WoW Classic 39 Twink Restoration Shaman Guide

Wow Classic 39 Twink Restoration Shaman Guide
  • Author: OrinDac
  • Date: December 13, 2019
  • Updated: October 12, 2020
  • Expansion: WoW Classic

Shamans, while somewhat one note for it, are solid healers in just about any situation.  In PvP, at this bracket, their abilities are somewhat more sought after, as upon reaching level 30, they acquire their self resurrection ability, Reincarnation.  This allows the Shaman to bring themselves back to life immediately upon death.  This can, given the right care, give the Shaman the ability to bring their entire party back from death.  This, coupled with their respectable regular healing, along with their survivability and offensive spells, makes the Shaman a dependable and utilitarian choice for a healer.

Shamans are also a lot of fun to play, with access to a wide variety of disparate and interesting abilities.  They can just as easily deal out Caster and melee DPS, as healing, can turn into a ghost wolf and run faster than almost any other class in the 39 bracket.  Shamans also have the ability to breath under water, spy on enemies at a distance with Far Sight, have a second hearth in the form of Ancestral Call, remove enemy buffs and they can use a shield.

If you like being a crafty, supportive healer, with a lot of solutions to a problem, including just shooting the guy dealing the damage in the face with a lightning bolt, you’ll love playing a Shaman.

Contents

  • Races:  Which races in World of Warcraft can be Shamans and which are the best at it in PvP?
  • Professions:  Which professions compliment a Shaman best and which are the best for a Twink?
  • Spells and Abilities:  What spells and totems does a level 39 Shaman have at their disposal, and how can they best be used in PvP?
  • Talents:  Which talent build is the best for a Shaman Healer?
  • Gear:  What is the BiS gear for a Restoration Shaman, and where, and how can you get it?
  • Enchantments:  Which enchantments compliment a Shaman best, and which are the best for the Healing role?
  • Buffs:  There are a ton of consumables available at this level, but which ones are the best for a level 39 Shaman Twink?

Races

This is actually one of the easiest, simplest and totally agonizing aspects of making a Twink Shaman in WoW at just about any level.  There are four races that can play a Shaman and their all Horde races.  This makes the choice of which race to choose so much easier, because you’ve only got three choices, right?  Well here’s the kicker:  All three choices are absolute ringers for playing any kind of Shaman, though some of them fit an enhancement Shaman better.

  • Orc:   Axe Specialization and Blood Fury are great, but aren’t going to be of help much as a Healer.   Hardiness, on the other hand, is one of the best anti CC abilities that can be had, because it’s always active and doesn’t suffer a cooldown, so you’ll never have that awful feeling of either forgetting to activate your anti CC ability, nor the feeling of having activated it, only to have someone use another one immediately upon your recovery.  Hardiness either works, or it does not and when it does, it often saves the day.
  • Tauren:  Endurance is always a boon to Shaman’s in any role.   Another great ability for just about anyone engaged in PvP is  War Stomp, which is the ability that makes the Tauren still a choice for Twinking.  Nature Resistance counters the offensive abilities of not only Druids and other Shaman, but also the Stings and Poisons of Hunters and Rogues respectively.
  • Trolls:   Regeneration is another one of those abilities that just about any class would welcome.  It is particularly helpful to Healers, because it allows you to focus on your allies and not worry about your own health as much.  The only other ability of any use to a Restoration Shaman is Berserking and if you’re wondering why such a voracious, melee sounding trait is good for a Healer, read the description carefully.  It increases your casting and attack speed.  This means the casting speed of your healing and support spells also.

Professions

Choosing which professions to go with can be difficult, because there are quite a few to choose from.  The good news is that Engineering, which is one of the most fun professions, is also really important to get if you are building a Twink.  You won’t want to miss out on all of the gadgets and bombs that this profession offers, because many of them are extremely useful in PvP.

Now, Engineering is really important for any Twink to take, just because of all of the slight edges it offers in combat, which can only be had if you actually are an engineer.  That being said, your other choice of profession is also very important, but will often depend on your preference and which class you are playing.  Blacksmithing for example, is largely useless to a Shaman, as they can’t wear mail yet, and most of the best mail options after level 40 are acquired through Leatherworking.

Following is a description of each profession and why a level 39 Twink Shaman would want them, or not.

Engineering

If you are Twinking at any level, you have to get Engineering.  It’s incredibly important.   Not just because of all of the really cool stuff you made to max out your engineering, but also because of all of the really useful bombs and combat items you get after maxing it out.  You’re not going to want to miss out on them.

From the earlier engineering toy box, the Major Recombobulator makes Polymorph a worry of the past…sometimes.  With the Alarm-O-Bot, you can stop Rogues and Feral Druids from sneaking up on you, and the Dark Iron Bomb, is the bomb with the most damage and longest stun duration you can get this early in WoW.  The Gyrofreeze Ice Reflector, the Hyper-Radiant Flame Reflector and the Ultra-Flash Shadow Reflector, are protective items that reflect all incoming damage of their type for a short period.  These items in particular can quickly devastate any casters targeting you.  Last, but not least, the Arcane Bomb, absorbs a huge amount of mana from all targets in a radius and damages them for half the mana absorbed.

Enchanting

Players attempting to Twink without the financial support of their main will find Enchanting to be the best second choice of Profession.  Most of the green gear you pick up will not be useful to you and you will want to sell it.  Most of the blue gear will not be of use and you will want to sell it as well, but you won’t be able to, because it is Soulbound.  With Enchanting, you can disenchant both and sell the created materials for even more gold.  It’s also a great way of easing the leveling difficulty, by always having a decent enchantment on your gear.

Alchemy

If you can get a line on the required reagents for it, then Alchemy can be both useful and lucrative.  If your main has the mats and your Twink makes the potions, you can even make money for your main.  Being able to just craft all of the potions and elixirs that are so useful in PvP is such a boon and yet another relief on the gold purse, because, as you will find when you start selling these items, they can be expensive.

Secondary Skills

  • Cooking:  Aside from providing the simple, non-combat healing that most food does, cooking is only useful to a Twink for the Well Fed stamina bonus.  At the 39 Bracket, the best Well Fed bonus is provided by the Spider Sausage recipe, which can be purchased from almost any NPC that trains in cooking.
  • First Aid:  For healers of any kind, First Aid is somewhat negligible in its usefulness.   The Heavy Runecloth Bandage, is the most healing bandage available and it does heal for quite a bit when used.  Even though you can heal with magic yourself, it might not be a bad idea to pick up this skill anyway and max it out.  The books Expert First Aid – Under Wraps, Manual: Heavy Silk Bandage and Manual: Mageweave Bandage are necessary to accomplish this.  All other training can be gotten from the apprentice and journeyman trainers in the main cities.  All you need after that, is cloth.
  • Fishing:  Fishing can help with Loot Hunting and with building your cooking skill faster, but isn’t very useful for much else.  That being said, it’s still a nice way to take a break from all of the War in Warcraft.  Just sit by the docks in Ratchet, or Booty Bay, and contemplate the elements while you wait for the boat.  The fish also sell pretty good too, so there’s that.

Spells and Abilities

Shaman are an odd combination of specific, but disparate abilities, wrapped up together to create an extremely utilitarian and practical toolkit.  To many, the Shaman seems intimidating, because of all of its working parts, but in truth, while the Shaman can solve a lot of problems, they can usually only do it in one or two ways.  Shaman spells break down into three basic groups:  Elemental Combat (Ranged DPS), Enhancement (Melee, Support and Tanking) and Restoration (Healing).

The following sections represent these three groups and contain short descriptions of each of the spells in each group that are useful to Twink Shaman Healer.

  • Disease Cleansing Totem: Diseases are rare in PvP, but this is still the best ability that gets rid of them. It will usually be a good idea to drop this out when you need it though, and not before.
  • Ancestral Spirit: The Shaman’s resurrection spell and coupled with another of their restorative abilities, makes the Shaman the only class capable of restoring the entire party from a wipe without external aid.
  • Mana Spring Totem: This is going to be the totem you will want to have out the most when you are doing regular healing. You might want to switch it out for a Healing Stream Totem from time to time, but more often than not, it’s this one. It restores 6 mana every six seconds while it’s out.
  • Lesser Healing Wave: Your main direct healing spell. It has a short casting time, but doesn’t heal for as much as Healing wave. It is likely to be the healing ability that you use the most as a main Healer.
  • Healing Wave: A more powerful version of your Lesser Healing Wave spell, Healing Wave has a longer casting time, but restores much more health.
  • Reincarnation: This self resurrection, coupled with Ancestral Spirit allows you not only to return from the dead yourself, but also bring back your entire party. If you are Main Healer, this is great. If you are off-healer, this is fantastic, because it means that you can rez the other healer an get everyone else back up and running in almost no time.
  • Healing Stream Totem: This is a great ability for when everyone needs a bunch of healing at once…like right after you’ve self rezed and just brought back half the party.
  • Cure Disease: Not as good as the Disease Cleansing Totem, but can be cast at range, so it does have a slight advantage and utilitarian use.
  • Poison Cleansing Totem: Like the Disease Cleansing totem, this is one you won’t want to plant down until you know you need it. Can clean up the entire party’s Rogue poisons though.
  • Cure Poison: Again, not as good as its Totem, but can be cast at range.
  • Tremor Totem: A really fantastic counter CC ability that works on all of your party members within it’s range. Definitely want to keep this one on your task bar. As it’s one of the only ways the Shaman has to counter any kind of CC.
  • Lightning Bolt: The Shaman’s main damage dealing spell, Lightning Bolt not only does a respectable amount of Nature Damage from afar, but has the added benefit of making you feel like Thor.
  • Magma Totem: One of your damaging totems, the Magma Totem deals fire damage to everyone near it. Really good to have on hand when you are surrounded, or an ally is.
  • Earth Shock: This is one of the Shaman’s best offensive spells, as it interrupts spellcasting, just like the Warrior’s Shield Bash, only from range. It’s like a flying dragon Rogue kick, but you never have to move!
  • Frost Shock: This is one to take note of, even if you are specing for healing. Frost Shock slows your enemy’s movement speed by 50%. This slight bit of CC can keep your enemies at bay long enough to get your allies on their feet again, so they can have your back.
  • Fire Nova Totem: With a higher AoE radius and a lot more damage, this totem is a decided improvement over the Magma Totem.
  • Chain Lightning: A classic spell of RPG fantasy world since time immemorial, Chain Lightning does a touch less damage than your regular attack spell, but continues to do diminishing damage to multiple other targets.
  • Purge: Purge is one of those spells that, while technically offensive, always feels like it’s in the wrong group. It removes up to 2 buffs from a single opponent. This can be of extreme use in PvP, especially if you can cast it in conjunction with another Shaman to completely strip a foe of any of their advantages.
  • Searing Totem: This guy is like a li’l turret that you can drop if there’s someone coming up and you need to focus on something else. He will unload fiery doom on the fool if they get too close.
  • Flame Shock: A flame, that also shocks. We call it Flame Shock. It is your only instant direct damage spell.
  • Earthbind Totem: This totem is really important in PvP. You’ll want to drop it behind you if you ever find yourself needing to run away from enemies, as it slows their movement speed significantly.
  • Strength of Earth Totem: While you don’t ever really want to find yourself in the thick of it as a Healer, when you are, this totem makes sure you and your allies have an advantage in DPS.
  • Flametongue Totem: Gives everyone near you a fire enchant for their main-hand weapon. Talk about supporting your teammates, right? You’re gonna make friends.
  • Frost Resistance Totem: This is awesome for when a Frost Mage is making your party’s day a crap ton of not fun, but isn’t much good for anything else.
  • Windwall Totem: This totem pretty much only protects against Hunter damage, but it does that pretty well.
  • Stoneskin Totem: One of the more useful non-healing totems to a Healer, this one gives the entire party a reduction in damage.
  • Sentry Totem: Whether Healing, Support, DPS, or Tanking, this security ability is extremely useful in PvP. Not only can you basically set up a security camera wherever it’s placed, it also warns you if you haven’t been watching it and it gets destroyed!
  • Lightning Shield: This is one of those spells that should kinda just always be on, if you can remember it. It damages enemies that attack you, which is just the best.
  • Astral Recall: Astral Recall is basically a free second Hearth for Shaman. It teleports you to wherever your hearth would and doesn’t share a cooldown with your hearthstone. While not necessarily specifically useful in PvP, this spell is a distinct perk of playing the Shaman class at all.
  • Nature Resistance Totem: Drop this one on the ground next to the tank when they are taking a bunch of damage from a Rogue, as nature damage protects against not only the lightning damage of Shaman and Druids, but the damage from poisons and stings as well.
  • Water Walking: An incredibly useful spell, especially because you can cast it on others. Use it to get your entire party out onto the middle of a lake to regroup and heal where enemies can neither follow you, nor even find you sometimes.

Talents

Shaman have a lot of interesting and beneficial talents to choose from, and which ones to choose can be a difficult and intimidating decision.  Below are two examples of good talent progressions.

The first is a deep focus on the Restoration Tree.  The main goal here is on maximizing the amount of healing you can do and mitigating mana consumption.

Wow Classic Twink Talent Build Images Shaman Restoration

This other build here still tries to focus on healing, while also adding some mobility and protection with the Shield Specialization and Improved Ghost Wolf talents.

Wow Classic Twink Talent Build Images Shaman Resto Ghost Wolf

As the Shaman is all about having almost every trick of almost every trade, You might want to go ahead and give the talent calculator a try and see what you can come up with on your own.

BiS Gear

The truth is, with any Twink – Gear. Maketh. Man.  Err…humanoid?  The point is, you need all of this gear to make your Twink work at all and getting it won’t be easy, or cheap.

Enchantments

Almost as important as your gear itself, are the enchantments for said gear.  Not every gear slot item can be enchanted, but you’re going to want to get the best enchantments for the ones that can.  Enchanting is expensive, so unless your main is an enchanter, these are going to cost some coin.  This is a list of all of the enchantments you’ll want as a level 39 Twink Shaman Healer.

Buffs

Consumables are some of the most useful items in WoW and there are a great many especially useful ones for PvP.  Alchemists will have the easiest time with this aspect of Twinking, being able to craft many of these items.  For everyone else it’s either the AH, or making besties with an Alchemist.  You can also get some of them from NPC vendors, occasionally as well.

Elixirs

Only have one Battle and one Guardian Elixir active at a time. Remember this.

Battle Elixirs

  • Elixir of Greater Agility: Can’t help you with healing at all, but it will increase your armor and since it’s the only Battle Elixir that helps with this build at all, get it if you can.

Guardian Elixirs

  • Elixir of Greater Intellect: At this level, one of these offers even more Intellect that the Mage buff.
  • Elixir of Fortitude:  More health is good health, which is why you should get this elixir if you can.
  • Mighty Troll’s Blood Potion:  This one is fantastic, especially if you’re playing a Troll.  You can almost stop worrying about your own health for a bit and focus on keeping your party alive.
  • Elixir of Greater Defense:  This is just a massive boost in armor that should always be considered for a healer’s Guardian buff.
  • Gift of Arthas: This one is difficult to acquire, but anything that punishes people for attacking you is something a healer ought to consider.

Potions

  • Lesser Stoneshield Potion: If you can’t find a use for a 1000 extra armor for any length of time, go home.
  • Invisibility Potion: Now you are like the wind…unseen.
  • Swiftness Potion: This is one of the most useful potions for PvP that there is.  In the Battlegrounds, sometimes speed is king.
  • Magic Resistance Potion:   This is a great fire and forget protective potion that mitigates all magical damage.  Use when your colored light isn’t the only being thrown around.
  • Dreamless Sleep Potion:  This is a really great potion to pop if you’ve just self rezed and can sneak away to heal.  It incapacitates you for a bit, but fully restores your health.
  • Wildvine Potion:  A bit of a gamble, but not a bad potion to pop right after a Reincarnate.  It might just get you back to close to full, allowing you to focus on restoring your allies and getting them back into the fight.
  • Greater Mana Potion: You will need one of these at some point, so for when you need it, make sure you have it.

Scrolls

  • Scroll of Protection III: When your Elixir of Defense wears off, pop your armor off with one of these handy scrolls.
  • Scroll of Intellect III: When that Elixir of Greater Intellect has run its course, make yourself smart again with its paper backed step cousin.
  • Scroll of Spirit III: Spirit buffs are oddly rare in WoW and one of the only ones to be had is from these scrolls.
  • Scroll of Stamina III: If you’re the main healer, that means that you don’t have a Priest, which means you don’t have Power Word: Fortitude, which means that you need one of these.

Team Buffs

There isn’t a class buff that isn’t in some way helpful to a Shaman.  With Arcane Intellect you will have a lot more mana and your heals will crit more often.  Power Word: Fortitude gives you more health to help with survivalbility.  Mark of the Wild is a great buff that raises all of your states and means that there’s a Druid in your party, which means that there are two multitasking bosses on the field.

Other Consumables

  • Rumsey Rum Black Label: It’s no Honningbrew Mead, but it will still raise your Stamina quite a bit.
  • Dragonbreath Chili: You can get this from cooking and should eat it if you expect to be surrounded at all, or if you’re at all within melee range of any foes.
  • Spider Sausage:  You cooked these for their Well Fed buff, so go ahead and make sure to keep them on hand for it.

The spirits have whispered their secrets to you and you now have all you need to create the best level 39 Twink Restoration Shaman!  The primal forces of nature are yours to control.  To wield.  To combine.  Earth, wind, fire, water, lightning!  By your powers combined, uh…you are Captain PLANET!  Now go perish all those polutin’ Alliance folk.  …What?  They’re not the ones polluting.  What happens in two or three expansions?  Oh…oooooh…umm…You’re a Planeteer!  Have fun!

 

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OrinDac

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