You know I fully expect that this blog will be more of a photo album with the occasional post on the topic of shaman gameplay (due to the fact that my main blog is the hunter one) – but in any case I thought I would polish up my link list a bit.

So then to the right you (if anyone actually stumbles over this blog) will find a nice list of shaman blogs, some of which are no longer being updated but are still good reads if shamans are your thing. 20 totems for example left the game somewhat recently in a quite spectacular manner … almost made me want to re-roll on that server.

All in all this means I have like 24 new blogs channeled in my RSS feeder (bloglines), which makes hmmm 150 feeds these days @_@… ahh well that be good procrastination I guess.

..happily not bald like a certain male blood elf I could mention…

Seriously as a melee DPS I am all about my weapon. Enhancement-Shaman is certainly one of those ’sleep with your weapon, eat with your weapon, love your weapon, no really! loooove (cough) your weapon’ classes. We are like the lone samurai, the knight and his sword, the lone gun slinger and his trusty pistols … the lone psychopath and his shiny butter-knife… err yeah.

Anyway an enhance-shamans bling is whatever bloody awesome melee weapon he or she has. Hunters have their leet bows and guns, other toons have their pimp rides, their little elitist token pets and their fancy bat cloaks … we hack & smash shamans ‘av got our massively painful phallic objects of dooom.
Frankly you an enhancement shaman and you on a role play server you had better have a name for whatever device of death you be wielding!

Well as I stated earlier, I’m back, and I am half the troll I used to be because I have had to trade in the axe for two smaller (less phallic) versions. Currently the best way to deal damage as an enhancement shaman is to dual wield the slowest melee weapons you can find both buffed with windfury.

Weapon choices for dual wield are:

• Swords
• Axes
• Maces
• Fist weapons

Right off after a bit of AH browsing and online research I can pretty much see swords are crap – there really aren’t many out there with the slow as a bloody slug speed that I need for the huge windfury crits.

As to axes, well I already have an orc main who quite frankly always carries an axe due to the racial bonus, so I am rather over axes as a weapon (they remind me of the old glory days too – looking for a whole new feel with this toon these days.)

That leaves me with fist weapons and maces. (Incidentally I could do two maces by buying the slowest one twice now as the BG weapons are no longer considered unique.)
However I love the idea of moving to fist weapons.

One of the BG welfare epics would suit nicely, however it’s a main only and the other is not up to scratch. I think for the time being I will have to aim for BG welfare epics; taking the main-hand fist weapon and the slow mace. Finding a suitable off hand fist weapon will be one of my goals for this toon.

Awesome enhancement shaman weapon guide from the elitist jerks.

So the first thing to reconsider in this new world is an approprate spec. I am for the most part a solo player I like to do a little pvp with this shaman and plan on doing some five mans and the like. I reckon I would like to stick to the enhancement spec as I dont fancy being a PVE healer, and elemental really isn’t my style.

The wowwiki website has an awesome guide to the most common shaman builds.

In the end I have decided to aim for the following with a few variations. I’ll see how it works out and respec if necessary.

It doesn’t just rain down in the wetlands, it totally monsoons!

I met this funny little lvl 18 human on the road through the wetlands – he was being eaten by crocs, ya know the wetlands drill. So I decided to give him an escort which was rather fun and seemed to make him feel rather chuffed … then some damn lvl 70 paladin comes along and chases me right around the wetlands before finally hammering me to death by the shore line … despite the little humans protests.

Some toons are just irritating tossers who piss on peoples fun o_O

Oh well I’m gunna go smack murlocs around for clam meat till I feel better ;p

Guess it’s nice to know some things never change, alliance paladins were always the guys that waved at you then followed you around and ganked you from behind – paladin waves are like death threats.

So here I am. Finally.

I’ll be frank I’m the shammy that was put on the shelf, and I haven’t been played since pre-BC when shammys were the hordes kamikaze vanguard. We wielded huge two-handed axes, thew our defence to the winds (not that we had a lot of that) and engaged the Alliance in the manner of Scots warriors having at the English, and just when the Alliance thought they had killed us – up we would return with reincarnation and practically half a health bar of retribution to lay down on their asses.

“You can take our lives but you can’t take our Freeeeeeedom”

Pretty much sums up my previous life as a shaman, heck I am even blue – thus warpaint compliant.

Incidentally paladins were the proper English – plated, horsed and hated. The Alliance game-play balance for the Horde shaman. I have a couple of old-world-wow friends who used to play shaman and they did indeed despise the paladin. It was a bit like a racial hatred that came with the shaman class.

Then burning crusade came out. Horde get the paladin. And I have to say we all rolled one gleefully just so we could venture out, start a gank, and then bubble hearth to safety – it had to be done.

There were a lot of changes to shaman gameplay come Burning Crusade. Two-handed weapons were no longer the bomb, windfury crits had been ‘fixed’ and shamans were given dual weapon abilities … all of which completely changed the game play. As happens to many a new ‘main’ arose from the mess and the shammy was shelved. (One shaman I used to run with actually has taken a paladin as a main which is most amusing … his new racial disgruntlement? Well if he ever blogs on his shaman blog it really does appear to be the Draenei shaman class :p heh)

The potential the Wrath of the Lich King expansion (which I shall probably take to calling Wot-licky) is promising shamans is really interesting me, enough that I think I would like to take the shaman into Northrend.

So this blog will be basically about dusting off a lvl 60 shaman, levelling them to 70 and learning to deal with all the game play changes.