I am a WoW noob.. fill me in?

[gregor7777]

this thread should be a must read for everyone on AT. Great stuff! +1

 

[supaidaaman]

The most addictive thing i have ever done is baal runs in diablo2

MUST GET MAGIC FIND!!

 

[imported_karen]

In my opinion you should just do what makes you happy. Nobody else should be telling you what you "should" do to have fun. Remember, having fun doesn't mean neglecting your responsibilities. As long as you keep those, then you can do pretty much whatever you want to do! Whatever you can do to relieve your stress and generally make life "brighter" will show through in all the work you do. You may find yourself getting better grades by playing and having an outlet to just dump stress into. I know that happened for me when I was playing a lot, I got straight A's in college for a quarter

 

[imported_karen]

Oh and you get to have cool halloween costumes too! You can't imagine how many people (not just nerds!) come up to you when you're dressed as a night elf... haha

 

[Aikouka]

I'm going to play the role of noob now and ask for a tiny bit of insight (here rather than starting a new thread).

I have my Shaman.. he's a nice ol' Shaman... level 63. But I think his DPS leaves something to be desired at times as it's quite good if windfury procs and crits, but other times, it can be dismally poor. Because of this, I feel like my character is worthless in instances as I cannot out DPS a DPS class and I cannot outheal a healing class and I cannot even outbuff a paladin (tranquil air totem is almost worthless in a 5-man). I was thinking about reverting to a 2H enhancement spec and placing more points in restoration... something kind of like this:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GZxV0zE0sV0oZxcftbcox

It'd give me more viability and the only real bonus to DW that I lose is the ability to have two temp enchants on my weapons (windfury + frostbrand for a mob that runs for example).

 

[ivan2]

Originally posted by: Aikouka
I'm going to play the role of noob now and ask for a tiny bit of insight (here rather than starting a new thread).

I have my Shaman.. he's a nice ol' Shaman... level 63. But I think his DPS leaves something to be desired at times as it's quite good if windfury procs and crits, but other times, it can be dismally poor. Because of this, I feel like my character is worthless in instances as I cannot out DPS a DPS class and I cannot outheal a healing class and I cannot even outbuff a paladin (tranquil air totem is almost worthless in a 5-man). I was thinking about reverting to a 2H enhancement spec and placing more points in restoration... something kind of like this:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GZxV0zE0sV0oZxcftbcox

It'd give me more viability and the only real bonus to DW that I lose is the ability to have two temp enchants on my weapons (windfury + frostbrand for a mob that runs for example).

Agree with enhancement shaman, especially with regards to PVP, that they don't have enough DPS over Surviability to become a force to reckon with.

However I have different thoughts regarding Restoration shaman. I have been restoration since level 40, and now level 68. When talking about healing, comparing to a holy priest, what I lack is pw:shield, but I make that up by having instant big heal (2700+ hp restored ATM) through Nature's Swiftness. I also can cast healing spells without slowing down by attacks through Earth Shield. I also have some of the greatest buff of all class through my air totem (grace of air, wrath of air, windfury). I can also cure AOE Fear with tremor (it works, just not as good as you want it to be but it works), cure poison/disease with totem (set it and forget it without me having to waste prescious universal cooldown). I am liking it a lot!!

Playing restoration shaman is also much more relaxing, comparing to my other 2 chars (60 hunter 53 warlock), because I almost never die. With nature's guardian, earth shield, stoneskin totem and grave of air totem, I can take 3 same level mobs with ease. If they are melee, I will save my mana on recasting earth shield, if they are casters, I will put my mana in front load damage to kill 2 first and then grounding totem/lvl 1 earth shock the last. If you take a bit of risk you can stay below 30% HP going from mob to mob and just let nature's guardian heals you, it will be the most efficient grinding ever.

Currently 9-0-50, going for a 11-0-50 build, just my 2 cents.

 

[StartingLine]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: MegaVovaN
Psychological addiction >> Physical</end quote></div>

based on? Yeah I dont think so

 

[CKent]

Originally posted by: Aikouka
I'm going to play the role of noob now and ask for a tiny bit of insight (here rather than starting a new thread).

I have my Shaman.. he's a nice ol' Shaman... level 63. But I think his DPS leaves something to be desired at times as it's quite good if windfury procs and crits, but other times, it can be dismally poor. Because of this, I feel like my character is worthless in instances as I cannot out DPS a DPS class and I cannot outheal a healing class and I cannot even outbuff a paladin (tranquil air totem is almost worthless in a 5-man). I was thinking about reverting to a 2H enhancement spec and placing more points in restoration... something kind of like this:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GZxV0zE0sV0oZxcftbcox

It'd give me more viability and the only real bonus to DW that I lose is the ability to have two temp enchants on my weapons (windfury + frostbrand for a mob that runs for example).

Shamans are capable of excellent dps. You want to DW two slow weapons. Not sure about weapon buffs, I think it's dual WF or WF/RB (check the forum for details, I haven't been enhancement since early 2005, well before DW). Shoot for 20% crit, then stack AP. Gear like a warrior.

That being said, shadow priests can do that much damage, but also offer a constant healing/mana battery and excellent CC via MC. Feral druids and prot pallies can tank. Our offspecs can.. dps. And that's it. It's definitely a bit of a third wheel in 5mans. Elementals also have severe sustainability issues in raiding.

Then there's PvP, where we're sitting ducks due to lack of CC & escape abilities.

All in all, I'd recommend shelving him. It's not worth the frustration. Every time I PvP on one of my alts I remember what PvP should be like. Every time I PvP on my shaman I end up getting CC'd to death and alt-F4'ing.

 

[CKent]

Originally posted by: ivan2
Agree with enhancement shaman, especially with regards to PVP, that they don't have enough DPS over Surviability to become a force to reckon with.

However I have different thoughts regarding Restoration shaman. I have been restoration since level 40, and now level 68. When talking about healing, comparing to a holy priest, what I lack is pw:shield, but I make that up by having instant big heal (2700+ hp restored ATM) through Nature's Swiftness. I also can cast healing spells without slowing down by attacks through Earth Shield. I also have some of the greatest buff of all class through my air totem (grace of air, wrath of air, windfury). I can also cure AOE Fear with tremor (it works, just not as good as you want it to be but it works), cure poison/disease with totem (set it and forget it without me having to waste prescious universal cooldown). I am liking it a lot!!

Playing restoration shaman is also much more relaxing, comparing to my other 2 chars (60 hunter 53 warlock), because I almost never die. With nature's guardian, earth shield, stoneskin totem and grave of air totem, I can take 3 same level mobs with ease. If they are melee, I will save my mana on recasting earth shield, if they are casters, I will put my mana in front load damage to kill 2 first and then grounding totem/lvl 1 earth shock the last. If you take a bit of risk you can stay below 30% HP going from mob to mob and just let nature's guardian heals you, it will be the most efficient grinding ever.

Currently 9-0-50, going for a 11-0-50 build, just my 2 cents.

No point getting clearcasting if resto. Instead of the dps of a slightly overcooked noodle, you'll have the dps of a perfectly cooked noodle. What's the point? Go 0/5/56, 0/3/58 or 0/0/61 for PvE, and 8/7/46 or 0/20/41 for PvP (get the survivability talents low in ele/enh).

Resto has 15% threat reduction on heals vs 20% for priests and druids. It relies more on gear for mana regeneration than other classes, as we have no innate talents to help us out in that area like 15% while casting that druids and priests get, nor mana back on crits as pallies get. We have no aggro dump; we can't fade, turn into a bear or lolbubble when we pull heal aggro.

In PvP, we make good healers, better than holy priests or resto druids*. But pallies are better.

* Resto druids can make better PvP healers in arenas due to people exploiting line of sight by hiding behind pillars and such, since they have HoTs.

 

[Xyclone]

Originally posted by: opticalmace
quit while you still can.

QFT!

 

[ggnl]

Originally posted by: Aikouka
I'm going to play the role of noob now and ask for a tiny bit of insight (here rather than starting a new thread).

I have my Shaman.. he's a nice ol' Shaman... level 63. But I think his DPS leaves something to be desired at times as it's quite good if windfury procs and crits, but other times, it can be dismally poor. Because of this, I feel like my character is worthless in instances as I cannot out DPS a DPS class and I cannot outheal a healing class and I cannot even outbuff a paladin (tranquil air totem is almost worthless in a 5-man). I was thinking about reverting to a 2H enhancement spec and placing more points in restoration... something kind of like this:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GZxV0zE0sV0oZxcftbcox

It'd give me more viability and the only real bonus to DW that I lose is the ability to have two temp enchants on my weapons (windfury + frostbrand for a mob that runs for example).

Have you thought of going elemental? I made the switch from enhance to elemental at 64 and it totally revived my interest in the class. He's lvl 67 now (Armory link) and with +371 damage my lightning bolts hit for 900-1000 with no trinket's or totems and up to 1400'ish with them. With clearcasting and 26% chance to crit with lightning spells, mana lasts a suprisingly long time too. I have no problem out-dpsing my roommate's equal level rogue.

 

[ivan2]

Originally posted by: CKent

No point getting clearcasting if resto. Instead of the dps of a slightly overcooked noodle, you'll have the dps of a perfectly cooked noodle. What's the point? Go 0/5/56, 0/3/58 or 0/0/61 for PvE, and 8/7/46 or 0/20/41 for PvP (get the survivability talents low in ele/enh).

Resto has 15% threat reduction on heals vs 20% for priests and druids. It relies more on gear for mana regeneration than other classes, as we have no innate talents to help us out in that area like 15% while casting that druids and priests get, nor mana back on crits as pallies get. We have no aggro dump; we can't fade, turn into a bear or lolbubble when we pull heal aggro.

In PvP, we make good healers, better than holy priests or resto druids*. But pallies are better.

* Resto druids can make better PvP healers in arenas due to people exploiting line of sight by hiding behind pillars and such, since they have HoTs.

Because I want to do both with one toon instead having to level up another character for pvp. I had already beat Rogues 2 levels higher with half of my mana bar so I am pretty happy about my build (ok it might be that he sucks...). I am sure clear cast will only help my mana efficiency.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: ivan2
...

Currently 9-0-50, going for a 11-0-50 build, just my 2 cents.

I thought about going resto on my Shaman. I even tried it out on the PTR, but I couldn't get a good feel for it, because my current healing "weapon" is a mace and my mace skill was extremely low. My goal is that he has to be a good counterpart to my mage and this is a harder thing to do (for me at least). What I do now is I literally just ES1 a mob to bring them up to me (aggro by sight seems to cause issues with them coming too far sometimes for my mage). Then after I get some decent hits in via Stormstrike or whatever, I'll load up a fireball on my mage ( who's set to follow on my shaman ). Normally the mobs die pretty quickly once my mage starts attacking .

Originally posted by: CKent
Shamans are capable of excellent dps. You want to DW two slow weapons. Not sure about weapon buffs, I think it's dual WF or WF/RB (check the forum for details, I haven't been enhancement since early 2005, well before DW). Shoot for 20% crit, then stack AP. Gear like a warrior.

...

All in all, I'd recommend shelving him. It's not worth the frustration. Every time I PvP on one of my alts I remember what PvP should be like. Every time I PvP on my shaman I end up getting CC'd to death and alt-F4'ing.

Well, I do dual-wield two slow (2.6 speed) weapons at the moment. But the DPS seems to be really lacking sometimes... almost like how my warrior can be, but the thing is, my warrior has a healer behind him where my shaman is the "tank", "healer" and secondary DPS. My warrior+priest combo had my priest as a discrete source of healing (sometimes he'd throw up a SWP for fun) and the warrior served as DPS and Tank. In situations that required actual tanking, he just used a sword-n-board in DPS gear as tanking gear cuts his crit and ap down quite a bit.

Oh yeah, and I don't use Rockbiter much because it never seems to work on half of my weapons. I'll cast it and it never applies. This issue has been around for as long as my shaman has been around (i.e. since BC release). I believe it only occurs on maces though (1H or 2H).

Originally posted by: ggnl
Have you thought of going elemental? I made the switch from enhance to elemental at 64 and it totally revived my interest in the class. He's lvl 67 now (Armory link) and with +371 damage my lightning bolts hit for 900-1000 with no trinket's or totems and up to 1400'ish with them. With clearcasting and 26% chance to crit with lightning spells, mana lasts a suprisingly long time too. I have no problem out-dpsing my roommate's equal level rogue.

Elemental actually sounds a bit interesting and most of my healing gear is actually +damage/healing. The fact that I pair with my mage would make things interesting to see how fast we can kill a mob before it gets to us :evil:!

How does something like this look?
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GE0zE0MqAoZxZx0ezoh

 

[CKent]

Originally posted by: ggnl
Have you thought of going elemental? I made the switch from enhance to elemental at 64 and it totally revived my interest in the class. He's lvl 67 now (Armory link) and with +371 damage my lightning bolts hit for 900-1000 with no trinket's or totems and up to 1400'ish with them. With clearcasting and 26% chance to crit with lightning spells, mana lasts a suprisingly long time too. I have no problem out-dpsing my roommate's equal level rogue.

Let me know when you can sap... CC is insanely important in the 5mans, most noticeably on heroic mode.

Ele has severe mana issues, especially since the sweeping nerfs last patch. The tradeoff is that it's better for offhealing due to typical gear having ~600 +healing vs. 0 on enh gear, and it's slightly less gimp in PvP compared to enh. End game, it does good damage until you go out of mana, but you won't touch a deep fire mage or destro lock. Good rogues will handily outdamage you as well. Enh shamans can do more damage, but they typically get owned by cleaves and such, or are limited by threat generation.

Originally posted by: ivan2
Because I want to do both with one toon instead having to level up another character for pvp. I had already beat Rogues 2 levels higher with half of my mana bar so I am pretty happy about my build (ok it might be that he sucks...). I am sure clear cast will only help my mana efficiency.

You won't be nuking in organized pvp, you'll be healing your team and trying to survive being focus fired. As such I'd recommend 8/7/45, although some shamans prefer 0/20/41. Note - that's a pure PvP build, you'd never skip healing way and tidal focus for pve, the typical pve resto build has 56-61 points in resto. Compared to resto shaman dps, even holy paladins, holy priests and resto druids do a lot of damage, so forget about doing pvp damage as resto spec. In addition to pathetic resto dps, with no cc or escape abilities shamans more than any other class need to focus on survivability through talents and gearing, which leaves even less room for bad talents.

Originally posted by: Aikouka
Elemental actually sounds a bit interesting and most of my healing gear is actually +damage/healing. The fact that I pair with my mage would make things interesting to see how fast we can kill a mob before it gets to us :evil:!

How does something like this look?
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GE0zE0MqAoZxZx0ezoh

If your shaman has to heal himself alot and do damage too, elemental's nice. Enhancement gear has no +healing and that really hurts it.

Nature's Guidance is a raiding-only talent. You need 4% hit to reach the cap against mobs/players your level, 5% for your level +1, 6% for your level +2. Only ?? (boss) mobs require more - 16%. Elemental Precision is a great way to get 6 free spell hit as well as aggro reduction, which is the cap in heroics and half again the cap in PvP. You only need further spell hit from ToW / NG for raiding. Healing Focus is hugely important, I'd only recommend skipping it for an all-out raiding build where you'd get Guidance instead.. even then I'd miss it.

Your typical raiding build looks like this - note the 12% spell hit from talents alone, and the focus on efficiency and sustainability.

Typical PvP build is more like this, note the survivability talents, shortened shock cooldown to interrupt fears / heals / sheep more readily, healing focus, NS...

Mine's somewhere in between, a build I can farm some honor with or do a heroic with, without having to respec.

 

[MyThirdEye]

Don't play WoW. You'll get addicted, then who knows what will happen....

 

[ggnl]

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: ggnl
Have you thought of going elemental? I made the switch from enhance to elemental at 64 and it totally revived my interest in the class. He's lvl 67 now (Armory link) and with +371 damage my lightning bolts hit for 900-1000 with no trinket's or totems and up to 1400'ish with them. With clearcasting and 26% chance to crit with lightning spells, mana lasts a suprisingly long time too. I have no problem out-dpsing my roommate's equal level rogue.

Elemental actually sounds a bit interesting and most of my healing gear is actually +damage/healing. The fact that I pair with my mage would make things interesting to see how fast we can kill a mob before it gets to us :evil:!

How does something like this look?
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GE0zE0MqAoZxZx0ezoh

My build at 70 would look something like this.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hiczEcMoioLZE00t0xo

Nature's swiftness is essential for both burst damage and survivability. Healing Focus is also essential IMO, otherwise any pull of more than 2 mobs will be a death sentence unless you run. Besides that, lightning spells will be your bread 'n butter so do everything you can to fortify them (along with storm reach to get the extra range, you'll be doing a lot of kiting in pvp). This is a pvp-centric build, so for pve you can probably switch out some of the survivability talents in the elemental tree (eye of the storm, elemental warding) for mana efficiency stuff (convection, unrelenting storm). It's a very fun build, and it's pretty lethal in pvp if you can stay out of the crowd.

The downside, you're still ez-mode for rogues, and multi-mob pulls can get hairy but they're manageble because you can aoe-kite with earthbind.

 

[CKent]

Originally posted by: amjohns5
Don't play WoW. You'll get addicted, then who knows what will happen....

You might end up unable to read threads before replying :Q:Q:Q

Originally posted by: CKent

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN
wow is evil! don't start playing!
READ THIS: http://www.wowdetox.com/

Playing 8 hrs a day is spending less money but WASTING YOUR HEALTH.

I'll translate: "I failed a semester because I played too much WoW. Being Asian, my parents will never let me forget it. Since I'm perfect, it was obviously not my fault. So it must be WoW's."

 

[Aikouka]

Oh I don't care much about PVP, I just want something to fit my leveling better. The highest PVE this guy will ever see is most likely 5-man and maybe Kara if I'm bored enough to attune him. Actually he'll probably have to see lots of 5-mans as he's my jewelcrafter, which means mucho rep is necessary with just about every faction in existence.