The Spirit Realm

personally I would not ignore your offensive or deffensive melee capabilities. I frequently use them my self.. no sense letting all the others have fun with leopard or panther... that and shaman are agro hungry you will get hit..

I do agree Ogre is one of the best races for shaman.. but alas I choose Barbarian cause no way I was going to take that faction hit lol but now it means nothing.

happy hunting and warm wishes for your new Shammyhood

I chose Vah Shir cause I've never really liked the Barb look, and plus there are so many of them running around. I do get the occasional tells for bst crack and atk buffs when people don't notice that I'm a shaman If I wasn't a Vah Shir I would have chosen either Iksar or Troll.

actually, go with charisma, if you notice, most shaman have all maxed but int and charisma, and charisma helps with charming at level 29, and some would say even helps a bit with slowing mobs althougth I think I'm the only shaman who says it helps <3 charisma

1. Is there any race that I should stay away from ? I was planning on playing a Good aligned Shaman so that limits me to Barbarian, Froglok and Vah Shir right? Are any of these 3 definite NO's? dont do a froglok, the flipping and constant animation will drive you nuts. good/evil alighnment doesnt mean a thing nowdays really. if i lost my mind and decided to make annother shaman, it would be a inny troll for the snare neck and improved regen.

2. At the higher end of the game which stat is the HARDEST to get hold of? What do you level 70 Shaman's find yourself wishing you had put more points into when you created your shaman? I am curious as to where I should put my bonus points depends on what you call high end...at my lvl they are all maxed, infact sta and wis are both over 600 without cap. if your looking for a place to drop stats, dont worry about agi, dex, or str...YOUR A SHAMAN, you get to buff these yourself

3. Which Specialization is the most common? alteration, since most buffs, heals, and slows are alteration. i think a few shaman go conjeration or something, for the dots...but that never made any sence to me.

4. Since I will be leveling a little bit faster than normal (not super fast) which type of weapon type would you suggest that I spend the most time using?
if you pling a twink buff bot, it dont matter a damned bit...hell even soloing high end mobs that im forced to tank (off tanking DS spiders and orcs when the tank is busy for instance) i dont dare turn on attack, thats how repost happens, i just keep pets behind the mob and panthered for max dmg, minimum hurt

Personally I chose Froglok for several reasons.

1. I wanted a good race, but didn't care for the Vah Shir and Barbarians where just to common.

2. I like that mixing plate and chain graphics on a Froglok doesn't look as out of place as it does on some other races. Jaundiced bone armor's having plate graphics and all.

3. I like the animations of the Froglok. The flipping while you cast actually makes it look like your pulling from arcane forces, where the 2 snaps up hand waving of the other races cast animations look like reviews from "In Living Color". Though I think evil races cast animations are a bit different, but still not as appealing as Froglok.

4. I like being the odd race out on our shaman team in guild. Plus being the odd race out has not hampered me. I am our shaman teams leader even though I don't have as much AA as some of the other shaman. Skill/Knowledge is greater then Race/AA.

Really though as has been stated already, when you get to the high end game, racial differences become less important. Sure the Ogre stun thing is nice, but most stun's I suffer from are AE or Cast. If you have a good MA team, you shouldn't be ganking aggro. The Troll neck thing sounds nice, but I raid 85% of the time I am on EQ. Plus my wife plays EQ so I never have to solo, got a Necromancer with me to snare.

Specialazation - Allteration.

Weapon - Doesn't matter. Weapon skills are easy to raise, so just get a decent ratio weapon to start with. I think my progression as best I can remember was Centi Warhammer, Soulstripper, Delightful Orb of Forgotten Magic, The DoN vendor 1hb "Goud of the just?" And them the T.A.. I am one epic fight from 1.5, but it will probably be bagged most of the time anyways.

Stat - With the higher end gear and your buffs it's not going to matter much, though Charisma and Intelligence are my lowest stats. I still wouldn't consider those a priority when rolling a shaman.

Really I'd just pick whatever race you think you'd enjoy the most and go from there.

Barbarian for life!

Ogre for the win~