
Totem Talk is written by a shaman for shamans. What does that mean? Well, it means that Matthew Rossi is currently healing with a level 70 resto shammy, and is leveling up a 47 enhancement shaman as well. In fact, the only reason he stopped playing said shaman to write this column is out of his deep sense of commitment to you. Oh, and they shut down the servers for a couple of hours. But mostly deep commitment to you.
I hated my first shaman so much I left him at level 16 for five months.
It was hard to figure out for me. I was so used to warriors that I couldn't wrap my head around how to play a mana-using class, especially one that lacked all the abilities I'd grown so used to and dependent on. I tried a mage, a warlock, a hunter and a shaman, and none of them really worked for me. So I gave up on the shaman, and went and rolled up a new tauren warrior and leveled him up post haste so that I could join in on the fun reindeer games on my new horde server. (The server's not horde, but I was horde on it.) Every so often I would try another character... I made a druid and a priest but didn't get that far with them... but in the end, once I hit 60 and with the expansion looming, I decided to go back and give the shaman another try and I discovered the spec that changed everything for me.
Enhancement. Say it with me.
Enhancement. To make things better. And boy, in my case, enhancement delivered all the better I could possibly have needed. A lot of folks make a typographical error and call them
enchantment shamans, and in my case that's apt, because the first time I saw a
windfury crit I was indeed enchanted. Rapt, even. One moment I was fighting a hyena outside of Gadgetzan and the next... I wasn't. It fell down. Fell down and went
boom, even. I'd had that happen to me in battlegrounds, mind you, but I'd never really imagined that I could do it to others.
I admit now, trying to go elemental was a mistake for me. It's an excellent spec, but it's a caster spec. And I, my friends, am not a caster. I am melee in my heart, and so, I needed a melee spec to level. And with dual wielding, weapon enchants like windfury and
rockbiter, and totems like
grace of air and
strength of earth, the enhancement shaman is a melee spec that makes other melee better to boot. How, I ask you, how can you go wrong with enhancement?
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Filed under: Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, Draenei, Leveling, Classes, (Shaman) Totem Talk