Enhanced or Resto?

[pretiwhitboy]

Hello, im currently leveling my shammy and im at the point now where i need to decided which spec i want to be, and im hoping for your input. Ive played other healers and im pretty good at it, Ive never played a melee char (atleast for raiding) and im curious what are the pros and cons of them. ty for any input at all

[Jademist]

We have dual speccing after all.....

Try them out and see which one you like more.

[Dedalus]

If have already do some healers classe and you want to try something different, go Enhancment

[Sekhmet]

If you solo play most, go enhance, as you lvl up resto will be doing a lot less damage, and killing takes a lot longer, you are, however less likely to die since you can heal yourself effectively. If you primarily wanna level with Bgs or instances, go resto if you like the responsibility of healing others. And yes, you can always get a dual spec at, what is it now, lvl 40?

[pretiwhitboy]

Im mainly asking from your experiences which did u enjoy and im talking about at 85 heroics/raiding.

[Mem]

Enhance. We're not in a bad way for dps for raids.

Once you hit 346 item level questing and farming and dailies and everything else becomes a joke.

The only way to die is to jump off a great height (and even then you might have an ankh).

Waterwalking, wolves, insta-ghost wolf, new tremor to break fear, binding and fire elemental totems, and I always forget about BL but your 10 man raids won't.

Hell even after playing the spec/class for almost 5 years, we're in a good way now I'm even pvping for the first time ever.

P.S. - I have resto as an off-spec too so it's whatever you prefer or your guild requires.

[Meejum]

My sham is currently dual specced resto-enhance.

Enhance is VERY fun to run around and do dailies with, you will kill things fast. Raiding-wise, you have the best interrupt in the game, so make sure that you get good at being a quick interrupter. It will also mean that, at times, you wont have to worry as much about switching targets. Right now, the AoE of enhance is pretty bad, but it looks to improve quite a bit in the next patch. Until then, you should be more or less allowed to stay on a main target most of the time during boss fights because of poor AoE and that it makes interrupting easier. Dungeons wise, you have two pretty good CCs, with bind and hex, though you will see more use out of hex. Having a sham also helps in the relatively rare situation you need to purge something..there are a few pulls in the Deadmines this will come in handy. If you ever pvp, enhance is doing ok. You dont have an awesome gap closer like a feral, warr or DK, and you can't stealth like a feral/rogue, so you are at somewhat of a disadvantage against ranged, but wolves can heal you through quite a bit when used correctly.

Resto is also quite fun. I dont do dailies or quest in resto form, its just too slow and painful. For raids and dungeons, it's currently lacking a strong, fast, oh-crap spell, but it looks to be getting a decent one next patch. You will be a pretty strong tank healer, and a decent raid healer. You have the best colored circle of healing in the game in Healing Rain, and there are plenty of opportunities to use it in almost every boss fight, but when the raid is spread out and taking decent amounts of damage it will be tougher to raid heal. You will also be able to windshear, without missing, in resto spec next patch, which is a huge buff. The other thing I like about resto is that the stat priorities are relatively fluid. After Int, which is the strongest stat, crit, spirit, haste, and mastery are all "good" and depend on your situation and your needs as to which one you should look for/reforge to. I don't see the same amount of freedom in choices about gear in, say, a resto druid that has to look for quite a bit of haste before focusing on other stats. Resto in PVP is currently very very strong also.

[LyskaWF]

Enhancement is terrible, go resto!

[Deleted]

My sham is currently dual specced resto-enhance.

Enhance is VERY fun to run around and do dailies with, you will kill things fast. Raiding-wise, you have the best interrupt in the game, so make sure that you get good at being a quick interrupter. It will also mean that, at times, you wont have to worry as much about switching targets. Right now, the AoE of enhance is pretty bad, but it looks to improve quite a bit in the next patch. Until then, you should be more or less allowed to stay on a main target most of the time during boss fights because of poor AoE and that it makes interrupting easier. Dungeons wise, you have two pretty good CCs, with bind and hex, though you will see more use out of hex. Having a sham also helps in the relatively rare situation you need to purge something..there are a few pulls in the Deadmines this will come in handy. If you ever pvp, enhance is doing ok. You dont have an awesome gap closer like a feral, warr or DK, and you can't stealth like a feral/rogue, so you are at somewhat of a disadvantage against ranged, but wolves can heal you through quite a bit when used correctly.

Resto is also quite fun. I dont do dailies or quest in resto form, its just too slow and painful. For raids and dungeons, it's currently lacking a strong, fast, oh-crap spell, but it looks to be getting a decent one next patch. You will be a pretty strong tank healer, and a decent raid healer. You have the best colored circle of healing in the game in Healing Rain, and there are plenty of opportunities to use it in almost every boss fight, but when the raid is spread out and taking decent amounts of damage it will be tougher to raid heal. You will also be able to windshear, without missing, in resto spec next patch, which is a huge buff. The other thing I like about resto is that the stat priorities are relatively fluid. After Int, which is the strongest stat, crit, spirit, haste, and mastery are all "good" and depend on your situation and your needs as to which one you should look for/reforge to. I don't see the same amount of freedom in choices about gear in, say, a resto druid that has to look for quite a bit of haste before focusing on other stats. Resto in PVP is currently very very strong also.

If you ever pvp you would know that you got a talent which freezes the target if they're too far away, and you got instant ghostwolf which makes you unable to get below 100% normal run speed (gl hf kiting us) and 30% dmg reduce for 15 seconds and also removes all magic effects (cheers you can now have a second trinket against paladins hammer of justice since its usable while stunned) and it only have 1min cooldown.

In my opinion.. try enhancement and resto at 85 then decide on your own

[zshikara]

I personally prefer ele for dps, but I raid as resto. By going resto/ele you make gearing a heck of a lot easier on yourself too since now resto and ele go for almost the same exact stats. I do about 12K dps in ele with full resto gear and trinkets. I am a bit over hit cap since I have 2500 spirit unbuffed, but I still do minimally viable dps.

[Meejum]

If you ever pvp you would know that you got a talent which freezes the target if they're too far away, and you got instant ghostwolf which makes you unable to get below 100% normal run speed (gl hf kiting us) and 30% dmg reduce for 15 seconds and also removes all magic effects (cheers you can now have a second trinket against paladins hammer of justice since its usable while stunned) and it only have 1min cooldown.

In my opinion.. try enhancement and resto at 85 then decide on your own

Instant ghostwolf and Frost shock is not nearly as awesome as Charge or Death grip or vanish/sprint.

[gynshon]

Level as enhancement. Once 85 then you can play around, but I have to tell you, doing an Ele/Resto is much easier to gear for than gearing for two specs.

[Bleedinggum]

When I played my shaman I was enh. They have the best interrupt in the game hands down. Raids like them b/c it is not a dps lost for them interrupt. We dont have an enh in my guild right now so we have an ele shaman do most of the interrupts. I just dont like the shearing totem thing they added with the new talent trees or enh would still be my main. Dont know if they made the totem ui any better then last time i played it.

[Fallen Angel]

I have played all three specs at 85. I am mostly 359 as both ele, enhance, and resto (resto and elesharing gear sets)

My advice is to find something you enjoy. If healing is your thing, go resto. Caster class, go ele. Beat the shit out of people while being right up in their face, go enhance. With that being said, if you want easier gearing, ele and resto share gear sets with a few differences, so that may be an option for you. However, gearing two, or even three different gear sets is ridiculously simple. You will likely be picking up offset drops in heroics anyway.

Bottom line, try everything and stick with what you enjoy.