Shaman builds
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Talent builds require patch version testing info!
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This article is a guide on shaman builds. As a hybrid class, shamans can adapt to a wide variety of tasks. The three talent trees each result in a rather different game experience.
Contents
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Talent trees By purpose
Leveling/Solo PvE
- Enhancement
It's the designers stated intent that the Enhancement tree is the intended leveling spec for Shamans. It combines little to no down time and high damage output. The important spells and abilities are Windfury Weapon, dual-wielding, Stormstrike, and Lava Lash. The drawback of this spec is the amount of damage your character will take due to the close-in melee style combat. At higher levels, Maelstrom Weapon allows regular instant heals, which remedies this problem greatly.
- Elemental
As the ranged DPS tree, Elemental can also be used for leveling. It's much safer since mobs are usually seriously damaged, (or even dead), before they can hurt the Shaman. However, this particular tree requires a rather large mana pool and thus leads to higher downtime.
- Restoration
For the purpose of leveling or solo PvE, Restoration is a rather poor choice. The tree offers next to no enhancements to damage output and therefore killing mobs takes a very long time. The extreme survivability granted by the Restoration tree is offset by the lack of your ability to deal damage. While it is possible for Resto Shamans to solo mobs nobody else can kill, it is not a practical means to level if it takes 10 minutes or more to kill an elite two levels higher then you. Going Restoration is useful when leveling in a group environment (with many instances), but even when healing a lot, a hybrid Elemental/Resto spec is better overall than pure Resto.
Group/Raid PvE
- Restoration
Healing was the traditional role for Shamans in all groups or raids. Over the years, the other specs have become viable too, but Restoration is still a very well liked specialization for raiding Shamans. Since 3.0.1, healing Shamans even got an interesting spell rotation (since 2.0 it had been mostly Chain Heal spam). At least one Earth Shield is still wanted by every raid.
- Elemental
Elemental is also a wide supporter of groups and raids while also contributing major burst DPS. Other spell casters, especially Fire Mages, Boomkins, Destro Locks, and incredibly enough, Holy Paladins all benefit greatly from your presence. These classes depend on spell crit just like Elemental Shaman, and they give it out in total of 8%, 5% from Elemental Oath and 3% from Totem of Wrath. These talents are only available to Elemental Shaman, making us friends among other casters. Elemental Shaman have become a rather large tool that raids depend on for the amazing crits, but also a tool to boost the overall damage of the entire raid, since Totem of Wrath also affects melee crit as well.
- Enhancement
Enhancement Shaman are also big supporters in groups and raids. They can throw out the standard totems to boost parties and raids just like the other trees, however, thanks to Enhancing Totems, their totems buff a bit more than other Shaman. This talent is in the tier one section of the tree, so the other two trees can grab it and be just as beneficial. The main buff they give is Unleashed Rage, boosting melee DPS a considerable amount. Not as big of a supporter as the other two trees, but still packs a punch in any raid or group.
PvP
- Elemental
This tree has great potential to throw off both melee and caster opponents. Elemental Warding will fend off up to 6% damage from all sources. Astral Shift will further reduce damage if placed under one of the conditions. Thunderstorm is an amazing way to fend off melee attackers for enough time to throw in a quick heal. Finally Eye of the Storm (Talent) will help when you are trying to get a cast in when there are multiple people on you. These damage-reducing talents along with the high damage output will allow for a well-rounded PvP Shaman.
- Enhancement
This tree can be very fun to mess with people, especially when they are caught off guard. Toughness will reduce both movement-impairing effects and a good amount of damage since Enhancement Shamans do not use shields. Static Shock will allow 9 charges of your Lightning Shield, therefore reducing the times you need to refresh it during a fight. Maelstrom Weapon will allow you to toss in some extra damage or a heal at a reduced- or no-cast time. Finally, Feral Spirit will make you much more intimidating. These wolves are your pets and are affected by Bloodlust. Jumping an enemy by surprise with both wolves, Bloodlust, and some high damage output with Windfury Weapon and both instant-strike attacks will make many enemies feel very helpless and intimidated.
- Restoration
This tree definitely needs some work in order to fully understand how to use it in smaller PvP situations. In large battlegrounds, you would just heal a DPS to keep them up while running through opponents. However, solo PvP can be slightly less fun as little damage output makes you a vulnerable target to any DPS. Tidal Force will allow your next three heals to have a higher crit chance, allowing bigger heals when you need them. Nature's Swiftness will become your best friend when you have little to no health remaining and need that quick heal. Focused Mind will reduce many silence and interrupt effects that will be used against you. Nature's Guardian doesn't seem like much, but it procs more often then you would think, helping you to toss in another heal before getting killed. Earth Shield will more commonly be placed on you as it will help keep you alive. Finally, Riptide is our instant-cast spell that will automatically heal us and place a HoT on our target, increasing survivability a lot more. This tree can be pretty hard to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, no one can stand in your way.
Talent builds
Elemental
Elemental Solo PVE (57/14/0)
| Purpose | Solo |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.1 |
This build focuses on high damage output and mana efficiency. After you get Lava Burst at lvl 75, rotation will be Lightning Bolt -> Flame Shock -> Lava Burst -> Thunderstorm (if not in cooldown) -> Frost Shock. Points can be shifted around depending on your play style.
Elemental Raiding (54/17/0)
| Purpose | Group/Raiding |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | ??? |
This build focuses on high damage output and more group utility. Shamans are becoming more of a group/raid tool for the Elemental-only buffs they give to casters. This spec also grabs Elemental Warding to reduce damage being done to you by raid mobs. On raid bosses, 17% (446 Hit Rating) total hit percentage is needed to never miss with a spell. With Elemental Precision, that drops it to 14% (368 Hit Rating, 289 with Misery or Improved Faerie Fire debuff) needed from gear.
Points can be shifted around depending on your play style.
Elemental Warding is highly recommended over some of the other talents that were not chosen due to its priority to survivability in raid boss fights that require resist gear and do a good amount of damage with spells. If you wanted to sacrifice these points for something more viable before raid fights, Elemental Reach can be taken along with a few other talents in Enhancement
Here are some specs to further expand upon the versatility in Elemental Shaman speccing expressed by the above author. I should also note here that Draenei Shamans will only need 13% (342 Hit Rating) from gear due to Heroic Presence with Elemental Precision maxed out.
Elemental Raiding (57/14/0)
| Purpose | Group/Raiding |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.2 |
57/14/0(Updated for 3.2)
This build is all about crit and spell power(and obviously hit or you would never hit anything). (It's slightly similar to the one above.) There isn't much in there for MP5 because your Water Shield should handle most of that. I use this spec on my Shaman (Junn of Rexxar) but he has 500+ MP5. Get your crit up to at least 20%, and you should keep on critting for about 5 or 10 seconds. The Glyphs that should be used are Glyph of Lightning Bolt, Glyph of Lava, and Glyph of Flame Shock. It really doesn't matter what you use for the minor ones though. Good luck shamans!
This spec is designed to maximize a Flame Shock, Lava Burst, and Lightning Bolt rotation while still remaining mana efficient and being mindful of survivability. It has the stock Lightning Bolt enhancements we all know and love, plus Call of Flame, Lava Flows, and Storm, Earth and Fire to enhance Flame Shock and Lava Burst. In addition, Elemental Weapons was included for more spell power overall, and Shamanistic Focus and Totemic Focus for added mana efficiency. These talents with Glyph of Lava, Glyph of Flame Shock, and Glyph of Flametongue Weapon make for an effective DPS build, while remaining survivable through the increased range of the spec and the minimal 4% off some incoming damage from Elemental Warding.
This spec is a level-80 version of the old level-70 Lightning Bolt spam rig. The 10 points spent between Tidal Focus, Improved Healing Wave, and Improved Reincarnation can be shifted around to meet one's own personal play style. Also 2 points from Lightning Overload or Elemental Oath can be shifted around, possibly to Thundering Strikes to increase static crit rate (though I would only suggest removing the points in Elemental Oath if you have another Elemental Shaman in group that has it.) This spec also allows you to act as a spot healer in a pinch, though you will burn through mana fairly quickly.
An added note for any Elemental Shaman, adding Chain Lightning into any spell rotation will increase your DPS, but at the cost of mana efficiency. Before adding this spell to a rotation you should make sure your mana pool and regen can handle the strain it causes. Being OOM 2 minutes into a boss fight is not a good thing, no matter how high your DPS was for those 2 minutes.
(Untested)(Made by: Wowwiki User: Graceland7. Wow char: Graceland. Server: Runetotem. Alliance.)
- [http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#hEhcq0dItGfzAo0xxco:kIMmMo I may have the worst of the worst gear, but this spec seems to be the most damage output, specializing in all around raid DPS, not just boss fights. the talents (except one in reverb) that reduce the cooldown of your shocks are either to ensure that all enemy players have your shock, or if it is resisted/misses etc. the other two points in there are completely optional, and i am still looking for better spots for those two. i hit 2k DPS, when certain mods state that my max DPS is about 2200. the rotation i use is: lightning bolt (LB)-> flame shock (FS)-> Lava Burst (LAB)-> Chain Ligtning (CL)->LB->CL->FS->LAB->CL->LB->LB->CL->LAB->CL->FS repeats... essentially use LB every chance you get, and every time you do follow up with a chain lightning... use a chain lightning after 2 other casts, i have noticed it is up pretty much as soon as i cast a second attack, including (with about one second of wait time) flame shock. with more crit, hit, and spellpower, i believe this spec could easily be top 10 in 25 mans, and not by default
- If ANYONE has an upgrade to it, PLEASE post it ASAP, but please leave my spec as it is :) especially if it is with the two points. and you can look me up, as Nebnarian on Draka server
PvP
Elemental PvP (53/18/0)
| Purpose | Solo |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.2.0 |
53/18/0 Grabbing all the damage-reducing talents in this tree will make you a lot more durable in both big and small battlegrounds. PvP situations can differ depending on what other classes you could face. Some situational talents are deferred like Lightning Overload and Totem of Wrath because, to get the most out of them, you need to be constantly casting. This usually is not possible, especially when there is a melee class preventing most of your spell casts. Your best bet is to Frost Shock and Earthbind Totem to kite away from them in order to pull out a few extra spells. Ranged and casters are more likely to be played closer as you can interrupt them better and also prevent them from kiting you.
- With the changes to shaman in patch 3.2, placing points in Improved Fire Nova Totem are viable, as 4 totems can be placed at the same time. This works well combined with an Earthbind Totem, rooting then stunning an enemy. Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem is highly recommended for the (53/18/0) build, as are Glyph of Fire Nova Totem and Glyph of Hex, but they can be substituted with Glyph of Thunder, Glyph of Frost Shock, or Glyph of Elemental Mastery depending on style of play.
Points can be shifted around depending on your play style.
This build could benefit a little from Elemental Oath, but it is not worth pulling out points from anywhere else in order to get this talent.
Enhancement
Basic PvE Leveling (0/51/0)
| Purpose | PvE / Solo |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.3 |
This is a build for maximizing DPS and minimizing downtime. It allows for flexibility based on play style, since an enhance shaman is very flexible. The instant cast Ghost Wolf, along with Glyph of Ghost Wolf and an Earthbind Totem or a Stoneskin Totem drop, allow for an extra "panic-button" combination to limit your deaths when things do go wrong. 5 points into Maelstrom Weapon get you either an instant cast Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning to burst down the mobs quicker, or an instant cast Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave or Chain Heal when things go wrong. The Unleashed Rage will proc every fight at least once, with the high critical strike rating on shaman gear, the increased crit from Thundering Strikes, and the Dual Wield talent (since you attack more and each attack has a chance to crit). The extra attack power, along with Mental Quickness, allows for larger heals and larger damage from shocks and instant casts from the Maelstrom Weapon. You'll experience minimum downtime and fast mob kills.
The Enhancing Totems talent can be traded for Static Shock. All of the totem talents are useful for leveling except Guardian Totems. Frozen Power, while it does allow for the extra DPS and root, is often not worth the points invested in it as Frostbrand Weapon does not scale well enough with spell power to be superior to Windfury Weapon on the main-hand and Flametongue Weapon on the off-hand, making the root not worth it just for leveling.
Enhancement leveling build samples
PvE Leveling and Raid (16/55/0)
| Purpose | PvE / Solo |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.0 |
This is the result of many talent changes, and some personal testing. With this build you will never need to stop and drink, and your spells will deal comparable damage to your melee abilities. The totems are a good investment despite what some might think, since in a leveling situation you can plant them and pull several sets of mobs to within their large range. This is also a very good raiding build. Any build that doesn't take Feral Spirit is not worth looking at. The healing Feral Spirit will give you alone makes it a great ability, especially with the limited survivability that shamans face in raids.
Solo PvE Leveling and Raid (17/51/0)
| Purpose | PvE / Solo |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.0 |
This build tweaks the above build a bit more geared towards those who like to quest solo even for the group quests. It gives you a bit burstier damage with spell crits being double damage rather than the normal 150% damage, and gives some more mitigation for those hard-hitting elites for those group quests you can never find a group for, only really sacrificing the 10% AP party boost that is really more viable in groups and raids. The 2 points in Frozen Power is for kiting those hard-hitting elites that you can't heal through such as the giants in Howling Fjord/Grizzly Hills. In a standard solo fight, these 2 points are a waste, since you'll more than likely be using either Flametongue Weapon or Windfury Weapon, and you'll more than likely be in melee range for normal fights. But, for those that you need to kite, the 100% chance to root the mob if you cast Frost Shock from further than 15 yards makes kiting that much easier when you have to worry about pulling other elites in the area. Keep in mind though that enhance shamans are melee fighters. Don't get stuck in the caster mindset.
All in all not the best spec for those who party up a lot, but fairly good for those who like to play without others' help.
Enhancement PvE raid builds
Group/Raid Build (PvE) (0/55/0)
| Purpose | PvE / Solo |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.0 |
This is the standard raiding build for an Enhancement Shaman. If you are grouped with another Enhancement Shaman with Enhancing Totems, you can shift those 3 points over to Ancestral Knowledge for slight boost in Intellect. If you party with a DK with Imp Icy Talons, those 2 can be shifted to Toughness for the extra stamina, or for talents in the elemental tree such as Convection or Reverberation although the later is normally reserved for PvP.
Enhancement PvE Raid build samples
Group/Raid Build (PvE) (16/55/0)
| Purpose | PvE / Solo |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.0 |
The two points in Call of Flame can be shifted to Elemental Warding if survivability is an issue, although it's normally considered a PvP skill.
Points can be shifted around depending on your play style and raid makeup.
Again, depending on your raid progression, Elemental Warding could help a ton in bigger advanced raids. If you are still in parties and raids where resist gear isn't an issue yet, you could toss them around for Improved Shields or something as relevant.
Enhancement PvP builds
PvP (0/51/0)
| Purpose | PvP |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.3 |
This is a standard PvP build that covers most of the PvP highlights in this tree. Improved Ghost Wolf will enable quick getaways in order to heal up or when threatened with danger. Earthen Power is an amazing utility that will enable any quick getaway with Ghost Wolf combined and makes it easier to kill those pesky plate wearers. Finally, Feral Spirit will not only heal you as your wolves do damage, but they can really annoy any caster trying to mess with you and are supurb for stopping ganks.
PvP (19/38/0)
| Purpose | PvP |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.0 |
This build sacrifices damage from Enhancement and provides more disable effects from the Elemental Tree, also providing for more possibility to root with Frozen Power
Enhacement PvP build samples
PvP (12/59/0)
| Purpose | PvP |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.3 |
This build is not set in stone. There are a few controversial talents that were both taken up, and also abandoned. Anticipation and Toughness could be considered, but Anticipation just isn't worth the points; and Toughness doesn't do enough damage reduction; and, with the help of Earthen Power, it isn't really needed. There is also the idea of going into the Resto tree to pick up Improved Healing Wave when you need to get away and make a quick, efficient heal. Again, it all depends on your play style.
PvP (12/59/0)
| Purpose | PvP |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.3 |
You should get the point now of what works in PvP with this type of build.
PvP (19/52/0)
| Purpose | PvP |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.3 |
This PvP build does away with the PvE totem talents and includes talents that improve PvP totems and shocking. Reverberation will allow for more frequent spell interrupts and snares. Elemental Warding is a solid damage reducing talent and Improved Fire Nova Totem can be quite effective, especially in large scale PvP. Although stacking crit will negate your opponents resilience, Unleashed Rage still loses much of its potency due to it being a proc on critical hit, which tends to benefit only the player in many cases. Static Shock seems lackluster, since reapplying Lightning Shield is a minor grievance and the added damage is insignificant.
Restoration
- Current top end-game raiding specs
The Chain Healer (0/16/55)
| Purpose | optimized for raid healing with chain heal |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.0 |
Shamans are usually assigned to heal the raid; that happens because that is what Shamans do best. This spec is optimized for raid healing with Chain Heal. You should have haste-based gear to be an excellent raid healer. Post-Naxxramas 25, you should have about 500+ haste, and with tier 8 set bonus you will get 0.2 seconds reduction on Chain Heal cast time, making Chain Heal a very good reason for a raid healer to choose a Shaman. To use this build, you should have 3 Riptides always ticking in your raid mates and, as soon as an AoE damage situation occurs, spam Chain Heal and top everyone up. In the meanwhile, you can help healing everyone with Lesser Healing Wave, but remember to keep your Water Shield and Earth Shield up.
The Raid Healer (0/16/55)
| Purpose | optimized for general raid healing |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.0 |
Despite Chain Heal being our most characteristic spell, some very good Shamans state that, while you don't have the tier-8 set bonus, Shaman AoE healing with Chain Heal is not as effective as healing with Lesser Healing Wave + Riptide. In 25-man raids, it's still not clear what is the best because very few Shamans have more than 2 tier-8 pieces, and it's not clear what technique heals more. But in 10-man raids, it's much more effective to heal with Lesser Healing Wave + Riptide. To heal with LHW + Rriptide, you just have to use Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave instead of Glyph of Chain Heal, use your Riptide to get the speed boost on LHW, and top everyone up. In some situations, Chain Heal is much superior to LHW, especially if cast before the damage occurs, which leads to the option of putting 2 points in Improved Chain Heal. To heal with Lesser Healing Wave, you should have crit-based gear.
The Tank Healer (0/15/56)
| Purpose | optimized for tank healing |
| Talent Link(s) | Wowhead |
| Tested patch | 3.1.0 |
We Shamans should not be full-time tank healers. We can heal a tank quite efficiently, but that's by far not what we do best. Gear up for critical strike with this build, keep Riptide up on the tank, and use it for faster casts. Healing Wave consumes much mana, so use LHW more often and be sure to /stopcast if you need to to save mana and you are 100% sure the tank won't take damage. Remember to keep your mana shield up all the time and you should do fine, but never as fine as a Paladin of course. Use this build ONLY if you will be a full-time tank healer, which I do not advise any raid leader assigning a Shaman to do.
- Leveling
As stated before, Restoration is the road less traveled when it comes to leveling. If you were interested in instance leveling, then just follow the PvE- or PvP-talent build. You might want to go with the talent build that matches your server type.
Points can be shifted around depending on your play style.
This could be the only place you might see a viable hybrid class. When you level, you could put close to even points in Resto and Elemental so you get some damage increasing talents along with making you a viable healer if ever needed.
Many people find leveling a Restoration Shaman tedious and slow because they sacrifice a lot of DPS for an increase in healing. A costly solution to this is to use an Elemental build for solo questing, and a Restoration build when grouping up for 5-man instances. Another solution might be to choose one of the Elemental/Restoration hybrids to draw synergies from the spell power you already possess as a Restoration Shaman (this applies only to players going from 70 to 80). For a starting Shaman, leveling with an exclusive Resto build from level 10 on up is no easy feat. If you decide to do so, you should consider the following build. The build will aim for good healing capabilities in 5-man instances but also get some talents that will help your leveling. One solution is to use a hybrid build (26/8/37) like this suggestion for leveling/instancing or lvl-80 questing and instancing. There is a fair bit of freedom in the Resto tree; and this is a good build for MP5, so it could probably be used as an off healer/DPS for raids.
Shaman elder (level 70 - 79)
Build
Back in the old world, yet on a new continent, we continue in the Enhancement tree with Elemental Weapons 3/3. Returning now to the Restoration to flesh out the last details with another 2 points in Totemic Focus 4/5, and filling in the missing points in Improved Water Shield 3/3 and Healing Grace 3/3. We are rounding it all off with Ancestral Awakening 3/3.
The Patriach/Matriarch (level 80)
Your end result should look something like this. Depending on if you put your points in Healing Focus (Shaman talent) or Healing Grace you might have to respec. Take into consideration how often you gain aggro in groups before you decide how many points you want to spend on Healing Grace. If you don't know the group or tank you are healing, some aggro reduction might be in order. Regardless of how often are you getting pounded while healing out in the wild, you shouldn't pick Healing Focus (Shaman talent) with 5-man runs in mind; it's primarily a solo talent, leaning towards PvP.
This build maximizes healing, crit, and mana regen at the cost of aggro reduction. 0/16/55. If you have problems with aggro, this build isn't ideal.
Elemental (0 points)
None
Enhancement (13 points)
2/3 Enhancing Totems 5/5 Ancestral Knowledge 3/3 Improved Shields 3/3 Elemental Weapons
Restoration (58 points)
5/5 Improved Healing Wave 4/5 Totemic Focus or 4/5 Tidal Focus (or a combination) 3/3 Ancestral Healing 3/3 Improved Water Shield 1/1 Tidal Force 3/3 Healing Grace 5/5 Restorative Totems 5/5 Tidal Mastery 3/3 Healing Way 1/1 Nature's Swiftness 5/5 Purification 1/1 Mana Tide Totem 2/2 Blessing of the Eternals 2/2 Improved Chain Heal 3/3 Nature's Blessing 3/3 Ancestral Awakening 1/1 Earth Shield 2/2 Improved Earth Shield 5/5 Tidal Waves 1/1 Riptide
Resto PvP
I don't know how people feel about Resto Shamans in PvP, but they certainly do their job as a healing class. Rather than most healers that try and get the killing blow, I know my place in a battleground, which is to keep people alive. (Funny enough, I get more honor from healing than I do from DPS.)
So here is my build for a PvP Resto Shaman (0/20/51) [1]
Raiding (PVE)
Standard Raid healing
This build (patch 3.1.2) offers a 14% increase in crit with all spells (Thundering Strikes, Tidal Mastery, and Blessing of the Eternals) which allows Ancestral Healing, Improved Water Shield, and Ancestral Awakening to proc fairly often. Keeping Earth Shield on the tank and Water Shield on you are always important, but with this build there is no benefit from Improved Shields so they have to be up at all times. I have had mana issues with this build before, but now I have over 150 more MP5. [Shamanistic Focus] is added for either when you manage to pull aggro or your getting put on interrupting it will save a large chunk of mana. This does not include full [Tidal Focus]; its points are spent in favor of Shamanistic Focus.
Chain Healing / Improved Shields / Crit
This Build gives you all the good talents for Shields and Chain Healing. Also adds a lot of crit, enough not to need the Tidal Force talent. Also I skipped Healing Grace as most tanks generate huge amounts of aggro. Healing Way and Improved Healing Wave are useless talents because if you're allocated to healing the main tank something is wrong with your raid setup. The best way to heal with this build is to keep Chain Healing when necessary, and keep the Riptide for instant heals before a Chain Heal on a target getting too much damage. You can use Lesser Heal to heal fast also; and, with the Ancestral Awakening and the amounts of crit, you should heal one extra target, too. Best practice is to heal the Earth Shield target and have the glyph [2] for the extra 20% increased Lesser Healing Wave on target affected by Earth Shield.
Healing Wave / Crit
Another good build is this one. This is mostly oriented towards heroics. The Healing Way talent plus Improved Healing Wave allows the caster to use Healing Wave on the tank; and, with the Glyph of Healing Wave, heal himself while healing tank (or other member of party). You will use Riptide (to shorten Healing Wave time), then Healing Wave on the tank or member in hard times. Also the Tidal Forces makes it even better because with crits you can heal yourself with big heals and trigger Ancestral Awakening. This will make all heals from Shaman viable: Healing Wave for big trouble on single target, Riptide for shortening that heal and added as an instant in between, Lesser to heal an off-party up while still doing Healing Wave, and Chain Healing if more members are in same spot and more AoE (not so much single-target damage).
Elemental Raid DPS
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This article or section contains information that is out-of-date.
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This build is centered around talents to maximize personal single-target damage output while keeping up necessary raid buffs. Elemental Weapons is taken over Enhancing Totems, as a Death knight will generally overwrite it with Horn of Winter; and Totem of Wrath should be used instead of Flametongue Totem. Call of Flame and Storm, Earth and Fire are taken to increase your Lava Burst and boost the DoT portion of your Flame Shock.
Points have been taken out of Improved Shields as mana is rarely an issue with Replenishment and Mana Spring Totem. Instead, Elemental Reach is taken, which is often useful in many boss situations. However, if you find yourself having mana issues while keeping Water Shield and Mana Spring Totem active and using Thunderstorm proactively, then feel free to drop Elemental Reach for the former talents.
Convection remains at 2/5 as points spent in Elemental Warding actually provide benefit, assuming there are no mana problems. If there are mana issues, another option is to take 3 points out of Eye of the Storm (talent) to place into Convection.
Glyphs are Glyph of Lava, Glyph of Lightning Bolt, and Glyph of Flame Shock to maximize damage and efficiency of Lava Burst and boosting Lightning bolt.
Here is another build that may be considered useful. This is more of a build for solid damage and a sufficient leveling build. This also spreads out to other trees to get a few very beneficial talents, including Improved Reincarnation which is probably the talent that best reduce down time a Shaman can use. You go down a solid, maximum-ranked 51 points into Elemental, of which the points are well spent for good DPS and a useful Lightning Overload proc.
Hybrid builds
The term "hybrid build" means spending the same amount of points in two or all three trees. The problem with this is that you lose the punch of all three of the builds if you do not fully invest 51 or more points into one tree. To distribute 20 or more points in all three trees will make you a viable jump-around class for DPS or healing, however you will not be as viable as a Shaman that has at least 51 points in the tree.
A three-tree build for Shaman is never a viable choice.
- Elemental Shaman will go to the Enhancement Tree for Thundering Strikes and Shamanistic Focus.
- Enhancement Shaman will go to the Elemental Tree for Elemental Devastation and Elemental Focus.
- Resto will also go to the Enhancement tree for Thundering Strikes and Improved Shields.
A real hybrid spec, this one is used for spell DPS, gains from dual welding Flametongue, Mental Quickness, Mental Dexterity, and Shamanistic Focus from Enhance, and can result in very large amounts of spell damage when stacking intellect gear. (Note: as of patch 3.0.8, Blizzard is reworking Mental Quickness to only gain from agi rather than all AP so this spec loses most of its raid usefulness.)
One of the main reasons hybrid builds will never be viable DPS or healers is due to gear. Mail gear is split into spell-damage and melee-damage stats. To get an equal type of stats (for example, half of your gear is spell power and the other is attack power) for two trees will make you a weaker version of both of the two trees. You are basically not putting forth the power that you could if you just specced into one tree and pulled a few points from the other tree.
Elemental/Resto hybrid
A build made for leveling and not much else, though I can imagine it would be usable for other purposes due to the focus on mana regeneration. Caster DPS talents along with some healing ones from the Resto tree to make both questing and instance healing pretty easy on your way to 80. This should not be considered a fast leveling spec; it's for those of us who want to heal dungeons and still want to solo a lot. The gear you will need for this is of course pure spell power mail and a lot of intellect.
Pre-WotLK (3.0.2) patch
For older builds, see Shaman builds: Pre-WotLK
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