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[Gjorind]

As the last of my three level 70 characters(not last one to 70, but far and away my last in experience playing), the feedback and great added knowledge through discussion with the other two class forums prompts me to give it a go for the shaman as well.  I'll be centering around basic enhancement Shaman principal rather than addressing the other two specs, as this is where my current experience lies.  If you've got some knowledge of Elemental or Restoration shaman, please share as well!

BASIC CONCEPT

As an enhancement shaman, you will be primarily a melee DPS class.  For maximum effective DPS, dual wielding will virtually always be the answer.  You will wear mail armor and utilize axes, maces, or daggers as your weaponry with this spec.  In addition to your melee capabilities you will augment them with spell interruption and damage, as well as a host of totems that are beneficial in many situations.

BASIC GEARING

Up front, an apology to hunters and rogues.  Enhancement shaman want your gear.

A shaman gains attack power at a rate of two points per point of strength, making this a very desirable statistic.  You will find, however, that leather and mail armor are not well populated with strength and as such raw attack power will be the primary source of AP.  If you are coming from a Warrior or Rogue, don't be surprised when your unbuffed AP tries to hover in the 1k range, thats actually fairly normal until very high gear levels.

Shaman gain critical hit chance at approximately one percent per 22 points of agility(please correct this if wrong, it is an approximate number) and one percept per 22 crit rating.  As you will likely find yourself with somewhat lower attack power than many other melee DPS are accustomed to, critical hit chance is an extremely important aspect of Shaman DPS.

Hit rating is equally critical, as is the case for any dual wielding class.  A "sweet spot" for hit rating is generally considered to be found at around 100 hit rating, as the community feels the overall damage gain from added attack power and crit chance overcomes hit rating at higher numbers.  Just the same, having the "minimum" amount of hit rating to be effective is crucial as dual wielding has a very high innate chance to miss, and misses neither cause damage, nor crit, nor refresh flurry, nor proc windfury.  As with others, additional hit rating can be gained from spicy talbuk food in a pinch.

Intellect gives mana, and will come on your gear be default in many cases.  It is worth noting that a relatively small mana pool will serve just fine for an enhancement shaman as several of their abilities give mana regeneration as well as reduced mana costs.

WEAPON SELECTION

While an enhancement Shaman will find axes, maces, and daggers in his travels, only the former two are truely well suited for the mechanics of the Shaman, and then only at the slowest speed that can be found, usually 2.6.

The reason behind this somewhat limited weapon selection is because of the mechanics of the windfury weapon buff.  Windfury gives two bonus swings when it "procs", with all swings being capable of critical hits and has a 20% chance of occurence.  In addition, after going off, Windfury has a three second internal cooldown, meaning that no attacks made during this time period will proc windfury.  What this winds up meaning is that while you will swing faster with fast weapons you will not proc windfury any more often, and in fact will be midswing when windfury becomes available again, oftentimes resulting in a lower proc rate than with slower weapons.

 Unfortunately utilizing the other shaman weapon buffs on faster weapons will not allow you to "catch up" to windfury DPS by applying themselves more often.

The other factor involved in slower weaponry is Stormstrike.  Available every ten seconds this attack is instant and swings with both weapons.  Because slower weapons hit harder and no weapon speed is influenced by Stormstrike, it will always be more effective with slower weaponry.

What all this boils down to is that any weapon with a higher "top end" damage number will yield the not only the greatest damage per swing, but also the greatest damage over time due to the mechanics in force here.  Even a lowly green weapon with a higher top end(and invariably slower swing speed) than the shiny new blue or even purple that just dropped will outperform the faster weaponry.

TOTEM USAGE

An enhancement shaman is talented and geared for melee, and as such their melee totems are of greatest use.  Strength of Earth and Grace of Air totems will yield the greatest personal gains.

The strength of a shaman, however, does not necessarily lie solely in their personal damage contribution.  A shaman can make a group far greater than the sum of its parts with correct totem usage.

An enhancement Shaman is best utilized in a melee group with rogues and warriors to utilize their windfury totem.  This grants other melee the opportunity to have the windfury buff.  It's worth noting that this will not work with sharpening stones or poisons.  It will, however, far and away eclipse the damage gains from those items for their relevent classes.  It's worth noting that the Shaman himself will not benefit from the Windfury totem as the personal windfury buff on his weapons is more powerful and will overwrite it.

It was noted on a recent run that druids do not appear to gain the windfury benefit while in animal form.  As such, grace of air will be of greater benefit to them.

For water totems, your Mana Spring will likely be most useful if your group has mana needs, healing stream if it does not.  For situational use, however, always be watching for times that a poison cleansing totem or fire resistance will be of benefit because in any situation that they are effective they will be of greater use than the mana or heal totems of an enhancement shaman.

For fire, totem usage is moderately limited.  Searing totems have a habit of targetting whatever they feel like, as do Fire elementals.  Magma and Fire nova totems have an area effect and are not safe with crowd control.  Flame Tongue is useful in situations where your air totem is tied up with another use, such as grounding totems.  Frost totems are useful when relevent.  Essentially watch your environment and use what will be helpful and not detrimental to the team.

Asides from general Strength of Earth and Windfury/Grace of Air totem usage, be aware of the utility offered from the rest of the totems in these lines.  

For example, if you are in a primarily caster or healer group, Wrath of air may be more beneficial to the team than the personal contribution of grace of air.  Also, situations will arise in which absorbing enemy spellcasts via grounding totem are most beneficial, be personally aware and also follow group leader instructions for this valuable ability.

Tranquility totem may be useful for reducing the threat of ranged party members, but be aware that with a 30 yard radius it can only be used when the tank will be out of the range of the totems effect.  When usable it's great, but oftentimes is simply isn't an option.

Against enemies that will utilize crowd control, a tremor totem will be more useful than strength of earth.  On occasion it may be benefical(such as area effect pulls) to utilize the earthbind or stoneclaw totems to help keep the critters off of the softer area effect casters.  The Earth Elemental is unpredictable and relatively soft versus elites, but in a bind he can peel aggro from virtually anything and potentially save a wipe.

MISC.

Two Handed Weapons  are great fun and put up fantastically large numbers, but in the end the inconsistency of being this crit and proc dependant means that they are easily out damaged by dual wielding.

Threat can be an issue for a Shaman.  If you get a string of critical hits and good windfury procs early in a fight, it is very easy to jump up the threat meter in large bursts.  Always watch for this and be ready to omit shocks, totems, or even stormstrikes from your damage until you are a safe level below the tank once more.

Frost shock is NOT a damage ability!  Yes, it does damage and yes, it does snare your opponent.  It also has an artificially high threat generation that will all but guarentee you get aggro.  Examples of its usage would be to help save a softer teammate, whether through self sacrifice or by virtue of your mail armor.  As a specific example, I used a frost shock on the two hand warrior in a recent Moroes fight to prevent him from diving deep into the ranks of our healers.  This single shock put me above them on the threat meter and prevented him from entering their ranks.  I died a grisly death but the raid did not and went on to win the encounter.

You are a hybrid!  If you're stuck down and can't get where your going, don't hesitate to throw ranged lightning attacks.  If at any time at all heals will benefit more than the damage you are doing, don't be afraid to throw them out there.  The top of the damage meter is a great place strive for, but not at the expense of teammates you could have saved.

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