Kungmoo’s Elemental Shaman Raid Guide
Posted by Kungmoogrip | Filed under Guides, Shaman
Hey gang. Below is a collection of information I’ve pulled from Elitist Jerks and a few other resources (references at the bottom). If you have any interest in playing an elemental shaman, this should hopefully point you in the right direction.
Hit Rating
The most important stat for an elemental shaman (and most raiding classes period) is Hit Rating. The cap for hit rating on level 83 (raid boss mobs) is 17%, or 446 rating. You should have spec’d into Elemental Precision, which means you only need 14% hit on your gear, or from other raid buffs. The following buffs give you hit rating:
Heroic Presence – 1% (Alliance only, All draenei)
Misery – 3%** (Shadow Priests)
Improved Faerie Fire – 3%** (Balance Druid)
** Misery and Improved Faerie Fire DO NOT STACK!
If your raid contains these buffs/debuffs, this leaves 263 hit rating on gear for Alliance, and 289 hit for horde. Until you are hit capped, you should gear, gem, and enchant mainly for +hit rating (26.232 hit rating = 1% hit). As a base reference, these are your stat priorities for gear and enchants.
Stats
Hit > Spell power > Haste > Crit > Int
Hit: HIGH to NO priority- Ss the best stat point to point until it caps, then becomes useless. Try to hit as close to cap as possible without going under.
Spell power: HIGH priority- Gives most DPS per point. Prioritize this on gear above other DPS stats, no questions asked. Gives a return to ALL spells at any gear level.
Haste: MEDHIGH to HIGH priority- Haste starts out as a good stat and becomes an amazing stat as your gear gets better. Haste is always a better stat point for point than crit UNTIL your bread-and-butter nuke, Lightning Bolt, hits the one second cap. Until then, it is always better to gear for haste above crit.
Crit: MEDIUM priority- The lowest of our true DPS stats. It gives returns to all but one spell but doesn’t stack nearly as well as spell power and haste do. Only prioritize this above haste assuming your Lightning Bolt is capped at or below a one second cast time.
Elitist Jerks and other resources are saying you need 20% haste rating to get those rotations just right. Haste is starting to be the number 2 spot, right after hit for the “must have in stats”, so it goes – 17% Hit, 20% Haste, and then stack up for +spell damage. What they are saying is, the faster or more dps you dish-out, you will have a greater improvement…And you don’t want to forget about your Wrath of Air Totem, this grants you 5% spell haste.
Rotations:
Fixed Rotations
The fixed rotation is based on a set number of spells in a set order. An example of this would be the 8/1 Fireball/Scorch rotation of Fire mages (or Frostfire/Scorch for the Frostfire builds). Generally the rotation will be FS, LvB, CL/LB filler, LvB, CL/LB filler, and repeat. CL can be used 2-4 times in this rotation, depending on cooldown management. CL is useful here in that it can help reduce that “filler” time to allow the next LvB to be cast sooner. Also, with a fixed rotation you are likely to clip 1-2 ticks of the Flame Shock dot.
Waiting for Cooldowns
There are two methods of handling the cooldowns in a fixed rotation. The first (No-Wait) is to simply ignore the fact that cooldowns may be coming up soon, and use the best spell available. The advantage is that there is no wasted time, but you may be pushing the next LvB use out past the 8 second cooldown, reducing DPS. Whereas the second method involves waiting for the next cooldown (be it CL or LvB). The downside of waiting for cooldowns is that it is a fine line between wasting too much time, and letting cooldowns go unused. Ideally, the best solution is to swap between the two based on your own judgement.
Priority Rotation
In a priority rotation, there is no set cast order (this is a concept that has been used by Shadow Priests for some time now). All you do is use the highest priority spell that is available. Generally, this will be FS>LvB>CL>LB, although it should be noted that Flame Shock should be recast, and clip the last tick, if Lava Burst will be off cooldown and the cast finishes after the DoT expires.
Earth Shock
There are some people suggesting that Earth Shock be used in rotations as well, with the ES glyph that reduces the GCD when it is used by 1 second. Currently however, this is not functioning correctly, and reduces the GCD to 1 second instead. Even with this fixed, it is still somewhat dubious as to how much of a gain it will be, especially with the 25 yard range (with talents).
Chain Lightning
CL can be used in single target rotations, as it has a slightly higher DPSC (or Damage Per Second Casting) figure than LB. The trade off is that the mana cost is much higher (and disproportiantly so compared to the dps gain). There is also suggestion that using it in place of LB just before the LvB cooldown is up can increase dps as well, and while this is a good point, you would either have to be running a fixed rotation, or be able to discern which spell to use at which point. Generally, I would recommend using a CL in every LvB cooldown that you don’t cast FS in, for either fixed or priority rotations, if you want to do this.
Enchants and Gems:
Enchants:
The following enchants are considered to be the best available in game assuming you are hit capped (Profession based enchants are NOT included here. Most professions [Engineering and Tailoring, I'm looking at you] are direct increases from another enchant or to a previously unenchantable slot)
Cloak – Greater Speed (23 haste rating)
Chest – Powerful Stats (10 to all stats)
Bracer – Superior Spellpower (30 spell power)
Gloves – Exceptional Spellpower (28 spell power)
Boots – Tuskarr’s Vitality (15 stamina and 8% run speed increase)* OR Icewalker (12 critical strike and 12 hit rating)
Weapon – Mighty Spellpower (63 spell power)
Shield – Greater Intellect (25 intellect)
Legs – Sapphire Spellthread (50 spell power and 30 stamina)
Head – Arcanum of Burning Mysteries (30 spell power and 20 critical strike rating) Requires Revered with Faction: Kirin Tor
Shoulder – Greater Inscription of the Storm (24 spell power and 15 critical strike rating) Requires Exalted with Faction: The Sons of Hodir
* It is well debated that the less time you spend moving, the more time you are spending casting. The 8% run speed gives you that little bit of a boost to get you back and DPSing faster.
If you are short of the hit cap, these enchants may be of help with you:
Gloves – Precision (23 hit rating)
Weapon – Accuracy (25 hit and 25 critical strike rating)*
*Enchanting your weapon with hit+crit over spell power can generally be counter productive as the spell power gained from Mighty Spellpower generally outweighs it. I would only recommend this enchant as a last ditch for hit cap. Consider regemming or switching a few pieces of gear around (check those spreadsheets!) before re-enchanting your weapon with Accuracy.
Gems and Gemming:
Meta – Chaotic Skyflare Diamond (+21 Critical Strike Rating and 3% Increased Critical Damage. Requires two blue gems to activate)
Blue – Glowing Dreadstone (12 spell power and 15 stamina) OR Royal Dreadstone (12 spell power and 5 mana every 5 seconds)*
Red – Runed Cardinal Ruby (23 spell power)
Yellow – Reckless Ametrine (12 spell power and 10 haste rating)**
* For DPS, Royal is a slightly better choice in long fights due to the minor increase in MP5 leading to more Chain Lightning casts, though if survivability is your problem then Glowing should be your only option.
** Runed Cardinal Rubies gem better in yellow slots if the socket bonus does not warrant a DPS increase.
Totem relics:
There are only a few relics out there for elemental shaman but I’m going to help you pick up only the best.
A few relics look amazing on paper but are hindered by a high internal cooldown (Totem of the Elemental Plane).
These are your best totems that are readily available to any shaman just hitting 80!
Totem of Electrifying Wind
Totem of Hex
Thunderfall Totem
Totem of the Void (level 70)
Totem of Electrifying Wind comes out above Hex and Thunderfall due to having a low internal cooldown which allows it to be up nearly 100% of the time. Totem of Hex comes up second due to Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning being a much larger percentage of your total damage than Lava Burst. Thunderfall is the third and lowest of the top end totems. Totem of the Void even comes up above the afforementioned Totem of the Elemental Plane due to the maximum possible uptime of it being 33%.
* My Preference would be Totem of Electrifying Wind, the haste you get from this totem is great for your rotations and DPS.
Glyphs:
Major (BiS):
Glyph of Flame Shock – The periodic damage dealt by your Flame Shock can now be critical strikes.
Glyph of Lightning Bolt – Increases the damage dealt by Lightning Bolt by 4%.
Glyph of Totem of Wrath – When you cast Totem of Wrath, you gain 30% of the totem’s bonus spell power for 5 min. (84Spell Power at maximum rank)
Glyph of Lava (Lava is a good option if you already have the tier 9 bonus Conqueror’s Worldbreaker Hauberk) – Your Lava Burst spell gains an additional 10% of your spellpower.
Minor:
Glyph of Thunderstorm – Increases the mana you receive from your Thunderstorm spell by 2%, but it no longer knocks enemies back.
Ideas for Spec:
Most PVE spec’s rarely put points into Improved Ghost Wolf.
Most common spec (Good if you’re still having mana problems on long fights):
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?shaman#169vE8iNOttz,,10894
If you are not having any problems with mana, I would use this spec:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?shaman#L6d407dD7rZz,,10894,
Don’t max out Convection, Instead add points into Elemental Warding. This will help out the healers in the situation in raid damage or when you make a mistake.
This could be a good PVP spec, if anyone is interested:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?shaman#9fZINnO-yM11,,10894
References:
* Elitist Jerks
http://elitistjerks.com/f79/
* MMO Champion
http://www.mmo-champion.com/class-shaman/elemental-shaman-wotlk-faq-and-basic-mechanics-updated-for-3-2!/