WoW Journal - 9-March-2006

I hate soloing my level 60 characters. There are only a few activities I like to do with them, like collecting herbs with Raslebol, which can be done solo. But otherwise I much prefer my level 60 characters to go to a dungeon in a group, or even a raid. Solo grinding for reputation or gold is just not interesting enough for me, although sometimes I just have to do it out of necessity.

So as I'm still traveling and playing on a laptop at odd hours, and Kyroc is now level 60, I started playing the next character: Waldin the shaman. I had previously played him to level 30, and then hadn't touched him for months. The reason I didn't play him much before was that I probably misunderstood the class. When you play a new class you tend to follow the path suggested by all the skills and abilities you get. And with all the spells and totems the shaman gets, I basically thought that he was a caster. And with my personal preference for healer types, I specced the shaman in restoration talents. And then got unhappy with him, as he is a bad healer, and even a bad caster in general, having a lot less mana than other caster classes.

Now after playing my other characters and watching other people play shamans, I realized that the shaman is basically a damage dealer class. I respecced his talents to enhancement, and started fighting using a lot less spells and totems. Basically pull with one long casting time spell, add one instant cast shock spell, don't use any totems, and fight it out with mace and shield. Use healing spells after combat to quickly get the health full again, and start over immediately. That is a lot more effective than using lots of spells and totems in combat, and then end the combat out of mana, having to spend lot of time regenerating mana afterwards. The totems are basically only useful in group situations, or for specific effects, like poison removal. Unless you have a spot where you can stand still and pull several mobs towards you, casting a totem to increase your combat power in solo combat isn't really all that efficient. As buffs in solo combat I use the lightning shield and windfury weapon enchantment instead of totems.

So now I'm basically playing the shaman as a melee character with magical support, and that plays a lot better than him as a caster. Although he lacks the special melee attacks of a warrior or rogue, and only wears leather armor, with the help of the enhancement talents and the buffs he kills mobs a lot faster than a warrior. And just like a rogue, as long as you only fight single mobs, you limit the damage done to you by finishing the combat faster, and not by using armor.

The other thing that interests me about my shaman is that he is a miner / engineer, and engineering is really a fun tradeskill. Explosive sheeps, mines, and grenades add to my damage output. And the different gadgets are just plain fun. So I think I'll continue playing Waldin for a while, maybe even level him to 60.