Totem Talk: Enhancement weapons
Axes, maces, lightning, Windfury and wolves. It can mean only one thing: enhancement. Rich Maloy lives it and loves it. His main spec is enhance. His off spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance at Big Hit Box, pens the enhance side of Totem Talk and leads the guild Big Crits (Week 3 now out!) as the enhancement shaman Stoneybaby.
As a melee class, weapons are our most important items. Not surprisingly, good weapons (emphasis on "good") can't be bought with emblems and only drop off a select few bosses, with the best weapons dropping off the hardest bosses. While trinkets can be hard to acquire (Death's Choice/Verdict is a lie!), you can fill in the gaps with emblems or even some subpar trinket choices and not have as big an impact on overall damage as a good weapon. Nothing beats a big stick.
Today we're looking at enhancement weapon options in dungeons, plus Trial of the Crusader and Icecrown Citadel in 10s and 25s, regular and heroic. I am skipping over Naxx, OS, EoE, Ulduar, and Ony because it seems to me that it's far easier to get in and gear up in a ToC/ToGC PuG these days than any other raid. There are some good weapon choice in those older raids, but even starting out as a fresh 80 you should find ToC-10 PuGs doable.
Let's dive in to our weapon options.
Crafted items and emblems
What if you're desperate for weapons? You can't show up to your first ToC-10 PuG with Noob Cleaver of the Monkey. After all, you have some pride left, despite your ilevel 147 trinkets. What are your options? A crafted weapon or one from emblems. The Champion Seals are easy to come by and the cost of materials for the crafted mace have probably dropped to a reasonable level to make an affordable purchase.
25 Champion Seals Grimhorn Crusher / Ironforge Smasher
50 Emblems of Heroism Pride
Blacksmithing Titansteel Bonecrusher
The one course of action I cannot condone is purchasing Pride with 50 emblems; that's a steep price to pay for something that you'll probably replace with even the slightest effort. It's not often you' hear me advise against an upgrade, but in this case I'd say put the time into running the right dungeons and by the time you get 50 emblems, odds are you'll have a better weapon.
Dungeons
Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection are the best chances to getting your hands on weapons quickly. With an enterprising group -- or at least a very willing tank and healer -- you could farm those dungeons in regular until the Seven Fingered Claws or Hate-Forged Cleaver dropped, or if you're really lucky, a Battered Hilt.
Heroic The Culling of Stratholme (Dark Runed Chest) Greed
Heroic Trial of the Champion (Eadric's Cache) Aledar's Battlestar
Heroic Forge of Souls (Bronjahm) Nighttime
Normal Halls of Reflection (The Captain's Chest) Hate-Forged Cleaver
Heroic Halls of Reflection (The Captain's Chest) Black Icicle
FoS, PoS, HoR (random drop) Seven-Fingered Claws
FoS, PoS, HoR (random drop/quest) Cudgel of Furious Justice
Trial of the Crusader and Grand Crusader
In ToC and ToGC, both 10s and 25s, the only weapons of interest to us drop off Anub'arak. ToC-10 has the greatest payoff per effort; it's easy to get a group and get it done successfully in a short amount of time for the chance at two weapons. For a complete list of all weapons that drop off Anub, you can go to the Wowhead search I've created or check out the list below. ToC- and ToGC-10
H=Horde, A=Alliance. 232=ToC10 reg mode, 245=ToGC10 heroic mode
Blackhorn Bludgeon(H-232) / The Grinder(A-232)
Frostblade Hatchet(H-232) / The Lion's Maw(A-232)
Blackhorn Bludgeon(H-245) / The Grinder(A-245)
Frostblade Hatchet(H-245) / The Lion's Maw(A-245)
The Facebreaker(H-245) / The Spinebreaker(A-245) These two items drop in the Tribute Chest when your group has at least 25 attempts remaining.
ToC- and ToGC-25
H=Horde, A=Alliance. 245=ToC25 reg mode, 258=ToGC25 heroic mode
Hellscream Slicer(H-245) / Stormpike Cleaver(A-245)
Hellscream Slicer(H-258) / Stormpike Cleaver(A-258)
Cudgel of the Damned(H-258) / Remorseless(A-258) Rewards from the Tribute Chest with at least 25 attempts left.
Icecrown Citadel
If you're in the show, get ready for some good drops, but when it comes to weapons, the bosses to target are different depending on whether you run 10s or 25s. The complete list of weapons from Wowhead is here.
ICC-10
The weapons in ICC-10 don't have the ideal stats for enhancement, with the exception of Pugius. Armor penetration is one of the lowest priority stats for us, and by the time you get geared up to a decent level in ICC, you'll have hit coming out of your eyeballs. My opinion is take upgrades when you get them; ArP may not be the best, but it's not bad, and extra hit helps with more white damage. If it's an upgrade, take a chance on taking it.
Gunship Frost Giant's Cleaver (heroic)
Rotface Abomination Knuckles (heroic)
The Lich King Pugius, Fist of Defiance (heroic)
ICC-25
Stats on weapons for the 25-man version of ICC are much better. Unfortunately there are only three weapons, with one dropping off the Lich King. It's worth noting that the proc on Black Bruise was increased a while ago to make it a good item choice for enhancement.
Festergut 25 Black Bruise (heroic)
Blood Prince Council 25 Keleseth's Seducer (heroic)
The Lich King 25 Havoc's Call, Blade of Lordaeron Kings (heroic)
Naturally the heroic axe off The Lich King is the best-in-slot weapon for enhancement shamans. Short of that weapon choices are pretty straightforward: does it do more damage? If yes, take it; if no, pass. Only if your items are close in level, stats and DPS would you need to take a closer look.
I'm happy to be rocking a Havoc's Call (regular) and Kele's Seducer (heroic), but personally I wish the model used for Pugius was our BiS because I love that look. What are you wielding? What's your favorite model?
May all your hits be crits!
Show your totemic mastery by reading Totem Talk; whether it's Mike Sacco's elemental edition, Joe Perez's coverage of restoration or Rich Maloy's enhancement edition, we have you covered.
