Thanks for watching, everyone! Remember to check out part 1 first for build options, dps data, and leveling tips here: ua-cam.com/video/KwKBo6BnHe8/v-deo.html
Yo my man, sorry for replying on a pinned comment, but you didn't say what way is the best WHILE leveling. For example, if I were to go hybrid, do I start elemental tree after ghost wolf or after fully getting what I need from enhancement, and then going into elemental. Or some other way idk. Great video though, cheers.
Great question, I recommend going all the way to that 1 point in weapon mastery in the enhancement tree before going elemental. As far as the best spec when leveling, that requires a much larger analysis (basically leveling 6 or 7 shaman). Hopefully some people can provide that information at some point. Thanks for watching
@@DefcampMelderonTV I think the DPME calculation is not quite complete. Flame shock has a chance to proc clear-casting which should be added into the equation, unless lightning shield also procs it on your server
This guide is incredible. Until official classic servers come out, when i start on private servers, i am going to try my hand at shaman after seeing this. As always, Melderon, amazing stuff.
Well you fight low level mobs, so you don't risk dying. With elem, a bad pull can mean death, while you can probably survive with 2H. And you were testing in open space. What happens in close quarter combats, like in a cave or inside a building, where you can't cast multiple spells before your target is upon you ? I don't think those results are really relevant for someone that will fight mobs his level or 1-2 level below. And it doesn't represent all the situations you can come across while leveling. Your videos are amazing tho, I learned a great deal from them. Thanks for the content. Keep it up.
I want to thank you for this, very informative and helped quite a bit with a guy new to the Shaman scene in vanilla WoW. Representing the Light's Hope/Northdale myself. Keep it up!
I'm speechless. You took the criticism to heart, which is really nice to see. But in addition to that... you fucking killed it man. This is a top notch guide. Bravo! I appreciate you putting the time into making this. I'm only left wondering now if these results are applicable before level 40ish. Anyone got some insight on that?
Really thorough guide. If you are to make a part three, it would be nice to see what the drinking costs amount to over time, since leveling faster may not be preferred if you end up absolutely broke.
Really sweet video once again, some really great information that u're providing, especially since u give them context and that u're comparing them to eachother. Really wonderful to see! Also, thanks for the shoutout, first time i've ever gotten a shoutout lol
This is a great start, but we need more dataz. 20 kills is a bit of a generalization. A bigger sample size would help my other issue; travel time between mobs is a significant factor, and shouldn't be ignored. If more than 20 mobs were killed, say 100 per spec, the average travel time between mobs would probably smooth out. As melee, keeping that travel time in mind is a big part of optimizing a grinding route. Can melee shaman take advantage of leading one mob to the next to get rid of that travel time, or are they too glued to totems? Would the time saved be irrelevant because you need to drink so often, or would it be worth changing part of the rotation, and decreasing overall dps, in order to minimize time spent strictly travelling? I love your approach, and the work you've put into these 2 videos is greatly appreciated. Honestly, I think the recent class guide videos being released has raised the bar, and much of it is because of your videos.
On a fresh server you can get a pendulum of doom for about 50-60 gold and this weapon single handily carried me from 40-60 using 2handed rockbiter spec. The 4.0 speed and proc you can 2-3 hit yellow mobs for a kill
I played 2H slow enhancement shaman in vanilla. I loved pvp primarily, it is to my recollection that the stormstrike ability did affect lightning shield. It may sound obvious but waiting with your earth shock after applying a stormstrike affect may drastically increase the critical or normal hit off your shock thus making it more dmg-mana efficient. Using lower ranks of earth shock may also be beneficial when levelling to save mana since the interrupt ability of casting spells functions regardless of rank of spell.
I've been binge watching vanilla vids and wamted to say thanks for clearing up things about shaman for me. Here's me thinking, I know I'll go mage or lock in classic, but I kind of want something new. An orc shaman is something I'm keen on and seeing how versatile the class is I'm going to do it. I was blown away by what you can use; coming from mage/lock I wont go ele(maybe end game) and I like my dungeons so a hybrid build may be the way. Thanks again!
Great video a few notes for anyone: Slow 2 hand is always the strongest. Using earth bind you can kite to only be in melee range while you are swinging, this negates tons of damage to you... it feels kinda bad (a lot of work). But it feels much better than being oom and low HP all the time. The exception is Shield is nice verses non healing/non casting classes in pvp, but slow 1-h really gimp your Stormstrike (SS) burst. Shamans can actually tank, but its real mana costly, otherwise 2-hand does way more as dps on continuous fights (elites/bosses). So overall, while i prefer shield leveling its just not better. Stormstike gives an extra attack and an extra 1.3 or 1.6 speed attack is weak, an extra 3.8 speed extra attack is large. It cost the same however. And Flurry doesn't change this entirely 2h just feels way slow without it. On hit in resto - 3 hit% is basically just a bit better than 3% overall damage (which is strong). Had the video done equal level mobs you would see the power of that talent as it give you max hit to equal leveled mobs. But people Way Overrate Hit for leveling (its always a best talent to 3-4%, but its much better for some classes than others with leveling.) For classes that dot (or use abilities with CD for a good amount of their damage) Hits better because a missed is often a massive hit to DpM, in that moment, In raw numbers 4% damage is about 3% hit (hit is better because of other talents that increase say fire damage or w/e), but in 10 hours of non stop casting its about the same damage. However, in that moment its a massive loss of mana you have to make up somehow and if its an ability with a CD you cannot make up for it with the same ability thus need to spend more mana and time for the same effect. Other exceptions would be a situational like ambush. Flame shock is a CD and dd/dot so Hit really matters for it. But less than say a priest mindblast and SWP, lock with 2 dots and a channel, or a mage with frost nova and CoC which iare a large % of their damage/efficiency. For DD spells or melee its ~3% dps (plus crit loss but leveling you don't have a ton of this anyway, so 4-5% dps loss). But overall, shamans don't really have these. Hit isn't as great for Shaman as some other classes, but its more important as soon as you get Stormstrike, but SS is kinda shit (unless slow weapon); very expensive mana wise, 20 sec cd. Typically used for harder mobs or to burn mana (but its not like shamans don't have other means to burn mana. ) Another more hidden issue with it is the 5 second rule: totems - lightning shield - LB - flame shock .... SS. Well that might be 1-2 seconds between FS and melee zone so now you use SS you have to wait another 1-2 seconds before mana regen kicks in... this effectively adds 1-2 secs of mana regen to its cost. With a slow weapon it can be worth it. As such the hybrid build (fast 1-h) shouldn't SS, instead double lb (or better heal then lb) with pulling will provide more damage. The main use of resto is to allow you to better heal dungeons while spec'ed dps (and increase mana efficiency for soloing). And its main boons for healing are 10% mana efficiency and 25% reduced mana cost for totems (which are rapidly replaced in dungeons and larger totem aoe is also good, but its typically taken late in leveling.) Of course 3% spell / attack hit. Note - Enh/ele that want to dps in groups should get a 2-h and skill it once in a while (or at least a real slow 1-h) . As you seen the DPS is much higher for 2-h and WF verse elites its viable. The issue with slow weapon 2-h WF is you Overkill too much, and lose out damage on flurry procs charges. That is why the mean (the dark black line) is slow low and the little line off the top of the box is so short and the bottom one so long.
Elemental is by far the best leveling spec. By level 55 you could have upwards of 150 +nature damage if you tried (he had 54) which basically doubles your damage output at the cost of your mana pool. But your spells do more damage per mana point so you are actually more efficient and spend less time drinking as well. I could kill mobs before they could touch me (no earthbind) and players before they could react properly. I’ve leveled 3 shamans to 60, one on Nost, Elysium, and LH.
Flame shock also has a chance to overkill. If that dot is falling off without ticking the entire time, then it becomes far less efficient to use. If you are using 2h + WF, then I would highly recommend not using flame shock, as it just adds more inconsistency. This is especially true when you get Stormstrike, as Stormstrike + Earth shock likely has a similar dmg output to the entire flame shock, but doesn't have the dot component. FlS might not be worth casting at all over earth shock with any build other than maybe resto.
I use a tanking build, enhance/elemental up to elemental devastation. I mostly use defensive totem with healing stream and searing totems, with occasional lightning shield, and never drink using this method. Killing mobs is pretty slow, but I let my mana regen during the fight.
The one thing I disagree with about this leveling guide is that the tests were all at level 55 so these numbers are only good for 5 levels. I'd think trying this test out at levels 20, 30, 40, 50 would be a better representation of actual leveling. Also how many times were these trials were done per spec? These numbers are for grinding only, with no quest supplementation; which i believe is the faster way to level in vanilla. Going ele might sound good but having improved ghost wolf in the long run is much faster for leveling. Good ideas and video!
Grinding is fastest for certain level brackets. But you are right, questing can help. I provided the time because of how much mob killing is done in vanilla regardless if you are questing full time or grinding. I only did one trial because this took me a very long time to make, probably 20 hours or so when you include editing, scripting and such. And yes, your point about level is extremely valid as I mentioned at the end of the video. Unfortunately I did not have the time to do this on a new character while leveling
www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/7zr6g5/joana_is_coming_back_for_classic_wow/? For anyone who's interested in what he's up to, another great guest idea just sayin :)
Good video. The Reason why u kill faster with an Elemental is that the damage depends lesser on your weapon and higher water or consumables from a mage refill your mana faster.
Bro!! What a great video! Thank you for your time and effort. I hope you have found something to replace WoW, after your exit from the game. If you are doing these types of informative presentations in your new hobby, I salute you. If you gave it up after this, I get it. Best wishes, Mel. I hope you are well.
I had my mind set on Enhance all the way to 60 but elemental looks surprisingly good. What I'm wondering is how much gold you'd be spending on water to get that speed, it could build up to setting you back quite a bit when you first hit 60. I might give ele a try after 40 though to see how it goes.
First and foremost: Thanks for taking the time to make such an in-depth guide. I've learned a lot of little details, but simply put, the statement Elemental is THE fastest spec to level to 60 is wrong. Let me explain why: 1. In your showcased videos you use gear from dungeons, greens with raw spell damage/healing which are not available at launch. If your goal is to rush to 60 asap you stay away from dungeons (with a few exceptions) and pick up the best quest rewards you can, which favors Enhancement builds. 2. You neglect the amount of time it takes to drink up and fill up on water. Mind water costs gold, which you need for mount. I leveled a Shaman to 44 on a private server and as soon as I was able to abuse 2h WF/slow-totem grinding, my efficiency sky rocketed. I only had to drink after fighting multiple enemies or if I used shocks to nuke something. Rockbiter could be superior because it's consistent, but I like the rng factor. Plus Stormstrike gives you another chance of proccing WF. 3. The early levels are not even close to being as fast and efficient as Enhancement. 4. Speed of leveling depends on enemies as well. They all have different health, armor and resistance values. You would have to figure out different routes for caster/melee-spec.
extremely useful, insightful and interesting video - never have I seen the likes in classic wow; you're great! I do have one question though, wouldn't the elemental spec be less efficient against mobs closer in levels as one would get hit more, which in turn would cause both increased damage taken (due to cloth gear) and pushback?
Magne Molteberg great question. As long as you use your toolset like frost shock and earthbind, you should be ok. However if you pull 2 mobs, things get hairy
I find that there are a couple breakpoints for 2h vs 1h and shield. especially at around 50-55 1h shield is the way to go with julie's dagger there are a few good 2h at 54-56 however julie's dagger is an efficiency beast if the ppm is anything like it was on lh/nd. something to keep in mind with really slow 2h builds can lead to some problems with misses at earlier levels without hit. rock bitter can smooth some of it out, but if your weapon isn't the best for your level you can really start to slow down times with misses, and at times cause deaths leading to even more downtime. for this reason i typically prefer going with 1h/shield throughout the leveling process, but the most important is whatever weapon is stronger, ie dps.
As I am currently playing a lvl 29 tank spec enhancement shaman, I find myself using a slow 1 hander with rockbiter weapon over flame even in dungeons as a fps. The damage is just more consistent where it allowed me to do more damage than dps classes. Having the shield and already in tank spec allows for great survival if you pull off tank which happens alot with the crits (lvl 18 weapon criting for over 200). I'm trying not to spec into 2h weapon (waste of talent for tank shaman) while looking for very slow staff with high damage, also for possible pvp. But i do enjoy playing the class and enhance spec as tank. Lots of fun with insane threat (especially without a "taunt")
With caster specs the travel time between mobs is faster due to longer reach of lightningbolt so that should have been included. It would make those specs faster.
What were your rotations? That can make a pretty big difference. If I remember, with enh you typically open with SS once it's available and then use highest rank ES with LS applied just before a pull, respecting the 5 second rule, you only heal right before you pull then rebuff and kill the mob. If you need to pull a mob into range of totems, don't you use rank 1 lightning b/c mana? It's always been my understanding that since the 1.12 talents (leveling specs were wildly different with 1.1 talents) rockbiter 2h was the fastest when you're clinical about mana efficiency and downtime. Very interesting if more data proves that wrong. Another thought on this, how often are you drinking and what are you drinking? Unless you have unlimited access to appropriately leveled mage water, what is the cost of drinking so often, and would this affect your ability to obtain a level 40 mount? And they say all the theory crafting is done.
I'm pretty sure I go over the rotation in part 1. As far as enhancement builds, I used stormstrike as a opener for sure. In the hybrid builds, I used max rank LB. For elemental, I used max rank LB and drank after every 2 pulls or so. Even with that, it was the fastest. I was drinking level 45 water across the board so you can compare between specs. Since we will get 1.12 talents in classic, I used 1.12 talents here yup, theres much more to do. Thanks for watching
Btw, your videos are some of the best I've seen on vanilla information and depth wise. Really has me interested in figuring out min/maxed shaman leveling strategies since I was planning on rolling one again on the retail classic release.
@@DefcampMelderonTV yeah, would love to. Was going to ask if you wanted me to send you any information I find. I'll also try to factor in cost/level verses income/level for a few different leveling methods.
The likely reason why WF was slower then rockbiter and flametongue has to do with the randomess of when WF procs. If it procs when the mob is already nearly dead, that extra damage doesnt end up matterring.
Is it possible to use Rockbiter with Windfury totem at the same time or does the rockbiter override the chance of windfury procing? and is it possible with double winfury both from weapon enchant and the totem to get two 20% chanes on each hit? I want to remember it working on some private servers but I can't honestly say if they were programmed correctly.
Thankyou for this , i been testing out these builds, as getting groups and solo that work well togethers been a pain in the butt. In your view, is it better having 5/5 in shorter CD on shocks or further distance Lightnight bolts? I tend to find most things dying before they get to me with LB distance extended, meaning i have to heal less as not getting hit etc. What is a thought chanager was leaving off 3 points in call of flame, i always saw it as a benefit, eye of storm has saved me a few times, so that was a worry also, but i am trying this build tonight to see. Thanks very much for your time and effort, its appreciated. I for one was getting confused many times between 2H enh and elemental but since going Elemental my lifes got a lot easier.
Hi man. Really nice and informative video with great data provided. I know you have addons listed, but which one shows the mp5 tick on your character icon?
its hard to say which build i will go with but i guess its really gear dependent. I will most likely go with an enhancement build but will switch between 2h and 1h based on the gear available to me. I assume a higher dps 1h is better then a lower dps 2h (please clarify). id like to request a video on which specs to go with based on your level. lvl 1-20, lvl 21-40 etc. thanks for the great content.
Great video! Did you consider kiting using Frost Shock / Earthbind Totem with a slow 2H weapon, and only stepping in for trading white hits (using a swing timer to optimize)? I believe this could be the 'fastest' and most efficient way of leveling. It could be done both as Enhancement or Restoration with a staff. I've heard people talking about this method which is similar to warrior's hamstring + slow 2H weapon method, but I've never seen it analyzed and tested in practice.
I wonder if there are a specific farming of mobs that can be done to level from 1-60. Mobs that have no real special ability and are all of the same-ish type. Wolves for example. If there are such a thing then could you not, through an addon, find out the effective HP value, factoring in the supposed armor/damage resistance/elemental resistances(don't know how that one will work but still..) and through that figure out a somewhat clean stat sheet for testing differences in specs? Actually now that I'm thinking about it... Can't we just take a hypothetical creature? Give it some values that makes sense and go to town with out builds and equipment setups?? Say a target dummy for example? Add in some crafted gear close to the level you want to test and... Ok so it got me thinking and I started to believe that this was easy. I looked up a fraction of the information needed to run a simple lvl 1 test and after coming up with the conclusion that lightning bolt is... only really worth it if you can get two casts off before the enemy reaches you. Though you will run out of mana before after your second pull... so screw the lightning bolt and just wack em with your rockbiter instead! Mind you this was jsut at level 1 I made the test with no talents and very predicatble gear and setup both for my shaman and for the lvl 1 wolf I used for a test... That was way too much work just to get a simple dps comparison... I can't imagine the effort you went through just to get a rough enough of a result to be useful. Giant props to you my dude!
Would you recommend lightening shield if you're 5/5 shield/dodge and parry talents? I guess you get the mitigation but not the damage so maybe it evens out?
I'm kinda curious as to how the time to level numbers would look while questing since you're spending a much higher percentage of your time running while questing than you do when you're simply grinding, which spreads out the xp gain over a longer period.
Do we need to use more mana as elem / at lower and higher levels ? The frequency we drink influences between slow 2H and elem spec, it would be my first question if I went for a shaman.
Just want to point out that on kronos 3, lightning shield DOES consume stacks of stormstrike. Just tested on my 54 shaman. Not sure which interaction is blizzlike.
So really from 1 to 50, dagger and shield hybrid enchance/Ele is the safest option? Then once you get better gear for ele the higher you get it would be better to drop into ele deeper and resto for off healing in dungeouns? Would that be a safe bet for me when classic drops? Thanks in advance to anyone who replys!
my spec isnt in your test i go ele/enhance hybrid but still melee heavy with 2/3 eye of storm for focus cast heals during fights in emergency and 3/3 elemental devastation for the situational boost and 4/5 reverberation and the rest i got the full start row the enhance part is identical to the one you use but my leveling strategy is always to buy mage food /water before heading out questing and i just use earth shock after stormstrike for the buff and lightning shield i also ignore totems other than mana spring and stoneskin the damage reduction and minimal mana return works great for efficiency i have theory crafted alot on elemental devastation on doing a true hybrid spec but i always defaulted to the idea of theres next to no spell crit gear for shamans to get so its hard to maximize its potential while leveling , the 6% crit from call of thunder only applys to the 2 spells and not all spells ,why blizzard why so i normally go with storm strike over elemental devastation
I don't want to be that guy and I have to say that I love your videos and throughly respect what you do but... Aren't all of your tests skewed by using gear other than standard white weapons? In particular how do you account for the procs from the Scepter and the static 1% hit and crit from the staff and any other stat bonuses from the various weapons you chose to perform your test samples with?
Great points. I'm going to be tackling these issues in part 3 but I will be doing it in standard greens as no one will level with white gear. I'll do my best to just provide static increases to base stats
@@DefcampMelderonTV Would it be possible/a good idea to post the list of items you plan to do your part 3 tests with in the Discord so that we can get more eyes on it BEFORE you do the tests? Just to avoid more unnecessary testing? Also, thanks for the quick reply.
@@DefcampMelderonTV Any info you have to share on that Shaman Discord would be great. I'm seriously considering doing a WAY too detailed baseline analysis on Shaman leveling at each milestone level (9, 19, 29 etc)
so here is the thing.... Im super hyped for classic because I was too young and my parents back then didnt want me to play wow. So I missed out on the classic experience and want to check it out this time. I definetly want to play as shaman. I just cant decide if I want to go resto because I enjoy being a healer or if I go enhancment (I also enjoy being a melee build). What would you guys suggest for a first time classic player. I do want to do raids if I reach 60 but Id also like to do some pvp. Also none of my friends want to play classic with me so I am mostly on my own. What sould I pick? :/
Narros Jefferson yes, the build revolves around 1h and shield as you don't have 2 handed weapons. You could put a point there and sacrifice either elemental fury (I don't recommend that) or from weapon mastery. You could technically go caster but would be better to go full ele in that circumstance
Please do a speed test for killing with Flurry + Shield. I know its a limited period . but it may prove to be the highest and fastest build once you can equip it.
I have a concern about the relevance of downtime in this video. You are a 55 shaman fighting 50-51 mobs. This would overly favor casters wouldn't it? Since enhancement frontloads almost the entirety of it's mana use at the beginning, they will be spending a similar amount of mana used on a lvl 50 mob as a lvl 55. However, elemental uses its lightning bolt as its primary damage and therefore require more casts to finish a mob with a larger health pool meaning a larger portion of mana spent.
What would happen if you used a 1h wf + shield and a 2h + WF at the same time? You use the 2h first with Stormstrike for the odds to get a huge WF proc, then you use a macro to switch to your 1 hand and shield to reduce dmg you take, while finishing the mob off.
you can heal perfectly fine as elemental or enhancement. Enhancement is usually a bit faster and your warrior friend will want you near him for windfury totem
A very informative video, but I have to ask: were you really thinking that anything is faster than Ele in kill speed, and were you really thinking that Windfury > Rockbiter? Both of these are quite well known, deriving from a simple analysis of where your damage comes from when you look at the damage meter. Even on low levels, you take half of a mob's HP with Lighting Bolt and Shocks before it even reaches you. The other half is easily whittled down with Lighting Shield, Flame Shock's DoT, Searing Totem, and your weapon attacks. This *already* hints that Elemental is the fastest spec, and you can see this as early as level 10, where 3/4 of your damage is from Elemental, no matter what your gear is. Then, if you decide to spec into Enhancement, you will not help but notice the unreliability that Windfury has - it may proc 2 times in a row or it may not proc for several mob kills at all. Meanwhile, Rockbiter reliably gives you a tremendous amount of attack power that would make any warrior jealous. I dunno, I mean, it's a great video with a lot of effort into it, but honestly it was all common sense to me. If you want fast leveling as a shaman, you go either Elemental or 2h Rockbiter (just don't forget to switch from Rockbiter in dungeons and not use last rank Earth Shock or you'll get kicked pretty quickly by the tank).
Rosen Kostov honestly I has surprised by the hybrid spec and yes rockbiter did surprise me. But if you play on private servers, I'd say 9 shamans out of 10 are 2h windfury so most people don't know about rockbiter as they just assume WF is best
I know, right? It's amazing how the game is 14 years old, yet people don't know things like "which enhancement is the best for leveling". All they have to do to get the answer is look at the damage meter...
This said first: I do real like your statistical approach to this topic. BUT there is one thing that extremly invalidates your data. The experiment you chose has you fight NPC 4-5 lvl below yours. This creates reprecussions through your complete dataset as it has unwanted sideeffect for most of the specs. An example for that would be the one you gave about the 3% hit talent and that affecting all specs that use it. Another one would be the higher critchance and thus a higher flurry uptime with all melee based builds. Your sample size of 20 kills per spec is also extremly small, so deducting a confidence intervall of 0,05 becomes almost impossible. So all in all i would say that this video does give a nice overview of the specs and their advantages and disadvantages. But in order to actually make a ranking like you did you would have to work much more precise and on a larger scale. Nicely done
Nice comment but a few thought. 1.) I could very well be mistaken but my understanding is that crit chance does not change based on level difference between you and an npc. 2.) there is no replication and I did not perform a statistical test, so therefore, no confidence interval. Maybe you are referring to part 1? 3.) the sample size issue: This took me about 15 hours to make - yes, I would have loved to increase the sample size too and I alluded to the fact that there has to be more done. In time. Time is money, friend. 4.) All melee specs use the 3% hit except for the hybrids. Considering they are faster than almost all other melee builds, the effect is negligible. 5.) I don't see any side-effects that you allude to. Can you elaborate? Thanks for watching and thanks for the comment!
The level advantage over the mobs translates to difference between your weapon skill and NPC's defense which results in 1.higher crit chance and 2. smaller miss chance for you and 3. smaller dodge/parry/block for the NPCs. I believe that's what the dude meant.
@@DefcampMelderonTV Awesome video, but also remember that the lower the mobs' health, the higher the chance of your windfuries proccing for massive overkill, thus lowering it's value
Amazing vid but doing this at lvl 55 and killing mobs - 5 lvls kinda looses the meaning of "leveling guide" at least for me. This detailed guide just feels so irrelevant. E.g. leveling as elem from 1 - 40 is absolute nightmare, you run out of mana after 1 - 2 mobs, and when trying to kill something a bit higher (+3 to 5 lvls) you might get to a situation where all your spells are resisted, you are oom and mob is at 90% hp, then you are left with only weak AAs... The same goes for dungs or any group content where you can consecutively pull up to 5 enemies with high HP pool and you deplete your mana at the first 1 - 2, hence you just can't help your group in any way. Then there might be a problem of gearing since a few good pieces comes from dungs - you know that kinda content why ppl play vanilla :) - and you as a shaman compete againts everybody for EQ - leather str/ag - rogues, hunters, druids; cloth int/spir - locks, mages, priests; 1h wpn- rogues, hunters, tanks and shields always go to the tank. So you just cant pick a spec and have designated gear at your disposal. In the end the leveling guide boils down to this (according to me): Wear whatever you can get, some pieces agi, str, stam, some pieces int, spir. Go for enh/resto build, conserve mana for emergiencies, in world pvp kite and sometimes slap ppl with nice slow 2h. Even with this you can heal in dungs and AA in the meantime. Follow Joana and at 25 farm fire elems at Stonetalon, at 35 farm hyenas at desolace, at 38 in the off-ours farm elems in arathi , when in strangl farm shredders for fused wiring and kill allies to get a hold of pvp. Get skinning and herbalism and loot everything. Get into guild, they will mostly provide you with bags. Enjoy the company of others and don't forget to have fun :)
To be fair you should never be attacking a mob 3 or more levels higehr than you, EXCEPT for when playing in a group. It's simply unefficient. I don't see why elemental would be worse just cus of going OOM btw. If you burn through your mana in say 20 seconds, you will have uninterrupted spirit-regen for all the remainder of the fight, whilst you are still able to AA mobs w your wep-enh. When mana is up a bit, you can go ham with the rest of your mana. I really don't see how AA'ing would a big drop-off just cus of being elemental - Enhancement dont have THAT much dmg-enhancing abilities anyway. I'd actually call the playstyle of enhancement a weakness in group settings - They aren't as efficient in front-loading damage as ele, so they'll generally be doing a medium amount of damage, and still being oom by the end of the fight due to not being able to efficiently use mid-combat mp5 (and if you are, ele should be superior anyway). I'm atm leveling an elesham in coop with my brother playing a warrior, and I'm gearing predominantly spirit as to regen more after frontloading and while Earthbind kiting. I feel this is a very strong build both solo and coop thus far (lvl 21 now).
So why did you do so much good research with the awesome weapon buffs vid, but then you didnt include frostbrand in any of these tests despite seeing promise on the weapon buffs video?
7:10 and this, my friend is what makes your test somewhat obsolete. Kiting and mobility is huge aspect of Enhancement build, when you don't need to stop casting, but you can move to next mob while killing the other.
Ele would have killed even faster, but if you did the same setup you did every time in your last video -- you're doing it so wrong. The end all fastest way to do ele is only cast lightning bolt. That's it. No totems, no lightning shield, just lightnign bolt (and if you have ele mastery I guess with chain lightning) Its the most mana efficient spell and does the most dps. Just cast lightning bolt 5-6 times per mob, they will die faster and you will have more mana. A for effort.
I didn't mean disrpect, but if you've gone the effort to crunch numbers into graphs i'd figured you notice something as simple. Its easier to just face tank mobs until they have less life than 1 lightning bolt worth of damage left and just fniish them off with melee. You should be able to down 5-6 mobs in a row with an average of 5-6 (10-12 second) casts in a row. If you get a lucky chain of crits or clear casting, even faster. At that point, your melee weapon only matter for quickly finishing off mobs iwth >10% of their life remaining.@@DefcampMelderonTV
just watched both videos and there is one glaring issue with everything you have done in the videos, you are attacking mobs that are just above greys. Fight some Yellow mobs and do all your # crunching again.
Joana's guide is pure garbage because it is made for a server with 1k or less pop and at with all quests in the game at patch 1.12 witch most private servers (and probably classic wow) will not support at launch. Dont get into this trap of a guide witch was probably made from the hunter's point of view. The explanation of the quests and pathing is very well done but it doesnt include the pvp factor of the game. (inb4 "i play on pve serverrs") Also the dungeon quests are missing witch supports what i think that this is a fast lvling guide for hunters.
Thanks for watching, everyone! Remember to check out part 1 first for build options, dps data, and leveling tips here: ua-cam.com/video/KwKBo6BnHe8/v-deo.html
Yo my man, sorry for replying on a pinned comment, but you didn't say what way is the best WHILE leveling. For example, if I were to go hybrid, do I start elemental tree after ghost wolf or after fully getting what I need from enhancement, and then going into elemental. Or some other way idk.
Great video though, cheers.
Great question, I recommend going all the way to that 1 point in weapon mastery in the enhancement tree before going elemental. As far as the best spec when leveling, that requires a much larger analysis (basically leveling 6 or 7 shaman). Hopefully some people can provide that information at some point. Thanks for watching
Shamans can reach 440 defense.
@@DefcampMelderonTV I think the DPME calculation is not quite complete. Flame shock has a chance to proc clear-casting which should be added into the equation, unless lightning shield also procs it on your server
i can see the immense amount of effort and creativity you put in this video, it did not go unnoticed. thanks man!
this is what i was talking about in our chat, there's still things we dont know about vanilla! more theorycrafting to be done!!!!
You are welcome. Thanks for the awesome comment and thanks for watching, my friend!
Agreed :)
As a fellow scientist, I love how this video was presented as one would write a paper. Well done!
This guide is incredible. Until official classic servers come out, when i start on private servers, i am going to try my hand at shaman after seeing this. As always, Melderon, amazing stuff.
Earlybird Rogue thank you, sir!
Well you fight low level mobs, so you don't risk dying. With elem, a bad pull can mean death, while you can probably survive with 2H. And you were testing in open space. What happens in close quarter combats, like in a cave or inside a building, where you can't cast multiple spells before your target is upon you ? I don't think those results are really relevant for someone that will fight mobs his level or 1-2 level below. And it doesn't represent all the situations you can come across while leveling. Your videos are amazing tho, I learned a great deal from them. Thanks for the content. Keep it up.
So excited for fresh that I’m watching videos from a scientist that are over 6 years old! Thanks for the video
I'm amazed by both this video and part 1. It's the single handed best vanilla guide I've seen. A really deep analysis and now I'm hyped for classic
Thanks so much!
I want to thank you for this, very informative and helped quite a bit with a guy new to the Shaman scene in vanilla WoW. Representing the Light's Hope/Northdale myself. Keep it up!
I'm speechless. You took the criticism to heart, which is really nice to see. But in addition to that... you fucking killed it man. This is a top notch guide. Bravo! I appreciate you putting the time into making this.
I'm only left wondering now if these results are applicable before level 40ish. Anyone got some insight on that?
If I had a clone, I would set him on that task for sure lol. Anyway, thanks for watching and thanks for an awesome suggestion!
Really thorough guide. If you are to make a part three, it would be nice to see what the drinking costs amount to over time, since leveling faster may not be preferred if you end up absolutely broke.
Ty guys for making the best, the most in-dept guides. This stuff really helps. Keep that good work!
Enes Dolovac you are welcome
Man it’s epic thank you guys
Really sweet video once again, some really great information that u're providing, especially since u give them context and that u're comparing them to eachother.
Really wonderful to see!
Also, thanks for the shoutout, first time i've ever gotten a shoutout lol
This is a great start, but we need more dataz. 20 kills is a bit of a generalization. A bigger sample size would help my other issue; travel time between mobs is a significant factor, and shouldn't be ignored. If more than 20 mobs were killed, say 100 per spec, the average travel time between mobs would probably smooth out. As melee, keeping that travel time in mind is a big part of optimizing a grinding route. Can melee shaman take advantage of leading one mob to the next to get rid of that travel time, or are they too glued to totems? Would the time saved be irrelevant because you need to drink so often, or would it be worth changing part of the rotation, and decreasing overall dps, in order to minimize time spent strictly travelling?
I love your approach, and the work you've put into these 2 videos is greatly appreciated. Honestly, I think the recent class guide videos being released has raised the bar, and much of it is because of your videos.
On a fresh server you can get a pendulum of doom for about 50-60 gold and this weapon single handily carried me from 40-60 using 2handed rockbiter spec. The 4.0 speed and proc you can 2-3 hit yellow mobs for a kill
How did the math on rockbiter work? I vaguely recall that the atk power bonus was dependent on atk speed, but I cannot remember.
Alostic pendulum is a BIS twink item, most times I have seen in on the servers I’ve played it comes to on average 500-600
I played 2H slow enhancement shaman in vanilla. I loved pvp primarily, it is to my recollection that the stormstrike ability did affect lightning shield. It may sound obvious but waiting with your earth shock after applying a stormstrike affect may drastically increase the critical or normal hit off your shock thus making it more dmg-mana efficient. Using lower ranks of earth shock may also be beneficial when levelling to save mana since the interrupt ability of casting spells functions regardless of rank of spell.
I've been binge watching vanilla vids and wamted to say thanks for clearing up things about shaman for me. Here's me thinking, I know I'll go mage or lock in classic, but I kind of want something new. An orc shaman is something I'm keen on and seeing how versatile the class is I'm going to do it. I was blown away by what you can use; coming from mage/lock I wont go ele(maybe end game) and I like my dungeons so a hybrid build may be the way. Thanks again!
I love your videos. Can't believe I just heard about you yesterday! So pumped to play shaman in classic ! 4 more days!
Great video a few notes for anyone:
Slow 2 hand is always the strongest. Using earth bind you can kite to only be in melee range while you are swinging, this negates tons of damage to you... it feels kinda bad (a lot of work). But it feels much better than being oom and low HP all the time. The exception is Shield is nice verses non healing/non casting classes in pvp, but slow 1-h really gimp your Stormstrike (SS) burst. Shamans can actually tank, but its real mana costly, otherwise 2-hand does way more as dps on continuous fights (elites/bosses). So overall, while i prefer shield leveling its just not better. Stormstike gives an extra attack and an extra 1.3 or 1.6 speed attack is weak, an extra 3.8 speed extra attack is large. It cost the same however. And Flurry doesn't change this entirely 2h just feels way slow without it.
On hit in resto - 3 hit% is basically just a bit better than 3% overall damage (which is strong). Had the video done equal level mobs you would see the power of that talent as it give you max hit to equal leveled mobs. But people Way Overrate Hit for leveling (its always a best talent to 3-4%, but its much better for some classes than others with leveling.)
For classes that dot (or use abilities with CD for a good amount of their damage) Hits better because a missed is often a massive hit to DpM, in that moment, In raw numbers 4% damage is about 3% hit (hit is better because of other talents that increase say fire damage or w/e), but in 10 hours of non stop casting its about the same damage. However, in that moment its a massive loss of mana you have to make up somehow and if its an ability with a CD you cannot make up for it with the same ability thus need to spend more mana and time for the same effect. Other exceptions would be a situational like ambush.
Flame shock is a CD and dd/dot so Hit really matters for it. But less than say a priest mindblast and SWP, lock with 2 dots and a channel, or a mage with frost nova and CoC which iare a large % of their damage/efficiency. For DD spells or melee its ~3% dps (plus crit loss but leveling you don't have a ton of this anyway, so 4-5% dps loss). But overall, shamans don't really have these. Hit isn't as great for Shaman as some other classes, but its more important as soon as you get Stormstrike, but SS is kinda shit (unless slow weapon); very expensive mana wise, 20 sec cd. Typically used for harder mobs or to burn mana (but its not like shamans don't have other means to burn mana. ) Another more hidden issue with it is the 5 second rule: totems - lightning shield - LB - flame shock .... SS. Well that might be 1-2 seconds between FS and melee zone so now you use SS you have to wait another 1-2 seconds before mana regen kicks in... this effectively adds 1-2 secs of mana regen to its cost. With a slow weapon it can be worth it.
As such the hybrid build (fast 1-h) shouldn't SS, instead double lb (or better heal then lb) with pulling will provide more damage.
The main use of resto is to allow you to better heal dungeons while spec'ed dps (and increase mana efficiency for soloing). And its main boons for healing are 10% mana efficiency and 25% reduced mana cost for totems (which are rapidly replaced in dungeons and larger totem aoe is also good, but its typically taken late in leveling.) Of course 3% spell / attack hit.
Note - Enh/ele that want to dps in groups should get a 2-h and skill it once in a while (or at least a real slow 1-h) . As you seen the DPS is much higher for 2-h and WF verse elites its viable. The issue with slow weapon 2-h WF is you Overkill too much, and lose out damage on flurry procs charges. That is why the mean (the dark black line) is slow low and the little line off the top of the box is so short and the bottom one so long.
Elemental is by far the best leveling spec. By level 55 you could have upwards of 150 +nature damage if you tried (he had 54) which basically doubles your damage output at the cost of your mana pool. But your spells do more damage per mana point so you are actually more efficient and spend less time drinking as well. I could kill mobs before they could touch me (no earthbind) and players before they could react properly. I’ve leveled 3 shamans to 60, one on Nost, Elysium, and LH.
Flame shock also has a chance to overkill. If that dot is falling off without ticking the entire time, then it becomes far less efficient to use. If you are using 2h + WF, then I would highly recommend not using flame shock, as it just adds more inconsistency. This is especially true when you get Stormstrike, as Stormstrike + Earth shock likely has a similar dmg output to the entire flame shock, but doesn't have the dot component.
FlS might not be worth casting at all over earth shock with any build other than maybe resto.
Yeah the guide is on another level of detail. Cant thank you enough for all the work you put into this.
Ah, to live the Ironfoe dream. Almost 1000 runs in vanilla and after, only seen it drop once, and it was ninjaed by a holy priest.
I use a tanking build, enhance/elemental up to elemental devastation. I mostly use defensive totem with healing stream and searing totems, with occasional lightning shield, and never drink using this method. Killing mobs is pretty slow, but I let my mana regen during the fight.
The one thing I disagree with about this leveling guide is that the tests were all at level 55 so these numbers are only good for 5 levels. I'd think trying this test out at levels 20, 30, 40, 50 would be a better representation of actual leveling. Also how many times were these trials were done per spec? These numbers are for grinding only, with no quest supplementation; which i believe is the faster way to level in vanilla. Going ele might sound good but having improved ghost wolf in the long run is much faster for leveling. Good ideas and video!
Grinding is fastest for certain level brackets. But you are right, questing can help. I provided the time because of how much mob killing is done in vanilla regardless if you are questing full time or grinding. I only did one trial because this took me a very long time to make, probably 20 hours or so when you include editing, scripting and such. And yes, your point about level is extremely valid as I mentioned at the end of the video. Unfortunately I did not have the time to do this on a new character while leveling
Melderon can you please give an in depth guide about how you specc different builds while leveling. Which talents are crucial to get asap?
Did you guys see the reddit post from Joanna about returning to classic? Pretty exciting stuff
Demo Bay yes! Very cool!
www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/7zr6g5/joana_is_coming_back_for_classic_wow/?
For anyone who's interested in what he's up to, another great guest idea just sayin :)
That post reminded me that Defcamp and Melderon will be playing classic which in turn got me pretty excited 😆
You Sir made me play a shaman!
You dig so deep into shaman! And i love it, Im going to play shaman classic wow, And this made me reasure that choice, Thank you for this vid :)
Good video. The Reason why u kill faster with an Elemental is that the damage depends lesser on your weapon and higher water or consumables from a mage refill your mana faster.
Bro!! What a great video! Thank you for your time and effort.
I hope you have found something to replace WoW, after your exit from the game. If you are doing these types of informative presentations in your new hobby, I salute you. If you gave it up after this, I get it.
Best wishes, Mel. I hope you are well.
I had my mind set on Enhance all the way to 60 but elemental looks surprisingly good. What I'm wondering is how much gold you'd be spending on water to get that speed, it could build up to setting you back quite a bit when you first hit 60. I might give ele a try after 40 though to see how it goes.
First and foremost: Thanks for taking the time to make such an in-depth guide. I've learned a lot of little details, but simply put, the statement Elemental is THE fastest spec to level to 60 is wrong. Let me explain why:
1. In your showcased videos you use gear from dungeons, greens with raw spell damage/healing which are not available at launch. If your goal is to rush to 60 asap you stay away from dungeons (with a few exceptions) and pick up the best quest rewards you can, which favors Enhancement builds.
2. You neglect the amount of time it takes to drink up and fill up on water. Mind water costs gold, which you need for mount. I leveled a Shaman to 44 on a private server and as soon as I was able to abuse 2h WF/slow-totem grinding, my efficiency sky rocketed. I only had to drink after fighting multiple enemies or if I used shocks to nuke something. Rockbiter could be superior because it's consistent, but I like the rng factor. Plus Stormstrike gives you another chance of proccing WF.
3. The early levels are not even close to being as fast and efficient as Enhancement.
4. Speed of leveling depends on enemies as well. They all have different health, armor and resistance values. You would have to figure out different routes for caster/melee-spec.
Very useful, especially with my newly rolled shaman on fresh :d
extremely useful, insightful and interesting video - never have I seen the likes in classic wow; you're great!
I do have one question though, wouldn't the elemental spec be less efficient against mobs closer in levels as one would get hit more, which in turn would cause both increased damage taken (due to cloth gear) and pushback?
Magne Molteberg great question. As long as you use your toolset like frost shock and earthbind, you should be ok. However if you pull 2 mobs, things get hairy
I find that there are a couple breakpoints for 2h vs 1h and shield. especially at around 50-55 1h shield is the way to go with julie's dagger there are a few good 2h at 54-56 however julie's dagger is an efficiency beast if the ppm is anything like it was on lh/nd. something to keep in mind with really slow 2h builds can lead to some problems with misses at earlier levels without hit. rock bitter can smooth some of it out, but if your weapon isn't the best for your level you can really start to slow down times with misses, and at times cause deaths leading to even more downtime. for this reason i typically prefer going with 1h/shield throughout the leveling process, but the most important is whatever weapon is stronger, ie dps.
As I am currently playing a lvl 29 tank spec enhancement shaman, I find myself using a slow 1 hander with rockbiter weapon over flame even in dungeons as a fps. The damage is just more consistent where it allowed me to do more damage than dps classes. Having the shield and already in tank spec allows for great survival if you pull off tank which happens alot with the crits (lvl 18 weapon criting for over 200). I'm trying not to spec into 2h weapon (waste of talent for tank shaman) while looking for very slow staff with high damage, also for possible pvp. But i do enjoy playing the class and enhance spec as tank. Lots of fun with insane threat (especially without a "taunt")
With caster specs the travel time between mobs is faster due to longer reach of lightningbolt so that should have been included. It would make those specs faster.
What were your rotations? That can make a pretty big difference. If I remember, with enh you typically open with SS once it's available and then use highest rank ES with LS applied just before a pull, respecting the 5 second rule, you only heal right before you pull then rebuff and kill the mob. If you need to pull a mob into range of totems, don't you use rank 1 lightning b/c mana? It's always been my understanding that since the 1.12 talents (leveling specs were wildly different with 1.1 talents) rockbiter 2h was the fastest when you're clinical about mana efficiency and downtime. Very interesting if more data proves that wrong.
Another thought on this, how often are you drinking and what are you drinking? Unless you have unlimited access to appropriately leveled mage water, what is the cost of drinking so often, and would this affect your ability to obtain a level 40 mount?
And they say all the theory crafting is done.
I'm pretty sure I go over the rotation in part 1. As far as enhancement builds, I used stormstrike as a opener for sure. In the hybrid builds, I used max rank LB. For elemental, I used max rank LB and drank after every 2 pulls or so. Even with that, it was the fastest. I was drinking level 45 water across the board so you can compare between specs. Since we will get 1.12 talents in classic, I used 1.12 talents here
yup, theres much more to do. Thanks for watching
Btw, your videos are some of the best I've seen on vanilla information and depth wise. Really has me interested in figuring out min/maxed shaman leveling strategies since I was planning on rolling one again on the retail classic release.
Steven thank you so much, that really means a lot man!
And please do some research, we can highlight it in another vid!
@@DefcampMelderonTV yeah, would love to. Was going to ask if you wanted me to send you any information I find. I'll also try to factor in cost/level verses income/level for a few different leveling methods.
The likely reason why WF was slower then rockbiter and flametongue has to do with the randomess of when WF procs. If it procs when the mob is already nearly dead, that extra damage doesnt end up matterring.
Is it possible to use Rockbiter with Windfury totem at the same time or does the rockbiter override the chance of windfury procing? and is it possible with double winfury both from weapon enchant and the totem to get two 20% chanes on each hit? I want to remember it working on some private servers but I can't honestly say if they were programmed correctly.
Thankyou for this , i been testing out these builds, as getting groups and solo that work well togethers been a pain in the butt. In your view, is it better having 5/5 in shorter CD on shocks or further distance Lightnight bolts? I tend to find most things dying before they get to me with LB distance extended, meaning i have to heal less as not getting hit etc. What is a thought chanager was leaving off 3 points in call of flame, i always saw it as a benefit, eye of storm has saved me a few times, so that was a worry also, but i am trying this build tonight to see. Thanks very much for your time and effort, its appreciated. I for one was getting confused many times between 2H enh and elemental but since going Elemental my lifes got a lot easier.
Hi man. Really nice and informative video with great data provided. I know you have addons listed, but which one shows the mp5 tick on your character icon?
Yes, its SCT (scrolling combat text)
Did you compare talented Lightning Shield (Imp. Lightning Shield) vs. talented Flame Shock? (Convection, Concussion)
Hal shot first no I will do that eventually
its hard to say which build i will go with but i guess its really gear dependent. I will most likely go with an enhancement build but will switch between 2h and 1h based on the gear available to me. I assume a higher dps 1h is better then a lower dps 2h (please clarify).
id like to request a video on which specs to go with based on your level. lvl 1-20, lvl 21-40 etc.
thanks for the great content.
Great video! Did you consider kiting using Frost Shock / Earthbind Totem with a slow 2H weapon, and only stepping in for trading white hits (using a swing timer to optimize)? I believe this could be the 'fastest' and most efficient way of leveling. It could be done both as Enhancement or Restoration with a staff. I've heard people talking about this method which is similar to warrior's hamstring + slow 2H weapon method, but I've never seen it analyzed and tested in practice.
I think the real question is can you handle that level of micromanagement for 59 levels? lol
@@Ruskad Sure. Imo having something to do, and some skill to perfect, makes leveling a lot more fun ^^
Just an Amazing research man i admire u👌👌
Thanks, man
Isn't Convection in Ele build more profitable rather than Reverberation? Or I don't know something?
OneMoarSoul you very well may be right, I used the most popular builds that most theory Crafters use. That may well indeed increase your uptime
I wonder if there are a specific farming of mobs that can be done to level from 1-60. Mobs that have no real special ability and are all of the same-ish type. Wolves for example. If there are such a thing then could you not, through an addon, find out the effective HP value, factoring in the supposed armor/damage resistance/elemental resistances(don't know how that one will work but still..) and through that figure out a somewhat clean stat sheet for testing differences in specs?
Actually now that I'm thinking about it... Can't we just take a hypothetical creature? Give it some values that makes sense and go to town with out builds and equipment setups?? Say a target dummy for example? Add in some crafted gear close to the level you want to test and...
Ok so it got me thinking and I started to believe that this was easy. I looked up a fraction of the information needed to run a simple lvl 1 test and after coming up with the conclusion that lightning bolt is... only really worth it if you can get two casts off before the enemy reaches you. Though you will run out of mana before after your second pull... so screw the lightning bolt and just wack em with your rockbiter instead! Mind you this was jsut at level 1 I made the test with no talents and very predicatble gear and setup both for my shaman and for the lvl 1 wolf I used for a test... That was way too much work just to get a simple dps comparison...
I can't imagine the effort you went through just to get a rough enough of a result to be useful. Giant props to you my dude!
Would you recommend lightening shield if you're 5/5 shield/dodge and parry talents? I guess you get the mitigation but not the damage so maybe it evens out?
if you're going for 1H + shield and a tanky build then I wouldn't take it, if you are 2H WF, I would, more damage, faster leveling
Maybe try approximating all your stat output to cents or mils to help with presenting the data in a more 'tidy' way if you will. Otherwise great video
btw it is true that Lightning Shield benefited from Stormstrike's debuff without consuming charges in retail vanilla
Yeah everyone knows Lshield is the king of DpM. :P BTW these are wonderful. Also just do it go WF 1-h :P (hey slow 1-h are pretty good with it :) )
Have you done any studies regarding how good nature's guidance is? Is it worth the 13 point investment/how much does it really help?
I'm kinda curious as to how the time to level numbers would look while questing since you're spending a much higher percentage of your time running while questing than you do when you're simply grinding, which spreads out the xp gain over a longer period.
Do we need to use more mana as elem / at lower and higher levels ?
The frequency we drink influences between slow 2H and elem spec, it would be my first question if I went for a shaman.
Just want to point out that on kronos 3, lightning shield DOES consume stacks of stormstrike. Just tested on my 54 shaman.
Not sure which interaction is blizzlike.
Thank you very much for checking on this! I figured it wasn't universal
I've played elemental shaman since 2006 and classic won't be the exception
No if you find a guild that will be wiling to take you as elemental. Everyone will want you as resto :/
great videos man! im on the fence on what to level but this helps!
What addons do you use to see the remaining time of your totems, and if you are in range of their buff?
What about leveling as a shaman tank? Great video!
So really from 1 to 50, dagger and shield hybrid enchance/Ele is the safest option? Then once you get better gear for ele the higher you get it would be better to drop into ele deeper and resto for off healing in dungeouns? Would that be a safe bet for me when classic drops? Thanks in advance to anyone who replys!
Can you also heal dungeons with the shield and dagger resto setup ?
Absolutely
my spec isnt in your test i go ele/enhance hybrid but still melee heavy with 2/3 eye of storm for focus cast heals during fights in emergency and 3/3 elemental devastation for the situational boost and 4/5 reverberation and the rest i got the full start row
the enhance part is identical to the one you use but my leveling strategy is always to buy mage food /water before heading out questing and i just use earth shock after stormstrike for the buff and lightning shield i also ignore totems other than mana spring and stoneskin the damage reduction and minimal mana return works great for efficiency
i have theory crafted alot on elemental devastation on doing a true hybrid spec but i always defaulted to the idea of theres next to no spell crit gear for shamans to get so its hard to maximize its potential while leveling , the 6% crit from call of thunder only applys to the 2 spells and not all spells ,why blizzard why
so i normally go with storm strike over elemental devastation
beanodonnell good points to consider. I'm sure there will be a part 3 at some point. I will doy best to incorporate your ideas
I don't want to be that guy and I have to say that I love your videos and throughly respect what you do but...
Aren't all of your tests skewed by using gear other than standard white weapons?
In particular how do you account for the procs from the Scepter and the static 1% hit and crit from the staff and any other stat bonuses from the various weapons you chose to perform your test samples with?
Great points. I'm going to be tackling these issues in part 3 but I will be doing it in standard greens as no one will level with white gear. I'll do my best to just provide static increases to base stats
@@DefcampMelderonTV Would it be possible/a good idea to post the list of items you plan to do your part 3 tests with in the Discord so that we can get more eyes on it BEFORE you do the tests?
Just to avoid more unnecessary testing?
Also, thanks for the quick reply.
@@mepis9753 I could yes, I'll try to get that out soon. Also we are in the process of starting a shaman theorycrafting discord
@@DefcampMelderonTV Any info you have to share on that Shaman Discord would be great.
I'm seriously considering doing a WAY too detailed baseline analysis on Shaman leveling at each milestone level (9, 19, 29 etc)
so here is the thing.... Im super hyped for classic because I was too young and my parents back then didnt want me to play wow. So I missed out on the classic experience and want to check it out this time. I definetly want to play as shaman. I just cant decide if I want to go resto because I enjoy being a healer or if I go enhancment (I also enjoy being a melee build). What would you guys suggest for a first time classic player. I do want to do raids if I reach 60 but Id also like to do some pvp. Also none of my friends want to play classic with me so I am mostly on my own. What sould I pick? :/
lvl as enhance and then go heal when you are 60. you will find raids easily as resto
with the hybird builds do you use a one hander and shield or a two hander?
Narros Jefferson yes, the build revolves around 1h and shield as you don't have 2 handed weapons. You could put a point there and sacrifice either elemental fury (I don't recommend that) or from weapon mastery. You could technically go caster but would be better to go full ele in that circumstance
You could still use staves if their dps is high enough to consider
Please do a speed test for killing with Flurry + Shield. I know its a limited period . but it may prove to be the highest and fastest build once you can equip it.
Sorry, the Flurry Axe, unless that wep doesnt exist anymore.
As I recall, weapon enchants were wiped out when a shaman's weapon enhancement was applied. Is this the case?
Sure your levelling speed chart takes amount of time to kill mobs into effect but what about the downtime? (time to recover)
It's in there as I stated
guess i aint the brightest bulb in the bunch
@@yaboi-rx4eq no worries man. Sometimes I don't know how I've survived this long
I have a concern about the relevance of downtime in this video. You are a 55 shaman fighting 50-51 mobs. This would overly favor casters wouldn't it?
Since enhancement frontloads almost the entirety of it's mana use at the beginning, they will be spending a similar amount of mana used on a lvl 50 mob as a lvl 55.
However, elemental uses its lightning bolt as its primary damage and therefore require more casts to finish a mob with a larger health pool meaning a larger portion of mana spent.
So I want to be a resto shaman for raids. I just want to lvl up asap to 60 so the best is 2h windfury to lvl up to 60 asap?
What would happen if you used a 1h wf + shield and a 2h + WF at the same time? You use the 2h first with Stormstrike for the odds to get a huge WF proc, then you use a macro to switch to your 1 hand and shield to reduce dmg you take, while finishing the mob off.
Pretty good idea
For hybrid builds, why choose Eye of the Storm over Elemental Devastation if you only cast to pull mobs?
Covering that in part 3. Have been doing some number crunching. Stay tuned
Fking epic bras, thank you bras💙
Guys don’t forget to like these vids it helps out the bros
Thanks, brother!
Enhanced Shamans were and are the best leveling at lv 32+. Once you have WF, just 2h and press shocks and AA. You will be fine.
What about the time difference spent drinking/regenerating mana between mobs?
Drinking is incorporated. Travel time is not however. But that is going to be taken care of in the next guide as I am eliminating any regen time.
great job man
Any chance you could do this for balance Druid? Namely dpme
What build would you reccomend if im duolvling with my friend (war) i pref to heal dungeons
you can heal perfectly fine as elemental or enhancement. Enhancement is usually a bit faster and your warrior friend will want you near him for windfury totem
@@DefcampMelderonTV can i bug you some more? Whats best to lvl with? Dagger+shield? Early talents? When should i switch to ele?
Great vid i just fast forward if there 2 much math.
OMG YOU NNNEEEEEERRRRRRRDDDD!!!!!.......im subscribing, good video 😁
A very informative video, but I have to ask: were you really thinking that anything is faster than Ele in kill speed, and were you really thinking that Windfury > Rockbiter? Both of these are quite well known, deriving from a simple analysis of where your damage comes from when you look at the damage meter. Even on low levels, you take half of a mob's HP with Lighting Bolt and Shocks before it even reaches you. The other half is easily whittled down with Lighting Shield, Flame Shock's DoT, Searing Totem, and your weapon attacks. This *already* hints that Elemental is the fastest spec, and you can see this as early as level 10, where 3/4 of your damage is from Elemental, no matter what your gear is. Then, if you decide to spec into Enhancement, you will not help but notice the unreliability that Windfury has - it may proc 2 times in a row or it may not proc for several mob kills at all. Meanwhile, Rockbiter reliably gives you a tremendous amount of attack power that would make any warrior jealous.
I dunno, I mean, it's a great video with a lot of effort into it, but honestly it was all common sense to me. If you want fast leveling as a shaman, you go either Elemental or 2h Rockbiter (just don't forget to switch from Rockbiter in dungeons and not use last rank Earth Shock or you'll get kicked pretty quickly by the tank).
Rosen Kostov honestly I has surprised by the hybrid spec and yes rockbiter did surprise me. But if you play on private servers, I'd say 9 shamans out of 10 are 2h windfury so most people don't know about rockbiter as they just assume WF is best
I know, right? It's amazing how the game is 14 years old, yet people don't know things like "which enhancement is the best for leveling". All they have to do to get the answer is look at the damage meter...
Rosen Kostov yup but I'm guilty as well. But I've learned to take multiple approaches now to get to an answer
Elemental + 2H Earthbind kiting?
This said first: I do real like your statistical approach to this topic. BUT there is one thing that extremly invalidates your data. The experiment you chose has you fight NPC 4-5 lvl below yours. This creates reprecussions through your complete dataset as it has unwanted sideeffect for most of the specs. An example for that would be the one you gave about the 3% hit talent and that affecting all specs that use it. Another one would be the higher critchance and thus a higher flurry uptime with all melee based builds. Your sample size of 20 kills per spec is also extremly small, so deducting a confidence intervall of 0,05 becomes almost impossible. So all in all i would say that this video does give a nice overview of the specs and their advantages and disadvantages. But in order to actually make a ranking like you did you would have to work much more precise and on a larger scale.
Nicely done
Nice comment but a few thought. 1.) I could very well be mistaken but my understanding is that crit chance does not change based on level difference between you and an npc. 2.) there is no replication and I did not perform a statistical test, so therefore, no confidence interval. Maybe you are referring to part 1? 3.) the sample size issue: This took me about 15 hours to make - yes, I would have loved to increase the sample size too and I alluded to the fact that there has to be more done. In time. Time is money, friend. 4.) All melee specs use the 3% hit except for the hybrids. Considering they are faster than almost all other melee builds, the effect is negligible. 5.) I don't see any side-effects that you allude to. Can you elaborate?
Thanks for watching and thanks for the comment!
The level advantage over the mobs translates to difference between your weapon skill and NPC's defense which results in 1.higher crit chance and 2. smaller miss chance for you and 3. smaller dodge/parry/block for the NPCs. I believe that's what the dude meant.
@@radoslavradev8818 I understand all of that but it's universal across builds, theredore not confounding the results
@@DefcampMelderonTV Awesome video, but also remember that the lower the mobs' health, the higher the chance of your windfuries proccing for massive overkill, thus lowering it's value
@@DefcampMelderonTV But flurry is not universal among all builds, so it does change the results slightly, but imo not enough to matter.
I feel like , bandages should have been used to increase speed, as it heals faster and don't waste mana
Classic DOES use a SStrike charge if LShield is expended.
Amazing vid but doing this at lvl 55 and killing mobs - 5 lvls kinda looses the meaning of "leveling guide" at least for me. This detailed guide just feels so irrelevant. E.g. leveling as elem from 1 - 40 is absolute nightmare, you run out of mana after 1 - 2 mobs, and when trying to kill something a bit higher (+3 to 5 lvls) you might get to a situation where all your spells are resisted, you are oom and mob is at 90% hp, then you are left with only weak AAs... The same goes for dungs or any group content where you can consecutively pull up to 5 enemies with high HP pool and you deplete your mana at the first 1 - 2, hence you just can't help your group in any way. Then there might be a problem of gearing since a few good pieces comes from dungs - you know that kinda content why ppl play vanilla :) - and you as a shaman compete againts everybody for EQ - leather str/ag - rogues, hunters, druids; cloth int/spir - locks, mages, priests; 1h wpn- rogues, hunters, tanks and shields always go to the tank. So you just cant pick a spec and have designated gear at your disposal. In the end the leveling guide boils down to this (according to me): Wear whatever you can get, some pieces agi, str, stam, some pieces int, spir. Go for enh/resto build, conserve mana for emergiencies, in world pvp kite and sometimes slap ppl with nice slow 2h. Even with this you can heal in dungs and AA in the meantime. Follow Joana and at 25 farm fire elems at Stonetalon, at 35 farm hyenas at desolace, at 38 in the off-ours farm elems in arathi , when in strangl farm shredders for fused wiring and kill allies to get a hold of pvp. Get skinning and herbalism and loot everything. Get into guild, they will mostly provide you with bags. Enjoy the company of others and don't forget to have fun :)
All good points. Hopefully part 3 will help all of this
@@DefcampMelderonTV
is part 3 coming out soon?
To be fair you should never be attacking a mob 3 or more levels higehr than you, EXCEPT for when playing in a group. It's simply unefficient.
I don't see why elemental would be worse just cus of going OOM btw. If you burn through your mana in say 20 seconds, you will have uninterrupted spirit-regen for all the remainder of the fight, whilst you are still able to AA mobs w your wep-enh. When mana is up a bit, you can go ham with the rest of your mana. I really don't see how AA'ing would a big drop-off just cus of being elemental - Enhancement dont have THAT much dmg-enhancing abilities anyway.
I'd actually call the playstyle of enhancement a weakness in group settings - They aren't as efficient in front-loading damage as ele, so they'll generally be doing a medium amount of damage, and still being oom by the end of the fight due to not being able to efficiently use mid-combat mp5 (and if you are, ele should be superior anyway).
I'm atm leveling an elesham in coop with my brother playing a warrior, and I'm gearing predominantly spirit as to regen more after frontloading and while Earthbind kiting.
I feel this is a very strong build both solo and coop thus far (lvl 21 now).
So why did you do so much good research with the awesome weapon buffs vid, but then you didnt include frostbrand in any of these tests despite seeing promise on the weapon buffs video?
Because this is much older
Also, this is getting replaced before launch
the dodge is better than the added armor talent?
In which scenario? For leveling, I'd say so, especially if you are 2H
@@DefcampMelderonTV i was just thinking the armor was a constant reduction where as the dodge or parry is just a %.
@@konphlicted8933 the issue is is that you have to put in 4 points before you get to flurry and armor isn't an option at that point
@@DefcampMelderonTV ok thx
What about DW? What is the speed of that since it's a common build.
There's no DW in vanilla
You can't dual wield as a shaman in vanilla?
@@dyseskytten1 no, sir
Elemental forever!
7:10 and this, my friend is what makes your test somewhat obsolete.
Kiting and mobility is huge aspect of Enhancement build, when you don't need to stop casting, but you can move to next mob while killing the other.
Ele would have killed even faster, but if you did the same setup you did every time in your last video -- you're doing it so wrong.
The end all fastest way to do ele is only cast lightning bolt. That's it. No totems, no lightning shield, just lightnign bolt (and if you have ele mastery I guess with chain lightning) Its the most mana efficient spell and does the most dps. Just cast lightning bolt 5-6 times per mob, they will die faster and you will have more mana.
A for effort.
Yup, that's for catching that. It will be in part 3. Working on it as we speak
I didn't mean disrpect, but if you've gone the effort to crunch numbers into graphs i'd figured you notice something as simple. Its easier to just face tank mobs until they have less life than 1 lightning bolt worth of damage left and just fniish them off with melee. You should be able to down 5-6 mobs in a row with an average of 5-6 (10-12 second) casts in a row. If you get a lucky chain of crits or clear casting, even faster. At that point, your melee weapon only matter for quickly finishing off mobs iwth >10% of their life remaining.@@DefcampMelderonTV
@@mwhighlander no disrespect taken. I appreciate the input. I'm working into the next guide exactly like as you said. Hopefully, it's a bit more clear
At that stage you may as well play mage ;p
Elemental 100% for world pvp.
just watched both videos and there is one glaring issue with everything you have done in the videos, you are attacking mobs that are just above greys. Fight some Yellow mobs and do all your # crunching again.
I'd check out the advanced shaman leveling guide. This are out of date
So Dagger+FlameT is not the best. cool
Larz It is the best, he didn't set up the talents and gear correctly for that spec...
Hal shot first please elaborate
I think in Light's Hope they have normalized speed with flametongue. So fast daggers with FT are not better than 1H maces for instance
Defcamp & Melderon TV actually, you dont use daggers with damage proc chance like gut ripper, with ft and LS it gives much more cons. damage for you
racist jokes in chat at 3:47
Dafuq are these recommended videos on the right???
lol you are right only colourful kids videos. WTF?
WHY ARE YOU USING ROCKBITER WEAPON AT LEVEL 55 WTF
Joana's guide is pure garbage because it is made for a server with 1k or less pop and at with all quests in the game at patch 1.12 witch most private servers (and probably classic wow) will not support at launch. Dont get into this trap of a guide witch was probably made from the hunter's point of view. The explanation of the quests and pathing is very well done but it doesnt include the pvp factor of the game. (inb4 "i play on pve serverrs") Also the dungeon quests are missing witch supports what i think that this is a fast lvling guide for hunters.
do you really pretend like you made these graphs and tested everything? lmao sad
I think its sad to think that I didn't, personally. But to each their own. Thanks for the view regardless.