The following document was created to help Shaman, specifically Draenei Shaman, as they find themselves as the new class in the Alliance. It's also useful for those who are about to group with a Shaman (or two or three), to understand what role a shammy will play in your group or raid. Finally, it's definitely a good read for anyone who's just picking up the Shaman class, to give you a bit of a jump on your fellow players in knowing your place in groups and raids.
As with most of my shaman info, the credit here definitely goes to Skew, my leveling buddy who is now on his 3rd level 60 Shaman. He swore that if Shaman were ever given to the Alliance, he'd play one, and he has. His knowledge and support and love of the class have been instrumental in encouraging the same in me.
The bulk of the primer is posted after the break, so be sure to read and chime in with your thoughts on the role of a shaman.
Raiding
Shaman are a purely support group, with fantastic stacking group-only buffs, but we're sub-par at melee, tanking, casting, and healing. Being purely support, each build should be grouped with certain other players. Throw the individual-balanced-groups mindset out the window and get used to cross-healing, because with Shaman that's the most efficient use of our buffs!
Elemental Shaman - Mages and Warlocks best friend.
Totem of Wrath (fire) - Specced ability - +3% spell crit and +3% spell-hit for group
Wrath of Air (air) - +101 spell damage (not healing) for group
Mana Spring (water) - 12 mana every 2 seconds for group
Enhancement Shaman - MT group
Stoneskin Totem (earth) - reduces melee damage taken by 43
Healing Stream (water) - 18 health every 2 seconds
Windfury Totem (air) - enchants all party member's main-hand weapons with a proc where each hit has a 20% chance of granting 1 extra attack with +445 attack power. (huge agro builder)
Enhancement Shaman - physical combat group (rogue/hunter/dps war)
Strength of Earth (earth) - +86 strength to group
Healing Stream (water) - 18 health every 2 seconds
Grace of Air (air) - +77 agility to group
(can also use windfury totem depending on how many hunters vs rogues are in group.)
Resto Shaman - healer group
Mana Tide Totem (water) - Specced ability - restores 6% of total mana every 3 seconds for 12 seconds - 5 min cooldown (followed up with normal mana spring totem during cooldown)
Tranquil Air Totem (air) - reduces all threat cause by party members by 20%
5-man or mixed-groups
We found a great trick last night with a paladin healer. As you may know, when a heal lands on the paladin, they regenerate some mana, so a healing stream totem constantly regenerates mana to the paladin. We were running a 5-man instance, so constant health regen was the best choice for the group. A second shaman was also along and threw out his mana totem, so our paladin was never below 90% mana unless both shammies died.
There are two combat styles that differ with build and group makeup: "Tight" and "Divided". Enhancement Shaman will benefit from a tight close-range group, while a Resto or Elemental Shaman will benefit from a divided style. If you are a non-shaman, knowing the range of the totems around you takes some getting used to, but is imperitive towards the endgame.
Tight-Group Combat - when all 5 players are within 20 yds in combat
Drop melee-based totems close to the MT, based on whatever will give the best overall benefit to the group. Stoneskin/Strength, Windfury/Grace, and Healing Stream. Use fire totems sparingly, as they can over-agro or pull unwanted groups.
The Divided Group - when your casters/healers are 20yds away from your MT
This is a tough style to accomplish, but works well when your healers are sitting back behind the action. Drop Tranquil Air behind the casters so that its far enough from the MT to not effect them. Drop your remaining totems between the casters and the rest of the group to give them all the benefit.
Example Placement:
[Tranquil Totem]---[Casters]------[Remaining Totems]---------[Meleers]--[Boss]
It is imperative that you watch the effect of your totems. If your MT gets the Tranquil Air buff, use totemic call to release your totems to reset their placement. If the fight is a constantly moving fight, its best not to bother with Tranquil Air.
So there you have it, a short guide to playing a shaman in multi-player content, Shamans on a Raid.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
2-05-2007 @ 5:34PM
Skew said...
3rd shaman, but 10th lvl 60... I try not to think of how much time I've wasted of my life on WoW.... or money... oh god.... :)
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2-05-2007 @ 5:35PM
Audiosmith said...
As a raiding shaman dropping Stoneskin totem for the Main Tank would be rather silly as it is a severely underbuffed totem in a raid environment.
A damage reduction of 43 means nothing when a boss can hit or cleave for 2k or more.
For this situation Strength of Earth is more beneficial to your party than Stoneskin.
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2-05-2007 @ 5:42PM
dspacedog said...
Nice tips. Specially the Totem placement one. (:
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2-05-2007 @ 5:48PM
Skew said...
From my experience, an MT group on horde side for a raid is a Warrior, Shaman (for enhancement totems), Warlock (for Imp buff), and 2 healers (now one can be a pally for an aura buff, too). Strength only benefits the Warrior and Shaman for AP/Block. Now because the block chance is lower than 100%, the Stoneskin actually benefits the MT more because you are decreasing the damage taken every hit, not just those that are blocked. The strength also increased the MT's attack power, but if they're prot-specced, then dps is not their concern. Thats just my take on it, based on previous experience, anyways.
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2-05-2007 @ 5:53PM
someone said...
Don't worry about writing guides for the alliance, I have no faith in them at all. I saw a 64 ally shaman in Tek forest, hes spamming shocks losing all of his mana. He kills the mob, moves on but doesn't use totemic recall, totem argos a mob, it walks up behind him and kills him.
I don't think the alliance with their easy mode can handle player the now hardest class in the game, but hey maybe their whining will help fix the class.
P.S. #2 is right, SoE will give you a lot more than stoneskin.
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2-05-2007 @ 6:19PM
jkusters said...
Seems odd to me that a guide purported to be for "new players" focuses nearly exclusively on high-level content. It's great to learn how to play Shamans in raids and instances, but it would have also been nice to see more information for truly "new players."
JOhn.
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2-05-2007 @ 6:53PM
Jason said...
@Skew;
Regarding SoE vs Stoneskin for the MT, or even OTs, every single one I've run into prefers Stoneskin. Extra AP isn't wanted for DPS concerns; it's wanted for threat concerns. More damage translates directly into more threat. Added block damage, while nice, isn't the main point here.
As to a guide for new shaman, post #6 is right. This is pretty much for 60-70, when you're running a lot of 5 man content, and beyond that for 10/25 man raiding content.
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2-05-2007 @ 6:56PM
Jason said...
Edit by way of post
Oh, and if you think we're subpar at melee, casting, and healing(I'm not including tanking because despite some early talents in the enhancement tree, we are NOT tanks), then you either need to step up your gear and get past 60, or just l2play. I've seen well geared enhancement and elemental shaman top the DPS charts while bringing a bunch of support for the rest of the group and spot heals for the raid.
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2-05-2007 @ 7:45PM
Aphext said...
I'd probably drop Grace of Air for the main tank over windfury totem, and for the DPS group, I'd do the exact opposite. Dodge >> DPS for MT while WF totem provides more DPS than GoA.
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2-05-2007 @ 8:40PM
Das said...
I'd really like to see some number crunching on the DPS of GoA versus WF, including secondary effects of the increased crit chance (flurry for enhancement shammys and warriors, unleashed rage, etc.)
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2-05-2007 @ 8:41PM
Gorath said...
@5 I think druids are harder to play than shammy's having both of them now -- But thats just IMO, I'm loving my shammy way more than I ever liked my druid. But that 63 shaman was probably little-caring about how much he has to drink and more about how fast he can kill the mob -- Typical power leveler crap that never works unless you have the gold to burn.
As for the fight against Stoneskin or Strength of earth, it depends on the boss, how hard they hit vs. how frequently, yada yada, if it's a fast hitting boss that 43 will stack quickly from 43-86-129-172 in seconds, and can also assist the rest of the group (if in a 5-man) the clothies taking on some adds.
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2-05-2007 @ 8:53PM
twh said...
What I've been tearing my hair out for is a decent leveling build for my shaman.
I've searched over the forums, but I've yet to see one that's the equivalent of the Pally's retribution leveing spec, which now changes at 40 to protection.
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2-05-2007 @ 9:06PM
Pritchard said...
@7...a shaman topped the DPS charts...ooooooook. That's not hard to do, depending. A 70 Shammy running Scarlet Monestary with a bunch of 40s. Easy to top there. A 70 mage and a 70 shammy...equal geared. No. Way. In. Hell.
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2-05-2007 @ 9:07PM
gt said...
@6 agreed. Not only am I new to playing Shamans but rather new to the game. While some of the stuff you said is quite useful. It would be great to have one or two tips on builds while trying to level your Shaman, etc.
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2-05-2007 @ 9:45PM
Audiosmith said...
While levelling you generally want the most of your damage output to be from melee for reasons of mana conservation, so at low levels getting 2H skill is a great help.
Next step is to put some points in resto deep enough that you can heal yourself while a mob is beating on you.
Aside from that, my advice is to experiment with different talents and find out what each one does, and eventually you will be able to weigh up the pros and cons of each talent as well as learning the dynamically different play styles associated with each tree.
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2-06-2007 @ 8:58AM
Kaylek said...
Geez, you people will complain about anything! First off, a "new shaman" certainly needs info on how to perform come end-game. What do you expect, a guide on leveling a shaman 1-10? How about a couple of lightning bolts at max distance, killing with a few melee swings to save mana?
There's your "new shaman" guide. The game starts at 70, so go read the real advice above.
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2-06-2007 @ 9:04AM
Zequel said...
Re: Stoneskin or Strength of earth
Gorath is right - depends on the boss fight. If there are multiple melee damage sources (think panther fight) you can do a lot of damage reduction -especially if you stack it with pally's Greater Blessing of Sanctuary (-80 at max lvl). 80+43=123 each hit. I'd say that's substantial.
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2-06-2007 @ 9:10AM
Zequel said...
Re: @8 and @13, yep - if mages are being out-dps'd by your shaman, assuming somewhat equal gear, gkick your mages, they stink.
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2-06-2007 @ 9:12AM
Kevin said...
Nice quick little guide, and the comments about Stoneskin vs. SoE are pretty interesting too.
@#5 Thanks for the confidence and the broad sweeping comments that will most certainly apply to all alliance shaman.
@Pritchard You'd be surprised what some good gear can do. Be careful when speaking in absolutes.
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2-06-2007 @ 9:17AM
Maliboo said...
@12.
I have been leveling up my Draenei Shammy wholly in the Enhancement tree. I started off splitting points between there and Elemental, but seemed to do better with just points in Enhancement. Things definitely got much faster once I was able to pickup Dual Wield.
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