[Enhancement] Raiding Guide. For beginners and advanced shamans.

Table of content.

• Foreword
• Your role
• Stats
  • Gems
  • Enchants
• Spells and ability's
• Talent builds

Foreword

Welcome to this guide! I've made this guide since wow-pro has very few shaman guides, and even less enhancement guides. This guide will focus on both getting your shaman ready for raids, and how to keep up in raids. I will show what gear you need, what stats to focus on, and what rotation (or priority list) you should use.

But first of all, I'll tell you what role an enhancement shaman has in raids.

Your Role

As an enhancement shaman you're obviously a DPS class, and a support class. The idea is that shamans boost the damage of the whole raid! Just look at our (raid/group) buffs, Enhancement shamans bring the following buffs:

• Strength of Earth - This totem gives 155 strength and agility to the whole raid! Horn of Winter overwrites it, but if the shaman is specced for Enhancing Totems, Strength of Earth becomes better, and will overwrite Horn of Winter.

• Windfury Totem - This is a totem that gives a flat 16% melee haste, can be improved which makes it on par with the the DK version.

• Unleashed Rage - This is a talent you, probably always, pick up. The expertise is good, and the 10% more AP is very strong, and almost passive (as you will crit in the time you have this buff). The same as the DK version. Any Enhancement shaman should always take this, the expertise it gives is more then welcome.

• Flametongue Totem - This is totem that increases the spellpower of those in range, since you will be hitting the boss, and casters standing at a distance, the pure caster classes won't gain the most out of it. You, on the other hand, get better shocks and lightning bolts / chain lightnings.

• Bloodlust / Heroism - This is our best buff. This is one of the major reasons to take a shaman to a raid. Don't forget to pop this during the essential burst times in a raid.

• Healing / Mana Stream Totem - Depending on your group setup(since this one is not raid wide), this can be a very strong totem, if your in a melee group, you can probably better drop Healing Stream, but if you're in a group that has mana problems, you can better use Mana Stream.

• Stoneskin Totem - This one is usually dropped by a resto shaman, but if you're in the group of the tank, this one is also an option if you're open to sacrifice some damage for more migation. You can still use Strength of Earth though, since the agility also gives some extra dodge. Anyhow, this is still a buff we can bring to a raid.

• Wrath of Air - Again, this is not a recommended totem, the haste more of use for casters, and those will probably don't get the buff. We have it, so I list it.

We still have a bunch of other totems, which I am not going to list here, since they are hardly used, click here for a list of totems.

This said, totems for the best buffs (for ourselves) are Strength of Earth, Flametongue Totem or Magma Totem, Windfury Totem and either Healing- or Mana Stream Totem.

• Magma totem for more personal DPS (Good tip from Brune: It's a 'leech' dps totem, place it while you have to do something else, like getting adds on a boss, while this stays on the boss)
• Flametongue totem if you really, really want to boost the casters' dps.

Stats

Now I will show what kind of stats we'll need to be succesful as a shaman. This goes from greatest to the least.

Hit Rating

The most important stat to cap, this should be the first stat that you stack and cap. You only want to hit the spell hit cap though, which also caps your Stormstrike and Lava Lash. Caps are as listed below.

The cap is 17%, 16% for Draenei. In a raid, the cap is 14%, 13% for Draenei due to the 3% hit from Shadow Priest and/or Moonkin.

In short:

17%- 446 hit rating.
16%- 420 hit rating (Draenei).
14%- 368 hit rating (Raid).
13%- 341 hit rating (Draenei Raid).

It should be noted that you should first cap for special attacks (8%), then get expertise capped, see below, and then get spell hit capped.

Expertise

Expertise reduces the chance that a mob can dodge and parry your attacks. In most raid situations you'll be attacking from behind so there is no chance of the target parrying, only dodging, and you'll want to reduce this to 0%.

The cap to make mobs not be able to dodge is 6.50%. So if you are going to attack from behind, the amount of Expertise Rating you need is as follows:

6.50%- 214 Expertise Rating or 26 Expertise
6.50%- 140 Expertise Rating (This is only if you have Unleashed Rage, which increases your Expertise by 9 (not rating). This will take dodge off of the table, and since you are attacking from behind, the mob will not be able to parry).

Agility/Intellect/Crit/Haste/Attack Power

After capping the above, you will want to raise these stats as high as possible without going under the above caps. This is mazimize your DPS overall.

Gems

Sometimes, a gem will have stamina. Stamina is somewhat less useful for raiding, then, for example, attack power. I list them, because they can be useful, but are not the best to take. I leave it up to you which gems are the best.

Red

Delicate Stormjewel
Bright Scarlet Ruby
Delicate Scarlet Ruby
Precise Scarlet Ruby
Bright Bloodstone

Blue

There are no good blue gems, the only useful blue gem would give stamina, which isn't even that much needed. You're much better of getting multi colour gems.

Yellow

Rigid Stormjewel
Quick Autumn's Glow
Rigid Autumn's Glow
Smooth Autumn's Glow
Perfect Quick Sun Crystal
Perfect Rigid Sun Crystal
Perfect Smooth Sun Crystal
Brilliant Autumn's Glow

Purple

Balanced Twilight Opal
Guardian's Twilight Opal
Shifting Twilight Opal

Green

Forceful Forest Emerald
Jagged Forest Emerald
Vivid Forest Emerald

Orange

Accurate Monarch Topaz
Deadly Monarch Topaz
Deft Monarch Topaz
Glinting Monarch Topaz
Pristine Monarch Topaz
Stark Monarch Topaz
Wicked Monarch Topaz

Meta

Chaotic Skyflare Diamond
Invigorating Earthsiege Diamond
Relentless Earthsiege Diamond
Swift Skyflare Diamond
Swift Starflare Diamond
Thundering Skyflare Diamond
Chaotic Skyfire Diamond

Enchants

Head

Arcanum of Torment
Arcanum of Ferocity

Shoulders

Greater/Lesser of the Axe.

Chest

Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats
Enchant Chest - Super Stats

Cloak

Enchant Cloak - Major Agility

Bracers

Enchant Bracers - Greater Assault
Enchant Bracers - Expertise

Gloves

Enchant Gloves - Precision
Enchant Gloves - Expertise
Enchant Gloves - Crusher

Belt

Eternal Belt Buckle

Leg

Icescale Leg Armor

Boots

Enchant Boots - Superior Agility
Enchant Boots - Icewalker
Enchant Boots - Greater Assault

Weapons

Titanium Weapon Chain
Enchant Weapon - Berserking
Enchant Weapon - Mongoose
Enchant Weapon - Accuracy

Spells and ability's

I'll keep this one short and simple, this is all you need to know.
If abilities are on Cooldown, continue down the list to the next ability.

• Lightning Bolt if 5 stacks Maelstrom Weapon (Try to have the stormstrike debuff on the target, but don't do this if you need to burst down quickly (example: Emalon adds).
• Stormstrike
• Earthshock
• Lava Lash
• Refresh Totems and Shields

The best DPS is gained by having two slow weapons. Fast off-hands are not an option anymore, since the spellpower from Flametongue scales with speed (which means: slow = more).

For single target (like bosses) I use the Fire Elemental, and for AoE Magma Totem. If the Fire Elemental is on cooldown, I use Magma totem, too, on bosses.

Talent builds

• 16/55/0

  This build is your basic Enhancement build. This build chooses mana regulation over damage. It uses water shield over lightning shield for mana regeneration. All of the raid support (Unleashed Rage and Improved Windfury Totem) is chosen incase no one else in your raid has them, or a replacement for them.

• 20/51/0

  This build is for Shaman that don't need to worry about mana and have someone to cover 20% melee haste for them. It has Reverberation for an increased amount of Earth Shocks, which will be an increase in Dps. Lightning Shield is chosen for the increased damage.

• 16/55/0

  This build is made for high damage output, it skips some of regeneration ability's, but sacrifices those for more damage.

• 16/55/0

  This is a stock Enhancement build. It will provide great mana efficiency and allowing the use of Lightning Shield. Using Lightning Shield will increase your Dps, while all of the mana efficient talents will keep your mana bar rather full.

• 16/55/0

  All essential raid buffs are taken for overall raid benefit. The Lightning Bolt glyph is taken for the increased LB damage that will come out of it. The Windfury Weapon Glyph is taken as well for an increase in Windfury procs.
  

Making your own build

If, for some reason, you'd like to make your own build, remember this good tip from Chriske:

That's it! With this information, you should be able to raid succesfully, goodluck!

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