Shamans are a nice class with a lot of different spells and abilities. You can play a Shaman in several ways. You can choose to be either a Melee or Spell casting damage dealer or become a Healer. The Shamans could only be played by the Horde races until the release of the Burning Crusade when the Draenei of the Alliance made it possible to become an Alliance Shaman. Shamans can wear all weapons except swords and are dependent on leather armor till level 40 and can then wear mail armor.
Shamans are well known for their ability to place totems that boost both themselves and party members. There is a great variety of totems that can be cast and these are divided in four schools: fire, water, earth and air totems. Only one totem of each school can be active at a time. Besides the totems, a Shaman also has another great ability called Blood Lust, or Heroism for Draeneis, which boosts all party and raid members haste rating by 30% for 40 seconds. Not to forget, the Shaman can also summon a Fire and Earth Elemental from time to time.
Then there are several abilities that the Shaman can benefit greatly from during leveling and basically in any kind of scenario. The Shamans have an ability called Reincarnation which comes with a cooldown of one hour. The Shaman will be able to resurrect the moment he gets killed if this ability isn’t on cooldown. It does require a reagent called ‘Ankh’. The Shaman can also learn Ghost Wolf at level thirty which improves his running speed which is nice for leveling, even though mounts can be used at level 30 now as well. Shamans also have Astral Recall which basically serves as another Hearthstone, this one has only 15 minutes cool down though and doesn’t cost you a spot in your bag!
As you can read above, the Shaman truly does have some great abilities. The talent trees will provide you with even more cool spells and abilities.
To begin with there is the Elemental talent build which is meant for casting damage dealers. You will use lighting and fire attacks to maximize damage. A nice AoE spell that becomes available later is Thunderstorm which does nice damage and knocks back enemies.
Then there is the Enhancement talent build. This build is created for melee damage dealing Shamans. This build will allow the Shaman to equip two one-handed weapons and will also give him some great melee attacks. If the Enchancement build is followed to the end you will be able to summon two Spirit Wolves which are extremely powerful both in PvE and PvP.
Finally there is the Restoration build which is focused on healing. Shamans can be great healers with their Earth Shield, Chain Heals, Healing Waves, Mana Totems and Riptide. The Restoration talent tree does not only give new abilities but also gives great boosts to already existing abilities.
A Shaman is easy and fun to level with all these abilities. Another nice thing a Rogue in example does not have is that you can switch between melee damage, being a caster and a healer whenever you like.
