Shaman - Raiding DPS guide! Make our mediocre spec outpreform expectations!

[Chomsky]

Trying another guide, I've been lurking on MMOwned for a good 2+ years now (another account) and decided I should try to give back.

Here's an Elemental Shaman DPS guide for you fellas.

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Elemental Shaman are in a weird position. With 346 gear our DPS is attrocious. When we start picking up 359s (a weapon that SHOULD be enchanted with Power Torrent especially) our DPS starts to scale really well. I think this is a huge reason as to why we're not getting buffed as much as it seems we should. Right now, with all but 1 epic, I can top meters in my raid. A few months ago when we started there was nothing I could do to get past the bottom 3 DPS, it was rough. If you truly enjoy your Elemental Shaman then stick with it, I can promise things get better.


Abbreviations:

LB: Lightning Bolt
CL: Chain Lightning
LvB: Lava Burst
FT: Flame Tongue
DPS: Damage Per Second
GCD: Global Cooldown
HST: Healing Stream Totem

Spec:

The Elemental spec I recommend is 34/7/0. Agree with the talents or not its what I raid with and it serves the purpose of putting our numbers. Considering how many Cataclysm raid fights include movement, you'd be crazy not to include Ancestral Swiftness. It allows you to spread out or group up faster than really any class constantly, which is so important in the current world of Warcraft.

Suggestion from Albaek: If you feel your mana is fine without Convection, you can put the two points from that talent in to Totemic Reach in Enhancement, comes down to preference.


Elemental Specialization -

Thunderstorm: After choosing Elemental are your specialization you are grandted this spell. It is the most powerful knockback ability in the game, restores 8% mana. It can be glyphed to restore an additional 2% and remove the knockback.
Shamanism: Grants your LB, CL and LvB 20% more benefit from your spellpower and reduces their casting time by half a second.
Elemental Fury: Increases the crit damage of your Searing/Magam Totems and your offensive spells by 100%.
Mastery: Elemental Overload: Our mastery is awesome. It gives us an x% chanace every time we cast LB, LvB and CL to cast the same spell doing 75% damage and 0% threat. Count your blessings, some classes get a passive mastery.

Elemental -

Concussion 3/3: It increases the damage of all your major spells by 6%. Obvious.
Convection 2/2: I tried ditching this talent in favor of Earthen Grasp a while back (don't ask) and I was surprised by how much trouble I had with mana with just dropping 10%
Acuity 3/3: 3% crit isn't HUGE but its a lot better than same of the other talents available. Grab it!

Call of Flame 2/2: 10% damage on Lava Burst is huge for obvious reasons, its our hardest hitting spell aside from Fulmination, plus the 20% damage to Searing is nothing to snub.
Reverberation 2/2: This talent is preference. I'm using the Fire Elemental Glyph (more on this later) so I feel this talent is a must. More on this later.
Elemental Precision 3/3: This talent alone gives you more gear options (that and there is literally NO mail gear with hit on it) and its 3% hit which means more Int or Haste.

Rolling Thunder 2/2: Not only is this a requirement for Fulmination but it is the biggest reason that we are a mana based DPS class that has absolutely no problems with running OOM. Ask Shadow Priests how they felt at lower gear levels and they'd kill for a Rolling Thunder-esque talent.
Elemental Focus 1/1: Pre-Req for one of our raid buffs, less mana worries = better.
Elemental Reach 2/2: Simply gives you more room to work with when you have to spread out. Plus any increase to the short-ranged Searing Totem (WTF Blizzard?!) is amazing.

Elemental Oath 2/2: More damage for you during Clearcasting and 5% crit for your entire raid. Its a given.
Lava Flows 3/3: The Lava Burst crit chance is worthless (that is what Flame Shock is for) however the crit chance on Flame Shock ticks is nice, the dispel buff is worthless in raids.

Fulmination 1/1: Do you like big numbers? You should if you're playing this spec which means you better have this talent. This will be your first spell to break the 50-60k mark.
Elemental Mastery 1/1: A DPS cooldown, not only does it give you an instant cast spell but it gives you increased damage with elemental spells (omg sweet) but it also gives you increased spell haste (omg I love you).
Totemic Wrath 1/1: Probably the single biggest reason to bring an Elemental Shaman in a raid. 10% spell power to everyone in your raid. If you need me to explain this one, don't leave heroics.

Feedback 3/3: The more haste you get the better this talent becomes. Each Lightning Bolt and Chain Lighting decreases the CD of our AMAZING Elemental Mastery CD.
Lava Surge 2/2: Another huge DPS increasing cooldown. Each tick of your Flame Shock has a 20% chance of refreshing your Lava Burst cooldown. Enjoy back to back to back Lava Bursts? Thank this talent.

Earthquake 1/1: Our much debated 7th tier talent. Yes, Earthquake sucks considering many 31 point talents. It drains your mana and does mediocre damage. However, certain fights (Magmaw, Maloriak, Cho'gall to name a few) require it. Suck it up and spend the talent point.

Enhancement -

Elemental Weapons 2/2: A talent with the name "Elemental" in Enhancement means you MUST grab it. Just kidding, the passive damage bonus for Flametongue Weapon alone is a good enough reason to snag this.
Improved Shields 3/3: Works with Fulmination, need I say more?

Ancestral Swiftness 2/2: This guide is all about increasing your Damage Per Second as an Elemental Shaman. What better way to do that than keep you alive and cause you to move less. Great talent and an amazing way to spend your last two points.

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Glyphs -

Prime:

- Glyph of Lightning Bolt: LB is your HIGHEST damage source. Mandatory
- Glyph of Lava Burst: LvB is your second highest damage source. Mandatory

Here's where the choice comes in.
- Glyph of Fire Elemental
OR
- Glyph of Flame Shock

Glyph of Fire Elemental reduces the cooldown of your Fire Elemental by 5 minutes. If the fights you are working on allow you to cast Fire Elemental Totem twice than the Glyph of Fire Elemental will be a HUGE DPS increase. However, most normal fights on farm status will not. That makes Glyph of Flame Shock a bigger DPS increase. Personally I run with Fire Elemental. Not only is it a bigger DPS increase on long fights but it allows me to use it every single time we wipe on a new heroic boss.

Major:

- Glyph of Lightning Shield: Stops you from having to refresh Lightning Shield every time you Earth Shock with Fulmination. Mandatory

Optional Glyphs:

- Glyph of Elemental Mastery: Reduces the damage you take by 20% while Elemental Mastery is damage. Cataclysm is full of raid damage on most bosses, I like this glyph.
- Glyph of Healing Stream Totem: Increases your elemental resistances (Fire, Frost, Nature) by 195 while your Healing Stream Totem is down. HST does a decent amount of healing even as Elemental and this glyph makes it even better, combines two totems in to one.
- Glyph of Chain Lightning: It lowers the initial damage of Chain Lightning but gives it two more jumps. Its a great glyph for heroics and great for trash but most fights where you need AoE you'll be using Earthquake. If you really like this glyph grab it, if not grab the other two optionals.

Minor:

These glyphs don't really matter. Thunderstorm is great to Glyph when you're using it for damage or mana returns. However, fights like Cho'gall where knocking back adds is helpful you might want to remove it.

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Spell priority -

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think any class follows a "rotation" anymore. Elemental Shamans are no different, we follow a spell priority.

1) Totems
2) Fire Elemental Totem (Cast this when as many of your Spell Power/Int procs are active for more damage).
3) Flame Shock
4) Lava Burst
5) Earth Shock with Lightning Shield having 7-9 stacks + Flame Shock > 5 seconds remaining (6 if you didn't snag Reverberation)
6) Lightning Bolt

Reasoning for 7+ stacks of Lightning Shield for Fulination: At 7 stacks Fulmination will outdamage the cast time of a LB. Plain and simple. Don't use ES earlier.
Unleash Elements: It is useless when we're standing still and turreting spells. The GDC incurred by using this spell does not out-damage a LB cast. Don't use it while standing still.
Shocks: Yes, I know Flame Shock and Earth Shock don't want to be friends (even less without the Flame Shock glyph) its just something we have to deal with. Don't ES when FS has <5s remaining.

Movement -

If Spiritwalker's Grace is up, use it and continue with your normal DPS routine. If not:

1) Flame Shock (if needed)
2) Earth Shock with 7-9 stacks on Lightning Shield and Flame Shock >5 seconds remaining (6 without Reverb)
3) Unleash Elements

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AoE:

If your Fire Elemental Totem is down, throw down a Magma Totem if you're in the middle of the mobs. Use Thunderstorm (if it is glyphed) and spam Earthquake. Earthquake damage is better than Fire Nova. Don't bother with it.

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Gearing -

Stats:

Int > Hit/Spirit (to the 17% hit cap) > Haste > Mastery > Crit

Get to 17% chance to hit. After that Haste is your new BFF. The more spells you cast the more chance you have for mastery procs. Crit would be a lot more important if it wasn't for the fact that Lava Burst has a 100% chance to crit with Flame Shock up.

Reforging -

If your item has... and you are Hit capped...

Spirit/Hit + Crit/Mastery: Reforge the Spirit/Hit to Haste
Spirit/Hit + Haste: Reforge the Spirit/Hit to Mastery
Crit + Mastery: Reforge the Crit to Haste.
Crit + Haste: Reforge the Crit to Mastery.
Haste + Mastery: Leave it be.

If you are not Hit capped (17%) reforge your Crit rating first, Mastery if you still need hit. Reforging Haste is an absolute last resort.

The great thing about having a talent that converts Spirit to Hit is that if an item has Spirit you can reforge the Crit/Mastery/Haste portion to Hit and have to hit chance rating stats on one item.

Enchants:

Head: Arcanum of Hyjal (Hyjal Revered)
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone (Therazane Exalted)
Cloak: Greater Intellect
Chest: Peerless Stats
Bracer: Greater Speed (65 Haste), Speed (50 Haste)
Gloves: Haste
Belt: Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Legs: Powerful Ghostly Spellthread
Boots: Haste
Rings: Intellect (Enchanter only)
Weapon: Power Torrent, Hurricane
Offhand: Superior Intellect

Gems -

Until the next patch (4.0.6) the best gemming is a bit odd.

Meta: Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond
Red: Purified Demonseye (20 Int, 20 Spirit)
Yellow: Lightning Dream Emerald (20 Haste, 20 Hit)
Blue: Sparkling Ocean Sapphire (40 Spirit)

Jewelcrafters: Use 3 Brilliant Chimera's Eye on Red Sockets or Blue/Yellow with bad socket bonus.

Simply put, right now the 3% crit damage bonus on Chaotic is a DPS increase, it goes against the generalization we're used to but until they fix the change to the requirement we're stuck with this.

Once 4.0.6 is released:

Red: Brilliant Inferno Ruby (40 Int)
Yellow: Reckless Ember Topaz (20 Int, 20 Haste)
Blue: Purified Demonseye (20 Int, 20 Spirit) only if the socket bonus is decent (ie: Int or Haste)

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Addons -

These are just a couple addons I can't live without.

Power Auras Classic - Easily the greatest raiding/PVP addon out there. I won't even listen to arguments over this.
ForteXorcist - Great addon for tracking DoT durations, totem timers and various other cooldowns.

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Any advice for the guide (format, colors etc) is appreciated. I wanted to add more colors but I didn't want to do it just for the sake of it. This turned out to be a little longer than I thought, I hope it makes sense and I'm willing to chat with you about any questions you might have (guide/spec related).

Thanks.

[Reshgar]

Power Auras Classic - Easily the greatest raiding/PVP addon out there. I won't even listen to arguments over this.

Thats wrong.DBM is by fat the best raiding addon out there. You choose to track your speccs rather then know all the fight?

[Hearthvader]

Thats wrong.DBM is by fat the best raiding addon out there. You choose to track your speccs rather then know all the fight?

Not even a good troll post. The OP clearly took the time to write an intelligent guide so I'm assuming DBM is a standard mod; its really what I'd consider baseline for all players and probably wasn't included for this reason.

Excellent and well written.

[Chomsky]

Telling me my opinion is wrong is kind of silly, first off.

Secondly DBM is not required, especially when its not even working 100% on all raid bosses. If you're having trouble with keeping track of boss abilities Power Auras can do that as well. Will it help? Of course.

However, my implication of saying Power Auras is the best raiding mod is for your character specifically. I'm not saying it is a replacement for every single addon out there. DBM/BigWigs/DXE all have their place.

[kickasskid54]

First off DBM is not even near the best raiding AddOn, they information it uses is in many cases terribly wrong. Other Boss Encounter addons that are far superior, are DXE (Deus Vox Encounters), BigWigs, and RW2 (Raid Watch 2). You can play fine without using any of them, it just makes the fight easier, it doesn't tell how what each ability does.

As far as Power Auras, it can be configured to be a lot better than DBM, you can do many things with it, to benefit your play style.

OP: I don't know if you've heard of Ovale spell priority addon or not, but i would recommend getting it, and then writing your own code for ele to ensure maximum dps for ele. You can base your script off of Leafkiller's Feral Druid script.

[dontblink438]

You might wan't to mention that you need to be careful when casting Earthquake. It is the highest DPS for AoE, there isn't any argument there, but it is very mana inefficient. Might want to mention that. Also adding a section for consumables might not be a bad idea (Food, flasks, potions). Adding ShamanFriend under addons would be a good idea. I don't use it but I hear a lot of shamans do. It shows Lava Surge procs which is nice.

Other then that its a good guide. I skimmed through it and everything seems accurate. Good job.

[Bloodyme]

Nice guide but I find it a bit confusing if mastery or haste is better. 50% of the guides say mastery is and the other 50% says haste is.

[Albaek]

Nice guide but I find it a bit confusing if mastery or haste is better. 50% of the guides say mastery is and the other 50% says haste is.

According to Binkensteins "rough" gear values haste is 42 and mastery is 40. I find mastery better because you will get lots of haste buffs (Bloodlust/heroism + various boss mechanics such as Cook in deadmines) thus reducing the haste value as you hit GCD.

Binkenstein, former Elitistjerk elemental shaman theorycrafter who has gone solo on the site TotemSpot | Choose Shaman. Choose Totems. Choose Sentry Totem., seem to disagree with you.

Glyphs: LB > Flame Shock > Lava Burst.
Talents: 32/9/0 (Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft), favoring Totemic Reach. I guess this is optional, but at least you could've mentioned it.
Lava Surge talent is a 2 point talent, not 3.
Taking Convection (+10% mana) is in my opinion (read: my, not Binkensteins) not a good option. There will be tons of times on various raid encounters where you'll have to move, giving you time to cast Thunderstorm.

Unless you came up with all the data yourself I also recommend you name your source. If you, however, did come up with the data yourself then say it. I love digging sources and verify data.

Sorry if the stuff above may seem hostile - I'm not trying to be. You've made a great guide and generally it is very accurate. I'm just trying to help.

[Chomsky]

I wrote this guide the other night, from scratch, while drunk. So errors are to be expected, thanks for pointing them out.

Admittedly, the last time I spec'd out of Convection was when I had less gear and I found myself running OOM far too quickly. However I don't see casting Thunderstorm at any point a decent upgrade to DPS, also if you happen to die and get battle res'd or ankh you're going to have a hard time being useful if you're running out of mana. Its personal opinion.

I didn't list that spec because I've never used it, I could see why you would but again thats opinion. Like I said, I wrote this from scratch over the course of an hour and a half and since I've never used that spec I didn't think to include it.

I mentioned the differences/option of using both Flame Shock and Fire Elemental Glyphs, all I've read from EJ is that if the fight lasts long enough for you to use Fire Elemental twice, its a bigger DPS gain than the Flame Shock glyph. When it comes down to it I find myself using the FE Glyph also because it means that its going to be off cooldown for every boss attempt.

As far as Haste vs Mastery, I'm awful with math. I won't be able to argue this based off math I can prove or anything of the sort. However, I cannot simply see how Mastery is rating higher than Haste, especially considering that the higher your Haste the better it makes your Mastery... it doesn't work the other way around. Simply put, the more casts you get off during the course of a fight the more chances you have for Mastery procs.

This guide is basically a summation of my opinions, the strategies I wrote about have worked well for me.

Its like gemming for the Chaotic Meta right now. I see a lot of Shamans with Red gems using 54 Int Metas for the time being while I felt that I crit frequently enough on top of those crits hitting hard to warrant the Chaotic and the dumb gemming that comes in activating it.

Your mileage may vary.

Thanks for the post, sorry if mine is incoherent... I just woke up.

Edit: Crap. Just realized I didn't even link my spec in the original post. Gonna fix that in a sec.

[Albaek]

I'm not entirely sure who's right about the glyphs, but anyway - the difference is very much marginal. LB > Lava Burst = Flame Shock = Fire Elemental (depends on the situation).
As for talents I can assure you it is a DPS increase unless you really need the mana. 30% more range on totems will allow them to buff more people on certain encounters to help the overall DPS. If you have no problems with mana I strongly suggest using that.

Thanks for taking the feedback constructive and don't go mojo as many tend to do.