Which spells are worth buying?

Hi folks- I made a shaman yesterday and, after level pretty steadily to level 10, joined up with another player, blinked my eyes, and dinged level 22. So while I’m excited about how quickly I’ve gotten into the 20s, I didn’t keep up with purchasing spells as I went, with the last level purchased being level 7 spells, I believe. I’ve since bought what I believe are the more valuable 8, 9, and 10 spells, but I’ve admittedly never had a shaman this “high” and I’m not sure what spells are worth buying between 10-22 and which I shouldn’t bother with. Or am I thinking about this all wrong and should just buy everything, recognizing that money isn’t as scant as it once was?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Welcome, young shaman. First off, before you add others to your list, make sure you have the following spells:

• True North
• Burst of Flame
• Summon Drink

These spells, plus Minor Healing and Inner Fire, are what you will want to spam cast to level up your casting skills. They cover the skills Abjuration, Alteration, Conjuration, Divination, and Evocation. Trust me on this. Now let's look at the spell list for level 25 and below. The only three I would say to get without a doubt from levels 23-25 are Cannibalize, Frost Strike (only if you find yourself nuking a lot), and Envenomed Breath. Of those three, the only must have is Canni, because it will be a part of your life as a shaman going forward for a good while. Moving back in level, I'd suggest your level 19 disease DOT Affliction, and Healing. Moving along, Tiny Companion, Frenzy (if you do a lot of melee), and Shrink (a must have). Oh I forgot Cancel Magic, that's a really good line of spells to keep handy.
Finish off with Bind Affinity, Walking Sleep (your slow spells), Enduring Breath (need fish scales), Root, and Levitate (need bat wings). Notice I left off all the stat buffs. The only useful one at low levels would be to raise Stamina, if you have low hit points. I'm going to assume you are on a Live server, because you didn't specify otherwise. Statflation will dispell the need for anything other than raw HP/AC buffs. Don't get the various run speed buffs aside from Spirit of Bih'Li. It's a group buff, and has an Attack bonus component to it. Also avoid any vision enhancing spells, unless you just can't see in the dark.
Eventually you will get group versions for single stat buffs, you really don't need to worry about any of them on a Live server. Harnessing of Spirit is the first of the Focus line, and you'll continue on with those as you level. You'll also want to start picking up debuffs like Malosini (Malo at 60, Malosinia at 65), the disease resist debuff line starting with Insidious Decay (used with Cloud of Grummus against stargets that can only be slowed that way) and their upgrades, and make sure to pick up Turgur's Insects, your primary slow spell until level 70+. Hope that helps, and saves you some money along the way.

Yes, just buy them all.

BTW, the command /output missingspells will create a text file that will pop open. It will show the spells you are missing up to your level.

The low level spells are typically cheap enough that you might as well buy them all. Some might not be needed, but it's probably not worth it to pick and choose. If you can afford it, buy all the spells at every level.

One trick is to make sure the "Show only items I can use" button at the bottom is selected in the vendor window. For spells, it will make it so that the only spells in the list are spells that you haven't yet added to your spellbook. Here's what it looks like for me. The spells shown in the list are the ones which are missing from my spellbook.

As a part-time Shaman, I have these words of wisdom. Game management knows that the Shaman has Cani in his/her repertoire and make sure we have to use it by having the mana cost of the spells high.

I tend to buy the spells backwards from highest level down. You won't use the lower level stat buffs that you buy. Like Doranur says don't be the shaman that casts any of the Shrew spells. I wish I could delete the Shrew spells from my shaman spell books.

I tend to buy the spells backwards from highest level down. You won't use the lower level stat buffs that you buy. Like Doranur says don't be the shaman that casts any of the Shrew spells. I wish I could delete the Shrew spells from my shaman spell books.

Thank you all for the incredibly helpful advice! I’ll be taking it all in and buying as recommended. Level 35 now and having a blast

This is a more general reply and is not very SHM specific.

Most spell lines repeat every 5 levels. Often if you level very quickly in the beginning, as you did, you might be able to skip some of the lower level version spells. Like Hegsheoshed said, you can sort by level and go down. If you buy a heal at 35, you might not need to buy that same heal from 30 and 25 if you are missing them. You can level quickly sometimes and if you go a whole 5 levels only doing the healing role, and have no intentions to DPS, you might be able to skip your DPS spells if money is tight. Often you can't use your current Damage over time spell and the previous version of the same spell together, so buying that older version may be a waste of money.

Sometimes you do need to buy them because of cooldowns or stacking. Clerics for example have a fast heal line where they cast the last 3 versions in a row, because they can cast the older one while the newer one is cooling down. Their regular heal however does not have this cooldown so they don't need older versions. I don't know how this applies to SHM but a lot of classes do not need to buy the older versions of the same spell lines.

Some spells do not get upgrades, like the SHM spirit of the wolf, so you want to be sure to buy those utility spells. You need to use the Zam site and the spell output file to figure out which special spells you may have missed.

If money is no issue, output file and buy everything, but realize you may not use some of them.

Hope that makes sense.

Be sure to make friends with other SHM in the game and ask them which spells they are using.

Doranur has hit on the different types of casting. Note that you will at some point be able to specialize in a casting type. You get a primary and secondary specilization. I don't know if SHM are alteration or conjuration. You want to make sure you know what specializations are and what you want to specialize in them, and level the skill to lock in the one you want. You can re-specialize but it's better to just avoid having to do that quest and get it right the first time.

You are correct with your suggestion of Specialization, Alteration and then Conjuration is the course to take. For anybody that doesn't know how to set specialization, for silk casters (Wiz/Nec/Mag/Enc) when you hit level 20, you can start leveling your specialization skills. For priests and hybrids that get specialization, it is level 30. Ask in your class chat channel which one to pursue, and start spam casting an appropriate spell that uses the skill you are specializing into. For shaman, as this is the topic, Minor Healing works perfectly fine. Cast it on yourself or some AFK body near you, and keep casting it, until you see your Specialization Alteration skill hit 51. Congratulations, you're all set!

Also, for healing, sometimes I have fat fingers in emergencies, deleting instead of casting. For those instances I put in a similar, lower heal for just in case...