Prune/Jak
Legacy of the Void Officer
60 Warrior / 60 Rogue
Posts: 368
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Post by Prune/Jak on Aug 19, 2005 15:28:34 GMT -5
I've started an Orc Shaman named Khalos. My plan is to go Elem/Enhance for leveling, possibly respeccing at 60 for PvP or instances.
If any of you Shamans out there have advice for effective grinding/leveling, please share your wisdom. Currently my plan is to talent in this order:
Ancestral Wisdom: 5/5 (increase mana pool) Thundering Strikes: 5/5 (increase crit +5) Improved Lightning Shield: 3/3 Improved Ghost Wolf: 2/2 Flurry: 5/5 Parry: 1/1
then switching to Elemental to get the Shock line: Concussion: 5/5 Convection: 5/5 Reverberation: 5/5
then back to Enhance for: Improved Windfury: 2/2
After that, I'm not sure... I'm thinking maybe Call of Thunder, Elemental Focus, and Elemental Fury... but I have a long time to think about that and learn how I like to play my shaman. Any thoughts/comments are appreciated.
--PruneTracy
Alts: Kalzani, 33 Priest Khalos, 12 Shaman
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Post by The Zrogfather on Aug 19, 2005 17:12:13 GMT -5
Prune,
I have a level 51 shammy (Brun), and I did much the same as you - Enhance until parry skill, then switch trees. I don't know how useful Impr. Windfury would be, unless you take it as early as you can - by the time you start using it much, you're not allowed to do that much damage or else you draw aggro away from the tank. Mind you, I HAVE tanked ZF as a 50 shammy, but I wouldn't have dared do that at level 45.
The only problem with shammies is that at level 50+, they don't really do anything that another class can't do better. Melee Damage? Rogue. Spell damage? Mage. Self-rez? Warlock. Off-Tanking? Fury/Arms Warrior or even Hunter & Pet. Main Tanking? Forget it. Healing? Druid or Priest.
The only talent that sets Shammies apart at high levels is the Mana Tide totem, where you have to take a bunch of useless talents to get to it (Improved Mana/Healing Spring? Yuck!).
I think one of the biggest problems with Shaman either as DPS or Healers is that they have no way to shed aggro, unlike Mages, Rogues and Priests. Even Druids, who can switch to Bear form (with craploads of armor) to protect themselves against sudden onset of enemies, have it better than the Shammy (and Druids have better heal skills, too).
However... Shammies are PVP gods. Do a lot of WSG while you're leveling, and you will notice. Think Ghostwolf at pre-mount levels and you'll know what I mean.... not to mention the heavy-hitting Windfury with a big 2h (get Prunetracy to make you some good ones!)
Zrog (Brun)
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Post by malexandra on Oct 2, 2005 0:51:21 GMT -5
Looks good so far Prune. One thing though - Ancestral Wisdom doesn't help nearly as much you think it might. It's a 10% increase to mana pool. Take my mage, who will probably have more mana than any similarly geared shammy. I have 6300 mana when raid buffed (including uber-pally buffs. I'm spoiled). 10% of that is 630. That's enough for 3 frostbolts, including regen from mage armor. I'm not sure how much that extra mana would help a shammy. Considering their smaller mana pools and less efficient spells, I doubt it would help all that much. But Ench shammies might need the extra mana, so take it if you feel there's nothing better (Shield spec doesn't help much if you go 2h, but you never know). My 2c, enjoy
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Ipit
Legacy of the Void Officer
Posts: 807
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Post by Ipit on Oct 2, 2005 21:57:44 GMT -5
So I've been thinking about a shaman build that is focused on healing. I have the current talents picked out so far:
Improved Healing Wave (5/5) Tidal Focus (5/5) Ancestral Healing (5/5) Improved Lesser Healing Wave (5/5) Tidal Mastery (5/5) Purification (5/5)
I was wondering what other talents people would recommend for this build as that only uses up 30 talent points. Also, do you think a shaman healing build is a complete waste of time? Let me know what you think. Thanks.
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Post by The Zrogfather on Oct 3, 2005 10:27:23 GMT -5
Ipit,
I've leveled a Shammy to 53, and I'd say that Enhancement is probably the way to go until you get "Parry", and then choose one of the other trees and sink the rest of your points into that. My reasoning for this is that in lower levels, where aggro control by players isn't that good, and when there are other healing classes, and you'll do a lot more solo / duo'ing, Enhancement makes things much easier, IMO. You could go Elemental, but since the shammy has no aggro-losing abilities, you are going to end up with a mob in your face if you start nuking, and that's when Enhancement shines once more.
At L60, for the big instances, some shammies go all Restoration, but I think that the points you have to "waste" on Healing Totem make Mana Tide Totem a little too expensive (although it's still quite good when you're in Molten Core in an all-caster group).
My 2c.
Zrog (Brun the Shammy)
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Post by The Zrogfather on Oct 3, 2005 10:38:03 GMT -5
Ipit,
Comments on your talent choices:
1) You'll probably be using Lesser Healing Wave more than the very-slow-casting-and-no-more-mana-efficient Healing Wave, so I'd skip the Improved Healing Wave talent.
2) Although I haven't tried it, I have read that Ancestral Healing isn't really that great of a buff. I'd appreciate your thoughts if you want to try it out, though.
Brun (Zrog)
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Ipit
Legacy of the Void Officer
Posts: 807
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Post by Ipit on Oct 3, 2005 13:52:10 GMT -5
After looking it over, I decided that I would replace Ancestral Healing with Totemic Focus.
Also, I think that it would be nice if the totem talents were a little better, since that is one of the unique abilites of te shaman. Maybe if they had their own tree or something. As of now they aren't very powerful (all of the healing ones are pretty much a waste of time) and spread throughout all of the talent trees.
What do you guys think?
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