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Elemental

Storm Reach

Increases the range of your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells by 3/6 yards.

Not essential, but it's pretty nice to have. It's always a good idea to have as much space between you and your enemy when you're a caster. In this case, it increases the range of your lightning spells from 30 yards to 36 yards.

In PvP, this lets you Chain Lightning a group of Alliance scum from far away without being close enough for many other range-based abilities. Of course, hunters will still be able to hit you from a gazillion yards away, but that's unavoidable.

In dungeons, it lets you stand out of range of a lot of boss abilities. For example, Murmur's Sonic Boom ability has a range of 34 yards. And if you're soloing, that extra 6 yards will usually give you time to launch one more lightning bolt before the mob starts wailing on you.




Elemental Fury

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

Essential. Get it get it get it. It's only one point, and it doubles your spell crit damage. If you didn't know by now, Elemental shamans are VERY crit-focused. Get it. Essential.





Unrelenting Storm

Regenerate mana equal to 2/4/6/8/10% of your Intellect every 5 sec, even while casting.

This used to be much more useful (back when BC was released) than it is now, because a few important changes have been made to help our mana regeneration.


1. Mana Spring Totem has been increased from 30mp5 to 50mp5.
2. Elemental Focus now procs on crits, and helps us with sustained casting much more.
3. Water Shield gives more mana back when it procs, and also gives us a flat 50mp5 while it's on.
4. Lightning Bolt & Chain Lightning now cost us less mana to cast, as well as Water Shield and Lightning Shield.
5. Better itemization, and numerous other improvements.

So, mana regeneration isn't nearly as much of a problem for us as it once was. When BC first came out, I would have said that you should definitely take this talent. But now, it's not that great. 400 Int will only get you 40mp5.

If you're doing a lot of raiding, with a lot of long fights, it's a pretty decent talent to have. But if you're not raiding, you probably shouldn't bother unless you have to stick more points somewhere to go deeper in the tree.

Enhancement

Improved Weapon Totems

Increases the melee attack power bonus of your Windfury Totem by 15/30% and increases the damage caused by your Flametongue Totem by 6/12%.

This talent will not help YOU in any way. You use Windfury Weapon and Flametongue Weapon, not the totem equivalents, because the totems are weaker. But, they affect your group.

I recommend getting this talent if you're a dungeoneer, raider, or if you're on an Arena team with a couple other meleers. It can help your tank generate more aggro, and your warriors, rogues and paladins do more damage. Unfortunately, weapon totems don't work on droods or hunter pets (unless it's been changed recently), though it may work on some warlock pets. As I've said before, my knowledge of Enhancement is far less than my knowledge of the other trees.




Spirit Weapons

Gives a chance to parry enemy melee attacks and reduces the threat generated by your melee attacks by 30%.

Parry gives you a flat 5% chance to avoid attacks, in case you were wondering.

This is a GREAT talent, and it only costs ONE talent point. Everyone should get it. The end.




Elemental Weapons

Increases the damage caused by your Rockbiter Weapon by 7/14/20%, your Windfury Weapon effect by 13/27/40% and increases the damage caused by your Flametongue Weapon and Frostbrand Weapon by 5/10/15%.

This is another essential talent for the Enhancement shaman. It's kinda like Improved Weapon Totems, except that it affects YOU, and only you. This does nothing more than increase your damage output. Which is awesome. Get it, unless you don't WANT to do more damage. But you do, don't you? Awww yea.

Restoration

Healing Way

Your Healing Wave spells have a 33/66/100% chance to increase the effect of subsequent Healing Wave spells on that target by 6% for 15 sec. This effect will stack up to 3 times.

This is a pretty powerful spell that helps you a ton for single-target healing. It'll increase the effectiveness of your Healing Wave spell by 15% after a few casts (which can be quickly stacked by casting Rank 1 of HW). And since it affects all HW spells cast on the target, it'll help the other resto shamans in your raid.

Oh...I said raid. Yes, this spell is most useful to raiders and dungeoneers. If you're in a solid, organized guild, you should make sure that at least one resto shaman in your raid has this talent. Not everyone needs to have it.

It's less useful in PvP, because you'll probably be using Chain Heal most of the time, which isn't affected by Healing Way. Or, you'll be spamming heals on multiple targets. But it can be useful in PvP too. And if you're doing Arenas, it's probably very helpful, as long as you don't get insta-killed for being a healer.




Nature's Swiftness

When activated, your next Nature spell with a casting time less than 10 sec. becomes an instant cast spell.

This is your "oh shit" button. Use it to give you or your ally an instant heal. Helps you a lot when you get jumped by a rogue, mobbed by mobs, and can help prevent wipes.

It's also very useful to the Elemental shaman who doesn't want to get Totem of Wrath (and I'll cover that later). It works on Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning, so you can get some pretty decent burst damage. And, you can macro it up with Elemental Mastery, trinkets, Berserking, Bloodlust, and whatever else you want, to get a very powerful instant crit.

It also works on Ghost Wolf.




Focused Mind

Reduces the duration of any Silence or Interrupt effects used against the Shaman by 10/20/30%. This effect does not stack with other similar effects.

Not to be confused with the shadow priest talent of the same name (and same icon).

It seems to be mostly a PvP talent, useful for surviving rogues, mages and shadow priests with silence effects, and of course shamans with Earth Shock. Doesn't affect fears, disorients, or movement-impairing effects. Can also be handy in PvE for getting back to healing quicker than the other healing classes when silenced.

Not an essential talent, but it can be useful.