Heirlooms for a Shaman

[MrNutty]

ok, so after years of being intrigued by the shaman class(my personal opinion it fits the epitome of a 'hybrid' better than any other class) i've finally decided to bunker down and level one

i find enhancement and elemental to be equally fun, but since the real haha fun of elemental isn't until later, im sticking to enhancement, its easiest to find gear for it at the beginning(thank you WC)

but what i know of shamans, specifically enhancement, says that fast weapons are terribad, i note that it doesn't REALLY matter until you have windfury, but nonetheless, the only heirlooms i can use for enhancement are too far to either extreme, either i can DW daggers, or i can walk around with an absurdly slow axe itemized more for warriors and retadins than it is for shamans

currently i have the shoulders and dagger from WG, and i'm level 24, is the axe worth using, should i stick to my plan of daggers, oooor should i save up badges and switch to elemental heirlooms????

:/

i intend to goof off with elemental eventually anyway, the concept of thunderstorming the lumber mill is just too much to pass up, what i'm really after i guess is, is it a bad thing to be dwing daggers, if said daggers are the best on level item you can find??

[Uthad]

Remember that you don't get DW until level 40, so the weapons are moot until then.

[MrNutty]

Remember that you don't get DW until level 40, so the weapons are moot until then.

i realize this :P

they'll still be the best dps one handers i can find almost guaranteed, just really fast, which means in theory less stormstrike damage but more white damage..

[Uthad]

i realize this :P

they'll still be the best dps one handers i can find almost guaranteed, just really fast, which means in theory less stormstrike damage but more white damage..

It would also mean more flametongue damage, if you were putting that on your main hand (which is a more reliable way to go than WF until you get DW). However, I believe they are changing the way flametongue damage scales with weapon speed in 3.1 to make it less desirable on fast weapons.
I find MH / shield enhancement leveling until 40 to be smoother and less frustrating than trying to beat on stuff with a 2 hander. The whole "miss parry parry there goes 9 seconds..." thing was just too annoying to me.

[gaymer77]

While it is true that you would want slower weapons for enh, it really doesn't matter at lower levels. You'll be using flametongue and/or frostband for the extra dmg it does instead of WF anyway. Frostband is very good while fighting humanoids since they will run away once they get low enough. It saves you having to "oh shit FROSTSHOCK SLOW" or keep earthbind down to slow them down.

Quite frankly, ele is still a viable spec to lvl up with & the gear is out there if you want it. You will be wearing mostly cloth but with the changes to dungeon loot a few patches ago, its good dmg. My shaman was resto/ele all the way to 70, then I went full time resto until finishing BT/MH for my T6, then went full time ele until 80 because I wanted to lvl up ASAP. I've dabbled in enh but found ele a whole lot more fun & the whole reason I made my shaman was to be a healer which is why at 80 I went full resto.

[gaymer77]

BTW if you get 2 of the heirloom trinkets that restore HP or MP, they do stack & the regen upon getting a killing blow stacks with each other too. When I do timed CoT runs that's how I regen my mana is pulling a group of zombies & throwing down magma totem for the killing blow. I literally am full mana the whole time between bosses.

[Ballongbuse]

I am leveling a Shaman at the moment as Enhancement and I chose to go with Heirloom items for him. I got the shoulders obviously, but I also bought the 2H axe and two daggers, all from Emblems. The Axe was enchanted with Crusader and the daggers were both enchanted with +15 Agility. I went from 1-40 with the Bloodied Arcanite Reaper, first with Flametongue and after that with Windfury, worked like a charm.

When I dinged 41 (took Stormstrike first) I switched to the daggers with Windfury in my main hand and Flametongue in my off hand which I think worked like a charm. I am now level 60 and I'm still using the daggers which I think work really good even though they're fast. I have no problem killing mobs, not even when I first entered Outlands at 58.

My conclusion would be that the daggers work just fine and that I don't think you need to change to slow/slow (Post 3.1) until you want to be doing some serious damage (i.e. level 80), but since you were going Elemental at 80, there's no need for you to worry about that.

Hopefully some of my own experiences were useful to you :>

[Deleted]

I lvled as Enhancement, was great fun (my 1st 80 so no Heirlooms)
At 50ish i went Elemental, but it was not so smooth as Enhance, so i specced bk.
Reaching outlands, tons new gear etc, i went Elemental, leveling went great.
2 days before WotLK i specced Resto to raid a bit to kill time.
Right when WotLK dropped on my doormat i specced Ele and pulled up some massacre on Northrend

Now back ontopic
Imo go Enhance till Outlands (58) and use the proper Heirlooms for that.
By the time your Shaman gets to 58 u couldve gotten a huge loads of Emblems on your main for offspec gear and new heirlooms since Enh Sham uses same Heirlooms as Hunter, you can start lvling that after :P

[archform]

big slow 2h means your gonna be doing some nice burst
*for enh

i was thinking the same thing but i only have the 2h axe
*working on shoulders

*2h axe being used on my ret right now

[Bainz]

Don't waste Emblems on the Axe.

[archform]

you can put 30 stam 15 resil on them
got them on my plate shoulders for my pally
* i hear they are removing it next patch
but i think they are removing the glitch that allows lvl 80 stuff to be used on armor and still being able to be sent to other characters *like frostscale leg patch
seen some twinks with it on

[gaymer77]

you can put 30 stam 15 resil on them
got them on my plate shoulders for my pally
* i hear they are removing it next patch
but i think they are removing the glitch that allows lvl 80 stuff to be used on armor and still being able to be sent to other characters *like frostscale leg patch
seen some twinks with it on

The shoulder enchants are available if your character is lvl 60 or 70 (I forget which one they are starting to allow it with). As for the leg patches, there are no heirloom legs so even if you had LW or tailoring for it, it wouldn't make any difference. Infact they are making all of the leg armors have a lvl 50 requirement for the LW ones & 60 for the tailoring ones just to have them on and give you the stats. They are not removed from the item you have it on but you get 0 of the stats unless you are at least the min lvl they are making it to. Same for +100 HP to chest, and helm enchants via librams.

[Wildhearted]

Id use 2 daggers, it aint really bad for leveling imo, good uptime on flurry and stuff..go wf/ft..looks nicer for 2 fast weps at that level

[Crytz]

The shoulder enchants are available if your character is lvl 60 or 70 (I forget which one they are starting to allow it with). As for the leg patches, there are no heirloom legs so even if you had LW or tailoring for it, it wouldn't make any difference. Infact they are making all of the leg armors have a lvl 50 requirement for the LW ones & 60 for the tailoring ones just to have them on and give you the stats. They are not removed from the item you have it on but you get 0 of the stats unless you are at least the min lvl they are making it to. Same for +100 HP to chest, and helm enchants via librams.

The Greater Inscription of the Gladiator (30 stam & 15 resil to a shoulder slot item) is bugged. Buy it on a level 80 toon, mail your heirloom shoulders to that level 80 toon, and use the inscription on those shoulders. It'll give you a warning that enchanting the shoulders will make them become soulbound, but that doesn't matter. Those BoA shoulders will take that inscription, and the stats it gives will be the exact same level 1-80. My level 15 shaman is wearing an inscribed pair right now, and if I take them off he loses 330 hp (with the shoulders having 3 additional stamina on them).

With all other 61+ shoulder enchants - Aldor/Scryer, Sons of Hodir, and Wintergrasp - attempting to apply the inscription to heirloom shoulders will give you the error message that they're too low of a level, just like applying high-level enchants to your weapons.

[myrddinde]

With all other 61+ shoulder enchants - Aldor/Scryer, Sons of Hodir, and Wintergrasp - attempting to apply the inscription to heirloom shoulders will give you the error message that they're too low of a level, just like applying high-level enchants to your weapons.

Well, the Heirloom stuff is treated as it were Level 1, thus all TBC+ item enhancements require at least a level 35 (for enchants) item to apply them.
For Heirloom Shoulders you were able to put Zul Gurub exalted Shoulder Enchant on them as you can see here on my Mules:

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...st&n=Finewares
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...crest&n=Daisan

Atm it is possible to transfer items that got soulbound via enchanting to trade if they have 0 durability. I have an engineering head on my level 19 sales mule with the Cenarion Expedition Head Enchant. I did not bother with engineering though, since it will be fixed in 3.1 and those items will longer provide the buff until you reach a certain level.

I suggest you do NOT try this though, it is an Exploit and could end up in Accountclosure.