At the moment I can't make a compelling argument to retain my favored spec since another Elemental Shaman joined. He appears to know what he's doing plus attends regularly. Though I am doing more DPS, it's only a gear thing. Plus my Enhancement offset is nearly as good as my Elemental. So it looks like I'll be at Rogue and DK elbows again with Spirit Wolves howling.
It's been months since I've dusted off the melee gear or even thought about the Enhancement rotation… errr, priority system. Figured I needed to visit Elitist Jerks for some review. I'd noticed an Enhancement Shaman in the Druid's guild, Jinnä, do some impressive DPS that involved a lot more Fire Nova than I remembered mine ever showing.
Instead of heading directly to the Think Tank summary I started in the Class Mechanics forum where I found an interesting thread, [Enhancement] BiS gear and set-up discussion (3.3 and onward). The first thing that startled me was seeing this ability priority order:
- Maelstrom Weapon x 5 stacks - Lightning Bolt
- Flame Shock
- Stormstrike if debuff not active
- Lightning Shield if not active
- Fire Elemental
- Magma Totem if not active
- Spirit Wolves
- Shamanistic Rage
- Earthshock
- Stormstrike
- Lava Lash
- Fire Nova
- Magma Totem
- Lightning Shield
Whining aside, I was very surprised to see Flame Shock at the number two spot. Then I noticed that the gear list included the "caster" trinket (Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice). I'd heard of this relic being used by healers but for some reason it surprised me to see it on melee. Haste seems to be the sweet stat on all upper-geared classes regardless of role or talent specialization anymore. While I really like have my attack power break 11k with Totem of the Avalanche, I suppose I could give this a shot.
The talent build on this thread was also a little disconcerting. Glyph of Feral Spirit and Glyph of Stormstrike were familiar. I'd laughed the Glyph of Flame Shock out of Elemental use many patches ago so seeing it here made me laugh out loud. Jinnä is using Glyph of Fire Nova so I'm going to have to keep an eye on this choice. I may try to sneak in Glyph of Lava Lash or Glyph of Windfury Weapon for old time's sake.
As for the actual talents, I see extreme pains were taken at avoiding any mana conservation. Namely Elemental Focus, Shamanistic Focus, and Improved Stormstrike were not chosen. This is where I see reality clashing with theory. While Shamanistic Rage makes filling up a mana bar trivial at my gear level, it does still require something to smack for seven to ten seconds. Boss encounters don't always allow that. Yet the above priority list will be making damn sure I'm using my mana.
So while I agree with all three points in Improved Shields, I don't feel that a human dealing with latency can really make use of one point in Reverberation. Where to put this stray point? Elemental Focus and Shamanistic Focus are too specific. I considered Ancestral Knowledge for extra mana, Elemental Warding for slight damage reduction, or Totemic Focus since I'm always dropping totems. But Initially I'm going with Improved Stormstrike because it will have the most consistent use and provides the most generalized return.
I would like to peruse the standard summary in the Think Tank, but I'm currently getting a "502 Bad Gateway" error trying to access it. That's fine. It's going to take me an hour just to respec and figure out my bag space. Carrying around three entire sets of gear is difficult for a pack-rat like me. *snicker* Probably going to have to re-gem everything once I get Rawr to review things. *sigh*
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