The reason why there are not many guides available is cause they are so diverse, you could actually play them in 100 different styles. But I will try to give a quick guide from my experience.
If you see your shaman as a slow casting crowd controller you will do good in robes with a Staff of Life/Shield till 40 in the cata's. You will cast fast enough to handle most things and you can hit as well
If you see yourself as a fighter with some casting abilities, a good sword/shield with heavy armour will do the trick, but this is more a solo set-up, cause you will miss the MP to buff and heal yourself all the way through.
If you have outside buffs...well then you could probably solo in any type of gear.
I see my shaman as a slow casting crowd controlling party buffer, so in robes, with a Staff of Life to let my root/sleep land and for good Chant of Life at a reasonable speed. I can handle small groups good in cata's.
if you can get haste, go with heavy and a sowrd/blunt shield combo. Drain then attack. If you are grouping with someone that can tank, get robes and be a caster with a sword. Root/drain melee.
It really comes down to what kind of outside buffs you can get and what armor/wep combo you can afford.
Warcyers are very highly verstatile class and sometimes playing them is difficult becuase they can be played soo many different ways. I will lay out your choices and the ups and downs of this class.
Basically WC Are buffers that have the ability to buff full parties at once, whether it is 2 people or 9 people. They also get a nuker lvl nuke and a stun comparable to dwarfs
Advantages of this Class.
This class is primarily a buffer. And as such groups will be easy to find.
Solo is possible since u will be completly buffed and be able to regain your HP thro your drains
Self buffed this class can pwn all but OL's
There r many different combinations of gear and playstlye to fit ur liking
They have the best combination of melee/archer buffs there are
They get a Healer lvl group heal over time
Disabilities
All their skills r high in mana cost, this requires strong mp conservation, and in PvP while self buffed they will down all or most classes.. in mass pvp they will only down a few before they become a weak melee character and are usually owned..
They gain their buffs later than other buffers (i.e a buff proph gets at 52 they get at 56).
Very few mage buffs, means nuker pt's are ffew and far between
No single target heal
I am looking forward to this guide. Can you also give some info on armor and weapons. I am currently a 35 Shaman in Brig Armor with +3 Scallop Jamadhr. Lets me dish damage fast but some people tell me I should use a shield and mace and use light armor for the mp regen bonus. I would love to get the mp bonus from cloth as well as the casting speed increase, but so far I play mostly as a melee character solo and as a melee damage dealer in groups. I generally can out damage tanks. For lvl 40 someone is going to let me borrow their +7 Great Patas. But I have not decided on the armor I should use.
Also the tats I am looking to get +4str/-4dex, +4con/-4dex +4Men/-4Wit. It does not seem that the -8 dex will affect me too badly. I will lose about 10 on my weapon speed and 4 on my accuracy but with self buffs this seems to be negated fairly well. Also with the cost of spells, mp seems to be primary concern.
*welcomes you to our club*
I hope you enjoy ur stay
For under 20 I would do wooden armor (personally I did bronze but hey looking back wooden is better). For a weap a shield/sword works, a 2 handed sword, a bow, or a mystic type weap. Personally I would do a 2 handed sword or a swrod/shield combo. The 1h sword and shield allows u to take more damage (block attacks) but the 2h sword deals more dmg with drain life getting u more hp back.
Until u get guidance at 40+ u have to deal with this characters largest drawback..its the lowest acc class in the game.. so a bow can work however it is not as effective, same for dagger .Staying healed with the drain life is no problem even if u decide to melee it with a sword/blunt/dagger.
at 20+ brig or manticore for armor and the same arguments for weaps. For my character I got dual swords. The bonuses for each armor is
Robe: most Mp avaiable, highest cast speed, but low p def, Perfect for a support role in groups
Light: more p def than robe, lower cast speed (great for solo/duos)
Heavy: most p def, lowest cast speed, and half the mp regen of light/robes (great for solo, tanking in big groups)
I went heavy all the way to lvl 52 (b grade) and rarly felt the pain of the reduced Mp regen and rarely had to sit too.
Weap setup:
FP set and a bezerker blade (2h sword) 40-52 with karmian top/bottom (didn't even bother to complete the set) as backup.
Pre-56 getting groups will be hard I mostly soloed til about 48 or so and then started duoing til about 66 for the best xp. Since u have few buffs before 48 the extra mp regen of light and robes at this point is overrated.
Now my bezerker blade was +6 and then +8 so I decided to use it for B grade too however if not I would have gotten a GS. My main reason is that WC relies on M atk almost as much as P atk. So I decided the extra m atk I recieved from the 2h sword was worth no shield(as a bonus while the DPS is pretty close the 2 handed swords swing slower therefore less SS usage)
52-64 Bw light + bezerker blade with Bw robes as backup
At B grade bw light has the extra bonus of cast speed and p def and m regen. You will stay about equal with ur previous FP p def.
At this point Soloing becomes harder, if U decide to solo then a dagger would be ur best weap. However Duoing in my opoioins is the best I duoed all the way to 66 with my light/bezerker setup. We alternated tanking and the extra mp regen allowed me to keep my partner healed and the cast speed allowed for better crowd control
after 64,65 (don't remeber) I sold my Bw light and went for tallum robe. (finally able to afford it)
61+ My tallum robe was primary and my bw light became sec. I put on tallum light however bw p def was still higer. If I had the money I would get DC set as my secondary but cash is still limited.
since 66+ is almost all about grouping for melee a caster setup to help in full groups is prefered. DC robe is very good too however I didn't have the money and tallum is a good replacement.
I got a +9 AobA for PvP and a +5 sls*Tsu for PvE
in summary
heavy-solo
light-duo/small group
robes-big groups
duals/1h/2h swords- PvE group/duo dmg
dagger-solo damage (it can be used for groups too if u can afford the SS) watch out tho no m atk = lots of failed sleeps
Blunt w/ heatlh- PvP weap
40-52 solo mostly
52-66 duo mostly
66+ groups mostly