Enhancement Shaman DPS Guide
((This guide was created by Elam of the WoW Shaman Forums. All credit for this guide goes to him. To see the original posting of this guide click here. Also this link will provide you with the most up to date version of this guide.))
A Totem Eclipse of The Heart:
Enhancement PVE DPS Post 3.2
No, Earth Shock Was not Nerfed
(And other relevant goodies of information.)
A). Statement of Intent:
The intent of this write-up is to be a guide for Enhancement Shaman in a PVE setting post patch 3.2. It’s not explicitly restricted to Crusaders Coliseum- my general aim is to provide information about mechanics and choices that are relevant among all gear levels, not simply Trial of the Crusader. And, given the fact that only a handful of guilds have 0-Keeper Yogg-Saron and Algalon the Observer down, Ulduar is still in many ways a relevant raid setting.
It is to be noted that, while I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about the topic (it admittedly takes a certain amount of ego to consider writing a guide on how other people should play), I am not infallible, and information is always changing. What I cover should deal with most of the relevant issues and questions and the commonly accepted responses to them, but there will always be dissenting opinions. I encourage anyone who has such an opinion to post, and encourage everyone reading this for the first time to question it. I post what I and several other people believe to be fact- it is up to you to decide whether or not you agree as well.
Also, I'm always willing to answer questions, checking this thread daily (assuming I'm able), as well as being open to answer whispers/mail on Elam/Grazeless (H) on Black Dragonflight or Darwinism (A) on Uldum. (If I don't respond to whispers, I might be afk or concentrating on a boss fight or something- I'm not purposely ignoring you. Try again in a few moments or send me a mail, and I'll do my best to answer it.)
B). Introduction to Enhancement:
Enhancement Shaman are truly interesting because we embody the concept of “hybrid” at least in the way our damage is done. If it is your intent to run around with a giant axe, or your primary source of thrills on a Friday night is playing with daggers, Enhancement is not for you. We are a melee class- we stand behind big bad guys at a really, really, scarily close range and hit them with claw-like contraptions- but our damage is primarily spell damage. About 25% of your damage will be simple melee (or white) damage, another 10-15% will be windfury damage, and another 5% will be Stormstrike (so, about 40-45% of your damage is melee-based.) The rest of your damage is spell damage: Lightning Bolts, Magma Totem, Lightning Shield, Flametongue Weapon, and Earth Shock are all included in this. This leaves Enhancement Shaman in a particularly fun-yet-strange place, as we benefit from every buff/debuff currently in the game.
What this means to you is that your damage (like every other class) will be at it’s highest potential in a 25-man Raid Setting, when there’s a large likelihood of these buffs being present. Our damage, however, is competitive in both heroic and ten-man settings. Beyond being a fairly high dps class, we also are the strongest melee-buff class in the game: It would take two separate death knights and another shaman to bring the same buffs that enhance fills in one spec, offering 10%AP, 179 Agi/Str/20% melee haste, and Bloodlust/Heroism. Playing an Enhancement PVE shaman is better now than it ever has been before, even with how desired we were in Burning Crusade!
C). Tips And Tricks:
Before getting into the real meat of the article, here are a few tips for raiding as enhancement/melee:
1) Stand Behind the Boss:
Standing in front of bosses is for tanks. Your job is to hide behind them and stab your heart out. On a more mechanics-related note, bosses have a high {15ish%} chance to parry your attacks, which means A)You hit with melee attacks 15% less, and B) the bosses swing timer is hastened, resulting in a sad Shaman, a sad Tank, a sad Tank Healer, and a DKP loss. Don’t do it. However, none of them are flexible enough to parry attacks from behind. There’s nothing dishonorable about a not-quite-so-fair-fight! Beyond that, most bosses have these fun abilities called “cleaves” “breathe weapons” or “abilities designed with killing bad melee in mind.” In order to avoid these abilities which only work when standing in front of bosses, you stand behind them. The result is you not dying, and when you don’t die, you can dps more. Funny how that works? (Note: This does not work on Auraiya, though, and will probably get you a gkick. Accept the parry and live with it. Or people will die.)
2) Don’t Stand in the Bad:
Bosses have these crazy ideas in their mind that the raid wants to kill them, and to deal with this, they make the bad. The bad is comprised of: Blizzards, Void Zones, GIANT RUNES OF DEATH, Balls of Blue Fire, Waves of Lava, and a variety of other fun abilities that do their best to murder your raid group. Don’t stand in them, even if it means you have to run away from the boss. Less dps for a few seconds > dying.
3) Do Stand in the Good:
It’s like not standing in the bad, except opposite. Bosses can be sadomasochists at time and will do strange abilities that help you hurt them WHILE they’re attempting to kill you. When these GIANT RUNES OF POWER, Sparks of Power, cones of light of power, and other things of power show up, it is your job to stand in them and hurt things till your heart’s content (or until more bad shows up. Or the boss moves out of melee range.)
4) Make Sure You’re Ready to Raid:
If you’re raiding progression, know and have on you the best consumables for the job. If you stand in a fire while the rest of the raid survives, it’s not their job to drop a fish feast for you. It’s your job to come prepared with backup food, with flasks, and with potions of speed. Additionally, make sure you’re gemmed/enchanted to your maximum potential. Don’t show up Thursday night with the chest you got the night before without gems/enchants on it.
5) Learn Your Cooldowns:
Understand how your raid does the fight. For example, if your raid always bloodlusts on Kel’Thuzad at 30%, pop your cooldowns early and as much as possible in the fight, but make sure you have an idea of when 30% will be. Feral Spirits is at its best when you pop it immediately prior to Bloodlust, as they benefit from the haste buff. Make sure to be paying attention and not popping it when you know bloodlust is coming up, but don’t wait the entire fight because you’re afraid of missing the bloodlust.
Also, Fire Elemental totem is a gigantic DPS boost, often putting out 1kish dps itself while it’s up. However, as it is on a 20 minute cool down, the trick becomes being intelligent on when to use it- Heart Phases on XT, Steelbreaker Burn Phase on Hardmode Iron Council, and the entirety of the Sartharion fight in an Obsidian Sanctum pug are all good times to enjoy some fire elemental smashing. Some bad times for Fire Elemental? Anytime there’s raid wide AOE that might kill it, when half your raid is dead and your impending doom is as certain as me not getting Glad this season, etc. Be smart about it, and you and your Fire Elemental will be BFFs, like Miley and that girl she calls her BFF in that song.
D). Talent Choices:
The generally accepted spec for Enhancement is this
A large number of these are kind of self-describing, and I decided it wasn’t needed to go talent-by-talent. The talent’s I’ll talk about are the ones that are debated/not taken the most.
1.) Enhancing Totem Vs. Ancestral Knowlege Cage Match:
Some people are inclined to forgo Enhancing Totems over Ancestral Knowledge, as “Ancestral Knowledge gives more AP and spell crit.” However, an Enhancement Shaman unbuffed have around 500 Intellect, so the extra 3 talent points only give you about 30 extra attack power, and a minimal amount of spell crit. 3/3 Enhancing Totems gives you an extra 23 Strength (23 AP) and 23 Agility (23 AP and some melee crit) AND extends that bonus to every other member of the raid, so all your melee and some hunters get to enjoy a nice AP and Crit bonus. There is no reason to go beyond two points in Ancestral Knowledge.
2.) Static Shock and Improved Lightning Shields:
There has been some debate over whether these two talents are worth going into, as they are “minimal dps increases.” Even if it’s only a 6% chance on hit, every time an orb does proc it’s free damage, which is magnified by your spell power and improved shields. There’s no reason to not take this talent. To quote Levva in another thread:
Q u o t e:
to be clear Static Shock gives you an EXTRA melee damage ability. With Static Shock your lightning shield can now do damage just because you hit the target. Without this talent you need to be hit for it to go off. Typically on boss fights you shouldn't be getting hit so this is pure extra damage and quite a bit of it. There is nothing to dislike about this talent take all 3 points. Its around 75dps+ per talent point there is nothing better to spend the 3 points on at this stage in the tree.
Improved Lightning Shields is the optional talent of these two, but it’s still suggested. It makes static shock more powerful, and provides a higher dps increase than putting the extra 3 points in Ancestral Knowledge.
3.) Mental Quickness:
It’s strange to put this under “debated talents", but I see it not being taken by an alarmingly large number of fresh-80 Shaman. Mental Quickness gives 30% of your attack power as spell power. Due to the high amount of spell damage we do, the 1,000+ spell damage we get from this talent is excellent.
4.) Unleashed Rage:
Expertise will be covered later, but for now I’ll say this talent is worth taking, even with a Blood Death Knight or Marksman Hunter in your raid.
5.) Improved Windfury Totem:
Personally, even with a Frost Death Knight with Improved Icy Talons in the raid, I would always take this, as you never know when someone keeping a buff up will die.
6.) Improved Stormstrike:
This talent (which I personally originally demeaned as a pvp talent) is excellent for pve mana regeneration. The math has been done, and it beats out other mana-related talents like Elemental Focus. 2/2 Imp. SS is the way to go.
7.) Call of Flames:
15% damage on your magma totem is very nice. There’s no reason not to take it.
8.) Elemental Fury:
Spell Critical Hits currently hit for 150% of the spell’s damage. This talent makes it 200%. This means our lightning bolt, magma totem, earth shock, and flametongue weapon procs all do more damage. It’s excellent.
9. Improved Ghost Wolf:
Rouncer over at Elitist Jerks provides an excellently thought out, structured, and mathematically proven argument for going 2/2 Improved Ghost Wolf/ 1/3 Imp. Shields. It’s an interesting read, and I encourage everyone to visit http://elitistjerks.com/f79/t68241-enh_runspeed_ghost_wolf_raids/ to check it out.
E) Priority System:
Enhancement Shaman work on a priority system, not a rotation. What this means is that you dps based on abilities becoming active, rather than following a set combination of buttons. (For example, FS+LvB+LBX3 or whatever Smellemental Shaman do.)
The Priority System is as follows: MW5LB, ES_SS, SS, ES, Lava Lash Lightning Shield/Refresh Totems.
This means in more plain terms:
A) Whenever you hit a stack of 5 maelstrom weapon charges, you fire off a lightning bolt. Immediately. You do not wait for Stormstrike to get off cooldown, you don’t refresh an expiring totem, you hit Lightning Bolt and go about your business. The longer you wait between firing your 5stack, the more you miss out on other possible MW charges. If there is more than one target present and it is not being CCed, you may want to throw off a chain lightning. (If there is more than one target present and it is being CCed, you still might want to throw off a chain lightning, but than your healers will hurt you with their wimpy healing weapons. :/) However, Lightning Bolt scales better, so use it when fighting one person.
B) Stormstrike. Beyond just being nice damage, Stormstrike gives an awesome debuff and gives you mana back. It’s very nice.
C) Earth Shock. Single Target nature damage, short cooldown. You want SS on the target for it to be very nice.
D) Lava Lash: It’s minimal damage, but it’s better than nothing. If all of the above abilities are on cooldown/not fully charged, use Lava Lash.
E) Refresh: When everything above is on cooldown, you refresh your lightning shield (even if it hasn’t run out), or your magma totem/other totems, even if Magma Totem hasn’t run out yet. (Magma Totem is GREAT single target dps. You want to aim for maximum uptime on magma totem, provided there is another shaman in your raid for Flametongue/Totem of Wrath. {Demo warlocks with demonic pact don’t exist, but they’d work too}). Totems should ALWAYS be down, especially Strength of Earth and Windfury Totem. By not dropping totems, you are nerfing your own dps capabilities.
Magma Totem is best for personal dps, beating out even flametongue, despite it's addition to your spellpower. However, that said, if you are the only shaman/ demonic pact specced warlock in the raid/party, the gain to dps/healing of the raid/party with flametongue will outweigh the personal dps gain of magma totem, so dropping flametongue is your best bet. Regardless of whether or not you'll be dropping magma totem, you need at least two points in call of flame to reach the next tier of elemental talents.
F. 3.2 Changes and You. (AKA: Yes, if you still think the Earth Shock change is a nerf, you are quite bad, Baddy McBadderson.)
A). After much quiet contemplation, rogues can now use axes. (See, I thought it would be funny to put something that doesn’t say Shaman first in the Shaman Changes post, even though it affects Shaman, just to make people go WTF. Aren’t I witty?):
Regardless of what every smelly shaman player who thinks they’re a victim will tell you, this change is a small buff to Enhancement Shaman, as it allows Blizzard to actively itemize more one-handed axes into the game. Prior to this change, one-handed maces were the only weapon that could be used by DW Dks, Enhance Shaman, and Rogues. Blizzard was like “Well, that’s lame. You know what else is lame? Having Insanity’s Grip drop for the 7th time and getting disenchanted when your guild hasn’t seen a Pandora’s Plea yet and your healers want to gkick every Rogue/Enhancement shaman ever. Let’s fix one-handed weapon itemization!) Shaman with swords is just silly (and no, Drek’thar as an excuse is pretty lame actually), and no one thinks “I smite you with my pointy fist of doom” when they get Carpal Tunnel from hitting Obliterate for the thousandth time on their DW Death Knight. Rogues, however, would pick up their own grandmother and use it as a weapon if given the chance. Blizzard decided grandmothers were hard to itemize, and too slow to be rogue weapons anyway, so they gave them axes instead.
B). Tauren now have the option of changing skin tone by visiting the barber shop.
Nerf Tanning Beds?
C). All pets now receive 40% of their master's resilience and 100% of their master's spell penetration. In addition, if a player is at their appropriate spell hit chance or hit chance maximum, their pet will be at the maximum for spell hit chance, hit chance, and expertise. If they are below the maximum, their pet will be proportionately below those maximums.
I underlined for special emphasis the fun part. Basically, this means your Fire Elemental and Feral Spirit Wolves are going to be avoiding misses and dodges more than they previously were provided you’re not bad and remain hit/dodge capped yourself. It’s uncertain currently how their hit/expertise numbers are transferring- reports have been made saying that they’re still missing well past special/spell hit caps. Research seems to say that they do scale with your hit/expertise, but they cap at a 1% chance to miss. (Also, since wolves are smarter than half the melee you know, they attack from behind anyway, eliminating parries!) You trained them well!) This is not the most awesomely amazing buff in the world, but it is a substantial and nice buff.
D). A customizable totem bar will now be available for shamans allowing the storing of 4 different totems. These totems can be placed on the ground at once in one global cooldown for the combined mana cost of all 4 totems.
This is primarily a quality-of-life buff, but an awesome one nonetheless. It allows us to be more mobile with our totems- we no longer have to spend 4 GCDs every time the tank kites General Vezax, among other things. That, and we can now do something other than auto-attack one GCD into the fight, not four.
F). Base health increased by approximately 7% to correct for shamans having lower health than other classes.
Shaman had the lowest base health of any class, and this led to use being one-shot by certain boss AOEs in Ulduar. Blizzard decided they weren’t cool with dying being an iconic shaman ability, and gave us 450ish more health. More health is always welcome, as Shaman don’t drop phat lootz when they die, and that makes us dying lame.
G). Wind Shock: Has been renamed Wind Shear and no longer shares a cooldown with Flame, Frost or Earth Shock. Earth Shock: Redesigned. This spell no longer interrupts spell casting, but rather reduces melee attack speed by 10% for 8 seconds (exclusive with similar effects such as Thunder Clap).
I put the Wind Shear change first because the number of shaman who came to the boards for the past month and were all like “OMG DEY NERFED MY ES” without looking at the NEXT SENTENCE of the patch notes was higher than the number of Octomom’s kids. Stop doing that, it’s annoying.
Wind Shock was this cool spell introduced in 3.0. Maybe you’ve heard of it (it seems 90% of the shaman community didn‘t though)- it’s that one where you were able to interrupt spell casting OFF THE GLOBAL COOLDOWN every six seconds. It didn’t do damage like Earth Shock did, but it had a low mana cost and was OFF THE GLOBAL COOLDOWN. Now, this ability has been renamed Wind Shear. It is the exact same spell, but off the shock cool down- allowing you to interrupt casting from a distance OFF THE GLOBAL COOLDOWN EVERY SIX SECONDS. If you don’t realize how this
Is a buff, even with the removal of an interrupt from Earth Shock, we can’t be friends anymore. I mean it.
(This change also helps us on interrupt every fights like Vezax, where the 2second silence of ES compared to the 5 second silence of Kick/Pummel/Mind Freeze made using Earth Shock a pain and pissed off rogues, death knights, and qt warriors in their scary looking gear and big weapons.)
H). Shamanistic Rage: Cooldown is now 1 minute, down from 2 minutes. Successful melee attacks now have a chance to generate mana equal to 15% of the shaman's attack power, down from 30%.
We basically now replenish our mana to full every minute, rather than every two minutes. Your healer friends might cry out of jealousy, though.
I). Four new bank spaces! Marashka asked me to add this in. I was going to rewrite it myself, but I figured they did a good job of covering the information, and credit is deserved.
Q u o t e:
Heya Elam, one thing you might consider adding is the new quest to turn the four separate elemental totems into a new low-level relic, Totem of the Earthen Ring. This effectively frees up 3 bag/bank slots, and may not be a bad thing to mention since it's brand new with 3.2. is the item. The quests start with Sulaa in Exodar for Alliance and Siln Skychaser in Thunder Bluff for Horde; they send you to turn in your totems (be sure to have them in your bags) in Ironforge (an NPC near the shaman trainer) and Orgrimmar (a new NPC near Thrall). The comment section of the above link has more info if you need it.
G. Glyph Choices:
No minor glyphs currently contribute to our dps that much, and are largely a matter of personal preference. However, these are the best Majors:
A) Glyph of Feral Spirit. If you’re intelligent and making the most of your wolves, this glyph will be an excellent dps upgrade. 30% of your attack power, fully raid buffed and in-fight (so with Unleashed Rage up), you should be hitting around 5-6kdps, which means another 1600-2000ap for your wolves. It’s excellent.
B) Glyph of Stormstrike: The majority of your damage is nature based. 8% more to your Earth Shocks, Lightning Bolts, and Static Shock procs is excellent. There’s no debate about it. Get this glyph.
C) Glyph of Windfury/Glyph of Flametongue/Glyph of Lightning Shield: Personally, I always preferred Glyph of Flametongue for the 2% crit bonus. However, as was pointed out to me today, 2% crit does not scale incredibly well, and currently Glyph of Windfury is simming higher for me than Flametongue. That said, for initial gearing up, Windfury is still probably best. 2PC t9 gives us a 50% increase in Static Shock damage, and preliminary sources are saying that the Glyph of Lightning Shield is showing great potential with this bonus. However, if you’re still in Naxx/Ulduar and not running Crusader’s Coliseum yet, you’d be better off with one of the first two.
H. Weapon Buffs/Speed:
A) Weapon Imbues: are Windfury on the main hand and Flametongue on the offhand. Considering the Flametongue damage proc (which scales with SP and talents) and the spell damage that Flametongue gives us, AND the fact that Frozen Power does not work on bosses, Flametongue is the clear winner for your offhand.
B) Weapon Speed: Due to changes in 3.1, the damage off Flametongue procs scales with weapon speed. Fast weapons get shoddy coefficients, where as slow (2.6 and slower) speed weapons get the original 10% coefficient. A slower weapon also increases lava lash damage. So, for offhand, you want a 2.6 speed weapon, and a slow weapon of a lower iLevel is worth taking over a fast, higher-tier, weapon. (There is some debate about this, though. I won’t cover it in a general “cookie-cutter” guide, but you should know that it’s out there, and worth researching.)
There is no longer any debate about slow weapons for mainhand. Pre 3.1, a caster weapon with flametongue could do exceedingly nice damage. This is not the case anymore, and while it is argued that Wraith Strike (a 2.6 main hand caster weapon) could be a worthwhile weapon, it is generally believed to not beat out slow iLevel 219 and higher weapons.
Some nice, slow, pre-raid one handed weapons are accessible through the Argent Tournament or are craftable by Blacksmiths. Greed also drops from Heroic Stratholme, and Pride is purchasable with 50 Emblems of Heroism.
I. Stat Weights, and What Not To Gear For:
A) The basics- Attack Power: As a melee class, Attack Power is the bread and butter of our class. Beyond simply modifying our melee damage, every three points of attack power also gives us one point of spell power, which makes our spells hit harder.
We get this attack power through a variety of ways: first, a lot of gear just comes loaded with it. Beyond that, every point of strength, agility, and intelligence gives us one point of attack power. Because of the latter two, mail gear is generally considered best for us, since it provides us with loads of agility, intellect, and attack power.
B) But first, missing is bad!: Before we consider gemming/enchanting for attack power, there are two caps we need to worry about, named Hit and Expertise.
1. Hit: Hit is prioritized by dps classes across the board, as it is generally considered a bad thing when your superawesomeattackofdoom sails over the bosses head. Shaman are in a peculiar position with hit, as we don’t gem exclusively for the melee special hit cap, as we did in Burning Crusade. However, hitting this 8% hit cap for specials should be your first priority, as missing windfuries and storm strikes make a grown tauren cry.
2. Expertise: Expertise is a fun stat, as it reduces the bosses chance to dodge/parry your attacks. Level 83 bosses have a dodge chance of 6.5 (needz moar agility imo), and a chance to parry of something like 15%. We eliminate the parry by being intelligent and not standing in front of them. We eliminate the dodge by getting to 26 expertise, which is 140 rating with 3/3 Unleashed Rage (which you need to have.) Once you get there none of your attacks should be dodged.
It’s possible to stack enough hit to get rid of white damage misses while dual-wielding, but the amount required is so large that it’s not advisable, as you’d lose out on other stats. These two stats are the first in priority for gear. Once you reach the 368/341 hit cap and the 140rating (26) expertise cap, you can start following the next directions.
[I]3. Spell Hit Cap:(Actually, we got to that cap through talents. No gemming required.) We instead gem to hit the Spell Hit cap, which is 17%. However, when gemming, it is generally suggested that it is assumed there is a Balance Druid or Shadow Priest in the raid, as both of them provide a 3% spell hit debuff. Thus, Horde Shaman need to gem/enchant to get 368 hit, and Squidfaces need to hit 341 hit rating (as their aura provides 1% hit.)
C) Generally, 40 AP gems are considered best for gemming once you reach these caps. The reason for this is that most gems that give “rating” (such as crit/haste/lolarmor pen) or stats (Such as agility)give 16 rating, whereas Attack Power gems give 32. So, in order for any of these gems to become more worthwhile than AP gems, the EP for the other stat’s EP (Equivalency Points) need to be more than 2.0. For example, for starting Shaman, Agility tends to have an EP value of 1.7 due to the AP and crit it gives, which means a 16 Agility gem has a total EP value of 27.2. A 32AP gem has an EP value of 32, so 32 AP is the better choice.
Most of the time. you’ll see 40AP as the gem of choice. However, due to a recent change where we receive 30% more haste from haste rating, players using 4PC t8 have seen changes in their EP which puts haste at more than 2EP, which means they’re gemming haste. This is not advisable for someone starting out, especially if you’re unfamiliar with playing Enhance. However, it is something you’ll deal with eventually, so it’s worth knowing about, and keep in mind while you progress through gear levels that you might want to start considering Haste as an option. Keep in mind that this gemming of haste is likely a dying habit- it’s power comes from synergy with our amazing 4pct8 bonus, but due to the awesomely higher stats/iLevels on Crusader’s Coliseum gear, 4pct8 won’t last terribly long. AP is most likely going to remain the gem of choice for everything now that 3.2 is here.
Also, you need at least one blue gem to activate your meta. This gem should almost always be the “Nightmare Tear,” or +10 to stats. 10 Str=10 Ap, 10 Agi=10AP+Melee Critical Hit, 10 Intellect=10 AP+Spell Crit, and 10 Stamina is just nice so that you die less. Plus, the gem scales with kings. It’s pretty qt.
Armor Penetration got a buff in 3.1 as well, so that we get 25% more Armor Pen from ArP rating. However, since less than 50% of our damage is melee-based, Armor Penetration is no where near as desirable for us as it is for other melee classes. That said, if you have the choice between an iLevel 242 item with ArP on it and an iLevel 200 with no ArP, the shear bonus in stats from the higher iLevel item should outweigh the less-than-stellar Armor Pen.
As for Meta Gems, Relentless Earthsiege Diamond and Chaotic Skyflare Diamond are the two best choices. Their usefullness differs on your own EP values- whether or not Agility or Critical Strike EP higher for you when you sim it. (RED has the added benefit of only needing one blue gem, which is the BiS nightmare tear. This will be a consideration for jewelcrafters come 3.2, when their JC only gems are no longer Prismatic, but is less of a concern now.) These are the only two metas you should consider gemming at this point.
J. Enchants (Professions not Included, see Store for Details):
1.)Head: Arcanum of Torment, which is also why Ebon Blade reputation is the first to go for. If you’re sorely lacking in hit, the Arcanum of Ferocity from Outland Cenarion Expedition rep can be used as a replacement.
2.)Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Axe, from Sons of Hodir rep. (And if you’re not willing to farm Hodir rep/Level Inscription, you need to not be raiding.)
3.)Cape: This one is EP dependent. Starting out raiding, Major Agility is better. However, if your haste is EPing to the point that you’re gemming for it, http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=47898 should over take it.
4.)Chest: Super Stats is nice for disposable gear. On BiS pieces, (Powerful Stats) is superior. Both the stats pieces are very nice, as they give AP, Spell Crit, and Melee crit, though in small amounts.
5.)Bracers: Expertise is nice for gearing to Exp cap. Once there, Greater Assault is better.
6.)Gloves: Precision is excellent for getting to hit cap, and is advisable over the +15 expertise one. After that, Crusher becomes better.
7.)Pants: Icescale Leg Armor. 75 AP and Melee/Spell crit? Yesplz.
8.)Feet: Until hit capped, Icewalker. Once hit capped, go old world for Cat’s Swiftness. 6 Agility is nice, and the run speed is highly wanted for Ulduar. Tuskarr's Vitality ments loses the agility from Cat's Swiftness, but the stamina bonus is a definite boon for the boss aoefest of Ulduar.
9.)Weapons: Berserking, is undoubtedly Best in Slot for weapon enchants, and any weapons you expect to have for a long time should be enchanted with it. However, for non-BiS items, Mongoose is an acceptable alternative.
L. Mods, Addons, and Links:
1.) EnhSim: Every Enhancement Shaman should download and familiarize themselves with the Enhancement DPS Simulator, especially the function that allows it to calculate EP values. It truly is a vital addon for any raiding enhance shaman, and while we can’t take everything it says as absolute truth, it is a very, very nice tool.
http://enhsim.codeplex.com/ (Note, you need winzip or a similar program to extract it.)
2.) Totem Addon: I personally fully endorse Totem Timers, as I’ve been using it for over a year and love it. That said, there are a variety of totem managing addons that are worth looking at.
3.) Rotation/Cooldown timer:
Due to her awesome contributions to the Shaman community, my first endorsement for cooldown timer bars is Zasi’s Full Moon addon. It’s lightweight, it’s compact, and it’s nice to look at!
However, I also endorse ShockAndAwe, as it provides a few features Full Moon does not. Namely, it provides a priority frame that is indispensable for dps, and it offers a slash command that allows you to export data from the game to your Enh Sim. Both are worth getting, in my opinion.
4.) Rawr:
Rawr is an awesome program that allows you to see exactly how different pieces of gear help your dps, and shows possible upgrades/differences in gems/enchanting that will increase your dps. And, it comes with a youtube guide!
5.) Helpful Links:
The Enhancement Theorycraft Bible:
The folks at Elitist Jerks have been pioneering Shaman theorycraft since before I started visiting these forums, which was over a year and a half ago. They go beyond just extrapolating the information into easily digestible nougats of knowledge and do what every math teacher you've ever had while growing up wished you would do- they show their math.
Levva’s Awesome Post of Awesomeness: MMO-Champion WoTLK Enhance FAQ.
To be honest, I’m the messenger who takes the information I read and regurgitates it into fun-to-read morsels fit for the combined intellect of the shaman community. Levva is one of the EJ theorycrafters who delves deep into the math and mechanics of how shaman work, and as such their post as MO-champion should definitely be looked into. (Thanks Marashka for brining it to my attention! :D)
Shaman On Ramen!:
Shamanonramen.wordpress.com
It’s my baby blog. It’s about enhancement. You should check it out. And subscribe. And comment. All elam, all the time.
M. Conclusion:
I’m sure I missed things. I’m sure I gave information someone, somewhere, might find wrong. However, I encourage anyone with issues to post them, and I’ll do my best to respond to them, and possibly edit. I hope this helped!