- Author: Venesh
- Date: January 7, 2023
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
In this section of the guide, we will help you choose the best equipment or alternatives that you can utilize for each of the different phases of the expansion. The Pre-raid tab contains items that are updated for Phase 2. Some slots have options for investing either more or less gold depending on longevity. Example being skipping the Kirin Tor ring in favor of something cheaper, or investing in a Belt of Dragons for actual Phase 2 BIS.
This will be your best option for this slot.
This will be your best option for this slot.
This will be your best option for this slot.
This will be your best option for this slot.
This will be your best option for this slot.
This will be your best option for this slot.
This will be your best option for this slot.
This will be your best option for this slot.
This will be your best option for this slot.
This will be your best option for this slot.
These will be your best option for this slot.
These will be your best option for this slot.
These will be your best option for this slot.
These will be your best option for this slot.
This will be your best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
These will be your best options for your ring slots.
These will be your best options for your trinket slots.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
Item | Source |
Algalon The Observer (25) | |
Thorim (25) Emblem of Conquest (58) |
For your Helm slot Boundless Gaze is the clear winner by a significant margin — providing a large amount of hit, high Item level, and strong itemization. Conqueror’s Worldbreaker Faceguard could potentially be used to complete your 4-set Bonus early. However, you would need to account for the lack of hit rating either through gems or elsewhere on your gear.
Item | Source |
General Vezax (25 HM) | |
Flame Leviathan (25 HM) | |
Freya (25) |
The Pendulum of Infinity from HM 25 Vezax is your best option here. While Pendant of Fiery Havoc is a close contender as an SP item, 252 SP items should be prioritized to your casters — these items are highly contested. Nymph Heart Charm, therefore, would be more accessible and realistic off of Normal 25 Freya.
Item | Source |
Yogg-Saron (25) | |
Iron Council (25 HM) | |
Thorim (10) |
Conqueror’s Worldbreaker Shoulderguards should be used towards achieving your set bonuses.
Shoulderpads of the Intruder provides a lot of strong hit and expertise, but keep in mind that leather without any intellect isn’t ideal for Enhancement and should be used sparingly.
Valorous Worldbreaker Shoulderguards are a fine alternative for enabling your set bonus until your get Tier 8.5 as well.
Item | Source |
Hodir (25 HM) | |
Iron Council (25) |
Drape of Icy Intent is the clear choice for BiS, with all of the stats you would be looking for.
Drape of the Lithe is also very good, with almost the same itemization — just offering a lower item level and easier accessibility from non-hard mode Iron Council, in contrast to the HM 25 Hodir for the Drape of Icy Intent.
Item | Source |
Hodir (25) | |
Yogg-Saron (10) |
Chest is another ideal slot for Tier 8.5 set bonuses using Conqueror’s Worldbreaker Chestguard.
This makes the Tier 8 Valorous Worldbreaker Chestguard a good backup option.
Item | Source |
Algalon The Observer (25) | |
Hodir (25) |
Solar Bindings will be your realistic BiS. However, Frost-bound Chain Bracers is much easier to obtain and is less contested.
There is a Bracer SP option Bindings of Winter Gale that is competitive as well. But, as mentioned prior, these items should always be caster priority! With the rarity of 252 HM SP gear. Expecting your full raid to obtain full 252 BIS is unlikely, and other more raid-friendly items are available. If you find yourself in the situation where it’s dropped and your main spec casters have it already, then you should definitely pick it up. As it is competitive in both Single Target and AoE/Cleave situations.
Conqueror’s Worldbreaker Grips gloves should be one of your four-tier pieces. The 2/4 piece set bonus is quite good.
Gloves of the Steady Hand would make a viable off-piece, but, at the time of writing, the XT 25 HM is in a very bad place with tuning, with almost no guilds downing him on PTR prior to launch.
This makes Valorous Worldbreaker Grips another good choice for obtaining set bonuses: 1 of the 2 tier options from VoA off Emalon as well, if you are lucky!
Belts are a slot where things can easily be obtained outside the raid instance — Belt of Dragons being your BiS as a crafted Leatherworking Item and the Belt of the Ardent Marksman obtainable from Emblem of Conquest, costing only 28 in total.
Legs should be one of your four-tier pieces. The set bonus for Enhancement is really powerful, so you should aim to get Conqueror’s Worldbreaker War-Kilt.
Getting Valorous Worldbreaker War-Kilt and sticking to the same goal of obtaining set bonuses is a good plan. You can get these from either Hodir 10m or from Emalon in VoA.
Item | Source |
Iron Council (25 HM) | |
Mimiron (10 HM) |
Boots have 2 very similar options. Both have double sockets with good itemization, but must be obtained from HM encounters.
Greaves of Swift Vengeance are a hit option off of Iron Council 25 HM, while Tempered Mercury Greaves are from Firefighter (Mimiron 10 HM). These are difficult to obtain, but both will serve you well regardless of whichever you choose.
Item | Source |
General Vezax (25) | |
Iron Council (10 HM) |
Your realistic BiS ring options are Metallic Loop of the Sufferer and Loop of the Agile.
Metallic Loop of the Sufferer is off of Vexax 25m, while Loop of the Agile comes from Iron Council 10m HM. From initial testing, the 10-man Hard modes are far easier then their 25m counterparts.
To get the hard Mode loot off of the Assembly, you must kill Steelbreaker last!
Undoubtably several people will note the omission of Items like Brann’s Signet Ring and Nebula Band on the list. Armor Penetration is a great stat for many classes. However, Ulduar Enhancement Shaman is not one of them. This doesn’t make the item bad, or the stat completely useless. It’s simply that many other classes will make far better use of it. Including your friendly Feral Druids or Frost Death Knights. Both these items are BIS for nearly a dozen other class/specs, which includes the previously mentioned Nebula Band. The difference being that the casters who share this ring are not BIS based on conditional situations, like number of targets, or the current weapon in your main hand. But is BIS for every situation during the raid tier, meaning it will remain optimal and equipped until it is replaced. If your raid situation enables you to get these through various circumstance and make good use of them. Then that is perfectly fine!
Item | Source |
Algalon The Observer (25) | |
Algalon The Observer (10) |
Your P2 BiS trinkets will be Comet’s Trail and Dark Matter.
Unfortunately, both these items are obtained from Algalon, so they will require some time to get. Comet’s Trail is off of the 25m version and Dark Matter is from the 10-man.
Previous P1 BiS trinkets should maintain good use until you are able to actively replace them with these.
Item | Source |
Flame Leviathan (25 HM) | |
Yogg-Saron (10) |
The best two weapons, Golden Saronite Dragon & Caress of Insanity, are both excellent. P2 will see a shift from the normalized (and short-lived) “Spellhance,” or using a SP mainhand weapon with double Flametounge. This is because of the importance of having synced weapon speed items when dual wielding for Flurry uptime. Ulduar lacks good slow matching speed of SP weapon combinations. Double 2.7 speed weapons while using a Windfury mainhand with Flametounge offhand will provide good value.
Having said that, there are situational uses for a mainhand SP weapon. The first being used to snapshot your fire elemental when it’s available. Along with encounters where your primary damage will be from cleaving abilities such as Fire Nova and Chain Lightning. In these situations, you can swap your mainhand mid combat to optimize your spell damage. Your Phase 1 BIS Wraith Strike will work until you can obtain something that isn’t a huge caster contested weapon. Or rather a few weeks into the tier where main spec casters have obtained something comparable. Outside of hard modes, weapons like Soulscribe would be a fine choice. A dagger that drops off of Yogg-Saron 25m and is from his normal loot table (4 Light/All Keepers helping). This fight will be completed by many more casual groups weeks 1 or 2, offering several chances to get one. There are also numerous relatively uncontested 10 man normal mode choices. If you come across one of these, feel free to pick it up as a temporary upgrade.
For full disclosure, the absolute best items possible for weapon swapping purposes will be Constellus, second only to Val’anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings. How or when you find yourself in a situation to obtain one, is up to you.
Caress of Insanity having the one hand designation (not mainhand only) means that these can be dual wielded if you are unable to obtain a Golden Saronite Dragon early. Continuing to use your Dual 2.6 speed weapons from P1 until you get Golden Saronite Dragon or double Caress of Insanity will be viable for the meantime.
Item | Source |
Yogg-Saron (10) |
Caress of Insanity is the only realistic offhand weapon to use with either Golden Saronite Dragon in your mainhand, or a second Caress of Insanity.
Item | Source |
Arena (1950 Rating) |
Furious Gladiator’s Totem of Indomitability is going to be BiS with all of the stacked Attack Power during Phase 2.
This does, however, come with the downside of being obtained from Arena and requiring a 1950 rating to get one. It should be said, using Totem of Dueling from Phase 1 will remain very close and competitive if you do not wish to participate in PvP activities.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
This will be the best option for this slot.
Those will be your best options for your ring slots.
This will be the best option for this slot.
Alternatives: Sharpened Twilight Scale/Death’s Choice
This will be the best option for this slot.
About the Author
I would use Death’s Verdict or Comet’s Trail from TotC and Ulduar 25 respectively over Sharpened Twilight Scale seeing as Armor Pen isn’t very useful if at all for Enhance. The attack power provided on proc is nice but the agi proc from Death’s Verdict gives slightly less attack power and crit. The haste proc provided by Comet’s Trail is almost equivalent to Hero/Lust. Deathbringer’s Will can be used as a fill but generally less useful and for memeing mostly.
Honorable weapon mention to Black Bruise, yes lower ilvl by 7 but the proc (if we get the buffed version) adds value back
I very much agree that you can use Comet’s Trail together with Death’s Choice! However, Armor Penetration is not entirely useless to us. It depends if you choose to play Spellhance or normal Enhancement.
arpen IS useful for enhance, just not necessarily right this moment. As your hit rating gets closer and closer to hard cap, white dmg starts to rapidly pick up. The reason it is valued super low right now isn’t because it’s a useless stat, it’s because it’s an expensive stat right now since not enough of it is available combined with that same fact with hit rating. Same with crit; hit affects your crit cap. Once both are more abundant, the value increases. Spellhance is so good because it makes up for those facts.
Point is, don’t dismiss it. Sim it and see for sure. It will value differently with each individual itemization.
“Spellhance” and “Enhance” are literally the same exact thing…
Saying “Not a fan of Spellhance, to be honest” Is literally saying either “I don’t like Enhance shaman” or “I want to gimp my damage for 3 phases for literally no other reason that to ‘be different’ ”
The Talents are EXACTLY the same.
The Rotation is EXACTLY the same.
Everything you’re doing mechanically is EXACTLY the same.
The only difference is using a spell damage MH weapon and FT Glyph, Vs a Phys Weapon and WF Glyph.
Guess what does more damage until ICC gear and stacked Armor Pen?
That’s right, buffing your high damage spells that are 60-70% of your damage.
For me personally I don’t like casters at all, and being spellchance for me leans more towards casting (even tho my rotation is the same, I don’t want to gear for that.) let me play the class and spec the way I want to rather then give me shit for it.
Can we all stop have the min/max attitude for a game that is this old.
I bet you are one of those peiple that refuse to inv people to raids becuase their gearscore isn’t high enough, jeez marie. take a chillpill and enjoy this old game.
He might be, but you’re coming off like one of those people that think the earth is flat because you haven’t personally been to the moon to observe it from afar.
I think it’s more about you making literally no sense and not playing your class. There is no min/maxing happening here. Playing spellhance doesn’t put you even remotely in the direction of a caster, it’s literally just itemization. That’s literally it. The spell damage allows you to make up for the fact arpen is unviable. So you’re basically saying “ew, caster stats” and stabbing yourself in the eye out of principle… kind of like some tool that gay bashes just to virtue signal to his straight friends that he’s not gay even though they don’t actually care if he is or not and certainly didn’t ask. News flash – you’re not a melee class, you’re a hybrid class. Literally what Shamans are known for.
Play how you want, just quit making up bs reason and accept that you just want to do less damage because spellpower reminds you of casters and you’re too immature to realize it means nothing.
lmao trash guide
Are you saying that this guide is… for you?
Yes! The list has just been updated the reflect Phase 2 BIS. Hope you find the information helpful.
thank you
Heyyy Can u do please phase 3?
Hey there! We have spent considerable time updating the majority of our guides recently! Everything is to be in accordance with WotLK classic! We hope to help the player base as much as possible!
WTB non-hardmode BiS list for early wishlists
https://eightyupgrades.com/set/unqyWpHfJREG8jbCfg26mA
Threw this together in game with Atlas loot, simply based off of normal mode fights.
A few pieces are swappable (Relic, Rings, Trink (I chose wrathstone for more control over snapshots)), and most should be easily obtainable.
hello prebis icc gear please?