Playing a shaman is very fun. Even though it can be tough at the lower levels you get many tools as you level to make up for this tenfold. Ancestrall Recall gives you an additional hearthstone to get around quickly. You get recreation, which allows you to resurrect on the spot once every hour saving you countless of corpse runs (unless you die way too much!). Another clean ability is the ghost wolf form which increases your passage speed by 30%.
Then once you hit the higher levels you get very powerful abilities that will make you insanely powerful in your solo travels. Blood/Heroism (faction dependant) gives you a 40% speed buff to both melee and casting for 45 seconds. Lastly you’ll be getting 2 totems, respectively planet and fire that allow you to summon powerful elementals.
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Anyway let’s get into the talent trees. Stay away from restoration as it is very weak in the leveling game. For dungeon crawlers you may wish to go restoration as it helps your healing, but you could easily queue up for instances as DPS and delight in leveling quick solo while dealing hurt in groups. So now we have to choose between enhancement and essential. I’ve found essential doesn’t come into its own till at least level 60. Gear for spellcasters is severely missing in the lower levels which makes specs like essential rather substandard.
This leaves us with the enhancement shaman so let’s waste no time getting into it.
You will find yourself up close and personal with this specialization dealing a mix of physical and nature hurt. I in person prefer this erect:
Click here for the shaman talent erect
One thing to mention is that your melee hurt is pretty poor at the lower levels. As such I recommend you start with spending some points into essential (getting both of the initially line talents) until you hit level 20. Fortunately these levels will glide by after which you can accept to enhancement to get Shamanistic Focus, which allows you to use your shock spells more unreservedly without burning mana.
As you can see in the talent erect, level 20 and up is where the juicy talents in enhancement become available. This already starts in the next talent row as you can pick up flood to deal even more melee hurt. Especially once you get windfury weapon at level 30 you will find this fantastic. The next 2 tiers provide 4 more brilliant talents to increasing your leveling be it by reducing incoming hurt by parries or increasing your own hurt.
But then you hit level 40, and this is where enhancement COMES TOGETHER. You will pick up dual wield at level 40, and irrevocably your initially genteel melee attack in storm strike a level later. This is where you will find your hurt improving by ridiculous amounts and you will really get a feel of how your enhancement shaman is supposed to be played.
Deeper down you will find more fantastic talents. For example, lava lash gives you another attack and improved storm strike keeps your mana up. Then you can pick up shamanistic rage to temporarily reduce hurt taken, while having your melee attacks restore mana.
Then we get onto the final 2 talents of the tree, of which Maelstrom Weapon truly makes the enhancement shaman what it is: A melee caster hybrid. It allows you to cast lightning bolts without losing any auto attack hurt. As you play around with this talent you will notice not only much quicker killing but also a much more interactive playstyle. Lastly you will get your feral spirits. These not only deal significant hurt they also have useful abilities and heal you for the hurt they deal. This talent allows you to solo most group quests. Especially once collective with heroism and you essential totems gained at the higher levels.
As we’ve come to the end of the enhancement tree there’s still plenty to be had from the Essential tree, such as increased spell hurt or Essential Devastation which causes your spell critical to increase your chance to critically hit with physical attacks.
Shamans may not start out as fantastic levelers but later on they are arguably the best. You will have Maelstrom Weapon to keep your hurt non-static and abilities that allow you to deal superb burst hurt to end targets quickly.
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