Totem Talk: What spec for me?

Lately a lot of the columns here at Totem Talk have been aimed at endgame issues... getting into instances and raids, PvP, etc etc... so I thought it was about time we go back to the leveling shaman and discuss an issue that really starts to matter around level 40 or so. That is, what spec is right for you?

As a versatile hybrid class, shamans can play a role as excellent melee DPS, effective long range caster DPS, or that solid bedrock of every party, the main healer. And to a degree it's possible for a skilled shaman of one spec to play another role: my resto shaman has done melee and/or caster DPS in fights where I wasn't needed to heal (although bringing a resto shaman to a five man and then saying 'well, we have a holy priest, so you can DPS if you want' is in my opinion somewhat mean, like taking a chef into a five star kitchen with all the amenities and then telling him to sit down and have some food since someone else is already going to be cooking) and my enhancement shaman has main healed fights when the real healer went down due to bad luck or what have you. I've had elemental shamans throw the heals in between DPSing and even had one run up and windfury with a 2h on a boss once, although she mostly did that to make the rest of us freak out.

So, as a service to all the new shamans I'm hoping have started rolling the class over the past few weeks because my column has inspired you (look, let me keep my delusions, okay?) we'll go over what the three specs are, what they do and don't do in a party, and what you'll be expected to do with them as you level up. If you're a level 70 shaman already, you probably already know all this, and if not how the heck did you manage to get to 70? You're telling me you didn't spend any talent points the whole time? There's three trees, man, play around a little! Since I know most of you are very knowledgeable about your chosen specs, feel free to jump in with advice and ideas.

Restoration:

This is the spec for you if you want to maximize your healing. While restoration spec shamans are not as well rounded as priests and lack the heal over time spells of a druid, we do have one of the most powerful group healing tools in the game, the excellent Chain Heal spell, and our Healing Wave is an excellent 'big heal' capable of standing next to similar such heals dropped by other classes. Lesser Healing Wave, our faster heal, is much more of an 'oh crap he's going to die' healing spell, cast when you can't spare the time for a big heal, but it can perform surprisingly well in that light.

You weaknesses as a healer will be your lack of a standard area of effect heal similar to Prayer of Healing or Tranquility and your lack of a heal over time like Renew or the plethora of Druid HoT's. Don't feel too bad about these. Sure, you don't have them, but trust me, you have chain heal. Every single other healing class in the game will bitch and moan about how incredibly imba chain heal is, so get ready for that.

Chain heal is very powerful in a five man instance run, especially when more than one player is taking damage for some reason (AoE damage, someone pulling aggro, or what have you) because you can fire and forget with it. No need to spend too much time worrying about who is taking damage now, as long as they're within range of the chain, you can heal the tank and them at the same time. Back in the day I would often heal a Zul'Farrak run with nothing but chain heal. You shouldn't do this kind of thing too much... over-relying on chained heals will dull you as a healer and keep you from learning how to properly juggle healing wave and LHW, and chain healing is situational. If no one is taking damage but the tank, there's no reason to use chain heal on him.

Speccing restoration means a multitude of talents open up to you to make healing easier. Just two that I'll mention now (for more detailed discussions of shamans healing, go to these previous columns) are the awesome Ancestral Healing and the necessary Earth Shield. Ancestral healing can increase the armor of your healing targets by up to 25% if your heals crit, which is a nice chunk of physical damage mitigation that can make your job a lot easier. A lot of shamans cast rank 1 healing wave before a pull to try and proc the effect, it makes healing a tank much nicer. Even nicer than that is earth shield, the shamanic version of a 'healing shield' similar to the priest's prayer of mending. It can be cast on a main tank to provide him with healing aggro when he gets hit, grant some form of healing over time that shamans otherwise lack, and can also be used on other casters/healers to keep them from being interrupted during fights.

All this, and your +healing gear (as you get some) also adds to totems such as Healing Stream, meaning that you can maintain a small area effect healing with minimal effort. Totem choice for a restoration shaman will depend on group make up: often in a five man, you'll be dropping totems like windfury and strength of earth for the tank and other melee, then either healing stream or mana spring, and whatever fire totems seem most appropriate and least disruptive to the group. Wrath of Air is a solid choice in raids, where you will hopefully be back with the casters and other healers instead of up with the melee... that's what they make our next spec for.


Enhancement:

The spec for people who want to hit somebody. Enhancement sacrifices the real power of the shaman's healing and lightning bolt throwing abilities in order to link their shocks to attack power and get up close to introduce people to the fury of the elements. Enhancement also does just that, it enhances the damage potential for a group of melee DPS, making it a viable endgame spec not necessarily for its own damage output (which can be considerable all on its own) but for what it can help others to achieve.

The heart and soul of enhancement DPS is the Windfury Weapon imbue and Windfury Totem. You will never meet a warrior or rogue who want you to drop Grace of Air unless it's on a boss fight where every single bit of extra mitigation counts: the DPS burst potential of a windfury proc far exceeds the DPS gained by the extra crit of the agility on GoA. While the other weapon imbues and totems have situational use... you may want Frostbrand for slowing a target or on an offhand, but the main imbue you will use is windfury. As a result, you personally won't get much benefit from dropping the WF totem, but as you level you'll find your melee craving it, and in a raiding situation a single enhancement shaman will often be placed into a melee DPS group consisting of rogues, warriors and even paladins who want the proc for their melee weapons. Sadly, feral druids get no benefit from WF at this time.

Stormstrike allows a shaman to do a damaging instant attack. If you are dual wielding (as most enhancement shamans will, as they can maximize their damage in this fashion, and also because they are the only spec of shamans who can dual wield by selecting the proper talent) then Stormstrike will hit with both weapons in addition to debuffing the target to take additional damage from nature based attacks like Earth Shock. Because of the mechanic of both Stormstrike and windfury procs, slower weapons often benefit enhancement shamans and their DPS, as explained in this Elitist Jerks forum post I will keep pointing people to until the end of time.

As an enhancement shaman you should keep your eye on the Improved Weapon Totems talent, as it will greatly enhance your ability to enhance your fellow players. Did I use the word enhance enough there?


Elemental:

Welcome to DPS country. Elemental shamans have a nice place here. If you enjoy the idea of being the only caster DPS who can equip mail and wear a shield (giving them some of the highest survivability of any ranged DPS outside of hunters, and the widest range of equipable gear possible for a ranged caster) the only real down side for an elemental shaman is that they can't equip swords, which means they're unable to equip some of the best caster gear. But they can use daggers, maces, staves, shields, off-hands, mail, leather and cloth, so they have good options for the proper gear. The Elitist Jerks' One Stop Elemental Shop posts have been moved to the Theorycrafting Think Tank and still need updating, but they're worth looking at (as the writer is far, far superior in understanding of elemental as a spec than I am) for an idea of how the class works.

At lower levels, you're basically casting Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning until mobs run up to hit you, in which case you will either Frost Shock to get back out to caster range or will use a fast weapon with Flametongue and will use a combination of melee and shocks to kill them. Once you start running instances and raiding, you will hopefully no longer have to kite and melee very much, reverting to a standard caster approach of throwing lightning bolts and chain lightning as the cooldown allows - don't use chain lightning in the middle of a group of CC if you don't want to make people cry and cause angry murlocs to swarm you. Or whatever it is that's CC'd, it just always seems to be murlocs somehow. Not that I've experienced this.

There are a great many elemental shaman talents to consider (this column covers the spec in more detail) but the standouts in my mind have always been Elemental Fury, Elemental Precision, Elemental Mastery, and Lightning Overload. You'll probably get Totem of Wrath unless you're going for a PvP build, so you might as well drop it. It's certainly not a bad talent but it lacks the oomph you'd expect for a 41 point, talent tree capping ability. It will synergize well with Wrath of Air and Mana Spring. Most elemental shamans seem to use the restoration tree for their offspec talents, especially for the spell hit of Nature's Guidance.

It won't matter much while you're leveling, but once you hit 70 start looking for spell haste gear: elemental shaman DPS rotations seem to make heavy use of it in the theorycrafting I've seen. Experienced elemental shamans, please address this in the comments? I really have to get my ele shammy leveled up.


There you go, a general overview of the three specs for the beginning shaman to ponder. Which appeals to you? The shaman class has a lot of variety to suit almost any playstyle, now it's up to you to find the one you like the most.

Looking for tips and tricks for leveling up your mains or alts? Check out our page of WoW Insider Class Leveling Guides!