I made a post here several years ago commenting on the decline of dps shaman specs and the rise of the incompetent but necessary resto shaman in pve content.
My observation on this evergrowing problems stems from two premises.
1. Raid leaders (6.2gs 8/12 + content) being extremely toxic to enhance shamans for a stereotype of bad enh players.
2. Lack of steroids in the elemental shaman tree, particularly revolving around LB having poor scaling + bonuses (compared to fireball for example) given that LB accounts for more than ~70% of single target damage.
Yet despite some of these stereotyped conceptions, I would like to post some reassurance to the shaman players who view this forum and/or new players and encourage them to pick up the class. I would also encourage raid leaders to be more tolerant of the spec for the health of the community. As a raidleader and pug leader myself, having to rely on a rsham for bloodlust can be hell, particularly because the meta has largely attracted and tragically enabled bottom of the barrel players to the shaman class (players who go afk, first to leave raid, first to die etc.)
Looping back to the misconceptions and clarity for would-be shaman players.
1. Enhance/Spellhance/ARPhance, there are many ways to build an enhance shaman and they are all roughly viable. That is to say, they can COMPETE with top 5 dps classes on many fights and be a significant carry in mid-gs ICC runs. They can also easily crush mediocre to even above average ret paladins (who they are often compared to) in a dps race, especially in burst. Though more complex than a ret paladin, maelstrom enables you to impact the game beyond doing damage (instant chain heal, greater heal etc). Lastly, an enhance has an enormous potential in 10 man ICC progression, being able to provide the buffs of a blood dk, bloodlust and more to be able to provide spots for a non-bdk (if your guild or pug doesn’t have one for example.)
2. It is true that elemental shaman does not do great single target dps. HOWEVER, their utility given from totems and their ability to heal SHOULD NOT be overlooked. It adds a dimension to your gameplay and encourages you to be a better overall player. Do not compare yourself and we should not compare you to a fire mage. You impact the raid in many positive passive ways (Totems, back-up healing, bloodlust). Lastly, fire nova talents and glyph of fire nova with magma totem gives VERY RESPECTABLE AoE and small pack dps.
That said, I would love to hear other players’ observations and thoughts about the subject above.
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Member
Ele/enh shaman in the current meta
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Member
From experience, and playing on both Lordaeron and Icecrown, this is only true in Icecrown probably because healing there isn't really challenging as a whole.
Playing resto on Lorda feels like you can actually be appreciated for what you provide and how good you can perform, particularly in 10 man where a good Rsham can do some heavy lifting.
As for DPS.. 95% of the playerbase is so far from actually tryharding that if you do tryhard, you can easily be worth your spot even in the biggest raids.
I don't think the stereotype is ever going away though, The Shaman class attracts a LOT of noobs because of the class fantasy it represents, it's one of the three big "baby's first fantasy char" along with warrior and druids.
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Member
In terms of Enh shami it's also blizzards fault by giving wrong secondary stats to our t10 set. We have crit on every set piece and it pushes us beyond the melee crit cap.
Instead of crit we would need expertice and arp on t10.
Feels kinda weird that we have to stack exp and hit gems to make up for the wrong stats on t10.
