A Shaman Talent Guide

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Contents
I. Introduction
II. Elemental Talents
III. Enhancement Talents
IV. Restoration Talents
V. Talent Builds
VI. Version History


I. Introduction


Talents in General

Once you reach level 10, you receive a talent point each level until level 60, amounting to a total of 51 talent points. These talents provide you with a way to customize your character to suit your playstyle and preferences. You can choose your talents by pressing the 'N' key and allocating your points by clicking. Note the three tabs at the bottom of the window: Elemental, Enhancement and Restoration. These are referenced as 'talent trees' and are set up in tiers. You'll have to spend points in the shallow tiers before you can access the talents in the deeper tiers. Certain talents also require specific prerequisites before you can train in them.


Resetting Talents

You can reset talents by speaking to any Shaman class trainer. The first time you reset your talents, it costs 1 gold. The next time it will be 5 gold, then 10 gold, then every time there after 5 more gold, e.g. 15, 20, 25, etc., all the way up to 50 gold, where it is capped. You pay to reset all of your talents at once, there is no way to undo one or two talents. For each month since you last reset your talents, the fee will be set back one category.

There is no right way or wrong way to spec, and above all your spec should be tailored to the way you play. Enhance the aspects of the Shaman that you most enjoy and take everything said in this guide with a grain of salt.

II. Elemental Talents


Comments on the Tree in General

Elemental is a good tree. It enhances our bread and butter nukes; shocks. It also gives us higher crit chances and devastating criticals. When used right, Elemental is a high-DPS tree. It has certain problems with mana usage and lack of recovery in PVP, but that does not stop it from outputting a meaningful amount of damage in nearly all situations.

No Prerequisites

Convection
Reduces the mana cost of your Shock, Lightning Bolt, and Chain Lightning spells by 10%.

A strong talent. Mana usage is a problem for shamans, and this reduces it. Recommended for any elemental build.

Concussion
Increases the damage dealt by your Shock, Lightning Bolt, and Chain Lightning spells by 5%.

Another solid talent. Increases the damage of all of your non-totem offensive spells. Recommended for any elemental build.


Requires 5 points in Elemental Talents

Earth's Grasp
Increases the health of your Stoneclaw Totem by 50% and the radius of your Earthbind Totem by 20%.

A weak talent. 20% on Earthbind Totem is two yards, and Stoneclaw can't draw or hold aggro anyway at the high end, so increasing its health is not a particularly useful thing to do.

Elemental Warding
Reduces damage taken by Fire, Frost, and Nature effects by 10%.

Any end-game raider knows the power of elemental resistances, and this talent is very effective at supplementing them. It is, however, weak for all things other than raiding. A situational but powerful talent; if you spend a great deal of time raiding, you may want to invest in this.

Call of Flame
Increases the damage dealt by your Fire Totems by 15%.

Not a bad talent, but it suffers from placement; most people like to have both Concussion and Convection, which leaves little room for this talent. However, if you can find the points for it, this is a strong addition to the damage of Searing Totem, Magma Totem, and Fire Nova Totem.

Requires 10 points in Elemental Talents

Elemental Focus
Gives you a 100% chance to enter a Clearcasting state any critical fire, frost, or nature damage spell. The Clearcasting reduces the mana cost of your next damage spell by 100%.

For one point, this is a contender for strongest talent in the tree. If you have at least eleven points in Elemental, there is no reason to not have this talent as one of them.

Reverberation
Reduces the cooldown on your Shock spells by 1 second.

For PVP, a phenomenal talent. Reducing the Shock cooldown not only increases your damage output, but also allows you to slow, DoT, or interrupt that much more often. For PVE, it is less useful, but it is such a powerful boost for PVP that the vast majority of elemental shamans have this talent.

Call of Thunder
Increases the critical strike chance of your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells by 6%.

Not only is this a powerful talent on its own, but it is a prerequisite for the later Lightning Mastery talent. If you are planning to have at least twenty-five points in Elemental, you must have this talent; Lightning Mastery is too powerful to pass up.

Requires 15 points in Elemental Talents

Improved Fire Nova Totem
Decreases the time before your Fire Nova Totem activates by 2 seconds, and decreases the threat generated by your Magma Totem by 50%.

A strong talent; it reduces the time before explosion of Fire Nova to two seconds, allowing it to go off much more reliably, and as an added bonus it reduces the threat of magma totem. However, as there are powerful talents all around it, very few shamans have points to spare for this talent. It is not as strong as many others in the tree.

Eye of the Storm
Gives you a 100% chance to gain the Focused Casting effect that lasts for 6 seconds after being the victim of a melee or ranged critical strike. The Focused Casting effect prevents you from losing casting time when taking damage.

A strong talent. It can allow you to hurl lightning or heal while under fire. Many elemental builds take this; often, the only ones who pass it up do so because they already have the Healing Focus talent in Restoration (described later).

Elemental Devastation
Your offensive spell crits will increase your chance to get a critical strike with melee attacks by 9% for 10 seconds.

This talent seems stronger than it is. It promotes hybridization between melee and casting; however, due to gear problems, it is nearly impossible to have both strong melee and strong casting. This talent will therefore benefit no one to the degree that it theoretically could benefit; some elemental/enhancement builds take it, but it is usually a weaker choice than other talents.

Requires 20 points in Elemental Talents

Storm Reach
Increases the range of your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells by 6 yards.

A phenomenal talent. Once you are this deep in Elemental, you are looking hungrily at Lightning Mastery, which pairs beautifully with this to turn you into a thunder-slinging machine. Few to no elemental builds should pass this talent up.

Elemental Fury
Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Searing, Magma, and Fire Nova Totems and your Fire, Frost, and Nature offensive spells by 100%.

An ordinary spell critical does 1.5 times normal damage. With this talent, they do 2 times normal damage. Everyone with at least 21 points in Elemental has this talent - for one point, you can't get a better return on investment.

Unrelenting Storm
Regenerate mana equal to 10% of your intellect every 5 seconds, even while casting.


A strong talent. It does suffer from placement, in that it is very difficult to find five points to put into it - but if you are willing to live without Eye of the Storm (only recommended if you already have 5/5 Healing Focus), then it is easy to find one to three points to put into this talent (granting you 2% to 6% of your Intellect regenerated every five seconds). It doesn't seem like much, but you will notice the increased longevity.


Requires 25 points in Elemental Talents

Lightning Mastery
Requires 5 points in Call of Thunder
Reduces the casting time of your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells by 1.0 sec.

The most powerful talent in Elemental is Lightning Mastery. It not only increases your damage per second output (by 33% on Lightning bolt or 40% on Chain Lightning), but also allows you more flexibility in your strategies as your bolts take up less of your time. This should always be your 26th to 30th points in Elemental, if you have that many.

Elemental Precision
Increases your chance to hit with Fire, Frost, and Nature spells by 6% and reduces the threat caused by Fire, Frost, and Nature spells by 10%.

(Note: Supposedly this is supposed to be only 3% hit, but in live it is still 6%. It is unknown if this is intentional or a bug.)

An extraordinarily powerful talent. Note, however, that 4% hit is the effective cap for PVP - but it isn't recommended to PVP without that 4% hit. Unfortunately, because it competes with Lightning Mastery (and it is never worth giving up points in Lightning Mastery), this talent should not be taken except as past-30 points in Elemental.

Requires 30 points in Elemental Talents

Elemental Mastery
3 minute cooldown
When activated, this spell gives your next Fire, Frost, or Nature damage spell a 100% critical strike chance and also reduces the mana cost by 100%.

A strong talent. If you have 30 points in Elemental, the only reason not to take it is if you also have 20 points in Restoration; Nature's Swiftness is thought by many to be stronger than Elemental Mastery. It is mostly a matter of which you prefer; Elemental Mastery is more effective at dealing damage, but Nature's Swiftness is more versatile. Of course, if you want to put more than 30 points into Elemental for other talents, then it is a no-brainer; you should most certainly take Elemental Mastery.


Elemental Shields
Reduces your chance to be critically hit by ranged and melee attacks by 6%.

A decent defensive talent. It doesn't interact well with Eye of the Storm, if you have it - if you do not, it can reduce the spike damage you take significantly. However, with so many good talents all around it, it is nearly iimpossible to find room for this talent anyway.

Requires 35 points in Elemental Talents

Lightning Overload
Your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells have a 5% chance to cast a second, identical spell on the same target at no additional cost.

A highly underwhelming talent. For PVE, it is not significantly better than a talent that added 5% crit would be (in fact, on average, it is the same as Call of Thunder if you have 20% lightning crit already). For PVP, it is too low a proc rate to ever rely on - it is a talent that is often unhelpful (due to not proccing), and when it does proc, if you played well, it is unnecessary most of the time anyway.

Requires 40 points in Elemental Talents

Totem of Wrath
Requires 5 points in Lightning Overload
166 mana Instant cast Tools: Fire Totem
Summons a Totem of Wrath with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem increases the chance to hit and critically hit with spells by 3% to all party members if they are within 20 yards. Lasts 2 minutes.

A very useful raiding talent, for a group of casters. Unfortunately, it requires five points in a lackluster talent, Lightning Overload, to get (very similar to our other useful talented totem, Mana Tide Totem, which requires five points in the weak talent Restorative Totems to take). If you are an Elemental spec raider, this is a good talent for you. In PVP, it is less useful, because the benefit of a totem-buff 3% crit and hit takes a great deal of tim


III. Enhancement Talents

Comments on the Tree in General

Enhancement is the most powerful solo PVE tree; just about any shaman in solo PVE will be meleeing, or at least, in melee.Enhancement increases your mana-free damage output, which is very very useful. If you are deep in the tree for powerful group talents like dual-wield and Unleashed Rage, you are also a useful melee'er in raids for the combination of your personal damage output and the buffs you grant to your group members.

For PVP, Enhancement is debateable in its usefulness; at the top end, with equal levels of gear, Elemental is more powerful, but many people enjoy the playstyle of Enhancement. You will not be competitive without at least 30 points in Enhancement; to be a strong melee'er, you cannot dabble in Enhancement.

No Prerequisites

Ancestral Knowledge
Increases your maximum mana by 5%.

Not a particularly powerful talent, but it will always benefit you no matter what you are doing.

Shield Specialization
Increases your chance to block attacks with a shield by 5% and increases the amount blocked by 25%.

In situations where you are wearing a shield and taking a lot of melee damage, this is a strong talent. However, those situations are not particularly common; thus, this is a more specialized talent than Ancestral Knowledge. Take whichever you prefer; if you use a shield a lot, Shield Specialization may be better, but Ancestral Knowledge helps no matter what you are doing.

Requires 5 points in Enhancement Talents

Guardian Totems
Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your Stoneskin Totem and Windwall Totem by 20% and reduces the cooldown of your Grounding Totem by 2 seconds.

A weak talent. The increase in Stoneskin and Windwall is marginal at best, and a two second reduction on the cooldown of Grounding Totem, while powerful, is probably not a good use of two talent points.

Thundering Strikes
Increases your chance to get a critical strike with melee attacks by 5%.

A strong talent, and the prerequisite for the even stronger Flurry. Without exception, every build with a real investment in Enhancement should have this talent.

Improved Ghost Wolf
Reduces the casting time of your Ghost Wolf spell by 2 seconds.

A strong talent, especially if you use Ghost Wolf often. In addition to being useful, it can save you quite a lot of hassle while leveling up, before you have your mount.

Improved Lightning Shield
Increases the damage dealt by your Lightning Shield spell by 15%.

Another strong talent; Lightning Shield is one of our most efficient spells, and passively increasing the damage it does is a very good thing to have.

Requires 10 points in Enhancement Talents

Enhancing Totems
Increases the effect of your Strength of Earth and Grace of Air totems by 15%.

This is a strong grouping talent, as these totems are very good in groups, and for only two points it's a good investment. However, if you only rarely group, then this talent is probably not worth the investment.

Two-Handed Axes and Maces
Allows you to use Two-Handed Axes and Maces.

This talent is a trademark of Enhancement. Two-handed axes and maces tend to be strong, melee-focused weapons. A dual-wield focused build may choose to skip this talent, but having the option to wield two-handed axes and maces can be very useful.

Anticipation
Increases your dodge chance by an additional 5%.

A good talent, effectively reducing melee damage taken by 5%. If you find that you have points to put into it, it is a good place for them; unfortunately, many shamans find themselves without the points to put into it, due to putting them into other nearby strong talents.

Requires 15 Points in Enhancement Talents

Flurry
Requires 5 Points in Thundering Strikes
Increases your attack by 30% for your next three swings after dealing a critical strike.

A great talent. A mainstay of all Enhancement builds. Flurry is basically a flat increase in melee DPS, especially since you took the +5% crit talent before it.


Toughness
Increases your armor value by items by 10%.

This is a reasonably good talent. It will increase your physical damage mitigation by 2.3% (for all armor values between 2000 and 8000). However, it provides less return per point than Anticipation does, and so very few people put points into this; it is not worth taking unless you already have 5/5 Anticipation and want to take even less damage.

Requires 20 points in Enhancement Talents

Improved Weapon Totems
Increases the melee attack power bonus of your Windfury Totem by 30% and the damage of your Flametongue Totem by 12%.

If you have a lot of warrior friends, this talent is a good investment - Windfury Totem is a very powerful buff for warriors. For most people, however, this talent is weak; your weapon totems are only useful in groups, and many rogues as well as all hunters would prefer Grace of Air Totem to Windfury Totem, while many things in end-game are highly resistant or immune to fire.

Elemental Weapons
Increases the melee attack power bonus of your Rockbiter Weapon by 20%, your Windfury Weapon effect by 40%, and increases the damage caused by your Flametongue Weapon and Frostbrand Weapon by 15%.

A workhorse of Enhancement. Every Enhancement build that goes this deep takes Elemental Weapons - it affects all four of our elemental weapon buffs, increasing our damage by a significant amount. It particularly affects Windfury Weapon, increasing the total damage done on each Windfury proc by 40%, rather than simply increasing the attack power bonus by 40%.

Spirit Weapons
Gives a chance to parry enemy melee attacks and reduces the threat generated by your melee attacks by 15%.

By default, your parry chance is 5%. Therefore, putting a single point in Spirit Weapons reduces damage taken as much as putting five points into Anticipation. Further, the threat reduction on melee damage is vital for PVE enhancement shamans. Nearly everyone who meets the prerequisites takes Spirit Weapons, due to its strength for only a single point.

(Note: It is currently thought that this talent is bugged and does not provide the threat reduction. It should always be taken for the parry chance regardless.)

Requires 25 points in Enhancement Talents

Weapon Mastery
Increases the damage you deal with all weapons by 10%.

A free, totally passive, +10% damage talent. You must take this. This talent is as important to Enhancement as Lightning Mastery is to Elemental. Your 26th to 30th points in Enhancement (assuming you are putting that many points into the tree) should be Weapon Mastery.

Mental Quickness
Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by 6%.

This talent is often underrated. Shocks, Lightning/Water Shield, Stormstrike, and all totems have their cost reduced by this talent. While it can be difficult (or impossible) to find points to put into this talent due to it competing with Weapon Mastery, this talent is a good place to put any extra points you may have.

Requires 30 points in Enhancement Talents

Stormstrike
10% of base mana (roughly 150 at 60)
10 second cooldown
Instantly attacks with all equipped weapons. In addition, the next two sources of Nature damage dealt to the target are increased by 20%. Lasts 12 sec.

An excellent talent for increasing your melee damage output. Stormstrike has a reasonably short cooldown and provides a bonus to the damage of Earth Shock, Lightning Shield, or the nature spells of a friendly Elemental shaman or Balance druid. It is another of the workhorses of Enhancement that makes an Enhancement build what it is.

Dual-Wield
Allows one-hand and off-hand weapons to be equipped in the off-hand.

A phenomenal talent. Dual-wielding increases average DPS output by a great amount. It takes a significant level of gear for the burst of dual-wield to exceed that of two-hand, but it is possible.

Dual-Wield Specialization
Requires 1 point in Dual-Wield
Increases your chance to hit when dual-wielding by 6%.

Another utterly phenomenal talent. If you have taken Dual-Wield, you absolutely must take this talent. It provides roughly a 9% melee DPS increase for three points. I can't say it any clearer - if you have taken Dual-Wield, you must take this talent.

Requires 35 points in Enhancement talents

Unleashed Rage
Causes your critical hits with melee weapons to increase all party member's attack power by 10% if within 20 yards of the shaman. Lasts 10 sec.

Another excellent talent. More excellent for PVE than for PVP, but for PVP, it is still very powerful - a 10% AP buff is nothing to sneeze at, especially not for your entire group. This talent is one of the reasons why an Enhancement shaman is a powerful PVE melee'er, both for the AP increase it gives you yourself and for the increase to your party.

Requires 40 points in Enhancement talents

Shamanistic Rage
Instant 2 min cooldown
Gives your successful melee attacks a chance to restore mana equal to 15% of your attack power. Lasts 30 seconds.

This talent leaves a bit to be desired in PVP - it is difficult to remain in melee for a long length of time, and if you are out of or low on mana for that long, you've probably died anyway.

But for PVE, this talent has been nicknamed 'Shammervate', and it is not far from the truth. With a bit of luck and good gear, it is not irregular to regenerate two to three thousand mana during its duration (at level 60). With such a short cooldown, and a bit of common sense in mana expenditure, you can continue to Stormstrike and Shock indefinitely, regardless of how long the fight lasts.

IV. Restoration Talents.

Comments on the Tree in General
Restoration is a strong high-end PVE tree(i.e., raiding), as well as a strong PVP tree. It is not necesary for low-end PVE. We don't need the healing power early. If we kill the enemy before we need to heal, then Improved Lesser Healing Wave doesn't help. Nature's Swiftness isn't necessary unless you screwed up; it's easier to just not screw up.

For PVP; Nature's Swiftness is almost necessary. Improved Lesser Healing Wave is similarly good. Healing Way, when used with appropriate healing techniques, is a very strong healing tool. Restoration really shines in raids, and in survivability - Earth Shield brings us into nearly paladin-esque levels of survivability. If you want your enemies to curse your name as the shaman who will just not die, Restoration is for you.

No Prerequisites

Improved Healing Wave
Reduces the casting time of your Healing Wave spell by .5 seconds.

Healing Wave is roughly 9% more efficient than Lesser Healing Wave. Thus, the use of this talent is to create situations where untalented Healing Wave would not heal fast enough, but talented would, preventing you from needing to use Lesser Healing Wave. It is largely a playstyle decision.

Tidal Focus
Reduces the mana cost of your healing spells by 5%.

A passive, useful talent. We have again the choice of versatile versus specialized when comparing this to Improved Healing Wave.

Requires 5 points in Restoration Talents

Improved Reincarnation
Reduces the cooldown of your Reincarnation spell by 20 minutes and increases the amount of health and mana you reincarnate with by an additional 20%.

Not a phenomenal talent. If you like to Reincarnate often to get the last laugh, or to help in a fight after you died anyway, this talent is useful to you. If, like most shamans, you save your Reincarnate for wipe protection, this will not be very helpful.

Ancestral Healing
Increases the target's armor value by 25% after getting a critical effect from one of your healing spells.

Not a bad talent at all. It is largely a matter of personal preference whether you put points in this or keep them for the next talent, Totemic Focus. You can always do both, as this talent only requires 3 points to max out.

Totemic Focus
Decreases the mana cost of your totems by 25%.

A very strong talent. Placing totems can get expensive, and saving 25% of their cost is nothing at all to sneeze at.

Requires 10 points in Restoration Talents

Nature's Guidance
Increases your chance to hit with spells and melee attacks by 3%.

An excellent talent if you are not purely a healer. Many elemental and enhancement-primary builds like to reach into Restoration, and take this talent.

Healing Focus
Gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption by damage when casting any healing spell.

An excellent talent. The only reason to not take this talent is if you already have Eye of the Storm in the Elemental tree.

Totemic Mastery
Increases the radius of your totems by 10 yards.
Another excellent talent, especially for only one point.

Healing Grace
Reduces the threat generated by your healing spells by 15%.

Shaman heals are inherently high-threat, and this helps to offset that. However, remember that unless you have problems with aggro while healing, this talent will do nothing. It is a good place to put points if you have extra, but few shamans do.

Requires 15 points in Restoration talents

Restorative Totems
Increases the effect of your Healing Stream and Mana Spring totems by 25%.

A fairly weak talent. It changes Healing Stream from 14 hp/2 sec to 17.5/2 sec, and Mana Spring from 10/2 sec to 12.5/2 sec. It is, however, the prerequisite for Mana Tide Totem, which most Restoration shamans want.

However, for Healing Stream Totem, it does apply after +healing, so it gets slightly less weak as your gear gets better.

Tidal Mastery
Increases the critical effect chance of your healing and lightning spells by 5%.

Synergy with not only Ancestral Healing, but also with the Elemental talent tree, and it also helps you with healing. Yes, this is a very good talent.

Requires 20 points in Restoration Talents

Healing Way
Your Healing Wave spells have a 100% chance to increase the effect of subsequent Healing Wave spells on the target by 6% for 15 sec. This effect will stack up to 3 times.

Some explanation; it only affects the spell Healing Wave, not Lesser Healing Wave. Healing Wave spells from any shaman will benefit, but only spells from shamans with the talent will apply or renew the buff.

This is a very strong talent to increase your healing power, but it takes a little set-up. As a result, it is not particularly strong in PVP, but it is a powerhouse in PVE healing.

Nature's Swiftness
Instant cast. 3 minute cooldown
When activated, your next Nature spell with a casting time of less than 10 sec becomes an instant spell.

As an instant spell, you can cast it without stopping your movement. You can use this for an instant healing wave, lightning bolt, chain lightning, or ghost wolf spell; Nature's Swiftness is a very powerful and very versatile talent. If you have 20 points in Restoration, your 21st should always be Nature's Swiftness.

Focused Mind
Increases your chance to resist Silence and Interrupt mechanics by 15%.

First, a little bit of clarificiation - this does not affect your chance to be delayed by damage in casting a spell. It increases your chance to resist school lockouts such as Kick, Pummel, and Counterspell (those are interrupt mechanics), as well as Silence mechanics (such as, well, Silence, Counterspell-Silence, etc).
Focused Mind is a very, very strong PVP talent. Interrupts and silences abound, and being unable to cast any Nature spells for up to ten seconds (the longest interrupt effect) is crippling both to you and your team. For PVE, interrupts and silences are rare and generally avoidable, and so this talent is not helpful often.

Requires 25 points in Restoration Talents

Purification
Increases the effectiveness of your healing spells by 10%.

A free, passive, +10% healing talent. If you like to heal, you want Purification.

Requires 30 points in Restoration Talents

Mana Tide Totem
60 mana Instant cast 5 minute cooldown
Summons a Mana Tide Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 12 seconds that restores 6% of total mana every 3 seconds to party members within 20 yards.


An excellent talent. Overall, it restores 24% of each party member's total mana (that's full mana bar, including all buffs) over 12 seconds. It scales, it's powerful, and it's effective. Now if only it didn't require Restorative Totems, it would be perfect, but I suppose we can't have everything.

Requires 30 points in Restoration Talents

Nature's Guardian
Whenever a damaging attack is taken that reduces you below 30% health, you have a 50% chance to heal 10% of your total health and reduce your threat on that target. 5 second cooldown.

First, a clarification - any damage taken that reduces you to anything below 30% has a chance to proc this talent. That is, if you are at 29%, and take a 2-point hit from a critter, you have a 50% chance to heal and end up at 39%.

This talent is phenomenal. It makes killing you a real ordeal. There really isn't a whole lot to say other than that - it's very good at healing you and keeping you alive, and as an added bonus, in PVE it will reduce your threat.

Requires 35 points in Restoration Talents

Nature's Blessing
Increases your spell damage and healing by an amount equal to 30% of your Intellect.

I know I'm saying this a lot, but all the talents down here are excellent. This is another incredible talent, giving you back a little bit of the damage you sacrificed by going so far into Restoration, as well as increasing your healing.

Improved Chain Heal
Increases the effect of your Chain Heal spell by 20%.

I note that like all percentage effects, this applies after +healing. Combined with Purification, your Chain Heal gets +30% healing done. It is simply amazing. Chain Heal is a very powerful spell once you have enough +healing, and this talent makes it even more so, as well as lowering the amount of +healing needed for the talent to truly shine.


Requires 40 points in Restoration Talents


Earth Shield
Requires 3 points in Nature's Blessing.
900 mana 40 yard range
Protects the target with an earthen shield, giving a 30% chance to ignore spell interruption when damaged and causing melee attacks to heal the target for 270. This effect can only occur once every few seconds. Lasts 10 minutes. 10 charges. The shield can only be placed on one person at a time.

This talent is simply amazing. Despite what the tooltip says, it procs exactly as if it were Lightning Shield. You can place it on yourself for unparalleled (by other shamans, anyway - very comparable to being a paladin) survivability, or you can place it on someone else and have it act as a 'smart' HoT that will only heal them when they are damaged. The only drawback is that it is dispellable, and with such a hefty mana cost, renewing it is not an option. But that is a small price to pay for such power in any case where your opponents cannot dispel. I also note that each charge gets 30% of your +healing, and is affected in full by Purification