Shaman Builds

If you are a Wow player who loves a bit of variety as opposed to being locked in to a class that mostly follows the same sort of strategy, then perhaps playing a Shaman is the way for you! Because you can play a Shaman a couple of different ways thanks to a heap of differing abilities and spells, you get that variety you are seeking. Furthermore, you can even switch how you play your Shaman - from a Healer to a damage dealer - as many times as you like!

Back in the day before the Burning Crusade and the Draenei of the Alliance, only Horde races were able to play a Shaman but now Alliance players can also utilize the many benefits and abilities of a Shaman.

Weapons wise, apart from swords, a Shaman is deft at all war tools. They can equip mail armor but only after they reach level 40. Prior to that however, it is only the good old leather armor!

Shamans are Spiritual Casters with lots of totems. Party members and the Shaman themselves benefit from strategically placed totems giving a well received boost. If you don't know much about the totems, here is a quick rundown...

Basically, there are a large number of totems available to cast however they can all be categorized within four groups. These groups mirror the elements we see today such as Air, Earth, Fire and Water but an important fact to note is that only one of these groups can be active at any one time.

Ability worth noting is Blood Lust and also the way in which a Shaman can periodically summon an Earth and Fire Elemental. Furthermore, you can take advantage of a 30% improvement for you and your party's Haste rating with Heroism for Draenis. This ability only lasts for 40 seconds but is well worth it and will get you out of a sticky situation!

When you are leveling your Shaman, there are some cool abilities in your arsenal which can also be used to great effect in any situation. A very cool and helpful ability for the Shaman is that of Reincarnation. You will need the reagent, 'Ankh' but it means that anytime he gets killed, the Shaman will instantly resurrect unless of course if the ability is on cool down which lasts one hour.

Add to this, the ability of Astral Recall which in all honesty gives you another Hearthstone however it does not cost you a bag spot and also only has a quarter of an hour cool down!

Improving your running speed is cool when you are leveling and to help you do this, at level 30, your Shaman can learn Ghost Wolf. This being said, once you reach level 30, you can now use mounts too.

All that shows you that the Shaman is well equipped and possesses some amazing abilities and that is before we even start talking about the additional spells and abilities given by the talent trees

Firstly you can choose the Restoration build. This is a popular build that is heavily geared towards healing. This particular tree will provide substantial boosts to Shamans already existing abilities as well as offering some new abilities. A Shamans Mana Totems, Earth Shield, Chain Heals and not to forget Riptide helps Shamans become great healers.

On the damage side of the Shaman Builds is first the Enhancement talent build. If you want to be melee damage dealing, kicking butt Shaman, then this is the spec for you! If you follow this build to the end, your reward will be the ability to summon two extremely powerful Spirit Wolves which will assist you no end in PvP as well as PvE. The Enhancement build also empowers you with some great melee attacks and the ability to use two one-handed weapons.

Continuing with the damage dealer Shaman builds side but this time for casting, is the Elemental talent build. In this spec, your Shaman will maximize damage attacks by way of fire and lightning attacks! As you continue to level, Thunderstorm, an awesome AoE spell which knocks back foes and deals some cool amounts of damage will become available to you.

All these abilities and powers makes a Shaman easy to level and quite fun to play, with perhaps the option to switch between healing, melee damage and casting damage whenever you feel like it, the greatest advantage of all.