rjah
10-26-2004, 08:49 PM
Greetings fellow shamans, or anyone who has grouped with them for more than just an instance...
Enhancement is the bane of shamans. I have studied this tree for oh so long, and I can find no value in it aside from parry (now too expensive to bother with) and shield !$#%$#@%@#. The 5% dmg mitigation from both is nice, but nothing else in the tree can hold any of my interest. Am I insane?
Every shaman build I see is Restoration (nice tree) and Enhancement (such sadness). Some builds are more Restoration than Enhancement and vice versa, but everyone seems to feel these two are the best trees for a shaman. I would like to put forth a new opinion (with some data) and see if anyone would care to provide feedback, as feedback helps me understand more and tune my shammy more to my play style.
Elemental is, in my opinion, the ultime tree for shamans. I know we are a balanced class and that we can do many things, such as hit, tank, nuke, and heal. Each balanced class I have ever played (and I am a huge fan of them) usually tends to lead in one direction though. Shamans I feel are more of a caster than a tank. Our counterpart the Paladin (lol) seems to be opposite in that they are more of a tank and less of a caster. Let's go into this a bit more.
Shamans, larger mana pool; generally close to or more than your HP.
Paladins, more hp than mana; generally much less mana than your HP.
Druids, larger mana pool; generally similar to the shaman, unless they choose to run in cat or bear form a lot, then they tend a little more to paladin but still have more mana than a paladin ever will.
Shamans tend to be stronly spirit based, which is why I think weapon procs used to be based on spirit, but that is gone now =/. We have very few skills that increase our physical DPS, a weapon spell, Thundering Strikes (5% crit) and flurry (30% IAS for 3 swings). The only true DPS increase in that is Flurry imo. Sadly you must use a 2H weapon for it to offer you a decent DPS increase, as a faster swinging 1H weapon will not see nearly the DPS increase as a slow swining 2H weapon. With the new miss rates (they claim it is block I am still in doubt) melee is missing quite a bit now at low and mid levels (slightly less at the higher levels). So now you can bet on 1 of the 3 IAS swings missing, which makes the talent (after game mechanics) be more like 30% IAS for 2 hits and a miss, which lowers the DPS output again. Also 2H weapons have been scaled back quite a bith (thanks MS^_^), which I am actually fine with. What it means though is that you do not get as much of a DPS boost with them as you used to when changing over from a 1H weapon (generally 3-5 DPS). If spirit still affected proc rate the free swing from Windfury might balance our mele DPS with our caster DPS more. In short Shamans do not have as much going for them physically as most melee classes (which is cool).
Now our other DPS options are totems, and casting. I put totems in a different category because well, they cost mana but aren't really a spell. We have 3 DPS totems. Searing totem (alright), Fire Nova totem (awesome), and Magma Totem (Never cast it it is so bad). Searing totem is a decent little boost to your DPS, but it can not offer burst DMG which is the ultimate DPS in MMOs. Fire Nova is great DPS, if used for AoE, and with talents it becomes burst DPS, but on a cooldown timer. This is not an effective expenditure of mana unless fightning a group, and even then you can put your mana to better things in most cases.
Casting DPS (nuking as people love to call it). We have lightning, and Chain Lightning (Thank you gods for chain), as well as shocks. This is where our DPS really comes in imo. Some examples... Lightning, you can get off 2 before a battle with a mob starts. That is just the pull and 1 when they are running up to you. Lightning Talents 'Imp Lightning Bolt' - 15% mana cost, 'Call of Thunder' 6% crit chance, 'Elemental Fury' 100% crit dmg (instead of 50% crit dmg spells normally give), 'Lightning Mastery' -1 second cast time, 'Imp Chain Lightning' 10% dmg increase. All of the talents listed, except the first and last ones (man reduction and dmg increase) affect both lightning spells. This is awesome because you are impvoing your solo spells, or spells for use against a single oponent, as well as your spells for group pulls, or group battles. 1.5 second cast Chain Lightning, with a 6% extra crit rate (on top of your INT based crit rate), with a true 100% dmg crits.... if the first one crits the others do more dmg (as I recall), but if the first doesn't well each of the three hits have a chance to crit... Then there is the last talent for lightning 'Elemental Mastery' this is a 100% garunteed crit. Which means in solo less than in a group, but in group fights (like pvp) you get a triple crit chain lightning for a 1.5second cast... That is some big dmg (chain lightning 2 means around 600 dmg, 400dmg and 200 dmg).
That is just lightning based dmg. So with a pull, 2 lightning bolts, then the mob is beside you, its time for a shock. Flame shock or frost shock are both nice for pure DMG to mana cost. Flame shock costs less, but is half a DOT, so it is your call. This little combo generally means for me (vs non elites) that the mob is at 50% health when the fight really starts. No totems, no lightning shield, just 3 spells, and now my dagger and shield. When the fight is done (won't take long now) my spirit generally regens me around 80% of the mana I spent before I get to the next fight. When grouping I only get around 60% back (duos) but I can also use less burst casting (just the 2 lightnings) in the fight depending on whom I am with... Then there is our talent - 'Elemental Focus' 10% clear casting state after a dmg spell, any mage will tell you how godly a clear casting state is... Now that you are actually doing burst DMG with your offensive spells you will find this of course goes off more often. Your clear cast state (12 seconds long or the first spell cast whatever) means you can drop a free shock in melee combat, or a free chain lightning if you aren't getting beaten on. With your talents that free spell is going to count for a lot more (especially with a crit).
The nice thing about the clear casting state, is that it does not reset your mana regen timer from spirit. That's right. You cast a shock, get a clear cast, wait for the cooldown, shock again, and right after you get mana.... Awesome.
Our last form of DPS I guess is more anti DPS, and that is healing. Druids heal more than we do. That's right, Druids are better healers, priests are way better healers. Our only good heal is lesser healing wave. Chain heal is fine I suppose, but if we are healing (back up healer here) it is to keep 1 person alive, not the entire group. So Chain heal takes a back seat most times. The question is, is Nature's Swiftness (and thus one free Healing Wave), or Mana Tide Totem worht the talent points? I don't think so. People are starting to understand what totems really mean in PvP. This means more often than not (despite snares and what I think is good totem placement) my totems die before their natural time expires. Mana sprint totem barely gives you more mana than it costs to cast, so if it is hit before it expires you wasted mana. Healing totem (seriously my favorite totem ever) is great for mana cost, but also gets hit a lot. 'Purification' - 10% more healing per spell. Huge talent point dump for this. To get it I have to completely waste 2 talent points that I would never want to spend in restoration (even if I was restoration spec), because I can only justify 23 talent points to be spent in there. So are you going to spend all your mana healing.... you are a secondary healer after all. Such a huge talent deposit for so little. This talent only affects 2 of your many skills and spells. And equates to around 92 or 152 hp depending if you cast lesser healing wave, or healing wave. 92 hp at level 60? Okay I guess.
My problem is that when I cast a healing spell it drains my DPS for nuking, as there is no clear casting, and it always interrupts my mana regen. While I hate doing it I always will if I see any need at all.
So in short, You get better shocks, more DPS, less Mana, and faster, with elemental. You get an instant DPS Fire Nova Totem. You get cheaper lightning spells (I only put 1 point in this, but it's your call). You get clear casting, you get increased lightning crits, you get a universal spell dmg increase on crits, which also increases the crit dmg of your Fire Nova Totem (nice eh?), as well as offensive spells. You get more chain lightning dmg for group fights, you get faster lightning and chain lightning spells (sweet), and you get a free crit once every 3 mins. Your mana efficieny will be much higher when using this than in any other tree as far as my experience goes.
Now you are capable of dropping some nice burst DPS in PvP, be it solo or group. You can still spend enough talent points to buff your Restoration line (imp lesser healing wave = win). So you are a good backup healer still. You can even drop your 2 extra talent points into 'Shield Specialization' and get a 2% dmg reduction. Shields now seem to be able to negate an entire hit now, but it doesn't always happen like that. If not you have 2 free talent points.
I will post my build after this, then please provide any feedback you can. Shamans are truly my favorite class, and I would like to improve my play. Thanks guys ^_^
Sorry for the long post.
Enhancement is the bane of shamans. I have studied this tree for oh so long, and I can find no value in it aside from parry (now too expensive to bother with) and shield !$#%$#@%@#. The 5% dmg mitigation from both is nice, but nothing else in the tree can hold any of my interest. Am I insane?
Every shaman build I see is Restoration (nice tree) and Enhancement (such sadness). Some builds are more Restoration than Enhancement and vice versa, but everyone seems to feel these two are the best trees for a shaman. I would like to put forth a new opinion (with some data) and see if anyone would care to provide feedback, as feedback helps me understand more and tune my shammy more to my play style.
Elemental is, in my opinion, the ultime tree for shamans. I know we are a balanced class and that we can do many things, such as hit, tank, nuke, and heal. Each balanced class I have ever played (and I am a huge fan of them) usually tends to lead in one direction though. Shamans I feel are more of a caster than a tank. Our counterpart the Paladin (lol) seems to be opposite in that they are more of a tank and less of a caster. Let's go into this a bit more.
Shamans, larger mana pool; generally close to or more than your HP.
Paladins, more hp than mana; generally much less mana than your HP.
Druids, larger mana pool; generally similar to the shaman, unless they choose to run in cat or bear form a lot, then they tend a little more to paladin but still have more mana than a paladin ever will.
Shamans tend to be stronly spirit based, which is why I think weapon procs used to be based on spirit, but that is gone now =/. We have very few skills that increase our physical DPS, a weapon spell, Thundering Strikes (5% crit) and flurry (30% IAS for 3 swings). The only true DPS increase in that is Flurry imo. Sadly you must use a 2H weapon for it to offer you a decent DPS increase, as a faster swinging 1H weapon will not see nearly the DPS increase as a slow swining 2H weapon. With the new miss rates (they claim it is block I am still in doubt) melee is missing quite a bit now at low and mid levels (slightly less at the higher levels). So now you can bet on 1 of the 3 IAS swings missing, which makes the talent (after game mechanics) be more like 30% IAS for 2 hits and a miss, which lowers the DPS output again. Also 2H weapons have been scaled back quite a bith (thanks MS^_^), which I am actually fine with. What it means though is that you do not get as much of a DPS boost with them as you used to when changing over from a 1H weapon (generally 3-5 DPS). If spirit still affected proc rate the free swing from Windfury might balance our mele DPS with our caster DPS more. In short Shamans do not have as much going for them physically as most melee classes (which is cool).
Now our other DPS options are totems, and casting. I put totems in a different category because well, they cost mana but aren't really a spell. We have 3 DPS totems. Searing totem (alright), Fire Nova totem (awesome), and Magma Totem (Never cast it it is so bad). Searing totem is a decent little boost to your DPS, but it can not offer burst DMG which is the ultimate DPS in MMOs. Fire Nova is great DPS, if used for AoE, and with talents it becomes burst DPS, but on a cooldown timer. This is not an effective expenditure of mana unless fightning a group, and even then you can put your mana to better things in most cases.
Casting DPS (nuking as people love to call it). We have lightning, and Chain Lightning (Thank you gods for chain), as well as shocks. This is where our DPS really comes in imo. Some examples... Lightning, you can get off 2 before a battle with a mob starts. That is just the pull and 1 when they are running up to you. Lightning Talents 'Imp Lightning Bolt' - 15% mana cost, 'Call of Thunder' 6% crit chance, 'Elemental Fury' 100% crit dmg (instead of 50% crit dmg spells normally give), 'Lightning Mastery' -1 second cast time, 'Imp Chain Lightning' 10% dmg increase. All of the talents listed, except the first and last ones (man reduction and dmg increase) affect both lightning spells. This is awesome because you are impvoing your solo spells, or spells for use against a single oponent, as well as your spells for group pulls, or group battles. 1.5 second cast Chain Lightning, with a 6% extra crit rate (on top of your INT based crit rate), with a true 100% dmg crits.... if the first one crits the others do more dmg (as I recall), but if the first doesn't well each of the three hits have a chance to crit... Then there is the last talent for lightning 'Elemental Mastery' this is a 100% garunteed crit. Which means in solo less than in a group, but in group fights (like pvp) you get a triple crit chain lightning for a 1.5second cast... That is some big dmg (chain lightning 2 means around 600 dmg, 400dmg and 200 dmg).
That is just lightning based dmg. So with a pull, 2 lightning bolts, then the mob is beside you, its time for a shock. Flame shock or frost shock are both nice for pure DMG to mana cost. Flame shock costs less, but is half a DOT, so it is your call. This little combo generally means for me (vs non elites) that the mob is at 50% health when the fight really starts. No totems, no lightning shield, just 3 spells, and now my dagger and shield. When the fight is done (won't take long now) my spirit generally regens me around 80% of the mana I spent before I get to the next fight. When grouping I only get around 60% back (duos) but I can also use less burst casting (just the 2 lightnings) in the fight depending on whom I am with... Then there is our talent - 'Elemental Focus' 10% clear casting state after a dmg spell, any mage will tell you how godly a clear casting state is... Now that you are actually doing burst DMG with your offensive spells you will find this of course goes off more often. Your clear cast state (12 seconds long or the first spell cast whatever) means you can drop a free shock in melee combat, or a free chain lightning if you aren't getting beaten on. With your talents that free spell is going to count for a lot more (especially with a crit).
The nice thing about the clear casting state, is that it does not reset your mana regen timer from spirit. That's right. You cast a shock, get a clear cast, wait for the cooldown, shock again, and right after you get mana.... Awesome.
Our last form of DPS I guess is more anti DPS, and that is healing. Druids heal more than we do. That's right, Druids are better healers, priests are way better healers. Our only good heal is lesser healing wave. Chain heal is fine I suppose, but if we are healing (back up healer here) it is to keep 1 person alive, not the entire group. So Chain heal takes a back seat most times. The question is, is Nature's Swiftness (and thus one free Healing Wave), or Mana Tide Totem worht the talent points? I don't think so. People are starting to understand what totems really mean in PvP. This means more often than not (despite snares and what I think is good totem placement) my totems die before their natural time expires. Mana sprint totem barely gives you more mana than it costs to cast, so if it is hit before it expires you wasted mana. Healing totem (seriously my favorite totem ever) is great for mana cost, but also gets hit a lot. 'Purification' - 10% more healing per spell. Huge talent point dump for this. To get it I have to completely waste 2 talent points that I would never want to spend in restoration (even if I was restoration spec), because I can only justify 23 talent points to be spent in there. So are you going to spend all your mana healing.... you are a secondary healer after all. Such a huge talent deposit for so little. This talent only affects 2 of your many skills and spells. And equates to around 92 or 152 hp depending if you cast lesser healing wave, or healing wave. 92 hp at level 60? Okay I guess.
My problem is that when I cast a healing spell it drains my DPS for nuking, as there is no clear casting, and it always interrupts my mana regen. While I hate doing it I always will if I see any need at all.
So in short, You get better shocks, more DPS, less Mana, and faster, with elemental. You get an instant DPS Fire Nova Totem. You get cheaper lightning spells (I only put 1 point in this, but it's your call). You get clear casting, you get increased lightning crits, you get a universal spell dmg increase on crits, which also increases the crit dmg of your Fire Nova Totem (nice eh?), as well as offensive spells. You get more chain lightning dmg for group fights, you get faster lightning and chain lightning spells (sweet), and you get a free crit once every 3 mins. Your mana efficieny will be much higher when using this than in any other tree as far as my experience goes.
Now you are capable of dropping some nice burst DPS in PvP, be it solo or group. You can still spend enough talent points to buff your Restoration line (imp lesser healing wave = win). So you are a good backup healer still. You can even drop your 2 extra talent points into 'Shield Specialization' and get a 2% dmg reduction. Shields now seem to be able to negate an entire hit now, but it doesn't always happen like that. If not you have 2 free talent points.
I will post my build after this, then please provide any feedback you can. Shamans are truly my favorite class, and I would like to improve my play. Thanks guys ^_^
Sorry for the long post.