[PvE] Enh viable?

[warex00]

Logs says they are one of the worst, sims says the are quite high? What do I follow? :<

Enh is one of my fav specs, but I honestly dont wanna play a class wich will be soaking shit at the buttom of the meters :P


so what im asking is, how are they ? what is the reason for bringing an enh to a group? If it is to soak mail gear wouldnt a hunter do a better job?




- Warex

[Xanda]

There aren't many fights that favours enhancement niche(pure single target and burst) in this tier.

[Dblbaconator]

Personally, I would base my decision to play a spec based off of how fun they are to play, rather than their theoretical or experimental output. If everyone did that, we'd have nothing but mages and warlocks running around.

But to answer your questions:

1. How are they?

Well, if the buffs slated for 5.3 are any indication, a little low. Seeing as how 5.3 will be live within a month or two, I wouldn't really worry about it. In my experience (granted, this is the experience of someone who only does LFR now, and not very frequently at that), I've managed to be at least middle of the pack if not higher. Discounting the DPS who only show up to AFK and get loot, that'd suggest pretty decent DPS. It's not the end of the world by any means, especially since most specs are pretty damn close anyway.

2. Why take one?

Stormlash, for one. When I was doing normals, we had a resto shaman in the group (sometimes ele, depending on healing needs). Even though Stormlash is available to all specs, she had to constantly be reminded to drop it, whereas I did every time it was off cooldown. I guess it's easier to remember if you're playing a DPS. Still, extra damage for everyone is pretty nice.

Another good reason is that enhance brings three raid buffs to the table: mastery, spell power, and attack speed. Getting three buffs from one spec is pretty nice.

Couple that with a lot of utility from totems (Tremor and Capacitor being very useful), Bloodlust (damn mages never know how to use it right), and pretty good DPS, and there's really no reason not to bring one, unless you're still of the Wrath mindset that enhance is terrible at everything, which it hasn't been for at least a year now.

3. Shouldn't hunters get agi mail?

In the past, most agi mail was itemized specifically for hunters. In Cata, agi mail was predominantly crit/haste, a problem for enhance since we hated both of those. We needed a lot of hit and expertise just to make sure our attacks landed, and for everything else we wanted mastery. So yes, before Mists, a hunter would make better use of practically every agi mail piece.

Now, things are different. For starters, hunters now need as much hit/expertise as we do, and we need considerably less. Haste and mastery are two good secondaries for us, so now there's even more overlap. And in addition, if for some reason you only have one mail user in your entire raid, a shaman would make much more sense, since both agi and int mail could be funneled to them.

Summary:

Enhance isn't as bad as it seems. It's fun to play and does well enough on the meters. As long as the boss is going down, who cares about who did the most?

[warex00]

Personally, I would base my decision to play a spec based off of how fun they are to play, rather than their theoretical or experimental output. If everyone did that, we'd have nothing but mages and warlocks running around.

But to answer your questions:

1. How are they?

Well, if the buffs slated for 5.3 are any indication, a little low. Seeing as how 5.3 will be live within a month or two, I wouldn't really worry about it. In my experience (granted, this is the experience of someone who only does LFR now, and not very frequently at that), I've managed to be at least middle of the pack if not higher. Discounting the DPS who only show up to AFK and get loot, that'd suggest pretty decent DPS. It's not the end of the world by any means, especially since most specs are pretty damn close anyway.

2. Why take one?

Stormlash, for one. When I was doing normals, we had a resto shaman in the group (sometimes ele, depending on healing needs). Even though Stormlash is available to all specs, she had to constantly be reminded to drop it, whereas I did every time it was off cooldown. I guess it's easier to remember if you're playing a DPS. Still, extra damage for everyone is pretty nice.

Another good reason is that enhance brings three raid buffs to the table: mastery, spell power, and attack speed. Getting three buffs from one spec is pretty nice.

Couple that with a lot of utility from totems (Tremor and Capacitor being very useful), Bloodlust (damn mages never know how to use it right), and pretty good DPS, and there's really no reason not to bring one, unless you're still of the Wrath mindset that enhance is terrible at everything, which it hasn't been for at least a year now.

3. Shouldn't hunters get agi mail?

In the past, most agi mail was itemized specifically for hunters. In Cata, agi mail was predominantly crit/haste, a problem for enhance since we hated both of those. We needed a lot of hit and expertise just to make sure our attacks landed, and for everything else we wanted mastery. So yes, before Mists, a hunter would make better use of practically every agi mail piece.

Now, things are different. For starters, hunters now need as much hit/expertise as we do, and we need considerably less. Haste and mastery are two good secondaries for us, so now there's even more overlap. And in addition, if for some reason you only have one mail user in your entire raid, a shaman would make much more sense, since both agi and int mail could be funneled to them.

Summary:

Enhance isn't as bad as it seems. It's fun to play and does well enough on the meters. As long as the boss is going down, who cares about who did the most?

Thank you for your reply I think ill give enh a go !

[Puupi]

From my experience, Enhancement shamans are fine. Their burst AoE damage is pretty close to non-existent, but other than that their damage is good.
Nowadays Enhancement survivability is quite good, too. They are not Rogues or Monks, but atleast on par with Warriors and DK's.

The major utility for an Enhancement shaman is their healing. For Enhancement the flavor is a very strong Healing Rain + that one healing cooldown every 2mins. For Elemental the niche is more with Healing Surges (which I see very rarely used though, unfortunately).
The healing of a DPS shaman is really strong and if you aren't willing to heal as a dps, you shouldn't play a shaman. Healing reduces your dps, but not so much compared to what it brings to the table. You basically trade one Lightning Bolt every now and then for a Healing Rain that heals 500k-1million.

That's just my view on things though.

[Drebbin]

Horridon is the one fight so far where I have found myself nearly useless. Because of that I took on interrupt and orb duties. Other than that I have found my burst dps quite useful, it helps obliterate sul on council so you dont have to deal with him empowered, and all other bosses aren't bad either as long as you know how to use the raid utility you do have. Plus with healing storm I find myself helping out the healers in a pinch like on primordius when things get hairy toward the very end and I happen to not be mutated anymore, just keep wailing on the boss and throw out maelstrom chain heals like crazy.