WoW Classic Elemental Shaman Leveling Guide 1-60
On this page, you will find our Level by Level Elemental Shaman leveling guide for WoW Classic. Make sure to use the slider to make the guide adapt to your level. For more general leveling information, please refer to our Shaman leveling guide. We also have an Enhancement Shaman leveling guide and a Restoration Shaman leveling guide.
If you were looking for TBC Classic advice, please refer to our TBC Classic Elemental Shaman leveling guide.
Elemental Shaman Leveling Rotation, Talents, and Trainer Skills
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
Talent Tree
Your first talent unlocks at Level 10.
- Levels 10 to 14 — 5 points in Convection
- Levels 15 to 17 — 3 points in Call of Flame
- Levels 18 & 19 — 2 points in Concussion
Convection increases your Mana efficiency, which is of great value while leveling, allowing you to pull more before having to drink. Call of Flame will give your Searing Totem, Fire Nova Totem and Magma Totem a strong boost, allowing them to contribute more when used. Finally, get started on Concussion to increase your overall damage.
- Level 20 — 1 point in Elemental Focus
- Levels 21 to 25 — 5 points in Call of Thunder
- Levels 26 to 28 — 3 points in Eye of the Storm
- Level 29 — 1 point in Concussion
Elemental Focus improves your Mana efficiency by sometimes making your next spell free. Track this effect and use your most expensive spells when it procs to take advantage of its effect. Call of Thunder increases your damage by improving the critical chance of your main spells. Eye of the Storm will sometimes allow you to cast uninterrupted and another point into Concussion is another damage increase.
- Level 30 — 1 point in Elemental Fury
- Levels 31 & 32 — 2 points in Storm Reach
- Levels 33 & 34 — 2 points in Concussion
- Levels 35 to 39 — 5 points in Lightning Mastery
Elemental Fury increases your critical damage substantially, which has great synergy with your critical strike increasing talents, Call of Thunder and Elemental Mastery. Storm Reach increases your pull range, while maximizing the rest of Concussion further increases your damage potential. Finally, maximizing Lightning Mastery provides a huge DPS increase as it drastically decreases your cast times.
- Level 40 — 1 point in Elemental Mastery
- Levels 41 to 45 — 5 point in Improved Healing Wave
- Levels 46 & 47 — 2 points in Improved Reincarnation
- Levels 48 & 49 — 2 points in Totemic Focus
While Nature's Swiftness is, arguably, a more flexible pick than Elemental Mastery, it is much better to be able to pick Elemental Mastery at Level 40 and have it immediately impact your gameplay, compared to only getting Nature's Swiftness at Level 60, when you will likely be respeccing for an end-game build, anyway.
Improved Healing Wave allows you to heal faster through Healing Wave spam when needed, Improved Reincarnation provides a better cushion with Reincarnation for when mistakes are made. Finally, get two points into Totemic Focus to increase your Mana efficiency.
- Level 50 — 1 point in Totemic Focus
- Levels 51 to 53 — 3 point in Nature's Guidance
- Level 54 — 1 point in Totemic Mastery
- Level 55 — 1 point in Totemic Focus
- Levels 56 to 60 — 5 point in Tidal Mastery
Get one more point into Totemic Focus and proceed to the main reason why we went down the Restoration tree, Nature's Guidance. This talent is a great damage increase due to the hit it provides. Get Totemic Mastery to increase the range at which allies will get your totem benefits and finish Totemic Focus. Finally, maximize Tidal Mastery in order to get even more critical strike.
Leveling Rotation
Good usage of Earthbind Totem can help you avoid a lot of damage. Place it between yourself and your enemies to slow them and give yourself at least one extra Lightning Bolt cast before taking any damage.
While Searing Totem has great sustained damage, this damage is dealt over a very long period, while Elemental should be looking to burst down its targets so that more time is freed to regenerate while moving to the next objective or drink. Still, feel free to use it whenever you are facing harder or multiple enemies. The same can be said about Flame Shock, which is a great spell to use while kiting enemies with Earthbind Totem.
Windfury Weapon is a strong weapon enchant that can allow you to one shot an enemy out of nowhere, but is generally outclassed by Rockbiter Weapon during leveling, which does more overall damage and also has less potential to waste damage when an enemy is low health.
- Make sure to always heal yourself with Healing Wave if you are low health after a pull, this will allow you to quickly get back to action with minimal downtime, as you will be able to regenerate that Mana until you next need to heal again.
- Make sure Rockbiter Weapon is active on you at all times, to maximize your potential damage output whenever an enemy makes it to your melee range.
- Make sure both Rockbiter Weapon and Lightning Shield are active on you at all times, to maximize your potential damage output whenever an enemy makes it to your melee range.
- Drop Strength of Earth Totem and Searing Totem as your main totems, when grinding in a small space for a prolonged amount of time, in dungeons, or when facing hard enemies.
- Drop Strength of Earth Totem, Healing Stream Totem and Searing Totem as your main totems, when grinding in a small space for a prolonged amount of time, in dungeons, or when facing hard enemies.
- Drop Healing Stream Totem and Searing Totem as your main totems (also Windfury Totem and Strength of Earth Totem when playing with Warriors or Rogues), when grinding in a small space for a prolonged amount of time, in dungeons, or when facing hard enemies.
- Elemental Mastery causes your next damage spell to deal a guaranteed critical strike and be free. Use it alongside Chain Lightning and Earth Shock (cast immediately after the Chain Lightning) whenever possible, preferably while facing the toughest enemies around you.
- Use Lightning Bolt to initiate combat. Keep casting it until the enemy is close enough that you will not have time to cast another one before you get hit in melee range.
- Use Lightning Bolt (single-target) or Chain Lightning (multiple-targets) to initiate combat. Keep casting it until the enemy is close enough that you will not have time to cast another one before you get hit in melee range.
- Auto-attack the enemy until he dies. The idle time you get here will allow you to regenerate some Mana, as you will not be casting any more spells until you are pulling the next enemy.
- Auto-attack the enemy until he dies, if his remaining health is low. Otherwise, mix in Earth Shock (immediately after your auto-attack) to make it die faster. The idle time you get here will allow you to regenerate some Mana, as you will not be casting any more spells until you are pulling the next enemy.
List of Trainer Skills to Buy
Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem and Ancestral Spirit are examples of very powerful skills that should always be bought if and when you start playing in a group. These skills, among others, will not be listed below because they are of limited usefulness for the average solo / questing player but feel free to buy them if you ever play in a group or do dungeons.
- At Level 1, as soon as you have the copper, buy Rockbiter Weapon. It provides a significant damage boost that lasts for 5 minutes. Also, buy Healing Wave, allowing you to heal, when needed.
- At Level 4, buy Earth Shock. Earth Shock is an instant, high damage spell that also interrupts any casts the target was doing when it hits. You will be using it to interrupt enemies and deal damage through leveling.
- At Level 6, buy Earthbind Totem and Rank 2 Healing Wave. Earthbind Totem slows enemies around itself, enabling kiting strategies.
- At Level 8, buy Lightning Shield, Rank 2 Lightning Bolt, Rank 2 Earth Shock and Rank 2 Rockbiter Weapon. Lightning Shield is a Mana-efficient way to damage enemies you are in melee combat with, and should always be kept up on yourself.
- At Level 10, buy Searing Totem. Searing Totem will be a nice and steady damage contribution whenever you are fighting in the same place for a while.
- At Level 12, buy Rank 3 Healing Wave.
- At Level 14, buy Rank 3 Lightning Bolt and Rank 3 Earth Shock.
- At Level 16, buy Rank 2 Lightning Shield and Rank 3 Rockbiter Weapon.
- At Level 18, buy Rank 4 Healing Wave.
- At Level 20, buy Ghost Wolf, Healing Stream Totem, Rank 4 Lightning Bolt and Rank 2 Searing Totem. Ghost Wolf allows you to transform into a Wolf while outdoors which moves much faster than your normal run speed. Use it to speed up your leveling, especially before a mount is available. Healing Stream Totem heals you steadily while it is up and is recommended to use when staying on a location for its duration.
- At Level 24, buy Rank 3 Lightning Shield, Rank 4 Rockbiter Weapon, Rank 5 Healing Wave, Rank 4 Earth Shock and Rank 2 Strength of Earth Totem.
- At Level 26, buy Rank 5 Lightning Bolt.
- At Level 30, buy Reincarnation, Rank 2 Healing Stream Totem and Astral Recall. Reincarnation allows you to recover instantly from dying, saving time in the process. Finally, Astral Recall allows you to get a second Hearthstone, but with half the cooldown, allowing for a lot of extra mobility.
- At Level 32, buy Chain Lightning, Rank 6 Healing Wave, Rank 4 Lightning Shield and Rank 6 Lightning Bolt. Chain Lightning is our strongest damage spell, even for single-target, but also has a massive Mana cost, so try to save it for AoE situations.
- At Level 36, buy Rank 5 Earth Shock.
- At Level 38, buy Rank 7 Lightning Bolt.
- At Level 40, buy Rank 2 Chain Lightning, Rank 3 Healing Stream Totem, Rank 7 Healing Wave and Rank 5 Lightning Shield.
- At Level 42, buy Grace of Air Totem. Grace of Air will not generally be useful to you but its a great totem for the physical damage dealers, when you are grouped with them.
- At Level 44, buy Rank 8 Lightning Bolt.
- At Level 48, buy Rank 3 Chain Lightning, Rank 8 Healing Wave Rank 6 Lightning Shield and Rank 6 Earth Shock.
- At Level 50, buy Rank 9 Lightning Bolt and Rank 4 Healing Stream Totem.
- At Level 56, buy Rank 2 Grace of Air Totem, Rank 9 Healing Wave, Rank 4 Chain Lightning, Rank 7 Lightning Shield and Rank 10 Lightning Bolt.
- At Level 60, buy Rank 7 Earth Shock and Rank 5 Healing Stream Totem.
Shaman Macros and Addons
By setting yourself up with an upgraded user interface and macros from the get go, you will make your leveling process much easier. Check out our Elemental Shaman Macros and Addons guide in the link below for the full list.
Elemental Shaman Quests and Weapons
While leveling, you will want to always search for weapon upgrade opportunities. Also, it is required that you complete various Shaman specific quest lines in order to receive your various elemental totems, which are required in order to be able to use your totems, such as Earthbind Totem. To help you with these tasks, we have made two detailed pages.
Playing an Elemental Shaman Beyond Level 60
Once you reach maximum level, we recommend diving into our Elemental Shaman Guide, which covers everything you need to know about playing Elemental in the end game.
We especially recommend reading through these pages:
- Our Elemental Shaman Talent builds guide contains the PvE oriented builds for Elemental Shamans, including a melee hybrid build;
- Check out the PvP Shaman guide, where you can find PvP oriented builds for Elemental Shamans, as well as some tips that can you help face other players;
- Inside the Goldmaking Guide for Elemental Shamans, you will find various tactics and strategies to farm gold in WoW Classic at level 60;
- Elemental Shaman Rotation guide contains details on how to play in a variety of situations, including some advanced totem management tips;
- Browse the Elemental Shaman Stats guide to learn about your stat priority as an Elemental Shaman and how they contribute to your performance at maximum level;
- Finally, the Gear guide for Elemental Shamans contains the best gear pieces to look for at level 60, in order to maximize your damage.
Changelog
- 18 Nov. 2024: Page updated for Classic Anniversary.
- 28 Feb. 2021: Changed the slider starting point to maximum level.
- 05 Jan. 2020: Added a Macros and Addons section.
- 23 Sep. 2019: Added a final section with useful links for players who just hit 60.
- 14 Sep. 2019: Guide added.
Classic Dungeon Guides
Classic Profession Guides
Classic Race Guides
Classic Class Overviews
This guide has been written by Seksi, original vanilla player and multi-class player, currently playing on Gehennas Horde. You can find him on the Classic Warrior, Mage and Shaman Discords, as well as the Icy Veins Discord.
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