Need some shaman advice please

[Shirvala]

Hello, I am finally taking time to level my shaman, and I havent really played at all since the release of this new expansion. And thats why i have some questions about specs and glyphs.

-In raids these days, how does enhancement do in comparison to elemental on the dps meters?

-What is easiest to gear up, enhancement or elemental?

-How is the restoration tree doing? Is it worth it to get dual specs for healing, or is shaman healers not so desirable ?

-Could anyone also include their favourite glyphs for each talent tree?

-Is it hard to get a group as shaman dps/healing, and what dps tree has the easiest time getting groups? (I know this varies for each server, but just your general impression is what i need)

Many thanks

Dray

[Deleted]

Lots have been written about this already on these forums, but here goes:

- Enhancement does outdps elemental in equal gear, but both are a huge buff to respectively melee and casters.

- Both about equal, gearing up is a joke in wotlk.

- Restoration is doing fine, resto shamans are in great demand.

- Can give them for 3.1 resto, 25 man raiding: Glyph of Chain Heal, still the best one there is. Then glyph of riptide (new 3.1 one, its awesome). 3rd one depends, if you are having mana issues go for water mastery, otherwise earth shield or healing stream, comes down to personal preference.

- Depends what you mean by a group, a good 25man raid needs only 1 elemental and 1 enhancement shaman, and usually about 2 resto shamans. If you are going for 10man pugs or heroics, id say elemental is easier to get a spot with then enhancement.

[Flashbomba]

On my server/faction we have loads of melee dps atm so it's far easier to get a spot as elemental due to the caster raid buffs it provides. (When that is said I still personally think enhance is MUCH more fun to play compared to elemental and maybe you should also take that into account? It's a game after all and I guess you also play to have fun?). Try to look around your own server and look at recruitment threads etc to see what people are mostly looking for - ranged or melee dps. However, in my experience - most are actually looking for healers. ;-)

If you're talking about 5-man instances I don't think its so important if you go ele or enh. Again, most are usually looking for healer and/or tank though.

The only thing that should favour elemental over enh is that you can use some of the same gear for resto in case you dual-spec - which I would really recommend for any shaman. I know it's not all items that are usable by both specs, but some ele gear got mp5 and some resto gear got crit/haste so there should be at least some items that you can use for both. This would make gearing up faster, but as Void said, gearing up is really not a problem. I'm resto primarily myself, but just from picking up offspec rolls i got descent ele gear and even also quite a lot enh gear (3/5 t7, angry dread, etc). Just remember to ask before you roll on stuff. ;-)

GL with your shaman

Ps. I don't share the enthusiasm for glyph of riptide though, but haven't tried it so might be wrong. :-) I use glyph of LHW instead (+20% LHW heal if target has ES) but really depends on what you're raiding mostly (5-10-25m).

[Shirvala]

Oh one additional question, and I know it might be silly, but is there any addon for shamans, that lets me have 'sets' of totems come out when i click it. For example put down my Wrath totem, mana spring and Strength of earth automatically?

If so id love to know, its boring to always manually put them down :P

[Grasshoof]

With my alt I use totem timers. I think it's nice and you can keep up with your cds, too.

[Xena]

"Totemtimers" and "Shock and Awe" are really nice, but totem macros can easily be made if ya just wanna go with that option.

[Takedown]

Well in my server there isn't much ENH shamans so it realy isn't hard to get much groups...gearing for enhancement on the other hand is anoying since you will be rolling against hunters(that's not a problem,everyone has to oll against some other class),BUT some rogues roll on the slow MH weps due to their specc etc...and since there isn't much to choose from (high lvl weps) it'll be tough

I'm not too sure about elemental but it's not hard for em to get a spot in alot of raids...gearing is/should be easier than enh cuz no1 REALLY needs the caster-mail gear

Restoration is in ALOT of demand,And getting spots won't be hard,but not easy either...
(atleast on my server )

[Illunis]

Lots have been written about this already on these forums, but here goes:

- Enhancement does outdps elemental in equal gear, but both are a huge buff to respectively melee and casters.

- Both about equal, gearing up is a joke in wotlk.

- Restoration is doing fine, resto shamans are in great demand.

- Can give them for 3.1 resto, 25 man raiding: Glyph of Chain Heal, still the best one there is. Then glyph of riptide (new 3.1 one, its awesome). 3rd one depends, if you are having mana issues go for water mastery, otherwise earth shield or healing stream, comes down to personal preference.

- Depends what you mean by a group, a good 25man raid needs only 1 elemental and 1 enhancement shaman, and usually about 2 resto shamans. If you are going for 10man pugs or heroics, id say elemental is easier to get a spot with then enhancement.

personally i like to go with glyph of CH, glyph of LHW, and glyph of mana tide(more overall mana returned than the water mastery glyph) for resto, even tho 2 extra ticks on riptide is cool, i think the base use of glyph of LHW in PVE and PVP is just amazing