Viability of Enhancement Shaman
 

In 25 man raids...

How many of you use them? How many of you couldn't live without one? Why? What raid spot are they filling in your raids?

Has anyone crunched any numbers to compare their benefit to the raid over say a resto shaman who also boosts DPS if groups are set up properly, but probably to a lesser extent?


I was just wondering what some of you guys have come up with... im alliance, always have raided alliance so im not as familiar with shaman as a class as all of you. so what should i expect from a melee shaman?

Well from personal experience (no number crunching). We have one enhancement shaman. He is usually in group with: 1-2 Rogues, 1 Warrior, 1 Hunter and or 1 Feral Druid. His group gets blessing of salvation no questions asked(whenever warrior is not in the group) :). Because his only way out of agro gain is Warrior's Feign Death.

Whenever we have him in the raid, his group does exceptional DPS, I've heard rogues say on vent that if he wasn't in their group, he(enh. shammy) would be be on par with their dps but this way he boosts rogue's dps and beneficial part is that totems move with him. Its also nice to have enhancement shamman on Shade of Aran.

I am enhancement and beat all our casters on aran since he has no armor. Other fights I am generally lower than everyone but the hunter and shadowpriest but our rogue has consistently been at the top with me in his group.

We have 2 active enhance shamans. On our first Gruul kill, one of them was #2 overall damage. Our other one doesn't have gear that is quite as good, but still manages to beat some of our other DPSers, while boosting the melee damage in his group by a large amount. We also loving having them for things like Magtheridon... another interupter for trash mobs and the 5 channelers is always a good thing.

With the proper group and good gear, enhance shamans are definitely worth their spot in raids in my experience. Our guild leader is also an elemental shaman, and he boosts our DPS caster group in much the same way. They are both fairly gear dependant when it comes to their personal DPS, however.

I have a sense of threadja vu here, but I recall the consensus being they're worth their weight in a 10 person raid, and if you can fit something in 10...

I'm not feeling too gear dependent actually - just started Karazhan raiding this week (after recently finishing leveling) and my dmg output is being held up by threat rather than by my gear.


The group buffs provided by UR, GOA, SOE, and FT (and Heroism) are incredible - I wouldn't be surprised if their net effect is to increase raid by DPS as much as I contribute with my own attacks.

Having an enhancement shaman is huge. On Gruul this week he was in a party with 3 warriors and 1 rogue. The 3 warriors and the rogue swept the top 4 on the dmg meter, and the shaman himself was around 6th or 7th. And to be honest his dmg would be up with the other melee if he didnt have to back out so much due to threat limitations.

This topic has come up perhaps a bit too often, but the answer is yes, they are perfectly viable, alive and well in TBC raids. Even without buffing other melee in their group they put up extremely good DPS numbers. The only thing that limits them in boss fights is threat, and hey that's what the ankh is for right? :P

Although it is often understated, the synergy between an enhancement shaman and a not-in-group elemental shaman is not trivial either. We find our enhance and elemental shaman are doing similar numbers in terms of overall additions to raid dps but obviously the ability to do that damage at range is generally preferred. Still though, I think one of each would likely be ideal.

I've been saying that if I could have one of each flavor of shaman in a raid I would. But I'm the only shaman main in my guild... I examined the pros and cons of all the different types and went enhancement. I just think that, out of all the flavors, they bring the most. If I can bring one, which is how it is, I want it to be enhancement.

Why are Hord still so ignorant on how paladin's work? Greater Blessings (the 15minute ones) buff by class, not by group. Seriously, lets have an in depth conversation about off specs while our heads are up our asses. It makes sense.

yup, viable in 25mans