Elemental
The Elemental talents buff a shaman's offensive spellcasting ability. Although shocks also receive some loving in this tree, the Elemental Shaman's biggest tools will be the Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning Bolt. There are 15 buffs to Lightning Bolt between the Elemental and Restoration trees, and when these are all applied the spell becomes a very powerful and mana-efficient damage dealer.
PVE shamans may choose to go all the way to the 41 point Elemental talent: Totem of Wrath. This fire totem grants all party members an additional 3% chance to hit and to critically hit with spells. Elemental shamans who focus on PVP often skip the Totem of Wrath in order to place 21 points into Restoration, which allows them to buy Nature's Swiftness.
Restoration
Restoration is all about healing. This tree reduces the casting time and mana costs of healing spells, and adds several interesting effects to the vanilla healing spells. An example of this is Healing Way, which adds an effect to the target of a Greater Healing spell that enhances following heals. Nature's Swiftness, at 21 points in Restoration is a very popular spell for all shamans. This talent makes the next nature spell, whether healing or damage, into an instant cast. Many PvP oriented shamans will skip the 41 point talent in their main tree to get Natures Swiftness instead.
Restoration is a popular choice for raiding shamans, and is a solid healing choice. My main complaint about the tree is that it lacks mana efficiency, causing me to consume many mana potions. Another drawback is that to get the most out of the tree requires a very large investment of talent points. When I'm wearing my healing hat I have no less than 50 points in Restoration, and I know shamans who spend even more.
Enhancement
Enhancement is the second of the damage trees. Where Elemental is about buffing magic damage, Enhancement focuses on increasing melee damage. In addition to the shaman's own damage, it also helps to buff melee-wielding party members. All shamans have the ability to use melee weapons and the spells that buff them, but Enhancement brings those abilities to their peak. These talents Enhance the weapon buffs such as Flametongue and Windfury, grant the ability to wield two-handed weapons or to dual wield and basically allow you to smash people in the face. Hard.
The downside to Enhancement in PvE is that the damage it deals out tends to be come in bursts, which combined with the class' lack of an aggro dump makes the enhancement shaman notorious for suddenly getting splattered in instances. In PvP the major disadvantage of this build is that it relies on getting close to an opponent and has no way to defeat crowd controlling abilities.
Conclusions
I hope that these brief descriptions give you an idea of the basics behind each of the talent trees. The idea's not to get into the intricacies of each build, but to give a frame of reference for any readers who are unfamiliar with shamans. From now on, if I were to whine about trying to pull off daily quests while specced Resto, you will know that I'm bemoaning my lack of damage potential while using a talent tree meant for healing.
PVE shamans may choose to go all the way to the 41 point Elemental talent: Totem of Wrath. This fire totem grants all party members an additional 3% chance to hit and to critically hit with spells. Elemental shamans who focus on PVP often skip the Totem of Wrath in order to place 21 points into Restoration, which allows them to buy Nature's Swiftness.
Restoration
Restoration is all about healing. This tree reduces the casting time and mana costs of healing spells, and adds several interesting effects to the vanilla healing spells. An example of this is Healing Way, which adds an effect to the target of a Greater Healing spell that enhances following heals. Nature's Swiftness, at 21 points in Restoration is a very popular spell for all shamans. This talent makes the next nature spell, whether healing or damage, into an instant cast. Many PvP oriented shamans will skip the 41 point talent in their main tree to get Natures Swiftness instead.
Restoration is a popular choice for raiding shamans, and is a solid healing choice. My main complaint about the tree is that it lacks mana efficiency, causing me to consume many mana potions. Another drawback is that to get the most out of the tree requires a very large investment of talent points. When I'm wearing my healing hat I have no less than 50 points in Restoration, and I know shamans who spend even more.
Enhancement
Enhancement is the second of the damage trees. Where Elemental is about buffing magic damage, Enhancement focuses on increasing melee damage. In addition to the shaman's own damage, it also helps to buff melee-wielding party members. All shamans have the ability to use melee weapons and the spells that buff them, but Enhancement brings those abilities to their peak. These talents Enhance the weapon buffs such as Flametongue and Windfury, grant the ability to wield two-handed weapons or to dual wield and basically allow you to smash people in the face. Hard.
The downside to Enhancement in PvE is that the damage it deals out tends to be come in bursts, which combined with the class' lack of an aggro dump makes the enhancement shaman notorious for suddenly getting splattered in instances. In PvP the major disadvantage of this build is that it relies on getting close to an opponent and has no way to defeat crowd controlling abilities.
Conclusions
I hope that these brief descriptions give you an idea of the basics behind each of the talent trees. The idea's not to get into the intricacies of each build, but to give a frame of reference for any readers who are unfamiliar with shamans. From now on, if I were to whine about trying to pull off daily quests while specced Resto, you will know that I'm bemoaning my lack of damage potential while using a talent tree meant for healing.
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