Enhancement viability in a raid sense

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Post by rayford

As a Shammy that recently specced FROM Enhancement TO Elemental, here's my take on it.

I won't repeat what Godzilla or Gauroth have already said, since doing that would just be repetitive.

When I was Enhancement, just viewing my DPS alone (not adding in any from the rest of my group), I found that it varied wildly. For one fight, I could have 1200 DPS. Then for the next, it could be 500 or 600. Then the next fight was 900. I even had it drop down to 400 DPS in Kara, once. That wasn't due to any sort of failure on my part. It was simply the fact that Windfury refused to proc. Or when it did, it wasn't a crit. (note: I've got roughly 1100 AP and a 25% crit chance). It was all bad luck. But for an Enhancement, thats part of what you get. When Windfury decides not to proc, there's nothing you can do. But you can rest assured that you will be buffing your group greatly with Unleashed Rage and your totems. And thats what we're there for. Shammies are a DPS hybrid class. We're there to do DPS, and to provide group-wide buffs. Sure, you can refuse to buff your group with totems, but in the end, you'll just be gimping your groups DPS. And nobody wants that, do they?

Now, though, I'm Elemental. My gear isn't super. I've got roughly 8k mana, 450 nature spell damage, around 15% crit, and around 120 mp5 unbuffed. Shoot, for now, I'm still wearing 2 healing pieces. But since I've gone Elemental, I've seen my DPS is a lot more consistent. If I get a good string of crits, I can pop up to about 1500 DPS. But on average, I sit at around 800-900 DPS. However, in doing so, I've lost some of my group support. Granted, Totem of Wrath is sexy. I won't deny that. But when you compare Unleashed Rage, plus your buffed Strength of Earth totem, plus Stormstrike to Totem of Wrath, it just doesn't seem like ToW is quite as large a buff to me.

Basically, as Enhancement, you'll provide more group buffs, which helps the your group DPS. Just bear in mind that YOUR DPS will bounce around. When you're Elemental, your DPS is more consistent, but your buffs aren't quite as great.