staff vs. 1h/shield ele

[ketzil]

Ive been noticing alot of more ele shaman using staves instead of the 1h/shield set up that I have been accustom to. Is this a viable choice now or are these people misinformed?

thank you in response

[Tutonious]

it really just depends on what is gonna give you the most benefit tbh. for the most part it'll be a shield and 1h weapon, but if you're shield and 1h weapon suck and a decent staff drops that's a nice upgrade then you'd pick the staff until you upgrade your shield and 1h weapon. just like with armor, if the stats are better than what you have on then take it (as long as you're not taking it from another class that needs it, that's frowned upon).

[ketzil]

ok thats good to know.

thought there might have been something else behind it besides stat increases. ty Tuto

[Terminated]

I think shield + 1h is better, especially when you run in to drop your magma
But yeah, for non-raiders, if you check the drops in the new ICC 5 man, the best Ele weapon is a staff there. Dagger has mp5 and the DPS weapon is a sword.

[op3l]

The way I see it is like this. A staff that doesn't have spirit on it will give better stats than 1h/shield allowing you to possibly do more DPS. 1h/shield will give you marginally more survivability.

The problem is silly staffs all have spirit

[Jahha]

only becayse they have not gotten the highest quality 1h and shield yet... staffs are one drop... and more often, and while in under gear are a bit better

[boneschaman]

they are as viable as they ver have been. get that weapon/mh/oh/staff with the bes stats, most spellpower
and oh doesn't mean shield. icc5 HoR dropps a pretty nice oh

[Deleted]

Shields are good for Anub'arak and Faction Champions but not much else. If the staff has better stats... then by all means, use it.

[Aoundril]

Usually I strongly prefer shield/1H and that's what I've been running with since the dawn of time. Mostly because it's a lot easier to get a decent 1H/shield combo than to get a staff that can compete and that is partly because in our raids I have a lot fewer to compete with over the shield/1H and also I feel compelled to pass on staves to clothies (then of course most staves have spirit making them kinda awful).
Lately though I've been running some with Nibelung because it's just a lot of fun. Probably worse than my current shield/1H in terms of steady dps but fun althesame and then the val'kyr go proccing a lot the dps skyrockets. Other than that staff I probably would never go with one.