Totem Talk: So you're still playing that shaman...

Totem Talk is the column for shamans. Matthew Rossiplays a couple of shamans. And he's embarrassed to admit that he forgot that he hadn't finished his series of columns about how to level a shaman. No excuse, no justification, he just plain forgot. So here and now we continue the interrupted series with a look at levels 41 - 58. We'll get back to elemental gear, I promise.
Parts one and two of the series got you up to level 40. You're wearing mail (most likely the Scarlet Monastery blues, especially for aspiring enhancement shamans) and ready to begin the march to Outland. Well, the first thing you'll need to do is find a place to start adventuring! Well, okay, the first thing you'll need to do is train your new level 40 abilities, and you'll keep having to do that as time passes. Then you'll need to find a place to go adventuring, mainly to pay for things like training.

First, however, a sad note: say goodbye to Ghost Wolf. Sure, you'll still have the spell, and you may even use it to escape a bad situation since it can be cast in combat. But that's basically the only thing you'll use it for once you get your first land mount. Since Ghost Wolf doesn't make you immune to poly, free you from snares or any of that good stuff and it has a casting time, you won't even use it much in PvP aside from flag running. I know, I miss it too. You have no idea how often I've used Ghost Wolf to run around cities just because I could. Epic ghost wolf? Flying ghost wolf? Throw us a bone here.

Yeah, that was bad. I apologize.

Shamans only get a couple of non-talented abilities after Chain Heal at 40. At 42 we getGrace of Air, which I use constantly when soloing on my enhancement shaman. To be honest, I never drop a windfury totem for myself, why would I when windfury weapon is much better? I drop it when I'm in a group with a lot of melee DPS - you should see how high a dual wielding warrior's DPS can go with a WF totem down - but for soloing or in a group with a rogue and a hunter as main DPS, GoA can produce some very nice results. It's a huge dose of agility, which is ranged attack power and crit for hunters, some AP and crit for rogues, and still respectable crit for any other melee. I'm a big fan of GoA and actually had to retrain myself to check group makeup and drop WF when it was justified, (If you ever get a really cocky DPS warrior in a group and want to humble him, don't drop WF totem and watch him sulk. It's hilarious. This message brought to you by a shaman with two DPS warriors.) I especially love the dodge bonus of GoA when soloing, as I'm perfectly fine with not being hit while I hit. All around, a lovely totem.

The last non-talented ability you'll be getting before 60 is Tranquil Air Totem. Clearly, to use this totem in a five man would require cooperation and coordination among your party, and so it's not the easiest totem to drop. But if you're in an all-DPS group, especially an all-caster group willing to forgo Wrath of Air. It can be a viable alternative totem to keep the DPS less threat-spike happy. I usually get stuck tank healing in my raids, so I don't drop this much. Tanks don't like threat reduction. It's funny. I don't pretend to understand it, but it upsets them when the paladin gives them Blessing of Salvation and I drop Tranquil Air next to them. Warriors are such contrary beasts. 

Totem of Wrath is one of two elemental talented abilities, and as it takes 41 points in elemental to get, now is the time to be discussing it. It's a nice totem: I liked playing with it when I went elemental, and I very much enjoy it when I'm DPSing as enhancement. The other day I ran Botanica with a four shaman, one warrior group. Not much CC, but a lot of totems. You've never seen so many totems. Grace of Air, Windfury, Wrath of Air and Totem of Wrath all down at once. Shockapalooza, man, it was beautiful. My shoulders didn't drop, though. Totem of Wrath increased both chance to hit and critically hit with spells by 3% which is especially nice for caster DPS groups - I've heard shamans embrace it with love and claim that it's a worthless 41 point talent, I'll leave that kind of value judgment up to you. Personally, if you're going elemental I can't imagine why you wouldn't take it.

The 41 point enhancement talent is Shamanistic Rage. It's an astonishingly nice talent, made even better by the recent patch. The combination of damage reduction (a flat 30% off of the damage you take) and mana regeneration means this talent can help your steady production of damage in a fight rather enormously. Combined with the mana cost reduction of the lower-tier shamanistic focus, you'll find yourself quite able to produce steady DPS without panicking about running out of mana.

However, as someone who loves enhancement to death as a talent tree, I have to admit: good as it is, Shamanistic Rage isn't the best 41 point talent. Neither is Wrath of Air. No, the best 41 point talent in any shaman tree is Earth Shield. Oh, it's sublime, really. Used in PvE, it can make tank healing so much easier. Used in PvP, it can make killing a shaman intensely frustrating. I've kited rogues around and around forever using healing stream, ES and nature's swiftness to throw an instant healing wave on myself. ES benefits from your +heal when you cast it, so if you have trinkets that boost your +heal you should use them when you put it on, and if you have Wrath of Air you should be dropping it before cast if possible.

My first advice to a shaman who is approaching this level is to quest and save as much money as you can by avoiding the AH except to sell things. In fact, that would be my advice to almost any leveling character, even though I often succumb and go to the AH myself. If you can manage to avoid it, you'll end up with a lot more money, but I understand wanting to keep your gear as current as possible, and I know instances aren't always as friendly as they could be. Still, try and play it conservatively if at all possible. Training costs go up at this point, and you either just bought or are trying to buy your first land mount. (If you have a feeder 70 or two paying your way, feel free to ignore me here.) 

As for zones to adventure in, if you didn't run Desolace or Dustwallow Marsh you should go clean out the higher-level quests in those zones before heading to Tanaris or Feralas. Between those two zones you'll be kept plenty busy, and also consider Azshara, an often overlooked zone with some interesting quest options (both Horde and Alliance have an extended questline in the Ruins of Eldarath, and there are faction specific quests in the zone as well). You'll be tackling Un'Goro and Felwood after Tanaris and Feralas, although if you're about level 48 and for some reason bogged down, you can always make a trip to the Searing Gorge, where the dark iron dwarves of Thorium Point have a good assortment of quests for you.

For an alternative, you can instead finish the higher level content of the Swamp of Sorrowsand then strike out for the Blasted Lands, using the Searing Gorge as a supplementary quest hub. I'd suggest running all of these zones, taking breaks from one continent when it starts to get wearying. It depends on your likes, dislikes and tolerances, but I grow to hate a zone if I spend too much time in it. Also, don't forget the Hinterlands, especially not if you're Horde. The quest hub at Revantusk, in my opinion, offers superior quests and rewards than the corresponding Alliance hub at Aerie Peak, but either faction should spend some time here before heading north to the Plaguelands or off to Winterspring. If for some reason you can't hit level 58 in these last three zones, you still have Silithus to explore: you'll probably want to go there anyway just to get your cooking up to 300 if fishing is taking a long time to level. I personally dislike Silithus, but there are a lot of quests there. LIkewise, there's always theBurning Steppes if you're bogged down in other zones and need a quest hub to push you over. I find both Silithus and the Steppes somewhat unrewarding now that you're not likely to be doing much with those big instances in the zones, but at least the Steppes offers you the hope of a few BRD runs.

By this point you should easily be level 50. This means one thing: wanton carnality.

Oh, right, shaman quest. Sorry. Lost my place in the notes there. At level 50 both Horde and Alliance shamans are told to go speak with batty ol' Bath'rah the Windwatcher, tormentor of level 30 - 40 warriors and all around high level shaman. Bath'rah, after forcing you to provide him with a rather trivial test of prowess, will send you off to the delightful Plaguelands to gather the materials for a Spirit Totem. Strangely enough, even though Bath'rah is obviously insane and enjoys making you waste your time, the Spirit Totem doesn't work, and so Bath'rah sends you to the Swamp of Sorrows to kill his fellow trolls and collect feathers from their corpses. This achieved, at last Bath'rah is satisfied and goes off to take a nap, but not before offering you various rewards. If you're elemental, you may be tempted by the Azurite Fists. The Wildstaff is nice, but most melee shamans will by this point be dual wielding, and so I usually take the Enamored Water Spirit, as I'm usually low on trinkets around this level anyway.

The first dungeon you'll probably run in this level range is Zul'Farrak. All I can really say is, get used to killing trolls. Lots and lots of trolls. The standout drop for a shaman is theGahz'rilla Scale Armor. If you're enhance, Ripsaw is the perfect speed for you. If you're not picky about wearing leather and/or cloth, there's lots of caster/healer drops in here as well. After ZF, head to Desolace and explore Maraudon, one of my favorite instances, if crazily long. Do the quest The Pariah's Instructions for a nice trinket, and I can now recommend theInfernal Trickster's Leggings for enhancement shamans with the change to hit rating instead of bow skill rating. The Blade of Eternal Darkness drops here if you get lucky. After Mara, you'll be heading back to the Swamp of Sorrows to the Temple of Atal'Hakkar, where (surprise!) you'll be killing more trolls. I apologize in advance, troll shamans. However, there's compensation for the slaughter of so many trolls packed into this instance. For those of us shamans who aren't trolls, kill with glee and loot away. (I actually left out several other drops that are good for a shaman in here, ST is just a nice stop for a level 50 shammy.) Finally, with the change to leveling, you'll probably stop in BRD a few times before getting serious about hitting Outland. It's a shame, as I really like some of the 57 - 60 instances like LBRS and Strat, but getting a group for them can be really tough now. I won't even try and pick out a standout item for a shaman in here, there are over 130 drops in here, you'll find something you can use.

At this point, you should be ready for Outland. Next time, we finish off the leveling guild with the march to level 70, and after that, I get back to talking elemental spec.

Totem Talk: So you've decided to roll a shaman...

Well, I sure hope you have, otherwise the entire premise of this column is faulty. And you wouldn't do that to me, would you? I mean, no one likes a faulty premise. They're like leaky ostriches. 

Anyway, welcome to Totem Talk's look at taking a starting shaman from 1 to 20, both for new players and for players who've leveled other classes. Last week we talked about how shamans were by far the least played class, so this week it's time to try and give a leg up to new shamans, especially now that patch 2.3 has brought faster leveling options to the 20 to 60 game.

First off, as is the case with most classes, the first ten levels aren't representative of how the class plays later. Whether you're intending to be a healer, a melee DPSer or a caster, you'll be playing those ten levels more or less the same due to the limited spate of abilities you'll have access to. The class starts to open up around level 10 when you get the second totem quest (we covered the totem quests in this post, so I won't go too into detail about them again) and can start learning fire totems and spells. Basically, from levels one to four you spend a lot of time throwing lighting at things so that they come over to where you can hit them with a mace or a stick, and you'll be making that stick hit a little harder with a weapon buff around the same time you learn how to drop a stick in the ground so that you don't get so badly hurt when things hit you back.

And you get Earth Shock at level four, which is going to be your friend from then on out. Repeat after me: spell interrupt. You will wonder how you got to level four without it.

However, there still isn't much variety at this point. No matter what you intend your new shaman to be at higher levels, right now he's a leather wearing character who can cast a couple of offensive spells while hitting things once they come face to face to register their displeasure at being hit with lightning. Ryan posted in his recent Shifting Perspectives about Shaman/Druid similarities, and believe me, at early levels it's terribly pronounced. Lightning Bolt instead of Wrath and Earth Shock instead of Moonfire, but you still have a casting time spell to pull the mobs, an instant for when they get closer, and some sort of stick or club for bashing once they get into range. 

This is what I refer to as the dreadful valley for shamans. Quite honestly, shamans aren't terribly fun to play at this point. They only have the one totem, it doesn't do anything terribly interesting yet, and they basically end up doing the same thing over and over again no matter the situation. But if you can hold on until level 10 (which, reasonably, won't take you much more than an afternoon of game play) you'll start to unlock the difference between the shaman and other classes, and discover the interesting aspects of playing the totems for encounters. At levels 10 and 12 you get a host of interesting new abilities, many linked to totems, and it really helps differentiate the class: abilities like Flame Shock, Flametongue Weapon and Searing Totem. It really helps that the quest chain to get this totem is involved enough to be fun without being a total hassle to finish. Level 12 brings Purge, which is one of the more interesting and unique abilities at a shaman's disposal. Judicious use of Earth Shock and Purge can make a shaman a caster killer at these levels, as you can purge the buffs off of an opponent while interrupting his own spell casts (since both purge and earth shock are instants) and if you're used to playing a class that isn't very flexible against spellcasters this can be a revelation. Just don't get overconfident. Even when these abilities are coming into play you're still wearing leather and still doing most of your killing up close, but the shocks and totems you'll have by this point will have reduced how much you rely on bashing things to death.

Talents also help you decide where you are going to take your shaman. 11 talent points isn't enough to really make one a Resto shammy or an Elemental shammy, but it's enough to start getting a feel for which aspect of the shaman you enjoy. Do you like using weapon enhancement spells and buff totems to go toe to toe with an enemy, or are you more the caster, wanting to stay at range and throw elemental fury at your targets? Do you enjoy grouping up and healing most? While iconic shaman spells and abilities like Chain Heal and Windfury won't be available to you until much later, by level 20 you'll have standouts like Frost Shock, Ghost Wolf, and Healing Stream totem available. (To be fair, the level 20 quests for the water totem are hard enough that you might not have them right at 20.) By level 20 you can certainly have chosen talents to increase your healing, casting damage or melee abilities. With the changes in 2.3, you won't have to wait until 20 to get the talent to wield 2h weapons (since that's trainable now) but you will be able to get one of several 11 point abilities that help define the specs like the new Shamanistic Focus for the enhancement tree. By level 20, it's still premature to really consider yourself an Elemental or Restoration shaman, but you'll be closer to that point and the specializations will start to feel different. Combine that with the beginning of the water totem quest at level 20, which can easily keep you occupied for a level or two, and to my mind level 20 is when shamans really start to take off. The variety and interesting utility of the class really starts to show here.

As far as I'm concerned, as a shaman you don't want to do levels 1 - 20 too far away from your class questgivers. I leveled my orc shaman in Durotar and the Barrens for that reason, and my draenei stayed on Azuremyst/Bloodmyst in order to ensure that he was always close to a class trainer. You may feel differently, and if you do, make sure you get back to a shaman trainer at the big levels so that you can pick up the totems quests, which really do a lot to liven up the class and make it more enjoyable to play at low levels.

For me, someone used to playing a warrior, playing a shaman was at once familiar (you do a lot of melee at these levels) and alien. You're more fragile and easier to kill since you have less health and armor, you're limited by mana so you have to drink, halting more, but with the right totems and shocks you can kill a lot faster than an equivalent level warrior. The dps isn't as good as a true dps class like a mage or a rogue, you don't have a pet at these levels as a hunter or warlock will so you can't count on having a tank, and as you get more totems you have to come to grips with the totems system and its advantages and disadvantages. Even at low levels, shamans really shine when grouped, as their totem buffs grow in power the more people who are getting them. My first Wailing Caverns run on my orc shaman, I wasn't main healer, a main DPS or anything like that so much as I was a superlative buffer, cleanser and backup healer and damage dealer. It's one of the real strengths of the class and it starts to show right as you become ready to step foot into instances, with your ability to revive dead players, heal, throw down active damaging totems, AoE totems, damage reducing totems, or even a group-healing totem. Once you start to grasp how to use multiple totems on specific fights to make the group better, you've unlocked half the fun of playing a shaman.

It's hard to advise what gear to select for your bouncing baby shaman at these levels, but a general rule of thumb is that agility and intellect never hurt anyone. If you're heading more down the melee path, strength and stamina and the highest DPS 2h weapon you can find (since dual wielding is more than 20 levels away) aren't a bad choice. Elemental shamans to be often pile on whatever they can find to add to their mana pool, their spell damage and their ability to survive when they get hit, while mana regeneration and anything that adds to healing is good for a burgeoning resto. But at these levels, you're still mostly someone who uses a mix of spells and melee to kill your targets, and there's not going to be a lot of really specialized healing or casting gear for you. It's not impossible to find a few pieces, but before level 20 I'd say it's not worth really worrying about. It's better to make sure you have enough water to drink between fights and food and bandages if you need to try and regain health fast when you're out of mana. Keep in mind that at this level, you may be asked to heal or to DPS if you join an group or instance run whether or not those are your intended roles, and you may want to try and perform outside your chosen direction in order to develop those skills for later. Don't push your luck, though: a shaman with no int gear who tries to main heal an instance over his or her level is going to fail. But it's worth it to try and develop your skills with all aspects of the class if you can do so.

Next week, we'll take a look at the instances between 10 and 30, and the changes to gear that can help direct a shaman towards a spec.