Introduction
Well, if you’re reading this How-To guide, then you must be finding it hard to grasp the elemental shaman’s role and ability. I was in the same boat for 85% of Wrath of the Lich King. Hopefully I can take what I’ve gathered and learned and instill it unto you. Throughout this guide you’ll understand and be able to learn about the shaman’s basic rotation, the importance of certain stats and traits and relinquish the class that the Warchief Thrall is. Here’s to you aspiring Shamans and here’s to you WoW players everywhere.
The Rotation
A shaman’s rotation is straight forward unlike it’s sibling spec, Enhancement. You utilize 1-5 or maybe 1-6 depending on where you place your Thunderstorm is located. The single target and multi-target rotations share the basic spells but use some different abilities as well.
Here is what the single-target rotation looks like.
Buff: Flametounge Weapon
Buff: Lighting Shield Searing Totem *Refresh* ( Or, as I like to do on Bosses, use “Fire Elemental Totem”) Flame Shock *Refresh* Lava Burst (Optional) Elemental Mastery (Use this if your Lava Burst resets its cooldown as Elemental Mastery instant casts your next spell) Earth Shock *When Procs* (Only use this if you have Lightning Shield and its reached 7-8 stacks. At this point, the Earth Shock on your action bar will glow and it will show up in the middle of your screen.) Lighting Bolt (Refresh this until Lava Burst comes of cooldown or Flame Shock needs to be reapplied.)
The single target rotation needs you to watch your buffs, target debuffs and totems constantly, as does multi-target. Note that the Searing Totem and the Fire Elemental Totem cannot be used at the same time. I would suggest the Fire Elemental going out first, and then when that totem’s timer is up, use your Searing Totem.
The multi-target rotation sees a lot of the same listings as the single target does, but Chain Lighting is now implemented.
The multi-target rotation is as follows.
Buff: Flametounge Weapon
Buff: Lighting Shield Searing Totem *Refresh* ( Or, as I like to do on Bosses, use “Fire Elemental Totem”) Flame Shock *Refresh* Lava Burst (Optional) Elemental Mastery (Use this if your Lava Burst resets its cooldown as Elemental Mastery instant casts your next spell) Earth Shock *When Procs* (Only use this if you have Lightning Shield and its reached 7-8 stacks. At this point, the Earth Shock on your action bar will glow and it will show up in the middle of your screen.) Chain Lighting (This uses a lot of mana, but can be spammed to boost DPS quite well.) Lighting Bolt (Refresh this until Lava Burst comes of cooldown or Flame Shock needs to be reapplied.)
With Chain Lighting, I would suggest spamming this during a boss fight if there are a large amount of adds or on a large trash pull.
The rotations I showed don’t include some other spells that Elemental Shaman’s should have, so i’ll explain those as well.
Earthquake: Just like Chain Lighting, use this on a large concentration of adds to do a good amount of damage. Thunderstorm: This spell regenerates mana and can push aggro’d trash away from you. Hex: Shaman’s have their own CC. Much like Polymorph this spell incapacitates a single targeted mob. Ghost Wolf: If the situation gets grim, such as a lot of AoE affecting you or movement imparing effects, you can pop your ghost wolf and escape. Purge/Windshear: These two spells are better off in a macro. You can interrupt and despell an opponent with one click making it twice as effective. /stopcasting /cast Wind Shear /cast Purge Greater Healing Wave: Lets face it, not all healers can save your ass every time.
A Shaman’s Stats
An Elemental Shaman’s stats rely on Stamina and Intellect. Following Stam/Intell is Hit rating, followed by Haste.
Stam/Intell > Hit > Haste => Mastery > Crit As 1000% of Elemental Shaman’s gear has Stam/Intell on it, you don’t have to worry about that. A great amount of gear has Crit or Haste and No hit. In this situation you have to reforge your weakest stat into hit.
Some Examples:
+244 Stamina
+244 Intellect
+45 Critical Strike
+50 Haste
In this situation you would reforge the +45 Critical Strike into Hit.
+244 Stamina +244 Intellect
+45 Haste
+50 Mastery
Here the +50 Master would be reforged. As the equation above states, Haste is greater or equal to Mastery, thus by default Mastery is gone.
+244 Stamina
+244 Intellect
+45 Hit
+50 Haste
LEAVE. IT. ALONE. This is a prime item you can get. If it has Hit and Haste on it, the equation does not need to be applied.
Now that the stats are clear, you are expected and required to Gem and Enchant your gear. I’ll go gear slot by gear slot and gem by gem to show you where gems and enchants should go.
Note: All of these are taking into consideration that you are not hitcapped. If you are hitcapped (17%) the go to the next *>* down.)
Gems:
Red: Intellect Blue: Hit > Hit/Intellect > Haste Yellow: Intellect/Haste Prismatic: Stats Meta: Intellect/Hit >Intellect/Haste > Intellect/Crit
Examples:
+244 Stamina
+244 Intellect
+45 Critical Strike
+50 Haste
Blue Socket: +20 Intellect/+20 Hit (Purple Gem)
Hit Capped Example:
+244 Stamina
+244 Intellect
+45 Hit +50 Haste
Red Gem: +40 Intellect
There is no need to gem/reforge/enchant into Hit if you are capped.
These apply to the off color gems that go in the RBY ones as well. This is assuming you are gemming for the socket bonus, which you should do.
Enchants:
The enchants have the same value and equation as the gems and reforging do. Don’t enchant into Hit when you are at the hit cap.
Head Slot: +Intellect/Off Stat
Shoulders: +Intellect/Off Stat
Cloak: +Intellect/Off Stat
Chest: +Stats
Bracers: +Intellect
Gloves: +Haste => +Mastery
Belt: Belt Buckle
Leggings: +Intellect/Off Stat
Boots: Haste
Main Hand: +Intellect
Off Hand: +Intellect
Note that the head and shoulder enchants are usually from Reputation quartermasters at exalted.
The Main hand enchant usually is proc’d from a hit on chance.
Just as the sand in an hour glass, this guide has come to an end. I hope that any of this information helped you in your endeavors at being an aspiring Elemental Shaman.