Ailis in Hunterland

Hello, my name is Ailis and I am an altoholic.  I have a grand total of eight toons at various levels that I play sporadically when I’m not raiding on my shaman.  I even have and use quite often the Altoholic addon.  I have one of every class except Warrior and Hunter and will probably keep it that way.

I love my alts and they love me.

In all seriousness, I’ve been doing a lot of alt-leveling lately.  My guild is in farm status on most of the Wrath content until Ulduar comes out so I’m enjoying the change of pace that comes with being squishy and vulnerable again as I traipse my way through lowbie zones.

Leveling this time around is a completely different experience than when I leveled Ailis.  When I started Ailis, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.  I trotted from quest to quest, sometimes reading the text, sometimes not, putting my talent points wherever looked okay at that magical moment in time and wearing just about any quest reward that dropped that was leather or mail.  I had no concept of what the end-game was like, where my character was headed or where I should even go next.

Now, as I pull up my alts one by one and level them as their rested accumulates, I have a firmer grasp on the overall picture.  I have a goal in mind for each of them and, thusly, have a general path laid out for them.  I want my Druid to go Boom/Heal.  I want my Paladin to be a Tank/Ret (maybe).  I want to get my Warlock leveled quickly since raiding locks are in short supply.  And so on…

There are a few things, however, that I’m discovering as I level through the Old World content again.

1. I hate Duskwood.  I don’t know what it is about that zone but I hate it.  The quest lines are rather boring and badly placed – you have to run/ride back and forth across the entirety of the zone in order to turn in quests, do the quest, and pick up the new one in the chain.  And then there’s the random Emerald Dream portal smack dab in the middle of the zone you have to constantly go around.  What is up with that?
2. I know very little about Kalimdor.  Maybe that comes from never leveling a Horde toon but I find myself forgetting about Kalimdor when I’m looking for the next zone to level in.  But that has opened up nice options for me and new zones to level in.  For instance, I leveled my Warlock in Dustwallow and Desolace and actually had a lot of fun since it was a “new experience” for me.
3. Ailis loves to fish.  The rest of my toons, not so much.  I can fish on Ailis all day long and not get bored.  Maybe it’s because I’m fishing up fish that can actually be used towards some purpose.  But, for some reason, I feel like throwing a fit when I have to fish on any of my alts.  It’s boring, time-consuming, and….boring.
4. I actually like Stranglethorn Vale.  I know, a lot of people avoid it because of the long chains and the same repetition and the fact that it spans so many levels so you end up stuck there for a long time.  But I actually don’t mind it.  It’s brightly lit and almost “cheery” and full of herbs and animals to skin and lots of water.  There’s a variety of things to kill and lots of different quests to pick from and, of course, the infamous Nesingwary quest line.
5. The Missing Diplomat is my favorite quest line.  No matter what level my character is, the second she gets that first quest, everything else is dropped until it’s done.  Yes, it’s supposed to span many levels but I don’t care.  Give me the epic story of the King’s kidnapping!  Give me the ring that makes no sense as a reward from a mage!  I love it all.  It’s an epic quest line and, really, the only of its kind in the game.  I sincerely wish there were more but, at the same time, rather enjoy the unique nature of this particular quest line.
6. I’m a little more frugal.  When I leveled Ailis, I had no idea about the costs of riding, flying, repairs, consumables, etc.  Now that I have a better idea of the “cost of the end-game” so to speak, I’m hesitant to spend any money on my alts past basic consumables and repairs.  Most of them I made gatherers so they can make the most amount of money possible.  I watch the AH closely so I can maximize my profits on gathering mats and, in some cases, low level crafted items.

What about you and your alts?  Anything you’re doing differently or have discovered since leveling your main?  Anything you avoid like the plague or actually run to like a kid in a candy store?

I am a space goat who controls the elements and uses my lethal fists of righteous fury to beat in the faces of very large, very nasty, hideously smelly bosses.  I am an enhancement shaman and pretty proud of it.  

In the course of your travels through Azeroth, you may have stumbled across these nimble casters of lightning, these wearer of the spinning orbs of liquid mana, these–

Ailis…

What?

Take it down a couple of pegs.

Why?

We all know you’re cool.  Cut it out.

*pokes a rock with her hoof, a hint of red flushing across her cheekbones and at the base of her horns*  Fine…

So you want to be a shaman.  And not just any shaman, you specifically want to be an enhancement shaman.  Enhancement shaman is a really great build to level with as you are able to solo extremely well.  Being a melee player, you can get into the thick of it and not worry about needing to kite things around so you can get your spells off and not be hit.  You can actually take a decent amount of damage before things get scary and, even then, as a shaman, you have the ability to heal – both through your spells and your racial (if you’re alliance).

Before we go any further, if you are already an enhancement shaman and you’re reading this, pretty much everything I will say is a lot of “yeah, well, duh.”  This post really isn’t for you.  You’re welcome to sip your coffee and see if I say anything that you vehemently disagree with, though.  This post is mainly for all the rest of you out there with dreams of having a shaman for your very own.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Weapons

As a shaman, you are able to use every melee weapon with the exception of 1H / 2H swords and polearms.  Enhancement Shamans have the ability to dual-wield as well but you do not gain that talent until 30 points into your tree, which, if you head straight for that skill, is level 40.  So, for the first half of your leveling career, it’s mace/fist/dagger and shield for you.  If you ever roll Resto or Ele, you are stuck with this combo, too.

Shamans cannot use any type of ranged weapon so bows, crossbows, wands, and guns are out.  In that slot’s place is a totem.  More on that in a second.

For the enhancement shammy, slow and steady wins the race.  Windfury loves slow weapons and Flametongue will do higher overall damage the slower your weapon is.  The popular combo is WF on the mainhand and FT on the offhand.  While you’re leveling, WF is the way to go.  But don’t just take my word for it – experiment with the different weapon imbues while you’re leveling and trade them out based on the situation you’re in.

Totems

Totems are one of your biggest attributes.  Totems not only buff and help you but also buff and help those in your party and your raid.  You gain totems through the course of your leveling that are attributed to each of the four elements.  Once you have collected the whole set, you may have only one totem from each element active at any one time.  Take the time to memorize what each of your totems do as you will often swap out totems on the fly during a fight.  You may start out dropping Mana Spring but, crap, this is a spider and he’s inflicted my bear tank with poison, so, *pop* Poison Cleansing.  

Currently, while leveling, you are given actual totems to carry in your bag for each element – Earth, Fire, Wind and Water.  You will have to tote these around in your bag if you want to use any of your totem skills.  Now, remember that ranged/totem slot on your character screen?  It is possible to get a “Totem” that grants a cool buff on equip and counts as all four of those totems that are taking up space in your bag.  Unfortunately, the absolute earliest you can attain one of these is level 52.  There are several you can purchase in your 60’s from PvP vendors so don’t fret about having to get a group for an instance and praying the RNG loves you at that magical moment in time.  So now you have a totem and these totems in your bag can stop taking up bag space!  They can now….take up bank space?

Yep, currently, those four totems cannot be deleted or destroyed by any means.  So throw them in your bank and say goodbye to four bank slots until Blizzard fixes that.

*grumbles*

Armor and Stats

You can wear mail and leather.  You wear the exact same mail as hunters and the exact same leather as feral druids so you will always be rolling against someone else during loot time.  Personally, I prefer mail for my enhancement set.  A lot of Resto and Ele shamans will have a few leather pieces for the hit or spell power but, thus far, the mail for shamans in the end game sufficiently covers our needed stats if you gem and enchant correctly.

The stats you are looking for by the time you hit 80 are:

• Hit = 17% – Before you freak out, you gain a 1% buff to your hit through your racial if you are alliance and you gain a 6% buff to hit through your talents so you only have to attain 10% of the overall hit cap, which nets you out around 330.  You can easily get away with 9%.
• Expertise = 6.5% – This is the magic number at which the bad guys can’t dodge your special (yellow) attacks so easily.  And, since just about every hit we do is yellow, this is a very important number to get to if you want to do damage.  This nets out at about 26/26.
• Agility, Critical Strike, Attack Power and Haste are your final four.  After you hit the caps on Hit and Expertise, focus on the remaining four and get them up as high as you can.  You will constantly be reworking your gems and enchants every time you replace any part of your gear.  It’s all about balance.  Haste, right now at the writing of this post, isn’t as important as the other three.  After Patch 3.1 is released, however, it will become more important as they are reworking the stat to also grant increased melee haste as well.  Woo, fast pummelling!

I’ll talk about being a raiding shammy in my next post and what to specifically go after and do in a fight.  Right now, that should be food to chew on for your baby shammy.  

Better?

Much better…