shammy spec?

[Nexten]

Anyone know of a decent spec for shammy to level up in? been putting everything into elemental but enhancement seems like it might be nice for the extra survivability. Just looking for any advice on what has worked for other people.

[Zeyla]

At the advice from other shamans, I am leveling enhance. It seems to be working out great so far, pretty fast killing most mobs. I also got a decent 2h weapon and enchanted it with +9 damage, it has lasted me around 10 levels, and I may end up using it until I can dual wield.

I'm still in the low 30's but enhance seems to be nice so far, very little if any down time and can take on several even level mobs at a time without too much trouble.

Z

[Varran]

Enhance really is the easiest way to level, at least until you get to late 50's or early 60's. At that point if you are planning on being elem spec after you hit 70 I would recommend switching to elemental to really cement what you need to know and how you need to react as an elemental shaman.

Once you have shamanistic rage and dual wield, there is no downtime killing as an enhance shaman... although that isn't until after 50... but even without SR you'll have little downtime.

edit: if you have any questions don't hesitate to catch me in game on Varren... I may not answer right away but I will definitely answer... and I'll do anything to help you lvl if I am free

[Nedari]

I would recommend that you stick with enhancement till 70. I leveled from 60-70 elemental, and it was a pain.... anytime more than 1 mob attacked you, you're almost guarenteed to die. Plus outlands has tons of mobs that kick or have countspell like melee attacks so that you are left with nothing to cast except flame shock or frost shock.

There's nothing to really learn in being elemental, all you cast are 3 totems and lightnight bolt. Though if you are serious about being elemental, you should pick up leatherworking. Most of the crafted armor is still some of the best for elemental shamans.

-Elletira/Nyalia

[Nexten]

I had planned on changing to resto once i hit 70. Going to respec today to enhancement and see if i like it better. I found myself pulling with lightning bolt, putting down fire totem/mana totem and using 1 lightning shield per mob just so i wouldn't go oom every mob. Can really dish out the damage with the elemental spec but downtime is huge. for tradeskills I picked up mining/jewelcrafting..worth keeping as a resto shammy or something that will benefit me more?

[Nedari]

JC/enchanting would be the best if you are just looking to maximize, since enchanting, you can enchant your rings and JC gets bop gems you can make only for yourself.

But for resto, any profession is fine, lots of healing gear drop from all types of instances so no need to craft anything for yourself.

-Elletira/Nyalia

[Nexten]

Made the switch to enchancement yesterday. Definetly less downtime as i'm not casting as much. Looks like the big advantage will be into the 30's and 40's when the good melee skills will be available

[Berae]

At the advice from other shamans, I am leveling enhance. It seems to be working out great so far, pretty fast killing most mobs. I also got a decent 2h weapon and enchanted it with +9 damage, it has lasted me around 10 levels, and I may end up using it until I can dual wield.

I'm still in the low 30's but enhance seems to be nice so far, very little if any down time and can take on several even level mobs at a time without too much trouble.

Z
Yeah, 30's as enhance is easy mode. Windfury and Flurry destroy normal mobs.

[Nexten]

I'm like 2k xp from hitting 30..windfury and the totem recall or whatever to get mana back from totems is gonna rock..I swear I only crit on the killing blow and my flurry is wasted lol

[Nexten]

I can't access thottbot from work but as I understand the windfury totem is better than the self weapon buff..Anyone use the weapon buff over the totem to save mana or anything?

[Zeyla]

Yeah, I've been wondering that myself. The totem only provides one extra attack, but thought it might be better to have a diff weapon buff and go with that totem. I had seen a guide that had what weapon buff to use for certain lvl ranges, can't seem to find it now.

[Nexten]

I've been using the fire weapon buff. I haven't parsed it but it seems it would have the highest consistent dps

[Nexten]

mmm windfury...gotta love getting a weapon crit+windfury+flurry..Enhancement is definetly better than elemental at my lvl

[Varran]

windfury totem is not good for you. ALWAYS use windfury weapon buff... well.. .until 2.3, after that we'll talk again.

If you are in a group... drop windfury and str totems for the warrior and rogues... and still use your weapon buff...

And talk to nedari as often as you can.. .she knows her shit.. .or grab me online (if I ever am) and I'll help with killing mobs or talking strats.

[Varran]

Actually.. to clarify what I said... while levelling up generally you will want to use the highest lvl weapon buff you have available.. although the benefits of wf can trump the others even when it's a lower lvl buff (can't be resisted, etc)...

[Leojo]

Having a 70 shaman who's been my main since release, I'd have to suggest you go straight for dual wield, put every point you've got into enhancement until you get it. 2.6 delay weapons (or as close as you can get) in both hands with dual windfury weapon, I have never used windfury totem (for myself), flametongue, or frostbrand. I was using a 1.5 delay weapon in my offhand for a while (and 2.6 mh), and no I haven't actually parsed anything, but I kinda use AV as my guide (I pvp a lot), and info I get online, and dual 2.6 weapons w/ windfury on both seems to really be the way to go for now. Especially seeing what it does in pvp at lower levels, even with mediocre gear. I outdamaged a warlock with over +900 shadow dmg in BM by almost 200k about a week ago, and my gear isn't that great, Im rocking (unbuffed) ~1200 ap, 82 hit (i know) and 24% crit and around 9100 hp. But I mostly just pvp too so.. and it's been so long since I leveled him. Enhancement is also great for grinding, I love shamanistic rage, I am firmly against anyone who goes enhancement getting NS or Elemental Fury (21 point resto/ele talents) as I can grind absolutely non stop with 0 downtime anywhere without elites, I just use rank 1 earth shock for interrupts and water shield and melee away. Don't even throw totems when I grind, except Fire Resistance if I'm farming motes, and Mana Spring. Check out my gear/spec on armory, Leojo, Horde, Medivh server. I hope that was helpful and semi-coherent.

[Leojo]

I should also point out that windfury totem doesn't stack with rogue poisons and if the only warrior in your group is prot and thus, the tank, use grace of air. I agree wf totem is the way to go if you have dps warriors but rogues hardly ever want to drop their poison for wf. (in pugs anyway).

[Rennys]

Just an FYI, windfury totem doesn't stack with flametongue on your weapon, so WF should be on your weapons all the time.

In terms of fast vs. slow weapons, some analysis shows that Shamans should use 2.6 or slower weapons as much as possible and that ideally, the OH should be slower than the MH in order to prevent WF procs on the OH from interfering with WF procs on the MH. There's a pretty good post on Elitist Jerks about Shaman DPS along with a few posts on the WoW forums. Note that included in some of the analysis are comparisons of dual wielding vs. 2h. Dual wielding DPS wins by a significant margin even accounting for the massive hit% loss due to dual wielding. The hit% loss is mitigated by the 6% to hit in the enhancement tree along with the 3% in the restoration tree.

I'll have to 2nd Nedari's recommendation to level as enhancement to 70... it's much much easier to level as enhancement and get quests done vs. elemental. The main problem with elemental is that when you have more than 1 mob beating on you, you've got issues with casting. There's no push-back resistance so your 2s lightning bolt turns into a 5s cast.

In PuGs, I usually tell rogues to take poison off their MH. They're usually very happy when they start getting WF procs. Note that WF totem doesn't impact the OH, so poisons are all good there.

If you're looking to max/min your professions, JC/Enchanting is always good, but I know that a bunch of enhancement shaman go with blacksmithing in order to obtain the BoP maces.

[Forty]

but rogues hardly ever want to drop their poison for wf. (in pugs anyway).

I would boot a rogue who didn't want WF on their MH.

[Nexten]

2 lvl's from duel wield now and smoking mobs. Only problem now is finding quests around my lvl. Burned through them so fast everything I have left is 5 lvl's higher than me or elite quests.

[Leojo]

You should try to snatch a bonesnapper off the AH when you get dual wield, it wtfpwns and usually goes for 20g or less on my server. My buddy's 49 twink gets ~600-750 windfury crits with it dual wielding, pretty hot.

And Forty Acres! Long time since I've seen that name O_O haha barb shaman extraordinare.. I know man, noob rogues just wanna try to get zomgleet envenom crits with stormstrike and completely ignore their white hits.

Edit: Level req for a bonesnapper is 48 tho I believe