So I’m leveling a baby shaman (level 20 at the moment). There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there about what the best weapon/weapon enhancement to use is.
I’m leveling as enhance. Should I…
Use a 2h weapon with rockbiter
Use a 1h weapon+shield with rockbiter
Use a 1h weapon+shield with Flametongue
Just use whichever one I currently have the highest rank of?
Does any of this change when I get windfury?
Glad to hear anyone’s opinions, couldn’t find a definitive answer anywhere. I’ve tested them all and it’s hard to tell which is best at this point.
Some situational things to be aware of :
If you use Rockbiter, you will be tanking. No tank can hold aggro off it.
If the target has very high armor (earth elementals, turtles, etc), Flametongue will usually be the best damage output.
Conversely, if the target has very low armor (mage-types), Rockbiter or Windfury will usually be better than FT even if your FT rank is newer.
Windfury damage is very bursty, which can lead to frustration or wasted damage with a slow weapon (particularly 2handers). If it doesn’t feel like it’s working for you at that particular time in that particular place, switch to something else.
As far as 2h vs 1h + shield, generally, again, use whichever is newer. I personally prefer 2h as a default, unless your 1h is noticeably better than your 2h, but it leads to a faster-kill-higher-downtime pattern.
Thanks for your detailed answer. Follow-up question: How much does weapon speed affect flametongue damage? Is it worth using a lower DPS weapon with a faster speed over a higher DPS weapon with a slower speed? E.G. Would a green dagger with 1.3 speed do more DPS than a rare mace with 2.4 speed of the same level?
Flame only until you get windfury. Then flametongue on fast weapons and WF on slow weps. You can use either though really, since a lot of damage comes from shocks, especially after 40. I’m leveling enhance/resto using a staff and WF.
For leveling, no, weapon speed does not matter and you should use the higher DPS weapon. The base damage of flametongue scales with weapon speed in a way that maintains roughly the same DPS contribution regardless of speed.
Once you have a significant amount of spell damage, this can change, because Flametongue has a flat coefficient that adds to damage per hit regardless of weapon speed, so faster weapons get more benefit from +damage and can eventually outscale a higher DPS slower weapon. But this isn’t something you need to think about until you’re looking at at least 100-200 +damage, and at that point you’ll be selecting your weapon based on its caster stats and not its DPS anyway.
The best weapon/weapon enchantment will vary depending on what you’re doing. If there was just one right answer, you wouldn’t bother buying the several rankings of the other enchantments.
I could give you my ideas on which are the best for which scenarios but I honestly recommend you just look up shaman guides by Melderon. He can actually give you the mathematical, non-opinionated facts about the enchantments combined with various weapon types.
Rock biter consistently has the highest overall dmg with almost any speed weapon. WF can overkill or not proc at all, flametongue works well for mobs with higher armor value since it’s magic dmg. But for overall dmg and leveling use rockbiter. Except in instances tho
This from what I’ve seen atleast until 30. At 30 you’ll have WF to play with. I usually run WF now simply because the extra WF hits can proc flurry. Consistently biter can pull better numbers but if rng is on your side WF is alot more fun imo. Biter or WF are pretty similar damage wise as enhancement. Min max people will say biter though.
Two-handed weapons will have more base dps than equivalent iLvl one-handed weapons. However, unless you’re using Stormstrike, that base damage differential is all two-handed offers a Shaman. Shaman also get less of a percentage upgrade from 1H -> 2H than most melee because their buffs comprise a much larger percentage of their damage. So while you’ll see a lot recommendations for 2-handed use, it’s actually far less of an upgrade for a Shaman than it would be for, say, a Warrior.
In terms of the various buffs:
Rockbiter. This will be your best option until you’ve amassed a reasonable amount of Strength/attack power from other gear. If you’re kitted out with full Enhancement dps gear, Windfury is better. Otherwise, Rockbiter tends to be better. However, Rockbiter generates too much threat for use outside of solo.
Windfury. As implied above, this is the best for full Enhancement. At high levels, Enhancement is also a ‘proc specialist’ in many ways due to Flurry + Windfury - and Windfury is necessary to optimize proc weapons.
Flametongue. This is a different story. Flametongue receives more damage from spellpower and that damage is not normalized for weapon speed. As a result, when you have a reasonable amount of spellpower (+200 is a rough estimate) and a very fast dagger, Flametongue will outdamage Rockbiter/Windfury. You normally don’t see this with Enhancement builds, though.
For leveling purposes, you can safely assume that Rockbiter is your best choice. Less obviously, fast one-handed weapons (paired with shield) tend to be better than two-handed due to the ‘overkill factor’ - one-handed weapons provide more predictable and granular damage even though they might lose in a fight with an infinite hit point target dummy. The shield also comprises about half your armor, so it reduces recovery time and reduces the likelihood of dying.
While leveling, I’d recommend whatever is the highest rank. I haven’t had many issue with rockbiter pulling aggro and it’s crit damage scales with your normal auto-attack, unlike flametongue.
Windury weapon probably pulls ahead in long fights, IF it works. I have found windfury to be very fickle, though. Definitely not worth using during solo play. When it does go off, it’s more likely to pull aggro than rockbiter just because of the amount of damage it does.
Flametongue is always a good choice if you’re ever unsure of what to use. Don’t limit yourself to just one, switch them out depending on the fight and get a feel for enemy resistances. Ignore the frost one, though. It’s ok for pvp, but useless in just about every other type of content.
There’s a staff reward from doing wailing caverns that’s best in slot for damage for a while in your 20’s that you can get, or you can just need on daggers and stuff and use a shield. Your choice but only one choice will make you not look like a noob.