Fenrok
Grandfathered
Hello! My name is Fenrok, and I'm rather new here. If you read nothing else past these first few lines, all that I ask is that you read my disclaimer which will be posted right here at the top. There will be a TLDR at the bottom. Sorry for the text bomb... I got carried away. Thanks!
Disclaimer:
-I do not believe this is an optimal method of playing an Enhancement Shaman at level 20 in the 20-29 bracket. I tried this with no other intention than to have a bit of a laugh at trying something that I thought would be completely absurd.
-I'm pretty new to twinking, and as such I am not entirely sure what would be considered good numbers. All that I can lay claim to is that it was pretty damned fun.
All right, now that that's out of the way!
Enhancement as a free to play account capped at level 20, even with gear in every slot, is a bit underwhelming in terms of damage from my experience. This is mostly due to the fact that, as a trial, you are unable to access Stormstrike which becomes available at level 26, or crash lightning which becomes available at level 28. So, for the purpose of level 20-29 twink battlegrounds/skirmishes as an Enhancement Shaman, your only damaging abilities are Rockbiter/Boulderfist(If talented), Windsong(If Talented), Lava Lash, Frostbrand, and Flametongue. Lightning Bolt is more a utility spell, best used for keeping fleeing rogues in combat to prevent a restealth and maybe plinking off an enemy totem. Outside of damage, you also have Healing Surge as a support ability.
For those of you that are aware of how Enhancement works now with 7.0, you can probably skip this next paragraph. Enhancement Shaman are now a builder/spender spec, and rely on Maelstrom generation as a resource - much like rage for a warrior. Certain abilities generate Maelstrom, and certain abilities cost Maelstrom. A key thing to note is that Healing Surge will consume 20 Maelstrom, if available, to cause it to be an instant cast spell. This is vital for what I want to discuss! With the level 15 talent your Rockbiter ability is replaced with Boulderfist. Boulderfist has 2 charges on a 6 second cooldown (reduced by haste), and increases the Maelstrom generation to 25 per cast. It also applies a self-buff (5% increased critical strike/damage).
Moving on, as an Enhancement shaman you generally keep up Flametongue, generate Maelstrom using Rockbiter/Boulderfist, and spend it on Healing Surge or Lava Lash. The problem that I've found for a level 20 Enhancement Shaman is Lava Lash. To explain, Lava Lash is designed as a filler spell to keep from capping Maelstrom, where as your highest priority would naturally go into Stormstrike - which is unavailable to trial twink Enhancement.
Lava Lash costs 30 maelstrom, and with the Hothands talent it has a 10% chance while Flametongue is active to proc 100% increased damage and reduced Maelstrom cost, which I personally have seen crits as high as 1.2k from on plate classes. This makes it do considerable damage, at the cost of being entirely RNG. Sometimes it procs frequently, sometimes.. not so much, which can be a real pain in the ass.
Without Flametongue, though, Lava Lash's damage isn't quite up to par - in my opinion. Costing 30 Maelstrom, the damage you deal using Lava Lash felt really lackluster to me. Now as a 29 shaman this is hardly a concern because of Stormstrike, but as a 20, it's sort of... meh, to play Enhancement at all. The lack of damage may be why they appear to be a less-popular choice, but I'm not sure, maybe some more experienced vets can elaborate on that.
I'm a long time fan of Enhancement, and even if I can't do the best damage in the world, I still wanted to play it in some capacity. So, thinking back to the days of Vanilla Enhancement where 2h weapons were commonly used, I decided to screw around. This is what I found:
Ignoring Lava Lash entirely may sound completely stupid, and I agree, but what I stumbled on is an incredibly potent support playstyle for Enhancement Shaman. With a 2h weapon Lava Lash can't be used, but it does increase the damage of Boulderfist slightly. Keep in mind that using a 2h weapon is not even remotely necessary, but it's a nice flavor and call back to Vanilla if nothing else. It doesn't matter either way. What I did find though, is that by completely ignoring Lava Lash and instead dumping all of your Maelstrom into Healing Surge when needed turns Enhancement into a surprisingly effective support class, with some added damage. Rockbiter would sometimes hit 600+ criticals back to back, and Healing Surge would frequently critical up to 1.8k. The Boulderfist self-buff applied when casting the ability also applies to your healing, and while 5% critical strike isn't a lot, it's still nice to have.
The results of playing Enhancement like this has lead me to being MUCH tankier, and much more valuable to my team. For the sake of an example, I asked a rogue to stay and defend the flag room with me at the start of a Warsong Gulch, and we successfully held off a 4v2 with them primarily focusing me. Naturally I didn't just stand there and facetank it all, but using ghostwolf to LoS, using Boulderfist to pool Maelstrom to keep me and my rogue homie alive, we prevented anyone from leaving the FR. Eventually, we capped and the rogue left to chase down kills, but I decided to stay. Both teams were sort of screwing around in mid at that point, and I waited for a while in the flag room. In the few minutes I was there, I found myself in several 1v1's! I won't say I was invincible, I certainly wasn't, but anyone that dared step into melee range had a VERY difficult time dealing with me. I did this for some time, killing a few warriors, a feral, a rogue, and having a near-death experience with a survival hunter. I was surprised at the 1v1 potential, and then the BG ended.
The second BG I tried had one healer on each team. I can't say anything for the teams, but this time I decided to play the BG as intended - using Lava Lash. I found myself, even pooling 50+ Maelstrom and only using Lava Lash to prevent capping, much squishier and the damage was really just not worth what could have been extra healing to me. Even the contrast approach, pooling Maelstrom and spending it all on Lava Lash didn't seem to pack enough punch to warrant the survivability loss.
The Third BG, I reequipped my 2h axe, and removed Lava Lash from my bar. I can't post links yet due to the new-account rule, but I uploaded the results of the third BG to Imgur. I ended the BG with 89k healing done (the only "healer" on my team), and 44.9k damage dealt @ 7-2 k/d. Kills and deaths don't mean anything to me, I'd rather win than go 40-0 or what have you, so that's just a personal preference. Playing Enhancement like this in the level 20 bracket seems to be considerably more effective than the usual route, but I can understand why people would find it underwhelming going into a BG.
So, why am I sharing this? Because since I started playing this a few days ago, I have only ever seen one or two other Enhancement Shaman that weren't just levelers. Yes, you most assuredly COULD just go restoration! You definitely could, and there's no real reason not to. However, if you're looking for a fun little thing to try out, give it a shot! You might like it, and maybe even give Enhancement a second look afterwards. It is not the traditional DPS role, and as such I can understand if people that queued as a dps, would want to play primarily as a dps, and focus on damage and dps-related responsibilities/gameplay. For me, and if there's any likeminded folks out there, I really enjoy capitalizing on the hybrid aspect of Shaman and Enhancement most assuredly provides that feel!
And so, that's my post. Now, for the TLDR!
TLDR:
Enhancement Shaman in the trial twink bracket (level 20) seem to be rare. If you love the idea of Enhancement, and are okay with playing more of a tanky/support role, try Boulderfist and focusing on Healing Surge as opposed to Lava Lash. It's a slower paced playstyle, but if it seems to work really well! You can even equip a 2h weapon if you're like me and hang onto the fond memories of shaman from Vanilla, sans having Windfury (which was sort of the point, but hey, at least you can look the part!) I figured I'd share here, in the XPOff community.
I know you could just go Restoration, but as I said - this was just a fun little experiment I decided to try, and it ended up being fairly effective.
Has anyone out there tried some alternative playstyles to Enhancement? Either way, I'd love to discuss some 20-29 Enhancement Shaman gameplay with you folks if possible. Thanks for reading, I hope someone found it interesting.
~Fenrok
Edit: Spellcheck
Disclaimer:
-I do not believe this is an optimal method of playing an Enhancement Shaman at level 20 in the 20-29 bracket. I tried this with no other intention than to have a bit of a laugh at trying something that I thought would be completely absurd.
-I'm pretty new to twinking, and as such I am not entirely sure what would be considered good numbers. All that I can lay claim to is that it was pretty damned fun.
All right, now that that's out of the way!
Enhancement as a free to play account capped at level 20, even with gear in every slot, is a bit underwhelming in terms of damage from my experience. This is mostly due to the fact that, as a trial, you are unable to access Stormstrike which becomes available at level 26, or crash lightning which becomes available at level 28. So, for the purpose of level 20-29 twink battlegrounds/skirmishes as an Enhancement Shaman, your only damaging abilities are Rockbiter/Boulderfist(If talented), Windsong(If Talented), Lava Lash, Frostbrand, and Flametongue. Lightning Bolt is more a utility spell, best used for keeping fleeing rogues in combat to prevent a restealth and maybe plinking off an enemy totem. Outside of damage, you also have Healing Surge as a support ability.
For those of you that are aware of how Enhancement works now with 7.0, you can probably skip this next paragraph. Enhancement Shaman are now a builder/spender spec, and rely on Maelstrom generation as a resource - much like rage for a warrior. Certain abilities generate Maelstrom, and certain abilities cost Maelstrom. A key thing to note is that Healing Surge will consume 20 Maelstrom, if available, to cause it to be an instant cast spell. This is vital for what I want to discuss! With the level 15 talent your Rockbiter ability is replaced with Boulderfist. Boulderfist has 2 charges on a 6 second cooldown (reduced by haste), and increases the Maelstrom generation to 25 per cast. It also applies a self-buff (5% increased critical strike/damage).
Moving on, as an Enhancement shaman you generally keep up Flametongue, generate Maelstrom using Rockbiter/Boulderfist, and spend it on Healing Surge or Lava Lash. The problem that I've found for a level 20 Enhancement Shaman is Lava Lash. To explain, Lava Lash is designed as a filler spell to keep from capping Maelstrom, where as your highest priority would naturally go into Stormstrike - which is unavailable to trial twink Enhancement.
Lava Lash costs 30 maelstrom, and with the Hothands talent it has a 10% chance while Flametongue is active to proc 100% increased damage and reduced Maelstrom cost, which I personally have seen crits as high as 1.2k from on plate classes. This makes it do considerable damage, at the cost of being entirely RNG. Sometimes it procs frequently, sometimes.. not so much, which can be a real pain in the ass.
Without Flametongue, though, Lava Lash's damage isn't quite up to par - in my opinion. Costing 30 Maelstrom, the damage you deal using Lava Lash felt really lackluster to me. Now as a 29 shaman this is hardly a concern because of Stormstrike, but as a 20, it's sort of... meh, to play Enhancement at all. The lack of damage may be why they appear to be a less-popular choice, but I'm not sure, maybe some more experienced vets can elaborate on that.
I'm a long time fan of Enhancement, and even if I can't do the best damage in the world, I still wanted to play it in some capacity. So, thinking back to the days of Vanilla Enhancement where 2h weapons were commonly used, I decided to screw around. This is what I found:
Ignoring Lava Lash entirely may sound completely stupid, and I agree, but what I stumbled on is an incredibly potent support playstyle for Enhancement Shaman. With a 2h weapon Lava Lash can't be used, but it does increase the damage of Boulderfist slightly. Keep in mind that using a 2h weapon is not even remotely necessary, but it's a nice flavor and call back to Vanilla if nothing else. It doesn't matter either way. What I did find though, is that by completely ignoring Lava Lash and instead dumping all of your Maelstrom into Healing Surge when needed turns Enhancement into a surprisingly effective support class, with some added damage. Rockbiter would sometimes hit 600+ criticals back to back, and Healing Surge would frequently critical up to 1.8k. The Boulderfist self-buff applied when casting the ability also applies to your healing, and while 5% critical strike isn't a lot, it's still nice to have.
The results of playing Enhancement like this has lead me to being MUCH tankier, and much more valuable to my team. For the sake of an example, I asked a rogue to stay and defend the flag room with me at the start of a Warsong Gulch, and we successfully held off a 4v2 with them primarily focusing me. Naturally I didn't just stand there and facetank it all, but using ghostwolf to LoS, using Boulderfist to pool Maelstrom to keep me and my rogue homie alive, we prevented anyone from leaving the FR. Eventually, we capped and the rogue left to chase down kills, but I decided to stay. Both teams were sort of screwing around in mid at that point, and I waited for a while in the flag room. In the few minutes I was there, I found myself in several 1v1's! I won't say I was invincible, I certainly wasn't, but anyone that dared step into melee range had a VERY difficult time dealing with me. I did this for some time, killing a few warriors, a feral, a rogue, and having a near-death experience with a survival hunter. I was surprised at the 1v1 potential, and then the BG ended.
The second BG I tried had one healer on each team. I can't say anything for the teams, but this time I decided to play the BG as intended - using Lava Lash. I found myself, even pooling 50+ Maelstrom and only using Lava Lash to prevent capping, much squishier and the damage was really just not worth what could have been extra healing to me. Even the contrast approach, pooling Maelstrom and spending it all on Lava Lash didn't seem to pack enough punch to warrant the survivability loss.
The Third BG, I reequipped my 2h axe, and removed Lava Lash from my bar. I can't post links yet due to the new-account rule, but I uploaded the results of the third BG to Imgur. I ended the BG with 89k healing done (the only "healer" on my team), and 44.9k damage dealt @ 7-2 k/d. Kills and deaths don't mean anything to me, I'd rather win than go 40-0 or what have you, so that's just a personal preference. Playing Enhancement like this in the level 20 bracket seems to be considerably more effective than the usual route, but I can understand why people would find it underwhelming going into a BG.
So, why am I sharing this? Because since I started playing this a few days ago, I have only ever seen one or two other Enhancement Shaman that weren't just levelers. Yes, you most assuredly COULD just go restoration! You definitely could, and there's no real reason not to. However, if you're looking for a fun little thing to try out, give it a shot! You might like it, and maybe even give Enhancement a second look afterwards. It is not the traditional DPS role, and as such I can understand if people that queued as a dps, would want to play primarily as a dps, and focus on damage and dps-related responsibilities/gameplay. For me, and if there's any likeminded folks out there, I really enjoy capitalizing on the hybrid aspect of Shaman and Enhancement most assuredly provides that feel!
And so, that's my post. Now, for the TLDR!
TLDR:
Enhancement Shaman in the trial twink bracket (level 20) seem to be rare. If you love the idea of Enhancement, and are okay with playing more of a tanky/support role, try Boulderfist and focusing on Healing Surge as opposed to Lava Lash. It's a slower paced playstyle, but if it seems to work really well! You can even equip a 2h weapon if you're like me and hang onto the fond memories of shaman from Vanilla, sans having Windfury (which was sort of the point, but hey, at least you can look the part!) I figured I'd share here, in the XPOff community.
I know you could just go Restoration, but as I said - this was just a fun little experiment I decided to try, and it ended up being fairly effective.
Has anyone out there tried some alternative playstyles to Enhancement? Either way, I'd love to discuss some 20-29 Enhancement Shaman gameplay with you folks if possible. Thanks for reading, I hope someone found it interesting.
~Fenrok
Edit: Spellcheck
Last edited:
