Totem Talk: Leveling enhancement 21-40
by Rich Maloy 
Apr 4th 2010 at 8:00PM
Welcome back to the enhancement shaman leveling guide. This week we'll be covering levels 21 to 40, where we finally start to feel like enhancement, instead of just saying it's something we're going to do as we're Lightning Bolting down boars.
There were some commenters who suggested going with Flametongue Weapon early on and just focusing on casting. Call me an enhance purist (go ahead, I can take it), but I'm of the opinion that if you're going enhance, you might as well go all the way. Plus those early levels of 1 to 20 are so easy and mobs will do down so fast, you could practically /dance your way to 21 -- probably to 30 if you wanted.
One idea that was awesome and bears repeating is making your first glyph, Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem, and using said totem for pulls. It absorbs damage you take and shields your totem if you've got an extra-angry Searing Totem that can't seem to play nice with the naga.
We're going to start with gear you should look for from quest rewards then continue the every other level breakdown.
Gear
In short, agility and attack power are your friends. Agility converts to AP and crit. While strength is also good because it converts to AP as well, if you have a choice between agility and strength, go agility. It's also too early to start converting spell power to attack power, but once we hit 31 we can start converting intellect to attack power. Choose agi + int or str + int gear over others around those levels. For the random enchantments found on uncommon level gear, I'd say go for them in this order:
- of Agility
- of Power
- of the Falcon (agility + intellect)
- of the Gorilla (strength + intellect)
- of the Monkey (agility + stamina)
- of the Wolf (agility + spirit)
- of the Bear (strength + stamina)
For weapons, the speed won't make much of a difference until level 30 when we pick up Windfury, then at level 40 with Dual Wield it will definitely make a difference. Until then see what you like between two-handers and main hand + shield. Do get in the habit of slow weapons starting at level 30, because you'll be sticking with slow/slow for the rest of your enhancement career.
Level 22
Talents: We should have finished off Thundering Strikes 5/5 with level 21 and start diving into Elemental Weapons 1 & 2 for levels 22 and 23.
New spells: Water Breathing can be learned here. Have you been stocking up on your Shiny Fish Scales from killing murlocs all along? This spell isn't going to save your day, considering that most underwater quests also come with some sort of water breathing elixir.
Spell upgrades: Fire Nova is the only upgrade in this level.
Level 24
Talents: Put the final point in Elemental Weapons 3/3 and and now it's time to start into Flurry! This is the first step down the true path of enhancement.
New spells: Frost Resist Totem. Not exactly worth rushing home to train, unless you're encountering an excessive amount of frost mages in your questing.
Spell upgrades: It is, however, worth heading back to train up on all the other spells we use in our daily lives: Healing Wave, Rockbiter Weapon, Earth Shock, Stoneskin Totem, Lightning Shield, Strength of Earth Totem, Ancestral Spirit all get upgrades.
Level 26
Talents: Flurry & Flurry for 26 and 27. We're going to continue until we have 5/5 Flurry.
New spells:
- Far Sight Such a fun spell. You can chain Far Sights even while currently in the spell. Try it out and see how far you can get. Can be very handy in Arathi Basin (or any battleground, for that matter).
- Magma Totem This mana hog will drain you dry fast when combined with Fire Nova, but it's great for pulling packs and AoEing them down.
- Mana Spring Totem Very good for boss fights or setting up camp to kill spawns in a confined space. Over the short run, it's not going to do you a lot of good to continually drop it. Definitely useful in dungeons on boss fights for you and the rest of your party.
Spell upgrades: Lightning Bolt, Flametongue Weapon
Level 28
Talents: Finish out Flurry with two more points from levels 28 and 29.
New spells:
- Flametongue Totem A great totem for caster-heavy groups in dungeons or just to give the healer a little extra oomph.
- Fire Resistance Totem If you need some fire resist and don't need to use your water totem for anything else.
- Water Walking This is one of the great kitschy shaman spells. It works on land mounts, so you can Water Walk yourself then mount up to cross bodies of water. You can sit on water, you can start a campfire and cook on water, you can cast it on your friends and water walk throughout Azeroth. Just beware: it comes off on damage. Requires Fish Oil.
Spell upgrades: Stoneclaw Totem, Flame Shock, Frostbrand Weapon, Lesser Healing Wave, Water Shield
Level 30
Finally! Now we get to really feel the enhancement love. Not only do we get the quintessential enhancement spell, Windfury Weapon, but we pick up a lot of great shamany stuff, too.
Talents: Spirit Weapons It's not doing a whole heck of a lot for us right now -- the parry is nice but we're not tanks after all -- it is required to open the doors to better talents later on in the tree. That and you'll love the threat reduction.
Ask anyone who raided as enhance when this threat reduction only applied to melee attacks. How did we reduce our threat from spells? We died. That's how. Then we Reincarnated. You kids and your "all threat reductions" don't know how good you got it. I remember when soup cost a nickel. And I don't like your New Coke.
At level 31, start into Mental Dexterity.
New spells:
- Astral Recall Awesome spell for leveling. You can be back at camp to turn in quests every 15 minutes, or 7.5 minutes if you use it in your minor glyph.
- Call of the Elements Our first totem-combo spell. Train for this spell and you'll see a new button on your interface. This allows you to pick up to four totems to drop in one global cooldown. Of course, until you complete the final totem quest (see below), you'll only have three types to drop. Pro tip: Hotkey your "calls" using the keybinding interface. (And props to Blizzard for their totem bar, which I think is really excellent and better than any totem bar mod I've used.)
- Earthliving Weapon Good for healing, if you're into that sort of thing.
- Grounding Totem An excellent air totem to drop for absorbing spells you couldn't Wind Shear. Learn to love it in PvP.
- Nature Resistance Totem What can I say? Resist some nature damage.
- Reincarnation Oh yeah, another great shaman spell. Reincarnation, Water Walking ... I really wanted to make some religious analogies, but considering this is the most holy of weekends for Christians, I think I can at least be that much respectful to my Catholic upbringing. Having passed up on the obvious and quite possibly poor taste jokes, stock up on a stack of 20 Ankhs for popping up after dying once every 30 minutes.
- Totem Recall This is coupled with the Call of the ... spells. Use it to pick up your totems and refund some mana. Pro tip: Hotkey this as well. I use F2-F4 for my Call of the... spells and F5 for recall. F1 is still self-target, which I find oddly helpful in many situations.
- Windfury Weapon At long last, we have come into our own as enhancement. When I think of a characteristic enhance spell, I think of Windfury Weapon.Train it and imbue it now.
Spell upgrades: Searing Totem, Healing Stream Totem
Kill Strategy: Imbue Windfury Weapon. Pull with Lightning Bolt, apply Flame Shock, auto attack, Earth Shock when it's up. Use Stoneyclaw Totem and Magma Totem, and Fire Nova with multiple mobs. Water Shield to help with mana regeneration if that's an issue for you. Slow weapons are your best friends.
Glyph: We get our second major glyph. There is absolutely no question what goes in here: Glyph of Windfury Weapon.
Call of Air
And to top off the greatness that is level 30 for shamans, we get our final totem quest. Be grateful that the totem questing will all be over soon. Here's the Wowwiki link to find your starter quest. Good luck and congratulations on completing the set!
Level 32
Talents: Finish off Mental Dexterity with two more points from levels 32 and 33. Remember that agi + int or str + int gear are the best items for now.
New spells: Chain Lightning is good for making sure that mob brings his buddies over for some enhance party time.
Spell upgrades: Healing Wave, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Shield, Fire Nova, Purge (worth noting this now clears out 2 effects!)
Level 34
Talents: We need to spend just one point to get down to the next tier, so I recommend going back for Shamanistic Focus at level 34. Then at 35 start in on Weapon Mastery. I chose this to start increasing the melee and Windfury damage
New spells: Sentry Totem Learn this spell, drop the totem down and check it out. Neat-o! Now put it up in the attic with all the other toys you never played with again.
Spell upgrades: Stoneskin Totem, Frost Shock, Water Shield
Level 36
Talents: Finish off Weapon Mastery with two more points from levels 36 and 37.
New spells: Nada. Zero. Zilch. Thanks for checking in, we have some lovely upgrades for you though.
Spell upgrades: Earth Shock, Flametongue Weapon, Ancestral Spirit, Lesser Healing Wave, Magma Totem, Mana Spring Totem
Level 38
Talents: We're going to go 2/3 Unleashed Rage, then leave it be for quite a few levels until we can fill out some new essential talents.
New spells: Cleansing Totem This is a great totem when you're farming mobs that love to poison, in instances, and of course in PvP against filthy rogues.
Spell upgrades: Lightning Bolt, Stoneclaw Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Frostbrand Weapon, Frost Resistance Totem, Flametongue Totem
Level 40
Talents: Announcing ... DUAL WIELD! No, it's not "duel" wield. You don't challenge the wield to a fight to the death. You have two weapons wielded at once. You dual wield.
With Flurry, Windfury Weapon and Dual Wield, do you feel like a shaman? Do you feel like an enhance shaman? Ok, you must look like a total noob out there barely able to hit anything with your off-hand, but fret not; we'll get some talents in a few levels to make this dual dream a reality. Whether or not you choose to dual wield off the bat is up to you. Try it with and without.
New spells: Call of the Ancestors, Chain Heal
Spell upgrades: Healing Wave, Lightning Shield, Flame Shock, Searing Totem, Healing Stream Totem, Earthliving Weapon, Windfury Weapon, Chain Lightning
Final spec
0/31/0 is the spec du jour. I kept the glyph for Ghostwolf, but really any will do in there.
Stop back next week as we continue the enhancement journey into levels 41 to 60. You though 30 and 40 were good? Wait until we get down into that enhance tree. By level 60, you'll be unstoppable!
May all your hits be crits!
Shaman, follow the path of enhancement with Rich Maloy's leveling guide by starting with with levels 1-20, then follow the guide into levels 41-60, and 61-70. Tune in next week as we continue with 41 to 60.Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jared Apr 4th 2010 8:19PM
Awww, I just hit 40 on my first shaman (going enhance). I do enjoy other guide with all the nitty gritty numbers, but none are as simple to understand as this one.
Angus Apr 4th 2010 8:22PM
It is really unfortunate that you get DW and SS at the same level. I found the loss of DPS when I started to DW almost painful.
And there is a loss in DPS. You have 2 weapons and suddenly that lack of hit on gear hurts.
Stormstrike immediately changed that to be a net increase in damage again, but mainly because it added an attack with a much lower hit requirement.
I was so upset over the sudden loss I did a respec and went to Stormstrike. Kept my 2-hander on and just used that until level 41 where I could add DW back in and it was a DPS increase. I really would recommend going with SS and not DW because that hit penalty is pretty drastic. SS has no penalty and the moment you hit 41 you can grab DW and be fully ready to destroy things. Of course with leveling being what it is nowadays, that'll be what, an hour? (Man, I just tanked my whole argument, didn't I?)
Heilig Apr 4th 2010 10:39PM
Stormstrike is the better choice at 40, but yeah, you'll hit 41 so fast it really doesn't matter. In theory, though, for maximum DPS, Stormstrike provides you with an instant attack that wasn't there before on a short CD and you can use it with a big two-hander until you can dual-wield. Using two 1H weapons without that extra attack just doesn't stack up.
Malkavos Apr 4th 2010 8:28PM
Thank you for this. Your last article finally gave me that little push to get started on my Troll Shaman, and I hit 23 earlier today, so perfect timing!
Fenjay Apr 4th 2010 8:54PM
I'm Catholic, but I would still have been up for the jokes :) However I think Reincarnation is the Hindu variant; we get Resurrection. But I suppose Ancestral Spirit counts for that for us shamans.
Excellent guide so far, thanks! I'm up to 38 so it's very timely for me.
Rajinnu Apr 4th 2010 8:53PM
I have leveled a ton of toons past 40 and the most fun I had was a shaman, I had no idea what I was doing at the time (He was my first) but once that fella hit 40 he become unstoppable, especially in pvp.
I recall a period when another 'twinked' (soft twink, we didn't go all out like on some characters that followed ) 49 shaman and I dominated our battle group for a few months, a rogue joined us and with two heals and all that dps we could turn any ab or wsg to our side if we were present. That is the power of enhancement.
alpha5099 Apr 4th 2010 9:02PM
No offense to Dual Wield and Windfury -- you're both amazing, you know I love you -- but I feel like it's the last few levels up to sixty that really solidified the Enh playstyle. A lot of the other major abilities and talents are, when you boil it down to the basics, just new ways to hit your enemy or hit them harder. Maelstrom Weapon to me entirely changed how I played, while Feral Spirits proved to be an incredibly versatile 51-pointer, offering the incredible DPS boost of kick-ass wolves that heal me, bash my enemies, and give me a sprint.
That's what I really loved about leveling enhancement: every few levels I'd get a new ability or talent that would completely change my playstyle. When I played my first character, a frost mage, I cast Frostbolt. I got talents that let it hit harder, I got a proc that let me occasionally let me cast a Fireball instead, and I got a pet that cast Frostbolt on its own, but how my mage at level 10 killed a mob was fundamentally the same as how it killed one at 70 (which is as far as I got her before switching). A level 10 enh shaman is a very different beast from a level 30, level 60, or level 80 enh shaman.
Azizrael Apr 4th 2010 9:56PM
I'm sure this has been covered somewhere, but I'm a relative noob to melee leveling working on an orc rogue atm, with goblin shaman planned for Cata. What's the point where a fast weapon ends and a slow weapon begins?
Aureliusz Apr 4th 2010 10:00PM
The SECOND you get your Windfury Weapon. Slow/slow Windfury/Flametongue is the way to go. (Personally I went Frostbrand sometimes while leveling and swapped in a fast OH for those annoying runner mobs. But that's me.)
So basically: Lv30, get Windfury Weapon, go slow/slow.
Azizrael Apr 4th 2010 10:03PM
Thanks. I should've been clearer, though - what's the actual weapon speed numbers we're talking about? By "slow", should I be looking for a 2.0 weapon speed? Do they exist? Is 1.6 slow enough? I'm used to just equipping whichever has the most spellpower...
Aureliusz Apr 4th 2010 10:15PM
Nah, you got it mixed up mate. :P
1.6 is FAST - very fast! It means you swing every 1.6 seconds. Therefore, for a weapon to have the same DPS, it has to have a lower DAMAGE. It just applies that damage faster.
A slower weapon would be more like 2.6 (for a 1-hander, you get slower on 2-handers).
Between two weapons of the same listed DPS, the slower one (higher number) will hit harder.
You want your weapons to hit harder. Windfury Weapon gives you two extra attacks, both with a higher effective attack power. You want a weapon that will give that windfury effect the highest base damage possible.
Similarly with Flametongue. Flametongue is gaged on how slow your weapon is - the slower, the more damage Flametongue will give you.
Typically, as I said, 2.6 is the "slow" range for one-handed weapons. 1.6 speeds are for dagger rogues.
A5 Apr 4th 2010 10:17PM
I'm pretty sure the "slow" 1h weapons range between 2.6-2.8 so shoot for around there.
SaintStryfe Apr 5th 2010 12:14AM
If it is lower then 2.5, put it back. I don't believe there are even any 2.5 speed weapons in ICC, so you see the pattern. If it isn't 2.5 or higher, leave it be.
Aureliusz Apr 4th 2010 9:57PM
When you hit the big 40 and you pick up dual wield, here's a cool tip:
Go fast/fast frostbrand/frostbrand.
I know, it sounds weird, but just hear me out. Frostbrand is still 'tuned' for a really slow 2h weapon or staff. With fast/fast weapons and double frostbrand, when I did it just for kicks, I was getting massive, massive amounts of frostbrand ownage. And since its a set damage amount, not scaled to your weapon speed like flametongue, I found myself demolishing mobs in seconds.
It didn't last very long, for me. But just at 40, killing the higher end mobs in STV, was so much fun.
Tom Apr 4th 2010 10:18PM
I'm happy that my comment about the Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem was well-received! :)
Supermann Apr 5th 2010 12:15AM
Great article! I just hit 40 yesterday and this couldn't have come at a better time. I'm loving the enhance playstyle and i'm finally startin to keep pace with my hunter leveling buddy. Thank you and keep it up!
Lynnora Apr 5th 2010 4:12AM
This is an awesome article and now bookmarked just as the previous one. I have leveled an enhancement shaman before in BC, but with your guide up last week I decided to do it all over again and follow your article. So far it's been tremendously helpful and I have recommended it to many starting shamans.
Please do keep this up until 80!
Zuktaw Apr 5th 2010 11:56AM
RE: gear
The one random enchant you left out is * of the Tiger. Gives you agility & strength. I put that one in the top 3.
I know this guide hasn't reached 60 yet, but everyone else is talking about it.
What I'm loving in Outlands on my 65 Shaman is
Shamanistic Rage + Feral Sprits + Fire Nova + Windfury Weapon + Chain Lightning = lotsa multi-target lovin'
That along with the normal rotation can bring down nearly as many as you can pull of same level (to +2) mobs as you can pull & having you leave the fight at nearly full health & mana.
Leather Apr 11th 2010 4:32PM
Anyone else notice the talent points dont add up right? At the end of the first article points 11 and 12 were going to spirit wolf. This article talks about thundering strikes. I dunno I am short a point. The article says to start to spec into flurry but I am only at 14 points.
??
LB
eresin Apr 14th 2010 4:01AM
Hey I've been following your guide and can't wait for the next bit, i'm hovering at level 39 patiently waiting. Excellent guide, i'd be totally clueless otherwise. Come hold my hand for 41-60! it's been over a week!