Shaman - easily the worst class to level up?

[Ichifails]

Does this bother anyone else as much as it bothers me? I can't take on more than 2 mobs at a time (unless I blow all my cooldowns) without having to stop and heal myself. Any mini boss type mobs for quests etc take an eternity to kill. It just seems like I'm a wet sponge damage and defensive wise as both elemental and enhance. I reeeally find it painfully slow to level this class :S
^this is at 100-110 but I've always had this problem with leveling a shaman regardless of the level.

I was the 2nd to 110 on my realm as an Enhancement Shaman, just rolled the server so I was in full Invasion gear and not Mythic gear, and that was because I did the Blacksmithing quests during leveling in order to control the market later(and that worked exactly as I planned :3). They are fine.

[Deleted]

I have leveled all classes to 110 and by far shaman was the worst one.

Elemental was just plain retardely slow and required A LOT gcds on non-dps stuff.

Enh was slightly better but I wouldnt touch it without stacks of fighter chow. Healing between fights is just awful.

Even priest was better as I just could go disco, pull 20 mobs and dot em all for quick quest.

[Raiz]

Enhancement is super easy to level and strong maybe not quite hunter strong but i've always been able to solo rares and other things that generally take 2+ to kill.

We're talking about leveling it up. Not about soloing rares elites (which tbh would be impossible with this class). I remember a friend said that ele was just awful to lvl up, so I decided to take enh. Much like the above poster said, it was one of the worst class I've leveled up. Priest and DH tank were probably close aswell (refused to play this whole fel rush crap).

Now I can solo rare elites but it's the same for every class when you have a ton of gear.

[Marrilaife]

Personally when it comes to levelling up and downtime / how much you have to regen between mobs, my top worst are mage then rogue. Shaman and priest are right after. Only because every other class except those 4 can either be a tank or have a pet, and than makes levelling super easy. Well actually I levelled my monk as a dps because brewmaster is even slower than DH tank, and has less self-healing.

But yeah, mage is definitely the most squishy thing I've ever seen.

P.S. If you're levelling a shaman through Broken Isles, take Hydraxis as a bodyguard, the extra life helps a lot. You won't have Rehgar / Magatha until max level anyway.

[Extremity]

+1 for Enhance. My DPS as Resto for questing and such feels a bit better now with a bit more gear and artifact talents, but the DPS rotation is so boring and weak while leveling that doing it as Resto is just out of the question unless you want to level in a group or purely through dungeons.

I felt similar to you as Elemental - there were two types of pulls. First, the kind where I can kill the mob before or right as it gets to me, and the second where I have to face-tank it for a bit. If I have to face tank anything, I'm blowing my mana to heal up afterwards (especially if I pulled multiple mobs).

As Enhance, it felt so much better. Pulling extra mobs never felt "wrong" with the cleave available to you, Rainfall + instant healing surges (and no other real use for your mana) makes you feel far less squishy, and the burst DPS is so much better.

Leveling as Enhance felt much more "involved" than Elemental, as well. Elemental was just too... repetitive. I've never felt that so much on any other class. It just felt like I was doing the same basic pull rotation over and over - on my Warlock and several other classes I'd obviously be repeating the same actions on pulls, but for some reason Elemental just felt so, so much more noticeable repetitive and boring compared to the rest. LB, Flame Shock, Lava Burst (x2 if talented), LB spam until Earth Shock or Lava Burst is up, yawn. Maybe it's just the always putting up Flame Shock and following with a Lava Burst portion? As Destro, casting a Chaos Bolt felt slightly more "earned" and definitely more powerful, maybe that's it.

[Nyel]

Elemental was okay until you needed to hard cast Lightning Bolt which hits for nothing or you pulled too many mobs and you needed to heal through them with Healing Surge which heals for nothing.

If you're low on artifact traits playing as Elemental Shaman is horrible. Much worse than playing as Balance Druid or Shadow Priest.

[Deleted]

100-110 as Enhancement was a blast.. if you're dying to 2 mobs then you're not CCing or using the spec correctly to put it bluntly..

[Annu]

We're talking about leveling it up. Not about soloing rares elites (which tbh would be impossible with this class).

If you think soloing rares is impossible, you are not playing your char right. Shaman already is op in this regard because of heroism. Ele has earth elemental, so if you finish within one minute you have a private tank. Enhancer has instant heals and such a good mana regeneration that if you spread your heals over the entire fight you never go oom. Ofc if you wait until your health is already low, you go oom instantly.

Resto is unkillable anyways, you just need to be patient. In Legion even Resto has acceptable dps if you go for echo of elements.

[Regalbeast]

Nope, I had quite an easy time leveling as Enhance. I could take on 5-6 mobs at a time and just nuke them down, heal up, and repeat.

[Uselessrouge]

not at all , enchancer was easy and he was boosted with shit gear...


shadow was not fun at all.. but on the other side it was my first caster in years

[Raiz]

If you think soloing rares is impossible, you are not playing your char right.

Granted I don't know the class well enough, but I'm already doing "ok" parses and I didn't change my style since the beginning. I think you're overestimating the enh class compared to the others classes.
This was my 9th char. I could easily feel how squishy it was compared to the others classes. I didn't play ele, because I simply wanted to farm AP to one spec only in order to prepare for my guild's raid (I got to 36 traits with the other specs though).

Try tanking the 3 elites rares in suramar near meredil for example as a 850 shaman. Now compare it with say a death knight (dps spec). Or even disc priest.
I could even do it as a rogue but that's because I had Valeera's pants.
I didn't bother comparing with my others classes because they already had a tanking spec and were all doing similar damage to their dps spec (kind of, keep in mind it's low ilvl).

[Deleted]

If you plan on leveling as Enha shammy, maybe try to get a group together for Archimonde before heading out to Legion content. The trinket Core of the Primal Elements pairs up super nicely with Doom Winds.

[The Big Ginger]

I agree with OP. I haven't leveled all classes, but after my ele came a mage, rogue, lock and now DK is getting there. They have ALL been significantly easier than my shaman, and the shaman had the best gear to start out with into this expansion from all my chars. It was painful, that's for sure.

[RobertoCarlos]

I disagree. Get ghost wolf early which helps when you cant fly or use mounts. All 3 specs have a heal. Obviously enhance is the stronger spec to level with ele close behide.

All heal specs except disc priest suck to level so moot point about resto.

[Gorjun]

I thought Enhance was really easy to level up, just like it pretty much always has been.

Then again I leveled in 7.0 and had a 730 class trinket from HFC, which made it so every time I hit Doom Winds I would instantly kill anything I was fighting, including elites.

In general though I do find our survivability in high level play to be kind of lackluster. Even classes that should have less armor have better methods of staying alive. One that doesn't cost a bunch of resources and time.

[Jotaux]

Well, I leveled as enhance pretty easily. But that was back at the start of the expansion when enhance was op as fuck and I had the archimonde trinket that went really well with doomwinds. I imagine its a lot more difficult now.

[Kosez]

Enhance was always fast and easy mode for leveling, I don't know how it can be a problem..

[sebax313]

yep people, lets get some meaningless posts in this troll topic going.
Maybe i should here post once a day with every day saying opposite thing.
To began
Healing surge costs too much mana! Mail feels less than cloths.
And this too big CD on stormstrike doesn't help.

[Teri]

No problem with Elemental at all 80-110 after 7.0.3.

Fire/Earth elemental are oh shit buttons, and there's aoe stun/root totems to utilize, also thunderstorm + slow totem/frostshock.

Dps spells cost zero mana, heals obviously do, avoiding having to heal is key.

I don't think with heirlooms it will be hard either, only level 98-100 could feel undergeared if you go to Broken Isles early.