WoW: Leveling enhancement 21-40

Axes, maces, lightning, fire, frost and wolves -- and best of all, Windfury. It can mean only one thing: enhancement. Rich Maloy lives it and loves it. His main spec is enhance. His off-spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance at Big Hit Box, pens the enhance side of Totem Talk and leads the guild Big Crits as the enhancement shaman Stoneybaby.

Welcome back to the enhancement shaman leveling guide. This week we'll be covering levels 21 to 40, where we finally start to feel like enhancement, instead of just saying it's something we're going to do as we're Lightning Bolting down boars.

There were some commenters who suggested going with Flametongue Weapon early on and just focusing on casting. Call me an enhance purist (go ahead, I can take it), but I'm of the opinion that if you're going enhance, you might as well go all the way. Plus those early levels of 1 to 20 are so easy and mobs will do down so fast, you could practically /dance your way to 21 -- probably to 30 if you wanted.

One idea that was awesome and bears repeating is making your first glyph, Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem, and using said totem for pulls. It absorbs damage you take and shields your totem if you've got an extra-angry Searing Totem that can't seem to play nice with the naga.

We're going to start with gear you should look for from quest rewards then continue the every other level breakdown.

Gear

In short, agility and attack power are your friends. Agility converts to AP and crit. While strength is also good because it converts to AP as well, if you have a choice between agility and strength, go agility. It's also too early to start converting spell power to attack power, but once we hit 31 we can start converting intellect to attack power. Choose agi + int or str + int gear over others around those levels. For the random enchantments found on uncommon level gear, I'd say go for them in this order:

• of Agility
• of Power
• of the Falcon (agility + intellect)
• of the Gorilla (strength + intellect)
• of the Monkey (agility + stamina)
• of the Wolf (agility + spirit)
• of the Bear (strength + stamina)

For weapons, the speed won't make much of a difference until level 30 when we pick up Windfury, then at level 40 with Dual Wield it will definitely make a difference. Until then see what you like between two-handers and main hand + shield. Do get in the habit of slow weapons starting at level 30, because you'll be sticking with slow/slow for the rest of your enhancement career.

Level 22

Talents: We should have finished off Thundering Strikes 5/5 with level 21 and start diving into Elemental Weapons 1 & 2 for levels 22 and 23.

New spells: Water Breathing can be learned here. Have you been stocking up on your Shiny Fish Scales from killing murlocs all along? This spell isn't going to save your day, considering that most underwater quests also come with some sort of water breathing elixir.

Spell upgrades: Fire Nova is the only upgrade in this level.

Level 24

Talents: Put the final point in Elemental Weapons 3/3 and and now it's time to start into Flurry! This is the first step down the true path of enhancement.

New spells: Frost Resist Totem. Not exactly worth rushing home to train, unless you're encountering an excessive amount of frost mages in your questing.

Spell upgrades: It is, however, worth heading back to train up on all the other spells we use in our daily lives: Healing Wave, Rockbiter Weapon, Earth Shock, Stoneskin Totem, Lightning Shield, Strength of Earth Totem, Ancestral Spirit all get upgrades.

Level 26

Talents: Flurry & Flurry for 26 and 27. We're going to continue until we have 5/5 Flurry.

New spells:

• Far Sight Such a fun spell. You can chain Far Sights even while currently in the spell. Try it out and see how far you can get. Can be very handy in Arathi Basin (or any battleground, for that matter).
• Magma Totem This mana hog will drain you dry fast when combined with Fire Nova, but it's great for pulling packs and AoEing them down.
• Mana Spring Totem Very good for boss fights or setting up camp to kill spawns in a confined space. Over the short run, it's not going to do you a lot of good to continually drop it. Definitely useful in dungeons on boss fights for you and the rest of your party.

Spell upgrades: Lightning Bolt, Flametongue Weapon

Level 28

Talents: Finish out Flurry with two more points from levels 28 and 29.

New spells:

• Flametongue Totem A great totem for caster-heavy groups in dungeons or just to give the healer a little extra oomph.
• Fire Resistance Totem If you need some fire resist and don't need to use your water totem for anything else.
• Water Walking This is one of the great kitschy shaman spells. It works on land mounts, so you can Water Walk yourself then mount up to cross bodies of water. You can sit on water, you can start a campfire and cook on water, you can cast it on your friends and water walk throughout Azeroth. Just beware: it comes off on damage. Requires Fish Oil.

Spell upgrades: Stoneclaw Totem, Flame Shock, Frostbrand Weapon, Lesser Healing Wave, Water Shield