Shaman Leveling Guide

The Shaman is the Swiss Army Knife of World of Warcraft, with a totem for every situation. Although this extensive utility shines brightest in endgame group content, they have plenty of tools for leveling in the open world, with ample mobility and survivability to handle whatever Azeroth throws their way.

This guide will cover all of the essentials for leveling your Shaman from 1 to 90, including recommended builds, equipment, professions, rotation, and where to go. All that’s left for you to do is go out and zap your enemies with lightning and cackle about your unlimited power.

Strengths

• Astral Recall can be glyphed to return you to your capital city instead of the same location as your Hearthstone, which allows you to set your Hearthstone to your current questing zone.
• Plenty of mobility for getting around the open world with Ghost Wolf and Water Walking.
• Plenty of defensive abilities and the ability to heal yourself, plus the flexibility to heal in dungeons for faster queues.
• If you do die, you can use Reincarnation to pop right back up and avoid a long run back.

Weaknesses

• Positioning totems can be tricky, and they can be destroyed, preventing you from benefiting from their effects.
• Shamans have no slow fall or fall damage reduction abilities, which makes it harder to navigate zones where you can’t fly.
• You don’t have any way to stealth or drop aggro, and your pets are all on cooldowns with limited durations, so you’re mostly stuck fighting your way through any mobs that are between you and your objective.

Talent Builds

The Shaman is a hybrid class with one talent tree for healing and two devoted to dealing damage. Elemental is the ranged damage dealing specialization while Enhancement focuses on dealing damage from melee. Both are strong for leveling. Restoration is the healing specialization and is not recommended for solo questing and farming due to its limited damage output.

Talents

Because of the changes to talent trees in this expansion, all of your class’s specializations share the same set of talent options. Our recommendations are the same regardless of spec:

• Level 15: Astral Shift
  This is a strong defensive cooldown that you can use when things get messy. Stone Bulwark Totem can be just as good in the right situation. Nature’s Guardian is nice in that it’s passive so you don’t have to remember to use it, but it’s not as useful as the other two in solo content.
• Level 30: Earthgrab Totem
  Roots are much better for crowd control than slows, especially if you’re Elemental and trying to keep enemies at range. This ability is an AoE root, whereas Frozen Power only affects a single target. Windwalk Totem isn’t that useful outside of group content.
• Level 45: Totemic Projection
  You’ll be moving around a lot while you’re questing in the open world, so being able to reposition your totems with a single instant cast will make your life a lot easier. Call of the Elements is really strong in any situation where you don’t need Totemic Projection. Totemic Persistence is much more situational.
• Level 60: Echo of the Elements
  This is a passive buff to your DPS, whereas Ancestral Swiftness and Elemental Mastery are cooldowns. Passive bonuses are easier to take advantage of while leveling, whereas cooldowns must be frequently used in order to have similar value.
• Level 75: Ancestral Guidance
  None of these talents are useful for solo leveling. This one is the strongest for group content. Conductivity requires you to place Healing Rain, which is not part of your normal rotation. Rushing Streams is weak since your Healing Stream Totem is pretty weak to begin with.

Glyphs

Like talents, glyphs have been trimmed down and have a more subtle impact than they did in previous expansions. The glyphs below are our recommendations for leveling, but your mileage may vary based on your own preferences and playstyle (and what cosmetic effects you may want). Our recommendations for Shamans are the same regardless of build.

Major

• Level 25: Glyph of Flame Shock
  This glyph adds a small heal to your Flame Shock ability, which can keep you chain pulling without the need to stop and heal yourself.
• Level 50: Glyph of Lightning Shield
  This is a nice little boost to your survivability while leveling.
• Level 75:
  • Elemental: Glyph of Unstable Earth
    You’ll be able to pull larger groups of weak enemies and keep them at range while you AoE them down with your Earthquake spell.
  • Enhancement: Glyph of Spirit Walk
    You’ll be able to use your Spirit Walk ability more often, which gives you a lot of useful mobility for the open world.

Minor

• Level 25: Glyph of Astral Fixation
  Being able to have your Astral Recall take you to your capital city, while keeping your Hearthstone set elsewhere, is immensely useful while leveling.
• Level 50: Glyph of Astral Recall
  You’ll be even freer to travel from place to place with a shorter cooldown on your Astral Recall. Go ahead and turn in that one quest in a different zone – you can hop right back home afterward.
• Level 75: Glyph of the Lakestrider
  This is a nice little convenience feature so you don’t have to drop Ghost Wolf form to cast Water Walking on yourself.

Stat Priority

Always try to stack your main stat above all. For Elemental, that will be Intellect, while Enhancement Shamans will seek Agility.

Equipment

Shamans are able to equip both One-Handed and Two-Handed Axes and Maces as well as Daggers, Fist Weapons, and Staves. Enhancement Shamans can Dual Wield and will prefer to do so, using the strongest possible One-Handed weapon in each hand. Elemental and Restoration Shamans will need to use either a Staff or a One-Handed weapon with a Shield or a Held in Off-hand item. Weapon upgrades will often be the biggest damage increase while leveling. If you’re using an Heirloom weapon, it will upgrade automatically each time you level.

Shamans can equip Cloth and Leather from level 1, and they can use Mail starting at level 40. It you use Mail heirlooms, they will automatically be treated as Leather for the first 40 levels. From level 50 on, you will always want to use Mail Armor due to your Mail Specialization passive ability, which gives a 5% buff to your most important stat. Before that, feel free to wear whatever gives you the best stats. Shamans can use Shields, although Enhancement Shamans will want to use a weapon in their off-hand instead. The Relic slot is gone from the character window in Mists of Pandaria, so you won’t be able to equip any of the old class-specific Totem items anymore.

Heirlooms

Heirlooms can considerably speed up the leveling process by granting you increased experience gains and making your character a lot stronger. They’re also a lot more convenient than having to replace your gear every few levels. To get heirloom equipment for your Shaman, you’ll have to buy it on another character who has enough of an appropriate currency.

Any heirloom gear is better than nothing. If you happen to have some lying around after leveling another character, feel free to use them rather than buying new ones (as long as the stats are good for you). But these are the best pieces if you’re looking to purchase some Heirlooms specifically for leveling your Shaman:

Professions

You can approach professions while leveling in one of two ways: you can either start working on the skills you want to use at level 90 or you can pick up some professions to help you along the way. It’s more efficient in the long run to level your endgame professions at the same time that you level your character, but most professions will significantly slow down the leveling process if you do this. So if you just want to make it to level 90 as quickly as possible, it might make sense to grab something else for the time being.

As far as professions that specifically make leveling easier, gathering skills are the best choice. Herbalism and Mining have been changed in Mists of Pandaria to allow you to gather materials from any node in the game with a level 1 skill. These two professions, along with Archaeology, also give you character experience as you gain skill. On top of that, all three gathering professions – Herbalism, Mining, and Skinning – each offer useful passive bonuses that can help you in your journey, even if you don’t bother to level them at all.

Crafting professions require a lot more work (or a lot of gold to buy the materials on the Auction House). Many professions will allow you to craft items that you can use while leveling, with Leatherworking and Engineering being particularly useful. It’s not worth investing time in these skills just for leveling, though. If you pick up a crafting profession, it should either be in preparation for endgame or as a means of supporting your other characters.

Rotation

Now that you’re all set up, here are what buttons you should push and in what order!

Early on, you’ll be spamming Lightning Bolt as your main means of dealing damage. At level 3 you can start using Primal Strike on cooldown for some variety. Starting at level 6 you can apply Earth Shock to enemies, and at level 8 you can start to maintain Lightning Shield on yourself. At level 10 you’ll be able to select your specialization and start to weave in more of your rotation below.

Elemental

• Maintain your Lightning Shield and Flametongue Weapon buffs.
• Use Flame Shock to apply and maintain the DoT (level 12+).
• Use Lava Burst on cooldown (level 34+).
• Use Earth Shock if you have 7 charges of Lightning Shield from your Rolling Thunder passive (level 20+).
• Use Searing Totem if it’s not active (level 16+).
• Use Chain Lightning if you are fighting more than one enemy (level 28+).
• Use Lightning Bolt otherwise.

Enhancement

• Maintain your Lightning Shield and your Weapon Imbues buffs.
  • Use Windfury Weapon on your main-hand weapon (level 30+).
  • Use Flametongue Weapon on your off-hand weapon, and use it on your main-hand until you get Windfury Weapon.
• Use Searing Totem if it’s not active (level 16+).
• Use Lightning Bolt if you have 5 stacks of your Maelstrom Weapon buff (level 50+).
• Use Stormstrike on cooldown (level 26+).
• Use Flame Shock to apply and maintain the DoT (level 12+).
• Use Fire Nova on cooldown if you are fighting more than one enemy.
• Use Lava Lash on cooldown.
• Use Unleash Elements on cooldown (level 81+).
• Use Chain Lighting if you are fighting more than one enemy (level 28+).
• Use Lightning Bolt if you have at least 1 stack of Maelstrom Weapon (level 50+).

Where To Level

Getting Started

Like all classes except for Death Knights, you’ll begin in the starting zone for your character’s race. Completing your starting zone should get you through the first dozen or so levels. After that, you can head to your faction’s capital city to train professions, use the Auction House, and decide where to go next. A good place to start is the Hero’s Call Board in the center of The Trade District in Stormwind City or the Warchief’s Command Board in front of Grommash Hold at The Valley of Strength in Orgrimmar. This board will always have a couple of quests directing you to a zone in your level range.

Leveling Beyond Your Starting Zone

Level 20 is when you’ll be able to get your first mount. After that, you should train new riding skills as soon as they become available to help you get around more quickly. Don’t forget to also train your professions, upgrade your gear, and pick up glyphs when you have new slots available. At level 30, you can learn Dual Specialization from your class trainer, which will allow you to have an alternate build that you can swap to when you feel the need.

For the first 58 levels, you’ll be questing or dungeon grinding in Classic zones and instances on the continents of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. When you get into the higher levels, you should head to the next expansion’s zones as soon as you’re able to: Outland at level 58, Northrend at 68, Cataclysm at 78, and Pandaria at 85. There’s a big jump in loot and experience for each expansion that makes it well worth abandoning whatever you were doing before and moving on.

If you’re not worried about taking the fastest, most direct path to level 90, feel free to break up your leveling process by trying out different activities. There are plenty of things to do in World of Warcraft that grant experience besides questing and killing mobs. You can get a little bit of experience from gathering with Archaeology, Herbalism, or Mining. You can run dungeons with other players, or compete against them in PvP battlegrounds. The new pet battle system also gives experience.