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    [PvE Guide] Elemental Shaman - Updated for 6.0.3

    Elemental PvE Shaman Guide: Updated for 6.0.3

    Contents

    1. Introduction
      • Description
      • Guide TL;DR
    2. Spells
      • Single Target Rotation
      • AoE Rotation
      • Cooldowns
      • Secondary Spells
      • Spells Q&A
    3. Building your Shaman
      • Talents
      • Glyphs
      • Stat Priority
      • Gems and Enchants
      • BiS Lists
    4. Tips and Tricks

    Introduction

    This is a guide for all you Elemental Shaman pros out there, playing what is clearly the best spec in the entire game, in face in any game ever. Good job you for picking right. We don't want none of you silly Mages or Hunters in here!

    Description

    Elemental is the ranged caster specialisation for the Shaman class. It relies on a priority rotation system consisting of cooldown based spells, a single dot and a charge mechanic. It also has a large array of damage & utility in the form of totems, the mechanic which has been with Shaman since the very beginning. All Shaman use Mail as their armor type, with Elemental (and Restoration) being able to choose between the use of a Staff, or a Mace/Dagger/Axe Main hand and an offhand or a Shield. Being a Hybrid class (meaning one of their specs is a Healer spec) Elemental Shaman can assist with some off-spec heals if necessary (especially with talents).

    Guide TL;DR

    If you don't want to read the full breakdown explanations of all the choices and just want a ''quick starter kit' too Elemental Shaman, here is a list of all the things you're going to need. I highly recommend you read the whole guide, as a proper understanding of the rotation, your stat choices and talent choices will improve your play, but if you aren't too bothered, here you go.

    Rotation

    This is a simplified rotation, as the 'real' rotation has some fine niceties in it. But hay, this it the TL;DR section so here you go.

    Cooldowns

    Use Ascendance and Fire Elemental Totem (as well as Elemental Mastery and Storm Elemental if you have those talents) as often as possible. Try and time them with trinket procs (if applicable) and Bloodlust.

    Stats

    Int > Spellpower > Multistrike > Crit >= Haste > Mastery > Versatility

    Talents/Glyphs

    Empty slots mean that it isn't a throughput increase what you pick, so pick what you want for the situation you are in.

    Battle.net Talent Calculator Link

    Spells

    This section will give a thorough breakdown of all the spells that an Elemental Shaman will commonly be using.

    Single Target Rotation

    The single target DPS rotation for Elemental Shaman is more of a priority system than an actual rotation, unlike in the cast where you could almost macro the entire spell list it was so static, we have grown in the last couple of expansions to need to adapt to various procs and spell uptimes.


    You should always keep Flame Shock up on your target. Since patch 6.0, the idea of DoT Snapshotting (meaning the idea of the stats you have when you cast a damage over time spell like Flame Shock are the stats that spell has for it's entire duration) is no longer a thing. DoTs re-check their caster's stats after every single tick, so you no longer have to worry about recasting Flame Shock early to go with Bloodlust or some other haste buff.

    However, having said that you don't need to worry about Snapshotting, that is only the case with stats. Spell buffs like Unleash Flame and Elemental Fusion will stay with the spell the entire duration still. As such, if you cast a Flame Shock that is buffed by neither of these abilities, it is a good idea to recast Flame Shock when you have both Unleash Flame up and Elemental Fusion at two stacks, even if the current Flame Shock still has slightly more the 9 second duration cut off remaining. Only do so though if you have both of these buffs active, and the current Flame Shock that is on the target has neither. Otherwise, wait till below 9 seconds as usual.

    The reason it is 9 seconds now, is because in 6.0, along with the Snapshotting Change, they increased the number of ticks you could carry over when a DoT was refreshed. Before only the final tick could be carried over, so you had to refresh Flame Shock within the last 3 seconds, now you can carry over more so you can refresh within the last 9 seconds instead, making Shock management much easier.


    Lava Burst is next in the default priority list, because unlike Earth Shock and Lightning Stacks, you want to keep this on cooldown as much as possible, because of the [b]Lava Surge[b] passive. The faster you can get Lava Burst on cooldown, the more time Flame Shock will have to refresh it, so you can cast it again.

    Unlike in the past, where this spell would have a 100% crit chance with Flame Shock up, it now always has a 100% crit chance, but deals bonus damage to Flame Shock debuffed targets. If, for whatever reason, you find yourself facing a target without Flame Shock up and it will die before you can get Flame Shock + Lava Burst off, it is still a DPS increase to use Lava Burst over Lightning Bolt, because of the always-crit passive it has.

    With 6.0.3, Lava Burst is finally able to benefit from Critical Strike chance. For every 1% Crit you have, your Lava Burst will have a 1% Chance to fire a Multistrike Lava Burst. This Multistrike is separate from the ones caused by the Multistrike stat itself, and as such you can actually fire a possible 3 Multistrike Lava Bursts, as well as the Main spell itself, from just one cast, causing significant damage for what could have been an instant cast spell (if used with Lava Surge).


    As you cast Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning (and now, with the Improved Lightning Shield perk, Lava Burst too) you will generate a Lightning Shield Charge via the Fulmination passive for every target hit. This includes from Multistrikes, so one Lightning Bolt can generate potentially 3 Charges, and one Lava Burst can potentially generate 4.

    When you cast Earth Shock, it will deal its damage, plus the damage of every single Lightning Shield charge you have above the first, resetting you back to 1 charge. This is, when used at high charges, our hardest hitting spell. The reason this is lower in priority than Lava Burst however, is that you have some leeway with it, in that assuming you cast it once it is above 15 Stacks and Lava Burst is on cooldown, you are unlikely to waste stacks, whilst if you cast it at above 15 Stacks but with Lava Burst off cooldown, you could be wasting Lava Surge procs.

    The counter to this, however, is that now Lava Burst can generate stacks itself, you can cap out from the Lava Burst casts, especially with Lava Surge procs and with the Echo of the Elements talent. However, even if you do cap out on stacks, it is still not worth delaying the use of Lava Burst to dump your stacks.


    Thanks to the buffs it received in 6.0, Searing Totem is back to being useful again. You should keep this up whenever you have nothing else to cast but Lightning Bolt. You should endevour to time it so that you don't have to cast it whilst you have large cooldowns like Bloodlust active, as it will dynamically get those bonus stats anyway, so you don't want to have to use the GCD within those times if you can help it, considering its 1 minute duration. This is not always practical though.

    You should also only cast this if it will have at least a 10 second uptime within its minute duration. If the target is about to die, if you are going to move out of its range or if you are going to go into some other realm/extended roll play portion of an encounter then you should not cast this, and wait until the uptime will be there.

    Side note with Searing Totem, it can't be CCed, unlike other pets, so if you have a phase in an encounter that puts the entire raid to sleep for some Roll Play from the boss, you can cast Searing Totem and it will continue to attack the boss, for free damage. It isn't much, but it certainly isn't nothing!


    Finally, you should fill your rotation with Lightning Bolt whenever there is no other spell to cast.

    AoE Rotation

    Elemental Shaman have two types of Area of Effect damage rotations. One is for 4+ targets, and the other is a Cleave Rotation, which is an extension of the single Target rotation, but adapted for 2-3 targets.

    Cleave

    The Cleave Rotation is the same as the Single Target one, but with three changes.


    You should cast Earthquake on Cooldown. However, you should only cast it after casting a single Chain Lightning. Cast Chain Lightning once (making sure it hits as many targets as possible), then cast Earthquake. From there, continue with the single target rotation. This is higher priority than even casting Flame Shock.


    Apart from the initial cast of Chain Lightning to buff Earthquake, you should only cast Chain Lightning as filler instead of Lightning Bolt.

    Note: If you know the fight will never have more than 3 Targets, remove Glyph of Chain Lightning. If the fight will have more then you should use it. Use your judgement when the time of 4 or 5 Targets is very small but the time of 3 or less is high to work out if it is a DPS increase to use Glyph of Chain Lightning or not. If in doubt, use it, the DPS loss of using it is not massive, whilst the potential gains of using it are.

    AoE

    For AoE, you should open with Chain Lightning to buff Earthquake, then cast Earthquake, and spam Chain Lightning until you can cast Earthquake again. Never cast Earthquake without first casting Chain Lightning. You should now ignore all of the single target rotation, except for Earth Shock. Earth Shock you should still cast, but now only when you have 18+ Stacks instead of 15+. Use Earth shock either on the highest heath target (to make the number of targets alive be larger for longer = more numbers!) or on the highest priority target if you need too kill a certain target very quickly to save the tank.

    Cooldowns

    The basic cooldowns an Elemental Shaman has are Fire Elemental Totem and Ascendance. The use of Fire Elemental is fairly simple, just press the button, and make sure that you use it in a situation where either you need the burst NOW and overall DPS doesn't matter, or in a situation where it will be able to attack for it's full duration. Ascendance is a bit more fine tuned.

    Ascendance

    You should make sure you have a full Flame Shock up before going into Ascendance so that you will have enough time to both get the full Ascendance off, as well as cast Earth Shock immediately before and immediately after Ascendance, without Flame Shock falling off. This is because you don't want to cast anything except Lava Burst (or Unleash Flame if you have Unleash Fury as a talent) whilst in Ascendance. You should try - if possible - to time your Ascendance so that you have as few (preferably 1) charges of Lightning Shield as possible, so you don't waste too many. You will almost certainly be at max stacks at the end of Ascendance, just once you get Lava Burst on cooldown again, go ahead and pop Earth Shock, then return to your normal rotation.

    The timings just about work out for this, Flame Shock lasts 30 seconds, then puts Earth Shock on a 5 second cooldown. If you are already at low stacks (which will only happen during your opener) then you're fine, cast Unleash Flame if you have Unleash Fury, and pop Ascendance. If you don't have low stacks, you wait on Ascendance, cast Earth Shock to dump stacks 5 seconds later (25 seconds left on Flame Shock minimum, but +5-9 seconds because of the duration carried over from the previous Flame Shock you just refreshed), and go into Ascendance. That lasts 15 seconds, giving you 10 seconds left, minus 2 seconds if you start casting a Lava Burst just as Ascendance ends/you have Echo of the Elements talent. That leaves 8 seconds, you cast Earth Shock to dump stacks, then with Flame Shock having 3 seconds left you cast Flame Shock again. Assuming you have Unleash Fury and you cast that after Earth Shock but before Ascendance at the start, you have 2 seconds (minimum, but more likely you have 5-10 seconds) left when you cast that refreshing Flame Shock.

    There is nothing wrong with delaying Ascendance to make it better line up with Earth Shock stacks, as long as it does not mean you miss out on casting an Ascendance over the course of the fight, or causes you to miss out on buff uptimes (trinket procs, Bloodlust). This is where knowing roughly the duration of a fight and tracking buffs will help you improve your performance. The above is the optimal way to use Ascendance, assuming all external factors (fight duration, buffs) are the same regardless.

    Lava Beam

    Lava Beam is the spell that replaces Chain Lightning when you cast Ascendance. It is a significant AoE DPS increase to use, but you should only use it if you really need the AoE DPS increase, which is fairly rare. There are not many encounters where Lava Beam is used for much beyond padding meters. However, if you are able to get the full use out of this, it will certainly cause a very significant DPS increase to use. You should still use Earthquake when casting Lava Beam.

    Secondary Spells

    This is a list of some of the spells outside of your main rotation that you might make use of. Thanks to Endus and the guys who put together for previous Shaman Guide for this section, which I have shamelessly stolen.

    Secondary
    • Bloodlust/Heroism
      Acquired at level 70. Gives a raid wide 30% haste buff to everyone in the raid, and applies a debuff to players preventing them from benefiting from another raid haste effect for 10 minutes. 5 minute cooldown.
    • Earth Elemental Totem
      Acquired at level 56. Summons an Earth Elemental to fight by your side for one minute, with a five minute cooldown. Can taunt non-boss enemies.
    • Thunderstorm
      Acquired at level 10 with Elemental Specialization. Knocks back and deals damage to enemies within 10 yards.
    • Unleash Elements
      Acquired at level 81. Unleashed the existing weapon imbue spell, dealing direct damage as well as providing an additional benefit. For Elemental, this typically is the Unleash Flametongue effect, increasing the next Fire spell's damage by 30%. 15 second cooldown.

    Utility
    • Capacitor Totem
      Acquired at level 63. Summons an Air totem which causes a 5 second 8 yard AoE stun after a 5 second delay (to allow players a chance to kill or relocate it)
    • Earthbind Totem
      Acquired at level 26. Slows foes within 10 yards by 50%. Can be upgraded to Earthgrab Totem, which roots foes in place for 5 seconds in addition to the slow effect (each target can only be rooted once)
    • Frost Shock
      Acquired at level 22. Shock spell that deals frost damage and applies a 8 second debuff that reduces movement speed for 8 seconds. Also causes a high amount of threat. Primarily used for single target kiting and nothing else. Can be talented to freeze the target in place for 5 seconds.
    • Ghost Wolf
      Acquired at level 15. Transforms the player into a Ghost Wolf, increasing run speed by 30% and reducing the effect of slows. Usable indoors & is helpful for covering distance during combat, but prevents casting so is usually limited to non-damage time or getting out of areas faster.
    • Grounding Totem
      Acquired at level 38. Redirects a single harmful spell to itself, which destroys the totem. Effectively negates the spell cast.
    • Healing Rain
      Acquired at level 60. An area of effect heal with a 8 second duration/cooldown.
    • Healing Stream Totem
      Acquired at level 30. Heals the most injured party/raid member every 2 seconds for 15 seconds. 30 second cooldown. A smart but low value heal.
    • Healing Surge
      Acquired at level 7. A 1.5 second single target heal. The high mana cost allows for spot or emergency healing only.
    • Hex
      Acquired at level 80. Transforms a target into a frog for 1 minute. 45 second cooldown.
    • Purge
      Acquired at level 12. Removes one buff from the enemy target per cast. Spells that can be dispelled by this spell should be highlighted so that they stand out among other buffs on the enemy target.
    • Shamanistic Rage
      Acquired at level 65. Reduces all damage by 30% and causes all offensive spells and totems to cost no mana for 15 seconds. Usable while stunned. 60 second cooldown.
    • Spiritwalker’s Grace
      Acquired at level 85. When used, allows you to move while casting non-instant spells, granting you some mobility for 15 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.
    • Tremor Totem
      Acquired at level 52. Breaks Fear, Charm, and Sleep effects when dropped, and for 6 seconds thereafter, on all party and raid members within 30 yards. Can NOT used while afflicted by those effects anymore. 1 minute cooldown.
    • Wind Shear
      Acquired at level 16. Our ranged interrupt, locking out spells of that school for 3 seconds. Also has a small threat reduction effect. Note that the range on Wind Shear is only 25 yards, not 40, unlike most of our other spells. 12 second cooldown.
    • Reincarnation
      Acquired at level 30. Allows you to resurrect yourself at 20% health & mana. The 30 minute cooldown means that one should think before using it to make sure that it'll matter as it won't be up for a several attempts after the Reincarnation if you waste it.


    Spells Q&A

    Question: What about our Single Target opener?

    The opener for Elemental Shaman is pretty much just your normal rotation. You want to get Flame Shock up on the target before you cast any of your cooldowns to prevent wasted globals whilst any of them are up anyway. The only thing you should do is precast Unleash Flame, as you do not need a target to cast it on, so you can cast it before a pull for some free damage from your first Flame Shock.

    Question: What about low Health AoE targets?

    Depending on how low HP they are, you have two options. Only cast a couple of Chain Lightnings then they die, or just do the normal AoE rotation. It is never worth it to cast Earthquake without casting Chain Lightning first, because the damage buff from Chain Lightning on Earthquake alone is enough to make up for the lost time, let alone the damage the spell itself brings.

    Question: What about multidotting?

    Flame Shock on its own, ignoring Lava Surge, deals only slightly more damage than a single Lightning Bolt. If you have only two targets, then it might be worth using it on both, but any more than two and you'll be much better off spamming Chain Lightning and using your Shock cooldowns to continuously dump your excess Fulmination charges, rather than putting up extra Flame Shocks.

    However, if you have multiple targets who are not stood within Chain Lightning range of each other, and you aren't over 10 stacks of Earth Shock, you should go ahead and replace a Lightning Bolt with a Flame Shock as it does deal slightly more damage, and will also allow for instant target switching if needed.

    Question: What about Thunderstorm?

    I chose to exclude this from the AoE portion of the guide because it can be a bit of a 'noob trap' for lack of a better expression. On 5+ Targets, with Glyph of Chain Lightning, Chain Lightning will hit for 46 * 0.9 * 5 = 207% Spellpower. Thunderstorm will hit for 34.83% Spellpower per target, so there needs to be 6+ targets in order for a Thunderstorm to be a flat DPS increase over Chain Lightning, ignoring Multistrike and Earth Shock stacks, which heavily favor Chain Lightning. In reality you need 7+ targets for Thunderstorm to be worth it. However, Thunderstorm requires you to be in melee range, and it is absolutely not worth it to run into melee (without Spiritwalker's Grace active) just to Thunderstorm.

    However, if you find yourself in melee range, with 7+ targets, with Earthquake on cooldown, then yes, use Thunderstorm (assuming you have the Glyph on!!!!)

    Question: What about Shocks during Ascendance?

    As said in the cooldown section, the damage you lose from not casting Lava Burst, at least in current gear levels, is just too much. I put this in the Q&A section just to highlight it again, but see the cooldowns section for a more detailed explanation why.

    Building your Shaman

    This section will discuss the various choices you have to make when deciding how to build your Shaman.

    Talents

    Tier 1: Level 15

    Astral Shift

    Nature's Guardian

    Stone Bulwark Totem

    All three have valid uses; Nature's Guardian has the lowest CD, and with constant damage incoming, will provide more damage reduction more consistently, but isn't under your direct control and may trigger when unwanted. For predictable spikes, Astral Shift is better for single big hits, and Stone Bulwark totem better for ongoing small amounts of damage. Which is "better" depends on the circumstances of the encounter.

    Tier 2: Level 30

    Earthgrab Totem

    Frozen Power

    Windwalk Totem

    As with Tier 1, there are two possible choices here between Earthgrab and Windwalk Totems. Frozen Power is not recommended as Frost Shock is on the shared shock cooldown with Earth Shock and Flame Shock. Earthbind should be taken for snaring, while Windwalk will be useful in anti-snaring situations (mostly PvP, but there may be some PvE applications). In PvE encounters that have raid wide slows to prevent you from getting out of some damaging mechanic, Windwalk Totem can be incredibly strong, but these are rare, and Earthgrab is more useful for solo content in general.

    Tier 3: Level 45

    Call of the Elements

    Totemic Projection

    Totemic Persistence

    There is no "right" choice here. Totemic Persistence does not affect Fire Totems, meaning it isn't a DPS increase over the others, and there are valid arguments to be made in favor of each of the three options. Totemic Projection is normally the favoured option, to allow repositioning of Capacitor Totem/Earthbind Totem when CC is required, and to make sure you don't move out of range of Fire Elemental Totem on fights where bosses are constantly on the move. Otherwise, this tier choice is fairly dull.

    Tier 4: Level 60

    Ancestral Swiftness

    Echo of the Elements

    Elemental Mastery

    This tier is the first throughput focused tier. Whilst all 3 options are not massively far apart from each other, Echo of the Elements is probably the best option right now. It is potentially very strong in AoE situations, by being able to stack up multiple Earthquakes, and is more consistent than Elemental Mastery, the other main choice in this tier. The other two choices are certainly viable, and Elemental Mastery pulls ahead if you have Primal Elementalist in Tier 6 or Storm Elemental in Tier 7, whilst Ancestral Swiftness is good for simplifying the rotation somewhat and for helping the rotation feel better in lower gear levels thanks to the passive Haste.

    Tier 5: Level 75

    Ancestral Guidance

    Conductivity

    Rushing Streams

    Since 6.0, Ancestral Guidance is no longer the absolute clear choice in this tier, as it was significantly nerfed. It is still probably the best option, but only because the other two options require you to use healing spells in order to activate. If your raid really needs more healing, but doesn't want a complete extra healer, the other two options could be used, but they are incredibly niche.

    Tier 6: Level 90
    Elemental Blast

    Primal Elementalist

    Unleashed Fury

    All three options are very viable, but in a pure patchwerk-esk fight, Unleashed Fury is the best talent currently. Depending on encounters, Primal Elementalist can pull ahead. This depends on the uptime of Fire Elemental. If you get to use Fire Elemental on cooldown, with full uptime, and the fight is going to end within 90 seconds of a Fire Elemental timing out, it will be mathematically better than Unleashed Fury.

    If you take Unleashed Fury, it is your highest priority spell after you have cast the initial Flame Shock onto the boss (which should be buffed by Unleash Flame anyway, because you can cast it out of combat). If you take Elemental Blast, it fits in the priority behind Lava Burst but ahead of Earth Shock.

    Tier 7: Level 100

    Elemental Fusion

    Liquid Magma

    Storm Elemental Totem

    Elemental Fusion is the best single target, stationary option - assuming you have Unleash Fury and not Primal Elementalist from the previous tier. Elemental Fusion will only buff the Shock damage itself, it will not buff Fulmination damage, nor will it buff the change to Lava Surge in any way, or the Lava Bursts caused by those Surges. You should try and make sure that every Flame Shock you cast is buffed with 2 stacks if it will not cause your Flame Shock to fall off. It is even often to waste 1 or 2 Lightning Shield charges by causing Earth Shock to be delayed if you can buff Flame Shock with both Unleash Flame and 2x Elemental Fusion.

    If you take Liquid Magma, make sure the remaining duration of your Fire Totem is more than 10 seconds, as if you refresh your Fire Totem during Liquid Magma, you will lose out on the remainder of the spell, as it buffs your current Totem, rather than being damage caused by you. If you take Storm Elemental Totem, you should prioritise Fire Elemental over it still.

    Glyphs

    Elemental Shaman don't have any mandatory glyphs that are 100% throughput increases, but we have a few recommended ones, so I will list those.

    Recommended Major Glyphs


    This is a new Glyph for Warlords, and is very, very strong. It is exclusive with the other two Spiritwalker's Grace replated Glyphs, meaning you can only use one of the three. That means the instead of the 60 second cooldown reduction only costing you 7 seconds, it is actually costing you 13 seconds, because you could have used Glyph of Spiritwalker's Grace for a free bonus 5 seconds in that Glyph slot instead. However, it is very rare that you will ever be moving for that long a period of time, so having a shorter duration SWG on such a short cooldown is incredibly strong. Along with Glyph of Chain Lightning, this is as close to a mandatory glyph as we have.


    On all encounters that have 4 or more targets, this glyph IS mandatory, however, on fights with only 2 or 3, it is a DPS loss to use. Along with Glyph of Spiritwalker's Focus this is as close to a mandatory glyph as we have


    This glyph requires a bit of knowledge of your groups power beforehand to work out if it is a gain or a loss. If the uptime of Fire Elemental would be the same with this glyph as without it (ie you get 2 casts of it with the Glyph for every 1 you would have gotten without the Glyph) then this Glyph is probably a loss (extra GCDs). However, if you are able to get out one extra Fire Elemental Totem cast so so that you get 3/5 versus the 1/2 you would have gotten without the Glyph, then this glyph is worth it.


    If you have an empty Glyph slot, then this is the glyph you want to go for. It procs surprisingly often, and will most likely protect you from more damage than Glyph of Flame Shock will heal for.


    Especially with the Echo of the Elements talent, this glyph is technically a DPS increase to use. However, it is exclusive with Glyph of Lightning Shield, and the DPS increase is very, very minor (a percentage of a percentage of your total DPS). However, if survival isn't an issue and every single point of DPS counts to push an enrage, this is certainly an option.


    If there is any mechanic that requires your healer to dispel you (for example the 8 second stun the trash does in Everbloom), this Glyph will allow you to cure it yourself. Very useful, but also very niche.

    Minor Glyphs


    If you ever want to use Thunderstorm in combat for damage, you need this glyphed. Otherwise, it is pretty much better to not use this glyph, and save Thunderstorm for the knockback effect.


    Great for zooming past your friends after wipes, as it makes you move at almost mount speed, and can be used indoors. Zoom Zoom!


    If there is ever any mechanic you desperately need to get out of, that has a slow component, then you can use this. However, in a case like that, Windwalk Totem is probably the better option, as it would be very niche of Blizzard to put in a mechanic that provides an unavoidable slow that requires you to be moving at 130% speed to get out of. Much more PvP orientated really, but honorable mention nonetheless.

    Stat Priority

    Our Mastery was changed in 6.0 with the creation of the new Multistrike stat. It was changed too Molten Earth.

    The main priority for Elemental Shaman, as of 6.0.3, is

    Intellect > Multistrike > Crit>=Haste > Mastery > Versatility

    You can't gem for or enchant Int or Spellpower, but now that so many items no longer need enchants/reforging/gemming before you can use them, you might want to hotswap items as you kill bosses within the encounter. As such, it is a fair rough assumption to say that 1 Intellect is worth slightly more than 2 Multistrike. To properly work out whether an item is an upgrade or not, I recommend you download SimCraft from http://simulationcraft.org/ and math it out for yourself.

    Multistrike is top because of our unique passive Elemental Overload. Crit comes next because of Elemental Fury and for the third Lava Burst Multistrike, whilst Haste is next (roughly the same as crit) simply for the increased damage frequency. Mastery is second to last throughput wise, but should not be scoffed at because of the damage it provides when on the move, and because of the AoE damage it provides. Versatility is last - as it is for most specs - because it also provides a defensive bonus.

    Gems and Enchants

    In Warlords of Draenor, Gems are now randomly attached to items. You could get the same item multiple times and it not have a gem socket on, then get it again and find it does, in the same vein as how Warforged items worked in Siege of Orgrimmar. Also, there is no longer colors of gems. You now pick a secondary stat and just put that gem in. As such, you should gem for Multistrike whenever you get a gem socket.

    Enchants are changed too. You can now only enchant Cloaks, Necks, Rings and Weapons. The cloak, neck and ring enchants are all just flat secondary stats, so again, focus on Multistrike. The weapon enchants are - as always - slightly more interesting. The two enchants we are most interest in are Mark of the Shattered Hand for a cheaper enchant, and Mark of the Frostwolf as the main enchant you'll want to be using if you can afford it.

    BiS List

    Work In Progress.

    Tips and Tricks

    Work In Progress.
    Last edited by mmoc63fa3da953; 2014-12-02 at 11:05 AM.

  2. #2
    So should we ever try to use elemental fusion x2 with earth shock ever? Or exclusively try to have the 2 stacks and unleash flame flame shock every time?

  3. #3
    Deleted
    You should use Earth Shock as normal when Flame Shock is already up, but when Flame Shock is approaching 9 seconds remaining or less, you should watch your Elemental Fusion stacks and use Flame Shock when you have two. Outside of refreshing Flame Shock, Elemental Fusion doesn't change anything (delaying Earth Shock to cast it with 2 Stacks isn't worth wasting Lightning Shield stacks by casting something else).

  4. #4
    Thanks for stepping up and making a guide.

    One question

    "Lava Surge will not proc more often if you have multiple Flame Shocks, as it will only proc off the most recently cast Flame Shock that is active."

    Do you know this 100% sure?

    shooting stars tooltip mentions it literally, no such thing in lava surge tooltip.
    I also don't see it mentioned anywhere else.

  5. #5
    Deleted
    Good job on the guide Fetter, one question on weapon enchants though, isn't Mark of the thunderlord (http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/item/110682) viable now with the changes to crit?

  6. #6
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by woopytywoop View Post
    Thanks for stepping up and making a guide.

    One question

    "Lava Surge will not proc more often if you have multiple Flame Shocks, as it will only proc off the most recently cast Flame Shock that is active."

    Do you know this 100% sure?

    shooting stars tooltip mentions it literally, no such thing in lava surge tooltip.
    I also don't see it mentioned anywhere else.
    I am 99% sure it is the case, from personal testing. The only other place I have seen it mentioned though is in Bink's guide on Wowhead, so if you are able to disprove this then I'll edit it and give you credit, but I'm pretty confident it is the case.

    Quote Originally Posted by ThePenguini View Post
    Good job on the guide Fetter, one question on weapon enchants though, isn't Mark of the thunderlord (http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/item/110682) viable now with the changes to crit?
    It is, but if you are going to invest on one of the more expensive enchants, you should get the Multistrike one, so I listed the cheap 1 Crystal option, and the expensive best option.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Undefetter View Post
    -snip-

    It is, but if you are going to invest on one of the more expensive enchants, you should get the Multistrike one, so I listed the cheap 1 Crystal option, and the expensive best option.
    Ahh right no problem, being a RL has its perks I get cheap enchants! I'll roll with this one till someone offers me a multistrike one on the cheap as well

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Thanks for the post!
    I have read both this guide and Binkenstein on wowhead, both did contain information i didn't figured it by myself, for that thanks.

    Didn't knew that i could stack more than 1 earthquake with EoE.
    Also a bit sad for not being able to cast multiple FS to induce Lava Surges, it was a niche that not all Elementals bothered doing it

  9. #9
    Pit Lord Blithe's Avatar
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    I can confirm that Lava Surge still procs from multiple active Flame Shock's and that there was no such limit placed on it, however, I do recall seeing somewhere that there is only a maximum need of 2 as anymore has marginal DPS increases in PvE (needs clarification).

    +1, great guide!

  10. #10
    nice guide i was doing a dps test on the garrison dummy this morning.
    And somehow leorajh , the follower, was up. She did 30 % of my dmg on the dummy. She was my hardest hitting ability, and her lightningbolts are better than mine. My shaman is mainly resto geared, but has an ilvl of 644, and i managed like 15-16 k sustained with Leoraj. without her, its like 12 k. And the follower is hitting harder than me. kind of silly, isnt it? Btw: she can chainheal as ele, which i as a player cant.

    I think blizzard could make shaman competetive in singletarget by allowing them to bring the npc shaman to raids.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Blithe View Post
    I can confirm that Lava Surge still procs from multiple active Flame Shock's and that there was no such limit placed on it, however, I do recall seeing somewhere that there is only a maximum need of 2 as anymore has marginal DPS increases in PvE (needs clarification).
    Do you have any source for this? I'll put an asterix in, but really don't want to encourage people to be multidotting (even with it proccing extra Lava Surges, it is only worth it *maybe* on two targets if they are stood together, Chain Lightning is definitely better on 3+ if they are stood together than using the globals on extra Flame Shocks).

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Holofernes View Post
    nice guide i was doing a dps test on the garrison dummy this morning.
    And somehow leorajh , the follower, was up. She did 30 % of my dmg on the dummy. She was my hardest hitting ability, and her lightningbolts are better than mine. My shaman is mainly resto geared, but has an ilvl of 644, and i managed like 15-16 k sustained with Leoraj. without her, its like 12 k. And the follower is hitting harder than me. kind of silly, isnt it?
    Couple of points here

    1 - The followers are meant to be pretty strong, to make it feel like its worth using them

    2 - Even without Trinkets, with with spirit on every slot that can have it, if you are ilevel 644 then you should definitely be doing more than 12k DPS single target. Elemental Shaman, since the buff, are definitely more than competative single target. Were you using cooldowns during this test, for how long did you test, and were you reacting too procs effectively? Even if you did the rotation perfectly, because of our reliance on Multistrike, RNGesus might simply have not been with you. Keep at it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Holofernes View Post
    Btw: she can chainheal as ele, which i as a player cant.
    Yeah, that bothers me too about my Elemental Shaman follower. She is OP. Don't tell me it is to give her another Follower Combat Trait, pfff. Give her Ascendance and make it be the Blazing Speed (or whatever it is called, I forget) trait instead.

  12. #12
    Thunderstorm no longer refunds mana

  13. #13
    Pit Lord Blithe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Undefetter View Post
    Do you have any source for this? I'll put an asterix in, but really don't want to encourage people to be multidotting (even with it proccing extra Lava Surges, it is only worth it *maybe* on two targets if they are stood together, Chain Lightning is definitely better on 3+ if they are stood together than using the globals on extra Flame Shocks).

    - - - Updated - - -



    Couple of points here

    1 - The followers are meant to be pretty strong, to make it feel like its worth using them

    2 - Even without Trinkets, with with spirit on every slot that can have it, if you are ilevel 644 then you should definitely be doing more than 12k DPS single target. Elemental Shaman, since the buff, are definitely more than competative single target. Were you using cooldowns during this test, for how long did you test, and were you reacting too procs effectively? Even if you did the rotation perfectly, because of our reliance on Multistrike, RNGesus might simply have not been with you. Keep at it.



    Yeah, that bothers me too about my Elemental Shaman follower. She is OP. Don't tell me it is to give her another Follower Combat Trait, pfff. Give her Ascendance and make it be the Blazing Speed (or whatever it is called, I forget) trait instead.
    There's nothing to say that it was changed and the text doesn't display that it was either; all you can really do is go by eye and I've personally seen it chain proc multiple times as usual; there is literally no difference between 5.4 and 6.0 as far as Lava Surge mechanics go. Besides, I don't see any logical reason as to why they'd limit Flame Shock to one target either. It would hinder our damage so we'd require decent compensation as far as damage on the move goes which we really haven't received at all.

    Both Affliction and Balance only have that mechanic because their damage over time abilities don't have cooldowns and can be spread around; we can only have a maximum of 5 targets and even then that's not entirely optimal due to Lava Surge clipping and having to keep up with the rest of our priority's.

    I'm not really sure what else I can do to try and prove it to you other than you taking my word for it and testing it yourself.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Blithe View Post
    There's nothing to say that it was changed and the text doesn't display that it was either; all you can really do is go by eye and I've personally seen it chain proc multiple times as usual; there is literally no difference between 5.4 and 6.0 as far as Lava Surge mechanics go. Besides, I don't see any logical reason as to why they'd limit Flame Shock to one target either. It would hinder our damage so we'd require decent compensation as far as damage on the move goes which we really haven't received at all.

    Both Affliction and Balance only have that mechanic because their damage over time abilities don't have cooldowns and can be spread around; we can only have a maximum of 5 targets and even then that's not entirely optimal due to Lava Surge clipping and having to keep up with the rest of our priority's.

    I'm not really sure what else I can do to try and prove it to you other than you taking my word for it and testing it yourself.
    Inclined to agree here. Just from experience, having flame shock up on 2-3 targets at once gives noticeably more lava surge procs. You can really feel it.

  15. #15
    Deleted
    Okay, from my personal testing I can't honestly say that it does proc multiple, but its only brief testing, and is kind of hard to tell. As such, I'll just remove the text. Either way, it still isn't worth using Flame Shock on more than two targets, and it would only be a really small DPS increase on two anyway if they are stood together. If I can properly prove that this is the case, then I'll put it back in, but until then, its only a very minor detail anyway.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jeffseid View Post
    Thunderstorm no longer refunds mana
    Thanks for spotting that. Fixed. I shamelessly stole that section from the old guide. I need to rewrite it myself with more detailed examples of when and where you would use each spell, but I wanted to have something there in the mean time. This guide is still a WIP but I wanted to get it out this weekend rather than waiting until next weekend when I can properly finish it, so that it was out in time for the first raid lockout.

  16. #16
    i tested again. les spirit, ele gear now 642, and no buffs, no heroism i was able to pull 13,6 k dps on the lvl 102 dummy. fight lenght wa skada said 417 seconds, but actual fighting was like 400? Enchants /sockets are all mastery due to beeing a healer, and weapon enchant is spirit proc, no useful trinket proc.

    Spec was Echo, Elemental blast, and the shock buffing ultimate. (im not used to ele so i took all passive stuff, except echo which i love)

    Stats are: 4700 spellpower straight, 30,65 multistrike (703 rating), critical strike (491), Haste (309), Mastery (1371)

    brb simming what i should have done

    Edit:re
    Well anyone has a way to undo flask, buffood, prepot, , 2nd pot, heroism on simulation craft? with those included i should have done 15,8 k dps on a 400 sec fight. but close to 2 k dps due to heroism / bloodlust, 2 int pots, buffood and a flask sounds kind of reasonable for a short fight.
    Last edited by Holofernes; 2014-12-02 at 11:44 AM.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Undefetter View Post
    You should use Earth Shock as normal when Flame Shock is already up, but when Flame Shock is approaching 9 seconds remaining or less, you should watch your Elemental Fusion stacks and use Flame Shock when you have two. Outside of refreshing Flame Shock, Elemental Fusion doesn't change anything (delaying Earth Shock to cast it with 2 Stacks isn't worth wasting Lightning Shield stacks by casting something else).
    This is something I have not understood about most people's testing with elemental fusion. With two stacks of fusion, regardless of your lightning shield charges, doesn't EF push earth shock's DPCT above that of lightning bolt? ie: wouldn't you always want to use EFx2 earth shock over lightning bolt?''

    edit: also maybe mention glyph of shamanistic resolve in your notes? imo a great glyph, another way to mitigate damage is always welcome, and it does more than astral shift. nice guide overall.
    Last edited by Regorill; 2014-12-02 at 04:18 PM.

  18. #18
    Okay so to clarify, We use Elemental fusion x2 stacks on flame shock only? (doesn't change anything with earth shock at 20 fulm?) if unleash talent is taken, try to use it with flame shock instead of lavaburst? (but obviously use it if your FS has a lot of time left on it.) and in a perfect scenario we want to have x2 fusion and unleash up when reapplying flame shock?

  19. #19
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Vardinix View Post
    Okay so to clarify, We use Elemental fusion x2 stacks on flame shock only? (doesn't change anything with earth shock at 20 fulm?) if unleash talent is taken, try to use it with flame shock instead of lavaburst? (but obviously use it if your FS has a lot of time left on it.) and in a perfect scenario we want to have x2 fusion and unleash up when reapplying flame shock?
    It doesn't effect fulm damage, just the shock part. And ideally yes, always FS with x2 EF and UF if poss. I find overwriting a weaker FS when I have all of those available better than ES (though you may waste fulm stacks) but that's just me

  20. #20
    If I decide to take Primal Elementalist, I'm assuming that makes Storm ele my best choice for the 100 talents. Would that be a correct assumption?

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