Every Tuesday, Chris Jahosky contributes Build Shop, which takes a look into one of the many talent specs available to players.
It's been a long while since there was a Shaman build featured on Build Shop, and I think it's time that changed. I'm looking at an Enhancement build this week that's built for raid damage yet provides a good amount of utility and group buffs. As expected, the majority of the points go into the Enhancement tree, but instead of putting the remaining points into Elemental to buff personal DPS, this build places them in Restoration in order to provide stronger utility for the raid and additional hit chance for you.
It's been a long while since there was a Shaman build featured on Build Shop, and I think it's time that changed. I'm looking at an Enhancement build this week that's built for raid damage yet provides a good amount of utility and group buffs. As expected, the majority of the points go into the Enhancement tree, but instead of putting the remaining points into Elemental to buff personal DPS, this build places them in Restoration in order to provide stronger utility for the raid and additional hit chance for you.
Enhancement (45 points)
- Ancestral Knowledge (5/5) - Increases your maximum mana by 5%. This is a stronger choice for the first tier than Shield Specialization for a few reasons: one, you won't be using a shield with this build; two, you're not a tank; and three, any increase to your mana pool is welcome.
- Guardian Totems (2/2) - Increases the amount of damage reduced by your Stoneskin and Windwall totem by 20%, and reduces the cooldown of your Grounding Totem by 2 seconds. Stoneskin and Windwall are both situational, but when you do use them it's nice to have them as effective as possible. I just feel that for the focus of this build (raiding / providing utility), talents like Improved Ghost Wolf and Improved Lightning Shield aren't worth taking. However, if you're looking for an alternative, consider dropping these 2 points into Anticipation for some additional dodge.
- Thundering Strikes (5/5) - Increases your chance to crit with weapon attacks by 5%. This is a prerequisite for Flurry, and crit chance is important to this build. Your crits proc Flurry (which increases your melee attack speed) and Shamanistic Focus (which helps with mana efficiency), both of which are important talents for dealing damage efficiently. Don't pass this up.
- Enhancing Totems (2/2) - Increases the effect of your Strength of Earth and Grace of Air totems by 15%. Another solid talent that increases the power of your totems (there are lots of these in this build). Again, if you don't want to put points in here, throw them in Anticipation (I'd still rather put 2 points in here, though).
- Shamanistic Focus (1/1) - After landing a melee critical, you enter a Focused state which reduces the mana cost of your next Shock spell by 60%. A great talent which helps conserve mana and only improves as your crit chance goes up.
- Flurry (5/5) - Increases your attack speed for 30% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike. Any type of buff / gear / effect that increases your attack speed is huge, as it can dramatically increase your white damage. More attacks in less time also means more crits, which means keeping Flurry refreshed and proccing Shamanistic Focus.
- Improved Weapon Totems (2/2) - Increases the melee attack power of your Windfury Totem by 30% and increases the damage caused by your Flametongue Totem by 12%. Yet another talent that buffs your totems -- the bonus to the Windfury Totem is substantial, and your melee raid members will love you.
- Spirit Weapons (1/1) - Gives you a chance to parry, and reduces the threat generated by your melee attacks by 30%. Essential for raiding, this talent helps you manage your threat, which can be a serious concern in some fights. In addition, it's also a prereq for Dual Wielding.
- Elemental Weapons (3/3) - Increases the melee attack power bonus of Rockbiter by 20%, Windfury by 40%, and increases the damage caused by Flametongue and Frostbrand by 15%. A great talent which improves your personal weapon buffs (especially Windfury). If that wasn't a good enough reason to take it, it's also a prerequisite for Stormstrike.
- Mental Quickness (3/3) - Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by 6%, and increases your spell damage and healing by an amount equal to 30% of your attack power. Additional mana efficiency and some free spelldamage make this a solid talent, especially since you're not likely to be wearing much spelldamage gear -- this helps your shocks pack a bit more punch.
- Weapon Mastery (5/5) - Increases the damage you deal with all weapons by 10%. An additional 10% damage to all your melee attacks is nothing to sneeze at. Doesn't effect your shocks or other spells, but will increase the damage of Stormstrike, as well as all your other physical attacks.
- Dual Wield (1/1) - Allows you to equip one handed and off-handed weapons in your off-hand. Don't skip this one.
- Dual Wield Specialization (3/3) - Increases your chance to hit while dual wielding by 6%. As dual wielding requires a lot more hit rating than a one or two handed weapon, this is an extra 6% hit that you don't have to make up for with gear. If you're dual wielding, pick this up.
- Stormstrike (1/1) - Instantly attacks with both weapons. In addition, the next 2 sources of Nature damage to the target are increased by 20%. This is the first (and only) instant physical attack available to shaman currently. Aside from a straight increase to your DPS, the debuff it places on the target increases the damage of Earth Shock (which is the source of nature damage you're most likely to use if you're Enhancement).
- Unleashed Rage (5/5) - Your melee crits increase all party members' attack power by 10% (if they're within 20 yards of the Shaman). Yet another talent that synergizes well with your crit chance, this provides both a nice buff to your own attack power as well as the group's. So, in review, your melee crits will now proc Shamanistic Focus (reduces mana cost of your next Shock), Unleashed Rage (+10% AP to you and the party), and Flurry (increases your attack speed by 30%). Fantastic!
- Shamanistic Rage (1/1) - Reduces all damage taken by 30% and gives your successful melee attacks a chance to regenerate mana equal to 15% of your attack power for 30 seconds (changes to 30% of your attack power for 15 seconds in Patch 2.4). This has a 2 minute cooldown, but is quite capable of regenerating most, if not all of your mana. In Patch 2.4, the mana regen effect doubles but the duration is halved -- I haven't tested this personally yet, but I can't see it negatively effecting the talent as it applies to PvE.
Restoration (16 points)
- Improved Healing Wave (5/5) - Reduces the casting time of your Healing Wave by 0.5 seconds. You won't be spamming your Healing Spells if you're raiding as an Enhancement Shaman, so I see this as a better choice than Tidal Focus for the first talent tier.
- Improved Reincarnation (2/2) - Reduces the cooldown of Reincarnation by 20 minutes (down to 40 minutes, from 1 hour), and increases the amount of health / mana you reincarnate with by 20%. I'd file this one under "Raid Utility." A lower cooldown on Reincarnation means that you can prevent a wipe (or rez mid-fight) that much more often.
- Totemic Focus (5/5) - Reduces the mana cost of your totems by 25%. Since you will be using totems often, this will help greatly with mana efficiency. I wouldn't pass this up.
- Nature's Guidance (3/3) - Increases your chance to hit with melee attacks and spells by 3%. This talent brings your chance to hit with melee attacks up to 9% from talents alone. As mentioned before, more hit from talents means less hit needed on your gear (though I wouldn't ignore it on gear, this just means you don't have to worry about it as much as other melee classes).
- Totemic Mastery (1/1) - Increases the radius of your friendly totems to 30 yards. This helps quite a bit in fights where you constantly shifting positions -- since your totems are not mobile (and cannot provide their buff to those out of range), this talent makes it easier for everyone to gain the benefit of your wonderful totems.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
3-18-2008 @ 11:16AM
Elmo said...
pretty much the mandatory Enh build except for imp Reïncarnation and Guardian totems which can be moved around.
Reply
3-18-2008 @ 4:01PM
Lars said...
I've never known anyone to build a Shaman in Enhancement. All my friends' shamen are either restoration or elemental. So I decided to try an enhancement spec (my spec is actually very similar to this one). Anyways, after a while I realized that enhancement is actually the norm, while elemental and resto are less common. Just a bit of a funny thing to me. Here I was all like "I'm gonna do something different." and it turns out I'm a conformist.
3-18-2008 @ 11:32AM
Rackham said...
I find this very interesting since I'm (trying) leveling a shammy in enhancement spec.
Does anybody have a link to a nice list of crafted, BoE and/or Outlands quest rewards fitting for this spec?
Reply
3-18-2008 @ 12:36PM
Baluki said...
I'd say that about 70% of all Outland quests have a mail reward appropriate for a levelling Enhance Shaman or Hunter. In other words, no problem.
3-18-2008 @ 12:51PM
Khanmora said...
You can google Kaliban's loot list to look at items or if you use mods check out Enhancer from wowace. It gives AEP values for gear so you can easily compare quest rewards vs what you are currently using.
3-18-2008 @ 3:32PM
Langerhans said...
@Baluki...
70% of Outland quests reward good Enhancement Mail? Are you sure you are playing as an enhancement shaman and not a Elemental Shaman? Most mail rewards are geared towards the Elemental Shaman with the +Int and healing on them. I'd say almost 1-10 or 1-12 mail pieces are actually worth taking as an enhancement shaman.
You'll often find leather pieces that are better suited with the +sta, +str, and +agi on them.
3-18-2008 @ 3:32PM
AlmtyBob said...
Check out http://www.maxdps.com/shaman/enhancement.php
Some awesome gear lists there with filters so you can set it up to only display what content you're doing.
3-18-2008 @ 11:38AM
Henry said...
Yeah, that's what's great about coming up with a raiding enhancement Shaman spec, there's not really much thinking about your talent spec. It's pretty clear what you should be taking, and there's just a little bit of wiggle room.
Reply
3-18-2008 @ 11:42AM
asus411 said...
Wow.....this build needs a bit of work. Guardian Totems Sux and there are a lot of optional talents u left out.
Shield specialization can actually be better than ancestral knowledge, it gives you more damage mitigation when you pull aggro off of tanks (Any Good Enh Shaman knows how easily this can happen), or when you are being focused on in arena.
Improved reincarnation is good for raiding, but Mental quickness in the Enh tree makes your shocks a lot more beefy, and is definatly worth 3 points.
For PVP builds extra point should usually be funneled into anticipation, gives straight damage reduction. Also, for PVP and PVE 4-5 Points in Healing Focus, actually lets you get a heal off while being beaten on!
Reply
3-18-2008 @ 11:51AM
Angus said...
Who the hell goes to arena as an enhance shaman?
There are 2 2200+ rated ones I know of.
Shield spec won't help you when you are dropping 20-30% damage because you are in leather, which if you are good, you will be in mostly. They are finally starting to put Mail in there that is better than the leather for us at the same level. And not by much. Even if you are in all mail, you won't survive more than 2 hits even with a shield. You have the lowest HPS of a melee class and worst mitigation. A rogue pops evasion and can survive being targetted by simply not being hit. We aren't doing that.
He took mental quickness. Why even bring it up like he didn't?
If you are being beaten on in PVP or PVE you have 1 choice, outDPS. If you cannot you are dead, our heals aren't beefy enough to handle trying to outheal someone. If you are raiding and it turns on you, you aren't outhealing it. You are just going away. See shield spec.
3-18-2008 @ 12:14PM
pudds said...
Sheild Spec is terrible....
3-18-2008 @ 12:32PM
Fraufrau said...
Sorry but most of what you said is either incorrect, irrelevant or only an issue to people with no clue.
Exhibit 1: 'Shield specialization can actually be better than ancestral knowledge, it gives you more damage mitigation when you pull aggro off of tanks (Any Good Enh Shaman knows how easily this can happen), or when you are being focused on in arena.'
Shield specialization is of no value what so ever to a raiding enhancement shamans, it is of some small value to a Arena spec but tbh not much as it is only situationally useful. 'Any good Enh Shaman' wont pull agro from the tank, here is a pro-tip: don't hit the mob until the tank has built up some agro and even then you can ease up by not hitting SS... less dps from a living shaman>no dps from a dead one.
Exhibit 2:'Improved reincarnation is good for raiding, but Mental quickness in the Enh tree makes your shocks a lot more beefy, and is definatly worth 3 points.'
The spec linked in the article has both of these things... why even bother making this comment?
Exhibit 3:'For PVP builds extra point should usually be funneled into anticipation, gives straight damage reduction. Also, for PVP and PVE 4-5 Points in Healing Focus, actually lets you get a heal off while being beaten on!'
Any 'pvp build' that focuses on Enhancement talents is a wasted pvp'ing shaman. Enhancement is by far the weakest of the 3 trees for pvp. My advice, dont bother... respec elem if you want to pewpew or resto if you want to heal.
3-18-2008 @ 1:41PM
Isambaard said...
lol, shield spec? Are you serious? If you pull aggro in a raid blocking for 120-150 isn't gonna save you, you're dead. This is why we take imp reinc aka shaman vanish.
3-18-2008 @ 11:44AM
Kodosoul said...
I prefer this one for PvP : http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hZxV0zE0sAuqoxbIu
Reply
3-18-2008 @ 11:50AM
bts0uth3 said...
i guess this will still be the best PvE build but PVP builds are going to change a little bit with 2.4 on the horizon. Will toughness's buff be worth putting points into?
Reply
3-18-2008 @ 11:52AM
Angus said...
Nope.
Doesn't work on roots or frost nova.
Anything it can work on can be spammed to keep it up regardless, except frost shock.
3-18-2008 @ 11:56AM
Angus said...
My turn on the main point.
Lose guardian. The benefit of grounding isn't enough to justify the 2 points, especially with the nerf.
Use the points in IGW. It may not work in all raids, but it allows you to do things outside the raids like grind and do dailes a lot more easily.
5pts in Totemic Focus is not needed. I put them in Concussion.
2% more damage on my shocks. Not like 28% chance to avoid interruption helps in a raid, nor does the saved mana. If I need mana efficiency I have 100MP/5 and Shamanistic Rage along with Mental Quickness. I put 3 pts in it just to get to the good stuff.
Not a bad build, essentially the only stuff I'd move around is the stuff that is optional (4 pts...) We get a massive 4pts to play around with in our build.
Reply
3-18-2008 @ 12:37PM
Fraufrau said...
Don't think of totemic focus as a means to actually conserve mana. it is taken in order to get the larger range on totems and the extra 3% hit.
Without that 3% hit you need a lot more +hit on your gear than is easily achievable by most enhancement shamans, even at very high raiding tiers.
Also, IGW is over-rated especially in a pve environment, if you dont want imp reincarnation/guardian totems take dodge to improve some survivability (even if it is only from physical damage you shouldn't take)
3-18-2008 @ 2:31PM
Angus said...
Did you read what I said?
"5pts isn't needed"
My build is 2/47/14 I Have totemic mastery and Nature's guidance. Any serious raiding shaman should. I even make that comment in another post in this thread.
IGW is awesome in PVE. I pull 1 too many mobs, 1 second later I am sprinting away like a rogue and possibly living to fight another day. It's all about the grinding aspect at that point. When 2.4 hits it will be instant and that means it is better for PVE.
3-18-2008 @ 2:35PM
Angus said...
gah.
2/45/14 maths is hard...