I'm sure alot of alliance out there are wondering how to level up a shaman as we're wondering how to level up a paladin. With the dubious credentials of alot of guides out there I thought it might be a good idea for high end players to swap strategies here.
Here is how I'd level up a shaman. This is assuming soloing with a moderate level of twinking, a new blue weapon every 5 levels or so, something like that. First off you'll head straight for two handed weapon which will allow you to use whatever the latest and greatest weapon is, although remember weapon speed doesn't really matter for shamans. Next I would hop over to restoration to grab healing focus, I find its actually fairly rare that you use nature's swiftness against non elites so you don't need to go that far but you'll definetly want to be able to heal in combat if you have to. Back to enhancement for the rest of the way picking up some efficiency.
Try to burst your spells as much as possible, the key is to try to keep your spirit regen going. Something like lighting shield, shock, searing totem, heal, heal, lightning shield then let your melee and spirit take over again.
Once you hit 60 if you start grouping or get geared up you'll probably want to respec. A shaman with access to AQ set armour can churn through non elites with a mostly elemental build: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...50000000000000
How would you level a paladin? Grabbing seal of command, holy light and then heading down the retribution tree seems like the general way to go.
How would you level a paladin? Grabbing seal of command, holy light and then heading down the retribution tree seems like the general way to go.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent-bc=sZZVbhtbfhVuV is probably the best build from a strict soloing quest/grind perspective. After grabbing 40 in Ret you can go for precision or some of the Holy talents. Spiritual focus is pretty overrated since between two shields every 5min you have enough escapes barring reckless drunk behavior(ie, me) and imp. might doesn't add enough AP to be worth the investment. You can always activate your concentration aura midswing if it gets hairy. Ret aura is always more dps than sanctity aura, talented or not. You'll have plenty of surplus mana so you might as well go judge-happy to proc vengeance more often with fanactisim and benediction synergy unless you like grinding with the autoattack, alt-tab, do classwork method (me again). Also I've mainhealed every sub-raid instance as full Ret with the right gear, so it's not a large handicap.
Porcupine grinding with holy shield, reckoning and BoSanc sucks in practice.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that at 64 or so instance runs and group quests will be more beneficial due to the rewards if not the xp. At that point you can happily respec into 31 Holy while keeping SoC. Chances are you'll be sick of body pulling everything by then anyway.
Edit: Wowhead has clickthrough ads now, apparently. Oh, how the mighty hath fallen.
If you're going to solo, go for spiritual focus (by way of divine int), then for seal of command (don't bother imp BoM). Here I'd suggest to go back to holy for divine favor (greatly reduces downtime while solo grinding) and dump the rest into ret after, or you could just dump the rest into ret now. You want to pick up as much passive damage as possible - conviction, 2h spec, sanc aura, vengeance and all those new talents. Don't bother with e4e.
Some people aoe grind with a heavy prot build focusing on a lot of reflected damage (think reactive disk). I never done anything like that, but it could be quite effective.
edit: Seal of command likes slow weapons.
Decent plan for weapons would look like this:
1-20 Get to 20, nothing stands out as a really awesome weapon at 10, and you'll level out of it too fast anyways.
20-37 I don't know how they're going to change the quest for horde, but we have a quest here for an uber weapon - Verigan's Fist, you can get it at 20 the earliest.
37-43 Ravager from sm armory
43-51 Executioner's Cleaver for something you can buy. Ideally would have to go with Rockpounder. Cleaver's better than Kang imo.
51-59 This is where ideally you'd go with Ice Barbed Spear. I don't know if AV is going to make it to the expansion. There's always things like Destiny.
59+ Something easy to get would be Doomulus Prime. You can buy a Crystal Spiked Maul - but those are usually rediculously expensive. Ofcourse at that point you can always blackmail the rest of your guild into running something ancient like BWL and pick up any weapon that drops there for a huge upgrade on whatever else I could come up with here.
I disagree with needing spirtual focus. It is handy being about to heal, but the only time I needed to heal as a Pally while getting hit on was in PvP and attacking multiple targets.
I would go with Saramin's listed build. You start fights by judging something (Crusader, Wisdom, or Light), then start up Command. Wack for a bit, then stun, judge, reseal, repeating the judge/seal every 8 seconds.
Very simlar to a Shaman, you want to be in the 5 sec rule, so you burst your spells. Focus on Str/stam then some agilty gear.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
Relating to the shaman post what do you think would be more effective. Putting on all enh gear while leveling in a enh spec or putting on a 2h with mp5 gear on (think earthshatter) while specced Enh?
One thing to consider as a horde paladin once you get into your 40's is their will be very few warriors, so if your looking to do instances a 15 points in protection to get some gains in tanking may be worth it.
I messed around a bit on the test server (before the shammy respec patch) and found that "eye of the storm" reduced the need for "healing focus". This implies a enh/elem build is probably the best to me. Even if not, I'd say that "tidal focus" beats "improved healing wave" for leveling - if it's in combat LHW is probably better even if you have focus and if its out the extra .5 sec doesn't matter. If you are going to level with resto, I would recommend starting with enhance, and respecing when you have enough levels for decent talents, maybe level 24 when you can grab healing focus.
One thing to consider for a shaman is grabbing a huge damage 2hander and grinding on mobs -2 levels or so is key as any time you proc windfury you'll pretty much one-shot them, or at least close enough that earth/frost shock will finish them off.
There are few things quite as annoying as getting a yellow/orange mob down to 10% then procing a triple-crit windfury.
Saramin is correct. For grinding, go pure Ret. As much as I like Spiritual Focus and Divine Favor, 2x5m shields takes care of any mid-fight healing you need, so they can be delayed. Also, any pre-raid healing/tanking is perfectly doable without a point in Holy/Prot (respectively).
Edit: Also, keep an upgraded slow blue 2h at all times. Speed does matter for Paladins, slower = better SoC. Research your options outside the BoE department, there are some exemplary BoP items at lower levels (Corpsemaker at 29 = broken good).
I preferred levelling my shaman (oh so many moons ago, he was my first to 60) with daggers or something equally quick. Windfury procs that are more frequent and smaller are less likely to be that "oh boy, I just wtfpwned an equal level target that had 17 HP left". Hell, I used rockbiter a fair bit to be quite honest. If your shaman is anything resembling a twink though, there is something to be said for just going elemental and riding the storm while drinking a lot. Although there is not a lot of twinkable +damage mail gear, you'll still destroy things really pretty damn fast and it saves you all the sunk points in resto for HF. Alternately, grab healing focus asap and then just drill down enhancement pretty much in whatever order you like. Do pick it up (and perhaps even Nature's Swiftness) though because frankly, it'll make life much, much easier. Nature's Guidance is obviously now a gimme for levelling I suppose, depending on what you like to grind on. Keep in mind as well that your totems really are not something you'll use much soloing as the mana-efficiency is just plain horrid on one target, so talents that improve them are not really ideal for the soloing shaman.
Cull from Casus Belli on Ayonae Ro Cull? If so, sup man. It's Zehn. <3
Anyways...
Corpsemaker is so delicious it's almost like cheating.
Yeah, other then the str totem I don't think I've used one in 44 levels. They're nice for pre-casting if you're about to try to kill an elite or something. I don't think going elemental and all out nuking would really compare to duel-wielding with rockbiter though. From 1-40, decent +dmg gear is nigh impossible to find. My mage at 40 had something like +150 dmg at the expense of having almost zero stats except for my wand and offhand.
Oh, btw, another tip. If you ever find yourself fighting a mob 4 levels above you or so and you're hitting for absolute crap, lightning shield, flametongue weapon and searing totem = gold. Flametongue will still proc even if you miss, iirc, though I'd have to log on my shaman to check and I'm in the middle of repping dreadmines to get my crappy hunter twink those crazy overpowered Cruel Barbs.
Do pick it up (and perhaps even Nature's Swiftness) though because frankly, it'll make life much, much easier.
That's what I'm saying, maybe try it out on a test relm. But I found hitting LHW when I got crit (with the help of SCT to let me know when that happened) was more then sufficient for your general grind type encounters.
Not taking those talents, and taking elemental ones instead is a pretty significant boost to your DPS. Unless the level 63 dungeons really are trying to the point where you can't heal with out the talents, I'd say non resto is probably alot faster.
Bucking the trend and leveling as elemental. Getting +9 to all spell hits right at release will make it not terribly painful at all. Getting both lightning mastery and unrelenting storm on the way to 70. We'll have to see if they do anything to lightning overload and totem of wrath before I consider giving up swiftness, even just for leveling.
I think the SF yes/no stems back from when it was a tier 1 talent, and it was in the first 16 points of any build, ever, anywhere, no matter what.
What you can do to drasticly speed up leveling time is go through Thott or the AH and find the slowest, hardest hitting 2hander. Speed is THE most important thing, and crit doesnt' really matter till Vengence. I agree that SF is overrated, and since you'll be rich just go ret ret ret and respec into it when you get to your mid 30s.
Hopefully there's a Vegian's Fist equivilant (25-27 dps weapon at 20...yes please? now?), which will massively overpower...I mean...keep you well geared through your lower 30s.
One thing that people tend to forget is that paladins are actually overpowered (vastly) in the 20s becuase of Fist/SoC, and only scale back down in the upper 30s/mid 40s. You're going to zoom through those levels so don't stress overmuch about how to. The 15-20 grind is if memory serves a real PITA, a la hunter 5-10.
A few tips:
Elites? What're those? oh, hey, more xp.
You really can survive anything, do not be ashamed to LoH.
Grinding on undead is a hair safer, but -not- faster. Exorcism and Holy Wrath are not efficent.
Get a shield, and a 1hander. Just in case.
There is no reason you can't tank, dps and heal at the same time in small (non instanced) groups.
HoJ is ridiculously strong, not really any reason not to use it every cooldown. More than dps with JoC (though there's no reason NOT to Judge the instant you HoJ, judgement is unlinked global CD), it's a guarenteed heal and nothing resists holy for squat.
BoW helps more than BoM in almost every situation, mana just matters more.
Ret aura is great, but don't be ashamed to swap to +AC. At low levels it's about the same amount as a shield, for particularly hard hitters.
SoC cannot glance.
Just some random stuff I remember from leveling a few pallies here and there, everyone else feel free to chime in. Hi2you Saramin. And Fjord for that matter (chatted once on test about ES's stat budget way back in 1.11).
Originally Posted by bartolimu
It makes me want to hit Marge Thatcher on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
Grinding on undead is a hair safer, but -not- faster. Exorcism and Holy Wrath are not efficent.
Ret aura is great, but don't be ashamed to swap to +AC. At low levels it's about the same amount as a shield, for particularly hard hitters.
I found Undead to be faster, b/c Exorsism is another spell to do dps (just don't spam it). It is about efficient as FS (1.5 damage/mana ratio).
Ret aura is nice, but I think Devo armor is better until you get Plate.
No Holy resist on mods is nice.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
how will 2 crusadered flurry axes be for my shaman for leveling, is it worth using them over a big 2 hander since i have them from a warrior alt i stopped playing. would they be effective?
Another trick to remember when leveling, especially with Shaman DW at level 40 (and even both classes at lower levels) is that you can slap Demonslaying enchants on weapons and grind demon areas with ease. Demonslaying proc stuns so it has nice synergy with SoComm as well. Of course demons can be Exorcised as well.
Something like Ashenvale -> Desolace -> (small gap here) -> Azshara -> ??
how will 2 crusadered flurry axes be for my shaman for leveling, is it worth using them over a big 2 hander since i have them from a warrior alt i stopped playing. would they be effective?
Hell yes. Two flurry axes should serve you well almost until 60.
Once you've dropped a few points into dual-wield spec, dual wielding consistently outpaces a 2h for sustained dps.
Once you've dropped a few points into dual-wield spec, dual wielding consistently outpaces a 2h for sustained dps.
I like how you're sure of that even though there are currently zero Shamans able to dual wield, and the Shaman DW talent is pure hit only. If you're restricted to weapon enchants on the main hand I don't know that dual wield will be able to out-pace a solid two-handed weapon for raw DPS. I agree Enhancement is the way to go, but early on it can be nice to go with a 1her and shield until your AC catches up well enough to tank through fights if you're untwinked. Once you hit mail AC and get that extra 10% mitigation there's no question that going shieldless is the way to go.
Originally Posted by CheshireCat
Eh, my nostalgia goggles aren't as good as they used to be.
When leveling a paladin (which was my main at the time of the EU release), I found spiritual focus to be very good. However, since you can always heal while the mob is stunned, you might first want to pick up SoC, then go spiritual focus, which lets you last longer against multiple targets and while your shield is down. Furthermore, if you can heal quicker you can resume dpsing the mob faster and need less healing. Then go deep into retribution. You might also give a preference to grinding areas and quests involving undeads since exorcism makes pulling and killing stuff much easier. Use BoM and Devotion against non caster mobs, resistance auras against caster obviously.
Once you've dropped a few points into dual-wield spec, dual wielding consistently outpaces a 2h for sustained dps.
I like how you're sure of that even though there are currently zero Shamans able to dual wield, and the Shaman DW talent is pure hit only. If you're restricted to weapon enchants on the main hand I don't know that dual wield will be able to out-pace a solid two-handed weapon for raw DPS. I agree Enhancement is the way to go, but early on it can be nice to go with a 1her and shield until your AC catches up well enough to tank through fights if you're untwinked. Once you hit mail AC and get that extra 10% mitigation there's no question that going shieldless is the way to go.
Probably because dual weild penalities hurt hard. As a shaman you probably don't have much +hit currently, so initially 2H would be best (as you'll be missing less!).
This is relative though I suppose because you have to think the type of mobs you're going to be grinding. Sure we're used to fighting level 63 mobs now and know our caps, but if we lower the level of the mobs we're fighting (greens have always been best for grinding correct? :P) then we'll find ourselves missing less, and effectively doing more DPS.
Theorycraft in its finest! :)
Also to get back to the Paladins my reason for grinding Undead was for the simple fact that Exorcism is great for pulling. Rather then running to a mob you can quickly setup in a nice spot (Blind Mary in Duskwood!) where you can basically be in range of many spawns quickly. Grinded for quite a few levels here. Not sure if it was particularly productive, but it kept me busy! ;)
Once you've dropped a few points into dual-wield spec, dual wielding consistently outpaces a 2h for sustained dps.
I like how you're sure of that even though there are currently zero Shamans able to dual wield, and the Shaman DW talent is pure hit only. If you're restricted to weapon enchants on the main hand I don't know that dual wield will be able to out-pace a solid two-handed weapon for raw DPS. I agree Enhancement is the way to go, but early on it can be nice to go with a 1her and shield until your AC catches up well enough to tank through fights if you're untwinked. Once you hit mail AC and get that extra 10% mitigation there's no question that going shieldless is the way to go.
I read that as meaning for warriors since he's a warrior.
I plan to immediately go 41 enhance, 10 resto and put further points into resto. At 70 I'll respec and get NS. With the gear I have in mind (based on what I have and what's reasonably attainable in the next three months) I should have about 700 AP, 17% to hit and a Crul'Shorukh main hand / Dragonfang Blade offhand. I anticipate duoing a lot (with either or mage or priest) and running a lot of instances with very little solo grinding.
09/09/06, 12:25 AM
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