Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Enhancement 3.1

Time for Enhancement this week. Raising a few baby Enhancers in Denarian.

Again, go here for my Level 71 talent build.

As always with my builds, keep in mind that this is optimized for soloing and small groups.

Tier 1
Enhancing Totems: 3/3 Strength of Earth and Flametongue are two of our best buff totems. Making them better is standard. You'll need these for soloing tough Elites, as well as group situations. Sure your offensive Fire Totems will grant more DPS for yourself, but as I always say, Group DPS > Personal DPS.
Earth's Grasp: 0/2 A must for PVP. Not for this build, though.
Ancestral Knowledge: 5/5 Despite being a melee-heavy spec, mana is very important to Enhancement. Why Intellect and not straight MP boost? We'll see later.

Tier 2
Guardian Totems: 0/2 The buff to Stoneskin is minimal. However, the lower cooldown on Grounding is very handy. Not a bad talent, just better uses for these points at the moment.
Thundering Strikes: 5/5 Enhancement is all about the crit. Please note that this effects spells as well as melee.
Improved Ghost Wolf: 0/2 2 Points makes Ghost Wolf instant cast. While this is indeed nice, it becomes slightly irrelevant after you get your mount. You'll have points left to spend to get to later tiers, so if you want to drop them here instead of Enhancing Totems temporarily then respec later, that's a solid plan. Also, this is cool for PVP. Take that, Droods!
Improved Shields: 1/3 Nothing wrong here. I'll come back to max this later. One option is to drop the 2 points from Improved Windfury Totem here.

Tier 3
Elemental Weapons: 3/3 A Mandatory talent for Enhancement. Windfury is a large chunk of your damage.
Shamanistic Focus: 1/1 So nice that this is a passive effect instead of the old on-crit effect.
Anticipation: 0/3 While increased dodge is nice, you're better served killing enemies faster. Really more effective for PVP.

Tier 4
Flurry: 5/5 You'll be critting a LOT, so this will be up often.
Toughness: 0/5 See Anticipation.

Tier 5
Improved Windfury Totem: 2/2 Enhancement's third big totem.
Spirit Weapons: 1/1 Parry is good. Shamans cannot train that skill like other melee classes. You'll be very thankful for the threat reduction. This was modified in 3.1 to effect all threat, not just melee.
Mental Dexteroity: 3/3 Remember that Intellect back at the beginning? Here's where it comes in handy. This allows Enhancement Shamans to gear for more mana for attacks while still maintaining their offensive capabilities.

Tier 6
Unleashed Rage: 3/3 Again, you'll be critting often. 10% is a lot of Attack Power to be up almost constantly. Changed in 3.1 to give the same effect for 3 points instead of 5.
Weapon Mastery: 3/3 Well... yeah.
Frozen Power: 0/2 New talent in 3.1 Enhancement is becoming increasingly viable for serious PVP.

Tier 7
Dual Wield: 1/1 When Shamans learned to Dual Wield in Burning Crusade, I was sold. 2 big scary weapons are better than 1.
Dual Wield Specialization: 3/3 Dual Wield has a 24% increased chance to miss to compensate for the extra damage, so this is mandatory.
Stormstrike: 1/1 The damage is massive. The debuff is ridiculous. In 3.1, the extra 2 charges and 2 second cooldown reduction from the old Improved Stormstrike have been rolled into the base skill.

Tier 8
Static Shock: 0/3 A very nice talent for DPS. I prefer to level with Water Shield, but I will almost definitely come back for this later in an endgame build.
Lava Lash: 1/1 This doesn't really do much damage on its own. What is DOES do is make Enhancement Shamans want to use Flametongue in their offhands instead of the old Windfury selection. Why Flametongue? More damage here, Fire Damage on each swing and MORE SPELLPOWER! We're a true hybrid, here.
Improved Stormstrike: 0/2 I raised someone's Shaman-sense with this one. While I still stand by my statement that I feel this is more useful for PVP, I have to admit it's allure for PVE. While I never experienced mana issues with Shamanistic Rage, extra mana is always good. However, my current priorities are to max out Enhancement as quickly as possible, and get into those delicious Elemental talents.

Tier 9
Mental Quickness: 3/3 AP -> SP Brilliant. THIS is the talent that makes us the only true hybrid in the game.
Shamanistic Rage: 1/1 Kiss your mana issues goodbye. Once every 2 minutes, you can get it alllll back.
Earthen Power: 0/2 More PVP.

Tier 10
Maelstrom Weapon: 5/5 Okay, that's a heck of a tooltip to take in. When you hit with melee, you have a chance to gain the Maelstrom buff. This happens often. You will quickly gain 5 stacks of this. 5 x 20% = 100% So, basically instant-cast Lightning Bolts. Or Heals for those nasty Elites you'll be soloing with this talent.

Tier 11
Feral Spirit: 1/1 I love Fen and Gar. (That's right, you're only a true Enhancer if you name your wolves!) Their attacks regain my health and stun my enemies. Also, the Spirit Walking speed boost is AWESOME.

Here's a look at what my build will look like at level 80. As usual with me, it's not the optimal OMG build. However, it gives me everything I want for what I do.

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A part-time player trying to exist in a full-time world. Guild Master of Denarian on the Azjol-Nerub server.

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