Dual Wielding Shaman

[slog]

This is my first toon ever at Wow, and I'm about to hit 40.

I've got all but 2 of my points in enhancemnent, and I play on a PvP server.   Is dual wielding any good?  My plan was to get to 65ish and then respec anyways, so I'm looking at a good PvE/Ganking setup.  Thoughts?

[Rasix]

Some good information in the following thread:  http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9337.0

Dual wield is good for PVE.  Dual wielding was pretty good for PVP (Battlegrounds for me) at 60 before TBC.  I don't play on a PVP server, so I can't comment on the specific encounters you'll run into there.  But I won a lot more than I lost when I'd spot someone, they'd spot me, and we'd fight it out.  Class that gave me the most trouble was rogues.  I really only beat the terrible ones.

Dual wield is a little ineffective, IMO, until you can get some decent +hit (talents can take care of +9% to hit) and AP gear, which really doesn't exist pre-TBC, but you'll still be a lot more efficient and powerful that someone trying to be elemental pre-TBC.  Resto will be slower.  Enhance is just really good for grinding/leveling because you spend less time on your ass drinking.

I haven't done much PVPing at 70 (druid just hit 60), but that's where I see dual wield enhance falling apart (enhance in general).  Too much HP to chew though for a class with little survivability and spotty CC.   

This is how I'd spend my points up to 40: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=uZxVfzV0sVz

Next 4 points should be in getting the +6% to hit and storm strike. 

[Alkiera]

A friend of mine is playing a shaman as enhance, and seems to do well with a big, slow 2h hammer.  He mentioned his delay is > 3s, so that Windfury has a chane to proc on every swing...  He's pretty devastating, as the morale hit to players when they see a huge chunk of HP come off is pretty interesting.  I've watched him duel, and he does alright in the 30s.  Working on finding a good place to level still.  We're both trying to get faction to get human horses, tho neither of us are human, but Hillsbrad is a freaking waste of time, there's almost constantly a few lvl 70 horde flattening Southshore on Dentarg.

--
Alkiera

[Morfiend]

MrHat was an enhancement shammy for a while. He recently went Resto. If your looking for PVP damage build Elemental has much more burst for pvp. It has much more down time though.

[Nonentity]

As a 70 shaman in an endgame raiding/arena pvp guild, I can say that every single shaman in our guild is Elemental spec (not counting the one Resto shaman), and not Enhancement spec.

For PvE, Enhancement is not all that terrible. It's good if you're in a group with a lot of Melee DPS, because when your Unleashed Rage goes off, it's a huge boon. You get decent damage, and you can get a lot of mana back very fast with Shamanistic Rage.

However, you lose one of the largest advantages of being a Shaman, and that is the ability to keep distance. With Frost Shock and Earthbind totem, you can maintain a good distance most of the time. Or get in close, if you need to, but generally if you have range, you want to use it to your advantage. I'm sure if even a warrior could maintain his damage from a ranged distance as opposed to melee distance, he'd take it.

The number one reason I'd say, though, is that there is absolutely no gear crossover between Enhancement and Elemental/Resto. If you're wearing full Enhancement gear, you're wearing heavy str/agi/crit/hit gear - your mana pool will be almost nothing. Shaman are one of the most mana-intensive classes in the game.

Alternatively, if you're in Elemental gear, you have int/spell damage/mana per 5 gear. That +spell damage gear also crosses over into healing, and you can do decent healing while in the gear as well. You're much more viable as a hybrid in that gear then in Enhancement gear.

[slog]

Nonentity, I was thinking along the same lines, espcially with the Windfury nerf incoming. 

So at what level do you respec from Enhancement to Elemental?  and do you have a sample build?

[Rasix]

Nonentity, I was thinking along the same lines, espcially with the Windfury nerf incoming. 

So at what level do you respec from Enhancement to Elemental?  and do you have a sample build?

You'll start getting gear that invalidates your current gear the second you step foot in Outland. Before then, I'm not sure it's practical as no gear you're going to get will have +spell damage or mp/5.  You'll just drink a lot. 

[Modern Angel]

Let me say that the reason you want Enhancement for PvE (switched mains, 61 shaman now enhancement) is Unleashed Rage. 10% more melee damage for y our group when you crit. Reasonably fast weapons means lots of crits. Elemental appeals to me a bit more from an aesthetics viewpoint and it's the way to go for PvP but Enhancement is, in my opinion, an absolute must in any raid group.

[AcidCat]

Enhancement is your best bet for PvE questing/grinding/leveling. A couple points to keep things smooth -

- First Aid. Keep it current. This will really help with downtime as your small mana pool will be gone before you know it if you're healing yourself after every fight.

- Aim for mobs lower level than yourself. Whenever you can, fight mobs 1, 2 or even 3 levels weaker than you. You will find that mobs +1 or +2 are just not worth the increased downtime, so get in the habit of whacking weaker foozles faster.

[Nonentity]

We've been doing fine without any Enhancement shaman so far, as getting 10% melee damage every so often is not a good as getting another person in the Shaman's slot. I think it does have a purpose on a raid, I admit, I just haven't seen it be quite good enough to justify it.

When to switch - I'd probably start looking at collecting some Elemental gear when you get into the Outlands, because that's when it'll really be notable. I'd get two sets of gear going at that point in time - Elemental and Enhancement, but don't break your back trying to fill out your Elemental set. Once you hit 70, I'd re-spec to Elemental and then work on filling out the slots you don't have with dropped gear.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GE0zqcMqAoZZxcrt0xo
This is the build I'm currently using. It's kind of a hybrid of a PvE and PvP spec - down to Elemental Mastery in the Elemental tree, and Nature's Swiftness in the Restoration tree. I only put one point in reduced shock timer, as I don't find having to spend 5 points to lose a second all that efficient, there are better uses of points.

The main reason it's a hybrid spec is because I have Unrelenting Storm for the mana over 5 buff (great for healing), as well as having a combined +11% chance to crit with lightning bolts (which will be fantastic once the shaman Clearcasting change comes out). If you wanted to pull the points out of Unrelenting Storm, I'd probably put them in Elemental Shielding and Call of Flame (3 and 2, respectively).

Eye of the Storm is a necessary talent if you want to PvP.

[Modern Angel]

At level 62 Unleashed Rage is up all the time. All. I'm not certain what an elemental shaman brings to the table group synergy wise that's better than 10% more AP plus improved strength, GoA and Windfury totems. May have to agree to disagree, however. I know that most of the top raiding guilds are considering one enhancement shaman an absolute must have. I wish the elemental shaman 41 point totem wasn't complete shit since we tend to roll with more mages (and good mages at that) but it is. Hopefully they'll revisit it at some point in the near future.

[AcidCat]

Eye of the Storm is a necessary talent if you want to PvP.

You think so? I've looked at that in thinking about my endgame PvP spec and thought "meh" - it only activates if someone crits you .. the bonus you get only really matters if someone is in your face pounding on you in melee, and at that point aren't you either trying to gain distance or just meleeing yourself? Are you just sitting there trying to get off a lightning bolt against someone right in your face?

[MrHat]

I was enhancement up to about 56 where I switched to elemental.  Once TBC dropped, I switched back to enhancement and was shocked.  I was great in groups, I was great on my own.  But I absolutely was fodder out on the field unless someone didn't pay attention, then I would always hope for the holywtfpwnwfsmackdown.  

IMO - stay enhancement until you want to PVP.  Keep a set of +int/+spell damage in yer bank for when you want to heal.  When you want to PVP (50+) go elemental.  Elemental is very very viable from 60-70, and reports from some L70 elemental shaman w/ good gear is that they can outdamage almost everyone out there (good gear is key, as well as a group that will let you do it, because hey, if you do 110% more damage than a mage, you will still get booted for a mage that can sheep).

Me, I loved my enhancement shaman up till L70.  @ L70, there's plenty of DPS classes that can do well, and do some crowd control (needed for heroics).  So I switched to resto and bust him out when others need help w/ something.  As of right now, he's semi-retired until I get my rogue/mage up a bit more since my rogue plays like I wanted my enhancement shaman to play, and my mage plays like I'd want an elemental shaman to play.  If I had a priest ~L60 I wouldn't even play my shaman.

Don't get me wrong though, Bloodlust is awesome, but it's such a tiny carrot on a stick.

EOTS is not needed for PVP, if you are elemental, just stay the fuck away from melee.  Imp. Ghost wolf is great for this.

[sinij]

I think key difference between DPS mage and DPS shaman is that when things spin out of control shaman a) can take more damage due to chain b) can heal c) can reincarnate and res in order to prevent complete wipe. In PUGs shamans and druids are by far better that specialized classes since they can pick up slack from incompetent tank/healer.

[Morfiend]

True, but they also cant AE the way a mage can, and they have no real CC to speak of. Not that DPS shaman are bad, but at level 70, their utility is really not all that. It really depends on your group make up.

I did Shadow Labs last night with a Holy Pally, Rogue (me), Warlock, Warrior and Elemental Shaman. We did pretty good. I would say the shaman spent about 1/3rd of his time healing. Part of this was because our tank was only level 69, and not very geared.

[MrHat]

I think key difference between DPS mage and DPS shaman is that when things spin out of control shaman a) can take more damage due to chain b) can heal c) can reincarnate and res in order to prevent complete wipe. In PUGs shamans and druids are by far better that specialized classes since they can pick up slack from incompetent tank/healer.

[slog]

ok, so now I'm 52 and I'm getting my enancment ass handed to me in 1v1 and I'm ready for a change anyway.  Any thoughts on a good PvP/PvE build for elemental?

[Rasix]

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9579.0

End of the thread there has some elemental builds.

[SurfD]

I think key difference between DPS mage and DPS shaman is that when things spin out of control shaman a) can take more damage due to chain b) can heal c) can reincarnate and res in order to prevent complete wipe. In PUGs shamans and druids are by far better that specialized classes since they can pick up slack from incompetent tank/healer.

huh?  You cant really have all that at once.

An elemental shaman will do good Magic DPS (which is why i assume you are comparing them to mages), and they can heal, but they wont be tanking much (elemental spec wont have great hp, or the talents that allow you to meatshield it up).

An Enhancement shaman can meatshield it pretty well, especially if they keep a shield hotkeyed for when things actually do go after them. And before the Windfury change could pop out some pretty crazy dps, its more moderate now, but we dont heal worth crap in Enhance gear.  I have, i think, a grand total of 20+healing/damage on my Enh gear, and i can toss 4 or 5 emergency heals before my mana basicly evaporates.

Regardless which spec you are, DPS shaman have one major problem in groups, that being total inability to effectively controll aggro.  Couple lucky bursts with Lightning overload / windfury crits and you can quickly rip aggro off nearly anyone since they have no talents that reduce aggro on their attacks.