Guide

Class Strengths

Enhancement's biggest strength is putting out competitive DPS while providing a whole slew of raid buffs. Essentially every buff that we provide is boosted by the cookie cutter parts of our talent spec so there is little, "brb moving 2 talent points" respeccing necessary for the class.

With the introduction of Fire Nova enhancement is now a force to be reckoned with on multi target encounters. This paired with the new reduced cooldown on Fire Elemental Totem really helps enhancement to shine in the fights where we were once very weak.

Class Weaknesses

Enhancement's biggest weakness lies in our ability to close distance. Other melee classes have things like intercept, sprint, and pursuit of justice where our only real choice is runspeed to boots or spirit wolves. While neither of those are a bad option, it is a rough circumstance to have your only ground closer tied into one of your only DPS cooldowns. A dynamnic that no other class is really faced with.

Rotation

Enhancement's rotation is much like retributions and unlike every other class. Sure, those classes will have variants and outliers based on procs, but our rotation is purely priority based and will change with different gear levels.

Your general flow of things will look like*:

Maelstrom 5 Lightning Bolt > Magma Totem > Flame Shock if dot has less than 3 seconds left > Earth Shock if Stormstrike is active > Stormstrike > Earth Shock > Magma Totem > Lightning Shield > Lava Lash > Fire Nova > Maelstrom 4 Chain Lightning.

You can go further down the list of lower Maelstrom stacks, but that should be something you only do if you have no risk of overlapping the cooldown of your shocks or Stormstrike.

Always always always use Chain Lightning over Lightning Bolt if the CL will hop.

Magma Totem being that high in the priority does not mean to chain drop Magma Totem. It means that if the totem is not active then recast it. I still find myself with free globals to refresh it with the introduction of Fire Nova before it expires, but there are some rare occurrences where you are gcd locked for an eternity.

*this alters when additional mobs are thrown into the mix, see the Fire Nova section for more details.

Shamanistic Rage

With the few abilities that I haven't mentioned their usage generally depends on fight length/circumstances. Use shamanistic rage before you go out of mana. I generally use it when I'm at about half mana and have no other ability off of cooldown, and it's largely irrelevant when you use it(provided it's before you are out of mana).

Feral Spirit

Feral spirit is really dependent on fight length. If you expect the fight to be shorter than the cooldown then wait until Bloodlust/Heroism are about to happen and use them just prior. If the fight will exceed the cooldown of the wolves then use them as soon as you can.

There are, of course, outliers to ability usage, and since TOC is the most relevant form of content all of my examples are from there.

For a fight like Northrend Beasts if your cooldown is up/coming close to up as you enter the Icehowl phase don't blow wolves immediately, wait for a stun for the additional damage to a stunned Icehowl and mash spirit walk to get back into position quickly.

For Anub'arak I find myself not using my wolves at all other than when he's submerged. While learning the fight we had issues with stuns going on DR and it wasn't until rigorous log parsing that we found out my wolves would break off of attacking Anub and stun an add without my command to do so.

On attempts after this I realized how stupid I was and tried to do everything I could think of(turning off autobash, using bash on anub, calling them in as passive so their only target would ever be anub) and nothing worked.

The spirit wolves will also provide a ton of healing if used during the leeching swarm phase of Anub, so it's not the best idea to use them there.

A final thought on wolves is to just be aware that they can receive every buff that you can. I have a macro that reads something like:

/cast feral spirit
/w repeek ARF ARF DO THE DOGGY BOUNCE
/w ahshift bark bark
/w prolifik wolves up, kings please

Repeek is a warrior and will shout the wolves if he finds the time to do so. Ahshift is a druid and takes my macro as a queue to use his trees so that they can receive the buffs that my wolves get. Prolifik is a paladin that is on Kings duty for warriors, and has a macro that's like /target spirit wolf /cast blessing of kings and will do that if he finds the time to.

These buffs are by no means crucial, but if you get with the various buffing classes and are polite enough you may end up with some ridiculous wolves. This is not me telling you to demand that these classes capable of buffing your wolves do so, but simply ask that if they find themselves in a free global after they see that macro text then it would be super cool if they pressed their buff button.

Another thing that you can do is lug around kings drums and use them yourself after you've popped wolves and find everything on cooldown. There are a ton of other buffs that can be applied to wolves, but be reasonable ;)

Fire Elemental

The elemental is capable of providing massive amounts of damage during it's 2 minute uptime. Only use the elemental when you will get the most out of it.

In TOC the usage is typically something like: on Gormok because the worm sweeps/Icehowls breath will kill it, Jaraxxus immediately, on Faction Champs I'm afraid of Kyth so I don't use it at all, for twins immediately, and for Anub once he's in p3 and will cease to submerge.

The positioning on the spell is now very important due to the introduction of Fire Nova. On the AE heavy fights be sure that you have your totem centered between the different mobs. Remember: Fire Totems always go to the front left of your character model.

Something to keep in mind with the Fire Elemental is his stats are based upon your stats at the time of casting. Since this is the case I usually try to line it up with trinket/weapon/racial abilities to get the most out of it. This should be done within reason, though. Don't waste too much time trying to get every single one of your procs lined up.

Fire Nova

Fire Nova is our new bread and butter AE spell. On single target encounters it's weight in a priority system is not very high. Once additional mobs are introduced it becomes exponentially better, to the point of being the highest damage/cast ability in our arsenal. At the moment that potential only lies in the Anub'arak encounter in 25 man Hardmode and after an Infernal Volcano provided they're all close enough to be hit, but there are lots of other opportunities to come in Icecrown.

The best advice that I can offer up to figure out the best time to use Fire Nova is to load your character up in Rawr and use the export to EnhSim feature(I'm not going to go into detail on how to do this, both sims have amazing FAQs and for me to explain it all would probably eclipse the length of this current guide) and find the average damage for each ability and adjust accordingly. On single targets it's likely that Fire Nova will be the least damage, be slightly higher than Lava Lash on two targets, and start trumping everything when you get into the realm of 3+ targets.

The one drawback of this new spell is the mana cost. I have yet to run into mana issues with the spell in doing both 10/25 man content without any points in Elemental Focus/Imp Stormstrike(even on fights like Anub/Twink Valkyr where I'm dumping Chain Lightning with every MW stack and Fire Novaing like a fiend), but what works for me may not work for everyone. I think the most important thing to have beyond an aggressive use of Shamanistic Rage is Judgment of Wisdom. The only log that I have to look over is our latest Hardmode Twins kill to cite mana as I was resto for Anub, but take a look at the mana returns from different abilities:

Shamanistic Rage  	60215 mana
Judgement of Wisdom 	23650 mana
Replenishment 	        7462 mana
Empowered Light 	3502 mana
Revitalize 	        1225 mana

If you find yourself lacking Judgment of Wisdom you may need mana assistance from our retention talents. I would suggest starting without them to see where you stand, then begin putting points into them to fill the gaps. I will slightly touch on this in the next section.

Talents

Enhancement talent specs are really dependent on gear and setting. If you find yourself doing a lot of 10 mans it's possible that a spec with more mana return will suit you better. If you find yourself dying to unavoidable damage you can spec into more survivability.

The core talents remain the same regardless of which spec you choose, and looks like: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#hVhhVbZhbxsoxdIhusouVo:NfkM

Once you have the base of your spec established the remaining points are dependent on the above mentioned. If you have 4 piece T9 and are actively raiding 25 mans where most/all of the mana regen buffs are covered you'll get the most DPS out of: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#hVhGVbZhbxsoxdIhusouVo:NfkM

If you are finding that you are having issues with mana then drop points in Reverberation and pick up Elemental Focus/Improved Stormstrike with your two remainder points.

Glyphs

Enhancement glyphs are pretty straight forward.

The largest DPS increase is yielded from using Glyph of Feral Spirit and Glyph of Stormstrike.

The other 3 choices for your third glyph include: Flame Shock, Windfury, and Lightning Shield. On single target encounters Flame Shock will provide you with the largest DPS increase. Once additional mobs are entered into the equation Windfury will yield you higher DPS. Going even further, once additional mechanics to trigger the passive hits on your lightning shield are introduced, that then becomes the superior glyph.

Gems

The most important things to achieve when thinking about your gemming are the expertise and spell hit caps. Because so much of enhancement's damage is magical the spell hit cap is very very important.

The caps for spell hit are:

• Draenei - 342
Everyone else - 368.

The caps for expertise are:

• Orc wielding Axes/Fist weapons - 99
• Everyone else - 140.

It should be mentioned that if you are an orc wielding a fist/axe in your mainhand it is not worth it to exceed that expertise value to try and bring your offhand up to the same threshold.

Gemming beyond your two caps is subject to a lot of controversy among enhancement shamans. The two schools of thought are pure Attack Power and pure Haste. I'm not going to argue for either one and it's apparent where my preference lies, but I will try to give the advantages/disadvantages of both so that you can make your own decision.

Haste

Haste does a lot of things for us. It affects: Lightning Shield damage, Flametongue Damage, White Damage, Lightning Bolt damage(by contributing to additional melee swings and granting additional maelstrom weapon procs), and something that no other stat does - our global cooldown.

There are different valleys and peaks for the GCD that alter with every few points you gain in the stat because all of our abilities are tied to cooldowns rather than some other resource.

Pretend you have 0 haste and look at this general flow:

0.0 - Stormstrike
1.5 - Flame Shock
3.0 - Lava Lash
4.5 - Lightning Bolt
6.0 - wait
6.7 - Earth Shock
8.2 - Stormstrike

You can see that you are left with a .7 second waiting period between and then a .2 second delay on Stormstrike usage with 0 haste. If you were to gain enough haste to drop your global to 1.3 seconds you flow would then look like:

0.0 - Stormstrike
1.3 - Flame Shock
2.6 - Lava Lash
3.9 - Lightning Bolt
5.3 - filler ability
6.6 - Earth Shock
7.9 - wait
8.0 - Stormstrike

The addition of that much haste allows you to fit in another ability and removes waiting time for your Stormstrike usage.

Obviously those two are different extremes, but the idea remains the same throughout: small increments can have cascading effects on your entire rotation.

Attack Power

Attack Power is a lot more simple. It affects every ability we have, whether it be physical or magical. The things that it can impact that haste cannot is Magma Totem damage, Fire Nova Damage, Fire Elemental Damage, and Shock Damage. A few of those abilities also involve hitting multiple targets, so should there be the targets available then AP becomes an even stronger stat.

The ideal meta is either Chaotic Skyflare or Relentless Earthsiege, both are very comparable and you can choose whichever better suits your gear. To meet any blue gem requirements the Nightmare's Tear is a fantastic gem. If you are using Skyflare then your 2nd blue gem should be a Siren's Tear(provided you're at the expertise cap before you say BUT YOUR GEAR HAS.. ;)).

Enchants

Regardless of spec/gemming there is little room for variance in enhancement enchants.

• Head: Arcanum of Torment
• Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Axe
• Back: Greater Speed
• Chest: Powerful Stats
• Wrist: Greater Assault
• Gloves: Crusher
• Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle
• Legs: Icescale Leg Armor
• Weapon: Berserking
• Boots: The only variant. Without a runspeed talent runspeed is an amazing enchant. If you find yourself doing literally 0 movement then you may find better results with Icewalker or Attack Power.

Doubling back on Black Magic information yet again. The recorded results were not really new information as there was a grave misunderstanding among shamans on how haste affected PPM enchants. Berserking is still the superior enchant.

Professions

Without any sort of talent to increase base gains on an ability most of the profession choices are equal for enhancement.

If you find yourself wanting to stack haste then JC/Blacksmithing/Engineering are the only professions that can cater towards this decision.

I have found engineering to be the biggest DPS boost regardless of gemming provided you use bombs on cooldown and the other benefitis offered by the profession.

If you aren't worried about haste Enchanting, Leatherworking, Alchemy, and Inscription all provide the same benefit.

Consumables

Consumables are straight forward for enhancement

• Flask: Flask of Endless Rage
• Food: Fish Feast
• Potion: Potion of Speed

Some encounters require potion timers other than potion of speed, so keep that in mind. Never forget that staying alive is more important than eeking out a little bit more DPS, so if you find yourself in a bind don't forget you have health potions available to you.

Your UI:

The key factors to any enhancement UI are:

• a way to display your totems
• a way to easily track your cooldowns
• a way to monitor boss debuffs
• and less enhancement crucial addons like raid frames, boss mods, and things of that sort.

If you're finding it difficult to keep up with the shaman priority system there is a mod called ShockandAwe that will assist you in the most basic way: by putting a button in the middle of your screen and tell you what to do.

I prefer numbers to bars so I never really got into the addon(being aware of what is coming off of cooldown is important), but I use a similar layout.

Example: http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/5216/uisy.jpg">http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/5216/uisy.jpg

1. Is a mod called Satrina's Buff Bars. It is an amazing mod. You can set it to display any buff/debuff and have a whole mess of filtering options available. I use one in the top left to verify my raid buffs, the one in the bottom middle to keep track of my totems and if I'm in range, and the top middle to take care of Magma timer/Lightning Shield charges/Maelstrom charges.
2. This mod is called PowerAuras. It's not the most flattering icon for sure, but I made it as a joke and felt like I needed to use it. I use that to keep track of if my target has the Stormstrike debuff or not. When the debuff is not active on my target that Icon appears and I know that should an ES/SS interaction come up then SS is the better option.
3. This is a mod called Bartender. It lets you adjust bar scale/amount of buttons shown, and positioning. I keep every ability with a cooldown visible and hide just about everything else that I can.
4. This addon is called Yatba. I use it to keep track of my Flame Shock dot because it is pretty.

As you can see my UI is very centered. I have found this to be the best option for enhancement as there are so many things to keep track of, and looking all over your screen for cooldowns is not very wise.

Third Party Tools

Rawr and Enhsim are both amazing tools for figuring out upgrades. They are best used in conjunction with each other and Rawr can even export your setup to Enhsim for simulation ease.

Random notes, tidbits, and TL;DRs:

If you don't get the rotation right 100% of the time it is not the end of the world. Don't try to reset it, just go with it.

Get comfortable with it all. There is a lot to take in and keep track of, but it all becomes 2nd nature after a while.

The caps for spell hit are: Draenei - 342, Everyone else - 368. The caps for expertise are: Orc wielding Axes/Fist weapons - 99, Everyone else - 140. These are your most important stats.

Links to mods/simulators:

• ShockandAwe: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/shockandawe.aspx
• Satrina's Buff Frames: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info7876-SatrinaBuffFrames3.html
• Power Auras: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info14291-PowerAurasClassic.html
• Bartender: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info11190-Bartender4.html
• Yatba: http://www.wowace.com/addons/yatba/
• Rawr: http://rawr.codeplex.com/
• Enhsim: http://enhsim.codeplex.com/

Thanks

The EJ shaman community. Most/if not all of this info has been posted there at one point or another.

Bluedeep because I totally ripped off your layout.

Fusion for letting me hit things.

Edit this article: Introductory guide to Enhancement

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Guide

So you want to be a healer, but you're not sure what kind, eh? There are all sorts of different criteria people come in here looking for. First, let's have a basic overview of the healing classes, then we'll get down to the "Which healer is the best at x?" questions.

PRIESTS

• Role: Priests can specialize either in single-target healing and absorption (Discipline) or in AoE healing (Holy). Discipline priests have two common playstyles. In one, they focus on one target (tank healing) with Penance, a large heal on an 8-second cooldown once glyphed and talented, Power Word: Shield, a fairly hefty absorption effect, and other various filler spells. In the other, they focus on raid-wide mitigation by casting Power Word: Shield on as many targets as possible, usually to counter constant small AoE damage or large, predictable AoE spikes. Holy, on the other hand, focuses on AoE healing with tools such as Circle of Healing, Prayer of Healing, and Prayer of Mending.
• Utility: Priests bring two unique buffs to a group--Prayer of Fortitude, a Stamina boost of 214 once talented, and Prayer of Spirit, a Spirit boost of 80. On fights with Shadow damage, they also bring Prayer of Shadow Protection, increasing Shadow resistance by 130 and allowing a paladin who may have otherwise switched to Shadow Resist Aura to use a more useful aura. Priests of either spec also have the benefit of major tank-saving cooldowns (Guardian Spirit or Pain Suppression) and bring the unique ability to prevent a fear effect on a single target once every three minutes. Priests may Mind Control any humanoid or CC any undead target, though they are rarely called upon to do so when playing the role of a PvE healer. Priests are the only healer who can dispel two magic effects at a time (both offensively and defensively) as well as the only healer who can dispel magic effects from many targets at once with a single spell. Priests can reduce any raid member's damage taken by 10% by landing a critical heal on them; this is particularly nice on a tank. Priests can provide a short-term "Last Stand" effect to their raid members' mana, as well as refill a small portion of it with Hymn of Hope. Finally, priests are the only healer who can remove immunity effects from their enemies such as Divine Shield and Ice Block (warriors have this ability as well, but you asked about healers, not warriors).
• PvP: Holy is not currently a viable spec for serious PvP, though it can do well in light PvP for fun. Discipline priests have long been a staple of PvP, and an outsider may even view them as nigh-unkillable. Your mileage may vary, though, as with any class; you will find priests who complain about being taken down in the space of a single stun lock, and you will find other priests who seem to live forever.
• Versatility: Priests can fulfill either major healing role, but you will find it best to spec into either tree to do so, leaving you dual-specced Holy/Discipline for maximum PvE healing versatility. PvE Discipline and PvP Discipline specs are also fairly different; one can effectively PvP for fun in a PvE spec, but for serious play you will want to make spec changes. Finally, Priests' dps spec, shadow, is currently somewhat behind in numbers but is getting quite a few buffs in patch 3.3 to keep them competitive.
• Ease of use: Priest is said to be one of the more difficult healing classes to learn, due to the sheer variety of abilities at their disposal. You may find it more fun, or you may find it more frustrating. A good priest shines when he or she knows how to squeeze maximum healing out of every GCD, while a priest who is unaware of his or her full potential will fall behind.

DRUIDS

• Role: Druids specialize in heal-over-time effects augmented by a direct heal called Nourish. They are typically called upon to raid heal, especially in fights with ticking auras (think of Twin Val'kyrs or Sapphiron), but can also be good tank healers. Druid healing requires a proactive mindset, as a druid's strongest heal does not begin to heal for three seconds after it has been cast (unless augmented by a particular tier set bonus).
• Utility: Druids bring Gift of the Wild to their groups, which--after talents--improves armor by 1050, all attributes (Strength, Intellect, etc) by 52, and all elemental resistances by 76. Druid healers in Tree of Life form increase healing received by any raid member in range of their aura by 6%, a buff duplicated only by Protection Paladins' improved Devotion Aura. Druids may find a little extra utility by buffing groupmates (particularly tanks) with Thorns for a little extra damage. In the CC department, druids have the ability to keep two targets CCed with Entangling Roots and Cyclone, and they have the added benefit of being immune to quite a bit of CC due to being shapeshifted into an Elemental form. A common complaint from druids is their lack of a tank-saving cooldown outside of Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch, an instant heal for around 10k health (non-crit, 2k spellpower) on a 3-minute cooldown. Finally, druids have the ever-iconic "Battle Res" which can change the course of battle by returning a vital raid member to life.
• PvP: Druids are often poked and jeered at for being OP, particularly in 2v2 situations, but can sometimes find it more difficult to keep up in larger-scale PvP when their hots are being dispelled. A druid can remove any movement impairing effect by shapeshifting, although this costs more mana than is helpful. A druid is also vulnerable to a Warlock's Banish in Tree of Life form, but is immune to other CC, such as Polymorph, though to cast his or her own CC, the druid will need to be in a more vulnerable humanoid caster form. Druids also have a -20% damage taken cooldown on a one minute cooldown that lasts 12 seconds.
• Versatility: Druids can both raid and tank heal particularly well in their cookie-cutter spec, though their largest and best tank heal (Nourish) is supported by their hots, which must be reapplied, consuming precious GCDs that can mean life or death in bleeding-edge content. Outside of activities where druids are healing, they find themselves playing the most versatile class in the game, being able to tank and do dps of either melee or magic types.
• Ease of use: A newcomer to the druid class may find it difficult to keep track of all the hots he or she has placed on various targets. Druid veterans often use hot tracking addons to assist them with this, though there are some who insist this is unnecessary. You have to find your own path with this. :) Beyond that, druids can be fairly easy to learn.

SHAMAN

• Role: Shaman are the traditional iconic raid healer, with Chain Heal at the forefront of their arsenal, though they are also very good tank healers with Earth Shield, Lesser Healing Wave, Healing Wave, and Riptide.
• Utility: I'll go ahead and get this one out of the way right away--every raid wants at least one shaman of any spec for Bloodlust/Heroism. After the one-shaman requirement is taken care of, shaman are still capable of providing a few great buffs duplicated by very few classes through their totems, such as a strength/agi buff, armor, melee haste, spell haste, spell power, fear immunity--the list goes on. A restoration Shaman in particular brings Mana Tide totem, which restores 18% of every group (not raid) member's mana on a 5-minute cooldown. They also bring Earth Shield, which is a buff placed on a tank that triggers a fairly nice heal (2k-3k) whenever a tank is damaged--this really adds up over time. Shaman join priests in their ability to reduce a person's incoming damage by 10% with a critical heal. Shaman healers have no major tank-saving cooldowns aside from a potential 20k+ instant heal on a 3-minute cooldown with Nature's Swiftness and Tidal Force. Shaman also have the ability to Reincarnate on a fairly hefty cooldown.
• PvP: Shaman have often felt neglected in PvP balance, due to many of their best abilities relying on totems which are easily targeted and destroyed and their lack of any major -x% damage taken cooldowns they can use on themselves.
• Versatility: A shaman can tank and raid heal particularly well with no spec changes. Outside of healing activities, shaman can be very powerful melee and ranged dps, with each spec offering very nice buffs through unique or improved totems. A typical 25-man raid will want a shaman of each type to cover the best of all possible buffs and totems.
• Ease of use: Shaman is a particularly easy class to learn, with only the need to keep earth shield up on a tank and either single-target or Chain Heal as required by the encounter. The intricacies are there, of course, as with any class--riptide interactions and spatial awareness for CH, for example--but generally speaking, shaman throughput is more limited by gear than spell selection.

PALADINS

• Role: Paladins are the iconic tank healer in today's raiding world, with strong single-target heals and little to no AoE healing power to speak of. They are commonly called upon to either heal two tanks at once through the use of Beacon of Light, and when it's unnecessary to heal two tanks heavily, Paladins can slip in some fast raid healing with Beacon of Light on their main target and small heals on raid members.
• Utility: Paladins bring several unique auras to the table--Concentration Aura is not duplicated by any class, and Paladins are the best choice for Fire and Frost resistance auras as a shaman would need to give up other buffs to use them. Paladins also bring blessings to a group, in particular the unique Blessing of Kings, increasing all sats by 10%. Paladins also have a system of "Hands," which are short temporary buffs that may render a player invulerable to physical damage, make them immune to any movement impairing effect, reduce threat, or even redirect 30% of their target's damage to the Paladin (one of the major tank-saving cooldowns). In addition, a paladin who specs a particular way may reduce damage taken raid-wide by 30% until patch 3.3. Finally, Paladins have an array of invulverability bubbles and other "oh crap" cooldowns such as Lay on Hands that find varying degrees of use. And who can forget a paladin's ability to save him or herself and one raid member a repair bill once every so often? :)
• PvP: Due to all the utility listed above and the fact that Paladins wear plate armor, this class is often seen as something of a powerhouse in PvP. As always, your mileage may vary.
• Versatility: Paladins lack healing versatility, specializing in tank healing with only Beacon of Light (an expensive spell) to allow them to cast on two targets at once. Judgement of Light assists in AoE healing--as much as 20% of a holy paladin's effective healing may come from this spell alone, if not more--but this is smaller passive healing that adds up over time. Outside of healing, paladins find themselves with a very capable melee dps tree and a particularly nice tank tree at their disposal.
• Ease of use: Given the nature of the Paladin, it is also a somewhat easier class to learn to heal with. Similarly to Shaman, there is a shield effect that should be on a tank at all times. There is also a Beacon to keep up when required, a Seal to keep up on yourself, a Judgement to keep up on the target, and a large heal and a small heal to choose from. Again, there are always intricacies to any class--this is a simplification. A new Paladin, for example, will find themselves deciding when in each encounter it may be appropriate to use Divine Plea.

==================

BUT I WANT A HEALER THAT....

Healers commonly answer questions about which healer is the best at PvE, which is the best at PvP, which is the easiest to level, which is the most fun to play, which gets into a raid the most easily, and so forth. Let's try to look at some of those questions.

PvE HEALING

Just kidding. All healers have a place in PvE healing. An ideal healing team has at least one of each kind of healer. There is no best PvE healer. Each is good at different things. This extends to raids, dungeons, heroics, all PvE activities. For example, some groups didn't want a priest for AN because poisons are used extensively in that instance, while other groups wouldn't take a paladin to HoL because they had a hard time healing through Loken's AoE. Every healer will find a strength and a weakness in some heroic or another, unless they overgear it.

TANK HEALING

If tank healing interests you, the commonly-held ranking is as follows:

1. Holy Paladin
2. Discipline Priest
3. Restoration Shaman
4. Restoration Druid
5. Holy Priest

Caveats: Restoration Shaman and Druid both have similar output. Druids have to spend precious GCDs recasting the hots that prop up Nourish, but it's debated whether this is a concern when their 15-second instant heal is factored in. Shaman, on the other hand, share the ability to reduce a tank's incoming damage by 10% upon landing a critical heal. I'll say it again: Your mileage may vary!

RAID HEALING

If AoE raid healing interests you, healers commonly rank the specs as follows:

1. Restoration Druid
2. Restoration Shaman
3. Holy Priest
4. Discipline Priest
5. Holy Paladin

Caveats must follow! Restoration druids are unquestionably on top in fights that allow them to blanket the raid in Rejuvenations and Wild Growths (ticking aura fights). Proactive healing is required for this style of healing, and a lack of clairvoyance as to which player will take damage will have the druid falling behind. Resto Shaman and Holy Priest are VERY close in AoE healing ability, and can vary based on a raid positioning--if CH can't jump very well due to the raid being spread out, Holy Priest will absolutely pull ahead. Holy Priest is very good at large group heals (Prayer of Healing->Circle of Healing bombs on a melee team timed to land directly after a large AoE hit) while Resto Shaman is good at constant AoE damage for which Chain Heal can be repeatedly cast. Discipline priests are sometimes desired for raid-wide mitigation (a.k.a. shield the entire raid, one GCD at a time). Many priests find this playstyle mind-numbing and distasteful, though admittedly effective.

I've had a lot of feedback about these rankings, but I stand by them. These are in order of max hps potential, but in reality, the first three entries of this ranking can and do change positions very, very often. All three are potent raid healers, with druids relying on gimmicks and clairvoyance and shaman relying on positioning to attain their maximums.

PvP HEALING

I'm not going to touch this one with a ten-foot pole due to the arguments it can cause. ;) Everyone thinks this class or that one is OP, while feeling their own class's weaknesses acutely. Basically the only thing healers really agree on for best PvP healer is "Not Shaman." What you should take from this is that many players can make many classes work for them under many different situations.

GETS INTO RAIDS

In my own personal experience, Shaman is the least common healing class and brings a hefty enough number of buffs to leave many healing leads wishing they had one. This may not be true on your server, though, so I urge you to snoop around with healers and healing officers in top guilds on your server to find out the general climate there. Beyond that, healers seem pretty balanced and each bring something to the table. Regardless of the rankings above, the only time you should ever see someone in LFG asking for a specific type of healer should be if they simply have none of that class whatsoever in the raid and need their buffs.

EASY TO LEVEL

First: Don't level in a healing spec. They're all painful. It doesn't matter which class is easiest to level if you're leveling in a healing spec. That said, my own personal experience with the classes is as follows:

1. Retribution Paladin
2. Feral Druid
3. Enhancement Shaman
4. Shadow Priest

Caveats: Ret Paladin is easy to level with mail and plate, but is commonly called boring until you get more buttons to press than Judgement and Exorcism. Druid is often thought to be very difficult to handle until level 20 with Cat form, relying on Bear form or weak Wrath nuking, but is easy afterward. If Balance leveling tickles your fancy, you can really start playing with it around level 40 with Moonkin form, with the bonus effect of the intellect/SP gear helping any off-spec healing you might care to do. Enhancement Shaman is similarly easy to paladin, but is also similarly dull until later. With late-tier talents such as Feral Spirit and Shamanistic Rage, Enhancement Shaman may easily solo many group quests. You also have the option of Elemental, which (similarly to Balance Druid) shares gear with resto and will make it easier to offspec heal. Priests are difficult to handle, with Shadow only really surpassing Holy/Disc leveling at level 40 with Shadowform. While it catches up in speed, Priests in any spec are still quite a bit "squishier" than the other three classes and often must be more careful. Be aware that many priests feel priests are just as easy to level as others and will likely be vocal about this fact in response to this post! You might find it perfectly easy. You won't know unless you try.

EASY TO GEAR

No surprises here:

1. Paladin
2. Shaman
3. Druid
4. Priest

Why? Paladins can equip any type of armor if no one who wears lesser armor types wants what dropped, and have an entire type or armor that only they can wear and no one else in the raid will want - Spellpower Plate. However, Paladins often complain about weapons--many spellpower drops are daggers and staves, neither of which a paladin can use, yet other casters will still be extremely interested in any caster maces or swords that drop. Shaman can equip all but plate with a good selection of weapons. Druids can equip leather and cloth, but a common complaint of druids is that leather is poorly itemized so that cloth is some of their best armor. Some raids let them take cloth pieces, while others won't. There have been long debates on both sides of this argument. Priests can only wear cloth and share hot competition for cloth gear with mages and warlocks (and sometimes druids), so they are the most difficult to gear through drops alone.

If you have any more questions about which healer is for you, please feel free to leave a comment. :)

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Audience

I've used this strategy to level a warlock in almost best-in-slot T6, and a warlock who didn't even have BoA gear for the first two levels and was in TBC greens.

Guide

Introduction

I put together a video to illustrate what is definitely my favorite way to level in Wrath:

http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=89547

While TBC leveling was strong with a healer, just casting instant-cast dots and using siphon life, along with instant Howl of Terror, Wrath of the Lich King gives us some very very nice tools as locks to level.

Talent Points

When you hit 71, this is the spec you want: Warlock: 21/41/0

(note: Glyphs have changed since I leveled, I'm not actually sure which is better, the felguard glyph or CoA.)

You're building towards this level 80 spec: Warlock: 30/41/0

One of the nice things about this spec is that each talent point after 71 actually increases your dps -- not something warlocks are used to in their trees, which are so focused around a handful of "heavy lifting" talents and tons of filler or situational talents.

Mechanics/Spell Changes

A couple key things happened that make this work appallingly well:

Level 71

Obviously. You couldn't pick up both felguard and siphon life before.

Fel Synergy

Heals your pet for 15% of the damage you deal.

Basically, it keeps your pet at full health while he's mitigating 5% of the damage done to you and tanking a mob or two along the way.

Fel Armor change

Well, it used to be 30% in-combat mana regen from spirit. Nice for raiding, but actually terrible for leveling.

The good news is that while its current version (+2% of your health every 5 seconds) is bad for raiding, it's great for leveling and provides another trickle-heal.

Spell pushback changes

Before you couldn't get a howl of terror off with 5 mobs beating on you. Now you can, because spell pushback is capped at two interrupts, with a max of one second pushback. Hello Howl of Terror! Now you actually can use your AE Fear without having to talent it.

This means an AE-dotting spec that isn't deep affliction is actually doable.

Spell casting and spell channeling pushback has been changed to the following:

• When casting a spell:
  • The first and second hit will add .5 secs each to the cast time.
  • All hits after the second will have no effect.
• When channeling a spell:
  • The first and second hit reduces current duration by 25% of total duration each.
  • All hits after the second will have no effect

Gear

Two piece T6 definitely helps: the healing from corruption ticks lets you postpone bandaging for a bit longer.

The BT exalted warlock ashtongue trinket is actually useful as well: Ashtongue Talisman of Shadows (thanks to Nihilithak on Ner'zhul for that reminder!)

Outside of that, while more +dmg and haste is good, you don't have to be geared to the teeth -- just pull what you can handle and when (not if!) you die, laugh as you run back from the GY, knowing that an awful lot of mobs killed you.

Crit gear isn't useful. Spirit would be (scaling lifetap, and +dmg from the spirit), so don't be afraid to swap out some of your current pieces for dmg/spirit gear as you level up, particularly if it means you're shedding "useless" crit.

Elites

You can solo almost every group quest in Wrath. Just use your voidwalker instead of felguard if you need to and healthfunnel. Throw dots up as you have gcd's available (make sure you use siphon life to offset the health loss from health funnel), use shadow bolt if it's an easy quest.

Use soulshatter if you're out-aggroing your pet.

Tips

I found some useful tips as I was leveling:

Don't pull one when you can pull four

Killing a single mob is slow for you. Only need one other mob for a quest but there's five around him? Just kill them all, you'll appreciate it later.

Don't eat/drink; don't stand and bandage

Stop before you're at 10% health and mana. I took breaks around 50% or so, sent my pet off to hit something I had dotted, lifetapped down, and then bandaged back to full health/mana and kept moving.

Watch your distance

Pet poofing/mob leashing is very much a risk here. Don't send your pet at a mob on the edge of your pull: send him somewhere in the middle and pull the edge mobs to the middle.

Lifetap early

One mistake I made at the start was waiting until I got low to lifetap. Why? I have no idea, I never do that in raids or groups...

Dot, dot, dot, (lifetap), dot, dot, dot (lifetap) is a great way to start out. That maximizes the trickle healing you're getting from siphon life and Fel Armor.

Why not full Affliction?

You just don't gain enough, in my opinion, to go deep affliction versus 41 demo.

You can't use the new dots you get, they all have cast times (UA/Haunt). You don't need instant howl of terror anymore. Eradication is of minimal usefulness here, and can only proc once every 30 seconds. Death's embrace doesn't apply, nor does everlasting affliction.

Pandemic is good, yes, but as you level to 80 your crit rate will be cut in half -- so it becomes less valuable as you level (although it will be good once you get into raid gear again and get raid buffs, of course.)

About the only thing you're missing is being able to pick up Shadow Mastery -- +10% dot damage. It's nice, but you can start building points into that starting at 72/73.

Compare that to getting 10% more health (I don't die tons when I do this, but the health is nice since Fel Armor works on a percentage basis), having a pet tank (nice for medding up, nice for keeping one mob off you, nice for group quests), and shedding 5% of the damage done to you via soul link.

Plus, the demo tree gives you more raw +dmg -- affliction just doesn't boost your existing dots (past the points we already have in there) that much other than SM. Demo brings demonic aegis and demonic knowledge, both of which go some ways to making up for not getting SM as early.

Where this won't work

If your server is too crowded at WotLK launch, you might end up very frustrated. You definitely need a fair number of mobs to pull this off, as it's weak on single-target dps (killing four is only a bit slower than killing one, not just because four is fast: it's also because one is slow.)

If you just can't ever get enough mobs to make it worthwhile, respec to demo/destro and just level that way.

Edit this article: Leveling a Warlock in Wrath: SL/FG

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