Draenei Shaman PvE Strategies

After another lull in my Warcraft interest, I decided to pick the game back up and give it another go, this time with my draenei shaman Gregor. So far, I like what I see of shamans. They don’t do anything incredibly well, but they can do pretty much anything competently. Healing, melee DPS, ranged DPS, tanking, buffing… they’re pretty much the Warcraft jack of all trades.

Now, I’m still something of a novice when it comes to running a shaman (at the very least, I have nowhere near the same expertise as I do with warlocks), but here are my reflections on shamans in PvE.

Whether you’re questing or grinding, you’ll almost always run into the shaman’s main flaw: Limited Mana. It almost seems like a joke to give shamans such great abilities and not enough mana to use them that much. A shaman can easily burn through his entire mana pool in a single fight, being forced to sit and drink after every encounter. Heck, that’s the reason I gave up on my mage. As anyone who’s worried about PvE efficiency knows, downtime between fights must be avoided like the plague.

There are several solutions to this problem. The obvious solution is to spec your mana-increasing and cost-reducing talents, deck yourself out in spirit- and intellect-enhancing gear, and otherwise try to make up for the class flaw. This is a viable option if you’ve got the time, effort, and gold to make it work.

I don’t know about you, but I like to spend my gaming time having fun, not worrying about such little details. My solution, then, is to capitalize on the shaman’s one source of free DPS, his melee attacks, as well as his relatively cheap, long-lasting totems to achieve high mana efficiency.

Here’s how I set things up. My shaman is specced for enhancement (Thundering Strikes, Flurry, Weapon Mastery, Dual Wield, etc.). Naturally, I always have Windfury Weapon active. I’ll generally start a fight by dropping my Stoneskin and Healing Stream Totems. I’ll then pull the intended mob with a Lightning Bolt and drop a Searing Totem as it approaches. The trick here is to stop casting and let your melee DPS do most of the work. If the fight is going badly, you can throw a Lightning Shield or a Flame Shock to give your DPS a boost, but resist the temptation to go all out; that’s how you eat through your mana quickly. Sit back, heal as necessary, and let your mace/axe do the work instead of your spells. Done correctly, much of your mana will regenerate by the end of the fight, allowing you to heal and move on to the next mob quickly.

There are, of course, lots of variations to this strategy. Against a caster, for example, I’ll often forego my other totems in favor of a Grounding Totem and a regular stream of low-level Earth Shocks (note that you can still interrupt casting without paying for your most expensive shock). The point remains the same, however. Open the fight with your most mana-efficient spells and try to avoid casting, letting your melee DPS kill the mob. Sure, it’s not as much fun as nuking them back to the Stone Age, but with no downtime you’ll achieve a faster kill rate, leading to more XP and more levels in less time.

I’m still learning as I go with Gregor. I haven’t had an opportunity, for instance, to be a party healer or play support for casters. The shaman, however, is proving to be an engaging and varied class, endearing itself to me in many of the same ways that the warlock did (self-rezzing comes to mind). Only time will tell, but if I keep up at the pace I’ve been going, I may very well get my shaman to 70 before my currently level 65 warlock.

ah yes! the shaman mana problem… well.. u suggest spirit gear and int gear… what i would recommend as well as any endgame shaman is not spirit… spirit does no affect your mp5 while casting. Deck out in the Mp5 stat as much as you can with intellect. if youll look at my armory link http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Eldre%27Thalas&n=Redefine

youll see that i am an mp5 WHORE.

this is resto…

for enh like your talking about… yes you can burn through mana like nobodies business but u can regen alot of it with a single button. shamanistic rage. that should allow you to get much of it back… just wait for SS ES to be off cooldown b4 you pop it. it works use it alot… also mana potions… as a healer you blow through them like candy. maybe you can do the same for dps… also if it becomes a problem… http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22840

Major mageblood… its expensive its hard to find… not many alchemists can make it but damn it helps… http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22853

Flask of mighty restoration… there ya go… Those pots should help…. also have mana totem down at ALL TIMES
I go through Zul’Aman animal bosses in less than an hour… mana is always flowing and noone hardly has any down time… if ur the only one in the group benefitting from it… so be it. hey hit me up for shaman theorycraft netime or with watever questions ya got

and stop drooling on my gear