I started a shaman, with the goal to play an enhancement/resto dual-spec. Having the heirloom leather shoulders from my rogue, I went ahead and got the melee/hunter mail chest as well. With plenty of badges and such from my 80's coming in, I am planning on purchasing 2 of the McGowan maces to dual-wield them 40-80. Resto won't be overly important until I reach the mid-50s.
What am I supposed to be doing until I reach 40, though?
One thing I am contemplating is to use an Arcanite Reaper (getting one for my paladin project anyway), but if I look at how my fights go right now (only level 7 so far), it seems that the majority of my damage at this point actually comes from spells rather than melee... So I am looking at Aurastone Hammer or even that Jordan Staff, with the result being that I am utterly confused... Aurastone will definitely be nice to have once I add the resto spec, but the idea of actually beating on things with it is not very appealing. The staff - despite being usable by a mage as well - lacks intellect and mp/5. Just WTH am I supposed to do?
Then there is enchants. The Arcanite reaper would get a Counterweight until the haste benefit wouldn't be all that great anymore (mid-20's or so) and then be replaced by Crusader, mostly to benefit the Pally. What to do when dual-wielding those heirloom maces, though? Agility +15 or what?
Lastly professions. Totems being 50% of the reason for me to level the shaman (the other being chain heal), I am of course intrigued by the new upcoming leatherworking drums, allowing me to provide just about any buff in the game. What to pick along with that, though? I don't need/want skinning. I have all gathering professions covered on other toons, and gold is not an issue. I've been thinking Alchemy for Mixology and trinkets, but Engineering is such a fun thing to do...
Help me out here, please!
- Forums
- World of Warcraft
- Class Discussion
- Leveling with heirlooms and such
Leveling with heirlooms and suchFollow
Sub-40, my enhancement shammy was honestly kinda boring to level. I had the boa axe on my warrior (with Crusader), so I just mailed it over and went nuts. It really is a sick weapon to level with, I was critting things for half their hp with a single swing at lower levels. Crusader procs were just the cherry on the cake. Plus once you get water shield, you pretty much won't ever have to stop again. Even if you do manage to run oom, you can kill things with pure melee (yes I tried, it was pro :o) and use water shield to top up.
As for professions, if there's nothing you really need, I'd say engineering for the pure fun of it. There's nothing quite like watching your explosive sheep blow up a stealthed rogue during an attempted gank :D
*Edit: forgot to mention I put Crusader on the 1h mace as well, mostly because I'm going to send it back to my warrior when my shammy hits 80. You might consider doing the same if you're going to use the mace on your pally at any stage.
Edited, Sep 12th 2009 12:53am by MetalM
As for professions, if there's nothing you really need, I'd say engineering for the pure fun of it. There's nothing quite like watching your explosive sheep blow up a stealthed rogue during an attempted gank :D
*Edit: forgot to mention I put Crusader on the 1h mace as well, mostly because I'm going to send it back to my warrior when my shammy hits 80. You might consider doing the same if you're going to use the mace on your pally at any stage.
Edited, Sep 12th 2009 12:53am by MetalM
Quote:
Sub-40, my enhancement shammy was honestly kinda boring to level.
Thanks for reassuring me that I am not just a *****. I mean nothing is probably worse than leveling a druid from 10-20, but with the shaman I am really surprised that the mana issues start so early in it's career. Although I guess it isn't helping that I am doing the paladin at the same time, where at level 20 I am still mostly auto-attacking too.
What's the deal with Water Shield anyway? I keep reading that you get it in the 20's sometime, but in the spell list it's at 62...
Kanngarnix wrote:
What's the deal with Water Shield anyway? I keep reading that you get it in the 20's sometime, but in the spell list it's at 62...
That's the old level you used to get Water Shield at. It got buffed in one of the recent patches to be available at something like level 20 (not sure exactly when, feeling too lazy to look it up at the moment D:). And thank god they changed it too, it's a massive boost to your mana regen. You pretty much won't need to stop at all once you get it, unless you get into a fight you shouldn't have or have to heal a bunch.
As a recommendation, don't use Crusader. It's worthless for any non Plate class(since they value Str)
Get someone with +25/+15(2h/1h) Agi enchants. WAY better.
Aside that good luck. I got bored at 32 and picked up Priest :/ but my attention span is ||
Get someone with +25/+15(2h/1h) Agi enchants. WAY better.
Aside that good luck. I got bored at 32 and picked up Priest :/ but my attention span is ||
SarionBelmont wrote:
As a recommendation, don't use Crusader. It's worthless for any non Plate class(since they value Str)
Get someone with +25/+15(2h/1h) Agi enchants. WAY better.
Aside that good luck. I got bored at 32 and picked up Priest :/ but my attention span is ||
Get someone with +25/+15(2h/1h) Agi enchants. WAY better.
Aside that good luck. I got bored at 32 and picked up Priest :/ but my attention span is ||
Unless I miss my guess, Shamans still get 1 AP per strength anyway... so it's still a nice DPS boost (though half as strong as it is for plate classes), plus some extra healing. The agility also gives 1 AP per point, and some crit/dodge. It really comes down to preference. I personally like the consistency of agility versus the proc nature of Crusader, but either works out well.
Sub 40, I would spec elemental and wear +sp cloth.
I levelled my shammy as enhanc and between 30-40 found it very boring.
But when I was mid-30's and levelling through STV, I was halfway through one of the troll camps when a level 32 troll shammy came along who just tore the place apart. He was wearing cloth and a caster staff and was killing mobs waaay faster than I was.
If I were to level another shammy, I would level 1-40 as elem and then repec to enhanc.
I levelled my shammy as enhanc and between 30-40 found it very boring.
But when I was mid-30's and levelling through STV, I was halfway through one of the troll camps when a level 32 troll shammy came along who just tore the place apart. He was wearing cloth and a caster staff and was killing mobs waaay faster than I was.
If I were to level another shammy, I would level 1-40 as elem and then repec to enhanc.
Well, it has been pretty good so far. I'm up to level 19 and only a handful of quests away from 20. I have to say that it was only half as boring as leveling the paladin over the same stretch.
At level 7 the Iron Counterweight gave me like 67% haste, which turned the slow Arcanite Reaper into a beast in addition to drastically reducing LB cast time. It's now down to 12%.
Mana has been a major issue, though, and I hope that Water Shield will really fix that like everybody is saying. The last 2 or 3 levels have been painful and reminded me too much of trying to level a priest without Spirit Tap. To be fair, I didn't really stop to check for gear upgrades, and didn't get myself the first glyph either. I was still drinking water and milk rather than melon juice... Quests on Bloodmyst are so nicely laid out that you just fill your log and start making an actual circle, and I didn't need/want an interruption there.
The Crusader discussion: I said that I was going to go with that from 20 up because the axe - and with it the enchant - will be handed over to the paladin project once I hit 40 on the shaman. That I will have to switch over to +25 agility eventually anyway, once I get pat 60 there, doesn't bother me too much. Mats are dirt cheap right now, with everybody solo-farming the Baron Mount in Stratholme, and it's most likely getting even better with Brewfest coming up and dragging people into Blackrock Mountain again.
Thing is, as long as I had mana, fights were quite entertaining. Not regenerating enough in between them was the major issue, and as long as I can't even maintain a mana pool as Enhancement, I am not even considering Elemental as a viable way to level. Water Shield MIGHT make a difference, but at this point I am still sceptical. I really hope I'll be pleasantly surprised. There is a good chance that I will at least try it once I get dual-spec since there won't be anything to heal yet at level 40, but I'll have to see about that.
First I thought that having the rogue heirloom shoulders without intellect was the problem, but quickly reminded myself that you normally don't even get to put anything in your shoulder slot at all until you're in your 20s.
At level 7 the Iron Counterweight gave me like 67% haste, which turned the slow Arcanite Reaper into a beast in addition to drastically reducing LB cast time. It's now down to 12%.
Mana has been a major issue, though, and I hope that Water Shield will really fix that like everybody is saying. The last 2 or 3 levels have been painful and reminded me too much of trying to level a priest without Spirit Tap. To be fair, I didn't really stop to check for gear upgrades, and didn't get myself the first glyph either. I was still drinking water and milk rather than melon juice... Quests on Bloodmyst are so nicely laid out that you just fill your log and start making an actual circle, and I didn't need/want an interruption there.
The Crusader discussion: I said that I was going to go with that from 20 up because the axe - and with it the enchant - will be handed over to the paladin project once I hit 40 on the shaman. That I will have to switch over to +25 agility eventually anyway, once I get pat 60 there, doesn't bother me too much. Mats are dirt cheap right now, with everybody solo-farming the Baron Mount in Stratholme, and it's most likely getting even better with Brewfest coming up and dragging people into Blackrock Mountain again.
Thing is, as long as I had mana, fights were quite entertaining. Not regenerating enough in between them was the major issue, and as long as I can't even maintain a mana pool as Enhancement, I am not even considering Elemental as a viable way to level. Water Shield MIGHT make a difference, but at this point I am still sceptical. I really hope I'll be pleasantly surprised. There is a good chance that I will at least try it once I get dual-spec since there won't be anything to heal yet at level 40, but I'll have to see about that.
First I thought that having the rogue heirloom shoulders without intellect was the problem, but quickly reminded myself that you normally don't even get to put anything in your shoulder slot at all until you're in your 20s.
So this is... 2 weeks from the last post, and I am up to 70 1/2 and totally blown away.
I did eventually go with Agility on the Arcanite Reaper. Not convinced at the time, but unable to find Orbs on the AH for Crusader (while the shards were dirt cheap). I'm still not sure about this whole thing.
Water Shield really made a difference at level 20. Just before getting it, I was about to give the whole shammy project up. There is this quest in Bloodmyst where you have to follow some dude into an elite area, and I was completely OOM pretty much the entire time. Died like half a dozen times, and the only thing that kept me going was the fact that the NPC kept beating on things while I did my corpse runs, so the quest would continue...
After that experience I decided that the rogue WG shoulders just wouldn't work right for me. I need my mana... so a couple badges went towards Herod's heirloom and the mail chest.
I fell into another hole in the late 20's. Auto-attacking really got on my nerves, even more so since things wouldn't die fast enough for my taste.
At 30 things changed dramatically. Still auto-attacking, but WINDFURY! So the next 10 levels were spent killing things a lot quicker, and me dreaming about how awesome a Windfury proc would be with Crusader being up...
At 40 there was Stormstrike. Finally a button to press! Lava Lash shortly after that, and finally I started feeling involved. Only annoyance up until Outland was the idiotic layout of the Azeroth quests that keeps sending you all over the place. Finally got to dual-wield my McGowan's...
Then came level 60. Oh awesomeness! You know, it would help if at least the tootip would say that my puppies would heal me. I was under the impression that they were just like treants, but... Nobody seems to ever talk about the healing either, or the fact that you can have them out along with your Earth Elemental. Not worth mentioning that you can solo elites every 20 minutes at least? So nice...
I have since declared my tentacled gal as my main-alt (if there is such a thing). There are 2 Tankards O' Terror waiting in the bank. Only sad thing is that I won't make the matching Brewmaster title this year. I didn't bother collecting tokens, thinking that I wouldn't get the achievement anyway without killing Coren. Level 80 seemed impossible before the end of Brewfest. Only now do I know that you can actually get the daily quest at 75 (which seems rather likely for me to reach before the weekend)... too damn late. But with a little bit of luck I'll still get some "free" trinkets to get me started at 80.
So yeah... melee dps and being expected to cast spells as well - without having to ever shift like a druid. Not only 1 pet but TWO, and the even heal me when they do damage. I can turn into a wolf myself if I want to. I can heal - not only myself - and my totems are bringing a ton of utility to any group. It sure paid off to be a little patient. I run out of health. I run out of mana, but never both at the same time. There is always something off CD that keeps me going. I would have never even imagined that an Enh Shaman would be such a leveling powerhouse. I have to actually force myself to take breaks.
Enhancement... it sure did that to my WoW experience. Now if I can ever get the healing part figured out...
I did eventually go with Agility on the Arcanite Reaper. Not convinced at the time, but unable to find Orbs on the AH for Crusader (while the shards were dirt cheap). I'm still not sure about this whole thing.
Water Shield really made a difference at level 20. Just before getting it, I was about to give the whole shammy project up. There is this quest in Bloodmyst where you have to follow some dude into an elite area, and I was completely OOM pretty much the entire time. Died like half a dozen times, and the only thing that kept me going was the fact that the NPC kept beating on things while I did my corpse runs, so the quest would continue...
After that experience I decided that the rogue WG shoulders just wouldn't work right for me. I need my mana... so a couple badges went towards Herod's heirloom and the mail chest.
I fell into another hole in the late 20's. Auto-attacking really got on my nerves, even more so since things wouldn't die fast enough for my taste.
At 30 things changed dramatically. Still auto-attacking, but WINDFURY! So the next 10 levels were spent killing things a lot quicker, and me dreaming about how awesome a Windfury proc would be with Crusader being up...
At 40 there was Stormstrike. Finally a button to press! Lava Lash shortly after that, and finally I started feeling involved. Only annoyance up until Outland was the idiotic layout of the Azeroth quests that keeps sending you all over the place. Finally got to dual-wield my McGowan's...
Then came level 60. Oh awesomeness! You know, it would help if at least the tootip would say that my puppies would heal me. I was under the impression that they were just like treants, but... Nobody seems to ever talk about the healing either, or the fact that you can have them out along with your Earth Elemental. Not worth mentioning that you can solo elites every 20 minutes at least? So nice...
I have since declared my tentacled gal as my main-alt (if there is such a thing). There are 2 Tankards O' Terror waiting in the bank. Only sad thing is that I won't make the matching Brewmaster title this year. I didn't bother collecting tokens, thinking that I wouldn't get the achievement anyway without killing Coren. Level 80 seemed impossible before the end of Brewfest. Only now do I know that you can actually get the daily quest at 75 (which seems rather likely for me to reach before the weekend)... too damn late. But with a little bit of luck I'll still get some "free" trinkets to get me started at 80.
So yeah... melee dps and being expected to cast spells as well - without having to ever shift like a druid. Not only 1 pet but TWO, and the even heal me when they do damage. I can turn into a wolf myself if I want to. I can heal - not only myself - and my totems are bringing a ton of utility to any group. It sure paid off to be a little patient. I run out of health. I run out of mana, but never both at the same time. There is always something off CD that keeps me going. I would have never even imagined that an Enh Shaman would be such a leveling powerhouse. I have to actually force myself to take breaks.
Enhancement... it sure did that to my WoW experience. Now if I can ever get the healing part figured out...
Glad to hear you're enjoying it :)
As for the brewfest thing, even though you can't summon him until 75, you can still kill him and get the achievement. A few of my guildies and I boosted a level 55 alt through the fight to see and she got Direbrewfest and some free trinkets (that she can't use for 25 levels lol). That doesn't help with your lack of tokens though :(
As for the brewfest thing, even though you can't summon him until 75, you can still kill him and get the achievement. A few of my guildies and I boosted a level 55 alt through the fight to see and she got Direbrewfest and some free trinkets (that she can't use for 25 levels lol). That doesn't help with your lack of tokens though :(
Recent Visitors: 230
All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (230)
- Forums
- World of Warcraft
- Class Discussion
- Leveling with heirlooms and such
© 2024 Fanbyte LLC