The Enigma Order

Considering I've been playing shaman for so long now and am still enjoying it healwise I've decided to make a small guide of my findings as a reminder to myself of how much I've learned and am willing to let other people learn aswell incase they haven't had a chance to play shaman as much as I have.


As we all know, no matter what spec we are shamans are about totems, so I'll say this once, totems totems totems.
Lot of times when I see a shaman it's like "I'll pop that totem because it suits me best" WRONG, you don't put up totems because it's best for you alone, you pop them because the whole party benefits from it. Oh and while your at it, make sure to pop the right totems too!


Caster groups. Mages, Warlocks, Priests, Druids and Shamans.

In general caster groups only need 2 totems, Totem of Air Wrath and Manaspring Totem.
It's pretty logical for a caster to do more damage when he gets more spell damage and the manaspring totem makes his manapool last longer so it's great for long fights. Don't let this fool you however, if a warlock like Locy so to say gets too much power, he'll aggro and aggroing could mean the end of the try on the boss or whatever you're currently fighting.
So here's something else, Tranquil Air totem, nice! threat reduction for the whole group making whatever your fighting less likely to attack you because you build less threat! Pretty neat huh, I used it several times now and I found it quite nice combined with Blessing of Salvation.
There's also this totem which requires deep elemental, Totem of Wrath, increased spell critical strike chance, I for one would love that on my shaman but that would require too much sacrifices in my dearly beloved resto tree. This totem being quite nice would most likely not being chosen because of too little remaining options in other talent trees so no sorry, I'll skip that untill next expansion gets released or so.


Melee dps groups. Rogues, Paladins, Warriors and Druids.

Next step, melee dps groups.
This I found depends on whether the rogues/warriors use poisons or weapon stones to increase they're damage done. Some bosses end-game (BC style ofc, retail end game isn't end game anymore, more rather begin-BC) are likely to be immune to poisons so rogues would probably love Windfury Totem there, generally a dps warrior would rather forget his weapon stone and get Windfury Totem instead aswell. None the less, if you do so don't forget to put up a Strenght of Earth Totem aswell, so those 2 nabs get both attack power bonus and critical strike bonus at the same time. In some cases the bosses aren't immune to the poisons for rogues so that Grace of Air and Strenght of Earth isn't bad either, both these totems give the rogue attack power and Grace of Air is quite nice for critical strikes aswell, warriors however don't get attack power from Grace of Air but just the crit is pretty ok for them too, usually. For druids is no doubt the best choices Grace of Air and Strenght of Earth totem because they have no weapons to swing with.
(Note that Windfury Totem periodically enchants the groups weapons with Windfury Weapon, it does not stack with allready enchanted weapons, for casters for example Brilliant Wizzard Oil, it doesn't stack with it and if you have used 1 of those, you will not get the effect from Windfury Totem, it also doesn't stack with poisons and weapon stones)


Healer groups. Priests, Paladins, Druids and Shamans.

Very simple, Manaspring totem is very imba here because healers NEED mana per so many seconds, in this totems case 2 but it's very imba for long fights. Second like caster groups it depends whether your healer is so imba he knows how to pull aggro, or he just is so noob he forgot to get the threat reduction talent in his healing build. This talent is not to be underestimated, it is VERY imba and if you want to be a decent healer you will probably benefit most from this talent then any other in your build. But like castergroups, either totem of Air Wrath or Tranquil Air totem, though you'll find there's barely any healer around to pull aggro, including yourself.


Ranged dps groups. Hunters

This being hunters ofcourse, don't put up totems. Nah, Grace of Air is best for them, agility for the win you could say, you will find no hunter in end-game raid instances going melee, common fact. However, 8 strenght is 4 attack power which in return is 1 ranged attack power so Strenght of Earth totem yet again, it may benefit a hunter less than a warrior or rogue because they get 1 attack power per 2 strenght but it benefits them none the less, and his/her pet too! And yes I have seen hunter pets get aggro in raid instances. (Put it on a goddamn leash allready Lamme ;D)


Tank group. Warriors, Druids and Paladins.

Sometimes it will happen you will be put in the group of the (main)tank in which cases you can think of this.
Windfury totem, you will be like WTF Windfury totem? yes, Windfury totem, the warrior will create imba threat if he swings 3 times which in return give him more rage, ALL 3 HITS! in return he can use as much abilities as he wants to get his threat up more, whatever moves that are eh . And this one is for other totem, for once not Strenght of Earth, no Stoneskin totem, a warrior benefits less from Strenght of Earth totem for tanking than from Stoneskin totem, the damage taken reduction is very nice for them. Windfury Totem is only good in pick up groups for non heroic instances.
HOWEVER! Warriors tanking Gruul for example, will most likely go for Grace of Air totem, for the armor and dodge and even the critical strike chance can come in handy, mitigation is everything end-game so once again you need to pop a Stoneskin totem with this.



So much for the totems but keep in mind, the totems have a 2 minute duration and you'll do yourself good to keep them up all the time, some addons work with timer bars for this and I usually refresh my totems around 30 seconds left on duration.


Sometimes your totem will get destroyed by a boss or mob in an instance, put it back up as soon as possible, if you're the healer in an instance and it happens, keep healing untill you see the time to put it back up, spending 3 seconds on a totem can kill the warrior and in return kill the party.
Sometimes when you play end-game BC raid content you will find bosses that have no threatlist, meaning they go for random targets, they CAN and WILL sometimes pick one of your totems off, like my Windfury Totem for example, it takes a lot of beating from Shade of Aran in Karazhan for example. Not sure if this is completely random or not but I choose to believe myself that blizzard did some job atleast of putting in some artificial intelligence on some encounters.
Some mobs/bosses reset aggro and charges into some random person in the party, sometimes a totem will be picked, put it back up when you have the time.


Totems are very important and they should be kept up for as long as they can, think of it as extra dps.

There is 1 rule, allways keep up Manaspring totem no matter what kind of groupsetup your group is assigned to, everyone benefits most from a very mana efficient healer.


Allright, let's move on to some other things to know


Water Shield.

Allright, you all know it procs in some time when you get damage, and it regenerates some amount of mana.
Here's something for you, sometimes somewhere on whatever kind of event you will suffer some area of effect move that does no damage whatsoever and Water Shield procs, keep it in mind that that move will most likely be used again.
Some places have something like this for whole fights, like Gruul for example, I know I like imba mana regeneration during combat because it keeps me active during the fight longer.
Some places have mobs that cast random debuffs on players, like the mobs in Karazhan that cast debuffs on the raid that decrease your intellect/spirit for example, these effects will be marked as something that hits you and it will proc Water Shield also.


Earth Shield.

Earth Shield heals the person that has it for some health when it's getting beaten, it benefits from +healing and I've found mine to crit over 1.1k health. However keep in mind that's not only what it does, it also has 30% anti cast interuption bonus to it and for your information, combined with the 70% anti interuption from talents in the restoration tree, this combines into 100% anti cast interuption. I've found this spell to be very nice in arenas because mostly the healers will be picked out first and you can't kill a shaman with Earth Shield and good gear to it because he keeps healing himself untill you fall asleep.
(Note that I've dueled a rogue before and got the fight to continue for 6 minutes when he got lucky on kick silences and stuns, I came out of the fight full on mana.)


Manatide Totem.

Now here's something imba, a mini Innervate on a 3 minute cooldown, very very nice for long fights BUT, restricted to restoration specced shamans.
It regenerates an amount of mana equal to some percentage of your intellect, meaning the higher the intellect you have, the higher it ticks for, I have infact seen one tick for 1k mana once! keep in mind that it ticks for about 5 times before the duration is over and you have to switch back to Manaspring Totem.


Earth Elemental Totem.
A companion I can use every 30 minutes to make it do my bidding, too weak for end-game content, too weak for PvP, but very nice for solo PvE group quest encounters, infact this little buddy got me through some hard quests before I got to level 70. Sometimes has some use but rarely usefull.


Fire Elemental Totem.

Say hello to my little friend! This guy actually does some dps for me in PvP, he usually is what gets me an honorable kill unless he gets killed, I usually don't allow anyone to do that.
Yet again on a 30 minutes cooldown, categorised under fire totems.
Also very nice in end-game raid content on boss fights, extra dps.


Heroism.

GIGGLE! Everyone likes it, 30% increased attack speed on melee attacks and 30% cast reduction on spells, very imba on boss fights, you can time it to be useable on each boss everywhere seeing as it will most likely take 10 minutes to clear to any boss anywhere. (Pre-BC content non included)
10 minutes cooldown, 40 seconds duration.




More to come, hope you enjoyed reading this and learned from it, if I forgot something contact me asap and I'll edit it.

This guide has been written from a healer point of view.

Belgathor out!

Edit: DRAENEIS RULE!!!1one!11!

Last edited by Baloth (2007-07-14 00:40:28)