New to Ele -- Take a look?

[Relix]

I've played Enhancement as long as I've been a Shaman. Always maintained an Ele offspec, but never got enough gear, or reason, to try it out much. This is changing as I'm looking at a main change for WoD. Spending time getting gear for my Shaman and dusting off old stuff I didn't even know I had in my bags to make a usable gear set. I've got a few questions to go along with this change. I'll link my Armory for reference.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...yline/advanced

Before I throw down the questions, I understand I need to adjust gear. I'm missing some gems, and I have Agi bracers on. I literally dug this guy out of storage this week, so been slowly getting everything in-line. OK. Question time.

1. As far as a build, I'm seeing people saying that until you hit around 553 gear level, Haste is a better way to gear than Mastery. I've even seen a rough number to hit, around 8510 Haste. Is this correct? Should I aim to stack Haste until my gear improves?

2. Talents, I'm seeing that the level 90 talents are all fairly close. PE is good for serious burn fights. And I've seen it stated in the Ele Shaman 5.4 Thread that EB and UF are both close to eachother? I don't mind the cast time on EB, though that may be part of the viability factor. I've even seen a fair number of heroic raiding Ele Shamans use a mix of 90 talents. What is your suggestion for this tier?

3. Any personal tips or tricks for a new Elemental Shaman? The rotation seems fairly easy to learn, but as with all utility classes, there's a lot more to the class than a "standard" rotation. I use Weak Auras to track procs and such, but any tips would be appreciated.


Hopefully this is in the right thread. Just trying to get more comfortable with this spec so I can make my decision going into the next xpac. Thanks!!

[Sock]

I've played Enhancement as long as I've been a Shaman. Always maintained an Ele offspec, but never got enough gear, or reason, to try it out much. This is changing as I'm looking at a main change for WoD. Spending time getting gear for my Shaman and dusting off old stuff I didn't even know I had in my bags to make a usable gear set. I've got a few questions to go along with this change. I'll link my Armory for reference.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...yline/advanced

Before I throw down the questions, I understand I need to adjust gear. I'm missing some gems, and I have Agi bracers on. I literally dug this guy out of storage this week, so been slowly getting everything in-line. OK. Question time.

1. As far as a build, I'm seeing people saying that until you hit around 553 gear level, Haste is a better way to gear than Mastery. I've even seen a rough number to hit, around 8510 Haste. Is this correct? Should I aim to stack Haste until my gear improves?

2. Talents, I'm seeing that the level 90 talents are all fairly close. PE is good for serious burn fights. And I've seen it stated in the Ele Shaman 5.4 Thread that EB and UF are both close to eachother? I don't mind the cast time on EB, though that may be part of the viability factor. I've even seen a fair number of heroic raiding Ele Shamans use a mix of 90 talents. What is your suggestion for this tier?

3. Any personal tips or tricks for a new Elemental Shaman? The rotation seems fairly easy to learn, but as with all utility classes, there's a lot more to the class than a "standard" rotation. I use Weak Auras to track procs and such, but any tips would be appreciated.


Hopefully this is in the right thread. Just trying to get more comfortable with this spec so I can make my decision going into the next xpac. Thanks!!

1. Haste is better at lower gear levels, mastery at higher gear levels. At end-game, it largely comes down to whatever feels better to you. Theoretically, haste will always outperform mastery, but you should really just go for whatever feels best to you once you've built your gear up.

2. EB for target switching, PE for heavy movement fights/fights in which you cannot personally DPS, UF for single-target and all other situations.

3. Watch your procs, and don't let Flame Shock fall off.

[Deleted]

2. EB for target switching, PE for heavy movement fights/fights in which you cannot personally DPS, UF for single-target and all other situations.

at higher ilvls (~570+) EB is pretty much never worth taking over UF.

[hatchetman240]

1. You always sim your gear. The legendary items and your trinkets change the value of things in ways you can't understand with a simple X > Y >Z mentality. Sim your character, rebuild and optimize in mrrobot, pull that build off the "simc" tab and resim if needed.

2. EB is a flat value buff to haste/mastery/crit, so you can imagine at high item levels what was once a nice increase turns into something more or less trivial. EB has its uses, but they wane as you work into heroics (but that's just my opinion). Again the difference in damage is small, so preferring it won't kill you.

3. Get good at weak auras, and get a good set that works for you. It will pay off on anything you play.

[ACRL]

1. As far as a build, I'm seeing people saying that until you hit around 553 gear level, Haste is a better way to gear than Mastery. I've even seen a rough number to hit, around 8510 Haste. Is this correct? Should I aim to stack Haste until my gear improves?

You should hold of going full mastery untill you get the Legendary Meta Gem.
Also try to avoid red gems.

[hatchetman240]

I'm 561 and I still can't get a mastery focused build to work right for me (according to sims), as soon as I get enough gear to add more mastery haste suddenly showes me better numbers on the sim and all the new gear reforges get eaten up to that. Currently 38.5% haste and 70% mastery.

[Deleted]

thanks, useful for my offspec

[Sentinel79]

I'm 561 and I still can't get a mastery focused build to work right for me (according to sims), as soon as I get enough gear to add more mastery haste suddenly showes me better numbers on the sim and all the new gear reforges get eaten up to that. Currently 38.5% haste and 70% mastery.

Are you simming based on patchwerk/single target fight only? If so, that's probably why haste is pulling ahead. Sims of this type also suggest adding 4500-5000 haste for me and I'm 569ilvl trying to stack mastery (Blitztanz - Stormrage Alliance(can't link yet)). I've read that you should maintain at least 35% haste before stacking mastery, but I'm more or less experimenting right now because we're stuck at 8/14 HM and 10m raids are terrible for gearing up imo, so I'm a long way from BiS. Again, I wonder if that haste amount is useful only for single target fights. Don't really feel like regemming/reforging every other boss. Maybe finding the right balance between the two is the best thing to do

[Franklyn]

I've played Enhancement as long as I've been a Shaman. Always maintained an Ele offspec, but never got enough gear, or reason, to try it out much. This is changing as I'm looking at a main change for WoD. Spending time getting gear for my Shaman and dusting off old stuff I didn't even know I had in my bags to make a usable gear set. I've got a few questions to go along with this change. I'll link my Armory for reference.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...yline/advanced

Before I throw down the questions, I understand I need to adjust gear. I'm missing some gems, and I have Agi bracers on. I literally dug this guy out of storage this week, so been slowly getting everything in-line. OK. Question time.

1. As far as a build, I'm seeing people saying that until you hit around 553 gear level, Haste is a better way to gear than Mastery. I've even seen a rough number to hit, around 8510 Haste. Is this correct? Should I aim to stack Haste until my gear improves?

2. Talents, I'm seeing that the level 90 talents are all fairly close. PE is good for serious burn fights. And I've seen it stated in the Ele Shaman 5.4 Thread that EB and UF are both close to eachother? I don't mind the cast time on EB, though that may be part of the viability factor. I've even seen a fair number of heroic raiding Ele Shamans use a mix of 90 talents. What is your suggestion for this tier?

3. Any personal tips or tricks for a new Elemental Shaman? The rotation seems fairly easy to learn, but as with all utility classes, there's a lot more to the class than a "standard" rotation. I use Weak Auras to track procs and such, but any tips would be appreciated.


Hopefully this is in the right thread. Just trying to get more comfortable with this spec so I can make my decision going into the next xpac. Thanks!!

1. personally i would get haste up to 10k+ first. then you can build up your mastery. i don't really like my haste dropping below 10k. it's not a break point or anything, i just don't like to cast any slower than that. you're right though, at lower gear levels, haste helps single target more.

2. i think they're all good. i actually use them all on different fights in SoO. PE for heavy CL fights (and thok, since it's not affected by interupts and stopcasting). EB for target switches (nazgrim, norushen). UF for single target (malkorok, paragons, blackfuse etc). i do 10man, so we probably don't get as many adds as 25 does, making some fights more single target-y.

3. there's not much to ele. get your opening burst down. not much to watch for, other than obvious things like refreshing FS with meta proc. abuse CL as much as possible, it's the way ele gets up the meters pure single target is a bit lower than most other classes

[QuiksLE]

I suggest to macro your acendance+ spiritwalkers grace. Sometimes it may be a waste of spiritwalkers grace, but in almost every fight you cannot stand still for 15 sec. I personally use this macro:
#showtooltip Ascendance
/cast ascendance
/cast ancestral guidance
/cast spiritwalker's grace(optional)
/cast Potion of jade serpent (optional)
/cast flame shock
This way you will never have to worry about movement and flame shock being up

[Relix]

I like this macro. I've found that SWG once I pop Ascendance is nice because with no CD on LvB, if I have to move missing even a single cast is bad. Thanks for the advice so far. Been locking down my UI, have Weak Auras set up to track CDs and such. About to hit Flex, and maybe normal modes this week. Pretty excited

[fearom]

I suggest to macro your acendance+ spiritwalkers grace. Sometimes it may be a waste of spiritwalkers grace, but in almost every fight you cannot stand still for 15 sec. I personally use this macro:
#showtooltip Ascendance
/cast ascendance
/cast ancestral guidance
/cast spiritwalker's grace(optional)
/cast Potion of jade serpent (optional)
/cast flame shock
This way you will never have to worry about movement and flame shock being up

This is not a very useful macro.

You want to get off as many Lvb as possible during your ascendance, forcing a flame shock put your Lvb on GCD. You should be ensuring that your proc's are up and your flameshock is on the target prior to hitting Ascendance. Also, you should not be macro'n Ancestral Guidance into an Ascendance. This cooldown is incredible vital during certain phases of fights. You should ensure it is available for your raid leader/healing leader to call for it's uses.

- - - Updated - - -

Askmrrobot isn't entirely correct in it's configuration. Go plug any high end shaman into askmrrobot and it will tell you they are gemming/enchanting incorrectly.

EB is still extremely potent in high end raiding, it is being used by a number of shamans getting rank one logs with a heavy mastery build and very low (talking sub 30%) haste.

It really depends on your fight, your gear, and your skill.

SimC will report that for a pure single target patchwerk fight (in most cases) that haste pulls ahead. However, in many cases in the current tier mastery is stronger for cleave situations.

I would suggest that you have enough haste that your DPS doesn't crash on single target bosses, yet enough mastery that your raid never gets overwhelmed by adds.

If you're looking for pure numbers at the moment. Get your legendary meta, cloak, go for a high mastery chain lightning build and ask the tank nicely to group everything up.

If you want to be beneficial to the raid on a personal level, do as I stated previously. Have enough mastery to cleave adds quickly but enough haste to single target burn bosses.

[Relix]

I wasn't using the entire macro, really just the first part where I'd get SWG when I hit Ascendance. Previously I'd been using IF I had to move, because a lot of times I don't have to. Always make sure I've cast Flame Shock prior to popping Ascendance. And I'm currently running EB as my level 90 talent. I SHOULD get my meta this coming week, as long as I can get 7 Secrets. My luck has been hit or miss.

Again, thanks for the feedback.

[Franklyn]

that macro is eating up one GCD of your Asc with FS?

and possibly burning your second pot when you don't want to? (holding it for hero)

and popping AG, when you should be holding it for when the raid needs it?


you can macro SWG into Asc, since you don't really need it (most of ele's rotation works while moving). And Asc is so powerful, you want to protect it from being inuterrupted by unexpected movement

[QuiksLE]

Hence there is (Optional) behind pot...
and looking at my previous post, then I made a mistake, the other (optional) should be behind AG not SWG.
This macro was taken directly from my malkorok fight.
As for the FS puting LvB into GCD then I don't see a problem there.

[Franklyn]

Hence there is (Optional) behind pot...
and looking at my previous post, then I made a mistake, the other (optional) should be behind AG not SWG.
This macro was taken directly from my malkorok fight.
As for the FS puting LvB into GCD then I don't see a problem there.

it's one less LvB during Asc