Shaman Shadowlands Leveling Guide From 1 to 60

Table of Contents

• 1. Leveling in Shadowlands
• 2. Best Leveling Spec for Shaman in Shadowlands
• 3. Ability Unlocks for Shaman Leveling in Shadowlands
• 4. Best Heirloom Items for Shaman Leveling in Shadowlands
• 5. Changelog

Welcome to our Shaman leveling guide. Here you will find all you need to know to level up your Shaman efficiently. Leveling received a lot of changes in Shadowlands, which we have documented in our Shadowlands Leveling Changes page. In addition, we now have a revamped Leveling guide, complete with detailed information on XP, mounts, addons, consumables, tips, and more. We encourage to read it to increase your leveling speed even more.

Shamans can level as either melee or ranged damage dealers, both of which have strong area of effect damage and self-healing capabilities. They can also swap into a healing specialization, which is particularly useful for group play, and to reduce the queue time on the Dungeon Finder.

Shamans have three talent trees: Elemental, Enhancement and Restoration.

Elemental is a ranged damage specialization with decent burst damage and area of effect spells. Its main limitation is that you cannot do much damage while moving, although this limitation is alleviated by instant-cast spells gained while leveling.

Enhancement is the melee damage option for Shamans, and has a distinct battle-mage melee style. You will be able to do most of your damage while moving and also heal yourself instantly with Maelstrom-powered Healing Surges, making it an efficient leveling spec.

Finally, Restoration is a healing specialization, and thus slower for solo questing due to its lower damage output, but if you are going to be leveling in a group or by doing dungeons, healing is a very important role which will allow larger pulls and much quicker dungeon queues.

• At Level 1, you unlock Lightning Bolt, which is a long cast ranged damage spell. This will be your ranged bread and butter attack.
• At Level 2, you unlock Primal Strike, which will be your bread and butter melee attack for a while.
• At Level 3, you unlock Flame Shock which deals some instant damage and more damage over time. Because it only takes a single global to apply, it is very damage/time efficient.
• At Level 4, you unlock Healing Surge, which lets you heal with a short cast time. Use it to keep yourself healthy when needed.
• At Level 5, you unlock Earthbind Totem, which slows nearby enemies by 50%, on a 30-second cooldown.
• At Level 7, you unlock Flametongue Weapon, which enchants your weapon for 1 hour, causing your melee attacks to deal extra fire damage.
• At Level 8, you unlock Reincarnation, which allows you to resurrect yourself at the place of death, once every 30 minutes.
• At Level 9, you unlock Lightning Shield, a 30 minute self-buff that causes enemies that strike you in melee to suffer Nature damage.
• At Level 10, you unlock Ghost Wolf, which allows you to instantly transform yourself into a spectral wolf, increasing movement speed by 30% and preventing your movement speed from being slowed under 100%.
• At Level 12, you unlock Wind Shear. It can be used to interrupt enemies for 3 seconds, with a 12-second cooldown.
• At Level 17, you unlock Frost Shock, an instant spell which can be used for damage while moving and to slow enemies.
• At Level 21, you unlock Chain Heal. This spell heals up to 3 targets, with the healing being reduced by 30% on each jump.
• At Level 23, you unlock Capacitor Totem, which can be placed to stun enemies near the totem for 3 seconds, on a 60-second cooldown.
• At Level 24, you unlock Chain Lightning, a ranged damage spell that causes damage to up to three targets. Use it instead of Lightning Bolt when facing multiple nearby enemies.
• At Level 28, you unlock Healing Stream Totem, a totem that heals yourself and other nearby party members periodically.
• At Level 32, you unlock Astral Recall, a second Hearthstone on a 10-minute cooldown.
• At Level 33, you unlock Water Walking, which allows you to walk on water for 10 minutes. Taking any damage will instantly cancel this effect.
• At Level 37, you unlock Earth Elemental. Using it summons a guardian elemental that will taunt nearby enemies and tank them for up to a minute, on a 5-minute cooldown.
• At Level 39, you unlock Purge, which can be used to remove beneficial magic effects from enemies.
• At Level 41, you unlock Hex. This spell transforms an enemy into a frog for up to 60 seconds, on a 30-second cooldown. Damage can interrupt the effect and it only works on Humanoids and Beasts.
• At Level 42, you unlock Astral Shift, which can be used to reduce the damage you take by 40% for 8 seconds, on a 90-second cooldown.
• At Level 47, you unlock Tremor Totem, a totem that removes Fear, Charm and Sleep effects from yourself and nearby allies for 10 seconds, on a 60-second cooldown.
• At Level 48, you unlock Bloodlust, which causes your and nearby allies to gain 30% haste for 40 seconds, on a 10-minute cooldown due to the debuff that it leaves on affected players.

The best Heirloom to level with are the ones with Haste and / or Versatility. That is because they increase your DPS (and thus your leveling speed), the smoothness of your rotation and your survivability, respectively.

Haste can also be useful to get tags faster when competing for mobs with other players, giving you a slight leveling advantage.

• 12 Oct. 2020: Revamped page for Shadowlands, with subpages for each spec.
• 05 Jun. 2020: Added preliminary information about Shadowlands leveling and a link to the new BFA speed leveling guide.
• 12 Jan. 2020: Removed legacy guide, added information on the Black Empire BoA gear.
• 28 Jun. 2019: This page has been reviewed for the release of Patch 8.2 and no changes are necessary.
• 16 Apr. 2019: Enhancement section reviewed, no changes currently necessary for Patch 8.1.5.
• 10 Dec. 2018: Updated Elemental, Enhancement and Restoration sections for 8.1.
• 10 Dec. 2018: Updated for changed War Mode talent choices.
• 12 Aug. 2018: Changed Ascendance to Stormkeeper, fixed Lava Burst usage at 90 Maelstrom, removed unnecessary condition for Earth Shock usage. Consistency updates to give all leveling guides a similar feel.
• 10 Aug. 2018: Page Updated with Enhancement notes for Battle for Azeroth and 1-120.