Leveling an alt Shaman...Enhance or Elemental ?

[Grehn|Skipjack]

TL:DR Is Enhance DPS acception for raiding today?

A skilled enh shaman can pull very respectable dps.

[Jasari]

Generally does 1 have more survivability/ Downtime??

Like I said before, I greatly prefer melee to casters for leveling purposes.

When I leveled my Shaman to 80 as enhance, I had zero downtime and fantastic survivability. Generally Shamanistic Rage was enough to always have a big mana pool, but occasionally I'd throw on water shield instead of lightning shield.

I really think either is fast for leveling, but I think Enhancement, especially with spirit wolves is probably a little easier for soloing elites.

[Arcia]

I really think either is fast for leveling, but I think Enhancement, especially with spirit wolves is probably a little easier for soloing elites.

My shaman alt i lvl 73 now and elemental, I soloed every elite quest up to northrend so far.
Since we have a shield we can take a few hits so I just nuke until I get low hp, heal to full, keep nuking, rinse and repeat until the elite mob is dead.

Elemental has been really fast so far, killing goes fast and after lvl 20 or so you never go oom, so no downtime what so ever.
Ive used BoA shoulders, chest, weapon and trinket for the record.

Dont think either was is notably faster though, just go with whatever feels more right for you.

[Grehn|Skipjack]

Gonna have to chime in and agree with Arcia. Leveling Enh through Northrend, there were a couple elites I just couldn't handle, even with Feral Spirits and Bloodlust. I don't foresee losing to any mob as Elemental any time soon. The huge mana pool and spell power, plus shield for extra armor just makes keeping yourself alive while slowly whittling the target down trivial.

[Punkss2]

I'm currently lvling an enhance spacegoat shammy. I am planning on eventually xfering him to horde. My question is what would be the best race to go to? I'm not sure if he's gonna be pvp or pve so both options are open. Thanks.

[Levantine]

Orc is currently the best PvE race, iirc. All the horde Shaman races have decent racials for PvP so I'd wager it doesn't much matter.

[Punkss2]

How do i get my sig to hyperlink to my armory for my toons?

Edit: And thanks Lev for the advice

[8bit]

I would say trolls *might* be better for casters, but I can't think of a point where people typically stay under 30% health for the full benefit of the racial. Mind you, this is coming from a person that advocates tauren because they look cooler. Uh... carry on.

[katraya]

When I get back home from holiday with the family I plan on reactivating my account and faction changing my troll shaman so I can play with a friend. She is actually my original main from vanilla and early BC. I haven't played her in nearly 2 years and with all the changes it is practically like a new class to me.

Right now she is 70 and looks like a Kara poster girl. I'd kind of like to try out enhance but I don't have any gear for it. I have my resto gear and my old elemental gear which now have similar stats. What is more important for leveling ele - spell power or crit? The resto gear I have was a higher ilvl usually so it has more sp but then usually mp5, while the ele gear has crit but a bit less sp.

Until I get Lava Burst(?) is it just LB spam, or is it worth it to use some shocks? What about totems? Are they worth dropping while I am out questing?

I'm tempted to get dual spec right away so I can heal instances while leveling. However, I don't have a lot of gold on that server and I have 2 crafting professions. I am tempted to drop LW for mining to compliment my jewelcrafting, but I'd hate to loose the useless old MC fire resist patterns.

Are there any good websites for shaman? Obviously EJ will have some (difficult to sift through) info for when I get to 80 but something with more general information would be great.

It will be amusing to play a draenei with a pvp title.


Armory link for shiggles:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... s&n=Lazula

[Shoju]

The thing that I hear a lot when talking about horde shaman is

ResTaurenation
Trollemental
EnOrcment

I'm not sure why, Taurren is the pick for resto, but that is what I hear a lot.


Taurren are too big. Too cumbersome, feel like they are moving too slow, so my shammy alt is going to be a troll, or fem orc.

[KysenMurrin]

I would say trolls *might* be better for casters, but I can't think of a point where people typically stay under 30% health for the full benefit of the racial.

Pretty sure they fixed that to not depend on health any more.

[phaqueue]

Thinking about picking back up my tauren shaman... currently 71 - my question is this - is it worth it to grind out the heirloom maces for only 9 levels? I have the leather BOA shoulders/chest from my rogue, so I'll be using those to go enhance - but I was just wondering if the weaps are really worth it - or if I'm better off just rocking what I get in northrend (I am currently using fool's bane and decapitator from kara)

thanks!

[Grehn|Skipjack]

Not unless you can get them painlessly and quickly. There are plenty of decent quest reward weapons through to 80.

[isiz]

Personally I liked enh until 75 because of low downtime and then ele @75 because LvB is hax. Most classes take
a little while to become "fun" to level, but imo shaman took the longest. Now if only I could find priest DPS to be any fun >.> I just kinda gave up @50 and made it my AH mule.

Right now, is Enhance DPS acceptable for raid DPS?

From what I have read (and a little of my own math) enhancement has a higher optimal DPS than elemental.

(did they nerf CL to not be worth using on cooldown?)

This is SP and haste dependant. After a (low) SP threshold LB does more DPS on single targets. However, you may still use it to optimize your rotation depending on haste. If LB would clip LvB and CL would not, then weave in 1 CL per LvB.

[Ills]

I'm levelling an Elemental shammy atm (lvl 34), and am having a blast. Running instances, I usually end up being the healer, but also top the damage meter (talented/glyphed Fire Nova ftw).