Im NEW to shamans....

[aarro]

Morning all for the last two hours ive been contemplating rolling a feral druid or enhan shammy but ive chosen the shammy. Ive never been a shaman before so lookinng at you lot for little hints and tips that could help me on the way... and - are enhan shamans even that good atm? cheers

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edit - this has gone well....... ffs

[Deleted]

Well...If you are starting with a lvl1, I personally find Enhancement better the Elemental. Also in a bursty kind of way.
Otherwise with a lvl90, Elemental is the way to go for now. (Comparing numbers of 2 shamans in my raid group)

I wish I could provide more info but I'm a resto shaman through-and-through. =)

[Txiv]

At level 1, without heirloom enhance has all the tools you will need. with heirloom enhance and ele are about the same.

at 90 enhance does better dps but is harder to master, ele is still very good dps but less than enhance and easier to work with.

[Grym]

Enhance are actually rather sick since 5.3, some can burst up to 600k at beginning of fight and slowly ramp back down.

Leveling wise, Enhance is good until Elemental gets Chain Lightning, if you do dungeons, Chain Lightning all the way.

[aarro]

thank you. i do have the heirlooms too

[Socialhealer]

Enhance are actually rather sick since 5.3, some can burst up to 600k at beginning of fight and slowly ramp back down.

Leveling wise, Enhance is good until Elemental gets Chain Lightning, if you do dungeons, Chain Lightning all the way.

my ele shaman can burst 780k, there's a bit more to it than burst.

[aarro]

i dont know where this ele v enh debate has come from though tbh...... lol

[Aleksej89]

Elemental has much easier healing (clearcasting buff + more mana/int) and also does not have to deal with parry/dodge (lack of expertise) - Elem just spams spells and if one misses it is not important, but if Enha's Stormstrike or Lava Lash get dodged/parried your DPS for the next ~10 seconds is very low.
Elemental is also not reliant on any totems for it's dps, while Enha desperately needs the Searing Totem active for it's Lava Lash - so dropping Searing all the time can be boring.

Elemental's AoE (Chain Lighting up to 5 targets) is also vastly easier (good for 5mans) and you can use the same gear for both resto and elem (if you want fast 5man queues as healer).
Elemental's use of Shield as an offhand also makes it very durable against physical attacks (not as much as a tank/plate, but still it is a lot).

Enhancement is good after you get important abilities and passives, but i am not sure what level you get those (maelstrom and similar).
Also Enha suffers from the same issue as all melee classes, and that is the annoying ranged mobs attacking you from 30 yards (you gotta run to them and perhaps pull even more adds).

[papajohn4]

well I cannot help you about level 90 but i can help you about leveling..I am leveling a Shamy now and soon I ll be 90. What I can say is that it is extremely fun to play. During leveling played both elemental and Enhancement (Have heirlooms for both). That windfury proc, both the damage and the visual, is not compared to anything else in the game in terms of fun Enhancemnt is complicated to play but with the correct UI will be no problem to play good enough. I use weak auras and they help a lot with the rotation if you know how to set them. And if a class is fun to play, don't bother about if it can do 5% more or less DPS

[Murderdoll]

Elemental is still more sought after in raids however, the ranged advantage.

Enhance is a beast to level though, if youre out of mana just use water sheild, otherwise pew pew and use MW5 on heals.

[Falu]

Enhancment is god in PvP, mainly in Arenas - uber burst, in PvE they are also great with top notch single target dps (arguably best ingame atm).

Elemental is ok in PvP, mainly in 3v3, 5v5, and RBGS, although less so than enhanc elem is in a good place, in PvE elem has amazing sustained cleave and aoe capabilities which makes it attractive for many encounters (Durumu hc due to icewalls / ji-kun's nests / horridon hc adds etc.), but one of the lower single target dps (no execute mechanics).

[shammypie]

wait until you get to 90 before u make a choice, otherwise level as enhancement since it has the lowest amount of downtime and greatest amount of fun