Elemental shaman guide

This guide is going to be completely for PvE raiding

If you find any incorrect data, or data you think could be added, feel free to let me know.

What this guide will cover

1. Gear choices and stats
2. Spec
3. Rotation
4. Glyphs
5. Gemming
6. Enchants
7. Consumables
9. Common question/answers
10. BiS lists (For the top 2 current raids)

Puut has made an elemental shaman blog site:
http://www.elementalsham.blogspot.com/

1. Gear choices and stats

Alright, first off. Mail, leather, or cloth? From a PvE perspective the answer is, “whatever has the best stats”

Don’t be ashamed if you have to wear all cloth to get the best stats possible, it won’t make a difference 99.99% of the time. Chances are if you’re getting hit for physical damage the extra armor from mail would not of saved you

Now that that’s out of the way what are the stats you look for in gear?

Hit Rating
Spell Power (SP)
Haste Rating
Crit Rating

Hit rating

Hit rating increases your chance to hit with abilities. You need 17% hit rating to be able to never miss. It is our most important stat.

26.232 hit rating = 1% spell hit chance.
Horde Shaman: you need 368 hit rating to get to 17%. 14%(Hit rating) +3%(talents) = 17%

Alliance Shaman: you need 342 hit rating to get to 17%. 13%(Hit Rating) + 1%(Racial) + 3%(talents) = 17%

Now that we’ve gotten that taken care of I’d like you to meet my friends Mister Oomking, and Mister Mana Battery. These 2 friends of mine like to spec into talents that will grant the entire raid 3% chance to hit with spells. We now revise how much hit rating you need. As good of friends as they are, their abilities DON’T stack.

26.232 hit rating = 1% spell hit chance
Horde Shaman: You need 289 hit rating to get to 17%. 11% (Hit rating) +3%(talents) +3%(Boomking/Spriest) = 17%

Alliance Shaman: You need 263 hit rating to get to 17%. 10% (Hit rating) + 1%(Racial) + 3%(talents) +3%(Boomkin/Spriest) = 17%

Crit rating

Crit rating increases your chance to do double damage (when talented) with your abilities. It’s no longer as important as before in TBC. Back in TBC we were LB machine guns. We are no longer that, and instead of LB making up all of our DPS, it now makes up about ~65% of our dps. Therefore crit has lost 1/3 of its value.

Spell Power

Spell power makes our spells hit harder. Who knew. We like it, so stack it on after you get the hit rating.

Haste rating

Haste rating decreases your cast time of spells. Haste is something we want, but we don’t want to go overboard on without keeping our other stats in mind. I personally believe haste is something to work towards after you have gotten hit capped, a decent amount of SP, and around 20-25% crit chance. By the time you have all of that done, you should already have a bit of haste, and then can start stacking more.

We no longer have a set number of haste to go for. This is because CL is part of the rotation now, and we have a 200 haste granting totem, it's impossible to gear for a certain amount of haste and get a pretty rotation.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that we know what stats you should go for, what is their priority?

The simple version: Hit > SP > Haste > Crit

The complicated version: Hit > SP > Crit over Haste > Haste over Crit.

Liax what did you just say? Well really it depends on your gear for which stat you want more (in terms of crit or haste) You generally want to be at 20-25% crit rating before you start stacking on the haste rating. Therefore crit can take priority over haste, but haste can also take priority over crit.

Simply put get 20-25% crit, then bring in your haste. Until then, don’t gear yourself for haste, you’ll find that you’ll get some haste along the way when you gear yourself up for that nice crit range and after that you can stack even more haste on.

So how do you go about prioritizing yourself? You should always go for the hit cap for raiding. You need to get 17% in some way shape or form. Your spec will grant you 3%, so 14% to go. If you’re a spacegoat you get +1% chance to hit, and you need 13%. (reread the hit cap section for specifics)

After that, you should work on SP and crit or SP and haste. Like I said before, if you are below 20% crit chance, work on your crit. Therefore you work on your SP and crit until you bring yourself up to that nice range, and then switch over to SP and haste working. SP is always a work in progress, you never can have too much (in a balanced character).

2. How should I spec?

The spec that I recommend is this: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?shaman=55300015032133513223013510050500310000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000&glyph=250918060403&version=9806

Note: Minor glyphs in this build were chosen for the biggest bang for your buck as well.

It should be noted though that many talents in here are not “a must” for raiding. However, on the flip side...we don't have a lot of other talents to pick from. So basically every elemental spec should be roughly the same.

Booming Echoes is a talent you can pick up if you want, all top dps specs should have it. It should be noted however, that this is no where near a staple in raiding either. 20% increase damage in FS direct damage is going to be less than a .5% dps increase, and the reduced CD of the spell will only help out shamans who aren’t hit capped and miss with their FS.

3. Spell Rotation

Alright, you’ve geared yourself, you’ve specced yourself, so now you want to shoot fire and lightning out of your eyes. First things first though. How do you do it right, and which spells? Not including totems, we have several main spells we will cast in combat

Flame Shock
Lightning Bolt
Chain Lightning
Lava Burst
Thunderstorm
Water Shield (Whenever it needs to be refreshed)

Thunderstorm should only be casted if you feel that you might go OOM in the fight, and you will get the full benefit. Not messing up your rotation is a plus as well, but it can be hard to do that.

Basically, if you have 80% mana and the boss has 10% hp left, don’t bother Tstorming, but if the boss has 50% hp and you have 60% mana, you should start throwing in Tstorms

Our rotation is no longer set. But we can't really call it a priority system either. How you cast depends on your haste so everyone's rotation will be a smidge different. They will all be following basic guidelines, but it will depend on your haste.

Please refer to Question 1 of the Q/A section for those who want to know if you should be casting earth/frost shock in combat.

Priority system/rotation

Refreshing FlS before it drops (but not continuously spamming it)
Lava Burst
Lightning bolt
Chain lightning

Flame shock should ALWAYS be on the target. It's 18 second long (before t9 set bonus) and has a very short CD. If you miss you shouldn't cast LvB untill you can get the FlS up.

Lightning bolt still scales better than Chain lightning so that is the majority of the spell we should cast, the other benefit is that it has a higher chance to proc Lightning overload, and then the damage isn't even comparable.

Chain lightning is something we cast after each Lava burst. It's CD is 6 seconds, and Lava burst is 8 seconds so it will always be up.

To give an easy summary: You should always have FlS up, lava bursting whenever it's up, and using chain lightning after every lava burst. In between all that you should be casting lightning bolts.

4. Glyphs

Currently, the best three glyphs are:

Major
Glyph of Totem of Wrath- 30% more SP from ToW for 5 minutes (86 SP)
Glyph of Flame Shock- DoT can now be a critical hit
Glyph of Lightning Bolt- 4% more LB damage

Note: If you're in t9 and reach a certain spell power threshold the best glyphs are FlS, lava and LB. If you're under the spell threshold its FlS, ToW and LB.

If you have T8/T8.5 2 piece you also want to switch from FlS glyph to LvB as the glyphs don't stack

Quote by Bink:
"EP values with T9 2pc/4pc enabled:
LB: 175
FS: 153
ToW: 123
Lava: 118"

With T9 4pc it takes 3497sp to change from ToW to LvB


Now a lot of people like to say HEY I LIKE CRIT GLYPH OF FLAMETONGUE SOUNDS GOOD.

NO

Crit, as stated above, has lost 1/3rd of it’s value from TBC, it’s no longer a huge priority on our list and we only get it when it’s practical. As a rule of thumb we never drop SP/hit/haste for crit. And we will CERTAINLY not give up 4% LB damage, 86 spell power, or lose FlS DoT crits for a measly 2% crit.

Minor
Glyph of Thunderstorm
Glyph of Renewed Life
Glyph of Water Shield

Again, these glyphs are picked for solely PvE, with no thought for PvP.

5. Gemming

If we assume you’re hit capped we want Spell power!!! That’s it! Easy huh? Well, dammit we have this stupid thing called a meta gem that wants 2 blue gems. There are few exceptions where we will take a sp/haste gem though.

So here’s how it’s going to work. (I’m not going to bother stating names)

Meta Choice: +21 crit rating, and +3% increased crit damage
Red Gems: +spell power
Yellow Gems: +hit rating
Orange Gems: +spell power, and + hit rating, or +spell power and +haste
Purple Gems: +spell power and stamina.


Ok so the general rule is after the hit cap go for spell power (along with the 2 blue gems). There are times when it's ok to gem for sp/haste though. It all depends on the socket bonus. If the bonus is something lame like int, mp5, crit, or hit (and you're capped) then ignore it. If the socket bonus is spell power then gemming for sp/haste is acceptable.


You need 2 blue gems, and nothing past that. After that you gem for hit rating until capped, and after that you gem for spell power. You can use spell power/hit gems for when you are close to the hit cap but pure +hit gems would be overkill.

Obviously I suggest using epic gem, however I assume people know this, as min/maxing is an important aspect of the game.

6. Enchanting

If you can ever enchant an item, do it. That’s all there is to it. Even if you think you’ll replace it soon you should always have some sort of enchant on there, there is no excuse not to. I will list the BEST enchants (or offer the profession) for you to go, but there can be lesser enchants.

HEAD – Arcanum of Burning Mysteries– +30 Spell power, 20 to crit.

SHOULDER – Sons of Hodir Rep or Inscription– +24 spell power and +15 crit from Greater inscription of the storm from Exalted Sons of Hodir, or if you inscribe you can get +61 spell power and +15 crit from Master’s inscription of the Storm.

CLOAK – Enchant: Cloak: Greater Speed– +23 haste rating

CHEST – Enchant: Chest: Powerful Stats– +10 to stats

WRIST – Enchant Bracers: Superior Spell power (Enchanting) or Fur Lining: Spellpower – +30 spell power, or +76 spell power if LW.

GLOVES – Enchant Gloves: Exceptional Spell power– +28 spell power

You can always enchant gloves with precision (+20 hit) to get closer to the hit cap as well.

WAIST– Eternal belt buckle– An extra socket!

PANTS – Sapphire Spellthread – 50 spell power and 30 stamina

FEET – Enchant Boots: Icewalker – +12 hit, +12 crit

RINGS (Enchanters only) – +19 spell power per ring.

WEAPON – Enchant Weapon: Mighty Spell power – +63 spell power

SHIELD (If present) – Enchant Shield: Greater intellect – +25 intellect

7. Consumables

The last thing YOU need to bring before fully prepared for raids are consumables. Yes, please reread the sentence before this one again, and please note the bold.

YOU, and only YOU should be responsible for being ready for a raid. It also makes the impression on the guild that you are dedicated to doing content, and if it comes down to bringing you and someone else, if that someone else is bringing the consumables and you aren’t, guess who gets to go?

1. Well Fed: Firecracker Salmon- +46 spell power
2. Flask of the Frost Wrym- +125 spell power
3. Runic Healing Potion- Restores 2700 to 4500 health (should not be used unless about to die)
4. Runic Mana Potion- Restores 4200 to 4400 mana

Note: Our newest potion to use for DPS purposes is the runic mana potion. Kind of scary, I know. Chain lightning makes it so we aren't the mana kings anymore so using a mana pot gives us more casts off and thus more dps than just improving our spell casts for a shorter period of time. Therefore you should now ALWAYS be bringing runic mana pots to a raid.

You can bring potions of wild magic as well. However don't use them if you think you'll go OOM during the fight.

These are things you should ALWAYS carry with you at all times for a raid especially on progression nights. As you can see 1 and 2 gives you 171 spell power, that’s a lot of extra damage and can make the difference between wiping or not!

The last part would be the “What gear should you have before starting Naxx” but I’m NOT going to include this part. Why?

1. Most gear is debatable in the first place. I don’t want to clutter this thread up with “No, this is better, NUH UH THIS IS BETTER, NO UR RONG MENG THIS IS”
2. Probably 5% of the people tops who would read the section would run off to get all that gear before actually encountering Naxx
3. The gear doesn’t matter. What matters are the stats on your character sheet. Are you at or near the hit cap? Are you doing decent on spell power and crit? Then head on in. That’s all there is to it.

Well I think I got it all, but as every guide does, I will reserve some slots below in case I ever decide to add things.

Common Questions and answers

This part of the guide will focus on common questions/answers to elemental shamans. This part may have questions that are answered in the guide, but that’s ok. This section of the guide is for people who just want to look up some questions.

Some of this may vary as it can be opiniated (IMO), if someone ever sees something that feels like it sounds opiniated, and there's solid proof that it's really not feel free to let me know. Specifically I know off hand race choices are going to be opiniated.

Common questions about elemental shamans

1) Shocks are instants and do good damage! Should I cast them?

Other then flame shock...NO!

I'll give you a hypothetical situation. Let's say your earth shocks and LBs/CLs hit for the exact same amount of damage all the time. So you cast LB and do 3000. You then earth shock and do 3000. But then you cast LB again, and hey Lightning overload procced! So you did 4500! Earth shock still did 3000.

The only time you would ever consider shocking a mob (with frost or earth shock) is when your FlS DoT has more than 5 seconds remaining, and you're moving due to a boss fight. Even then you have to make sure you're managing your mana properly and aren't going to go oom. A LB/CL is always worth more than a shock.

2) What’s the required hit rating I need for raiding?

This all depends on if you’re a spacegoat or not, and/or you have a boomkin/spriest with you. If you have +3% to hit with talents...

Draenei need 342 hit rating to be hit capped without a boomkin/spriest
Draenei need 263 hit rating to be hit capped with a boomkin/spriest

Horde need 368 hit rating to be hit capped without a boomkin/spriest
Horde need 289 hit rating to be hit capped with a boomkin/spriest

3) What are the best professions for an Elemental Shaman?

BS + JC seems to be the best at the current time. 2 extra sockets with 3 incredibly powerful gems allows you to socket bigger hit rating gems, thus conserving gem slots, and focus more on spell power.

4) I don’t understand, crit was our biggest stat in TBC, what happened?

As explained in the guide, shamans during TBC had 2 spells in their rotation (CL and LB), and it made up 100% of our dps. LB now only makes up ~65% of our dps, therefore crit lost 1/3rd of it’s value.

We spammed LB and CL on every CD. We were a very simple class. We also got something like 12% chance to hit along with ToW and we needed something like 50 hit rating to cap. Since we did not revolve around any cooldowns (other than CL) haste was not that big of deal, and crit gave us our biggest bang for our buck because 100% of our DPS came from LB/CL and those were not auto-crits.

5) CL wasn't in our rotation and now it is??

The recent shamanism buff to CL gives it a purpose in our raiding rotation. Before shamanism didn't affect CL so it wasn't worthwhile to cast.

6) What's the take on all of our PvE totems?

There are 2 worthy totems for PvE. Totem of electrifying winds is 12 seconds of 200 haste, and has an ICD of 6 seconds. Hex is more CL/LB damage. ToEW is always better than hex, but both are good.

The other two bad ones are the totem of elemental planes (the heroism badge) and the thunderfall totem (+LvB damage). They are both terrible for PvE, and the thunderfall is only good for PvP. Never use the heroism badge totem, and if you can get thunderfall then grab it for PvP.

7) What’s the best race for a PvE elemental shaman?

If we are talking pure elemental dps orcs would be your strongest caster. It makes sense afterall, SP is our strongest stat, and therefore this will give us the bigger dps increase. Taurens have no beneficial talents to help out in PvE, and trolls have nice beserking buff (sort of a weak, personal bloodlust).

So orcs > trolls > tauren

However I would like note here that the orc racial got changed to only give spell power bonuses. You don’t gain healing power. This makes trolls slightly better for when you have to off-heal as we can beserk for faster heals. Still though, pick the race you like the most. A well played tauren shaman will outdps any poorly played orc shaman any day of the week.

8) What stats am I looking for when rolling on gear?

Hit
Spell power
Haste > crit
Crit > haste

Those are the main stats that we go for. Getting hit capped is crucial, a missed 10k LvB is painful. Then you go for spell power and haste/crit. If you are below 20% crit go for SP and crit, if you are sitting 20-25% crit, then go for SP and haste. As I stated in the guide, SP is always a work in progress, so you can never have too much (in a balanced character)

9) What should I be socketing?

The meta should be +21 crit and +3% crit damage. This requires 2 blue gems.

Then go with sp/stam or sp/mp5. A lot of shamans just go with stam, but technically mp5 will increase dps by a very small %. Two of those, and no more.

After that gem until you’re hit capped. Pure +hit gems are the best if you’re far off from the hit cap, if you’re close and pure +hit would put you over, go for +hit/sp

After you are hit capped truck away with +SP gems make your LBs pew pew that much harder

10) What totems should I lay down in a raid setting?

It might vary from boss to boss, but as a general rule of thumb:

Fire Totem- Totem of wrath down, hands down.

However, you may have a group with more than one elemental shaman in the raid. In this case use searing totem on single target dps. Yes, magma totem WILL do more dps than searing totem, mine ticks for 700ish every 2 seconds. However magma totem is more expensive, and on a much shorter duration. You’ll be blowing mana down the drain.

Water totem- Mana spring totem or Healing stream. If you are the only shaman and a paladin is in the raid giving everyone BoW then you might as well use healing stream totem since mana spring and wisdom no longer stacks. The heal is pretty much crap, but it's better then nothing.

Some bosses do have some sort of a raid-wide disease or poison debuff though. If your healers are having a hard time (and you’re the only shaman to put it down) keeping up to pace with the raid help them out, give them that poison/disease cleansing totem. Sure they lose the extra Mp5 but they blow a lot more mana spamming their cleansing abilities. You, on the other hand, plant a totem down once and it constantly removes it from your group, minimizing the number of cleanses that need to be casted.

Earth- Stoneskin or strength of earth are our best 2 choices.

Use stoneskin if there is a DK in the raid as he will provide the str totem buff with his horn. If you are the only shaman and without a DK you can place str totem down or stoneskin. The speculation is the agi gives tanks nice raw mitigation from damage, and gives the physical dps a dps upgrade.

Air- Wrath of Air totem or Windfury totem

Same concept with earth. 5% casting for your healers and yourself (even if there weren’t any other caster dps) is more important than the physical dps getting faster attacks off. However, if you have 2 shamans, make sure you aren’t double planting as these totems don’t stack.

11) Glyph of Totem of Wrath is coming out, will it replace a current glyph?

Refer to the Glyph section for specifics on this, but it is situational depending on your gear/sp.

12) PTR: FT Change to affect weapon speed! What does this do to an Ele shaman?

Nothing. It's poorly worded. The spell power granted to you via FT is going to stay the same. What IS changing is the fact that faster weapons will deal less FT damage when you melee, and slower weapons will hit harder with FT when you melee. In other words: It's ok, calm down, take a deep breath and move on

13) My Elemental Oath doesn't stack with boomkin! What about my 10% increased damage!?

Correct, the buffs don't stack with each other, however you still gain elemental oath anyways, the +5% crit just does nothing. This is why people raise a fuss about am I getting +10% extra damage from clearcasting?

YES YOU ARE! No where in the buff does it state EO must be up WITH clearcasting from elemental focus to get the +10% damage, so even if elemental oath didn't proc because the boomkin overrides it you'd still get the clearcasting buff which is the ONLY thing needed for +10% damage.

14) Do I revolve around staying at 511 haste or can I go past it?

There's nothing extremely magical about 511 haste anymore (for those of you who remember). Before we didn't cast CL at all and now we do. That alone screws up the number. We also use a 200 haste granting totem. To revolve around 511 haste you'd have to kill your haste to 311. That would be stupid, and hard to do.

So no, don't revolve around any amount of haste. Some shamans are hitting around 900 haste before ToEW procs (ToCG triumph geared shamans).

15) When can I hit 1.33 LBs, or 6 LBs in between LvB?

Thus far, the calculated number is around 1300, though I've seen that the exact number is 1284. I'm not saying this is the exact number required, but it should be in the ballpark at the very least. Basically we will be able to hit a 6LB rotation when we can get to 1000 haste or so. (before ToEW)

ToCG Gear Guide

So here’s the list of current best in slot items (BiS) for an elemental shaman in ToCG. The thing I would like to stress is just because it’s the BiS doesn’t mean you should go for it automatically. Do not be mechanical when gearing yourself. If something is the BiS, but because of your current itemization you drop 40 some hit and fall under the hit cap, wait until you can use them properly. DON’T BE MECHANICAL

This is also Mek's, from Magtheridon, gear list that he made. Like I've stated before I don't have time to go around comparing gear, so I took this list, checked it to make sure it wasn't dumb, and took it. According to Mek this gear set will put you at 287 hit, and it's obviously made for the horde set, but the alternative would be the ring change listed.

1. Head- Thrall's Helm of Triumph- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=48328

2. Neck- Cry of the Val'kyr- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47468

3. Shoulders- Thrall's Shoulderpads of Triumph- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=48330

4. Cloak- Aethas' Intensity- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47551

5. Chest- Thrall's Hauberk of Triumph- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=48326

6. Bracers- Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47586

7. Gloves- Thrall's Gloves of Triumph- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=48327

8. Belt- Icehowl Cinch- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47921

9. Pants- Leggings of the Awakening- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47479

10. Boots- Boots of Tremoring Earth- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47099

11. Ring1- Circle of the Darkmender- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47439

12. Ring2- Firestorm Band- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=48001

If you were playing Alliance you would most likely change the hit ring for Nebula Band- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=46046

13. Trinket1- Reign of the Unliving (Heroic) - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47188

14. Trinket2- Reign of the Unliving- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47182

15. Weapon- Misery's End- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47206

16. Shield- Bastion of Resolve- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47448

17. Totem- Totem of Electrifying Wind- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47666

New updated Ulduar gear guide

As I said in my last post: Just because it's the BiS item for us doesn't mean that it's your best item. If you're going to go 50 points under the hit cap by picking up the item then don't use it till you can solve that problem. Don't be mechanical when gearing.

1. Head- Conqueror's Worldbreaker Helm- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=46209

2. Neck- Pendant of the Shallow Grave- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45933

3. Shoulder- Conqueror's Worldbreaker Shoulderpads- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=46211

4. Back- Drape of Mortal Downfall- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45242

Runner-up- Pennant Cloak- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44005 (If I have Frozen Loop, this is really debatable though)

5. Chest- Conqueror's Worldbreaker Hauberk- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=46206

6. Wrists- Bindings of Winter Gale- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45460

7. Hands- Runeshaper's Gloves- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45239

8. Waist- Belt of the Fallen Wyrm- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45151

9. Legs- Conqueror's Worldbreaker Kilt- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=46210

10. Feet- Treads of the False Oracle- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45537

11. Ring 1- Pyrelight Circle- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45168

Runner-up- Frozen Loop- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45451

12. Ring 2- Nebula Band- (Alagalon loot, not currently on database yet)

13. Trinket 1- Dying Curse- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40255

14. Trinket 2- Illustration of the Dragon Soul-http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40432

15. 1H- Constellus- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45612

16. Shield- Wisdom's Hold- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45470

17. Totem- Totem of Hex- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40267

In future patches I will be updating this post with updates relevant to elemental shamans. For example when 3.3 patch comes out if elemental shamans get a nice overhaul it will be posted here.

Patch 3.2.2

# Flame Shock: The duration of all ranks has been increased by 6 seconds.
# Lava Burst: This ability no longer ever consumes a Flame Shock debuff off of the target.
# Talents

Elemental Combat

Shamanism: Your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells gain an additional 3/6/9/12/15% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus damage effects.

Glyphs

Glyph of Flame Shock: Redesigned. This glyph now makes Flame Shock periodic damage able to be critical strikes.

Patch 3.3.0

Talents

Elemental Mastery: This talent now increases spell haste by 15% instead of critical strike chance while active.

Improved Fire Nova Totem: Renamed Improved Fire Nova. This talent now provides an additional 10/20% damage to the spell and reduces the cooldown by 2/4 seconds.

Reserving one more slot. A guide in 2 posts seems a bit much, I'll probably break it down.

While this is pretty much the same as the Elitist Jerks guide : http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t20914-shaman_elemental/ , still tons better then the bad stickied guide and had some good info about enchants and consumables.

EDIT: Recently re-read the post, its even better than before, very good resource for elemental shaman good work

---

Q u o t e:
3.1 is coming out soon though, and glyph usage may change, but I highly doubt it. In the current notes for 3.1 I would still keep the above glyphs as is.

---

This was the only part I disagreed with. Because of the higher value on spell power, I see Glyph of totem of wrath being better than glyph of lava if I'm my reading of ToW glyph is correct. Could be wrong though.

Good guide otherwise :)

---

Q u o t e:


This was the only part I disagreed with. Because of the higher value on spell power, I see Glyph of totem of wrath being better than glyph of lava if I'm my reading of ToW glyph is correct. Could be wrong though.

Good guide otherwise :)

---

I always have problems with PTR so I quit using it, but on MMO it says

Glyph of Totem of Wrath *new* -- When you cast Totem of Wrath, you gain 30% of the totem's bonus spell power for...

And trails off. That makes it sound to me that it's going to be for a limited duration, I'm not sure how worthwhile it will be replanting it constantly. Unless the glyph is not how I'm looking at it.

Nice guide. I'm glad you're not a scrub and used CL in your rotation. I have a ele shaman in my guild who uses CL in his rotation on single target pulls (like bosses) and I tell him to use LB instead of CL, you'll get more dps, trust me. What does he do? He doesn't listen and says once he sees ele shaman beats his DPS he'll keep doing what he's doing...

God damn arrogant bastard.

---

Q u o t e:
Nice guide. I'm glad you're not a scrub and used CL in your rotation.

---

It depends on where he is on gear.

He can use CL as a filler move if LvB isn't up, but casting another LB will delay the LvB greatly. It shouldn't make a huge part of his DPS.

---

Q u o t e:


It depends on where he is on gear.

He can use CL as a filler move if LvB isn't up, but casting another LB will delay the LvB greatly. It shouldn't make a huge part of his DPS.

---

He uses CL when ever the CD is up and not as a filler.

---

Q u o t e:


He uses CL when ever the CD is up and not as a filler.

---

Then kindly (or not) move him here. :) Let's get this stickied if you like it!

---

Q u o t e:
There is a +30 spellpower bracer enchant.

Other than that, good stuff.

---

Noted, I had the enchant name right at least :(

I'm getting positive feedback so back up please!

Also, I promise I don't bite if that's the reason you aren't posting. I'm really friendly when I'm not cannabalizing a corpse behind the building (I swear I gave it up when I joined the horde, I swear)

edit: not* even

Previous (OLD POST) very out of date and removed.

Appreciate the guide. Thx

---

Q u o t e:
I have a question.

---

I see 2 down there, but I'll let it go cause I'm a nice guy. :O

---

Q u o t e:
Shamanism doesnt effect chain-lightning. Is it still worth-while to use it in my rotation? - as per your guide.

---

It all depends. My computer is being stupid and saying something is wrong with displaying armory so I can't even view armory at all (I just get a white page)

If you have 1.6 second casting LBs then the answer would be no. As per the rotation you can neatly fit 5 LBs into your rotation without a problem.

If you have something like 1.75 second LBs this is going to happen

FS LvB LB(1.75) LB(3.5) LB (5.25) LB(7)

You now have 1 second before LvB can be used again (it's an 8 second CD)

It's impractical to cast another LB, as that delays LvB. CL will also delay it, but to a lesser degree. You should cast that instead. If I'm doing my math right CL would then be about 1.3 seconds on the cast. Suffering .3 seconds and still getting some damage in is better than suffering .75 delay for a little bit more than CL damage. You could always refresh your FS as well if it's close to wearing off.

edit: I just went off and tested the damage difference. WHile unbuffed (minus food) LB does about 800 more damage TOPS, on noncrits. Usually about 400. I would not delay LvB for longer than needed just for an extra 400 damage.

---

Q u o t e:

Next patch, Chain lightning single target dmg is being reduced. Is it still worth-while to use it in my rotation? - as per your guide.

---

Unknown to me really, PTR hates me so I haven't messed with it. CL is a huge mana investment, it might not be, and with reduced damage it could be more practical to suffer the longer delay in LvB for better damage.