Shaman
Overview
Shamans are the spiritual leaders of their tribes and clans. They communicate with spirits, have visions of the future, and guide their people through the darkest of times. Many mistake their wisdom and serenity for a pacifist nature. When challenged, though, shaman have a range of powers available for dealing with threats to the natural order.
Quests
History
Since the birth of the Orcish culture, Shamans have always been attune to the spirit world, and listened to the wise counsel of the ancestors. Orc hunters asked the elders to soothe the weather during their hunt, or to bring a gentle fog around their camps at night. Never did the Shamans abuse their powers however, and this era of peace between the elements and the orcs seemed as though it was never going to end.
It was only a few decades before the Dark Portal would carry the bloodthirsty Horde that the link to the spiritual world was severed with the orcs. Kil'Jaeden the Deceiver, having stumbled upon the primitive orc homeworld of Draenor, decided he could employ the orc’s strength to soften Azeroth's defense. The vile demon corrupted the orc's elder Shaman, Ner'Zhul, offering him limitless powers in exchange for the orcs cooperation. He accepted reluctantly to the dark pact and started to teach young orcs the arts of dark magik. It was only after a few years that he would have but eliminated shamanism from their culture.
With the constant drain of fell energy from the Twisting Nether, Draenor started to wither and die slowly. It was soon after, that the portal would be opened and that the Horde would ravage Azeroth. Only one reckless clan opposed the Warlock's mad scheme, the Frostwolf Clan, led by Durotan, one of the Horde's most honored Chieftains. Gul'Dan, the greatest orc Warlock, now secretly in charge of the Horde, knew that he could not risk killing such a popular hero. His only option was to exile him and his clan through the Dark Portal and into the unknown depths of the new world.
During those years when war raged across Azeroth, the Frostwolves settled in the summits of Alterac Mountains, a cold region on the northern continent of Lordaeron. The Clan still maintained the hunter traditions and the orcs shamanism, but their numbers were thinning. Durotan and his mate, Draka, kept a close eye on their only son, Thrall, and wanted for him a great future among his peers. To ensure this future, Durotan and his family visited their friend Orgrim Doomhammer in the south. He warned him of the Warlocks and the Shadow Council, who controlled the Horde from behind. He also told him of Gul'Dan's treachery. Unfortunately, Durotan was never going to see his clan ever, for he was killed on his way home by Gul'Dan's assassins. Only his son, Thrall, survived.
He was found by Aedelas Blackmoore, future chief warden of the interment camps, and raised as a slave. Upon reaching adulthood, the idealistic young orc escaped his captor and set out the find those of his kinds: the orcs. On his journey he witnessed the strange lethargy his people suffered and was saddened to discover they had all but lost their legendary warrior spirit, but more importantly: their very will to live.
Unable to accept it, he searched for the last free orc chieftain: Grom Hellscream of the Warsong Clan. After many long days he finally stumbled upon the Warsongs, and he was able to talk to their leader. Inspired by Hellscream's idealism, he traveled north to find the legendary Frostwolf Clan. He discovered he was the son of Durotan, chieftain of the Frostwolves. He met with the venerable Drek'Thar, the last orc Shaman, who taught the inexperienced orc the ways of the four elements and how to commune with the spirits. Thrall studied the orc's shamanistic heritage and succeeded to gain the respect of the ancient spirits. At the end of his training, Thrall was empowered by the elements and ready to free his people of their affliction.
With Thrall's visionary leadership and the teachings of shamanism, the Horde was freed from both humans and demons. But freedom is never to be taken for granted in Azeroth, and the horde and must still fight for their continued survival.
Role
The Shaman is a secondary Healing class (to the Priest) with a fun assortment of spells and options. The Shaman is especially liked by party members for its Healing and beneficial totems. The Shaman has up to four types of totems: Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. An important part of playing the Shaman is figuring out which totem is best to use in each situation.
Healing 101
The secondary healing role is fulfilled using either Healing Wave (HW) or Lesser Healing Wave (LHW). HW is a larger but slow casting heal while LHW is a smaller 1.5 sec cast heal very similar to priest's Flash Heal both in efficiency and in casting time and mana cost.
Healing Wave has a specific talent (Restoration - Improved Healing Wave) to reduce its casting time from 3 sec to 2.5 sec.
Lesser Healing Wave has a specific talent (Restoration - Improved LHW) to reduce the chance of interruption from damage while casting LHW, for up to 70% reduction.
Chain Heal isn't much to talk about. It's about 2 Healing Waves spread over 3 targets which you don't control. It's not very mana efficient for a group healing spell and attracts lots of agro. Not very used unless the whole group is taking massive damage and you need to up your HP/sec.
Finally, in the restoration talent tree, Shamans have acces to Nature's Swiftness (21 points required) that allows to cast the next spell healing or offensive instantly.
The efficiency of HW in HP/mana is a bit better than that of LHW but at the cost of less versatility, risk of over-healing on a crit, risk of getting agro more easily and no reduction in interruption chance. With Improved Healing Wave, the healing rate is the same between both spells. Without talent, LHW actually heals faster than HW.The efficiency different is small and becomes the same as soon as a shaman uses an item with flat 25 mana reduction in costs of spells.
For these reasons, Lesser Healing Wave is often the healing spell of choice for shamans. For burst healing, Nature's swiftness followed by Healing Wave is often the only time a shaman will use Healing Wave. For this reason, ignoring the Improved Healing Wave talent may be a viable solution if your shaman is only going to use Lesser Healing Wave.
Totem Use
This is where a shaman can provide essential utility to their group. You can only have 1 totem of each type out at any given time. If you cast another totem of the same type (earth, water, fire or air), it'll overwrite the previous one. That may dictate some sequences for totems on timer like Fire Nova.
Earth Totem:
- Earthbind: this snares all enemies within 10 yards. It's invaluable to protect casters and allow them to kite mobs around if they have to. This prevents runner from going very far as well.
- Strength of Earth: a regular +STR buff. Useful when in a melee-oriented group. It doesn't benefit hunters at all, and only provides half the AP to rogues as other melee classes.
- Stone claw: this is a taunt tool. Useful in case of adds to buy you time. Also useful right after a pull of a swarm to channel the mobs to a point for easy AoE DD kills. Sadly it has so few hitpoints that it doesn't last long.
- Stoneskin: more useful at lower levels. Its attractiveness in damage mitigation however increases when dealing with swarms of mobs in high-end instance. Otherwise for a regular crowd-controlled pull or up to 4 mobs, it's generally less effective than Earthbind or Strength but maybe viable in AoE nuking groups.
- Tremor: it pulses every few seconds and removes sleep, fear, and charm effects. It is a very powerful totem in certain situations. The primary use is for the fear breaking power. Many classes(priests, warlocks, warriors) and mobs (Onyxia, Berserkers in ZG, and others) use fear. Also it clears seduction from a warlock's succubus. The sleep apsect is slightly less useful but is nice for sunken temple and SM.
Water Totem:
- Healing: limited use. Good for downtime reducing possibly but in practice, its effects are usually too weak to do much. Consider saving the mana.
- Poison/disease cleansing: very useful situationally. Those are cheap in mana cost (almost the same as single target casts). They tick every 4 sec or so, so in case of very violent poisons, you may want to recast them since they'll pulse once right as you drop. This is particularly useful to get rid quick of AE poisons, or places where the poison will be reapplied often.
- Mana Spring: like healing totem, its trickling returns are usually not worth the hassle. Exception would be extended raid fights in which you don't need to remove poison or disease and are in caster-heavy group.
- Mana Tide: 12 sec of high rate mana regeneration. Better than mana spring but often deemed too costly a talent in the restoration tree to be worth having.
- Fire Resistance: Adds 30-60 Fire Resistance. Very useful especially in high-end instances with lots of fire-based mobs.
Fire Totems:
- Searing: one of the most used and certainly the most misused totem of all. It sounds like a good deal of extra DPS for not much mana and in truth it is. It sends fire bolts to 1 nearby target, "usually" the one you're fighting. However, it may as well pull a nearby mob that would have left you alone otherwise. It breaks CC in non-controllable fashion. Worth using now and then in wide open space but in all cases with caution and awareness of what's around you. Once you're done with it, consider finishing the fight replacing it with a frost resistance totem to avoid getting adds well after your fight is over.
- Fire Nova: explodes 5 sec (or down to 3 with talents) after dropping. It agros mobs a lot and many will hit it before it explodes if not solidly agroed to something else. Reuse timer is 15 seconds making it a 1 shot AE DD in most fights. Efficient only with 2+ mobs but a nice addition to AoE DD groups.If used, better used first prior to dropping a magma totem during reuse timer of Fire Nova. Breaks CC so use with care.
- Magma: does small damage every 5 sec. Very costly and less efficient than Fire Nova unless it's allowed to tick on most mobs for most of its duration. Doesn't draw all of its aggro upfront like Fire Nova but I'd reserve it for cases where you need DPS at the expense of anything else. Breaks CC.
- Flametongue: adds fire damage to melee weapons in the party. It does not stack with shaman self weapon buffs. Better than windfury totem against high armor mobs that are not resistant to fire.
- Frost Resistance Totem: Adds 30-60 Frost Resistance. Vital against mobs using this type of attacks. In PvP, very useful against Mage ice attacks like blizzard.
Air Totems:
- Grounding Totem: sounds better than it is. In effect, it channels the effect of a spell otherwise directed at a party member to itself. It however has only 5 HP so if the spell is a damage one, it'll absorb the damage and be dispelled. If the spell is CC or debuff, it's generally immune and will stay in place and remove such effects once per 10 sec.Blocks sheep, some fear spells, cleansing, etc without being dispelled. On a recast timer however.
- Windfury: 20% chance of granting 1 extra attack. Note this is much weaker than self-cast version which grants 2 extra attacks per proc. However, it generally generates a 20% extra DPS on melee characters and is very useful. Less useful on mobs with high armor possibly than Flametongue.
- Grace of Air: adds +AGI for 1.5 min. that adds to dodge, crit rate and greatly improves rogues/hunter DPS. In many cases, decision to use it is balanced by option to use Windfury. If grace of air is used, it allows using the Flametongue group weapon buff in conjunction.
- Nature Resistance: Adds +30-60 resistance to nature-based spells. Many poisons and diseases are nature-based (like in Maraudon and Zul'Gurub) so this one in conjunction with cleansing totems may be very useful. Also great against druid spells.
- WindWall: Stoneskin equivalent for range bow/gun attacks. Considering the amount of mobs using this, the damage mitigation which is fairly low and the fact that usually range mobs are not left at range very long, this makes for a totem most shamans will hardly ever use. Especialy considering the other better Air totems.
- Tranquil Air: Lowers the threat generated by party members by 20%. Only useful in raids as it affects everyone in your party. Its primary use is for encounters where aggro management is the key to success.
Final note about totems is that they're most fragile and may be a significant mana investment that an enemy can dispel by a flick of a wand or one swing of melee weapon. They also agro on radius even if mob has lower agro radius than the range of the totem. A neutral mob crossing the path of your earthbind or earthclaw totem will agro you even if it would have ignored you otherwise. The radius may cause unwanted adds so sometimes you have to be careful with placement, go into a corner and drop it there where it won't agro roaming mobs.
Nuking 101
By no means a very extensive guide but things to remember as far as efficiency and higher DPS goes.
Shocks aren't efficient. Some less than others. The most efficient is the Fire Shock doing about half its damage upfront and then rest over 15 sec. It has efficiency just under that of lightning bolt so is a decent in-combat spell. the other shocks are useful for other purposes but for grinding and downtime purposes, the Fire Shock should be the bread and butter. It's also useful for optimizing burst DPS. While it ticks, you can use other shocks effectively having higher damage than just spamming Frost Shock or Earth Shock.
A small incursion in talents since the elemental tree is mostly about nuking split between lightning bolt/chain lightning and shock improvements. Reverberation is probably the single best talent for boosting uninterruptible damage. If you're going to go for more caster-oriented shaman, this is more viable possibly than the lightning improvement because it's not succeptible to interruptions and counterspelling. Also due to earth shock dynamics, reducing the reuse timer by 1 sec of all your shocks, not only boosts your spell DPS but reduces your opponents' by significantly. That being said, nuking is not efficient and not much more with elemental talents. It may increase burst DPs and have nice side effect on enemies snaring/prevent casting) but should be used with mana costs in mind.
Frost Shock, either with 5-6 sec reuse timer, its duration of 8 sec may ensure perma snaring of mobs. The downside is efficiency. The snaring factor also doesn't stack with earthbind totem snare. It has diminishing returns in PvP. This means that the first snare last full length, the second half length, and the third time the target will be immune (damage and snare). However if you wait 15 secs after your last frost shock it will reset the diminshing returns.
Earth Shock: great damage, causes 2 sec of interruption, this is a very good spell both in PvE and in PvP. For caster mobs, this is your pull spell. If mana is an issue, use the lowest version of it. It does little damage but interrupts just the same and on a caster mob, it'll cause it to rush to melee you. However, if distance is long enough, caster mobs maybe stop on their way to you to start casting again. Even with 5 sec reuse timer, they may have up to a 3 sec casting window so b ready to meet them halfway. On caster mobs engaged in melee, this can be used to perma-lock them out of casting sequence if using a fast weapon. The interruptions of the fast weapons will extend the duration needed for caster spells. If reuse timer is 5 sec with reverberation, only 1-2 interruption during the casting time is required to lock up a caster mob. Even if you cannot completely prevent casting, it seriously reduces it. Even mroe if used in addition of a grounding totem to catch the ones you couldn't completely interrupt. Avoid using the max rank in PvE unless the tank has firm aggro as earth shock has a large +threat component.
Lightning Bolt: slow casting but efficient. Don't bother using in melee. You have shocks. The loss of DPS from interruptions is not worth the hassle in most situations.Exceptions might be if you need to kill a mob fast while an add is on your stoneclaw totem. In that case, it may be useful, especially with casters mobs that you otherwise earth shock.
Chain lightning: Pulling with this spell may result in severe injury or death. I've seen it done and it may be useful in rare occasions but in general you dn't want to pull 3 mobs onto you unless the game plan is really special and you don't have a tank to do this for you. Otherwise, in PvP it also breaks CC since you don't control who it'll bounce on. Vs single targets in PvP and without mobs around, it may be useful since it has higher damage than lightning bolt. Still a very tricky spell that should be used with care. In groups, you won't qualify as AoE damage source with it and you'll most likely be more useful healing.
Melee
Shamans can use most 1h weapon except swords. Don't ask me why there hehe. shamans can also use 2h staff, and 2h maces and axes with enhancement talent relatively early in the tree. The debate of whether it's worth 1 talent point to have access to 2h maces and axes is in my opinion a matter of personal choice. For an enhancement melee-oriented shaman, I think it makes sense to give yourself access to most weapons so that you use the best drop overall. For others without much enhancement inclination, it probably isn't worth it considering the stats of existing staves and the equivalent DPS of all 2h weapons prior to special abilities.
Still when it comes to weapon choice, it doesn't hurt training in all possible weapon with the exception maybe of hand to hand due to lack of available weapons. In all cases, I'd recommend training in a fast 1h weapon and in staff. Vs caster mobs that don't hit hard in melee, shield isn't a big deal not to have. But the higher DPS of staff (or 2h mace/axe) vs squish mobs is worth it. Alternatively, if you want to play the interruption game with earth shock, a fast weapon is better since it'll cause more delays.
Blizzard stated that higher 2h DPS is well balanced vs damage mitigation of shield+1h. On one hand, 2h weapons provide more damage but less defense which means shorter fights in which you'll take more total damage and thus have a bit more HP downtime. On the other hand, lower DPS of 1h+shield goes with less damage sustained, less variance and less downtime but longer fights. It's designed to be a wash.
But then how to decide what is best between two setups. Typically, a 2h weapon will do about +20% damage so compare DPs of weapons with that in mind. In comparison, to that 20% higher DPS, 1h+shield should provide about +15% damage absorbed. Compare the numbers, check the total stats and decide which is best on a case by case and on a personal satisfaction level. If you like to see big number and thrills of more varied fights, go with 2h more often than with 1h. If you prefer fast predictable damage that reduce fluctuations in performance between fights, go with 1h+shield. One consideration is that spell damage doesn't care for armor so if taking lots of spell damage, consider using 2h weapon.
Which weapon buff to use. Let's get the obvious out first. Frostbrand is near useless. Consider saving yourself money and not getting it until you're rolling in cash. The snare is of little use with earthbind and frost shock and the proc is too low rate to add decent DPS.
Then, there are the 3 others which I'll break up in 2 groups. Flametongue and in the other group windfury and rockbiter. Obviously before lvl 30, your choice is only flametongue or rockbiter. Both are fine but have better uses situationally. Flametongue does spell damage which isn't reduced by armor but is reduced by fire resists. So on high armor opponents without large resistance to fire, it'll be the best option. For most other purposes, rockbiter or windfury are in my experience better by a small margin.
Rockbiter is allegedly better for faster weapons while windfury is supposed to be slightly better for slower weapons. I'm still not entirely convinced by this since it's hard to evaluate precisely the mean DPS over time of those. Windfury has tremendous burst DPS capabilities. With a slow 2h weapon, the extra attacks cause an enormous amount of damage at a very high attack power. In this case, it's possible to take 50% of a mob's HP on one proc. The downside is slower weapons proc less often than faster weapons. It evens out in the long term but if you want burst DPS, windfury is for you. The other advantage is that it doesn't draw more agro than by the damage you do. Rockbiter however adds a great deal of agro to your attacks. You may be doing 30% less damage than the warrior next to you and still get agro. For that reason, I'd reserve rockbiter for solo or group situation where you want to get agro. Otherwise in groups, I'd use windfury.
Finally, a shaman's meleeing performance isn't complete without her Lightning Shield. For grinding purposes it is relatively mana efficient compared to shocks and delivers damage in 3 procs which means less variance due to outright resists. One caveat is that orbs won't proc every time you're hit but more or less only every 5 sec or so. The orbs are also a nasty giveaway when travelling in ghost wolf form. Still this is a major weapon for shamans and it even damages range opponents.