New to Enhancement...

[Soothing Voice]

[I have read the FAQ sticky up top, btw.]

I just hit 80 on my shaman on the 16th around 11:30pm-ish. Athelas' Armory. I'm trying to get up to speed on raiding DPS, and considering my past experiences are an Arcane Mage, Ret pally, Survival and Marksman Hunter, I'm hitting some snags.

Now, first of all, the rotation ("Queue") is really messing me up. Using Shock and Awe, my DPS came up from about 1.9k to 2.7k, a sizable, good difference. Occasionally, I stutter on the intense rotation, and these hiccups bring down my dps (naturally). With experience, do these go away, or do I need to actively try to remove them?

Second order of business: I am using this UI: Athelas' UI. There are no bindings up there besides the standard 1 to = keys. I usually find that I have to reach for my important cooldowns (shamanistic rage, wolves) in ways that increase the already significant issue of me wasting time mousing around. Is there a more efficient way to set this up, with minimal bindings? (is wind shear worth having there? Should I move the heals off my bar?)

Final order of business: I am using this spec. I went for about 3 minutes, 30 seconds and then went to 2% mana -> OOM. Is this a side-effect of my gear, or am I missing something?
_________________________________________________

Short, short version:

-Is enhance as bad as it seems to learn?
-How bad is my UI?
-Are these mana issues attributable to gear?

In before:

-LOLBADGEAR
-GEM/ENCHANT LOLZ
-LOLZ 70 EPICZ


Thank you for your help!

[Everkill]

-Is enhance as bad as it seems to learn? As you play enh, you will get better with the priority queue system that we use with shock and awe, it really is just practice.

-How bad is my UI? nothing horrible about your ui, but if you feel you have trouble reaching cooldowns, then keybinding is about the only way to fix that.

-Are these mana issues attributable to gear? as for the mana issues, that will improve with gear, but as enhance you have many ways to gain the mana back. i see you have choosen every mana regen talent available to you, i simple suggest using your shamanistic rage as soon as it is available.

If you would like anymore info, just ask

[Primaryjane]

With experience, do these go away, or do I need to actively try to remove them?

Yeah, eventually you will get used to your cooldown times and the typical order of things, and you will know what's coming before it does. Then you shouldn't need it any longer.

Second order of business: I am using this UI: Athelas' UI

Use Dominoes for your bars http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-a...s/dominos.aspx

Did you go OOM after 3 1/2 minutes on a target dummy?

[Soothing Voice]

Yeah, eventually you will get used to your cooldown times and the typical order of things, and you will know what's coming before it does. Then you shouldn't need it any longer.

Use Dominoes for your bars http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-a...s/dominos.aspx

Did you go OOM after 3 1/2 minutes on a target dummy?

I actually went into a 15 minute trance of intense dps a few minutes ago, with short breaks when I had to re-mana (see below). Is that normal, or do I need sleep (its 1AM here) ;D

I'm actually using Bartender for my bars, I've tried dominoes in the past, I might try it again.

I've lasted as long as 6 minutes or as few as 3.5 minutes.

[Begottenson]

Keep popping shamanistic rage!! I've noticed also if you don't mind sacraficing a little bit of dps, during shamanistic rage don't cast any spells or anything except for stormstrike and maybe es/fs. That should allow you to get close to full mana again. Other then that just carry mana pots til your gear gets better.

[Norgul]

I kinda miss the old mana regen spec. XD But I do a bit more dps due to the switch. Currently. 6-8k dps on hero bosses. Don't use shock and awe though I probably should. But I'm happy with my dps as is so w/e. The spec I have has more oomph but since no mana efficiency it tends to go oom fairly quick and I'm offspec resto for faster q times. Still in old naxx healing gear and slowly switching things out since I'm working on other chars gears main spec first.

[Deleted]

-Is enhance as bad as it seems to learn?]
Practice. That's the only way, as others have already stated. About key bindings: I highly recommend Shift + random button. My pinky is atleast placed on shift naturally by default.
-How bad is my UI?]
Nothing wrong with your UI, as long as you feel that you have all the information you need easily shown to you it's perfectly fine.
-Are these mana issues attributable to gear?
It's indeed gear dependant since SR scale with AP. More AP = more mana returned. And your spec is perfectly fine since you realised yourself you have mana issues. Once your gear gets better you can start experimenting with dps talents instead of mana returning talents.

[Tumble]

Something you have to remember is that in a raid setting you will have replenishment and more then likely imp wis/imp mana totem, as well as judgement of wisdom on the boss, with those alone you shouldnt really need any mana regen talents (I still use some because I dont do 25 mans as enhance ever and run heroics from time to time). When I first started I was bad, after about a week of beating up the dummy on down time you get pretty good with ur buttons, you will get better with time.

[xcentrik]

well untill you get the gear there is a simple spamstrike macro you can use

/Castsequence Reset=6 Stormstrike, Earthshock, Lava Lash

i used this macro up untill i got the totem that gives haste with flameshock then i i just used my rotation normally,

with this macro all you need to do is watch cooldowns for malestrom+5, Wolves, Shamanistic rage, magma totem

with this macro u miss 1 extra earthshock every so often = like a 100dps loss at the most but it allows you to focus on the other aspects of the class till you have a better handle on it.

i would also get more key bindings as "Clicking = Bad"

[Tumble]

I wouldnt call clicking bad in the same sentence where im trying to encourge someone to use a cast sequence macro. In a pve setting, clicking isnt that bad for things you dont need/use all the time, clicking only really becomes truley bad for your game play when done in pvp.

[Norgul]

I click for my wolves, BL, trink, shammy rage and orc ap racial macro. It made my life easier than having to click in a row since most stuff was taken up on action bar. Also I click for my fire ele. So for me it's totems, fire ele on boss, macro then rape face. ;D Sept of course if I'm healing then it's BL, totems, fire afk as I let ES do the healing. Maybe toss a riptide or chain now and then.

[Fornaw]

[I have read the FAQ sticky up top, btw.]

I just hit 80 on my shaman on the 16th around 11:30pm-ish. Athelas' Armory. I'm trying to get up to speed on raiding DPS, and considering my past experiences are an Arcane Mage, Ret pally, Survival and Marksman Hunter, I'm hitting some snags.

Now, first of all, the rotation ("Queue") is really messing me up. Using Shock and Awe, my DPS came up from about 1.9k to 2.7k, a sizable, good difference. Occasionally, I stutter on the intense rotation, and these hiccups bring down my dps (naturally). With experience, do these go away, or do I need to actively try to remove them?

Second order of business: I am using this UI: Athelas' UI. There are no bindings up there besides the standard 1 to = keys. I usually find that I have to reach for my important cooldowns (shamanistic rage, wolves) in ways that increase the already significant issue of me wasting time mousing around. Is there a more efficient way to set this up, with minimal bindings? (is wind shear worth having there? Should I move the heals off my bar?)

Final order of business: I am using this spec. I went for about 3 minutes, 30 seconds and then went to 2% mana -> OOM. Is this a side-effect of my gear, or am I missing something?
_________________________________________________

Short, short version:

-Is enhance as bad as it seems to learn?
-How bad is my UI?
-Are these mana issues attributable to gear?

In before:

-LOLBADGEAR
-GEM/ENCHANT LOLZ
-LOLZ 70 EPICZ


Thank you for your help!

First off thank you for actually reading the sticky. I love answering advanced questions stuff like your post makes it worth reading the hundreds of "Do my gearing decisions for me", "How should I gem", and any other questions that are covered in the sticky.

Is enhance as bad as it seems to learn

Enhance takes practice, there's no doubting that. You're going to get to a point where you feel like a king of the dps dummies then you're going to get thrown into a raid/dungeon and everything will go horribly and it will be frustrating. Keybinding all your dps spells and a large number of your utility spells is an absolute must if you want to be competitive in the spec. As an example here is most of my keybinding layout

button no-mod Alt Ctrl
~ lightning shield mount/gw bloodlust
1 Earthshock Wind shear Frostshock
2 Lightning Bolt Chain Light. LvB
3 lava lash Sham. Rage Warstomp
4 Stormstrike Wolves Hex
5 Flameshock Heals ->
R Fire Nova Purge
F Magma Totem Fire Ele Searing

I'm not saying you need to copy that, but I personally think you're never going to be competitive without binding all your dps spells including wolves and rage. I don't think you're going to be particularly useful unless you also have bindings for utility spells like windshear, purge, and a couple other utility spells (like frost shock). My function keys are bound to totem sets.

Clicking is bad for this spec, don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise, your SS debuff will fall off unpredictably, your shields will be used up unpredictably, your maelstrom charges are unpredictable as well. Further Enh is burdened with craptastic survivability you will need to be capable of manic dps and move out of the fire faster than anyone else in your raid. I hate clickers in pve and pvp.

Are these mana issues attributable to gear?

It really is just a side effect of your gear if you are going oom inside a SR cooldown or if SR doesn't completely refill your bar on a target dummy. Personally I find that I have a higher mana return than anyone else in my raid by 2-3 times (this includes healers, warlocks, mages etc), SR should overfill your bar each time you hit it, assuming you aren't in a 5 man group which is killing trash packs in under 5 seconds.

This isn't specifically a mana issue, but you might consider moving points from Imp Shields to Imp FN. Imp FN is better dps per point by a fair margin, plus AoE is fun.

How bad is my UI
I kinda like your UI actually, very tidy. I have multiple redundancy built into my UI because I like vital information to be in more than one location, ie so my eyes can wander. The biggest thing I would do to fix your UI is move the priority frame closer to your toon. The idea being that you can see it and check your feet for fire simultaneously.

[Soothing Voice]

The idea being that you can see it and check your feet for fire simultaneously.

Off-Topic: This made my day, and is so going in my signature.

Main Topic: I intend on gearing up ASAP (as much as being lackluster pains me) via Heroics. Is there any way to inflate my numbers some to sate my ego?

[Fornaw]

Off-Topic: This made my day, and is so going in my signature.

Main Topic: I intend on gearing up ASAP (as much as being lackluster pains me) via Heroics. Is there any way to inflate my numbers some to sate my ego?

2/2 imp FN

It's a very viable AoE spell and should make you decently competitive with the best AoE specs, and far better than some specs. Pop wolves on heroic bosses that should get your single target damage up as well. I like to pop them early since very few heroic bosses are actually capable of surviving for more than 30 seconds.