The Elemental Shaman is a utility damage class. While providing excellent personal DPS, the Elemental also provides an additional source of totems and bloodlust for a caster group without over-stacking a raid with Restoration spec shaman.
Elementals can heal, in limited emergency situations when in DPS gear, or fairly substantially when in healing gear, and provide a non-healer resurrection option to reduce healer downtime on raid trash.
Note
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| Spell | Rank | Mana Cost | Range | Cast Time | Cooldown | Damage | School | Notes |
|---|
| Lightning Bolt | 12 | 300 | 30(36) | 2.5(2.0) | None | 563-643 | Nature | |
| Chain Lightning | 6 | 760 | 30(36) | 2.0(1.5) | 6 | 734-838 | Nature | |
| Earth Shock | 8 | 535 | 20 | Instant | 6(5) | 658–692 | Nature | Spell interupt + 2 second school lockdown |
| Flame Shock | 7 | 500 | 20 | Instant | 6(5) | 377+420 over 12s | Fire | |
| Frost Shock | 5 | 525 | 20 | Instant | 6(5) | 640–676 | Frost | 8 second 50% movement reduction debuff, causes additional threat |
[top]Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt is the main nuke for an Elemental spec. It affects one target, can proc Lightning Overload, and has an additional 8% co-efficient on spell damage.
[top]Chain Lightning
Chain Lightning is one of two “Chain” spells. This means that if there are additional targets close to the first, it will jump onto up to two additional targets, reducing the damage on each jump by 50% of base damage. Due to the 6 second cooldown, it cannot be cast repeatedly, and will often be used in a rotation with Lightning Bolt as it has a higher damage/cast ratio. However, it uses more mana on a per damage basis, so may not be used when mana is an issue, either at low gear levels, buff availability, or encounter mechanics.
One downside to Chain Lightning is that the jumps can break crowd control, so it is wise to avoid using when there is even a remote chance of breaking CC.
Shocks have limited use for Elemental shaman. This is due to the high mana cost and the limited range. Ranged DPS survive by out-ranging boss abilities, most of which have a max range of 30-35 yards. Standing any closer is likely to kill you, people around you, and probably cause a wipe. The damage gained from adding shocks into a rotation is also negligible (~20-30 dps). The only situations where shocks would be useful are when you are kiting (frost, eg: Striders on Vashj), interrupting spells (earth), or moving to/away from the boss (flame, eg: Eagle in Zul’Aman)
[top]Totem of Wrath
Totem of Wrath is the 41pt talent for the Elemental tree. It provides 3% hit, and 3% crit to everyone in the party. It reduces the hit required for elemental shaman, and anyone in the same group as the shaman. While this allows other casters to reduce their +hit from gear, it also places a high dependence on the totem for maximum DPS. This can be further complicated by players that do not stay close to their shaman for totems. As such, some players will not reduce their +hit from gear, reducing the “effectiveness” of the totem. This said, it is still very useful, as the only fire totem that is dropped on a regular basis is Searing, which is hampered by the same short range as Shocks are.
Fire Mage/Moonkin/Destruction Locks >> Everyone else >> Affliction/Demonology Locks > Shadow Priests/Paladins
| Class | Spec | Notes |
| Druid | Balance | Moonkin will find this as useful as a Fire mage, due to their 0.5 second cast reduction on crits talent. The 5% crit aura is also extremely useful to Elemental Shaman. |
| Mage | Arcane | Increased damage from crits via Spell Power (25%/50% critical damage increase), however there are no crit based abilities. |
| Mage | Fire | Additional damage from crits via Ignite (crits cause additional 8/16/24/32/40% damage over 8 seconds) as well as Master of Elements (10/20/30% mana refund on crit) providing additional mana. |
| Mage | Frost | Increased damage from crits via Ice Shards (Increases critical strike damage of frost spells by 20/40/60/80/100%), no crit based abilities. |
| Paladin | Holy | While they will gain mana regen from the extra crit, should not get this totem unless otherwise un-avoidable. |
| Priest | Shadow | Shadow Priests will not find this totem useful. Crit is not very useful, and they have a lower hit requirement than most other classes. |
| Shaman | Elemental | While Totem of Wraith stacks, you will find it is more useful to spread 2 elementals out to two groups rather than staying in one. |
| Shaman | Enhancement | Increased hit/crit for shocks will result in minimal damage increases. If you have an Elemental and an Enhancement shaman in the same group in a raid, there is something very very wrong with your raid makeup. |
| Shaman | Restoration | Minimal gain, best to have one shaman per group. |
| Warlock | Affliction | There are no crit based talents in Affliction. This is a DoT based build, but does have some direct damage capability (40-50% DD). Slightly better than a Shadow Priest for crit utilisation. |
| Warlock | Demonology | There are no crit based talents in Demonology either. DD will be 40-50% of DPS as with Affliction. |
| Warlock | Destruction | Improved Shadow Bolt (4 charge debuff increasing DD shadow damage by 4/8/12/16/20% on critical strikes) and Ruin (Increases crit bonus by 100%) allow a Destruction warlock to make maximum use of the extra crit, and should be able to gear around the extra hit easily. |
Elemental rotations are fairly simple. If Chain Lightning is used, the rotation will revolve around the 6 second cooldown. The 3/1 rotation handles this, with an extra Lightning Bolt cast being used in the 4/1 rotation to keep casting (and thus doing damage) while the cooldown expires. It is important to note that switching to a 4/1 rotation with low haste may actually result in less damage being done, as the damage gained from using the remaining cooldown time is offset against damage lost by having Chain Lightning ready and waiting to cast. In these situations, staying at a 3/1 rotation and waiting for the next Chain Lightning cast is best.
To determine the "break even" cast speed we use the following formula, where L = Lightning bolt damage, C = Chain Lighting Damage, and H = Haste %
This
graph shows this break even point, compared with spell damage. It shows normal damage, T6 4pc damage, and normal damage from 2.3 (prior to the GCD changes)
It is important to note that a pure Lightning Bolt "rotation" may generate more dps than a Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning rotation. This is due to a few factors, mostly in-game latency and "user lag". If there is an extra delay in your rotation from switching to Chain Lightning and back to Lightning Bolt, this will reduce the effective DPS gain that we would expect to see from using Chain Lightning with its shorter casting time. You can use addons such as
LagInfo to see what your user lag is. Reducing this will increase the time spent casting, and thus increase DPS.
General recommendation
If you have the mana, prior to getting 4pc T6 a CL rotation is the best way to go. After you get the 4pc bonus, switch to LB spam, and regem/gear appropriately.
- Lightning Bolt Spam
Lightning bolt spam is the most mana efficient rotation, but can potentially be lower in terms of damage output. Best used in mana sensitive situations. Requires less spell crit, as it has lower mana use.
- 3 Lightning Bolt/1 Chain Lightning
The 3/1 rotation is three Lightning Bolts and one Chain Lightning. This is the most practical of the high (non-hasted) DPS rotations. It uses three bolt casts while waiting for the 6 second chain cooldown to finish. Can also be used for short fights/trash pulls where it is possible to drink often.
- 4 Lightning Bolt/1 Chain Lightning
4/1 is the hasted Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning rotation, as once your bolt cast time drops bellow 2 seconds an additional bolt cast is used to allow Chain Lightning to finish its cooldown. See the discussion earlier on this.
- 5 Lightning Bolt/2 Chain Lightning/1FS
This is the 5 bolts, 2 chain and 1 flame shock rotation. While this is the highest DPS rotation, it also has the highest mana use. Combined with the shorter range for Flame Shock, it is not a recommended DPS rotation. Changing Flame for Earth or Frost is not recommended either, as both have lower overall DPS.
[top]Talent Information
As an Elemental Shaman, this tree is where you will spend most of your points. This section will cover information on talents and how they relate to an Elemental build. Some talents are not mentioned, as they need no extra explanation.
- Call of Flame (T2) Increases Fire Totem damage by 5/10/15%
While this talent does affect the damage output of Searing Totem, even with this the DPS gain is still inferior to using Totem of Wrath on a caster group. See the comments on Totem of Wrath details on how useful it is.
- Concussion (T1) Increases damage of lightning/shock spells by 1/2/3/4/5%
This talent adds X% onto the base spell damage as well as spell damage from gear.
- Earth’s Grasp (T2) Stoneclaw health +25/50%, Earthbind radius 10/20%
Stoneclaw and Earthbind have no function in a PvE Raid environment, making this talent redundant. The only exception is Earthbind's use on Razorgore (BWL).
- Elemental Devastation (T4) Offensive Spell Crits increase Melee Crit chance by 3/6/9% for 10 seconds
Elemental shaman will crit with spells fairly often. They should never be within Melee range. The end effect of this talent will never be used. It is also important to note that this talent does not help for an Enhancement build either, meaning that it should never be used for any raiding build.
- Elemental Focus (T3) Critical damage spells give 40% mana cost reduction on the next two damage spells
The mana reduction of this talent can be calculated using the following: 
eg: 40% crit chance means a 40% chance to get Clearcasting, so we'd expect to see 32% savings (0.4*0.8). However if the cast following is also a crit, one charge will be lost (0.4*0.4*0.4 = 6.4%) which means we see an average reduction of 25.6%.
- Elemental Warding (T2) Reduces Frost/Fire/Nature damage taken by 4/7/10%
Very under-rated. T5/6 instances have a large amount of frost, fire, and nature damage affecting the raid. 7/10 T5 bosses, at least 7/14 T6 bosses have raid damage abilities involving these schools, and there are a fair number of trash mobs that use similar abilities (especially the pre-Kael trash of TK).
- Eye of the Storm (T4) 33/66/100% chance of ignoring interrupts for 6 seconds when crit.
This talent relies on being crit. When raiding, you should never be hit at all, so this talent would never come into play. However, this is another possible "filler" talent for the 20th point, to allow you to get to the next Tier, and may also have some use in a PvE farming capacity.
- Improved Fire Nova Totem (T4) Reduces Nova Cooldown by 1/2seconds, and decreases Magma threat by 25%/50%
As with Call of Flame, this totem does not affect ToW, and it does not affect Searing totem either. These will never be used in a raiding environment, and should never ever be taken.
- Lightning Overload (T8) 4/8/12/16/20% chance of casting additional lightning spell for free, at half damage
Highly important for DPS. LO crits behave as normal for crit based procs, eg: Clearcasting, Lightning Capacitor, Sextant. Works out to be a 10% increase to DPS. This is because while the proc chance is 4% per point (or 20% in total), the extra cast is at half damage (after gear/talents). 0.5 * 0.2 = 0.1 or 10%
- Reverberation (T3) Reduces Shock Cooldown by 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8/1 seconds
Reverberation is not normally a talent that I would recommend for any shaman spec. For Elementals, the mana cost is high, dps return is minimal, but the 20 yard range is the killer. However, this talent can and should be taken for kiting use, more specifically Strider kiting on Vashj. There are no other situations where a shaman would be required to kite, so before you begin working on Vashj, and after you stop running SSC (or even when you get it on farm mode) I would use this talent as a one point filler at most. Also, the dot from Flame Shock is 12 seconds, so taking this talent may actually reduce Flame Shock DPS if you use it.
- Storms Reach (T5) Increases Lightning spell range by 3/6 yards
SR has no direct effect on your DPS. However, there are a number of raid encounters where standing at max range means you can out-range abilities (For example, Azgalors Rain of Fire ability has a range of 30 yards), avoiding possible deaths/wipes.
- Totem of Wrath (T9) Fire totem - adds 3% hit/crit
See the entry under Abilities - Totem of Wrath for more information
[top]Enhancement
There's no reason to spec into Enhancement, unless you want a minor mana increase, or a 2 second cooldown reduction on grounding totem. Neither are worth the points.
[top]Restoration
It doesn't matter what talents you take in Restoration, aside from the following points:
- Nature's Guidance (T3) Increases hit by 1/2/3%
Useful for reducing +hit required from gear. Standard elemental talent until you get enough +hit from gear to reduce points in it. Each point is worth 12.6 hit rating. Points may be dropped from here if your total hit exceeds 16% excluding Totem of Wrath.
- Tidal Mastery (T4) Increases Heal/Lightning spell crit by 1/2/3/4/5%
Increases crit chance with nature spells by 5%. Due to the high dependency on spell crits this talent is highly desirable. Allows for a total of 13% crit from talents alone.
[top]Talent Builds
- 41/0/20 - Example 41/0/20 build
In this build, there are a number of optional talents. Elemental Warding (3) can be swapped to Reverberation, as can Eye of the Storm (1).
The remaining points are necessary, for the reasons outlined in the section above.
- 40/0/21
The 40/0/21 build comes in two flavours. Firstly, the PvE orientated build, which is the same as the 41/0/20 build above, swapping Totem of Wrath for Nature's Swiftness.
The second build is the PvP build. This build focuses on survivability, as well as taking some of the high damage talents and abilities.
- Elemental/Restoration Hybrids
There are a large number of possible hybrid builds that could be used, each focusing on different aspects on the trees. For grinding or 5 man instances, these builds may be useful, but in a 10/25 man PvE raiding environment, they are sub-standard. This is because there is not enough synergy between the two talent trees. There is one elemental talent that will help with healing, but while there are four restoration talents that can do the same for dps, the extra hit & crit, as well as a minor Intellect based damage boost an Nature's Swiftness, they do not do nearly enough to make damage output viable either.
It is more practical to build a pure DPS or pure Healer, than a hybid elemental/resto shaman.
- Elemental/Enhancement Hybrids
Elemental/Enhancement hybrids focus around damage dealing, and the idea of dual-wielding two spell damage weapons, possibly in conjunction with the Mental Quickness talent (AP->Spell damage). Despite resulting in similar spell damage levels, the extra hit/crit from a restoration sub-spec is lost, as are the high end Elemental talents. Since Dual Wield requires 31 points, any 30+ elemental talent is lost. This means that the Lightning Overload and Totem of Wrath cannot be taken, which can result in a 10% DPS loss from not having LO. No amount of gear or talents from Enhancement can make up for this loss.
[top]Itemisation
Intellect- 0.02 mp5 per point in Unrelenting Storm.
Intellect is fairly abundant on spell damage gear. It should never be enchanted, never used on gems, and socket bonuses should be ignored.
Spell Damage- Adds 1 * Spell Co-Efficient to the min/max spell damage.
Spell
Damage is one of the two primary stats for Elementals. It provides the greatest increase on a point-by-point basis to our damage output. This is because it is affected by
Concussion and Lightning
Overload in the same way that the
Base spell damage is.
One point of damage will always be worth one point of damage, regardless of spec or other stats. While the actual value of the point will change, adding 10 points will give 1/10th the value of adding 100 damage.
)
Spell Crit- Chance to add 50% damage to a spell. Increases to 100% with Elemental Fury.
Spell crit is the second primary stat. Elemental fury increases the damage gained from each crit, and Elemental Focus Clearcasting charges result from crits as well. Additionally, items based around crit (eg:
[The Lightning Capacitor]) will also improve with more crit. This is also because we can cast 30 spells or more per minute, in comparison to 20 or 25 for other casters.
Stacking endless amounts of crit is not a good idea. Going from 40% crit to 41% crit will result in a 0.7% damage increase (assuming 0 crit = 100% baseline) rather than the 1% you would expect. Ideally, 40% crit (including talents) is the point to aim for (or ~400 crit rating).
Spell Hit- Level 73 targets (raid bosses) require 16% hit.
- Need 4% from gear with all +hit talents
Spell hit is the least valuable caster stat for an Elemental. Due to the +6% hit from Elemental Precision, +3% from Nature's Guidance, and +3% from Totem of Wrath, the hit cap is a mere 4% (51 rating). This is further reduced for Alliance shaman with the racial aura for +1% spell hit (to 38 rating).
Spell Haste- 1% = 15.76 Rating
- Haste reduces the cast time of our spells based on the following formula: Cast Time/(1+Haste%)
- It increases the number of spells cast within a time period by X%.
- Haste cap is 100% for Lightning Bolt (53% with Bloodlust), while for Chain Lightning it is 50% (15% for Bloodlust).
The usefulness of haste is a contentious issue. While it increases DPS via more casts, some argue that you only see the gain from this if you get an opportunity to make that extra cast (ie: you would need to make 100/haste% casts to see extra cast). It is worth noting that while this is correct, it also reduces the chance a spell will be affected by interrupts/pushback.
Gearing wise, haste allows you to get more out of the same ilvl. This is because the "cost" of adding another point of a stat increases the more you add that stat on.
It is important to note that LB/CL rotations require a minimum amount of haste before a 4/1 rotation results in more damage output than a 3/1 rotation. This will depend on your total spell damage, but it is worth noting that haste is worth less than spell damage in this rotation unless you have over 1.5k spell damage, and will require a minimum of 140 haste to be worthwhile.
Due to the added haste items in 2.4, as well as haste gems, it is now possible to gear for haste over dmg/crit, and use LB only. While a CL/LB rotation will do more dps, the difference is roughly 60 dps if you have 4pc T6, and the mana requirements are diminished greatly.
Spell Penetration- Reduces target resistance to your spells.
- Spell Penetration is an odd subject. There's not much evidence on how it works, and is mostly conjecture. A fair amount of caster DPS theorycraft comes from Mages & Warlocks. Due to how Curse of Elements/Shadows works, it reduces the resistances of the target by 88 for Frost & Fire, or Shadow. This means that the use of Penetration in PvE has not been tested to any great extent. The only case where either of these casters will use it is on Supremus, who has a high base fire resistance.
- As yet, the only raid mobs that have nature resistance are the Tainted Elementals on Vashj. The nature immunity on Hydros is not affected by penetration.
- Even though it is not a stat you should gear for, taking the 20 spell pen cloak enchant may be useful.
There are only four relics (or totems) for Elemental Shaman.
- [Skycall Totem] Available from G'eras for 20 [Badge of Justice]
The uptime for the haste buff is estimated to be around 60%, so for comparative purposes we assume an overall haste value of ~62, due to how haste procs are still in effect on a spell that is being cast when they expire.
- [Totem of Ancestral Guidance] Drops from Teron Gorefiend in The Black Temple.
Adds 85 damage to Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning. Should be used by default, unless circumstances call for a different totem.
- [Totem of the Void] Drops from The Cache of the Legion in The Mechanar
Adds 55 damage to Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning. The rare version of Ancestral Guidance. Can be replaced with Skycall, depending on gearing preferences.
- [Totem of the Pulsing Earth] Reduces cost of Lightning Bolt by 27 mana. A good low end totem, especially with lower critical percentages, as it helps to improve sustainability. Also useful on mana burn encounters like Kaz'Rogal.
Ideally, you should have Pulsing Earth, Guidance or Void, and Skycall (depending on preference) on /equip macros to allow mid-fight swapping depending on situations. There is no "best" totem for an elemental.
The gem table above is broken down to two sections, as damage becomes more valuable as you add more haste. The required haste levels for this varies depending on your current stats, but as you progress into Sunwell you will be gaining more haste from gear which will change how the two stats compare.
Rule of thumb: Sunwell gear = gem for damage, everything else gem for haste.
Note: if you are using a CL rotation, you may find it useful to replace haste with spellcrit.
Socket bonuses should be taken, except those with blue sockets. These should only be met if the bonus is 4/5 damage, as you'll be swapping 5 haste or 6 damage for 4/5 damage and another 7 stamina.
Meta gem wise, the best choice is
[Chaotic Skyfire Diamond]. An alternative if you have mana issues is
[Insightful Earthstorm Diamond].
[Mystical Skyfire Diamond] is not a practical choice, because it is better to stack Red/Yellow than Red/Blue gems, and due to the faster cast times of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning.
[top]Simulations & Theorycraft
Daidalos'
elemental calculations
[top]Notes for Raid Leaders
This section is a work in progress, based on queries from Raid Leaders regarding Elemental Shaman use.
- Shadow Priests & Judgement of Wisdom
The dependency of an Elemental on mana regen via a Shadow Priest or JoW can vary. If they are using a Chain Lightning rotation, one or both is recommended, although the Judgement should be a standard raid debuff in it's own right, as all mana users can make use of it.
If there is a lack of Shadow Priests in your raid, and the rest of the caster dps group your elemental is in do not require one, then dropping Chain Lightning in favour of Lightning Bolt spam is recommended. At most, I would expect to see a rough 100 decrease in dps for the shaman, but the gain to the raid in both increased caster dps and alternate grouping of the priest would be an overall gain.
Part of the reason for this is that while Chain Lightning does provide a dps increase, it is also very expensive in mana cost for a 0.5 second cast reduction.
- DPS Limitations
For the average shaman, the limitations are mostly mana and threat based. As discussed above, mana is very important as we only have Water Shield (50mp5) and Mana Spring (~50mp5) to regenerate mana in addition to mp5 from gear and Int (via Unrelenting Storm). There are no extra regen talents like Druids or Priests, no Life Tap, no Evocate + Mana Gems. What we do have are Clearcasting (2 charge buff that reduces mana cost by 40%) and our passive regen abilities. Chain Lightning rotations will eat into available mana very quickly, however Lightning Bolt only will not.
Regarding threat based limitations, early raiding guilds will find their elemental shaman are threat limited even with Salvation, due in part to how well elementals can dps in T4 gear, combined with low tank threat due to the same T4 gear. As you progress up the raiding tiers, this threat limitation is reduced as the tanks improve threat generation, as also because roughly 10% of our DPS is "threatless" (via Lightning Overload), as well as the standard 63% damage -> threat conversion with 3/3 Elemental Precision and Salvation. This is further decreased by the fact that 4-6 seconds every two minutes will be spent on recasting totems, giving the tank extra time to build threat. I would recommend against pre-casting totems before a boss fight for precisely this reason, if threat is an issue.
- Stormstrike
Stormstrike is estimated to be a 6.7% increase to elemental dps, assuming we use both charges. This does take into account the 50% damage per Overload cast as well. Ideally, the enhancement shaman should be using Flame Shock immediately after using Stormstrike to reduce the chance of consuming it with Earth shock. Rogues should also avoid the use of Instant Poison as this will use charges as well. The question of whether Hunters using Wind Serpents can make decent use of the charges has yet to be answered.
- DPS Output
As of 2.4, I would expect the following output from a fully geared shaman at the end of that particular tier.
| Tier | DPS |
| T4 | 1000 |
| T5 | 1400 |
| T6 | 1750 |
| SW | 2050 |
[top]Copyright Information
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| Date | Changes |
| 06/08/08 | Added Daidalos' calculation link in theorycrafting |
| 24/07/08 | Removed graph from Haste section because it confused people |
| 10/07/08 | Copyright Information |
| 30/06/08 | Added gem table here |