i thought about picking this guy up again. How are shamans looking pve wise? And what would be the better leveling spec to go with? thanks ahead of time!
Enhancement Shaman’s Strengths
- Strong sustained single target damage.
- Flexible, can mesh with a number of different encounter styles.
- Able to funnel AoE and cleave into single target, gaining a large amount of priority target damage.
- Potential to do extremely high burst damage to targets with RNG at your side.
- Versatile group utility toolkit for both dungeons and raids.
- Azerite opens up a lot of talent options to customize your build depending on encounter.
Enhancement Shaman’s Weaknesses
- High variance in burst due to Stormbringer.
- Reliant on uptime, so can be punished in very high movement encounters.
- Relies heavily on gear to enable certain damage profiles, which can be restrictive.
- Weak defensives, so cannot take a lot of punishment.
Viability of Enhancement Shaman in the Current Patch
Unfortunately with melee spots being so restricted in raids, Enhancement is struggling to bring enough to warrant a spot. The damage profile can be useful in certain situations, but it is still suffering from the Azerite nerfs that happened in the lead up to Battle of Dazar’alor so Eternal Palace strength remains to be seen. Some essences have potential with different builds, so it may see some niche strength. For Mythic+ Enhancement still deals a solid amount of damage with a robust utility toolkit, so can still compete in most dungeons outside of very high key pushing.
Elemental Shaman Strengths
- Current best single-target talent build is very fun and mobile.
- Some talent builds are very straightforward to play.
- Potential for very good burst damage for Single Target and Cleave/AoE.
- Excellent Utility outside of Raids.
- Talent choices allow for excellent flexibility and varied playstyles.
Elemental Shaman Weaknesses
- No burst mobility.
- Most survivability tools are talent-related and can be awkward to use properly.
- Tends to be outclassed by other specializations outside of specific situations.
Elemental Shaman Viability in the Current Patch
Elemental Shamans should be just as strong in Patch 8.2 as they were in Patch 8.1, and should therefore perform well in The Eternal Palace. This version of Elemental Shaman is notably more viable for Raid content than the release version, in part because of the renewed viability of Icefury.
Restoration Shaman Strengths
- Excels at burst healing and sustained stacked group healing
- Can often cast while moving, using Spiritwalker’s Grace
- Unique, powerful healing tools: Spirit Link Totem, Ancestral Protection Totem and Ancestral Vigor
- Great non-healing tools: Wind Rush Totem, Wind Shear, Purge, Tremor Totem, Earthbind Totem, Earthgrab Totem, and Capacitor Totem
Restoration Shaman Weaknesses
- Mediocre sustained targeted healing and no tank cooldowns
- Mediocre group healing in situations that force a large spread
- Mediocre mobility, most of a Restoration Shaman’s healing comes from spells with high casting times
- Mediocre survivability, no immunities or very high damage reduction defensive abilities
Restoration Shaman Viability in the Current Patch
Most of all, Restoration is a fun specialization with lots of viable talent choices that affect your playstyle. These choices make the gameplay as complex / simple as you want, allowing for your own growth as a player to reflect on the talents you pick as well as your gameplay.
Raid content, such as The Eternal Palace, is where Restoration thrives. Their burst / emergency healing is very strong and allows the raid to recover from mistakes that cause high raid damage. This strength is helped along by their mastery, Mastery: Deep Healing, which gains value when healing low health targets. Last, but decidedly not least, they also have some of the best group support tools out of all healer specializations, with Spirit Link Totem being irreplaceable on certain situations.
In Mythic+ dungeon content, Restoration lacks sustained single target healing and a tank cooldown, but it can do significant AoE burst healing with Chain Heal and High Tide, and do it quite often, as Mana is typically plentiful in this content. This also allows the Shaman to dedicate more time to DPS without worrying about falling behind on healing, helping push clear times significantly. Certain Shaman tools, such as Wind Rush Totem can help you deal with Beguiling’s most dangerous enemy, Void-Touched Emissary.
Finally, Restoration Shaman is a very strong PvP healer, as it has all the tools to heavily disrupt the enemy team, while supporting its own. It is the only healer specialization with an interrupt, and that interrupt is ranged, with a short cooldown! It has great PvP cooldowns as well, such as Earthen Wall Totem and Spirit Link Totem, as well as Chain Heal, Ancestral Gift and Cleansing Waters which are all great in Battlegrounds. This said, Restoration Shamans are very vulnerable to being disrupted themselves, which sometimes causes them to fall behind on healing, compared to other classes with more instant casts at their disposal.
From Icy Veins:
- https:// www.icy-veins . com/wow/restoration-shaman-pve-healing-guide
- https:// www.icy-veins . com/wow/elemental-shaman-pve-dps-guide
- https:// www.icy-veins . com/wow/enhancement-shaman-pve-dps-guide
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Thanks for the great info! Shamans seem to be still a fun class to play… if played right. lol
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All 3 shaman specs are completely viable and competitive for 99% of all available PVE content. Resto/Ele is viabale for 100% of all PVP content. Enhance is OK in PVP but lacks defensives and self healing was gutted.
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It’s shamen not shamans.
J/K
Just want to add that I love all 3 specs on my shammy! Just wish they could be gnomes/mechagnomes but Dark Iron are fine too.
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he just copied an icyveins page for you…lol.all specs can do most thing but if you want high m+ keys or mythic raids go ele
id say ele/resto/enhance in that order.
plus thunderstorm is still in in pvp to knock off people.
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