Enhancement Pre-Raid guide for shamans

[analallan123]

Enhancement Pre-Raid Guide! [WotLK]


Most of this info has been taken from Elitist Jerks but has been cut down a little, so full credit goes to those guys!

Note: This is just meant to be a basic guide for those starting out so excuse the lack of detail but feel free to post any theorycrafting here too.



Index:

1.
Class Basics
2.
DPS "Rotation"
3.
Itemizing
4.
Talents/Builds
5.
Links



1. Class Basics:

Pretty straight forward explanation taken from Malan at EJ.

Elitist Jerks said:
An Enhancement Shaman is an integral part of a raid group. Besides offering substantial personal DPS, an Enhancement Shaman brings talented totem buffs beyond those offered by a Resto or Elemental Shaman. These include Unleashed Rage (an on-crit proc for 10% additional melee AP), Strength of Earth (+STR/AGI), and Windfury (20% Melee Haste).

An Enhancement Shaman is not a melee healer. While Maelstrom Weapon instant cast heals can certainly help top off a group after an AoE or step in to prevent an emergency, their gear's focus on melee stats makes them unsuitable healers in the endgame. An Enhancement Shaman should be dedicated to DPS, maximizing Unleashed Rage and totem coverage for the raid.

Enhacement Shaman have 6 sources of damage:

*
Windfury, a weapon imbue that gives the shaman a 20% proc of two instant attacks with a substantial AP bonus.
*
Lava Lash, an off hand instant attack (6s cooldown) that deals fire damage, does more damage if Flametongue Weapon is used.
*
Stormstrike, a 10s (8s talented) cooldown instant attack with both weapons.
*
Elemental Shocks, shared cooldown instant elemental damage offering stealth prevention, snaring or interruption.
*
Fire Totems, pulsed direct or AoE fire damage.
*
Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt instant casts triggered by a 5 stack of the Maelstrom Weapon talent.

Now that you know what you are, let's move on to how you do what you do!



2. DPS "Rotation"

Since the release of all our delicious new talents there is no REAL rotation to follow, we must now follow a "priority queue". This basically means hitting your highest dps skill when it is off CD.

*
Lightning Bolt if MW is at 5 stacks.
*
Stormstrike if available.
*
Earth Shock if available.
*
Lava Lash if available.
*
Refresh totems/shield.

Generally when you enter combat you'll open with SS followed by an ES with a LL coming right after, wait until you gain 5 stacks of MW then lightning bolt (or chain lightning depending on if AOE is acceptable) then it's just a matter of following the queue!



3. Itemizing

Another thing that has changed since WotLK is our ranking of which stats we need to stack in order to achieve the highest possible dps output.

Here's a run-down from highest priority to lowest.

1.
Hit Rating:

Thanks to MW, hit rating is now the most desirable stat to an Enhancement Shaman until capped. It's still not recommended to aim for melee (white) hit cap but you really do not want your ES failing or having a MW5 stack miss and go to waste.

Your spells have a 17% (16% for Draenei with Heroic Presence) chance to miss against a level 83 boss making the hit cap 446 or 420 for Draenei.

Another 3% of that can be taken care of by raid debuffs such as Misery and improved Faerie Fire. This takes it down further to 367 and 341 for Draenei.

Note: This also takes care for your special hit cap since the hit rating stat is now shared, obviously!


2.
Expertise:

Expertise reduces the chance that a mob can dodge and parry your attacks. In most raid situations you'll be attacking from behind so there is no chance of parry, only dodge and you'll want to reduce this. The cap for expertise is 6.50% (214 Expertise Rating) to knock dodge completely off the table.

Note: The dodge reduction element of expertise will vary from encounter to encounter: it will be useless against bosses that are constantly casting because mobs cannot dodge while casting, but useful against mobs that do not cast or only cast instant spells.


3.
Agility/Intellect/Crit/Haste:

After capping out your hit/expertise ratings you'll want to bring your attack power and crit up as high as possible without losing those caps.

Agility now offers attack power and melee crit, intellect provides attack power (with talents), spell crit and a larger mana pool, while crit rating now gives both melee and spell crit.

Note: Strength is now a wasted stat (1 STR = 1 AP), avoid it!


4. Talent/Builds

17/54/0

"If you're having trouble maintaining your mana pool this is probably the spec for you, it favours using Water Shield over Lightning Shield and has three points in Convection. It also includes all the raid buffs if you don't have anyone else to cover them."

16/55/0

"This spec would be for those who have a near perfect raid composition. Raid buffs provided by others would cover the talents taken and left out of this spec.

10% AP buff by either by a Blood DK or Marks Hunter so the need for UR is gone, having a Ret Paladin and replenishment gives you enough mana to play with to make Water Shield less desirable thus taking 3/3 Static Shock and 3/3 Imp. Shields in it's place. 3/3 Call of Flame is taken due to having a SP buff slot filled already allowing you to drop Searing Totem."

20/51/0

"This spec is for those shaman who have someone covering Unleashed Rage for them. With max points in Reverberation this spec results in maximum Elemental Devastation uptime.

The two points in Convection can be allocated to Call of Flame if Searing Totem will be placed instead of Flametongue Totem. The two points in Improved Shields can also be allocated to Ancestral Knowledge if wished.

This spec is of course meant for raiding which is why Elemental Focus has no points in it. Replenishment should cover you mana issues in most raiding circumstances."



5. Links

Shaman: Enhancement Think Tank (Elitist Jerks)
ShockAndAwe (Great Enhancement DPS Add-On)
Shaman Macro's (WowWiki)
Yata (Totem Management Add-On)