Riding The Lightning

Leveling from 20-30 and a 4th Shaman Quest

Now that we’ve just dinged 20, we’ve got an all new array of spells and abilities. With the new Water Shield your mana suddenly becomes more manageable and Healing Stream Totem will keep you a bit more alive than normal. When you’ve hit level 20 there are still enough quests in the Southern Barrens to complete for you. However if you had it with the Barrens, you can always take a trip to Stonetalon Mountains or Ashenvale.
Stonetalon has some interesting quests, some that have to do with the Venture Co and their destroying of the forest. Others wish that you help them get rid of the Harpy Plague in the Charred Vale. One of the better chains is given to you by a bloodelf in Sun Rock Retreat. She requires you to head all the way up to Stonetalon peak to kill the Cenarion sons and daughters there, after that you’re required to steal items from the Barrow Den up there and in the end you get to kill a leader in Ashenvale. The questchain sends you running all through Stonetalon and Ashenvale but it’s worth it.

When you ding level 26 you get one of the most important totems for any shaman: Mana Spring. This totem is your MP5 totem and will keep your mana flowing a little easier. You will be using this totem till level 80, even in raids because it’s just that good. When resto specced it can even overwrite a paladin’s Blessing of Wisdom.
Around this same level you should’ve had almost all quests in the Barrens and Stonetalon completed and you can head out into multiple directions. I myself chose to quest in Thousand Needles. First of all because I’ve never quested there before, second of all because the Tauren lore there is quite amazing. The second reason was that in Cataclysm the entire zone will be underwater, so if you wanna see some of the old stuff, please go there. The quests aren’t hard and the zone isn’t huge so it should be doable. This zone will probably get you to level 30 and at level 30 you will get your last kind of totems. The Air Totems.

Gaining your Air Totems.
On level 30 you will get your last Totem quest from a Shaman trainer in any capital (my case Orgrimmar). And with the Water Totem chain in the back of my mind, I prepared for the worst. Actually, there was no need for that. The Horde Air Totem quest is so simple, it’s laughable. Your Shaman trainer will ask you to seek out a Shaman in Thousand Needles. When you talk to her you gain your Air Totems and a nice moving + attack speed buff. In the back of the cave where the Shaman is at, there is another NPC that will start an interesting questchain, which will eventually send you all around Azeroth.

See you on the way to 40!

Leveling From 10-20 and a 3rd Shaman Quest

Now that you have obtained your Fire Totem it’s time to finish the last remaining quests in Durotar (or whatever starting area one is at) and make your way to a new area. In this case The Barrens. The Barrens are quite an ok area to level from 10-20 but starting there at level 12ish would be better since you will have some more survivability.
Pick up every quest you can from the Crossroads and Ratchet and wherever they send you. Trust me, there’s enough to make you level up all the way to 20! Don’t forget to pick up the epic “Mankrik’s Wife” when you are leveling in the Barrens. As Draenei, just finish off Azuremyst and pick up everything there is on Bloodmyst, this will also get you to level 20ish. Also don’t forget to train your skills every two levels. A new rank Lightning Bolt will do more damage, but cost the same mana then a lower rank Lightning Bolt. (Ain’t that fun, Blizz made mana scale, but not ranks!).
I can’t really make a guide to the Barrens, but try to do the quest in zones. As in finish the quests you’ve gotten in one zone, then move on to the next zone so that you won’t be running back and forth all the time.

There are multiple milestones in leveling from level 10 to 20.

• The first one will be right away on level 10: The Ability To Queue For Battlegrounds. Why do I write this in CAPITALS? Because battlegrounding is fun! Hella fun. Especially as Elemental Shaman on high levels (Eat my Lava Burst-Chain Lightning-Lightning Bolt 40k burst biatch!). And what way better to practice for that than low level battlegrounding? Not only will it give you decent XP everytime you cap the flag in Warsong Gulch (or even half a level when you manage to win), but it’s also fun to see people having to WALK and fight eachother than just mount up and run immediatly to the flagroom.

• The second one is on level 16 when you gain Ghost Wolf form. This will allow you to transform into a Ghost Wolf (durrr!) and increases your movement speed by 40%, but it’s only usable outdoors. So you can forget about running insanely fast in a dungeon like Wailing Caverns or Ragefire Chasm… And speaking of Dungeons!

• The next big milestone is one level before you get your Ghost Wolf, and that is that the Dungeon Finder unlocks (on level 15 that is, just for clarity :P). From now on you can queue for dungeons and thus gear up, get faster XP than normal leveling and get your low level taste of the LFG tool. Some groups will be extraordinary good, other’s disappointingly bad. The tank class you will see the most is a Druid, which aren’t really good aggro keepers so watch out while flinging those Lightning Bolts around! When you want a faster queue, you can always opt to queue as healer since as Elemental you can keep up decently with healing spells. And hell, it doesn’t matter on low level anyway. Anything that can heal will do.

• The last big milestone is getting your 3rd shaman quest when you hit level 20. This quest is called “Call of Water” and will give you your Water Totems!

Gaining your Water Totems
If you’ve never been to hell and back, this quest will take you by surprise on the Horde side. It spans both continents and drives you crazy running around. I advise getting your mount before you start this quest because that will make it less painful.
The quest starts at one of the various Shaman trainers found. You can pick it up in Durotar (Razor Hill) or Orgrimmar. My advice: pick it up in Orgrimmar and set your hearthstone there (if you haven’t alread

y). Anyway, pick up the quest. This quest will send you to an NPC along the water’s edge under Ratchet, a tauren called Islen Waterseer. Easiest is just to swim down from ratchet untill you see a little camp with 2 taurens. You can turn in your quest at one of them. She will send you to a guy called Brine who is in the Southern part of the Barrens.  A picture of where the lady at the water is is to the right, she’s the !. Brine is the question mark.

The guy called Brine will send you to get some water from different wells. The first one is near to him in the Barrens. The second one is in Tarren Mill in Hillsbrad Foothills. To get there you take the zeppelin from Orgrimmar to Undercity and then it’s a long walk down to Silverpine Forest and then to the right to Hillsbrad and Tarren Mill.
My advice is to pick up the flightpaths in Undercity, Silverpine Forest and Tarren Mill so when you ever need to go there again you don’t have to walk all the way. After you’re done in Tarren Mill, hearthstone to Orgrimmar and deliver your quest. The next quest will send you to get water from the Ruins of Stardust in Ashenvale. Again this is a long walk up north, so make sure you bought your mount before going there! Will save you a lot of time.
When you’re finally done getting all the water that is needed you will get a Vial of Purest Water which you need to take back to Islen Waterseer. She wil then send you to Silverpine Forest (taking the flightpath there now comes in handy!) where you have to get to the western coast, just left of the Sepulcher and defeat elementals to get their bracers. With the bracers and the pure water you can summon a “pure” water spirit. This pure water spirit will give you a shard of Water, bring that back to Islen Waterseer and you will have completed your questchain (at last!) and are now the proud owner of water totems!

Using Totems While Leveling

Totems, the most promiment feature of a Shaman. They are unique per class, in my opionion the Troll ones look awesome hihi.
They give nice buffs, provide for some health and mana, summon Elementals to fight for you or make sure you can escape when you (accidentally?) overpulled to many mobs. Especially that last bit will help you get through the lower levels.

Ideally, you should put your totems down all the time. They are just that usefull. However, on the lower levels, especially up to level 20 about, putting down Totems is (in my honest opinion) a waste of mana. Except for the Earthbind Totem which slows your attackers and therefore let’s you escape nasty things.
When you are low level, your mana pool isn’t that big. Especially for all you folks leveling without leveling gear. Putting totems down every pull will drain your  mana faster than Cookiemonster can eat a bag of Chocolate Chip Cookies. Why then do you learn totems so early on? Because from about level 20 onwards, when you learn water totems and your water shield, it gets beneficial to put your totems down because you have the mana to support it. And from level 30 on you get an ability that will give you mana back when you resummon your totems. I will discuss that in more detail in the Leveling section tho.

All in all, totems are a fun tool. When you’re leveling up to level 20 you have to think of them as lifesavers, used when you’re in dire trouble. From about level 20 on they become indispensable tools helping to get the best out of your shaman. And you must admit, they look hella funny no?