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As someone who leveled a shaman during the classic release I have to say the addon totem timers is an absolute must for quality of life with totems. You can set your default totem of each element, bind them to a key bind while still having your other totems on an accordion to pull out any other totem you may want situationally and some other bonus buttons like one for your lightning shield or weapon imbue of choice
21% of Base Mana. Like what?! and 20 Second CD. One of these worst capstones in the game. Should be 8-10% of Base Mana with 10 second CD to even be slight viable.
@@Vourne And all of that on basically just an additional white hit. It doesn't deal any extra damage and while it increases your ls/es damage by 20%, those spells aren't exactly cheap on an enh shaman with mostly str/agi/stam gear.
@@MrOrmanley Yeah exactly. There is a reason why top shamans in longer fights have to downrank spells to fish for clearcasting procs lol. It's a horrible system. Stormstrike needs to do 20-30% additional weapon damage on top of the aforementioned buffs.
Stormstrike is way overrated. I’ll take a 30 enhance 21 resto build with nature swiftness over having stormstrike anyway and probably beat a stormstrike shaman every time with this build.
Few things. The most important addon to have on shaman in classic is something like Totem Caddy. It adds a bar for totems like in TBC which helps a lot with saving space on skill bars. You can customise it or make binds for it. You mentioned Ghost Wolf as a defensive ability for some reason where even with 1s cast its rarely used to run. The most important thing is that it litrerally acts as a bit slower mount for 20 levels (probably more, since its often hard to buy a mount at 40) which is something most classes can only dream about. There is also Astral Recall which another great thing which helps with leveling speed. As of builds for leveling. Yes, slow two hander and WF is the most fun thing to play with but its definitely not most efficent. Rockbiter is the enchant to go on every weapon, no matter if its 1h or 2h, if its slow or fast. You can switch it to Flametongue when you fight a lot of highly armored enemies (if you don't know how to tell which mob is 'warrior' class then just stick to RB). RB simpy outperforms in dps every other imbue, WF is catching up slightly on very slow weapons though. As of the most 'efficent' way to level, its 1h + shield. It offers only slightly lower dps and leveling speed than 2h but you use way less water to level like this. 2h leveling is a bit faster, but more costly. On level 40-45+ the fastest way to level is actually elemental. The speed is wayyy faster than 1h+shield or 2h (even including downtime for drinking), but its also the most costly one since you will be going through your water stock like crazy. Im happy that you mentioned enh+resto, I belive many guides for some reason recommends ele but especially with how bad gear is in solo play adding +3 hit rating AND +3 spell hit rating is king, considering like 1/3 of our damage is elemental. edit: anyone interested in shaman talk with all the details, small things and numbers I highly recommend Defcamp & Melderon TV channel, few hours of videos just for shaman testing.
Opie is a great addon for shaman totems. It opens a radial menu when you press a button, allowing you to assign a bunch of totems to a single button for example. Certain ones you may use very often or may want to place the very quickly, so you can just use a normal keybind for those. But for all the extras that you only use in specific situations it can be really nice.
Or, if you're masochists like me and my friend, play Resto/Prot. You'll never die (unless you really try to) but damage output is... hmmm... maybe half that of a single actual DPS?
@andromidius that sounds like a slow ass grind 🤣 before the glory of revenge spec, prot warrior isn't known for its damage! It is satisfying gathering about 7 mobs and cleaving them into the nether realm. My zug zug brain says its worth the risk!
Big Tip: For those that only want to level Enhancement Shaman 1-60 start with Resto. I know it sounds strange but at low levels you don't really need added damage talents. What you desperately need is Hit Rating. Natures Guidance for 3% hit with an Axe (If your Orc) and you basically can no longer miss, and your glancing blow damage goes way up. It's actually the biggest buff to your DPS while leveling. Plus you get cheaper healing spells, and much cheaper totem spells. You'll be level 22 by the time you start in the Enhancement tree, which is when you'll start needing the damage.
I started leveling a Shaman last night and I might just try this route. Would mean a much longer cast time on Ghost Wolf for quite a long time; though this could also mean you simply not spend Talent points into that and wait for your level 40 mount... Since I choose to play a Troll... would it be useful to skip the 2h-weapon talent? Since there are a TON of Staves that can be found throughout the world that do very respectable DPS on their own?
Improved Ghost Wolf isn't really needed desperately. It's too mana intensive at low levels to cast between mob pulls anyways. It's only used really when you finish in an area, and are looking to begin a journey to a new area. Well if you aren't going Orc, its a tougher road. Orc is the Undisputed king of Enhancement, however Troll can work too. I would still get 2H specialization, because Corpse Maker and Ravager exist. If you can buy an Exectuioner's Cleaver off the AH it's BiS throughout the 40's and will last you until about 52-54, which is when it should be replaced with Lord Alexander's Battleaxe if possible. Staves are okay though. Just watch Guzu's staff warriors progression. You'll want the same ones essentially. I hope this info helped a little. Make sure you bring lots of food and water. Enhance has to drink A LOT.@@Stompy1984
You can still use one handed axes. If you can get a 1h axe with 2-2.5 speed and Rockbiter, it still does good damage. But yes, Crescent Staff will carry you for awhile. By the time you can use 2h axe you'll be level 33 which is perfect for Corpse Maker, or just before Ravager. Once you hit level 43 try and get Executioner's Cleaver. It's BiS for the 40's. This should then be upgraded into Lord Alexander's Battleaxe. @@wraith9166
How to level as elemental: 1-24: gear and play exactly as if you were enhancement. 25-39: pull with 2 lightning bolts and 1 shock and then melee while regening mana. Don't wear cloth and don't avoid melee stats. 40-60: continue same as 25-39 or buy a lot of water and become a wizard. Wear mail either way.
@@Vourne Indeed. High nature spell damage is a priority stat. You gain more damage per mana than stacking Int. Even stacked, you will still need to downrank to sustain output at times.
@@brandondavidson4085 You're right, that's when it gets really good. But I wanted to point out that before then its still not terrible; you just have to accept that you're not truly a wizard yet.
Yeah, at best it can peel a unit long enough for you to cast a heal or run away. So its not worthless - its just not something you'll be using regularly.
@@WillEmmoit doesn't even taunt, really. It has a set amount of threat that is often insufficient to draw aggro from your target if you drop it mid-late in combat.
@@Bittyfun I use it mostly for group pulling as a tank, or an "oh shit" button for if I pull a lot of mobs at once in the open world. Can't say how many times it saved my unlucky ass so far
@@osgrace3341 I mained shaman my entire WoW career and during classic. The overzealous dps warriors always got chain procs and always died. As is tradition 😂
Shaman is a great support class, but their support tools are sadly limited only to groupwide buffs, so you need quite a few of them in raids to give all your melee what they desire.
I think mulgore and durotar are friendly to below lvl 10 witch might pump those numbers up In durotar you get the deadly cave next to orgri, but you will be past lvl 10
Man you forgot the most important quality of life thing. Astral Recall. A hearthstone every 15 min + the one you get at the start. Makes travelling so much comfortable
we had a shaman in classic who tanked our alt runs at 60, and has main tanked all endgame bosses including patchwerk, wherever you are Shamantank Herod we miss u
Even if only changing the order talents become available would be huge - especially for Elemental. I really would like a rebalanced Classic + though. Wouldn't even need that many changes, mostly quality of life and minor buffs to the struggling classes/specs. Though if I was going to go wild I'd love to be able to make craftable enchants that upgrade items one armour tier (but don't stack with other enchants, obviously) - such as leather padding to turn cloth items into leather for Druids and Shaman (made with Leatherworking), scale reinforcements to turn leather into mail for higher level Shaman and Hunters or lower level Paladins and Warriors, and steel plates to upgrade mail into plate for Warriors and Paladins. Yes it would only give armour buffs - but when levelling it would be a lifesaver, and adds a cool theme to professions to improve people's gear in a more practical manner.
@@andromidius Elemental doesn't really need a rework though for talents. It's already a Meta PvP class. What it needs is better Mana Efficiency and for almost all raid bosses not to resist Nature Damage. The talents themselves are really good. Try playing Ele/Resto in PvP. It's incredible.
@@Vourne elemental in classic is shit dps compared to a mage, same for enhancement compared to a pure melee class like rogue or warrior. In late game you're either going as a heal or as someone that puts down totems lol. Shaman is a lot more fun to play in TBC already compared to classic. Anyway, shaman isn't the only class that got shafted, all "hybrid" classes did. A good classic+ IMO would require an overhaul of paladins, shamans, priests and druids.
@@Fairyplay I get what you are saying about an overhaul, however I wouldn't trust blizzard to be the ones to do it. How do you make them more viable in PvE without making them completely busted in PvP? All the hybrid classes while being lackluster in raids are quite strong in PvP. Ele Shaman and Shadow Priest especially come to mind. Balance Druid, Enhancement Shaman and Ret Paladin could probably use some love though.
@@Fairyplay Yea, the class changes and talent improvements, addition to spell and rotation, ect... that followed in BC and WTOLK were a huge buff and really helped flesh out the class design to bring it up to par. Stuff like finally getting a CC with HEX in wotlk was awesome and much needed.... even cata added bind elemental for situational CC which I loved and was sad tht they removed it cause it fit the class flavor. Shaman is def a bit lackluster in vanilla and never got a proper update on class design till later. Would have loved to have Classic+ with the wrath client so we get all the class updates and dont have to deal with annoying crap that we had to in vanilla. Making Ghost Wolf instant should have been baseline from the start too.
Was a mage main for years but gave shaman a go during the first classic re-release and have to say... I love having a totem for basically every scenario lol full hotbars but still fun 😁
going mele-ish elemental can work too. you spec for hit and shock cool down. then spam rank one shock until you trigger elemental focus then do a big shock. It is a bit slower but is less mana dependent so it feels faster to me as I don't have to sit and drink if played right. Especially if you want to spec into resto for improved mana totem and play more of a healer in groups.
For anybody curious about playing a HC shaman, the "drop off" isnt as bad as some videos make them out to be. Shaman is a great class overall. My very first toon in wow was a shaman also was my very first 60. After playing a shaman for well over a decade, for people that are newer to the shaman class, dont let what some videos are saying about them discourage you. It will take some time to learn totem rotations etc but as with any class that will come with time and practice. Biggest issue I would say in vanilla is our mana issues. Shaman class is very mana intensive but you have many options to counter the mana issues. Always carry mana pots so viable.
The problem with HC isn't the class, build, profession choice, etc... The issue with HC is that sometimes you will get SCREWED and when that happens you can't prevent it. I had a 36 shaman in 7/10 gear and was doing grey quests for fun in southern barrens. I went into Bael'Dun keep and saw a mob named Malgin Barleybrew who was a 27 rare mob, I decided to kill it and when it hit me one time my health went down to 70% and I was like "WHAT THE FUCK!!!???!!", then it hit me a second time and it was at maybe 25%, I used a potion and totem to escape but it hit me a third time and my character died. The chat went fucking nuts and nobody could believe what happened and I was so blown away at the experience that I immediately walked to the nearest gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked 5 in a row (first time smoking since quitting 4 years ago) while in a state of shock. I have 5 level 60 HC characters, a warrior, mage, priest, rogue, and hunter and I had never experienced anything like that in my life, I looked at the combat log and nothing else had attacked me other than that mob and it was hitting me HARD, worse than an elite boss mob times 5. This happened about 6 months ago and I've never gotten over it, I have no idea how that happened and I am not sure if it was game design or a glitch but whatever the fuck it was I've been playing WoW off and on since 2005 and it was the biggest load of shit I've ever been subjected to in the game. I'm sorry but a level 36 enh shaman in all blues with BiS potions and excellent gear should not get 3-shot by any level 27 mob an the fact that such happened traumatized me from making another shaman. Sometimes you can do everything right and be as careful as possible and then a DC or bugged mob will just immediately ruin your run, I've lost only a handful of HC characters due to personal mistakes. 9/10ths of the time your class, gear, playstyle, professions, etc will not make a difference at all. My warrior was hardly any more difficult to hit 60 with than my mage for instance. For some odd reason though it seems as though shaman tend to get fucked over, I can't explain why.
I'm a Shaman, lvl 59, most of what you said is accurate about the leveling experience. Key is to stack Agility to keep flurry proc'ing so your dps never seems to fall off.
Same goes for a Warrior tbh... Strength is HIGHLY overrated for added damage. Better to have a higher chance to do double damage then to do 135 damage instead of 125.
This checks! I leveled to 56 after getting Taran Icebreaker from Sunken Temple and the whole time I stacked Agi for the Flurry procs, increased dodge with the talent as well and it helps with armor. You could argue STR here, but I believe Agi is the call. Crit = faster swings which will give you more chances to windfury because you're swinging alot faster
@@NProvince Not just that. If it take an average of 7 hits to kill an enemy, you'd need to increase your hits by about 15% damage to kill things faster (in 6 hits for this example). Dealing 15% more damage through AP/strength takes a LOT of that stat. Adding Agility gives you more survivability through Armor and Dodge, and critting increases your killing speed a lore more as well (1 free hit since 200% crit damage). This does not even take into account the added attack speed from Flurry. Agility = King!
Best bet is to continuously summon the totems again to move their locations instead of leaving them. Try summoning them in a place with no mobs so you don't chain pull things. Super inconvenient still though.
I mostly use only the flame totem if fighting regular mobs as it disappears fast enough. Only using the other totems if I know I'll be fighting in the same spot for a while, wether for fighting tougher ennemies or if there are a lot of mobs to kill in the same place
if you mix cloth and leather early game your mana efficiency won't be so bad. spirit in particular is surprisingly effective early game, so don't dismiss it the trash it is in the late game. im running mostly leather (leatherworking blues) and (plan to run) robes and (maybe) shoulder of arugal and should work just fine even in melee if you add some armor kits to the cloth pieces which essentially brings them up to the level of a standard green leather piece. i even skipped the 2-handed talent (for now) because the WC quest staff is BIS for the 20-30 levels and opted to go for dodge% instead. works wonders. and never forget; you should ALWAYS have a 1hander+shield alongside your 2H for quick switching if you overpull or otherwise find yourself in a difficult situation, like if you suddenly need to offtank in a dungeon. also you forgot to mention one of the most important aspect of shaman totems; poison and disease cleansing totems, those are 10x more useful than mana spring and healing stream combined.
love spellhancement leveling , open up with a lightning bolt + flameshock , put a fire totem totem down and smack the mob with your 1h and shield till its dead , heal up if needed , pretty much 0 downtime
Notice the 2 "self-res" classes, Shaman (ankh) and Warlock (soulstone), are the two statistically least likely to hit lvl60 HC. Given they can't use those in the permadeath ruleset, perhaps they are somewhat lacking in the later level ranges?
Died trying to get the fire totem at 11 :( I shoulda known better but i never played horde before so didn't know what to expect in that damn cave. Had never felt too pressed up to that point.
Playing shaman hc right now and i feel that! Im always cautious around spellcasters. For the fire qurst i just did other quests first until i got another level or two (also i didnt realize the cave was in durotar and kept looking in barrens lol).
Totemtimers is a must have addon for shaman , just so that not ur whole screen is filled with pictures of totems. For the rest indeed a WA that reminds you to refresh shield or wep enchant 4000000x a day is nice to have.
Windfury feels good, but it's no more dps than rockbiter. And the fact that windfury overkills so often it's just not worth using. Rockbiter can't be used in groups though because of the increased threat.
To be fair, if you’re a shaman and you’re dpsing dungeons in the 10-40, before going elemental, then you’re griefing. You’ll be appreciated the most as a healer, especially in hardcore, where you’re in short supply compared to dps.
Shaman survivability: You need to plan ahead, plan your escape. 30-60 is the most difficult range for any class in HC. Warriors do better. Most shamans die, even if you consider yourself good.
Yeah, shaman is great. It's the most durable caster by far, has good DPS, lots of unique skills, and can heal entire groups at once. Paladin by comparison can tank better and heal single targets better but have some of the worst (if not the worst) DPS in the entire game. An elemental shaman with a good shield and the right talents can burst without interruptions and crit like a motherfucker and heal themselves with 7/10 durability.
iirc priest style elemental is another good leveling specc. dagger+ flametongue, shield. mob rotation is: lightning bot -> flameshock -> place flame totem then auto till mob dead.
1. rockbiter actually does higher dps than windfury overall, we just dont use it because of the bonus threat in groups, windfury is tremendously unreliable and more often than not wont even proc during at all so youre basically fighting the mob with no infusion at that point. weapon infusions are generally a shit show because 2 of them are useless in raids from the get go as rockbiter has bonus threat and most of the first two tiers are fire resistant or fire immune, this leaves you with frosrbrand (lmao) or windfury, thus windfury became the default. 2. most shaman skip stormstrike in leveling because it honestly isnt very strong in vanilla and it absolutely CHEWS through mana, you cant use it in raids for most forms of vanilla anyway because of the debuff cap but its too mana expensive anyway. 3. eye of the storm is actually a life saving talent because much like the reck bomb you can sit down in combat to gaurantee a crit, then you can spam healing spells to save yourself. defcamp and meldaron have extremely detailed and researched guides for vanilla and tbc shaman if you are curious 😊
I remember my wind fury shaman using a dagger with chance to get extra hits, and the screen filling with Combat numbers instantly. So fun, very close to Ret pallies "seal of command" procs. so we went the other way with it. use the fastest dagger you can so there are more chances to proc the totem. more consistent.
I'll say it again because it's miraculously not covered here; you should be leveling as Resto until you have Natures Swiftness. Take improved healing cast, reduced healing pushback. I'm telling you that most situations that would kill you going as Enhance you will survive as Resto NS. You do not need any damage talents before this. Pay attention to 5 second rule and swing timers. Get a weak aura for both.
This is the truth. Shaman hardcore levelling should be about pressing lightning bolt, flame shock and then melee’ing the enemy to death with flame tongue weapon (or rock biter) while wearing a shield. Let your mana regen, cast 1 heal if you need to and then repeat for the next single mob. It’s priest levelling, slow and painful but extremely safe if you know what to do.
I find 1sec cast Ghost Wolf to be more impactful and 2h axes/maces if u get a proper one that requires it. I do agree that the other things doesn't really matter, but Imp LS is also amazing value
@@illbean1337thing is, survivability is more important than leveling speed in HC. And that’s definitely the case here. And you’re not completely out of dps in the resto tree. 3% more hit and 5% increased crit chance for LB is nothing to sneeze at.
I played a full on 2-handed Enhancer from Classic release until Naxx, and as much as the specc gets memed on it can actually perform decently given good gear and a competent player. I'll 100% be giving it a go again on the HC servers, partly cause shamans are so rare in the upper echelons, partly because I like the challenge and also partly because it will just be fun to Windfury slap again. Quick side note to anyone levelling as Enhancement as well; Thermaplugg's Left Arm or Corpsemaker are both huge weapon upgrades, especially for Orcs, and will pair perfectly with Windfury at level 30.
Yeah, I remember giving it up in 2006 because of its complexity as a young beginner, but nowadays it's exactly why the class is so much more fun to play to me compared to other classes. Been memeing around with a serious tank spec and it's been a blast to play so far. Would definitely recommend for experienced players if you want to have fun.
Playing elemental, probably around level 30-60, is just 66% drinking, 33% playing the game. I hope classic+ happens next season, and it should include helping out the mana users imo. Its miserable, even tho 33% of the time is enjoyable. I checked before tbc classic came out on a 60 warlock alt i prepared for tbc raiding, not a caster typically known as being mana starved like ele/boomie/spriest, before tbc prepatch my 60 lock could cast 12 max rank shadow bolts before going oom. Then I loaded the exact same copy of the character on the TBC prepatch and I could cast 25 max ranks. Mana users across the board are such a slog to play in vanilla, whatever the under the hood changes they did in tbc to double their mana efficiency, they should do to vanilla season 2. My spriest could oom itself on a 2 mob pull in under 20 sec doing full optimal dps in vanilla, then I played in prepatch and on like 4 mobs (twice the number of dots casted, swp is an expensive spell to keep up on double the targets) i could last 50 seconds....
Don't forget that the axe Ravager from SM Armory stacks with your Windfury. I pulled 500+ DPS in Razorfan Downs. No other class has a moment in time like that.
When I played back in classic release it did not "stack" with Ravager. But wf can proc flurry which gives more attacks which thus increases chance of Ravager proc. If Ravaget proc would proc WF mid spin, it's stored and will proc on ur next auto after spin. RB though Grant's its AP bonus on spin, causing A LOT more dmg
@@cattysplat If I remember correctly, the bonus threat isn't applied while spinning, but it's absolutely applied on normal autos. Do correct me if i'm wrong on that part though.
Biggest tip I can give for shaman is to not undermine Spirit. The spirit stat is great for shamans as they run out of mana super fast and it can be regened while they auto attack. Avoid drinking downtime by casting flame shock, searing totem then auto attacking. then lesser healing wave after the mob dies, your spirit should regenerate nearly all of your mana casted if you have enough of it
Spirit was always an underrated levelling stat. Even Warriors and Rogues get some benefit from it - even if its not huge. Just don't neglect other stats - more don't be sad if an upgrade also has spirit on it.
yup, people really overlook how much mana Shamans can regen during a 1h+shield fight. As long as you don't use shocks except while pulling and finishing off a mob, and especially after getting Water totems, you can just cast 1 heal and have a you have totems set up.
@@andromidius spirit warrior is underrated big time... a few spirit pieces (even just equipping after combat, and reequipping other gear before pull) can make a huge difference.. i think the time saved is likely more efficient in many cases than if you simply used pieces with more dmg
Really not surprised that the shaman is the least played class. My main was a shaman in vanilla and I still regret picking that class. I had some fun moments with windfury, but the class really fell behind compared to other classes after level 30-40. You can tell it wasn't a well designed/balanced class just like most hybrids.
How did it fall behind in your opinion? I am 44 and I can keep up with warriors and mages with damage on trash, and I win on almost every boss fight damage wise, so I don’t understand how shamans “fall off”. If anything the 40 talents make them even stronger. The biggest issue is just going oom after using your abilities a couple times but that isn’t a thing that starts at 40.
Ive made it to 60 twice on HC shaman. The "fall off" I have to say is because players love windfury and enhance. Stormstrike has to be the worst move in the game while elemental mastery is the best. Most enhancement who make it go NS, then enhance. If you really want to go enhance do at least 21 in resto. Elemental kills the fastesr including drinking time. Take the L, buy the drinks, and kill mobs before they ever touch you with lightning bolts and frost shock.
Was a bit more surprised at this one than the others. I'm mid 30's on my enh and I feel so strong despite mid gear. stoneclaw, nova, frost shock, earthbind, there's so much available that you shouldn't really die unless you get very unlucky. I'd say the real hardest part is just remembering where each of your abilities are mapped to lol.
You definitely don’t “need” to get improved ghost wolf first as ele, don’t be cheap with waters and go all ele and your guy is actually as viable as mage
Shaman is my favorite class, but no way in hell are the as viable as mage. Playing mage after years of shaman feels like cheat codes have been activated.
Shaman was my first class during Classic that I took all the way to 60, and yeah I would definitely not try it again on hardcore. The falloff is real past level 30. Found myself just feeling weaker and weaker, by level 50 I pretty much just healed BRD all the way to 60 for the most part.
if they made parry baseline, and directly replaced the talent with a water shield effect, or something similar to the mana judgement ability... I feel like it would do so much for the spec
The most important thing for classic Shaman leveling is doing earthbind kiting. Using a swing timer you track enemy mob swings and your own. This let's you only take damage when your swing is ready. This can make you take 25-50% less damage per mob. This gets more important at later levels when you are fishing for wf procs and mob health starts to scale a lot
@@xbico9118 they fixed some Bug with leashes, which gives melee swings some leeway when strafing specifically. Was around vanilla Release, no idea if it affects retail
Not sure if you can really call it falling off at the later stages. Once you respec to elemental between 40 and 50 you turn into a god damn kiting lazer show and beforehand you're literally RNGesus. Love Shaman. x3
Totem threat is not personal threat. It functions like a pet and has its own place on the threat meter. Putting down fire totems does not add to your AoE threat as a tank with shaman. Which, coupled with it's lack of taunt and hybrid tax mana design issues. Is the reason why it's not viable as a tank EXCEPT when you ding 40 and plan to continue grinding SM for a few more levels. Because that dungeon is designed around having a mail wearing tank pre-40. That puts the post-40 shaman wearing mail in line with what the warriors would have had on anyway. And the new rank of Chain Lightning and Lightning Shield is often sufficient to holding multi-target aggro at lvl40 running SM. But they still have issues with mana. Since Earth Shock's threat generation bonus is directly tied to it's damage. You have to cast your highest level shock spell for aggro purposes. That will put a mail wearing enhancement shaman out of mana in about five casts. That's not including keeping rockbiter and lightning shield up and pulling with chain lightning and using stoneskin totem to mitigate damage. I LOVE the Shaman class and mained one in Vanilla and classic. But unless you're playing on Turtle WoW with their class balancing and talent reworks. You're not going to want to tank as a shaman. Let alone have one in your group outside that one exception I stated. Shaman and Paladin are the two classes deserving of #somechanges for Blizzard official servers. I cannot go back to official classic servers after playing one on Turtle WoW. It's simply a superior Shaman experience. Also, never use Windfury when soloing. You're praying to RNGesus enough with crits, dodges, parries, and blocks as it is. Don't add a core part of your dps to it as well. Rockbiter if you're traditional enhancement and have a lot of Str and Agi. Flametongue if you have a lot of Int or spellpower.
ive leveled several shaman on HC realms, I think you are dead wrong about WF at 30. Windfury is the worse enhancement to use by a decent margin. DPS goes in order of Rockbiter, Flametongue, Frostbrand, and WF. WF is good on warriors because of rage gen, but flametongue does very well on rogues. The difference comes at 60 when WF scales with the rogues weapons.
You missed the most important benefit of playing enhancement over elemental in HC. The biggest benefit IMO is that if you DC while fighting a mob in HC, you will kill it as enhance. If you DC while fighting a mob as elemental, it will kill you.
it is never worth using flametongue unless you have a bunch of spell damage. you should be using the latest rank of rockbiter/windfury/frostbrand even as resto
This is the way. Shaman levelling is super safe if you pretend you’re a priest. Cast 1 lightning bolt then melee with weapon enchantments (flame tongue or rockbiter) while you regen your mana. So easy.
I don't think it'll work unless you also stand immediately after. Rapidly tapping the sit button usually works, but the timing isn't hard to practice if you want to be precise.
The dropoff is the rise of elemental. Elemental comes online later than basically any other spec in the game since all the actual damage talents are grouped at the end, but that means when you start digging into them, it's only a moment before you're 2-3 shotting most things while having the resources to be a good dungeon healer. Elemental Mastery is great for the memes, but as a dungeon healer, the utility of an absolutely free monstrous damage ability can't be understated. Plus, the damage output is high enough that most bosses can be beaten without healing. Prior to ~39+ though? Not horrible, but not great. I think people die around this time due to suddenly encountering a bunch of elite quests while still having the confidence of being OP through the 20s.
Stoneclaw Totem does NOT stun in classic wow. It cam in TBC. It also does NOT taunt. It generates AoE threat on all nearby enemies with each pulse. The amount of threat it generates is large, so if u start a 2mob pull with it down, if u kill 1 mob, u won't be taking aggro off of the totem.
Also, when it comes to weapon choice and imbue choice. WF is a lot of fun! But it's not good enough. Rockbiter is basically the way to go while swapping to Flametounge for high armor mobs or while in a party if u fear aggro (WF also works here) As for weapons, u do NOT care about weapon speed. It's all about DPS. The only time u want a slow weapon is for WF in PvP for burst. In PvE it's worse cuz u lose consistency. U forgot to mention the 2h AXE Corpsemaker from RFK, super good axe. U dont have to rely on RNG to get off a Ghost Wolf in ele spec, u sit/stand to force crit + proc to get pushback immunity. On the official servers I will level as ele/enhance hybrid cuz I'm doing duo. I've got a very special AoE build set up.
I am not sure if you changed your microphone or not, but the audio in this video is a little painful to listen to (literally painful, I don't mean that in a rude, hyperbolic way). Thanks for the video nonetheless!
I think the logical course is enhance till lvl 40, ele till 60 then restro at max lvl. Half of sham is sitting and drinking wouldint recommend it. + ur gonna need hella gold switching specs at 40 and geting a mount
It's not been my experience as enhancement, just fronload damage and totems at the beginning of the fight and finish it with auto attacks and mana gets back up
shaman in duo hardcore is god tier. I played with all classes, but DRUID is the BEST. you can aoe 2-3mobs at the time with nova totem and lightning shiled (+thorns), but mainly you tank as a shaman using lightning shield and druid is healing you/backstabing in cat from. You also have 0downtime so you can keep going. Also ez to do dungeons since you can heal+tank
I dont agree with the star ranking for this class, they are much better than only 2 'stars' that you put on several aspects of gameplay. For instance with the stoneskin totem right of the bat, I could take down 2 mobs that were higher lvl than me, lets see a warrior or basically any other class do that
@@MS-nl5gh Like I said, it makes sense both gameplay and lorewise. Shamans use Earth magic and are known to be tribal defenders. Gameplay wise the game needs more tanks and its a good alternative if theres no new classes. And shamans have tanked at some capacity. And heres another tidit, rogues were planned to be able to use bucklers - Not that I think they should tank because we both know theres a clear difference and you're just being a smartass.
@@MS-nl5gh and you're a twat. The whole point of SoM is to make small additions to the game while staying true to the spirit of classic. We still have our classic era servers that shouldnt be touched.
@@MS-nl5ghshamans can definitely tank low level content, and they have the abilities/talents to support that. So I’m not sure what you’re doing calling people a cornball. The enhancement tree literally has talents for increasing block rate/amount, dodge rate, and parry. On top of that, rockbiter enhances threat generation, as well as earth shock.
I would assume Shaman is prob one of the hardest classes to play in a hardcore mode...... they were just missing alot of cruicial class design improvements in vanilla. They have no proper defensive CD or immunity, no CC or stun, poor escape or mobility (outside instant GW). Stuff like HEX in wotlk for CC really helped, plus alot of other changes that really improved the class and fleshed it out. In vanilla, it has some of the worst survivability options and can die easily if not careful like warrior does. Every other class got something like a CC fear/sheep, mobility like blink or escape with vanish, bubble immunity ect. Shaman got nothing that useful for survival except heals, the occasional totems, shocks.... earth shock is OP honestly, and purge is great but situational. I wouldnt bother with hardcore in general for any class, kinda defeats the point of an mmo..... but despite Shaman being my fav class and Enhancement Shaman my main, it would be one of my last picks for a hardcore mode.
Only use most totems when fighting in a spot for a long time, and you'll be good. Mostly use 30s totems like the fire one if fighting regular mobs, it's not costly in mana and usually goes after killing 2 mobs separately
Try and convince a friend to level a warrior or a rogue with you otherwise I'd skip this class. With a Warrior buddy just as you start to fall off your Warrior buddy starts to crank on the gas and you can easily make dungeon groups as a Tank/Healer combo and your warrior buddy will feel amazing. One of the worst feelings in all of Classic is entering Tanaris on your Shaman when the average mob sees about a 600 health increase and your time to kill just falls off a cliff. If you don't plan on seriously playing hardcore though and just want to check it out I'd recommend it. Decent tourist class option just a crying shame that the vast majority of people will be playing Alliance on Classic era servers.
Thanks willE, remember there wont be pvp so Shaman wont be nearly as fun, and elemental will be mostly useless but please play however you want i encourage all specs and builds. Experiment, have fun everyone.
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As someone who leveled a shaman during the classic release I have to say the addon totem timers is an absolute must for quality of life with totems. You can set your default totem of each element, bind them to a key bind while still having your other totems on an accordion to pull out any other totem you may want situationally and some other bonus buttons like one for your lightning shield or weapon imbue of choice
Stormstrike missing/parrying, going on CD, and still consuming mana, is the biggest crime of all
21% of Base Mana. Like what?! and 20 Second CD. One of these worst capstones in the game. Should be 8-10% of Base Mana with 10 second CD to even be slight viable.
@@Vourne And all of that on basically just an additional white hit. It doesn't deal any extra damage and while it increases your ls/es damage by 20%, those spells aren't exactly cheap on an enh shaman with mostly str/agi/stam gear.
@@MrOrmanley Yeah exactly. There is a reason why top shamans in longer fights have to downrank spells to fish for clearcasting procs lol. It's a horrible system. Stormstrike needs to do 20-30% additional weapon damage on top of the aforementioned buffs.
Stormstrike is way overrated. I’ll take a 30 enhance 21 resto build with nature swiftness over having stormstrike anyway and probably beat a stormstrike shaman every time with this build.
@@GraftBranchwait what the fuck this might be the move.
Few things.
The most important addon to have on shaman in classic is something like Totem Caddy. It adds a bar for totems like in TBC which helps a lot with saving space on skill bars. You can customise it or make binds for it.
You mentioned Ghost Wolf as a defensive ability for some reason where even with 1s cast its rarely used to run.
The most important thing is that it litrerally acts as a bit slower mount for 20 levels (probably more, since its often hard to buy a mount at 40) which is something most classes can only dream about.
There is also Astral Recall which another great thing which helps with leveling speed.
As of builds for leveling.
Yes, slow two hander and WF is the most fun thing to play with but its definitely not most efficent. Rockbiter is the enchant to go on every weapon, no matter if its 1h or 2h, if its slow or fast. You can switch it to Flametongue when you fight a lot of highly armored enemies (if you don't know how to tell which mob is 'warrior' class then just stick to RB). RB simpy outperforms in dps every other imbue, WF is catching up slightly on very slow weapons though.
As of the most 'efficent' way to level, its 1h + shield. It offers only slightly lower dps and leveling speed than 2h but you use way less water to level like this. 2h leveling is a bit faster, but more costly.
On level 40-45+ the fastest way to level is actually elemental. The speed is wayyy faster than 1h+shield or 2h (even including downtime for drinking), but its also the most costly one since you will be going through your water stock like crazy.
Im happy that you mentioned enh+resto, I belive many guides for some reason recommends ele but especially with how bad gear is in solo play adding +3 hit rating AND +3 spell hit rating is king, considering like 1/3 of our damage is elemental.
edit: anyone interested in shaman talk with all the details, small things and numbers I highly recommend Defcamp & Melderon TV channel, few hours of videos just for shaman testing.
Thanks bro ❤
Opie is a great addon for shaman totems. It opens a radial menu when you press a button, allowing you to assign a bunch of totems to a single button for example. Certain ones you may use very often or may want to place the very quickly, so you can just use a normal keybind for those. But for all the extras that you only use in specific situations it can be really nice.
Shaman and warrior is a lethal duo.. WF totem and Sweeping strikes/whirlwind is simply unfair.
Or, if you're masochists like me and my friend, play Resto/Prot. You'll never die (unless you really try to) but damage output is... hmmm... maybe half that of a single actual DPS?
@andromidius that sounds like a slow ass grind 🤣 before the glory of revenge spec, prot warrior isn't known for its damage! It is satisfying gathering about 7 mobs and cleaving them into the nether realm. My zug zug brain says its worth the risk!
Big Tip: For those that only want to level Enhancement Shaman 1-60 start with Resto. I know it sounds strange but at low levels you don't really need added damage talents. What you desperately need is Hit Rating. Natures Guidance for 3% hit with an Axe (If your Orc) and you basically can no longer miss, and your glancing blow damage goes way up. It's actually the biggest buff to your DPS while leveling. Plus you get cheaper healing spells, and much cheaper totem spells. You'll be level 22 by the time you start in the Enhancement tree, which is when you'll start needing the damage.
I started leveling a Shaman last night and I might just try this route.
Would mean a much longer cast time on Ghost Wolf for quite a long time; though this could also mean you simply not spend Talent points into that and wait for your level 40 mount...
Since I choose to play a Troll... would it be useful to skip the 2h-weapon talent? Since there are a TON of Staves that can be found throughout the world that do very respectable DPS on their own?
Improved Ghost Wolf isn't really needed desperately. It's too mana intensive at low levels to cast between mob pulls anyways. It's only used really when you finish in an area, and are looking to begin a journey to a new area.
Well if you aren't going Orc, its a tougher road. Orc is the Undisputed king of Enhancement, however Troll can work too. I would still get 2H specialization, because Corpse Maker and Ravager exist. If you can buy an Exectuioner's Cleaver off the AH it's BiS throughout the 40's and will last you until about 52-54, which is when it should be replaced with Lord Alexander's Battleaxe if possible.
Staves are okay though. Just watch Guzu's staff warriors progression. You'll want the same ones essentially. I hope this info helped a little. Make sure you bring lots of food and water. Enhance has to drink A LOT.@@Stompy1984
@@Vourne so if you go resto at the start you won't be able to use axes for a while. Staff is viable until then?
You can still use one handed axes. If you can get a 1h axe with 2-2.5 speed and Rockbiter, it still does good damage. But yes, Crescent Staff will carry you for awhile. By the time you can use 2h axe you'll be level 33 which is perfect for Corpse Maker, or just before Ravager. Once you hit level 43 try and get Executioner's Cleaver. It's BiS for the 40's. This should then be upgraded into Lord Alexander's Battleaxe. @@wraith9166
Yeah but Ghost Wolf mate... people want 2/2 at level 20. Rightly so
How to level as elemental:
1-24: gear and play exactly as if you were enhancement.
25-39: pull with 2 lightning bolts and 1 shock and then melee while regening mana. Don't wear cloth and don't avoid melee stats.
40-60: continue same as 25-39 or buy a lot of water and become a wizard. Wear mail either way.
Another tip: +Nature Damage Gear is literally BiS.
@@Vourne Indeed. High nature spell damage is a priority stat. You gain more damage per mana than stacking Int. Even stacked, you will still need to downrank to sustain output at times.
Also you can replace the shock with storm strike and let the 2 charges of increased nature damage go to imp lightning shield!
Elemental works really well once you get to level 40 and can have Elemental Mastery, which makes your Lighting Bolt only 2 sec cast
@@brandondavidson4085 You're right, that's when it gets really good. But I wanted to point out that before then its still not terrible; you just have to accept that you're not truly a wizard yet.
Stoneclaw Totem being able to stun was not a thing in classic, it was added in a later expansion.
In tbc. It became really good, able to tank mobs for a long time.
Yeah, at best it can peel a unit long enough for you to cast a heal or run away. So its not worthless - its just not something you'll be using regularly.
It was TBC! My bad on that one - in classic it just taunts nearby units
@@WillEmmoit doesn't even taunt, really. It has a set amount of threat that is often insufficient to draw aggro from your target if you drop it mid-late in combat.
@@Bittyfun I use it mostly for group pulling as a tank, or an "oh shit" button for if I pull a lot of mobs at once in the open world. Can't say how many times it saved my unlucky ass so far
WF procs are the best feeling in the game.
WF = Windfury?
@@LSCMrSandman yes
Wf is probably gonna coast some dps their life’s tho 😂
@@bradjr.3813 Cheers, thank you!
@@osgrace3341 I mained shaman my entire WoW career and during classic. The overzealous dps warriors always got chain procs and always died. As is tradition 😂
Shaman is a great support class, but their support tools are sadly limited only to groupwide buffs, so you need quite a few of them in raids to give all your melee what they desire.
And mot raids will have a lot of them. Resto is really good and you can spec ele/resto and still play resto.
I think mulgore and durotar are friendly to below lvl 10 witch might pump those numbers up
In durotar you get the deadly cave next to orgri, but you will be past lvl 10
Yeah, for Mulgore I can only think of the Venture Co. Cave and maybe the gnolls if you aggro the rare? It's def relaxed
That cave is dangerous but as a Shaman you got your 6-second CD interrupt at level 4 so you should be good.
Man you forgot the most important quality of life thing. Astral Recall. A hearthstone every 15 min + the one you get at the start. Makes travelling so much comfortable
I was always a shaman main. One of the things I miss most when playing other classes is double hearthstone.
we had a shaman in classic who tanked our alt runs at 60, and has main tanked all endgame bosses including patchwerk, wherever you are Shamantank Herod we miss u
Just proves how scuffed shaman talents were. 100% would want to see a rework in classic +
Even if only changing the order talents become available would be huge - especially for Elemental.
I really would like a rebalanced Classic + though. Wouldn't even need that many changes, mostly quality of life and minor buffs to the struggling classes/specs.
Though if I was going to go wild I'd love to be able to make craftable enchants that upgrade items one armour tier (but don't stack with other enchants, obviously) - such as leather padding to turn cloth items into leather for Druids and Shaman (made with Leatherworking), scale reinforcements to turn leather into mail for higher level Shaman and Hunters or lower level Paladins and Warriors, and steel plates to upgrade mail into plate for Warriors and Paladins. Yes it would only give armour buffs - but when levelling it would be a lifesaver, and adds a cool theme to professions to improve people's gear in a more practical manner.
@@andromidius Elemental doesn't really need a rework though for talents. It's already a Meta PvP class. What it needs is better Mana Efficiency and for almost all raid bosses not to resist Nature Damage. The talents themselves are really good. Try playing Ele/Resto in PvP. It's incredible.
@@Vourne elemental in classic is shit dps compared to a mage, same for enhancement compared to a pure melee class like rogue or warrior. In late game you're either going as a heal or as someone that puts down totems lol.
Shaman is a lot more fun to play in TBC already compared to classic.
Anyway, shaman isn't the only class that got shafted, all "hybrid" classes did. A good classic+ IMO would require an overhaul of paladins, shamans, priests and druids.
@@Fairyplay I get what you are saying about an overhaul, however I wouldn't trust blizzard to be the ones to do it. How do you make them more viable in PvE without making them completely busted in PvP? All the hybrid classes while being lackluster in raids are quite strong in PvP. Ele Shaman and Shadow Priest especially come to mind. Balance Druid, Enhancement Shaman and Ret Paladin could probably use some love though.
@@Fairyplay Yea, the class changes and talent improvements, addition to spell and rotation, ect... that followed in BC and WTOLK were a huge buff and really helped flesh out the class design to bring it up to par. Stuff like finally getting a CC with HEX in wotlk was awesome and much needed.... even cata added bind elemental for situational CC which I loved and was sad tht they removed it cause it fit the class flavor. Shaman is def a bit lackluster in vanilla and never got a proper update on class design till later. Would have loved to have Classic+ with the wrath client so we get all the class updates and dont have to deal with annoying crap that we had to in vanilla. Making Ghost Wolf instant should have been baseline from the start too.
Was a mage main for years but gave shaman a go during the first classic re-release and have to say... I love having a totem for basically every scenario lol full hotbars but still fun 😁
going mele-ish elemental can work too. you spec for hit and shock cool down. then spam rank one shock until you trigger elemental focus then do a big shock. It is a bit slower but is less mana dependent so it feels faster to me as I don't have to sit and drink if played right. Especially if you want to spec into resto for improved mana totem and play more of a healer in groups.
I’ll never forget that day when I one shot a gnome mage in the shimmering flats with a wf crit
Got a gnome mage in felwood with the elemental mastery combo. He was a skull level to me but no resists.
For anybody curious about playing a HC shaman, the "drop off" isnt as bad as some videos make them out to be. Shaman is a great class overall. My very first toon in wow was a shaman also was my very first 60. After playing a shaman for well over a decade, for people that are newer to the shaman class, dont let what some videos are saying about them discourage you. It will take some time to learn totem rotations etc but as with any class that will come with time and practice. Biggest issue I would say in vanilla is our mana issues. Shaman class is very mana intensive but you have many options to counter the mana issues. Always carry mana pots so viable.
The drop off is very real, just exists because shaman is utterly broken pre 20
Is there a big difference between the races?
The problem with HC isn't the class, build, profession choice, etc... The issue with HC is that sometimes you will get SCREWED and when that happens you can't prevent it.
I had a 36 shaman in 7/10 gear and was doing grey quests for fun in southern barrens. I went into Bael'Dun keep and saw a mob named Malgin Barleybrew who was a 27 rare mob, I decided to kill it and when it hit me one time my health went down to 70% and I was like "WHAT THE FUCK!!!???!!", then it hit me a second time and it was at maybe 25%, I used a potion and totem to escape but it hit me a third time and my character died.
The chat went fucking nuts and nobody could believe what happened and I was so blown away at the experience that I immediately walked to the nearest gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked 5 in a row (first time smoking since quitting 4 years ago) while in a state of shock.
I have 5 level 60 HC characters, a warrior, mage, priest, rogue, and hunter and I had never experienced anything like that in my life, I looked at the combat log and nothing else had attacked me other than that mob and it was hitting me HARD, worse than an elite boss mob times 5.
This happened about 6 months ago and I've never gotten over it, I have no idea how that happened and I am not sure if it was game design or a glitch but whatever the fuck it was I've been playing WoW off and on since 2005 and it was the biggest load of shit I've ever been subjected to in the game.
I'm sorry but a level 36 enh shaman in all blues with BiS potions and excellent gear should not get 3-shot by any level 27 mob an the fact that such happened traumatized me from making another shaman.
Sometimes you can do everything right and be as careful as possible and then a DC or bugged mob will just immediately ruin your run, I've lost only a handful of HC characters due to personal mistakes. 9/10ths of the time your class, gear, playstyle, professions, etc will not make a difference at all. My warrior was hardly any more difficult to hit 60 with than my mage for instance.
For some odd reason though it seems as though shaman tend to get fucked over, I can't explain why.
I'm a Shaman, lvl 59, most of what you said is accurate about the leveling experience. Key is to stack Agility to keep flurry proc'ing so your dps never seems to fall off.
Same goes for a Warrior tbh...
Strength is HIGHLY overrated for added damage.
Better to have a higher chance to do double damage then to do 135 damage instead of 125.
This checks! I leveled to 56 after getting Taran Icebreaker from Sunken Temple and the whole time I stacked Agi for the Flurry procs, increased dodge with the talent as well and it helps with armor. You could argue STR here, but I believe Agi is the call. Crit = faster swings which will give you more chances to windfury because you're swinging alot faster
@@NProvince Not just that.
If it take an average of 7 hits to kill an enemy, you'd need to increase your hits by about 15% damage to kill things faster (in 6 hits for this example). Dealing 15% more damage through AP/strength takes a LOT of that stat. Adding Agility gives you more survivability through Armor and Dodge, and critting increases your killing speed a lore more as well (1 free hit since 200% crit damage). This does not even take into account the added attack speed from Flurry.
Agility = King!
@@Stompy1984 Agility also gives dodge and armor in classic. It's by far the BIS stat. There's a reason why rogues are so insane.
lost my 22 shaman in a wc run 2 hours ago, if only i had this sooner!
group wipe or just u?
I hate that theres no totem recall. Leaving totems hanging around in the open world makes me nervous AF.
There was a macro, but Blizz broke it.
Best bet is to continuously summon the totems again to move their locations instead of leaving them. Try summoning them in a place with no mobs so you don't chain pull things. Super inconvenient still though.
Using totems in the shimmering flats while leveling was a harrowing experience. You never know what's going to pull.
I mostly use only the flame totem if fighting regular mobs as it disappears fast enough. Only using the other totems if I know I'll be fighting in the same spot for a while, wether for fighting tougher ennemies or if there are a lot of mobs to kill in the same place
@@BabinSquaredthat is EXACTLY what Im talking about
if you mix cloth and leather early game your mana efficiency won't be so bad. spirit in particular is surprisingly effective early game, so don't dismiss it the trash it is in the late game.
im running mostly leather (leatherworking blues) and (plan to run) robes and (maybe) shoulder of arugal and should work just fine even in melee if you add some armor kits to the cloth pieces which essentially brings them up to the level of a standard green leather piece.
i even skipped the 2-handed talent (for now) because the WC quest staff is BIS for the 20-30 levels and opted to go for dodge% instead. works wonders.
and never forget; you should ALWAYS have a 1hander+shield alongside your 2H for quick switching if you overpull or otherwise find yourself in a difficult situation, like if you suddenly need to offtank in a dungeon.
also you forgot to mention one of the most important aspect of shaman totems; poison and disease cleansing totems, those are 10x more useful than mana spring and healing stream combined.
love spellhancement leveling , open up with a lightning bolt + flameshock , put a fire totem totem down and smack the mob with your 1h and shield till its dead , heal up if needed , pretty much 0 downtime
Notice the 2 "self-res" classes, Shaman (ankh) and Warlock (soulstone), are the two statistically least likely to hit lvl60 HC. Given they can't use those in the permadeath ruleset, perhaps they are somewhat lacking in the later level ranges?
I feel like Blizzard should have made each of those skills into onetime use abilities.
@@omarlozano9374
That’s actually a pretty neat idea
Died trying to get the fire totem at 11 :( I shoulda known better but i never played horde before so didn't know what to expect in that damn cave. Had never felt too pressed up to that point.
Playing shaman hc right now and i feel that! Im always cautious around spellcasters. For the fire qurst i just did other quests first until i got another level or two (also i didnt realize the cave was in durotar and kept looking in barrens lol).
Totemtimers is a must have addon for shaman , just so that not ur whole screen is filled with pictures of totems.
For the rest indeed a WA that reminds you to refresh shield or wep enchant 4000000x a day is nice to have.
Windfury feels good, but it's no more dps than rockbiter. And the fact that windfury overkills so often it's just not worth using. Rockbiter can't be used in groups though because of the increased threat.
well it makes standing and hitting a lot more entertaining, like playing the lottery every swing
Unless of course you're the tank, in which case, please PLEASE use rockbiter
All about that dopamine. Classic levelling is so boring otherwise.
That's why I play Shaman Tank, fun for both parties and solo
To be fair, if you’re a shaman and you’re dpsing dungeons in the 10-40, before going elemental, then you’re griefing.
You’ll be appreciated the most as a healer, especially in hardcore, where you’re in short supply compared to dps.
Shaman survivability: You need to plan ahead, plan your escape. 30-60 is the most difficult range for any class in HC. Warriors do better. Most shamans die, even if you consider yourself good.
I LOVE SHAMAN YOU CANT STOP ME FROM PLAYING SHAMAN
Yeah, shaman is great. It's the most durable caster by far, has good DPS, lots of unique skills, and can heal entire groups at once.
Paladin by comparison can tank better and heal single targets better but have some of the worst (if not the worst) DPS in the entire game.
An elemental shaman with a good shield and the right talents can burst without interruptions and crit like a motherfucker and heal themselves with 7/10 durability.
Hell yeah!. Thank you.
I m still not decide between this 2 class : Rogue and shaman, but perhaps both.
Forgot all about shaman tanking. Once ran bfd in bc with 2 shamans taking turns tanking in the group. Wild time.
iirc priest style elemental is another good leveling specc.
dagger+ flametongue, shield.
mob rotation is: lightning bot -> flameshock -> place flame totem then auto till mob dead.
Shaman is honestly pretty nice, stoneclaw and earthbind totem can save your life. Having lots of tools/utility is great as well.
another thing to add to the macros.../startattack + shocks, because it doesn't auto trigger it
1. rockbiter actually does higher dps than windfury overall, we just dont use it because of the bonus threat in groups, windfury is tremendously unreliable and more often than not wont even proc during at all so youre basically fighting the mob with no infusion at that point.
weapon infusions are generally a shit show because 2 of them are useless in raids from the get go as rockbiter has bonus threat and most of the first two tiers are fire resistant or fire immune, this leaves you with frosrbrand (lmao) or windfury, thus windfury became the default.
2. most shaman skip stormstrike in leveling because it honestly isnt very strong in vanilla and it absolutely CHEWS through mana, you cant use it in raids for most forms of vanilla anyway because of the debuff cap but its too mana expensive anyway.
3. eye of the storm is actually a life saving talent because much like the reck bomb you can sit down in combat to gaurantee a crit, then you can spam healing spells to save yourself.
defcamp and meldaron have extremely detailed and researched guides for vanilla and tbc shaman if you are curious
😊
I remember my wind fury shaman using a dagger with chance to get extra hits, and the screen filling with Combat numbers instantly. So fun, very close to Ret pallies "seal of command" procs. so we went the other way with it. use the fastest dagger you can so there are more chances to proc the totem. more consistent.
I'll say it again because it's miraculously not covered here; you should be leveling as Resto until you have Natures Swiftness. Take improved healing cast, reduced healing pushback. I'm telling you that most situations that would kill you going as Enhance you will survive as Resto NS. You do not need any damage talents before this. Pay attention to 5 second rule and swing timers. Get a weak aura for both.
This is the truth. Shaman hardcore levelling should be about pressing lightning bolt, flame shock and then melee’ing the enemy to death with flame tongue weapon (or rock biter) while wearing a shield. Let your mana regen, cast 1 heal if you need to and then repeat for the next single mob.
It’s priest levelling, slow and painful but extremely safe if you know what to do.
@@zemo2916 until adds come, then its time to run.
I find 1sec cast Ghost Wolf to be more impactful and 2h axes/maces if u get a proper one that requires it. I do agree that the other things doesn't really matter, but Imp LS is also amazing value
@@illbean1337thing is, survivability is more important than leveling speed in HC. And that’s definitely the case here.
And you’re not completely out of dps in the resto tree. 3% more hit and 5% increased crit chance for LB is nothing to sneeze at.
whats the 5 second rule?
I played a full on 2-handed Enhancer from Classic release until Naxx, and as much as the specc gets memed on it can actually perform decently given good gear and a competent player. I'll 100% be giving it a go again on the HC servers, partly cause shamans are so rare in the upper echelons, partly because I like the challenge and also partly because it will just be fun to Windfury slap again. Quick side note to anyone levelling as Enhancement as well; Thermaplugg's Left Arm or Corpsemaker are both huge weapon upgrades, especially for Orcs, and will pair perfectly with Windfury at level 30.
Yeah, I remember giving it up in 2006 because of its complexity as a young beginner, but nowadays it's exactly why the class is so much more fun to play to me compared to other classes. Been memeing around with a serious tank spec and it's been a blast to play so far. Would definitely recommend for experienced players if you want to have fun.
Playing elemental, probably around level 30-60, is just 66% drinking, 33% playing the game. I hope classic+ happens next season, and it should include helping out the mana users imo. Its miserable, even tho 33% of the time is enjoyable. I checked before tbc classic came out on a 60 warlock alt i prepared for tbc raiding, not a caster typically known as being mana starved like ele/boomie/spriest, before tbc prepatch my 60 lock could cast 12 max rank shadow bolts before going oom. Then I loaded the exact same copy of the character on the TBC prepatch and I could cast 25 max ranks. Mana users across the board are such a slog to play in vanilla, whatever the under the hood changes they did in tbc to double their mana efficiency, they should do to vanilla season 2. My spriest could oom itself on a 2 mob pull in under 20 sec doing full optimal dps in vanilla, then I played in prepatch and on like 4 mobs (twice the number of dots casted, swp is an expensive spell to keep up on double the targets) i could last 50 seconds....
You don't like watching your character sip out of a mug all day? go back to retail. (sarcasm)
Don't forget that the axe Ravager from SM Armory stacks with your Windfury. I pulled 500+ DPS in Razorfan Downs. No other class has a moment in time like that.
When I played back in classic release it did not "stack" with Ravager. But wf can proc flurry which gives more attacks which thus increases chance of Ravager proc. If Ravaget proc would proc WF mid spin, it's stored and will proc on ur next auto after spin.
RB though Grant's its AP bonus on spin, causing A LOT more dmg
@@illbean1337 Also more threat. Great way to hit the ground pulling all the elites off the tank hehe. Die for those big numbers.
@@cattysplat If I remember correctly, the bonus threat isn't applied while spinning, but it's absolutely applied on normal autos.
Do correct me if i'm wrong on that part though.
Biggest tip I can give for shaman is to not undermine Spirit. The spirit stat is great for shamans as they run out of mana super fast and it can be regened while they auto attack. Avoid drinking downtime by casting flame shock, searing totem then auto attacking. then lesser healing wave after the mob dies, your spirit should regenerate nearly all of your mana casted if you have enough of it
Spirit was always an underrated levelling stat. Even Warriors and Rogues get some benefit from it - even if its not huge. Just don't neglect other stats - more don't be sad if an upgrade also has spirit on it.
yup, people really overlook how much mana Shamans can regen during a 1h+shield fight. As long as you don't use shocks except while pulling and finishing off a mob, and especially after getting Water totems, you can just cast 1 heal and have a you have totems set up.
@@andromidius spirit warrior is underrated big time... a few spirit pieces (even just equipping after combat, and reequipping other gear before pull) can make a huge difference.. i think the time saved is likely more efficient in many cases than if you simply used pieces with more dmg
This has been my go to strategy. Barely uses mana and you have a buffer for emergencies.
Really not surprised that the shaman is the least played class. My main was a shaman in vanilla and I still regret picking that class. I had some fun moments with windfury, but the class really fell behind compared to other classes after level 30-40. You can tell it wasn't a well designed/balanced class just like most hybrids.
How did it fall behind in your opinion? I am 44 and I can keep up with warriors and mages with damage on trash, and I win on almost every boss fight damage wise, so I don’t understand how shamans “fall off”. If anything the 40 talents make them even stronger. The biggest issue is just going oom after using your abilities a couple times but that isn’t a thing that starts at 40.
@@ohgeezrick2019 Just started a shammy in HC so good to hear, what specs did you use so far from 1-40 then 40+?
Ive made it to 60 twice on HC shaman. The "fall off" I have to say is because players love windfury and enhance. Stormstrike has to be the worst move in the game while elemental mastery is the best. Most enhancement who make it go NS, then enhance. If you really want to go enhance do at least 21 in resto. Elemental kills the fastesr including drinking time. Take the L, buy the drinks, and kill mobs before they ever touch you with lightning bolts and frost shock.
Was a bit more surprised at this one than the others. I'm mid 30's on my enh and I feel so strong despite mid gear. stoneclaw, nova, frost shock, earthbind, there's so much available that you shouldn't really die unless you get very unlucky. I'd say the real hardest part is just remembering where each of your abilities are mapped to lol.
The whole thing with totems being fixed in place for 5 minutes and pulling adds is lethal.
@@Avatar1977 yeah thats very true
warstomp shaman wombo combo was always fun for pvp
You definitely don’t “need” to get improved ghost wolf first as ele, don’t be cheap with waters and go all ele and your guy is actually as viable as mage
Shaman is my favorite class, but no way in hell are the as viable as mage. Playing mage after years of shaman feels like cheat codes have been activated.
Shaman was my first class during Classic that I took all the way to 60, and yeah I would definitely not try it again on hardcore. The falloff is real past level 30. Found myself just feeling weaker and weaker, by level 50 I pretty much just healed BRD all the way to 60 for the most part.
I'd love to watch a video of yours about good duo combinations for leveling in official hardcore
Would you recommend orc or Tauren for enhancement shaman?
Hey Wille. I was wondering how you capture broll in game?
if they made parry baseline, and directly replaced the talent with a water shield effect, or something similar to the mana judgement ability... I feel like it would do so much for the spec
The most important thing for classic Shaman leveling is doing earthbind kiting. Using a swing timer you track enemy mob swings and your own. This let's you only take damage when your swing is ready. This can make you take 25-50% less damage per mob.
This gets more important at later levels when you are fishing for wf procs and mob health starts to scale a lot
1h +shield is better than earthbind kiting. Ele is better than enhance at higher lvls
be mindful that strafe kiting has been nerfed, you usually get hit twice now. Hurts on Warri too
@@Horstolord04how was it nerfed?
@@xbico9118 they fixed some Bug with leashes, which gives melee swings some leeway when strafing specifically. Was around vanilla Release, no idea if it affects retail
@@Horstolord04 so it only affects strafing not stutter step?
Not sure if you can really call it falling off at the later stages. Once you respec to elemental between 40 and 50 you turn into a god damn kiting lazer show and beforehand you're literally RNGesus. Love Shaman. x3
Purge being available so early on makes them stay strong
What is that addon or weak aura on top of the nameplate with a ! mark (indicating that given NPC is a quest-mob)?
So excited for this. Jumping into Classic HC for the first time ever soon.
Totem threat is not personal threat. It functions like a pet and has its own place on the threat meter. Putting down fire totems does not add to your AoE threat as a tank with shaman. Which, coupled with it's lack of taunt and hybrid tax mana design issues. Is the reason why it's not viable as a tank EXCEPT when you ding 40 and plan to continue grinding SM for a few more levels. Because that dungeon is designed around having a mail wearing tank pre-40. That puts the post-40 shaman wearing mail in line with what the warriors would have had on anyway. And the new rank of Chain Lightning and Lightning Shield is often sufficient to holding multi-target aggro at lvl40 running SM. But they still have issues with mana. Since Earth Shock's threat generation bonus is directly tied to it's damage. You have to cast your highest level shock spell for aggro purposes. That will put a mail wearing enhancement shaman out of mana in about five casts. That's not including keeping rockbiter and lightning shield up and pulling with chain lightning and using stoneskin totem to mitigate damage.
I LOVE the Shaman class and mained one in Vanilla and classic. But unless you're playing on Turtle WoW with their class balancing and talent reworks. You're not going to want to tank as a shaman. Let alone have one in your group outside that one exception I stated. Shaman and Paladin are the two classes deserving of #somechanges for Blizzard official servers. I cannot go back to official classic servers after playing one on Turtle WoW. It's simply a superior Shaman experience.
Also, never use Windfury when soloing. You're praying to RNGesus enough with crits, dodges, parries, and blocks as it is. Don't add a core part of your dps to it as well. Rockbiter if you're traditional enhancement and have a lot of Str and Agi. Flametongue if you have a lot of Int or spellpower.
ive leveled several shaman on HC realms, I think you are dead wrong about WF at 30. Windfury is the worse enhancement to use by a decent margin. DPS goes in order of Rockbiter, Flametongue, Frostbrand, and WF.
WF is good on warriors because of rage gen, but flametongue does very well on rogues. The difference comes at 60 when WF scales with the rogues weapons.
After playing Horde in 2019 Classic I won't play for them EVER - especially on Hardcore - cuz totem pull -> wipe happens way too often
Unlimited Power.
Pretty sure Windfury Totem only buffs the party and not the shaman itself, otherwise you could play Rockbiter with it
The problem with windfury is that people go slow om a spell that need to proc often making the math way stronget on a fast 2 hander
You missed the most important benefit of playing enhancement over elemental in HC. The biggest benefit IMO is that if you DC while fighting a mob in HC, you will kill it as enhance. If you DC while fighting a mob as elemental, it will kill you.
where is the resto spec? you mostly talked about enhance with a bit of ele sprinkled in..
Great video as always
No one thinks of it, but resto isn’t awful solo leveling. Get a good dagger with flame tongue. Once you get your insta cast, it’s hard to die.
it is never worth using flametongue unless you have a bunch of spell damage. you should be using the latest rank of rockbiter/windfury/frostbrand even as resto
Ele resto hybrid is super fun and pretty solid spec
This is the way. Shaman levelling is super safe if you pretend you’re a priest.
Cast 1 lightning bolt then melee with weapon enchantments (flame tongue or rockbiter) while you regen your mana. So easy.
@@zemo2916 Leveling resto is so painfully slow that it makes me want to kill myself. Being safe doesn't excuse the extreme boredom.
I have been a super mega altiholic since mid TBC and after all these many years i have never figured out shammys
Is it still possible to sit in order to 100% get crit by a melee? That way you can the 0 knockback on casting while in melee.
I don't think it'll work unless you also stand immediately after. Rapidly tapping the sit button usually works, but the timing isn't hard to practice if you want to be precise.
The dropoff is the rise of elemental. Elemental comes online later than basically any other spec in the game since all the actual damage talents are grouped at the end, but that means when you start digging into them, it's only a moment before you're 2-3 shotting most things while having the resources to be a good dungeon healer. Elemental Mastery is great for the memes, but as a dungeon healer, the utility of an absolutely free monstrous damage ability can't be understated. Plus, the damage output is high enough that most bosses can be beaten without healing.
Prior to ~39+ though? Not horrible, but not great. I think people die around this time due to suddenly encountering a bunch of elite quests while still having the confidence of being OP through the 20s.
Stoneclaw Totem does NOT stun in classic wow. It cam in TBC.
It also does NOT taunt. It generates AoE threat on all nearby enemies with each pulse. The amount of threat it generates is large, so if u start a 2mob pull with it down, if u kill 1 mob, u won't be taking aggro off of the totem.
Also, when it comes to weapon choice and imbue choice. WF is a lot of fun! But it's not good enough. Rockbiter is basically the way to go while swapping to Flametounge for high armor mobs or while in a party if u fear aggro (WF also works here)
As for weapons, u do NOT care about weapon speed. It's all about DPS. The only time u want a slow weapon is for WF in PvP for burst. In PvE it's worse cuz u lose consistency.
U forgot to mention the 2h AXE Corpsemaker from RFK, super good axe.
U dont have to rely on RNG to get off a Ghost Wolf in ele spec, u sit/stand to force crit + proc to get pushback immunity.
On the official servers I will level as ele/enhance hybrid cuz I'm doing duo. I've got a very special AoE build set up.
You messed up the casting time part during the specs 😅
I am not sure if you changed your microphone or not, but the audio in this video is a little painful to listen to (literally painful, I don't mean that in a rude, hyperbolic way). Thanks for the video nonetheless!
I could be wrong, but can’t you dismiss totems in classic by just right clicking their icons near your portrait?
no
Lol, been a long time since I’ve heard the “Hunter that thinks they need a strength weapon” phrase.
I think the logical course is enhance till lvl 40, ele till 60 then restro at max lvl. Half of sham is sitting and drinking wouldint recommend it. + ur gonna need hella gold switching specs at 40 and geting a mount
It's not been my experience as enhancement, just fronload damage and totems at the beginning of the fight and finish it with auto attacks and mana gets back up
Thanks shamman was my 1st .. And allways one of my favorite
shaman in duo hardcore is god tier. I played with all classes, but DRUID is the BEST. you can aoe 2-3mobs at the time with nova totem and lightning shiled (+thorns), but mainly you tank as a shaman using lightning shield and druid is healing you/backstabing in cat from. You also have 0downtime so you can keep going. Also ez to do dungeons since you can heal+tank
We did the opposite - ele/resto shaman and feral druid. Strong the whole way but once he had dire bear form it was just unstoppable.
Funnest class Ive ever played. A geared 2nhd WF Shaman makes a bad day for any enemy you come across. Play this class.
I dont agree with the star ranking for this class, they are much better than only 2 'stars' that you put on several aspects of gameplay. For instance with the stoneskin totem right of the bat, I could take down 2 mobs that were higher lvl than me, lets see a warrior or basically any other class do that
i think dagger with flametongue + shield is best. flametongue can proc clearcasting from elemental tree then stack stam, int, str
Dagger rockbiter is also very very good, lots of damage and threat, unless you play DPS Shaman in a group
very fun in pvp. you fink of 2hand enhancer. but i played in blue gear elemental shaman in warsong gulch..quite fun ..would level again
Shaman would be so fun as a duo with a Warr.
I started wow as a tauran shaman in classic before the expansion BC don't remember any problems it was All fun
SoM should allow Shamans to tank properly to alleviate the chronic tank shortage. It makes sense both gameplay and lorewise.
Sure bro. Yep makes sense to suddenly make a non tanking class a tank. Let's make rogues tanks too
@@MS-nl5gh Like I said, it makes sense both gameplay and lorewise. Shamans use Earth magic and are known to be tribal defenders. Gameplay wise the game needs more tanks and its a good alternative if theres no new classes. And shamans have tanked at some capacity. And heres another tidit, rogues were planned to be able to use bucklers - Not that I think they should tank because we both know theres a clear difference and you're just being a smartass.
@@hibernian87 you're being a cornball. The game has already been set in stone for how long now? No point in making goofy changes
@@MS-nl5gh and you're a twat. The whole point of SoM is to make small additions to the game while staying true to the spirit of classic. We still have our classic era servers that shouldnt be touched.
@@MS-nl5ghshamans can definitely tank low level content, and they have the abilities/talents to support that. So I’m not sure what you’re doing calling people a cornball.
The enhancement tree literally has talents for increasing block rate/amount, dodge rate, and parry. On top of that, rockbiter enhances threat generation, as well as earth shock.
''kite forever with frost shock, meanwhile go oom after 3 frost shocks''
I would assume Shaman is prob one of the hardest classes to play in a hardcore mode...... they were just missing alot of cruicial class design improvements in vanilla. They have no proper defensive CD or immunity, no CC or stun, poor escape or mobility (outside instant GW). Stuff like HEX in wotlk for CC really helped, plus alot of other changes that really improved the class and fleshed it out. In vanilla, it has some of the worst survivability options and can die easily if not careful like warrior does. Every other class got something like a CC fear/sheep, mobility like blink or escape with vanish, bubble immunity ect. Shaman got nothing that useful for survival except heals, the occasional totems, shocks.... earth shock is OP honestly, and purge is great but situational. I wouldnt bother with hardcore in general for any class, kinda defeats the point of an mmo..... but despite Shaman being my fav class and Enhancement Shaman my main, it would be one of my last picks for a hardcore mode.
FINALLY !
(love your vids :D)
Jdmdrift making cameo appearances now
Honestly leveling as elemental isn't that bad if you get improved fire totems.
Shaman is the one class I'm scared to play the most. Totems will 100% get me killed.
Only use most totems when fighting in a spot for a long time, and you'll be good. Mostly use 30s totems like the fire one if fighting regular mobs, it's not costly in mana and usually goes after killing 2 mobs separately
I'm pretty sure stoneclaw totem doesn't stun until TBC.
Yessss finally! lok’tar ogar! For the horde!
Try and convince a friend to level a warrior or a rogue with you otherwise I'd skip this class. With a Warrior buddy just as you start to fall off your Warrior buddy starts to crank on the gas and you can easily make dungeon groups as a Tank/Healer combo and your warrior buddy will feel amazing. One of the worst feelings in all of Classic is entering Tanaris on your Shaman when the average mob sees about a 600 health increase and your time to kill just falls off a cliff. If you don't plan on seriously playing hardcore though and just want to check it out I'd recommend it. Decent tourist class option just a crying shame that the vast majority of people will be playing Alliance on Classic era servers.
Shaman is great solo, just always make sure you have mana in your bar or you're not going far.
This shouldn’t really be the case, though, as you should have already made the switch to Ele at this point.
Is it still possible to play hardcore? I cant seem to find the server on the PTR.
currently i think it's only just a addon
it is currently disabled, it will be up again on the 20th
Thanks willE, remember there wont be pvp so Shaman wont be nearly as fun, and elemental will be mostly useless but please play however you want i encourage all specs and builds. Experiment, have fun everyone.
Ele is the second highest DPS caster after mage.....
Shamen have one role in classic: giving warrior windfury
warrior main detected
Feel like you should be able to use reincarnation without penalty
The best thing about HC is that I can finally play as tank shaman without feeling like I am trolling
You can also tanknas a shaman on classic+ Private servers.
thanks WillE