Enhancement Shaman 4.3 PVE

[Innoceent]

Hello Shamans ! I am a shadow priest player and i thought i wont level up any alts but ! I find enh shamans so much fun and not so easy to play. I was wondering if anybody could tell me are they any good in PVE for 4.3 if played perfectly. Also i see enh shamans are doing like really good damage at the moment in PVE is that some kind of bug or they are supposed to do so insane dmg ( Almost best dps i've seen besides gay classes ) lets say 23-25k on Venoxis with not so good gear ( Around 359 ilvl ) . I mean i am playing my Shadow Priest almost perfectly and i cant go over 20k there with 368 item lvl full gems / enchants and here comes Enhancement Shaman and outdps me like no problems with a lot worse gear :D Anyways i wanted to play them even back in wotlk i think but there was some ****ed up rotation with totems being my main source of dmg or smthing like that and i gave up because i really didn't like that stuff. So questions are :

1. Is their damage too high at the moment for this patch ?
2. Are they any good with full HC gear ?
3. Is rotation still with main source of dmg totems ?
4. Do you find them fun and why ?

Thanks for your answers ! :D Cheers guys

[Anodyne]

1.) Nope. Our damage is right around where it should be, other than a few bugs that are actually lowering it in certain situations. Our AoE doesn't work quite like it should, and if there is another Shaman some of our abilities overwrite each other and it causes problems, but in general we're right around where we should be right now.

I haven't done much since the 4.3.4 update, but is it that abnormal to see damage over 20k on a boss like Venoxis? My Shaman is at iLvl 358 right now I believe, and I can usually go around or over that without too much trouble on any fight where I can stick to the boss, though if there is some hefty lag it is particularly crippling as Enhancement. Granted I'm also the top DPS most of the time, but I am pretty sure that is only because I have only been playing in random PuG RDF's, and lets be honest, I'm lucky if those players even memorized a generic rotation, much less mastered their class.

Your damage does seem a tad low for a Shadow Priest in that gear, but I am also saying that based on the assumption that they are doing well this patch, which I was fairly sure they were. Unfortunately I've only been on enough to see how my own class was doing, and I am not all that aware of how others are fairing, so I can't really say one way or the other here myself.

2.) Damage wise, I think they're great. I don't think we're meant to be topping charts when around equally/greater geared and skilled players on more "pure damage" based classes, but certainly not low enough to complain. The important thing to remember about playing an Enhancement Shaman is that you join the group as a DPS, but your real role is one of support. Instant, powerful heals and CC, interrupting like a boss, filling in missing buffs, even taking advantage of our mobility for kiting purposes, if you don't take advantage of them you're usually better of playing a more "pure" DPS class.

3.) Our totems are still undeniably a huge portion of our DPS. More specifically, our Searing Totem is. The totems damage alone is pretty significant, but more importantly, the DoT that it adds, on top of adding some extra damage in general, is used to give a monstrous boost to our Lava Lash damage.

So, yes, we are still very dependent on having our totems to deal proper damage, and yes it is mildly annoying at times (the Searing Totem likes to do stupid things occasionally), but after getting used to managing the totem, it becomes much less tedious than it first seems. Think of the extra hindrance from handling the totem as a balance for the fact that we have all sorts of other awesome totems that have awesome situational use.

4.) I love Enhancement Shaman. My criteria for favorite class basically comes down to something that feels fast paced and has a lot of utility, both while fighting and while doing anything else. After playing primarily Feral Druid for most of WotLK, I decided to try Enhancement Shaman when I switched to Cataclysm. Ended up being a great decision.

- Solid DPS for what they are meant for, as we covered earlier
- Fast paced "rotation", which is my personal preference
- Tons of "fighting utility" between their totems, interrupt, purge, instant heals and CC, and even their mobility
- Great utility outside of combat via Ghost Wolf, Water Walking, 7.5 minute hearth, etc. These may sound trivial, but if you intend to do more than run dungeons/BGs all day, these abilities become some of your favorite parts of the class.
- They're just awesome. Imbuing your weapon with freaking lava and bashing someone in the face with it? What more could you want?

TL;DR : No, yes, kind of, yes because awesome.

[Innoceent]

Awesome and complete reply ! Just what i wanted :) Buying heirlooms right away :D ! I don't have any problems with totems in general i guess but if i remember wisely in WOTLK you needed to activate some totem to explode or smthing and that was like your main source of damage .. blah .. just hope its not like that anymore :) After all i am willing to try them since priest is now fully geared and i don't enjoy pvp as much and all the other classes seem simple ( Instead of warlock, but they are broken so -.-' ) :p Thanks once again . cheers man :)

[Anodyne]

No problem, and feel free to ask if you have any questions about it.

As for the "activating" a totem thing, I assume you are referring to Fire Nova. It was an AoE ability that would pulse from our fire totem, but it was never a major part of our damage, even in AoE situations (We were basically useless in AoE in the first place). Either way, that ability was modified during our major AoE overhaul that we got in the later patches of Cataclysm. Now Fire Nova pulses from every target that has the Flame Shock DoT on it, and the Flame Shock DoT is automatically spread to additional targets when we use Lava Lash, so we are finally capable of decent AoE damage! Or rather, we will be once they fix a bug in our Fire Nova ability.

In any case, your totems are important, and knowing the situations for each is important, but other than making sure our Searing Totem is up and attacking at all times, our rotation doesn't really revolve around them, so I think you will enjoy the spec.