Mages are great for clearing trash. But since they lose out to warlocks dps wise (since a destro lock has a better nuke AND dots) why bring a bunch of em?

They get their turn once things are on farm. You just never need more than one or two of them if you're raid-stacking.

Exactly my point...

I'm an Enhancement Shaman.

Enjoy the glimpse at my world.

Not to sound snide, but I see an ench-shammy I think to myself "woo! I'm gonna get windfury and heroism periodically!"

When i see one, i think, "woo, i'm going to be talking to an angel in a graveyard soon, awesome!"

I just think "Oh ffs, we're going to be here forever.."

...Ever seen a geared enh versus a geared resto shaman? The fight takes FOREVER.. Almost as much fun as watching 2 holy pallies go at it.

70 Rogue, 70 Druid, 70 Shaman, and working on my warlock who's 19. Wow, that's sad now that I look at it. I think I need to go spend some time with GTA IV or something lol.

~Xan

Or, you know, go outside. But that's just me talking crazy, heh. It's scary outside.

I have trouble getting past level 20 - the only one I leveled up higher than that is my Hunter (33). I keep getting distracted by shiny objects, and when I regain my focus, I just end up starting anew.

That's what we're for.

Our personal DPS never reaches close to any of the non-hybrid damage dealers and on a good day a ret paladin can outdo us - especially Horde ret paladins. We exist to provide Windfury, Heroism and whichever of the Rages that gives +10% MAP.

It's very nice of Blizzard to leave us in that hollow spot. We don't get to play in the Arena because we have no cc, can't defend against cc and our biggest benefit (Heroism) can be gotten along with a powerful nuker or a kickass healer. Because we have no cc and no way to avoid it, we're not very desirable in 5-mans unless you're stacking melee DPS to offset our lower personal DPS.

We're useful in a raid environment but Blizzard has made it as hard as humanly possible for us to gear up for a raid environment. All the mail gear is stacked for hunters so we have to compete with Rogues and Druids for leather pieces. Luckily, most decent guilds will recognise the value of our spec and help some of us along but the reality is that we're majorly second string until you get to the 10-man raids, and even then we're not really desirable until the 25-man.

Most good guilds "invest" in an ench-shammy to boost the dps of their rogues (of which you bring two) and the other two members of he melee group (I enjoy a feral druid, BM hunter/Arms warrior/hemo rogue) The problem here is that the rogues view their "melee buddies" as buff tools. I get shouts from the warrior, LotP from the druid, and FI from the hunter, or if they're MM I get trueshot. Of your melee team the rogues will be heavilly out dpsing whoever else is with them. The question most raid leaders come to regarding ench-shaman is "at what point does it become better to bring three rogues in and lose WF?" and "What can we seriously expect from this shaman in terms of dps?" I know as a rogue we're expected to pull about 1500+ in t6 content every fight. Without WF we can't easily exceed 1600, but the shaman needs to be putting up about 1300 (1500+1500+1500 = 4.5k, 1600+1600+1300 = 4.5k) This is of course assuming that WF/heroism really adds 100 dps (which I'm not sure on).
I'd also like to add that shaman lack an aggro dump, something even warlocks have (though it costs them a shard). But I don't know jack about shaman dps mechanics, as I've seen them replaced by resto shammies without seeing a large loss in my personal dps, with the added benefit of chain heal (Which is whats up for melee on VR/Kaz).

See I would do that, but it's been raining non-stop for three days and it's kinda soggy outside.

My name is Elle, and I'm an altoholic

<bows head in shame>

I've got about 10 chars I actually play regularly, some others left on servers that are pre-RP. My main main is Eleora, a forsaken priest with a bunny. Secondary now is probably Luyu, a druid of the talon. Then Makala, Smite's wench, Xira - Den Mother of Sanctuary, Takara, Sweetheart of Sigma Singsong the Seventh of Silvermoon...aaaand I'm going to bore you.

I've been on WoW since beta testing, found RP about four years ago now. I love it far more than the PVE/PVP although there are some awesome quests and we're doing fairly well in the arena.

Don't bother with battlegrounds now, especially AV. I hate what they did to it, it kind of makes the place pointless. Bring back the epic AV!

( http://makibird.deviantart.com/art/Makala-58991419
http://makibird.deviantart.com/art/Sparkling-Makala-59927621
http://makibird.deviantart.com/art/Yarr-41453385 <-- pirates rule \o/
http://makibird.deviantart.com/art/Arrr-38347612
http://makibird.deviantart.com/art/Makala-Ke-Reni-I-36367441 <-- an early one

and Elle
http://makibird.deviantart.com/art/Happy-H...-s-End-67708735
http://makibird.deviantart.com/art/Apocrap...Eleora-67044426 (Elle with Apocraphe)) Done so many pics of Mak & Elle, they're my fave toons <3

The aggro dump thing is true but less of a factor. Our DPS cycle is three buttons (Stormstrike, Flame Shock, Earth Shock) and so long as we have Blessing of Salvation and any decent tank, we're not really in danger of too much aggro. If we're skirting the edge, we just drop the shocks from our rotation. Realistically, we just don't cause enough damage to need an aggro dump.

As for the last bit of the quoted text, this happened to us all over. My guild's top DPS is pulling around 2000ish DPS on Brutallus which may go up as high as 2200 when he gets the offhand from Illidan. That's without a shaman. The really annoying bit is that resto shamans can drop Windfury Totem too - theirs isn't quite as good as ours but they can supply everything except the +10% Melee Attack Power buff. That's just not as useful as chain heal. Not even close.

If you have a well-geared Ret Paladin and a well-geared MS Warrior and at least one combat rogue, then we start to edge out the other types of shaman. It's nice that Blizzard has made us contingent on unusual specs for other classes before we're out-shining other specs of our own class.

It's gotten to the point that I'll probably be respeccing on my way to 80. I'll go Healing or Elemental, depending on guild needs. Of course, I also plan to finish levelling my druid and paladin so their roles will swap as well with the druid going from Tank to Boomkin and the Paladin going Ret (maybe) or prot.

i know how you feel, but you should wait to see how the game is *at* 80. its very possibly that they change everything, and enh is suddenly the best spec for shamans. doubtful, but you never know what could happen.

Won't need to see what it's like at 80. Once they reveal the the talents and the ability lists, it won't take much in the way of theorycrafting to know where it'll be.

Because they won't fix the gear problem. Two classes share a need for mail gear - Hunters and Shamans. Mail gear that focuses on spell damage or healing is mostly shaman exclusive although sometimes it'll prove useful to a paladin. The problem is that Enhancement Shamans want to stack strength more than anything else while Hunters need to stack Agility and Intelligence.

<<<plays a druid. i know what you mean. until lately, a bunch of druid gear had plus healing on the feral items....yeah, cause i need that when i'm dpsing....

they also let druids hit the armor cap by the end of kara. Oh, awesome, now lets not put any upgrades for you for the rest of the game. cool.

Hawk, I just noticed a problem with your signature... what if the priest happens to be shadow?

She doesn't get sex. If she wants sex, she respecs.


Kinda like if everyone on the world dies. Only a gay guy and a straight women are left. If the guy wants sex, he respecs bi or straight! (more of a joke then anything, but i think it works, o.O)

Hey, at least your class gets to come.

hold on a second while i say, "enh is the druids BOOMKIN LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL."

I now feel like a tard.

I wouldn't say that. I know a guy with a Boomkin alt that gets to go more than my Enhanceman main.

thats the guilds personal taste then. like, my old guild had more caster dps then melee dps. some nights we couldn't find any melee. so a boomkin was preferred over an enh shammy.....buuuuuuuut, we didn't have a boomkin, an took enh shammies anyway.

Aparently, (just from what I read about "leaked" Alpha WotLK talents, shamans now use a "combo point" type system called "shocks" or something. Just what I know/read/hear in whispers, but I think an 'elemental rogue' sounds kinda OP to me. And yes, enhance gear is rare or doesn't exsist. But I dunno.. wouldn't you want Agility for your crits that proc... that one talent that it procs.. >_> (Drawing a blank on the name here.. gives 10% of something somewhere.)


Boomkin is a decently viable spec for Druids, given proper gear and playing, also the 5% spell crit is good stuff for mages/locks/Spriests/Ele Shammy.

If you hate Enhance Shamans so badly spec Elemental and Pew Pew, or Resto and keep people alive.
Or PvP. I hear Windfury is good for some good ol' fashioned burstin'.



~Edit~
Just for fun, heres what an average mages keyboard looks like-
http://www.25pixels.com/wowvideos/keyboard.html
Mine has less QQ and more Pew Pew.

We tend to stack Crit Rating before Agi. We get more bang for our buck and any crit beyond 30-35% is adding very small amounts of DPS compared to the stats that make it.

Raid-buffed, I have about 35% crit (more when things proc) which is pretty near a 100% uptime on Unleashed Rage, which ads 10% melee AP to the whole party. Once you're getting near 100% uptime, any more is of less use than straight AP.


I don't hate being Enhancement, we're just dependent on everybody else.

And on PvP, we get smashed. Yeah, we have some good damage output - we'll shred pretty near any non-tank - but we're too easy to control and we have no way to catch people running faster than us except for Frost Shock which isn't any good against most classes who can stop or slow or fear us much more effectively.

And people tend to aim at us in BGs because we'll shred you.

Wow. I wish I has synergy. Wouldn't that be nice >_>. I completly forgot about Crit Rating also ><


If I'm not in the middle of a large group of arms warriors/ShS rogues/and/or something else people hate, I generally am singled out because of my lack of ability to take hits, and high damage.

I can't complain about lack catching people/lack of CC/lack of CC breaks.
I am generally Frost(catching people is a joke it so easy), Polymorph is nice as long as the person isn't smart/has DoTs on them, and I'm undead which means I can WotF out of Fear/Sleep/Charm, Trinket anything else, and Ice Block(twice as Frost).

Also as PoM/Pyro(my new favorite PvP spec) me and my RL rogue partner(2v2's) have won an arena in <30sec by him ShS->Ambushing for about 4k and me PoM->Pyroing for about 5k and then just DPSing the second person.

I can't say much about my lack of raid DPS, since my guild isn't even full Kara cleared. Though I do hit 1st/2nd on the damage meters when we do go (Urait, my RL friend beats me when I lag ></When the groups are stacked for him)

Also, our well geared Enhc shamans are hitting 3rd/4th on the DPS meters. (Mostly cuz our other DPS is warriors and druids.)

I'm not nearly geared enough for main raids with my guild. Once I get around to borrowing the Heart of Darkness I need for some bracers, I'm probably geared for the first half of Hyjal/BT. Doesn't really help when the progression is on Felmyst.

But as a guild, we tend to have two or three mages in progression stuff because we happen to have enough geared mages. At the cutting edge, a lot of it depends on gear you already have.

Sometimes being overgeared is a bad thing. An overgearted warr tank will hardly be able to generate rage -> aggro in a heroic.

-DISCLAIMER-
(I don't know much about tanking, just using what I know, I may be wrong)

I don't see how not being able to be hit very much by a mob leads to bad tanking.
I do see what your trying to say though, No hits=No rage, but you forget, (and maybe you don't play a warrior, its fine if you don't) but hitting the mob yourself gives a larger amount of rage as compared to getting hit. Also, as long as your DPS waits for sunders, you shouldn't be pulling aggro.

And even if it takes him a while to sunder, since your tank is overgeared, he's not going to get hit(in theory)

Hehe, I hardly ever meet a DPS who waits for sunders. Even I often don't, but what I do is white damage until sunders, then SS/S'N'D. I've got some expertise in keeping my threat at 99% of the tank's and dishing out max DPS, but I still have not mastered that art. Thank Elune for evasion/vanish

my main character is a resto shammy, so im pretty used to healing. i have a mage, but i dont instance with her much cuz i just dont really have it down. im not sure when to start launching fireballs at whatever we are trying to kill. i dont play on the shammy much anymore, though. healing just isnt as fun fire.

im somewhat of a pyro ^.^

because A. dps will never wait, no matter how you ask them. humans are retarded. B. hitting them doesn't give you enough rage to hold agro...the idea is that generally you get rage from being hit AND hitting. when you lose one, the other doesn't give you enough rage to do anything. C. something tells me if you're overgeared and doing a lower/regular instance, maybe even a herioc, at least a couple of the dps are going to be your overgeared friends/guildies......which means if you're not putting out top threat, they're going to pull agro over and over and over. if you don't play a tank, i'll tell you now-chasing a target over and over makes you want to let the dps tank, and say screw it.

Yeah I do prefer to dish out as much DPS as possible and then use a timely vanish to dump threat. I'm very happy if I can convince a pally to give me might instead of slavation on boss battles.

~Disclaimer~
I am in no way experienced in anything useful, and am just posting what I know/have learned/hear about.
Take what I say with a good attitude.


As a rule of thumb, in raids/heroics/instances, wait for 3 sunders. If your mage is 68+, on boss fights use invisibility when your at about 80-90% threat, if not, just back down on firing firballs/scorches/frostbolts and use your wand or something.
Also, your tank should be marking, unless your mage is like level 10-40ish, or your tank is a noob/lowbie/unexperienced.


A- I always wait for 3 sunders, since in raids, I'm ALWAYS the one to die first(when I used to *basically* be the one pulling the mobs, due to my lack of paitence.
B- I guess, as I said, no experience.
C- Why would you be running heroics/5-mans with people who are already overgeared? Wouldn't you be running a low level/new 70? Even when I'm running 5-mans with my friends newly 70 priest, I can tank half the mobs(with heals/kiting).

Might>Salv as long as you can control your aggro with vanish/feint.
Um, you do remeber feint right?
Something along the lines of a threat reducing hit thing.

But yes, Vanish is a good threat dump, also as long as the mob isn't AoEing you can use another Garrote/Ambush/Cheap Shot.

Anyone have any thoughts on CC in dungeons/PvP?
What are you thoughts on the best class to use for it? Also, how would you handle a Sap breaking as a rogue?
(I just use Blind and pray we kill the other mobs before it breaks.)

Useful for the first few minutes of battle, really, then not all that much. Once the threat builds to 15K, a feint will hardly budge my threat bar.

Abour CC in dungeons...since I mainly ran with tankadins, we used next to no CC. I hardly get a request to sap a mob, as well. Seems most tanks prefer poly and traps.

I only rarely log onto my friends account and play his rogue in dungeons(like PvP more, its nice to go melee something after hours of shooting bolts at it) so i don't know much about threat mechanics on rogues.

Mostly because poly and traps are re-applyable and more reliable.
And rogues are only there to stab stuff.

I stopped playing because of school, but I usually would lay on the pain in cat, shift to mancow, heal and a little moonspammage, and then bear up the hate. My feral druid would have no issue tanking and keeping agro, but I ran a crit/armor build/gear set.

Why in the world did you roll a lock?!

I broke the psychological line of dishing out 1000+ sustained DPS.

I hit 1.3k as PoM/Pyro in a normal SLabs run, I was basically scorching and PoM/Pyroing on larger mobs.

Rolling a lock would be for entertainment purposes. My main was a psychotic druid mancow with a hunger for Gnome burgers.

like i said, MOST dps has no patience at all, even if you let them die 5 times, they just yell at the tank. and generally if you're geared, you're not running a lower instance unless its for someone, or you're bored. if its for someone(an alt, a new friend), then you're probably going to take a geared friend with to speed things up....thats how i generally do it, =o (i know you're not being all elitist or anything-either am i, just an fyi...its all in good spirit.)

IF i ever have a rogue sap(i like speed runs, hate marking), then if we don't get to it in time, they have the orginial sap, a blind, then a gouge/stun lock if we suck at dps.

I like speed runs, but marking saves lives.
It goes even faster when you take yourself and your buddies from Heroics/Kara to a normal 5-man with the new 70 just sitting and staring at how fast things go

I understood it that on most boss-fights, warriors and druids both get much, much more rage from being hit than hitting. It's why druids only rarely have a dedicated avoid set. That, and the Sunwell aura that reduces chance to dodge by 20% really hurts an avoid set.


As a general rule of thumb, I wait for maybe six seconds before jumping in.

The amount of threat a Stormstrike, Windfury proc and one or two white hits (most of which proc on a lucky day) puts out is a little bit much to go in from the start.

As i stated before, I wait for 3 sunders in Kara/5Mans
Because my frostbolt/fireball crits generally will pull if I don't.

I honestly did not feel like reading all 18 pages...so forgive my lateness on this...

I play a level 70 Priest...Up until Feb of this year I was a Shadow Disc priest...I raped the PvP charts PreBC during the level 51-60 AV...Afterwards....I was on a decline of pwnage...

When I went holy, the high demand for healers hit me like a ton of bricks...Thus I geared up for raids fairly quickly...

I have very little PvP gear DMG or Heal wise, but I still place top 5 every AV/AB...sometimes during EOTS and WSG..

Quite frankly priests are quite a blast...

But I have many other types of chars...All are equally fun..I recommend trying out different classes and finding which fits you best...(I also recommend making a prot war/pally/feral druid or a healer of sort (druids and shaman healers are in high demand, but priests and pally healers are always appreciated) due to the fact that so many servers always seem to need either of the 2...)

whats better than a shish-kabob? GNOME-KABOBS! and i have a question for those of you with flying mounts, do you have to do a quest to introduce you to flying mounts?

No...Regular flying mounts (Epic or non epic) are just like buying ground mounts...The cool flying mounts such as the Netherdrake or the netherray, those are rep mounts...You have to do 037593827921759-382198275987321598 quests (dailies) with the factions to get to exalted...The other cool mounts, like the one in Seth Halls I think, you have to have a druid or some crap like that...I just recommend getting a puny slow flyer first to get you around easier, and then decide if you want to pay 5200G for the epic or get exalted with factions and pay god knows what for those (I just have my regular epic flyer nothing special he's cute with red)

No-one ever does.

Usually out of boredom I do....But then I noticed just how many posts per page there was and decided I'd just make an ass of myself and randomly jump into the forum.