TBC Classic Elemental Shaman Spell Summary

This page will list the relevant skills for an Elemental Shaman, and explain what they do. It is recommended that you read through this page in order to have a basis to better understand the various topics that are discussed throughout the rest of this guide.

Totem of Wrath is a new talent which creates a Fire Totem that increases the Spell Hit and Spell Critical Strike chance of nearby allies by 3%. This is a major DPS increase for any caster, and the main reason to place an Elemental Shaman in caster groups.

Water Shield is a new baseline spell that creates a shield on yourself which provides passive Mana regeneration and extra bursts of Mana whenever you are hit. This is great in all types of content, but especially so if you are being consistently hit for the extra Mana returns, so expect to get a ton of Mana back while soloing and leveling!

Bloodlust / Heroism are new meta-defining spells, which grant a huge amount of Haste for 40 seconds to the Shaman's party. By rotating Shamans into your DPS parties for this cast, you can ensure near-permanent uptime on the buff in any given fight, drastically increasing raid DPS.

Wrath of Air Totem is a new support totem that increases spell power for the Shaman's group, making it a must-have in any caster group.

Totemic Call is a new spell that allows you to destroy your current totems in order to recover 25% of their Mana cost. You can use this to avoid pulling patrols with your totems, to recover some Mana when moving to a new place and even just to recover some Mana for free when your totems are about to expire!

Earth Elemental Totem creates an Earth Elemental that taunts and generates threat on nearby enemies. Due to its relatively high health, it can serve as an emergency tank for you and your group.

Fire Elemental Totem creates a Fire Elemental that deals significant single and area of effect damage, making it great for contributing damage to your group or while soloing.

A Totem is instantly placed on the ground near you when you cast it, it does not move and generally has a single digit amount of health, allowing it to be destroyed by your enemies with any single-target ability. Their effects only apply to your 5-player party, even when you are in a raid group.

Every Shaman Totem has a specific niche role to fill and a distinct ability. There are four types of Totems: Air, Earth, Water, and Fire, and you can have only one Totem of each element placed at a time which will be replaced if you cast a new Totem of the same element.

Windfury Totem is the largest DPS increase a Shaman can provide to a melee party with Warriors and Rogues in it. It grants a temporary weapon enchant to your party, allowing them to sometimes do multiple auto attacks with extra Attack Power whenever they hit the enemy with melee abilities. Warriors are a particularly good target for this effect, due to the extra Rage gained by the extra auto attacks.

Grace of Air Totem boosts the Agility of party members. While not as high of a DPS increase as Windfury Totem for Warriors and Rogues, it provides a higher benefit to Hunters and Druids who cannot make use of Windfury with their forms and ranged attacks and should thus be used whenever you are in the Hunter or Druid party.

Tranquil Air Totem lowers the threat caused by party members by 20%. This allows tanks to be more defensive and still keep aggro on the enemies and as such is a great tool when threat is the limiting factor, but do keep in mind that it does not provide a direct DPS increase.

Grounding Totem will redirect to itself any harmful spell cast at a nearby party member, which is great to handle problematic spells in PvP such as Counterspell.

Nature Resistance Totem increases the Nature Resistance of your party, allowing them to more easily survive Nature-based attacks.

Sentry Totem grants vision over an area when the buff it leaves on the casting Shaman is right-clicked, which causes your vision to swap to the Totem's. It also gives warnings to you when it is being attacked, which is useful when exerting control over an area — especially in PvP.

Windwall Totem reduces the ranged damage taken by your party by a small amount per hit. This can be useful when dealing with Hunters, but for the most part incoming ranged damage will rarely warrant using this Totem.

Strength of Earth Totem grants extra Strength to your party and is the only DPS-increasing Earth Totem, making it the general go-to in parties with melee players.

Tremor Totem removes Fear, Charm, and Sleep effects from your party every 5 seconds and is the only effect of its kind for the Horde. This makes it invaluable in fights with Fear effects, such as Onyxia, Nefarian, or in PvP. Make sure to drop it when slightly under 5 seconds are left for the Fear effect to hit the group, so that it is removed almost instantly.

Earthbind Totem slows nearby enemies, making it easier to flee or kite. Frost Shock is also noteworthy for being instant cast and having a long duration slow for kiting. You can solo most melee elite enemies that can be slowed by simply kiting them around with Frost Shock until they die!.

Stoneskin Totem reduces the melee damage taken by your group by a small amount per hit. This makes it useful against Rogues or other fast-hitting enemies, or when supporting a tank against multiple enemies.

Stoneclaw Totem taunts enemies, serving as a distraction for a short period of time with its small health pool. It is mostly of use while leveling or soloing.

Fire Resistance Totem increases the Fire Resistance of your party, allowing them to more easily survive Fire-based attacks.

Mana Spring Totem regenerates the Mana of your party by a small amount every 2 seconds. This improves your party's Mana sustainability, and you should aim to always have this Totem active while in a caster or healer party.

Healing Stream Totem heals your party for a small amount every 2 seconds. While its healing is low, it is still usually worth keeping it out as it also has a long duration.

Disease Cleansing Totem cures your party members from any disease every 5 seconds.

Poison Cleansing Totem cures your party from any poison every 5 seconds.

Searing Totem deals a small amount of single-target damage to nearby enemies. If you can spare the Mana, keep it up for the added damage.

Fire Nova Totem deals a large amount of area-of-effect damage to nearby enemies a few seconds after it is placed on a 15-second cooldown. Its burst damage can be helpful, especially when facing multiple enemies.

Magma Totem deals small amounts of area-of-effect damage to nearby enemies periodically. Since it has no cooldown, you can use it to help deal with multiple enemies when Fire Nova Totem is not available.

Frost Resistance Totem increases the Frost Resistance of your party, allowing them to more easily survive Frost-based attacks.

Flametongue Totem, much like Windfury Totem, enchants your party's weapons. This enchant, however, causes extra Fire damage on hit. Since Windfury Totem is more powerful and its effect does not stack with Flametongue, this Totem goes mostly unused.

Lightning Bolt deals damage to a single target from range. This will be your main damage spell in PvE due to having the best damage-to-Mana ratio in our kit and no cooldown.

Chain Lightning deals damage to three targets from range. It does more damage than Lightning Bolt, even to its primary target, and has a lower cast time, but it also has a 6-second cooldown and a huge Mana cost. Use it for area-of-effect damage or when bursting down an enemy.

Earth Shock deals damage and interrupts its target for 2 seconds. While the damage increases with ranks, the interrupt effect duration does not, making it a good spell to downrank if you are mostly interested in the interrupt.

Frost Shock deals damage and slows its target by 50% for 8 seconds. This makes it useful when chasing or fleeing from enemies.

Flame Shock deals damage over time to its target. This can contribute a small, but consistent chunk of damage in a fight and has the added usefulness of preventing Rogues and Druids from staying in stealth while it is active.

Lesser Healing Wave casts much faster than Healing Wave, but also heals for much less baseline and also gains less benefit from your gear's Spell Healing as a result of its fast casting speed. Use it in PvP or as an emergency heal.

Healing Wave is a strong-but-slow single-target heal. This makes it likely to overheal, so be prepared to stop casting at the last moment if it looks like that will be the case.

Chain Heal is the best area-of-effect heal in the game due to its high healing relative to cost and smart-heal properties, which will cause it to jump to the most-injured targets in range regardless of the party they are in.

Lightning Shield grants you a buff that deals damage to melee attackers when they hit you. While not the most useful spell, you should use it until level 62, and then only use Water Shield.

Rockbiter Weapon enchants your weapon, granting additional melee attack power and causing your melee attacks to generate extra threat. This is be your first weapon enchant, which you will only really use until level 15 or so.

Windfury Weapon enchants your weapon, granting your melee abilities a 20% chance to activate two extra auto attacks with added Attack Power instantly.

Flametongue Weapon enchants your weapon, causing each hit to deal additional Fire damage.

Ghost Wolf boosts your running speed by 40% but can only be used outdoors. You can learn it at an early level, making this is a very important movement skill for leveling Shamans.

Reincarnation allows you to return to life after dying, as long as its 30-minute cooldown is ready. You can use it to recover from mistakes.

Ancestral Spirit brings the target back to life, but can only be used while out of combat.

Purge removes two buffs from the targeted enemy. You will typically be using it to remove healing-over-time effects, shields, and buffs.

Cure Poison cures a poison effect from the targeted ally. Use it to remove Rogue poisons or dangerous PvE debuffs.

Cure Disease cures a disease effect from the targeted ally. Use it to remove a Priest's Devouring Plague or dangerous PvE debuffs.

Astral Recall recalls you to your set Hearthstone location, with a cooldown of 15 minutes. This is pretty handy for quickly traveling the world.

Water Walking allows you or another friendly player to move over water for 10 minutes. Taking any damage will cancel the effect, but you can still use it to quickly move through certain parts of the world.

Water Breathing removes your or another friendly player's need for breathing while underwater for 10 minutes. This is generally useless, but can save you sometimes when doing underwater quests or gathering.

Far Sight grants you vision over an area, allowing you to detect enemy players without actually putting yourself in danger.