Shaman Class Guide

Shaman in Classic has historically only been available to Horde players, with the Tauren, Orc and Troll races.

• Taurens benefit from 5% increased health and 1% increased Hit chance from Endurance, increased Nature Resistance, and have a short area stun in War Stomp, which is a great ability, especially for PvP. They also have a new racial passive, Plainsrunning, which causes them to gain increased movement speed up to 30% the longer they keep moving.
• Orc is the usual go-to PvP race for Shamans, mostly due to the 20% stun duration reduction provided by Hardiness, which is a game-changer against Rogues, Paladins and other classes reliant on stun effects. Axe Specialization causes using axes to increase your global crit chance by 1%, and Blood Fury provides a 10% throughput boost for 15 seconds. Orcs are also getting a new racial cooldown, Shatter Curse, which grants immunity to Curses and Bane abilities and reduces Magic damage taken for 8 seconds.
• Troll have Berserking which increases global Haste by 10% for 10 seconds when used, Rapid Regeneration which regenerates 50% of your health over time when used, Beast Slaying which increases damage done to beasts by 5%, and Regeneration which causes 10% of your health regen to continue during combat.

However, the following Races were also announced as new Shaman races in WoW Forever.

• Dwarf, which unlock Shamans to the Alliance faction. They have Stoneform which grants immunity to bleeds, poisons and diseases and reduces physical damage taken for 8 seconds when used, Mace Specialization which increases global crit chance by 1% when using Mace weapons and Big Game Hunter which increases damage done to beasts by 5%.
• The new race, (Windshaper) Skyborne, which can be played as a Shaman on the Horde faction! They have the Walk on Air racial which provides a slow fall with movement control capability for 10 seconds, Skysight which increases run speed by 10%, Wind Blessed which passively increases global Haste by 1%, and Elemental Insight which increases damage dealt to elemental enemies by 5%.

Lightning Bolt was changed to cast faster than it used to, and maximum rank is a 2.5 second cast, rather than 3 second baseline. Chain Lightning is also baseline 0.5 seconds faster casting than it used to be in Vanilla, both of which are meant to make the baseline spells feel better to cast without being deep Elemental, as the Vanilla equivalent of Elemental Alacrity ( Lightning Mastery) used to reduce cast times by 1 second.

Totemic Projection and Totemic Recall allow you to move your totems frequently up to 30 yards away, saving a huge amount of Mana for skilled players! You can also drop a full set of totems at once with a 3-second cast of Call of the Elements.

Ghost Wolf can now be made fully instant cast (and usable everywhere!) with Improved Ghost Wolf because of having its baseline cast time reduced to 2 seconds. Finally, Fire Nova is no longer a totem but a cast that makes your Fire Totem create a 30 yard (increased by Elemental Reach) explosion, making it much stronger and smoother to use than Fire Nova Totem ever was!

Shamans had multiple new talents added, most pre-requisites between them removed, and old talents were reworked to be more interesting and powerful in most cases. Every spec also gained a powerful new 31-pointer capstone talent!

Elemental's new 31 talent capstone is Lava Burst, which is 20% stronger when used on targets affected by your Flame Shock. This is a new core damage spell with a long cast time, which deals massive damage if allowed to go off!

Elemental Devastation is meant for Enhancement Shamans to use despite being in the Elemental tree, and supports their caster/melee hybrid playstyle by granting melee crit when they land a critical spell.

Call of Flame now increases the damage of your new Fire spells rather than just Fire Totem damage, Elemental Fury is now a 5-pointer talent and located earlier in the tree, while Call of Thunder became a one-pointer to compensate.

Improved Fire Nova now mentions the new Fire Nova spell and is expected to be a powerful AoE talent. Elemental Reach increases the range of more spells and Flame Shock by 15y, making it castable from normal spell range!

Finally, Lightning Overload is a new talent which causes your Nature spells to occasionally duplicate their effects with no extra threat, and Elemental Alacrity reduces the cast time of Lava Burst as well as Nature spells. The new Earthbound causes Earthbind Totem to root nearby targets for 5 seconds when cast, which is incredibly powerful in PvP and specific PvE encounters.

Enhancement's new 31 talent capstone is Rage of the Farseer, which serves as a powerful 3-minute cooldown that increases your attack speed, and thus also your ability to quickly generate Maelstrom Weapon stacks while active!

Thundering Strikes now increases your critical chance with all spells as well as abilities, making it a powerful talent for all Shamans specializations. Ancestral Knowledge now increases Intellect by 2% per point instead of 1%.

Mental Dexterity is a new talent which increases your Attack Power by up to 100% of your Intellect, allowing you to use caster gear effectively despite being a melee-focused specialization. Improved Ghost Wolf now makes Ghost Wolf instant and usable in all situations at maximum investment, which is fantastic for mobility.

Elemental Weapons can now be picked much earlier than it used to in Vanilla and Shamanistic Focus reduces the burden of casting on your Mana massively, especially while leveling and recasting Lightning Shield often!

Anticipation is a fantastic leveling talent that synergizes with the new Improved Stormstrike for frequent Stormstrike resets, which is now itself available at a much lower level on an 8-second cooldown rather than the 20 it had in Vanilla!

Spirit Weapons enables you to Parry attacks and reduces your threat generation by 30%..unless you are using Rockbiter Weapon, in which case your threat generation is instead increased by 30%! This talent alone allows Enhancement Shamans to perform off-tanking duties, or serve as tanks for dungeons in a pinch. Mental Quickness increases your Spell Damage by up to 30% of your Intellect, allowing you to hit hard with your spells with most gear setups.

Improved Stormstrike is a new talent which causes your Stormstrike to have up to 100% chance to enable your Mana regeneration in combat when used and also up to 100% chance to reset its own cooldown when you Dodge or Parry. While very useful at 2 points for leveling, the long duration of the Mana regeneration effect should make it enough to put a single point on it and still get maximum benefit if you can Stormstrike on cooldown.

Last but not least, Maelstrom Weapon causes your melee attacks to grant a stacking buff that progressively reduces the Mana cost and cast time of Lightning Bolt, allowing you to mix these in your rotation seamlessly at high stacks and really granting Enhancement the battlemage feeling!

Restoration's new 31 talent capstone is Riptide which combines a powerful direct heal, healing over time, and also makes Chain Heal heal for 25% more when cast on its target!

While early talents are straightforward, Tidal Mastery now only increases healing criticals, making it much weaker for the DPS specializations compared to its Vanilla Tidal Mastery version which increased critical strikes for Lightning spells as well.

Tidal Focus now increases global Hit chance while still reducing healing spell cost slightly, making it a useful talent for DPS Shamans as well as Restoration, especially if you need to be interrupting with Earth Shock as a healer.

The new Water Shield is a great Mana sustain talent which grants you 2% Mana every time an orb is spent, which can also be triggered by healing critical strikes, making it useful as a default shield in end game content for Restoration as well.

Restorative Totems increases the effects of Mana Spring Totem and Healing Stream Totem by a massive 25% and 50%, respectively, making them actually useful in the process!

Last but not least, Healing Way is a pre-requisite for Riptide and much more powerful, as it increases the healing of Healing Wave by 25% (from 18% maximum from old Healing Way) and just works, rather than requiring you to constantly heal the same target for its buff to stack!