Shaman Talent Trees

Elemental

The Elemental tree focuses on the shaman's offensive spell casting ability. It decreases the mana cost and casting time of spells while increasing their damage and critical strike chance. The 31 point ability is Elemental Mastery, a self buff usable every three minutes that guarantees a mana-free critical hit on the shaman's next offensive spell. The 41 point talent is Totem of Wrath, which increases the whole party's critical strike and hit chances both with spells by 3%.

Overall, Elemental is the best build for shamans who want to maximise their damage output in PvP. In raids, elemental shamans are more of a general utility class, so raid spots may be a little harder to find. In 5-Man instances and PUGs Elemental Shaman bring great flexibility and utility capable of high dps, buffing and healing (due to excellent spec and equipment synergy).

Enhancement

By spending talent points in Enhancement, a Shaman greatly increases melee damage output. This is a very appealing tree to lower-level shamans because dealing melee damage does not cost mana. At level 40, the Dual Wield weapon skill can be learned. Together with the infamous Windfury Weapon buff, an Enhancement Shamans damage output is second only to Rogues and DPS Warriors. Together with their new 51 point talent, Feral Spirit, Enchancement shamans can quickly destroy a group of enemies while soloing, and bring a lot of DPS in to raids.

Enhancement builds generally have the highest damage output potential of all Shaman builds. In raids, one enhancement shaman is usually guaranteed a spot, because his buffs to the other melee damage dealers are substantial. In PvP Enhancement Shamans usually have problems, because they are susceptible to Snares, and don't have any Crowd Control of their own.

Restoration

The Restoration tree focuses on the Shaman's healing capability, reducing the casting time and mana cost of healing spells, while increasing their effectiveness. Restoration Shamans are well suited for any healing situation in the game. On top of that they offer good utility (like Mana Regeneration by Mana Tide Totem), and the best multi-target heal spell in the game (Chain Heal). The 41 point talent Earth Shield acts as a very mana-efficient single-target HoT with a long duration.

This tree is highly useful in PvP and group PvE, the only drawback being the rather low damage output, so solo play is more difficult. In return, a Restoration Shaman hardly ever dies while questing/soloing.