for the shamans

[Ethics]

OK! im going to post all the fucking shaman info you'd ever want to read. live it know it love it.



Gear choices and stats

Alright, first off. Mail, leather, or cloth? From a PvE perspective the answer is, "whatever has the best stats"

Don't be ashamed if you have to wear all cloth to get the best stats possible, it won't make a difference 99.99% of the time. Chances are if you're getting hit for physical damage the extra armor from mail would not of saved you

Now that that's out of the way what are the stats you look for in gear?

Hit Rating
Spell Power (SP)
Haste Rating
Crit Rating

Hit rating

Hit rating increases your chance to hit with abilities. You need 17% hit rating to be able to never miss. It is our most important stat.

26.232 hit rating = 1% spell hit chance.
you need 368 hit rating to get to 17%. 14%(Hit rating) +3%(talents) = 17%

Crit rating

Crit rating increases your chance to do double damage (when talented) with your abilities. It's no longer as important as before in TBC. Back in TBC we were LB machine guns. We are no longer that, and instead of LB making up all of our DPS, it now makes up about ~65% of our dps. Therefore crit has lost 1/3 of its value.

Spell Power

Spell power makes our spells hit harder. Who knew. We like it, so stack it on after you get the hit rating.

Haste rating

Haste rating decreases your cast time of spells. Haste is something we want, but we don't want to go overboard on without keeping our other stats in mind. I personally believe haste is something to work towards after you have gotten hit capped, a decent amount of SP, and around 20-25% crit chance. By the time you have all of that done, you should already have a bit of haste, and then can start stacking more.

So how much haste do you want? In a balanced character:

To actually get 1.6s LBs requires (1.25/1.05 -1) * 100 * 32.79 = 625 haste rating (rounding up)

With 3% from boomkin, that's (1.25/1.05/1.03 - 1) * 100 * 32.79 = 511

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Now that we know what stats you should go for, what is their priority?

The simple version: Hit > SP > Haste > Crit

The complicated version: Hit > SP > Crit over Haste > Haste over Crit

Um...lolwut? Liax what did you just say? Well really it depends on your gear for which stat you want more (in terms of crit or haste) You generally want to be at 20-25% crit rating before you start stacking on the haste rating. Therefore crit can take priority over haste, but haste can also take priority over crit.

Simply put get 20-25% crit, then bring in your haste. Until then, don't gear yourself for haste, you'll find that you'll get some haste along the way when you gear yourself up for that nice crit range and after that you can stack even more haste on.

So how do you go about prioritizing yourself? You should always go for the hit cap for raiding. You need to get 17% in some way shape or form. Your spec will grant you 3%, so 14% to go. If you're a spacegoat you get +1% chance to hit, and you need 13%. (reread the hit cap section for specifics)

After that, you should work on SP and crit or SP and haste. Like I said before, if you are below 20% crit chance, work on your crit. Therefore you work on your SP and crit until you bring yourself up to that nice range, and then switch over to SP and haste working. SP is always a work in progress, you never can have too much (in a balanced character).

How should I spec?

The spec that I recommend is this: http://thottbot.com/shaman/t#J3op.Zmu3/gFM1

With 3.1 coming out soon the spec could be: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?shaman=35300015032133513225013510000000000000000000000000000505003100000000000000000000&glyph=071215040307&version=9614

Note: Minor glyphs in this build were chosen for the biggest bang for your buck as well. If we are talking 100% PvE here and never PvP, one extra water shield charge reduces the # of times you have to waste a GCD for it, Tstorm glyph gives more mana with no knockback (though on some fights you may of wanted that, Gluth zombies for example), and renewed life removes the need for ahnk reagents and you can never say "Dammit I forgot reagents"

Both of these specs will give you the biggest bang for your buck. It should be noted though that many talents in here are not "a must" for raiding.

Eye of the storm and 5/5 convection are not "a must" for raiding. Some shamans don't even spec into convection at all (usually the people with the mostly BiS equips) because mana regen isn't hard to come by. Eye of the storm, while certainly nice to have when pushback can occur, doesn't help on every single fight, and therefore is not a staple.

When 3.1 goes live, if it goes live like this at least, Booming Echoes will be a talent you can pick up over 5/5 convection. It should be noted however, that this is no where near a staple in raiding either. 20% increase damage in FS direct damage is going to be less than a .5% dps increase, and the reduced CD of the spell will only help out shamans who aren't hit capped and miss with their FS.

Spell Rotation

Alright, you've geared yourself, you've specced yourself, so now you want to shoot fire and lightning out of your eyes. First things first though. How do you do it right, and which spells? Not including totems, we have several main spells we will cast in combat

Flame Shock
Lightning Bolt
Chain Lightning
Lava Burst
Thunderstorm
Water Shield (Whenever it needs to be refreshed)

Thunderstorm should only be casted if you feel that you might go OOM in the fight, and you will get the full benefit. Not messing up your rotation is a plus as well, but it can be hard to do that.

Basically, if you have 80% mana and the boss has 10% hp left, don't bother Tstorming, but if the boss has 50% hp and you have 60% mana, you should start throwing in Tstorms

Our rotation is 8 seconds long, and it revolves around LvB.

FS LvB LB(2) LB(4) LB(6) LB(8) LvB

Note: This is a rotation with NO haste

However any good shaman will get haste in some way shape or form. Yeah it's pretty fuzzy and we like it. It messes with our rotation a bit though, and that's where Chain Lightning can come into play. When you are not at 500 haste, but above 0 you will find that you can get off 4.01-4.99 lightning bolt casts off. You don't want to try to cast a 5th lightining bolts off because then you delay LvB. However, you don't want to just sit there and wait for LvB to come back up. BUT DON'T FRET! WE HAZ A CHAIN LIGHTNING! This is exactly where chain lightning comes into play! It's a shorter cast time than LB, and while it MIGHT (and probably still will) delay your LvB off, it will do it to a lesser degree than LB, allow you to still do damage, AND get your LvB off sooner than if you had casted LB. It's a win-win.

Now, like I said before. You want 500 haste. You want to get your LBs to 1.6 second casts. This allows 5 lightning bolts to get off, instead of 4. Here's what it would like with 1.6 second casts

FS LvB LB(1.6) LB(3.2) LB(4.8) LB(6.4) LB(8) LvB

Now, hopefully you can do some math and realize that if 4 2 second casts = 8 and 5 1.6 second casts = 8 then any number between 1.6 and 2 equals 4.01-4.99, IE: an incomplete cast and something you don't want. And that is why we want 1.6 second casts and nothing in-between.

Note: The next time to be able to get 6 LBs off in a rotation would be at 1.33 spell casts. You will not be able to effectively do this for who knows how long, if ever. Do not strive for 1.33 second LBs.

Glyphs

Currently, the best three glyphs are:

Major
Glyph of Lava-10% more LvB damage
Glyph of Flame Shock- 6 second more on duration, no loss when LvB is used
Glyph of Lightning Bolt- 4% more LB damage

Now a lot of people like to say HEY I LIKE CRIT GLYPH OF FLAMETONGUE SOUNDS GOOD.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

Crit, as stated above, has lost 1/3rd of it's value from TBC, it's no longer a huge priority on our list and we only get it when it's practical. As a rule of thumb we never drop SP/hit/haste for crit. And we will CERTAINLY not give up 4% LB damage, 10% LvB damage, or have to refresh our FS for a measly 2% crit.

Minor
Glyph of Thunderstorm
Glyph of Renewed Life
Glyph of Water Shield


3.1 is coming out soon though, and glyph usage may change, but I highly doubt it. In the current notes for 3.1 I would still keep the above glyphs as is.

Again, these glyphs are picked for solely PvE, with no thought for PvP.

Gemming

First off, say this with me: "I, %t, will never gem for crit or haste. If I do I will respec to resto, and heal heroics for 1 week, and after I will regem myself properly."

Glad to hear it!

Now then here's how it works. If we assume you're hit capped we want Spell power!!! That's it! Easy huh? Well, dammit we have this stupid thing called a meta gem that wants 2 blue gems.

So here's how it's going to work. (I'm not going to bother stating names)

Meta Choice: +21 crit rating, and +3% increased crit damage
Red Gems: +spell power
Yellow Gems: +hit rating
Orange Gems: +spell power, and + hit rating
Purple Gems: +spell power and mana regen OR +spell power and stamina.

It's debatable which purple gem to take. Mp5 is practically worthless for us, but in situations were it'd be nice to have, it's nice to have. Stamina is always stamina though, and if you were to literally match mp5 vs stamina, stamina would come out ahead, but it really doesn't matter. If you are relying heavily on 2 purple gems to make or break your dps there's something else wrong.

You need 2 blue gems, and nothing past that. After that you gem for hit rating until capped, and after that you gem for spell power. You can use spell power/hit gems for when you are close to the hit cap but pure +hit gems would be overkill.

Obviously I suggest using blue gems (or whenever epic gems come out those), however I assume people know this, as min/maxing is an important aspect of the game.

Enchanting

If you can ever enchant an item, do it. That's all there is to it. Even if you think you'll replace it soon you should always have some sort of enchant on there, there is no excuse not to. I will list the BEST enchants (or offer the profession) for you to go, but there can be lesser enchants.

HEAD – Arcanum of Burning Mysteries– +30 Spell power, 20 to crit.

SHOULDER – Sons of Hodir Rep or Inscription– +24 spell power and +15 crit from Greater inscription of the storm from Exalted Sons of Hodir, or if you inscribe you can get +61 spell power and +15 crit from Master's inscription of the Storm.

CLOAK – Enchant: Cloak: Greater Speed– +23 haste rating

CHEST – Enchant: Chest: Powerful Stats– +10 to stats

WRIST – Enchant Bracers: Superior Spell power (Enchanting) or Fur Lining: Spellpower – +30 spell power, or +67 spell power if LW.

GLOVES – Enchant Gloves: Exceptional Spell power– +28 spell power

You can always enchant gloves with precision (+20 hit) to get closer to the hit cap as well.

WAIST– Eternal belt buckle– An extra socket!

PANTS – Sapphire Spellthread – 50 spell power and 30 stamina

FEET – Enchant Boots: Icewalker – +12 hit, +12 crit

RINGS (Enchanters only) – +19 spell power per ring.

WEAPON – Enchant Weapon: Mighty Spell power – +63 spell power

SHIELD (If present) – Enchant Shield: Greater intellect – +25 intellect

Consumables