atkpower = Now provided by Blood Death Knights and does not stack (isn't supposed to at least)

Strength totem bonus = now provided by Death Knights and Hunters

increased atk speed (Bloodlust) = now provided by Mages and Hunter Pets

WAIT but they can bring Windfury Totem (10% atk speed). Well what if I told you, you can bring another elemental shaman and ask him to put a Windfury Totem and he'll bring the same as an enhancement Shaman.

----I don't believe you sir they have to bring something to the raid--- Immune to all Slows but only works with filling 2 talents that don't increase the shamans dps and the earthbind totem can't die and has to be in range of the whole raid, meaning "Unreliable".

Compare it to Elemental Shamans:

1. 10% more spellpower = now Provided by Demonology Walocks

2. 5% crit = now Provided by Rogues and Druids

3. Aoe root = provided by Frost DK

4. Aoe knockdown = sort of provided by Prot warriors(cone)

5. aoe knockback = now sort of provided by Druids "boomkings"(cone)

As you can see Elemental Shamans have more places in raids and bring more buffs and utility, which is what shamans are all about. You bring your buffs and you make your party stronger with your presence.

Enhancement Shaman for PVP ---

Only place for them is 2 vs 2 but if you're the kind of person who likes to die a lot in bg's, get slowed by almost all classes and get dodged + parried all your attacks, then this is the class for you. It's not worth it anymore. Not to mention the unforgiving stats we must acquire to PVE and not miss our attacks. This is a sad time for enhancement it's just not worth it with all the movement during boss fights and almost every class now has a slow or mutliple silences like Death Knights and Mages. And the worst part is that our dps rotation is dependent on a totem "Searing Totem 5 stacks" and on priority. So it's less forgiving rotation.

I am sad to see enhancement be so unnecessary now it was fun till Lich King. My 2 cents.

[crossfirebgd]

i have played enh shaman as my main for 7 years and it is still my main on 4.3.4 .
i do mostly serious PVE for now and i will start serious PVP ( 2s arena) when my partner comes from holidays.

PVE -
SINGLE TARGET DPS -- (boss only) is very good and comparable with rogue classes. my average boss dps is around ~24k in 5 man and ~31k+ in raids depending of buffs.
AOE DPS -- our aoe dps is currently bugged in a way so we can't spam it on 4 sec but instead on 10-12 sec
normal enh shaman aoe should be like this UE >FS>LL (to spread FS) >than spam Fire Nova on 4 sec (crazy aoe) but bug with fire nova eats up FS buff so we must reapply whole rotation again FS>LL>FN on 10 sec cd (cd of LL) . even with that bug my dps in aoe situations is not bad 27k+ in 5man and 36-37k+ in raids but that is mostly because of our great single target dps . (i cant w8 to see aoe dps when molten fixes Fire Nova eating FS).

PVP - enh shamans was were and will always be underdogs of pvp (arena) and it is mainly because of class mechanics it self. while we can do good but not great in 2s, we are useless in 3s cuz we don't have reliable burst (in wotlk we could at least do BL/Hero for burst and that is not the case anymore). IF u want serious PVP (top 20-30 on server) play another class. for example FDK in 2s have similar damage output but greater survivability and 1 more major cc (silence) + BURST (enemy healer on 30% silence >> burst >> healer dead--- we cant do that :( )
in 2s we can be good cuz of our constant sustainable dps , good cc and great slows with a proper team mate, our biggest weakness (excluding lack of burst) is not low damage but low survivability, so ramp up resilience and take glyph of stoneclaw totem that is minimum to even enter arena.

so if u are like me: in love with enh shaman cuz of it's complexity and how hard it is to play it properly, u do mainly PVE and in downtimes u like to do arena up to 2k rating enh is right choice for you. if u mainly do PVP change class or spec :)

[Argothman]

i have played enh shaman as my main for 7 years and it is still my main on 4.3.4 .
i do mostly serious PVE for now and i will start serious PVP ( 2s arena) when my partner comes from holidays.

PVE -
SINGLE TARGET DPS -- (boss only) is very good and comparable with rogue classes. my average boss dps is around ~24k in 5 man and ~31k+ in raids depending of buffs.
AOE DPS -- our aoe dps is currently bugged in a way so we can't spam it on 4 sec but instead on 10-12 sec
normal enh shaman aoe should be like this UE >FS>LL (to spread FS) >than spam Fire Nova on 4 sec (crazy aoe) but bug with fire nova eats up FS buff so we must reapply whole rotation again FS>LL>FN on 10 sec cd (cd of LL) . even with that bug my dps in aoe situations is not bad 27k+ in 5man and 36-37k+ in raids but that is mostly because of our great single target dps . (i cant w8 to see aoe dps when molten fixes Fire Nova eating FS).

PVP - enh shamans was were and will always be underdogs of pvp (arena) and it is mainly because of class mechanics it self. while we can do good but not great in 2s, we are useless in 3s cuz we don't have reliable burst (in wotlk we could at least do BL/Hero for burst and that is not the case anymore). IF u want serious PVP (top 20-30 on server) play another class. for example FDK in 2s have similar damage output but greater survivability and 1 more major cc (silence) + BURST (enemy healer on 30% silence >> burst >> healer dead--- we cant do that :( )
in 2s we can be good cuz of our constant sustainable dps , good cc and great slows with a proper team mate, our biggest weakness (excluding lack of burst) is not low damage but low survivability, so ramp up resilience and take glyph of stoneclaw totem that is minimum to even enter arena.

so if u are like me: in love with enh shaman cuz of it's complexity and how hard it is to play it properly, u do mainly PVE and in downtimes u like to do arena up to 2k rating enh is right choice for you. if u mainly do PVP change class or spec :)

Thanks for the info. I am in truth purely pvp, and I happen to like 3s more than 2s. Perhaps you're right, but I suppose I'll mess around with enhance right now even if I don't intend on taking it to very high ratings.

[Argothman]

You can always change to Resto if you want some high rating, but there are still few comps for Elemental and Enhancement which can perform really great.
Don`t give up just practice.

Ha, I'm not giving up, but not being at all useful in arena without gear is kinda lame. I switched to resto to do cap, but frankly enhance isn't my favorite class, so I don't spend a ton of time on it.