Let's start out here... I'm not here to see which spec is better for PvP, otherwise it would be in the PvP thread. And I'm not here to hear a bunch of "Lawl ele>enahnce pwn pwn lightningomg!!1!". I just have a simple question that I need help to answer.

Ok, so my guild (I'll say this now, I'm not the GM) has recently been getting new shaman to the guild, and they're all up for respecs. My guild now has Kara and Gruul's on farm and we're progressing into Tk and SSC. Just recently, I've heard a lot of the new shaman asking "What is better; Elemental or enhancement spec?" I've been trying to tell them that enhance is a better spec for raiding not just based on personal dps, but because they bring so much more to the raid for dps (BL, str, wf for melee group). But I seem to have a couple people that make claims such as; "Elemental has a lot more dps than enhance does. I've seen an ele shaman put out 1.1k dps in kz gear." I'm planning on posting what results I got here on my guild's forums. Now I'm here to find out which spec is truely the best for a raid spot.

For the purpose of this being in the EJ forums, let's exclude if my guild needs more melee, or more ranged dps, their personal preference, etc. I just wish to find out:
1. What spec puts out more personal dps at the T4, T5, and T6 levels (aka 1 enhance and 1 ele shaman in the same gear compared)
2. Which spec gives the most dps to the raid (I like to presume it's enhance)
3. How much dps each spec is giving to the raid
4. The total dps given (personal dps + raid dps)

I just need some help from the many (or few) raiding shaman here from each tier to determine the ultimate question: Enhancement or Elemental?

1. What spec puts out more personal dps at the T4, T5, and T6 levels (aka 1 enhance and 1 ele shaman in the same gear compared)

Assuming no mana issues they are pretty comparable this will vary on raid make up boss armor and other encounter specifics. I'd say a tie. Plug in some values into Yo's sim to find a ballpark of enh dps at those levels.

2. Which spec gives the most dps to the raid (I like to presume it's enhance)

There is really no question unleashed rage and windfury scale far better than anything an elemental shaman has to offer.

3. How much dps each spec is giving to the raid

This will vary on their spec, gear, group makeup and skill. End game an enh sham will boost rogue dps by 200dps or more per rogue and wars slightly less. I wouldn't be surprised will fully decked out best in slot everything rogue dps boost being even more. I think one of our rogues mentioned 250dps or so maybe a rogue can post more exact numbers.

4. The total dps given (personal dps + raid dps)
Again this depends greatly on group makeup but basically enh scales far better than ele sham.

Also don't forget about adding threat to the MT. A shaman twisting can not only give the dodge for mitigation but give WF for increased threat as well. This additional TPS can significantly increase raid dps.

Edit: If you are primarily concerned about dps, melee heavy raid make ups with 2 enh seem to produce the highest raid dps. If you want to be a melee heavy, neutral or caster heavy raid make up is up to you but with my guild's results and Blood Legion's similar results melee emphasis produces consistantly higher overall raid dps results. If caster synergies could be improved, I could see stronger arguments for ele sham. As is I don't think its much of a contest.

There are two extremely in depth threads for both Enhancement and Elemental specs on these forums, and they provide more than enough information to answer of all these without this thread.

However, for the sake of adding something constructive, I find that Enh is the better total DPS spec, but I play elemental for versatility. I can go in nearly any group makeup (within reason) and put my totems to use, whereas an Enh shaman requires a melee group, or in a threat capped fight, they can contribute to the tanks.

I would advise adding both to your raid given the option (assuming you aren't running 5 shaman already, or not able to put them all to use.) If you are in a leadership role, I'd advise going with Elemental, having lead raids as all three specs, it gives you a bit more mobility and visibility. Also, having an elemental shaman has its perks elsewhere as well, kiting Striders on Vashj, for example, or providing low resist rate ranged interrupts (due to the spell hit being capped.)

Agreeing with the posts so far in this thread.

Personal dps is comparable. Enhance gives a better raw dps boost to his party. Elemental makes this up with utility such as kiting and excellent interrupts. I would say both are comparable and your shaman should spec whichever they enjoy most to ensure that they keep raiding for the longest amount of time.

I've raided T4, T5 and T6 content as an elemental shaman, and a good friend of mine is Enhance (he's been through the same content with me).

I would agree that Enhancement group buffs are superior in scaling and DPS addition to the melee group versus Elemental buffs to a caster group. Both hold up through endgame, and if you can have one of each in your raids I would advise doing so.

Gear-wise, Tier 5 content is a little more sparse in terms of upgrades compared to Tier 4 and Tier 6 for elemental shamans. Tier 5 set bonuses are lackluster and overall a downgrade from Tier 4, and the set (minus the breastplate in favor of Netherstrike) is a very small upgrade in terms of spelldamage, albeit about a 3% increase in crit chance. From talking to my enhancement friend I would say Tier 6 elemental set is a bit better than Tier 6 enhancement set, in terms of both the set bonuses (elemental T6 set bonuses are godly) and the stats (my enhance friend uses a lot of rogue leather instead of mail). Enhance is also very dependent on weapons and weapon speed. Two Siphon of the Nathrezim is currently the best PvE setup iirc, and the one-handed blacksmithing crafted mace is also very good. He doesn't really like the itemization on Enhancement T6, his preferred stats are hit, AP and crit, which is more prominent on rogue leather for the most part. MP5 is kind of a wasted stat for enhancement since shamanistic rage fulfills all mana regen needs and then some.

Currently, I've been stacking as much spell haste as I can get, spell damage after that with crit as a distant third, and I have been doing 1400 to 1600 DPS on fights like Illidan and Rage Winterchill. Currently I'm doing a little better than our enhance shaman in the personal DPS category, but that could be due to any number of factors. Both of us have topped DPS charts at some point in our raiding careers.

Of course a big part of the decision should be your playstyle. Both specs are relatively simple in practice compared to other melee/caster DPS classes.

Enhancement runs a rotation of Stormstrike, Earth Shock and/or Flame Shock, all kept on cooldown. The stormstrike debuff is very synergistic with an Ele shaman, but since the flame shock cooldown comes up before it's DoT finishes ticking you may want to alternate earth shocks with flame shocks and just give one charge to the elemental shaman. The biggest part of your damage comes from Windfury procs. Compared to a rogue or even a warrior I believe it's pretty straightforward and easy to manage. You shouldn't have any mana problems at raid buffed AP levels as Shamanistic Rage will give you more than enough mana regen. My Enhance friend wears little to no Mp5 and certainly doesn't intentionally itemize for it.

Elemental is, in a way, even simpler, although requires more attention in my opinion. You have three choices in terms of spell rotation, either straight Lightning Bolt spam, Lightning Bolt with Chain Lightnings on cooldown (this can be mana intensive if you don't have a shadow priest in your group), and Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning spam with Flame Shocks added in. The third option is only really viable if you have at least one fire mage in your raid to put up the Scorch debuff. Even then, I think most ele shaman theorycrafting says it's not effective DPS. It's better to cast it either as you are moving or just before you need to recast totems to keep some kind of DPS going. Once you get 4/5 Tier 6 gear, it's straight Lightning Bolt spam.

Going further than just Melee or Ranged, each spec has other unique advantages.

Elemental has much higher +healing and can keep themselves up in a pinch easier than Enhancement. A larger mana pool helps with this as well. Lesser Healing Wave spam has saved my butt more times than I can count, keeping myself up until healers can get to me. It also helps take a little pressure off of healers in fights with high raid-wide damage like Naj'entus and Bloodboil to be able to throw yourself or someone near you a couple spot heals in a pinch. As a ranged class you also have to stop DPSing in certain situations to reposition. Although that's getting into more general ranged vs melee categories.

As enhance, for the most part, your DPS will be a little more consistent as you generally don't have to stop DPSing even when repositioning or following a mob around. Since, other than spot heals, all of your abilities are instant-cast, this also means you don't lose DPS time when recasting totems--something that takes Elementals out of the game for 4.5 or 6 seconds every 2 minutes. And it's always fun seeing big numbers when you get those double windfury crits ; )

Hope this info helps you make a decision, and sorry if it's a lot to wade through. = )

From my prespective, you should have atleast one of each who attends raids with a fair regularity. In "my" guild we usually have 4 shamans in almost every raid, one enhancer (me), one elemental and two restos.

I fail to understand if you just have one shaman at your availability or several, perhaps due to my head not beeing clear thanks to fever, but I would recomend you to go out and get atleast one of each. A enhancement shaman - as show earlier in this thread - will be a great boost to melee dps and almost invaluable if you decide to raid with a retadin (Due to the "need" of windfury for him to be at his best).

And a elemental shaman will put out good dps as well as boost caster dps thru various totems and hero / BL. You get almost the same benefit from having a resto shaman as a elemental shaman in a caster group (Diffrence: 3% spell hit & 3 % spellcrit vs mana tide (provided that it dosn't get fed to a healer group) and a slighty better mana spring totem). Tho' the need for that amount of resto shamans might be questionable depending on the encounter and the fact that an elemental shaman will put out good dps will - atleast in my eyes - validate their spot in the raid.

Conclution: Get one of each who raids with fair regularity since the both of them will offer a great addition to your raid.

I've been wondering something my elemental shaman friend complained about the other day. Do rogue poisions eat up the Stormstrike Debuff? If they do, you'll barely ever get the advantage of the debuffs? I have no idea how rogue poisions work or what poisions they use, that's why I'm asking.

What elemental buffs are you referring to? The only unique buff an ele shaman brings is the Totem of Wrath, and you can't stack it any more than you could Unleashed Rage or Windfury Totem. If you're arguing you can stack multiple groups with it, you can do the same with enh buffs.

As others have mentioned, you should have an enh shaman due to the extremely powerful buffs they provide to physical DPS classes. An ele shaman is nice to have for a DPS caster group, but the job can be filled almost as well by a resto shaman. Thus,

One of your shaman should spec enhancement.
The other shamans' specs are somewhat inconsequential. If it were up to me, I'd have one go elemental and the rest resto.

Just so you know, Totem of Wrath does stack.

Probably beaten to it,

But Totem of Wrath does indeed stack.

Some rogue poisons do. Instant Poison absolutely does, and I hear Wounding also does but I haven't tested it personally. Deadly Poison, however, does not, and this is the poison rogues will be using primarily in a raid environment. Deadly does more dps than instant when applied to one weapon, and they should be getting Windfury for their OH. The other thing that is notorious for eating Stormstrike charges is [Romulo's Poison Vial], which, in the presence of an enh shaman, has a nasty habit of increasing that person's personal dps at the cost of raid dps.

You should have an enhancement shaman for your melee group.
Sure, any shaman can drop windfury/soe totems, but an enhancement shaman offers:

- slightly better windfury/strength of earth totems
- will always be in totem range and move with the group (movement fights)
- puts use to battle shout/leader of the pack/sanctity aura
- 10% group AP from unleashed rage
- can totem twist in some* fights for grace of air and windfury

A resto shaman offers better mana totems that might benefit a retribution paladin, but that's it already.


An elemental offers the following to a caster group over a resto shaman:

- totem of wrath (3% crit, and 3% hit - which does require a gear/gem change to be effective)

An elemental shaman offers less mana regeneration from totems (totem of wrath is still vastly better than ~50mp5 from imp. mana spring and mana tide, just seemed worth noting).
Depending on the raid setup, the mana from a shadow priest in that caster group might be better for the elemental or the resto shaman.


From the group's perspective, it doesn't matter that much whether it's an elemental or a restoration shaman in the group.

An elemental shaman does however bring group buffs and heroism/bloodlust without taking up a healer spot.
That may be a good thing or a moot point, it depends entirely on the fight and your raid setup.


From my perspective (as a caster who sometimes leads 10mans), I feel that for 25man raiding, an enhancement shaman is a must-have, while an elemental shaman is "just" nice to have.
We do however have 4 restoration shaman (used to have 3 and one came back from a break), so we don't really lack shaman in case we need them.

Enhancement is great in seperate groups (one in tank group, one in rogue is fairly common). Elemental doesn't really offer much imo. A Resto Shaman can offer almost everything an Elemental can in terms of support (+Mana Tide). In a perfect raid, I'd prefer a Mage or Lock.

Uh, can't add much to what's already been said in this thread, except that we have never raided with an Elemental Shaman and we do quite okay on the WWS rankings for what it's worth.

I'd go with... play whichever you like best, though. What use is speccing for something you'll eventually think is boring (and yeah, shaman specs do have that possibility, unless you really get into it)

I also wanted to add that while DPS is obviously an important metric, it is only one of many considerations. Ele and Enhance both perform slightly different functions in the raid. This difference is not only based mechanics, but comes about simply by virtue of group placement. For example, the elemental shaman has the option of raising spell/healing output or lowering the group's threat production;an enhancement shammy cannot functionally use Tranquil Air totem. Raising the threat cap is nice, but it can still be insufficient to eliminate the need for Salv, and possibly the multiplicative bonus of Tranquil Air.

The importance of improved raid healing benefits and spellcapping is also something worth mentioning, but I'll leave that out.

So basically I would come full circle with others in this thread and say you still want to have both as an option, depending on the encounter. There is no 100% correct answer as to whether an elemental or enhancement shaman is the most appropriate. I use an elemental shaman and I love having an enhance shaman in the raid. All the same, my caster/healer counterparts love me even more

Yeah, from my experience, unless you're big into PvP as well, elem shaman are more likely to get bored. In most fights they tend to suffer from the same problem as frost mages... spam one button for ages until you get a "Your target is dead" error, drink, repeat. It's not quite as bad if it's a fight where you may be asked to spot heal, but melee just generally tends to be more interesting, especially with all the group synergies that most raids stack for melee groups. For me, being elemental with a moonkin and a shadow priest isn't nearly as fun as being enhance with a leader of the pack, improved battle shout, and the occasional TSA if our group balance is wonky. The only thing I've really enjoyed about elemental is my trinket+elemental fury+chain lightning macro on AoE groups, but I'd take big WF procs every 3-5 seconds over big CL crits every 3 minutes any day. =)

This isn't technically true. If it's really that big of a concern, an enhancement shaman can twist TA just as easily as he can GoA. I'm not sure anyone actually does that, though... in fact, I don't think I've cast TA since the launch of BC. Maybe that's more a function of the fact that the tanks we run with are really good, but for the most part, TA just seems like it was a quick temporary fix to the fact that horde had no threat reduction at all, while alliance had Salv. Now that we all have Salv, the need for it has decreased dramatically, and unless you're running with ludicrously high DPS destro locks/fire mages who can't control their threat with soul shatter/invis, or just bad tanks, TA is mostly a moot point in a caster group.

Indeed news to me. I've never had more than a single elemental shaman in the raid, so I haven't had the chance to test it. I apologize for making the assumption.

Despite Totem of Wrath stacking, I don't see any advantages to bringing an extra elemental shaman over an extra enhancement shaman. Even if your main melee group already contains an enhancement shaman, it helps to put another in the tank group, since your other melee dps usually gets stuck there. In addition, having the extra tank threat and avoidance is almost never a bad thing.

Don't take the above as an argument against elemental, but rather for enhancement. Elemental fills a DPS role very well, but if it came down to taking one or the other based on pure raid benefit, I'd have to choose enhancement. Of course, certain variables such as current raid makeup, fight dynamics (Hydross nature immunity, for example), and player characteristics should always be taken into consideration.

Umm you're kinda wrong or not showing the whole story on a few things here.

1. Why would an elemental shaman be dropping tranquil air? If it is for something like a shadow priest, then the choice is between that and wrath of air. There is no WF for casters, so having to juggle totems on threat limited fights is not something you'd do. You'd just keep tranquil down the whole fight. So yes you're right in that the mechanics of WF does allow wf and another totem to be juggled. However its really not a worry in the current raid game and it is also something that blizzard said they'd fix in the future, so I wouldn't bank on it being there forever. It is a nice perk for now. Then again how many threat limited fights are there in the current game? Bloodboil is about it.

2. Never ever rely on shamans to earth shock anything critical. You're just asking for a heal on council or a wrath slipping through if you depend on this. They are way short of being capped with spell hit and can not be relied on to interrupt.

3. Why does an enhancement shaman add to the raid instead of just 4 people? You mean by tossing him with a tank group? Well a resto shaman can do that just as well and usually does. Unless you build a second melee group based around the mt group there is no need for the mt group shaman to be enhancement.

That being said, I agree that enhancement offers superior group buffs. ToW in no way holds up to unleashed rage and imp weapons/soe totems. Elemental shamans need to have a group buff that is dependant on them actually casting and provides a strong group buff, not just a 3% crit (and some hit that might be already achieved through gear) DPS wise both are very consistent in what they can output over fights of lengths. If your raid uses COR enhancement will likely win, if not then probably elemental. There is really no need for an elemental shaman past the first. I can see having multiple enhancement (up to 2) or resto shamans (up to 3 even) being useful.

More threat /rage and mitigation for the tank is always a good thing. With dps getting best in slot everything warlocks and rogues will be riding the tank in threat even with shatter/vanish. The less classes have to use these ability the better since that is time that could be spent dpsing. Perhaps twising will be fixed someday but I don't think we should base current recomendations on speculation on future unannounced patches.

Actually we do use enh sham on the heal but as backups if the mage CS is down or resisted. We have our resto shaman do the same but while elemental would be the only hit capped of the 3 specs I would argue it also affects your dps the most. The nice thing about enh shaman for interrupts is they use earth shock in thier normal dps rotation while ele shaman do not.

While this is true its more likely an enh shaman will have the imp str and agi totems and certainly will be the only one with imp WF totem. UR also helps with threat somewhat also its highly likely for there to be other melee in the MT group that would benefit from UR. I am not arguing that a resto shaman cannot do the same role for the MT, simply a enh sham does it better. THe synergy for an enh shaman in the MT group cs a resto shaman are numerous. At most there is 1 other caster (lock) and 3 melee. This also means the mana tide for the resto sham goes mostly wasted (unless you swap groups for tide which you certainly can do but is somewhat annoying when things are hectic)

While ele does have a larger mana pool which helps, I have usually as much if not more spell damage/healing as an elemental shaman as enhancement while raid buffed. With a bit over 500 spell damage unbuffed, and over 1000 while buffed.

Not a huge issue, but just wanted to clear that up.

We run with one ele shaman, and one enhance (me), and the rest are resto. While the ele shaman is handy, he only moderately buffs his group with Totem of Wrath and mana spring, with an additional bloodlust. It's all defintiely helpfull but not realyl anything to write home about. Mainly because it's exremely difficult for the rest of the group to gear around him providing spell hit. As they can't rely on him always being in their group, and can't typically swap out top end slot pieces to drop the spell hit.

His personal DPS can be quite high, especially with stormstrike up, but there's threat issues sometimes, and at best he may be on par with another ranged, rarely better in equivilent gear.

The utility of being able to kite/interrupt is questionable. It's another thing that's handy, but nothing to really go out of your way for. We've used him for interrupts, but we've also used myself. And while I'm not capped, with an occasional counterspell or backup shock from another shaman, it all worked out fine. As elemental he's usually at max range or would have to interrupt his own dps to maintain shocks. Kiting was only ever really usefull on Vashj, no other fight really needed it to any degree.

All this sounds negative, but I am still an advocate of elemental shamans, they can certainly hold their own, but in the broader sense could use a utility buff to make them more desirable in the long run. I enjoy being able to have totems and bloodlust in every group, and matching ele with a dps caster group is a definite plus.


On the other hand, enhancement brings almost another flask in AP from Strength of Earth totem, a huge amount of damage to other melee with Windfury totem, more then another flask in AP with UR, bloodlust, and competitive personal dps with infinite sustainability. I'm very happy with the state of enhancement shamans in pve, although they could use a bit of a survivability boost with how harsh some encounters can be on the melee. The -damage change to SR was a big step in this direction, although the fact that it's tied in to aspects of our dps make it hard sometimes to justify holding off on it for survivability reasons.

I think the only reason classes are riding the tank in threat in current content is because of being overgeared for it, both on the tanks part and on the raids part. A 2-3 minute Teron fight where classes blow multiple cooldowns with full consumable usage is just not something that reliably will show how classes and threat work in Sunwell. Fights will be longer so cooldowns will be up for a much shorter period leading to lower dps. The difference between a 1700 dpser and a 1900 dpser on Rage is not a matter of gear so much of fight duration. The same holds true for Teron.

This is something that I found curious about it. Who is your enhancement shaman dps'ing? If dps'ing the paladin who is pretty much the only one safe to dps I find it difficult to believe that your shaman will be able to always maintain range on the priest while the Paladin is moved around his portion of the room? In this fight it is pretty easy for me to park myself at range halfway in between the Lady and Gathios and dps Gathios while getting all interrupts. Anyone who is dps'ing the Lady is going to do bad damage, especially the rogue(s) assigned to interrupt her heals while magic immune and so on.

As for the benefits of improved totems for a tank group, really that is pretty minimal. A tank is not going to gain much out of a few more str or more ap contribution from wf to much of a great degree. UR is going to be a very small amount of AP on any prot specced tank. However if you are building your MT around threat and not survivability with no tree druid or no warlock then yeah with two tank warriors and a feral that is a good place to put the second enhancement shaman and a last melee.

However from what I've read of the PTR testing, well the bosses hit very hard and you will be going for max survivability and raid healing. Which means a tree and likely a lock too. That is why I think a lot of the current live endgame stuff is silly atm. People are doing fights which they overgear massively and trying to draw conclusions from it. The conclusion shouldn't be that we need massive threat help for the tanks, it should be that you're overgearing the content. When that stops being the case, then those issues won't be there anymore and you'll be back to doing setups for survivability until you outgear the content again. Our guild might not be as progressed as you guys are, but we've had locks pulling 1900 dps on fights and with a SS they had no agro problems as long as they remembered to use the spell.