Totem Talk: Leveling enhancement 71-80
by Rich Maloy 
May 2nd 2010 at 10:30PM
We're in the home stretch now: Northrend. Once we hit our max level I'll throw out some recommendations dungeon, raiding, and PvP specs. Though admittedly I'm not the best PvPer so you'll have to bear with me on that and add in your recommendations in the comments. But that all comes at level 80 and we last left off at level 70 with a spec of 9/52/0. This spec still includes the Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem, but if you find you're tearing apart mobs and barely getting touched I recommend replacing that with Glyph of Stormstrike for the extra nature damage.
Let's dive in and continue!
Level 71
Talent point: Call of Flame 2/3
Spell upgrades: Flametongue Totem, Flametongue Weapon, Frostbrand Weapon, Healing Stream Totem, Mana Spring Totem, Searing Totem, Stoneclaw Totem, Windfury Weapon
This is a big spell upgrade level. Many of the totems and all of the imbues are upgraded to Northrend levels. Be sure you're putting the right level of imbues on your weapons. It will help us bang down those boars
Level 72
Talent point: Elemental Fury 1/5
Spell upgrades: Lesser Healing Wave
Yup, that's it. LHW. Thanks for stopping by the trainer, we have some lovely parting gifts for you. Thank the old gods for Astral Recall or we'd be stuck in our home city staring at the Hearthstone cooldown.
Level 73
Talent point: Elemental Fury 2/5
Spell upgrades: Frost Shock, Lightning Bolt, Magma Totem, Stoneskin Totem
Level 74
Talent point: Elemental Fury 3/5
Spell upgrades: Chain Heal, Chain Lightning, Earth Shock
Level 75
Talent point: Elemental Fury 4/5
Spell upgrades: Fire Nova, Fire Resistance Totem, Flame Shock, Flametongue Totem, Frost Resistance Totem, Healing Wave, Lightning Shield, Nature Resistance Totem, Searing Totem, Stoneclaw Totem, Strength of Earth Totem
Level 76
Talent point: Elemental Fury 5/5
Spell upgrades: Flametongue Weapon, Frostbrand Weapon, Healing Stream Totem, Mana Spring Totem, Water Shield, Windfury Weapon
Imbue upgrades! Absolutely get back to the trainer for these upgrades and again double check to be sure you're putting the max level imbue on your weapons.
Level 77
Talent point: Improved Fire Nova 1/2
Spell upgrades: Lesser Healing Wave
What is it with LHW that makes it so special? It gets featured as the only spell upgrade twice in this leveling experience. Who uses LHW anyway? Sure it's good when you're in combat and don't have enough stacks of Maelstrom Weapon up but you need a quick topping off of your health. It's like a token spell upgrade: "well we have to give them something, might as well be LHW. Problem sovled!"
Level 78
Talent point: Improved Fire Nova 2/2
Spell upgrades: Frost Shock, Magma Totem, Stoneclaw Totem, Stoneskin Totem
Level 79
Talent point: Elemental Focus 1/1
Spell upgrades: Earth Shock, Lightning Bolt
Level 80
Talent point: Call of Flame
New spells: Hex
Spell upgrades: Ancestral Spirit, Chain Heal, Chain Lightning, Fire Nova, Fire Resistance Totem, Flame Shock, Flametongue Totem, Flametongue Totem, Frost Resistance Totem, Frostbrand Weapon, Healing Stream Totem, Healing Wave, Lightning Shield, Mana Spring Totem, Nature Resistance Totem, Searing Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Weapon
That's a big level, and expensive. Everything that needed to be topped off gets an upgrade here. Resistance totem upgrades bring them up to raid-usability levels. Imbues get one more bump, as do many damage spells.
At 80 we get our crowd control spell: Hex. Hex is effected by Maelstrom Weapon, meaning you can have an instant cast CC with five stacks of MW. It's a good spell for overly aggressive pulls (whether solo or in raids), to contain mind-controlled players, or to suppress an enemy in PvP. The downside is that because the cooldown is longer than the duration we can't spam cast Hex on one target. Even with that drawback it's a great spell and comes in handy in tough situations -- especially in PvP.
Respect the respec
The spec and glyphs we took on this journey to level 80 were designed for solo questing with a focus on limited downtime. This means we're heavy on mana regen/saving/replenishment and light on some additional damage dealing abilities. We finished up with a final spec of 19/52/0. It's not a bad spec, but we're sacrificing damage for utility. With dungeons, heroics, and raids in our cross-hairs now is the time to respec.
Dungeon & Raiding Spec
Start with this spec as a baseline for raiding and dungeons: 19/52/0. Within that there are a few talent points that can be moved around depending on your mana and damage preferences. Specifically Improved Shields, Shamanistic Focus, and Improved Stormstrike are all adjustable. For example, with judicious use of Shamanistic Rage mana should not be an issue and so points can be taken out of Sham Focus and Improved Stormstrike to sink a full 3/3 into Improved Shields. Or if you're running dungeons a lot and love to spam Fire Nova go with a more mana conservative build with 2/2 ISS. There are a few choices here as long as you stick with the core abilities.
Glyphs: Stormstrike & Feral Spirit are the absolute must-have glyphs. The third one is up for grabs, but unless you know a specific reason for a specific glyph, just go with Windfury Weapon.
PvP Spec
I don't get to spend as much time PvPing as I'd like so I'll be the first to admit I'm not the best to copy. We'll get into enhancement PvP in a later article, but to get you started check out this spec of 18/53/0. It's a mana conservative spec with a balance between damage dealing and life saving abilities. There is slightly more wiggle room in a PvP spec than PvE; it all comes down to play style.
I hope you enjoyed the leveling process as much as I did. If you have any questions about the ways of enhancement shamanism you can leave a comment below or contact me on BigCrits, BigHitBox or on the WoW.com contact form.
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, 21-40, 41-60, and 61-70. Along the way we'll kill boars, learn to call the elements to our aid, kill more boars, and smash the ever-living wind out of our opponents.Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Owen May 2nd 2010 10:36PM
More rib spreader please
Supermann May 2nd 2010 11:02PM
Thanks for this leveling guide! It has been a huge help since I am leveling an enhance sham. I'm looking forward to big crits!
cjhoyt May 2nd 2010 11:30PM
Your pvp spec is linked to the raid spec...leveling as enhance was the most fun i had leveling out of my 5 80's great leveling guide
Eli May 2nd 2010 11:40PM
:( i should level a shaman, they're so much fun.
Jinee May 3rd 2010 12:28AM
Wf glyph got replaced with the fs glyph a little while ago with the introduction of a lower time for fs to go through all of it's ticks
underground_slacker May 3rd 2010 2:13AM
I was just wondering why shamans only go enhancement or resto nowadays.
I recently found an old lvl 16 elemental shaman and having never got into casting gave it some heirlooms and 22 hours later hes at lvl70 in northrend and its a hoot. I leveled a lot in the new lfg system and you know what i noticed?
I never saw another elemental shaman. not. once.
Why?
As far as i can tell the only downside is my mana runs out faster compared to enhancement, but with thunderstorm and elixirs from alchemy its not exactly game changing. I rarely need a mana break and skills like my chain lightning, once glyphed and alloted the right talents to make it a short cast spell that effects multiple targets always has me in the top dps slot.
I'm sure the heirloom shoulders, the ones that looks like night elf flightmaster ones, are a benefit towards my positive leveling experience but is there any major reason making a caster then speccing to go in close with two hammers is the only choice dps shamans pick nowadays?
Just what is wrong with Elemental?
Triforceelf May 3rd 2010 2:39AM
Generally speaking, melee is just easier to level. In the case of shammies, this is compounded by the fact that elemental lacks good damage until higher levels with lava burst, where as as soon as WINfury weapon is unlocked enhance does great damage just by auto attacking.
Dicon May 3rd 2010 2:44AM
you answered your question yourself "As far as i can tell the only downside is my mana runs out faster compared to enhancement" not only did you have to wait to get thunderstorm but you also had to use elixirs and with alchemy you probably used a few mana pots (am i right?) leveling in the DF system is fine as you'll be having a few drinks with the healer anyway but when leveling alot of people play the game by questing (traditional way) and dont want/ cant spend G on elixirs mana pots just to decrease there down time whereas by leveling enhancement your down time due to OOM situations is less and you can still (if you have to) do some DPS with no mana
i might be wrong but thats my opinion anyway
Boobah May 3rd 2010 3:21AM
There's also the issue that elemental is somewhat broken in raiding, since the spellpower bonus from Totem of Wrath is a non-scaling version of Demonic Pact (and in current raid gear that means inferior), and Wrath replaces your damage dealing totem. If you've got a Demo lock for your raid, your ranged DPS Shaman needs to get into melee range to use their best DPS totem, and if they're stuck using their buff totem they do substandard damage. Admittedly, this doesn't really matter while levelling, but WoW players being who we are, it trickles down.
To be honest, I've seen quite a few levelling elemental shamans, although they're usually using hand-me-down tattered dreadmist pieces.
Personally, I found levelling as elemental fine, although admittedly I never tried it until I hit Northrend so I had the additional regen of thunderstorm right of the bat. You're durable as all get out if you keep a decent shield strapped on your arm, water shield does a decent job of keeping the mana flowing, and lightning bolt has a very nice mana to damage ratio
Xaklo May 3rd 2010 3:57AM
I went enh till I got to the lvl where I could get totem of wrath by respeccing ele. I found ele to be much more fun, and if talented/stacked correctly the mana regen never becomes an issue. It's been much more fun killing things before they can even get close to me (even if they do, t-storm + FRAWST SHAWK make sure they stay away) than getting my hands dirty and having to chase after frightened mobs for a kill. I think definately enh till lvl 50 is the way to go, but after that it's just a matter of preferred play style.
brammage May 3rd 2010 6:33AM
I think part of the reason you never saw another elemental shaman is because you were using the dungeon finder. It seems to try to mix up classes and specs as much as possible. For example, you can barely turn around without stumbling over a ret paladin, but how often have you seen two of them in the same random group?
(Thus avoiding situations like one memorable pre-dungeon finder Stockades group I was in that consisted of my priest, another priest, a third priest, a fourth priest, and one very confused warrior.)
Tom May 3rd 2010 11:15AM
I'm leveling a Shaman as Elemental, and the only time I've had to drink has been in instances.
Then again, he is fully loaded up with heirlooms...
underground_slacker May 3rd 2010 11:59AM
I should point out by heirlooms i just had the shoulders alone, and the potions were the +spellpower and mana regen kind not the typical health and mana pots and i honestly rarely ran low on mana thanks to my water shield and mana spring totem (with seal fo wisdom helping if a pally was in a group), and certainly never out of it during a fight- thats just the big negative i hear about elemental "the amount of time spent regening mana between fights ads hours onto leveling" and it frankly isn't true, i just kept a git of spirit on my gear when leveling and my mana regen was no problem.
-also i did spend a lot of it questing as well and my mana problems and downtime were miniscule compared to the times ive spent on my druids and warlocks ive tried to level in the past.
Kuro May 3rd 2010 12:59PM
@ I leveled a lot in the new lfg system and you know what i noticed? I never saw another elemental shaman. not. once.
Doesn't dungeon finder avoid putting two of the same classes together in a group? I leveled Elemental through BC dungeons and respec'd to Resto when I got to wrath. (Got tired of queue times.)
I'd never seen an elemental in my group when I was elemental, but I'd see them when I'd run randoms on the hunter/resto druid/lock/spriest.
Moneybrother May 3rd 2010 2:38AM
Hi
Great guide!
I hit 75 last night and got a new spell called Lava Burst. It didn't seem to fit in to our regular rotation with it's cast time not affected by Maelstrom. How is it useful to us?
Triforceelf May 3rd 2010 2:40AM
Long story short its not. Until cata when maelstrom affects it that is, and even then I would argue storm strike makes Lightning bolt better.
Boobah May 3rd 2010 3:27AM
About the only time Lava Burst is useful to an enhancement shammy is either a) you're pulling with Flame Shock, and are waiting for the mob to come to you anyway, or b) there's some mechanic going on where you're forced out of melee range but aren't forced to keep moving.
Dicon May 3rd 2010 2:48AM
only time I use it is when in my resto spec, group over powers the dungon FS tick on boss and LB to add a bit of DPS instead of standing there waiting till someone takes some damage ....any damage (but this would be off topic i suppose)
Jez May 3rd 2010 7:00AM
God dammit, I want my Dwarf Shaman!
I got rid of all my crap alts and went with one main, but the Shaman class is waaay to cool not to play, so I'm loading my Dwarf up with Heirlooms and see the sights. Cata can't come soon enough!
Peebers May 3rd 2010 4:58PM
This guide has been mad helpful since I went enhancement. Needed lots of spec/ glyph help. Left her at 70 loaded with Kara healing epics and though it'd be easy to pick up and go elemental. BORING. Decided to go enh when I started imagining her kicking ass as a dorf chick. But goat girl is whoopin dmg meters quite elegantly, gonna be hard to switch.