Elemental Shaman Help Thread and Guide

Deleted · 2015-03-27, 07:16 PM

Fellow shamans,

My name is Pigasios Michael and I have been playing a shaman ever since vanilla. I've had some breaks from the game during some expansions I didn't feel were worth playing. Currently I play on Ravencrest (A) in Drive. We are a fairly new guild with some very good players. Currently progressed 8/10M.
The reason I am making this thread is that I feel there are a lot of elemental shamans struggling out there. They feel like they cannot hold a solid raid spot. If the elemental shaman is utilized correctly, he can be one of the most beneficial classes in a raid setup. Educate your raid leaders, if they insist on not giving you spots that you provide one of the best single target / burst and 3 target DPS the game currently has to offer. In this guide I will try to walk through every fight I have done on mythic and step by step help you on your DPS rotations and positioning during them.

A small mention to your stat priority. Multistrike is obviously your go to stat. However, I am currently testing a theory that having over 65% multistrike raid buffed, combined with blackhand's trinket, is probably worth using versatility food. Especially if you are a Panda. I have not completely tested this out but I am currently in the works. Your next go to stat will be crit for the time being due to the proccs. However, mastery will slowly out scale crit due to the immerse amount you will start getting on your gear during the next tier. Along as BRF is concerned, you should stick with Multistrike-->Crit/Haste.

Opener: Your opener is very important it varies extremely depending on whether you have use trinkets or procc trinkets. If you have "use" trinkets, you can go for: 3s before pull Fire elemental ===> 2s Pre-pot==>Lightning bolt==> Flame shock==> Lava burst==> Unleash flame==> Burst macro( Ascendance , EM, TRINKETS).
If you have procc trinkets, you cannot risk doing all these casts before your ascendance since your trinkets will procc and probably be halfway through by the time you pop ascendance. Hence, you will go for 3s Fire elemental==> 2s Pre-pot==>Lava Burst==> Flame Shock==> Unleash==> Burst macro.

Understanding Fulmination and Utilizing 2set/4set

What many people did not understand is that the implementation of our 4-set gave us insane mobility, alongside with the multistrike damage increase. The opportunity to use Fulmination and get an instant Lava Burst allows you to reposition at least 4-5 yards, give the GCD's, without losing cast time. It's very important to also get the most out of your lava burst (if playing echoes) before using your fulmination. Keep in mind you only gain fulmination charges once the spell reaches the boss, so you do have the luxury to start casting another lava burst at 18 stacks and then using fulmination instantly, potentially leaving you with a total of 5 new stacks right away. This takes some testing and practising but once you get used to it, works like a charm.

Gruul

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSwcZkSbx1A

Gruul is a pretty straight forward fight for an elemental shaman. Talent choice, give then short duration of the fight, would be EM, AG, PE, and SE.
Reason I chose PE and SE over UF and EF is how short the fight is. Elemental mastery is a no brainer given the single target nature of the fight.
You will follow the opener sequence I mentioned earlier and then try getting maximum fulmination stacks before earth shocking, unless you have to move from any orbs. Try finding a safe spot near the position your raid leader has assigned for you that prevents you from getting hit by orbs. This is very important since it allows you a lot less downtime. However, if you find yourself having to move, if you have more than 12 stacks, earth shock , lava burst and reposition. If you do not have more than 12 stacks, use your SWG, which should always be glyhped. You could also use glyph of LS on this encounter since it proccs quite a lot and it could procc during slashes or splash damage from destructive rampage. Once destructive rampage starts, try being as closer to the boss as possible, whilst avoiding the orbs. The enables you to have less downtime from moving, given that the overhead smash is a conal ability. Same fulmination concept applies as before. 3 minutes into the fight, line up your cooldowns and use trinkets. If you have procc trinkets, wait for them to procc before using your second set of burst cooldowns. Pretty straight forward fight.

Oregorger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5sMu8DibVg

Oregorger is a pretty easy fight, if not the easiest out there. As a range dps you will be stacked either in 1 or 2 groups in a lane facing the boss. A very important aspect of this fight is to be considerate of your healers. When Retched Blackrock is cast, you get a warning saying it will land near you. Move beforehand, so you do not get a single stack from it. If you are assigned to interrupting, make sure you are in range due to the short interrupt range you have. Let your raid leader know that you are better off as a backup interrupt because moving in too close to interrupt may cause for a retched blackrock out of place, making things very difficult for the rest of the raid. Your talent choice should be the same as Gruul if your guilds dps is high. If not, go for UF and EF. During crates, try flameshocking all the crates you can in order to get more lava burst proccs. Always follow oregorger since he cannot turn back from where he came from. If you feel unsafe to follow him, try clearing some outside crates and then go back to the middle with the healers. Being a hybrid you can help the healers cover the splash damage either through a healing rain or a healing surge. Once you are repositioned, go back to your assigned spot. By that time you should have your ascendance and EM mastery back, soon you will get your elementals back as well. Use on cooldown and apply same trinket concepts as Gruul. Fairly simple fight once you get your head around it.

Beastlord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o-1PDcx17M

Beastlord is a very fun fight for an elemental shaman. Especially with the 6.1 implementations of instant Earthquake. This fight relies highly on raid positioning. You should always be aware of the 6 yards spread range of rend and tear, make sure you won’t be spreading it or being cleaved by it. Use your cooldowns during your opener, during the first dismount (on the mount) and during bloodlust. Save your ancestral guidance for tantrums. You might get fooled that this is an aoe fight but it really is not. You should be focusing single target dps instead of going ham on pack beasts. However you will specc Echoe of elements and Liquid magma on this on, unless your raid leader asks of your to focus solely on single target. In that case you will go for EM and EF. As soon as pack beasts spawn, if you have hunters miss direction them or monks using statue or what not, chain lightning on them (glyphed) and then place your earthquake where your tank will be tanking the boss. Repeat on cooldown. If some of your spears are grouped up, you can abused your instant earthquake by chain lightning them and placing EQ under the boss. Always focus your dps on the mounts after the dismounts and keep flame shock on both the boss and the beast, possibly on a spear if you are good on multidotting. This will enable on insane amounts of lava burst proccs with Echoes. During dreadwing, you will probably have EM up if you are playing with it, so use it. It will be up in time for bloodlust phase. Make sure you are not phasing the dreadwing when the breath comes out, possibly glyph your shamanistic rage to dispel the debuff if you get caught. Once he dismounts be aware of rend and tear which still applies. During faultline you will probably set a roat/ww totem rotation, be sure to use it as soon as you are assigned, preferably pre-cast it if you are confident. As soon as the boss dismounts from faultline, pop bloodlust, stay spread to avoid rend and tear and always keep an eye on the breath time, make sure you are not facing the boss before he casts it. Save your ancestral guidance for the last tantrum and make sure you are not in range for any epicentres.

Flamebender

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8305hVI1eck

This is a fight highly dependent on focus aoe dps. Elemental shamans have a niche in that sector after 6.1. Your go to talents will be Echoes and Liquid magma. On pull, save all your cooldowns apart from liquid magma which will be up by the time the wolves spawn. Make sure you are spread from the rest of the ranged dps to avoid double lava lashes. If you get the torrent, move into the melee while having SWG up in order not to lose dps. Once the wolves spawn, if you are fixated, pop your defensives and run into the middle. Then, pop liquid magma followed by your cooldowns and lava beam/earthquake on cooldown. Once the wolves are down, you should have fox to reposition, preferably pick the same spot you had before moving in. Stay away from the weapons and always keep in mind not to put some of your team mates in a difficult situation by repositioning incorrectly. Keep an eye on your fulmination stacks and use unleash flame on cooldown (possibly used as a speed boost to reposition. Keep an eye out for blazing radiance in order not to cleave your teammates. When firestorm is cast, use SWG and move in to melee range for a possible barrier, healing rain, smoke bomb etc. During the second firestorm you should be using your AG and any defensive you have left, possibly a tonic if you are low on health or if your raid leaders wants it used as a raid cd. During the second set of wolves repeat the same rotation as the first set of wolves but use your second potion since you will not have any cooldowns. Once the wolves are down, your cds should be back up in order to finish the boss off.

Hans’gar and Franzok

Most elemental shamans claim that this fight is extremely hard for elemental shamans due to all the movement. However, your 4 set, SWG and foxes are there to make up for it. In this fight my go to talents are echoes, liquid magma and Primal elementalist. The tactic we use is that we bloodlust on pull and ignore the first set of smart stampers, forcing the first crippling supplex. After that, you should position to your assigned area in order to split the damage from the body slam. During this time you will have to avoid the searing plates and the normal stampers. Best way to avoid both mechanics if you are confident enough is standing on the edges of each stamp block, this will result to you only sidestepping to avoid them. Once you learn the pattern it will be much easier on you. After this phase is done, you will have to reposition in the ranged group in order to initiation the smart stampers completely. By that time you should have flame shock up on both targets and use chain lightning and lava burst on cooldown. Use fulmination whenever you have to move to the next stamper in order to get your instant cast and reposition. Use SWG during this phase as well. Once the phase is over you go back to your ranged position to split the damage from the slams and avoid aftershocks. Your second set of cooldowns should be up, use them and burst. Liquid magma should be used on cooldown, preferably when both bosses are stacked. You will repeat the smart stamper phase one more. After that you go back to searing plates and normal stampers where you will have to stay grouped with the ranged and dps the boss down. You should be using chain lighting at all times when both bosses are of reach. Finish the boss off.

Kromog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJnXhscPHDA

Kromog is the first serious dps check in the instance after Gruul’s soft check. Your go to talents during this encounter should be Echoes, Liquid Magma and UF. You will start off the encounter being group with the rest of the ranged in a designated spot. Most guilds use the entrance however we chose to use a different location. During pull, you will neither pop bloodlust nor your cooldowns since your cooldowns will be needed 1:20 into the fight for the pillars. Start the fight normally with a pre-pull lava burst/potion, flame shock and normal rotation. First thing you will have to deal with is Rune of Crushing Earth, the so called hands. When they spawn, you move forward as a group, waiting for the second set of hands to spawn. As soon as they spawn they will both clap so make sure you are nowhere near them. Use your shamanistic rage on the first stone breath in order to be helpful to your healers. Use your Astral shift during the second one. After that wait for the healers to call personal cooldowns for whenever they do not have something assigned for them. Always keep an eye out for reverberations, so called tornadoes. Always dodge them. Also keep an eye out for the shattering smash. Good thing for a dps increase is actually look where it is going to land before moving in panic. It can either face the tanks/ ranged dps/ melee which should be 3 different directions. Most of the times it will hit the ranged due to rng. Sometimes you might be safe just where you are though. By this point you will be facing Runes of Grasping earth. If your guild is using RT Kromog, move to your assigned rune according to the add-on. Make sure you have a searing totem up before you get in the hand. As soon as you are being pull up by the hand, pop your liquid magma. Now, you have to be extremely careful when placing your earthquake since stacking them might result into someone getting out too quickly. Personally I focus the edges because most of the times they are the last to get out of the hands. Reason being that most classes cannot target they are aoe. It’s either within the range or conal. We can actually select the targets we want it to affect. Right after the first set of runes you will get the pillars. Depending on what tactic your guild uses, you more or less need to flameshock the first one and then burst the last one that spawns as an elemental shaman. If you are standing in the middle and have foxes up (which you should) you can throw a couple of LavaB/LB on the first pillar before popping all your cooldowns and nuking the 3rd one that spawned. Once the foxes have run out, pop your SWG to make sure you are not hit by any of the mini pillars spawning under your feet. Those pillars are not random. They spawn under player’s position, hence why it is good to stay as spread as possible during the pillars but as grouped as possible during the first 3 seconds. When you get all three pillars down, you should have liquid magma back up, use it during call of the mountain. Whilst trying to hide behind pillars for call of the mountain, try to maintain 12 stacks per movement of pillar so you get 1 extra lava burst per movement. Once you are done with the phase, move back to the starting position and rinse repeat. Use second pots during the second set of pillars, pop bloodlust at 30% and save your guidance for a stone breath. One thing you could do to increase your boss dps is to cheese one last chain lightning on the hands just before they go down and place your instant earthquake on the boss or under a pillar if it’s the pillar phase. During the last 10% of the boss you should get another hand phase, which you either choose to execute properly and then kill the boss, or if you are confident nuke the boss and ignore the phase.

Operator Thogar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frr8bgrPPlU

This fight is another good example where an elemental shaman can shine if played correctly. I will not good into great detail tactic wise on this one, but I will focus on the elemental shaman aspects of the fight. Your talent choice for this fight will be Echoes, Liquid Magma and UF once again. You could go with PE but I highly prefer UF on this fight due to the high mobility of it and the fact that you don’t only use Unleash Flame as part of your rotation but you also use it as a speed boost. You will find yourself abusing your 4 set countless times on this encounter in order to reposition, in order not to lose so much from it you can have UF to make up for it. During pull you pop your cooldowns normally along with bloodlust but you save liquid magma for the first passenger train which will contain a man at arms. As soon as the train comes to the lane, pop your liquid magma. Switch target to the man at arms and apply your CL/EQ rotation twice. After that single target nuke the man at arms, in the meantime procc another instant EQ while all 3 adds are alive and place it where your tank will place the boss after repositioning. You will have chain lightning glyphed for this fight. However do not abuse it. Single target the Man at arms as much as you can, otherwise you will be in trouble with your raid leader if you try to cheese the meters. Next point of focus of the fight is the Iron Gunnery Sergeant. Sometimes the cannons might be in between lanes that are about to be traversed. However you can be on the “ dangerous “ lane for 2-3 seconds , dps the cannon, move back to the safe lane, let the train pass and move back to the cannon lane to finish it off. What raid leaders look for in this fight from a ranged dps is cannon and man at arms damage, then boss damage and then they look at adds damage. Do not try to cheese the meters on this fight at all. What we need to understand during progression is that raid leaders do not give a damn about your total dps. They care about what you do with it. Do you put it on the right targets or do you just faceroll your keyboard and get numbers? This fight along with beastlord is a perfect example to prove to your raid leader you know where to put your damage. Back to the fight now. Your second set of cooldowns should be used on the second man at arms which will be accompanied by a cannon. Nuke the cannon down while bating the grenades on the lane near the cannon. Next, pop your cooldowns and lava beam/EQ X2. After that fully burst the Man at arms down while cheesing one extra EQ procc for the re-position. Stay spread during split phases where the little adds spawn to avoid damage. If you want to be helpful to your healers (which you should be) you can avoid getting ticks from the grenades since you get a little pulse before they hit the ground. This gives you a 1.5 second window to re-position. During this fight you should be saving your liquid magma for add trains. If you feel you have time to use it and having it ready for the next adds phase, by all means do so. This will most of the times be during the random trains which is a 40-45 seconds period. If you do not have portals for all the deforesters, make sure you are always in GW while popping unleash flame when you pass through the fire. This will allow you to only pick one stack up. Your last set of cooldowns should be popped during the last adds train. You will 2x Lava Beam/EQ and then put the rest of your damage on the boss since it should be around 10% by that time. You should be using your AG during Man at arms since the raid damage is pretty high. Your personal defensives should be used if you are in a tight spot (getting 2-3 stacks). If not, use it during Man at arms.

Iron Maidens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtYYstAxBko

This is a fairly complex fight but still a very favourable one for an elemental shaman. Again I will not go into detail when it comes to execution and I will focus more on what you should be doing during this encounter. Your go-to talents for this encounter should be Echoes/PE and LQ. Reason I go for PE is that you chain lightning 90% of the time during this encounter. This again is all about putting your damage in the right targets. You should follow your raid leader’s instructions precisely. Whenever the bosses are grouped up you should be chain lightning (unglyphed) and EQ. Always use your fulmination on the target you want to send on the boat next. When there are only two targets left (1 is on the boat) Keep flameshock up on both targets, use your lava burst proccs while chain lightning to build fulmination charges. Use your ascendance pretty much on cooldown unless you are assigned to a boat. Look out for Rapid fire, make sure you are not caught in it since it is a pretty lethal mechanic. Make sure you do not get hit by bombs during boat phase. When the first marks appear on the ground, move out but keep in mind that will be your safe spot for when the bombs hit the platform. Move out as soon as the bombs are about to explode and then move back in to your previous position. Rinse repeat while keeping flame shock up and chaining. Liquid magma should preferably be used when all 3 bosses are on the platform. I will not go through any of the boat phases. You can contact me individually if you are assigned on any boats and I can go through what you need to do on each boat. During the last phase, you will pop bloodlust and your last set of cooldowns. Preferably taking marak down first. During this phase your main focus will be the turrets. As soon as they spawn, pop liquid magma and switch to them. If you get penetrating shot you will most probably be bopped. If no bops are available and your ankh is up, sacrifice yourself. Make sure you do not get hit by the turret at all and keep an eye out for the tornadoes since things can get pretty messed up if you get hit while a cannon is up. In this fight you will make sure you have AG for the last phase and you will use your defensive cooldowns if you are the blood ritual target and during the last phase due to the sanguine strikes damage. This fight can get a lot more complicated than what I make it sound, hence feel free to contact me with any questions you might have.

Blast Furnace

What a fight. You will enjoy this fight a lot as an elemental shaman. Instant earthquake, low interrupt cooldown and multiple targets to keep your flame shocks up. To start off, your go to talents should be Echoes, Guidance, Primal elementalist and Liquid Magma/SE. Liquid Magma would the overall dps increase whereas SE would boost your single target damage on demand( the elementalists). For this fight you will want to glyph you chain lightning aswell.

During phase 1 you will probably pull the boss and reset so you can position at the back of the room. During this time you should cast your Fire elemental in order for it's cooldown to reset. This allows you to use 1.5 Fire elementals during the pull approximately. Use your liquid magma and start single targeting the bellow. Take advantage of every chance you can get to procc your instant earthquake. The trick about earthquake placement in this fight is to be able to anticipate where you tank will move next, allowing you to place your earthquake correctly. Next up is the interrupt duty. Being one of the classes with the lowest interrupt cooldown you will probably be assigned for engineers repair interrupts. This can get tricky for the first couple of pulls until you get used to the engineer's movement prior to a repair. The engineer will make a sudden movement( sort of a back and forth one) and then will stop and start repairing. It is very important for you to interrupt it as soon as it's cast. It's a channeling spell, whereas it was a proper cast in heroic, so be aware of that. If you get targeted by a bomb, preferably use shamanistic rage before detonating it.
Keep dpsing the bellows as the come while always keeping a flame shock up on feldspar and dpsing him whenever you get the chance.

During phase 2 you will most probably re-position the raid in one of the two sides of the room. While moving to re-position, it would be a good time to use your spritwalker's grace. Remember to anticipate the raid's movement when placing your earthquakes and keep using you liquid magma on cooldown. Depending on your raid leader, you might decide to kill a primal elementalist in one. You should save your ascendance for that primal elementalist.
A very important aspect of this phase is cauterise interrupts, slag interrupts and volatile fire management. You will either be assigned to interrupt slag elementals that need to be positioned within primal elementalist range, or you will be assigned to interrupt firecaller's cauterize wounds. You will most definitely be assigned to purge the reactive earth shield off the primal elementalists so always keep an eye out for that. Preferably keep them on focus.
Again, make use of any instant earthquakes you can get and keep using your liquid magma on cooldown. Keep an ear out for your raid leader calling for your guidance because he most probably will during this phase.
Whenever you get volatile fire make sure you are not within range of your teammates because it can cause major problems to a raid.
Keep interrupting whenever you come if your primary interrupt assignment is dead.
Tip: Try being on 20 stack when the primal elementalist is about to be freed. Since you can apply flame shock before he is freed. This allows you to fulminate and get your 2set/4set bonus active, allowing you to increase your single target on the target. Try getting any instant EQ proccs onto the primal elementalist aswell and don't cheese the meters by placing them somewhere else with more mobs.

During phase 3, you are pretty much single targeting the boss while moving periodically. Save your spiritwalkers for large boss movements and utilize your 4-set for smaller boss movements. Your raid will appreciate the use of healing stream totem. Keep an eye out on your tank if he tends to spike. You might need to throw a healing surge or two on him.
You should have ascendance and fire elemental ready for this phase. Coupled with your guidance, should provide a solid healing throughput to your raid.
Lastly, keep an eye out for the blast timers and save your defensives for the double blast. In addition be ready to use your healing potion as a raid cooldown if your raid leader asks you to.

General rule: DO NOT Thunderstorm to interrupt stuff as it will piss off the tanks and cause disorder to the raid. The only reason you should thunderstorm is if your Wind Shear is on cooldown and a cauterize wounds is about to be cast. Also, only use capacitor if you are confident you won't mess up movement of engineers to the furnace.

This is the end of a very interesting fight for an elemental shaman. Feel free to contact me with any question you might have.

Blackhand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfhditdLX_w

The final boss of this half tier. This is yet another boss where an elemental shaman is of great value. Your go to talents for this boss should be Echo, Guidance, UF and EF. I know theorycrafters will start having a go at me for proposing the use of Echo since it seems lower for a single target fight than EM. However, in a fight with such high mobility requirements, Echo saves your lava burst casts countless times. It provides a much smoother play style and from my tests, a dps increase.

During Phase 1, you will be position with the ranged group. The position varies from strategy to strategy. We use the circular continuous motion around the inner circle.

Your rotation should be somewhat the same each pull. What I mean by this is that after your ascendance is over, massive demolition should be starting and UF will be coming off cooldown. This allows you to have 2 stacks of LB to be cast on the move with fox, then UF, and apply an enhance flame shock on the target for the moving phase. For this to be possible, yo need to fulminate twice during your ascendance at 12-13 stacks. In general you should abuse your 4 set in this phase as there is quite a lot of movement.
Use your shamanistic rage( which should be glyphed with dispell) on the first demolition. This will allow it to be ready for phase two. Make sure to know when you will use your guidance aswell since it will probably be assigned by your raid leader. In addition, check with your raid as to when no foxes will be active so you can save your spiritwalker's grace for that point. A useful time to use your astral shift would be the transition unless you're in trouble earlier in the fight. Be ready to use a healing tonic during demolition since things can get pretty messy. If you are ever caught in a situation where you must move but cannot cast, drop a healing stream and refresh your flame shock if it is not enhanced.

During phase 2, the first thing you will notice when you fall down, are the singes falling from the ceiling. Those singes need to be soaked, otherwise fire will spawn in that location. Elemental shamans are the best class for the soaking of these singes. As soon as you drop down, place a grounding totem. This will allow for one of your raid members to redirect the debuff on the grounding. As soon as your grounding is off the map, use Call of the elements and place another one. When you , at some point, have two stacks of the debuff, use your shamanistic rage to cleanse it off( which should be glyphed).
Your dps targets during this phase will be both blackhand and one of the sieges( if you are assigned to it). Make sure to keep flameshocks up on both targets and do not start DPSing the siege unless it has the slag debuff. Focus your DPS on blackhand until the siege is slagged. Make sure you do not kill the siege too fast either. Always be aware of the position of the siege in case you might need to run behind it with mark of death and NEVER be in the path of the boss and the siege, since it may result in you soaking a mark.
Positioning is extremely important for you during this phase for two reasons. First reason is so you can make sure to be spread from your teammates as to minimize splash damage from the balcony. Second reason is so you can find the perfect spot, from which you must rarely move in order to maximize your dps on both the boss and the siege. You should be using the second ascendance around the time mark of the second siege spawn. This will allow for it to be ready for phase 3, along with your fire elemental and second pot and bloodlust.

I doubt your raid leaders will assign you on mortar baiting duty, however if they do, be ready and keep an eye out on the siege's energy bar. When it reaches 90 start moving to the baiting point as ghost wolf. Again, this is highly unlikely.
Again, if you are assigned to be part of a smash group, which is highly unlikely again, save some defensives for it everytime.

During phase 3, you need to be stacked with the ranged group and go nuts on the boss. This is both a control and dps phase. It is a control phase in the sense you need to soak the debris, place the bombs and handle the marks. And it is a dps race in the sense that if you do not kill the boss fast enough, you will be left with no room to operate. Keep your ears open for your raid leader calling that he needs the ranged group to soak one of the falling debris. It is impossible you will be assigned to soak debris on your own since you have no immunities. Make sure you will NEVER place a slag bomb in the path of your raid's movement and save your guidance for when your raid leader asks for it, unless pre-assigned. Always make sure you are not within the path of any marks of death, and make sure you place your marks of deaths decently as well. This a crucial part of the fight.
Lastly, make sure you do not pop your ascendance right before bombs and mark of death. It has happened to be that i popped ascendance and got marked for death, which instantly made my ascendance useless. Wait for it, be patient.

This pretty much sums up the last boss of this half tier, good luck to everyone making their way to their kill. Do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.

THE END(For now)

As you may have noticed this guide is all over the place. Reason being, I have never made a guide before. When writing this I was not thinking that I am creating an official document. I was more describing my trail of thought to a friend, trying to give a helping hand. Which is exactly what I am intending to do through this guide, provide a helping hand to the struggling shamans and let them know that they are free to ask me about anything they have problems with. This might seem a very long guide but it contains some very helpful information and some of my own personal playstyles so I thank everyone who put out the time to read it and I will appreciate any feedback you might have.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking.../latest#boss=0

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Pigas/advanced

In addition, feel free to add me on Pigas#2677 if you don’t feel like posting here.

I want to thank my guild, Drive on Ravencrest for giving me the opportunity to raid with them and grow as a player a long way.

Kind Regards,

Pigas
Elemental Shaman of <Drive> on Ravencrest

**Seezer** · 2015-03-27, 07:26 PM

why versatility food? Isn't vers one of the worst stats?

Deleted · 2015-03-27, 07:29 PM

It is, as i said i am currently testing it. It's a potential test for next tier where you will be overwhelmed with multistrike/crit/mastery/haste. I just want to see how far behind it falls during the current tier.I am also going to run some test with crit food, see how that scales.

**Socialhealer** · 2015-03-27, 07:35 PM

Originally Posted by Pigas

If you have procc trinkets, you cannot risk doing all these casts before your ascendance since your trinkets will procc and probably be halfway through by the time you pop ascendance. Hence, you will go for 3s Fire elemental==> 2s Pre-pot==>Lava Burst==> Flame Shock==> Unleash==> Burst macro.
]

lava burst with no flame shock up? why waste it? doesn't matter if you delay ascendance for lava burst, because all ascendance does it let you freely cast it so there's no gain to burning lava burst with no flame shock.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Pigas

It is, as i said i am currently testing it. It's a potential test for next tier where you will be overwhelmed with multistrike/crit/mastery/haste. I just want to see how far behind it falls during the current tier.

no chance imo, i'm ilvl 698.5 i have 13.23% crit, 16.98% haste raid buffed, ofc gear has far more mastery than we'd like but still crit can go all the way upto 100% since it allows a chance at a 3rd lvb multistrike, and we crit for 250% damage it'll always be amazing, and i could happily take another 33% haste, can't see 1 tier being that many stats.

Deleted · 2015-03-27, 07:39 PM

Edit: nvm OP changed what he originally wrote

**Furyfire** · 2015-03-27, 07:41 PM

Originally Posted by Haippari

"3s before pull Fire elemental ===> 2s Pre-pot==>Lightning bolt==> Flame shock==> Lava burst==> Unleash flame==> Burst macro( Ascendance , EM, TRINKETS)."

Stopped reading riiiight about there...

And how can you be a real raider with such a shitty transmog, Pigas ?

**santera** · 2015-03-27, 07:44 PM

why would you go pandaren shaman? if you were dwarf, i could probably approve of this guide, but pandaren? good thing you started as pandaren and didn't pay to change race.. right? RIGHT?

**Boggle** · 2015-03-27, 07:45 PM

My pull:
unleash elements (15 secs before pull), Pot, LB, Elemental, flame shock, unleash elements, lava burst (twice if you have eoe talent), ascendance, lava burst/fulmination.

Deleted · 2015-03-27, 07:51 PM

Originally Posted by Socialhealer

lava burst with no flame shock up? why waste it? doesn't matter if you delay ascendance for lava burst, because all ascendance does it let you freely cast it so there's no gain to burning lava burst with no flame shock.

Reason being you will procc your trinkets if you wait until you apply flame shock and lava burst during the pull. The faster you pop ascendance, the more you gain from your procc trinkets. This is a pull sequence for people having trinkets the procc. If you have active trinkets you can go with lightning bolt.

Originally Posted by Socialhealer

no chance imo, i'm ilvl 698.5 i have 13.23% crit, 16.98% haste raid buffed, ofc gear has far more mastery than we'd like but still crit can go all the way upto 100% since it allows a chance at a 3rd lvb multistrike, and we crit for 250% damage it'll always be amazing, and i could happily take another 33% haste, can't see 1 tier being that many stats.

Yeah probably, we'll see.

Originally Posted by Boggle

My pull:
unleash elements (15 secs before pull), Pot, LB, Elemental, flame shock, unleash elements, lava burst (twice if you have eoe talent), ascendance, lava burst/fulmination.

Unleash elements 15 seconds before pull would mean asking your raid leader for a 16 second pull timer for an extra 9k damage. Its better than a normal pull but yeah, 16 second pull timers are sorta long.

**Vraine** · 2015-03-28, 01:47 AM

Originally Posted by Boggle

My pull:
unleash elements (15 secs before pull), Pot, LB, Elemental, flame shock, unleash elements, lava burst (twice if you have eoe talent), ascendance, lava burst/fulmination.

I open almost like this except I Fire Ele before pre-casting Lightning Bolt to not potentially miss out on a Lava Surge or Earth Shock global coupled with a trinket somewhere during Ascendance. Why do you Ele after the initial Lightning Bolt instead? A Flame Shock immediately following your Ele will cause your Ele to begin attacking the boss quicker than in my opener where my Ele is delayed (in my case) 1.74 seconds while Lightning Bolt travels, however I'm not sure if that damage outweighs a Lava Surge while, for example, you are being buffed by Molten Metal.

Does anyone have insight to the merit of either of these described openers and the benefits of one over the other?

**thefrankto** · 2015-03-28, 07:22 PM

Hey there. I was going to make another thread for this, but here goes:

My DPS is fine overall, but I don't seem to be getting as much bang for my buck as equally-geared shamans with my opener. I usually run Echo/UF/SE as my go-to farm boss spec, but I only really burst as high as 55K-65K, then sustain~35-40K ST the rest of the fight at iLvl 681 (with 4P). This is the opener I use is this:

Fire Ele -> Prepot -> UF -> LB -> FS -> LvB x2 -> ES -> Ascendence -> LvB to infinity

I'm running mythic QR+heroic GSR because it's the best I got, so I'm not too worried about procs. I tested both yours and mine on a dummy just now but I get better results out of mine, even though you get much better initial bursts on your log. Is there something I'm missing?

Deleted · 2015-03-28, 08:37 PM

Originally Posted by thefrankto

Hey there. I was going to make another thread for this, but here goes:

My DPS is fine overall, but I don't seem to be getting as much bang for my buck as equally-geared shamans with my opener. I usually run Echo/UF/SE as my go-to farm boss spec, but I only really burst as high as 55K-65K, then sustain~35-40K ST the rest of the fight at iLvl 681 (with 4P). This is the opener I use is this:

Fire Ele -> Prepot -> UF -> LB -> FS -> LvB x2 -> ES -> Ascendence -> LvB to infinity

I'm running mythic QR+heroic GSR because it's the best I got, so I'm not too worried about procs. I tested both yours and mine on a dummy just now but I get better results out of mine, even though you get much better initial bursts on your log. Is there something I'm missing?

May i ask when you cast fulmination first? Because that earthshock after the double LvB is a complete waste of gcd and is not worth the ¬6% mutlistrike damage you will get. I'd suggest using fulmination first on 15 stacks so you have 15% multistrike damage for the remianing duration of your ascendance. And you really shouldn't go for EotE on single target fights. And only run SE on really short fights (Gruul) or fights that need focused burst. ( Blast furnace for the elementalists).

Hope this helps.

Deleted · 2015-03-29, 03:10 PM

Being someone that's progressing on mythic, yet terrible at simming, I would like to know if running 2pc heroic + mythic blast-proof cowl and mythic chestguard of the siegemaker are favorable for dropping the 4set bonus. I realise the bonus is pretty decent and helps on fights with any sort of movement, but wouldn't the intellect alone outweigh the 4set?

Also, you say that EotE is pretty poor for single target fights. I've only really used EotE, I dislike EM; I don't exactly know how to line it up because of the shorter cooldown. Could you reiterate on this? Not to mention, if you have bloodlust up at the start, the EM is more or less wasted, no? Even more so if I were to have mythic beastlord trinket and it'd proc.

I do have to say I picked up quite a few tips from this that I will put into use later tonight, but there's one more thing that I'm not following. Are you saying casting earth shock right before going into ascendance on the pull is a DPS loss or am I just misinterpreting this.

Deleted · 2015-03-29, 03:19 PM

Originally Posted by sethrim

Being someone that's progressing on mythic, yet terrible at simming, I would like to know if running 2pc heroic + mythic blast-proof cowl and mythic chestguard of the siegemaker are favorable for dropping the 4set bonus. I realise the bonus is pretty decent and helps on fights with any sort of movement, but wouldn't the intellect alone outweigh the 4set?

I would never, ever drop the 4 set. It's roughly a 4-5k dps increase.

Originally Posted by sethrim

Also, you say that EotE is pretty poor for single target fights. I've only really used EotE, I dislike EM; I don't exactly know how to line it up because of the shorter cooldown. Could you reiterate on this? Not to mention, if you have bloodlust up at the start, the EM is more or less wasted, no? Even more so if I were to have mythic beastlord trinket and it'd proc.

What you are saying about EM being wasted is true up to one extend. It's only a waste if you get GCD locked while in ascendance. However, later on in the fight you will need EM to line up with your ascendance, otherwise your ascendance feels extremely slow. At the moment i do have the beastlord trinket and i am testing out savind EM until bloodlust is out. Doing that, will still allow it to be up with your next ascendance anyway.

Originally Posted by sethrim

I do have to say I picked up quite a few tips from this that I will put into use later tonight, but there's one more thing that I'm not following. Are you saying casting earth shock right before going into ascendance on the pull is a DPS loss or am I just misinterpreting this.

I said that casting earthshock with 6 stacks before ascendance is not worth it. You're either gonna go all the way durin your pull, gather around 15 stacks and use fulmination before ascendance, or do not earthshock at all and wait for a 15 stack fulmination during your ascendance and get the 15% bonus for the remaining ascendance. It all depends on your trinket proccs and how long you have left on your potion. Your potion should always cover your ascendance no matter what, and its preferably for your trinkets to do the same thing. Most of the trinkets are procc trinkets nowadays. Given they will procc as soon as you pre-cast your LB/LvB, I choose to go straight to ascendance after casting FS and UF.

Hope this make sense.

**FalcFalcFalc** · 2015-03-30, 01:08 AM

You took some time to write this so kudos. A few problems I have:

1. Where is your math for the 65% multistrike use versatility food theory? I would probably think you'd use the food that is your 2nd highest weighted secondary stat if you don't use multistrike food.

2. Your stat weights are incorrect as Haste sims better than Crit for me at 688 ilvl. You can't really make a blanket statement that one stat priority is king over others.

3. You advise using LM on Thogar and Beastlord but in practice, if you have good cleavers in your raid you will never get a full duration of LM off if you use LM for the adds. On Thogar, probably should just use EF/SET and save LM for the spears on Beastlord as they die slower because no ones trying to scumbag off them.

4. Never, ever, hold your EM to line up with Ascendance. It has been mathed to be a DPS loss unless you'd have to move during EM like Oregorger's roll phase.

5. I would probably not pre-cast a Lava Burst with proc trinkets. Precasting LB and casting Flame Shock on pull then going into Lava Burst is better because even if you lose a second of a trinket proc, you're wasting a LvB cd on a target that doesn't have Flame Shock on it. Going into Ascendance early is a waste of 1 (or 2 with EotE) Lava Bursts during a potion. This is because you can cast 1 or 2 Lava Bursts before you go into Ascendance which nets more Lava Bursts while buffed with your potion. Also, regardless of if you're in Ascendance or not, your trinkets will buff your normal Lava Burst cast too so there's no reason to waste that.

6. With the 4set, you cast Earth Shock at 12+ stacks. Not 18+.

Deleted · 2015-03-30, 03:47 AM