Shaman

The shaman is a hybrid class. Thus, depending on how players choose to customize their character's talents, they can specialize in offensive spellcasting, melee damage dealing, or healing. As such, the class is considered one of the most adaptable and versatile in the game. Also, shamans can provide support to a group in the form of stationary totems, which when placed on the ground by the shaman, either provide various benefits to party members, or deal damage to enemies, the range of which is determined by the totem placed.

Background


Shamans are spiritual visionaries of tribes and clans. These gifted warriors who can see into the world of spirits and communicate with creatures invisible to eyes of normal beings. They are beset by visions of the future and use their sight to guide their people through troubled times. Although the shaman may seem wise and serene at first glance, he is a formidable foe; when angered, his wrath is as fierce as those who have a connection to Eternals or nature.

History
Shamanism has existed since the sapient races first discovered the power of the elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. On Draenor, now shattered Outland, the orcs were shamanistic; on Azeroth, trolls and tauren were shamanistic. Though shamanism on Azeroth flourished and still continues to, shamanism on Draenor was all but extinct by the time of the great crossing of the Horde into Azeroth via the Dark Portal. The greatest and yet some of the most vilified orcs were once shaman; Zuluhed the Whacked, Ner'zhul, and even Gul'dan were all previously shaman. However, Kil'jaeden, current lord over the Burning Legion, distorted the shaman's connection with their spirits in the sacred mountain of Oshu'gun, himself taking on the form of the shaman's ancestors to convince the shaman (who held much political sway in the orcish culture) that the Draenei were the enemy. The ensuing massacres upon several Draenei hunting parties offended the spirits, who eventually denied the shaman their powers.

All was set for the transition.

Cut off from their elemental powers, the former shamans turned to the more efficient and masterful powers of the Burning Legion, becoming Warlocks. Though many tried to hang onto their roots, it was impossible. Even Drek'Thar was sucked into the dark magics, though he later repented and to this day has never forgiven himself for the acceptance of the demonic corruption that plagues himself and the orc race. Ner'zhul was the warlock who created the portals from Draenor to many other worlds. The many portals ripped Draenor apart creating the ravaged land of Outland. He repented but was dragged back into the fold by Kil'jaeden who promised him an endless existence of suffering and pain if he did not serve the Legion. Ner'zhul accepted this second chance at serving the Legion and was changed into the mighty being the Lich King and currently inhabits the body of Arthas Menethil his first and most powerful of the second generation of Death knights.

Shamanism in the orcs was all but extinct until Thrall, the son of the deceased Durotan and future chieftain of the Frostwolf clan, grabbed hold of the reins of Warchief of the New Horde ushering in a new generation of shamanism, breaking the crippling lethargy of the captive orcs and outlawing the dark magic of the Burning Legion. At the time of the internment camps, a shaman was a derogatory term for someone who told fantastical and unbelievable stories. Shamanism is now at its peak though, as the New Horde itself is led by a shaman of great power in the new orcish kingdom of Durotar.

Overview
The shaman class was originally only available to three of the Horde races: tauren, orcs, and trolls. Designed as a counterpart to the Paladin, the shaman class was once unavailable to the Alliance. This was said to create much trouble in developing both classes since they needed to be balanced against each other. The release of The Burning Crusade expansion introduced the shaman to the Alliance through the draenei while the Horde gained access to the blood elf Paladin, thus making it possible for both classes to be developed independent of each other.

In dungeons and raids, shaman are the "Jack of All trades, master of none" of WoW. Many buffs provided by totems are less effective than similar buffs provided by other classes. The reasoning can be considered to be that a shaman can fill in for a group where a particular buff is missing. Shaman have an incredible amount of versatility and are a great addition to any group.

Even though many shaman buffs can be provided by other classes, sometimes to greater effectiveness, shaman are still valuable to any group. Shaman have two very useful Crowd Control spells; Hex and Bind Elemental. Additionally, shaman are the only class that can self-resurrect with Reincarnation, making them a great asset for Wipe Recovery.

Originally, shamans were supposed to be capable of tanking through the enhancement talent tree. However, their lack of heavy (plate) armor and the various changes made to their talent trees over time have phased out their tanking potential in favor of healing and damage dealing. While most shamans are capable of adequately tanking instances prior to reaching level 60, higher level areas and instances require tanks to have stronger passive defenses and damage mitigation than shaman have, despite their versatility and healing abilities.

Shaman organizations

 * Earthen Ring: A group of shamans employing all races connected to the elemental spirits, including orcs, taurens, trolls, mag'har, broken, lost ones, draenei and even a few of the Wildhammer dwarves.
 * Unnamed Draenei shaman brotherhood led by Farseer Nobundo.

Races
The shaman class can be played by the following races:

Until The Burning Crusade, the Shaman class was exclusive to Horde, as Paladins were exclusive to Alliance. As of Cataclysm, two Horde races (Tauren and Blood Elf) are able to be Paladins while two Alliance races (Draenei and Dwarfs) are able to be Shamans.

Elemental
The elemental tree focuses on the shaman's offensive spell casting ability. It decreases the mana cost and casting time of spells via talents while increasing their damage and critical strike chances.

The most important statistic for elemental is intellect, which increases spell power, mana, mana return, and critical chance. The second-most important statistic is spirit, which is converted by the Elemental Precision talent into hit rating. Elemental shaman interested in end-game play should focus on achieving a good level of Mastery and Haste while maximizing their spellpower and reaching a hit rating of 446 (420 if Draenei).

The signature ability of an elemental shaman is Thunderstorm, an AOE spell around the shaman that restores mana and knocks all nearby enemies back. It is granted to the shaman upon choosing the elemental specialization at level 10. They also receive Elemental Fury, which is a passive boost to the shaman's critical strike rate, and Shamanism, an automatic increase in the cast rate of the shaman's damage spells. Through talents, shaman receive a number of direct-damage bonuses, as well as excellent raid and party buffs through Totemic Wrath and Elemental Oath.

A fresh addition to the elemental shaman playstyle, that was earlier percieved as static, is the new Fulmination mechanic. Similar to the Maelstrom Weapon of enhancement shamans, Fulmination allows an elemental shaman to store Lightning Shield charges and then quickly release them by casting an Earth Shock to do an impressive amount of burst damage. Currently, a fulminated Earth Shock is worth casting over a Lightning Bolt at seven or more charges. This choice gives shamans versatility in their rotation and gives you the important choice of choosing when to fulminate.

The final talent of the elemental tree is the new Channeled AOE spell, Earthquake. At its base line it is very similar to Blizzard and Rain of Fire. However Earthquake also has a utility effect in being able to knock down foes caught in its area of effect, making it very versatile in both PvE and PvP settings, when used right. Combining the passive Magma Totem with Earthquake an elemental shaman can do considerable AOE damage.

Overall, elemental is the best choice for shamans who want to play a ranged damage-dealer and maximize their damage output with their spells.

Enhancement


By spending talent points in the Enhancement tree, a shaman greatly increases their melee damage output.

Signature talents of this tree include Dual Wield, giving shamans the ability to dual wield 1H-Weapons, Lava Lash, an instant attack that deals more damage if the offhand weapon is enchanted with Flametongue Weapon, Stormstrike, which allows the shaman to hit with both weapons at once and causing the target to take more critical strikes from the shaman's spells.

A signature of the enhancement shaman playstyle comes with the Maelstrom Weapon talent where a shaman's strikes have a chance of giving him a stack of Maelstrom Weapon, that at five stacks, allows the shaman to cast a number of spells as if they were an instant spell and mana-free. This makes the enhancement shaman a unique melee class that has a heavy portion of its damage come from spells. When questing, this ability is very useful because it enables Enhancement Shamans to heal themselves efficiently.

Finally, their 31 point talent, Feral Spirit allows enhancement shamans to summon a pair of immensely powerful spirit wolves which add a fair amount to the shaman's DPS while active, as well as healing the shaman with each strike (and providing some unique utility, in breaking snares, sprinting, stunning, and taunting enemies).

The playstyle of an Enhancement shaman is very active and hectic. Using the right abilities at the right time, combined with the Maelstrom Weapon proc, it's a very engaging spec to play.

Restoration
The restoration tree focuses on the shaman's healing capability, reducing the casting time and mana cost of healing spells, while increasing their effectiveness. Restoration shamans are well suited for any healing situation in the game. On top of that they offer good utility (like Mana Regeneration by Mana Tide Totem) and strong multi-target healing through Chain Heal and Healing Rain. Their signature ability is Earth Shield, which triggers heals whenever the target is damaged for a long duration. Through talents, the shaman acquires Riptide, which is an instant cast heal and a HoT.

An important mechanic of the restoration shaman is the Tidal Waves buff, granted upon casting a Riptide or a Chain Heal. This buff has initially two stacks. A single stack is consumed upon casting a Greater Healing Wave or a Healing Surge. A spent charge makes a Greater Healing Wave much faster to cast or increases the crit chance of a Healing Surge. A good management of Riptide, Chain Heal, Tidal Waves and the healing wave spells is essential for a good restoration shaman.

This tree is highly useful in PvP and group PvE, the only drawback being the rather low damage output, so solo play is more difficult. In return, a restoration shaman hardly ever dies while questing/soloing.

Restoration shamans should focus on intellect, spirit, and haste, seeking to maximize their healing output while maintaining enough mana regeneration to sustain through a fight and enough haste to cast their spells quickly.


 * See also:
 * Shaman talents
 * Shaman builds

Equipment


Shamans can initially only wear leather. At level 50, they gain Mail Specialization which makes wearing mail armor so beneficial that Shamans should from then on only wear mail items. It is not uncommon for many Shamans to take up leatherworking as a profession because there is some mail armor that can be made. Additionally, the Dragonscale Leatherworking specialization can make several mail armor items with stat bonuses that are very useful to the shaman class.

Shamans can use daggers, staves, fist weapons, and one-handed and two-handed maces and axes. They can equip shields. Post-patch 2.0, enhancement shamans can dual wield.

For shaman casters, the Turtle Scale collection available from Leatherworkers is good, other items such as the Chain of the Scarlet Crusade are better for melee shamans. Introduced in patch 4.0.1, shamans will benefit from Mail Specialization, receiving a bonus for only wearing mail armor.

There are a number of end-game gear sets for shamans to use ranging from tier 1 to tier 10. There are also sets for PvP and all these sets can be found on the Shaman sets page.

Shamans, along with Druids, Paladins, and Death Knights, do not have a traditional ranged item slot, benefiting instead from a relic item slot introduced in Patch 1.10. Shaman relics are refered to as totems, and can take the place of the Shaman's four totems as of Patch 3.0.2. Prior to Patch 4.0.1 relics enhanced class abilities, but have been changed to be more similar to ranged items, instead having stats and gem sockets.


 * See also:
 * Enhancement gear BC
 * Wrath healing equipment (mail)
 * Shaman tactics

Totems
Totems are unique to the shaman, and must be obtained by completing certain quests. Each Totem corresponds with one of four elements (Earth, Fire, Water, Wind) and only one of each elemental type can be used at a time. Once a totem is put down, it cannot be moved, but a new totem can always be summoned to replace it.

With the spell Totemic Recall (available at level 30), shamans can instantly remove all of their totems for no mana and receive 25% of the mana spent on the totems back. However, as of 2.4, shamans who have not yet reached level 30 (and therefore have not yet trained the spell 'Totemic Recall') will see "Totem Timers" below their character portraits. As with buffs, a simple right-click to the "Totem Timer" icon, and the totem will be destroyed with no mana gain.

With the new spells Call of the Elements, Call of the Ancestors and Call of the Spirits shamans have received a sorely needed tool that allows them to place four totems at once. With the three different spells, shamans can have three different sets of totems to place. This allows the shaman to have different sets for different situations where only one Global cooldown is needed to place an entire set of totems. This makes the Call-spells very powerful utility spells that are unique to the shaman playstyle.


 * See the shaman totems page for complete list of totems, and additional details.

Spells
Shaman spells include direct damage spells, heals, and weapon buffs among others. Their spells are mostly based on the elements.

Talents
Shaman talents are split into 3 categories:


 * Elemental — a tree that revolves around ranged DPS via a shaman's spellcasting capability. The 31 point talent is Earthquake, a persistent targeted AoE ability.


 * Enhancement — a tree that revolves around melee DPS via a shaman's weapon and totem enhancements while dual wielding by adding extra weapon skills. The 31 point talent is Feral Spirit, a spell that summons forth two spirit wolf pets for 30 seconds.


 * Restoration — a tree that centers on healing and cleansing abilities. The 31 point talent is Riptide, an instant cast heal with a HoT effect attached, that can be consumed to strengthen Chain Heal.

Talent builders can be found at Official Blizzard site, WoW Den's Talent Calculator, WorldofWar.se, WoW Vault, ThottBot, Merciless, Wowhead.

Shaman also are graced with Astral Recall, a spell similar to the Hearthstone, but it can only be used when out of combat, and is on a separate shorter cooldown.

Weapons



 * Maces (1-handed) (2-handed)
 * Staves (2-handed)
 * Shields (off-hand)
 * Daggers (1-handed)
 * Fist Weapons (1-handed)
 * Axes (1-handed) (2-handed)

Two Handed Maces and Axes were originally a 10-point talent (named simply Two-handed Axes and Maces) for Enhancement, but became trainable proficiencies in Patch 2.3.

Cannot use

 * Swords (1-handed or 2-handed)
 * Polearms
 * Ranged weapons (wands, bows, throwing weapons, crossbows, guns; the ranged weapon slot for shamans is replaced with a relic slot)

 Note: the inability of shamans to use ranged weapons makes the Troll's Throwing Weapon Specialization and Bow Specialization racial traits worthless for them.

End-game expectations
Totems are a major part of the end game and knowing what totems will benefit the shaman's group members best in different situations is all part of the strategy involved in playing a shaman. While the class is versatile, from Blizzard's overhaul on balancing talent specializations you will now have a much more specific role.

An elemental shaman will be expected to maximise their damage output as a ranged DPS through careful management of their Spell Power and Haste statistics, and usage of their offensive spells such as Lava Burst. They have access to Totemic Wrath, a powerful spell casting buff for raids and groups, as well as Elemental Oath, another spell casting buff.

An enhancement shaman will be expected to maximise their damage as a melee DPS by stacking Agility (And therefore Attack Power), as well as haste and critial strike rating. They have access to Unleashed Rage, a powerful melee buff that increases the attack power of raid and party members by 10%.

A restoration shaman will be expected to maximise their healing, and much like an elemental shaman requires Spell Power and Haste. They also have access to Mana Tide Totem, which is a powerful mana management tool for parties and raids.


 * Remember that the beauty of the shaman is its versatility, and even though you tend to go one way with talents, remember that you still have access to the rest of your spells and abilities. For example, an elemental shaman can still heal moderately well, and are able to support themselves in raids when healing is tight.

Wrath of the Lich King Changes


Shamans now receive one point of attack power from both strength and agility. Additionally, every point of intellect provides one attack power with the talent Mental Dexterity. Also, critical rating and spell critical rating, as well as hit rating and spell hit rating, have each been condensed into a single stat.
 * Itemization

Totems have been "condensed" into a smaller amount of totems, for example Grace of Air Totem was removed and its agility bonus was merged into Strength of Earth Totem. Totems were moved to physical school and cannot be counterspelled. Most totems now also affect raid members, not just the local party.
 * Totems

A new weapon enchantment has been added, Earthliving Weapon. It increases the healing power of the shaman. Flametongue Weapon now gives spell damage bonus to the shaman.
 * Weapon enchants

The effect of the Windfury Totem is not a weapon enchant anymore and has been changed to a buff granting melee haste.

Shamans were given Hex, a polymorph spell with a 45 second cooldown allowing them to turn an enemy into a frog. The enemy cannot cast or attack but is still in control of his character. It will last up to 10 seconds on PvP targets with diminishing returns, similar to other crowd control, or up to 30 seconds on monsters.
 * Hex

Unleashed Rage affects the raid, not just the party.
 * Unleashed Rage

Shamans now have Wind Shear, a threat-reducing spell that does no damage but has an interrupt effect, eventually replacing the interrupt mechanic of Earth Shock. It is not affected by the global cooldown and, as of patch 3.2, no longer shares a cooldown with Shock spells.
 * Wind Shear

Water Shield got moved to an earlier level and has more ranks now.
 * Water Shield

The Lava Burst spell was added at level 75 in the elemental tree.
 * Lava Burst

As of patch 3.2 the Earth Shock spell was changed from interrupting spellcasting for 2 seconds, to increasing time between attacks by 10% for 8 seconds.
 * Earth Shock

General preview
{{bluepost | poster = Nethaera | title = Cataclysm Class Preview: Shaman | date = 04/07/2010 09:00:08 AM PDT | body = In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we'll be making lots of changes and additions to class talents and abilities across the board. In this preview, you'll get an early look at some of the changes in store for the shaman class, including a rundown of some of the new spells, abilities, and talents, and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the different talent specs.

New Shaman Spells
Primal Strike (available at level 3): Primal Strike is a new weapon-based attack that every shaman will learn very early in the game. Our goal with this ability is to make leveling as Enhancement rather than as Elemental more viable, since many key Enhancement talents become available at fairly high levels.

Healing Wave (level 4): While the shaman already has an ability called Healing Wave, we're adding another spell to the class's direct-healing arsenal and giving it a familiar name. The current Healing Wave will be renamed Greater Healing Wave, and the intent is for the 'new" Healing Wave to be the shaman's go-to heal. Lesser Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave will be used on a more situational basis.

Unleash Elements (level 81): Unleashes the power of your weapon enchants for additional effects (see below). A dual-wielding Enhancement shaman will activate the effects of both of their weapon enchants. Instant cast. 30-yard range. 15-second cooldown. Undispellable.

Here are a few examples of effects we're considering for this ability:


 * Windfury Weapon – Hurls a spectral version of your weapon at a target, dealing 50% weapon damage and increasing the shaman's Haste for the next five swings.
 * Flametongue Weapon – Deals instant Fire damage and buffs the shaman's next Fire attack by 20%.
 * Earthliving Weapon – Heals the target slightly and buffs the shaman's next healing spell by 20%.

Healing Rain (level 83): An area-effect heal-over-time (HoT) spell that calls down rain in a selected area, healing all players within it. There is no limit to the number of players who can potentially be affected; however, there are diminishing returns when healing a large number of targets, much like the diminishing returns associated with AoE damage spells. This should give Restoration shaman another healing tool that improves their group-healing and heal-over-time capabilities. 2-second cast time. 30-yard range. 10-second duration. 10-second cooldown.

Spiritwalker's Grace (level 85): When this self-targeted buff is active, your spells are no longer interrupted by movement and possibly even by your own attacks. This will give shaman of all three specs another way to heal or do damage when it's necessary to move in both PvE and PvP. Instant cast. 10-second duration. 2-minute cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics
In addition to adding new spells, we're planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.


 * Restoration shaman and other healing classes will need to pay attention to mana more than they've had to during Wrath of the Lich King. Spirit will be the Restoration shaman's primary mana-regeneration stat.
 * We're making changes to which classes and specs are able to dispel magic, diseases, curses, and poison, largely for PvP purposes. Shaman will have Cleanse Spirit as a baseline ability, but it will only remove curses. Restoration shaman will have a talent that will improve Cleanse Spirit so that it also removes magic. Shaman will no longer be able to remove poison.
 * Cleansing Totem (shaman ability) will be removed from the game, as we want dispels to be a decision for players, not something done mindlessly. To that end, all dispels will cost slightly more mana, and you will waste the spell if you cast it when there is nothing to remove. (Currently, the dispel is only cast when there is something to remove, which encourages spamming 'just in case.") We will balance PvE dispelling with this new model in mind.
 * Totem of Wrath now will replace Flametongue Totem for all shaman, and dropping this totem will buff the group's spell power by 4%. Elemental shaman will have a talent that lets all Fire totems provide +10% spell power, allowing them to drop Searing Totem, Magma Totem, or Fire Elemental Totem without losing their spell-damage buff. The 4% and 10% buffs will be exclusive with each other and with the warlock's Demonic Pact, so you can't benefit from all of them at once. We're also considering letting Elemental drop Searing Totem at range.
 * We want to free up Enhancement global cooldowns to make the spec more dynamic to play. We're considering, for example, increasing the cooldown of Lava Lash so shaman have time to work other interesting abilities into their rotation.

New Talents and Talent Changes

 * Elemental Reach will be simplified so shaman have a more consistent spell range.
 * We plan to add Earthquake as a deep Elemental talent for targeted and persistent AoE.
 * Spirit Link will likely be worked back into deep Restoration in some form. The idea is that you will be able to link targets together so they share damage. When we had previously tried to implement Spirit Link, it was hard to balance and a little confusing. However, we really liked the concept -- and so did players -- so we are trying to bring it back.
 * Elemental will have a deep talent that allows Spirit (which will appear on the gear they share with Restoration shaman) to boost their Hit rating.
 * Ancestral Knowledge will boost mana pool size, not Intellect.
 * Enhancing Totems will be replaced with Focused Strikes, which will improve the damage of the new spell Primal Strike and Stormstrike.
 * With the Mastery system, we're also considering removing a number of talents that grant passive bonuses, such as Mental Quickness, Improved Windfury Totem, Mental Dexterity, Call of Thunder, Tidal Mastery, Purification, Nature's Blessing, and others, to allow players more freedom to choose more interesting talents.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

 * Elemental
 * 1) Spell damage
 * 2) Spell Crit
 * 3) Elemental Overload: Your direct-damage spells have a chance to proc a less powerful 'bonus" version of the spell. This will work much like the current Lightning Overload talent, but would also apply to Lava Burst.


 * Enhancement
 * 1) Melee damage
 * 2) Melee Haste
 * 3) Nature Damage: This will provide a passive bonus to the Nature damage dealt by the Enhancement shaman.


 * Restoration
 * 1) Healing
 * 2) Meditation: The amount of mana you regenerate in combat as a function of your Spirit.
 * 3) Deep Healing: Your direct heals will do more healing when the target's health is lower. This will scale to damage (e.g. someone at 29% health would receive more healing than someone at 30%) rather than have arbitrary break points.

Also of note, you only get one set of passive talent tree bonuses: the tree in which you’ve spent the most points. Sub-speccing in another tree will not net you those bonuses in addition.

Last but not least, it's the intention of Primal Strike to let shaman play as an Enhancement at low levels. Currently when leveling in this spec, you end up just using Lightning Bolt a lot so you feel like an Elemental shaman instead. At a higher level, Primal Strike gets replaced by Storm Strike. They share a cooldown so Enhancement just won’t ever use Primal Strike after that, in the same way that Prot warriors don’t use Sunder Armor once they have Devastate or Feral druids don’t use Claw once they get Mangle.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues. | link = http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24038611737&sid=1 }}

Note
The shaman (prestige class) was replaced with the shaman (core class) in the World of Warcraft RPG.