Not sure if this or general is the right forum, but....

My guild hasn't finished Karazhan yet, and I've been enhancement almost the whole time in a group of melee. I am finally getting gear similar to that of the itemization post I made, and I am almost competitive DPS in fights where melee can stay in the whole time. I think I am still undergeared though because I am still bottoming out the DPS on boss fights, even if only by 1-2%.

Looking forward, I am seeing a lot of info come in about the 25 man content that has been conquered so far, and every shaman in the screen shots appears to be resto. I wanted to discuss if there is ANY possibility that non-resto makes the cut on 25-man content in a well fleshed out guild. I am not talking about filler because some class is missing, I mean intentionally bringing a non-resto shaman to fill a raid spot.

I would suspect Elemental focus is too new to try to convince raid leaders to try Elemental shamans into 25-man content , and the gear isn't really there yet to support crits and longevity. There is a video link somwhere on these boards about a sustained 950 DPS for 2.5 minutes self buffed only, no pots on Dr. Boom. I tried to theorycraft it further with pots, flasks, elixir, Blessings, Mana tide, etc and could only extend the sustained dps about another 2 minutes. This is great and all, but what do mages, locks w/shadow priests, etc produce fully buffed in the same scenario? I would think that comparing an all out staged DPS fight with longevity would ber a good way to let raid leaders at least look at the possibility. And if shamans fall short, then at least we know.

As for Enhancement, assuming the WF nerf isn't coming any time soon, has ANYONE brought an ENH shaman to a 25-man raid in gear comparable to a rogue/DPS warrior? Has it been field-tested at all?

Most endgame raiders I talk to scoff at the mere mention of the "shitty off-specs", and I can't break through the bias with any hard evidence beyond theorycrafting to back any of it up.

Is resto really the best thing Shamans have going for them End-game? I mean chain heal and earth shield are sweet and everything, but do I really need to respec to consider getting out of Karazhan and into the big time?

Enhancement shaman are viable in 25 man zones, the DPS boost we bring is very high and properly geared, we can be very high on the DMs. In Karazhan I'm typically #2 for the clear and thats due to lack of a deaggro.

Give it time, get some more gear and you'll see yourself climb the DMs quickly.

Without the WF bug (I did this a month ago, and didn't have "that" much knowledge about how 5/4 was overpowered) I never really got #1 or #2 on the DPS charts. HOWEVER, I put up competitive DPS below the "top DPS" and also boosted the DPS of those in my group. All told, I'd say any fight that isn't absolutely melee unfriendly, I see no reason why a enh shaman wouldn't work out. That being said, you wouldn't try bringing many rogues to those, which are basically the equivalent of enhancement shamans.

Honestly though, I'd rather see people run WITHOUT using the 5/4 bug for a Karazhan or two so they can start getting used to the DPS nerf and so the raid leader can decide what the shaman's DPS would ACTUALLY be viable over the rogues whenever the nerf hits us. Specify that you're doing this to your RL and show you can still not suck. It'll hurt, but it's not world-destroying.

Darkstorm's "fantastic" Dmeters chart when they killed Gruul for the first time.



PS: Lylz is DW Enhancement.

God, i love these guys

Yeah that looks like some kind of really bizarre meter for gruul. Was that a 'oops i decided never to shatter' kill?

I just dont know how melee could beat the various shadow casters on this fight unless something strange was going on.

Oddly there is very little interest in resto shaman in our guild, and I've seen very few resto shaman in ANY alliance guild.

Personally I think elemental is the best hybrid spec at the moment. Enhancement turns into either a gimp or a rogue with totems as gear improves. Its not possible to both do competitive damage and have substantial heals, that means you are giving up either your ability to dps or your ability to heal. It may be worth giving a raid spot to an enhancement shaman just because personal dps + buff dps > rogue dps. As long as that holds true you are better off taking 2 rogues, 1 war, 1 feral, 1 enhance over the same group with 3 rogues.

On the other hand with elemental I can do great dps, matching a mage at least in single target dps, plus add a ton of damage to a caster group and substantial longevity and still turn around and throw respectable heals around. The downside is that since you CAN heal you will spend more time healing and so it doesn't show on the damage meters as well. You might end up 3rd on damage in KZ but also 3rd on healing... It seems like a more flexible setup.

Muwatallis, I hate you for posting that meter. It was an "omg Niamee heal everyone around you or we wipe!!! Panic-panic" first kill. >.<

Here is a never-shatter-gruul meter: http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/504...7160649fr2.jpg Lylz wasn't there and it was before 2.0.10, when elemental had like no regeneration at all.

And here a Hydross meter with Lylz: http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/6...rossdpsan8.jpg And I hope that whoever had the stupid idea to make him go immune to nature half of the time burns in hell.

Out of curiosity though does anyone have any other meters with elemental shaman dps? Just want to see how various shaman are doing.

I just wanted to reinforce the notion that enhancement shamans are currently viable dps in almost any situation. Vodka's enhancement shaman is typically top 5 on most encounters and for many of our hydross attempts and kill was 1 or 2. Elemental on the other hand does not fare very well on the damage meters but if spec'd for totem of wrath can add quite a bit of dps to their five man group.

im playing elemental atm, at +850 LB damage and 32% crit + 5% LO self buffed is very nice, +9% hit from tallents (does my draenei aura effect myself does anyone know), this is just with blues, and not very hard to attain ones either http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/?#...krock&n=Kegsta. with a few more purples i can see ele shammys doing quite nasty amounts of damage, the main problem we have is we dont have curse of shadows / elixir of shadow power equivilent for raid dps.
id also like to see some more damage meters of a well geared ele dpsing in a 25 man

I'm Elemental. 40/0/21, NS for PvP mostly. I think that I'll pick up Totem of Wrath if I stick with Elemental DPS for raiding though. We're going to Serpentshrine Cavern either this week or starting next week, I'll wait to see how things go with me as DPS in there before I decide for sure.

But the raids that I have done (Gruul), I've done fine on I think. I believe that I was 6th and 7th on the DM for the two Gruul kills that I was on. The last one, I was under the overpowered Gruul DPS classes like Warlocks and Shadow Priests, and a Mage and a Rogue from what I recall. I've been first on Gruul practice attempts in which none of the DPS used any consumables at all though, maybe they just weren't trying as hard, I'm not sure. But with consumables it seems much harder for me to keep up with the top of the meter. This is with mostly blue dungeon gear by the way.

Also, a bit off topic; but Nature really needs to be added to Curse of Elements. It fits, and I personally don't see any issues arising from Nature being added to it.