I Dinged Level 80: Now What? Preparing for Raiding: Heroics, Enchants, and more for the Shaman

 Level 80 may be the pinnacle of level achievement in World of Warcraft, but turning 80 does not mean the end of the challenges until the next expansion comes out. There is plenty to do even after a character reaches the pinnacle of level advancement. It is time for him to take on new challenges and gear up for raiding. Shamans have two basic roles they can fill in raids: damage per second characters and healers.

Shamans can wear mail, but typically only enhancement shamans will focus on mail pieces exclusively for their main set. Elemental and Restoration shamans will focus more on the casting stats of the gear they wear and worry less about armor classes as they often go for the gear that has the better casting stats. The thing is, some things will be important to all shaman specializations and that is intellect, crit, and mana regeneration. Some stats are specific to each shaman.

Elemental shamans – elemental shamans do not need mana regeneration as much as restoration shamans do and they should focus less on spirit and more on spell power, intellect, hit rating and crit rating. Mail pieces with spell power, intellect, and mana per 5 second rating should make up most of the elemental shaman's equipment.

Restoration shamans – Even though the Restoration shamans gain talents in their tree that increase the effectiveness of the healing stream and mana spring totems, they do not have the same mana regeneration abilities that their ranged DPS casting counterparts do. Mana per 5, intellect and spell power are what restoration shamans should focus on when gearing up.

Enhancement shamans – These shamans should focus on armor class, agility, hit, and attack power. Tsunami, a member of the Outcast guild on Doomhammer recommends a hit rating of over 400.

The purpose of raids may be to get gear so that guilds can face bigger and better challenges, but as odd as it may seem, you cannot just come in with the loot off your back so to speak once you hit level 80. Most raid leaders require that you have the appropriate level of gear for the instance, although this opinion is highly variable. There are several ways to get “geared up” so you're ready to take on Naxx.

PvP can help you get gear that can be okay for your entry into raiding, although some PvP gear pieces work better than loot drops for certain group roles that the shaman may be expected to perform, but to help you gain this gear, a shaman should consider switching to a dual specialization so he can get the purple gear that drops in heroic instances. A shaman who switches to elemental/restoration specialization needs to worry about switching between equipment sets far less than the enhancement/restoration or enhancement/elemental shaman. (Few people will choose the last combination on this list.)

 One of the things a shaman should do immediately after he hits 80 is figure out which factions have the best gear for him to pick up. Elemental and restoration shamans, the Kirin Tor quartermaster sells better caster gear, although some better pieces can be find in the Alliance Vanguard and the Argent Crusade. Enhancement shamans should consider the Explorer's League pieces and Knights of the Ebon Blade. Gaining faction with these groups can be a time-consuming activity. The grind does not end even for level 80 characters.

There is one piece of equipment that casting shamans should have, and that is the War Mace of Unrequited Love that drops in the Heroic version of the Nexus instance. (Thanks to Beerkeg, also of Outcast, for providing this information.)