Totems are your classes’ signature mechanic and come in four elements, giving you and your party bonuses depending on which ones you choose. You can only have one of each kind down at the time, Earth, Fire, Water and Wind. For this guide we will go over the most useful ones.
Keep in mind that in classic, you can’t recall your totems. So be aware of where your totems are as you keep fighting so as to not pull any unwanted enemies into combat.
For earth totems you have a choice of offensive and defensive ones.
Stoneskin Totem reduces your melee damage taken by a flat amount, this helps when facing multiple enemies in close combat.
Earthbind Totem will slow down enemies in a radius, in combination with Frost Shock, it will be your main kiting tool.
Stoneclaw Totem taunts enemies and can come in clutch with giving you some space to run away when facing a single enemy. It does get better with ranks with stronger taunts and bigger health pool.
Strength of Earth Totem is your offensive totem and an excellent one to use in groups where you have at least one or two more melees that use both Agility and Strength.
Fire totems are all about dealing damage.
Searing Totem will be your first totem and deals consistent single target damage from range, simple yet effective.
Fire Nova Totem gives you one big burst of AoE damage after a few seconds.
Magma Totem also does AoE damage but is constantly pulsing, don’t use it if you can’t grab the threat of all enemies, so they don’t turn and destroy it.
Water totems focus on sustained healing and resistances, but there are only two you might want during leveling.
Healing Stream Totem gives you pulsing healing every few seconds and will help out with sustaining your health while you stay in range.
Mana Spring Totem does the same thing as the previous one, only for your mana, good for when you want to sit down and eat/drink.
Air totems have very few options and only one you might want during.
Windfury Totem gives you the signature Windfury Weapon but it works on group members, excellent when grouping with other melee classes for dungeons.
Another source of our damage is our weapon imbuements. There are three viable enhancements.
Rockbiter – is our main and most used enhancement, providing a significant boost to our attack power but also generating additional threat in return. Make sure to keep track of what levels you can train the next rank of this spell and plan on making trips to your trainer accordingly.
Flametongue – is your fire imbuement, giving your weapon additional fire damage scaling better with slower weapons. It should be noted that the fire damage portion is scaled off your spell power and spell crit and that doesnt come into effect until endgame.
Windfury – is shamans signature bursty hit, it adds a chance to hit two additional times for a massive damage, but is unreliable because of its unpredictability. It also brings up the issue of overkill, and lowering your chances of pricing on your next enemy while you are chain killing mobs.
Another most used type of spell for Elemental is Shock, giving you an instant burst of damage that gives different kinds of damage with additional effects.
Earth Shock – you will mainly use this for shorter fights and in cases you know Flame Shock wont get full value and is not worth refreshing. It also has the additional benefit of interrupting spell casts.
Flame Shock – deals fire damage and has a damage over time component.
Frost Shock – does frost damage and will slow down an enemy, excellent for kiting enemies around in combination with your Earthbind Totem.
Lightning Bolt should also be kept up to date as it still plays a part in your opening rotation.
Chain Lightning is generally a better version of Lightning Bolt that jumps to another 2 targets, only drawback is way higher mana cost.
Lightning Shield will help with damage and needs to be refreshed often in combat because it works off charges.
Elemental Mastery is your 3 minute cooldown that empowers your next spell, this is best used with your shocks for single target, or chain lightning for 3+ targets, as it crits all 3 of them.
If you wish to have an option to heal in dungeons, keep your healing spells trained, otherwise, just do Healing Wave and Lesser Healing Wave.
For mobility, you will want to train Ghost Wolf that will be made instant through your talents, and learn Astral Recall as an additional Hearthstone effect.
Purge can come in handy when dealing with some nasty enemy buffs but you need to familiarize yourself with what can be purged off and what can not.
