Hey guys anyone have any advice for DPS Shammy (Spell or Melee)

What skills worked for you?

What skills did not work out so well?

What kind of weapon/gear, stats did you focus on.

Hey guys anyone have any advice for DPS Shammy (Spell or Melee)

What skills worked for you?

What skills did not work out so well?

What kind of weapon/gear, stats did you focus on.

When I started Frolic, I was enhancement. I stayed that way the whole time while leveling and even after I made 70. A few of my first Kara runs were done as enhancement. At the time, Elemental shaman was not a viable build to level with. The gear they had available and the talents were rather weak. Blizzard's recent patching, badge rewards and shaman changes have made Elemental shaman much better.

I didn't know a lot about the enhancement build when I first started. I searched the WoW forums for weapon advice and what talents are good or bad. I also made a similar post like this on our forums for advice. Widget was very gracious to lend me a hand with his shaman expertise. If anyone can locate that old post, (I suck at finding anything old), that was a very informative post. I'd love to get together with some of our shaman players and get a bit of collective info about what we know and find helpful. Then take that info and write it in the form of a Wiki post for up and coming shaman. If there are any other shaman out there willing to put together what they know into something like this, let me know!

I suggest that when Raps posts his next instance 'training' session you sign up for some tips. I'll sign up to help. If you really want to discuss things now and not wait. Let's work out a time when we can both be online and talk in vent and I'll answer anything you want to know.

I apologize for not answering your PM about shaman, been rather busy with a lot of things=). I would really like to offer any help you need.

This it?
http://www.victorious-secret.org/forums/showthread.php?t=8645&highlight=shaman

Yes! Thank you!

YAY! Thanks guys.

Now My Brain hurts! :doh:


*Looks at Frolics Avatar*

Poor Kitty won't she ever catch the Butterfly. I have been watching it for hours, she has come close a couple of times but still no luck.

*Goes back to Watching* GO KITTY!

**THREAD BUMP**

I thought I would add to this thread rather than start a separate one for pretty close to the same topic.

My question is about gear/stats for an Enhancement Shaman. I know strength and attack power are both good, but which one is better. How do they relate to each other? I know crit and hit rating are needed too. Coming from raiding with an affliction 'lock, I'm kind of having a hard time wrapping my brain around the finer points of melee DPS.

HALP!

I know strength and attack power are both good, but which one is better. How do they relate to each other?

For Druids, Paladins, Shamans, and Warriors, 1 point in strength = 2 attack power. In general, this 2x ratio is reflected in gear. For example, you could get a "Bold Living Ruby" that is +8 STR or a "Bright Living Ruby" that is +16 Attack Power. So the question then becomes which gems/gear to stack?

Well, for Retribution Paladins, STR > AP because we have a talent (Diving Strength) that increases our STR by 10%. I don't think Shamans have a similar talent. However, one thing to keep in mind is that if you stack +STR instead of +AP, you will get more of a benefit from Blessing of Kings because BoK increases all ATTRIBUTES by 10% and STR is considered an attribute, but AP is not.

So to answer your question, I'd say STR is slightly better ( if the gear is equal ) for you only because of Blessing of Kings. But keep in mind that 2x ratio whenever you compare gear, and choose the pieces that give you the most AP, because in the end it is the AP that gives you more DPS.

Example 1: One piece of gear has +25 STR, the other +50 AP. Take the +25 STR.
Example 2: One piece of gear has +25 STR, the other +60 AP. Take the +60 AP.

I know crit and hit rating are needed too.

I don't know enough about Shamans to rank the importance of crit, but I can speak a little about hit rating.

Melee classes, in general, strive to be "hit capped." This is the magical +hit number that ensures your attacks will never out right miss (although Dodged, Parried, and Blocked fall under expertise).

The hit cap is dependent upon single or dual wielding because you take penalties on your hit rating when dual wielding.

Assuming you have Dual Wield Spec, and Nature's Guidance, 240 hit rating is the cap. If you don't have Nature's Guidance 288 is the cap.

For me, single wielding a 2 hander, the hit cap is 95 + Precision talent or 142 w/o that talent. Being hit capped is very important for me because I swing a big 2 hander very slowly, so any misses really hurt my DPS.

For you I don't think it is as important, because you will most likely be dual wielding 2 faster weapons. But you should probably still strive to get as close to the cap as you can.

If youd like some advice from a long time shaman start by doing an armory my shaman, Spiritfox, on shattered hand (Dont bother with my sig down below those stats havent been updated in ages). I stopped playing about a month ago so I may be a bit out of date but I was always top dps in a guild of top dpsers as enhancement. It's all about balance with a shaman. You want your hit rating at about 110-120 assuming you have nature's guidence trained in resto - you DO have that trained right? :) Now the balance between atk power and crit is tricky - crits fuel your specials but its atk power that makes them worthwile in the first place.

As to weapons always and I mean this with love and passion : D/W slow/slow with windfury on both. Rotate your shocks - start with a flame shock then Storm strike then earth shock. If you have a chicken druid or one of those silly lightninging tossing shaman in your group then you may want to be the bigger shaman here and let them have the extra damage debuff that stormstrike gives before using your shock on it.

Anyway I've gabbed on for a bit now - if you have any specific questions and dont mind it coming from a Tauren - ask away!

Edit: a link for the lazy http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Shattered+Hand&n=Spiritfox