WotLK [Guide] Elemental Shaman PVE

Wotlk [PVE][3.3.5] Elemental Shaman Guide

The purpose of this guide is to show the best way for an Elemental Shaman PVE gameplay. I just focused on FAQ people asked me in game, based on questions I saw in "Global" WoW chat, on WEB forums and on other Internet resources, which are "bad" explained and outdated overall. The Warmane server was modified a few times, with a lot of changes, and that was one of the reasons why I suspended the development of this guide. Moreover, now I improved my english language skills a bit and I changed the context of many sections in this guide as the final edition. Any significant changes to the guide sections, as the latest updates to them, are marked respectively as [Updated].

This guide is huge. Just use only the required sections to solve the current issues, otherwise the guide usage will be boring and difficult to use for you. Based on what is your purpose, here you'll find sections about how to choose a character and level up, how to prepare your Shaman for raids and how to optimize and maintain your character abilities further. All sections are combined in logical structures based on their purposes - chapters. Below are all chapters and their purposes.

Chapter1 is dedicated to new WoW players which decided to play an Elemental Shaman character, to level up, to perform lvl 80 dungeons and BG.

Chapter 2 is dedicated to WoW players which are doing raids in normal mode instances, both 10 man and 25 man mainly.

Chapter 3 contains different aspects of Elemental Shaman gameplay in heroic mode instances, unusual concepts of play mode, Stats analyze. The chapter contains a lot of information about the generic Shaman gameplay concept, its strong and weak sides.

Chapter 4 contains different links to my Youtube video channels referred to Warmane in game raids and character builds. It also contains some screenshots about elemental shaman dps potency vs a single target and multiple targets as statistical records, just to show you the character boundary possibilities.

This guide as any other guide should contain all aspects about the described object and I tried to fulfill it here. Considering it takes just a lot of time to gather all information, check it, test some things, pre-format it including the forum bb-codes.

Press Ctrl+F to open the Finder then type the section number, like [c] + [.]+[chapter number] + [.]+[section number] to navigate to the specified section.

Tip. Use browser zoom (+110-125%) to make text more readable (Ctrl+”+/-”).

Chapter 1. Intro (recommended for new players only)

1.1. WoW 3.3.5 Gameplay
1.2. Shaman's Available Races
1.3. Urban WoW Dictionary
1.4. The Elemental Shaman Leveling

1.4.1. Shaman Quests
1.5. Profession Recommendations for Elemental Shaman
1.6. Elemental Talent Tree and Glyphs
1.7. GearScore (GS) System

Chapter 2. I'm a raider

2.1. Macros
2.2. GS Under 6k
2.3. GS Over 6k
2.4. The Elemental Shaman BiS Set
2.5. DPS Trainer
2.6. New Profession Topic
2.7. Our Friendly Addons
2.8. The Stats Priority
2.9. Gemming the BiS Gear
2.10. The Elemental Shaman Best Enchants

Chapter 3. Beyond the Frontier of Elemental Shamans

3.1. Totem Optimization in Raids
3.2. The Best Caster Offensive Buffs and Debuffs
3.3. Elemental Shaman in Normal and Heroic Raids
3.4. DPS Optimizations
3.5. LB vs CL
3.6. BiS Lists Overview for 25 Man Raids
3.7. Deep Analysis of Stats

3.7.1. Additive and Multiplicative Stats
3.7.2. Spell Power
3.7.3. Spell Hit
3.7.4. Spell Haste
3.7.5. Spell Crit
3.7.6. Resistances
3.7.7. MP5
3.8. The Client-Server Model of MMOs
3.9. Blizzard's Imbalanced Draft of Patch 3.3.5a

Chapter 4. The Hall of Memories

4.1. Rexar Jr’ Youtube Channel
4.2. Rexarjr’s Training Guide Channel
4.2. Screenshots

About my character
I’m playing both PVE and PVP, got the Kingslayer title, Bane of the Fallen King (video; 16.02.2014), The Light of Dawn (video; 05.06.2014), I got Warlord title at 40,000 Honorable Kills progression and High Warlord at 60,000. Completely leveled on old (Molten) Lordaeron realm (x1) and currently playing on Warmane Icecrown (x7) server.

P.S. Sorry about intermediate english :)

This chapter contains a set of sections which have responses to most rookie questions referred to the Elemental Shaman. Here you'll find a lot of suggestions from picking up a character and how to optimally level it up to level 80. In this process, you'll have to deal with a set of important class quests, talents, Glyphs and available professions.

1.1. WoW 3.3.5 Gameplay
c.1.1 October 2013

Spoiler: Show

[Updated]: Spring 2020

About Server Status

On Warmane server there are available multiple expansions of WoW: WotLK (3.3.5a) and one MoP (5.4.2). In my opinion, WotLK world is well designed, more interesting and keeps the spirit of all previous WoW series (even arcade series). The Blizzard started to transform WoW into some “isolated” PVP MMORPG mostly like a gigant Counter Strike or a trivial MOBA, beginning from Cata. It’s like there aren’t any links between zones and you just use countless portals to jump between them. I have played a bit during Cata expansion, both elemental and enhancement shaman, and have to admit that the changes to character playstyle were significant. In MoP both enhancement and elemental shamans have been changed a lot, and only the names like Thunderstorm, Lava Burst, Chain Lightning serves as a reminder that a character is a shaman. But there, such unique buffs like Bloodlust can be casted by mages, and when you hurl a Lava Burst it feels like you actually casting a mage Frostfire bolt and with your totem you can stun foes similarly to how Destro locks are doing by using their Shadowfury spell. I’d say, there’s not an unique gameplay of characters after Cata expansion.

Warmane WotLK world is quite fixed (I already finished It’s Over Nine Thousand! and Loremaster achievements): you can complete all class quests, you are able to complete over 3000 quests per faction, for those who want to do something different between raiding there is available near 99% of achievement events. Among private servers, the Warmane has best written scripts for Eye of Eternity, Naxxramas, Ulduar, Obsidian Sanctum, Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader, Icecrown Citadel and Ruby Sanctum encounters. The battlegrounds also were scripted like on retail. Also, Warmane has good forum international community support, account support like: Store, Market, Security, Account Backups and Services.

What is Restricted?

WARNING! The Anti-Cheat system is not ideal anyway, but the in game security levels are still very high for a private server. First of all take a look at available on forum Terms of Service and EULA recommendations, where is well described what you can do and what you can’t do. Overall just don’t ninja loot in dungeons and raids, don’t disrupt the gameplay, don’t troll and don’t be toxic - just don’t be a c*ck, but you can ride a roaster mount anyway. Also keep in mind, you’ll get the highest penalties (perma-ban) for botting, some kind of scamming (referred to forum trading), ninja looting in raids, racism, and any sort of IRL harassments by using forum or in game chats. Nowadays, you can get a in game ban for harassment in third party applications like Discord. So, be careful while typing responses to some trolls, which ****posting from their ALT characters or accounts. You know, there is a big issue in ban system, there are options to go around any ban system by using VPN servers and channels. Of course, in this scenario a person will lose the account and all characters on them, but will be able to create another one via another VPN channel.

I’d like also to mention about exploits behaviour as in game bugs or bad design. Many exploits are hard to detect and can be identified by random players in random order. Just don’t use them in case, because firstly they can be a source of ban (as soon the staff will reveal them) and secondly they’ll ruin the gameplay experience overall. Just take a look at this source to have a general idea about it link. Sure, there a some legal little exploits, because they a based on Blizzard’s game design and there’s a lot of them in this game.

Leveling and Gearing

You can equip your character instantly through donating system by gaining coins (read on site about details) or through voting points system (is a long term path). Vote points gives you access to gear lvl 239(NO BoE INCLUDED) and below. Coins gives to you access to all items, including BiS (best in slot) items lvl 277-284, and to question:“What to equip?”:)
Wotlk realms:

Lordaeron x1: Blizzlike mode with increased difficulty; no coins or points marketplace.
Icecrown x7: Coins and points marketplace available; reputation gaining is set to x7 rating.
Blackrock x7: PVP only. Remember there is available cross-realm PVP (BG and Arena as an experimental concept) with other Warmane Wotlk servers.
Frostmourne x7: Seasonal (players are able to level patch by patch from 3.0.1 to 3.5.5a similarly to retail experience and after last patch the server will be rolled back periodically).

1.2. Shaman’s Available Races
c.1.2 October 2013

Spoiler: Show

Updated: September 2016
First of all you have to choose a gender of your class while creating a new character. You can choose freely. Remember that wow is a MMORPG game and if you like “poly-t i t s” then get a female character.

MMORPG – Many Men Online Role Playing Girls :).

To play as a shaman class is necessary to choose an orc, tauren, troll or draenei (alliance faction only) race. Every race has good race abilities, but for raids, draenei with +1% hit to raid aura and trolls with self buff berserker (+20% haste for 10sec) are better than other races while GS is below 6k. It can compensate for some lack of good gear. Usually +1% hit is not such a huge advantage and high “geared” Elemental Shaman don’t benefit so much from 20% during 10 sec of extra haste, as for me. I’ll explain it later.

Draenei have improved Jewelcrafting (+10, nice), some racial healing Gift of the Naaru (a 7 - 12k 15 sec HoT over 6k GS), Heroic Presence (+1% hit) and resistance to Shadow damage (+2%). They are among the best Elemental (PVP) Shamans for dueling and 2v2 arena.
Trolls have improvement crit with bows (+1%) Bow Specialisation, haste buff (+20%) Berserking, Regeneration and reduced slowing effects (-15%) Da Voodoo Shuffle. Trolls are the best Marksman ( PVE/PVP) hunters, and as good as orc Elemental (PVE) Shaman.
Orcs have 15% time reduced on stun effects Hardiness (not fine in PVE) and good offensive abilities as Blood Fury = 163 Spell Power!!! and 322 Attack Power during 16 sec (and 2 min CD) @ lvl80 - it’s superb in any PVE and PVP scenarios; passive non useful (because Totems and Elementals aren’t counted as pets) for elemental spec: increased dmg with pets (+5%) Command, increased expertise (+5) with Axes and Fist Weapons Axe Specialisation (superb for DK, Warriors, Combat Rogues, Enhancement shamans and PVP hunters :)). Orcs are the best Frost/Unholy DK, Fury Warriors, Beastmaster hunters, Enhancement (PVP/PVE) and very good Elemental (PVP/PVE) Shamans.
Taurens have defensive racial only: increased HP points (+5%) from Endurance, Nature Resistance (+2%) is improved by Nature Resistance (in Northrend raids not so important; exception is the ICC Plagueworks encounters and first wing of ToC), Herbalism (hmm?) and Stomp – stuns all nearby NPC or pl characters (a "timeout" in PVP duels). They can be the best tanks from Horde as Warrior, Druid or DK class, Elemental (PVP) Horde Shamans for dueling and 2v2 arena.

I play as an orc character, as a balanced decision between PVE and PVP… but on YouTube you can find a lot of other racials who looks fine in PVP… so next labels: good, bad, only PVP or PVE, an useless talent tree or race for something are primitive and pathetic in WoW, and I will show it below. It’s way more important how you are playing and how you can utilize those abilities. But... draenei and tauren Elemental Shamans doing better in duels and 2v2 arena, while orc and troll shamans doing better in Battlegrounds and 3v3/5v5 arena. The issue lay behind the synergy of combining different class abilities in some scenarios which at some degree are OP and they scale just too much, compared with the synergy of other classes.

1.3. Urban WoW Dictionary
c.1.3 October 2013

Spoiler: Show

Chat terms:

Pull – an attack strike to aggro a NPC;
Lol – laugh (everyone use it at any reason);
Omg – Oh my God, lol, lmfao e.t.c. You gone mad, dude...;
IDK – I don’t know (very common term outside the ICC);
Nab, noob – new player to wow, a player that didn’t know some PVP or PVE tactic, what? Where? When?;
LF – looking for… (party, raid);
WTB – want to buy...;
WTS – want to sell …;
Fu – #$%#@% you;
DC – disconnected from server, WoW crashed;
AFK – away from keyboard;
Buff – player should use some useful spell and aura on all or specified characters in raid;
Pug – to create a raid with random players;
Imba – imbalanced character based on his talents, gear items, gems and applied enchants;

Raiding terms:

LM (loot master) – a player who receive boss items and roll them between raid characters, based on roll system;
RM (raid master) - a player who is a raid organizer (usually a very skilled player in PVE encounters);
GM - guild master or game master (administrator);
MT – main tank (mDPS with exceptional defensive skills and increased stamina/HP);
OT (Off tank) - supporting tank for boss trashes or dangerous boss abilities;
Dmg - damage (the basic raid term). It can be physical (direct and from bleed), magic (nature, fire, arcane, shadow, frost and holy), from fall, fatigue;
DPS - Damage per Second, a character which doing damage in raids;
rDPS - a ranged DPS character: casters(doing spell dmg), hunters (doing physical dmg + some magic and toxic dmg);
mDPS - a melee DPS character: pure melee (warriors, rogues), mixed melee (enhancement shamans, paladins) - half of their DPS is magic;
Healer - a character, who should only heal, cleanse or dispel raid party;
MS – main character spec;
OS – off character spec;
Ninja – a player who is a loot master or is able to loot bosses (bug) and after this steals all gear, even if he is not eligible for that gear. Ninja’s purpose is to steal rare dropped items without roll or DKP system or to sell stolen items on AH or some… Ninja can “appear” if an item, marked as “binds on equipped”, is dropped. Mostly you can determine a ninja among raid players if some of them stay near Saurfang’s chest, if they are not loot masters or raid masters, to one purpose – to get loot before LM :). VOA and ICC are instances where ninja practice is popular. Most of ninjas are in none guild raids;
Spec – active talent tree;
Aggro – take NPC target to you;
GBoK – Greater Blessing of Kings paladin buff;
GBoS – Greater Blessing of Strength paladin buff;
GBoW – Greater Blessing of Wisdom paladin buff;
HoP – Hand of Protection paladin buff;
RC - Raid Call or Ready Check;
Roll – a vote system to get eligible loot after the boss drops it (practiced in none guild raids). Use raid cheat for rolling and type “/roll”. A player who has a greater roll value (max is 100%) will take the item. Roll system can be “Main Spec” - high priority in voting, or “Off Spec” – a voting mode, if nobody want the item in main spec;
DKP – new dedicated vote system to loot bosses, organized by RM or LM. Through raid experience you will receive dkp points. You can spend points to take the eligible loot only. Most active players have more points and a greater chance to get some item(s). There are few rulers – high priority to get items have tanks and healers, at the same voted points the item get a player, who first had voted;
FoS – The Forge of Souls dungeon;
PoS – The Pit of Saron dungeon;
HoR – The Halls of Reflection dungeon;
ICC – The Icecrown Citadel instance;
ToC – The Trial of the Champion/Crusader instance;
RS – The Ruby Sanctum instance;
OS – The Obsidian Sanctum instance;
VoA – The Vault of Archavon instance;
OL – The Onyxia's Lair instance;

WoW and PVP terms:

NPC, trash – a mob (character) managed by game server with programmed and scripted actions over time;
Tier – armor set with additional passive abilities. T10 requires items level 264. T10.5 – items level 277, 284 (Heroic).
Hi-end – a skilled player with well geared character T10 (Item level over 264) and additional items which not belongs to armor set;
Grinding – killing low level trashes which not give any XP reputation; killing NPC to increase some skill, defense, reputation or to farm some item or recipe;
Farming – gathering some herbs, or ore from veins; fishing; cooking; hunting for skinning; killing NPC for items and recipe…
BiS – Best in Slot item for specified class and spec;
Premade – a well geared character or BiS geared throught Vote system or Marketplace;
Trolling – chat style to mock, ridicule, slander somebody or something;
Overcapped – large sense term. A character with a full stack of types of spells, which: healing, defending (absorb damage, immune, damage reduction), two or more types of CC, stacked DoTs , debuffs, high mana or energy regeneration, stealth or invisibility abilities e.t.c. Nice examples are Frost Mages(with some arcane talent points), Hunters, Paladins. In MoP patch every class is overcapped mostly (for example, hunters and locks have spells like ele shaman's Thunderstorm effect; shamans can drop Grounding Totem with spell reflection effect like the warrior’s Spell Reflection Shield). It's not so cool, as for me (a hunter with knockback ability);
Overpowered – a class character (+spec) with some extra “unbalanced” abilities which increase their damage, haste, crit rating or defense. The terminology is mostly useful in PVP area. It’s very hard to defeat an overpowered nab in PVP anyway.
Bug – some error, wrong logic or effect in game program;
DD – Direct Damage;
DoT – Damage over Time;
Channeling – spell which should be channeled over time;
AoE – Area of Effect spell/damage;
CD – cooldown of spell/ability;
GCD – Global Cooldown of user interface panel;
Ganking – is a “surprise attack” from hi-end geared and skilled PVP player character (just an ambush) against nabs, low level characters e.t.c. Targets have no chance to win. In WoW this term is associated with 2vs1, 3vs1, 3vs2, 4vs2 e.t.c. in PVP fights. This company is very hard to defeat. Against skilled plate wearers (like Arms or Prot Warrior) and 2 healers you need about 4 or 7 DPS classes (based on their gear), @ same level and gear set, to overcome that healing. It’s hugely exploited in BGs nowadays. The best ganking places on Warmane WoW are: Tarren Mill, Grom’Gol, Booty Bay, Thalanaar, Gadgetzan, Thrallmar, Honor Hold, Nesingwary Base Camp, VOA entrance and ICC entrance.
GearScore(GS) – a point system, widely used on Molten realms mostly. On other WoW private servers GS didn’t work or are not applied (I just tested it on my own private server and on a few Internet private servers).

1.4. Elemental Shaman Leveling
c.1.4 November 2013

Spoiler: Show

Updated: September 2016

The Concept of Realm Leveling

The fastest way to level up is to donate some money to Warmane and to get 20 coins for instant level to 80 through the site interface. If you have coins for instant leveling, create a character on Icecrown (x7) realm better (WotLK). This way is good also because you’ll receive a Premium account also, which will let you pass the queue, especially during weekends. Icecrown is a highly populated realm. During weekends and evening time it reaches the maximum population of 12000 characters online. This leveling guide is designed for x1 Realm type mostly. Cross realm transfers work no more, so choose carefully what kind of game you want to play. Lordaeron gives the retail experience. Therefore, there’s no Point Shop, no Coin Shop, no other “lazy noodling” and there’s a x1 XP rating. Blackrock is a pure PVP realm, so any PVE content is prohibited there as mentioned in a section above.

If you wanna level up through game play and XP points, then the next advices should be useful. You can find a lot of players who know a lot about ICC raids, but they have no idea where Badlands or Exodar is situated. Playing between gloomy ICC walls only, transforms WoW into something boring for you, but World Wide game play, new discoverings, should add some colors to it. World Event achievements are very nice stuff for it. Usually, only mature players will choose “coin” play methods just to instant level up to be able to make some raids with friends, because a part of them already leveled on Blizz retail servers years ago. Traditional leveling is more familiar to teenagers, who can spend decent in game time after school. I highly recommend you to level up using a traditional method. It will let you understand your class abilities, talents and gear much better, while you’ll increase them level by level, point by point by fighting single minions or packs of monsters.

Elemental Shaman Problems During Leveling

To level up an Elemental Shaman can be very hard below level 60, on PVP servers especially. The LB cast time is so long and CL is not a spell which you’ll like to use to do world quests. Ele shamans below level 60 are weak enough, without useful offensive and especially defensive abilities. I recommend you to develop Enhancement spec tree (which is very strong at those levels) to get level 60, where Thunderstorm will become available. Moreover, Elemental Shaman suffer catastrophically from mana drains through spell casting below lvl60. For example, Hex (defensive spell) is available at level 75 only; Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem (puts a 6k absorb shield on you as x4 times which Stoneclaw Totem puts on your totems) requires level 15 – ok, but it cost from 100 to 200 gold coins on AH mainly (AH prices vary from season to season, this information is relative), and you are at level 15. You can get this Glyph through the Inscription profession, but you will get level 70 faster than you’ll discover this one. In WOWWIKI Thunderstorm (defensive spell) is marked as “Require level 10” and this is fu-king awesome (THIS IS A CASE WHY I DECIDED TO MAKE THIS GUIDE, BECAUSE INTERNET IS FULL WITH SAME ADVICES) because to use the Thunderstorm you need 50 points in Elemental Talents Tree, which is only available on level 60.

The detailed leveling guide: [Wotlk] The Guide for Optimal Character Leveling

Note: Read more about leveling in chapter 1.4.1. Shaman Quests.

Now is the time to start the next step of leveling, harder one, – “Gear Leveling”.

Elemental shaman's concept below lvl 60:

Spoiler: Show

Vanilla WoW was only PVE and designed under old WoW arcade style: WoW: Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne. The basic DPS classes were warriors, hunters, warlocks, partially mages there. Shamans, druids, priests, paladins were supporting units to buff, heal and dispel hostile debuffs. For any PVP game type, ele shamans have no any effective spells below lvl60. Just in patch 1.2.1 Blizzard introduced BG and PVP system into WoW MMORPG, and made some fixes into class spell books. In patch 2.1 TBC introduced an arena system and new abilities e.t.c. Because Elemental Shamans don't have good defensive spells and abilities, it’s still hard to level up in PVE area also below level 60, considering Wotlk expansion.

1.4.1 Shaman Quests
c.1.4.1 September 2019

Spoiler: Show

Intro

About a Shaman character leveling is written in the above chapter. There is a link to another simple guide about how to level to 80. Moreover, to build a total questing guide it’s an overhead job and ruins the gameplay overall experience in my opinion. But shaman quests require a different view in the guide, because it is linked directly to the character class game play and development. You can learn about it on different web resources as WOWWIKI, but the information there is abstract and isn’t linked to overall character leveling and, in my opinion, the Call of Water quest for Horde is incomplete. It was tricky to put all those pieces together to build a comprehensive guide about it and to keep the text size as small as possible.

I was inspired to write this chapter by the recent Blizzard release of WoW Classic and the frequent in game and forum questions about this topic. It was nostalgic for me to level up a shaman character as I did it in August 2012. Therefore, I leveled all shaman races to level 40, some of them above that level, to write this shaman quests guide. This chapter contains two sections: shaman quests (about how to do class quests and supplemental quests for leveling), references (what spells to learn and use, how to transition your talents for optimal leveling).

Shaman Quest Tips

By far the most interesting and complex to do are the orc and troll shaman class quests. I’ll begin to nail their progression firstly and tauren or draenei Shamans can refer to them for further progression if needed.

There are four types of chain quests available for shamans, where each of them will grant your character with a school set of totems: Call of Earth (Level 4), Call of Fire (Level 10), Call of Water (Level 20) and Call of Air (Level 30). By completing each chain, you’ll be granted with a base totem spell and a class totem item like: Earth Totem, Fire Totem, Water Totem, Air Totem. Keep them in your inventory, until you'll collect all four of them!

Tip: You can complete the shaman class quests in any order. They’ll not bug. For example, you can do the Call of Earth, Call of Fire and Call of Air and level up to 80. After that you can return and finish the Call of Water chain.

Tip: Always do all shaman quests as soon as they’ll be available. Firstly, they grant a lot of XP; secondly, they’ll help to level up much easier further.

Tip: Keep all Totem items in your inventory to be able to use respective aligned class totems (Earth, Fire, Water, Air). They can’t be destroyed, but they can be moved to bank slots. Without them, you’ll need a Relic, to call all totems, which is available at level 60 and above.

Tip: Starting with patch 3.0.2, all Relic totems have a note “Counts as an Air, Earth, Fire and Water totem.” You should put a totem in a character relic slot to be able to call all totem types.

Shaman Quests for Orcs and Trolls.

Spoiler: Show

Intro

Rune-Inscribed Tablet (Level 1).
NPC: Starts from Gornek in the Valley of Trials, Durotar.
Objective: Take this Rune-Inscribed Tablet to Shikrik (Shaman trainer).

1. Call of Earth

Call of Earth: Part1 (Level 4).
NPC: Canaga Earthcaller in Valley of Trials, Durotar.
Objective: Bring 2 Felstalkers Hooves to Canaga Earthcaller in the Valley of Trials.
Completion: They can be looted from Felstalkers demons at Burning Blade Coven cave entrance in the northern Valley of Trials.

Call of Earth: Part2.
Objective: Find Spirit Rock and drink the Earth Sapta.
Completion: The Hidden Path begins south of the Den in the southwest corner of the Vale of Trials. It’s a hidden path that rises in the southern hills of the vale. Once there, drink the sapta, and speak to the Minor Manifestation of Earth.

Call of Earth: Part 3.
NPC: Minor Manifestation of Earth.
Objective: Bring the Rough Quartz to Canaga Earthcaller in the Vale. You’ll be awarded with an Earth Totem and Stoneskin Totem (Rank 1).

Pre Leveling: By doing all quests in the Vale and some in the southern Durotar, your character will be at level 10. On Icecrown server with XPx7, your character will be at level 10 by doing a few quests in the Valley of Trials. As soon your character will reach level 10, move to the Razor Hill in Durotar

2. Call of Fire

Call of Fire: Part 1 (Level 10).
NPC: Available from Swart (Shaman trainer) in Razor Hill or from Searn Firewarden in Orgrimmar.
Objective: Find Kranal Fiss in the Barrens.
Completion: You should travel towards the Crossroads from the Razor Hill along the road. Take and complete other simple quests on the way, like Conscript of the Horde (Razor Hill). find Karnal Fiss at the Grol’dom Farm.

Call of Fire: Part 2.
NPC: Kranal Fiss at Grol’dom Farm, the Barrens.
Objective: Bring the Torch of the Dormant Flame to Telf Jodam in Durotar.
Completion: You should move along the road to The Crossroads. Discover the new flight path at flight master. Complete available quests and take a few more quests: Lost in Battle, Supplies for the Crossroads, Plainstriders Menace, Raptor Thieves, Fungal Spores. Your next goal is to discover the flight master in Camp Taurajo (south of Crossroads), which is important for further shaman quests progression. Do the Plainstriders, Fungal Spores and Lost in Battle quests by doing this. Fly back to The Crossroads. Now it's time to travel to Ratchet (east road) and discover a flight master there. It’s important to be at level 15-17 at this moment. Don’t forget to take the quests there: Wanted: Baron Longshore, Samophlange, Miner’s Fortune and some good drinks! So, it’s time to finish this CoF: Part 2. Movel to the north along the Southfury River until the mountains won’t run out at the eastern bank of the river. There you’ll find a hidden path to the top of the mountain, where you’ll find Telf Jodam.

Call of Fire: Part 3.
NPC: Telf Jodam in Durotar.
Objectives: Bring 1 Fire Tar and 1 Reagent Pouch to Telf Jodam in Durotar.
Completion: Travel to Razor Hill, then head north-east from Razor Hill towards the hills (don’t use the road). The warlocks in a cave there will drop the Reagent Pouch. Now it’s time to move north to Orgrimmar. Discover the flight master there. Don’t walk around to discover the Thunder Bluff. Just use a zeppelin from Orgrimmar (western side) to Thunder Bluff after that. At zeppelin port in Thunder Bluff, you’ll see Shaman trainers. Learn new spells based on available coins and discover a flight master there after that. Fly back to Orgrimmar. Travel to northern Barrens by using the Orgrimmar’s western gate, just to perform the Miner’s Fortune and Samophlange quests. Tip: on the way from Boulder Lode mine to Sludge Fen, on the plateau, you’ll see two big baobab trees from the left. Near them you can find a Tak’s Nest, from which you can loot a Hatchling Pet. It’s a good one to sell on AH for 40 to 99 gold and to solve the future progression evolving. Coins matter at this moment. Complete the respective quests there and travel south to complete the Suppliers for the Crossroads and to get the Fire Tar from Quilboars at Razormane Hill. Turn in the completed quests in the Crossroads, fly to Ratchet and turn in the available quests there. Move similarly as explained above to Telf Jodam.

Call of Fire: Part 4.
Objectives: Defeat the Minor Manifestation of Fire, and place the Glowing Ember in the brazier atop the Shrine of Eternal Flame.
Completion: Use the Fire Sapta at the Stone Shrine. Move upwards, defeat the fire elemental and place the components into the brazier.

Call of Fire: Part 5.
Objectives: Bring the Torch of Eternal Flame to Kranal Fiss in the Barrens. You’ll receive a Fire Totem and Searing Totem (Rank 1).

Pre Leveling: It’s important to learn the Ghost Wolf spell at level 16 or/and mount riding at level 20. It will boost greatly your leveling speed. Dump all gathered professional materials and extra green/blue gear on AH (server economy is healthy), because a further progression will require more and more gold coins. It’s an important condition if this is your main/first character and there aren’t other sources of coins.

3. Call of Water

Call of Water: Part 1 (Level 20)
NPC: Available from Swart (Shaman trainer) in Razor Hill or from Searn Firewarden in Orgrimmar.
Objective: Find Islen Waterseer in the Barrens.
Completion: It’s by far the most complex quest chain for class quests. Use flight mounts from the Orgrimmar or move from the Crossroads to Ratchet. Make the local inn as your new home. Here’s where all discovered flight paths will help a lot. From Ratchet travel southeast towards the Tidus Stairs peninsula. There you’ll find Islen Waterseer at the coast of the sea.

Call of Water: Part 2.
Objectives: Find Brine at Blackthorn Ridge in the Southern Barrens.
Completion: Fly to the Camp Taurajo and complete some quests there (mid and southern Barrens). Move south along the Golden Road until the intersection. There on a hill you’ll find her.

Call of Water: Part 3.
NPC: Brine in the Barrens.
Objective: Fill the Empty Brown Watersking at the watering hole below Brine’s hut.

Call of Water: Part 4.
Objective: Fill the Empty Red Waterskin at the well in Tarren Mill and return to Brine.
Completion: Fly to Orgrimmar from the Camp Taurajo and take a zeppelin to Undercity (west side). Once there, travel south along the road towards Sepulcher and discover a flight master there. Travel further along the main road until you’ll reach the Tarren Mill and discover a flight master there. Take the water from well and use the Hearthstone back to Ratchet. You can complete side quests on the way or fly directly to the Camp Taurajo.

Call of Water: Part 5
Objective: Fill the Empty Blue Waterskin at the Ruins of Stardust in Ashenvale and return to Brine.
Completion: Take any quests to Ashenvale from Camp Taurajo, Crossroads and Orgrimmar. First of all discover the Splintertree Post and the flight master there by using the Orgrimmar’s west gate. Just move north along the Skyfury River until Warsong Lumber Camp and move west after that. Ashenvale is one of the best zone to level up in Kalimdor, with a lot of secrets and hidden paths - formally the horizontal oriented Barrens. It’s better to be at level 23 at this moment. It's a good idea to hunt down Sharptalon south from the Post and Ursangous near the Talondeep Path for a lot of XP. Complete some quests around until level 27, then travel west towards the Ruins of Stardust by passing Mystral Lake. Fill the Waterskin and return to the Talondeep Path. Use that tunnel to pass to Stonetalon Mountains, where you can turn in some quests from Barrens there and discover a flight master at the Sun Rock Retreat . Fly back to Splintertree Post and turn in all quests then complete the Brine’s quest chain.

Call of Water: Part 6
Objectives: Bring the Vial of Purest Water to Islen Waterseer at the Tidus Stair.

Call of Water: Part 7
NPC: Islen Waterseer at the Tidus Stair.
Objectives: Defeat the Corrupt Manifestation of Water and place the items in the Brazier of Everfount in Silverpine Forest.
Completion: Use a zeppelin to the Undercity as explained above. Discover a flight master in Undercity and use it to fly to the Sepulcher. Travel west towards the Great Sea coast southern of North Tide’s Hollow and move south after that. Use the Water Sapta and defeat the Corrupt Manifestation.

Call of Water: Part 8
NPC/Object: Brazier of Everfount.
Objective: Speak to Minor Manifestation of Water.

Call of Water: Part 9
NPC: Minor Manifestation of Water in Silverpine Forest.
Objective: Bring the Shard of Water to Islen Waterseer at the Tidus Stair. You’ll receive a Water Totem and a Healing Stream Totem (Rank 1).

4. Call of Air

Call of Air: Part 1
NPC: Available from Searn Firewarden, in Orgrimmar, or Xanis Flameweaver, in Thunder Bluff.
Objective: Find Prate Cloudseer in Thousand Needles.
Completion: Discover the Freewind Post in Thousand Needles and a flight master there. Set your new home at a local inn. Travel to the Weathered Nook cave to the north-east and turn in the quest. That’s all. Air totems are unlocked.

Relic of the Earthen Ring
NPC: Gotura Fourwinds.
Objective: Bring your four totems to Gotura Fourwinds in Orgrimmar.
Completion: It will replace your four Totems with one totem Relic - Totem of the Earthen Ring. This item can be fitted into the character Relic slot and allows use of all types of totems. This item should be kept until a better Relic will be available and I’ll suggest to keep it in your inventory after that.

After Leveling: It’s better to level further in Thousand Needles, Desolace, Feralas, Tanaris and Un'goro Crater zones, until level 58-60, for Horde characters.

Shaman Quests for Taurens

Spoiler: Show

First chain happens in Mulgore. Call of Fire (Level 4), Call of Water (Level 20) and Call of Air (Level 30) should be done similarly to how the orc and troll Shamans are doing them (described above).

1. Call of Earth

Call of Earth: Part 1 (Level 4)
NPC: Seer Ravenfeather in the Camp Narache, Mulgore.
Objective: Bring 2 Ritual Salve to Seer Ravenfeather.
Completion: Move East to the Brambleblade Ravine. Defeat two quilboar shamans and loot the Ritual Salve from them.

Call of Earth: Part 2
Objective: Find Kodo Rock (to the east) and drink the Earth Sapta.

Call of Earth: Part 3
NPC/Object: Kodo Rock.
Objective: Bring the Rough Quartz to Seer Ravenfeather. You’ll receive an Earth Totem and a Stoneskin Totem (Rank 1).

1. Call of Fire

Call of Fire: Part 1 (Level 10)
NPC: from Narm Skychaser in Bloodhoof Village, in Mulgore, or from Xanis Flameweaver, in the Thunder Bluff.
Objective: Find Kranal Fiss in the Barrens.
Completion: Travel to the Thunder Bluff and use a zeppelin to Orgrimmar. Discover the flight master there and travel south towards the mission NPC by using the west gate. Further actions are the same as shaman quests for orcs and trolls.

Shaman Quests for Draenei

Spoiler: Show

Draenei Shaman class quests are the easiest compared to how they are for the Horde shamans. Moreover, their racial ability Gift of the Naaru allows them to complete some relatively hard quests easier at the beginning of the game. All four quest chains happen on Azuremyst (Call of Earth, Call of Fire and Call of Air) and Bloodmyst (Call of Water) Isles. It’s easy to notice the in game design difference between two expansions: Classic and TBC. The developers invested less effort into TBC development (especially with color palette). Almost all is simplified on all levels and quests are in close proximity to the quest givers - just pew-pew and turn in quests near your "den".

1. Call of Earth

Call of Earth: Part 1 (Level 4)
NPC: Firmanvaar at Crash Site, in Azuremyst Isle.
Objective: Speak with the Spirit of the Vale at the Sacred Grove in Ammen Vale.

Call of Earth: Part 2
NPC: Spirit of the Vale at Sacred Grove.
Objective: Slay 4 Restless Elements of Earth and then return to the Spirit of the Vale.

Call of Earth: Part 3
Objective: Deliver the Earth Crystal to Firmanvaar at the Crash Site.
Completion: Nothing hard. You’ll receive an Earth Totem and a Stoneskin Totem (Rank 1). At this moment, your character should be level 10 or above to continue further.

2. Call of Fire

Call of Fire: Part 1 (Level 10)
NPC: Tuluum at Azure Watch, on Azuremyst Isle, or Sulaa in Exodar.
Objective: Speak with Temper at Emberglade on Azuremyst Isle.

Call of Fire: Part 2
NPC: Temper
Objective: Retrieve the ritual Torch and return to Temper.
Completion: Item drops from furbolgs at Stillpine Hold cave. Entrance to the southern side.

Call of Fire: Part 3
Objective: Retrieve Hauteur’s Ashes and return them to Temper.
Completion: It’s time to complete some quests on the way. Interact with Wickerman Effigy at Moonwing Den on Silvermyst. Get the Torch from your bag, defeat Hauteur and retrieve the Ashes. Use the Orb to teleport back to Temper.

Call of Fire: Part 4
Objective: Deliver Hauteur’s Ashes to Tuluum.

Call of Fire: Part 5
NPC: Tuluum.
Objective: Seek out Prophet Velen at the Vault of Lights in Exodar.
Completion: It’s good to be at level 16 at this time to learn the Ghost Wolf spell for further progression. Set your new home at a local inn in Exodar. You’ll receive the Fire Totem and Searing Totem (Rank 1) by completing this quest.

3. Call of Water

Call of Water: Part 1 (Level 20)
NPC: Sulaa or Farseer Nobundo in Exodar.
Objective: Speak with Aqueous in the Hidden Reef on Bloodmyst Isle.
Completion: At this point it’s better to be at level 22 or 23 just to learn the Water Breathing spell (level 22). Just perform some quests at Blood Watch for this, there are a lot of them. There’s an water elemental at Hidden Reef underwater, surrounded by a bunch of level 17 murlocs. At level 20 you can taunt all of them with your presence, which will turn into big troubles there. Anyway, Water Breathing should allow us to solve this issue in one or another way.

Call of Water: Part 2
NPC: Aqueous in the Hidden Reef.
Objective: Collect 6 Foul Essences.
Completion: Move to the Foul Pool for this. Keep grinding those mobs until you’ll get four 8 slot bags and equip them. It’s important for further progression. Collect any professional materials and useless green or blue gear to dump on AH. Almost all can be sold in a day. Start to collect gold coins to learn new spells and to ride a mount, because leveling to level 30 will happen mainly in a big Ashenvale zone.

Call of Water: Part 3
Objective: Fill the Empty Bota Bag and then return to Aqueous.
Completion: Find the Wrathscale Fountain at the Wrathscale Lair and click on Bota Bag (stay close to the fountain).

Call of Water: Part 4
Objective: Bring the Head of Tel’athian to Aqueous.
Completion: Pour the purest water into the barrel of filth at the location to summon Tel’athion. Nearby water elementals will help you to defeat him. Loot and return.

Call of Water: Part 5
Objective: Take the Flask of Purest Water to Farseer Nobundo.
Completion: Use the Hearthstone to Exodar and turn in the quest.

Pre Leveling: It’s time to visit Auberdine in Darkshore now by using a ship from Valaar’s Berth port. Discover a flight master there and use a ship voyage to Rut’theran Village. Discover a flight path there and fly back to Auberdine. Now it’s time to discover Astranaar in Ashenvale. There are two main quest zone places in Ashenvale for Alliance characters: Astranaar and Forest Song (the main one and is far to the east). Keep grinding until level 30. After that use Hearthstone to Exodar for your final shaman quest chain.

4. Call of Air

Call of Air: Part 1 (Level 30)
NPC: Sulaa or Farseer Nobundo in Exodar.
Objective: Speak with Velaada at Wildwind Peak on Azuremyst Isle.
Completion: Learn Astral Recall firstly. There is a hidden Wildwind Path to the north of Exodar, which leads to the Wildwind Peak. Just travel along the sea coast.

Call of Air: Part 2
NPC: Velaada.
Objectives: Speak with Susurrus at the Wildwind Peak.

Call of Air: Part 3
Objective: Return to Farseer Nobundo in Exodar. Use the Astral Recall to teleport to Exodar’s inn. You’ll receive an Air Totem.

Final Quest: Relic of the Earthen Ring.
NPC: Sulaa in Exodar.
Objective: Bring four totems to Farseer Eannu in Ironforge to get a Relic of the Earthen Ring.
Completion: Use a ship from Auberdine to Stormwind, then a deep run train from Stormwind to Ironforge.

How to Develop Your Character While Doing Shaman Quests?

The Wotlk expansion has its character quality stats based on basic attributes. For example, 1% of Haste requires 10 Haste Rating @lvl60, 15.77 HR @lvl70 and 32.79 HR @lvl80. Based on these aspects and on new spell and talent formula types, some class specializations are very weak, squishy and ineffective at different level intervals, considering the available spells respectively. Wotlk spells and Talents are very badly fitted with available gear from starting in game areas, designed for Classic WoW. This is true for Elemental Shaman at levels below 60, if your character gear is acquired from quests and isn’t purple quality of course. In starting areas you will begin as an Elemental Shaman which is better, but at some point you should to “respec” into Enhancement specialization until, I’d say, level 65. Here I’ll try to explain why? how? and where? to perform this specialization transition to gain the best in game leveling experience.

Tip: If you don’t have any lvl80 characters to share gold coins with your current character, then assets farming is another very important game aspect during leveling. Stack any gathered profession materials and useless green/blue items to dump on AH. Quest payouts are low (nerfed, compared to how they were) and the main way to collect some gold in game - is grinding and farming. It’s very obvious on Icecrown server (7xXP), where your character leveling speed is much higher than farming speed. Don’t learn any crafting professions. So, at level 50 and above, all spells will cost over 1 gold coin to learn plus training cost into Expert Riding. Therefore, I’ll notice below what spells to learn as soon as they’ll be available, which spells to learn at specified levels and which spells to avoid until level 80.

Tip: Spells without a Rank are must to learn as soon they’ll be available. Exception is a Sentry Totem.

Tip: Shamans aren’t good AoE “dpsers” below level 60.

Character leveling from 1 to 30. Level up as an Elemental Shaman. Learn the Lightning Bolt, Flametongue Weapon, Wind Shear, Earthbind Totem, Ghost Wolf, Purge, Grounding Totem, Water Shield, Cure Toxins and Lesser Healing Wave only. Avoid any Shock Spells, they are mana expensive. Your main offensive spells will be Lightning Bolt, Searing Totem and Flametongue auto attacks. Your defensive spells will be Lesser Healing Wave (when available), Earthbind Totem, Ghost Wolf. Keep Water Shield up all time, because it doesn't require mana to cast. Other spells are completely situational and you’ll use them relatively rare. Cure Toxins is usable to remove poisons, which have huge damage at low levels, and Diseases. Wind Shear and Grounding Totems are useful to counterattack NPC casters at the same level as your character or above, otherwise they’ll miss mainly. Don’t use Healing Wave, because its casting time is longer, requires more mana and heals as much as LHW. At these levels, the Enhancement Shaman spells and talents are very useless - no Windfury Weapon, no Dual Wield, no attack power boosts, no Windfury Totem. Moreover, it’s hard to find some good weapons for your character. As for Talents, learn them in the next order: Convection, Elemental Warding, Ancestral Knowledge, Improved Ghost Wolf (a 2 sec cast is nasty to escape something) and Improved Shields. At level 30 or above, as explained above, your character should have all types of totems. Use gear with Stamina and Intellect stats mainly both Cloth or Leather.

Character leveling from 30 to 50. At level 25 you’ll notice that the 2.5 sec casting time of your Lightning Bolts, which is badly improved in power by trash gear, is nasty. Therefore, just after the shaman quest Call of Air is completed, travel back to your Shaman trainer and learn new spells: Windfury Weapon, Flame Shock, Frost Shock, Earth Shock, Strength of Earth Totem, Flametongue Totem, Reincarnation, Totemic Recall, Call of the Elements, Grounding Totem, Astral Recall. Use 1 gold to unlearn your Talents and “respec” into pure Enhancement specialization from now. Learn Ancestral Knowledge, Improved Ghost Wolf, Shamanistic Focus, Improved Shields, Elemental Weapons and Enhancing Totems firstly. Without improved dual wielding (Dual Wield), I’ll suggest picking up a two-handed axe or mace from quests, loot or AH and enchant it with a Windfury Weapon. The weapon must be a slow one (3.5 - 4 s) with big damage numbers. Therefore, your offensive abilities will be the auto attacks supplied with Flame Shock and Frost Shock spells plus the Searing Totem in addition. But I’d suggest the Flametongue Totem. With Call of the Elements, it’s possible to drop all four totems at once now. Set them as: Strength of Earth Totem, Flametongue Totem, Mana Tide Totem and Windfury Totem respectively. Due to Shamanistic Focus Talent, your shock spells aren’t ooming anymore. I’d replace the Elemental Warding with a more useful Toughness Talent in exchange for Thundering Strikes and Flurry (which is supposed to boost end-game gear). Further Talent developing is displayed in a picture below. Gear items should be Leather with Stamina and Agility stats until level 40, where the Mail skill can be learned. So, further gearing will go as Mail with Stamina, Agility and Attack Power. At these levels your character will be more versatile, but mana insufficient for long fights.

Character leveling from 50 to 60. At these levels you can unlock Stormstrike, Lava Lash, and Dual Wield. It’s a perfect moment to switch to dual wielding mode, otherwise you’ll not be able to use Lava Lash ability. In my opinion, as Dual Wield, Stormstrike is the core Talent in Enhancement specialization. It completely changes Shaman’s playstyle from a typical melee swing mode style. It should be used with x2 Improved Stormstrike. Stormstrike grants a buff - the next 4 sources of Nature damage dealt to the target from the Shaman are increased by 20%! Therefore, it’s time to use Earth Shock instead of Frost Shock for dps and due to restored mana from Improved Stormstrike - Lightning Shield instead of Water Shield. Keep in mind, that Lightning Shield is doing nature damage and it’s also improved by Stormstrike. Further, with Maelstrom Weapon stacks, your character will reduce the casting time of nature spells (and will make instant at 5 stacks) like: Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave, Hex. With 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon the LB has the highest priority, then Earth Shock, while Stormstrike and Lava Lash are on CD. At this moment your character is mana sufficient (more or less) and at level 60 or above more AoE spells can be used like: instant Chain Lightning, Magma Totem and Fire Nova. A good two-handed weapon still valuable at these levels. Just Laval Lash requires a relatively high spell power value to be effective enough.

Must to learn spells and abilities:

Earthbind Totem (lvl 6);
Purge (lvl 12);
Wind Shear (lvl 16);
Ghost Wolf (lvl 16);
Cure Toxins (lvl 16);
Tremor Totem (lvl 18);
Water Breathing (lvl 22);
Water Walking (lvl 28);
Astral Recall (lvl 30);
Reincarnation (lvl 30);
Mail (lvl 40) for 1g 2s.

Important spells to learn:

Lightning Bolt (lvl 1);
Lightning Shield (lvl 8);
Flame Shock (lvl 10);
Flametongue Weapon (lvl 10);
Strength of the Earth Totem (10);
Ancestral Spirit Rank 1 only (lvl 12);
Lesser Healing Wave (lvl 20);
Water Shield (lvl 20);
Mana Spring Totem (lvl 26);
Windfury Weapon (30);
Flametongue Totem (lvl 30);
Windfury Totem (lvl 30);
Call of the Elements (lvl 30);
Totemic Recall (lvl 30).

Crucial levels to visit a Shaman trainer while leveling: Level 10, Level 16, Level 22, Level 30, Level 40, Level 55, Level 60.

Weapon trainers:

Horde:
Orgrimmar: 1h Axes, 2h Axes, Daggers and Fist Weapons.
Thunder Bluff: 2h Maces. Cost: 8 silver.
Alliance:
Exodar: 2h Maces, Daggers.
Darnassus: Daggers, Fist Weapons.
Stormwind: Daggers.
Ironforge: Daggers. Cost: 8 silver.

Talent Tree for leveling in starting zones

1.5. Profession Recommendation for Elemental Shaman
c.1.5 November 2013

Spoiler: Show

Updated: September 2016

Intro

In this section I will focus attention on the most profitable professions and on usefulness professions for elemental shaman during leveling. First of all you should collect money as much as possible for training, mounts, to buy items from Auction House e.t.c. In the section 2.6 New Ele Profession Topic, will be explained which professions are the best to increase DPS (less profitable variant) and their comparison. But first of all, I should make an introduction into the complex WoW profession hierarchy (profession is one of the best “idea” in the WoW gameplay, which makes superb conditions for trading in game). Moreover, you can make a decision which profession is better for you.

Note: Posted prices for in game AH and trading systems are relative, because they depend on inflation, players activity and current demand/supply ratio. Overall, most cutted epic gems will cost around 200-350 gold per item, top flasks and potions between 80 and 150 gold per item, low level crafted goods between 4k and 10k gold coins and high-tier items, like items ilvl264, over 15k gold coins.

The Most Profitable Professions

1. Jewelcrafting. This profession is the most profitable and the most useful for any Stat to improve. Nothing different to get the skill level of 450 comparing to the other professions, but to discover epic gem recipes (in Northrend) @skill lvl450 are the hardest among all professions. It’s really slow, time consuming and expensive at once. You should focus on next recipes firstly: Runed Cardinal Ruby, Reckless Ametrine, Vivid Eye of Zul or Glowing Dreadstone, Runed Dragon’s Eye, Rigid Dragon's Eye, Stormy Majestic Zircon, Bright Cardinal Ruby, Fractured Cardinal Ruby. To socket your gear and to sell them on AH or through C.O.D. system. You can sell epic gems for 200-400 gold coins per item on AH.
Basics of jewelcrafting profiteering:

Crafting to disenchant. This is useful if your second Primary profession is Enchanting or you have an ALT with Enchanting profession. For example, the Stone guard band and the Shadow might ring have great disenchanting levels for the price it costs to craft them, especially if the market for buying Eternal Earth and Eternal Shadow in bulk is low on your server. Other lower level items such as the Sun rock ring, Crystal citrine neck and Crystal chalcedony amulet are very inexpensive, especially if you prospecting raw ore, because you will have heaps of uncommon gems to use. To determine which of these items to craft will, obviously, be based on the material costs on your server.
Prospecting. Prospecting is an awesome way to make gold. Just buy saronite and cobalt ore and break it up into gems using prospecting (uses 5 ore per operation). Then scan the auction house and look for the best items to cut. The profit margins are usually between 150%-300%. One thing to note and watch out for is to make sure your server can support the constant influx of gems you provide. If it can, just keep buying ore and breaking it up. On Warmane AH, ore can be very expensive, so use your mining skills and farm ‘em.
Buy uncut gems to cut. Look on the AH for cheap uncut gems. For example, I normally check out Cardinal Rubies and if the price is right compared to cuts such as Bright, Delicate, Fractured or Runed cardinal rubies, I’ll purchase a few and normally make between 120-140* gold per cut once sold on the auction house.
Jewelcrafting as a service. Similarly to enchanting, if you have a large number of jewelcrafting recipes then you can offer your services in a capital city to generate easy revenue. Just use your Trade interface.

2. Alchemy. This profession can help a lot through leveling with cheap potion and elixir buffs. This profession is fixed, so your potion buffs have double working time, improved effects. You can be surprised how profitable this profession can be @lvl80 by making Northrend potions. The Northrend recipes discovering are fast enough. I should admit – it's impossible to make money with Alchemy without Herbalism, on Warmane. Sometimes herbs are more expensive than crafted consumables. I started my gameplay with this profession and I was surprised when I began to earn 20,000 – 30,000* gold per week.
Basics of alchemy profiteering:

Brew “Flask” potions. These provide basic but vital buffs over a very long period of time. Flasks' effects also persist through death (this is why most players like them), but only one can be active at any given time. Flasks increase primary stats: strength, agility, intellect, spirit, or stamina. The best flasks are: Flask of Endless Rage and Flask of the Frost Wyrm. They cost 100-200 gold per item (2k-4k gold per stack), because requires an ingredient, which is hard enough to find (only in Storm Peaks, Wintergrasp and Icecrown) – Lichbloom. These flasks have very high demand! On Lesser Flask of Toughness you can make good money also (50-70 gold per item on AH), which is easier to produce.
Brew “Elixirs” and “Potions”. Try Elixir of Lightning Speed, Elixir of Deadly Strikes, Spellpower Elixir(!), Potion of Wild Magic and Potion of Speed.
Use Pigmy Oil Spell. The ingredient for this oil is Pygmy Suckerfish, obtained from Northrend fishing holes. Alchemy is the only one method to transform it into something useful. After that, use another alchemy spell – Guru’s Elixir (1xImbued Vial and 3xPygmy Oil). In such a manner, you can brew dozens of stacks of Guru’s Elixir per hour (somehow I made 75 stacks in a row). The price of this elixir is 30-40* gold on AH (600-800 gold per stack), as the most attractive price. This elixir’s buff (+20 to all base stats) with “Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats” (+10) will give the effect as an additional item equipped, below ilvl 245 (just superb for druids, DK, paladins and rogues for Worldwide events).
Alchemy as a service. This is Transmute:Titanium of course. You can offer this service through “global” or “trade” chat (don’t be a scammer). Get 20-30 gold per transmutation. You can buy a lot of Saronite Bars and transmute them into titanium for sale, if the Saronite price is convenient. Of course it can be used for its own purposes to convert extra Saronite Bars in high grade Titanium Bars.

3. Enchanting. Enchanting is, perhaps, the only profession in WoW that cannot be categorized, as it is neither crafting, nor gathering. Enchanters take enchanting materials obtained through disenchanting gear of uncommon or better quality - and turn them into permanent enchants for their own or their allies' gear. This is the reason to use it to enchant another non-Gathering profession like Jewelcrafting, Blacksmithing, Leatherworking or Tailoring. Especially JW and Tailoring, as ones with the best synergy with Enchanting.
Basics of enchanting profiteering:

Disenchanting. Disenchanting is an awesome way to make a lot of gold and falls under 3 categories: Disenchanting own gear (This includes all unused gear that you pick up from quests, farming, running dungeons and raids), Purchasing items to disenchant (Items that I normally look for include armor and weapons from level 73 for the highest profit margins), Crafting items to disenchant (This is where enchanting works great with Jewelcrafting and Tailoring. For example a jewelcrafter can make inexpensive stone guard bands, disenchant them and make anywhere between 55-75* gold depending on the server economy. Jewelcrafters have a lot of items that can be crafted very cheaply in order to make a profit from disenchanting).
Enchanting as a service. To take full advantage of this profession as a service, you will want to have as many of the enchanting formulas as possible. This will keep players coming back to you to get their gear enchants and more importantly keep you making gold. The best part of it is most of the rare enchants can now be purchased for dream shards in Dalaran or acquired via reputations. Every time you are in a major city, link your enchanting service on the trade channel while you go about doing your daily routine. You will usually be able to pick up some extra gold by pretty much doing nothing.
Selling enchants. Discover different formulas and put “consumable scrolls” on AH. For common enchanting versus you will make about 400-700* gold, for uncommon – 1000 – 2500* gold per item.

4. Others.They are not so profitable, but can help your character, as an elemental shaman, through leveling or will give you some very good epics @lvl80, without much money costs.

The Inscription maybe is the best one profession among them (especially if you decided to get “the Insane” title). Warning! It’s no more a profitable profession, but it’s a good utility one for your ALTs. With Inscription you can level up your Herbalism skill and after that (@lvl80) you can switch fast enough to Alchemy. Moreover you will have access to a lot of cheapest Glyphs, Scrolls and Trinkets for personal use or trading. But more interesting things for elemental shamans are next: Master’s Inscription of the Storm (+70 Spell Power and +15 Crit to the shoulder slot), Darkmoon card of the North. Darkmoon Cards give you access to your spec trinkets: Darkmoon Card: Illusion and Darkmoon Card: Death. To purchase them from AH you should spend around 20,000* gold per trinket (40k in summ). These trinkets should be a nice decision, before you will be able to do some TOC or ICC raids (require over 5.3kGS), being at your “start” Northrend GearSet of 2kGS mostly.
The Leatherworking is another useful profession to level up an elemental shaman. You can find a lot of patterns here. Most of them are valuable for druids, hunters, and enhancement shamans anyway. Ele shamans should use Dragonscale Breastplate, Green Dragonscale set, Blue Dragonscale set, Netherstrike set and other green items during leveling. In Northrend, leatherworkers should teach patterns for: different Kit, Enchants and Bags (the bag AH’s prices vary between 400-1000* gold). They can give you some start capital. In Dalaran get all Braeg Stoutbeard’s patterns (rare ilvl 187-200 and epic ilvl 200-213), because they are easy enough to craft. During your ICC adventures buy all Alchemist Finklestein’s patterns – they can give you a lot of money. The best gear items under 6kGS for elemental shaman, which is crafted by leatherworkers, are: Earthsoul Boots (Feet slot ilvl264) and Lightning-Infused Leggings (Legs slot ilvl264)… Get them as fast as possible. Without this profession you should buy them for summary price of 40,000-45,000* gold coins on Warmane anyway.
The Blacksmithing and Tailoring are the same as the Leatherworking profession, but without useful crafted items for ele shamans. The blacksmith’s mail has no Intellect or Spell Power to their attributes. The tailor’s Cloth have very low armor, which isn’t crucial for PVE, and are enchanted with Spirit and Critical Rating mostly, which isn’t good in any scenario.
The Engineering profession is the most non-profitable, but is the most useful for any casters (especially for ele shamans) and hunters to increase their DPS. About engineering is described in section 2.6. New Ele Profession Topic more detailed.

Conclusion

In this section I focused the professions description not only on "profitable ones", but on usefulness for elemental shaman also. The most profitable “profession company” are: Jewelcrafting + Enchanting, Jewelcrafting + Tailoring, Enchanter + Tailoring, Alchemy + Herbalism + Fishing, Jewelcrafting + Mining, Enchanting + Blacksmithing, (@lvl80 mostly). They will help you to collect the max possible amount of money per time interval.

My Suggestion: Don't learn both crafting professions Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Enchanting or Engineering during leveling, because they are hard to level up or near impossible without AH (with a lot of patterns/schematics) and they don't give any benefits to ele shaman at low levels; sooner or later you should switch to Jewelcrafting/Tailoring, Jewelcrafting/Engineering or Tailoring/Engineering anyway, when the gold coins will not be so important. You will be interested in how to improve your DPS and gear after that, by spending a part of money on the other profession skill’s leveling, after unlearning one of Gathering one. Also it’s better to level up your character firstly and your professions after that.

References. You can improve your ingame profession knowledge by reading the next guide section:

2.6. New Ele Profession Topic.

1.6. Elemental Talent Tree and Glyphs
c.1.6 November 2013

Spoiler: Show

Updated: September 2016

Intro

I am going to explain not only the pure PVE Talent Tree, but Mixed and Restoration talents also. The Mixed Talent tree can be useful if your character GS is under 6k (under 3100 Spell Power) and you want to do some PVE raids, in normal mode, and Battlegrounds just for fun or to collect some points for more epic mounts and epic gear (rings, trinkets, necks, belt, cloak). By having a Mixed Tree in Main Spec you can use the Resto talent Tree in your Off Spec sheet. This mode is useful below 6kGS, because your gear will lack SP and Haste. Therefore, it’s no point to stack Crit via talents and gear and it should be considered that your character will be soft Hit capped. In this case, the RM will ask you to switch to your character Resto Tree during BQL and The Frostwing Halls encounters mostly. Mixed Tree mode for PVP can be effective enough vs. most casters of your GS level (with average PVP skills), but vs. any kind of melee is weak enough.

If your GS is over 6k (over 3900 Spell Power, and Haste is nearly soft capped) then your character will get much more benefits from any PVE talent points (which will buff Crit effectiveness indirectly), so this is the point where pure “specialization” is required. This specialization is required in any Heroic raid, being a PVE caster, or in arenas and duels, being a PVP caster. If you want to completely balance and max out your performance - never mix PVE and PVP talents and gear! Any Talent Tree should be supported by specified Glyphs, as the supplementing part. To build and study Talent Tree, exist a very useful online resource.

I’m not going to explain every talent's ability, its strong and weak sides, because it’s a way to translate from english to english. You can see how they are checked here and you can read their abilities by yourself. In my opinion, the best way to learn how talents are working and how good they are in different scenarios is by testing them while leveling. Indeed, during leveling you’ll stack them point by point and will see how they work with your leveling gear.

Talent Setups

1. PVE Elemental Shaman Spec Tree 3.3.5. Mode 55/16/0. I saw many setups with Shamanistic Focus and Booming Echoes. Just don’t use that! There is one talent point in Shamanistic Focus and 2 points in Booming Echoes. Described talents are pure PVP kind and any PVE shaman has no benefits from them. If you are going to put Shock Spells in your DPS rotation (and even frequent Chain Lightning), then your character will be the worst DPS spec in WoW. Shock spells are instant, but they are very low improved by Spell Power and other talents (designed for PVP only). Moreover, they will lock the Global Cooldown (GCD) between 1 sec (min) and 1.5 sec (max). Opposite to it, the Lightning Bolt is more effective, because gets more benefits from Spell Power and during a locked GCD you have a chance to cast an additional Bolt (with 12k dmg crit @6kGS, compared to 5k dmg crit of most Shocks), based on the talent Lightning Overload. The last 3 talent points can be used differently. In the end, we can put them in Elemental Warding, Improved Fire Nova, Improved Ghost Wolf or Improved Shields. The Elemental Warding and Improved Ghost Wolf talents belong to defensive ones (Improved Wolf is useful at Sindragosa encounter only). The Improved Fire Nova is nice against NPC trashes or during instance clearing, but against a Boss it's not so cool in most cases. I'd say in Wotlk there are like 3 raid Bosses where you'll be able to use the Fire Nova spell effectively and benefit from it significantly. (Updated: I have to admit that the new server core made changes into the encounters. So this talent can be more valuable in balanced heroic raids, under BiS geared characters nowadays. This will be explained in Chapter 3). Elemental Shaman should keep the Totem of Wrath up all time in most gearing raids! Elemental Shamans are not so good AoE DPSers as Shadow Priests, Retribution Paladins, Moonkins, Rogues, Fury Warriors or Unholy DKs. Or, I'd say, they can pull good AoE DPS but at higher cost than this are doing above mentioned classes. So, my suggestion is just put the last 3 talent points into Improved Shields talent. With this talent active, and 3800 Spell Power available, the Lightning Shield self buff damage is near 2000, but with raid buffs – 3000-3500 dmg. This is the average Shock spell damage without any GCD, - just amazing. It has the effect of an additional DoT on Boss after Flame Shock DoT, and during 10min boss encounter the shield damage is high enough. Just try to find out how and where to refresh it without the spell rotation interruptions. Don’t care about mana regeneration anymore with Water Shield, because your buffed character should have between 30k – 33k mana and the improved Water Shield will give an additional 100 mana per 5 sec. And additional 400 +15% mana when an orb is consumed (460 in total). If mana goes low, by activating Water Shield and plus 10% mana from Thunderstorm (avg = 3100 mana) can solve the issue during long boss encounters. It is now clear that the next Minor Glyphs should be applied: Glyph of Water Shield, Glyph of Thunderstorm (nobody wanna see a flying Shambling Horror in your raid btw; +2% mana regeneration is good of course). This is much better than Shamanistic Focus and Booming Echoes anyway. And, what is more important, the Improved Shields talent will let you boost your character' dps a bit or will replenish mana pool more effectively from case to case.

PVE Elemental Shaman Spec Tree 3.3.5 for 10 N/HC and 25N/HC encounters

Spoiler: Show

Talent Calculator: link

Major Glyphs:

Glyph of Lava;
Glyph of Lightning Bolt;
Glyph of Totem of Wrath.

Minor Glyphs:

Glyph of Renewed Life;
Glyph of Thunderstorm;
Glyph of Water Shield.

2. PVP&PVE (mixed) Elemental Shaman Spec Tree 3.3.5. Mode 57/14/0. This tree is similar to previous, but some points in Elemental section are transferred to Booming Echoes and Astral Shift. In the Enhancement section points from Improved Shields, 2 points from Ancestral Knowledge and 2 points from Thundering Strikes should be applied to Earth’s Grasp, Improved Ghost Wolf and Shamanistic Focus now. In this mode, ele shaman’s DPS will not suffer so huge, but will give enough survivable abilities in the PVP area. By doing raids with mixed talents, it’s important to cap Hit points to 385-399 (based on raid setup), after disabling Elemental Precision. I recommend removing any Chain Lightning spell from your rotation now; otherwise your character will be one of the main Threat generator in raids. It’s a good idea to get a 14% Hit cap on this spec as a soft cap value for PVE raids. Over-capping Hit is not so critical waste anyway. I saw an Elemental Shaman with a mixed Talent Tree, which placed only one point into Astral Shift and that’s ugly.

PVE/PVP (mixed) Elemental Shaman Talent Tree 3.3.5 for 10N and 25N encounters

Spoiler: Show

Talent Calculator: link

Major Glyphs:

Glyph of Lava;
Glyph of Lightning Bolt;
Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem.

Minor Glyphs:

Glyph of Renewed Life;
Glyph of Water Walking;
Glyph of Water Shield.

3. Restoration Shaman Spec Tree [PVE] 3.3.5. Mode 0/13/58. To play as Restoration Shaman requires another PVE concept criteria, which requires deep explanation. So, read more respective guides. I have enough in raid healing experience, playing as Resto Shaman and not only. Shaman is not a good tank healer as Holy Paladin is or a raid healer as Resto Druid is, but they are the best supporting healers in raids anyway. I mean they can keep the raid alive after the strongest Boss abilities with their powerful burst single or AoE healing spells. Of course a good Resto Shaman can show top HPS counters, but in my opinion, they aren’t as good as Resto Druids or Holy Paladins due to their overhealing potency in most scenarios, where there are 4 or 5 healers in raid. Not so effective HPS per GCD. Therefore, this is why in top hi-end raids (raids where players aren’t doing many mistakes and don’t take some extra unwanted damage) there are 3 or 2 healers mode setups with Resto Shaman to mitigate the overhealing. It’s a wipe risk mode, but quite dps effective. They are situated between tank healers (paladins, priests) and raid healers (druids). Resto Shamans have very powerful instant healing spells, which will bring everyone near death to life, after a few instant casted 35,000 healing points. They can heal for 80k-90k Heal Points during 3-4 sec, using Nature’s Swiftness, Tidal Waves and Riptide. So these talents and similar to them should be improved as well as possible by other talent points, Glyphs, enchants and gems. Because of this the RL can ask you to switch from your ele spec to resto spec at HPS intensive Boss encounters.

Every Talent Tree has a set of just must to have talents and to activate them we have to stack many utility or less effective talents also. But in the end, there are few remaining points which we are free to distribute. They will just define our play style, will optimize our gear set or will compensate for some gear stats. This Talent Tree, similarly to others, has few “last relatively free” talent points. In this case we have free 3 points to decide where to put them. Obviously, we have to use 3 points into Tidal Force, Nature’s Swiftness and Cleanse Spirit. These talents are cheap and very useful and powerful. Since Earth Shield was fixed, there is a requirement to stack two points into Improved Earth Shield and three pints into Ancestral Healing by default even being an AoE raid healer! Because Earth Shield will not overheal, as it did previously when it was bugged, and will trigger Ancestral Healing buff on your MT after Crit proc. Therefore it makes sense to stack 3 points into Improved Shields instead Elemental Weapons as I recommended before the Earth Shield fix.

PVE Resto Shaman Talent Tree 3.3.5 for 25N/HC encounters

Spoiler: Show

Talent Calculator: link

Major Glyphs:

Glyph of Earth Shield;
Glyph of Chain Heal;
Glyph of Healing Wave. (Patch 3.2.0 (04-Aug-2009): The amount of healing the shaman receives is now based on the entire healing amount, including over-healing.)

Minor Glyphs:

Glyph of Renewed Life;
Glyph of Astral Recall;
Glyph of Water Shield.

4. PVP Elemental Shaman Spec Tree 3.3.5. Mode 57/14/0. This tip is not the topic of this thread, but it will show the flexibility of Elemental Shaman’s Talent Tree and I’ll give you the opportunity to compare them and to understand the talents' ideas better. After many years of playing BGs and doing world PVP, I found this build the most flexible and effective. It’s very strong for dueling and arena also.

This PVP Tree is similar to Mixed Talent Tree, but points from Convection and Thundering Strikes should be spent to Reverberation (now have 4 points), Guardian Totems and Elemental Warding, as for me. Truly, Elemental Warding gives additional 6% damage reduction from all kinds of damage, which is equal to 283 Resilience Rating effect. You just can’t stack and benefit from critical strikes being a PVP Elemental Shaman. Yes, Reverberation – the long-forgotten talent. This talent at 5 points reduces your character Flame Shock and Frost Shock spells cooldown to 3 sec, with Booming Echoes active, and Windshear to 5 sec, which is much more important! It’s possible to put 1 point from Reverberation to Unrelenting Storm for versatility in BGs, but fully stacked Reverberation is more effective against PVP skilled players, by locking one of their school of magic for 2 sec every 5 sec (will produce a little chaos in their clever macros) and by spamming Frost Shock on melees (because they will destroy your Earthbind Totem at any cost). A PVP skilled player will never let you to burst hard, with full benefits from Glyph of Totem of Wrath by using some spell rotation macros and not only. Your character will be affected a lot from: Silence, Stuns, Charms, Sleep, Disorient, Fear, Slow, Rooted effects, Knockbacks. You’ll have just little windows to kite and dps in between. Moreover, your character weapon with over 700 Spell Power, enchanted with Mighty Spellpower and Flametongue plus supported by talent Elemental Weapons can be Disarmed :). The idea to enchant elemental shaman's shield with Titanium Weapon Chain is good overall. They will not heal enough even, so the fight is going adherently. To be more accurate, you’ll be able to heal only after Hex in most situations. Of course your first Hex will be trinketed and you just have to survive until the second one and successfully cast it, considering everybody will just wait for it all the time to encounter it.

Tip. I recommend stacking Reverberation, because Frost Shock binary effect is a bit bugged - frequently it keeps the slow debuff for only 5 sec, which is 3 sec less than supposed to be. Sometimes its time is reduced by the target's talents. So you can reapply it periodically in time.

PVP Elemental Shaman Talent Tree 3.3.5 (universal setup)

Spoiler: Show

Talent Calculator: link

Major Glyphs:

Glyph of Lava;
Glyph of Thunder;
Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem.

Minor Glyphs:

Glyph of Renewed Life;
Glyph of Water Walking;
Glyph of Astral Recall.

References. You should change your talents based on raid mode (it’s 10 or 25 man, it’s Normal or Heroic), currently equipped gear set, specific boss encounter. Learn more by reading next sections:

3.3. Elementals in Heroic Raids.
3.6. BiS Lists Overview.

1.7. GearScore (GS) System
c.1.7 November 2013

Spoiler: Show

Concept

Gear score is a numerical value based on the statistics of a player's gear. It is (supposedly) the maximum potential of a player's performance. However, it is up to the player to perform that well. In addition to item level (ilvl), the item's actual statistics or abilities may or may not be included for calculation, as determined by specific formulas or addons.

The purpose of GS is to show other party or raid members your equipped gear items overall performance in a tooltip, without “Inspect” operation. Server periodically scans the character's gear and puts their score in the database. The GS system is not exactly anyway – it will show you the same gear level for items even if the items are or not gemmed and are or not enchanted. This system’s points will not change if a Glyph is applied or not. This system will not change depending on character DPS level, player skills and player’s raid encounter tactic knowledge. The GS will not analyse the item if it is useful for a specified class. For example, when ele shaman equips some enhancement shaman’s gear or hunter gear ilvl 264, with agility and attack power attributes, it will show the same GS points as any eligible “elemental” gear ilvl 264, with Intellect and Spell Power attributes, in the same slot. In general case, GS is still very useful and you will not be invited in most Northrend raids if your GS is below 5,000GS(5kGS) anyway.

Gear scores are a metric used to evaluate the relative strength of a player's equipment as a way of determining if that player meets a given threshold to join in certain raids or groups going through an instance. It should be noted that a given gear score, no matter which formula is used, does not necessarily mean that other players can not demand higher scores from others before joining a raid or group.

To see the Gear Score of other characters you have to install the addon GearScore.

Controversy

The usage of gear scores has caused a large amount of controversy due to a proportion of players who view it as unnecessary and distracting in the face of other options like DPS or Achievements.
Players often feel they are skilled enough to overcome their lack of gear. They feel upset that they are not given the chance to prove themselves because they fail whatever gear score requirement was imposed by the raid leader. A veteran player with a low gear score can outperform a newer player with a high gear score. Similarly a high gear score tank can be the counterweight for a low gear score healer or vice versa.

GS Levels in Wotlk Instances

1. 2000 – 2500 GS. This is the average gear level for most players, which arrives to Northrend after Outland zones. This gear will help to complete most quests during leveling and to run only Nexus, Utgarde Keep, Azjol-Nerub normal mode dungeons.

2. 2500 – 3000 GS. This gear rating is possible to have only from Northrend quests rewards and most normal mode dungeons.

3. 3000 – 3900 GS. This GS is available after farming most Northrend dungeons in Heroic mode and by buying rare and epic items from different faction quartermasters (they offer some gear ilvl 185-200 mostly), after increasing the reputation to Revered or Exalted to them.

4. 3900 – 4900 GS. The barrier of 4kGS is hard enough to overcome. This is the point where some epic items from AH, by crafting them or buying through early farmed Frost and Triumph Emblems will help a lot. At 4100 GS (all items should be over level 200 to be allowed there) is possible to start The Frozen Halls dungeons farming in Normal mode, by starting the quest chains - Inside the Frozen Citadel. If your character is in a guild this process will be much easier. The Frozen Halls farming in Normal and Heroic modes will help to upgrade your character gear to 5000 GS. If you have some online friends or your guild is patient enough. Then at 4500 GS is possible to do some raids in VoA, OS and OL 10 mode only! In this case some well geared tanks and healers are required and, moreover, personal tactic mistakes are not allowed. Here is a point when you should try to join different pug raids to EoE, OL, OS and Naxxramas. If you’ll get invited, then you have a chance to collect a lot of items there.

5. 4900 – 5300 GS. At this point your character can be invited to VoA25, OS25, OL25, Naxxramas10/25, ToC10 Normal only.

6. 5300 – 5600 GS. Probably at this GS level, the real Wotlk PVE raiding begins. This interval opens the access to ICC10 Normal, Ulduar25, RS10 Normal, ToC25 Normal and ToC10 Heroic and all early described of course. Bosses drops epic items lvl 245-251, which can help to tune your character spec in the most flexible and full mode (all slots), and overall gearing going very fast, especially by raiding with a guild.

7. 5600 – 6050 GS. This score is required to complete ICC25 Normal, RS25 N, ICC10 Heroic and ToC25 Heroic and to get the Kingslayer title in the most common mode. I should to admit that ToC25 HC is harder than ICC25 N or RS25 N. These raids take about 60% of raid events which happens on Wotlk realms, and gear score near 6k is a ticket to do most of them in guilds or with “pugs”.

8. 6050 – 6600 GS. The gear is referred to ICC25 HC and RS25 HC only. This GS is the “Final Goal” of any PVE raider, which helps to make a BiS character through raiding. Usually it can take from 5 to 6 months to make a BiS geared character by raiding every week, even with a very skilled and organized guild. The marketplace will help here a lot anyway.

9. 6600 – 7000 GS. This is the Legendary Gear Score! Such rating can have only DK, Paladins and Warriors only, by wearing Shadowmourne axe and a lot of ilvl284. The paladins and DK can stack their GS to 6800-6900 GS through useful BiS gear. Only Warriors can have 7kGS, because they can stack more useful gear ilvl284.

Tip. The GS is not the absolute condition to participate in raid events. You should prove your character eligibility by demonstrating some completed raid achievements and DPS score. To get some achievements and raiding skills the guilds, with normal raid mode progression, are the only one way. With pugs is near impossible to complete more than 50% raid progression to get some valuable achievements (none Heroic even), because players will leave permanently, another don’t know tactics well, third - just farming some boss item and after a specified boss they’ll DC or go AFK. If you will find some very skilled and prepared players, then put them in your friends list. With them it is possible to complete most 10 mode raids easily and fast. To count GS score is required to install the addon GearScore 3.3.5 (take a look at section 2.7. Our Friendly Addons).

This chapter contains a set of sections dedicated to prepare your Elemental Shaman for 10 and 25 man raid encounters. This preparation includes the process of gear farming up to its BiS level, optimizing the used macros, installing a set of required addons, determining a set of spell rotations for optimal DPS and balancing the character BiS set with respective gems and enchants.

2.1. Macros
c.2.1 November 2013

Spoiler: Show

Intro

The elemental shaman’s spell rotation is quite simple but in return requires near perfect timing. Therefore, a perfect DPS macros is hard to write and use. In spite of this, their DPS efficiency mostly depends on player skills, proficiency, dexterity, reflexes. It means, that players should switch from one spell rotation type to another fast enough and it’s clear now that FPS, latency and lags plays a great role here. For example, in previous HD Video (@LM 10 N) during the encounter I used a single target spell rotation and only on “spiked characters” I began to spam multiple targets spell rotation (including Chain Lightning (CL) for more damage per GCD. At the same time, if the Spikes are summoned around your character, it makes sense to cast after CL the Thunderstorm and/or Fire Nova, especially while dodging the Boss' Bone Storm ability. The CL always hits 2 targets in 10 raid mode and 3 targets in 25 raid mode. Another example is referred for PVP area, when is required to interrupt some character spell casting, using Wind Shear, or to “ground” some spell. For its duration we have near 1-1.5 sec time interval to succeed a counterattack. A skilled player should decide which spell to interrupt and which to “ground” and such actions should be applied a lot during combat. Wind Shear doesn't trigger GCD while Grounding Totem triggers it. It makes elemental shaman spec very hard to play well and is the main cause why this spec is so versatile. It’s clear that it's impossible to write a macro which will decide what target to hit with Chain Lightning only and which target to hit with Flame Shock followed by Lava Burst e.t.c. It’s not possible to be a good elemental shaman by spamming a single macro button and drinking coffee or tea at the same time :). Anyway, next macro examples are good and tested enough, especially DPS ones for new players. For greater skills start to key bind all your valuable spells and simple macros only…

Abbreviations:

FS – Flame Shock;
ES – Earth Shock;
FrS – Frost Shock;
LvB – Lava Burst;
LB – Lightning Bolt;
CL – Chain Lightning;
FN – Fire Nova;
ThS – Thunderstorm;
EM – Elemental Mastery.

Note. These macros are developed for Frost Witch’s Regalia (4) and minimum1000 Haste Rating level. In other cases the rotations should be redo a bit in the right order. A very annoying thing in Wotlk realms is – any macro has 255 characters limit, as a result complex macros are not possible!

DPS Spell Rotations

1.Single Target Spell Rotation. The ele shamans should keep FS DoT on their main target all the time, because it provides LvB with 100% crit chance and a lot of damage during combat. I put the macro reset interval to 5 sec, because this is the max delay interval, which keeps the previous described algorithm working. Moreover, Frost Witch’s Regalia with (4) set bonus should help a lot in this.

Algorithm: FS + LvB + 6xLB + LvB + 6xLB.
The idea of FS + LvB + 6xLB only is not good, because (4) set bonus procs well and next LvB will keep FS DoT active for additional 11-14 sec. The only one LvB per FS is very irrational.

/castsequence reset=5 Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt,
Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt,
Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt

Demo1: [HD Video: Elemental Shaman 3.3.5 Rotation Macro by Rexarjr]

Demo2: [HD Video: Elemental Shaman 3.3.5 Keybind Rotation by Rexarjr]

2.Multiple Targets Spell Rotation. All spells sequence are the same as in previous example, but CL is used after LvB, because LvB crit will give a guaranteed Clearcasting stance - more spell damage and less mana drain from CL of course.

Algorithm: FS + LvB + CL + 5xLB + LvB + CL + 5xLB.
The idea of FS + LvB + CL + 5xLB only is not good as explained in the previous example.

/castsequence reset=5 Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt,
Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, Chain Lightning,
Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt

Demo: [HD Video: Elemental Shaman 3.3.5 AoE Spell Rotations by Rexarjr ]

3.One Shot Macro. If your character has some trinkets, with “Use” ability, then modify this macro respectively.

Macro Code 1 (Simple version). Useful in most PVP cases, especially against warriors, feral druids, DK, rogues below 20% HP where their surveillance is incredibly HIGH :).

#showtooltip
/cast Elemental Mastery
/castsequence Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Chain Lightning

Macro Code 2 (Complex version). This burst macro is useful in PVE mostly if it's required to free a “Spiked” character, to nuke hard a mage during Gunship, to destroy a Frost Tomb at Sindragosa, against other trashes and e.t.c. In PVP cases can be valuable to nuke some casters and, as an example, to fight warriors when they stay far away. After FS and Mastery, a skilled enough warrior will pop up his Spell Reflection Shield, feeling that next will be the Lava. The LB or better the overloaded second LB proc will eat his shield by giving to you only the LB damage. If he will Shield Reflect after LB is casted, then the spell will land successfully by granting you a chance to Wind Shear that magic shield. Next spells should hit hard. Anyways, in arenas and duels this is not so effective macro but usable.

#showtooltip
/cast Elemental Mastery
/castsequence reset=5 Flame Shock, Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt

4.Open Attack. Nothing unusual, but is much better than a simple FS. Key bind it to your FS button by default!

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast Flame Shock

PVP Macros

These macros have PVP purposes, but can be very useful in most dungeons and few raid zones. They can be modified in many different modes by pressing SHIFT, ALT, CTRL buttons (to cast them on your character, your target, specified character only, your focus or your target’s target).

1. Fast Water Walking (WW). While you have targeted a friendly/foe unit, without this macro it can be very annoying to run across water in any Battlegrounds and not only.

#showtooltip
/tar
/cast Water Walking

2. Improved Wind Shear (WS). No comments. Timing means all.

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Wind Shear

3. Improved Grounding Totem (GT). No comments.

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Grounding Totem

4. Fast Cure. This spell is forgotten now, but can be very effective against rogues, hunters and some dungeon and raid bosses. This spell has the same effect as Cleansing Totem, but can be applied 3 times per one totem tick (3 sec).

#showtooltip
/tar
/cast Cure Toxins

5. WS+Purge. This is a very specific and situational macro. Don't use it instead of the Improved Wind Shear! This macro, if used in wrong situations can be a game over condition just because it triggers your GCD after an interrupt action. I tested it for months in different PVP scenarios and because of its mechanics I lost in many trivial scenarios. It's especially bad while fighting versus mirror classes like other Elemental Shamans and Balance Druids. It's bad while fighting Warlocks, Shadow Priests also. At the same time, it can be very effective vs Mages where a different tempo is required. But instead of using these macros, try to key bind both WS and Purge spells and cast them very fast in a sequence instead.

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Wind Shear
/cast Purge

Useful Macros

1.Auto Assist.

Macro Code 1:

/tar [target=focustarget, harm, nodead]

Macro Code 2 (Target your target’s target 0.0 ):

/assist

2.Go Home Macro.

#showtooltip
/castsequence [nocombat] reset=900 Astral Recall, Hearthstone
/cast [combat] Hearthstone

3.Switch the Gear. This macro can be improved in many ways by changing only trinkets or full gear, from PVE to PVP and back. Very useful to change between different weapon sets and fishing pole, even while in combat.

/equipslot
/equipslot …………………………………………………….
……………………………………………………………………..

Tip. Inventory slot ID.

4.Fix UI. This helps great to fix your Recount panel or other UI bugs.

/run local f=CreateFrame(“frame”, nil, UIParent); f:SetScript(“OnUpdate”, CombatLogClearEntries);

5.Camera Distance to MAX. Very useful in any raid, especially at LM, Sindragosa and LK.

/console set cameradistancemaxfactor 3.5

6.Buy&Convert Emblems Faster. The value of this macro knows only players, who decided to buy some Northrend Badges or gems by selling Emblem of Heroism to vendor Aspirant Naradiel (in patch 3.3.5 he has another "clone" in Dalaran). The macro can be tuned for any other trading operation, to buy hundreds of items at once. By default you can use a Shift+Click combination to buy badges or items by stacks.

Note. Use only 1 whitespace and don’t move into a new row in this macro! It’s a single string macro!

Macro Code (This macro buys 65 Emblems of Conquest by selling 65 Emblems of Triumph. Watch this order):

/script local function buy(n,q) for i=1,100 do if n==GetMerchantItemInfo(i) then BuyMerchantItem(i,q)
end end end buy(“Emblem of Conquest”, 65)

7. Deadly Debuff Alerter. I designed and wrote this macro because I haven't found a simpler way to announce dangerous debuffs on your character. It's very effective if you don't like to use the Power Auras for some reasons as, for example, don't like to install a huge addon to notify only two spells. The Deadly Boss Mods and PowerAuras are great, but they display messages for your interface and time to time don't work correctly. It's important to inform your raid members about your debuffs by using Say messages also. My macro shows a “say tooltip” over your character head one or more times, so you or your allies are informed about your character debuff and location. This macro is guaranteed to work for 100% when key binded, but can’t be used in other spell rotations.

Note. Use only 1 whitespace and don’t move into a new row in this macro! It’s a single string macro!

Macro Code1 (For the Crimson Halls and the Frostwing Halls zones):

/cast Lightning Bolt
/run for i=1,32 do local name==UnitDebuff(“”, i)
if name==”Frost Beacon” then SendChatMessage(name..” on Me!”, “SAY”) end
if name==”Swarming Shadows” then SendChatMessage(name..” on Me!“, “SAY”) end end

Macro Code2 (For Lich King encounter):

/cast Lightning Bolt
/run for i=1,32 do local name==UnitDebuff(“”, i)
if name==”Necrotic Plague” then SendChatMessage(name..” on Me!”, “SAY”) end
if name==”Defile” then SendChatMessage(name..” on Me!“, “SAY”) end end

Conclusion

These macros are sufficient for most elemental shaman purposes. There is a site with more examples here anyway. To do more complex functions I recommend installing some Addons from CurseClient site or using this Molten Thread. The Addon have a very complex logic algorithm with thousands of characters, which can be configured in any way to obtain any needed effects. User macros currently have a limit of 255 characters only!

2.2. GS Under 6k
c.2.2 December 2013

Spoiler: Show

The solution of this section is to show the basic and most important steps to get the best possible gear under 6kGS, beginning from all green items from quest rewards and Outland areas (< 3kGS). I recommend to take a look at the section 1.7 GearScore(GS) System firstly. If you are familiar with all sections of Chapter1, then I recommend you to start voting on the site system during leveling and level up the most useful professions for elemental shaman. Through vote points and professions you will be able to get very good items. This and all previous sections will help you to save a lot of Emblems, money and play time.

Intro

The process of gear leveling can be simplified a lot if you will craft or buy Legs and Feet items. First of all, obtain Leggings of Dubious Charm for 300-600 gold coins from AH. After that you can collect money to obtain Lightning-Infused Leggings and Earthsoul Boots (average price will vary 12-22k gold coins on AH). With these legs and feet items you can go through 6kGS up to under BiS gear. The ele shaman’s biggest trouble, “in gear farming”, is weapon and shield. Those items are really hard to obtain through dungeon and raiding systems. The vote points should help greatly here. You can obtain Sunreaver Disciple’s Blade (Normal only) for 73 Vote Points (it’s hard to farm) and Wisdom’s Hold for 71 Vote Points. The next big trouble, “in gear farming”, for any caster are trinkets. To find a common trinket is not so big deal, but to get some superb and eligible trinkets, for elemental shaman spec, can be the hardest task in gear leveling if you aren't lucky on drop chances and rolling them. Through vote points there are next available good trinkets before ICC raiding: Flare of the Heavens (59 Vote Points), Living Flame (55 Vote Points +hit), Abyssal Rune (72 Vote Points). If your gear has a low hit rating then use Living Flame, if your character haste rating is low – use Abyssal Rune. The ICC reputation farming is a must. Try to participate in any specified groups. This will open to you access to the BiS ring for elemental shaman - Ashen Band of Endless Destruction (ilvl277). Another ring is easily obtainable through emblems, at the beginning. Complete daily random dungeons heroic and weekly raid quests to collect 90 Emblems of Frost. The emblems should be spent to obtain the best relic Bizuri’s Totem of Shattered Ice (30 emblems) firstly and the belt Waistband of Despair (60 emblems) for a long term. Of course, if you aren't ready to collect Vote Points for all items then a part of their alternatives you can obtain through farming Frozen Halls (Normal mode) dungeons. All available items are displayed in list groups below.

All described items require:
1. 40,000 gold coins.
2. 275 Vote Points = 55 days = 8 weeks = 2 months.
3. 90 Emblems of Frost = {2*7(RDF H) + 4(VOA) + 5(weekly raid quest)}*3.5(weeks) +15(The Frosting Halls quests). Total: under 4 weeks, before you will be invited to ICC raids and Frost Emblems farming.

Note. To analyze the described items, I used 2 site resources: WoWWiki and OpenWoW (better; which is archived to http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com). For example, Wowhead item attributes are wrong compared to Warmane DB. Just compare them: Wowhead’s Sanctified Frost Witch’s Helm and OpenWoW’s Sanctified Frost Witch’s Helm. All items over ilvl 200 are Epic on WoW Wotlk. In this guide they can be marked with green links due to better forum design or current forum script configuration. The items marked as +hit have Hit Rating points in the attribute set, otherwise Crit or Haste points. The items marked as +mp5 have Mana per 5 sec attribute and healers have greater permission and usefulness to roll them (also they are bad for good DPS).

Gear Items

To make the description more structured and understandable the guide will be divided by item slots from lower level to higher level gear. This method will show you the possible “time-order”, which will allow you to obtain specified gear.

So let’s begin this collection slot by slot:

1. Head

Helm of Veiled Energies (ilvl 219) - XT-002 Deconstructor.
Polished Mirror Helm (ilvl 219, +mp5) - Forgemaster Garfrost.
Helm of the Spirit Shock (ilvl 232) - Devourer of Souls.
Helm of Inner Warmth (ilvl 245, +mp5, sold by 75 Emblems of Triumph).
Helm of the Crypt Lord (Normal or ilvl 245 Heroic) - Anub'arak.
Frost Witch's Helm (ilvl 251, sold by 95 Emblems of Frost).
Sanctified Frost Witch's Helm (ilvl 264, sold by Protector's Mark of Sanctification ).

2. Neck

Amulet of Dazzling Light (ilvl 200 rare, +mp5) - Anomalus;
Necklace of Taldaram (ilvl 200 rare, +hit) - Taldaram;
Coil of Missing Gems (ilvl 219, +hit) - Devourer of Souls;
Love's Prisoner (ilvl 232, +mp5) - Bronjahm Heroic;
Arcane Loops of Anger (ilvl 232) - Devourer of Souls Heroic;
Darkbane Amulet (ilvl 232, +hit) - Eydis Darkbane ToC25;
Cry of the Val'kyr (ilvl 258) - Eydis Darkbane ToC25 Heroic;
Wrathful Gladiator's Pendant of Ascendancy (ilvl 264 PVP, +hit) - Toravon the Ice Watcher VoA25;
Soulcleave Pendant (ilvl 264) - Deathbringer's Cache ICC10 Heroic/N;
Pendant of Split Veins (ilvl 264, +hit) - Professor Putricide ICC10 Heroic/N;
Amulet of the Silent Eulogy (ilvl 264, +hit) - Gunship Armory ICC25 Normal;
Blood Queen's Crimson Choker (ilvl 264) - Blood-Queen Lana'thel ICC25 Normal;

3. Shoulder

Very Fashionable Shoulders (ilvl 232, +hit, [Cloth]) - Bronjahm FoS;
Frayed Abomination Stitching Shoulders (ilvl 219, [Cloth]) - Marwyn HoR Normal;
Pauldrons of the Spirit Walker (ilvl 232) - Icehowl ToC10;
Pauldrons of Catastrophic Emanation (ilvl 245, +hit, sold by 45 Emblems of Triumph, [Cloth]);
Shoulders of the Groundbreaker (ilvl 245, +mp5, sold by 45 Emblems of Triumph);
Shoulders of Ruinous Senility (ilvl 264 Heroic, +hit, [Cloth]) - Professor Putricide ICC10 Heroic/N;
Shoulderguards of Crystalline Bone (ilvl 264 Heroic) - Sindragosa ICC10 Heroic/N;
Frost Witch's Shoulderpads (ilvl 251, sold by 95 Emblems of Frost);
Horrific Flesh Epaulets (ilvl 264) - Festergut ICC25 Normal;
Sanctified Frost Witch's Shoulderpads (ilvl 264, sold by Protector's Mark of Sanctification ).

4. Back

Shroud of Dedicated Research (ilvl 200 rare) - Kirin Tor Honored;
Cloak of the Fallen Cardinal (ilvl 219, +mp5) - Scourgelord Tyrannus PoS Normal;
Shroud of Displacement (ilvl 245, +hit) - Champions' Cache ToC25 Heroic/Normal;
Drape of the Violet Tower (ilvl 264, +mp5, sold by 50 Emblems of Frost);
Volde's Cloak of the Night Sky (ilvl 264, +Spirit, sold by 50 Emblems of Frost);
Relentless Gladiator's Cloak of Ascendancy (ilvl 245, +hit, PVP) - Toravon the Ice Watcher VoA10 or Honor Points;
Wrathful Gladiator's Cloak of Ascendancy (ilvl 264, +hit, PVP) - Toravon the Ice Watcher VoA25 or Honor Points;
Lich Wrappings (ilvl 264, +hit) - Cache of the Dreamwalker ICC10 Heroic/Normal;
Frostbinder's Shredded Cape (ilvl 264) - Cache of the Dreamwalker ICC25 Normal;

5. Chest

Dalronn's Jerkin (ilvl 200 rare, +mp5) - Skarvald the Constructor Utgarde Keep;
Shroud of Rime (ilvl 219, +mp5) - Scourgelord Tyrannus PoS Normal;
Frost Witch's Hauberk (ilvl 251, sold by 95 Emblems of Frost);
Mail of the Geyser (ilvl 264, +mp5, sold by 95 Emblems of Frost);
Chestguard of Siphoned Elements (ilvl 264, +mp5) - Blood-Queen Lana'thel ICC10 Heroic;
Sanctified Frost Witch's Hauberk (ilvl 264, sold by Protector's Mark of Sanctification );

6. Wrist

Limb Regeneration Bracers (ilvl 200) - The Prophet Tharon'ja Drak'Tharon Keep;
Seven Stormy Mornings (ilvl 219, +hit) - Bronjahm PoS Normal;
Relentless Gladiator's Wristguards of Dominance (ilvl 245, PVP) - Toravon the Ice Watcher VoA10;
Wrathful Gladiator's Wristguards of Dominance (ilvl 264, PVP) - Toravon the Ice Watcher VoA25;
Ether-Soaked Bracers (ilvl 264, +hit, [Cloth]) - Rotface ICC10 Heroic/Normal;
Bloodsunder's Bracers (ilvl 264) - Rotface ICC25 Normal;
The Lady's Brittle Bracers (ilvl 264, +hit, [Cloth]) - Lady Deathwhisper ICC25 Normal;

7. Hands

Grips of Fierce Pronouncements (ilvl 200, +mp5) - The Wyrmrest Accord - Exalted;
Fiery Obelisk Handguards (ilvl 200) - Herald Volazj Ahn'kahet;
Cold Sweat Grips (ilvl 219, +hit, [Cloth]) - Bronjahm FoS Normal;
Mitts of Burning Hail (ilvl 219, +hit) - Marwyn HoR Normal;
Thrall's Gloves of Conquest (ilvl 232, +hit) - Koralon the Flame Watcher VoA10;
Frost Witch's Gloves (ilvl 251, +hit, sold by 60 Emblems of Frost) - Toravon the Ice Watcher VoA10;
Thrall's Gloves of Triumph (ilvl 245, +hit) - Koralon the Flame Watcher VoA25;
Stormbringer Gloves (ilvl 264) - Cache of the Dreamwalker ICC10 Heroic/Normal;
Gunship Captain's Mittens (ilvl 264, +hit, [Cloth]) - Gunship Armory ICC25 Normal;
Sanctified Frost Witch's Gloves (ilvl 264, +hit, sold by Protector's Mark of Sanctification ) - Toravon the Ice Watcher VoA25;

8. Waist

Girdle of the Ethereal (ilvl 200 rare) - Xevozz Violet Hold;
Ghostflicker Waistband (ilvl 200, [Leather]) - Kirin Tor - Exalted;
Belt of Dark Mending (ilvl 200, [Cloth]) - Knights of the Ebon Blade - Exalted;
Mail Girdle of the Audient Earth (ilvl 200, +mp5) - Loken Halls of Lightning;
Essence of Anger (ilvl 219, +hit) - Devourer of Souls FoS Normal;
Icehowl Binding (ilvl 232, +hit, [Cloth]) - Icehowl ToC10 Normal/Heroic;
Belt of the Blood Nova (ilvl 264, +mp5) - Deathbringer's Cache ICC25 Normal;
Waistband of Despair (ilvl 264, sold by 60 Emblems of Frost);

9. Legs

Kilt of Dark Mercy (ilvl 200, +mp5) - Knights of the Ebon Blade - Exalted;
Black Dragonskin Breeches (ilvl 219, +mp5) - Ick PoS Normal;
Blackened Ghoul Skin Leggings (ilvl 232, +mp5) - Ick PoS Heroic;
Legguards of Untimely Demise (ilvl 219, +hit) - The Captain's Chest HoR Normal;
Thrall's Kilt of Conquest (ilvl 232, +hit) - Koralon the Flame Watcher VoA10;
Frost Witch's Kilt (ilvl 251, +hit) - Toravon the Ice Watcher VoA10;
Thrall's Kilt of Conquest (ilvl 245, +hit) - Koralon the Flame Watcher VoA25;
Leggings of Dubious Charms (ilvl 264, +mp5, crafting or AH ~ 300-1,000 gold coins);
Rippling Flesh Kilt (ilvl 264) - Professor Putricide ICC10 Normal/Heroic;
Plaguebringer's Stained Pants (ilvl 264, +hit, [Cloth]) - Festergut ICC25 Normal;
Sanctified Frost Witch's Kilt (ilvl 264, +hit, sold by Protector's Mark of Sanctification ) - Toravon the Ice Watcher VoA25;
Lightning-Infused Leggings (ilvl 264, crafting or AH ~ 20,000-25,000 gold coins);

10. Feet

Sandals of Crimson Fury (ilvl 200) - The Wyrmrest Accord - Exalted;
Soul Screaming Boots (ilvl 219, +mp5) - Devourer of Souls FoS Normal;
Mudslide Boots (ilvl 232) - Scourgelord Tyrannus PoS Heroic;
Sunreaver Magus' Sandals (ilvl 245, +hit, [Cloth]) - Champions' Cache ToC25 Normal/Heroic;
Sabatons of Tremoring Earth (ilvl 258) - Champions' Cache ToC25 Normal/Heroic;
Plague Scientist's Boots (ilvl 264) - Festergut ICC25 Normal;
Earthsoul Boots (ilvl 264, crafting or AH ~ 20,000-25,000 gold coins);

11. Rings

The Prospector's Prize (ilvl 200 rare) - Krystallus Halls of Stone Heroic;
Ring of the Frenzied Wolvar (ilvl 200 rare) - Gortok Palehoof Utgarde Pinnacle;
Annhylde's Ring (ilvl 200) - Ingvar Utgarde Keep Heroic;
Signet of Hopeful Light (ilvl 200) - Argent Crusade - Exalted;
Heartmender Circle (ilvl 245, sold by 35 Emblem of Triumph);
Firestorm Band (ilvl 232, +hit) - Lord Jaraxxus ToC10 Normal/Heroic;
Wrathful Gladiator's Band of Dominance (ilvl 264, PVP, sold by Honor Points) - Toravon the Ice Watcher VoA25;
Cerise Coiled Ring (ilvl 264) - Prince Valanar ICC10 Normal/Heroic;
Ring of Rapid Ascent (ilvl 264) - Gunship Armor ICC25 Normal;
Valanar's Other Signet Ring (ilvl 264, +hit) - Prince Valanar ICC25 Normal;
Loop of the Endless Labyrinth (ilvl 264, +hit) - Lord Marrowgar ICC25 Normal;
Ashen Band of Endless Destruction (ilvl 277, +hit) - The Ashen Verdict - Exalted;

12. Trinkets

Mark of the War Prisoner (ilvl 200 rare) - Cyanigosa Violet Hold;
Forge Ember (ilvl 200 rare) - Sjonnir The Ironshaper Halls of Stone;
Winged Talisman (ilvl 200 rare, +mp5) - Ionar Halls of Lightning;
Talisman of Resurgence (ilvl 245, sold by 50 Emblem of Triumph);
Shard of the Crystal Heart (ilvl 245, +hit, sold by 50 Emblem of Triumph);
Nevermelting Ice Crystal (ilvl 232) - Scourgelord Tyrannus PoS Heroic;
Flare of the Heavens(ilvl 239, 59 Vote Points - only way) - General Vezax Ulduar;
Living Flame (ilvl 226, +hit, 55 Vote Points) - Razorscale Ulduar10;
Abyssal Rune (ilvl 226, 72 Vote Points - only way) - Eadric's Cache Ulduar;
Maghia's Misguided Quill (ilvl 264, sold by 60 Emblem of Frost);
Reign of the Dead(ilvl 258, +DoT) - Anub'arak ToC25 Normal/Heroic;
Muradin's Spyglass (ilvl 264) - Gunship Armory ICC10 Normal/Heroic;
Dislodged Foreign Object (ilvl 264) - Rotface ICC25 Normal;
Phylactery of the Nameless Lich (ilvl 264) - Sindragosa ICC25 Normal;

13. Weapon

Flameheart Spell Scalpel (ilvl 200 rare, +hit, [Dagger]) - Kirin Tor - Revered;
Gavel of the Brewing Storm (ilvl 200 rare, [Mace]) - The Wyrmrest Accord - Revered;
War Mace of Unrequited Love (ilvl 200, +mp5, [Mace]) - Keristrasza Nexus;
Netherbreath Spellblade (ilvl 200 rare, +Spirit, [Dagger]) - Skadi Utgarde Pinnacle;
Surgeon's Needle (ilvl 232, +mp5, [Dagger]) - Forgemaster Garfrost PoS Heroic;
Chilled Heart of the Glacier (ilvl 219, +hit, [Dagger]) - The Captain's Chest HoR Normal;
Bone Golem Scapula (ilvl 219, +mp5, [Mace]) - The Captain's Chest HoR Normal;
Barb of Tarasque (ilvl 245, +hit, [Dagger]) - Icehowl ToC25 Normal/Heroic;
Sunreaver Disciple’s Blade (ilvl 245, sold by 73 Vote Points - normal only, [Dagger]) - Champion's Cache ToC10 Normal/Heroic;
Hammer of Purified Flame (ilvl 251, quest chain, [Mace]);
Midnight Sun (ilvl 264, +mp5, [Dagger]) - Gunship Armory ICC10 Normal/Heroic;
Bleak Coldarra Carver (ilvl 264, +hit, [Dagger]) - Sindragosa ICC10 Normal/Heroic;
Frozen Bonespike (ilvl 264, +Spirit, [Dagger]) - Lord Marrowgar ICC25 Normal;
Tel'thas, Dagger of the Blood King (ilvl 271, [Dagger]) - The Lich King ICC10 Normal/Heroic;
Royal Scepter of Terenas II (ilvl 271, [Mace]) - The Lich King ICC25 Normal;

14. Shield

Facade Shield of Glyphs (ilvl 200 rare, +mp5) - Krik'thir Azjol-Nerub;
Protector of Frigid Souls (ilvl 219, +mp5) - Scourgelord Tyrannus PoS Normal;
Wisdom's Hold (ilvl 239, 71 Vote Points - only way) - Cache of Storms Ulduar;
Lost Pavise of the Blue Flight (ilvl 264, +mp5) - Sindragosa ICC10 Normal/Heroic;
Bastion of Resolve (ilvl 258) - Champions' Cache ToC25 Normal/Heroic;
Bulwark of Smouldering Steel (ilvl 264) - Lord Marrowgar ICC25 Normal;

15. Relic

Totem of Electrifying Wind (ilvl 245, sold by 25 Emblem of Triumph);
Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice (ilvl 264, sold by 30 Emblem of Frost);

The largest factor that determines how your best in slot template looks, under 6kGS, comes down to whether you have access to twenty five man raiding or only to ten mode raids. Above was posted links to the items from both raid categories. It’s clear that ten man raid guilds are more popular, because it’s easier to create them, even prepared for Heroic mode. There is a vast difference between the gear available to twenty five man raiders in comparison to ten man raids. For some item categories, you’re going to find yourself very limited in choice. The prime example of this, for casters, is in regards to trinkets. Below are described the most balanced gear sets under 6kGS for 10 and 25 man raids respectively.

The balanced gear
under 6kGS for:

10 Man Raids

25 Man Raids

1. Head: Sanctified Frost Witch's Helm
1. Head: Sanctified Frost Witch's Helm

2. Neck: Soulcleave Pendant

2. Neck: Amulet of the Silent Eulogy

3. Shoulder: Sanctified Frost Witch's Shoulderpads

3. Shoulder: Sanctified Frost Witch's Shoulderpads

4. Back: Lich Wrappings

4. Back: Frostbinder's Shredded Cape

5. Chest: Sanctified Frost Witch's Hauberk

5. Chest: Sanctified Frost Witch's Hauberk

6. Wrist: Ether-Soaked Bracers

6. Wrist: Bloodsunder's Bracers

7. Weapon: Tel'thas, Dagger of the Blood King (Heroic/Normal)

7. Weapon: Royal Scepter of Terenas II

8. Shield: Bastion of Resolve

8. Shield: Bulwark of Smouldering Steel

8. Relic: Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice

8. Relic: Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice

9. Hands: Sanctified Frost Witch's Gloves

9. Hands: Sanctified Frost Witch's Gloves

10. Waist: Waistband of Despair

10. Waist: Waistband of Despair

11. Legs: Lightning-Infused Leggings

11. Legs: Lightning-Infused Leggings

12. Feet: Earthsoul Boots

12. Feet: Earthsoul Boots

13. Ring1: Ashen Band of Endless Destruction

13. Ring1: Ashen Band of Endless Destruction

14. Ring2: Cerise Coiled Ring
14.Ring2: Loop of the Endless Labyrinth
or
Ring of Rapid Ascent

15. Trinket1: Muradin's Spyglass

15. Trinket1: Dislodged Foreign Object

16. Trinket2: Abyssal Rune
or
Maghia's Misguided Quill

16. Trinket2: Maghia's Misguided Quill
or
16. Phylactery of the Nameless Lich

How to gem and enchant 10 man raid gear? The described gear is the best for specified raid versus, but only 4 items have Hit rating attribute, which will give to your character about 209 Hit points. For 10 man raids, an elemental shaman should stack between 350 - 367 (optimal) Hit points! Gemming mostly depends on which trinket will be equipped: Abyssal Rune (84 Haste) or Maghia’s Misguided Quill (152 Hit). With Abyssal Rune the shaman will have about 1000 Haste rating (near ideal value) and 209 Hit points. The specified gear will give 7 or 8 yellow sockets, which can be filled by Rigid King’s Amber (+20 Hit) gems in summary value of 140 Hit points. With Maghia’s trinket we need to stack about 380 – 209 – 152 = 19 Hit points, which is near x1 Rigid King’s Amber. Other yellow sockets should be gemmed by Reckless Ametrine. Don’t doubt about such gemming, because Hit rating is crucial for elemental shaman. All red sockets should be filled by Runed Cardinal Ruby gems. The enchanting scrolls should contain Spell Power values. Only shields must be enchanted by Intellect and chest – by +10 All Stats scroll (no other variants). Such gear set should pull near 7.5k self buff DPS on Heroic Training Dummy and around 9.5k DPS on ICC Bosses.

Tip. If your character has enough Hit points, then it is a good idea to fill all Waist and Legs sockets with Runed Cardinal Ruby.

How to gem and enchant 25 man raid gear? The 25 man raids offer a better and “wide amount” of items to casters. The gear listed above gives to ele shaman characters 1014 Haste rating and 220 Hit rating, without second Maghia’s trinket. In the end, I think, the Maghia’s trinket is the best choice as a second trinket for any PVE below 6kGS. With the specified trinket we can collect about 372 Hit points, so remaining yellow sockets we can fill with Reckless Ametrine, which will give to our character the summary of 1094 Haste rating (near ideal value). I did a lot of raids with one yellow socket, filled by rigid King’s Amber, and 2 yellow sockets, filled by Runed Cardinal Ruby gems, which allowed me to show very high DPS. Other gems and enchants are the same as specified in previous “10 man raids" explanations. This gear set should pull near 7.8kDPS on Heroic Training Dummy (without any professions improvements) and around min 10k DPS on ICC Bosses.

Maghia’s Misguided Quill. What a strange trinket? This is not pure PVE and not pure PVP trinket, but this is an elemental shaman “long time cousin” over 6kGS, before the BiS gear. For PVE this trinket is bad because it requires “Use” to trigger the trinket's abilities (0.5-1.5 sec time time spent to activate, depending by latency and FPS). During intensive DPS encounters as DBS, Festergut or BQL, this trinket can be used by losing about 1000 -1500 DPS. It is developed as a “bursting trinket”. This trinket should have such “procs” like Muradin’s Spyglass, Dislodged Foreign Object … For PVP is bad, because the 152 Hit points with 51 Hit points from “Ashen Band” ring gives a very overcapped hit value. The Skeleton Key or any haste trinket from ICC or RS is much better.

In any real situations pure 10 man or 25 man raid gear is a rarity. You will see and will be able to farm a mixed variant of items described above. In this VIDEO DPS TEST is an example of such a case, performed by another WoW player. He pulled the average 8kDPS with Bloodlust and profession improvements. Probably this is the best self buff DPS on Heroic Training Dummy below 6kGS, which an elemental shaman can pull.

2.3. GS Over 6k
c.2.3 January 2014

Spoiler: Show

Concept

The GS over 6k requires the same items as was described for 25 players mode raids in the above section, at the beginning, but the items should be Heroic ilvl271-277 or better. This is the point where RS 25 Normal farming is a must. This farming is similar to VOA25, but with improved items ilvl 271 and way harder raid encounter. You should be interested in the next stuff:

Bracers of Fiery Night.
Charred Twilight Scale.
Cloak of Burning Dusk.
Split Shape Belt.

Tip. The specified gear has different socket combinations and Hit rating. To make item farming more balanced for DPS, I recommend to keep the Maghia’s trinket active, otherwise you will replace dozens of Rigid King’s Amber gems after each loot, just to balance the character’s Hit points. Any ICC 25HC item is better than RS 25N, but if you will be able to loot some RS stuff – then get it.

The Item Level 277 versions are upgraded from the 264 versions, with a Protector's Mark of Sanctification (Heroic). Begin such upgrading from Head and Shoulder slots, then try Hands and Chest slots, just to stack Hit points. This will give the possibility to replace the Maghia’s trinket in favor of some pure DPS trinket.
The main difference compared to 6kGS stuff in such progression is Waist and Legs items. Really, Lightning-Infused Leggings should be replaced by Sanctified Frost Witch's Kilt (Heroic) or Plaguebringer's Stained Pants (Heroic, if you are allowed to loot) and Waistband of Despair – by Split Shape Belt (Normal) at least. All RS gear is normal here, because ICC 25HC bosses are much easier to defeat than Halion 25HC. The Halion Heroic is hard as the LK Heroic, but for new guilds or bad organized is a bit harder even and he is not an easy farming boss due to huge competition for those items. I think RS 25 Heroic is a “pre-Cataclysm” raid, which can be a challenge for Cataclysm expansion raids in Tier 11 gear set.

2.4. Elemental Shaman BiS Set
c.2.4 January 2014

Spoiler: Show

The Stats Priority Changes for BiS Gear

The Elemental Shaman BiS gear gives us the possibility to stack and balance Haste Rating and Critical Rating only, because Hit points by default are near hard-cap (370 - 380) and Spell Power is maximal from each item, with one exception. The process of balancing the Haste and Critical Rating mostly depends on server latency, character race, professions, gear type and available type of sockets on it (red, yellow and blue). At specified point, elemental shaman’s Haste Rating is near soft-cap (1100 points - let's say "generic" Haste cap), which tune our Lava casting time to 1 sec, CL to 1.1 sec and LB to 1.3 sec after Totem Relic procs to 5 stacks. During Blood Lust the casting time of all described spells is less than 1 sec = GCD. The none Bloodlust LB casting time is close to GCD after Engineering Gloves or Elemental Mastery ability is used and they can be used in a sequence order. Therefore, it’s not necessary to stack more Haste Rating. At this point we can stack Critical Rating only as the most useful stat for higher DPS, because it's easier to do and its damage potency scales better than the Spell Power grants. The BiS gear set listed below have all described parameters and I found she provide the best in return of DPS:

The Balanced BiS Gear Set

1. Head. Sanctified Frost Witch's Helm.
2. Neck. Amulet of the Silent Eulogy.
3. Shoulder. Sanctified Frost Witch's Shoulderpads.
4. Cloak. Cloak of Burning Dusk.
5. Chest. Sanctified Frost Witch's Hauberk.
6. Wrist. Bracers of Fiery Night.
7. Weapon. Royal Scepter of Terenas II.
8. Shield. Bulwark of Smouldering Steel.
9. Hands. Sanctified Frost Witch's Gloves.
10. Waist. Split Shape Belt.
11. Legs. Sanctified Frost Witch's Kilt.
12. Feet. Plague Scientist's Boots.
13. Ring 1. Ashen Band of Endless Destruction.
14. Ring 2. Loop of the Endless Labyrinth / Ring of Rapid Ascent
15. Trinket 1. Charred Twilight Scale.
16. Trinket 2. Phylactery of the Nameless Lich.
17. Relic. Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice.

GearSet: 6560.

Preview

Note. The default self buff Secondary Attributes of the BiS Elemental Shaman character are: 4226 Spell Power, 48.6% Crit Rating, 1192 Haste Rating.

Demo1: Elemental Shaman Wotlk 3.3.5a BiS Gear by Rexarjr
Demo2: Elemental Shaman Wotlk 3.3.5a BiS Gear DPS by Rexarjr

DPS on Warmane server
Demo1: Single-target sustained DPS
Demo2: Single-target burst DPS
Demo3: AoE DPS

Tip. A lot of players think that Ring of Rapid Ascent and Blood Queen’s Crimson Choker are the best for any caster Spec, but I should admit they are wrong a bit. Those items have practically the same performance as other rings and amulets from ICC HC, moreover, for some classes they are bad, because don’t give the possibility to balance some item combinations, especially for Elemental Shaman class Spec. For example, for an orc character we can choose between Loop/Valanar's and Rapid Ascent rings - Loop is good if we are going to focus on hard-cap Hit stat or Rapid Ascent - if we are going to focus on soft-cap Hit stat. It's possible to run with Plaguebringer's Stained Pants, but the "Regalia's Kilt" have more points in Hit, Spell Power and Critical Rating. It's all about how the dps is scaling based on the available SP, Hit, Crit, Haste are scaling and they are scaling up nonlinearly. All secondary stats grants some improvements to dps meters. You can read more about it in section 3.7. But at some point, based on gear bonus, Talents, Glyphs, software and hardware abilities - 1% Crit can grant more dps than 1% Haste or 50 SP.

Sanctified Frost Witch's Kilt vs Plaguebringer's Stained Pants
The “Stained Pants” looks “very delicious”, but I don’t think they are so “nutritiously” for a Elemental Shaman. I agree, for a Warlock or a Shadow Priest they are BiS without a doubt. Let’s compare them deeply. Both have 139 Stamina and Intellect, but the “Kilt” receives more 1026 armor from mail, which grants more points to “Effective Stamina”. The “Stained Pants”, fully stacked with 3x Runed Cardinal Rubies, can stack addition 17 Spell Power (SP = 185 + 3x23 = 185 + 69 = 254 …not so huge advantage) compared to “Kilt” with summary of 237 Spell Power (SP = 195 + 23 + 12 + 7(bonus) = 237). The “Kilt” have addition 2 hit points, but with Veiled Ametrine gem socketed (as he can be socketed), he stacks on 12 Hit points more than “Pants” – it’s enough to turn shamans overall Hit rating into “Hard Cap Range” of 371 points in BiS gear by default. This in pair with other rings or amulets allows us to switch between soft- and hard-cap Hit attribute where needed. The third gear attribute is completely different on each item: the “Pants” have 116 Haste (3.54% @L80), the “Kilt” have 122 Crit (2.66% @L80). The last attribute makes difficulties for choosing among both if a player hasn’t strong knowledge about character Talent tree, Glyphs and spells. With both Kilt or Pants equipped our character can be Hard-capped on Hit. With “Pants” equipped, we can only increase the soft-capped Haste rating to 1220, which will be “eaten” by GCD barrier and latency lags during the Bloodlust burst and special temporary Haste buffs, by losing about 2.66% Crit Rating (47% total)! Elemental Shaman has a lot of haste improvement abilities like Elemental Mastery, Engineering Gloves, Wrath of Air Totem and Blood Lust, Potion of Haste, which can turn the Lava Burst cast time under 1 sec (GCD), the Chain Lightning near 1 sec and the Lightning Bolt between 1 and 1.2 sec during the whole encounter! Now look at shaman’s spell rotation and analyze Elemental Talent Tree. It contains 2 Lava and 12 LB spells per casted FS. If the “Kilt” is equipped, the character can stack 50% Crit chance with minimum 8 “critical” spells in the rotation, because at least each second LB will crit. Opposite to this, addition 116 haste will not let you to cast an additional LB. Also half of FS DoT ticks will do critical damage and this is enormous, because the second Lava will increase the working period. After a non-periodic crit the Clearcasting will be triggered by buffing our character with 10% spell damage from Elemental Oath. With 50% default (but in fact its over 55%) Crit chance, we can keep this buff up all the time! Another very important talent, which increases DPS value greatly, is the Lightning Overload which can instantly cast a LB/CL spell (with no mana or threat cost) with 50% damage application once per 3-4 LB/CL spells. Now keep in mind that only Critical Rating (no Haste) can improve the [Lightning Overload] talent - the auto casted spells can crit. Notice the Glyph of Lightning Bolt (+4% dmg) and the meta gem Chaotic Skyflare Diamond (+3% dmg to spell crit!). With other words, the LB normal damage is increased by 4%, after that the LB can crit with addition 150% bonus, plus 3% from Meta gem, improved by the Elemental Fury talent, which will increase the crit bonus damage for addition 100%!

Elemental shaman’s critical spells can do 206% increased damage!!!

My suggestion. For BiS gear the Sanctified Frost Witch's Kilt is better than Plaguebringer's Stained Pants.

Sanctified Frost Witch's Shoulderpads vs Horrific Flesh Epaulets
The most controversial items when it comes to BiS gear debate. As you can notice, I had some debate about the Horrific Epaulets advantage in this thread' posts back in the day. It's very hard to decide what is better and to choose between 8 Haste Rating or 13 SP respectively. I performed many ICC raids by using both items and didn't notice any noticeable advantage of one item versus another one. Also, I found that in 10 man raids, or in any not balanced ones, the Horrific Epaulets can perform a bit better, while in 25 man raids, where there are complete set of buffs and debuffs, the Shoulderpads works better on both dps and the spell rotation synchronization. Every lvl 83 boss has its default resistance value to magical spells, which have different chances to reduce our spell damage by different amounts, as its explained in section 3.7. (subsection 3.7.6. Resistances). Its rnd factor works just nasty versus constant and flat SP stat. Interestingly, in long period run scenarios (aka 25man raid mode where around 200 LBs and few dozens of FSs are casted) a bit more haste will turn in few addition FS DoTs and LBs. Also, in my opinion, the Epaulets will do better for draenei and troll Elemental Shaman.

In the ICC HC we have next similar rings for casters:

Loop of the Endless Labyrinth
Ring of Rapid Ascent
Valanar's Other Signet Ring

All described rings have the same Stamina, Intellect, blue socket and Spell Power attributes. Among them, only “Loop” have more Hit (50) and Crit (73) points, which Shaman need so much. The “Valanar’s” ring is stacked with 78 Haste points (very well). Only the “Rapid Ascent” ring is stacked with 68 Crit and 60 Haste points. I think the “Rapid Ascent” ring can be valuable for draenei shamans (+1% to Hit), or any Elemental Shaman to go Soft Capped on Hit, and other caster classes, like mages, priests. orc Elemental Shaman can get it to go Soft-Capped on Hit in perfect raids also (as a perfect option). For none draenei shamans this ring provides lesser performance then other two overall. The “Loop” and “Valanar’s” rings have practically the same performance to DPS and you can loot or roll for one of them which will drop first. Their attributes provide just a “castling” into stats, without any summary changes. In general “Loop” is more preferred, because 50 Hit points is uncomfortably to compensate through gems.

In the ICC HC we have next similar amulets for casters:

Amulet of the Silent Eulogy
Blood Queen's Crimson Choker

All described amulets have the same Stamina, Intellect and Spell Power attributes. If “Queen’s” amulet to stack with a Runed Cardinal Ruby or Rigid King’s Amber the amulet will show near the same performance as the“Eulogy” amulet has. The minus of the “Queen’s” neck is a blue socket! The “Eulogy” amulet is more preferred for elemental shamans, because 60 Hit points is equal to 3 Rigid King’s Amber (against 3 Reckless Ametrine = 36 Spell Power and 30 Haste Rating). The amulet’s yellow socket is just designed for one Reckless Ametrine gem, which will grant an additional 5 Spell Power bonus. Overall, if it comes to play with Hit cap for different raid setups, better use the rings for this not the amulets.

Important. Always try to stack Hit points from gear attributes than from enchants or gems! This will give a better hit value in return, without lossless in Haste Rating and Spell Power.

Update May 2019
The discussion around Hit cap values always was a debate subject on this forum. I had many dispute conversations around this topic. So, I got another question about it recently. I'll try to clarify it in another way here and in sections 2.8 and especially in 3.7. Deep Analysis of Stats.

As I mentioned above, try to stack the Hit rating from gear mainly. The Hit rating in your character overview will be displayed as a value gained from the gear only. The points from Elemental Precision Talent will not change the "Hit" overview value as raid buffs and debuffs will not also. So, with that Talent learned into 3, a character is Hard-capped with 14% Hit chance or Soft-capped without those talent points. Soft-cap terminology is a reference to PVE raid buffs mostly (but not only), and means that this will turn our "under-capped" stats to higher levels, even Hard-capped (the best possible) ones. Therefore, orc, troll and tauren Shaman's Hit is Soft-capped in raids at 11% due to addition +3% Hit of Druid's or Priest's buff/debuff. Draenei Shaman, based on his racial Heroic Presence, is Hard-capped at 13% and Soft-capped at 10%.

So, build your FINAL BiS Set based on your character abilities and overall stats. I made my BiS Set based on my character Race and all Talents, Skills, Professions I described already and it works. BTW, I wrote an entire 3.6. section for it. So it depends on your professions, internet connection quality, available Heroic items. Just keep in mind, that current Warmane connection latency is decent and can reach 500ms values randomly. This just will roll the described above items from case to case. You can use a Heroic BQC amulet and in pair with Loop will make your character Soft-capped in "good" raids. "Good" means that all your Hit buffing raid characters will be alive during the 95% of the encounter time. As soon you'll change to both Heroic BQC and Rapid Ascent items, your character will be under Soft-capped no matter what kind of pants are equipped: Kilt or Plaguebringer's Pants. A missed well buffed Lava and LB will be a bigger loss to the damage and dps than addition 15SP, 30 Haste and 30 Crit can grant to the character.

2.5. DPS Trainer
c.2.5 February 2014

Spoiler: Show

ATTENTION! This section contains video tests made on my “own private server” for BiS elemental shaman. Based on my previous notes, the spell power and spell coefficients on both servers are the same, based on Database and program logic. Previously I calculated the Spell damage relatively to the Heroic Training Dummies and Boss targets, which have the default Average Resistance and its proc chance. It was confusing for some players, as I know, and therefore I recalculated the Spell damage to show just pure flat values, which must be normalized vs Boss targets further. It's believed that a Boss has a chance to reduce most incoming damage sources by 10%. I highly recommend to take a look at section 3.7. Deep Analysis of Stats to understand better how the calculations are performed here.

What is DPS?

Damage per second (DPS or dps) is a measure of the damage dealt by a person or group over one second. DPS is a more practical measure of damage output than plain damage. Usually DPS is calculated as an average value of total damage done over 5 or 10 sec (Total Damage/5, Total Damage/10).

"Burst DPS" refers to damage dealt over a relatively short period of time. High burst damage is the preferable form of damage against targets at/with relatively low health. Most classes have at least few spells or abilities that generate high damage very quickly.

"Sustained DPS" refers to constant damage dealt over an extended period of time. High sustained damage is the preferable form of damage against targets with relatively high health.

The DPS of a single spell can be calculated as either (Damage / Cast Time) or (Damage/Cast Interval for instant spells; Official resource). For most calculations, an instant spells' cast time is treated as the GCD, 1.5 seconds / (1 + Spell Haste). Some spells have a reduced GCD as affected by talents.

DPSspell = [Hi*((Dmin + Dmax)/2 + P*Cp)*(1 + B*Sc)*(1 + Ha)]/T; {F1}

Hi – is the spell hit percent; D – is the base damage; P – is spell power; Cp – is the spell power coefficient; B – is the critical damage bonus; Sc - is the critical strike percent; Ha – is the spell haste percent; T – is the base casting time.

The specified formula was posted on official WoW sites to calculate individual spell DPS, but something is wrong with the formula. First of all, to get a relatively correct response, the Hi, Cp, B, Sc and Ha should be considered percent values. The formula will show a downgraded value compared to actual data from the dps meter. It's obvious, because a spell can have different additional effects defined by talents, T9/T10 gear bonus or Glyphs. In addition, the spell DPS will vary based on buffs or debuffs of other spells. Finally, we must take into consideration an absolutely rng influence of Ring, Trinket, Relic and Class active buffs. In the end, we are interested in actual DPS values, considering all these factors - not the Spell DPS of an abstract model. Below I tried to theorycraft this aspect and calculate the actual spell DPS of core spells for BiS Elemental Shaman by using other already theorycrafted data like SP%.

So, the average DPS calculation of most spells can be interpreted by The Lightning Bolt Graphic of DPS:

The value of AVGSpellDamage (ASD) can be calculated as the average spell damage of average normal hits and average critical spell hits to replace the rng Function(Hit, Crit) multiplier:

AVGSpellDamage = [In*(SDNmin + SDNmax)/2 + Ic*(SDCmin + SDCmax)/2]/2; {F2}

where SDNmin – minimal value of normal spell damage; SDNmax – maximal value of normal spell damage; SDCmin – minimal value of critical spell damage; SDCmax – maximal value of critical spell damage, In - index of normal hits (to determine the weight of normal hits compared to crit hits in the proportion), Ic - index of critical hits.

Obviously, in most cases In > Ic. For example, with 30% Crit Chance we will get like 70% of normal hits and like 30% of critical hits. Therefore, the values of lower normal hits will cause a greater influence on overall ASD value. It's possible to identify these In and Ic by doing a few hundreds of casting tests. But, but, we can do clever and tricky things here also to greatly simplify our life. Considering the BiS elemental shamans has like default 50% Crit chance, we can consider In ~ Ic - the each second hit will be normal or crit respectively. Actually, critical chance of some Shaman spells are around 60%. Therefore, both indices will have the same weight in formula {F2}:

AVGSpellDamage = [(SDNmin + SDNmax)/2 + (SDCmin + SDCmax)/2]/2; {F2 - 1}

For casting spells, the DPSspell {F4} of N spells is equal to, based on the Law of large numbers {F3}:

Xn(AVG)= (X1 + X2 + ... + Xn)/n => (ASD1 + ASD2 + ... + ASDn)/n = ASD*n/n = ASD (when n -> inf) {F3}

Therefore,

DPSspell = ASD/(CdT + CsT); {F4}

where ASD – Average Spell Damage; CdT – Cooldown Time; CsT – Casting Time.

Note for BiS gear. LB hasn’t any cooldown time, but the cast time is 1.3 sec. FS casting time is equal to zero with 5 sec cooldown interval only. CL has the next summary time interval between spells: 3 sec + 1.1 sec = 4.1 sec. LvB has 1.01 + 8 = 9.1 sec. We can see now, that LB has the lowest CastTime() function and LvB – the highest CastTime(). The DPSspell formula can be used to calculate casting spell DD, instant spell DD and spell DoT dps; For AoE and channeling spells should be used a bit different formula.

The character' overall DPS, in most cases, is the summary of all average DPSspell, included in a “spell rotation”:

DPS = I1*DPSSpell1 + I2*DPSSpell2 + ... + I3*DPSSpelln; {F5}

where I1... In are the DPS weight indices as a number of respective spells included into a spell rotation. If we have a spell rotation with 5 DD Spell1 and 5 DD Spell2, without internal CD, (10 spells in total), then their indices will be 0.5 respectively.

Ii = Ncs / Nts ; {F5 - 1}

where Ncs - the number of casted spells in the current rotation, Nts - the number of total possible to cast spells in the current spell rotation; it determines the weight or proportion by which the current DPSSpell effect is reduced in a rotation, because other spell is casted instead in a given time interval.

Note. The DPSspelli can be any working dps factor - even DoT kind.

Why in most cases? Previous formulae, especially {F5}, can be used to calculate the DPS of DD centric casters and DoT centric casters. For example, a DoT caster is an Affliction Warlock with his Corruption, Unstable Affliction and Haunt's strong DoTs. We can calculate the DPS of every DoT, and considering that Corruption needs to be casted only once, and the UA and Haunt have relatively long working timers, we can compute the warlock's dps as their sum. For parallel working spells, their dps indices are equal to 1 (casted spells rarely will cover each other). Indeed, while warlock will cast Shadow Bolts, his DoTs and pet will work in parallel. So, at the same time, all spells will do their damage as:

DPSw = DPSbolt + DPScorruption + DPSua + DPShaunt + DPSpet; {F5-2}

For Balance Druids, the computation will be more complex due to their Moon and Solar stances mechanic, but similarly to how its calculated for an Elemental Shaman.

All previous formulae and concepts are designed for Elemental Shaman mainly. Elemental shaman's single target spell rotation is:
Algorithm: FS + LvB + 6xLB + LvB + 6xLB, - 1 FS, 2 LvB and 12 LB (15 spells in total or 3 + 12*1.27 = 18.24 sec interval).

DPSeshaman = I1*DPSfsdd + I2*DPSlvb + I3*DPSbolt + DPSfsdot + DPStotem; {F5-3}

where fsdd - FS DD, fsdot - FS DoT parallel damage, lvb - LvB, bolt - LB, totem - the dps of any totem like Fire Elemental, Magma or Searing Totem.

Considering that FS internal CD is 6 sec and we will cast only one spell per 18.24 sec, then I1 = Ifs = 1/3 = 0.33. The LvB will be casted on CD, when ready, therefore its DPSlvb will not be downgraded in any way and I2 = Ilvb = 1. Just because we have to cast one FS and two LvB in a rotation, we will not cast 2 LB instead, considering its 1.3 sec (1.3 * 2 = 2.6 < 3 sec) casting time, therefore I3 = 12/14 = 0.86 (we can't cast more than 14 LB during a 18.24 time interval).

DPSeshaman = 0.33*DPSfsdd + DPSlvb + 0.86*DPSbolt + DPSfsdot + DPStotem; {F5-3-1}

By looking at formula {F5-3-1} we can ask: "Why should we use any spells with 0.33 or 0.86 DPS indices?". Obviously because FS will apply a parallel DPSfsdot spell, because some spells have higher crit chance and crit damage or because they are required to boost our main DPS spells.

Note. From previous examples it's obvious why DoT based casters can push easy high DPS numbers not only in intense movement encounters. Not always the high output damage of DD spells can cover their low DPS indices due to their serialized mechanics.

Below I'll use the previous formulae to calculate the ASD and DPS of core shaman's spells considering: spell abilities, Talents, SP%, Glyphs, gear.

How to Calculate the Spell Damage?

Any spell damage can be calculated based on character Attributes, Talents, Glyphs, gems and spell power coefficients respectively.

Spell power coefficient (SPC) is an intrinsic property of a spell that determines how much bonus damage or healing it gets from the spell power attribute accumulated from gear, buffs, and talents. In most cases, the coefficient is fixed for a spell; in other cases, it is changed by talents, such as various "empowering" talents, available to some caster classes. Spell power coefficients usually follow set rules outlined in the spell power article, but many exceptions exist. Exact spell power coefficients are tested experimentally and documented well (Resource link).

Talents

Concussion: +5% dmg to LB, CL, Th, Lava and shock spells.
Call of Flame: +6% dmg to Lava and fire totems.
Elemental Fury: Increases spells' critical strike damage bonus by 100% to 200%.
Storm, Earth and Fire: +60% dmg to FS DoT.
Elemental Oath: +10% to spell dmg while Clearcasting is active.
Lava Flows: +24% to Lava critical damage bonus.
Shamanism: +20% to spell damage bonus for LB and CL; +25% dmg to Lava.

Glyphs

Glyph of Lightning Bolt: +4% dmg to LB.
Glyph of Lava: +10% spell power to Lava.

Other

Chaotic Skyflare Diamond: +3% dmg to spell critical bonus.

SPC%

Lightning Bolt: 71.43% and 91.43% with Shamanism;
Chain Lightning: 57.14% + 40% + 28% on each “jump”, respectively (sum = 125.14%) and 77.14% + 60% + 48% with Shamanism;
Lava Burst: 57.14% and 92.14% with Glyph and Shamanism;
Flame Shock DD: 21.43%;
Flame Shock DoT: 10% per tick; totaling 60%; with 4 bonus of T10 addition 2 ticks –> 80%;
Earth Shock: 38.58%;
Frost Shock: 38.58%
Lightning Shield: 33.33%;
Magma Totem: 10% per tick;
Searing Totem: 16.67% per tick.

Spell crit bonus

+50% damage bonus by default for all spells

For example, without any Talents, Glyphs and gems the LB NONE CRIT damage of 889 can be improved by 4200 spell power (under BiS gear set) through SPC% in the next order: 889 + 4200x(71.43%/100%) = 889 + 4200x(0.7143) = 889 + 3000 = 3889 dmg. The CL spell is less improved on a single target: 1167 + 4200x0.5714 = 1167 + 2400 = 3567 dmg, but on 3 targets it counts to 6417 dmg!

SDNmin/max = (NormalSpellDamage_min/max + SpellPower*SPC%)*TotalSDIncrease; {F6}

where NormalSpellDamage_min/max is the value displayed on spell tooltip or can be performed by a "naked" character without any Talents and Glyphs, TotalSDIncrease - is the total spell damage aquired from talents.

The effect of Elemental Fury was a bit confusing for me back in the day. If not paying attention, we can miss the point to what it's applied. Let me explain. The damage of almost all critical spells in Wotlk is increased by additional 50% and our result damage will be computed as 150% after normal damage will proc. Elemental Shaman has an unique Talent which improves the critical damage bonus by addition 100% (two times). Just keep in mind - improves not critical spell damage, but critical spell damage bonus!

SDCmin/max = SDNmin/max * (1 + 50%/100%*(1 + 100%/100%)) = SDNmin/max*(1 + 0.5*2) = 2*SDNmin/max; {F7}

Considering the effect of must to have Skyflare meta gem, the spell critical damage will be increased by 3% in total of 53%. Elemental Fury, due to formula {F7}, improves this value by addition 100% up to 206% or 2.06 times in total:

SDCmin/max = 2.06*SDNmin/max; {F7-1}

Tip. Considering the default high crit chance (50%) under BiS, the character will be under Clearcasting state almost all time. This stance effect is included as addition +10% spell damage in formulae below.

Note. The default self buff secondary attributes of the BiS character: 4226 Spell Power, 50% Crit Rating, 1190 Haste Rating.

1. The ASD and DPSspell calculation for Lightning Bolt under BiS(1.44 sec cast; dealing 779 – 889 Nature damage).

LB improvements by Talents: 5% * 10% = +15.5% to dmg;
Elemental Fury +100% to spell crit bonus dmg;
Spell crit default bonus: +50% to dmg;
LB improvements by Glyphs: +4% to dmg;
LB improvements by Gems: +3% to Critical damage;
LB improvements by SPC% and Shamanism: 91.43% benefits from Spell Power;
Summary: +20.12% dmg, +206% to crit bonus dmg and 91.43% from SP.

Taking into consideration that spell damage has a multiplicative effect, the total spell damage for LB is calculated:

TotalSDIncrease = Concussion% * Elemenal Oath% * LB Glyph%, or
TotalSDIncrease = (1 + 5%/100%)*(1 + 10%/100%)(1 + 4%/100%) = 1.05*1.1*1.04 = 1.2012 => 20.12%

SDNmin = (779 + 4226*91.43%)*120.12%/100% = (779 + 4226*0.9143)*1.2012 = 5577 dmg.
SDNmax = (889 + 4226*0.9143)*1.2012 = (889 + 3864)*1.2012 = 5709 dmg.
SDCmin = SDNmin * 206%/100% = 5577 * 2.06 = 11489 dmg.
SDCmax = SDNmax * 2.06 = 5709 * 2.06 = 11760 dmg.

Due to formula {F2-1}:

AVGSpellDamage = ASD = ((5577 + 5709)/2 + (11489 + 11760)/2)/2 = (5643 + 11624)/2 = 8633 dmg.

SDN vary between 5577 and 5709 dmg; SDC vary between 11489 and 11760 dmg; the AVGSpellDamage, calculated mathematically, is near 8633 dmg WITHOUT ANY TRINKET, RELIC, GLOVES AND ELEMENTAL MASTERY BUFFS. With those buffs, the calculation is much more complex and will show greater values of the damage near 9500 dmg (+ 10 to15% to damage and DPS). Look at the Graphic Dependency.

From formula {F4}, considering the default reduced casting time by Totem of Air and Relic to 1.33 sec avg, the DPS is:

DPSspell{LB} = 8633/1.32 = 6540 dps.

The real average dps of LB is 8300.
Demo: Lightning Bolt BiS 3.3.5a DPS by Rexarjr

Important! Theoretical DPSspell of LB has on 30% less DPS equal to 6382 compared to the real value of 8300, calculated by the Recount meter. This is because I discarded the RANDOM boost factors, to remove the complexity in theoretical calculations for spell damage and DPS like: Overloading (as the most important one), trinket buffs (861 and 1200 SP respectively), Ashen’s ring buff of 285 SP, racial Blood Fury of 168 SP, Engineering gloves' haste of 200 points and Elemental Mastery (which makes first spell instant even). Sometimes we can stack only Ashen’s ring buff of 285 SP (sum 4485 SP), sometimes all item buffs at once with overall spell power of 6714, depending on their cooldowns. These random factors and abilities with CD makes so hard to find an accurate formula and calculate the ASD and DPSSpell by taking into consideration only primary and secondary stats.

To make things more simpler, I introduced the Boost Coefficient (BoostC%), which shows these random item, racial, profession and talent improvements to DPSspell{LB} with an average CONSTANT number. For LB and BiS items orc race have next BoostC%:

BoostC% = (DPSreal - DPSspell)*100%/DPSspell {F7}

BoostC%{LB} = (8300 – 6540)*100% / 6540 = 27%.

Based on the character spell power, the crit rating, the hit rating and the haste we can easily calculate the real DPS of LB by multiply the DPSspell on 1.27: 6540*(1 + 27%/100%) = 6540 * 1.27 = 8306 dps.

With low level trinkets and rings (ilvl 219 -264) the BoostC% will vary between: 5 – 20%; without any “boost” item, racial and profession the BoostC% will be less than 5% (due to random critical chance). So, in Wotlk expansion the Blood Fury, LIghtning Overload, Elemental Mastery and Engineering Gloves have the same effect no matter what gear is equipped. Also, Ashen's ring has almost any character. Therefore, the BoostC% will change insignificantly by changing trinkets. Same way we can calculate the potential spell dps or overall dps of a spell rotation for every gear set: 6kGS, under 6kGS with only 3300 SP and 37 crit chance. Each race class has their own BoostC%, which can be detected in the same way: trolls will benefit from Berserking haste a bit, draenei will benefit from a bit more flat points in SP, crit and haste due to their hit bonus.

2. The ASD and DPSspell calculation for Chain Lightning under BiS(1.02 sec cast; 3.5sec cooldown; dealing 1021 – 1167 Nature damage).

CL improvements by Talents: 5% * 10% = +15.5% to dmg;
Elemental Fury +100% to spell crit bonus dmg;
Spell crit default bonus: +50% to dmg;
CL improvements by Glyphs: 0% to dmg;
CL improvements by Gems: +3% to Critical damage;
CL improvements by SPC% and Shamanism: 77.14% (single target) benefits from Spell Power;
Summary: +15.5% dmg, +206% to crit bonus dmg and 77.14% from SP.

Again, based on formula {F6}, let's find the normal and critical spell damage values:

TotalSDIncrease = 1.05 * 1.1 = 1.155 => 15.5%;

SDNmin = (1021 + 4226*77.14%)*115.5%/100% = (1021 + 4226*0.7714)*1.155 = 4944 dmg.
SDNmax = (1167 + 4226*0.7714)*1.155 = (1167 + 3260)*1.155 = 5113 dmg.
SDCmin = SDNmin*2.06 = 4944*2.06 = 10185 dmg.
SDCmax = SDNmax*2.06 = 5113*2.06 = 10533 dmg.

Due to formula {F2-2}:

AVGSpellDamage= ASD = ((4944 + 5113)/2 + (10185 + 10533)/2)/2 = (5038 + 10359)/2 = 7698 dmg.

Due to formula {F3}:

DPSspell{CL} = 7698/(1.02 + 3.5) = 7698/4.52 = 1703 dps.

The real dps of CL is 2900.
Demo: Chain Lightning BiS 3.3.5a DPS by Rexarjr

So, BoostC%{CL} = (2900 - 1703)*100%/1703 = 70% (a very interesting result; this is why CL should be used frequently on multiple targets by using “AoE spell rotation”). Its internal CD has a very good synergy with the internal CD of other proc items.

3. The ASD and DPSspell calculation for Lava Burst under BiS(0.961 sec cast; 8sec cooldown; dealing 1323 – 1685 Fire damage).

Lava improvements by Talents: 5% * 6% * 10% = +22.43% to dmg;
Lava improvements by Glyphs: +10% bonus to SPC%;
Elemental Fury: +100% to spell crit bonus dmg;
Lava Flows: +24% to spell critical damage bonus;
Spell crit default bonus: +150% to dmg;
Lava improvements by Gems: +3% to critical damage;
Lava improvements by SPC%, Shamanism and Glyph: 92.14% (57.14% + 25% + 10%) benefits from Spell Power;
Summary: +22.43% dmg, +219% to crit bonus dmg and 67.14% from SP.

Due to Lava Flows spell crit effect, we'll have a different crit bonus damage for this spell. Indeed, based on formula {F7}, the value is:

SDC = SDN*(1 + 53%/100%*(1 + (100%+24%)/100%)) = SDN*( 1 + 0.53*(1 + 1.24)) = SDN*(1 + 0.53*2.24) = 2.19*SDN.

TotalSDIncrease = 1.05*1.06*1.1 = 1.2243 => 22.43%.

SDNmin = (1323 + 4226*92.14%)*122.43%/100% = (1323 + 3894)*1.2243 = 6387 dmg;
SDNmax = (1685 + 4226*0.9214)*1.2243 = (1685 + 3894)*1.2243 = 6830 dmg;
SDCmin = SDNmin*2.19 = 6387*2.19 = 13987 dmg;
SDCmax = SDNmax*2.19 = 6830*2.19 = 14958 dmg.

Due to formula {F2-2} and considering the 100% crit chance of Lava under FS DoT:

AVGSpellDamage = ASD = (13987 + 14958)/2 = 14472 dmg.

Due to formula {F3}:

DPSspell{Lava} = 14472/(0.961 + 8) = 14472/8.961 = 1615 dps.

True, considering the Lava high 100% crit damage, the spell has a relatively low DPS due to a very long internal CD.

The real dps of Lava Burst is 1600. Just amazing how accurate are mathematically calculated values compared to real ones.
Demo: Lava Burst BiS 3.3.5a DPS by Rexarjr

So, BoostC%{Lava} = (1600 - 1615)*100%/1615 = - 0.0093 -> 0%.

The -0.9% coefficient can be considered as 0% or no effect. The Lava Burst practically hasn’t any BoostC% from trinkets, racial e.t.c due to its looong 8 sec cooldown. With other words, Lava Burst will be casted frequently between specified extra buffs, based on trivial statistics! In the video above we can see how the trinket buffs are expiring while I'm waiting for the Lava’s cooldown. The Lava Burst can benefit from buffs only during some “burst” rotations: Potion of Wild Magic + Blood Fury + Maghia’s trinket use + Elemental Mastery + Lava cast. Anyway, we should keep this spell in our base rotations, because this spell is well improved by Talents and Glyphs.

4. Other real spell damage and DPS under BiS gear.
FS DD (Avg dmg: 3000; BoostC% -> 0%) – 600 dps;
FS DoT (Avg dmg: 2200; BoostC% = 25-27%) – 700 dps;
Fire Elemental – 800 dps;
Searing Totem (Avg dmg: ; BoostC% -> 0%) - x dps.

Overall DPS of a “Spell Rotation”

Based on formula {F5} and previous calculations, it is easy to calculate the maximal possible real and theoretical DPS of each rotation. Formula {F5-3} is designed to calculate the optimal single target spell rotation for elemental shaman. Let's take into consideration that testing will not include the DPS of a totem, because I'm using ToW, and overall AVGBoostC% can be normalized to BoostC%{LB}.

DPSeshaman(max) = 0.33*DPSfsdd + DPSlvb + 0.86*DPSbolt + DPSfsdot;

DSPmath(max) = 0.33*600 + 1615 + 0.86*6540 + 700 = 198 + 1615 + 5624 + 700 = 8137 dps;
DPSreal(max) = 0.33*600 + 1600 + 0.86*8300 + 700 = 198 + 1600 + 7138 + 700 = 9636 dps;

DPSreal(max) = DPSmath(max) * AVGBoostC% = 8009 *(1 + 17%/100%) = 8137*1.17 = 9520 dps.

Code:

where +17% (x1.17) is the AVGBoostC% = (1.1 + 1.27 + 1.15) / 3 = 1.17 ~ 17-18% from DPSspell{LB}, DPSspell{Lava}, DPSspell{FS DD} and DPSspell{FS DoT} respectively. These are just amazing results, because they completely correspond to real values we can see on damage meters! 9636 is just a normalized sustained single-target DPS, while the real DPS will vary around in a +/-500 DPS interval. With better chances on crits and Lightning Overload, low latency, it's not a problem to get near 10400 DPS!

Another valuable result of last calculations shows us that elemental shamans can’t pull over 11000 self buff sustained AVG DPS on a single target. So those resources, which demonstrate shaman’s self buff single-target sustained DPS of 14k, 15k or 19k are veeeery suspicious. After the most rough estimates, with 100% haste (1 sec cast time or under Blood Lust) and 100% crit chance (unreal values; only "cheater hacks" can emulate such values) the Elemental Shaman can pull around 15k self buff sustained DPS, due to previous formulae. Greater DPS over 15k can be pulled by stacking the Spell Power to x2, x3, …, x99! Such maximal limitations to DPS meter can be determined for any other character class (even melee), and those values will not vary sufficiently!

I believe that all values, calculated previously, you had seen during your Worldwide or Party WoW gameplay with "gear" over 6kGS.

The code of DPS by Rexarjr

1. The DPS rotation should be based on the most important character class spell, without cooldown timer and/or which is the most improved by talents and Glyphs.

2. The DPS value is determined by the amount of harm spells and their damage values per time interval (1 sec).

3. The “AoE” or “Single Target” spell rotations should contain different character class spells, depending on their kind or applied effects.

4. Always include in your DPS spell rotation all possible spells, which does DoT harm effect on the target and have a relatively long working time.

5. Always use in your DPS spell rotations the maximal number of spells, which have better critical chance and/or doing increased critical damage.

6. To get high DPS values, the spell rotation must contain more spells with greater values of BoostC%.

7. Always use any "racial", trinket, talent effects and potions at the same time to stack more points in return of DPS value and/or BoostC%.

In this section I designed a new pattern to calculate the DPS of every spell and the DPS of a spell rotation as a combination of used spells sequentially and in parallel. And vice versa, I designed a pattern to design a character model. My idea isn't to go from details like Haste Rating, Hit Rating, Spell Power to general Stats. The path from details to generics can lead to many imbalanced issues and boring concepts of the character mechanics model. For example, let's say that our new developed ICC instance in 25HC mode requires around 15k DPS per character to perform well. Therefore:

15000 = DPSdd + DPSdot + DPSpet;

For DoT centric casters like Warlocks it'll be a good idea to set the DPS amount of DoTs to 60%, pet 15% and DD - 25%. In addition, we need more DoTs because only one will be just too boring in PVE and too OP in PVP. We need a long running DoT for DPS and one to bust other DoTs and DD spells. Not all DoTs should be instant, because it'll be bad for PVP, some of them must be binary spells - aka applied from a DD spell:

15000 = DPSdd + DPSdd-dot + DPSdot-buff + DPSdot + DPSpet.

OK, 15k DPS is just too much for PVP. We have to put some dmg bonus points into PVE gear and expensive PVE talents only and more defensive stats into PVP gear. So finally, what kind of talents and their values we need to get the specified amounts of DPSspell respectively, considering the default available Tier gear stats like SP, Crit, Haste and Hit?

The same ca nbe done for Elemental Shaman. Around 60-65% (not 80%) of his DPS must be DD centric. It's a class which must benefit from Totems not as utility or defense mode, but in offensive mode. There must be few DPS totems and only one of them available at a time to make the character balanced for both PVE and PVP. Pure DD DPS is boring for PVE and predictable for PVP. For Shaman, Totem DPS must be stronger than DoT DPS (it's a core and uniquie concept of the character design): DPSdot - 15% while DPSguardian - 25%:

15000 = DPSdd + DPSdot + DPSguardian/DPStotem.

Just one or two DD spells will be just too simple and boring. It's better to design a DoT, which will buff one DD spell, and additional one less improved DD spell, which will buff the guardian DPS also. There must be few offensive totems. The guardians must have an internal CD, working time and a Shaman must summon them one by one when ready in a spell rotation.

15000 = DPSdd1 + DPSdd2 + DPSdd-buff + DPSdot-buff + DPSguardian/DPStotem.

By designing characters this way, we will make all of them more versatile and competitive. Indeed, this way is easy to develop a raid instance with tank and spank boss encounters, AoE DPS oriented boss encounters, DPS intensive encounters and movement intensive ones. Therefore, some characters will push more DPS at some encounters, while other characters will push more DPS at others, considering AoE abilities, DoTs and guardians can work differently there. So, there will not be such a min-maxing model from expansion to expansion where we'll have like top 3 spec characters for PVP and top 5 for PVE. The level of absurdity of Cata Heroic raids should be avoided, where like 50% of raid DPS characters were Feral Druids and Rogues due to their single and AoE DPS potency and very high mobility.

2.6. New Ele Profession Topic
c.2.6 March 2014

Spoiler: Show

As I mentioned and described in detail about elemental shaman optimal useful and profitable professions in section 1.5 Elemental Shaman Profession Recommendation (Ctrl+F -> type c.1.5), they are: Jewelcrafting+Mining, Alchemy+Herbalist, Jewelcrafting+Enchanting, Leatherworking+Skinning, Inscription+Herbalist. They all contain one Gathering profession, because most raw materials on a Warmane server are very expensive and in most cases are more expensive than finished crafted products. The professions posted above tend to be profitable, but if you are interested in some special profession abilities or their improvements to DPS meter, then I recommend you to develop Jewelcrafting and Engineering. To gather raw materials, if you really need them or have time to farm them, just level up and ALT character with two gathering professions respectively.

Tip. Due to section 1.5 Elemental Shaman Profession Recommendation we can easily switch from one of our profitable “pair”, which contains Jewelcrafting, to this one by replacing only one Gathering profession with Engineering. In my case, I switched from Alchemy+Herbalist to Jewelcrafting+Engineering in 3 days, during the weekend, using AH as a raw materials resource base mostly. For such profession leveling I paid nearly 130 000 gold coins. That was just “Insane” profession leveling back in the day, because I did that on the XP x1 Lordaeron server.

Jewelcrafting. This profession grants the possibility to equip 3 improved Dragon’s Eye gems into gear slots respectively. Being a PVE shaman you should be interested only in Runed Dragon’s Eye, which will grant to your character Spell Power sheet addition 48 points. This makes an effect of addition 2 Runed Cardinal Ruby gems equipped or one addition powerful Spell Power enchants applied! To make money with Jewelcrafting in pair with Engineering the Battleground and raiding are the only ways. Try to collect BG honor points (max 75000) then buy on them any kind of uncut epic gems (10000 points per gem) from Lady Palanseer (H) / Captain O’Neal (A). This will give to you between 200 and 300 gold coins per crafted gem, depending by gem type and market demand. If you are an active raider, then collect as many Emblems of Triumph as possible. Convert them into Emblem of Heroism, using the macro posted in section 2.1. Macros, to buy uncut epic gems from Harold Winston in Dalaran. Emblems of Frost are good to buy Primordial Saronite if you don't need to turn in them for gear items.

Engineering. This profession grants the next very valuable enchants/devices not only for PVE criteria, but for PVP also:

Hyperspeed Accelerators. This is an engineer-only “enchant” to gloves. This item takes the same “spot” as an enchant from Enchanting. Allowing a skilled engineer (400) to increase their haste rating by 340 for 12 sec (1 min cooldown!).
Springy Arachnoweave. This is an engineer-only “enchant” to cloaks. It will give a 30 sec parachute every 60 seconds. In patch WoW 3.2.0 added the Spell Power bonus of 27! Requires: Engineering (380).
Nitro Boosts. This is an engineer-only “enchant” to feet. It will give a 5 second speed increase every 3 minutes. The actual speed increase is 150%. In patch WoW 3.2.0 added the Critical Strike bonus of 24! Requires: Engineering (405).
Frag Belt. This is an engineer-only “enchant” to belts. Allowing you to detach and throw a Cobalt Frag Bomb every 6 minutes, incapacitating targets for 3 sec in a 3 yard radius. Any damage will break the effect. This does stack with the Eternal Belt Buckle! Requires: Engineering (380).

To make money with Engineering in pair with Jewelcrafting is possible by using this profession like a Gathering one. For this you have to complete the quest "The Zapthrottle Mote Extractor! (H)” or “The Zapthrottle Mote Extractor! (A)” from Mack Diver (H) or K. Lee Smallfry in Zangarmarsh, as a reward you will obtain the [Schematic: Zapthrottle Mote Extractor] for next device - Zapthrottle Mote Extractor. This item is used to extract “motes” from various clouds, gases, mists and vortices in Outland and Northrend. The extracted raw resources can be “dropped on AH”.
In Wrath of the Lich King:

Arctic Clouds in Howling Fjord, Dragonblight and The Storm Peks produce [Crystallized Air] and [Crystallized Water].
Cinder Clouds in the Savage Thicket in Sholazar Basin, the Obsidian Dragonshrine in Dragonblight, and the Cauldron of Flames in Wintergrasp produce [Crystallized Fire].
Steam Clouds around the Geyser Fields and Scalding Pools in Borean Tundra and throughout Sholazar Basin produce [Crystallized Fire] and [Crystallized Water].

Other very useful engineering devices in raids are: Field Repair Bot 110G (helps your allies to repair their gear), Super Sapper Charge (use for addition powerful AoE, Goblins specialization), Jeeves (repair bot + remote bank access for engineers only), MOLL-E (portable mailbox), Gnomish Army Knife (nowadays its fixed next way - the chance to revive a dead ally is reduced greatly).

Conclusion

The described professions in this section are oriented to maximize the character DPS and grant a lot of new useful abilities in WoW, which helps not only your character, but entire raid or party. For hi-end gamers, where there's no need for so many gold coins, these professions are good enough to make the gold coins through gameplay :) by doing the Battlegrounds or specified raids. As I know, most player characters, after a few months of intensive raiding, have over 500 Frost Emblems and over 1000 Emblems of Heroism. Characters with over 6 months of gaming experience in Northrend raids have few thousands of Emblems of Frost. To spend those emblems on Primordial Saronite is a good idea (23 Frost Emblems per Primordial Saronite). This is absolutely a new kind of uncommon money farming :). If you are interested to get additional gold coins per week, then begin to level up a new character with Mining and Herbalism professions. The paladin is the best class for this due to his Crusader Aura (+20% to speed) with a mount (+310% speed) makes mining farming just awesome. The Mining profession is the best one to support the described here Jewelcrafting (JC) and engineering (Eng). Miners can farm Titanium and Saronite ore for JC and the remaining Saronite ore should be smelted into Saronite Bars for Eng one. Using some Alchemy transmutation ability it’s possible to convert 8 Saronite Bars into 1 Titanium Bar, without smelting Titanium ore! It makes sense, when you will stack over 70 stacks of Saronite Bars. Also Mining grants the possibility to farm [Crystallized Earth] and [Crystallized Shadow] from Saronite and Titanium veins mostly, which “mote extractor” can’t give.

2.7. Our Friendly Addons
c.2.7 March 2014

Spoiler: Show

Many add-ons can be downloaded from site: Curse Client.
If some add-ons on CurseClient site are outdated, then try the archive database on: Curse Forge.

Definitions
Below are the most important add-ons for patch Wotlk that shaman character must have installed. Some of them must be configured firstly to make them work properly; otherwise there is no sense to install them. Depending on game patch and localization, some add-ons will not work as supposed. In this case you can search for other similar variants. All these nuances are described in the Synopsis section below.

Categories:
1. Important – very useful and valuable add-ons for a dedicated raider, especially in the Heroic mode.
2. Valuable – if you want to increase your in-game performance, then install these add-ons also.
3. Intermediate – just grants your character with new functionality modes.
4. Avoid – can be a source of low FPS, lags, serious UI bugs, restricted on Warmane e.t.c.

Synopsis criteria:
1. Configuration.
1.1. Required – need to be configured before using.
1.2. Recommended – not required, but should be to make the UI more convenient.
1.3. No need – no need; it’s configuration is balanced by default.
1.4. Universal – is usable for any class + spec, in PVE and PVP area.
1.5. By default – by default, but can be optimized under specified classes.
1.6. Individual – must be configured under a specified class for PVE or PVP.
1.7. Simple – the interface is simple, with few menu options.
1.8. Medium – the interface has many options, oriented in a list style.
1.9. Multilevel – very complex conf interface, with many tabs, which are linked (animation, sounds, speed, icons for a specific effect).

2. Complexity.
2.1. Low – easy to understand and use in the game.
2.2. Medium – average difficulty.
2.3. High – is hard to understand and to work with the add-on; requires deep experience for well using.

Important Addons

1. PowerAuras. Designed to give visual or audible cues to the user in response to in-game events, such as gaining buffs or debuffs. Types of cues range from simple texture displays to stack counters, timers to timer bars, and are fully user-configurable.
Synopsis:

Configuration: required; individual; multilevel.
Complexity: high;
Stable version: PowerAuras 3.0.0.S (5.9 MB zip)

2. Heal Bot. Adds a panel with “skinable” bars for healing, decursive, buffing, ressing, range, checking and agro tracking.
Synopsis:

Configuration: required; individual; multilevel.
Complexity: high;
Stable version: HealBot 3.3.5.4 (1.8 MB zip)

3. DBM. Boss mods for all Wrath of the Lich King raids and 5-man dungeons.
Synopsis:

Configuration: no need; universal; multilevel.
Complexity: medium;
Stable version: DBM Wotlk (600 KB zip)

4. Aloft / Tidy Plates. Customize and enhance unit nameplates. I am using Aloft personally, because the addon doesn't change the classical WoW UI.
Synopsis:

Configuration: required; individually; multilevel.
Complexity: medium/high;
Stable version: Aloft 3.1.3 (744 KB zip) / TidyPlates 5.13.3 (498 KB zip)

5. Recount. Records Damage and Healing for Graph Based Display.
Synopsis:

Configuration: required (positioning); universal; simple.
Complexity: medium;
Stable version: Recount v.4.0.1 (348 KB zip)

6. TotemGuru. Shows totems dropped by other people in the raid.
Synopsis:

Configuration: no need (you must position addon’s panel in right place); simple.
Complexity: low;
Stable version: TotemGuru v.7 (37 KB zip)

7. Quartz. Modular casting bar.
Synopsis:

Configuration: required (positioning and size); universal; simple.
Complexity: medium;
Stable version: Quartz v.3.0.3 (316 KB zip)

8. GearScore_Lite. Quickly and easily judge a player’s level of Gear.
Synopsis:

Configuration: no need; universal; by default.
Complexity: low;
Stable version: Gear Score Lite v.3 (8 KB zip)

9. Class Loot. Kaliban's Class Loot List provides ratings for all raid loot with respect to its suitability for different class/spec combinations.
Synopsis:

Configuration: no need; universal; by default.
Complexity: low;
Stable version: Class Loot v.1.7.2 (260 KB zip)

Valuable Addons

1. OmniCC. OmniCC is an add-on that adds text to items, spells and abilities that are on cooldown to indicate when they will be ready to use. In other words: it turns all the standard analogue cooldowns into digital ones.
Synopsis:

Configuration: no need; universal; simple.
Complexity: low;
Stable version: OminCC v.3.0.4 (42 KB zip)

2. LoseControl. LoseControl makes it easy to see the duration of crowd control spells by displaying them in a dedicated icon on screen.
Synopsis:

Configuration: no need; universal; simple.
Complexity: low;
Stable version: LoseControl v.3.33

3. Gatherer. Gatherer is an add-on for herbalists, miners and treasure hunters in World of Warcraft. It's main purpose is to track the closest plants, deposits and treasure locations on your minimap. The addon does not track like a tracking ability does, rather it "remembers" where you have found various items in the past. When you view your World Map, you will also see the item locations marked on the particular map you are viewing there.
Synopsis:

Configuration: recommended; universal; simple.
Complexity: medium;
Stable version: Gatherer v.3.1.14 (542 KB zip)

4. ButtonForge. Button Forge is an Action Bar addon that allows you to create completely new Action Bars (as many as you want). Each bar can have up to 1500 buttons organised into rows and columns (up to 5000 buttons total).
Synopsis:

Configuration: required; individual; medium.
Complexity: medium;
Stable version: http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/button-forge/448766]ButtonForge v.0.9.4 (270 KB zip)[/url]

5. Platebuffs. PlateBuffs (PB) displays people's buffs and debuffs above their nameplates.
Synopsis:

Configuration: recommended; individual; simple.
Complexity: medium;
Stable version: http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/platebuffs/447971]Plate Buffs v.1.5.4beta (220 KB zip)[/url]

6. Gladius. Gladius adds enemy unit frames to arenas for easier targeting and focusing. It is highly configurable and you can disable most features of this addon.
Synopsis:

Configuration: recommended; individual; multilevel.
Complexity: high.
Warning: -- can be a source of UI bugs and low FPS.
Stable version: http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/gladius#t1:other-downloads] Gladius v.1.2.0 (220 KB zip)[/url]

7. Move Anything. MoveAnything enables you to move, scale, hide and adjust transparency of just about any screen element in WoW, offering tools to help you customize your UI. Some other frame modifications are also possible using MA's Frame Editors (Introduced in 11.b2), including frame strata, frame grouping and more. I used this addon to change the position of default WoW unit frames near the middle of the screen and their buff and debuff locations.
Synopsis:

Configuration: required as indicated in addon name; individual; multilevel.
Complexity: high.
Warning: -- can be a source of UI bugs.
Stable version: http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/move-anything/458132] Move Anything v.11.b2 (52.5 KB zip)[/url]

8. Range Display. Is a simple range display addon. It is using spell range, item range and interact-distance based checks to determine the approximate range to your current target.
Synopsis:

Configuration: required; individual; simple.
Complexity: low.
Stable version: RangeDisplay v.3.8.2 (375 KB zip)

9. Loot Filter. Are you tired of deleting all the crap items from your inventory that you get from looting corpses? Or are you tired of having to manually click the items you want from a corpse? Then this addon is for you. It lets you filter loot by quality, item name and item value, and helps you keep your inventory clean. It also features an option to easily sell or delete items in bulk. Also apply Auto Loot checkbox for in-game interface (Interface->GameTab->Controls->Auto Loot) for better performance.
Synopsis:

Configuration: required; individual; simple.
Complexity: low.
Warning: -- Be very and very careful with this add-on!!! Remove all checkboxes from options on the "Clean" tab! Open addon command: "/lf".
Stable version: Loot Filter v.3.14 (59.2 KB zip)

Intermediate Addons

1. Spell Flash. This addon is able to make suggestions of what spell you may want to cast next by flashing on top of the spell buttons. It’s an additional “flash” support for OmniCC addon.
Synopsis:

Configuration: no need; universal; by default.
Complexity: low;
Stable version: Try this http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/spellflash-resham/497185] Spell Flash v.1.2.4 (7.64 KB zip)[/url], but search for more compatible.

2. Button Timers. ButtonTimers are action buttons with timers attached. The timers can be configured to show a buff/debuff or the cooldown of a spell. The timers are highly configurable, with lots of options to play with. Additional functionality for OmniCC.
Synopsis:

Configuration: recommended; individual; medium.
Complexity: medium;
Stable version: http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/buttontimers/418770] Button Timers v.1.5 (147 KB zip)[/url]

3. Auctioneer. From purchasing to posting, the Auctioneer Suite provides time-tested tools to allow you more time to actually play your characters or play the market. As you will soon discover, it is much more than a simple "Auctioning AddOn", the Auctioneer Suite also shows in-depth information for all game items, such as those used in quests or recipes, enchanting, milling, prospecting and more. The addon is supported by a few sub-addons, which gives additional information, installed by default. In general, I noticed this add-on was sufficiently confused and powerful – it requires some time to understand how to manage him well.
Synopsis:

Configuration: by default; individual; multilevel.
Complexity: high;
Stable version: Auctioneer v.5.8.4723 (3.09 MB zip)

4. Spell Alerter. SpellAlerter is a basic spell alert mod based on the original SpellAlert mod. See the images for the different alert types you can set up.
Synopsis:

Configuration: no need; universal; simple.
Complexity: low;
Stable version: Spell Alerter v.2.13 (276 KB zip)

5. NPC_Scan. _NPCScan tracks seldom-seen rare mobs by proximity alone, making the old “/targetexact …” macros obsolete. It has the same range as those targeting macros, but you won't have to smash any buttons. Just go about your business and let _NPCScan alert you when it finds something. Can be configured to find any other NPC, using WoWhead DB. Just search your NPC, type “Links” button there and check the “Markup Tag” field code (For example: 50882 Chupacabros ).
Synopsis:

Configuration: recommended; individual; simple.
Complexity: medium;
Warning: needs to delete “creaturechace.wdb” file in WoW folder to reset it's database;
Stable version: http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/npcscan/441050] NPC_Scan v.3.3.5.5 (50.1 KB zip)[/url]

6. NPC_Overlay. NPCScan.Overlay is an addition to _NPCScan that adds map overlays for rare mob patrols. When you search for a rare with _NPCScan. _NPCOverlay will show where it patrols until you find it.
Synopsis:

Configuration: recommended; individual; simple.
Complexity: simple;
Stable version: http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/npcscan-overlay/434851] NPC_Overlay v.3.3.5.1 (53.6 KB zip)[/url]

Avoid

1. AVR. AVR (Augmented Virtual Reality) allows you to draw and add lines, circles and other markings on the 3D world itself. All markings may also be shared with others. Suitable to mark locations when explaining raid tactics. These marks can even be left visible for the fight itself.
Warning! Decreases UI FPS to 10-15, abandoned project, on some servers counts as a “cheating” addon.

2. Omen. Omen is a threat meter.
Warning! If you run with full PVE talent spec, being an ele shaman, you don’t need this addon. Most add-on versions make a “FPS lag spike”, when you drop your totems especially.

2.8. The Stats Priority
c.2.8 April 2014

Spoiler: Show

Intro

There is nothing uncommon to say about stats abilities and their priority. Overall the Internet you will find a lot of well explained threads about this. Most guides about elemental shaman include only: Stats description, Gems, Enchants, Rotations and rarely Talents. This section fulfills just a supporting function for the next two sections. Here I focused attention on explanations on our Soft-cap and Hard-cap stat values mostly. If you want to learn more about stats and how they influence our spells then take a look at section 3.7. Deep Analysis of Stats.

The "Cap" may be used when referring to gear itemization. Some players are doing some theorycraft works about the hit cap, the expertise cap, the dodge cap, the spell penetration cap, and others to identify their minimal, maximal, optimal values in a respective context.

Hard-cap. A "hard cap" is a point beyond which a stat becomes useless. For example, 1400 armor penetration rating bypasses 100% of all armor, so more rating has no effect. A spellcaster with 17% increased chance to hit will never miss a boss, so this is the hard cap for hit rating for casters. All Hard-cap values in this section are considered mathematically maximal possible values.

Soft-cap. A "soft cap" is either the point at which a stat stops providing a particular benefit but continues to provide others, or the point beyond which a temporarily active buff will push the stat over a hard cap. For example, the first, a defense rating of 689 is sufficient to eliminate the chance of a boss getting a critical hit against you, so further defense will not have any effect on your chance to be critically hit, but will still increase your chance to parry, dodge, block and be missed by attacks.

Note. A ''soft-cap" value can be interpreted for different scenarios differently. Basically, a Soft-cap value can be the one calculated with raid buffs or with self buffs only. The second case is designed for 10 man raids or different imbalanced raid formations where it's not possible to stack all possible buffs. On self buffed Soft-cap values are oriented mainly towards players which prefer to keep this cap" value even in the worst scenarios where like most raid characters are out of range or they are already dead (it's true for auras and debuffs). There are two types of players: those which absolutely prefer the raid buffed Soft-cap values and those which prefer to get some Stats Soft-capped with self buffs. Therefore, I tried to show the respective values for all scenarios below.

Important. The Soft-cap and Hard-cap values shown below are values which you should see on your character pan, before self buffs and raid buffs will come into play.

Stats Priority

1. Hit
Hard-cap:17%; self buff Soft-cap: 14%; raid buff Soft-cap: 11%; 26.23 Hit Rating grants 1% hit chance @lvl80.

In Wotlk we have a 17% chance to miss. This equates to needing 17% hit on your character Sheet (excluding talents, raid buffs and so on). The Elemental Shaman can stack Elemental Precision talent. At rank 3th, this talent gives us an additional 3% chance to hit with all our schools of spells. This talent is a must for PVE Elemental Shaman, because the talent provides a 30% threat reduction also (so dismiss your Omen). Draenei shamans, due to their racial aura (+1% Hit), have even a reduced Soft-cap value. As you noticed, there's a raid buff soft cap, a scenario where we can stack an additional 3% hit from Misery or Improved Faerie Fire debuff on boss. Just consider that you'll not have this debuff in any raid. In addition, I highly recommend you to take a look at subsection 3.7.3.Spell Hit of section 3.7. Deep Analysis of Stats.

The amount of hit rating required to be hit capped vs a wotlk Boss:

no talents, debuffs and racial - 446 (17% hit);
3 points into Elemental Precision, without a debuff and racial - 367 (14% hit);
3 points into Elemental Precision, with a debuff and without a racial - 288 (11% hit);
3 points into Elemental Precision, with a debuff and draenei racial - 260 (10% hit).

2. Spell Power
Hard-cap: as much as possible; Soft-cap: missing; 100 Spell Power increasing the spell damage, based to Spell Power Coefficients% (SPC%).

After hit chance is Soft-capped, the Spell Power is our primary offensive stat and the one which we stack as high as possible. This stat determines how hard our spells hit due to SPC%. Most of the time, you will be gemming and enchanting to improve this stat. For more information about Spell Power and spell damage I suggest you to take a look at section 2.5. DPS Trainer and subsection 3.7.2. Spell Power respectively.

3. Haste
Hard-cap: 2747; Soft-cap: ideally 1000, but I'll suggest to get around 1100-1200; 32.79 Haste Rating grants 1% haste.

It's a relatively complex stat which determines not only the spell cast time, but the GCD timer and the tick speed of DoTs and channeled spells. Also, its Hard- and Soft-cap values can be different based on what we want to achieve - or we want to Soft-cap haste to reduce the casting time of a specific spell to 1 sec or we just want to set Soft-cap haste to reduce the GCD from 1.5 sec to 1 sec. In most scenarios, a Soft-cap is considered as haste value when the GCD = 1 sec, which requires 50% of Haste. The 50% Haste not always is equal to 1639.5 Haste Rating, because we can stack +5% haste from our Totem of Air and additional 6.7% haste from our Bizuris Totem buff. Therefore, this is our second strongest offensive Stat just after SP. We should stack this stat until our Lava Burst and Chain Lightning spell's cast time is near 1 sec (GCD), which requires a Soft-cap haste rating of 1183 points max (36.1%) without raid buffs and 1049 with raid buffs. There is no sense to stack enough haste to turn our Lightning Bolt casting time to GCD! Just because this stat is so vague, I suggest you use gems and enchants to get around 1100 HR and be happy. You can read more about this stat in section 3.7. Deep Analysis of Stats (3.7.4. Spell Haste).

The Spell Haste' golden mean is 1100 HR. You can set lower values down to 1000 HR by moving into "rookie" zone, which will increase your character's performance during the bursting phase of Blood Lust/Heroism and while the Hyperspeed Accelerators or Elemental Mastery is up. This concept relay on the task to synchronize the spell rotation better and to get more Crit Chance from gear by equipping the Loop of the Endless Labyrinth. A good case for fast boss encounters in 10 man and 25 man raids in Normal modes. You can set upper values up to 1200 HR by moving into "pro" zone, which will increase your character's performance in long and monotonous boss encounters. This concept relies on the task to get more casted LBs and CLs just to reset the Elemental Mastery CD faster (from 3 mins down to 1.4 - 1.5 mins with x2 T10) by ignoring the perfect FS DoT synchronization in a spell rotation. It's my favorite case in the current PVE Meta, considering the current 300-500ms random latency values per casted spell. A good setup for 10 man and 25 man raids in Heroic modes.

As Soft-cap is calculated with raid buffs, in my opinion, it should be calculated with the temporary effects from different SH buffs available for Elemental Shaman: Elemental Mastery (EM), Engineering Gloves (EG) and Berserking (avg 1.1% SH). The EG has a 60 seconds incternal CD, while EM with x2 T10 - a 85 - 90 seconds internal CD. If these buffs are used correctly in a sequence, they cause an effect of additional SH buff overall. As is shown in subsection 3.7.4. Spell Haste, these buffs have a great impact on our temporary and average SH and can be interpreted by average constants.

Below is shown a list for Soft-cap values for different scenarios.

Self buffed Soft-cap HR: 1183;
Raid buffed Soft-cap HR: 1049 (actually +3% SH from a raid buff will be equal to addition 133 HR);
Self buffed Soft-cap HR, considering the average EM and EG impact: 1003;
Raid buffed Soft-cap HR, considering the average EM and EG impact: 870;
the trolls Berserking will add additional average 1.1% SH to the schema.

What Soft-cap HR to choose completely depends on your needs and what you want to achieve.

4. Critical Strike Rating
Hard-cap: unreal 92%; bottom Soft-cap: 48.3%; upper Soft-cap: 67%; 45.91 Crit Rating grants 1% crit chance.

This is our weakest offensive stat until we reach the under BiS gear set (over 6.2kGS). Why did I normalize the Soft-cap of spell crit between 48.3% and 67%? Just to keep the Clearcasting buff always active for Elemental Oath during any spell rotation until it will no more benefit from Lightning Overload talent. There is no sense to enchant or gem this stat until you want to achieve something special in a raid setup. Try to stack some critical chances from gear and trinkets only, if Hit and Haste are Soft-capped. I highly suggest you to take a look how the Crit Chance is calculated and how it works with our spells in subsection 3.7.5. Spell Crit. BTW, with perfect raid buffs, your LB and CL crit chance will be around 63% which is very close to its upper Soft-cap edge!

The spell Crit Soft-cap is normalized to the default Shaman spells (like FS DD, FS DoT, Searing Totem, Fire Nova), while LB, CL and Thunderstorm have additional +5% Crit Chance from Call of Thunder talent which will not be displayed on the character pan. Therefore, like for Hit and Haste, we will get the next spell Crit Chance% values based on the context:

Self buffed by default without any debuffs on a target: 50%;
Self buffed with a ToW debuff an a target: 50% - 3% = 47%;
With raid buffs and without any debuffs: 48.33%;
With raid buffs and all debuffs: 48.33% - 5% - 3% = 40.33% .

The Hard-cap values should be calculated by including the raid debuffs (+8% Crit in total) and for LB and CL with additional +5% Crit. Hard-cap Crit Chance% values based on the context:

Self buffed by default without any debuffs on a target: 100%;
Self buffed with a ToW debuff an a target: 100% - 3% = 97%;
With raid buffs and all debuffs: 100% - 1.67% - 5% - 3% = 90.33%;
With raid buffs and all debuffs for LB, CL and Thunderstorm: 90.33% - 5% = 85.33%.

5. Intellect
Hard-cap: as much as possible; Soft-cap: missing; 100 Intellect grants 1500 mana also 166.7 Intellect grants 1% Spell Crit.

This is a core passive stat that affects both our natural mana regeneration and our spell critical strike rating. It is on our gear by default and don’t stack it. We use it on shield enchants, because it is nothing better to enchant a shield.

6. MP5
Hard-cap: as much as possible; Soft-cap: missing; 100 mp5 = 100 mana regen per 5 sec (simple).

This is useless for elemental shamans as Spirit, Agility and Strength, especially over 6kGS. MP5 from our Intellect and spells is enough.

7. Stamina
Hard-cap: as much as possible; Soft-cap: missing; 1 Stamina grants 10 HP.

Stamina is a stat you will collect passively on gear like Intellect. Due to the requirements of our Meta gem, you will find yourself needing two blue gems in your gear, which grants Stamina by default. In this case, use Glowing Dreadstone.

8. Spirit
Hard-cap: as much as possible; Soft-cap: missing.

Completely useless for ele shamans. No ‘elementalist’ gear has this stat. You can stack Spirit only from Marrowgar’s Bonespike Dagger.

2.9. Gemming the BiS Gear
c.2.9 April 2014

Spoiler: Show

Intro

The gear socket optionally should be stacked with a required color type gem to stack some bonus stats. In general, you can see on most BiS geared Retry Paladins all red sockets filled with red gems of Strength and a lot of yellow or blue sockets also filled with Strength gems; the MM Hunters, Warriors and Combat Rogues prefer to stack Armor Penetration on all available sockets; the BM Hunters prefer to stack Attack Power through gems; the Prot Paladins filling their gear with blue Stamina gems and e.t.c. Most classes also have the same socketing technology. They are socketing the required gem by color only to get the Meta Gem buff. But some casters can have a bit of a different “socketing formula”, due to their multivariate talents and how the talents can be improved by some stats.

The rules of gemming the elemental shaman’s gear:

1. Build your gear set with items, which contains red and yellow sockets mostly.
2. Get and equip gear items with more sockets.
3. Try to fill the required gems into gear items, which grants an additional 7 Spell Power bonus.
4. Try to fill your gear with gems, which contains Spell Power attribute firstly and Haste attribute secondly.
5. Never stack full Haste gems.

Analysis

Under 6kGS to apply the gems is simple enough as was explained in section 2.2. GS Under 6k. All red sockets fill with Runed Cardinal Ruby, yellow – Reckless Ametrine, blue - Glowing Dreadstone.

First principle says: “try to collect not only the specified gems under a gear item, but a specified gear under preferred “class gems” like Spell Power and Haste”. For example, the Bracers of Fiery Night are better than Bloodsunder's Bracers; the Cloak of Burning Dusk is better than Frostbinder's Shredded Cape. These items are better not only by stats, but by gem socket type also. The Amulet of the Silent Eulogy is better than Blood Queen's Crimson Choker (really “Queen’s” neck normal is great, but the heroic blue socket make it good for mages, locks, shadow priests mostly; read more in section 2.4. Elemental Shaman BiS Set ).

Second principle says: "we have a decision to choose between character class T10 items and items with one additional socket (you should choose between Sanctified Frost Witch's Kilt and Plaguebringer's Stained Pants; read the section 2.4. Elemental Shaman BiS Set ).

Third principle says "use the gems to get the maximal required stats to Soft- or Hard-cap you gear". Really, let’s analyze the Split Shape Belt. With a Eternal Belt Buckle enchant we can attach an additional socket to the belt. If we will fill all 3 sockets with Runed Cardinal Ruby , then summary item Spell Power will be next: 151 + (3x23) = 151 + 69 = 220 SP. Now let’s stack the yellow belt’s socket with Veiled Ametrine: 151 + (2x23) + 12 + 7(socket bonus) = 151 + 46 + 12 + 7 = 216 SP. In the second case we lost only 4 SP points, but gained additional 10 Hit points, which can be very valuable to cap our low Hit Rating.

Fourth principle says "take a loot at section 2.8. The Stats Priority". Shamans should stack only two attributes through gems, which have higher priority in the current context.

Last principle says: “Never stack pure Haste rating through gems, because it’s a pure waste of valuable points! Exception is if you are Restoration Shaman!”.

Top Gems by Socket Color

The gems, which should be used in PVE gear:
1. Red socket: Runed Cardinal Ruby (+23 Spell Power) – by default.
2. Red socket: Runed Dragon's Eye (+39 Spell Power) – for Jewelcrafters only (max 3).
3. Yellow socket: Rigid King's Amber (+20 Hit Rating) – if your character’s Hit is low.
4. Yellow socket: Reckless Ametrine (+12 Spell Power and +10 Haste Rating) – by default.
5. Yellow socket: Veiled Ametrine (+12 Spell Power and +10 Hit Rating) – to turn your character Hit into soft-cap range more accurately under BiS gear by dismissing the “Maghia’s” trinket.
6. Blue socket: Glowing Dreadstone (+12 Spell Power and +15 Stamina) – by default to activate the Meta gem.
7. Blue socket: Royal Dreadstone (+12 Spell Power and +5 MP5) - maybe a better alternative in the current PVE Meta.
8. Meta socket: Chaotic Skyflare Diamond (+21 Critical Strike Rating and 3% Increased Critical Damage).
9. Prismatic socket: Runed Cardinal Ruby.

Tip. I noticed that some players prefer to fill ele shaman gear’s blue sockets with Nightmare Tear to activate the Meta gem (two blue gems are required), because this gem matches any socket. It’s not a good idea anyway. The elemental shaman’s BiS gear has only 3 blue sockets (shoulder, chest and ring). The ring should be filled with Runed Cardinal Ruby (no better option). If you fill shoulder or chest blue sockets with a Nightmare Tear gem (only one "Tear" can be filled!), then you will receive +10 to all base stats. Now look at the previous section. Only Intellect can grant some benefits to the DPS meter by increasing Critical Rating by scanty level of 1% from each 166.7 Intellect. The +10 Stats to Intellect, Strength, Agility, Stamina and Spirit are completely useless and ridiculous. If you fill the specified items with Glowing Dreadstone, then your character will receive additional 12 Spell Power and 30 Stamina, which is on 5 Stamina more compared to the previous variant! The weight of addition 12 Spell Power compared with +0.06% critical chance, from one “Tears”, is obvious. Don't take me wrong, +12 SP here and there will not turn your character into a superhero. We just can't get something legit in return like some nice haste or crit values instead of those 12 SP. My opinion: the Nightmare Tear is perfect for Retry Paladins, Feral Druids, and good for Hunters, Rogues and Enhancement Shamans to activate Meta gem. Their offensive abilities benefit a lot from Strength, Agility and Intellect.

2.10. The Elemental Shamans Best Enchants
c.2.10 May 2014

Spoiler: Show

Intro

From two previous sections we can conclude that our main task is to stack both primary stats: Spell Power (SP) firstly and Haste Rating (HaR) secondly. Only some character items haven’t any good SP or Haste enchants and we should use something different.

Enchants

Head

By default: Arcanum of Burning Mysteries (+30 Spell Power, +20 Critical Strike Rating).
- You need the Kirin Tor reputation at revered or higher to buy this.

Shoulders

By default: Greater Inscription of the Storm (+24 Spell Power, +15 Critical Strike Rating).
- You need the Sons of Hodir reputation to be exalted to buy this. You can use Emblem of Triumph to increase the reputation with many Northrend factions by purchasing specified badges.
For scribers: Master’s Inscription of the Storm (+70 Spell Power, +15 Critical Strike Rating).

Cloak

By default: Scroll of Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed (+12 Haste Rating).
For tailors: Lightweave Embroidery (chance to increase SP by 295 for 15 sec).
For engineers: Springy Arachnoweave (+27 Spell Power (beginning from WoW 3.2.0) and a 30 sec parachute every 60 seconds).

Chest

By default: Scroll of Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats (+10 to all base stats).

Bracers

By default: Scroll of Enchant Bracer - Superior Spellpower (+30 Spell Power).
For leatherworkers: Fur Lining – Spell Power (+76 Spell Power).
For blacksmiths: Socket Bracer (+1 gem socket).

Hands

By default: Scroll of Enchant Gloves - Exceptional Spellpower (+28 Spell Power).
For engineers: Hyperspeed Accelerators (+340 Haste Rating for 12 sec every 1 min).
For blacksmiths: Socket Gloves (+1 gem socket).

Waist

By default: Eternal Belt Buckle (+1 gem socket).
For engineers: Addition Frag Belt (throw a Cobalt Bomb every 6 minutes, incapacitating targets for 3 sec in a 3 yard radius).

Legs

By default: Sapphire Spellthread (+50 Spell Power, +30 Stamina).

Feet

By default: Scroll of Enchant Boots - Icewalker (+12 Hit Rating, +12 Critical Strike Rating).
For engineers: Nitro Boosts (will give a 5 sec 150% speed increase every 3 minutes and +24 Critical Strike Rating (beginning from WoW 3.2.0)).

Shield

By default: Scroll of Enchant Shield - Greater Intellect (+25 Intellect).

Finger

For enchanters: Enchanting Ring – Greater Spellpower (+23 Spell Power).

One-Handed Weapons

By default: Scroll of Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spellpower (+63 Spell Power).

Staves

By default: Scroll of Enchant Staff - Greater Spellpower (+81 Spell Power).

Note. All enchants, posted above, are the best and expensive enough (AH price varies between 1000 and 3000 gold coins). I can redirect you to another enchants “web-page menu”: Shaman Enchants, Level 80, where you can choose another and more cheaper enchants, during your “gear leveling time”. There are not any analyze, comparison or recommendation about, just pure WoW statistics of usage.
The previous enchant list shows us that any profession enchant is much better than any trivial type of them. There are reasons to level up some crafting professions. You can teach more about professions from sections 1.5 and 2.6 respectively. When both of our professions are Crafting types, we receive the best performance to DPS meter from them.

So, our main question now is:
“Which profession combinations are better for elemental shamans?”

Comparison & Analysis

Synopsis:
Scribers (SC): +46 Spell Power.
Tailors (TL): % chance to buff 295 Spell Power for 15 sec.
Enchanters (EnH): +46 Spell Power.
Engineers (EnG): +27 Spell Power; +24 Critical Strike Rating; +Parachute; +340 Haste for 12 sec; Frag Belt; +150% moving speed for 5 sec.
Leatherworkers (LW): +46 Spell Power.
Jewelcrafters (JC): +48 Spell Power.
Blacksmiths (BS): +2 prismatic sockets => +46 Spell Power.

It’s obvious that EnG should be our main Crafting profession due to the best improvements to our overall stats in PVE and PVP criteria. Really, +27 SP and +24 CrR are nice values compared with default enchants. A parachute (with 1 min cooldown) is a great ability, especially at VDW, even after Nitro Boosts “backfires”. The Hyperspeed Accelerators have a great buff to keep our LB casting time near 1.1 sec, while our Elemental Mastery is on cooldown. The Frag Belt can save you from packs of incoming trashes, while your Earthbind Totem is on cooldown. The Nitro Boosts is just superb to escape from some boss deadly abilities (like PP’s Malleable Goo; Rotface’s Slime Spray, while near you is a Big Ooze or Slime Pool; Sindragosa’s Blistering Cold; LK’s Vile Spirits). I don't even say something about PVP even.

So, the second important question is:
“What profession to get in pair with Engineering?”

It’s obvious that JC (with +48 SP) is better than BS (with +46 SP from addition two sockets) and EnH (+46 SP). Runed Dragon’s Eye grants +39 SP, which is on +16 SP more than Runed Cardinal Ruby have (+23 SP). Let’s check it by replacing standard gems. For example, 3xRCR = 69 SP and 3xRDY = 117 SP; difference = 117 SP – 69 SP = 48 SP (Summary JC buff)! LW grants addition +46 SP compared with default Bracer enchant of 30 SP (76 SP – 30 SP = 46 SP), which is 2 SP less than JC grants. SC grants additional 46 SP, but 5CrR less (70 SP – 24 SP from “Storm” enchant = 46 SP and 15 CrR – 20 CrR = -5 CrR) than JC grants in pair with standard Greater Inscription of the Storm enchant. About TL, it’s not our profession by default. A chance to increase SP by 295 for 15 sec sounds great, but such kind of enchants are not good for casters without DoT based DPS, like Black Magic also is. Such enchants, which have a chance to proc powerful stats, are good for DoT DPS based casters and melee characters. They can proc frequently before you get “Spiked”, “Entombed”, while you should run with a debuff, just before a boss phase will change (you are not able to DPS in most cases). Compared to other types of professions JC is very profitably, but is very hard to level and learn all recipes also. I just demonstrated the best profession in pair with EnG above. You can choose any other one if you prefer to craft something different, because you will not lose too many offensive stats anyway. Don't get me wrong. Addition 2 SP from JC will not change the day. JC is just more versatile in a task to optimize your stats and make some gold coins.

My suggestion. Get Engineering and Jewelcrafting professions.

Black Magic Buff. The most confused discussion is around Scroll of Enchant Weapon - Black Magic enchant in comparison with Scroll of Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spellpower . And the difference between their effects is considerable. Here we should pay attention.

As I posted above, TL enchant of the Black Magic has the same problem. The WoW community discovered that Black Magic have a 35% chance to proc 250 Haste Rating for 10 sec, with a 35 seconds internal cooldown! Notice, a 35% chance to proc! During intensive movement encounters your chance to proc it is even lower (you can proc it like 5-10 sec after the cooldown). Moreover, while over 6kGS, your Haste Rating is Soft-capped and EnG Gloves can easily replace the functionality of this enchant. The more important is next: EnG Gloves are manageable – you can proc them with Blood Fury (for orc shamans), without Berserking (for troll shamans) or while some of your trinkets buff is working. Controversy is Black Magic buff, which can proc while you are “Spiked” or under Unchained Magic debuff (as an example). I think this enchant was designed for patch WoW 3.1 or 3.2. If your GS is under 5.5kGS and your character's Haste Rating is under 700 points, then you can get this enchant as the best for weapon. During ToC and ICC, especially in Heroic modes, while T10 gear is available, nothing is better than Enchant Weapon – Mighty Spellpower. The Black Magic can use Mages, Shadow Priests and Locks mostly, because they need a lot of Haste to boost their DoTs and their dozens of DoTs can proc this enchant buff just immediately after the cooldown. About the Black Magic enchant I can’t tell more “deeply” than Sihmm did – read his article “Black Magic: Stay away from da voodoo”.

This chapter contains a set of sections oriented on suggestions on how to improve the Elemental Shaman performance in 25 man raids, especially in their Heroic modes. This chapter discovers the principles how the Elemental Shaman buffs and his debuffs applied to a target works in conjunction with other raid buffs and debuffs, what can stack and what not. Here you'll find a lot of trivial and non-trivial suggestions on how to improve your character DPS. Finally, you'll learn how to read and calculate your character Primary and Secondary Attributes and how they influence on the Elemental Shaman spells damage.

3.1. Totems Optimization in Raids
c.3.1 January 2015

Spoiler: Show

Shaman Totems Overview

All shaman totems are divided in 4 “elemental groups”: Earth (Nature-based spells), Fire (Fire-based spells), Water (Water/Frost-based spells) and Air (Nature-based spells). Once a totem is put down it cannot be moved, but a new totem can be used to replace it. Only one totem from each “element group” can be dropped at the same time. In other words, the player cannot activate two spells that use the same totem because the last spell will override the previous one. Totems are immune to AoEs and DoTs, and must be specifically attacked by DD spells and abilities or auto attacks to be destroyed. Totems only trigger a 1 second GCD as opposed to the regular 1.5 second GCD. Totems are also considered a Physical spell school so they can be dropped even when silenced. Their area of effect is between 30 and 40 yards and buffs the party/raid for 5 min. All totems can be divided in 3 combat categories: Offensive, Defensive and Utility.

1. Earth Totem Spells (Defensive totems): Earthbind Totem, Stoneskin Totem, Stoneclaw Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Tremor Totem, Earth Elemental Totem;
2. Fire Totem Spells (Offensive totems): Searing Totem, Totem of Wrath, Magma Totem, Flametongue Totem, Fire Elemental Totem, Frost Resistance Totem;
3. Water Totem Spells (Utility totems): Healing Stream Totem, Mana Spring Totem, Cleansing Totem, Mana Tide Totem, Fire Resistance Totem;
4. Air Totem Spells (Offensive/Defensive totems): Windfury Totem, Grounding Totem, Sentry Totem, Nature Resistance Totem, Wrath of Air Totem.

In general, for PVE areas the individual totem usage is not so important and crucial. You can bind to your Call of the Elements, Ancestors and Spirits Spells the most common combinations of totems for universal usage. Things go difficult when is need to play with a shaman in PVP areas, where the totems are taking a very important role. You need to key bind practically 60% of available totems and drop them fast in the right order, depending by duel, BG or arena situation. It isn’t possible to win any duel or arena if you are not a master of totem usage (practically they grant 40% of shaman's performance). I should admit, that Offensive, Utility and Offensive/Defensive totem groups have a defensive totem – one or two resistance totems. It was implemented by Blizzard for PVP purposes, to let players use different defensive spells at the same time due to previous explanations.

Totems Priority

Earth: 1. Strength of Earth Totem; 2. Stoneskin Totem.
Fire: 1. Totem of Wrath; 2. Flametongue Totem.
Water: 1. Mana Spring Totem; 2. Healing Stream Totem.
Air: 1. Wrath of Air Totem; 2. Windfury Totem.

Common Totem Combinations

The following applies regardless:
1. Totems do not stack. Two Totems of Wrath does not mean more Spell Power.
2. Totems that have been enhanced by talents will overwrite Totems that aren’t (this not working as intended always).

Totem common combination usage mostly depends by party and/or raid composition and the number of shamans in the raid.
1. One Elemental Shaman. Drop Strength of Earth Totem, Totem of Wrath, Mana Spring Totem, Wrath of Air Totem.
2. Two Elemental Shamans. First shaman should drop the previous combination. Second one should drop: Stoneskin Totem, Searing/Fire Elemental Totem, Healing Stream Totem, Windfury Totem.
3. Elemental/Restoration Shamans. Elemental shaman should drop the Elemental Shaman totem combinations by default, with one exception. There’s a freedom to choose any totem from Water group. Restoration shaman: Stoneskin Totem, Frost Resistance Totem, Healing Stream/Mana Spring Totem, Windfury Totem.
4. Elemental/Restoration/Enhancement Shamans. Elemental Shaman should drop: Stoneskin Totem, Totem of Wrath, Healing Stream Totem/Fire Resistance Totem, Wrath of Air Totem. Enhancement Shaman should drop: Strength of Earth Totem, Magma Totem, Healing Stream Totem, Windfury Totem. Restoration Shaman should drop: Stoneskin Totem/Tremor Totem, Frost Resistance Totem, Mana Spring Totem, Wrath of Air Totem/Nature Resistance Totem. If one shaman will die during the encounter, be ready to drop the most important totems based on priority list. The Wrath of Air Totem must be active all the time!

Enhancement Shaman can improve the Strength of Earth Totem by sharing 3 points to Enhancing Totems to receive 15% increased effect to the totem (155 + 15% = +178.25 to Strength and Agility). Also they can improve Windfury Totem by using Improved Windfury Totem talent to receive +4% increased haste granted (16% +4% = 20% total). There is possible to improve Stoneskin Totem, but that is pure PVP purpose.

Restoration Shaman can improve the Mana Spring Totem by 20% and Healing Stream Totem by 45% using Restorative Totems talent (91 MP5 + 20% = 109.2 MP5). It’s funny, but paladins can share Restoration Aura with 92 MP5 and that has priority.

Important. The totems which are improved by character talents should be dropped by specified characters, otherwise their effects will be overwritten (some Warmane issues). For example, if Elemental shaman will drop Mana Spring Totem (especially firstly) the totem buff can be shared to Restoration shaman with 91 MP5 only. Totem buff is triggered if dropped by a talented character only. Just check it in your raids and make a principle how to use them together.

Tip. Talented totem buff cannot be shared to all party or raid members. His buff is linked to the talented character only, which dropped the totem.

Tip. Totems can be removed by using Call to Earth (restoring % of mana at the same time). You can dismiss totems one by one by right clicking on them on the totems panel under character UI.

Notice. Totems can be grouped by usage also: Long Time Buff usage, Temporary Spell usage. More about totems usage and how the totems sharing their buffs with other class buffs in raids and party is explained in section 3.5. Which Spell to Cast?.

3.2. The Best Caster Offensive Buffs and Debuffs
c.3.2 January 2015

Spoiler: Show

Some Important Aspects

To explain the functionality of all possible buffs, their stacking and consolidated effects is very hard. Many buffs can be improved by different classes and different Talent Trees differently and they work differently on specified classes. To understand the wilds of Buffs and Debuffs requires other general meta-guide. I’ll focus on casters offensive buffs only, which benefits elemental shamans also.

Notice. Due to my observations, there are some buffs/debuffs which are stacking randomly (after somebody got DC in raid, wiping, teleporting…) and stacking permanently (still not fixed), but should not.

The Buffs and Debuffs

A buff refers to a temporary beneficial spell or effect placed on a player character. Buffs can be of two types: those that expire over time and those that are dependent on the environment around you. You can dismiss an active buff that expires over time by right-clicking on its icon. Most buffs do not stack with other similar buffs.

A debuff is the contrary of a buff. Most debuffs works well on other player characters and normal or elite trashes, but on dungeon and raid bosses they don’t work (you can’t Fear, Silence, Stun, Root, Slow a boss). On raid bosses works only those types of debuffs which grants similar effects as buffs have. Debuffs come in many varieties and most of them are race/class specific spells or abilities. There is no effective limit on the number of debuffs that may be applied to a creature at one time. Prior to the release of WotLK expansion, a single target could have at most 40 debuffs at one time. Similar debuffs generally do not stack with each other. For example, Misery is a Shadow Priest debuff on a target which grants +3% hit to everyone hitting that target respectively. If 2 Shadow Priests hits the same target, the total hit chance on the target will be the same – not stacking to +6% hit chance. However multiple DoT debuffs from different characters will generally stack. For example, two Flame Shock DoTs on a raid boss does x2 total FS DoT damage (counting as a stack to overall raid DPS), but each Elemental shaman apart does only x1 total FS DoT damage (counting to personal DPS).

Both Buffs and Debuffs can be Additive or Multiplicative, which increase a particular spell/ability (Flat) or all class spells (All Types). For example, the Totem of Wrath buff has an additive effect: if your character Spell Power by default is 3,000 SP the totem buff will increase character’s SP by 280SP in total to 3,280 SP. Wrath of Air Totem has a multiplicative buff effect: if your character Haste Rating is 1,100 (33.67%) the totem buff will increase a character's Haste by 5% based on default Haste Rating.

Tip. Don’t mix or muddle together class Buffs and Debuffs. They have different in-raid usage, mechanics and beneficial effects!

Offensive casters buffs and debuffs are displayed in the ordered lists below. Each list item represents a specified buff/debuff type with consolidated buffs/debuffs which can’t stack in any way.

Offensive Casters Buffs (Temporary or Permanent)
1. Multiply Haste (+30%, Temporary). Bloodlust (H)/Heroism (A).
2. Multiply Haste (5%, Permanent). Wrath of Air Totem.
3. Add Spell Power. Demonic Pact (+200-400SP, Temp)/Totem of Wrath (+280SP, Perm)/Flametongue Totem (+144SP).
4. Multiply damage (+3%, Permanent). Arcane Empowerment/Ferocious Inspiration/Sanctified Retribution.
5. Add Critical chance (+5%, Permanent). Elemental Oath/Moonkin Aura/Focus Magic (Temporary).
6. Multiply stats (+10%, Temporary). Greater Blessing of Kings/Blessing of Kings.
7. Add Intellect (+60|48 Int, Temporary). Arcane Intellect/Arcane Brilliance/Fel Intelligence/Dalaran Brilliance.
8. Add stats (+37, Temporary)| Armor (+750)| Resistances (+54). Gift of the Wild/Mark of the Wild.
9. Multiply haste (+3%). Improved Moonkin Form / Swift Retribution.
10. DoT (+73dmg * [talents, SP], Temporary). Thorns (Druids; can cast on any target).
11. DoT (+287dmg * [talents, SP], Temporary). Lightning Shield (Shamans; self casting only).

Offensive Casters Debuffs (All are Temporary)
1. Multiply spell damage (+13%). Curse of the Elements/Earth and Moon/Ebon Plague.
2. Add spell critical chance (+5%). Improved Scorch/Winter’s Chill/Improved Shadow Bolt.
3. Add all critical chance (+3%). Totem of Wrath/Heart of the Crusader/Improved Faerie Fire.
4. Add spell hit (3%). Misery/Improved Faerie Fire.

Special Buffs (Environmental, Case, Temporary...)
1. Multiply damage (+15%, Temporary). Tricks of the Trade.
2. Multiply damage (+20%, Temporary). Hysteria.
3. Multiply damage (+30% dmg; +30% HP; +30% HPS/Ab, Environmental ICC). Hellscream’s Warsong / SoW.
4. Multiply damage (+100%, Case). Essence of the Blood Queen.
5. Multiply damage (+100%, Temporary, Twin Val'kyrs buff). Empowered Darkness/Empowered Light.
6. Multiply haste (+100%, Temporary, Ignis the Furnace Master buff). Slag Imbued.
7. Multiply damage (+50%, Temporary, Runemaster Molgeim). Rune of Power.
8. Multiply haste (+20%, Temporary, Dark Rune Warbringer buff). Aura of Celerity.
9. Add crit (+135%, Temporary, Adventure Shaman buff). Storm Power.

Obviously that Elemental Shaman caster buffs (Totem of Wrath, Elemental Oath) mostly interfere with Demonology Warlock (Demonic Pact) and Balance Druid (Moonkin Aura) buffs. Arcane Mage’s Focus Magic reported as stacking buff on Warmane. Elemental Shaman Offensive debuff (Totem of Wrath) interferes with Retry Paladin (Heart of the Crusader) and Balance Druid (Improved Faerie Fire) debuffs. So the Balance Druid and Elemental Shaman are very similar specializations due to their buffs. Moreover, they are very similar due to their talents, spells and play style. But, but… Among all caster specializations, moreover, among all WoW classes, the Elemental Shaman has few unique and very powerful AoE debuffs: Totem of Wrath, Earthbind Totem with 3 sec Root and Thunderstorm knockback (if used correctly). These abilities are golden when fighting boss encounters with a lot of trash. For example, Heart of the Crusader and/or Improved Faerie Fire can debuff only 1 target (boss), while Totem of Wrath debuff (+3% Critical chance) all targets in 40 yards area. While fighting trash, players are using different AoE spells and as you know the AoE spells mostly benefit from critical chance – not from Spell Power and Haste.

*Exceptions

Totem of Wrath vs Demonic Pact Notice! While the Demo Lock’s SP is lower than 2800 the Totem of Wrath buff has advantage. A well geared Lock can stack up to 4000 SP so Demonic Pact grants 4000*0.1 = 400 SP to all raid player characters for 45 sec. This effect has a 20 sec cooldown. On Warmane Wotlk the Totem of Wrath not covering the Demonic Pact after last fixes, but there are random cases also: where ToW cover DP and, moreover, they can both stacks with Flametongue totem! So, you can use ToW or any other Fire totem to stack more dps or protection instead.

Focus Magic. Due to my last observations, Focus Magic can't stack with Elemental Oath or Moonkin Aura, but should. It's marked as fixed on Bug Tracker and soon can be applied.

Arcane Brilliance. This buff like Arcane Intellect doing the same thing, exception is the manner how the buffs are applied. Arcane Brilliance is party/raid buff while Arcane Intellect is a single target buff and they not stacking.

Tip. Raid Leader must build a balanced raid composition. So there is a good idea to pair similar class specializations like: Elemental Shaman with Balance Druid or Enhancement Shaman with Frost DK. If one character will die, this possibility is high in Heroic raids, the other one will keep buffs up. The chance that both “paired” specializations will fail is low.

Combo Party

It’s obvious that elemental shaman’s strongest party can be created by joining: Demonology or Affliction Warlocks, Beast Mastery Hunters and Arcane Mages.

Demonology Warlocks grants to us: Demonic Pact (300-400SP); Curse of Elements (+13% dmg); Improved Shadow Bolt (+5% crit).
Affliction Warlocks grants to us: the same as Demo Locks without Demonic Pact, but it’s not crucial because we can compensate the most of spell power by using Totem of Wrath buff (DP and ToW can’t stack if fixed).
Beast Master Hunters grants to us: Ferocious Inspiration (+3% dmg).
Arcane Mages grants to us: Arcane Empowerment (+3% dmg like BM Hunter, not stacking), Focus Magic (stacking +5% crit), Arcane Intellect (+60 Int).

Previous described specs grants to our character like 60% of available beneficial buffs, other 40% of buffs we get from our spec. Moreover, our Elemental Spec buffs them in the same order with strongest buffs also.

To the previous list we can add a Paladin and a Priest also due to GBoK, Misery and Stamina buff. Overall the +10% Stats is not so important to us, and our character can be hit capped already. No doubt, these two specs are good to build an arena combo party.

3.3. Elemental Shaman in Normal and Heroic Raids
c.3.3 January 2015

Spoiler: Show

Heroic Raid Nuances

In OS, Naxxramas, Ulduar, ToC and normal mode ICC/RS raid instances the described above PVE Talent Tree, supported by specified Glyphs, is good and balanced enough. The situation changes a bit while raiding in ICC and RS HC mode. To improve the Elemental Shaman performance, I can change the talents for specified boss encounters respectively. It’s not a DPS optimization, - it’s an utility optimization mainly. This section isn't designed to explain step by step how to do raids. For this I recorded a bunch of videos a long time ago when I just began the raiding on this server. You can learn more about it from Chapter 4 and few of them are shown below of course.

Water Shield or Lightning Shield

As you may have noticed, I'm using the Lightning Shield (LS) mainly at almost all boss encounters just to do a little bit more damage. Even the main talent Tree is designed to benefit better from the elemental shields. There are encounters when your LS will do damage and there are fights when it will not be triggered. Anyway, practically at every boss encounter you have possibilities to refresh this poor spell without interfering with your main spell rotation. Obviously, it should be done while moving or while we can't cast due to how the encounter is designed (Unchained Magic debuff).

If your character is low on mana, the Water Shield and Thunderstorm are the best options to regenerate it in the first row while the Runic Mana Potion - to do this in the second row. It can be an issue on the long encounters as LK 25 HC or where it's required to cast a lot of AoE spells. Also, the insufficient mana can be an issue for boss encounters on Lordaeron server, where the bosses have from 15% up to 35% additional HP pool compared to their retail WoW versions. Therefore, for such fights I highly recommend you to be with Water Shield up all the time and, in addition, to use two purple Royal Dreadstone gems to activate the Meta gem as it's suggested in section 2.9. Gemming the BiS Gear.

ICC10/25 HC Raid Modes

My character' PVE Talents can be tuned a bit differently if it is a necessity for such a mechanic. I can switch 2 points from Improved Shields (1/3) talent to Earth’s Grasp talent (2/2). The Earth’s Graps talent (2/2) increases the radius of Earthbind Totem by 20% and reduces the cooldown by 30%. This PVP talent worth those 2 talent points. True, there isn’t a better spell to intercept LK’s Vile Spirits and to save a lot of players. Moreover, 20% increased radius helps to root more Vile Spirits and grants to your character a more secure play style. Remember, Vile Spirits explodes at 8 yards distance from their target. After the totem cooldown is reduced by 30%, you can drop that totem each 21 sec – you can root and slow each wave of Vile Spirits. Improved Earth’s Graps helps a lot at Lady Deathwhisper and Valithria Dreamwalker boss encounters also. In addition, you can use that ability to help your tanks during trash clearing.

Below are linked 3 videos about LoD and Bane guild runs and are demonstrated how to use the improved Earthbind Totem.

Spoiler: Show

Lethality vs The Lich King 25 Heroic by Rexarjr

Disfigured vs The Lich King 25 Heroic by Rexarjr

Lethality vs The Lich King 10 Heroic by Rexarjr

With “My ICC HC Talent Mode” I like to use the Glyph of Chain Lightning by replacing Glyph of Lightning Bolt at Gunship and Valithria Dreamwalker boss encounters. It is possible to use improved Chain Lightning at LK also to increase overall DPS, but that will not help to increase your damage to the LK directly.

Tip. It’s a good idea to hold in your inventory a stack of Glyph of Lightning Bolt and Glyph of Chain Lightning. They are cheap to craft, and as I noticed, they are cheap on AH also. Moreover, you must be ready to switch your Glyph of Totem of Wrath to Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem at any time, especially when there are one or more Warlocks in the raid.

Important. Try to raid any Heroic and Normal raid with Glyph of Thunderstorm. Remove this Glyph temporary when it’s really required.

RS25 Heroic Raid Mode

I recommend to use the next Talent mode if your raid has issues with AoE dps. Just switch in previous mode 1 point from Improved Shields and 1 point from Elemental Weapons talents to Improved Fire Nova talent. With this talent mode, replace your character’s Glyph of Lightning Bolt with Glyph of Chain Lightning, because your character will be focused on AoE DPS mainly there versus Fire Elemental NPCs. It’s well known that during AoE DPS critical chance is a much more important stat than Haste and Spell Power. That’s why Thundering Strikes are more important than Elemental Weapons. Due to long RS25HC encounters and intensive usage of Fire Nova and Chain Lightning the Ancestral Knowledge is more important than Elemental Weapons in addition. Don’t touch Earth’s Grasp – yes! Fire Elemental trash can be rooted! If RL will let them to knock back – remove the Glyph of Thunderstorm, but remember, mana regeneration will decrease. I have to notice, the RL not always will let you root Fire Elementals. It can ruin a good positioning and timing for AoE burts DPS. Snaring them is allowed and effective, for this, just drop your Earthbind Totem at location a few seconds before Meteor Strike.

Below is linked 2 video about Halion guild run.

Spoiler: Show

Disfigured vs Halion 25 Heroic by Rexarjr

Lethality vs Halion 25 Normal by Rexarjr

Raid Mode Concepts

In both 10 man Normal and Heroic raids Elemental Shaman is able to push more DPS than other characters compared to 25 man modes, because this Spec is well self-buffed and suffers less from fps and input lags due to less characters, including their ability effects, in zone. This spec is a buff giver – not a buff consumer.

If there are two Elemental Shamans in the raid, there is a good idea for one of them to install the Glyph of Fire Elemental and summon the elemental at every boss encounter.

How and When to Use Our Utility Abilities?

Prior to Ulduar there's no need to use any special utility abilities to improve efficiency and survivability in raids. You should pay attention to required resistances only and drop a respective totem when it's really required. Considering Shadow Priest will buff the raid with Shadow Resistance and the wide use of Paladins - they'll fulfill this role. Beginning form Ulduar and/or ToC raids there's required to use some utility spells and uncommon offensive spells to make things easier, especially in harde mode.

Wind Shear. Use it versus:

Stormcaller Brundir's Chain Lightning;
Auriaya's Sentinel Blast;
Dark Rune Evokers' the Greater Heal and the Runic Mending (at Thorim);
General Vezax's Searing Flames!;
Yogg-Saron Guardian's Dark Volley;
Lord Jaraxxus's Fel Fireball. It's worth interrupting in 10/25HC mode and each second or third spell;
Any caster's ability during Faction Champions;
Lady Deathwhisper's Frostbolt, especially in HC mode!;
Risen Archmage's Frostbolt Volley.

Purge. Use it versus:

Faction Champions HoT's on the raid target, it's vital! You must be the number one dispeller in the raid like priests;
Lady Deathwhisper's Fanatic Vampiric Might!;

Hex. Use it versus:

Warbringers (at Thorim's Gauntlet);
Warlock, Hunter or healers which are away from the main group to mitigate the AoE breakups;
Mind controlled players in Heroic mode only at Lady Deathwhisper;

Tremor Totem. Keep in mind that this totem works on party members only. Use it all the time to mitigate the:

Auriaya's Terrifying Screech;
Faction Champions' fears. It's vital!;
Blood Queen Lana'thel's Incite Terror 4 sec fear!;

Cleansing Totem. Keep in mind that this totem works on party members only. During the:

Yogg-Saron's encounter to dispel the Draining Poison and the Black Plague disease;
Faction Champions' encounter to dispel lots of Poison and Curse abilities on random friendly targets. It's vital!
Warning! Don't use this totem at Rotface! It'll dispel his Mutated Infection and will summon just too many Little Oozes;
Valithria Dreamwalker's encounter to dispel the Gut Spray disease from the Gluttonous Abomintaions.

Earthbind Totem. During the:

Faction Champions' encounter to snare and kite melees. It's situational.
Deathbringer Saurfang's fight to root and snare the Blood Beasts. Not so important until your raid is undergeared.
Lich King fight to root and snare his minions when its required and his Vile Spirits, what is more important.

Nature Resistance Totem. Use this totem where it's really important or there's another shaman in the raid to replace the Wrath of Air Totem. Where's important to use this totem:

at Mimiron's encounter to mitigate his Shock Blast AoE;
at Assembly of Iron's encounter to mitigate almost all Brundir's abilities;
at Kologarn's encounter to mitigate his Shockwave;
at Freya's encounter to mitigate some average abilities;
at Northrend Beast's encounter only to mitigate the Acidmaw high damaging abilities;
at Faction Champion's encounter to mitigate some abilities;
at Rotface to mitigate some of his abilities like Slime Spray;
at Professor Putricide to mitigate some of his abilities.

Grounding Totem. Usable vs:

Lady Deathwhisper to ground some of her Frostbolts (it's possible that your character will get aggro in HC);
Prince Keleseth to ground his Empowered Shadow Lance only once;
Blazing Skeletons' Fireball (at Valithria Dreamwalker);

Mind Control break. To allow this ability, you must have equipped one trinket from two available: Medallion of the Horde / Medallion of the Alliance or a better Titan-forged Rune of Audacity. You can use them during:

Faction Champions' encounter vs any type of CC;
Festergut's and Rotface's encounters to remove the nasty Vile Gas CC;

3.4. DPS Optimizations
c.3.4 December 2015

Spoiler: Show

Intro

Your character gear is BiS as is described in section 2.4. “Elemental Shaman BiS Set”, the gear is already gemmed like it is described in chapter 2.9 “Gemming the BiS Gear” and also enchanted like it is described in section 2.10. “The Elemental Shaman Best Enchants”. Both professions are crafting type: Engineering and Jewelcrafting. So, the main question now is: How to improve the DPS of a BiS geared character?

There are couples of clear and vague responses and they can be sorted from easy to apply and use to hard:
1. Combo Glyphs.
2. Combo Talents.
3. Combo Trinkets.
4. Addons.
5. Consumables.
6. Hybrid DPS.
7. Keybinding.
8. Optimizing PC Performance.
9. Mixing DPS Styles.
10. Temporary Buffs Stacking.
11. Environmental Strategy.

1. Combo Glyphs (Easy way of DPS optimization)

We can switch Major Glyphs depending by encounter, but Minor Glyphs mainly are unchanged. The combination of Major Glyphs depends by Target Mode (Single or Multiple) and raid composition (Which kind of shamans are in? If other class talents can interfere with our class specialization). Their combinations are:

Major Glyphs for “Single-Static” target DPS (universal combo):
- Glyph of Lava;
- Glyph of Lightning Bolt;
- Glyph of Totem of Wrath.

Major Glyphs for “Long Single-Dynamic” target DPS or other shamans/locks are in the raid:
- Glyph of Lava;
- Glyph of Lightning Bolt;
- Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem.

Major Glyphs for “Multiple” targets DPS:
- Glyph of Lava;
- Glyph of Chain Lightning;
- Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem/ Glyph of Totem of Wrath (personal option).

Minor Glyphs:
- Glyph of Renewed Life;
- Glyph of Thunderstorm;
- Glyph of Water Shield.

“Single-Static” is a DPS model like at Saurfang or Festergut boss. Your character just stays in a spot and pushes dps rotations. The specified Glyphs above improves your character’s main single-rotation spells in the best way.
“Long Single-Dynamic” is a DPS model like at PP HC, Halion HC, LDW, Sindragosa, LK, Yogg-Saron. Due to Fire Elemental Glyph and long encounter, you can summon the Elemental 2 times per encounter! Also, if another Elemental Shaman in the raid or Wrath Totem buff can’t stack with lock’s Demonic Pact buff, you can install the Elemental Glyph to summon the fire minion at every boss encounter due to reduced cooldown!

“Multiple” is a DPS model like encounter at LK Ph1, Jaraxxus, Sartharion, Gunship, Kelthuzad, Aurya – the boss summons a lot of minions (more than 3) which stack near MT or boss. So, damaging a boss with our AoE spell rotations, we also damage the boss's trash also. The Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem is good in this case because the Fire Elemental has Fire DoT Aura vs all nearby enemies and casts Fire Nova periodically – that’s a good addition to AoE burst damage.

2. Combo Talents

There’s nothing to post something new here. Combo Talents were described in Chapter 1 (1.6. Elemental Talent Tree and Glyphs) of this guide very well. Practically all WoW Class guides have recommendations about Talent tree hierarchy. Most talent specializations just improve single target or multiple targets spells and abilities, including pure AoE ones. There are some pure PVE or PVP talents also. Every player can tune a standard Talent Tree just a bit – like 5 or 7 talent points, based on play style or encounter usage as is described in section 3.3.

3. Combo Trinkets (Not so easy DPS optimization!)

Not easy because good combo trinkets are so damn hard to obtain through game play (exception is a donation way). I noticed that having a BiS geared Elemental Shaman, his DPS performance varies significantly depending by which trinkets are equipped. Moreover, not even which trinkets are equipped based on their item level and abilities, but which combinations of trinkets are equipped based on their unique buffs to Stats. This is why I’m calling this “COMBO TRINKETS”. Below is a list of the best elemental shamans trinkets, ordered descending by their performance if single equipped on a BiS geared character:

Charred Twilight Scale (CTS)
Phylactery of the Nameless Lich (PNL)
Reign of the Dead (RnD)
Dislodged Foreign Object (DFO)
Muradin's Spyglass (MSG)

Using specified trinkets in different combinations grants different DPS values and mechanics.

Combo trinkets

1. CTS+PNL = 10500 self DPS. The best combo for both burst and sustained DPS. This pair grants BiS Elemental Shaman just superb haste (5.61%) and critical (3.75%) stats and enormous SP buff. Their hard burst mechanics occur because while your character opens with damaging spells both trinkets trigger SP buff at the same time: 861SP + 1207SP = 2068SP!!!, which is equal to a half of shaman’s SP by default. Their sustained DPS is great due to their working time and internal CD. After some casting time, they’ll trigger one by one, granting to shaman an average 1000 SP based on Blood Fury and/or Ashen ring buff. Only pairs worthy for donation due to extreme farming difficulties and concurrency (for HC type).

Charred Twilight Scale
Phylactery of the Nameless Lich

2. DFO+RnD = 10300 – 10400 self DPS. Very good “under the best” combo for sustained DPS. This combo requires more time to bring your sustained DPS at max AVG value than CTS+PNL. The RnD grants a great flat SP buff of 168 and superb passive DoT every 6-7 seconds. Due to my ICC Recount records this trinket dmg scales from SP by dealing 4500-5000 dmg, such as FS DoT! This combo is surprisingly better than CTS+RnD, because DFO SP buff rolls for 20 sec which improves 3 RnD scaling DoTs in a row; the CST – only 2 RnD DoTs.

Dislodged Foreign Object
Reign of the Dead

3. MSG+RnD = 10100 – 10200 self DPS. No matter if this combo is missing haste rating, they are still doing as good a performance as the previous one. MSG grants critical rating (3.31%) as PLN and flat 200 SP buff. These strange trinkets for elemental shamans work pretty well together. Sure, MSG crits improve all RnD DoTs and they grant 368 flat SP to shamans and improve the RnD DoT damage also. So, this 3.31%crit + 200SP covers the DFO SP buff over decent casting time. Obviously RnD DoTs aren’t improved by haste, but they can crit! To do the best with this combo, it’s required to have a flat 1050-1100 Haste Rating. Also Demonic Pact buff is golden here (+400 SP -> 800 SP flat buff)!

Muradin's Spyglass
Reign of the Dead

4. CTS+RnD = 10000 self DPS. This combo grants good stats to shamans mainly, but they do not improve RnD DoT very well. The CTS haste doing nothing to RnD DoT; CTS 861 SP is not as high value as PNL one. For example, MSG+RnD combo improves all RnD DoTs in some decent way, but CTS+RnD only few DoTs and not so good.

Charred Twilight Scale
Reign of the Dead

5. PNL+RnD = 10000 self DPS. This combo can do better performance than CTS+RnD, but requires 1050 self flat Haste Rating (more Reckless gems than Runed). This is because the increased crits improves each RnD DoT and 1207 SP for 20 sec doing much better for RnD and shaman spells also.

Phylactery of the Nameless Lich
Reign of the Dead

6. DFO+MSG = 9500 self DPS. This combo is similar to top CTS+PNL but with lower stats, without bursting abilities and has serious floating DPS values.

Dislodged Foreign Object
Muradin's Spyglass

7. CTS+DFO = 9300 – 9800 self DPS. This combo grants surprisingly low performance due to their stats and very unstable floating DPS value. “Haste and Haste – just too much Haste”. During Elemental Mastery, Engineering haste buff or BL/Heroism you’ll waste like 0.3-0.4s per casted spell due to GCD mechanics and no matter if they grant decent SP buffs. Your character will cast LB in 0.8-0.9s, CL and Lava in 0.6-0.7s and the next one will be available after GCD will finish the round. All those buffed spells will be sliced by GCD and this is all. Let’s see, 0.3s wasted per GCD. After 300 casted spells (boss encounter round) –> 0.3*300 = 90s = 1.5 WASTED mins!!! It’s not PVP!!! Why did I include this combo here? This combo is still viable when your gear contains more crit stats (including gems) as an experimental option.

Charred Twilight Scale
Dislodged Foreign Object

4. Addons

There is nothing to say new about wow addons. Addons can improve your game play significantly. Any serious PVE raider must have installed: DBM, Power Auras, Quartz, Recount and some raid frames UI. About raid frames UI choose between two: Healbot or Skada. I prefer Healbot because it allows not only to see the character health, mana, threat, buffs and debuffs but it allows you to keybind some of your class spells/abilities to UI frames, to cast the respective spells on specified raid members.

More about addons read the guide’s section “2.7. Our Friendly Addons”.

5. Consumables

Consumables can be of two types during a boss encounter, based on their effects: permanet* and temporary. Permanent* consumables means that their buff effects will be on the character for a relatively long time period like 1 hour, but grant a relatively medium or low level buff(s). Some permanent* consumables keep their buff through death, which is very important. Their most popular variations are Flasks, Elixirs and Scrolls. Scrolls are completely replaced by raid buffs. Elixirs are of two types: Guardian and Battle. You can't use two Elixirs of the same type. Flasks are counted as both Guardian and Battle Elixirs, so you can't use Elixirs in combination with Flask. Mostly the Flasks have advantage versus Elixirs.

Permanent* consumables:

Falsk of the Frost Wyrm;
Spellpower Elixir
Fish Feast;
Firecracker Salmon;
Great Feast;
Dalaran Clam Chowder.

Temporary are consumables which last during a relatively short time from 10 to 20 sec, but grant great buffs in return. All temporary consumables sharing an internal CD which can last from 1 min to 2min. This CD does not allow you to use multiple of them at the same time.

Temporary consumables:
Potion of Wild Magic
Potion of Speed
Other limited World drop or quest reward items with low stats to buff dps. There's no significance to using them.
Potion of Wild Magic is the top temporary consumable in Wotlk, but is very expensive at the same time. It's worth using only during Bloodlust/Heroism and only when it's really required to push top DPS. For example, the potion is useful at Sindragosa's final phase or to kill fastly the Val'kyrs at LK. I'm using this potion only once and only during a few boss encounters. Alternatively, Potion of Speed is a cheap one and can be used at every boss encounter, and moreover, a few times on CD. A great stuff to use between your Elemental Mastery and Engineering Gloves. Another fact why our average Haste Rating is sufficient.

6. Hybrid DPS

Since "swing timer" is fixed, it can't be used during spell casting, but it can be used as auto attacks while you're kiting or changing positions during the boss encounter. Just strife around in a 5 yards range from the target. For this, start your spell rotations with "/startattack" macro.

Note. The “swing timer bug” happens when it does not reset after a spell is casted. So it lets us perform additional melee damage between casted spells. This is fixed now and our casted spells are reseting our swing timer. Sadly, but a bugged swing timer just balanced our spec in a good way. It was not usable at every encounter due to their mechanics; it allowed our spec to be more competitive in DPS intensive tank and spank fights, where our spell casting frequently suffers from pushbacks from boss ability mechanics. In PVP it's not OP, considering we have to stay away from most caster and have to kite most melees. It was OP only during leveling, when Enhancement Shaman was able to cast Windfury together with non instant spells.

The hybrid DPS allows our character to perform additional melee “white” damage, but main damage is of course fire Flametongue damage from enhanced weapon after hit is performed. So it’s very important, during specified encounters, to DPS the boss from behind like other melee classes. Without dual wielding talent our main hand weapon has a 8% hit cap and without any expertise rating our hybrid DPS is defined by: 4-6% miss chance, 5.6% dodge chance, spell power and haste rating. The glancing blows practically can’t be taken into consideration.

Tip. It’s obvious that one-handed weapon with a off-hand shield is much better than any two-handed staves.

So, all shaman’s one-handed SP weapons are daggers and maces with 1.8 swing speed mainly which is reduced, based on character 1100-1200 haste rating, to 1-0.9 s with any temporary haste buffs it can be reduced even more. Even while fixed this mechanic allows Elemental Shaman to perform additional swing between casted spells. Therefore, a well used swing timer can grant much more temporary DPS or damage done than addition 10SP or Haste Rating.

It’s important to notice that not always hybrid DPS is effective. During many encounters it’s better to stay well spread and far away from the boss spot due to encounter mechanics. Any debuff applied on melee party can turn into more damage lost than total hybrid damage during the encounter. If the swing timer bug will be fixed the BiS Elemental Shaman will lose near 500-800 dps.

7. Keybinding

Keybind, keybind, keybind… keybind any spell/ability of your rotation, keybind any other spell/ability with cooldown lesser than 60sec!!! Obviously keybinding is unbelievably important during PVP game play where the more keys are binded to the specified spells/abilities the more effective your character is. For PVE it’s not so crucial but let’s you play a much faster, accurate, “in time” game.

We can put all our spells on UI buttons and just click on them as the easiest way of game play, but at the same time it’s the worst way of game play. Firstly, due to server loaded status and connection latency it creates some static latency lags. Secondly, during intensive PVE encounters your WoW client also is overloaded, especially when a lot of Addons are installed, so it turns into UI input lags. UI input lags is a kind of latency delay between events “you click on a screen icon” and “the clicked icon triggers specified net-command to the server by WoW-client”. The total latency is very high – your commands can be performed 1-1.5 sec latter than should be; during any Heroic mode raids it can turn to wipe and e.t.c. You can use "clicks" only on long CD spells or abilities, where you don't need to waste a "comfortable" button for them.

We can put all our spell rotations into a macro; we can create different macros for different spell rotation commands. Compared to previous “clickers” mode, this game play mode grants us better performance and a faster return reaction. At the same time, it holds an easy play style mode, because most of our actions can be bound to 3-4 buttons.

We can bind every spell/ability to the specified button respectively and push specified commands based on environmental events. This is the best mode for high DPS and at the same time the hardest one, obviously because it requires a decent training time. This mode always allows us to cast the most optimal spell (single, AoE, buff, debuff) based on what is going near the target and how our buffs are rolling on.

Many PVP gamers recommend us to move our character only with a mouse and cast spells by using a keyboard for better reaction. Maybe a long time ago it was right while only 2-3 button mice were available. Nowadays, while a mouse with 7 or even more buttons are available, it makes sense to distribute all functions between the keyboard and the mouse, because it allows you to perform more actions at the same time. For example, let me ask: “When you’ll perform more strikes in boxing, while fighting with only your left hand or while fighting with both hands?”.

Tip. Personally I managed my WoW offensive abilities to keyboard and my WoW defensive abilities to mouse buttons. The movement buttons are available on the keyboard as: “A”, “W”, “D” and “Space”; the back pedal “S” is disabled, because it’s useless in any situation. The mouse movement buttons are both pressed “Left and Right main buttons”. This keybind model allows me to play offensive or defensive and move respectively. It allows me to perform the most complex actions at the same time.

I’m not a streamer and it’s not my purpose/job to promote some goods over internet, but I just want to show you the best PVP mouse currently available, as for me, – Roccat Tyon.

By default 15 buttons and with “SHIFT” button mode - 28 total buttons available; it’s practically an additional keyboard under the right hand. I personally bought this mouse not so long ago and I’m impressed how much can be bound to this mouse – not only basic spells or rotation, but a lot of macros. Moreover, this mouse can be used while you work with Photoshop, 3dMax, SONY Vegas or any other UI Tools. You can bind practical all basic functions and macros to the mouse. Sure, Razer models are superb also, but Tyon’s buttons position, distance, size are more ergonomic. They let you use four fingers compared to Razer mouse, while only big finger, under which are situated 10 small and closely situated buttons. I'd say get Roccat Tyon or any newest model for PVE or Razer for PVP. You know, it's better to bind you 2v2 or 3v3 arena offensive and supportive abilities to those Razer buttons like B1+Hex/B2+Hex/B3+Hex for arena enemy target 1/2/3, B4+Heal/B5+Heal/B6+Heal to support you party members and B7/B8/B9 to Focus arena targets respectively.

Keyboard isn't crucial, until you want to min/max all your possibilities or go hard for PVP. I'll not point you to top keyboards on the market, but any 50$ mechanical keyboard can do the job perfectly. Yes, mechanical keyboards are much better than others.

8. Optimizing PC Performance

This kind of optimizing is hard to achieve due to its financial side mainly. But most modern PCs (since 2014; at the time of writing this guide), so-called 3rd generation computers, based on Intel i5 or i7 processors can offer the best WoW performance. It’s important to have 8GB RAM installed or even more, because for smooth run on high resolution (Full HD) and quality the WoW will consume near 2GB RAM (summary RAM is based on video card RAM + in game RAM), Win7/10 – 0.5 or 1 GB, other running applications (player, browser, RC …) – from 1GB. So, total RAM required will be near 5GB. Otherwise the OS will cache most textures and data to local HD which will turn in low performance, lags, “screen freeze”. High PC performance is required if you are in 25 man raids or Battlegrounds. While many characters use their spells abilities at the same time, there are a lot of textures and media files to be rendered per second. Low PC performance = high UI lags.

Tip. If your PC is 2nd generation type (Pentium 3, Core Duo) with max possible supporting RAM of 4GB (but only 3.5GB supported), then close all other running applications, especially browsers. I’d offer on such machines to install a video card with no more than 0.7 – 1GB RAM.

Nowadays laptops are relatively cheap and popular. Their relatively low resolution does not allow to display all favorite UI addons well. Such “clients” should use simple addon mode; and install the most important. I have a laptop and PC but I prefer to play WoW on PC due to its performance and 24’ Full HD screen. The WoW on big screens is a completely another game. Somehow I played WoW on a Mac with a 2k resolution screen for a while – and it was fabulous: those balanced colors, detalization (a difference between home video and iMAX cinema).

Video resolution and effects also helps to increase FPS rate. Below is a screenshot of my video effect settings in most raid situations:

- In any raid environment you can tune View Distance to 50% or 30%. This will not change your view due to close raid environments, but will improve your FPS by 10-20 points;
- If your PC CPU has low performance, then tune Terrain Blending, Particle Density, Shadow Quality and Weather Intensity to minimal levels or levels for best FPS;
- The Environment Detail, Ground Clutter Density, Ground Clutter Radius, Texture Resolution, Texture Filtering, Player Textures are completely defined by your video card class and memory and your PC RAM. Tune them for best FPS;
- The most important effect is Projected Textures. Always keep it up even you have to downgrade other effects! It lets you to see all terrain projected textures like: Death and Decay, Shadow Trap, Defile, Frost Bomb impact location, other slime pools, falling bombs e.t.c.;
- Only the Texture Filtering effect decreases your FPS seriously! This effect is rendering textures you are looking at under some angle for best view. Not so important an attribute if you aren’t a quality guru. Set it to 30% or disable!.

Additionally, in any situation don’t fill your screen like this:

or like this http://imgbox.com/KbpZoAuS,
or like this http://imgbox.com/rXhOOrWL,
or like this crazy UI http://imgbox.com/bquYQlZo.

These players mainly step into Shadow Trap, spreading Defile, can fail on Frost Tomb and wipe in many and many situations. Sure, how can you see “Defile on me” say a message of neighborhood character while your screen is completely filled with those “s h i t y” quality things? How can you see Shadow Trap while your character is completely covered with your buffs cooldown, log texts, character/boss GIGANT frame plates? Anyway, how it can even help you, while at one side you see long buff timers (nothing changes during whole encounter) and at other side you see an infinite stream of log effects (if you see that this GCD you did 10k dmg and previous one – just 8.5k for Crusader Strike – can it help to improve your combat in any way)?

Tip. Split your screen into three radial segments virtually. The first segment should contain your middle screen 35% area (where is your character situated by default). Try to keep this area completely free; place the most important temporary buffs and debuffs only here, using PowerAuras addon. The second segment should contain the next 35% radial ranged area. In this screen area you can place some of your most important addons UI elements, including Healbot or Skada. The last screen segment should take the last 30% area. Here you can place your buff icons, long cooldown buttons, maps, Recount, Aggrometer and other utility UI elements.

A nice example is Kahva’s UI from Paragon (the best Wotlk guild):

Internet connection speed and quality is also a very and very important attribute of hardware performance and good game play. Try to use any cable internet connection while raiding, because WiFi connection has very high internal latency, due to its engineering concept – channel protocol model and increased collision concurrence. If you already use any cable connection (ideal is optical fiber one) then you can reduce by 20% your network latency by configuring your PC “registers” and process priority. It can be done automatically by using Leatrix Latency Fix 3. This program is a must if you have a WiFi connection!

9. Mixing DPS Styles.

It means that all your spells must be already keybinded and depending by encounter situation you should use a single target DPS or AoE DPS during every GCD. Under “mixing DPS styles” I understand both PVE and PVP DPS style also. There are a lot of encounters where you should play like during PVP, using Wind Shear, Earthbind Totem, Grounding Totem, Frost Shock, Thunderstorm knockback. Examples of PVE encounters, where you have to play like PVP are: LDW (partially), Gunship, VDW, LK, Faction Champions (ToC), Anub’arak, Halion 25HC. This concept requires some mastery, because sometimes you can wipe the raid by doing this. For example, a Balance Druid wiped our LoD run a few times, after Typhoon a pack of Viles into the raid party – 6 death characters in total. Mixing DPS styles require a single target and AoE burst rotation.

10. Temporary Buffs Stacking

This concept is obvious by its “Name”. Stack not only trivial raid buffs, as its obvious, but personal temporary buffs also. For example, if you have a trinket which grants you 800SP for 20 sec then it's a good idea to use Engineering Gloves or Elemental Mastery just after the trinket is triggered. As a result – more casted spells with +800SP. The idea of stacking buffs consist in: while your character is buffed with temporary SP (ring, tailor’s cloak or trinket effect) use some temporary Haste buffs; while your character is buffed with temporary haste (BL/Heroism, EM or trinket effect) – use some temporary SP and/or Crit buffs (trinket on “use” or Potion of Wild Magic). In real situations, it’s hard to perform or to track the specified temporary buffs by default. To do this more easily use such a powerful addon like PowerAuras.

11. Environmental Strategy

The effective environmental strategy tends to hard aspects to achieve. It requires a decent knowledge not about your character only, but about most encounters of the expansion and how your character should be played there especially. The requirements are: where your character must be located, the best location places at specified boss phase, how to move, how to DPS in “stay in one place”? what to do while moving? It is not possible to teach anybody about this. It comes after long personal experience. It's not possible to teach somebody to play his class in Arena because you can say do this, do that, but when it’s time to do something the player lost himself, he don’t know which ability to cast or which button to press or he knows it, but haven't reflexes to do it in time and fast. Not every class only, but every specialization has its own environmental strategy.

About Elemental Shaman I can notice the next things:

- Use ABS (Always be Casting) concept;
- If there is possible, stay in melee range and DPS with auto attacks;
- While “DPS from one position”, use Lava, LB, FS and CL spells and never refresh totems;
- While moving, cast Thunderstorm, FS, FrS, EaS, Fire Nova or drop totems;
- Don’t move if it’s not really required for it;
- Always move across to shortest path just to avoid some deadly ability;
- Always move sideways or forward and never back.

About DPS optimization an environmental strategy there is an old (patch 3.2.2) video guide referred to hunters, but shamans also can learn a lot from the video:

CONCLUSION
After performing such optimizations your DPS should be like :

3.5. LB vs CL
c.3.5 December 2015

Spoiler: Show

Intro

Based on the guide's posts, I took into consideration the value of this comparison analysis.

Originally Posted by DXMember

Yesterday I got into argument with guildies that insisted that Chain Lightning is good for single target DPS, and I was like "wtf man, get a job, LB does more damage". But as it turns out Chain Lightning on single target procs Lightning Overload more than 100% of the times.I tested on single dummy (in Iron Forge) and with 10 casts I got 24 hits, every cast proceed a Lightning Overload and twice I got it to deal 4 hits with single cast.

Now I cannot wrap my head around as to why this is happening.

I believe this is a bug???

Previously the LB had advantage vs CL.

I performed some tests with an under BiS geared character (no buffs), to analyse the effect of Lightning Overload talent, and I found:

1. 1xLB(normal) > 1xCL(normal): 5500dmg > 4500dmg;
2. 1xLB(crit) > 1xCL(crit): 10-11kdmg > 8.5 - 9.5 kdmg;
3. 2xLB(any combination hit&crit with Overload) =(+/-) 2xCL(any combo hit&crit or crit&crit): 12-15kdmg = (+/-) 11-14kdmg (14.5 - crit&crit -- are rare);
4. 2xLB(crit&crit) >> 2xCL(crit&crit): 16-19kdmg >> 11-14kdmg;

Overall view:
1. With my 49% crit chance I got 50%/50% crits and hits on any combination of direct and overloaded damage.
2. The Lightning Overload talent has the right proc chance of 33% (+/- 5% in short time periods) as should be.
3. During Lightning Overload, both LB and CL have near the same output damage for CRI&HIT case. For CRIT&CRIT case, which is more rare, the LB is much more powerful.

Usage concept:
1. For a long single target DPS, the LB has advantage due to higher damage and lesser mana cost. Mainly, the LB should be casted.
2. If two targets are close, the CL should be casted once per 10 -15 sec (each second CL).
3. If three or more targets are close, the CL should be casted on cooldown. It has priority like Lava Burst. CL boosts really good based on Spell Power Coefficients and Chain damage.

... Maybe there was a bug, or your character race is bugged currently or that was a temporary bug IDK... You must check if there isn't another target close to your Dummy! But on Thunder Bluff Heroic Training Dummy I got previously posted results. The same statistics occur in raids also.

Originally Posted by ILECDW

Very good guide by Rexar. But i can say only 3 things. First never say that CL for single target sux i can prove that CL using cd is DPS and damage done increasing for every SINGLE target...

...Let's start from there what exactly is DPS. DPS is damage per second. That means the game calculates every second your total damage done for 1 sec, the game does same for next 1 sec, and next and next, ... till end, and on base these intermediate calculations the game does your middle DPS what you see on your recount (if you see you recount in battle it refreshes recount's values every 1 sec)...

I'm familiar with what the DPS is and about this I wrote an entire section 2.5. DPS Trainer, where I calculated theoretically the damage of each elemental shaman spell and had introduced an example of how those theoretical digits project on practical values. Check that section if you didn't. Talking about LB or CL rotation, I didn't forget about the LB and CL mechanics.

Update; summer 2020

Your argument about CL is correct in the context of low geared characters with a GS under 6kGS. The specified GS has much lower Haste Rating. Therefore, it makes sense to cast a CL just after each LvB to fit better the FS DoT timer on the target. To have a full set of casted spells between every FS apply. It's nonoptimal if the DoT will expire just while the LB is casting. This issue can experience even BiS Elemental Shamans, if their connection latency is high enough, over 150-200ms, which isn't a rarity nowadays.

Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning in Comparison

LB has a flying time, but CL has an instant hit. This is why I always noticed that CL is good at performing some fast burst against low HP targets. Because of CL mechanics, we can do more output damage during a short time period (for first 3-4 sec) compared to LB. It's very important vs targets which presence in the encounter can turn to a raid wipe (for example, Blazing Skeletons at VDW). About such a bursting rotation I already wrote in section 2.1 Macros. The CL rotation' burst is very effective during PVP also due to previously explained criteria. Moreover, the fly time of LB can be encountered by Iceblock, Deterrence, Spell Reflection, Antimagic Shield and e.t.c. Finally, CL always should be casted after Lava for best output of fast burst with minimal mana cost, because after Lava will 100% crit we will receive a Clearcasting buff and 50% less mana cost on expensive CL mana cost also it will get 10% damage from Elemental Oath.

You explain DPS mechanics under theorycraft criteria as damage per second. The DPS is Damage Done divided on Combat Time (casting time), as the Recount usually is calculating it. So, DPS after 20 sec is all damage done during this time divided on 20. Some practical kind of normalization. I performed many tests and can confirm that Recount and Skada aren't good tools to calculate the burst DPS. Their digits are right after 10 sec of casting time, after some normalization.

Tip. Talking about Boss encounters, the sustained DPS is a better option than a burst DPS. The LB doing a better sustained DPS vs a single Boss target as is shown below.

Also, you forgot about one basic and very important concept which determines the DPS of each class - the GCD. It's the main barrier for any DPS rotation which makes this game playable at the same time. Below is a graph example about LB DPS and how GCD limits it's value (posted in section 2.5).

Anyway, to explain this time line collision, I prepared two graphs, based on SELF BUFF DAMAGE vs Heroic Training Dummies. One graph is based on a spell rotation with CL, the other one - on a full LB.

CL Rotation - a kind of PROACTIVE DPS

With green vertical lines is marked the GCD barriers during the first 6 seconds. DPS1, DPS2, ... DPS5 are total DPS values per GCD respectively. As we can see, due to CL mechanics, between GCD1 and GCD2 we can push very high damage. The CL and it's Overloaded damage is done during the "second" GCD interval. Even during the third second our damage can be high if the next LB and FS DoT will crit. The output damage can be a way higher if CL will hit 3 targets, but we are talking about a single target DPS. After 6 seconds, the NORMALIZED DPS is 13.3k (as total damage of all spells divided on 6 sec). It's a case when LB crits are not as high as usual.

LB Rotation - a kind of BEHIND TIME DPS

Let's take a situation when our FS DoT, Lava and LB, during GCD2, GCD3, GCD4 and GCD5, are doing the same damage effects just to project and compare the CL and LB more accurately. As the previous CL has Overloading, our first LB also has Overloading. So, due to its fly time, the LB Overload will land during the third GCD. As a result, the DPS2 will be a bit lower, but the DPS3 will be a way higher. After 6 seconds, the normalized DPS will be around 14k. It's not even an equal DPS, it's a higher DPS. Talking about Boss encounters, we are not interested when the highest damage will be done during the first second or during the third second. We usually are interested in what damage will be done after 10 minutes!

Originally Posted by ILECDW

You said : "The CL is good to perform some fast AoE bursts and to synchronise your Lava Burst and LB with FS DoT sometimes."

Or this is total wrong in my opinion or just i can't understand what you mean. We talk here for some minimal part of the second like 0.1s or 0.2s where you never can calculate or synchronise in the encounter just because first you are not robot second it more depends from your haste raiting (what you never can sychronise too because no one can tell you what is ideal haste raiting for you even 5 haste raiting can broke this your synchronisation) and 3rd every moving from you will refute your theory - you don't know how much time you will need to move 1s or 2s or 1.9s or 4.3s or ... and when, just you will need to start all again. ..

Well, I'm not going to explain this in detail, because the ability to synchronise your spells mostly depends on the latency, lags, skills. For a person which plays Elemental Shaman as an ALT one hour per week or per two weeks, the explanation will not help. This is a way how a simple ele shaman's rotations become very hard. I can say only one thing.. During BL/Heroism, Elemental Mastery, Engineering Gloves, Potion of Speed your casting time of spells will vary between 0.5 - 0.7 second. So, I personally have some sense based on my current character Haste (casting time) and distance from the Boss that the next Lava will crit (land while FS DoT is up) or not (FS DoT will expire while the Lava is flying), if I'll "clip" FS DoT or not. Clipping FS DoT is bad for dps; you should synchronise your LB in some way to cast a new FS in a 0.3-0.8 second interval after the last DoT ticked. You'll cut it's initial damage by clipping FS DoT. If you cast just too late, you’ll miss one DoT source of DPS during 2-3 seconds. While you'll cast LB, the target will be without a FS DoT.

Pro Tip. For example, let's say the FS DoT timer on the BOSS is on 2 sec (it means that in 2 sec the FS DoT will perform it's last tick). Based on my characters' current Haste Rating and distance to the Boss, I know that I'll cast Lava in 1 sec and Lava will land in 0.7 sec - so it will crit. In other cases, I know that I'll cast a Lava in 1.1 sec and the Lava will land in 1 sec - so it has a 50%/50% chance to crit due to my 52% crit rating. It's a good idea to wait for the Lava and fake it's priority and to cast the next LB during 1,3 sec. The LB fly time is also 1.1 sec. So, we have 0.7 sec to cast something different, but not a Lava (chance to do normal damage), not a LB (because we will lose FS DoT on the target for too long time), not a FS (because we will clip the previous one). Sure CL is the option due to its fast casting time 1-1.1 sec and a chance to Overload and to Reduce Elemental Mastery' CD. The Frost Shock or Earth Shock are bad options (DEDICATED TO PLAYERS WHICH PREFER TO WASTE TALENTS POINTS FOR BOOMING ECHOES and /or SHAMANISTIC FOCUS). After CL will insta land, we will cast an insta FS just in 0.1-0.4 sec after the last FS DoT will tick, based on the latency, filled by a Lava so a FS DoT will be set to 18 sec.

3.6. BiS Lists Overview for 25 Man Raids
c.3.6 June 2020

Spoiler: Show

Intro

As you may notice, I had many disputes referred to BiS' hit cap requirements and some gear items. I'd say that all of us were right based on the individual context. Keep in mind, the Elemental Shaman BiS list described in section 2.4. is correct as universal and balanced one for any raid formations. Therefore, as was marked in the guide's posts, it can be a little bit
modified based on race and raid formation. The BiS lists shown below are completely based on the BiS list displayed in section 2.4, with some modifications to take into consideration 25 man raid buffs and racials. Just name it BiS tuning.

In section 3.7. Deep Analysis of Stats, I performed all calculations to demonstrate how the Primary and Secondary Attributes are linked with each other and how they influence on our spells and abilities. In addition, there is shown a pattern to calculate the Soft- and Hard-Cap values of Secondary Stats. Based on those Soft-Cap values and racial abilities, I created the BiS list shown below for each race respectively.

Tip: It's hard and pointless to try to stack the perfect values for Soft-Cap Stats (aka 11% Hit). You can stack values around +/-0.5%.

In addition, I'd like to point to three well known thesis, which formed the basis of my priorities regarding item selection:

1% increase in spell hit chance will give a 1% increase of a spell's base damage (until capped).
1% increase in spell crit chance will result in a gain of 0.5% of a spell's base damage (until 100%).
Going 0-1% haste is a dps increase of exactly 1%. Going 50-51% haste (hard capped) is a dps increase of 0.66%, subject to the same conditions as before.

BiS Lists

Orc / Tauren
Troll

Draenei

Sanctified Frost Witch's Helm Sanctified Frost Witch's Helm Sanctified Frost Witch's Helm

Amulet of the Silent Eulogy Blood Queen's Crimson Choker Blood Queen's Crimson Choker

Sanctified Frost Witch's Shoulderpads Horrific Flesh Epaulets Horrific Flesh Epaulets

Cloak of Burning Dusk Cloak of Burning Dusk Cloak of Burning Dusk

Sanctified Frost Witch's Hauberk Sanctified Frost Witch's Hauberk Sanctified Frost Witch's Hauberk

Bracers of Fiery Night Bracers of Fiery Night Bracers of Fiery Night

Sanctified Frost Witch's Gloves Sanctified Frost Witch's Gloves Sanctified Frost Witch's Gloves

Split Shape Belt Split Shape Belt Split Shape Belt

Sanctified Frost Witch's Kilt Sanctified Frost Witch's Kilt Sanctified Frost Witch's Kilt

Plague Scientist's Boots Plague Scientist's Boots Plague Scientist's Boots

Ashen Band of Endless Destruction Ashen Band of Endless Destruction Ashen Band of Endless Destruction

Ring of Rapid Ascent Loop of the Endless Labyrinth Ring of Rapid Ascent

Charred Twilight Scale Charred Twilight Scale Charred Twilight Scale

Phylactery of the Nameless Lich Phylactery of the Nameless Lich Phylactery of the Nameless Lich

Royal Scepter of Terenas II Royal Scepter of Terenas II Royal Scepter of Terenas II

Bulwark of Smouldering Steel Bulwark of Smouldering Steel Bulwark of Smouldering Steel

Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice

Summary
Summary
Summary

SP: 4230
Hit: 11.4% (299)
Crit: 50.09%
HR: 1184 SP: 4251
Hit: 11.09% (291)
Crit: 51.61%
HR: 1098 SP: 4251
Hit: 10.25% (269)
Crit: 51.5%
HR: 1128

Requirements
Requirements
Requirements

2 x Glowing Dreadstone or
2 x Royal Dreadstone 2 x Glowing Dreadstone or
2 x Royal Dreadstone 2 x Glowing Dreadstone or
2 x Royal Dreadstone and
3 x Veiled Ametrine

About Stats

The Spell Hit (Hit) is the top Secondary Stat and we should cap it at any cost in the first row. For orc, tauren and troll Elemental Shamans its Soft-capped at 11% (11.4% and 11.09% respectively), for draenei Elemental Shaman - at 10% (10.25%).

As mentioned above, at low Spell Haste (SH) values the Haste Rating (HR) has priority over Crit Rating (CR) and even Spell Power (SP) due to many direct and indirect factors (as GCD). SP determines the applied damage values, while SH determines how many of damage values will be applied per time interval. Beginning from HR when the GCD = 1 sec + latency, the SP as CR has higher priority over SH. At 1200 HR the GCD is equal to 1 second, considering the available static haste buffs. As you can notice, the default HR for all BiS sets is a bit under 1200 HR. Troll Shaman can stack around 1098 HR, which is a relatively low value, because he can compensate that with his racial Berserking. On the average basis, Berserking grants around 1.1% static SH in the best scenarios, as was calculated in section 3.7. In many real scenarios, that racial haste has a little bit lower effect around 0.9-1%.

First BiS set has 4230 SP, which is 4251 - 4230 = 21 SP less than the other two sets have. It's not a big deal, because orc race can compensate that with Blood Fury - 163 SP during 15 sec with a 2 min CD (120 sec). The average effect of Blood Fury is: 120/15 = 8 => 163/8 = 20.4 SP. So, orc racial will grant a constant 20.4 SP buff, which is close to the SP stacked from Blood Queen's Crimson Choker and Horrific Flesh Epaulets. I'll not suggest using this necklace for orc and tauren Elemental Shamans, because it's very uncomfortable to compensate for the missing Hit and SH. For troll and draenei Shamans, I decided to fit the Horrific Flesh Epaulets shoulders (as were suggested in some posts of this guide), because it allows them to stack a little bit more SP, while for orc Elemental Shaman just the T10 shoulders - to stack more HR (in my opinion, its HR works better with racial Blood Fury SP buff).

Beginning from 1200 HR the CR becomes a more valuable Secondary Attribute compared to SH. As you can see from the table above, in the end, the difference between these BiS sets is addition 1.5% Crit Chance at the cost of HR, or it's addition 1.5% SH at the cost of CR. For this, we have to switch only one ring or amulet and that's all. I don't want to say that one set has an absolute advantage over another one. In some scenarios (like fast encounters with a bunch of adds) the +1.5% CR can be better, and vice versa, in other scenarios (like long and monotonous single target fights) the additional 1.5% SH can be better. In the end, we have to balance our CR and SH and to stack one stat at the cost of another one. We just can't stack both of these stats proportionally. I haven't had huge real raid experience with tauren, troll and draenei Elemental Shamans, but for orc I can confirm that additional 50-80 HR works better with the Blood Fury racial buff.

Gemming

To activate the Meta gem bonus, we have to use two blue gems. The best gems for this are the Glowing Dreadstone or the Royal Dreadstone one, which should be fitted into shoulders and chest' blue gem sockets. Only draenei should fit 3 Veiled Ametrines to upgrade the default gear set Hit from 9,11% up to 10.25%.

Tip: With the latest Warmane changes to the raid encounters and character abilities, I'll suggest fitting into blue sockets the Royal Dreadstone gems as one with better stats in return. We shouldn't stack MP5 at all, but it's an exception, especially if you are raiding on the Lordaeron server, where all bosses have around 15-35% more HP.

Enchants

All BiS sets should use identical enchants respectively to show in section 2.10. of this guide.

Gear Items Parity

Here is the place where we can dispute the advantage of one item in favor of another item. Such items like the Horrific Flesh Epaulets (HFE) and the Plaguebringer's Stained Pants (PSP) are the objects of dispute. Long story short. The PSP will grant to every Elemental Shaman just too much SH over 1200 HR. Moreover, for draenei it will cause additional problems due to the surplus of Hit. It's hard and nonoptimal to compensate the PSP Sats via other gear items. Just keep in mind, we have to use at least 4 T10 items, and the predefined Ashen's ring, the two trinkets, the weapon and the shield. I can say the same about the cloak, bracers, belt and foots gear items, including their gem sockets and enchants. Therefore, we have very little options to play around these Stats. Only rings can be "rolled" mainly.

Rawr it!

I'm familiar with this application and I used it back in the day. It has some bugs and works very slowly, but in general is calculating all Primary and Secondary Sats very accurately with self buffs and raid buffs respectively. There are questions on how accurate the DPS of a spell rotation is, which isn't easy to compute (as mentioned in section 2.5). Moreover, the top gear per slot isn't accurate also and shows very strange and weird results depending on the fight time period. For long fights, it can show that a T9 gear has better performance than any ilvl 277 gear. So, the application shouldn't be used to find a BiS item.

Elitist Jerks

Back in the day the project was "Alpha and Omega" for WoW theorycrafting without a doubt. WoW fans after a lot of performed tests, by using many different mathematical and statistical algorithms, discovered and documented how the game works on all levels like: Hit cap, BiS gear, how the armor penetration works, the armor of every boss, how resistances and partial resistances work and so on. Nowadays the project is closed and their most valuable results are ported to different WoW portals.

In addition, we can find many old blogs (2010), where they are tested and explained how some abilities or enchants work. But overall, their results will not impact the current well formed BiS Meta of patch 3.3.5a.

3.7. Deep Analysis of Stats
c.3.7 May 2020

Spoiler: Show

For a long time I wasn't ready to write this section, considering that data provided in Chapter 2 is enough to understand the Elemental Shaman Spec in a nutshell. The deep analysis of Stats requires a "myriad" number of tests, parameters, formulae, concepts to be performed and explained. I wasn't ready to do this and I wasn't sure that the reader really requires it although I have some already prepared notes for this scattered in my folder. Anyway, I decided to rush into this "jungle" just to explain better the concepts of sections in Chapter 2 and especially the 2.5. DPS Trainer section. I decided to glue all my tested records together with some scattered test results around the internet just to bring all these dots together for a complete picture.

I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here. Therefore, this section will not contain some deep theorycrafting patterns (with some exceptions of course), it's just a "slide" towards theorycrafting. I'll use some already discovered and explained constants and formulae to describe how the Spells, Talents, Glyphs, Primary and Secondary Attributes of Elemental Shaman are working. The True WoW theorycrafting is dead now. There aren't oldschool guys anymore, which used hundreds and thousands of log records and a lot of mathematical and statistics formulae to model and discover and describe the internal WoW server formulae, like guys from Elitist Jerks (indeed, the Elitist Jerks' guild leader Ion Hazzikostas can't do that stuff anymore:). Nowadays we have a bunch of sites which allows us to do some data mining just to display the overall and partial results in a diagram mode (like Recount), from which, by using trial and exclusion principles, we can identify our best and worst gear, Stats, whatever.

Note. I tried to perform some sort of theorycrafting in section 2.5. DPS Trainer, where I mathematically modeled some methods and formulae to calculate the spell damage, spell DPS and the DPS of a spell rotation for Elemental Shaman. The mathematical models for DPS of a spell rotation are much more complex than models to describe a spell damage or its DPS. A spell rotation include many serial and /or parallel spells, which can buff each other, which are differently buffed by Glyphs and talents, which a buffed by different temporary effects and happens over time.

3.7.1. Additive and Multiplicative Stats

Spoiler: Show

Percent

Often modifiers (haste, damage and so on) will be referred to by bonus percent. You always add this bonus to the normal 100%.

Formula for percent results:

Result = 100% + Bonus% (%); {F1}

Formula for absolute results:

Result = 1 + Bonus%/100% (damage/haste/whatever); {F2}

The wording on abilities may vary. Sometimes a modifier will be referred to as adds 50% damage, which means the damage is now 150% times that of the original. In other cases, the wording is like in the example above; increases your energy regeneration by 100%, meaning the energy is twice that of the original rate.

As of Patch 1.12, all modifiers have been changed to multiplicative (as opposed to additive). This means that an effect of +30% and an effect of +50% would not equal an effect of +80%, but instead an effect of +95%.

How is it computed? We can't multiply the percents directly, but we can multiply their absolute values, by using formula {F2}, and based on patch 1.12 changes we can't add percent effects - we should multiply them:

Wrong formula:

Result effect <> 30% + 50% = 80%;

Correct formula:

Result effect = (1 + 30%/100%)*(1 + 50%/100%) = (1 + 0.3)*(1 + 0.5) = 1.3*1.5 = 1.95;

The Effects

Based on my personal experience and observations, I noticed an important principle how to identify if a bonus or stat is additive or multiplicative. If an effect can vary from 0% to max 100% (Hard-Cap), then this effect is additive. Meaning that the effect will not benefit or will not work above 100%. For example, 100% crit chance meaning that all your hits will crit and you can't get more critical hits by having 150% crit chance; 100% hit chance meaning that all your spells will land and your character can't benefit from 110% hit chance in any way. Actually, some of these 100% caps are normalized to a lower value as an abstract number, like it's done for a hit cap - 100% spell hit chance vs a lvl 83 NPC is normalized to 17%. If an effect can vary and benefit from values above 100%, then this effect is multiplicative and can be increased by 200%, 500%, 1000% (ten times). But there are some exceptions of course.

Below the multiplicative effects, as one with better stats in total, are marked with underline.

Generic damaging Stats:

all Haste effects are multiplicative (Wrath of Air Totem, Elemental Mastery and Bloodlust/Heroism);
all bonus crit chance effects are additive (Totem of Wrath, Elemental Oath, Call of Thunder, Thundering Strikes);
all crit-damage-increasing effects are additive (Elemental Fury, Lava Flows and Chaotic Skyflare Diamond bonus);
all bonus damage are multiplicative (Concussion, Call of Flame, Storm, Earth and Fire, Improved Fire Nova, Elemental Oath, Shamanism);
all bonus hit effects are additive (Elemental Precision and Priest's Misery);
all ArP effects are additive (Sunder Armor, Battle Stance; missing for Elemental Shaman).

I can't explain why the crit-damage-increasing effect is additive, but the mathematically computed data correspond to the real results when they are added. At the same time, as it's noticed in the section 2.5 DPS Trainer, the bonus effect from Elemental Fury is calculated as a portion from the default spell critical bonus, while Lava Flows is additive towards Elementary Fury bonus and Skyflare Diamond is additive towards default spell crit. We just can't get (1+ 0.5)*(1 + 0.03)*(1 + 1) = 3.09 -> 309% bonus crit damage for LB/CL and (1 + 0.5)*(1 + 0.03)*(1 + 1)*(1 + 0.24) = 3.83 -> 383% bonus crit damage for Lava Burst! The actual Elemental Shaman spell crits have 206% bonus damage, except Lava Burst with a 219% crit bonus damage which completely corresponds to the real observed values. In addition, I saw wow records that stated that Skyflare diamond has a multiplicative effect of 1 + 0.03 = 1.03 (2*1.03 = 2.06 in total), which is identical to formula:

SDC = SDN*(1 + (50% + 3%)/100%*(1 + 100%/100%)) = SDN*( 1 + 0.53*(1 + 1)) = SDN*(1 + 0.53*2) = 2.06*SDN. {F3}

Note: There's another formula to calculate the critical spell damage, where the 3% crit damage bonus is increasing the default 50% crit chance multiplicatively as Elementary Fury is doing it. (1 + ( 50%/100%)*(1 + 3%/100%)*(1 + 100%/100%)) = (1 + 0.5*1.03*2) = (1 + 1.03) = 2.03 => +203%. Also there are some results stating that the spell crits are increased by 209% (2.09). Anyway, requires confirmation. Based on the real Combal Log, almost all spell crits (over 95%) will have a value if the respective normal damage will be multiplied by 2.06.

This is a scenario when an additive effect can be counted as multiplicative and vice versa.
Utility Stats:

all mana regen effects are additive (Water Shield and Mana Spring Totem);
all armor bonus effects are additive (Stoneskin Totem effect);
all stats bonus are multiplicative (Ancestral Knowledge, Toughness, Blessing of Kings);
all damage reduction bonus are multiplicative (Armor bonus, Elemental Warding with Astral Shift or Shamanistic Rage).

Consumable Stats:

all flask effects are additive (either its a Flask of the Frost Wyrm or Flask of Stoneblood);
all elixir effects are additive (either it’s a Spellpower Elixir or Guru’s Elixir);
all potion effects are additive (either it’s a Potion of Wild Magic or Indestructible Potion);
all scroll effects are additive (either it’s a Runescroll of Fortitude or Scroll of Intellect);
all food effects are additive (either it’s a Fish Feast or Great Feast);

This applies to all classes and all talents/spells, the factoring is based on the type of the effect, not on the single talent.

Patch notes:

Patch 3.0.8 (2009-01-20): Bonus armor beyond the base armor of an item will no longer be multiplied by any talents or by the bonuses of Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, or Frost Presence.

The Order of Stats Computing

This is a hard part and I can't tell you the exact patterns to calculate the consolidated Stats for every scenario. There are many exceptions, including cases when an additive stat is supposed to be multiplicative and vice versa. Anyway, there's a generic principle order for this also:

compute additive Primary Attributes;
compute the previously results with multiplicative Stats;
calculate the possible total debuffs and diminishing returns for Primary Attributes;
based on Primary Attributes, calculate their effects on Secondary Attributes;
compute additive Secondary Attributes;
calculate the final effect values including Primary and Secondary Attributes as multiplicative effects.

For example, Calculating the ARP it's done in 2 parts:

First up - the debuffs. These reduce your target's initial armor. For example, if your target has 10k armor and it gets 20% sunder, its armor would be 8k. The debuffs stack additively, so Faerie Fire will stack with sunder, totaling a 25% reduction on the target, taking it to 7.5k armor.

C = 400 + 85*targetlevel + 4.5*85*(targetlevel - 59); {F4}

where C is Armor cap constant.

Second, comes formula provided, you grab the armor after the debuff calculation and to that armor you apply formula (armor + C)/3. Using the same example as before, let's say the target is level 80, so C=15232.5, now calculate (7500 + 15232.5)/3 = 7577.5. This makes the target's armor lower than the result, meaning that each 1% removes 75 armor and you are hitting a 0 armor target on the 100% ARP get. The ArP "buffs" (items, stances and such) stack additively too, meaning that 90% ARP on Battle Stance for a warrior would mean a 100% ARP final.

Another example. Let's say that our Elemental Shaman has 2000 Intellect by default form gear. Then we apply the Scroll of Intellect VIII to increase our total Intellect to 2048. Considering that 166.7 Intellect grants 1% Spell Crit, our Spell Crit bonus only form the Intellect will be 2048*1%/166.7 = 12.28%! If we'll add 5 points to the Ancestral Knowledge Talent, we can increase our Intellect by 10% or 204.8 Intellect points (2048 + 204.8 = 2252.8 as a result). So we can increase additively our Secondary Attribute by 204.8*1%/166.7 = 1.23%, 12% + 1.23% = 13.23% in total, as a result of increasing our Primary Intellect Attribute on 204.8 via 5 points into Ancestral Knowledge Talent. Total Spell Crit chance is formed additively from crit chance from racial buffs, gear, Intellect, Talents, consumables, which are calculated independently from each other. It's just a partial case. More about Spell Crit and how to calculate it is explained below.

3.7.2. Spell Power

Spoiler: Show

Spell Power

Based on previous subsection 3.7.1, it's obvious that spell power has more additive and multiplicative effects than any other offensive Stat. It's a reason why almost every guide for casters will offer to stack the spell power in the first order, as priority one just after the Hit cap. The Stat is so good and strong not only because it has both additive and multiplicative effects on the output damage, it's also good because it can scale unlimited, has no diminishing returns, isn't affected by connection latency as Haste (will be explained below) and can improve both damaging and healing spells.

Spell power is an attribute that increases the effect of spells. Spell power increases the damage amount of damaging spells and the healing amount of healing spells. Information about spell power can be found on the Character tab of the Character info window under the Spell heading. The Bonus Damage attribute represents your spell power's contribution to general spell damage.

Your bonus damage and bonus healing from spell power do not usually apply directly to a spell. Each spell (or each component of each spell) which causes damage or healing has a spell power coefficient (SPC% or C) which determines how much of your bonus damage or bonus healing will be applied to the spell. The coefficient may be more or less than 100%, depending on various spell factors. Rules for calculating the coefficient are discussed in paragraphs that follow.

Principles for Applying Spell Damage and Healing

Calculate spell time using the base spell cast time before talents and gear. (The in-game tool tip will include those bonuses; refer to WoWWiki's spells section for base cast times for all spells).
Spells that take longer than 7.0 seconds to cast are treated as if their casting time was 7.0 seconds, and spells faster than 1.5 sec are treated as if their casting time was 1.5 seconds.
Damage benefits are applied before any talents or buffs that may otherwise increase your spell damage.

Spell Power Coefficients

The spell power itself is a simple attribute to understand and to apply in different spell damage formulae, but at the same time it's a complex one to use practically. Every damaging (or healing) direct damage (DD), binary, damage over time (DoT), area of effect (AoE), channeled spells must benefit differently from the spell power to make them balanced. Obviously DoT and AoE spells should benefit much less from spell power than DD spells. In addition, the long casted DD spell must benefit better from spell power than a fast casted DD spell. This principle must be applied differently for spells with internal CD and spells without internal CD.

How much that spell power contributes to the effect of a spell varies from spell to spell. It is generally related to the cast time and/or the duration of the spell, and different categories of spells have different formulae for calculating their spell power. The portion of your spell power which is contributed to a particular spell is referred to as the spell power coefficient (SPC%).

The SPC% for all spells are already experimentally tested and well documented for Wotlk expansion (as shown below). You can test them by yourself. For this, just remove any temporary SP buffs, Glyphs and Talents from your character and perform a few hundreds of spell tests for different spell power attributes (100 SP and 3000 SP). The more tests will be performed, the more accurate your results will be. The error in results is caused due to the rng range damage factor of casted spells (aka they do damage from 256 to 289). Anyway, theorycrafters discovered a few formulae how to calculate the SPC% (simple C) for different types of spells. To use them correctly just, use the principles for applying spell damage and healing explained above. The Cast Time must be taken as its primordial value without any gear, talents and Glyphs applied. Or you can get its default spell casting value by using different online wotlk databases just to not remove the already applied talents and Glyphs for testing purposes.

Direct (instant-effect) spells
Direct spells are spells that apply all the damage or healing at one time. That is, they have an instant duration.

Damage spells:

C = Cast Time / 3.5 {F5}

Healing spells:

C = (Cast Time / 3.5)*1.88 {F5-1}

DoT spells
Over time spells apply healing (HoT) or damage (DoT) over a period of time in ticks. The spell power coefficient depends on the duration of the over time effect.

Damage spells:

C = Duration / 15 {F6}

Healing spells:

C = (Duration / 15)*1.88 {F6-1}

AoE spells
Area of Effect spells receive only 1/2 of the total bonus that they would if they were single-target spells. As with a direct spell, the cast time is used to calculate the coefficient. The 1.5 second minimum and 7.0 second maximum apply to area of effect spells.

Damage spells:

C = Cast Time / 7;

Healing spells:
C = (Cast Time / 7) * 1.88

Patch 3.3 will significantly alter the manner in which AoE damage Cs are calculated. Instead of having a hard cap on the damage done, the maximum damage will be equal to the damage that would be dealt to 10 mobs hit by the ability. For example, if a spell does 1000 damage per target, it would deal 10000 total damage against 10 targets, and that would be the maximum damage it could do against any number of targets (before critical effects are taken into account). Against 20 targets, the spell would do 500 damage per target, while against 40 targets the spell would do 250 damage per target. Against 10 or fewer targets, the spell would continue to do 1000 damage per target.

Binary/Hybrid spells

x = Duration / 15;
y = Cast Time / 3.5;
Cdot = x*x/(x + y);
Cdd = y*y/(x + y);
Ctotal = Cdot + Cdd {F7}

Channeled spells
Channeled spells, like over time spells, have their benefit distributed over the entire duration of the spell. It is split evenly over each tick assuming that each tick causes the same amount of damage/healing.

Damage spells:

C = Duration / 3.5 {F8}

Healing spells:

C = (Duration / 3.5)*1.88 {F8-1}

Anyway, a better way to get the required SPC% (C) is by using the spell power coefficients table.

How to Calculate the Spell Damage via Spell Power?

For every spell we have to calculate the portion of spell power which will be applied to the default spell damage (from tooltip) by using SPC% (C). After that, we have to apply all multiplicative damage improving effects to the spell improved by spell power as shown below:

SpellDamage = (BaseSpellDamage + SpellPower * (1 + SPC%/100%))*TotalMultiplyEffect; {F9}

where

TotalMultiplyEffect = (1 + Effect1%/100%) *...* (1 + Effectn%/100%) {F10}

Downranked Spells

Downranking is the process of using a lower than maximum spell rank in order to gain higher efficiency per mana. In Patch 3.0.2 (Wrath of the Lich King release), downranking was killed by making spells cost a percentage of base mana rather than be based on rank.

3.7.3. Spell Hit

Spoiler: Show

The Definition

Spell hit is an attribute that increases a caster's chance to hit with offensive spells (healing abilities never miss, and are not affected by spell hit chance). Spells that fail to hit are shown as a "miss", and have no effect on their target, while misses caused by a target's resistance are shown as a "resist". Spell hit is primarily obtained from talents or gear that has hit rating. By default, all casters have 0% chance to hit. With patch 3.0.2, spell hit is capped at 100%; with enough spell hit, it is possible to reach a state where it is impossible for your spells to miss.

Base chance to hit, like armor penetration, is based on the levels difference:

96% chance to hit and even level target;
83% chance to hit mobs 3 levels higher;
87% chance to hit players 3 levels higher.

This is why spell casters at level 80 are hit capped versus Boss targets (3 levels above) with only +17% hit chance (100% - 83% = 17%). For casters, 1% of additional Hit can amount to more than 1% additional damage statistically.

Hit Rating

As mentioned above, we can stack hit points through hit rating. Therefore, we need 26.23 hit rating per 1% spell hit at level 80. So, at level 80, the highest level mob currently present is level 83 (e.g. all WotLK raid bosses), so a level 80 caster has an effective spell hit rating cap of 446. That assumes no other spell hit sources.

Almost all caster classes can acquire some hit points through talents, usually +3%. Elemental Shaman can do this via Elemental Precision talent. It's important to notice that the talent just applies the 3% hit additively to the overall hit value (additive effect). It doesn't increase the hit rating by 3%! Hit can stack additively with Misery or Improved Faerie Fire. Hit debuffs don't stack! Finally, draenei gives an additional 1% hit to their raid group with Heroic Presence. Taking these effects into consideration, they lower the effective hit rating cap.

Hit Cap

The amount of hit rating required to be hit capped vs a wotlk Boss:

no talents, debuffs and racial - 446 (17% hit);
3 points into Elemental Precision, without a debuff and racial - 367 (14% hit);
3 points into Elemental Precision, with a debuff and without a racial - 288 (11% hit);
3 points into Elemental Precision, with a debuff and draenei racial - 260 (10% hit).

As you can notice, this is a quite simple Stat to understand and use. It just applies its hit percent effects additively to the final table. You just have to pay attention to your character talents and raid composition to not be under Hit-Capped, which will result in significant losses of DPS.

3.7.4. Spell Haste

Spoiler: Show

Definition

Spell haste (SH) is a secondary attribute that reduces the casting time for spells and cast-time abilities and reduces the related global cooldown (GCD). It may also reduce casting time for the player's pets (such as for the warlock's Imp). It also increases the tick rate of most of the player's damage over time (DoT) and heals over time (HoT) effects. The cast time of all eligible abilities is reduced by the player's spell haste percentage, and this change is reflected in abilities' tooltips. 50% haste therefore allows a player to deal 50% more damage or healing in the same time, by casting spells at 150% of the speed (base 100% speed plus 50% haste).

Spell haste can be found on the character sheet under the Spell heading. It is separate to melee and ranged haste. Spell haste can be acquired from a number of sources; gear, passive bonuses, talent procs, active abilities, buffs and items. Overall, it's a quite difficult Stat to understand and apply in calculations, because it can be gained additively and multiplicatively and can improve both spells and melee swings, DD and DoT spells and can reduce the GCD. This topic will be informative, so stock up on popcorn and enjoy your reading.

Spell Haste and Haste Rating

The caster spell haste is defined by multiplicative haste effect measured in percentages. The spell haste is defined as a proportion from Haste Rating (HR) which is an absolute secondary attribute and can be gained from gear items. Therefore, we need 32.79 haste rating per 1% Spell Haste at level 80.

It's important to understand how the caster's HR is combined with other SH effects into the result SH, just to calculate further the casting speed of spells and the GCD. Firstly, all possible HR buffs, like buffs from Bizuriu's Totem Relic, Hyperspeed Accelerators and/or Potion of Speed are applied to our overall HR additively (the summary of it we can observe on the character UI). Secondly, from our total HR, via converting coefficient of 32.79, our HR is converted to its percent equivalent. Thirdly, considering that all haste effects are multiplicative, we have to multiply all the possible effects together (defined in percents).

Note. Extra SH effects (%) aren't represented on the character UI.

SH can be defined by the generic formula:

Spell Haste% = Gear Haste% * Spells Haste% * Talents Haste% * Racial Haste%; {F11}

Gear Haste% = (Default Gear HR + Items HR + Consumables HR) * 1% / 32.79 {F11-1}

where Gear Haste - the total SH acquired from the gear HR (rings, trinkets, Relic, enchats, consumables which add the HR to your character total HR as usually), Spells Haste - the total SH acquired from different active spells and abilities (keep in mind, the total haste is defined via multiplicative coefficients), Talents Haste - the total SH acquired from different talents passively, Racial Haste - is the only possible SH acquired from troll Berserking, Default Gear HR - the default HR you can see on your character UI, Items HR - is the total HR acquired from Relic, Enchants, trinkets and rings, Consumables HR - is the HR usually acquired from Potion of Speed and food.

To calculate the approximative max possible SH for the BiS Elemental Shaman (it means a specified set of gear items), formula {F11} will be:

Spell Hastemax% = [(1 + Gear Haste%/100%)*(1 + 5%/100%)*(1 + 15%/100%)*(1 + 30%/100%)*(1 + 20%/100%) - 1]*100% {F11-2}

where the direct SH from talents is missing. To normalize the data and exclude the 100% "median", the "minus 1" is included due to formula {F12} below. By simplifying the previous expression, we will get an expression:

Spell Haste(max) = [(1 + Gear Haste%/100%) * 1.05 * 1.15 * 1.3 * 1.2 - 1] * 100%,

or

Spell Haste(max) = [(1 + Gear Haste%/100%) *1.884 - 1]*100% {F11-3}

Below are explained the multiplicative SH coefficients in formula {F11-2} respectively:

Wrath of Air Totem: +5% spell haste - (1 + 5%/100%) = 1.05 (permanent);
Elemetal Mastery: +15% spell haste - (1 + 15%/100%) = 1.15 (temporary);
Bloodlust/Heroism: +30% spell haste - (1 + 30%/100%) = 1.3 (temporary);
Berserking: +20% spell haste - (1 + 20%/100%) = 1.2 (temporary).

Below are explained the additive HR parameters in formula {F11-1} respectively:
Hyperspeed Accelerators: +340 HR (temporary);
Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice: +220 HR (permanent);
Potion of Speed: +500 HR (temporary).

For further calculations, I have to introduce the next formula to get the percent value from it's absolute coefficient value:

Coefficient Effect = (Coefficient Value - 1) * 100% (%) {F12}

Let's say that our gear HR is 1200 (at BiS level). The value of 1200 isn't absolute, so it can be increased by gems or few gear items here and there for an addition (+/-)100-150 HR. So the avg default HR is 1200 and lets apply to it the addition permanent and temporary HR points as is shown in formula {F11-1}:

Gear Haste = (1200 + 340 + 220 + 500) * 1% / 32.79 = 2260 * 1% / 32.79 = 68.92% ~ 69%

formulae {F11-3} and {F12} allows us to calculate the Elemental Shaman max possible SH, considering the previous context:

Spell Haste(max) = (1.69 * 1.884 - 1) * 100% = (3.184 - 1) * 100% = 2.184 = 218.4% ~ 218% !!!

Obviously the second, third and fourth multipliers in formula {F11} can be applied in different combinations with the first multiplier. It depends by how much SH we want to stack at different time intervals. Usually, a player should plan a principle how to use all these temporary haste buffs in a sequence order to not become overcapped based on the spell casting speed and GCD.

Based on formulae {F11}, {F11-1} and {F11-2}, our BiS character's permanent SH can be improved next. We have to take into consideration only the Relic HR and the Wrath of Air Totem buff. So

Default Spell Haste = [1 + ((1200 + 220)*1%/32.79) / 100%)*(1 + 5%/100%) - 1]*100% = [(1 + 43.3%/100%)*(1 + 5%/100%) -1]*100% = (1.433*1.05 - 1)*100% = (1.505 - 1)*100% = 0.505*100% = 50.5%!

It's just amazing! At 1200 gear HR, under permanent self buffs, our Elemental Shaman's SH is around 50% which will set the GCD to 1 second. I run with a bit lower HR currently - near 1190 HR. Further is explained why.

Below is calculated a set of BiS Elemental Shaman SH values for different scenarios:

Default Spell Haste (DSH): 1.505 times or 50.5% SH;
DSH with Elemental Mastery: 1.505*1.15 = 1.731 times or ~ 73% SH;
DSH with Hyperspeed Accelerators: 1.613 times or ~ 61% SH;
DSH with Bloodlust: 1.505*1.3 = 1.956 times or ~ 96% SH;
DSH with Potion of Speed: 1.665 times or ~ 66.5% SH
DSH with Elemental Mastery and Hyperspeed Accelerators: 1.856 times ~ 86%.

Note. You can get confused by the DSH effect. In all PVE scenarios, you'll have relatively long and monotonous encounter fights. Considering this and the fact that the Wrath of Air Totem will be up 99.9% of the time, your character will be under the totem and Relic buffs 99.9% of the time. So the DSH allows us to calculate addition SH acquired additively or multiplicatively as shown above more simply.

As an additional comparative data, below is shown the SH without any buff, with the totem buff and the Relic buff respectively:

Initial SH: 1200*1%/32.79 = 36.59 ~ 36.6%;
Totemic SH: [(1 + 36.6%/100%)*(1 + 5%/100%) - 1]*100% = (1.366*1.05 - 1)*100% = 0.4343*100% = 43.4%;
Relic SH: (1200 + 220)*1%/32.79 = 1420*1%/32.79 = 43.3%
Initial SH * Totemic SH * Relic SH = DSH.

The amount of HR required to attain a percentage of haste (at lvl80) can therefore be calculated:

Haste Rating Required = Haste Percentage Required * 32.79 / 1% {F13}

Casting Speed

Essentially, 1% haste allows a player to cast 1 additional spell in the time it would normally take to cast 100 spells. If the spell is a 3 second cast, that means one can theoretically cast 101 spells in 300 seconds, or 2.97 seconds per spell.

Cast Time = Base Cast Time / ((Spell Haste Percentage / 100) + 1) {F14}

Note. Base Cast Time is after talents.

Elemental Shaman has only one talent which reduces the casting time of core spells by 0.5 sec - Lightning Mastery.

So, lets calculate the cast time for core spells LB, CL and LvB for a BiS character, considering the effect of the talent. The base and talented casting time of respective spells is shown below:

Lightning Bolt (LB) - 2.5 seconds / 2 seconds;
Chain Lightning (CL) - 2 seconds / 1.5 seconds;
Lava Burst (LvB) - 2 seconds / 1.5 seconds.

Therefore, the casting speed for both Chain Lightning and Lava Burst can be calculated identically. Lets calculate their Casting Time for different scenarios, based on previously performed calculations:

LB
Initial Cast Time (CT) = 2 / (36.6%/100% + 1) = 2 / 1.366 = 1.46 seconds;
Totemic CT = 2 / (43.4%/100% + 1) = 2 / 1.434 = 1.395 ~ 1.39 seconds;
Relic CT = 2 / (43.3%/100% + 1) = 2 / 1.433 = 1.396 ~ 1.4 seconds;
Default Cast Time (DCT) = 2 / (50.5%/100% + 1) = 2 / 1.505 = 1.32 seconds;
DCT + Elemental Mastery = 2 / (73%/100% + 1) = 2 / 1.73 = 1.156 ~ 1.16 seconds;
DCT + Hyperspeed Accelerators = 2 / (61%/100% + 1) = 2 / 1.61 = 1.242 ~ 1.24 seconds;
DCT + Bloodlust/Heroism = 2 / (96%/100% + 1) = 2 / 1.96 = 1.02 seconds;
DCT + Elemental Mastery and Hyperspeed Accelerators = 2 / (86%/100% + 1) = 2 / 1.86 = 1.07 seconds.

CL and LvB

Initial CT = 1.5 / (36.6%/100% + 1) = 1.5 / 1.366 = 1.098 ~ 1.1 seconds;
Totemic CT = 1.5 / 1.434 = 1.046 ~ 1.05 seconds;
Relic CT = 1.5 / 1.433 = 1.0467 ~ 1.05 seconds;
Default Cast Time (DCT) = 1.5 / 1.505 = 0.99667 ~ 1 second;
DCT + Elemental Mastery = 1.5 / 1.73 = 0.867 ~ 0.87 seconds;
DCT + Hyperspeed Accelerators = 1.5 / 1.61 = 0.932 ~ 0.93 seconds;
DCT + Bloodlust/Heroism = 1.5 / 1.96 = 0.765 ~ 0.76 seconds;
DCT + Elemental Mastery and Hyperspeed Accelerators = 1.5 / 1.86 = 0.806 ~ 0.8 seconds.

These are just gorgeous results! If you'll set up an Elemental Shaman with around 1200 HR, and will use the respective haste buffs, then you'll get exactly the same spell cast values in the spell tooltips. By stacking the buffs, the cast speed will decrease from its default value and, vice versa, it will move towards the default cast speed as soon a buff will expire.

To determine the amount of time taken to cast a given sequence of spells, the reverse formula can be used, where Base Casting Time is the sum of all spells in the given sequence:

Haster Required = ((Base Cast Time / Desired Cast Time) - 1)*100% {F15}

From previous calculations, the casting time of CL and LvB is perfect. The LB casting time is way higher by default and even during the Bloodlust it barely can get to 1 second. How much SH and HR we have to stack to set the default LB cast time to 1 second? From formula {F15} it's easy to calculate, considering that the Desired Cast Time = 1 second:

Haste Required (perfect LB) = (2 / 1 - 1)*100% = 100% !!!

or by including the permanent effects of the Relic and Wrath of Air Totem (as default sources), the Required HR can be calculated next way:

100% = [(1 + HR%/100%)*(1 + 5%/100%) - 1]*100%,
1 = (1 + HR%/100%)*1.05 -1 --> 1.905 = 1 + HR%/100%,
where HR% = (Required HR + 220)*1% / 32.79; so
1.905 = 1 + (Required HR + 220)*0.01 / 32.79;
62.46 = 32.79 + Required HR*0.01 + 2.2;
Required HR*0.01 = 62.46 - 32.79 - 2.2 = 27.47;
Required HR = 27.47 / 0.01 = 2747 HR!!!

2747 HR is just an insane amount of HR and it's unreal and pointless to even try to acquire so much HR or to try to build the default spell haste Hard-Cap around this concept (to set the LB cast time to 1 sec) as is explained below.

GCD

Global Cooldown (GCD) is one of the most interesting and important parameters (or in game mechanics) referred to the Haste in general and Spell Haste (SH) in particular. Haste reduces the global cooldown according to the general formula for SH. The base GCD for casters is 1.5 seconds.

GCD = Base Global Cooldown / ((Spell Haste Percentage / 100) + 1) {F16}

However, the minimum possible GCD is 1 second and haste will not reduce it below this.

The amount of haste required to reduce the global cooldown to a desired value can also be calculated exactly as for spells:

Haste Required = ((Base Global Cooldown / Desired Global Cooldown) - 1)*100 {F17}

For example:

((1.5 / 1) - 1)*100% = 50% haste

50% is the amount of haste required to reduce the global cooldown to its 1-second minimum.

Haste Soft-Cap and Hard-Cap

As it's calculated above, we need 50% overall SH to set the GCD = 1 second. It's a very and very important information. With other words, it's important to keep the casting time (CT) of main Elemental Shaman DD spells, after all the constant spell haste buffs are applied, equal to or a bit longer than 1 second. Otherwise we will clip our DD spells sequence with the GCD timer. Therefore, based on previous calculations, 50% SH is enough to set the CT of our two core spells around 1 second also. Obviously the 50% SH should be considered the Elemental Shaman Soft-Cap Stat. Now we have to calculate the default flat HR of the BiS gear. How much Soft-Cap HR do we need to get 50% SH?

Note. The Soft- and Hard-Cap values can be calculated as abstract mathematical values not binded to the character gear. Actually we are interested in how much HR do we actually need to stack on the gear (that which we can see and easily measure!) to get the desired results. Therefore, the respective "raw cap" HR values will be calculated relatively to applied buffs here. Meaning that different character classes and their Specs will have a different HR requirement, based on their talents and spells, to reach the optimal SH of 50%.

It can be calculated the same way as the perfect Required HR for LB is calculated above. "But there is one big but" here. To get more accurate results, we have to take into consideration the SH and HR effects from spells, items and consumables which are temporary. Our gear HR requires some normalization, based on these temporary or rng effects, as it was calculated for spell DPS in section 2.5. The raid SH buffs can't stack with each other, but raid SH buff can stack with personal Shaman SH buffs btw. In general, the Bloodlust/Heroism can be excluded from our calculations, as an exception. It will turn the casting speed of all our spells to or under 1 second for 60 seconds. We just can't try to normalize our HR, considering this buff, - for short time intervals it has near perfect impact, while for overall performance it has a negligible effect. In addition, Potion of Speed can't be taken into consideration also for any boss encounter. Long story short:

There are two types of potions: defensive and combat. The defensive potions like Crazy Alchemist Potion or Runic Healing Potion share CD in combat. Therefore, you can use them in combat on CD (usually every 1min).

Combat potions do not share cooldowns in combat with each other, and each can only be used once per combat phase. They have a potion cooldown in combat. The cooldown will start immediately if not in combat, or if you are in combat, when a combat ends. Combat potions are potions like the Potion of Wild Magic that increase stats, or a Runic Mana Potion.

"Pre-potting" is a common term meaning to use a potion before entering a combat phase, because it will start the cooldown, allowing you to get 2 potions in 1 combat phase. This increases overall damage. Usually, I'm not using any Potion of Speed and instead I'm using the Potion of Wild Magic once or twice per encounter and rarely.

The Berserking buff should be taken into consideration, but separately from generic computations, because it's a troll specific buff only. Finally, we have the Hyperspeed Accelerators and Elemental Mastery as only two abilities which should be normalized. But there's one trick referred to the Elemental Mastery also, which we can forget frequently (back in the day I didn't pay attention to this buff for a long time), - T10 bonus! Here it is:

Elemental:

(2) Set: Your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells reduce the remaining cooldown on your Elemental Mastery talent by 2.0 sec.
(4) Set: The cooldown on your Lava Burst ability is reduced by 1.5 sec.

Actually, (2) set T10 bonus reduces our Elemental Mastery CD from 3 minutes to 1.5 minutes!

To calculate the average Hyperspeed Accelerators buff effect during it's CD, isn't correct to divide it's temporary buff of 340 HR on 60 sec. It can be calculated in two ways: by using proportions or by using an Integral equation. Let's say that our temporary buff of 340 HR as a constant function f(t) = 340 will apply its effect during the 12 seconds. Then the same "cumulative" effect should be applied by another constant function g(t) = C (which we must find) during the 60 seconds interval - Integral[0,12](340)dt = Integral[0,60](C)dt, or

340*t[12; 0] = C* t[60; 0] => 340*12 - 340*0 = C*60 - C*0; 4080 = C*60; C = 68 HR.

By using the proportion, we can find its average effect over time next way. The number of working intervals during a CD can be calculated as 60 / 12 = 5 and, by using this proportion, the average constant buff effect over the CD interval is 340 / 5 = 68 HR. Or the 340 HR during 12 sec will give the same overall effect as the 68 HR will give during the 60 sec and it's an average constant for any spell rotation.

The Elemental Mastery (EM) is doing the same thing multiplicatively (1.5 min = 90 seconds):

k = 90 / 15 = 6; Average EM% = ((1 + 15%/100%) - 1) / 6 *100% = 2.5%

2.5% is the average constant of EM SH buff for any spell rotation.

Taking into consideration these findings, lets calculate the Soft-Cap HR value for a BiS Elemental Shaman:

50% = [(1 + ((Soft-Cap HR + 220 + 68)*1% / 32.79) / 100%)*(1 + 5%/100%)*(1 + 2.5%/100%) -1]*100%;
1.5 = (1 + ((Soft-Cap HR + 288)*1% / 32.79) / 100%)*1.05*1.025;
1.5 = (1 + ((Soft-Cap HR + 288)*1% / 32.79) / 100%)*1.07625;
1.394 = 1 + (Soft-Cap HR + 288)*0.01 / 32.79;
1.394*32.79 = 32.79 + Soft-Cap HR*0.01 + 288*0.01;
45.7 - 32.79 - 2.88 = Soft-Cap HR*0.01;

Soft-Cap HR = (45.7 - 32.79 - 2.88) / 0.01 = 10.03 / 0.01 = 1003 HR.

Tip: The 1003 HR is a bottom value, which will set our GCD to 1.043 seconds time to time, between our active Haste buffs. In the end, the additionally temporary 43 milliseconds between casted spells will not have a huge impact on the overall DPS.

Now let’s do the same by taking into consideration the multiplicative raid haste buffs: Improved Moonkin Form or Swift Retribution (+3% SH). These buffs can’t stack with each other.

50% = [(1 + ((Raid Soft-Cap HR + 220 + 68)*1% / 32.79) / 100%)*(1 + 5%/100%)*(1 + 2.5%/100%)*(1 + 3%/100%) -1]*100%;
1.5 = (1 + ((Raid Soft-Cap HR + 288)*1% / 32.79) / 100%)*1.05*1.025*1.03;
1.5 = (1 + ((Raid Soft-Cap HR + 288)*1% / 32.79) / 100%)*1.1085;
1.353 = 1 + (Raid Soft-Cap HR + 288)*0.01 / 32.79;
1.353*32.79 = 32.79 + Raid Soft-Cap HR*0.01 + 288*0.01;
44.37 - 32.79 - 2.88 = Raid Soft-Cap HR*0.01;

Raid Soft-Cap HR = (44.37 - 32.79 - 2.88) / 0.01 = 8.7/ 0.01 = 870 HR.

Tip: So, the raid 3% SH buff will decrease our HR by addition 133 compared to its normalized default value. I’ll not suggest you go this way low on SH and relay on raid buffs. It’s not that type of stat like Hit, melee Crit Chance or Armor Penetration.

Let's do the same calculations by including the Berserking SH average constant effect (+20% SH during 10 sec with a 3 min CD = 180 sec). Its average effect can be calculated next way:

k = 180 / 10 = 18; Average Berserking% = ((1 + 20%/100%) - 1) / 18 *100% = 1.1%

and

50% = [(1 + ((Soft-Cap Troll HR + 220 + 68)*1% / 32.79) / 100%)*(1 + 5%/100%)*(1 + 2.5%/100%)*(1 + 1.1%/100%) -1]*100%;
1.5 = (1 + ((Soft-Cap Troll HR + 288)*1% / 32.79) / 100%)*1.05*1.025*1.011;
1.5 = (1 + ((Soft-Cap Troll HR + 288)*1% / 32.79) / 100%)*1.088;
1.379 = 1 + (Soft-Cap Troll HR + 288)*0.01 / 32.79;
1.379*32.79 = 32.79 + Soft-Cap Troll HR*0.01 + 288*0.01;
45.22 - 32.79 - 2.88 = Soft-Cap Troll HR*0.01;

Soft-Cap Troll HR = (45.22 -32.79 - 2.88) / 0.01 = 9.55 / 0.01 = 955 HR.

Not a big difference!

From formula {F15}, it's possible to calculate the Hard-Cap HR as it was calculated for Haste Required for perfect LB. Nothing valuable can be improved further wiht HR than to get a 1 second default CT of a LB:

100% = [(1 + ((Hard-Cap HR + 220 + 68)*1% / 32.79) / 100%)*(1 + 5%/100%)*(1 + 2.5%/100%) -1]*100%;
2 = (1 + ((Hard-Cap HR + 288)*1% / 32.79) / 100%)*1.05*1.025;
2 = (1 + ((Hard-Cap HR + 288)*1% / 32.79) / 100%)*1.07625;
1.858 = 1 + (Hard-Cap HR + 288)*0.01 / 32.79;
1.858*32.79 = 32.79 + Hard-Cap HR*0.01 + 288*0.01;
60.92 - 32.79 - 2.88 = Hard-Cap HR*0.01;

Hard-Cap HR = (60.92 - 32.79 - 2.88) / 0.01 = 25.25 / 0.01 = 2525 HR.

The Hard-Cap HR can be considered the character's HR when the LB CT = 1 second with the applied static SH buffs. For troll characters it will be a little bit lower value. It can be computed the same way.

Soft-Cap HR = 1000 HR;
Soft-Cap Troll HR = 955 HR;
Hard-Cap HR = 2525 HR.

Pushbacks and Totem GCD

Whenever a damaging spell or ability hits a caster mid-cast, the cast time will be set back by a given amount, slowing and delaying the cast. In contrast, pushback foreshortened channelled spells, causing them to end earlier without having had their full effect, but does not slow or delay them. Pushback therefore reduces the speed of cast-time spells, while reducing the mana efficiency of channelled spells. It's the most nasty in game mechanic. Due to the Wotlk patch 3.0.2 notes:

Spell casting and spell channeling pushback has been changed to the following:
When casting a spell:
The first and second hit will add .5 secs each to the cast time.
All hits after the second will have no effect.
When channeling a spell:
The first and second hit reduces current duration by 25% of total duration each.
All hits after the second will have no effect.

A barrier/shield is the main source of protection from pushbacks. Completely absorbed damage does not cause interruption; however, as soon as a part of the damage is not absorbed, it does. Elemental Shaman has only two own sources of pushback protection: the Corroded Skeleton Key and the Glyphed Stoneclaw Totem shield. I even don't want to type here why these things are so important to have and use in PVP versus melee classes while healing, considering how slow the spells are casted in a PVP gear. IDK what the Blizzard devs thinked while developing this in game mechanic. Resistance to pushback caused by damage can be provided by spells, either for the caster (Barkskin, Icy Veins) for a chosen target (Power Word: Shield). Therefore, A Discipline Priest in raids, especially in 10 man, is good and is golden for casters as a Paladin with the CA up.

Another important sources to mitigate (not protect!) the pushback effect are the Eye of the Storm talent and the Paladin's Concentration Aura. It's considered that both of these effects are additive and an Elemental Shaman can gain 105% mitigation for pushbacks. As soon the aura is missing, for different reasons, the pushbacks will greatly affect your character's CT at specified encounters like Lord Marrowgar, Festergut, BQL, Sindragosa.

Note. This is why I'm running my character with around 1200 HR which is on 200 more HR from its Soft-Cap 1000 HR. In some cases I'm trying to compensate the latency effect a bit, in other cases I'm trying to get a faster CT for spells like LB (going towards its Hard-Cap HR) or just to get only one pushback per cast in imbalanced raids or bad scenarios (aka universal BiS gear).

Totems only trigger a 1 second GCD as opposed to the regular 1.5 second GCD. Totems are also considered Physical spell school so they can be dropped even when silenced. This mechanic should be frequently used while leveling.

Also it deserves attention that Elemental Mastery, Wind Shear and Blood Fury don't trigger the GCD and can be used at the same time with other spells. Great ability to build different macros.

Conclusion

The ideal Soft-Cap HR for an Elemental Shaman can be considered 1000 HR as self-buffed normalized value or 870 HR with raid SH buffs. This is the minimum amount of HR we should stack from gear, gems and enchants and it must be displayed on our character UI. For Troll Elemental Shaman it's normalized to 955 HR or 822 HR with raid buffs, which means that troll shaman can equip one less item with HR in favor of an item with Crit Rating or SP. Or he can replace 3 or 4 Reckless Ametrine gems with pure Runed SP gems.

The real situation is a bit different. Our shaman character is permanently affected by latency, which random fluctuations not always can be compensated by the client algorithms, and sometimes from spell pushbacks while taking damage. These effects apply a so-called "negative haste" to our character and can partially or completely mitigate the previous calculated average SH effect. Therefore, based on my experience, I found that the HR between 1100 and 1200 is the best for real scenarios. In addition, the 1200 or 1190 HR will always keep our GCD close to 1 second, not only while our temporary buffs will be up but between their CDs also! It's not crucial anyways.

The Hard-Cap HR for an Elemental Shaman can be considered perfect when HR = 2747 or its normalized value of 2525 HR (if Hyperspeed Accelerators enchant is available and there's a relatively long boss encounter to built some statistics), which will turn our LB avg CT to 1 sec. Higher values will not improve any shaman abilities.

3.7.5. Spell Crit

Spoiler: Show

Definition

Similarly to the Spell Haste, this is a Secondary Attribute (Stat) and at the same time is a complex one and hard to understand its essence. The Spell Crit has a dual effect on spells: firstly, it increases the chance to crit for your spells which can be acquired in many different ways; secondly, it increases the spell damage of spell crits which can be improved in different ways.

Spell critical strike (often abbreviated as "spell crit") is when a spell or magical effect (most damaging spells, healing spells, some damage over time effects) has an increased effect. To see your chance to critically strike with spells, open your character pane and view your spell stats. Mobs are unable to get critical strikes with spells.

Spell critical strike chance is gained from both Critical Strike Rating and Intellect, as well as various talents and abilities. It's considered that the spell crit chance from all sources has an additive effect.

All other things being equal and without considering talents, an 1% increase in spell crit chance will result in a gain of 0.5% of a spell's base damage.

Spell Crit Damage and Base Spell Crit

Spell Critical Damage (SCD) is increased by 50% compared to it's normal value. Some classes have a set of talents which allows them to do even more damage via critical strikes. Elemental Shaman can increase the critical SCD via talent Elemental Fury. The generic formula to calculate the default spell crits is:

Spell Crit Damage = (1 + 50% / 100%)*Spell Damage = 1.5*Spell Damage {F18}

The Elemental Fury talent is a quite confusing talent, because it'll not increase the overall critical damage effect but only its 50% bonus. So for Elemental Shaman, considering formula {F18}, the default SCD can be calculated next way:

SCD = ((1 + 50%/100%*(1 + 100%/100%))*SpellDamage = (1 + 0.5*2)*SpellDamage = 2*SpellDamage {F19}

Also should be taken into consideration, that almost every dps character in Wotlk uses the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond which has the best damage in return per gem slot. The gem grants addition +3% Increased Critical Damage bonus. Therefore, formula {F19} should be changed to it's normalized state:

SCD = ((1 + (50% + 3%)/100%*(1 + 100%/100%))*SD = (1 + 0.53*2)*SD = 2.06*SD; {F19-1}

where SD - Spell Damage.

So an Elemental Shaman has the SCD increased on 206%!

The base chance to critically strike with spells is based on the Intellect attribute and a class specific constant. The class specific critical strike constant for Shaman is 2.2 and at level 80 all classes will get 1% spell crit per 166.67 Intellect.

Critical Rating

The easiest method to increase the chance of a spell critical strike is to equip gear with the attribute "Improves critical strike rating by 'x'." Unlike Intellect, spell critical strike rating increases the chance to get a critical strike equally for all classes. At level 80, 45.9 Critical Strike Rating (CSR) increases the chance to critically hit with a spell by 1%.

For a level 80 character, considering all default sources of critical strike chance:

Crit Chance % = ((Intellect / 166.67) + Class Constant + (Crit Rating / 45.91))*1% {F20}

Note:
Talents that affect the crit chance of "all spells" (i.e.: Conviction), or talents that specifically affect spells of a certain school, directly add to the calculated "Crit Chance %" on the character pane.
Talents that only affect the spell crit chance of a specific spell are NOT included in the spell "Crit Chance %" on the character pane.
Debuffs that affect the crit chance of "all spells" are NOT included in the spell "Crit Chance %" on the character pane.
Mousing over the "Intellect" value in your character pane will show you the Intellect portion of your spell "Crit Chance" (i.e.: "Increases Spell Critical Hit by x.xx%"). This works out to the "(INT/166.67)+ClassConstant" portion of formula.

The average value of Intellect gained from BiS Elemental Shaman gear and talent is 1718. Let's find how the Crit Chance(CC) of 48.61% is calculated as shown on the image below, considering that on the character pan (atop on mouseover) you can see only the summary CR from gear, gems and enchants.

To do this correctly, we have to start the calculus from its primordial state, from a "naked" character without any gear, talents and buffs applied. You can test it very easy, considering that a level 80 Shaman has 137 Intellect by default. From formula {F20}:

CC = (137 / 166.67 + 2.2)*1% = (0.822 + 2.2)*1% = 3.02%

Exactly this CC% value you'll see on a naked character and on an Intellect tooltip also.

Note. The Intellect tooltip always will show the Crit Chance gained from Intellect plus the Class constant 2.2.

Now let's add the respective talents one by one and check how the overall Stats of Intellect and CC% will change:

Call of Thunder (+5% CC to LB, CH and Thunderstorm): because it improves only a few spells, it will not be displayed in the character pan. The result CC% = 3.02%;
Elemental Oath (+5% CC to all spells): because it improves all spells, its effect will be additively included on the character pan. The result CC% = 3.02% + 5% = 8.02%;
Ancestral Knowledge (+100% to Intellect): it improves the overall CC indirectly by increasing the default Intellect. The calculus CC% = (137*(1 + 10%/100%) / 166.67 + 2.2)*1% + 5% = (150.7/166.67 + 2.2)*1% + 5% = (0.904 + 2.2)*1% + 5% = 3.1% + 5% = 8.1%. The result CC% = 8.1%;
Thundering Strikes (+5% CC to melee and spell strikes): it has the same effect as Elemental Oath. The result CC% = 8.1% + 5% = 13.1%.

Similarly to how it is calculated above, we can do the same steps to find the CC% of a BiS gear. Firstly, we have to calculate the summary critical strike rating (CSR) gained from gear items, gems and enchants. Here's just the row numbers: 114 + 90 + 65 + 122 + 65 + 90 + 81 + 122 + 74 + 172 + 68 + 55 + 21 + 20 + 15 + 24 = 1198 CSR. The default non talented Intellect (from gear plus a lvl 80 Shaman Intellect constant) is 1562. From formula {F12}:

CC% = (1562*(1 + 10%/100%) / 166.67 + 2.2 + 1198 / 45.9)*1% + 5% +5% = (1718/166.67 + 2.2 + 26.1)*1% + 10% = (10.31 + 2.2 + 26.1)*1% + 10% = 38.61% + 10% = 48.61% {F20-1}

The CC% with raid buffs will be a bit higher. We have to take into consideration only three buffs: the non stackable raw Intellect buff from scrolls or Arcane Intellect buff (+ 60 Intellect), the non stackable Paladin's Blessing of Kings or Great Blessing of Kings (+10% to all stats) and the non stackable Gift of the Wild or Mark of the Wild (+37 to all stats):

Raid CC% = ((1718 + 60 + 37)*(1 + 10% / 100%) / 166.67 + 2.2 + 1198 / 45.9)*1% + 5% + 5% = (1815*1.1 / 166.67 + 2.2 + 26.1)*1% + 10% = (11.98 + 2.2 + 26.1)*1% + 10% = 40.28% * 10% = 50.28% {F20-2}

Therefore, to calculate the real or effective crit chance of any spell we just have to add the DCC or CC with the respective spell's bonuses (aka individual) from talents, and non stackable spell buffs and debuffs. All our Shock spells, DoTs, LvB, Magma and Searing totem will get our default self buffed or raid buffed CC%. Moreover, LvB will always crit on targets affected by FS DoT. Only our top spell LB and CL will gain an addition +5% CC from the Call of Thunder talent as Thunderstorm also.

So lets try to predict our LB and CL crits, with different debuffs applied, in self buffed and raid buffed scenarios respectively:

Self-buffed:
Call of Thunder (CoT) + Totem of Wrath (ToW): 48.61% + 5% + 3% = 56.61%;
CoT + ToW + Improved Scorch (ImS) = 56.61% + 5% = 61.61%.

Raid buffed:
CoT + ToW: 50.28% + 8% = 58.28%;
CoT + ToW + ImS = 58.28% + 5% = 63.28%.

Note: The debuffs Improved Scorch, Winter's Chill and Improved Shadow Bolt apply the same +5% CC% on the target and are non stackable.

Soft-Cap CC% and Hard-Cap CC%

It's hard to define what should be in the foundation of our Soft-Cap Critical Chance (CC%). It's a very vague parameter. Obviously, our LvB always will crit in a well performed spell rotation. After research and a set of performed tests, I've come to a conclusion that the foundation of our Soft-Cap CC% should be talents: Elemental Focus, Elemental Fury, Elemental Oath and Lightning Overload. Long story short. Due to Elemental Fury, all our spells will crit with 206% increased damage. More crits mean much more boost to DPS. Now the important part of the "concept". The non-periodic critical strike, based on the talent Elemental Focus, will give to an Elemental Shaman a Clearcasting state buff! This buff is good because it will reduce the mana cost of our next 2 spells by 40%. But most important is how this buff works in combination with Elemental Oath talent - while the Clearcasting is up, an Elemental Shaman is doing 10% more spell damage. Therefore, the Soft-Cap Critical Chance can be considered such a value which will allow us to keep up the Clearcasting during 100% time, while casting. And here the Probability theory becomes handy and its Probability distribution.

For example, when throwing a fair die, each of the six values 1 to 6 has the probability 1/6. The probability of an event is then defined to be the sum of the probabilities of the outcomes that satisfy the event. For example, the probability of the event that any number will drop is P(6) = 1/6*6 = 1; the probability of the event "the dice rolls an even value" is: P(2) + P(4) + P(6) = 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 = 1/2 = 0.5.

Here in our case, based on the condition to trigger the Clearcasting state, only after the non-periodic spell critical state.

Tip: Non-periodic critical spell is a Non-DoT based critical spell damage. DoT will not consume the Clearcasting stack.

Considering that LvB will always crit and it can crit in a row just after another spell crit (like FS DD, LB, CL), then in most scenarios, this spell will always trigger the Clearcasting, - it will consume one stack of its buff (by doing +10% damage) and then will reapply it again. Frequently we can cast 3-4 LB in a row and none of them will crit, none of their Overloaded spells in case. Anyway, perfectly we are interested in a scenario when every second LB or its Overloaded spell will crit. So we need an additional source of non-periodic spell crit, which is the FS DD which is not improved by +5% crit from Call of Thunder! With other words, the FS DD should have a 50% chance to crit.

Finally, considering the raid buffs and formulae {F20},and {F20-2}, we can find our default CC% via the required CSR:

With raid buffs, a case when the Intellect has less impact on the CC%:
50% = (11.98 + 2.2 + Soft-Cap CSR / 45.9)*1% + 10%;
40% = (14.18 + Soft-Cap CSR / 45.9)*1%;
40*45.9 = 14.18*45.9 + Soft-Cap CSR;
Soft-Cap CSR = 1836 - 651 = 1185 CSR;

The CC% based on Soft-Cap CSR = 1185, considering formula {F20-1}, is:
CC% = (10.31 + 2.2 + 1185 / 45.9)*1% + 10% = (12.51 + 25.82)*1% + 10% = 48.33% ~ 48%

Soft-Cap CC = 48.33%.

Now let's increase our CC% on 5% step by step up to 65%. The Lightning Overload talent will have a very interesting impact on our overall DPS. I didn't calculate this (it hasn't any practical value), but my predictions are next. Firstly, we will spectate a high increase in DPS because more spells will crit on land including their Overloaded versions. But! beginning from around 67% CC up to 100% CC, our DPS will be increased slightly due to the fact that the Elemental Shaman will have +10% Clearcasting damage on almost all 100% casted spells and considering that only 33% of spells will overlad (100% - 33% = 67%). This effect can be counted to how the Glancing blows influences on melee crits.

Hard-Cap CC = 100%.

Lightning Overload Talent

It's interesting to analyse how the Overload talent works for critical spells here, because the Overloaded critical spells also will trigger the Clearcasting state. It has a 33% chance to cast a second LB or CL with no cost and half damage. Based on Probability theory, the chance that two or more events will happen in a row are calculated multiplicatively (multiplication of probabilities) and this probability (chance) is called the multiplication of independent probabilities:

P(ABC) = P(A) * P(B) * P(C) {F21}

Let's say that A - is the event " the first LB spell crit happened", B - is the event "the LB spell just Overloaded", C - is the event "the Overloaded spell crit happened afterwards".

Note: The Overloaded spells can crit and have the same CC% as their default versions.

So the chance that an event "A + B + C = ABC = both the main spell and its overloaded version will crit" will happen, for a self-buffed LB/CL spell, can be calculated next way from formula {F21}:

P(ABC) = 0.5661 * 0.33 * 0.5661 = 0.1057 or P(ABC) = 10.57%

Lets calculate it for different self-buffed and raid-buffed scenarios:

Self-buffed LB/CL for an ABC event:
CoT + ToW = 0.5661 * 0.33 * 0.5661 = 0.1057 => 10.57%;
CoT + ToW + ImS = 0.6161 * 0.33 * 0.6161 = 0.1253 => 12.53%.

Raid-buffed LB/CL for an ABC event:

CoT + ToW = 0.5828 * 0.33 * 0.5828 = 0.1121 => 11.21%;
CoT + ToW + ImS = 0.6328 * 0.33 * 0.6328 = 0.1321 => 13.21%.

Therefore, this chance is relatively low and will not vary significantly between self-buffed LB/CL spells and maximum raid-buffed spells. Let's find its median value:

(0.1057 + 0.1253 + 0.1121 + 0.1321) / 4 = 0.4752 / 4 = 0.1188 => 11.88%

The opposite event probability (chance) can be calculated from formula:

P(A) + P(-A) = 1
or
P(-A) = 1 - P(A) {F22}

For example, the P(-AB-C) is the chance that the first spell and its Overloaded version will not crit. P(-A) = P(-C) = 1 - 0.5661 = 0.4339 => 43.39% or:

P(-AB-C) = 0.4339 * 0.33 * 0.4339 = 0.062 => 6.2%!
and for max raid-buffed spell P(-A) = P(-C) = 1 - 0.6328 = 0.3672
P(-AB-C) = 0.3672 * 0.33 * 0.3672 = 0.0445 => 4.45%

and P(AB-C) is the chance that only one from two respective spells will be critical, an intermediate scenario:

P(AB-C) = 0.5661 * 0.33 * 0.4339 = 0.081 => 8.1%!
and for max raid-buffed spell P(-A) = P(-C) = 1 - 0.6328 = 0.3672
P(AB-C) = 0.6328 * 0.33 * 0.3672 = 0.0767 => 7.67%

Interesting! With a basic LB 56% CC or above, our chance to get both the first and its second Overloaded spell crit is way higher than a chance to get only one spell crit or none of them. With other words, in raids, from each 100 casted LB/CL spells only 4 of them will Overload and will have no crits at all and only 13 of them will Overload with both crits. By increasing our CC% to 100% we'll increase our P(ABC) chance up to 33% (only 33 spells from 100 will Overload and have both crits in a row) and no more:

Pmax(ABC) = 1 * 0.33 * 1 = 0.33 => 33%

A little bit increased spell CC% can significantly boost our "Overload-Combo" for LB and CL spell DPS. This is why I pointed so many times at the scalability of the spell critical chance for BiS gear over this guide.

Conclusion

Finally! The calculations for Critical Chance, as one of the most difficult and complex Stat similarly to Spell Haste, are done and explained. In this subsection it is shown that the Elemental Shaman's critical spell is doing 206% (219% for LvB) increased damage. Here was calculated the Soft-Cap Crit Chance = 48.3% and the Hard-Cap Crit Chance = 100%. Moreover, it explained the essentials of the Lightning Overload talent in a nutshell and how it's buffed up in raids.

In every expansion, from patch to patch, you'll read recommendations to cap the Hit and get as much Spell Power as possible in the first row for your caster character. Afterwards, the stats like Haste and Critical Chance come into play and actually we have to balance only these two Stats with each other.

3.7.6. Resistances

Spoiler: Show

Definition

Resistance is a combat statistic that mitigates incoming magic damage and effects. Magic spells from the following five schools can be resisted from magical resistance: Fire, Frost, Arcane, Nature, and Shadow. There is no resistance stat for Holy, and as such no players nor NPCs can resist Holy spells. A character's current resistance score to each school is advertised on the character sheet.

The Resistance can be very confusing, if not paying attention to details, because like Critical Chance it has a dual effect: the application probability part and the mitigation part. The probability part is defined by the Average Resistance (AR) parameter and determines how the binary spells will land and how the non-binary spells will work versus different targets. The mitigation part just simply calculates the damage mitigation of spells after the AR will take effect.

How the Resistance Mitigation is Applied?

For this we can check our Combat Log records for different character stances. Long story short:

All damage reduction effects, being multiplicative (Elemental Warding and/or Astral Shift), affect only the unresisted portion of damage;
DoTs damage reduction from resilience in PVP scenarios only before the AR;
Then the AR comes into play, to determine the future behaviour of the spell;
All effects are still multiplicative - the resisted portion in parentheses (Combat Log) will be a flat percent of these damage of the spell.

Effective Resistance and Average Resistance

The Effective Resistance Rating (ERR) rating of the target is calculated as follows:

ERR = Rb + max((Lt - Lc)*5, 0) - min(P, Rb) {F23}

Rb - target base resistance (as advertised on the character sheet), Lt - target level, Lc - caster level, P - caster spell penetration.

In PvE boss fights, the player level is usually equal to or less than the boss level, and no spell penetration is in effect. Therefore, in this situation, it's safe to assume that the player's effective resistance was the same as the base resistance (from the character sheet). So the ERR for a level 83 boss can be calculated from formula {F23}:

ERR = 0 + max((83 - 80) * 5, 0) - min(0, 0) = max(3 * 5, 0) = 15

Note: This formula renders level 83 bosses as having had 15 magical resistance against level 80 player attacks. Unlike all other magical resistance in the game, this resistance from level difference could not be overcome by spell penetration.

The percentage of magical damage that is mitigated on average, is called Average Resistance (AR) and is calculated by the following equation:

AR = ERR / (ERR + Constant) {F24}

For level 80 mobs, the Constant is 400. For level 83 bosses, the Constant appears to be 510 (pending final confirmation).

Note: Level-based resistance (not to be confused with level-based miss) could play a factor in total resists. For every level that a mob had over the player, there were 8 resist (believed; the exact number may have been higher) added. For boss fights, this means there was 15-24 resistance added. This extra resistance meant there would be partial resists on non-binary spells from the added resistance. However, this resistance had been shown to not apply to binary spells at all versus level 83 bosses.

Binary and Non-Binary Resist

Spell resistance is the second of two rolls to determine whether or not a spell is resisted. (Spell hit is the first roll.) The spell resistance roll will calculate in one of two different ways: one way for Binary Spells, another way for non-Binary spells. Non-binary spells are spells which only deal damage (like LB, CL and LvB). Binary spells are spells which deal a debuff (like Purge, Hex, Wind Shear, Earth Shock, Frost Shock) or, for some other reason, must take full effect or no effect at all.

Resistance reduces the chance for the binary spell to land by a certain percentage. Spell hit will not reduce this chance. It is assumed that this percentage is exactly the damage reduction percentage given above.

Resistance increases the chance to suffer only a fraction of the spell's normal damage. In Wrath of the Lich King, the possible percentages of damage resisted are weighted in sections of 0%, 10%, 20%, ..., 100% averaging to the same overall damage mitigation. However, only the closest three or four sections will ever occur at a given resistance value.

Note: DoT spells are now considered non-binary and the partial resistance calculation is applied on each tick.

Partial Resistance

In previous paragraph, was mentioned about partial resistances and how it affects the binary and non-binary spells, based on their weighted sections. Here the magic begins! After a huge number of performed tests, the theorycrafters from Elitist Jerks found formula to calculate these partial resistance chances by using the AR {F24}, which can be calculated via ERR {F23}:

P(x) = 0.5 - 2.5* |x - AR| {F25}
where x = 0.1*n - is the possible normalized weighted resist and n E [1, 10]; |expression| - is the Absolute Value Function (ABS).

or

P(x) = 0.5 - 2.5*|x - ERR / (ERR + C)| {F25-1}

If the probability is less than 0, it cannot occur (values under abscissa axis). This formula is widely used over the Internet sites related to WoW resources, but at the same time it's badly explained and wrongly interpreted. Let me put some dots together here and explain the formula in particular and as the partial resistance effect in general another way. The expression 2.5*|x - AR| will never take negative values and, as a result, the P(x) function will never take values higher than 0.5 (50%). It's supposed to be a spike-kind of function with its maximal value of 0.5. At the same time, it's a discrete type function also which can have only a limited number of arguments x = 0.1*n: 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 and 1. The AR represents the average resistance value in a long run scenario and can have values, based on its real ERR, between 0 and 0.75. Therefore, the expression |x - AR| represents some kind of normalized version of AR (aka it shouldn't be possible to stack so much resistance to become completely immune to a spell damage). At the same time, the normalized AR applies some kind of discrete random factors (a chance) to how the resistance effect should be applied. This is why most of our damaging spells will do a full damage to the raid boss, while some of them will be resisted and will apply a decreased portion of damage. How to find this resist chance and its reduction values?

To find the partial resistance and its damage reductions for a level 83 boss, we have to use formula {F25} and build a function graph. Considering that the boss ERR = 15 and C = 510, the P(x):

P(x) = 0.5 - 2.5*|x - 15 / (15 + 510)| = 0.5 - 2.5*|x - 0.029| {F25-2}

As is explained above, the pure damage spells can be resisted for 0% (0), 10% (0.1), 20% (0.2), 30% (0.3), etc. (in 10% increments up to 100%). So the P(x) graph shows us that the chance that our spells, versus a raid boss, will be resisted by 10% is P(0.1) = 32%, the chance that our spells will be resisted by 20% is P(0.2) = 7% and the chance that our spells will not be resisted at al is P(0) = 43% + C. Also the chance that our spells will take higher resistances than 20% P(x>=0.3) = 0. It's a very interesting result! It explains to me why from time to time some of my damaging spells are reduced by 20% (actually it's 21%). So from 100 casted spells like 32 of them will have a reduced damage by 10% (9.99%) and like 7 of them will have a reduced damage by 20%.

Below is explained a scenario when the boss abilities (like Aura and other DD spells) are applied to the raid characters, considering their basic raid buff resistance of 130 and C = 400, to a specific school of magic. A vice versa example. Keep in mind, the Druid's Gift of the Wild buff will not stack with other resistance buffs or Auras which are equal to 130.

It's a very interesting graph also. When a boss will do damage to our character, there's a 38.8% chance that the damage will be reduced by 20%, or there's a 13.9% chance that the damage will be reduced by 10%, or there's is a higher chance of 36.2% that the damage will be reduced by 30% and there's also a low 11.2% chance that the damage will be reduced by entire 40%!

In the previous subsection we have formula {F22} for a full set of events, which can't happen at once or in a sequence (mutually exclusive events). Or all possible events in a set of events will have the summary probability equal to 1 - meaning that at least one event from many will happen:

P(0.1) + P(0.2) + P(0.3) + P(0.4) = 0.388 + 0.139 + 0.362 + 0.112 = 1.001=> 100.1%

From this point of view, we can explain better the previous graph:

P(-0.1) + P(0) + P(0.1) + P(0.2) = 1, or
P(-0.1) = 1 - 0.43 - 0.32 - 0.07 = 0.18 => 18%

Similarly to P(0), P(-0.1) is the partial probability that a boss will not resist our spell. So around 61% of our spells will not be resisted by a level 83 boss and around 32% of our spell will be resisted with a 10% damage reduction.

To examine the real application of partial resistances via AR on Warmane, I performed a set of tests with my Rexarjr character. For this, to remove any random damage effects, I removed the the Lightning Overload and Elemental Oath talents, I replaced the Ashen's ring with the Marrowgar's Frigid Eye and both BiS trinkets with Maghia's Misguided Quill and Althor's Abacus respectively. So my character's overall spell power was 4253. Based on section 2.5. DPS Trainer (How to Calculate the Spell Damage?), by excluding the 10% spell damage from Clearcasting effect via Elemental Oath, the theoretical LB normal and critical damage can be calculated as:

TotalSDIncrease = (1 + 5%/100%)*(1 + 4%/100%) = 1.05*1.04 = 1.092 => 9.2%

SDNmin = (779 + 4253*91.43%)*109.2%/100% = (779 + 4253*0.9143)*1.092 = 5096 dmg.
SDNmax = (889 + 4253*0.9143)*1.092 = (889 + 3888)*1.092 = 5216 dmg.
SDCmin = SDNmin * 206%/100% = 5096 * 2.06 = 10498 dmg.
SDCmax = SDNmax * 2.06 = 5216 * 2.06 = 10745 dmg.

Here's the real LB Combat Log damage values on a Heroic Training Dummy (lvl 83):

It's just obvious that the real normal LB damage varies between 5096 and 5216 and its critical values vary between 10498 and 10745. The resisted spells are marked with -10% and -20% markers respectively on the images above. Therefore, all normal LB spells resisted by -10% have the default damage reduction (DR0) DR0 = 5050( 1 - (1 - 10%/100%)) =5050*0.1 = 505, all LB spells resisted by -20% have the DR = 5050*0.2 = 1010 ~ 2*DR0, all critical LB spells resisted by -10% - DR = 10650*0.1 = 1065 ~ 2*DR0 and all critical LB spells resisted by -20% - DR = 10650*0.2 = 2130 ~ 4*DR0! Where 5050 and 10650 are the respective average values of LB damage. It's also a very and very important result, which shows us that critical spells suffer from -20% partial resistances 4 times more than their normal versions! And as it's shown on the above images, the number of -20% partial resistances is just nasty in a spell sequence (spell rotation). I'd call it negative DPS, similarly to the negative haste from pushbacks. The classes with many mediocre improved DD spells like Elemental Shaman, Balance Druid suffer from this much more than other classes: DoT based (Shadow Priest or Warlocks) or those with few and strongly improved DD spells supported by DoTs (like Mages with their Frostfire spell).

Tip: There aren't any spells with -30% damage.

On the above images, there are 66 LB spells in total with 30 resisted spells among them (45% resisted spells). It fits the concept that around 60% of spells aren't resisted. Among resisted spells, 13 are reduced by -10% (13/66*100% = 20% chance) damage and 17 - by -20% damage (17/66*100% = 26% chance). It may be the worst scenario of course, with a lot of -20% spells, but as we can see, even this kind of scenario has a place to be. In this case, no matter how hard you'll try to push up the DPS or how good you are, this "RNG Meta" just will ruin all your efforts. I also got many test results, where around 30% of resisted spells had -10% damage and around 10-15% of them had -20% damage. Partial resistances have very vague values. Anyway, in most scenarios, resisted spells with -20% damage are way higher than expected 7%. So, in my opinion, the level 83 NPC on Warmane in particular, and in Wotlk in general, have higher level resistances than 15. Looks like it should be around 30 to "fit" the practical results.

These results I got in 2016, just before I quit WoW for four years, the same results I see now. Probably, this is the most disappointing moment referred to the last fixes to the Warmane WoW server.

3.7.6. MP5

Spoiler: Show

Definition

This Secondary Attribute by far is the simplest one.

MP5 (also known as MP/5, or "Mana per 5 seconds") is a now defunct term for the item bonus "Restores X mana per 5 sec." Although the number given was based on 5 second intervals, the effect triggered every 2 seconds. For example, an item that grants 10 mana per 5 sec. restored 4 mana every tick.

I can't point to any number which can be considered a Soft-Cap MP5 for Elemental Shaman. It mostly depends on the context (the raid encounter), spell rotations and how the restore mana abilities are used over time. In general, you get enough MP5 from Intellect as is defined by formula {F26}, which is enough. Ideally, you'll likely be interested to get as much MP5 as possible.

Tip: Don't stack Spirit for MP5!

Five Second Rule

Whenever mana is expended for any purpose, mana regeneration is interrupted for five seconds. This is most often caused by casting spells, but diseases that drain mana will also interrupt mana regeneration. During this time, no spirit-based mana regeneration takes place unless the character has certain talents; there is also the fixed regeneration from MP5 items, which is never interrupted for any reason. Elemental Shaman has a talent Unrelenting Storm, which allows him to regenerate mana even while casting spells.

Mana Regeneration

Since patch 2.4, mana regeneration is uniform across all classes and based on following formula:

Mana Regen = 5 * (0.001 + sqrt(Intellect) * Spirit * Base Regen) * 0.6 {F26}

where Base Regen for a level 80 character is 0.005575.

The calculus:

Mana Regen = 5 * (0.001 + sqrt(1718) * 156 * 0.005575) * 0.6 = 108 MP5

In effect, the regeneration rate depends on Int, Spirit and character level. A 1% increase in Spirit increases mana regeneration by 1%, and 1% Intellect yields 0.5% more regen. This is a rough rule of thumb, but is accurate enough for most situations.

Intellect doesn't influence mana regen linearly, rather the square root of Intellect is used. This means that higher Int values yield diminishing returns.

Therefore, Elemental Shaman has next sources of mana regeneration:

From Intellect via formula {F26};
From Unrelenting Storm talent;
From Water Shield;
From Mana Spring Totem;
From Thunderstorm.

3.8. The Client-Server Model of MMOs
c.3.8 July 2020

Spoiler: Show

Intro

In almost all modern FPS games the server maintains the game state. This is important to prevent cheating, but leads to some of the issues people experience. In a client-server game design, there is always going to be the problem of a difference in game state between the client and server. I.E. The client sees a delayed version of the "True" game state on the server. This will always exist, but there are some things we can do to make it less noticeable.

Latency

Also commonly (and incorrectly) referred to as "Ping". This is the time it takes for a packet to travel from your client computer, to the server, and back (round trip time or RTT). The reason people often call it "Ping" is that there was a tool built in the 80s called ping that was used to test for latency using something called an ICMP echo. The "ping" command still lives on today in most operating systems. In other words, a ping is a test that uses an ICMP echo, to measure latency. Note that the one-way travel time of a packet is not always equal to 1/2 of the RTT, but for simplicity's sake we will assume that. From here out I will refer to RTT latency as just latency, and one way packet latency as 1/2Latency.*

Tick Rate

Tick rate is the frequency with which the server updates the game state. This is measured in Hertz. When a server has a tick rate of 64, it means that it is capable of sending packets to clients at most 64 times per second. These packets contain updates to the game state, including things like player and object locations. The length of a tick is just its duration in milliseconds. For example, 64 tick would be 15.6ms, 20 tick would be 50ms, 10 tick 100ms, etc. The lowest tick rate is 1 and its duration is 1 second.

It's believed that Wotlk WoW server is running at 20 tick rate or he broadcasts the performed changes every 50ms. This can be noticed on private WoW servers working in LAN, where the network latency is supposed to be around 3 ms. All actions are delayed by a minimum 50 ms. Therefore, it's pointless to try to get lower latency via better internet connections down to 10 ms.

Client Update Rate

The rate at which the client is willing to receive updates from the server. For example, if the client update rate is 20, and the server tick rate is 64, the client might as well be playing on a 20 tick server. This is often configured locally, but in some games cannot be changed. It's believed that WoW clients are running at around 20 ticks. And vice versa, the client update rate allows to limit the amount of data sent to the server per second. For spells and abilities, this function is performed by GCD timer additionally. This prevents servers from being affected by broadcast storms. Just keep in mind, the Elemental Mastery, Wind Shear and racial Blood Fury aren't affected by GCD timer.

Framerate

The number of frames per second your client is capable of rendering video at. Usually notated as FPS.

Refresh Rate

The number of times per second your Monitor updates what your video card rendered on the monitor. Measures in Hertz (times per second). If you have a framerate of 30 for example, your monitor will show each frame twice on a 60Hz monitor. If you had a framerate of 120 on a 60Hz monitor, the monitor can realistically only display 60 frames per second. Most monitors are 60Hz or 120Hz. Just because the video card can be affected by FPS drops for some scenes, there's better to have a video card with higher default FPS than the monitor refresh rate.

Interpolation

Interpolation is a technology which smooths movements of objects in the game (e.g. players). Essentially what interpolation is doing, is smoothing out the movement of an object moving between two known points. The interpolation delay is typically equal to 2 ticks, but can vary.

For example, if a player is running in a straight line, and at the time of "Tick 1" they were at 0.5m, and at "Tick 2" they were at 1m, the interpolation feature, would make it appear on the client, as if they moved smoothly from 0.5m to 1m away from their starting location. The server however, only ever really "sees" the player at those two locations, never in between them. Without interpolation, games would appear very choppy, as the client would only see objects in the game move whenever they received an update from the server. Interpolation occurs exclusively on the client side. There are some algorithms which generate additional coordinates between two points, while a path finding algorithm is used, considering the current framerate and refresh rate.

Extrapolation

This is another client-side technique that can be used to compensate for lag. Essentially the client extrapolates the position of objects rather than delaying the entire client render. This method is generally inferior to Interpolation, especially for FPS games since player movements are not predictable.

Lag Compensation

Lag compensation is a function on the server which attempts to reduce the perception of client delay.

Essentially what lag compensation is doing is interpreting the actions it receives from the client, such as firing a shot, as if the action had occurred in the past. The difference between the server game state and the client game state or "Client Delay" as we will call it can be summarized as: ClientDelay = (1/2*Latency)+InterpolationDelay. Lag compensation can be performed for some monotonous actions (for a spell rotation in PVE), but lags are rarely compensated for different random actions like PVP ones.

Biological and System Latency

It's well known that human reaction to different events is between 150 ms and 200 ms. It's the total of time intervals it takes to see the image with the eyes and send its processed image to the brain, to process the image in the brain and make a decision what to do, to send the electrical signal through nervous system to the finger muscles (for example), to force the finger muscles to perform a click operation.

In addition to the previously explained delay sources, there's also a system latency - how much time it takes a computer system to process and render a signal. For most cases it takes from 45 ms to 50 ms, for perfect cases it takes around 15 ms. Long story short:

Conclusion

As you can see, it takes a relatively long time interval between server stances: data is generated by the server and sent to the clients, the data response from clients receives the server again.

For PVP this overall time interval plays a crucial role and, I'd say, for E-Sport standards these intervals shouldn't go below 20 for Tick Rate, below 120 for FPS and Refresh Rate over 80ms for latency. To be effective in PVP by playing for an Elemental Shaman it's important to have high client FPS above 60. It allows more effectively cast an instant Wind Shear, Grounding Totem and to "fake spells". We should be able to prevent with Wind Shear or Ground the 1 second casted spells, considering that the opponent can "fake cast" them. For trivial PVP scenarios, the latency shouldn't go above 150 ms.

For PVE scenarios, the requirements to the respective timings aren't so crucial. But I'll suggest to try to be always above 30 FPS and never above 200 ms latency. It will impact on your DPS significantly. The Elemental Shaman stops to be playable in PVE at latency 450 ms and above and below 20 FPS. On Warmane server, during weekends or when the population is above 10000 players, the static latency (as ping) is around 53 ms, but its real or partial latencies during each spell cast will vary between 200ms and 500ms. This will allow you to play your character at 90% effective performance or below. Here you’ll find the maximal possible DPS values for an Elemental Shaman on Warmane.

I hope in the nearest future better servers will be possible to rent at current prices, so we will be able to play at latency 100 ms or below even during weekends. In addition I hope, based on the current Vanilla WoW released by Blizzard recently, we’ll see a new Wotlk WoW Client under DirectX 10 or 12 available in 2K or 4K resolution at 100 fps.

3.9. Blizzard’s Imbalanced Draft of Patch 3.3.5a
c.3.9 August 2020

Spoiler: Show

Intro

Well, in this section I'll point not only to some, as for me, imbalanced, Elemental Shaman (ES) PVE aspects of the game, but to some PVP aspects also. The possibility to use the same spells in both PVE and PVP areas makes it so hard to balance them overall in conjunction with spells and abilities of other classes. Maybe this section looks immense but I tried to make it as compact and simple as possible and as a motto, in the end, I wasn't able to write it in a simple comix style. Overall it was hard to write this section as the 3.7 too.

I just imagine, just my opinion only, what happened back in the day at Blizzard's HQ.

"Ok, guys, we released the patch 3.3.5 few months ago and the applied changes weren't good enough. Characters just can stack to much Haste, Resilience, Attack Power, perfect Armor Penetration and perfect Crit Chance and are much less dependent by Mana, Rage and Energy "pools" at the same time. Ok, we don't have the budget and man-power to fix this well, so just released a simple patch 3.3.5a with a simple RS raid to entertain the WoW community for a while, until we are preparing the Cataclysm expansion. Just lets test there our future Twilight Cata things with the respective gear items. And don't worry about available ilvl 284 items and how they will affect the top PVE ICC HC gameplay or PVP gameplay also. At least we made just a wonderful gift, at the end of the expansion, to the in game experience for private server WoW communities by releasing our Legendary weapons."

Below is shown what, in my opinion, should be changed and added to the ES spells, talents and gear items to balance them a little bit more. I don't offer to introduce new OP spells and abilities like a kid at toy store, I just offer to make changes to the current abilities of the current Wotlk Meta. It's possible to balance any Spec by using the available abilities only. Blizzard really should make a forum or consortium with true and experienced WoW fans to gather the recommendations regarding how to balance in game stuff.

The PVE Balance Concepts

Below are some generic concepts and ideas referred to how to balance the ES PVE experience. I know, it is strange after I showed the performance and DPS of ES in different encounters. It's true, his performance isn't bad at high GearScore levels and high player skills. But for most mediocre scenarios, the character can show lower performance compared to other "specced" characters in a raid. Moreover, there are some important and relatively difficult or dynamic raids, where it's really hard to push 99% performance form the ES Spec. This will turn into a decision, that your character will be or will not be invited to the raid.

1. Fire Elemental Totem. This totem has a long default CD not only for PVP scenarios, but for almost all PVE scenarios also. In my opinion, this ability should have a default 5 min CD and this CD should be reduced to 3 mins by a Glyph. The 3 min internal CD is good for both PVE and PVP scenarios. In raids it will let us summon this Elemental like twice per encounter. In many 10 man raid formations, or in any raids where the warlocks are undergeared, the Totem of Wrath (ToW) has advantage over any other Fire Totems. It's independent from character spell power Stat. In any dedicated 25 man Heroic raid formation we will have BiS warlocks, even those which will stack spell power via Spirit. Therefore, we will be likely to change the ToW to any pure DPS totem. A DPS totem will improve the Elemental Shaman overall DPS a bit, but most importantly, it will keep the DPS on the boss while we will have to run around or are unable to attack the boss directly due to encounter mechanics, considering that we are able to cast the Fire Nova spell. There's a big problem with this totem - it's counted as a guardian and therefore can't be managed as a pet where we can command a pet to attack a target or to follow us. It'll be just excellent to mark all DPS totems as Enhanced Guardians, which can be commanded by a Shaman what and when to attack. A Minor Glyph slot to upgrade the Fire Elemental guardian to Enhanced Guardian would be good.

While fighting other player characters, the 3 min CD is completely fitted to encounter other strong spells and abilities like the Recklessness, Rapid Fire, Death Coil, Gargoyle, Berserk, Water Elemental, Preparation. The usage of this totem for PVP is the same as for PVE as it's explained above. The same guardian issues are true for PVP. I don't even recommend to add to them some CC abilities available, as it's available for warlocks. In the end, the default 3888 HP is just too low for such a totem. It should be increased to 7000 -10000 at least.

2. Searing Totem. Overall Searing Totem design is ok, even his 5 HP bar, considering that a totem can't be destroyed by AoE spells and abilities. The only issue of this totem is his DPS and his guardian status. I can't say exactly, but I'd increase his DPS two times. The totem also must be Enhanced Guardian type and always should attack while the Shaman is in combat and the Shaman's target only. Currently it can ninja pull adds in raids or attack a wrong or an immune target. In PVP, this totem should be in the foundation of warfare versus a Warlock, Rogue Feral Druid and partially a Shadow Priest.

3. Magma Totem. I'm considering this totem as other core spells LvB and CL well balanced and usable for both PVE and PVP scenarios. I'll just compare this totem to other two DPS totems here. If to fix the Fire Elemental Totem and Searing Totem as I described above, it will not only fix and balance things for the ES, but for the Enhancement Shaman also. In my opinion, the Enhancement Shamans spends just too much attention and too many GCDs on different poor spells. With respective changes, he will be more productive in such dynamic fights as versus Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Professor Putrcide, Lich King. Once a fire totem is dropped, it will reach the target in different locations of the boss room and, in addition, it will not break the raid CC as it's required for Heroic Lady' fight.

4. Lightning Bolt and Shamanism. In general, the LB is well balanced based on its Casting Time and how it benefits from SPC% and Crit Chance. This spell should gain from Shamanism additional 25% bonus damage like Lava Burst, instead of 20% with maximum 5 talented points. This will not change the PVP Meta, considering the low casting speed of LB (between 1.6 - 1.7 sec) in PVP gear and how easy it is to encounter this spell.

5. FS DoT. The issue of Flame Shock DoT is based on the concept of how it's improved by our Haste. Firstly, it looks like that this spell benefits from Haste which will turn in more DoTs per time interval. But when the Elemental Shaman will be Soft-Capped with SH, this will backfire significantly at every boss encounter. During Bloodlust/Heroism this DoT will roll just too fast and instead of casting some powerful spells during "zerk" phase, we have to reapply more frequently the poor FS spell instead spending more valuable GCDs on it. In comparison, Warlocks will refresh their powerful Corruption DoT with their DD spells, Rogues will refresh their poison DoTs by auto attacks, Hunters will refresh the Serpent Sting DoT with their Chimera Shot via used Glyphs. To make it more capable for PVP scenarios, it shouldn't be linked to Tier 10 gear. So, the best option is to increase it's working time from 18 seconds to 24 seconds. In PVP scenarios, in my opinion, it's expensive to spend a GCD every 15 sec on such a spell, considering it can be removed while your character is silenced, stunned or feared.

6. Lightning Shield. I know, many of you are skeptical towards this idea, but I think this will be great for both PVE and PVP scenarios. I'm offering to increase the number of default Lightning Shield charges from 3 to 5 and an addition 2 if Glyphed with a respective minor Glyph. I found this spell quite useful in many PVE scenarios and a win condition for some PVP matchups. At the same time, it's very expensive to spend a GCD on this spell after each 3 charges in any case. In every fight situation, you have a time interval when it's nothing better to cast than to refresh your elemental shields.

Note: These changes should increase the average ES DPS by 1500, more or less.

A Comparison. There are a group of class Specs which are doing very high DPS in almost all encounter situations of course. The DPS of respective Specs is scaling very well with Primary and Secondary Stats. Also there's a group of intermediate character class builds, which DPS isn't scaling so well via increased Haste, Crit and in some cases increased Spell Power or Attack Power. Among such class setups I can mark: Elemental Shaman, Enhancement Shaman, Arms Warrior, Arcane Mage, Beastmaster Hunter, Affliction Warlock, Balance Druid, Feral Druid, Unholy DK (due to his AoE oriented DPS abilities only).

About Elemental Shaman is written enough in this guide. The Balance Druid has similar issues, because he has strong opener spells but is missing some filler spells or a spell to support the sustained DPS in a long run period on a single target.

The Enhancement Shaman is very similar to the Feral Druid and both are the most complex Specs to mastery. The first one spends just too many GCD on relatively poor spells, while the other one has big issues with his abilities. A Feral Druid should use less bleeds on a target and less finishing combo abilities like it is doing a Rogue. He must have an additional filler ability for flat DPS like Mangle.

The Arms Warrior is a very interesting build, which should be played very rational as it was designed this way from the beginning. This is completely opposite to what we got. Firstly, the Arms Warrior shouldn't reapply the Rend every 21 sec (Glyphed). It's just too expensive from the Rage cost point of view and GCD point of view. The Glyphed Rend should refresh after each Mortal Strike. In addition, his default Slam Cast Time should be set to 0.5 sec from 1 sec. Two points from Improved Slam talent should make this ability instant and the Tier 10 Slam bonus should be replaced by increased Slam damage by x%.

The Beastmaster Hunter has good raid buffs, but lacks some good Spec abilities. He should rely on his pet DPS and abilities. The best idea on how to improve this Spec, is to introduce in game some special exotic or elite beasts which only a Beastmaster Hunter can tame and call. The current Spirit Beasts aren't good for both PVE and PVP areas. Obviously, those beasts should do an increased damage, up to two times, and should grant the hunter new ability(s).

The Affliction Warlock and the Arcane Mage are missing some improvements to DD spells. For the Warlock I'd improve the Nightfall talent effect from 4% to 8% or 10%. It should compensate a bit the lost DoTs or DoTs "pumping" during target changing and the phase transition of a boss encounter. For Arcane Mage I'd improve the Arcane Barrage damage even by making it a casting spell even.
The Unholy DK is by far the best AoE DPS character in the game when there are really many minions around. At the same time, his AoE spells and abilities are doing a relatively poor DPS to a single boss target and even the available Shadowmourne axe can't change the situation enough. Other melee Specs like Fury Warrior, Combat Rogue or Retribution Paladin can show much better results. It's important to notice that Unholy DK really shines when the amount of adds are more than 10, otherwise the Fury Warrior' AoE DPS outperforms Unholy DK DPS. I even don't know how to accurately rebalance this Spec or if it really needs such a rebalance, because he has just too many AoE oriented abilities. By improving some single target abilities or talents it will greatly boost his overall PVP potency, which is very strong by default.

The PVP Balanced Concepts

Well, below I'll point to the most important available spells and talents which, in my opinion, should be changed to improve the warfare potency versus main anti Elemental Shaman builds. It also includes the previous PVE changes I have written above, which indirectly will balance the PVP warfare also.

1. Elemental Warding. This talent should reduce all damage taken not by 2% per point but at least by 3% (9% in total). I'm thinking even about 3.3 (10% total). Let me explain why. Almost all WoW Specs have a similar talent into their tree and the Elemental Warding will not make the Shaman unique. For example, the Druid can get it from the Balance Power or Protector of the Pack; the Hunter - from Survival Instincts; the Mage - from Frozen Core, Fiery Payback or Prismatic Cloak; the Paladin - from Improved Righteous Fury; the Priest - from both Spell Warding and Shadowform; the Rogue - from Deadened Nerves or Cheat Death; the Warlock - from Soul Link and/or Molten Skin, the Death Knight - from Magic Suppression. You can say: "But the Elemental Shaman has the Astral Shift talent". Again, this kind of talent is not unique also. Different Specs can implement this ability differently via talent or spells. For example, the Balance Druid will gain it via Moonkin Form; the Feral Druid - via Primal Tenacity; the Combat Rogue - via Nerves of Steel; the Destruction Warlock - via Nether Protection. Other class Specs will compensate the effect of this talent via multiple different active abilities and spells like: Shamanistic Rage, Unbreakable Armor, Icebound Fortitude, Deterrence, Ice Barrier, Power Word: Shield, Barkskin, Shield Wall.

Therefore, based on the talents and spells mentioned above, all class specs have a flat 6% damage reduction from all sources and all of them have different situational abilities or talents, which will reduce the incoming damage by 20%, 30%, 40%, 50% or x amount during a time period. In comparison to the Elemental Shaman, the top anti-Elemental Shaman Specs have two or more situational defensive abilities supported by another very strong PVP mechanics: the ability to heal while attacking and the amount of strong CCs. Based on my experience, currently the Elemental Shaman can compensate it by stacking Resilience to 1300-1400. Obviously, it will sacrifice the possibility to stack more spell power and haste. To be competitive, the character should stack around 3600 SP without ToW and near 700 Haster Rating. It can be done while using the best available PVP/PVE gear by decreasing Resilience to 1200. The Resilience around or below 1200 is just too low for the Elemental Shaman for both dueling and arena matchups. Just get 1200 Resilience or below and do some BGs and afterwards try it with 1420 Resilience and Corroded Skeleton Key. You'll notice the resilience of the second setup, but instead you'll also notice its insufficient speed and DPS potency. And vice versa, the first "glass cannon" setup, which is strange considering its 1200 Resilience, makes the character fragile and will not survive if he'll be focused by foes.

In addition, while facing different mediocre PVP targets like Warrior, DK or Paladin your success will be defined by the amount of current available CDs like PVP trinket, Hex, Thunderstorm, Stoneclaw Totem. If one or more of the specified abilities are on CD, your chance to succeed is greatly lowered and versus some Specs is impossible. It's a trivial situation in most World PVP, BGs and 2v2 arenas. Being Resilience capped, makes our damage output insufficient in the available PVP time gaps for dps to actually succeed in a matchup. Because between the incoming Silence, Stun and Fear abilities the opponent will be under a complete damage immune effect for a relatively long time interval and afterwards he'll be under a massive damage mitigation effect while healing from different abilities. It's like Effective Stamina gained from armor.

2. Tremor Totem. This totem ticks once per 3 seconds and it works on a party only. IDK what is wrong with this Tremor Totem mechanic, maybe there are some server lags, but sometime looks like my character can stay for entire 3.5-4 seconds in Fear. Of course, based on its timings, the totem can remove Fear, Charm and Sleep effects from your character just after one second, but based on my in game experience it will remove the respective CCs after a 2 seconds time interval mostly. The 3 seconds tick interval is too long to encounter so crucial spells and abilities. In my opinion, a 2 seconds Tremor Totem tick should be ok. In patch 3.3.5a, such casters like Warlock or Shadow Priest will cast Fear on your character and they have enough Haste to load your character with almost all their nasty debuffs during these 3 seconds and afterwards will break the Fear with a strong DD/DoT spell to just let them roll without the damage reduction of Astral Shift. This concept makes pointless the entire Tremor Totem concept for solo PVP, while it is still viable for arena or raid PVP in BGs. Also a 3 sec tick is enough to get your character, while feared, out of totem's range. The current totem's issue is based on it's luck. If it will remove a Fear in a 2 sec interval, your character will still be competitive or if it will remove a Fear after 3 seconds (including the lags and latency) - you will be forced to play defensively and it will be much harder, even impossible to recover.

In addition, it's crucial to increase its HP from 5 points up to 3000 - 5000. Let me explain why. Usually an exceptional or competitive opponent will try to destroy your Tremor Totem firstly to instantly Fear your character afterwards. And here's the problem, they'll destroy the totem with auto attacks and will use a GCD for an instant Fear. It can be done during the first second just after Fear. But if the totem will have a higher HP pool, it will require to spend a stronger spell/ability on it and respectively a GCD which will grant to you a 1 or 1.3 seconds time gap to do something, to encounter it with a Thunderstorm, Hex or to drop a new Tremor Totem. Exactly this way the PVP mechanics should be designed as the PVP works in martial arts - an action should have a counteraction and an attack should have a block.

For example, if you'll face an exceptional Shadow Priest (is in Tier 1 anti ES built) in world PVP or BG there are two possible scenarios. If he's over 20 yards away, none of you can win. Both will heal some fast DDs and will encounter other spells with Fear, Silence, Grounding, Windshear and out of range stance. To defeat a Shadow Priest, your character must be in a 10 yards range. In this scenario he has a huge advantage (difficulty 8/10). He'll try to Silence and Fear your character, at any cost, in such a order to finally apply his Vampiric Touch (VT) DoT. You just can't prevent it in a long run period due to the defined CDs. One VT DoT your character can heal, while two VT in a row is game over. Your task is to force him into Dispersion before the second VT. Just before this point or after this point, he'll try to hide behind different in game objects to heal, rebuff or dodge spells. And here's the most annoying PVP moment in the game. He will just run around obstacles by dispelling all your Shock spells and you can try to Earthbind him on CD with a respective redrop of Tremor Totem to prevent any instant Fear (not the best idea). And at this moment, being very close, he'll destroy your Tremor Totem with an auto attack and will instantly Fear your character for full duration by allowing him to run away or to heal completely. This is how this thing works in reality. Of course, ideally on an open area stage there's only one option to beat an Exceptional Shadow Priest - to survive until his Mana will oom away.

The Affliction (difficulty 10/10) and Destruction Warlocks (difficulty 9/10) are the hardest counter Specs for the Elemental Shaman in particular and they are the top anti-casters in general, just after Unholy DK. It is just impossible to beat an exceptional Affliction Warlock in an open area. He has more and stronger CCs than Shadow Priest has, and if he's doing all correct, he can get much more in combat heals than the Shadow Priest can get even without Shadowform. In comparison to the Priest, a Warlock just has lots of options and macros to destroy your Tremor Totem before the Fear or just while your character is in Fear. In addition, he can destroy the totem with his pet. On Warmane, I met a good Affliction Warlock back in 2016 only. They aren't popular, because they also are hard to master in PVP, especially versus melee characters. I know, based on the information I found, that to beat an exceptional Warlock you have to survive until you'll kill at least two of his pets. Of course, it's not easy while you have to Ground every Haunt spell and apply Wind Shear on as many Unstable Affliction spells as possible between Fears and Spell Locks. While doing this, the Corruption and other DoTs will keep running by forcing you to heal the Shaman and do fake casts. All these actions work against an Elemental Shaman, because there are too many things to track and non DPS actions to do for it and every additional second works against a Shaman.

Note: Death Coil, since Vanilla WoW, is considered by many experienced WoW PVP players one of the strongest and most OP spell like Divine Shield. It does damage, it heals the caster, it's instant, it has a 30 yards range for a CC ability and it's counted as Horrified CC, which can't be removed by the Tremor Totem! In addition, the Destro Warlock has another top tier 2 OP spell - Shadowfury. It's instant, it does damage, it can stun an entire raid in a 8 yards range for 3 seconds, it also has an insane 30 yards range for such a strong CC spell. Moreover, it has a 20 sec CD!

You can't encounter the Shadowfury with your Tremor Totem, Grounding Totem, Windshear or Thunderstorm and it's a perfect time for Warlock to load your character with DoTs and to cast the Chaos Bolt supported by instant Conflagrate when your character isn't stunned or feared.

Tip: The Shadow Priest's Silence can't be trinketed (Silence can't be trinketed). The Warlock's Spell Lock can't be trinketed. There is only one CC that should be trinketed while fighting versus these opponents - a Death Coil or a crucial Fear to prevent an incoming burst.

3. Thunderstorm. This spell looks good on paper only. Sure, it restores mana, it's doing AoE damage, it's usable while stunned and it knocks the enemy back (meaning it's a spell interrupt also). The Thunderstorm's only valuable PVP ability is its usability while stunned and mana regeneration. Its AoE damage is negligible for PVP warfare, considering that many melee classes have AoE damage reduction talents or they'll encounter you with some defensive active cooldowns. About its knockback. Of course, in many perfect cases it can be the only one condition to win a matchup. Over many years of using this spell in practically any scenarios I just can confirm that its knockback will not work as you may think it will. Firstly, any exceptional melee or even caster will approach your character in between to other obstacles behind or they'll try to be upwards on the hill. So, a knockback will have a very little effect (they'll be knocked 5-10 yards away) or no effect at all. To prevent this from happening, "the spell forces" you to do a very specific kitting, or to do some very obvious moves, which in the ends, makes your actions very predictable and, in return, the opponents have enough time to prepare an encounter ability. Considering that this effect is in the foundation of the Elemental Shaman PVP survivability, and its 45 seconds CD, I think this spell is not working well, at least in Wotlk 3.3.5a PVP Meta.

Now you know about Thunderstorm's design concept and its environmental usage issues. In addition, I'd like to point at how it works in conjunction with other melee's counter abilities. Every melee has an ability to counter not only every Thunderstorm knockback but almost every Earthbind root effect. A Warrior can do it via the Charge (in combat) and the Intercept; a DK can do it via the Death Grip; a Feral Druid can do it via the Feral Charge; a Rogue can do it via the Garrote, Cloak of Shadows and Shadowstep. Only a Paladin hasn't a strong encounter to the knockback effect besides the Repentance. So in many, maybe in most, situations you'll just get a little bit of mana (only important in arenas) and you'll do a little AoE damage with a funny and entertaining knockback effect.I mean also how bad the Thunderstorm's knockback is synergized with our top defensive talent the Astral Shift. Indeed, we are more likely to stay stunned and will tank all incoming damage instead of Thundering foes away. This spell should be used out of CC Stun, or just before the Stun will expire, for positioning or to kite melee opponents.

What I'd like to change here is the ability to change the Thunderstorm effects with minor Glyphs:

The default usage without any Glyph;
To increase the received mana at the cost of knockback effect (as currently is available);
To replace the knock back effect with a 3 seconds 8 yards AoE Stun. It's not so strong as Shadowfury anyway;
To replace the knockback effect and damage with a throw up effect so opponents should take around 10% HP fall damage. Of course, some Specs can mitigate the damage, while others should spend a GCD to encounter it like Levitate, Charge.

In my opinion, these changes can mitigate the Thunderstorm issues for different scenarios and will turn into more versatile and fun to play setups.

4. Cleansing Totem. This totem, as Tremor Totem, ticks every 3 seconds and tries to remove one Poison and one Disease effect from party members (not raid). The same can be done with instant Cure Toxins spell at the cost of GCD. The issue of Cleansing Totem is based on its ineffectiveness versus stacking debuffs and/or debuffs which are applied frequently over short time gaps. Overall, in my opinion, the way how the totem dispels diseases is ok, but it's not ok for poisons. The Rogue poisons are an example for this.

In the Tier 2 of the strongest anti Elemental Shaman Specs are DK (difficulty 8/10), Rogue (difficulty 8/10), Feral Druid (difficulty 8/10) and Hunter (difficulty 7/10). You just can't beat these Specs without a Cleansing Totem. The issue here is based on the fact that it's near impossible to beat these opponents without all CD ready, Soft-Capped Resilience and maximum defensive talent and gear setups, including Corroded Skeleton Key. You just have to survive while they are using all their top offensive and defensive cooldowns in a sequence. In BGs, where there's a 10% penalty to all healing spells or in any environment where these Specs have the raid buffs, it's even way harder to encounter their abilities. They just benefit too much from GBoK, GBoM, Fortitude, GoW, Free Action Potion. This is why the Elemental Warding is so crucial here.

The fights against a DK can be long and annoying. You can dispell a Disease with Cure Toxins (rarely should be used), but you should spend a GCD on DPS or better on healing at the beginning by putting the dispel responsibilities on the totem. Actually, you can't beat an exceptional DK until he will use two Antimagic Shields, a bunch of Death Grips and root/stun effects, Icebound Fortitude, a Strangulate (in case you avoided his Mind Freezes) and a Gargoyle. And notice that the second Antimagic Shield will come just after the Gargoyle.

The fights versus a Feral Druid and a Hunter are very harsh and tight. You have very small time gaps to perform some offensive abilities. While versus a Hunter you can get a parity fight, versus a Feral Druid you can't do it. The Druid just has too powerful opener, when he will load your character with a lot of bleed DoTs, and after that he will try to DPS hard while under the effect of Berserking and Barkskin buff. If you'll manage to survive this opener phase, after this the Druid will try to hide behind something for heals or to play defensively in a bear form. And this is an overall broken concept of a Feral Druid PVP warfare versus any Spec. After his main CDs expire, the cat becomes very vulnerable and squishy. In addition, almost all Shaman CC spells and totems are useless versus a Feral Druid: you can't Hex him, he can escape from Frost Shock and Earthbind via shapeshifting, the Thunderstorm will be encountered by Feral Charge, our casted spells can be encountered with a Stun or a charge interrupt (meaning we have to play a fake spell game here even), the Magma Totem is doing a relatively low damage due to high movement, the Searing Totem has a poor damage, you have nothing to Ground and Windshear - just a terrible designed PVP warfare. If to compare it with a Shaman vs Paladin matchup, as hard one for a Paladin, he can dispel our Shock effects, he can be immune to snare effects, he can Stun, he can freely heal to 100% even twice and he has more options to do high damage.

Finally, in the Tier 2 we have a Rogue. Long story short. He can do all the stuff mentioned above, in many different ways with much better control abilities as a much more versatile PVP class. The good side about this matchup is that we can root and snare a Rogue, we can Hex him and our totems are very useful. Also, he is doing like 60% of the damage while our character is stunned so the Astral Shift is way more effective. Like a Hunter with his Readiness, a Rogue can refresh some of his important CD via Preparation and our task is to force them to use these abilities as soon as possible. The bad thing here is how his poisons are working. While they are fully applied and stacked, they can do moderate damage while our character is stunned and a significant amount of damage in between the stuns. Most strong and importantly are their debuffs. Ideally, he can keep on our character 4 types of poisons: a Deadly Poison, a Crippling Poison, a Mind-numbing Poison and a Wound Poison. The Deadly Poison can stack up to 5 and it works as a "shield" to protect other poisons. Our Cure Toxins or Cleansing Totem can cure only one poison at a time, or it's stack, per GCD or tick respectively. So, if he puts on our character 5 stacks of Deadly Poison, our totem should spend 15 seconds to remove all those stacks or we have to spend 5 GCDs (> 1 second) for that. Mainly, we are interested in removing the Crippling, Mind-numbing and Wound Poisons to kite better and to DPS and heal better. But this is encountered by Deadly Poison stacks, because the totem just picks up one random poison per tick. How a Rogue is applying so many poisons? Well, a good Rogue can easily keep 3 different poisons on a target, while an exceptional Rogue - all four types. Here is a tip. A Rogue, like any melee, can switch weapons in combat. Moreover, he can apply different poisons on 4 different daggers respectively and the poisons will be active on the weapons in the bag even. Further, he just has to roll his daggers via respective macros for the Throw ability, for the Shiv, in opener phase and so on. There are dozens of possible macros for this. It's very important to mitigate his poison effects and the overall damage. The same is true for my suggestions referred to the offensive totems and Lightning Shield as I mentioned above. The Elemental Shaman just needs to have some additional moderate sources of damage while kitting and while is stunned or silenced. Against these Tier 2 anti Specs there must be legit sources of DPS in between casting. This aspect is imbalanced, as for me.

To fix this, in my opinion, the totem should remove 2 poisons ter tick instead one. It will not affect significantly other Specs, even a Hunter's Serpent Sting DoT.

Finally, I'd like to mention the Tier 3 anti Elemental Shaman Specs: a Warrior (difficulty 7/10), a Balance Druid (difficulty 7/10), an Enhancement Shaman (difficulty 6/10), a mirror Elemental Shaman (difficulty 5/10), a Mage (difficulty 5/10 or 8/10) and a Paladin (difficulty 5/10). Interestingly, both a Mage and Paladin can be or very easy to beat or very hard, which depends by different rng factors and which spell is on CD currently. A Paladin can beat any Spec and can lose to any Spec. The metchups versus these opponents mostly depends if you'll be able to dispel the Hand of Freedom or Ice Barrier early or not or your crucial spells will be resisted/reflected or not. Don't underestimate a Mage. Actually a fight versus an exceptional Mage should be completely based on fake spells, as versus an Elemental Shaman, and the fight is divided in two phases: before Evocation and after this, where your character will be at full HP and below 35% mana and the Mage character will be at almost full HP and Mana!:) (It's like a Street Fighter yell "Round 2! Fight!"). A fight versus an Arms Warrior is the most balanced one, based on available attacks and counterattack for both the Warrior and Shaman. At any moment both characters have something to use or to do. Only the Shadowmourne and Shield Slam's damage and the Shield Bash's effect ruins the balance a bit.

As you maybe noticed, I used the word "exceptional" to mark the player skills many times in this section. This means that even an Arms Warrior (7/10) is very hard to beat or even is possible to beat an Unholy DK (8/10 - 9/10) by a skilled, or exceptional, player. It mainly depends on the skill levels of both players. At high skill levels, it happens a little bit differently and below I want to show a video made on AT server by an Elemental Shaman player. AT WoW server where players are doing duels and arenas "all day every day". As the final dot for many arguments, my idea is to make the Elemental Shaman PVP warfare a fun game and easier to do good performance - not to turn it into a job or some sort of Shaolin's martial arts training paths to succeed.

The final chapter of this guide, which contains just a row of videos and screenshots of my in game character performance on Warmane server. BTW, few videos I performed on my private WoW server, because at the time of writing this guide, I didn't have all the required items available. Long story short. Here is shown how to play the Elemental Shaman in different raid encounters. Many videos were made long ago, when I just began my WoW raiding. Nowadays I'm playing the character much more aggressively and using even more keybind abilities. Just take a look at my Youtube channel for newer videos. I'll try to upload new ones.

4.1. Rexar Jr’ Youtube Channel
c.4.1. September 2020

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Lethality vs The Lich King 25 HC

Disfigured vs The Lich King 25 HC

Lethality vs The Lich King 10 HC

Disfigured vs Halion 25 HC

Lethality vs The Lich King 25 N

Lethality vs Halion 25 N

Icecrown Citadel Heroic

The playlist

Icecrown Citadel Normal

The playlist

4.2. Rexarjr’s Training Guide Channel
c.4.2. September 2020

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Channel

Main page

BiS Gear DPS

Universal BiS Gear

Keybind Rotation

Spell Rotation Macro

DPS Test

Play list

Spell Test

Play list

4.3. Screenshots
c.4.3. September 2020

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It Has Begun!

On the Road to Dalaran

At Dalaran Tavern

Frostbitten

Earth, Wind and Fire

The Old Gods

The Undying

The Immortal

Heroic Twilight Destroyer

Glory of the Icecrown Raider

Bane of the Fallen King

The Light of Dawn

Invincible's Reins

The Gardens of Silvermoon

What a Long Strange Trip It's Been!

P.S. Final Edition

Orc / Tauren	Troll	Draenei
Sanctified Frost Witch's Helm	Sanctified Frost Witch's Helm	Sanctified Frost Witch's Helm
Amulet of the Silent Eulogy	Blood Queen's Crimson Choker	Blood Queen's Crimson Choker
Sanctified Frost Witch's Shoulderpads	Horrific Flesh Epaulets	Horrific Flesh Epaulets
Cloak of Burning Dusk	Cloak of Burning Dusk	Cloak of Burning Dusk
Sanctified Frost Witch's Hauberk	Sanctified Frost Witch's Hauberk	Sanctified Frost Witch's Hauberk
Bracers of Fiery Night	Bracers of Fiery Night	Bracers of Fiery Night
Sanctified Frost Witch's Gloves	Sanctified Frost Witch's Gloves	Sanctified Frost Witch's Gloves
Split Shape Belt	Split Shape Belt	Split Shape Belt
Sanctified Frost Witch's Kilt	Sanctified Frost Witch's Kilt	Sanctified Frost Witch's Kilt
Plague Scientist's Boots	Plague Scientist's Boots	Plague Scientist's Boots
Ashen Band of Endless Destruction	Ashen Band of Endless Destruction	Ashen Band of Endless Destruction
Ring of Rapid Ascent	Loop of the Endless Labyrinth	Ring of Rapid Ascent
Charred Twilight Scale	Charred Twilight Scale	Charred Twilight Scale
Phylactery of the Nameless Lich	Phylactery of the Nameless Lich	Phylactery of the Nameless Lich
Royal Scepter of Terenas II	Royal Scepter of Terenas II	Royal Scepter of Terenas II
Bulwark of Smouldering Steel	Bulwark of Smouldering Steel	Bulwark of Smouldering Steel
Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice	Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice	Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice
Summary	Summary	Summary
SP: 4230 Hit: 11.4% (299) Crit: 50.09% HR: 1184	SP: 4251 Hit: 11.09% (291) Crit: 51.61% HR: 1098	SP: 4251 Hit: 10.25% (269) Crit: 51.5% HR: 1128
Requirements	Requirements	Requirements
2 x Glowing Dreadstone or 2 x Royal Dreadstone	2 x Glowing Dreadstone or 2 x Royal Dreadstone	2 x Glowing Dreadstone or 2 x Royal Dreadstone and 3 x Veiled Ametrine

Tools

[Guide] Elemental Shaman PVE

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