Totem Talk: Enhancement shaman Q&A grab bag
by Josh Myers 
Apr 2nd 2011 at 8:00PM
Last week, I asked readers to send in whatever questions they had about enhancement to my email. The two readers I have who are still using email (the archaic form of communication that it is) gave me some pretty awesome questions. For the rest my readers who have decided that email is so two-thousand-and-late, I also asked my Twitter followers to chip in with some questions on what they're struggling to figure out about enhancement. Of the questions asked, I picked four to answer.
As always, if your question wasn't answered (or hasn't been asked yet!), shoot me an email at josh@wowinsider.com or tweet me at twitter.com/elamqt (I prefer Twitter!).
Biting into Rockbiter
What exactly is the use for the Rockbiter Weapon imbue, or if it doesn't really have a use anymore then can you grant some insight into why it might have been kept in the game in a useless state rather than simply removed like Sentry Totem was? -- Mully AthenRockbiter is actually a pretty awesome tool in your arsenal for both PvP and PvE; it just requires a lot of care and preparation to be useful. The first function of Rockbiter Weapon is its Unleash Elements effect. Unleash Earth functions forces the target to attack you for 5 seconds. This is not a Taunt. Taunt effects move you to the top of the aggro list. Unleash Earth functions like the warrior ability Mocking Blow. It has no change to your aggro; it just forces the target to attack you for 5 seconds. After that time period, if you have not built up enough threat (such as through Frost Shock), the mob will return to the person with the most threat. A quick weapon imbue switches followed by an Unleash Elements can buy your healer 5 seconds of life while the tank reestablishes threat.
The other use for Rockbiter is to pre-imbue to weapons with Rockbiter before entering an arena or battleground match. Then, equip your regular weapons and imbue them with a normal Windfury/Flametongue or Frostbrand/Flametongue setup. Set up two equip macros, one to equip your two Rockbiter weapons and one to equip your damaging imbue weapons. When you're being focused and you absolutely need the 10% damage reduction offered by Rockbiter, you can then switch weapons in combat and quickly swap back to damaging weapons when you're free. In that way, Rockbiter is akin to a warrior's Defensive Stance or a death knight's Blood Presence, reducing your damage output while increasing your survivability.
I've seen many QQ at the start of the expansion about Enhancement shamans and how they horribly did in raids, how bad they were in Arena, and how much they died in anything due to their lack of "defensive cooldowns". The peak came when Paragon downed Lady Sinestra without any Shaman in the raid...And Paragon even pointed out shaman concerns such as low Enhancement dps and very low healing throughput. My question(s) is (are): Are these concerns actually true? Is Enhancement that bad in raids? What is your opinion on all this QQ? -- Stand
The thing to remember with any quote from a top-tier guild like Paragon is that they are playing on a level that practically no one else is playing on. They're so incredibly good and have such a pool of talent to choose from that minor imbalances in DPS become huge problems.
Enhancement shaman DPS is in a fine place right now; while we're not the top DPS spec in the game (or even close to being there), we're at a point that our DPS is competitive with other DPS specs. A good enhancement shaman is going to do better than a mediocre shadow priest. A great enhancement shaman is going to do better than (or at least compete with) a good moonkin.
Paragon doesn't really have mediocre players. They have good everything, and in that context of utter top-tier play, enhancement is worse off. For the other 99% of us, the spec is fine.
Also, for the record: According to World of Logs, there are 63 enhancement shaman who have killed Sinestra on 25.
Putting a leash on Unleashed Elements
Enhancement shaman DPS is in a fine place right now; while we're not the top DPS spec in the game (or even close to being there), we're at a point that our DPS is competitive with other DPS specs. A good enhancement shaman is going to do better than a mediocre shadow priest. A great enhancement shaman is going to do better than (or at least compete with) a good moonkin.
Paragon doesn't really have mediocre players. They have good everything, and in that context of utter top-tier play, enhancement is worse off. For the other 99% of us, the spec is fine.
Also, for the record: According to World of Logs, there are 63 enhancement shaman who have killed Sinestra on 25.
Putting a leash on Unleashed Elements
What's the deal with Unleash Elements? How does it fit into the priority, and when is the best time to use it? What is the best spell to use after it? -- Aaronsteinberg and Saandstom, Twitter
The only spell an enhancement shaman ever wants to cast with Unleash Flame is Flame Shock, and you want that Unleash Elements-buffed Flame Shock to be up almost 100% of the time. Since the actual Unleash Flame buff lasts 8 seconds, you want to cast it any time there are fewer than 7 seconds left on your Flame Shock. Even if it is off cooldown before that (and since it has a wonky 15-second CD, there will be times it comes off sooner), you're going to want to delay it slightly. Once you're within that 7-second window, feel free to cast UE. Remember to use your higher-priority moves like Lava Lash, refreshing Searing Totem, and even Stormstrike to eat up your GCDs so that you can cast Flame Shock as the other one is about to fall off.
UE is also tricky because it has a relatively low priority, but a UE-buffed Flame Shock is one of our highest priorities. What this means is that you want to prioritize attacks like Maelstrom Weapon Lightning Bolt above UE while the FS dot is still above 3 seconds, but if it gets down to 3 seconds, you want to fire off an Unleash Elements and get that buffed Flame Shock up.
Hitting the hit cap
UE is also tricky because it has a relatively low priority, but a UE-buffed Flame Shock is one of our highest priorities. What this means is that you want to prioritize attacks like Maelstrom Weapon Lightning Bolt above UE while the FS dot is still above 3 seconds, but if it gets down to 3 seconds, you want to fire off an Unleash Elements and get that buffed Flame Shock up.
Hitting the hit cap
How important is hitting the hit/expertise cap, also is it possible to hit the crit cap and what is it? -- OreoNation, Twitter
Spell hit is an incredibly important secondary stat. A missed Flame Shock costs us a Flame Shock cast, and we have to wait 15 seconds for the Unleash Elements to be up. A missed Earth Shock or Lightning Bolt is no damage and lost chances to proc Elemental Devastation. Even more crippling is a missed Wind Shear on a Shadow Nova on heroic Halfus, damning your raid to a short run back to the instance.
While less important than spell hit, expertise is really needed. For me, non-crit Lava Lashes hit for around 25,000 damage, fully raid buffed. A dodged Lava Lash is a lost chunk of DPS, while a dodged Stormstrike means 8 seconds with no nature damage debuff.
While these stats are important, it's also worth noting that they're still secondary stats. In nearly all cases, agility is shown to have more value point for point than spell hit, meaning that you should only reforge and enchant for spell hit, never gem it. A 40 agility gem is almost always going to be better than a 40 hit gem. The only exception to this rule is if you are absolutely needed for interrupts, when capping spell hit is required. (However, this will be going away in 4.1.)
The critical cap is a different beast entirely. It's a point where you cannot add any more crit to your gear without adding more hit to eliminate glancing blows. However, we reached critical cap in Wrath of the Lich King for three main reasons:
Show your totemic mastery by reading Totem Talk: Enhancement every week. We've got enhancement-specific advice on rep gear, heroic gear, and raiding gear, plus tips on maximizing your utility skills and tactics for raiding Blackwing Descent.
While less important than spell hit, expertise is really needed. For me, non-crit Lava Lashes hit for around 25,000 damage, fully raid buffed. A dodged Lava Lash is a lost chunk of DPS, while a dodged Stormstrike means 8 seconds with no nature damage debuff.
The critical cap is a different beast entirely. It's a point where you cannot add any more crit to your gear without adding more hit to eliminate glancing blows. However, we reached critical cap in Wrath of the Lich King for three main reasons:
- Talents like Thundering Strikes gave us way too much passive crit.
- There were more crit-oriented raid buffs and debuffs than in Cataclysm.
- Wrath of the Lich King was never designed to support the gear levels we eventually got to, as Blizzard didn't decide to include hard modes with separate and greater gear until after the first tier of raiding.
Show your totemic mastery by reading Totem Talk: Enhancement every week. We've got enhancement-specific advice on rep gear, heroic gear, and raiding gear, plus tips on maximizing your utility skills and tactics for raiding Blackwing Descent.
Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Banoo Apr 2nd 2011 9:41PM
I prefer to cast Unleash Elements as soon as it comes off cd. There are two reasons for this. First of all Unleash Elements hits harder than many of our other abilites, on a recent WoL parse the average hit for Unleash Flame was 8.8k with average crit being 13.8k. Unleash Wind added another 3.8k and 7.9k crit to the mix as you can see the damage is not to be sniffed at, in fact it hits almost as hard as a Lightning Bolt. The other reason I cast it as soon as possible is because of the Unleash Wind buff, I want to have as much uptime as possible on that buff.
Of course you still want to be casting Flame Shock whenever the Unleash Flame buff is up, so I just go ahead and clip it. A buffed Flame Shock does more damage than an Earth Shock within 2 ticks, so there is no dps loss from clipping the dot. The most important thing is to make sure that a buffed Flame Shock is up all the time.
I use a castsequence macro atm with Flame Shock, Earth Shock. I have Earth Shock on the alt modifier should I be able to fit the 3rd shock in before Unleash Elements comes back off cd.
SaintStryfe Apr 2nd 2011 10:02PM
Likewise. Personally, I just macro UL-FS-ES-ES with a 16 second reset. It's perfect, and it's just one button. You suffer a tiny bit on some bosses, like Omnitron, but honestly, the loss is gained back by the mental release you get, to keep focused on things like moving and interrupting.
Banoo Apr 2nd 2011 10:37PM
@SaintStryfe
I tried a castsequence macro that had UE at the start. I dropped it as I didn't like my shocks being tied into UE on target switches.
Josh Myers Apr 3rd 2011 12:09AM
If you use UE on cooldown, you're messing up in two ways. First, you're skipping over higher priority attacks like Lightning Bolt (which hits for almost as hard as UE crits for combined and has a 28% higher crit chance properly glyphed), Lava Lash, and redropping Searing Totem.
Second, FS has an 18 second duration while UE has a 16 second CD. By the fourth UE, your FS will have around 8 seconds left. Clipping an FS like that will result in a dps loss.
SaintStryfe Apr 3rd 2011 5:33AM
@Banoo - I can understand. I just don't think there are that many, at least in this tier of raiding - to be worried about. you suffer a bit on Omnitron, the only fight where I have to switch targets frequently, but then again, my DPS looks like crap in that fight because I sit there and interrupt/take down Posion Protocol* anyway. In theory on the Twin Dragons and the Ascendant Council should also be affected, but in reality, both of those fights though have you on one target for significant lengths of time. Even if you break in the middle, I find the DPS difference is pretty minimal, really.
Again, the purpose of my macro is singular: To free up my mental processes to do other more important tasks. If you're good enough that you can have 3 separate buttons for UE, FS and ES and keep them all rolling equally, more power to you. I cannot do that AND do things like interrupt, stay out of fire, throw the odd healing rain, keep my priorities straight, ect, ect. It's my little cheat button. My DPS doesn't suffer so that I don't crush the charts in my runs, and the freed up mental process means I am always standing at the end.
This game is all about figuring out how you should play best, not how someone else does and copying slavishly.
@Josh - When you add the global cool-downs into it, the time balances out. If I clip, it's under a second left, which to me, isn't even a clip, usually. Most of the real time, I don't. My time tends to go like this 1(UE)+1(Global Cool Down)+1(FS)+5(Shock Cooldown with Reverb)+1(ES)+5(SCD)+1(GCD, resetting to UE)=15. If you're worried about the FS Dot, add on two more and you get 17 - just one second shy. Add in real-world lag, hitting the Stormstrike just before the last GCD, in the real world I never clip a dot unless something funky is going on.
Theorycraft world is fun, but I can just say that I find in my experience, it just doesn't happen.
*- Poison Protocol, also the name of my New-Wave Revival Band.
Banoo Apr 3rd 2011 8:43AM
@JoshMyers
Of course you still use higher priority abilities as they are supposed to be used, but the only abilities higher in my list are ST_0, LL, LB, FS_UF. Clipping the dot is in no way a dps loss. A buffed Flame Shock does more damage within the 6 second cd of your shocks, it also has the added bonus that there are 3 chances for it to crit in that time, the intitial shock plus the 2 ticks. I also quite often find I am refreshing the dot just as it is about to run out. This is due to higher priority abilities coming off cd before I can get a shock off. Whether it is the Flame Shock or the following Earth Shock that is delayed doesn't matter the effect is the same, the shock cd is pushed back a little in the time window of the UE cd meaning less of the dot will be clipped. I rarely clip more than 4 seconds of the existing dot, and with my understanding off the dot system in Cata this doesn't reset the ticks it merely adds time to the existing dot.
@SaintStryfe
I completely understand why you do it like that, as I said I tried it. What I found was I got messed up with target switches having to wait on the 15sec cd to reset before I could start back into my rotation. I found it had the opposite effect and rather than letting me focus on the fight, I was focusing on my shocks more than I ought to be. I now have Unleash Elements on the keybind where my Lightning Shield was on WotLK, this just works better for me.
Banoo Apr 3rd 2011 11:12AM
@JoshMyers
Also worth pointing out, even if clipping Flame Shock early in itself turns out to be dps neutral, using the harder hitting Unleash Elements earlier than would have been otherwise used is a dps increase.
SaintStryfe Apr 3rd 2011 3:58PM
@Banoo: I can dig.
If anyone is interested, the Macro I use is:
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=18 Unleash Elements, Flame Shock, Earth Shock, Earth Shock
/startattack [harm]
If you shift targets, it will not reset unless completed or 18 seconds goes by. The version Banoo is using probably adds a target into the reset modifer, so it resets of you change targets. This is not good if you're dealing with trash or many changes (IE Omnitron), because when it resets you're locked into waiting on the CD. That's why I stick with just the reset=18.
Banoo Apr 3rd 2011 4:15PM
Yeh macro probably did have a reset on target conditional in. I had just modified my old shock sequence macro from wrath.
Mummrah Apr 2nd 2011 10:32PM
Seriously guys/gals of WoWInsider (Looking at you senior editors)......this guy has been making the same obnoxious spam comment for over a week now. Time for a perma yet?
Kyle Apr 2nd 2011 10:56PM
I wish they'd fix elemental gearing already. We're sitting here sharing gear with hunters who need 8% hit, and no expertise. Do you know what a ridiculous pain it is to reach 17% spell hit cap and expertise cap while still trying to salvage more fun stats, like agility... or mastery. I want to see bigger hits and crits, but my dps is coming from the fact that once I've gotten spell hit/expertise capped, I'm practically capped on white hits too. Even dks and ret paladins have a talent for spell hit. Why not enhancement shamans? Lightning bolt, our shocks, UL, even flametounge attack is all spell damage. Leaves us with two actual melee abilities, LL and SS.
And enhancement dps isn't alright where it's at. The only reason I have a raid spot every week is for the 5 second wind shear (which btw, we need to be spell capped for also or it's shadow novas and depravity for everyone.)
Powatodapeople Apr 2nd 2011 11:09PM
as stated in the article, a great enhancement shaman is pretty competitive with dps. there isn't much wrong with our damage; if there was we would see some buffs in the patch notes.
while I do agree with you that the spell hit cap is annoying to reach along with expertise, it's far from impossible, especially thanks to reforging
SaintStryfe Apr 3rd 2011 5:46AM
If the only reason you have a raid spot is your interrupt, you're probably playing with jerks. Find people who appreciate you for you, and have fun gaming rather then racing to play with the good people just to get ahead faster.
jonas Apr 3rd 2011 1:52PM
Our 2nd highest dps is our enhancement shaman - and he's super consistant about it too. I definitely concur that there's nothing wrong with Enh dps. (for reference, we're working on heroic raid content, with 5 down so far)
Kyle Apr 2nd 2011 10:58PM
And just to clear the table, sorry for the double post here, but Shadow Priests are the number one dps spec right now. Enhancement shamans don't have a shot at topping them unless that priest is clueless.
source -
www.StateofDPS.com
Josh Myers Apr 3rd 2011 12:15AM
We're 11th of 22 on that list. I fail to see how that is barely qualifying for a raid spot.
kingoomieiii Apr 3rd 2011 12:27AM
I see Enh at 22k-ish, and Shadow at 25k-ish. This is a pretty small gap. Like the article says, a great enhancement shaman will top a good shadow priest. Losing that 3k isn't hard if you're clipping casts and missing procs occasionally.
Vitos Apr 3rd 2011 4:09AM
My guild is not the best at raiding, nor am I the best raider, but I'm usually one of the top three DPS (and I'm often the one on interrupt duty because the others are ranged) so I feel that Enh is in a good place.
SaintStryfe Apr 3rd 2011 5:36AM
I find myself exactly where you are, Vitos. I hear a lot of complaining, but I top my guild's charts everyweek, with a very good shadow priest, fire mage and fury warrior following behind me. part of it is gear - I lucked out on our early gear drops - but it does'nt explain how at this point, where very few of us have any blues left to replace, I can still do 2-3 more K of damage, even on a movement-heavy fight like Cho'gall.
zulkie Apr 2nd 2011 11:48PM
One day there will be no more expertise, spell hit, melee hit, dual wield hit etc cap stats.