[Guide] Elemental shaman pve
TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
RACES
TALENTS AND GLYPHS
STATS
PROFESSIONS
CONSUMABLES
DPS ROTATION
EXTRA SHAMAN TIPS
ELEMENTAL SHAMAN BUGS
This entire guide was written from my experience on molten 4.0.6, unless I reference another source. I currently play on Sargeras realm.
Introduction
Hello, I am Blmaster, and due to the increasing number of noob new ele shamans on cata, I am creating this guide hopefully to help them improve their dps and gameplay. While we may not outdps fire mages and shadow priests (FOTMs), ele shamans can make up for slightly less dps with raid utility and support.
The elemental shaman is the ranged dps spec for the shaman class. The shaman class is notorious for being weak in pve, especially early in the cataclysm expansion, and this spec is no exception. If you want to button mash and top dps easily, this is NOT the class/spec for you. In order to be on par with everyone else, you will need to excel in pre-potting Volcanic Potions and using your Elemental Mastery and Spiritwalker's Grace cd at the right time, not to mention managing your shocks.
Hopefully, they are versatile, through the buffs provided by their totems. I'll list the main ones you will use in pve.
Earth: Strength of Earth, otherwise Stoneskin Totem.
Fire: as you need for dps, usually Searing Totem for single target and Magma Totem for aoe.
Water: be stubborn and only use glyphed Healing Stream Totem, only use Totem of Tranquil Mind or Mana Spring Totem if ordered by the raid leader
Air: Wrath of Air or Windfury Totem.
As an elemental shaman, these are the raid benefits besides filler totems:
- Totem of Wrath: 10% spell power to the raid, only replaceable by Demonic Pact from a demonology warlock. It doesn't stack with Arcane Brilliance or Flametongue Totem, instead it overrides their 6% spell power and gives the raid an additional 4% spell power. Like a demo warlock needs a minion to maintain the 10% spell power buff, we ele shamans need to use an offensive fire totem (Searing Totem, Magma Totem, Fire Elemental Totem) to provide that 10% spell power buff.
- Elemental Oath: 5% critical strike buff to the raid. Also provided by fury warriors, assassination rogues, feral druids and wolf pet howl
The elemental shaman uses a mixture of fire- and nature-based attacks. The former consists of Lava Burst, Flame Shock and various damaging Fire totems. The latter involves Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lightning Shield (when it does damage) and Fulmination (via Earth Shock).
Strengths:
-Elemental Mastery is one of the best offensive CDs in game, I know other caster classes that would kill for it. This makes us a burst dps class, not to mention Those Lava Burst crits plus we can save up lightning shield stacks for when it matters.
-kiting, off healing - solid raid utility
-we run fast lol
-fairly easy priority list: as long as you don't use Chainlightning for single target or use Lava Burst when there is no Flame Shock, you are already doing satisfactory dps. It's only managing shocks, timing your Elemental Mastery and reacting quickly to Lava Surge procs that will get you that extra 10-20%.
-fulmination double dipping makes us strong with % damage buff/debuff
-easy gearing. Any mail gear with intellect can be yours, even spirit will help you with hit rating, so you don't need to compete with those warlocks and mages. Plus you can use the same or similar gear for restoration, saves bag space and keeps ur raid happy that you can swap back and forth depending on boss fights, etc.
Weaknesses:
-poor mobility, we lose lots of dps if having to move for more than 2 seconds (only instants are shocks, unless flame and refreshing totem).
*this will be fixed in upcoming patch: our lightning bolts can be cast while moving and that'll turn us into the most mobile ranged spec.
-lower damage overall: you see fire mages hitting 30k fireball crits easily and we need to be op geared to get 20k lightning bolt crits. You see boomkins hitting 30k starsurge normal hits usually less than 15 second apart, our fulmination is the only skill that will ever hit for those amounts and it takes a long time to get enough stacks of lightning shield
-pathetic aoe: magma totem and fire nova does pathetic damage and you need to run in the middle of the targets to drop the totem. Chain lightning has a cd and earthquake needs to be channeled
*no fear, this will be fixed in next patch, 4.3 removes cd from our chain lightning plus earthquake is now just a single cast and not a channeled aoe.
-lack of personal or raid defensive cooldown, something that has plagued the class since vanilla. All we got is Reincarnation, even spirit link totem is only for resto tree. Glyphed Elemental Mastery helps, but that's an offensive cd. We have to be vigilant,use Spiritwalkers Grace and master self-healing to survive.
Races
Orc: I like this cuz of Blood Fury, a spell power trinket like buff. I personally like this race cuz I want to emulate Thrall on his journey to defeat Deathwing.
Troll: good for the haste buff. Problem with this is that our spells are gcd capped with BL while Berserking is popped, thats why goblins may be better. Also great for trolling mocking laugh if you're male.
Goblin: 1% haste across the board. Sustained constant haste is better for ele shaman, so the best horde race. Cool casting animation and mechanical totems. Also rocket jump.
Tauren: worst for pve, better for pvp, all you get is 5% base hp bonus.
Horde overall: goblin >/= troll > Orc > tauren
Draenei: 1% less hit requirement, just need 16%. Allowing you to stack a bit more haste and mastery. Best alliance race.
Dwarf: stone form. Resistance to poison or something. Best for pvp, or if you are terrible at avoiding damage that you need the stoneform.
Talents and Glyphs
This is the standard elemental shaman pve talent and glyphs.
3 extra talent points? This is where it comes down to personal choice. I prefer to put them in Elemental Warding to reduce my raid damage taken.
Situationally, you can also put them in Convection (if you run out of mana), Reverberation (if you can't manage shocks well) and Earth's Grap (very unlikely to need it in pve, and some pve mobs are root-immune).
The prime glyphs are non-negotiable for this patch. In 4.3, you would swap the Lightning Bolt glyph with Unleashed Lightning for movement heavy encounters (aka Firelands). Fire Elemental glyph is simply not viable cuz its damage sucks in its current state.
Major glyphs end up coming up to the player's personal preference, which I like. I like Elemental Mastery glyph, cuz it allows me to worry less about my hp when doing my max dps. I also like Healing Stream Totem because it has two effects for a single totem, which is powerful. Other viable choices include Chain Lightning (you planning to cleave more than 3 adds? this is useful) and Thunder (wanna thunder**** more adds? this is for you).
The only mandatory minor glyph is the Renewed Life one, so you don't need reagents. DO NOT GET THE THUNDERSTORM GLYPH - The knockback is very important and subbing that for 2% more mana is not worth it.
Stats
Intellect > Hit (to 17%) > Haste > Mastery > Crit
Intellect: more spell power that is modifiable by buffs, increases mana pool and slightly increased crit. NO BRAINER. Do whatever it takes to maximize your intellect.
Hit: Now, we get hit from spirit. This should make it easy to hit the hit cap using full mail gear for the specialization bonus. It's preferable to be slightly below the hit cap (no less than 16.95%) than being above it by any amount, after reforging.
Haste: You not only cast your naturally slow Lightning Bolts faster, but it allows your Flame Shock to tick faster, allowing more Lava Surge procs for more Lava Bursts.
According to the Elitistjerks Elemental Shaman discussion for 4.3, there is no need to gear for specific haste plateaus. Their simulations show that dps increases linearly with haste %, even tho I know for a fact destro locks and fire mages do indeed benefit from hitting certain haste caps. Flame Shock is the dot we are looking at here, and there's simply no significant benefit in getting that one additional tick, because you should be clipping it in the last few seconds anyways, and it's only a minor problem if it drops off without being refreshed.
Mastery: It's almost as strong as Haste, but not quite. It gives you a chance to proc a similar Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst or Chain Lightning spell that does 75% of the main spell damage. Indirectly boosts your dps by reducing the cooldown of Elemental Mastery through the Feedback talent. If you find it on gear, try to leave it alone - haste+mastery is the ideal gear stats.
Crit: Hate this stat. It's very weak, compared to haste and mastery. Your Lava Bursts already guarantee crits, plus you get a fair bit of crit from talents alone. Reforge this to haste, hit or mastery.
Professions
Alchemy:
Jewelcrafting: 3 special bonus gems, 67 intellect gems
Blacksmithing: extra sockets for 2x40 intellect gems
Tailoring: Lightweave embroidery, which is highest intellect profession boost
Leatherworking: extra intellect on bracers
Inscription: extra intellect on shoulders
Enchanting: extra intellect enchant on rings
Engineering: intellect on-use enchant for hands; quite powerful if popped with Elemental Mastery or off every cd
Herbalism: 480 haste for 20 seconds every 2 minutes; mediocre if popped with Elemental Mastery or in conjunction with other on-use items.
Mining: extra stamina, quite useless
Skinning: a tiny bit of extra crit, very poor
Consumables:
Flask of the Draconic Mind is imba
Mastery elixir is cheaper option
Severed Sagefish Head is best consumable until Seafood feast is fixed
Always keep a stock of Volcanic Potions.
DPS rotation
Housekeeping, make sure you are using right gear set, use Lightning Shield, Flametongue Weapon and get raid buffs. Set up proper key bindings for main damaging spells and addons if needed.
Pretty much a priority list, due to random Lava Surge procs and the accumulation of Feedback charges.
Single Target: Searing Totem > Elemental Mastery > Flame Shock > Lava Burst > Earth Shock (if 7 or more Lightning Shield stacks) > Lightning Bolt spam.
Ideal opening burst:
1. pre-pot Volcanic Potion (before pull)
2. drop totems (1 second before tank gets first hit)
3. Elemental Mastery + ALL CDs (just as tank pulls)
4. Flame Shock (after tank gets first hit)
5. instant Lava Burst
6. Lightning bolt, etc., following priority list
Why?
Searing Totem: 10% spell power, or 4% spell power to raid if mages present in raid, means a lot to the caster damage dealers in raid, without question. Not to mention Searing Totem has a very high DPCT, you can launch 30 bolts of 2-4k damage at a target, which is at least 60k damage for a single GCD + your latency will not affect it's constant cast spam, a no brainer. It does 10% of my damage, it's like an imp for destro locks really, except they don't get MCed by Cho'gall, freeze-**** someone on Maloriak or lol chain lightning someone on Ascendant Council. Refresh this when there's a few seconds left.
Elemental Mastery: unless you need to save it for a burn or exposed boss phase, use it off every cd. With reasonable haste (15% buffed+), it should have around a 1m30 to 2m cd depending on how many Lightning Bolts you get off. It boosts your damage by 15% and haste by 20% and makes your first spell instant cast. Use it before Lava Burst and make sure to refresh Flame Shock while this is up for the hasted Flame Shock.
Flame Shock: Ok, it does **** damage on its own, but it basically makes Lava Burst ridiculously op in both pve and pvp. First, it guarantees Lava Burst crits. Secondly, each tick has a chance to refresh Lava Burst cd, meaning you can spam more Lava Bursts. Another no-brainer. Refresh it when there's less than 2 seconds left, remember dot mechanics on cata, refreshing it before the last tick won't skip that last tick.
Lava Burst: A hard hitting spell that is guaranteed to crit with Flame Shock on target.
Earth Shock: There's a talent Fulmination that gives your Earth Shock ability to deal extra damage based on the number of surplus Lightning Shield charges above 3. When you have more than 7 charges of Lightning Shield, it is WORTH to cast Earth Shield. However, if there's less than 6 seconds left on Flame Shock, HOLD OFF on the Earth Shock, as 100% uptime of Flame Shock is most crucial.
*extra note: Fulmination double dips in damage the more damage % buffs you have or debuff on the boss. The biggest crit I have done w/o any such special buff is a 100k crit, but I have easily done 300-400k on Magmaw (only 100% damage increase, not 3-4x lol). T
Lightning Bolt: Your filler spell. It generates Lightning Shield charges through Rolling Thunder and also regenerates mana.
Chain Lightning: this may be used above Lightning Bolt, if you can cleave 2 or more targets, otherwise follow the aoe dps priority.
Unleash Flame?
It's damage is low, and while it may boost your next Flame Shock or Lava Burst, it's not worth the GCD. Only use this when you have to move and there's nothing that needs refreshing (shocks, Searing Totem).
AoE: Magma Totem (if you can get in range; otherwise Searing totem > Chain Lightning > Flame Shock > Lava Burst > Earth Shock (if 7 or more Lightning Shield stacks) > Lightning Bolt
Why no Earthquake?
It does really **** damage, costs tons of mana and has to be channelled. However, you will still pick it up, because it has a chance to "knockdown" targets; this is particularly helpful on Magmaw, ODS and Cho'gall to kill the spawned adds that pretty much wipe raids if they melee someone.
Extra shaman tips
Thunderstorm: Lol knockback. Imba to use but make sure the add(s) you're trying to knockback goes in the right direction. Given boomkins have Typhoon and Mushroom slow and mages Ring of Frost and hunters Frost Trap, this is pretty much a last resort ability!
Self-healing: Healing Surge is a quick heal that heals for a good amount. It's expensive, so don't spam it too much. Using one after Chimaeron's Caustic Slime or Massacre will easily get you above 10k hp, and help out healers.
Off-healing: Healing Surge for fast single target heal. Chain Heal to top off a small group. Healing Rain when raid is stacked.
Here are a few tips for the shaman class in general; most of this I also use a resto shaman if required.
Reincarnation: don't just use it when it's available. Assess the situation. Is it an inevitable wipe or is there a chance of recovery? This is a particularly useful ability only if you're the only one who ****ed up and the rest of the raid is intact. Similarly, it's useful if the raid has nearly killed the boss but is struggling and you can throw in a few more damaging spells.
Ccing: Cataclysm is favoring the shaman class because we are elementalists by heart and cata is all about a disturbance in the elements. In additional to our Hex for humanoids and beasts, we have Bind Elemental for elementals. This is ridiculously useful for the trash before Valiona and Theralion, where there is a pack of 3 elementals. I forgot what they do but I know two of them will wipe raids if they are not cced or constantly interrupted. I just spam Bind Elemental after Ccing it when ppl are dosing it down and it is totally harmless. Gg shaman power.
Cleansing and purging: any shaman can Cleanse Spirit, removing a curse. Resto shamans talent this to remove magic effects and heal target as well. If there's no mage to spellsteal an enemy buff, it's our job to Purge that **** off. Maloriaks Remedy and Arcanotrons damage buff are just two examples.
Kiting: Every respectable shaman spec will pick up Ancestral Swiftness. Basically drop Earthbind Totem off cd and use Ghost Wolf to kite. Frost Shock for single target slow. This Ghost Wolf form is quite imba on Atramedes, because you can basically kite the whole of Atramedes air phase alone; this will boost your raid dps enormously and also help your healer as this ability (with movement and awareness skill) will allow you to avoid all damage and Sound gains. Also remember this is not WOTLK where you are TURRET healers or rdps, you are mobile and should try to avoid getting hit by adds and mobs.
Interrupting: Maloriak on 10 man is a prime example where this utility is much appreciated. Wind Shear has a 6 second cd and actually reduces your threat slightly. It's really overpowered for enhancement shamans who can pretty much Wind Shear constantly and lose no dps as all their spells are instant cast. Ele and resto shamans depend quite heavily on casting their spells, but if called on to do this, they should be using a special cancelcast macro to interrupt.
Elemental shaman bugs
Fire Elemental Totem: like EVERY pet and pet-like ability, they simply do not properly gain their master's stats. Also, the 90% aoe dmg reduction doesn't seem to work. This 10 minute cd will give you a Fire Elemental of 30-40k hp, which will probably die to one or two abilities. It also doesn't work properly, it melees the target a bit and does a weak fire spell, but nothing else. Just avoid it.
*I will post a bug tracker report when 4.3 hits. We need this to be fixed when Firelands and T12 comes out, because it's actually part of our set bonus.
Searing Totem sometimes attacks wrong target, not the one with Flame Shock. No biggie really unless it attacks Magmatron or Toxitron, which ain't fun.
Like Ignite, some ret pala abilities (Hand of Light?), etc. the Fulmination ability of elemental shamans double dips.
Besides this, they are almost working as intended for pve. Searing totem do good damage and the spell coefficients for Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst seems to be correct. And yes, Earthquake damage is supposed to be underwhelming. If you are doing low dps, it means you suck or other class/specs are too overpowered. Please tell me any other bugs because I have never played retail and I don't look at spell coefficients from theorycrafting websites.
If you have high latency, this spec is quite poor as it requires lots of casted spells that rely on low ping.
PowerAuras and NeedtoKnow are good addons to track your procs (including Lava Surge, 7+ Lightning Shields) and the timer on your dots, abilities (Flame Shock, Elemental Mastery, Searing Totem/other fire totems, trinkets, racials, etc.).
