Shaman guide for WoW Forever

The shaman is the Horde's hybrid in Classic and, in Forever, the Alliance's too thanks to the dwarves. It uses mana for everything, wears cloth or leather until level 40 and mail from then on, can carry a shield and supports the group with totems: objects it plants on the ground, one per element (earth, fire, water and air), that give buffs or deal damage while they stand. It also has Ghost Wolf for travel and Reincarnation to come back to life.

Elemental (damage)

Nature and fire damage caster, with Lightning Bolt as the main spell and Shocks for instant damage. Forever gives it Lava Burst and reorders its talents.

Enhancement (damage)

Melee with a slow two-handed weapon and Windfury Weapon, which adds extra attacks using weapon damage. In Classic Era the shaman has no dual wield. Its new Forever talent, Rage of the Far Seer, sits on row 7.

Restoration (healing)

Healer with Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave and water totems for the group's mana. Forever gives it Riptide, which does not exist in Classic and can now crit.

The shaman has eight documented changes in build 1.60.1.70009, and three of them are about totems. The one you notice most in a group: Tranquil Air, Windfury and Grace of Air totems no longer stack across different shamans. In Classic, totems from two shamans could coexist; in Forever, if two shamans drop the same one, only one counts. Flametongue Totem changes too: it no longer has a duration, is replaced instantly and does not stack through recasting, with Flametongue Weapon or with Windfury Totem. Also, the Windfury and Flametongue buffs now show the totem's name instead of "Passive" or "Effect".

Ranged damage gets three changes. Lightning Bolt gets more damage on ranks 3 and 4 to smooth out progression; in Classic those are the ones you use roughly from 14 to 25. Lava Burst, which does not exist in Classic, has roughly 10% more base damage on ranks 1 and 2 than the comparable Lightning Bolt rank. And in the talents, Elemental Fury drops from row 3 to row 6, and Elemental Alacrity, a new talent, takes row 3.

Enhancement has a new row-7 talent, Rage of the Far Seer, which no longer increases spell casting speed; the notes say nothing more about what it does. Restoration gets Riptide, another spell with no Classic equivalent, which can now crit.

Recommendation: Enhancement from 10 to 60, with Elemental as the alternative if you prefer ranged play. Enhancement lives off a slow two-hander, easy to keep upgraded through quest rewards and dungeons, and spends little mana, so you have some left to heal. Elemental kills each mob faster, but runs out of mana sooner. Restoration is for dungeons: a reset costs 1 silver in the beta.

How the climb breaks down, broadly:

• From 1 to 10, Lightning Bolt to open and your weapon to finish. Totems arrive through class quests over the first 30 levels; do them as soon as they show up.
• From 10 to 30, the slowest two-hander you can find, with Rockbiter Weapon. Ghost Wolf at 20 saves you a lot of time.
• From 30, Windfury Weapon: every proc is extra hits with weapon damage, and weapon speed matters more than ever.
• From 40, mail. Replace your leather as soon as you can.

Talents: row 6 needs 25 points in the tree, so if you level Elemental you will not have Elemental Fury before level 34; meanwhile Elemental Alacrity fills its old slot. For Enhancement, Rage of the Far Seer (row 7, 30 points) does not arrive before 39. The 16-point milestone is new in Forever and there are two class presets if you would rather not decide.

Pacing in Forever:

• No level scaling: avoid orange mobs. As Enhancement you will miss too much and as Elemental you will run out of mana.
• Spend your Legacy Points if this is your main: Well Rested, the example perk Blizzard has shown, gives more rested experience.
• Stop at the campsite before every dungeon: repairs, vendors and up to three one-hour buffs.

Elemental wants spell power (specific nature damage is worth almost the same, since Lightning Bolt is nature), spell hit, crit and intellect, plus mana per 5 seconds because it runs dry early. Our weights give crit a high value thanks to Elemental Fury, but they are built for level 60: in Forever that talent sits on row 6, so while leveling, in our opinion, crit is worth less than the table shows.

Enhancement is a slow-weapon melee: two-hander DPS and speed above everything, because Windfury Weapon hits with weapon damage; then strength (1 strength = 2 attack power), agility, and hit and crit side by side. Intellect and spell power only count for Shocks and totems.

Restoration looks for healing and spell power, then mana per 5 seconds, weighted more than for other healers because shaman spirit regen is poor, and intellect. Crit was already worth something through its talents; with Riptide now able to crit, our reading is that it is worth a little more.

At level 20, the beta cap, the shaman does not wear mail yet: its gear comes from Leatherworking and dungeons. Enhancement wears five Leatherworking recipes (three from the brawler's set), and its weapon is The Axe of Severing from Shadowfang Keep. It adds Edwin VanCleef's Cape of the Brotherhood from The Deadmines and Gloves of the Fang from Wailing Caverns.

Elemental leans most on dungeons, with five pieces: Tree Bark Jacket and Ghamoo-ra's Bind from Blackfathom Deeps, Mindthrust Bracers and Abomination Skin Leggings from Shadowfang Keep, and the Seedcloud Buckler from Wailing Caverns, carried with a one-handed weapon. It adds two Leatherworking and two Tailoring recipes. Restoration equips the same as the healing druid: three Tailoring pieces, three Leatherworking pieces, the Shadowfang Keep bracers and a staff. The trinkets have no known source in our database yet.

Higher up, the Scarlet Monastery has seven BiS-marked items for the shaman, four of them for Enhancement (Scarlet Leggings, Raging Berserker's Helm, Flintrock Shoulders and Ghostshard Talisman), and Blackrock Depths has four. Forever's new dungeons have no BiS-marked loot for the shaman in our data yet. The list per level and slot is on the shaman BiS page.

The shaman's big news in Forever is that it is no longer Horde-only: the dwarf shaman is one of the six new combinations and the only way to play a shaman in the Alliance. The Horde keeps orcs, tauren and trolls, and adds the Horde Skyborne; Alliance Skyborne cannot be shamans. The Skyborne start on Zephras Isle with their own level 1 to 12 adventure and have two active and two passive racials, not yet detailed for the shaman.

Among the racials changed in this build, the one that touches the shaman is the tauren's Cultivation, which in Forever requires a character level equal to the herb's level divided by 5 (herbs needing 300 or more, at level 60).

Skinning + Leatherworking is our recommendation for leveling: Enhancement wears five Leatherworking pieces in the level-20 BiS and six at 30, and Elemental and Restoration wear two or three. You do not wear mail until 40, so Blacksmithing gives you no gear of your own in that stretch. Forever adds more than 600 new recipes and a passive bonus per profession.

If you heal, Tailoring gives you Restoration's three pristine pieces, although it has no matching gathering skill. For gold, Herbalism + Alchemy sells mana potions to the whole server (with the Cultivation change if you are a tauren). First Aid saves mana and Cooking gives a small experience bonus through crafted food. Each profession's leveling path is in the profession guides.

• Dropping totems without looking at the group. Tranquil Air, Windfury and Grace of Air no longer stack across shamans: if there are two of you, split the totems.
• Pairing Flametongue Totem with Flametongue Weapon. They do not stack, nor with Windfury Totem. Pick a single weapon buff.
• Counting on Elemental Fury at row 3. In Forever it sits on row 6; it does not arrive before 34.
• Leveling Enhancement with a fast weapon. The slower and higher-DPS, the better.
• Ignoring Lava Burst. Its ranks 1 and 2 hit roughly 10% harder than the comparable Lightning Bolt.
• Staying in leather past 40. Mail gives far more armour.
• Taking Rage of the Far Seer to cast faster. In Forever it no longer speeds up your spells.
• Pushing orange quests. Without level scaling, the gap is paid in mana. Move zones.