World Of Warcraft

A Guide to Shaman Talents: v 1.08 | 1/29/2005

Contents
I. Introduction
II. Elemental Talents
III. Enhancement Talents
IV. Restoration Talents
V. Talent Builds
VI. Version History
VII. Windfury VS Rockbiter.

I. Introduction

ADDED 4/18/05

It appears that this thread has broken, and won't display posts later than post number 425. I have no idea on how to fix this problem; I sure don't want to delete it and wait for a new sticky. I'll probably email Blizzard and ask them to delete some of the pages of replies.

As Doomhaven suggested; well, I'm overconfident, and I think I know what I'm talking about most of the time :D Therefore, I have decided to try to make a comprehensive guide to the shaman talents. Whenever a talent is referred to, it is spoken of as though it were maxed out. For a talent-spell (like Mana Tide Totem), it is assumed to be at the max rank. Copious parts of this introduction are thefted verbatim from the mage talent guide, available here:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-mage&t=23&p=1&tmp=1#post23

If you're looking for an FAQ on the class in general, I refer you to Doomhaven's thread here:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?ForumName=wow-shaman&ThreadID=36816

If you decide that instead of answering someone's question directly, you just want to give them a link to this thread (I've never done that...I swear... :D), the URL is:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?ForumName=wow-shaman&ThreadID=36840

For a more specific thread about talent builds, Dobbs has an excellent thread here that provides a counter-viewpoint to my own. It is suggested reading if you want to know as much as you can about our talents before making a decision.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-shaman&t=41466&p=1&tmp=1#post41466
Talents in General

Once you reach level 10, you receive a talent point each level until level 60, amounting to a total of 51 talent points. These talents provide you with a way to customize your character to suit your playstyle and preferences. You can choose your talents by pressing the 'N' key and allocating your points by clicking. Note the three tabs at the bottom of the window: Elemental, Enhancement and Restoration. These are referenced as 'talent trees' and are set up in tiers. You'll have to spend points in the shallow tiers before you can access the talents in the deeper tiers. Certain talents also require specific prerequisites before you can train in them.

You can explore talents and talent builds with WoW Vault's handy talent calculator, available here:
http://wowvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Talents.View&category_select_id=9

Resetting Talents

You can reset talents by speaking to any Shaman class trainer. The first time you reset your talents, it costs 1 gold. The next time it will be 5 gold, then 10 gold, then every time there after 5 more gold, e.g. 15, 20, 25, etc., all the way up to 50 gold, where it is capped. You pay to reset all of your talents at once, there is no way to undo one or two talents.

There is no right way or wrong way to spec, and above all your spec should be tailored to the way you play. Enhance the aspects of the Shaman that you most enjoy and take everything said in this guide with a grain of salt. To put it another way:

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Q u o t e:
No one can tell you what a Shaman is. You have to see it for yourself.
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II. Elemental Talents

Comments on the Tree in General
Elemental is a good tree. It enhances our bread and butter nukes; shocks. It also gives us higher crit chances and devastating criticals. When used right, Elemental is a high-DPS tree. On the other hand, our DPS will never beat a mage's or a rogue's, so at the very high end Elemental is not recommended except for PVP. Before that, though, more DPS=less healing=less mana used=less downtime.

No Prerequisites

Improved Lightning Bolt
Reduce the mana cost of your Lightning Bolt spell by 15%
Not a horrible talent, but it isn't anywhere near as good as Concussion. It suffers from the "there's a much better first-tier talent" syndrome. If you need to stick a few more points in Elemental for prerequisites, this is better than many of the later talents.

Concussion
Increases the damage of your Shock spells by 5%
Generally considered necessary. Shock spells are our bread and butter nuke; we cast them all the time. +5% damage may not be a lot per spell, but it adds up.

Requires 5 Points in Elemental Talents

Convection
Requires 5 Points in Concussion
Decreases the mana cost of your Shock spells by 10%
Same as Concussion; this talent is extremely good, simply because we cast Shocks so often. They're horribly inefficient; this talent helps alleviate that.

Improved Stoneclaw Totem
Increases the health of your Stoneclaw Totem by 25%
How often do you cast Stoneclaw Totem? That's what I thought. Next.

Call of Flame
Increases the damage done by your fire totems by 10%
The only fire totem that we use late-game on a semi-regular basis is Fire Nova, for the burst damage. Maybe if Fire Nova or Magma Totem didn't cost such obscene amounts of mana, this talent would be worth it.

Improved Searing Totem
Increases the duration of your Searing Totem by 20%
Forty-five seconds is generally longer than a fight takes. It doesn't need to be longer.

Requires 10 Points in Elemental Talents

Elemental Focus
Gives you a 10% chance to enter a Clearcasting state after casting any Fire, Frost, or Nature damage spell. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana cost of your next damage spell by 100%.
An incredibly useful talent, especially for only one point. It can be rounded off to being -10% mana cost on all offensive spells; that's not quite what it is, but that's a good rough number. That's almost unbelievably good for the mere one talent point.

Call of Thunder
Increases the critical strike chance of your Lightning spells by 6%.
A fairly good talent; not great. However, it is the prerequisite for Elemental Fury, which is good. If you're planning to put more than 16 points in Elemental, I suggest maxing out Call of Thunder; it's better than the alternatives.

Reverberation
Requires 5 Points in Convection
Reduces the cooldown on all Shock spells by 1 second.
A great talent. Concussion, Convection, and Reverberation (the three "Shock Talents") are the cornerstone of most elemental builds, and with good cause.

Requires 15 Points in Elemental Talents

Improved Fire Nova Totem
Reduces the delay before your Fire Nova Totem activates by 2 seconds.
A good talent. It makes Fire Nova useable as burst damage, as well as less likely to be killed in PVE. It's only two points, and makes good filler if you want to take at least 25 elemental.

Requires 20 Points in Elemental
Elemental Fury
Requires 5 Points in Call of Thunder
Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Fire, Frost, and Nature spells by 100%.
First, a quick explanation; a normal critical spell does 1.5 times normal damage. This talent increases the bonus by 100%, making them deal 2 times normal damage (1.0 + 50% +50%=2.0).
An excellent talent. With this and Call of Thunder, chain lightning becomes a force to be reckoned with, dealing high damage with a good chance of a truly nasty critical hit.

Improved Magma Totem
Reduces the mana cost of your Magma Totem by 20%
Decent filler, but how often will you use Magma Totem? Generally not worth the two points; I would prefer Improved Lightning Bolt, given how often I cast it over Magma.

Requires 25 Points in Elemental Talents

Lightning Mastery
Reduces the cast time of your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells by 1 second.
A truly awesome talent. This makes Chain Lightning 1.5 second cast. Combined with the Elemental Fury and Call of Thunder you should already have, Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt become deadly spells.

Improved Chain Lightning
Increases the damage dealt by your Chain Lightning spell by 10%.
Well, I just spent the last three talents or so extolling the virtues of your newly enhanced Chain Lightning. This talent doesn't help enough to be worth the two points; they can be spent much better in other trees. If you took Lightning Mastery, then you now have 30 in elemental, and can qualify for....

Requires 30 Points in Elemental Talents

Elemental Mastery
Instant cast. 5 minute cooldown.
When activated, this spell gives your next Fire, Frost, or Nature damage spell a 100% critical chance.
A guaranteed crit, and you certainly have Elemental Fury, so it's a big one. If you took the 30 points in Elemental, take Mastery; it is a great talent. The only debate is if it's worth it to take the 30 points in the first place.

III. Enhancement Talents

Comments on the Tree in General
In my opinion, the best solo PVE tree. Enhancement requires no mana expenditure (except Stormstrike, which is terrible), and all shamans are going to be melee'ing when soloing. Therefore, it is essential in PVE.

For 1v1 PVP, it's terrible. We should only melee casters. We already beat casters about the head and shoulders with heavy bricks. It is totally unnecessary to savage them any more than we already do.

For mass PVP, it's another story. There, we are going to have difficulty escaping meleeing at least one opponent. We also are going to have extended fights with little or no downtime. Enhancement is very nice, both to increase our melee damage output and to increase our survivability.

No Prerequisites

Shield Specialization
Increases your chance to block attacks with a shield by 5%.
A fairly decent talent. Both it and Ancestral Knowledge are pretty bad, honestly. If you think you will use a shield a fair amount of the time, this talent will roughly double your block chance, so it's worth it. If not, go for Ancestral Knowledge.

Ancestral Knowledge
Increases your maximum mana by 5%.
Fairly poor on its own. When combined with other mana-saving talents (Tidal Focus, Convection) it becomes useful. If you don't think you'll be using a shield very often, take Ancestral Knowledge.

Requires 5 Points in Enhancement Talents

Improved Stoneskin Totem
Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your Stoneskin Totem by 20%.
This talent is terrible. Absolutely awful. Max rank Stoneskin absorbs 27 damage by default; this talent increases it by 5. Accounting for a high-level shaman's average damage reduction from armor (we'll call that 40%, it's low but the point will get across), this three point talent reduces damage by a whopping 3. Useless.

Improved Ghost Wolf
Reduces the casting time on your Ghost Wolf spell by 2 seconds.
A great talent. Having Ghost Wolf on a 1 second cast means that you can effectively cast it while being hit to escape. You can cast it and chase someone down in PVP or PVE. It gives you vastly increased versatility, for a mere two talent points.

Improved Lightning Shield
Increases the damage dealt by your Lightning Shield orbs by 15%.
Another great talent. Lightning Shield is one of your most mana-efficient spells, and you should almost always be using it. This just makes it even better.

Thundering Strikes
Improves your chance to get a critical strike with a weapon by 5%.
A very good talent. If you want to take a decent amount of melee work, then you want Enhancement; and if you want Enhancement, you want Thundering Strikes. Not only for its own sake, but because it is the prerequisite of the even better Flurry.

Requires 10 Points in Enhancement Talents

Improved Strength of Earth Totem
Increases the amount of Strength raised by your Strength of Earth Totem by 15%.
This talent is fairly bad. At max rank Strength of Earth and 3 points in this talent, it increases the bonus by 9 strength (or 1.28 DPS) per melee attacker. I wouldn't consider that to be worth the talent points.

Two-Handed Axes and Maces
Allows you to use Two-Handed Axes and Two-Handed Maces.
This talent can be good, but is not necessary. I feel that if you're going to put a good amount into Enhancement, it's a good use of one point. Yes, often, staves are as good. However, sometimes you can't find a good staff, but you can find a good 2h axe or mace. At 60, this is probably not necessary, as you can just farm yourself a nice staff if you want a 2h weapon. But before then, I think it's a solid use of one point.

Anticipation
Increases your Defense skill by 10.

Blizzard on Defense skill:

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Q u o t e:
Defense
# Increases the chance of being missed by an attack.
Each point of defense will increase the chance of being missed by an attack from an even con NPC by .04%
# Increases the chance to dodge, parry, and block an attack.
Each point of defense will increase the chance you will dodge, parry, or block an attack by .04% for each category
# Decreases the chance of being affected by a critical hit.
Each point of defense will decrease the chance of being affected by a critical hit by .04%
# Decreases the chance of being affected by a Crushing Blow.
Each point of defense will decrease the chance of being affected by a Crushing Blow by 2%. The benefit defense will have on a Crushing Blow is limited by your level. In other words, increasing your defense will only reduce the chance of being struck by a crushing blow if your current defense value is below your level’s maximum unbuffed value.

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Thus, this seems like a good talent to increase melee survivability.

Requires 15 Points in Enhancement Talents

Flurry
Requires 5 Points in Thundering Strikes
Increases your attack by 30% for your next three swings after dealing a critical strike.
A great talent. The mainstay of all Enhancement builds. Flurry is basically a flat increase in melee DPS, especially since you took the +5% crit talent before it.

Contributed by Erongg

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Q u o t e:
Now, the big question is how much total DPS increase do we see with Flurry?

As a side note, I'm only going to talk about max level Flurry in my post. If you're running a 19/32 build like Aryx is at the moment, you're only getting 25% Flurry bonus so the numbers change and you only get a 1/(1/1.25) = 25% DPS increase. As you can see, the way Blizzard has arranged it, swing speed increase = DPS increase.

I'll preface the rest of my work by saying that as far as I can tell, WF does not affect Flurry's DPS bonus, and I actually came up with a scenario where it may help it. I'll leave that math to someone else, but the point is that I feel the following is a good approximation whether you have WF or RB active.

So, how many Flurry swings do I get on average when I crit, since I have a chance to crit during Flurry? (roughly, since I'm ignoring the chance for 3 crits or more in a row and so this is a slight overestimate):

First let's take the case where we have a 10% crit chance and see what happens. In this case I also have a 10% chance to crit during a Flurry, and we see that 10% of the time I take away 2 hits, and if I don't take away 2 hits I have a 10% chance of taking away 1. The formula for the number of hits on average for Flurry then is:
3 - (crit%)(2) - (1 - crit%)(crit%)(1)

With our 10% crit rate, we get 3 - .1(2) - .9(.1)(1) = 2.71 flurry hits on average per crit. Now another big question: What percentage of our total hits is Flurry active? Well, (crit%)(2.71) percent of hits Flurry should be activated. With a 10% crit rate, that's 27.1% of my swings. .271(.3) ~= .081, so an 8.1% overall DPS bonus.

If our crit rate doubles to 20%, 3 - .2(2) - .8(.2)(1) = 2.44 swings on average, so Flurry is active 2.44(.2)% of my swings, or 48.8% of my swings. .488(.3) = 14.6% overall DPS bonus.

Taking this to the extreme as a means of testing my work, 100% crit rate means we get 3 - 1(2) - (1 - 1)(1)(1) = 3 - 2 - 0 = 1 flurry swing on average, crit%(1) = 100%, so total DPS increase = 1(.3) = .3, as it should be.
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Improved Rockbiter Weapon
Increases the attack power bonus of your Rockbiter Weapon by 10%.
This talent provides +4.13 DPS at level 60. It is a good investment of 2 talent points, if you like Rockbiter; that's more DPS than most people will gain from Concussion. However, I suggest against taking both this and Improved Windfury. Pick whichever buff you like more, then improve it, because these talents only help you when you are using the improved buff.

Requires 20 Points in Enhancement Talents

Improved Flametongue Weapon
Increases the damage dealt by your Flametongue Weapon effect by 10%.
This talent suffers from the same thing as Strength of Earth totem. It helps a useless spell. Hence, it is a lousy talent.

Parry
Gives a chance to parry enemy melee attacks.
An incredible talent. Parry is basically another flat % of damage reduction. It increases melee survivability by a huge amount. If you have 20 in enhancement, put the 1 in parry. You won't regret it.

Improved Frostbrand Weapon
Increases the damage dealt by your Frostbrand Weapon effect by 10%.
The worst of the worst; Frostbrand is a lousy weapon buff, and this talent doesn't even help it that much.

Improved Windfury Weapon
Increases the attack power bonus of your Windfury Weapon effect by 22%.
At 60, this talent will give you +4.17 DPS. It provides almost exactly the same benefit as Improved Rockbiter Weapon; a fairly strong talent. As said in the description of Rockbiter, I recomment picking your favorite weapon buff, then improving only that one.

Requires 25 Points in Enhancement Talents

Toughness
Requires 1 Point in Parry
Increases your armor value from items by 10%.
A fairly decent talent. If for some reason you want Stormstrike, Toughness is a good talent to pick up on the way. For all armor values between 2000 and 8000, Toughness will increase our damage reduction by 2.3% (an additive number, not a multiplicative one, so 50% becomes 52.3%). If your armor is below 2000, it becomes significantly less. The same is true if your armor is above 8000.

It is up to you whether or not this is worth five talent points; if you are a stamina-heavy build, it very likely is. Also, the more armor you already have, the more benefit this gives you in terms of survivability. For a full explanation, see Throgg's posts on page 9.

Improved Grounding Totem
Increases the frequency that your Grounding Totem will absorb a spell by 4 seconds.
If this actually worked, then we would all have Improved Grounding. However, Grounding Totem is destroyed by the first damage spell it absorbs. Therefore, this talent gives you zero benefit unless it absorbs a non-damage spell. The talent is not worth the two points.

Requires 30 Points in Enhancement Talents

Stormstrike
Instant cast. 5 yard range. 15 second cooldown. Variable mana cost (level-dependent).
Gives you an extra attack. In addition, the next two sources of Nature damage dealt to the target are increased by 20%. Lasts 12 seconds.
A terrible talent. Absolutely not worth being 31 points. It costs an obscene amount of mana (455 at level 60), and does less damage than a shock. It is almost always a waste of mana, and a waste of a talent point.

Improved Grace of Air Totem
Increases the amount of Agility raised by your Grace of Air Totem by 15%.
This talent would be great, if it didn't require 30 points. There aren't enough good high-end enhancement talents to justify taking 30 points in it. Thus, this talent is weak because it is too deep in the tree for its power level.

IV. Restoration Talents.

Comments on the Tree in General
Restoration is a strong high-end PVE tree, as well as a strong PVP tree. In my opinion, it is not necesary for low-end PVE. We don't need the healing power early. If we kill the enemy before we need to heal, then Improved Lesser Healing Wave doesn't help. Nature's Swiftness isn't necessary unless you screwed up; it's easier to just not screw up.

For the high-end PVE, raiding, and for PVP; Nature's Swiftness is almost necessary. Improved Lesser Healing Wave is similarly good. Mana Tide Totem gets rave reviews from mages, warlocks, and priests. Restoration really shines in Blackrock Depths and later. Until then, it isn't really necessary.

No Prerequisites

Improved Healing Wave
Reduces the cast time on your Healing Wave spell by .5 seconds.
This talent is worse than Tidal Focus in most cases. See Spolc's statement and linked thread, below.

Contributed by Spolc

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Q u o t e:
See my number punching http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?ForumName=wow-shaman&ThreadID=41344

Lesser Healing Wave with Tidal Focus is better in HP/mana and HP/sec over Healing Wave with Improved Healing Wave. Between the two teir 1 talents Tidal Focus and spamming Lesser Healing Wave is the better choice. Even Healing Wave with both IHW and TF is only slightly better than Lesser with TF in reagrds to HP/Mana and it still falls behind in HP/sec.
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Tidal Focus
Reduces the mana cost of your healing spells by 5%.
Also a strong talent. 5% less mana= 5% more healing. Stacked with Ancestral Knowledge, it can give you a good amount more healing.

Requires 5 Points in Restoration Talents

Improved Self-Reincarnation
Reduces the cooldown on your Self-Reincarnation spell by 20 minutes.
This talent is mostly useless in PVE. If you're wiping in an instance every forty minutes (or more than once per hour), something is more wrong than the fact that you can't self res that often.
However, for PVP, it is excellent. You will die on a regular basis. This talent can let you pull victory from the jaws of defeat 20 minutes more often; once every 40 minutes instead of every hour.

Ancestral Healing
Increases your target's armor value from items by 25% for 15 seconds after getting a critical effect from one of your healing spells.
I don't like this talent; too random, so you can't rely on it. It might help the tank a tiny bit, but it's more likely to not matter.
Valsheer's experience with this talent:

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Q u o t e:
On my 45 Shaman, when this spell took effect, my armor went up from approximately 2700 (with shield) to 3470. I then held the mouse cursor over my new armor value, and it said "Damage reduction against a level 45 attacker is reduced by 44%. Without the spell, my armor normally reduce damage by 39%. So, by spending 5 points in this Talent, when it goes off, it will reduce damage taken by 5% for a total of 15 seconds. Woo wee. Much powa.
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Totemic Focus
Reduces the mana cost of your totems by 10%.
A very strong talent. Totems eat up a lot of mana, when you place three or four. This helps keep that in check.

Requires 10 Points in Restoration Talents

Eventide
Increases the duration of your Healing Stream and Mana Spring Totems by 10 seconds.
This talent is fairly bad. For one, it is very rare for the totems to be needed for that long. For another, it gives another five ticks, which is a 10% increase to healing stream and mana spring, with a drawback attached.
Unfortunately, this talent is a prerequisite for Mana Tide Totem, which is very very good. Only take this talent if you are going to take Mana Tide.

Combat Endurance
Allows 10% of your health regeneration to work in combat.
This is our worst talent, bar none. According to Doomhaven's math (found in the Shaman FAQ thread linked above), 279 spirit would be 40 hp/tick. That would be 4/tick in combat. And that's with a 279 spirit! Next!

Improved Lesser Healing Wave
Gives you a 75% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Lesser Healing Wave.
A great talent. Extremely powerful; it can let you just sit there and chain-heal yourself until whatever is fighting you gets bored and goes away (NOTE: DOES NOT ACTUALLY WORK :P). It is very difficult to die if you have ILHW and the talent coming up shortly, Nature's Swiftness.

Requires 15 Points in Restoration Talents

Improved Healing Stream Totem
Increases the effect of your Healing Stream Totem by 20%.
The max-rank Healing Stream Totem heals 14 every 2 seconds. +20% would make it 16. Oh, joy. Never take this, next talent!

Tidal Mastery
Increases the critical effect chance of your healing and lightning spells by 5%.
An absolutely great talent. Crit heals are awesome, and if you like lightning spells, congratulations! They crit more as an added bonus! Also the prerequisite for Nature's Swfitness.

Requires 20 Points in Restoration Talents

Nature's Swiftness
Requires 5 Points in Tidal Mastery
Instant cast. 3 minute cooldown.
When activated, your next Nature spell with a casting time of less than 10 seconds becomes an instant cast spell.
An incredible talent. Possibly the best in any of our trees, for PVP and high-end PVE. It is not necessary for low-end PVE, solo or grouped. It does, however, help immensely. It can be a nuke or a heal. Just as a note; this talent does NOT initiate the global 1 second cooldown, so you can hit NS-whatever as fast as you can press it.
Contributed by Sherman

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Q u o t e:
With NS, the ramifications of instacast are: 1) you can heal an ally or yourself while on the run (either towards the battle or away), 2) a heal becomes non-interruptible and hence cannot be shut down by a mage's interrupt spell that then shuts down a school for 10 seconds, 3) you can cast a CL on the run so you can be runnig towards someone, cast CL then a Shock and then be right on top of them with melee.
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Improved Mana Spring Totem
Requires 5 Points in Eventide.
Increases the effect of your Mana Spring Totem by 25%.
Why am I even typing this? This talent blows. Something fierce. However, it is a prerequisite for Mana Tide Totem. Mana Tide is good. This talent is terrible. If you want Mana Tide, take this; otherwise, run for your life.

Requires 25 Points in Restoration Talents

Purification
Increases the effectiveness of your healing spells by 10%.
A strong talent. More people would take it if it wasn't so deep in the tree. As it is, it's only worth taking if you're going for Mana Tide. If you are, snap it up.

Requires 30 Points in Restoration Talents

Mana Tide Totem
Requires 5 Points in Improved Mana Spring Totem.
Instant cast. 5 minute cooldown. 60 mana.
Tools: Water Totem.
Summons a Mana Tide Totem at the feet of the caster for 12 seconds that restores 240 mana every 3 second to group members within 20 yards.
A GREAT talent. Absolutely incredible. This restores a total of 960 mana to each group member who uses it. Even at 60th level, that's at least two spells; maybe two.

V. Talent Builds.

Here we have some of the more common talent builds. I won't say that any of them are the "BEST" build, or that there is any one build you must take or be gimped. Shamans are so versatile, I think it's very difficult to gimp yourself by taking a lousy talent spec (it's possible, but you'd have to be intentionally going for all the worst talents). So spec to improve the part of shaman you like best. If you like the melee and the nukes, go enh/elem. If you like the healing and the nukes, go elem/rest. But if there's only one aspect of shaman that you like, then no offense intended, but you should be playing a different class. If all you want to do is heal, be a priest or druid. If all you want to do is melee, be a rogue or warrior. If you want to be a versatile, multi-part hybrid character: Welcome to the example shaman talent builds.

In all of the builds, I have used Ancestral Knowledge over Shield Specialization. If you prefer Shield Spec, simply swap them.

Build Number 1: PVP
Elemental Combat Talents (23 points)

# Concussion - 5/5 points
Increases the damage done by your Shock spells by 5%.

# Convection - 5/5 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your Shock spells by 10%.

# Reverberation - 5/5 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Shock spells by 1 second.

# Elemental Focus - 1/1 point
Gives you a 10% chance to enter a Clearcasting state after casting any Fire, Frost, or Nature damage spell. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana cost of your next damage spell by 100%.

# Call of Thunder - 5/5 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Lightning spells by 6%.

# Elemental Fury - 1/1 point
Increases the critical strike damage done by your Fire, Frost, and Nature spells by 100%.

# Improved Fire Nova Totem - 1/2 points
Reduces the delay of your Fire Nova Totem by 1 second.

Enhancement Talents (7 points)

# Ancestral Knowledge - 5/5 points
Increases your maximum Mana by 5%.

# Improved Ghost Wolf - 2/2 points
Reduces the cast time of your Ghost Wolf spell by 2 second.

Restoration Talents (21 points)

# Tidal Focus - 5/5 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your healing spells by 5%.

# Totemic Focus - 5/5 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your totems by 10%.

# Improved Lesser Healing Wave - 5/5 points
Gives you a 75% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Lesser Healing Wave.

# Tidal Mastery - 5/5 points
Increases the critical effect chance of your healing and Nature damage spells by 5%.

# Nature's Swiftness - 1/1 point
When activated, your next Nature spell with a casting time less than 10 seconds becomes an instant cast spell.

This is generally considered the default PVP build; it gives you improved shocks, clearcasting, improved crits, improved ghost wolf, and NS. It mostly just runs through the three trees and tries to hit the important but easy markers.

Build Number 2: PVE Grinding(Rest 21/Enh 30)
Elemental Combat Talents (0 points)

# None

Enhancement Talents (30 points)

# Ancestral Knowledge - 5/5 points
Increases your maximum Mana by 5%.

# Improved Lightning Shield - 3/3 points
Increases the damage done by your Lightning Shield orbs by 15%.

# Improved Ghost Wolf - 2/2 points
Reduces the cast time of your Ghost Wolf spell by 2 second.

# Thundering Strikes - 5/5 points
Improves your chance to get a critical strike with your weapon attacks by 5%.

# Two-Handed Axes and Maces - 1/1 point
Allows you to use Two-Handed Axes and Two-Handed Maces.

# Anticipation - 1/5 point
Increases your defense skill by 2.

# Flurry - 5/5 points
Increases your attack speed by 30% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.

# Improved Rockbiter Weapon - 2/2 points
Increases the Attack Power bonus of your Rockbiter Weapon by 10%.

# Parry - 1/1 point
Gives a chance to parry melee attacks.

# Toughness - 5/5 points
Increases your armor value from items by 10%.

Restoration Talents (21 points)

# Tidal Focus - 5/5 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your healing spells by 5%.

# Totemic Focus - 5/5 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your totems by 10%.

# Improved Lesser Healing Wave - 5/5 points
Gives you a 75% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Lesser Healing Wave.

# Tidal Mastery - 5/5 points
Increases the critical effect chance of your healing and Nature damage spells by 5%.

# Nature's Swiftness - 1/1 point
When activated, your next Nature spell with a casting time less than 10 seconds becomes an instant cast spell.

Generally considered the PVE grinding spec. It's very hard to die, no matter what happens. If you decide to go this way, spec Enhancement first and only take Restoration after you have Parry. Then to Restoration up to ILHW; then back to Enhancement, the five in Toughness; then back to Restoration for NS. NS is unnecessary in non-high-end PVE, so you can leave it until 60.

Build Number 3: Alternate PVE Grinding(Elem/Enh)
Elemental Combat Talents (29 points)

# Concussion - 5/5 points
Increases the damage done by your Shock spells by 5%.

# Improved Lightning Bolt - 1/5 point
Reduces the Mana cost of your Lightning Bolt spell by 3%.

# Convection - 5/5 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your Shock spells by 10%.

# Reverberation - 5/5 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Shock spells by 1 second.

# Call of Thunder - 5/5 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Lightning spells by 6%.

# Improved Fire Nova Totem - 2/2 points
Reduces the delay before your Fire Nova Totem activates by 2 seconds.

# Elemental Fury - 1/1 point
Increases the critical strike damage done by your Fire, Frost, and Nature spells by 100%.

# Lightning Mastery - 4/5 points
Reduces the cast time of your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells by 0.8 seconds.

Enhancement Talents (22 points)

# Ancestral Knowledge - 5/5 points
Increases your maximum Mana by 5%.

# Thundering Strikes - 5/5 points
Improves your chance to get a critical strike with your weapon attacks by 5%.

# Improved Ghost Wolf - 2/2 points
Reduces the cast time of your Ghost Wolf spell by 2 second.

# Improved Lightning Shield - 3/3 points
Increases the damage done by your Lightning Shield orbs by 15%.

# Two-Handed Axes and Maces - 1/1 point
Allows you to use Two-Handed Axes and Two-Handed Maces.

# Flurry - 5/5 points
Increases your attack speed by 30% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.

# Parry - 1/1 point
Gives a chance to parry melee attacks.

Restoration Talents (0 points)

# None

Now, most of you aren't going to believe me, but that doesn't bother me. In my opinion, this is a better PVE grinding build than the Rest one. It requires that you keep your First Aid up and have drinks occasionally (I drink about every five minutes, when I need to renew my weapon buff; sometimes longer than that, but never more often than every five minutes). Only heal for big numbers or in battle; FA the rest. Basically, what you want to do is: Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Flame Shock, melee. If one of those procced clearcasting, toss out your highest-damage shock. You can either keep LS up, or only use it once per battle; the enemies usually only get 2-3 hits on me, so I don't refresh it in battle.

Build Number 4: Primary Healer(Rest42/Enh9)
Elemental Combat Talents (0 points)

# None

Enhancement Talents (9 points)

# Ancestral Knowledge - 5/5 points
Increases your maximum Mana by 5%.

# Shield Specialization- 4/5 points
Increases your chance to block with a shield by 5%.

Restoration Talents (42 points)

# Improved Healing Wave - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Healing Wave spell by 0.5 seconds.

# Tidal Focus - 5/5 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your healing spells by 5%.

# Totemic Focus - 5/5 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your totems by 10%.

# Improved Lesser Healing Wave - 5/5 points
Gives you a 75% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Lesser Healing Wave.

# Eventide - 5/5 points
Increases the duration of your Healing Stream and Mana Spring totems by 15%.

# Tidal Mastery - 5/5 points
Increases the critical effect chance of your healing and Nature damage spells by 5%.

# Improved Mana Spring Totem - 5/5 points
Increases the effect of your Mana Spring Totem by 25%.

# Nature's Swiftness - 1/1 point
When activated, your next Nature spell with a casting time less than 10 seconds becomes an instant cast spell.

# Purification - 5/5 points
Increases the effectiveness of your healing spells by 10%.

# Mana Tide Totem - 1/1 point
Summons a Mana Tide Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 12 seconds that restores 140 mana every 3 seconds to group members within 20 yards.

This build is for a shaman to be a primary healer. You will need to spec +int heavily. In my opinion, this talent spec is a waste of a shaman; for one, we can primary heal without this many points in Restoration. For another, a shaman who does nothing but heal is wasting all of his other potential.
Explanation of why it's AK+SS, by Doomhaven

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Q u o t e:
I've been thinking this build over, and I have a thought: instead of getting ghost wolf and lightning shield, why not get Ancestral Knowledge *and* Shield Spec?

Bear with me.

If you are a main healer, in end-game, you are only healing in one place: instances. You won't ever be using lightning shield in an instance as a main healer, and you can't use ghost wolf in any endgame instances anyways. But, you *will* be using both shields and mana in an instance.

I wouldn't recommend going without ghost wolf and lightning shield when leveling/grinding, but at level 60, you aren't going to be leveling or grinding anymore.

This spec would *only* be a level 60 final respec build, and *definitely* not a, "Hey, I'm level 10, how should I put my points leveling up?" build.
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Build Number 5: "I'm Always Out of Mana (Elem/Rest)"
Elemental Combat Talents (30 points)

# Concussion - 5/5 points
Increases the damage done by your Shock spells by 5%.

# Improved Lightning Bolt - 1/5 point
Reduces the Mana cost of your Lightning Bolt spell by 3%.

# Convection - 5/5 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your Shock spells by 10%.

# Reverberation - 5/5 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Shock spells by 1 second.

# Call of Thunder - 5/5 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Lightning spells by 6%.

# Improved Fire Nova Totem - 2/2 points
Reduces the delay before your Fire Nova Totem activates by 2 seconds.

# Elemental Fury - 1/1 point
Increases the critical strike damage done by your Fire, Frost, and Nature spells by 100%.

# Lightning Mastery - 5/5 points
Reduces the cast time of your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells by 1 second.

Enhancement Talents (0 points)

# None

Restoration Talents (21 points)

# Tidal Focus - 5/5 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your healing spells by 5%.

# Totemic Focus - 5/5 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your totems by 10%.

# Improved Lesser Healing Wave - 5/5 points
Gives you a 75% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Lesser Healing Wave.

# Tidal Mastery - 5/5 points
Increases the critical effect chance of your healing and Nature damage spells by 5%.

# Nature's Swiftness - 1/1 point
When activated, your next Nature spell with a casting time less than 10 seconds becomes an instant cast spell.

Many people consider this build; then they realize that it would include casting constantly, and that their mana would run out rapidly. On the plus side, your lightning spells would crit very often, and do huge damage. Every so often, you'd get clearcasting. But as far as I can tell (I have no personal experience with this build), you would run out of mana so fast as to make it useless.

Build 6: Elem/Enh (Mastery)
Elemental Combat Talents (31 points)