I probably would have agreed with you last week, but I've run KZ as both enh and resto now and I'd have to say having 1 earth sheild +manatide is excelent for caster heavy groups. I'm constantly amazed by how much better shaman healing is post 2.0, and I don't consider my healing gear to be that good.

That being said, it really depends on the makeup of your raid. If you have more melee DPS, enh will help more. If you have more casters and are short on healers, resto should be better.

The only real problem I had as resto was some bosses were still a strain on my mana pool (8k unbuffed). Once we get paladins in the mix, I'm guessing that problem will go away. Ironically, with enh my SR + trinket + bloodlust kept my mana pool above 30% most of the time.

This was easier to deal with when we were still running 40 man raids, the melee DPS group that had an enhancement shaman constantly topped the DPS charts. Imp SoE and Imp WF were more than enough to skyrocket our rogue/war dps in naxx, and that was before we had bloodlust. (Our melee group usually consisted of me, 1 feral druid, 2 rogues and a warrior.)

Do we know for sure how threat works with Unleashed Rage? Is it like Battleshout in that you get threat every time it's applied multiplied by the number of people it buffs? Similarly, how much threat do we get out of Shamanistic Rage? Is it just the natural threat from regening mana (or is that only from potions)?

It most certainly has a threat component as freshly pulled mobs have turned to me when I've smacked a critter without seeing that there were already things running at us. The total threat on it seems pretty low though as in all the cases such as the aforementioned one all the mobs were easily pulled back.

Quick question about ghost wolf mechanics: If you are wearing a shield, in ghost wolf form, can you block (assuming normal blocking rules about facing target, etc)?

It's looking like I'm going to bite the bullet and reroll shaman from mage. Wait, that sounds like I hate the idea when I don't. My heart's elemental but my head's enhancement; on a low-medium server like Kul Tiras it's looking like most of the alliance shamans are either twinks or folks who saw one too many nu-metal shaman pvp battles so I'm likely enhancement to stay.

So a couple general questions if I may. I've read alot of this thread so if it's a repeat please taunt me mercilessly.

1) It would appear that the way to go on dual wielding buffs is Windfury main hand, Flametongue off hand. Is this indeed the case?

2) Windfury totem or Grace of Air? I tend to think (I'm a mage numbers guy so I'm fuzzy on the shaman stuff until I get into a groove) that it would have to be WF but does it balance with GoA over the long term in a group with lots of rogues, who benefit so much from agility? Edit: Yeah, ignore this one since I missed the summary a whopping two pages back. :P

3)http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GZxVszVMsVuqox0ekm is the build I'm looking at for 70. I'm pretty happy with my enhancement choices but not as confident in my restoration choices. Every time I picked something in resto I thought "yes, but the other would be so good." I assume that Imp. Healing Wave is a must have but is Tidal Focus, as well? And I'm really stuck between Restorative Totems and Tidal Mastery. Any input on that side of things?

1) As far as I know, the best thing to go with at least right now is MH gets highest level of windfury, and your OH gets the next below. If you only have rank1 windfury, going windfury/flametongue should work just fine.

2) This depends only on what your group wants. If your group is a hunter, a rogue, and a druid, you are probably better off with GOA, since everybody benefits from it. I've found that generally warrior's want WF, druids/hunters want GOA, rogues are a toss-up, but mostly they want GOA. The two paladins I've grouped with above 60 so far like wrath of air for more spell damage. The best thing I found to do is just ask the group before you start doing whatever you want to do.

3) For restoration, I would really go full healing focus and drop the restorative totems. Restorative totems is a good talent now in wow2.0, however the 75% less interruption IMO is required. Getting heals off in certain situations are impossible without this talent. Also I would probably drop lightning shield, and max out ghost wolf and enhancing totems. When you get water shield, it's generally better to use to keep your mana up. Also enhancing totems gives you about 11 extra strength and agility, which is great at 70, not as much during the leveling process. Those changes give you: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=uZxVbdVMsVuqox0et

Most raiding shamans will put points into Ancestral Healing at the cost of Totemic Focus. The extra 15% to armor is non-trivial and it is active an awful lot when you have several shamans and several priests (with their version) proccing it. I really like Healing Focus and highly recommend it, but someone that doesn't pull multiple mobs often can get by without it soloing, but it's very nice to have in instances when you inevitably pull aggro.

Yet another question for experienced shaman: How do you guys deal with the huge number of hot keys this class seems to require?

Between the 1001 totems, the different shocks and other spells, I think I have about 5 hot bars filled, some I never recall running into with my rogue. I'm using the standard UI hot bars. I'm assuming that folks don't bother to hot key everything, and there is some clicking going on for the less frequently used totems. Here's what I'm doing so far to cope.

Common Totem Sequences
I have my '3' button as my 'totem' spot, where I put the most common totem macro, which I swap around depending on what I'm doing.
* Searing Totem (if I'm soloing)
* A Totem Sequence if I'm grouped.

So far I have two sequences, one for Windfury, and one for GoA, which I swap based on group composition.
* /castsequence reset=combat Windfury Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Mana Spring Totem, Searing Totem
* /castsequence reset=combat Grace of Air Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Mana Spring Totem, Searing Totem

Totem Side Bars
I have all the totems on my side bars, grouped together by function (i.e. Resist Totems, Defensive Totems, etc). I haven't hot key'd them yet, but I may end up devoting my number pad to the jump. I will probably end up hot keying some of the more PvP centric totems (Grounding, Tremor), but I'm running out of hot keys (and I hate Shift/Alt mod keys).

I bought a Logitech G15. I can easily reach 1 through 5 and reach 6 with a bit of a stretch, so I have all my important spells on 1-6, ctrl 1-5, and shift 1-5. Ctrl and shift are fairly easy to couple with 1 through 5 for me, but less used spells are on the extra "G" keys which are keystrokes assigned to shift 6 through shift = and ctrl 6 through ctrl =.

I personally don't use any sort of cast sequence for totems. My totem selection completely depends on what the group composition is and what fight I'm on.

I love binding all the keys around my WASD movement keys to my action bars, q,e,r,t,y,f,g,z,x,c,v,b, along with numbers 1-5 are all keys that bind to different skills. I should bind my tab and ` as well but my habits change slowly (caps, cntr and alt are vent public and private keybinds). Then have all the relevant totems/spells on your action bars and swap them into your easily used action buttons as the situation demands it. Having played essentially all classes in the game apart from hunter though, I have to say you've gone from the class with the least amount of neccesary skills to put on action bars (rogue) to the one with the most :). Personally it's very enjoyable changing from priest to shaman although I almost always feel there was something extra I could have done in pvp.

Cool. Thanks for the input. A question, though. Why do you use two seperate ranks of WF? My shaman is just shy of hitting dual wield so I've not had any experience with it quite yet but is it because you can only have one rank of each weapon buff up at a time? Regardless of the reason is there a certain +damage level where frostbrand or flametongue outstrip WF?

Currently there is a "bug" with DW WF4/WF3.

This bug basically means that you can get 4 procs rather than 2 (although this can happen with either weapon).
Most people seem to be using this to get around the 3 sec delay on WF procs, which reduces its proc rate the faster your weapon is.

I'm a little bit crazy, but I run 6 bars with 12 buttons (3 on the bottom 3 on the right side). I keep the things I use the most (standard and reflex totems) on the main three bars, and the things that I use less often (consumables, rez, flametounge, etc) on the side bars. I use the number pad for movement, so I can easily reach INS -> PGDwn pretty quickly.

I have 12 keys bound in total, but the main ones I use are #7 #- #9 and PGDwn. I think this would equate to Q E ~ and R on a WASD layout. The key thing for me was being able to Nature swiftness + heal or Stormstrike almost immediately. I also used to bind NS to -, so i could hit - alt-0 quickly, and trinkets to + ] \ so they would be near NS.

I personally don't like the idea of binding or macroing totems, since for the most part they're situational. I do use totem timers w/recast, so that could contribute to my way of thought. The only totem I've considered binding is Grounding, since it's possible to drop it when you see a projectile coming and have the totem absorb the hit.

To make a long story short (too late), I started leveling with only a few bound keys. As I found my playstyle, I increased my keys and bars as needed. I'd advise setting up binding initially based on what you think you would feel comfortable with, then testing it out in PvP and tweaking it for max efficiency.

Hope this helps!

Viator: Once they fix the WF bug, your offhand proc will be situational. Frostbrand is great against armored targets, while flametounge is good for consistency (and works well with +dmg). ... Or at least that's the way I remember it ...

I'll probably be a dissenter on this, but I never used any sort of totem stomper or castsequence macro. I always managed my totems by hand: there are too many combinations and variables to your totem drop order to have any macro fulfill what you can manage by hand. I had a few of the major PVP totems like Grounding and Earthbind bound to hotkeys so I could use them on the run, but most totems you can honestly get away with clicking on (I hate clickers, but there's only so many keys to go around). Pre-2.0 I used Sprocket to very efficiently manage my totems (the hierarchal menu system was perfect for this) but after 2.0 I just used a totem bank mod so I didn't have to hotkey everything as seen in this screenshot: http://www.noobschoolbus.com/wow/lolcm.jpg ; I don't remember what it was called, but it's on wowinterface. Using a totem bank mod saves you a lot of hotkey space, but I also did what an above poster did and bound QWZXCA to other commonly used keys (I move with ESDF).

Edit: Playing when totem timers with click to recast is broken is miserable. Such an important mod.

Nite, the 13a beta of totem timers works with recasting. You have to use a popup menu to select the totem, though.

As we're on hotkeys, here's what I'm using for leveling. I'm sure it will change when I raid...

mouse3 (scroll button):
normal: max rank ES
shift: max rank FS
alt: max rank FlameS
control: unused so far

mouse4 (side where thumb rests):
normal: rank 1 ES
shift: rank1 FS
alt: rank1 FlameS
control: unused so far

mouse5 (side, further fwd):
normal: grounding
shift: earthbind
alt: ghost wolf
control: unused so far

r
normal: Lighting Bolt
shift: Chain Lightning
control: unused

q
normal: healing wave
shift: lesser healing wave
control: unused

e
normal: bandage
shift: purge
control: unused

others
x = lightning shield (would have shift x as water shield, and control x if i specc'd for earth shield)
control+space = auto attack
space = stormstirke (when I get it next level)
shift+space = jump

so... I guess my question is, what are some other essential things people need hotkeyed given what you're seeing in BC instances? The way I see it, I still have:
alt + mouse x 3
control u, q, e
f, control f, shift f, alt f

I can see where maybe a weapon swap macro could take one bind, but how often in raiding or 5 mans do you need other abilities quickly? Is it for down-ranked heals? Everything else seems pretty easy to manage through clicking as they're not time dependent, and I use totemus for (relatively) easy totem management.

With 10 free hotkeys, I'm not sure what I'm missing at the moment (though pvp would be different). Even if I added cure poison, cure disease, and mana spring, healing stream, fire nova, windfury, SoE, GoA totems, I'd still have 3 free binds that are easily accessible.

apologies if this derail is irrelevant, but If people are having trouble managing hotkeys and clicking due to the demands of expansion content, I'd like to know ahead of time why this is the case.

Oh god my left hand hurts, humans shouldn't press shift+2 this much.

Exactly why I'm getting an n52. Ze left pinky does not like holding down shift/ctrl/alt alot.

Haven't tried clique yet. I'm just noob #22328 grinding almost exclusively solo as enhance (lvl 39), so things like "healing party members" is pretty rare :p . I'll give it a look to see how it would fit in with my play style. I figured that when I got to healing instances, starting pretty soon running SM, I'd click on party frame, then shift+q or just q to heal. Or, alt q / alt+shift+q for self heals (alt shift q isnt nearly as bad as you think - try it a few times, and it becomes pretty natural for a lesser healing wave).

I'll admit, I'm a little nervous about healing, as it seems to be much more stressful than raiding on my rogue was. On the other hand, that's why I wanted to make the switch.

small point, but it's my left thumb that does the alt. Pinky gets a break ;-)

Despite having just about everything macroed, I don't have cast sequences for totems. I often find that I need to to drop a different totem that I didn't know about or just forgot. For example, I few times in Mechanar, I'll have dropped some standard Totems, expecting a Patroller.. the tank ends up pulling the Blood Elf mobs instead, so I have to drop Tremor. As soon as the Physician's dead, I'll drop SoE again.

If a pull goes wrong, or I want to give the tank some more time to pick up the mobs after a Sap (not Improved) goes off, I might drop an Earthbind. Or I can't Earthshock for whatever reason, and a mob is winding up a big spell with our healer OOM. I'll drop a Grounding and go back to WF. I could use drop sequences in conjunction with manual clicking but since I'm micro managing anyway...

^^ that was one of the reasons why I liked the FlexTotem addon, which I think has pretty much died because of the changes that Blizz made to UI stuff in 2.0

I ended up healing a pug VC run at the appropriate level (noobsauce, I know, but decent trial by fire for never having been main healer even on my old paladin alt) and it really wasn't terrible stressful. One of the things I've been doing though is using Clique even for self heals to get in the groove with it. LHW is shift-left click, HW shift-right, Chain Heal will be shift middle, decurses are bound to alt clicks... it's now become second nature for me and I'm good to go for groups.

I'm (sadly) a clicker for some things. I'm a pretty darned fast and good clicker but a clicker nonetheless. :( I just get too confused keeping track of thirty button combinations. It must be said that playing a mage is a pretty stationary thing alot of the time so I've never felt like clicking was a drawback in most situations; I have a feeling that's going to change on he enhancement shammy in real short order.