Patch 2.0: Windfury and rockbiter at the same time? Maybe the enhancement tree isn’t as pointless as I thought….

Okay, let me dispense with my personal bias and own up to my own whiney behavior as related to the enhancement tree for shaman talents… I thought it was going to be the most awesome thing ever to be able to run into a fight with a 2H weapon sporting a healthy windfury buff and lots of strength/agility gear. For a short while there it was but as other players gained more power from their own talent trees I couldn’t blindly fly into a melee situation and hope to prevail (or even live). I think this is a good thing because you have to learn how to use your talents and spells rather than simply click and auto-strike, dropping a shock every once in awhile. But to me, the enhancement tree seemed to cost too many talent points and provide too little reward or leave too few talent points left over for totem and spell talents. But still, melee is fun.

The new classes of shamans in the guild seemed to have learned this much sooner than I and are currently having fun with their ‘toons in dungeons and on quests, showing admirable maturity and understanding of the class. It won’t be long before I’ll be asking Maanae, for example, how to get some part of the class tweaked for certain effects. The mere fact that I’ve spent over 200gold all told to re-spec Ungulataur over and again tells you that I love the shaman but I’m never truly comfortable with my build.

Well, all bets are off with the next patch and I don’t mean the BC expansion pack. Guess what, dual-wielding is on the test realms right now. Yes. Dual-Wielding. For shamans. It will only be available as a talent point in the restructured talent trees (no, I doubt it will be on the Restoration tree ) but I have the feeling that I will need to reconsider my recent scoffing at the enhancement tree as this seems like a part of Blizzard’s overhaul of player balance in PVP. So to those considering the Enhancement tree, please do it and have fun with it and ignore my bitterness about the whole utility of it. Changes are coming that will make me eat my words (at least I hope so) but most importantly, we’re not a guild that tells people how they need to play their character. I feel like I’ve crossed that line a few times between advice and condescention. Spec the way YOU want to play and teach me, the old stuck-up battlecow, a thing or three about how to play the class. What weapon type and buff works best in the main hand? What off-hand weapon buff is better in what situation? These are just a few things that we get to figure out when the patch drops. With two 1H epic weapons in my inventory, I’m sure glad I held off on spending the big Gs to enchant them.

Congrats to everyone involved with downing Drakk. Even though we didn’t get to play with our new kiting strategy, the quick-thinking and fast reactions of the hunters kept him busy long enough for the rest of us to take out his guards before focusing on the big conflag-spamming pussycat himself. Greater fire resist and smart players saved the day. I think we also found that even shamans that aren’t full Resto-spec can be useful. It was a helluva fun way to get some pretty decent drops, complete some quests, and spend some quality raid time with a great guild.

So if Patch 2.0 hands shamans an undeserved but completely welcome cookie for their enhancement-tree loving selves, I may have to come full-circle back to the tree that started it all. I for one, having eaten my words, can’t wait.