Shaman Leveling Guide From 1 to 80 for WotLK Classic (2024)

Last updated on Aug 31, 2022 at 19:42by Seksixeny1 comment

On this page we will help you with leveling in WotLK Classic as a Shaman.Shamans are very self-sufficient levelers that also have no troublewith grouping should the need arise. Shamans also have accessto a wide variety of abilities that, if used correctly, can helpmaximize your uptime, kill speed, and rate at which you are able to gain levels.

This guide will aim to provide you with a clear skill and gear path to Level80 in Wrath Classic. While detailing every single quest and the optimal levelingroutes is beyond its scope, you can find detailed talent builds for allplaystyles, their rotations, and guides for class quests and levelingweapon suggestions below.

Providing non-Shaman leveling advice is outside the scope of this article and iscovered in our general Wrath leveling guide.

Shamans have two main leveling options: Enhancement orElemental.

Enhancement is an excellent leveling build, as it has great areadamage with Fire Nova, good survivability when facing multiple enemies,and multiple options for Mana sustain, leading to the least downtime in betweenlarge pulls.

Elemental is also viable to level with, and is usually even faster thanEnhancement at killing single enemies, but its caster nature often requiresdrinking and limits mobility. However, it has the upside of having asafer playstyle with less to fear from ranged or running enemies.

Leveling in Dungeons is a popular way to reach Level 80 quickly andpainlessly in Wrath Classic, as it skips world congestion on highly populatedservers and provides reliable experience values. There are two major gains tobe had from skipping questing:

• Avoiding PvP and Competition for tags will make your experience gainmuch more consistent over time;
• Minimal Wrath Quest and Zone knowledge required, which will beparticularly relevant for anyone who is not familiar with the questing contentbut still wants to rush to 80.

Shamans are always welcome in any group due to their versatile totems, whichgrant multiple benefits to the party no matter the specialization chosen. Forexample, Windfury Totem and Strength of Earth Totem cover the mostimportant Physical buffs, while Wrath of Air Totem and (Elemental-only)Totem of Wrath cover critical caster buffs.

These allow the Shaman to give strong support to both melee and castercleaves, with Elementalbeing more suited to caster cleaves, Enhancementbeing great on melee cleaves, and Restorationbringing most of the support capabilities on a healer role.

Learning professions early on is very useful, as you can naturally level themas you go and avoid extra work at max level. While you can start right away withcrafting professions if you have extra gold to spare or other characters to relyon for getting started, gathering professions are recommended as they create goldfor you without requiring any initial investment.

We recommend that you learn First Aid and two out of Skinning,Herbalism, and Mining, which you can level alongsideyour questing path and will provide a steady gold income on the way throughthe auction house. At maximum level you can easily drop these gathering professionsand power level your crafting professions of choice by buying materials, so donot worry about falling behind during leveling.

While leveling, if you are Enhancement,your weapon is the most important piece of your gear. You should look forhigh raw damage, as Stormstrike scales with it, making slower weaponsgenerally stronger when they have equal damage-per-second values. Slower weaponsalso allow you to kite with Earthbind Totem more efficiently, if needed.

The rest of your gear should have Agility on it, as it is the stat thatincreases your damage the most and does so on a predictable manner, allowing youto more accurately judge whether you can kill an enemy or need to heal inclose-call situations.

For the other specialization options, Elemental and Restoration, gear is lessimportant but try to aim for Intellect and Spell Power as thesestats allow you to kill more enemies or cast more heals before having to rest.

By setting yourself up with an upgraded user interface and macros from theget-go, you will make your leveling process much easier. Check out our Shaman Addonsand Shaman Macros guide in the links below for the full list.

While all gear is relevant while leveling, weapons are especially important,as they contribute a great part of your damage — especially when you relyon melee hits as Enhancementbut also Elemental andRestoration early on.Read our full guide on weapons below.

Every class in Wrath Classic has important class-specific quests that allow themto gear up and learn new active abilities which are often critical to the class.Every single one of your totems, Earth, Fire, Water, and Air comes from doingthese quests, and we will detail every single step of the way for you in our fullguide for quests below for both Horde and Alliance Shamans.

By the time you hit maximum level, it will be very helpful to read the restof our guides. Pick Restoration Shaman if you intend to heal at maximumlevel, Elemental Shaman for Ranged DPS, andEnhancement Shamanfor Melee DPS.