Introduction:

This guide originates from a rather long-winded reply in another thread, in which I argued that, contrary to popular belief, an Elemental spec is best for levelling to at least 30 and is then overtaken by Enhancement somewhere between 31 and 40.

It is intended to give some basic tips for those new to the class, provide a spec that will get you to 30 with a minimum of fuss and clue you in on gear selection, which is a bit more tricky then for the "pure" classes like mage or rogue.

In the interest of keeping the lenght of this guide reasonable, I won´t compare Elemental andEnhancement in quite such detail. If you are interested in how I justify some of the claims I make here, please read my orignal post here (it´s near the bottom of the first page): http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=108701178&sid=1

So, on with the guide, then.


Table of Contents:

I.: (Not quite) Everything you wanted to know about Shamans, but were afraid to ask
II.: A few words on choosing race, or WOW racism: Tauren Supremacy
III.: Welcome to Totem Forest
IV.: Talents: Debunking the myth of the Enhancement Levelling Spec
V.: Shaman Gear, or Ninjaing Loot from every other Class
VI.: Strategy
VII.: Famous Last Words

I.: (Not quite) Everything you wanted to know about Shamans, but were afraid to ask

Shamans are a hybrid class, they can heal, DPS by nuking, DPS by meleeing, buff a group via totems and can also take a lot more punishment then clothies and even rogues.
Due to equipment issues, they can never be good at all these roles (let alone aproach the effectiveness of the parent classes). Note that of the 3 (4, once TBC hits) healer classes, Shamans are the most mana-inefficient, unless they invest heavily into the Restoration tree. And yet, the ability to switch from DPSing a mob to pumping out heals has saved many a group from wiping. Thus, the most important skills a shaman can cultivate is the ability to adapt quickly and choosing the correct tools from his vast arsenal.


II.: A few words on choosing race, or WOW racism: Tauren Supremacy

There is an ongoing debate on what is the "best" race for shaman. The majority seems to think that War Stomp > all. While it is certainly a great ability in both PvE and PvP (the ability to get a lesser healing wave off whenever I want has saved me quite a few corpse-runs, no doubt about it), all races have abilities that Shaman can make good use of. So my advice to you is: Take the toon you like best, and as for racials, do what shamans do best: adapt!


III.: Welcome to Totem Forest

Totems are our most unique ability, literally "spells on a stick". All of them are instant cast and you can have a maximum of 4 out at the same time (one for each element). One very important thing about totems have their own aggro-radius, so be careful where you place them in instances. Many a careless shamans has wiped his group with an accidental totem-pull.
You get your totems via quests that become available at lvl 4, 10, 20 and 30 for earth, fire, water and air respectively. If you are having problems with any of these quests, you can read up on them here: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12881348&sid=1
Also, while I will discuss the use of totems important for solo-PvE and also give some pointers on 5-man dungeons a more complete guide on ALL totems can be found here: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=108981718&sid=1


IV.: Talents: Debunking the myth of the Enhancement Levelling Spec

As mentioned in the introduction, while most Shaman think that Enhancement is the way to go when levelling up, I contend that Elemental is better at lower levels because it has some great talents available early on while the real goodies of Enhancement tree are further down the tree. An more in-depth discussion can be found here: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=108701178&sid=1
And because someone asked in that thread: Restoration is a great tree for high-level PvP and healbotting. It offers great survivability and utility (Nature´s Swiftness!!). Before the new talents went live, it was often chosen as a secondary tree once the primary one had been maxed (30/0/21 and 0/30/21 were very popular then). Because it requires an investment of at least 20, preferrably 21, these builds are kind of on hiatus until TBC comes out, though.
However, there is just no nice way to say this: For levelling up at a reasonably pace, Restoration just plain sucks. Hard.

So here is my recommendation on where to spend your points and in what order:
(if you just want to see the complete build, click here: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/shaman/talents.html?5500110503021205000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
)

Convection: 5/5
Concussion: 5/5
Yep, the Tier 1 talents are both quite a bit better then Tier 2, because they improve your greatest weakness, mana-efficiency, by a total of 15,5%. A 5% DPS-increase is also nothing to be sneezed at.

Elemental Focus: 1/1
I can´t repeat this enough: Mages spend 5 points for the same benefit, and walk away smiling!! A theoretical 10% increase in mana-efficiency, under real-world conditions its probably more like 7%. For just 1 point, that´s an awesome return on investment!

Call of Thunder: 5/5
A straightforward crit-booster of your primary nuke, by 6% instead of the usual 5. Not exceptional but quite solid.

Eye of the Storm: 3/3
While the DPS and efficiency benefits are marginal (it will allow you to get a Lightning Bolt of in melee every now and then), this talent will save you quite a few corpse runs. (Healing Wave ftw!)

Whatever You Like: 1/1
There aren´t any clearly superior talents available right now. Just avoid Elemental Devastation, it is quite horrible. I took Call of Flame.

Elemental Fury: 1/1
Have you ever heard Destruction Warlocks go on and on about how great Ruin is? Well, this does the exact same thing! Once again, mages need to spend 5 points for the same benefit, and they still do it without hesitation. You. Need. This.

Storm Reach: 2/2
More range means more Lightning Bolts before the mob reaches you. LB is your most mana-efficient nuke. Also, if the mob is extra-crispy before he reaches you, you take less damage und thus spend less time healing it. You do the math.

Interlude: When to switch to Enhancement
By now you will notice an steadily increasing strain on your mana-pool. You will spend more and more time drinking. Also, many of Enhancements goodies become available now. Thus, somewhere between lvl 31 and 40, Enhancement will overtake Elemental as the levelling-spec of choice. When exactly depends on one thing: Gear. Thus, the key is starting to stock up on Agi and Str gear and switch once you figure you have 4-5 good pieces. See also the gear-section, below.

Unrelenting Storm: 2/5
This talent only begins to truly shine with imba raiding gear, however, considering how notoriously mana-starved Elemental is, every little bit helps.

Lightning Mastery: 5/5
This is what drives your DPS through the roof. If you want to aquire your Enhancement gear via BGs, lvl 39 is the time. Also some efficiency benefit, for the same reason as Storm Reach.

Elemental Mastery: ?/1
A great PvP talent, but does nothing for levelling speed. Meanwhile, Dual Wield, Dual Wield Spec. and Stormstrike become available over in Enhancement, completly blowing Elemental out of the Water PvE-wise. So, if you are going to switch at all, do it now.


V.: Shaman Gear, or Ninjaing Loot from every other Class

Enhancement in particular is very gear-dependant. Flurry, a core talent, won´t do much without a decent crit-rating. That means Agi, and lots of it. Str shouldn´t be neglected either if you are going for a pure Enhancement build. And Sta is just as important as for every other class. Finally, before you get Dual Wield you´ll need a decent 2hander. All of this means you will be competing with warriors (for weapons) rogues, hunters and feral druids for gear. Once you hit 40 and switch to mail, druids and rogues drop from that list (you will still compete with Warriors for weapons and Hunters for Armor).
All of this is yet another reason why you should stick to Elemental early on: You need Int, Spi and Sta. You only need to wrest a decent staff from the mages, druids and ´locks. For armor, your only competition would be Balance Druids, but those are quite rare below lvl 40. And post-40, you´re all by yourself armor-wise.
The upshot of all this is that Elemental shamans make for much better healers in a 5-man enviroment.
As you move closer to the endgame you should work towards building at least 2 sets of gear: A DPS set and a healer set.
Tips: The staff you get as a reward from the Wailing Caverns quest "Leaders of the Fang" has incredible stats for a spellslinger, and more then 20 DPS!
There also is a 23 DPS staff with comparable stats that drops in BFD. You´d be hard pressed to find even a 2H Axe that does more damage... Yet another reason Enhancement is lackluster in the early game.
Don´t use a shield when solo! This gimps your killing speed significantly. But keep a shield and 1hander handy for 5-man dungeons, where other classes take care of the DPS. If you get aggro (which, as any Priest will tell you, can and will happen when healing) It helps to keep you alive until your tank gets things under control again; it even allows you to off-tank a mob that´s chewing on a clothie in a pinch (remember that Frost Shock now has the added threat!), but don´t bite off more then you can chew. It´s you that can rezz the party, not mages or ´locks!

VI.: Strategy

This section contains a variety of (hopefully) usefull tips and tricks for budding shamans. A more extensive FAQ can be found in the US forums: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12021519&sid=1

1.: Basics

A typical pull will go something like this: Make sure Lightning Shield and a Weapon Buff are up, drop buff totems, chain cast Lightning Bolt until the mob reaches you, drop a Searing Totem, maybe throw in a shock, then melee the mob to death. Ideally, you can now pull a second mob and maybe even a third mob from the same position before your totems expire. If mobs are far apart, consider if you really need totems to kill them reasonably quickly.
Do not attempt to kite your opponent. Shamans don´t have effective tools for that. In the long run, you´ll use more time running away then if you´d just melee the mob to death and then heal up.

2.: First Aid is NOT optional

Yes, you have heals, but that doesn´t mean you can skip first aid. The single most limiting factor in your levelling speed is the rate at which you regen mana. Heals use mana, first aid does not. Heals are handy to keep yourself alive in combat. However, outside of combat there is no excuse not to use first aid. So use it, period.

3.: Totem Selection

By the time you ding 60, you´ll have about a million totems cluttering up your UI. Most of them are only usefull in specific situations, however, while others don´t have much use at all. There are a few you will use all the time, however. Sorted by element, these are:

Earth

Strenght of Earth: A straightforward buff to Str. Quite a substantial one, too. When soloing, this is then one you´ll use most of the time.
Earthbind: Apart from obvious PvP uses, this also helps catch runners and facilitate a "tactical withdrawal"
Stoneclaw: Keeps adds busy for a little while but won´t hold aggro against your damage. Also keeps mobs from taking out your Fire Nova Totem before it goes off.
Tremor: Helps a lot against Druids of the Fang in WC. Other then that it isn´t that useful because it is rather unreliable in braking fear, since it only pulses every 5 seconds. Still, against mobs that fear it sometimes can prevent feared players from bringing back adds if you place it right.

Fire

Searing Totem: Your bread and butter for fire totems, especially when solo. Your most mana-efficient damage source against single mobs if it is nuking for even half of its duration.
Fire Nova Totem: Difficult to use right, but does a large amount of damage. If a mob has no hate against any other target yet, it will go after this totem the second you place it. The easiest ways to avoid this is to either heal someone or place a stoneclaw totem beforehand.
Magma Totem: What Shamans get instead of AOE spells. Does more DPS then Searing Totem but you need to hit about 5 mobs for it to come even close in mana-efficiency.
Flametongue Totem: Put this up instead of Windfury Totem as a compromise to shut up both rogues and warriors (see air totems!)

Water

Mana Stream: In most cases, this is superior to healing stream. Consider that you alone can convert 1 MP into at least 2 HP without any talents, and both druids and priests are even more efficient. Also very useful when soloing, shamans need all the mana regen they can get.
Healing Stream: The only time this will be better then Healing stream is when you have an imba amount of +healing on your gear, as this boosts the amount healed by this totem. If there is a Holy Priest in your party, I´d still go for Mana Stream, though.

Air
Grace of Air: The Agi equivalent to Strenght of Earth, and just as good. This is the one you want when soloing. Rogues and feral druids will worship the ground you walk on if you put this up. Warriors will nag you to put up Windfury Totem instead.
Windfury totem: Gives others a toned down version of the Windfury Weapon buff. Warriors will kiss your feet if you put this up. Rogues and feral druids will nag you to put up Grace of Air instead.

Note: If your tank has trouble keeping aggro, put up Windfury Totem and tell the rogues and droods to STFU. As a class based in part on buffs, it is your responsibility to decide which totems benefit the group as a whole the most, just as a priests and druids must decide who gets priority when healing.

4.: Healing: Yourself and Others

In dungeons, many shamans forget that they have healing spells. Most of them remember when the primary healer dies or goes OOM and they are all that stands between the party and a wipe. But that is by no means the only situation where you can help a great deal with a well-timed heal. You should always monitor the health bars of all partymembers. If 2 of them drop to low, and one of them belongs to the tank, help out your healer by healing the OTHER char in trouble, while the primary healer takes care of the tank. Also, if the healer draws aggro, YOU should heal him, and by no means he himself, because this will only increase the amount of threat he generates. OTOH, if you heal him, you will eventually draw the mobs away from him and on to you. You did remember to bring along a shield, didn´t you? Swap it on now (ideally via macro or certain addons).
Also, always remember who can dispel which debuffs: priests, magic and disease; druids, curses and poison; mages: some curses; and shamans: poison and disease.

5.: Very Shocking: Your Arsenal of Spells

Purge: Of limited use in PvE, this spell shines in PvP. Listen to the litany of curses a priest spews when you purge his bubble if you don´t believe me.
Flametongue, Frostbrand, Rockbiter and Windfury Weapon buffs: Always have one of these up. Early on, I found that rockbiter does the most damage, except against mobs with high armor. Later on Enhancement shamans use Windfury most of the time, while Elemental shamans will probably benefit more from Flametongue or Frostbrand. This is because these to can crit independently of your weapon strike, based on your SPELL crit chance. They also benefit from +fire damage and +frost damage gear, respectively.
Lightning Shield: Even untalented, this is a very mana-efficient source of damage. Always have this up before pulling.
Lightning Bolt: Your bread and butter offensive spell; your most mana-efficient nuke (not counting Searing Totem). You´ll use this a lot.
Shocks in general: The shock you have most recently gotten a rank of will almost always be the one with the highest DPS.
Earth Shock: A powerful spell interrupter that causes quite a bit of damage to boot. A good send against casters both in PvE and PvP. Not very mana-efficient, though. Used to cause additional threat, but not anymore.
Flame Shock: Your most mana-efficient shock, IF and only if the dot can run its full duration before the target dies. If it can´t, use earth shock instead or, if the mob dies easy AND doesn´t cause a lot of damage, don´t shock at all. Also handy to keep rogues from vanishing in PvP.
Frost Shock: In PvE, this is your method of choice to keep runners from brining back a gazillion adds. In PvP, this is the only tool besides Earthbind Totem to control the distance between you and your opponent.
Lesser Healing Wave: Your panic-button heal. Fast, but not very mana-efficient. Fits nicely into the stun duration of War Stomp.
Healing Wave: A slow, more mana-efficient heal. Untalented, this gives about the same HPS as Lesser Healing Wave. With the Tier 1 Resto Talent, it gives more.
Cure Poison, Cure Disease: The name says it all...
Ancestral Spirit: Your resurrection spell. Only works out of combat.
Reincarnate: Allows you to resurrect yourself. 60 minute cooldown. More of a novelty item when solo, this is a very handy wipe-protection in groups. Try to die somewhere where you won´t aggro mobs the second you rez! Also, remember that this spell requires an Ankh as a reagent (purchaseable from reagent vendors), so always have some handy.

6.: The Auction House is your Friend

Because you have so many skills to train, you will be very strapped for cash. Plan ahead on how you plan to aquire enough money. Invest in large bags ASAP and auction or sell everything you can get your hands on. Also, consider picking up 2 gathering professions and sell the mats instead of using them.


VII.: Famous Last Words

Phew, did I say something about keeping this short? If you have any questions, comments, corrections or criticism (of the constructive variety, please!), fire away. Anyway, I hope that this will help new shamans find their legs in this great class!

reserved

Reserving is imba!

P.S.: I´ll be offline over the weekend and thus won´t be able to do any updating until Monday.

Very nice guide, it will help when leveling my Draenei Shaman.

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Q u o t e:
Very nice guide, it will help when leveling my Draenei Shaman.

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/agree. Sticky maybe?

make puts some word bold for more reading pleasure :)

should be sticky!

REPORTED!!!!




For a sticky :P


Regards
Coward

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Q u o t e:
REPORTED!!!!




For a sticky :P


Regards
Coward

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Thanks! Everybody else who wants this stickied, please remember that a thread has to be reported a few times for sticky-ing (via the biohaszard icon left of the "quote" and "reply" icons), before the CMs will do it.

As for putting emphasis (e.g. making words bold, etc), I was thinking along the same lines, but unfortunatly, there wasn´t enough time; I´ll get to it first thing when I get back.

thanks again for this nice guide, something I've been looking for, for some time now.
reportet for stickyness

A very nice guide indead. Learned alot from it. Thanks.

Well done mate, well done. Gonna use it January 16th ;)

gife /sticky!

Thanks mate, this will help me while lvling my Draenei ^^

Sticky ftw?

Very nice guide Kassindra!

Sticky please

Yes, very nice indeed! Reported for sticky <3

Very nice guide that will help my Draenei shaman ^^

Sticky plx

very nice guide, requested a stickie also :D