Ele Shaman Challenge Modes

[Jinksey]

Hey all,

A group of guildies and I are planning on working on Challenge Mode golds. I most likely will be running as elemental. I think the group will consist of an Brewmaster Monk, Disc Priest, Assassination Rogue, and Survival Hunter.

Anyone have any opinions on elemental performance in gold CMs? I know we were amazing last expac in CMs. Anyone have any tips/suggestions for it? Suggested Talents/Glyphs?

For glyphs, I was thinking Chain Lightning, Capacitor, and Lightning Shield would be the bread and butter, but maybe Spiritwalker's Focus.

For talents, I was thinking that Elemental Mastery and Primal Ele would be the favored choices for burst on big trash packs. Not sure about level 100 talents, but maybe Storm Ele as a healing CD if necessary. Is echo of elements worth it for increased damage via multiple EQs?

Any help or advice folks can offer would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[bennyv]

I've done full Golds + a few server best times as Ele.

Liquid Magma is amazing for trash packs as is Echo. Multiple EQ's + Magma = Big AoE dps for trash.

Glyph of Shamanistic Rage will help with dispels, Glyph of Chain Lightning is necessary and I normally run with Lightning Shield. I didn't find Glyph of Cap necessary in our group as we had a stun rotation.

[Deleted]

Spiritwalker's Focus is a mandatory glyph for Elemental Shaman pretty much. Glyph of Capacitor Totem isn't really worth the slot in PvE. If anything, its actually better to let the tank take damage for a bit, then give him a few seconds to recover, before taking damage again, rather than no damage then all the damage. Especially considering you have a Monk for their instant stun anyway, I'd recommend letting him open on packs, then put your totem down so it explodes as they come out of the first stun, and change your glyph to SWF accordingly.

Echo of the Elements is flat out better than Elemental Mastery in basically every situation of a challenge mode. Stacking Earthquakes is both a huge DPS gain (two Earthquakes does wayyyyy more damage than one EM empowered one, let alone the potential three or four you could get), and also increases the CC from it, reducing the damage the tank will take too.

The two choices for level 90 are Primal Elementalist and Unleash Fury. I'd go for Elementalist for sure in this case, because on trash you'll basically never cast Lightning Bolt, and on bosses you want burst for the short fights. Definitely the right choice here.

That leaves the leve 100 talents. The choice here is between Storm Elemental and Liquid Magma really. This depends on where your group are having issues. Boss kill times or trash kill times. If you switch to Echo (which you should) your trash clear times will be much, much stronger, so I would go with Storm Elemental myself, especially with your group (Rogue and Hunter both do solid AoE too), but don't ignore the damage of Liquid Magma, it does do a tonne, you just have to be careful with it ninja pulling, which is pretty much the main reason people don't use it at the moment.

[Jinksey]

Thank you both. This is incredibly helpful. I agree, I will definitely go with Echo. I will play around with Liquid Magma to see if I can use it effectively without aggroing unnecessary stuff.

[enq]

Heyo, is the information here still correct? And could you sprinkle it with a stat priority?

[Deleted]

Heyo, is the information here still correct? And could you sprinkle it with a stat priority?

Informations are still correct, except that I really think that glyph of capacitor is awesome. Even 3sec before stun is still a lot. And if you have to panic stun, 5sec is way too long.

And for stat priority you go with the same as in raid. Just mastery can go over versatility but that's it.

[enq]

Okay, I'm pretty set to go. Now I know full well I don't need to BiS-whore just to score gold, but I was wondering about the absolutely best trinkets. A mage I know said the Iskar trinket did 10% his damage in his CM run, which I find pretty obscene. I'm running Shards of Nothing and Blackiron Micro Crucible ATM, and I find neither too shabby... but if I can get bigger numbers I must, for entirely OCD reasons, have them.

[Omybad]

And for stat priority you go with the same as in raid. Just mastery can go over versatility but that's it.

would it be a good idea shifting mastery higher up the stat priority queue for eq damage? since those big group pulls need to die quickly

[Urehermawan]

Go for copeland clarity (or timewalking equivalent trinket) + alchemy trinks.

In challenge mode you either do nothing or burn a big pack of adds. A big, on use int boost is the first thing you want since you can control when you need that burst. Same thing with alchemy trinket, it give a huge int when proc. Remember, our stat prio is still int > multi > .....
Never do cm as a caster since brf, but people said sethe and prophecy of fear is a serious contender

Oot comment : go enhancement, its waaaay much better xD

[Deleted]

.. and nobody is even talking about Glyph of Grounding Totem /smh
If you go Enhancement and have Mirror of the Blademaster and know the proper Grounding tricks, 8/8 Gold is a walk in the park. Don't bother with Elemental, you're playing a class that can make use of the most overpowered item in CMs this expansion(spinners), don't spec Elemental and waste that potential.