WoW Shaman Guide

Disclaimer: This is page 2 of the WoW Shaman Guide if you missed page 1 go here:  World of Warcraft Shaman Guide

The Shaman Mechanics  

Totems- A core mechanic of the shaman are their totems. You are able to place these right under you giving specific buffs to you and depending on which totem either your group or the whole raid. Totems come in different schools and you can only have one of each type up. One fire, one air, one water and one nature totem. This means you can have 4 totems up at a time. You will unlock these different schools as you level. In general each school has their own resistance totem. Beyond that there are buffs spread around in such a fashion that you can optimize in such a fashion to have either all physical or all spell caster buffing totems out. An important aspect of being a good shaman is using the right totems for the situation. 

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Weapon enchantments- Shamans get enchantments which they can cast on their own weapons which last for 30 minutes. These buffs vary from giving a chance to proc additional attacks or increasing your spell power to having a chance to slow your target on melee hits. This is another mechanic which allows you to customize your shaman depending on the situation at hand. If you wish to be effective you will have to learn all your weapon enchantments. 

Shields- Shamans get a few spells which cast a magical shield around themselves. Lightning shield makes you return nature damage whenever you take direct damage. Water shield gives you a passive increase to mana regeneration while restoring a big amount of mana whenever you are the target of a direct attack. The last one, earth shield, is a talent restoration shamans can pick up. Unlike the other shields they can target group and raid members with this spell. This shield heals the target whenever the target takes a melee hit. 

Elementals- At higher levels you are able to use your earth and fire totem respectively to summon an elemental of that type. The earth elemental is a sturdy tank and will taunt targets in range. The fire elemental on the other hand deals a lot of fire damage between its melee attacks and spells. 

The Shaman Gimmicks 

The shaman gets a few fun or powerful abilities that are worth noting for a prospective shaman 

Heroism/Bloodlust- Arguably one of the most powerful abilities across all classes. This gives you and every group/raid member in range a 30% increase to spell, range and melee haste for 40 seconds. It is generally considered a must have for raiding and is also very powerful in player versus player encounters. 

Hex-This spell allows you to turn enemies into a critter making them unable to use spells or attacks. Unfortunately it breaks if the target takes too much damage. 

Feral Spirit- The last talent for enhancement shamans gives them the ability to summon 2 spirit wolves. These wolves heal themselves and the shaman whenever they hit a target in melee. They also have some cool abilities such as a stun, an area of affect taunt and an ability that breaks all roots and snares while making both the shaman and the wolves immune to such effects in addition to increasing your movement speed. 

Thunderstorm- The last elemental talent allows the shaman to deal damage to all targets in a radius around himself while knocking them away. Especially fun for knocking other players off of ledges making them plummet to their inevitable death. 

Ghost Wolf- Early on your shaman’s journey you will get the ability to transform into a ghost wolf. This allows you to move a lot quicker making your travels much less tedious. 

Maelstrom Weapon- This enhancement talent gives your melee hits a chance to reduce your casting time on many of your spells. Once you get 5 charges of this they become instant cast allowing you to keep hitting your targets in melee while still getting of damaging spells and heals. Very powerful! 

Choosing a profession 

Unlike most other classes choosing a profession that creates items isn’t worth it. As a low level shaman you use leather while in the higher echelons you are able to use mail armor. Even though this makes leatherworking valuable at lower levels, the lack of good mail items from this professions doesn’t make it that great later on. On the other hand there are a few other good suggestions. 

Mining/Skinning- As for every class this is a solid option for those just looking to make money on their travels. Skin all mobs you can while mining every node you find followed by selling them on the auction house. 

Herbalism/Alchemy- With their mana inefficiency alchemy is a solid choice to keep your potions stocked up. After that you can make additional elixirs to buff whatever stat you prefer. Herbalism allows you to gather your own herbs instead of purchasing them from the auction house.

For more information you can should read my Best Shaman Professions section .

The verdict 

The shaman is a tough character to level at lower levels, because of this it isn’t completely newbie friendly. If you do decide to pick this class up you have many different playstyles to enjoy. In the end game you can deal either melee or ranged damage or even choose to be a healer. Either way you’ll be in high demand with the buffs you bring. 

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