Ernest’s Shaman guide
Basics:
Before you begin, please note that as a shaman you will be very versatile
and always useful in groups at any level and being this versatile means you
will have many weakness’ that can be exploited by the enemy. You will play
one of two roles, however your not restricted to those roles. You will either be
a DPS role or a healer. At higher levels healing will get you more group invites
than you can handle. You start off with a 1hander and a shield, get used to these,
you will be using them for a long time. You can wear cloth, leather and mail(at level 40)
you can also use staves, daggers, axes, fist weapons, and maces. You can learn Duel
wielding (at level 40) and 2handers(at level 20) through talents.
Talents:
There are three trees as with any class, you have elemental, enhancement and
restoration. Your leveling spec will be enhancement, as you get higher level you will
move more points into the other trees as needed. I will give you two good specs
for both leveling and pvp which have been very successful for me.
Builds:
#1 ENHANCEMENT/RESTO HYBRID
Enhancement (31 points)
Shield Specialization - rank 5/5
Ancestral Knowledge - rank 5/5
Two-Handed Axes and Maces - rank 1/1
Thundering Strikes - rank 5/5
Flurry - rank 5/5
Spirit Weapons - rank 1/1
Elemental Weapons - rank 3/3
Weapon Mastery - rank 5/5
Dual Wield - rank 1/1
Stormstrike - rank 1/1
Restoration (21 points)
Improved Healing Wave - rank 5/5
Tidal Focus - rank 5/5
Improved Reincarnation - rank 2/2
Totemic Focus - rank 5/5
Totemic Mastery - rank 1/1
Tidal Mastery - rank 2/5
Nature's Swiftness - rank 1/1
#2 RESTO
Restoration (42 points)
Improved Healing Wave - rank 5/5
Tidal Focus - rank 5/5
Improved Reincarnation - rank 2/2
Totemic Focus - rank 5/5
Totemic Mastery - rank 1/1
Restorative Totems - rank 5/5
Tidal Mastery - rank 5/5
Healing Way - rank 3/3
Nature's Swiftness - rank 1/1
Purification - rank 5/5
Mana Tide Totem - rank 1/1
Nature's Blessing - rank 3/3
Earth Shield - rank 1/1
Enhancement (11 points)
Ancestral Knowledge - rank 5/5
Shield Specialization - rank 5/5
Two-Handed Axes and Maces - rank 1/1
The first build is your leveling/grinding build; it is also good for pvp at lower levels because it is not very gear dependant. At higher levels you will start to see the +spell damage and +spell crit gear which goes well with the elemental tree which I will not discus since it is mainly a level 70 tree. With this build you can chop down many class
which I will cover more later on. The second tree is a good tree for healing in groups while still allowing you to hold your own in pvp and in pve scenarios. With both talent trees I have left you a few points to place where ever you wish. Keep in mind the restoration tree will be useless up until you get to the mid 50’s level range.
With the restoration build you get great heals, improved totems and earth shield.
Earth shield will heal the wearer every time he/she is hit, you will also get natures
swiftness which makes ghost wolf, lightning bolt/chain lightning or a healing spell instant. I also threw in 2handed weapons just in case you should ever need it.
With enhancement you can duel wield and use 2handed weapons. You get an ability called stormstrike which will help you a lot, you hit with both weapons at once and your next two spells do 20% more damage. You receive flurry which increases your attack speed by 30% for your next 3 swings, it happens every time you crit. You also
get natures swiftness with this build.
Totems:
You will get four types of totems by the time your level 30. You have your earth, fire, water and air totems. There are many I will only discus the ones you will use the most.
Stoneskin is good when you’re in a scenario where you are taking on melee damage.
Grounding, tremor, water resistance and fire resistance totems are helpful when facing casters. Healing stream and mana spring are good in groups, use them when your group is resting. Strength of earth and grace of air totems are great when in groups, pvp and pve,
they will grant you and your party extra dps and crit chance with melee weapons.
Weapon enchants:
you have flame tongue, frost brand, rock biter and wind fury. If you are duel wielding,
put wind fury on both weapons so you get a 40% chance to hit 3 times with one swing.
It has a cooldown it can only happen once every few seconds, the cool down should function independently on your main hand and offhand since you must use a lower rank in order to DW the same enchant. If you are not duel wielding I suggest flame tongue because it ignores armor and will give damage no mater who your fighting. Frostbrand is
also good if you are fighting a hunter, however in most cases you should stick to one enchant regardless of the fight.
Tactics:
here is where the work stopped to be completed later.
This was my first guide, tell me what you think.
I stopped playing my shaman so I stopped writing the guide before I could finish. There is still a lot of usefull information in the guide.
enjoy
-Ernest