Shaman Leveling Guide

A good Shaman leveling guide will point out that fast Shaman leveling depends on lots of melee damage output. Shamans now have the ability to heal very well in groups if they spec through the restoration tree. There are very few advantages to leveling through the restoration tree and because we are focusing on leveling, I will exclude them from this guide. Between the two trees left, Elemental and Enhancement, there is really no bonus in leveling to either; it depends on how you like to play. If you like to melee then choose Enhancement, if you like to cast then use Elemental. I prefer to melee so I like to use Enhancement.

Shaman Talent Specs

If you’re interested in leveling a shaman your options are to go with either an enhancement shaman build, elemental shaman build or restoration shaman build.

Elemental Talent Distribution:

Convection 3/5
Concussion 5/5
Call of Flame 3/3
Elemental Focus 1/1
Elemental Fury 5/5
Improved Fire Nova Totem 2/2
Eye of the Storm 3/3
Elemental Reach 2/2
Call of Thunder 1/1
Unrelenting Storm 3/3
Elemental Precision 3/3
Lightning Mastery 5/5
Elemental Mastery 1/1
Storm, Earth and Fire 3/3
Booming Echoes 2/2
Elemental Oath 2/2
Lightning Overload 3/3
Totem of Wrath 1/1
Lava Flows 3/3
Shamanism 5/5
Thunderstorm 1/1

Enhancement Talent Distribution:

Ancestral Knowledge 5/5
Thundering Strikes 5/5
Elemental Weapons 3/3
Shamanistic Focus 1/1

Some notes:

You’re conserving mana for healing yourself because most of your damage is melee. No down time.

You’ll be tempted to pull enemies with a ranged spell-try not to. You don’t save any time by doing so and your mana is best used healing yourself.

With each critical hit, “Flurry” speeds up your attacks and spikes your damage output.

“Maelstrom Weapon” mitigates damage from melee combat and allowing you instant healing.

“Dual Wield” boosts damage enough to make it worth foregoing a shield. Weapon choice here is crucial.

Choosing a Race

Step one in setting up your Shaman is to pinpoint the perfect race for your needs. Before choosing a race and faction for your Shaman, there are a few things you need to consider. Different Races within the World of Warcraft have several different abilities, called Racial Traits, which make them stand out amongst each other. Although none of these Racial Traits can be considered “game breaking”, they do make a difference if you’re going to be staring at your selections from behind for days on end!

Once upon a time, Shamans were only available for Horde. Now, you can choose for both Horde and Alliance, though Alliance players are stuck with Draenei only. Luckily, that’s one of the better Alliance races for leveling your Shaman.

Solo

A Shaman is very good at playing solo. Probably one of the better solo players in the game. One popular technique to use when PvE: casting a couple lightnings on the mob, use your lightning shield can often leave a mob greatly weakened before it even reaches you. Open up with Melee, while your totems are layed out around you, with your lightning shield on. Now Flame Shock, and as your shocks refreshes the mob will be running or already close to it, at which point you can cast a frost shock to stop it dead in it’s tracks and finish it off.

Quest

This Enhancement build is best solo. A group is only as fast as its slowest member and fastest Shaman leveling is through solo questing.

• Get comfortable with “Earth Shock” and “Lightning Bolt”. They’re indispensable for soloing.
• Drop a Stoneskin Totem for defense before a fight.
• In-group, your only role should be Damage Dealer. But…
• Avoid grouping in favor of solo questing.
• Do not tank for groups. Wait until maximum level.
• Do not heal for groups. Ditto.
• Repeat: Do not grind.

Professions

Once again, as with all classes, I recommend maxing out First Aid skill. Whether you are a healer class or not, First Aid will always be a source of additional HP’s. Having first aid simply gives the Shaman more emergency HP access and this is always useful in PvP OR PvE. Alchemy/Herbalism is my recommended profession. The potions generated from Alchemy can be used while in combat and to me are more useful than anything else (except possibly the explosives you get from Engineering).

Gear and Weapons

Because your Shaman can be any number of different builds, you’re going to need different stats depending on your build. If you go with an Enhancement Shaman, load up on the Strength, Stamina and Agility stats. If you go with an Elemental Shaman, you should be looking for Intelligence and Stamina. In fact, Stamina should be high on your list no matter what you spec you are because if you’re a low level character with not enough health, you’re going to die a LOT. It can and will make a huge difference!

For the most part, you’ll find all the gear you need from quests. But if you find yourself behind at any point, keep in mind that Shamans before Level 40 wear Cloth and Leather depending on their spec (cloth tends to have better magic stats while leather will help you out with the heavy duty skull cracking stats). Once you reach Level 40, mail is possible and can provide all the stats you need for either spec. If you roll Enhancement, seek out any gear that says “of the Bear”. If you’re an Elementalist, load up on “of the Eagle”.

Shaman 1-80 leveling Guide

The best way to get to level 80 fast is to do it with a pre-written leveling guide. WoW has thousands of quests and a few million mobs to grind and it’s easy to get lost (in terms of what to do next) or just bored. A full-blown guide will make your blast to 80 much smoother.

Click here to check out the shaman leveling guide that took me from level 1-80 in under 7 days.

Related posts:

1. WoW Shaman Guide