Shadowlands leveling: Ele vs Enhance

[Beingbob]

It's been a while since I've leveled a shaman at the launch of an expansion, but I'm probably going to main elemental this time around.. I am wondering however, does it look like enhancement is going to be significantly stronger for leveling itself?

Usually melee specs are considered better levelers than ranged ones, but from what I remember from leveling at Legion's launch, enhancement felt unusually squishy and inefficient compared to most other melees who have an easy way of regaining health "for free" (WW and DH got healing orbs from enemy kills, for example) while as enhance you have to use your maelstrom and limited mana pool to heal.

[crakerjack]

It doesn't matter. WoW, as you know is an endgame focus MMORPG and supposedly it'll only take 13 hours to get from 1-50 after the squish. Pick w/e you want. I feel like enhance went backwards when they decided to go back to maelstrom weapon, but to each their own. Just play whatever sounds more appealing to you. Do you want to be a caster or do you want to be melee? Just go with what you think sounds more enticing.

[Beingbob]

It doesn't matter. WoW, as you know is an endgame focus MMORPG and supposedly it'll only take 13 hours to get from 1-50 after the squish. Pick w/e you want. I feel like enhance went backwards when they decided to go back to maelstrom weapon, but to each their own. Just play whatever sounds more appealing to you. Do you want to be a caster or do you want to be melee? Just go with what you think sounds more enticing.

Like I wrote in the two paragraphs of this topic, I'm going to be maining elemental, so there's no question of what I think is more enticing. What I'm asking is essentially whether going enhancement over elemental for the *shadowlands* 50-60 leveling will shave off an hour or two or just be more smooth. For example as elemental during BfA leveling, Drustvar could be a little bit nasty at around lvl 116 when you lose your legendaries from Legion - you can die quite easily if you pull too much and don't have earth ele up. I imagine this may not be the case as enhancement.

The reason I care is because the first week of an expansion launch tends to be quite hectic if you're intending to raid mythic and be on top of your game. I guess this time around I don't have to worry about world quests as much the first week unlike during BfA's launch, but as someone with limited time it's still nice to be able to clear every mythic dungeon the first week without stressing too much.

[crakerjack]

Like I wrote in the two paragraphs of this topic, I'm going to be maining elemental, so there's no question of what I think is more enticing. What I'm asking is essentially whether going enhancement over elemental for the *shadowlands* 50-60 leveling will shave off an hour or two or just be more smooth. For example as elemental during BfA leveling, Drustvar could be a little bit nasty at around lvl 116 when you lose your legendaries from Legion - you can die quite easily if you pull too much and don't have earth ele up. I imagine this may not be the case as enhancement.

The reason I care is because the first week of an expansion launch tends to be quite hectic if you're intending to raid mythic and be on top of your game. I guess this time around I don't have to worry about world quests as much the first week unlike during BfA's launch, but as someone with limited time it's still nice to be able to clear every mythic dungeon the first week without stressing too much.

It still doesn't really matter. There will be so many people leveling that you won't need to worry about being overrun by mobs. You'll have bigger issues trying to tag mobs that are being obliterated by the hordes of players. You'll hit 60 before the 2nd week, just gotta hope you have a clique/guildies to run mythics with for the first 2 weeks before the raid/m+ comes out.

[TigTone]

It still doesn't really matter. There will be so many people leveling that you won't need to worry about being overrun by mobs. You'll have bigger issues trying to tag mobs that are being obliterated by the hordes of players. You'll hit 60 before the 2nd week, just gotta hope you have a clique/guildies to run mythics with for the first 2 weeks before the raid/m+ comes out.

Ahhh shit I forgot when have shared starter zones again. But this time you can’t chose where you start so to avoid the masses.

[Razion]

Ahhh shit I forgot when have shared starter zones again. But this time you can’t chose where you start so to avoid the masses.

I believe only your first character has to go through the zones in order. Alts should be able to do any order, so it shouldn't be as crowded as other iterations of the linear start expacs.

[Jotaux]

Enhance will be easier to level since it has access to an instant cast heal. I also think you'll be dealing with 1-3 mobs where enhance excels and you will have sundering for even larger packs. Feral lunge will help you get around as well.

[Rusken]

I actually think Ele is the better choice. Considering that everyone has to follow the same path to hit 60 their first time, and the fact the whole 10 levels takes about 10-15 hours depending on how much reading you do, it's going to be pretty busy anywhere you go except dungeons.

Ele has the advantage of no cooldown, 40yd Shocks to sneak tags on mobs that Enhance may otherwise just miss to other people killing them, which if you're caught in the middle of the leveling pack in Bastion will save a lot more time than killing mobs a second faster.

On the topic of damage, from my testing so far (leveled a Shaman to 58, did 3 levels as Enh then swapped to Ele) Ele has way more potential to chain pull and global a couple mobs down. Spec into Icefury and with Spiritwalker's Grace it's a super mobile caster with tons of burst damage. It also gets a shield which makes a big difference in survivability.

Enhance felt really squishy in my testing, you can only get 3 non-MW heals off before you're totally OOM and the heals aren't very big. Enemies in general feel stronger in Shadowlands and Enhance really notices it. Enhance's kill speed also feels way too varied, if you don't get procs you're just standing there swinging and waiting for CD's, while if you do mobs can melt in a couple seconds.

[Beingbob]

I actually think Ele is the better choice. Considering that everyone has to follow the same path to hit 60 their first time, and the fact the whole 10 levels takes about 10-15 hours depending on how much reading you do, it's going to be pretty busy anywhere you go except dungeons.

Ele has the advantage of no cooldown, 40yd Shocks to sneak tags on mobs that Enhance may otherwise just miss to other people killing them, which if you're caught in the middle of the leveling pack in Bastion will save a lot more time than killing mobs a second faster.

On the topic of damage, from my testing so far (leveled a Shaman to 58, did 3 levels as Enh then swapped to Ele) Ele has way more potential to chain pull and global a couple mobs down. Spec into Icefury and with Spiritwalker's Grace it's a super mobile caster with tons of burst damage. It also gets a shield which makes a big difference in survivability.

Enhance felt really squishy in my testing, you can only get 3 non-MW heals off before you're totally OOM and the heals aren't very big. Enemies in general feel stronger in Shadowlands and Enhance really notices it. Enhance's kill speed also feels way too varied, if you don't get procs you're just standing there swinging and waiting for CD's, while if you do mobs can melt in a couple seconds.

Thanks man, exactly the kind of input I was hoping for, the shield should make a difference. I can't remember Legion or BfA zones being swarmed at launch with players to the point that it's hard to find mobs (I guess due to sharding and 3-4 choices), but this time around it may indeed be an issue with the linear path.