Enhancement Shaman - Need To Know 5.2

For those of you who are actively playing or paying attention to World of Warcraft, you're probably aware by now that patch 5.2 has thundered its way into Azeroth. With its arrival, a few new changes have come into play for nearly every class and specialization. Enhancement shaman is no exception.

Please note that if you've been using my old Need To Know post, the information found in there is still relevant for a fresh level 90. The purpose of this particular post is to expand upon the new talent tweaks and how they may interact with gear from Throne of Thunder.. If you're a fresh level 90 and/or just returning from the spirit realm (aka if you haven't played your shaman since Cataclysm) I highly suggest going back and reading my Need To Know post linked in this paragraph.


Talent Tweaks
As has been noted in the 5.2 Changes for Shaman post, several talent tweaks have been made. With these adjustments in mind, the following is more or less how we should think about our talent choices.

Tier 4
Elemental Mastery - Best used in burst situations and becomes more valuable during fights where our damage uptime may be a bit low (numerous target switches that cause downtime; controlled dps situations such as Titan Gas phase on LFR/Reg Will of the Emperor, or the no add lull on H-Will of the Emperor)

Ancestral Swiftness - Best for static (Patchwerk) fights. The higher uptime on a boss, the more this talent shines. Used mostly with haste builds, which will become more widely used once one acquires the legendary meta gem, along with trinkets from Throne of Thunder.

Echo of the Elements - Still the best talent choice for those who are leveling, as it can proc extra healing. Also a very solid choice for soloing in my personal opinion, again due to the chance for extra "free" healing. For competitive raiding, this talent is best when paired with mastery stacking and will shine more during AoE/cleave encounters.


Tier 6
Unleashed Fury - This talent received a slight nerf in this patch to help bring it more in line with our other two talent choices, but the nerf bat wasn't too harsh. For those of you who are still fresh level 90s/sporting t14 gear, this will still be your best overall talent choice. With this particular talent, it seems that mastery will still be your favored secondary stat.

Primal Elementalist - PE received a pretty decent buff in this patch to help it compete with Unleashed Fury. Our elementals now provide some fairly substantial burst (they did a good bit before as well, but now it's really solid), enough to the point where they'll make up for the lack of damage during their down times. This talent is my personal favorite for soloing, but unfortunately may not be the best choice for general raiding purposes until you have acquired your Capacitive Primal Diamond, plus have gotten your mits on Talisman of Bloodlust and Bad Juju. This talent *could* be useful on controlled burst fights even with current gear, however. This is of course assuming that phases of whichever encounter you're tackling line up properly with the CDs of your totems.

Elemental Blast - Like Primal Elementalist, Elemental Blast has received some love to help make it a more enticing talent to take as Enhancement. In addition to proccing extra secondary stats, EB will also proc Agility for us. Pretty neat, eh? As it stands right now though, EB is still a touch behind the other two talent choices. It's viable for use, don't get me wrong, but it is still slightly behind. Couple this minor negative with the fact that it still has a cast time (which can be negated if you have a Maelstrom Weapon stack of x5, but if you don't you'll be hardcasting), that you'll have yet another button in your already button-heavy arsenal, AND you'll have another minor CD to watch (12 seconds, so not all that different from our other rotational CDs like Lava Lash and Stormstrike), EB still remains to be a less than desirable talent for most shaman. Essentially it complicates an already somewhat hectic rotation for no actual DPS gain over the other two talents. However, if you're a diehard fan of this talent for whatever reason, you still may choose to spec into EB and not have the fear of severely gimping yourself on the meters.


Talent Choices, Secondary Stats, and You
One of the more common questions I see coming from fellow Enhancement shaman is thus:

I'm ilvl 461. How should I gem/reforge? How do I spec?

The common answer is often "Well, you're going to have to sim it." This answer is unfortunately both completely true, but can also be rather frustrating to someone who isn't familiar with either theorycrafting or the program Simulation Craft itself. The fact of the matter is, two Enhancement shaman may both have an ilvl of 461, but they could very well have a large variation in stats. One may be really heavy in Critical Strike, while the other could be Mastery heavy. A third shaman may very well have a balance of all three non-mandatory secondary stats, but is starving for things such as Hit and Expertise. Early on in the gearing process, Critical Strike can actually outweigh Mastery and Haste, because of how the synergy between the different stats works out. As you gain more gear though, Crit tends to depreciate in value, making way for the power houses that are Mastery and Haste.

Bottom line, if you're looking to min/max your shaman to the greatest extent, you will need to learn how to run Simulation Craft, aka SimC. Luckily for you, Poneria did up a post on WoW Insider about Simulation Craft. Don't balk at the fact that it's actually a warlock post; there is a ton of excellent information and links in that post to help get you started with SimC. It's a definite must-read for those who wish to push themselves a bit further.

For those of you wishing to merely get by without having to dip your toes into the wacky world of theorycrafting, there is are a few rules of thumb that you can follow to make yourself at least competitive in regards in how to gem, reforge, and spec your Enhancement shaman.


Leveling
Gems: You can stick with whatever gems you had in your level 85 gear. Most leveling gear is socketless, so you don't need to worry about this much.

Reforging: Not necessarily something you need to worry about much. You want at least some hit and expertise to make life a bit easier for you; more mastery while leveling is quite handy.

Speccing: As far as the DPS talents are concerned, Echo of the Elements (for those wonderful double Healing Surge procs) and once you hit 90, Unleashed Fury will be your best bets. All other talents are more based on preference and situation.


Fresh Level 90s
Gems: Delicate (pure Agility gems) in red sockets, Adept (orange gems, Agility/Mastery gems) in yellow sockets, Deft (purple gems, Agility/Hit gems) for purple sockets.

Reforging: You must first shoot for your Hit/Expertise caps, if possible. If you need to, you can help supplement this with Hit and Expertise enchants. For secondaries, it'll be, as I said, a bit of a toss up depending on what stats your particular gear setup actually has. I personally went Mastery > Crit > Haste on my second shaman while I was working on getting the rest of her heroic 5 man set.

Speccing: For those of you heading into those 5 mans, Echo and UF will still be great choices, since you'll more than likely be putting priority on Mastery, plus the extra chance at AoE procs from Echo (Fire Nova can proc echos) will help out nicely for all of those trash packs.


Tier 14
Gems: As with the fresh level 90s, you'll still be going for straight Agility gems, Agility/Mastery gems, and Agility/Hit gems.

Reforging: Once I started getting a decent base of crit and stopped starving for so much Hit/Expertise on my second shaman (meaning, I was starting to get purples) my priority changed over to Mastery>=Haste>Crit. You'll want to have a healthy balance of Mastery and Haste, as they're both excellent stats to have. I tend to go a bit heavier into Mastery for this particular tier though, especially with often still being specced into Echo+UF.

Speccing: With the new changes, speccing for raiding becomes rather situational. For your level 60 choice, see the Talent Tweaks section earlier on in this post. For the most part though, Unleashed Fury will be your level 90 talent of choice.


Tier 15
This is were things start to get nice and murky as far as secondary stats are concerned. Until you get your hands on the new RPPM* trinkets (Talisman of Bloodlust, Bad Juju, Renataki's Soul Charm, and Rune of Re-Origination are specifically being considered for BiS lists, see this thread for more info), you'll be speccing and reforging just as you had for tier 14. However, the game changes some once you get said RPPM and your legendary meta. Suddenly, with these items, Haste becomes a pretty big thing.

Gems: For those in LFR/Normal mode t15 gear with RPPM trinkets, you'll be most likely going with pure Agility gems, Agility/HASTE gems, and Agility/Mastery gems. If you do not have the RPPM trinkets, the t14 scheme will still be more ideal.

**Note: There is a slight possibility that we may even gemming straight Haste with the new trinkets + legendary meta gem + BiS Heroic Throne of Thunder gear. Theorycrafters are still working out the details on this, as the RPPM trinkets are still being tweaked, but the future possibility is there. **

Reforging: Again, once you get your RPPM trinkets, Haste will take a priority over Mastery. It'll more than likely be a reforge priority of Hit/Expertise | Haste > Mastery > Crit.

Speccing: This follows suit with t14 until you get, you guessed it, the RPPM trinkets. Once you do, your level 90 talent of choice will often be Primal Elementalist. There may be certain situations where UF may still be better, but with all of the Haste procs and stacking going on, PE becomes a delicious source of damage. The level 60 talent choices will be very encounter-based still, so please refer to the Talent Tweaks section of this post for more information.

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Please keep in mind that this is an extremely rough and broad guide. Your stat change over points may slightly differ depending on which trinkets you have, which set bonuses you manage to activate, and of course may depend a bit on whether or not you have acquired your legendary meta.

Also keep in mind that each of the three level 90 talents have a slightly different rotation priority. To find out more about that, I highly suggest you read up on the Ability/Rotation section of the Enhancement Guide over on Totemspot.

If you're looking for a Throne of Thunder shopping list, you'll want to keep your eyes on the Enhancement Best in Slot List for Tier 15 thread, which can also be found over on Totemspot. Keep in mind that the list is subject to change, as the TC guys are still working on simming out all of the possibilities, plus Blizzard is still tweaking trinket procs and the like.

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The long and short of this post is thus: 5.2 has moved us away from what was nearly a cut-and-dry spec set up as far as our DPS talent choices were concerned, and dumped us into the realm of situational choice. Everything - your gemming scheme, spec choices, and reforges - is dependent upon your particular gear set up and raid encounter situation. From a min/maxer's stand point, this kind of makes things both chaotic and interesting. From the view point of someone more casual, this simply means you have a bit more leeway in choosing how to play.

The difference between talents is rather small now, so you very well could simply choose a combination of talents that you like the feel of and still be rather competitive. If you're not trying to eek out every last drop of damage from your character, you have plenty of room to experiment with. Personally I've been playing around with a high-burst build on my main shaman for soloing situations (it's pretty damn awesome, I'll tell you what!). Would I use my current build in a current raiding situation? Hell no, since I know I don't have an optimal gear set up to make my EM/PE + Haste stacking as competitive in damage as say, being a tad more Mastery heavy and rocking AS (or whatever talent depending on encounter)/UF. Since I'm not raiding for the moment though, it's very fun to toy around with. Sometimes experimenting to see how far your gear can take you in certain scenarios is a very fun thing to do, or perhaps I'm too much of an Enhancement/soloing nerd for my own good.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns about this topic or anything else shaman related, please don't be shy!


*For those of you who are confused as to what RPPM means, it stands for Real Procs Per Minute. This is essentially the internal system that's in place that determines how certain trinkets and enchants proc. If you want to read up on some of the nitty gritty details of this system, you should check out this series of blue posts.

Prepping for Herald of the Titans

So, you've seen this nifty title around town, Herald of the Titans. You've looked it up, sort of, and have found out that in order to acquire this this title you must have a level 80 character. Beyond this little tidbit of information, you're finding yourself in need of a little help. This article is here to lend you a hand.

Edit: This achievement was temporarily bugged to where a group of 90s could gain this FoS/Title. DPSing down the boss before it could register the gear and levels of the group can be considered an EXPLOIT, as it is not intended for level 90s to be able to achieve this Feat of Strength. It should be known that using/attempting to use an exploit is a bannable offense according to the Terms of Service that Blizzard has in place, thus isn't something you should be attempting. This bug has also been hotfixed, so stop trying to find a way to circumvent the system that's in place.

The Herald of the Titans is a title acquired by a team of level 80 characters, all in gear of item level 226 or less, taking down this star guy called Algalon. Algalon is remembered as one of those bosses that straight up resonated with all players, both lore-wise and with his encounter. His is an epic fight to experience. Originally Algalon's encounter had a 1 hour time limit in which you could make attempts on taking him down attached to it, but this is no longer the case.

Herald of the Titans has been moved to a Feat of Strength. It is still obtainable however, and the title is account-wide. For a short while after the account-wide titles became a thing, it was thought that this was one title that would forever remain character bound. It turned out though that this was just a bug. Once you achieve the Herald of the Titans FoS, you unlock this nifty title for all of the characters on your account!

Locking Your Character at 80

Freezing your character's XP gain is fairly simplistic. If you're Alliance, you'll want to visit Behsten, who is located in the Stormwind Keep. For Horde, you'll want to speak to Slahtz, who is located in the Valley of Honor. Both of these fellas are stealthed level 19 rogues, though you shouldn't have much issue tracking them down if you click on the provided links.

If you wish to continue on leveling your character after you receive your title, you simply talk to these guys again to turn your XP gain back on. The cost to either toggle the XP gain on or off should only be about 10g.

Gear

In order for the group to qualify for the achievement, everyone must be sporting gear of an item leveling of 226 or lower in all slots, with an exception for weapons, which may be item level 232. Crafted gear, BoEs, and Justice Point gear can all fill gaps quite nicely, and in some cases turn out to be best-in-slot items.

Best-in-slot gear is not required for the achievement, but the more 226 gear you can get on your character, the better. Shoot for making your character sport at least all epic items prior to attempting this encounter.

Gemming

For this Feat of Strength it is preferred that all participating characters to be gemmed with the epic quality Wrath of the Lich King gems. For *most* classes, folks will want to gem their primary stat (Agility/Intellect/Strength) with the exception of possibly tanks and/or healers, who may prefer a mix of their primary and preferred secondary.

Enchanting

Like gemming, it is preferred that all participants have their characters enchanted with the best enchants available to them. It is understandable if a character is on a server that a player may not have a dedicated enchanter to provide materials/enchants for the Herald character (assuming that the Herald toon isn't an enchanter his or herself), however all participants should at least have some sort of enchant on every piece of their gear. Keep in mind that these days many enchants can and will scale. Here is a very useful spreadsheet detailing which enchants scale and in what ways to help you determine what may be best for your level 80.

Professions

Professions, while not 100% required, can be a huge help in both gearing and optimizing your Herald character. Like at max level, crafting professions (Tailoring, Enchanting, Jewel Crafting, Leatherworking, Black Smithing, Engineering, and possibly Inscription) are generally preferred over gathering professions (Herbalism, Skinning, Mining). Again, not something that is absolutely needed, though if you have the resources available to you to level up your Herald character's professions to the Cataclysm level, it can help out immensely.

Food

Cataclysm foods are permitted for the Herald of the Titans achievement. It is advised that you stock up on some Cataclysm foods in your primary stat for personal use in the event that a feast is not able to be provided.

Flasks/Potions

Again, for this achievement Cataclysm consumables (in this case, flasks) are permitted. Since group cauldrons are no longer a thing, it is advised that you come prepared with a few flasks in your primary stat.

Likewise you may use Cataclysm potions for this event. While a full stack of a potion of your choice (for DPS this would be a potion that provides your primary stat, for healers this may be a mana return potion, and for tanks this may be either a healing potion, an armor increase potion, or an Agility/Strength potion for increased DPS) probably won't all be needed, it is advised that you have several of these potions on hand. For those of you familiar with double potting, that will not be necessary for this encounter, as the time from entering combat and the time that Algalon actually engages is nearly the full duration of the initial pre-pot. Save your potions for the burn phase!

Reforging

For a Herald character, reforging can be a bit tricky. If you are aware of the exact number you need for your hit and/or expertise caps, using a site such as WoW Reforge can come in pretty handy. In the event that you're not completely aware of what your caps are, an addon called ReforgeLite can help you out greatly. If you need any help with figuring out how this addon works, you can refer to my ReforgeLite post.

Before you begin reforging, it is advised that you research which secondary stats your class/spec prefers. For most level 80 classes, Mastery tends to be the most powerful stat available regardless of the level 90 preference of said class/spec. However, for DPS specs it is incredibly important that you must first reach your hit and/or expertise caps before you begin to stack Mastery or any other secondary stat. Tanks, it is likewise advisable to look into how important it is to reach your hit/expertise caps for both threat generation and resource regeneration. Reforging no longer exists, but leaving this section in for now. You never know when Blizz may change their other mind!

Rotations

Spell priorities and rotations for most classes can be gleaned from their level 100 counterparts, and guides on these spell priorities/rotation may be found on various blogs and/or sites such as Icy-Veins. Naturally, as a level 80 you will not have all of the nifty spells that a level 100 does, but you should have most of the meat and potato spells for your spec. Make minor adjustments as needed.

The Gearing Process

There are several ways to begin the gearing up process, many of which may need to be employed depending on how lucky you are with drops.

1) Crafting - There are several pieces out there that may be crafted for a Herald character. However, these recipes are often subject to droprates, so if you personally or your guildmates do not have the recipe, it may be a bugger to find the right pattern. For 226 specific gear, there are belts and boots available for crafting. If you're in dire need of a chest and glove filler, 200 gear is likewise available for crafting, provided you have the recipes.

2) Wrath 5 Mans - Queuing up for heroic Wrath of the Lich King 5 mans is not necessarily the most efficient way to go about things, unless you have a ready-made group of five. The option is there, however, to have a level 100 solo these instances for you. While most of the heroic-mode 5 mans either sport gear that is rather low in item level (200 or so) or too high (the ICC heroics sport 232 gear), they can provide some decent fillers. Here are some instances that you'll want to focus on to get your filler gear:

Heroic ICC 5 Mans: While most of the gear in these heroics cannot be used for Herald of the Titans, what can be used are the weapon drops. Remember, weapons of ilvl 232 may be used! These heroics will provide that.

Normal ICC 5 Mans: The gear that drops in the normal version of these dungeons drop 219 gear, which is perfectly acceptable. Easily chain farmed if you have the time available to you.

Heroic ToC 5: This instance will provide you with 219 gear on heroic. Heroic ToC should be soloable by most classes/specs at level 100.

Regular ToC 5: Soloable by level 100 characters, ToC regular provides ilvl 200 gear. While not the most optimal, this instance provides Heralds characters with an easily obtained/farmable trinket. Most of these trinkets were desirable up into even Icecrown Citadel if a raider at that time was unlucky.

3) Cataclysm Dungeons
Justice Points can be used to purchase a variety of gear from the vendors found in Dalaran. Some of these purchasable items are BoE, so they can be bought by another character who has excess JP laying around. However, many of the items are BoP and will require farming on your Herald toon.

There are two Cataclysm dungeons that are available to level 80s: Throne of the Tides and Blackrock Caverns. Queuing up for these randomly, at least one per day for your daily boost in JP gain, is pretty much the best way to farm for your needed Justice Points.

Given the fact that you'll be farming these two Cataclysm dungeons over and over again, chances are you'll end up with two different sets of gear; one for farming, one for Herald of the Titans. It is perfectly okay to wear items that are above the 226 requirement while you are farming for your Herald gear. As a matter of a fact it's encouraged to have a higher item level set, especially if you're having a friend solo instances for you, as it greatly increases your chance of survival in some situations. If you're running with a gear group through Ulduar, wearing higher gear generally yields higher damage output, which naturally speeds up the farming runs a bit.

4) Ulduar
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, farming Ulduar for gear is another option. There are a few things to remember though:

- Ulduar 10 provides 219 gear from normal modes; 226 gear from hardmodes and Algalon
- Ulduar 25 provides 226 gear from normal modes; 239 gear from hardmodes and Algalon, which is not usable for Herald of the Titans
- Be sure to not save yourself to Algalon the week you plan on attempting the achievement. Remember, the lockouts have changed. If you kill Algalon on 25 man difficulty, you will also be locked out of Algalon 10 for the week.
- Be mindful of possible lockout issues if you were to participate in a partial run through Ulduar. While lockout issues should not occur if you were to say, kill 3 bosses and someone else cleared everything besides Algalon himself, it is possible that funky things could occur. Just play it safe during the week you plan on attempting the achievement.

If you happen to have either a second account with a max level character on it, you could very well solo a good  chunk of Ulduar for gear as well, with your Herald toon in tow. If this option isn't available to you, if you happen to have a friend who is generous with their time and is a capable soloist, they could potentially run you through the instance as you try to keep yourself alive. Again, a few things to remember before you attempt duoing this with a friend or yourself:

- Ulduar 10 should be soloable by any type of level 100 character.

- Ulduar 25 likewise should be soloable by any level 100 class/spec. Yogg can be problematic for some classes, but with some finagling just about any class can counter his tentacles.

5) Other Raids
If you really need gear with a quickness, do not forget to run Naxxramas 10 (ilvl 200) or 25 (ilvl 213), Malygos 10 (ilvl 213) or 25 (ilvl 226), Obsidian Sanctum 10 (ilvl 200/213 with bonus drakes) or 25 (ilvl 213/226 with bonus drakes), and Onyxia 10 (ilvl 232 weapons).

The tier 7 set bonuses are often decent and can/should be used if you're unable to get yourself a 2 and/or 4 set tier 8 bonus.

Naxx 10: Should be fully soloable by any level 100 class/spec
Naxx 25: Should be fully soloable by any level 100 class/spec
Malygos 10/25: Both versions of this instance should be easily soloable by any level 100 class/spec
Obsidian Sanctum 10/25: Both versions of this instance should be easily soloable by any level 100 class/spec
Onyxia 10: Easily soloable by all classes/specs over level 90.

6) BoEs
Remember to check the auction house if you've already tapped all of your raiding resources, because BoEs drop from Naxx, OS, EoE (Malygos), and even Ulduar itself. These BoEs can certainly fill in a space in a pinch, and generally only go for a few hundred gold at most these days.

7) Extra Sources of Justice Points
Edit: With making this guide, I completely forgot about the conversion of Honor Points to Justice Point. If you had leveled via PvP, you may trade your extra HP for JP at the Honor vendor in your faction's main city. Below is a quote from one of our commenters, Evlyxx, advising us on how to gain even more HP to trade over for JP:

However, 1 vital source of Justice Points is missing from the guide, the PVP quests in Venture Bay, which give 200 honor per day that can be converted into Justice Points every other day. Not a lot by level 90 standards but the return per minute is huge as the biggest unforseen problem I and my friends encountered was getting Justice Points as the Wrath dungeons didn't reward any.

The Fight

Alright, so you've got the gear and it's all dazzled up, you've got your required raiding consumables, and you're ready to get down to business. As it is with current end-game raiding, it's wise to look at the fight ahead of time. Here's the original Tankspot guide on how to tackle this encounter.

Looks a bit complex, eh? Try not to fret too much, as the encounter is actually much easier, thanks to our little friend called Mastery. That's right, because of this one little (and rather potent) stat addition, overall DPS *should* be higher than it was when Algalon was current content, healing throughput *should* be a bit stronger, and tanking likewise *should* be a bit smoother. I strongly accentuate the word should simply because often Herald toons are not sitting in full BiS 226 gear, nor at Herald toons generally a class someone plays as a main. Despite everything, Mastery as a whole tends to help make up the differences of both skill and lack of BiS gear.

While yes, the fight is much easier with a group of twinks and semi-twinks, do not allow yourself to be lulled into a false sense of "this is easy" however. For most groups, it will take several pulls before everyone is acclimated to how the encounter feels on their particular character. If everyone has prepared correctly though, the learning process and achievement gain should be fairly painless.

I hope that this post has helped a few of you out! As always, if you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to ask. I wish you all luck with your gearing. Now go have yourself some fun!

Healing As Enhancement

New visitors! Please be aware that much has changed since this post was written. WoD has changed off healing capabilities drastically. Expect an updated guide somewhere in the near future.

If you're just now returning to the game, or if you're leveling an enhancement shaman for the first time, you may be wondering "How the heck do I heal?" Enhancement healing is relatively simple, yet can seem a bit complex at times to the untrained shaman.

Some of you old-timers may be wondering about where the heck Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave ran off to. Well, both of these spells have decided to get permanently hitched to our restoration brothers and sisters, effectively dumping us. That's right, our only actively cast healing spells are now Healing Surge, Chain Heal, and Healing Rain. I see you giving Healing Surge the stink eye; try not to judge it quite yet, it's more potent than it looks.

Please note that I will only be covering the spell modifiers (mainly talents and glyphs, not necessarily procs/secondary stat scaling) that directly effect healing. There are several other glyphs/talents that boost resistances and help to dispel, but I will not be including those within this article.

Healing Surge

Unless you're hard casting Healing Surge for some odd reason, this spell is more than adequate for the pinch healing that you'll need during leveling/soloing/raiding. Trust me, this spell has been saving my shaman butt for months now. Check out these modifiers that makes Healing Surge more potent for us.

Modified by:
1) Maelstrom Weapon - For each stack of Maelstrom Weapon, Healing Surge will both cost less mana and heal for greater amounts.
2) Healing Storm - This glyph will cause your healing done to be increased by 20% per Maelstrom Weapon stack.
3) Echo of Elements - This talent can cause your Healing Surge to "echo," effectively casting Healing Surge a second time without any extra effort from you or resource cost. Both the original spell an the echoed spell can crit independently.

Might not be so bad, eh? Now let's break down some of our other healing abilities.

Chain Heal

Chain Heal is not a spell commonly cast by an enhancement shaman unless said shaman is within proximity of several raid mates and their healers are struggling. Remember, it is your job as a dps to do damage, not play healing hero. In the event that your healers are oom, you may use Chain Heal and Healing Rain as last ditch efforts to save your raid team long enough to make a kill. If you need to save yourself in the event that you accidentally stood in the bad though, use Healing Surge. Chain Heal doesn't heal for a ton single-target, and can unfortunately only bounce so far.

Modified by:
1) Maelstrom Weapon - For each stack of Maelstrom Weapon, Healing Surge will both cost less mana and heal for greater amounts.
2) Healing Storm - This glyph will cause your healing done to be increased by 20% per Maelstrom Weapon stack.
3) Echo of Elements - This talent can cause your Chain Heal to "echo," effectively casting Chain Heal a second time without any extra effort from you or resource cost. Crits will behave as if you had cast Chain Heal twice, meaning they'll do their own thing regardless of what the original spell did.

Healing Rain

Much like Chain Heal, Healing Rain is not a spell commonly cast by an enhancement shaman unless said shaman is within proximity of several raid mates and their healers are struggling. Healing Rain can help to stabilize a group's health, though overall doesn't do a ton of healing. Remember, it is your job as a dps to do damage, not play healing hero. In the event that your healers are oom, you may use Chain Heal and Healing Rain as last ditch efforts to save your raid team long enough to make a kill. If you need to save yourself in the event that you accidentally stood in the bad though, use Healing Surge.

Modified by:
1) Maelstrom Weapon - For each stack of Maelstrom Weapon, Healing Rain will both cost less mana and heal for greater amounts.
2) Conductivity - Causes the duration of Healing Rain to be extended when certain abilities are used; more on this later.
3) Healing Storm - This glyph will cause your healing done to be increased by 20% per Maelstrom Weapon stack.

Patch 5.4 Edit: Healing Rain is no longer affected by the glyph Healing Storm. Due to this change, Healing Rain's effectiveness has been severely nerfed for Enhancement.


Healing Stream Totem
This totem has been a healing staple for us shaman for quite some time now. While it has had a bit of a makeover since Cataclysm, this totem can still put out a good little bit of healing. Currently this totem is a single target smart heal, and prefers to target those in the shaman's group who have the lowest health. The Mists of Pandaria version only lasts for 15 seconds at a time and has a cooldown, but said cooldown is relatively short (30 seconds). If you're in dire need of a second Healing Stream Totem, and fast, you may reset the cooldown if you're specced into Call of the Elements (3 minute cooldown on this talent).

Modified by:
1) Call of the Elements - Resets the 30 second cooldown on this totem. Usable once every 3 minutes.
2) Rushing Streams - Causes your Healing Stream to heal two targets (up from one) for an increased healing amount of 15% per tick.
3) Totemic Persistence - Allows you to have up to two totems per school activated at the same time (Healing Stream + Healing Tide = Whoa totem healing, Batman)


Healing Tide Totem
It's a totem and it's a "major" healing cooldown! As of patch 5.4, Healing Tide Totem is now a baseline ability for all of the shaman specializations, as opposed to being a talent choice prior to this patch. More healing utility for us, huzzah! This bad boy is great for re-stabilizing the raid in a pinch, or even saving your own butt in a soloing situation.

Modified by:
1) Passive talents that only Restoration has which boosts all of their healing, including totems.
2) Haste plateaus, which Enhancement doesn't shoot for.
3) Totemic Persistence - Allows you to have up to two totems per school activated at the same time. (Healing Stream + Healing Tide = Whoa totem healing, Batman)


Ancestral Guidance
This particular talent currently offers us dps shaman types the biggest bang for our talent point...assuming we can swat at things. Ancestral Guidance yields the highest output while we are in our Ascendance form, though please keep in mind that tying the two together may result in a complete waste of Ancestral Guidance, unless there's an increased damage taken and received phase, such as the gas phase on Will of the Emperor normal mode. For soloing purposes however, if you happen to pop AG while in Ascendance, you could very well see yourself go from nearly dead to full very quickly. Stormstrike/Stormblast, Lava Lash, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lighting, the initial impact of shocks (meaning NOT Flame Shock's tick, just the impact when you first cast it), and Fire Nova all essentially become means of healing through this talent for a short duration.

Modified by:
1) The use of dps cooldowns in conjunction with this ability.


Conductivity
This talent has received a major overhaul with patch 5.4. Conductivity now extends the life of our Healing Rain by 4 seconds each time Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Earth Shock, or Stormstrike is cast. The Healing Rain has a maximum duration of 40 seconds. Between this change and the removal of Healing Rain from our Healing Storm glyph, this talent has pretty much become useless for us Enhancement types.


Feral Spirits
That's right, even our wolves heal us! Just us though, they really don't like anyone else. Every time they attack, 150% of the damage they deal heals both them and us. Pretty neat, eh? But that's not all! If you have Glyph of Feral Spirit in, they deal another 40% in healing, which is to say pretty darn potent. Yeah that's right, our wolves aren't just a little damage cooldown that looks all flashy, but they're also a fairly decent self healing cooldown as well. Pretty hard to take us down when we have our wolf pals out!

Modified by:
1) Glyph of Feral Spirit
2) Mastery - The Feral Spirits attack using a spell called Spirit Bite, which deals nature damage. Due to our Enhancement Mastery, the more mastery we have, the stronger our wolves will attack. The stronger their attacks, the more healing we receive.
3) Battlegear of the Witch Doctor (4pc) - Tier 15 (Throne of Thunder) The cooldown of your Feral Spirits is reduced by 8 sec each time Windfury Weapon is triggered.
4) Assurance of Consequence - This is a trinket that comes from the Sha of Pride in Siege of Orgrimmar. Our wolves are one of the cooldowns affected by this trinket.


Glyph of Flame Shock
You will personally be healed by 30% of the damage your Flame Shock does. If you were to spread your Flame Shock via Lava Lash and had multiple Flame Shocks rolling at once, you'll receive healing from those Flame Shocks.

For single target, this glyph isn't all that powerful. However, in situations where you're able to spread your Flame Shock around, it does a decent little bit of healing. I find myself running this glyph often enough (though generally one of the first I switch out if utility calls) because hey, extra passive healing is always nice.



That's everything we have currently. So let's break it down into simple terms, going by what is typically specced for and glyphed:

Personal/Single Target Healing: Healing Surge, Feral Spirits, Healing Stream Totem, Flame Shock (with glyph)
Party/Raid Healing: Chain Heal, Healing Rain (not ideal), Healing Stream Totem, Ancestral Guidance (or Healing Tide Totem)
Healing Glyphs: Feral Spirit, Healing Storm, Flame Shock

Also, don't forget your professions and racials. If you're an herbalist, Lifeblood can help you out in a pinch (plus the extra haste is pretty neat) and if you just so happen to be a Draenei, Gift of the Naaru can restore 20% of your (or a friend's, or Tsulong's) health to you (or your friend, or Tsulong even) over the duration of 15 seconds. Can't beat free healing!


I hope this article has helped you out some, even if it is rather lengthy. Remember, enhancement shamans have a ton of healing utility within our bag of tricks, so there's no need to feel helpless if you're hurting!

How To Enhance: Combat Openers and the Cooldown Toolkit

Whatever it is you do, be it raiding, PvP, brawling, or soloing, knowing how and when to use your DPS burst capabilities - regardless of your class - can often mean the difference between a win and a corpse run.

Once upon a time, enhancement was known for its turtle-like damage. Slow, steady, always statically dependable. It didn't have that fancy thing called "burst" and often suffered on certain gimmick fights *coughspinecough* because of this. Those days are no more though. We shaman are now the kings and queens of mean burst, and how to get the most out of this bursting capability is what I'd like to talk about today.

First, let's cover which abilities actually give us our high burst.

Primary
Ascendance - Our big "lolol I WIN" button. This is pretty much our biggest source of burst these days, and the best part is that it can be used at range. Super handy for certain situations, like say for the air phase on Onyxia or the head on Mimiron.
Heroism/Bloodlust - Tasty, tasty haste! Generally this is considered a raid cooldown, but for soloing it can be either an "I WIN" button or can be saved as a panic button.
Stormlash Totem - Oh Stormlash Totem, allow me to sing you a song of my love! While this is a very potent raid cooldown, it is also a humungous personal cooldown, given how it weaves together with Windfury, our special attacks, and our auto attacks.
Fire Elemental Totem - Big Red is now a viable DPS cooldown for us! He slices, he dices! Oh wait...no. He just burns all the things. He'll happily apply Searing Flames stacks for you, making your Lava Lash hit harder, plus he can do okayish AoE, provided he has something to actually hit (he's kind of completely useless on Lei Shi's Hide phase). This guy is a pretty nice bursty CD, so use him often! You can have him out even more often if you have him glyphed, but it's not recommended to do this unless you're a Troll. Even if you're a Troll, you only may want to do this if you're elemental, or maybe even a restoration shaman regardless of race. Maybe.
Feral Spirit - Our beloved pups, how silly you two are! These guys aren't the hardest hitting DPS cooldown in our arsenal, but they are one none the less. They give you some pretty potent passive healing, especially if they're glyphed, so definitely use these guys often.

Optional
Elemental Mastery - This isn't a talent that's typically taken by enhancement shaman, though certainly has some uses in certain situations. I recommend this talent for certain encounters where you need very focused burst, or for those solos that require you to kill the bad thing before your cooldowns run out and it kills you. Times up nicely with your wolves, and if you're an engineer like I am, your Synapse Springs, for those longer boss fights.
Synapse Springs - The glove enhancement for engineers, which may be applied in addition to our usual glove enchant. Synapse Springs are on a 1 minute cooldown, so I personally macro them to my wolves, which are on a 2 minute cooldown. So long as you use your springs as soon as they come off of cooldown, these two things should always line up nicely for you. They may not always be as ideal as a static stat boost, such as an enchanter's ring enchants, but they are awfully nice for kicking out extra burst.
Berserking - This be da Troll's racial, mon! It's a nice little haste buff that can be timed up very well with Ascendance. If you're a Troll, use this. Love this. Own this!
On Use Trinkets - Use trinkets are thus far not as prevalent in MoP through PvE content, though they still do exist. Most of the use trinkets will provide more of a boost as far as burst is concerned in general, and more than likely will be more powerful than your Synapse Springs (assuming you're an engineer). Keep in mind that trinkets and springs do trigger a 20 second cooldown when one or the other is used, so you will not be able to stack them. My advice is to tie in the stronger of the two options in with whatever DPS cooldown lines up the best with that trinket's on-use cooldown, then simply use the other once that 20 seconds of lockout time is up for the other item.

In addition to what is listed above, pre-potting is also a highly encouraged option (not always applicable, depending on the start of a fight). Being able to use two pots within a single encounter is an easy way to get the biggest bang out of your damage.

I'd also mention gear swapping here, but as of the last patch (5.1) Blizzard has officially broken the ability to swap a gear set and keep the buff it a given set provides. The biggest example being: it was a pretty nice DPS increase for both enhancement and elemental shaman to equip the tier 13 restoration 4 piece set, activate Spiritwalker's Grace for the haste bonus it gave (30%), and then to swap back to their normal gear just before a pull. Now when you switch back to your normal gear, you lose the Spiritwalker's Grace haste buff, making the gear swap completely pointless. You may now safely vendor your old restoration set, unless you want it for transmog, and remove your gear swap macros from your macro book.

Alright, now that you know the toolkit, let's put it into practice. Your opener, regardless if you're soloing or simply raiding with your buds, can often mean the difference between beating that enrage timer or going splat. It requires a certain finesse. You often want to put out the highest damage possible off the bat, but if you're in a raiding environment, you want to do so without pulling threat off of your tank(s) as well. You'll have to learn how many seconds you need to count before you can open up on a boss (less if you have a strong, geared tank and/or 2+ misdirects from rogues and hunters going out, more if you are missing these things) on your own; each group is a bit different and each gearing plateau is a beast of its own. Right, so a standard opener for raiding looks something like this:

- 5 seconds before pull: Use Spirit Walk, if you need a gap closer between yourself and a boss.
- 3 seconds before pull: Use potion
- 2 seconds before pull: Pop your Fire Elemental totem.
- 1 second before pull: Pop wolves (this would be your Synapse Springs + Feral Spirit macro, if you're an engineer)
- PULL
- Give the tank a tick or two to hit the boss, doing his/her aggro thang.
- Unleash Elements as you close in on the boss.
- Flame Shock if you're not quite there yet.
- Stormstrike
- Ascendance + Heroism/Lust + Stormlash Totem (Hero/Lust assuming your raid wishes to have it at the beginning)
-  Stormblast (aka Super Stormstrike)
- Lava Lash (you should most certainly have 5 searing stacks up by now; if you don't, check the pulse of your fire elemental)
- Swing into your usual rotation of using SS/LL/UE on CD, weaving in your Flame Shock and Earth Shock in as normal, plus using Lightning Bolt (or Chain Lightning in cleave situations) with 4-5 Maelstrom Stacks up. Use Fire Nova only after you've used Lava Lash to cleave your Flame Shock to multiple targets, and only if you need to spellcleave.

If you're a Troll and/or if you're specced into Elemental Mastery for a given encounter, it may be best to stagger your haste CDs some, especially at higher gear levels, simply because you'll hit that ceiling where your haste is just, well, a waste! If you're not using Hero/Lust off the bat, you can burn these two cooldowns right off the get go, then simply continue to use them with their paired DPS cooldowns later on (wolves with EM, Berserking with Ascendance/Glyphed Fire Elemental Totem). If you ARE Heroing/Lusting off the bat, the use of these other haste CDs can get a little funky. Apply them to the best of your abilities and where they make the most sense for the given encounter. For soloing, especially those shortish fights that are to short for using your cooldowns a second time, but long enough to outlast Hero/Lust, simply pop your secondary haste abilities once Hero/Lust wears off.

Now, the above advice is by no means perfect, but I've been finding that it works very well for me. It puts out some pretty incredibly high opening numbers, while at the same time it *usually* keeps my threat under that of my tanks. If it doesn't, the panicked Wind Sear gets thrown out there, and on occasion I do find myself toggling off my auto attack in a mad hurry. For the most part though, the above has been serving me incredibly well with both raiding and soloing.

H'okay so, we've covered the opening. What about your burst later on in the encounter? Well, this completely depends on the encounter. On a standard Patchwerk like fight, which are quite rare these days, you'd simply use your cooldowns again as they came up. With many encounters, this theory still works fine, but on others you may find that you can't - or shouldn't - always use them all willy nilly. There will be times when you may want to hold off on popping a cooldown lest you get gimped by a boss mechanic, effectively wasting your cooldown (I find that Amber Shaper is great for this; I've learned to hold off on Ascendance especially if Reshape Life is about to go out since he just LOVES to cast it on me if I've just popped Ascendance). Timing is absolutely everything. Until I can get around to dissecting each encounter and get around to writing a guide for them all, I'm afraid you're all on your own with figuring out how you should pop your cooldowns on a given fight. I'm not terribly worried though, you're all smart cookies and are more than capable. I mean, you all chose to play enhancement after all!

As always, if you have any questions about the topic covered here, or any aspect of enhancement for that matter, please do not hesitate to drop a comment here or to contact me through either Twitter or my email (listed under 'Contact' on this blog). I'm always happy to answer questions. I promise I don't bite too hard!

Until next time, keep swinging!

The Art of Soloing - Where To Begin

Greetings young Grasshoppers. So you've come seeking wisdom on how to solo raid bosses, eh?

 
Whether you're after some sweet transmog gear, chasing a new rare raid drop pet, looking for a mount that supposedly exists, or just in the market for a few luls, I am here to happily give you a few pointers on how anyone of any class (and *most* specs) may do any of the things mentioned above.

Pull up a chair and let's get down to my top 5 tips on soloing old content.

1. Throw your old raiding habits out the window

For DPS: You know those old time rules that are practically beat into the head of any raider ever? That silly thing called "watching your threat" and "not standing in front of the big baddy"? Guess what, both of those ideas need to go. No more hiding behind the skirts of some tank. YOU are now the tank. You need to THINK like a tank, move like a tank, DODGE ALL THE THINGS like a tank. You know how you'd maybe only hit those personal defensive cooldowns when the raid damage got kind of ouchie? Yeah, you'll have to learn where you'll actually need to preemptively hit those for certain fights during times you may not be used to. Those security of life blankets we know as healers? GONE. You, my dear little one, are now your own healer. You'll have to learn how to time your personal healing cooldowns to keep yourself from becoming a crispy corpse on the floor.

For Tanks: You dudes and dudettes pretty much do what your usually do, but now it's with a bit of a twist. You'll now be up against possible enrage timers that you'll have to play the role of DPS to get past (though, you buggers with your Vengeances, for the most part damage dealing shouldn't be much of a problem). Like the DPS though, you know longer have your healers at your back. You'll have to absolutely know when to use your mitigation cooldowns to prevent your health from dropping in the first place, and you'll have to know how to heal your own hide in the event that it does dip in percentage.

For Healers: First of all if you're soloing things as a healer, you are A) bloody insane and B) a badass if you're actually pulling it off. In general, with the exception of perhaps Discipline Priests and maaaaaaybe Restoration Druids specced into Heart of the Wild, most healers these days don't have a whole pile of consistent hurt to put out there. Likewise, the majority of healers lack enough personal defense cooldowns to rotate through a given fight. Some do, some don't; the mileage may vary. What I'm getting at is that soloing as someone in a healing specialization may not necessarily get the best results due to either enrage timers or hard hitting mechanics. I shall not deter you from your goals though. If you wish to solo content as a healing type, you go out there and get on with your fancy self.

2. Be aware of EVERYTHING

To semi-contradict the title of the previous point I made, not all raiding habits should be thrown out of the window. Certain things such as getting out of the fire as quickly as possible and watching your timers? Great habits to hold on to. While yes, there are many encounters where the mechanics can now pretty much be ignored, there are still plenty of situations where you'll want to avoid the bad, damage x component of y boss at z time, take down adds so that they don't nuke you, burn down that boss before he can push you six feet under, heal at this time, move when that happens, etc. This goes double for you if you're going for achievements, since many of those are "Don't get hit by this!" or "Kill x of that!" You'll need to watch your feet, your health, the boss' positioning, buffs/debuffs, possibly dispells, interrupts...all the things that you'd usually have 9 or 24 other brains and sets of hands helping you take care of, all by yourself.

It's as if your raid awareness suddenly needs to be hopped up on coffee. The special kind.

3. Know thine utility

Unless you're a high(er) end PvP type, or on the cutting edge of PvE content, changes are pretty good that you may only be aware of a small fraction of the toolkit available to you. It personally took me many years to learn fully understand how important it was to use Shamanistic Rage as a defense cooldown (heck, for a while in ICC it was a DPS cooldown of all things...). With the added utility that has been added into Mists of Pandaria, I'll even admit that there are times when I forget to use certain totems in certain situations (Capacitor Totem is notoriously forgotten by many shaman, yours truly included sometimes). Soloing content will often force you to think outside the box as far as your cooldowns and bag of tricks are concerned. Dismiss nothing in your toolkit. Become familiar with how certain cooldowns may interact with each other, if you're not already. Test out which utility spells help you out in which situation. Push your limits, your knowledge, and if you seem to be falling short, start digging to learn more. Never stop playing mad scientist.

4. Know the fight

Yes, this might be a /facepalm tip but it really does pay to know the mechanics of a fight, even if most of those mechanics no longer necessarily apply. If you cannot kill something within your "zerg" window, you may find yourself having to play nice with mechanics. You may have to roll defensive CDs to mitigate Patchwerks Hateful Strikes. You're going to have to be aware that all three body parts of Mimiron will need to die within a certain time frame from each other in the final phase or things on him will gain health back. And of course, if you're an achievement chaser, you absolutely will need to know how both the achievement works and the mechanics of the boss. A little knowledge can go a long way in preventing frustrations and achievement failure.

5. Know your limits

Soloing is part character level, part gear, part skill, and sometimes even part luck. Some raids are easier to solo once you hit x level plateau. Some boss mechanics are impossible to deal with until you manage to hit y gearing threshold. Many fights have RNG aspects to them that may frustrate you. All of these aspects can affect you to varying degrees depending on your skill level on any given character; some encounters may be neigh on impossible for you until another aspect of the presented equation shifts. It is my firm belief that if you want to solo something, give it a couple of shots. Try anything once, if only for the laughs. If you manage to down it, great! If not, know when it's time to leave it be until you manage to get your mits on better gear or you familiarize yourself with your chosen class/spec further. Not all classes or specs can solo all of the things at the same time. A Blood DK can solo certain content much sooner than an Enhancement Shaman. An Enhancer can solo a lot more currently than say, a Holy Priest. Test the limits of your chosen role, but don't push yourself to the point where you hate what you're doing. Know your personal limits and the limits of your class.


Overall, taking on old content by one's own self is a bit like spinning plates. You need to be aware of a lot of things at once, and if you muck up the balance on one of the plates, everything may come tumbling down. It's all on you and you alone. It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but I think that's the beauty of it, personally. There's no blaming Cindy for missing her taunt, can't complain to Bob for not getting his heal off in time, and Jackie can't be yelled at for not DPSing hard enough. It's all you.

Soloing is a testament to your skill, patience, and I personally think that it shows a certain sort of dedication to your chosen character. It's not always easy, nor is it always pretty. It may come more naturally to some than it does to others, and that's perfectly okay. When you're soloing, you're not on anyone's schedule. No one but you can get frustrated at your mistakes or get huffy when you want to AFK for 30 minutes to grab a bite to eat or get the kids to bed. No one will ever breathe down your neck for not making enough progress in your allotted window. You take everything on in your own time, at your own pace.

One final tip I can give and cannot stress enough is this: Have fun with it. Try to view soloing not as some chore that needs to be done for x item, but as an opportunity to learn a few things about yourself as a player. You may find that you have certain strengths and weaknesses that you weren't aware of before. Soloing is an excellent time to work out some kinks in your playstyle, not to mention to have a little bit of in game *you* time. Again, have fun with it and roll with the punches. Now get out there and do your thang.