[Shaman] Elemental benchmarks
 

Hey, I'm leveling a shaman for my guild, going to be going Elemental spec for raiding. Basically, I'm just checking to see... about what are the benchmarks for crit/+damage I should be shooting for as a 41/0/20 elemental spec before I could be considered as "raid ready"?

Ready for what typ of a raid?

(all without any kind of totems/other buffs)

Starting:

Kara - around 550 dmg / 20% crit
SSC - 700 dmg / 30% crit
Further - 800 dmg / 35% crit

Other:
You are ready for an encounter while competing with the upper half of dps'ing classes (having not to bomb, clique on cubes, banish, sheep, interrupt spells) and not running oom around at 50% boss hp spamming free rang 1 lb to procc a clearcast while chainjugging with a full bar of consumeables and buffs.

Hint: It might be really usefull, getting you all the heroic items and heroic drops, wearing mail and a shield, surving at least 1 common hit.

Here are some more or less easily obtainable items..

Helm: Shamanistic Helmet of Second Sight - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31107 - Quest
Neck: Brooch of Heightened Potential - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28134 - Shadow Lab
Shoulder: Pauldrons of Wild Magic - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32078 - Slave Pens HC
Chest: Worldfire Chestguard - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28391 - Arcatraz
Back: Shawl of Shifting Probabilities - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29369 - 25 badges
Bracer: Marshal's Mail Bracers - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28992 - Zerging PvP
Gloves: Thundercaller's Gauntlets - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31280 - 20g boe drop
Waist: Marshal's Mail Girdle - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28993 - Zerging PvP
Legs:Stormsong Kilt - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30541 - The Underbog HC
Feet: Marshal's Mail Sabatons - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28994 - Zerging PvP
Weapon: Gavel of Unearthed Secrets - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30832 - Lower City exalted
Shield: Mazthoril Honor Shield - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29268 - 33 badges
Finger1: Ring of Cryptic Dreams - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29367 - 25 badges
Finger2: Ring of Unrelenting Storms - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30667 - Karazhan random drop
Trinket1: Shiffar's Nexus-Horn - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28418 - Arcatraz
Trinket2: Icon of the Silver Crescent - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29370 - 41 badges
Totem: Totem of the Pulsing Earth - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29389 - 15 badges
or Totem of the Void - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28248 - Mechanar

Sum Up (assuming properly socketed): over 300 crit rating (13.xx% crit), over 700 spelldmg, a bunch of stam and int, around 20 spell penetration and spellhit (1.8x%). This should really do it for anything up untill deep SSC/TE (there are so many other options for some slots, just start browsing wowhead yourself and get those you are willing to spend time farming for). And all this without spending a single dkp ;)

You should allways try to stay at high crit chance, because it's your only relieable manaregen source except chain jugging potions. Higher numbers may look awesome, but won't prevent you from getting oom.

Edit: Those numbers may not look that high, but there are some points, other could not think about while comparing:
- you receive 9% spellhit only from talents, another 3% from your totem of wrath (as well as 4 other members of your group)
- you receive 10% spellcrit only from your talents, another 3% from your totem of wrath (as well as 4 other members of your group)
- you receive over 100 spelldmg from your totem, as well as 4 other members of your group
- you have an increased critical strike bonus by 100%

Ending up with "easily" reaching 1000 spelldamage, 14% hit, 40% crit with good raiding gear for high and substainable damage and incredible (caster)group boosting options

Speaking of Elemental Shaman... Conando sustained 1k DPS on one of EJ's recent Kael'thas kills. I've personally never played with any decked Elemental Shaman, but this blew me away. Looking at the fight breakdown there doesn't seem to be much AoEing and it looks like he's mostly single target DDing (9 Chain Lightning hits vs. 65 Lightning Bolt hits). Granted, I have never seen this fight before so I don't know the precise mechanics.

Is this the norm nowadays?

LB is the best scaling offensive spell ingame without a larger cooldown, because of the -1s casting time from lightning mastery.
Conando has excellent gear (i guess 1500+ dmg buffed in this fight?) and a shadow priest, so it's near to "infinite" mana with his 47% critrate. But those stats are exeptional, i guess only reachable with Staff of Disintegration (can't check armory from work station).

Right. That's all understandable and I realized how ridiculously overpowered pre-2.1.0 Shaman were (though most didn't realize because a lot of people hadn't reached the higher echelons of raid gear), but this still surprised me nonetheless. I dunno, I guess it's because I haven't raided with an Elemental Shaman in a few weeks.

It is easily possible to hit 800+ dps whilst also buffing your group, I have hit over 900dps on static fights such as gruul (movement isn't great with trinkets/racials running), I've included a link here http://www.celebrityguild.com/forum/...607-0004/index to a WWS of a Void Reaver fight where I spent most of the time dodging the arcane orbs (I had 7 targetted on me during this fight, a couple came in a row and forced me to run quite far from the boss) as you can see I was pretty much using Chain lightning on cooldown, when I was in range and not running! Considering the gross mana cost of this spell, it doesn't do much more damage than the average lightning bolt. My advice to any shaman with mana problems of any kind is to completely disregard this spell for DD as it really isn't worth the slight dps/damage boost it gives. In regards to 'gear' I am slightly over the hit-cap (ok, maybe a bit more than slightly 17.5% with totem/talents, still looking for gear to swap out), I have just under 42% crit and ~1100 nature damage buffed with totems and talents. On our guild website, there are WWS reports for other fights. Comparing myself to Conando in the above mentioned 1000+sustained DPS in the Kael'thas fight, I must say in my defense my dps/dps-time was low due to the fact it was my first time at the encounter, and also forgetting to oil-up my weapon. :0)
Incidentally, I would suggest using Brilliant Wizard Oil http://www.wowhead.com/?item=20749 instead of the Superior Wizard Oil http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22522. The reason for this is 14 crit rating (slightly over 0.5% crit) is much more useful than the +6 spelldmg. Sorry to go slightly off-topic.

Thanks
 

Thank you so much, this is exactly what I was looking for! One more question, and I'm sorry if this has been asked before. Is it worth it to level Dragonscale Leatherworking to 375 for the nether set, or will T4/Kara loot be better?

It's worth it. There really aren't good replacements for the Belt and Bracer slot, and the chestpiece is comparable to the T4 one, and gets you the +23 spell damage bonus.

To be honest though, my favorite part of the Netherstrike set is the hefty chunk of MP5 it comes with.

Yeah, the BOP leatherworking sets are really good, and I'm kind of upset that I am not a leatherworker.

They are throwing in new recipes, to reward people from staying with their crafting professions, such as: http://thottbot.com/i30308

They are also throwing in some neat head items for engineers: http://thottbot.com/i32476

I would agree about the leather working items. If you want to raid as an elemental shaman, picking up leather working for the Netherstrike set and the Hurricane Boots is a very good decision since you will not replace any of Netherstrike or Hurricane Boots for a long time. I would get started leveling leather working as soon as you can because it can be a pain to level once you get into the 350 area and any head start is nice.

The Netherstrike set and Hurricane boots are definitely worth the skill grind *if* you do not have other useful and well-established skills already in place; I for example was a 300 ench/eng w/ rare recipes already when the exp came out, and I again have almost everything available to them (note the elemental engineering hat is pretty awsome itself.) Presumably, when both the NS set and Hurricane boots become obselete, more raid recipes will be included which continue the usefulness of DS LWing, but no way to know.

Myul, I think you meant 11% (potentially) from talents, before totem of wrath, right? 6% from Call of Thunder, remember. On that note, am I the only one who values 6 yds of range over 2% nature crit (storm reach over tidal mastery?) Any other 43/0/18 shamans out there?

If you can get yourself a Belt of Blasting and a Tier 4 Chest, spending the massive amount of gold to pick up leatherworking really isn't worth it.


That being said a great benchmark to aim for is 40%+ crit raid-buffed with totems down (Adept's/Draenic Wisdom/Brilliant Wizard/Damage Food) with 900+ nature damage - it really isn't hard to achieve.

1K+ DPS isn't terribly difficult, really. On our first Kael kill this week (yay), I pulled nearly 1k doing some tanking on the bow in stage 2 and plenty of mistakes elsewhere in the fight. On a more static fight like Morogrim you can expect pretty decent DPS with a little luck with graves. I still bone myself all the time using stopcasting macros so I know I could do even better.

I agree with Narfwak. I was hitting 1050 dps sustained on fights like Leo, the Lurker Below, Magtheridon with quite mediocre gear (Netherstrike, Gavel of Unearthed Secrets, etc). You merely need to get a shadowpriest and weave in Chain Lightning.

Generally people go for 3/5 Unrelenting Storm rather than skimp on the extra crit. I usually go for 4/5 and skip EM, but thats because I usually forget about the cooldowns, and it works out to be roughly the same mana back anyway.