Enhancement shamans viable for questing?

Hi.

My team consists of 1 paladin and 4 shamans, all currently at level 60. Gonna hit Outland and quest through 68 and then hit Northrend.

I've leveled a team of 1 death knight and 4 retadins to level 80, and gotta say I love the "fly into mobs and insta kill them approach".

My question is, would shamans be just as good retadins at mowing down mobs if I primarily use shocks, stormstrike, lava lash and a melee heavy enhancement build? It would save time not having to wind up spells.

What are your thoughts?

Are you seriously asking this question? Shamans are OP IMO. Running 4-5 or 2 or more in a "mixed" group will own anything even in melee mode. Period.

Well, it seems like most people spec heavy elemental, so my question is if enhancement is just as good, if not better than elemental.

Elemental's more direct. Also melee used to be non-viable. It's not now.

Enhancement is a melee build...there is no "melee-heavy" version of it. You're either melee or you're offline.

Personally, I hate elemental. The only time I ever touch my elemental shamans is when there's a once-per holiday boss, like Direbrew or HH. Otherwise I'd just delete them.

Anything is viable for questing....

You could run 5 resto druids...

Enhancement would be great for levelling. Grab a load of mobs with the paladin, rush in with the shamans, pop spirit wolves, drop magma totems, and just blitz everything down in no time at all.

Maelstrom procs might be a pain to monitor individually, but I'm wondering if there might be some way to use /stopcasting on your melee attacks to interrupt the longer casts - so only the instant maelstroms would proc.

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Originally Posted by shaeman

Maelstrom procs might be a pain to monitor individually, but I'm wondering if there might be some way to use /stopcasting on your melee attacks to interrupt the longer casts - so only the instant maelstroms would proc.

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I wrote one, it is posted in the wiki. However, stopcasting, as of 3.2, also resets swing timers which can result in a DPS loss.

If you want to go enhancement, you'll certainly level fine.
However, boxed with 4 of them, elemental will be superior.

Melee wise, 4x enhancements is not nearly as strong as 4x retribution.
But for quests and such, 4x anything will get the job done.

4x dual wind fury = lol

But i agree that elemental will be superior, especially 75+

Sounds like too much of a hassle when 4x elemental kill everything with 1 lightning bolt cast, and elites with a few. I never had an instance where the speed of killing mobs was a limiting factor. Was more like finding mobs to kill for the quest, and travel time.

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Originally Posted by heyaz

I never had an instance where the speed of killing mobs was a limiting factor. Was more like finding mobs to kill for the quest, and travel time.

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That's the most important thing.

Every dps spec get's the job done just fine. Now with IWT you can add melee specs to it. Allthough classes that rely on dots might take longer to kill a mob overall.

I considered it aswell, to spec my 4 shaman enhancement. But i decided to stick with elemental, since it's not worth the hassle to respec, redo keybinds etc. I allready got my binds sorted for when i reach lvl 80, so i don't have to get used to it anymore(lvb macro allready has a macro on the actionbar, eventhough i don't know the spell yet).

The way i farm mobs at the moment is:
- mount up, pull 5-15 mobs, the more the better.
- drop 4 stoneclaw, 4 magma
- cast chain heal / Chain lightning / Fire Nova
- profit.
For this, there's hardly any profit in it if the shaman would be enhancement. Since i mainly cast spells and i don't see a way to do it faster.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Littleburst

That's the most important thing.

Every dps spec get's the job done just fine. Now with IWT you can add melee specs to it. Allthough classes that rely on dots might take longer to kill a mob overall.

I considered it aswell, to spec my 4 shaman enhancement. But i decided to stick with elemental, since it's not worth the hassle to respec, redo keybinds etc. I allready got my binds sorted for when i reach lvl 80, so i don't have to get used to it anymore(lvb macro allready has a macro on the actionbar, eventhough i don't know the spell yet).

The way i farm mobs at the moment is:
- mount up, pull 5-15 mobs, the more the better.
- drop 4 stoneclaw, 4 magma
- cast chain heal / Chain lightning / Fire Nova
- profit.
For this, there's hardly any profit in it if the shaman would be enhancement. Since i mainly cast spells and i don't see a way to do it faster.

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Tagging for future search.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Littleburst

Now with IWT you can add melee specs to it.

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You can in fact run melee specs before IWT. My experience with IWT was bad and it worked better with it disabled.:confused: Slaves just ran around aimlessly at times.

For questing it would be viable. Windfury being random proc would pretty much gaurantee you kills in a second. But overall elemental would just be more efficient.