Real question for all ShamanFollow

This question has already been asked to death, and answer is the same every time.

No, there are no "real hybrid Shaman" anymore. There are not hybrid anythings anymore. The closest things to hybrids that exist now are limited to a select few arena builds; many Druids, for instance, spec 13-11-37. However, those that spec that way still gear entirely for Restoration and are, in form and function, still true healers. They just spec the way they spec to pick up a few extra tools.

PvE, though, is far more skewed, and helps to drive the point home. You do a far bigger service to yourself and others by choosing a single role and specializing in it. Heal without being fully specced/geared for it, and you run both of the very real risks of being unable to keep up with both the amount of incoming damage and running out of mana during long fights. DPS without being fully specced/geared for it, and you cause anemic damage that causes fights to draw on longer, straining your tank and healer and possibly pushing them over the breaking point and causing a wipe (which is really all the more heartbreaking when the target{s} are almost dead). And this all becomes 1000% truer once you reach raiding content, which is literally designed to be almost impossible without precise specialization and maximization of that chosen role for all classes involved.

There is only one benefit to a hybridized build/gear set, which is solo grinding. But most pure DPS build can do that just as well or even better anyways; the only ones likely to notice an improvement in solo grinding from hybridizing are healers, and even then it's largely debateable since +healing gear now has free +spell damage on it.

Bottom line: Other than when you are on your own, 99.99% of the time you are only going to be performing a single role, and your "sideline" abilities are going to go completely to waste.

Yeah I have to agree. I'm not sure why the idea of a hybrid Shaman is so so very attractive to people, but it isnt anything like what you're hoping.

Rolling, or at least trying to roll, a hybrid will be a disheartening and spirit-breaking experience; if you're determined to roll a Shaman just pick a spec for 70 and while you'r levelling (as Enhance...) try to gather gear for that spec.

I'm left to wonder why you even bothered to ask that question here... It sounds to me like you already made up your mind a long time ago.


I'm kind of curious what information or statistics you used to base all of those assumptions off of... the armory didn't exist when TBC first released, and I have no idea how you proposed to know that no other Enhancement Shaman ever thought of throwing on a shield against a Rogue. You obviously think pretty highly of yourself, so no offense, bud, but I'm pretty sure at least one of the Horde players had a handle on the class before you came along and figured it out.


That build is so bad I don't even know where to start. I'd pick it apart and offer you an alternative, but something tells me you wouldn't recieve the criticism very well, so I'll reserve my effort until I'm (hopefully) proven wrong.


Enhancement already buffs shocks on its own (Mental Quickness and Shamanistic Focus). The main reason to go Elemental is to buff your lightning spells, which Enhancement will never be casting since they have to stop meleeing to do it. Enhancement really gets zero benefit from speccing into Elemental.

There's nothing stopping you from casting a heal here or there, but as someone who plays a healer, I am here to tell you that if the party is on the ball it will very rarely ever be necessary, and even when the need does arise, you can do it without having specced/geared for heals in any capacity. Furthermore, only going 11 talents into Resto (I'm assuming/hoping for Totemic Mastery), you actually miss the single best reason for Enhancement to be there: Nature's Guidance.

Lastly, our biggest buffs and what actually slots us into that support role at the end of the day is our totems which, again, you don't need to spec any which way to take full advantage of. But something you can take advantage of that you are choosing not to is to pick up Enhancement's single biggest support buff: Unleashed Rage.


Please trust me in saying that while I am sure some of the talents spread around might lead you to believe that, people now far more experienced than you have been playing around with Shaman talents for quite some time and have reached a much different conclusion. There is no Enhancement build that is going to provide more damage or all-around support than a 0/47/14 build, and no build on the face of the planet is going to be able to stop you from casting an off-heal every now and then or consistantly laying totems (again, I hope).

16-34-11 will get you to 70, but beyond that... No one is going to want to take an Enhancement Shaman with a build like that along.

Killing monsters in Azeroth is a joke, so really you could almost forgo talents until level 58 and still be viable. In Outlands, after several gear reward quests, Shaman are still pretty uber compared with the mob quality.

The reason a balanced shaman is simply unacceptable now is that anyway you cut it, you can't specialize in everything and be good at anything. Support class yes, but are you going to be supporting your group fully if you gimp your dps, healing or ability to save mana, build mana, enhance the speed of your casting/melee/heals?

I recently went from Enhance/Resto to Enhance/Elemental because I wanted to try something new. With my gear my HR is capped easily and the 3% increase from the Nature's Guidance talent seemed a waste. I miss the increased range on my totems and the reduced mana charge, but for PvP, 5 second shocks (with Stonebreaker Totem procs) and the increase in Shock damage I do notice I'm winning an increased amount of battles vs. Druids and caster types. Five second ES interrupts are sooo nice, that single second can mean a flash heal goes off or gets stuffed.

All that being said, it's your 15 bucks a month and your game. Play how you want. Just don't be stunned when your fellow Shamans look at your spec and giggle.

Guadion i'm not sure if you seen my spec or not but i'm Draenei and was speaking strictly on that alliance spec. Sorry for any confusion.

As far as any critics I openly allow and know that people are going to have their opinions on this topic which is why I opened it as a question. Any info on this is well taken and appreciated.

Yes I am pretty much still going to try my spec but thats just that try it to see if its what I want to do but other builds that I see might make me think and try them at the end as well. Dont some people try elemental but go to enhance to see and so on etc?

If you also look at my armory it tells you that I haven't been playing since March 07 and was level 63 almost at 64. If I remember right I was fighting those giant "war of the world" looking squid things when my account lapsed lol. And you know that at any given time you can check to see what Shaman are online (and believe me I was checking every day and was on 24 hours sometimes playing) but had friends like Casius and some others that were ahead of me.

As far as shield was concerned it was mainly stating that back then everyone either went with 2h or DW because of the BIG BANG or the quick Kill where I honestly never ever used a 2hander that I can remember but did DW. I have taken down my fair share of monsters and did instances pretty easy.

Far as my group was concerned everyone on my server that I played with pretty much knew what I brought to the table and was constantly im'd for to go to Zul and other instances at my level. I was never the primary healer because they knew I wasn't specc'd as such but knew I was able to fit into any group as long as they had a primary healer and a tank. In my groups we did trials as far as what totems to drop for what things(being noone in Alliance had much exp with Shaman) as far as what totems to drop. Would pull Same level monsters and drop certain totems to see what the outcome was and things like that before we went to the harder bosses etc. Maybe things have changed now but I will see when I get back online.

As far as 1v1 is concerned I took my fair share of losses just like I have beaten nearly every type of class out there in just battles. Beat Warlocks, rogues, druids, warriors, priest but all this as I read was before they started "nerfing" Shamans from what I see.

I don't know what to expect from the changes was just trying to see if anyone else had any type of hybrid makeup.

But tell me if i'm wrong in my understanding of this, letting you into a little of what my thought process was.

Elemental helps increase shock damage and totem damage as well as shock crits increase chance for melee crits (which enhances enhancement), Enhancement is main physical DPS and with Mental Quickness and SS (enhances elemental), Resto either cut down heal time or save mana so you can either quick heal yourself or not use alot of mana healing yourself so you can shock etc, and with the +% hit stat it enhances elemental and enhance? is that not correct or am I over thinking things?

Do you see why I said something from each talent was "made" to help out something in another? So if your a straight damage dealer then Enhance/Ele is probably the best fit for that and so on and so on. Just my thoughts on this.

Really, it's impossible to hybridize as a shaman because there is no synergy between the trees. Second, each spec has vastly different gear requirements, so you can't be effective at anything as a hybrid.

Elemental devastation sort of stacks with enhancement, but it sucks so most enhance shammies spec into the resto tree for nature's guidance.

If there was more talent synergy at the lower level talents (1-20 points), you might see more hybrid specs coming out, but right now the only way to be effective is to pick resto, ele or enhance and spec into the tree 40+ points.

"ok phastos, you asked us shaman in alla a question we gave you our responses. if you didn't want to hear our opinions which is what it sounds like, then please don't ask."

And this little statement is based on what? Where did you get I don't want to hear your opinions or anyone elses? What gave you that idea at all?


"But tell me if i'm wrong in my understanding of this, letting you into a little of what my thought process was."

"Do you see why I said something from each talent was "made" to help out something in another? So if your a straight damage dealer then Enhance/Ele is probably the best fit for that and so on and so on. Just my thoughts on this."

Do you see anywhere in there where I even remotely said anything about not caring about your opinions or anyone elses? Matter of fact I said I asked for opinions and know how some people would take this question and answer.

Please don't assume anything.

I was simply stating the reason for me asking these questions and why I thought that all trees can enhance another tree so you can understand why I asked the questions I asked.

people have stated their thoughts on this and I appreciate all of it.

And if your not use to people explaining why they say what they say or letting you know why people say or ask the questions they ask then you shouldn't be answering questions.

"what makes the sky blue- the sky is blue because it is so don't ask anything else about it, accept that I said it"

I apologies if i was a bit mean with my reply, but Sins completely right.

Sure level as you like but when we give you advise and you respond with well thanks for the tips but i was grinding a year ago and was leveling faster then the rest of the shaman and pre bc i also did this, its basically a thanks for your help, didn't really want it, just wanted people to know what i am doing regardless of others opinions etc etc.

and Sins is also right about shamanistic rage, enhancement was always our grind spec, but with this it made shaman enhancement grinding even better.

anyhow gl, when you are actually looking for advise please come back.

Things you will be getting by going Restro:
Improved Healing wave (Reduce casting time by 0.5 sec)
Improved Reincarnation and/or
Totemic Focus (reduce mana cost of totems) 3/5 or 5/5
Nature's Guidance (increase %hit)
Totemic Mastery (increase range of friendly totems)

As for going Enh/Ele, the main purpose of going Ele for an Enhancement Shaman is for Elemental Devastation. Also known as the suicide build. Main reason for this is that you are only focusing on damage, so once you run out of mana you are pretty much screwed.

The problem with this is that you would have to be spamming your shock spells along with your Stormstrike, which would not allow you to get in spell interrupts and slow when you need it.

Another problem is that you wont have enough spell crit to get the full use of Elemental Devastation, and even if you did, you would be sacrificing other important stats to get it. Major reason why many do not go into Elemental.

reverb is definitely why people go suicide, getting an inerrupt every 5 seconds is nice.

but once you get dw the extra hit and even spell hit is considered very strong talent and hard to pass up for most.

Here is the thing if you want to be mainly enhancement (dual wield using wf etc etc) then you need to go all the way (no point not too) grab mental quickness since with this talent 1/3 of your attack power now also gives you spell dmg.

average noew 70 shaman I assume hits 70 with around 1200 Attack power and would then have 400 spell dmg also, this increases your SPells dmg and your healings spells healing. The reason shamanistic focus is so nice is it lowers the cost of your next shock by a significant amount.

The reason why going into resto as a support is for cheaper and increased range on totems and for the extra hit for spells and melee attack which is very nice, helps those shocks stick and reaching the hit cap with your melee attacks is important.

No honestly I seriously don't remember if I didn't spec into it or not if on purpose or by accident but that will be rectified.

Question, have you ever totaled the damage up to see how much the diff of overall damage is vs certain things? Like the initial LS,flame shock, auto attack, SS, ES,Auto attack, ES etc? Not including totem damage or damage increase (ala GoA, SoE).

Also I am trying to understand more about what totems and spells increase or are increased by Mental quickness and such, is there a site to explain it further. I have looked at Elitist jerks or whatever but still am a little confused on some of them.

I'm not going to pretend to be less confused than you, but I think he's asking if anyone has actually calculated the DPS of different rotations (which is an obvious [to us] 'yes') and is confused about whether Mental Quickness will affect the mana cost of totems, which are instantly casted (but are not "spells", though I think Mystical Skyfire Diamonds can proc from setting down a totem).