Enhance hybrid with full fang set?

[Ehawther]

So let's get this straight:



-Are you intentionally ignoring BoA items?

-Is this some kind of budget twink?

-Are you trying to play Enhancement seriously, or are you just screwing around with odd gear choices that make you a less effective memeber of your team?



Look at the item build I have supplied below (which some could agrue would require minor tweaks to truly be considered BiS) and tell me why I should go with your idea when with this more standard build I can get significantly more crit, hit, ap (and therefore sp) at the cost of ~200hp.



chardev 8 - WoW Cataclysm - My enhancement build.

chardev 8 - WoW Cataclysm - Your Enhancement build with "questionable" gear choices. (I took the liberty of keeping the weapons and trinkets the same unless you are planning on using something entirely different.)

 

[glancealot]

So let's get this straight:



-Are you intentionally ignoring BoA items?

-Is this some kind of budget twink?

-Are you trying to play Enhancement seriously, or are you just screwing around with odd gear choices that make you a less effective memeber of your team?



Look at the item build I have supplied below (which some could agrue would require minor tweaks to truly be considered BiS) and tell me why I should go with your idea when with this more standard build I can get significantly more crit, hit, ap (and therefore sp) at the cost of ~200hp.



chardev 8 - WoW Cataclysm - My enhancement build.

chardev 8 - WoW Cataclysm - Your Enhancement build with "questionable" gear choices. (I took the liberty of keeping the weapons and trinkets the same unless you are planning on using something entirely different.)

finally, a legit response.



ok guy i appreciate that you built those two chardev templates, but i prefer to use wowhead so please bear with me.



i am going to compare the fang set with the alternatives that you come up with, because all the other pieces are irrelevant (i can just get the same pieces for all the other slots if i wanted to), enchant is irrelevant either here because there is no 35+ items involved so let's just assume i ll get whatever enchant you get.



look at the comparison yourself:



comparison chart



the difference is, at 19,



fang set:



1 Agi which is 1 SP + 2 AP

20 Int which is 20 SP + 300 mana

4 Expertise (8.06) translates into 2% less dodge, 2% less parry

so basically



2AP, 21 SP, 300 mana, 2% less dodge, 2% less parry



vs







yours



19 Crit (6.42%)



now i don't know about you but given those two options, i am picking the first one not only because it saves time from grinding that BoA chest but it also offers a more balanced and thus more satisfying result.

 

[notoriousthf]

chardev 8 - WoW Cataclysm

Dwarf shamans get 3 expertise from using maces.

5 expertise rating for 10.08 expertise.



Problems with hybriding:

you miss out on .5 second cast reduction for healing wave from resto

-though it's not viable either way for its low heals. hard to heal self during combat I'm sure.



you miss out on .5 second cast reduction for lightning bolt, and the 100% crit damage bonus for spells.

-Initially, you wouldn't out-damage an elemental shaman if you tried using lightning bolt as enhancement.



I can't see what you have in item comparison tool.

 

[glancealot]

chardev 8 - WoW Cataclysm

Dwarf shamans get 3 expertise from using maces.

5 expertise rating for 10.08 expertise.



Problems with hybriding:

you miss out on .5 second cast reduction for healing wave from resto

-though it's not viable either way for its low heals. hard to heal self during combat I'm sure.



you miss out on .5 second cast reduction for lightning bolt, and the 100% crit damage bonus for spells.

-Initially, you wouldn't out-damage an elemental shaman if you tried using lightning bolt as enhancement.



I can't see what you have in item comparison tool.

if you just upgraded to firefox RC 4 or IE 9, then i would suggest going back to firefox 3.6 because the same thing happened to me so i just reinstalled firefox 3.6 and i could use wowhead comparison again.



thank you btw for reminding me that we can get 7 agi to boots! appreciated!



regarding the viability of enhance, thank you for the input, i guess we will find out the truth once i finish this toon, the best part about this project (see my edited initial post): the hardest thing to get is lucky fishing hat, no BoA grind needed, no AH scanning needed, no race/faction change needed.

 

[notoriousthf]

If you want no BoAs, you can use [item]shadowfang spaulders[/item] and [item]azure scale vest[/item] for shoulder and chest.

A BoA helm doesn't require much but an 85 grinding for honored on a lv20 guild, and 1.5k.

 

[Ehawther]

look at the comparison yourself:



comparison chart



the difference is, at 19,



fang set:



1 Agi which is 1 SP + 2 AP

20 Int which is 20 SP + 300 mana

4 Expertise (8.06) translates into 1% less dodge, 1% less parry

so basically



2AP, 21 SP, 300 mana, 1% less dodge, 1% less parry



vs







yours



19 Crit (6.42%)

Good comparison - this makes a lot more sense now. The additional spell power from this build does make it attractive, and the expertise is also a nice bonus, however the extra mana is next to negligable and so I question how powerful this actually is. Extra crit affects every part of an Enhancement Shaman's abilities (melee dps, spell dps, and heals) while the bonuses of your suggested items only affect the spells that an Enhancement Shaman will cast. Melee dps is still your bread and butter and should account for a greater total portion of your damage dealt than spells cast, even with Lava Lash, shocks, totems, etc.



Both options could be viable, but I will still side with my suggested item build as it caters more to improving the melee dps of an Enhancement Shaman. But hey, if you don't want to farm BoA items/don't have access to them, then this is a strong second choice.

 

[Kore nametooshort]

fang set:



1 Agi which is 1 SP + 2 AP

20 Int which is 20 SP + 300 mana

4 Expertise (8.06) translates into 1% less dodge, 1% less parry

so basically



2AP, 21 SP, 300 mana, 1% less dodge, 1% less parry



vs







yours



19 Crit (6.42%)



now i don't know about you but given those two options, i am picking the first one not only because it saves time from grinding that BoA chest but it also offers a more balanced and thus more satisfying result.

I would prefer the 6.42% crit. Mana is useless to enhancement shaman, they never oom. I haven't done any maths on it, but I'm willing to bet the dps difference between the ap + sp + exp vs the crit is negligible, and if anything in favour of the crit. As such I'd go for the crit for the increased burst.

 

[Ehawther]

4, like any other spec, you can STILL use a shield when you need to cast a lot. but you are also open to duel-wield.



edit: so i am going to go ahead and roll an ALLIANCE enhance shaman with this spec

Okay last post on this one. A shield? Really? You must be trolling. This is situational at best if you are running a flag or something, and if you are standing around casting spells then you are doing it wrong. Spec Elemental.



Your point still stands regarding the strength of the complete "of the Fang" set for Enhancement Shaman with no access to BoA items, but it's still inferior to a BoA geat set. Everything else you have posted is just garbage. And last time I checked, if you are twinking for 19's it's an all or nothing kind of world. A "balanced result" is just another way of saying you'll be a shitty caster and melee dps, instead of doing one of those jobs really well.

 

[Rivfader]

Glance, please go back to clogging up 49s with ideas that everyone has already thought of and dimissed. BTW, mental dexterity got removed.

 

[Ehawther]

Glance, please go back to clogging up 49s with ideas that everyone has already thought of and dimissed. BTW, mental dexterity got removed.

Mental Quickness is the Enhancement Shaman Passive that converts AP into SP. 1 Agi = 2 AP = 1 SP. Regardless this thread is garbage... Can't believe I got sucked into this one.

 

[glancealot]

Glance, please go back to clogging up 49s with ideas that everyone has already thought of and dimissed. BTW, mental dexterity got removed.

hey at least i do good research before making half-baked posts like you.



here is the wowhead link for you if you don't get what we are discussing here.



Mental Quickness - Spell - World of Warcraft

Okay last post on this one. A shield? Really? You must be trolling. This is situational at best if you are running a flag or something, and if you are standing around casting spells then you are doing it wrong. Spec Elemental. Regardless this thread is garbage...

that's some strong words, i don't know why you suddenly seem p1ssed about this thread now.



enlighten me, why spec elemental if i want to stand around and cast? i guess it's true if you want to stand around and cast damaging spells, but when i stand around i am going to heal, the only dps i will do is



1, primal strike

2, white attacks when i need mana (thanks to this), but kore said enhance will never run out of mana, i doubt that would be the case if i heal a lot.

3, occasional shocks when it's not on CD.



it won't be too hard to proc crusader seeing my MH is 2.8. and crusader = 100 more str= 100 more AP = 50 more SP!!!



so without access to stormstrike, i am not losing a ton of dps for using a shield. like i said, i will stand around and heal a lot, primal strike+white attack hoping for crusader proc; gear agi/stam/int for big heals/shocks/primal strike.

 

[thrombombom]

You will lose a lot of damage from not have lava lash, if you use a shield. (having said that, I've tried equipping a shield when flag running in WSG....in a close situation it might matter, but usually I find either you have group support, and it doesn't matter much because you don't take much damage, or you don't have support and get targetted, and you are going down anyway.



Note that healing wave is the 'effecient' (i.e. slow and not so strong) heal in the shaman healing arsenal. It is designed to be the baseline heal in PVE, and tends to be somewhat weak in battlegrounds in my experience (especially without the reduced cast time). The reduced cast time on lightning bolt for elemental will also probably outweigh an extra spell power that you bring, I'd guess.



But I, for one, would like to know how it goes for you. I happen to have an enhance shaman I XP froze at 19 in order to do all the quests I had access to at that level (you can access a lot of the quests in Duskwood and Ashenvale), for a tiny bit of challenge (it still is not very hard, especially as your gear improves). I still have a few Ashenvale quests to knock off, and some of the Wailing Caverns quests (because I always seem to come into those runs in the middle so still haven't killed one of the bosses). I have to decide soon whether to go do some battlegrounds in an equipment set that will be similar to what you are aiming for, or turn on XP, do a few BG then level out of the bracket and keep on questing. (either way I expect to play more in the traditional enhance style--and also no BOA, as I've been too busy being an altaholic to level anything to endgame, which so far doesn't interest me much)



As for set 'of the Fang', if you look at Wowhead most of the pieces have ~20-25% drop rate from a boss, but the gloves are ~3% from more common mobs (probably works out to a similar chance per run. Random numbers are random, so no guarantee, and you'll usually be rolling against someone else, so I'd say if you really wanted the full set I'd plan on doing something like ten full runs, and there would still be no guarantee--but you could get lucky. If you can live with all but one of the pieces you probably get by with quite a few less runs.)



edit: To a few other posters: if you don't think it is a good idea, how about just saying that, and why, rather than trashing the guy. He came with enthusiasm.....wouldn't you rather have people enthusiastic about the game and trying new things, rather than bored, cynical, and stuck in a rut?

 

[Quinp]

You have no healing surge as 19 shaman so healing wave costs 3 second to cast and heals for 200. No enhance or shaman in general is not viable at 19, only if you have a pocket healer.

 

[Rivfader]

Mental dexterity and mental quickness are two different abilities. Try again.

 

[Karok]

enhance shaman gets 1 sp for every agi they have, i plan to build an enhance shaman to both heal + dps.

.

.

.

1, you can have a scary amount of spell power (you gain SP from attack power, so all of your agi/str wil raise your SP) , so your heals will be very big and your damaging spells will hit very hard.

Seen it mentioned a few times but just thought I'd reinforce this point: If you think healing wave will be "very big" you have no clue about this class right now and should give up the idea. Your dream of a dps/heal hybrid IS NOT VIABLE; even as resto, shammy healing lags behind almost any other class with the exception of very situational moments due to EARTH SHEILD, which you will not have.



Have fun, but i strongly recommend you reconsider and spend your time on something more constructive.

 

[danceparty]

if you want to do mad deeps and heals, just roll a priest.



you can't run around life a dead wolf though...

 

[Kore nametooshort]

but kore said enhance will never run out of mana, i doubt that would be the case if i heal a lot.

Your only healing spell costs 9% base mana which is about 24-32 or something and it takes a 3second cast. Even with zero additional mana and no mana regeneration it would take 33 seconds to run oom from healing and thats pretty unlikely to happen since you will never get a situation where it is viable or even possible to spend 33 seconds casting healing wave non stop. Trust me when i say mana is a non factor here.

 

[threesets]

just roll one spec or the other... it's not worth trying to merge em

 

[glancealot]

i see. well thanks for the input. i guess this idea isn't viable until blizzard makes Healing Surge available to 19's...



well i am sorry guys i just wanted to think outside of the box



sorry kore for doubting you, thanks for the detailed explanation.

 

[notoriousthf]

Mental Quickness is the Enhancement Shaman Passive that converts AP into SP. 1 Agi = 2 AP = 1 SP. Regardless this thread is garbage... Can't believe I got sucked into this one.

Mental dexterity was the other way around, it turned INT into AP. This one turns AP into SP.



The way healing wave heals though, you shouldn't count on it unless you're not in combat. Even for resto it heals pitifully.



Enhancement is viable, no doubt, but you have to choose your gear wisely.