Can a Shaman become a top damage dealer with absolutely zero strength, zero agility, and every single stat point dumped into intellect? With WoW Forever on the horizon, the Shaman class has received some wild changes — not one, but two separate ways to scale damage off stacking intellect: a 1:1 attack power conversion from Mental Dexterity, and a 30% conversion to spell damage and healing from Mental Quickness. So is this a big-brain meta build, or the dumbest way to troll your group in a higher-level dungeon? One content creator put it to the test on the beta.
For players keeping an eye on the economy, experiments like this are also a reminder: stockpiling WoW Forever Beta Gold during testing and learning gear and enchant prices early can save you a lot of WoW Forever Gold when the live servers open. That said, the exact economic systems are still subject to official announcements.
🔮 Setting Up: The Painful Hunt for All-Intellect Gear
First, he needed gear. He scoured the auction house for weeks on the beta, spending all his remaining gold on a full set of level 30 intellect gear. A dueling tournament was running at the time, so while everyone else was farming higher-level dungeons, the only level 30 item he couldn't get was his weapon — the Acrobatic Staff of Intellect. Apart from two-handed swords, which Shamans can't use, there were pretty much no two-handed green weapons usable at that level on the auction house. He would have loved to use Rage of the Storm, the new two-hander from the level 30 Shaman quest, but sadly it has stamina, and the other reward has spell damage — both disqualified for the challenge.
Next came finding a group willing to let him DPS. He got himself to Booty Bay for the Nomerun, and his build was noticed immediately — "36k mana is insane." Since the group had no mage, he sent over intellect buffs from his alt, and they were ready to go.
🐺 Talents and Playstyle: Ghost Wolf, Magma Totem, and Fire Nova
He shared the final build he started the run with. The reduced threat taken from the parry talent proved genuinely useful, as did the 3% hit from the restoration tree. He noticed the group's hunter was geared to the teeth — blues, trinkets, high-level enchants — while he had level 30 greens and only the two enchants he could get. Beating that hunter on damage was going to be difficult.
When the warrior charged the first pull, the author made one thing clear: trying to do as much damage as possible does not mean ignoring mechanics that would hurt the group. He earth-shocked mobs when he could, but his main priority every pull was dropping a magma totem and firing off Fire Nova on cooldown for maximum AoE. On the first pull, he absolutely smashed the damage meter, and it was genuinely hilarious watching his mana bar barely move while DPSing.
The problem: with a massive mana pool but no spirit to regen it, once his mana ran low, it took a long time to come back. That's where the build's first core strategy came in. He specced into the new and improved Ghost Wolf — not only instant cast, but usable indoors. So after every pull, he'd grab as many drink ticks as he could, then catch up to the fight with Ghost Wolf before falling behind on damage. He did this for essentially the entire run. After destroying the first four pulls, the hunter he'd been worried about called him a "shaman god" — and then said he was going to report the build.
🏹 The Single-Target Tug-of-War
The first boss went down easily. On single target, the hunter barely edged him out, and then something happened he'd never seen before (the video cuts to music here). On the run back, he explained that he used Windfury Weapon simply because it was the highest-level weapon enchant he had; if he had a higher rank of another enchant, he'd probably use that instead, since he was on a fast weapon, which isn't great for DPS — Stormstrike wants a slower one.
On the next boss, the tank pulled a lot of extra mobs, and he helped group them up with Earth Shock; the hunter pulled ahead in damage. The fight was a little shaky, and the hunter ended up topping the meters, but they downed him and chain-pulled toward the big AoE packs.
By this point, the group had grown comfortable with its limits and picked up the pace. Around this time he started using the new Forever Shaman ability, Totemic Recall, to get mana back from his magma totem as pulls finished, since it costs a whopping 230 mana. Damage was surprisingly a non-issue — the real challenge was keeping up with the group, because he didn't have access to the 11-point restoration talent, Water Shield. Had he had it, he doubts he'd ever have to drink, since it scales with a percentage of your mana pool: he'd get as much mana back per tick as one of his abilities costs, and he could trigger it constantly.
On AoE, since warriors struggle to hold threat on big packs (Thunder Clap only hits four targets), he knew he'd have to kite — easily done with Earthbind Totem and the hunter's Frost Trap. He cycled Fire Novas and repositioned his magma totem with his new favorite ability, Totemic Projection, whenever needed, since its mana cost is cheaper than casting another magma totem. The exception was when his magma totem was about to expire, and he knew the fight would last longer. Because the beta was capped at level 30, the bosses did begin to outscale them as they went deeper. He and the hunter repeatedly traded spots atop the DPS meter, but the hunter pulled ahead at the very last second, beating him again on bosses.
🛡️ Utility, Tricks, and the Final Boss
One of his favorite parts of the build is the utility — mainly the strong healing power to help the group when something goes wrong, which happens shortly after. It finally feels like in WoW Forever you're not totally gimping yourself by picking a true hybrid class, and with a better weapon, there's absolutely no chance anyone gets remotely close to him on damage.
There are also plenty of cool new tricks available to Shaman now — like projecting a Stoneclaw Totem next to your magma totem to protect it from getting one-shot by mobs, so you can get that extra Fire Nova off as the pull starts. Or using projection to pull yourself. Sometimes he'd open with Flame Shock to avoid ripping threat with Earth Shock, since the overall damage is higher if the DoT fully ticks. Once you get Water Shield, though, he actually thinks it's a good idea as a Shaman to occasionally pull threat on purpose just for a tick or two of mana — the same could be said for Lightning Shield procs, which did trigger throughout the run but accounted for only a small portion of his damage. He also noted that Shamans have access to hit rating early on through the Focus talent, which was definitely a big factor in his performance since not every class has something like that — but it wasn't enough to prevent what happens next (he dies, and isn't sure the spot is good enough to use Reincarnation).
They ended up aggroing the bottom mobs one more time even while hugging the left, but ran to the elevator this time to glitch out the mobs and finish clearing toward the last boss. These mobs have a spell reflect, and at one point, in his attempt to purge it off, the purge got reflected and stripped his own intellect scroll, forcing him to apply another. Then it was on to the last boss, an orange mob to them.
He opened with Blood Fury for max damage on top of Flame Shock, then dropped totems while running in — though for maximum damage it would have been better to drop them all beforehand and project them in. The problem was that he was rarely at full mana for most of the run, so he'd occasionally fall behind on globals. He saved his AoE for when adds came to get double value, even pulling threat off the boss at one point, so he swapped to Frost Shock. The fight wasn't easy, but they clutched it out in the end — and the hunter yet again barely beat him in damage.
🏆 The Verdict: AoE God, But Don't Copy It Blindly
So there you have it. Even after the nerfs to Shaman AoE, the all-intellect build is a god on AoE — and probably even more godlike on single target with a better, slower weapon. Just be sure to get some hit rating. Would he recommend this exact build? Eh, probably not. Something a bit more well-rounded will serve you better, so you're not always stuck waiting on mana — but hopefully it goes to show just how strong the intellect stat is on Shaman now.
For players looking to get ahead when WoW Forever launches, the value of experiments like this is in understanding stat scaling and where the meta is heading. Whether you're saving WoW Forever Gold for gear and enchants, or watching WoW Forever Beta Gold to get a read on beta pricing, planning always saves you detours during the opening rush. The author also shouted out his group — "they were awesome" — and said it was a really fun run. He'll be streaming and posting WoW Forever content daily come launch, and this all-intellect Shaman experiment stands as a genuinely entertaining answer to a very silly question.
