Hi All,
New to the Classic and I’ve been doing research on going Shaman. I’ve been seeing a lot of people chat about going Enhancement for leveling but not a to on Elemental? Why is that - OOM the biggest issue for them while leveling?
Thank you!
The reason I will level enhance is because the early leather gear has melee dps stats. Gear with int/spirit is usually cloth, and you are pretty squishy as ele if you are wearing cloth.
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Imp Ghost Wolf
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The ability do do meaningful damage while you passively regen mana cuts downtime.
Enhancement is the way for sure, unless your just dungeon grinding and healing.
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Ohhhh… I never really thought about that. Good point.
Enhancement early. If you want to cast while levelling elemental opens up with talents around level 40.
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Elemental is good at 40-50+, but at lower levels is not efficient enough compared to enhancement.
Also, little tip: use staves. Everyone scrambles for 2h axes/maces, but staves generally have higher damage values and, unlike other melee classes, you benefit from having some caster stats, especially spirit, as they’ll improve your leveling efficiency.
Plus you lose the ability to use 2h axes if you respec to elemental or resto. Just use staves and use those talent points elsewhere.
Also a good idea 
Thank you. Any other tips? Anything helps!
Drop all of your totems at once and try to avoid casting any spells as you melee enemies. This gives your spirit time to regen mana. Every time you cast a spell, spirit regen is stopped for 5 seconds
I wouldn’t say that staves “generally” have higher damage; they sometimes do. Don’t be afraid of staves. But don’t be afraid to pick up a 2h axe or mace, either. IMO it is worth the talent point just for the option. This is 1.12, so you’ll keep your weapon skill progress if you respec out of it later.
(You still won’t be able to use them while you don’t have the talent, but at least you won’t have to re-skill from 1 when you spec back into it.)
Elemental is significantly faster to level, but that comes with the caveat that the spec just doesn’t work prior to ~40 due to a combination of talents, available nature sp gear, and skill ranks.
So most shamans start off enhancement (the only sane thing to do) and just stick with enhancement until they hit 60.
If you respec to elemental and stack SP/Int and some spirit and just spam lightning bolt at mobs’ faces its by and far the fastest way to kill mobs and level. Its also a substantially stronger pvp spec because you can heal and dps with the benefit of having a shield for high armor. Not needing a second healing set or worrying about weapon upgrades is a massive boon as well.
So shamans have two roads, stick with enhance all the way up from 10-60, or respec around 40 (level 38 is lowest I would recommend) and blaze your way to 60 at the cost of needing to keep a lot of waters on hand.
Elemental goes oom fast. Easier to gear as an enhancement. Improved ghost worlf is pretty great. Flurry is awesome. Wind fury is love. Overall enhancement is more fleshed out and better feeling for leveling. While elemental is great for max level pvp. But going oom is their biggest issue
I’d say watch Kargoz’s guide on youtube for shaman leveling…
General things I can mention that may not be mentioned in his guide:
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Earthbind kiting didn’t feel as reliable on beta as it does on pservers…
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Despite that, I was more than capable of purely face tanking mobs with little-no downtime 1-40.
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Ele 40+ has the fastest “time to kill” of any spec in the game, and it’s for that reason that it becomes a viable option relative to enhance (killing fast enough that it actually makes up the time spent drinking)… THAT BEING SAID… the data on ele is also taking into account that on pservers the shaman could sit and force a crit/ make their spells have absolutely no pushback via talent… This will NOT be the case on live.
It’s also worth pointing out that Elemental will have to spend money drinking like a mage does (or befriending an actual mage to conjure you tons of water)… where enhance is still at that same overall pacing, via not needing to stop and drink save rare occasions.
The main advantage you’ll gain from being ele isn’t necessarily overall leveling speed, but rather better ability to hybridize into a healer role when needed and generall roll on/accrue caster gear.
- this bit might be more controversial, but I personally would entirely skip the water totem quest chain until 40, when you have access to a mount… It’s really just not needed while leveling solo, and it takes 2-3 hours of tooling around the world for a near non existent benefit when you do get it. If you plan on doing a very significant amount of grouping, however, that’s a different story.
Not a fan of enhancement - figured if I was going to melee, there are better classes. This is my original vanilla toon and she has always been ele. With a good shield and as high dps as possible one hander, I can pull using lightning/frostshock, apply flame shock and fore toten and face tank them while mana regen starts back up. I only have to heal a little or not at all afterward and my mana bar is usually back to near full for the next pull. It’s definitely not AOE like in retail but it has a rhythm I like.
Leveling an enhance shammy with a shield to 40 at least is a pretty efficient way to do it. Can actually tank lower level dungeons too if needed. Run windfury on your weapon while questing. Plus insta ghost wolf is nice as every second helps leveling. The most important leveling stat is really how fast you can go from pint a to b, so shammys and druids are nice choices to level.
first take a nice big deep calming breath. few more times till the wawawas come. think of the trees young shaman.
Umm, while leveling ele you should be using your weapon for more than a stat stick. Use it to whack your enemy to death. You can sure play like a mage if you want, but why when you have awesome melee capabilities. Gear strength and spirit when you can and you won’t regret it. Searing totem is the only totem you really care about.
While true, you don’t need it to kill mobs. 4-6 lightning bolts depending on how much SP gear you have is more than enough to kill mobs your level. Which means only 2-3 of those lightning bolts assuming no crits at all is plenty. That’s only 4-6 seconds of cast speed and some pushback which is not slowing down your TTK.
Not needing to ever upgrade your weapon to keep good dps and not needing a second set to heal dungeons ends up saving you hours upon hours compared to enhancement. But being as thirsty as an irishman for you are literally converting mana to xp is a downside. Bring plenty of water.
The water totem quest you can complete just fine in your late 20’s. You end up going to all the locations as you level anyway.
Thank you so much for the reply. Those videos were very helpful! I’m looking forward to my Shaman and leveling it up!!