Am I missing something?Follow

I've been haunting this forum off and on for a while as I play my shaman off and on. I've lately rolled a horde one and while she's slightly lower level than my alliance I'm starting to pay attention to things like...

Is it really normal for me to use almost none of my class skills and talented abilities?

For instance, and I remember a conversation long ago in my 4 days in TFS with Baelnic about how the usage of totems while soloing is almost entirely useless (I was trying to use them much more than I should have and wondered why I was always drinking).

What I'm also noticing now is that with Flurry, Shamanistic Focus is nearly pointless. If I crit it's either on the killing blow (whoo hoo) or close enough to the point that flurry will actually manage things better than a shock will and allow me to move on faster.

I know it may sound like it but I'm not trying to spark (re-spark, fan, blowback?) the whole "Blizz needs to re-evaluate shamans" thing.

Look I'm level 26 ok. Specced enhancement for leveling, know that I can heal instances and all that jazz.

What I'm looking for here is... god how do you even word this...

I end up meleeing, a LOT. A quick heal and I'm back at it. Totems? Pfft. Shocks... sometimes though less and less often. I guess I'm asking is this right? Do I just throw a few bolts for pulls then melee or is there something that I'm missing that will allow me to maximize my play.

I hope this makes sense. I'm not looking for level 70 strats and I apologize for that. I'm looking at how to learn my class best levelling and I'm not sure that lightening, lightening, melee is it. Or is it?

Ok this is what I thought and what I've been doing (I tend to be more judicious with my searing totem/any totem only because I've inadvertently drawn aggro when I can't make it die).

Like I said, I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing something. The first toon of a class is always you'r "muddle through" toon no matter how much you read. With this second one I just still feel like I'm muddling but from what you say it sounds like that's just how it is - there are no tricks, it is what it is right now.

It's actually not horribly bad (I guess I'm comparing) I just wanted to make sure that I was maxmizing my abilities. Unfortunately I guess I was right, my abilities seem to be group-based and largely useless as solo right now. I'll deal with it.

Thanks for confiming that I'm not completely clueless! (in this regard)

And for reassuring me that I really *haven't* come into my own yet. (because if I had this would be ugly to 70 - I want to heal there so I figure once I reach it I'll be golden)

you can milk some more use out of totems by setting up a "totem camp" and pulling mobs to it. you have to be careful, as totems are aggro magnets, but generally if you can kill 3-4 pulls of guys per totem drop you're coming out ahead in the totem/mana game.

i also only tend to use either healing stream/mana stream and str of earth or grace of air. all of those last two minutes, and if you can keep em down for a minute then its actually a big help.

but if youre moving constantly this doesnt work as well. in high density areas it can be real nice tho.

I recently revived a level 29 shaman I had sitting around somewhere and dinged 40 with it last weekend, and I actually found the experience, post patch 2.3, a lot less painful than on my pallie in terms of leveling speed.

I pull with a LB from a distance, flame shock before stuff is in range, then use either frost or earth shock depending on their current DPM score and mob health left (using DrDamage to get the value). Yes, it makes me drink quite often but I take about 12-15 seconds per mob worst case, that's a lot better than what I believe I experienced on the pallie. Then again I resumed playing right before getting windfury, I have no money issues so I tend to get the best blue two-handers for sale at the AH around my level, and my gear is quite slanted on agility, int and stamina.

And if I overaggro, there's always the good old stoneclaw totem to keep unwanted attention while I kill something else, or bandage.

Man, the air totem quest is THE MOST ANNOYING QUEST Blizzard ever invented.

Good luck finishing it without some higher level help.

Agreed. Air was a piece of cake, water was a nightmare.

Rather than create a new thread... I reached 40 on my Shaman this weekend. the last 5 levels well, truly and completely sucked. Pretty much this:



And coming up on the last few bubbles of 39 I kept thinking "OK I've heard this about classes before, I also heard that shaman get better at 30 and that didn't happen. If 40 isn't all that and more I'm going to cry."

There were no tears. Holy friggin crap, like Gaudion said in the same post quoted, it's an ENTIRELY different class. Even with a paltry 12% or so crit rate, flurry and SF proc more than I can possibly cast shocks. Even with quite a few "miss miss dodged miss miss" stretches there are still more than enough "crit, WF crit, WF crit" strings to make up for it.

It's utterly nuts how fast I can cut mobs down now. Add to that the ability to wear mail and I marvel at how cavalierly I can wander into stuff now. Stoneclaw totem rarely gets used anymore since I'm fairly confident I can mow through adds fast enough to not need it.

It's just really crazy, this could be the most fun I've had with a toon.

Thanks for helping me through the first bit and being dead on with what happens after 40!

I have to agree with Alastair on the sound with SF procs. Very annoying whit my crit sitting at 25% unbuffed. As far as what he said not using his abilities very much goes. One of the things I like do when SF procs at a time when I'm going to just bash a mob to death is just run as fast as I can toward the next mob and flame shock it to pull it to me. Of course running to another mob will be that much easier if ghost wolf becomes an instant cast spell with 2 points in improved GW. That will make grinding even better.... well faster anyway.

For 30-41, what helped me tremendously was upgrading to the best / slowest blue 2H money could buy every time I could - with a WF proc stuff went down 2-shots, and if I didn't get a proc, 10-12 seconds per kill remained bearable.
It's dual-wield which is just plain crazy though.

This.

And yeah it still is an auto-attack toon but at least it's an effective auto-attack toon now My main issue was if I was just misplaying the class followed closely by "oh god please don't tell me it's going to be like this for 70 levels"

Alastair - I completely agree both on the DW being just nuts and the focus sound getting just a titch annoying.

Kellin - Yeah I'm doing the additional pull thing now, before I'd have to heal and stuff first

Taratru - hang in there, it gets SO much better