for the shamans pt 2

[Ethics]

The last thing YOU need to bring before fully prepared for raids are consumables. Yes, please reread the sentence before this one again, and please note the bold.

YOU, and only YOU should be responsible for being ready for a raid. It also makes the impression on the guild that you are dedicated to doing content, and if it comes down to bringing you and someone else, if that someone else is bringing the consumables and you aren't, guess who gets to go?

1. Well Fed: Firecracker Salmon- +46 spell power
2. Flask of the Frost Wrym- +125 spell power
3. Potion of Wild Magic- 15 seconds of +200 crit rating and 200 spell power
4. Runic Healing Potion- Restores 2700 to 4500 health
5. Runic Mana Potion- Restores 4200 to 4400 mana

Note: I strongly advise shamans to pick up both cooking and fishing and level them to at least 400. This allows us to fish glacial salmon, and cook them into firecracker salmon.

Also as stated by Apolik: You can farm Glacial Salmon for Firecracker Salmon while getting tons of Pygmy Suckerfish for the Pygmy Oil required to make a Potion of Wild Magic... that's another win-win situation an elemental fisher can always abuse :B (and water walking makes easier the fishing task).


These are things you should ALWAYS carry with you at all times for a raid especially on progression nights. As you can see 1 and 2 gives you 171 spell power, that's a lot of extra damage and can make the difference between wiping or not! Add in a potion of wild magic (pref during the burn phase of a boss with lust) and you can really rack in the numbers.

The last part would be the "What gear should you have before starting Naxx" but I'm NOT going to include this part. Why?

1. Most gear is debatable in the first place. I don't want to clutter this thread up with "No, this is better, NUH UH THIS IS BETTER, NO UR RONG MENG THIS IS"
2. Probably 5% of the people tops who would read the section would run off to get all that gear before actually encountering Naxx
3. The gear doesn't matter. What matters are the stats on your character sheet. Are you at or near the hit cap? Are you doing decent on spell power and crit? Then head on in. That's all there is to it.

Common Questions and answers

This part of the guide will focus on common questions/answers to elemental shamans. This part may have questions that are answered in the guide, but that's ok. This section of the guide is for people who just want to look up some questions.

Some of this may vary as it can be opiniated (IMO), if someone ever sees something that feels like it sounds opiniated, and there's solid proof that it's really not feel free to let me know. Specifically I know off hand race choices are going to be opiniated.

Common questions about elemental shamans

1) Is the t7/7.5 set bonus worth it? Or if I get a better piece should I break the set

Short answer: Yes it's worth it.

Long answer: Yes. Recall that LvB makes up ~25-30% of our dps. If we assume the shaman is hit capped, and always keeping FS on the boss that means that getting +10% damage bonus to LvB will result in a good 2.5-3.0% dps increase.

This means that any item that would break the set would have to make up that 2.5-3% dps increase AND do a bit more. In other words: Good luck finding an item like that.

Why is the 80 badge totem so worthless?

The 80 badge totem, sadly, has an ICD of 45 seconds. To my knowledge the level 70 version doesn't. However, the best totem for BiS is Totem of Hex, and following those are any totems that give spell damage to LB/CL. The BT totem, if memory serves, is 2nd best.

What's the best race for a PvE elemental shaman?

If we are talking pure elemental dps orcs would be your strongest caster. It makes sense afterall, SP is our strongest stat, and therefore this will give us the bigger dps increase. Taurens have no beneficial talents to help out in PvE, and trolls have nice beserking buff (sort of a weak, personal bloodlust).

So orcs > trolls > tauren

However I would like note here that the orc racial got changed to only give spell power bonuses. You don't gain healing power. This makes trolls slightly better for when you have to off-heal as we can beserk for faster heals. Still though, pick the race you like the most. A well played tauren shaman will outdps any poorly played orc shaman any day of the week.

What stats am I looking for when rolling on gear?

Hit
Spell power
Haste > crit
Crit > haste

Those are the main stats that we go for. Getting hit capped is crucial, a missed 10k LvB is painful. Then you go for spell power and haste/crit. If you are below 20% crit go for SP and crit, if you are sitting 20-25% crit, then go for SP and haste. As I stated in the guide, SP is always a work in progress, so you can never have too much (in a balanced character)

What should I be socketing?

The meta should be +21 crit and +3% crit damage. This requires 2 blue gems.

I know mp5 isn't a stat we care at all about however the best blue gems (imo) are sp/mp5 gems. Two of those, and no more.

After that gem until you're hit capped. Pure +hit gems are the best if you're far off from the hit cap, if you're close and pure +hit would put you over, go for +hit/sp

After you are hit capped truck away with +SP gems make your LBs pew pew that much harder

What totems should I lay down in a raid setting?

It might vary from boss to boss, but as a general rule of thumb:

Fire Totem- Totem of wrath down, hands down.

However, you may have a group with more than one elemental shaman in the raid. In this case use searing totem on single target dps. Yes, magma totem WILL do more dps than searing totem, mine ticks for 700ish every 2 seconds. However magma totem is more expensive, and on a much shorter duration. You'll be blowing mana down the drain.

Water totem- Mana spring totem (which will be merged with healing stream)

Some bosses do have some sort of a raid-wide disease or poison debuff though. If your healers are having a hard time (and you're the only shaman to put it down) keeping up to pace with the raid help them out, give them that poison/disease cleansing totem. Sure they lose the extra Mp5 but they blow a lot more mana spamming their cleansing abilities. You, on the other hand, plant a totem down once and it constantly removes it from your group, minimizing the number of cleanses that need to be casted.

Earth- Stoneskin or strength of earth are our best 2 choices.

Use stoneskin if there is a DK in the raid as he will provide the str totem buff with his horn. If you are the only shaman and without a DK you can place str totem down or stoneskin. The speculation is the agi gives tanks nice raw mitigation from damage, and gives the physical dps a dps upgrade.

Air- Wrath of Air totem or Windfury totem

Same concept with earth. 5% casting for your healers and yourself (even if there weren't any other caster dps) is more important than the physical dps getting faster attacks off. However, if you have 2 shamans, make sure you aren't double planting as these totems don't stack.

I am sure this will be updated as time goes on. I just decided to throw out 10 questions I see on the forums a lot.

Glyph of Totem of Wrath is coming out, will it replace a current glyph?

As of what I have read it sounds like a good starting glyph for a leveling elemental shaman, or a shaman not yet very well geared. It sounds as if the better geared an ele shaman is, the worse off it will be. I would just stick with the 3 current glyphs for now and if new information/changes to the glyph appear you can always switch out later.

PTR: FT Change to affect weapon speed! What does this do to an Ele shaman?

Nothing. It's poorly worded. The spell power granted to you via FT is going to stay the same. What IS changing is the fact that faster weapons will deal less FT damage when you melee, and slower weapons will hit harder with FT when you melee. In other words: It's ok, calm down, take a deep breath and move on

My Elemental Oath doesn't stack with boomkin! What about my 10% increased damage!?

Correct, the buffs don't stack with each other, however you still gain elemental oath anyways, the +5% crit just does nothing. This is why people raise a fuss about am I getting +10% extra damage from clearcasting?

YES YOU ARE! No where in the buff does it state EO must be up WITH clearcasting from elemental focus to get the +10% damage, so even if elemental oath didn't proc because the boomkin overrides it you'd still get the clearcasting buff which is the ONLY thing needed for +10% damage.

First off: http://www.codeplex.com/Rawr is finally up with a shaman part to help min/max your gear.

So here's the list of current best in slot items (BiS) for an elemental shaman. The thing I would like to stress is just because it's the BiS doesn't mean you should go for it automatically. Do not be mechanical when gearing yourself. If something is the BiS, but because of your current itemization you drop 40 some hit (like dropping t7/t7.5 gloves for the benefactor gloves) and fall under the hit cap, wait until you can use them properly. DON'T BE MECHANICAL

1. Head- Valorous Earthshatter Helm- http://thottbot.com/i40516

2. Neck-Wyrmrest necklace of power- http://thottbot.com/i44661

3. Shoulder- Valorous Earthshatter Shoulderpads- http://thottbot.com/i40518

4. Back- Pennant Cloak- http://thottbot.com/i44005

5. Chest- Valorous Earthshatter Hauberk- http://thottbot.com/i40514

6. Wrist- Bands of Mutual Respect- http://thottbot.com/i40324

7. b]Hands- Benefactor's Gauntlets[/b]- http://thottbot.com/i40302

8. Waist- Girdle of Recuperation- http://thottbot.com/i40327

9. Legs- Valorous Earthshatter Kilt- http://thottbot.com/i40517

10. Feet- Eruption-Scarred Boots- http://thottbot.com/i40237

11. Finger 1-Signet of the Malevolent- http://thottbot.com/i39389

12. Finger 2- Signet of Manifested Pain- http://thottbot.com/i40399

13. Trinket 1- Dying Curse- http://thottbot.com/i40255

14. Trinket 2- Illustration of the Dragon Soul- http://thottbot.com/i40432

15. 1H- Torch of Holy Fire- http://thottbot.com/i40395

16. Shield- Voice of Reason- http://thottbot.com/i40401

17. Totem- Totem of Hex- http://thottbot.com/i40267

There can be debate on which rings (and in certain situations which trinkets) to use, but the important part to look at here is the main gear slots. This is the bulk of where your hit rating, haste, spell power, and crit comes from, and it can vary (especially due to racials or the presense of a boomkin/spriest) on what rings/trinkets you end up using. This is all in all a general outline and you don't have to follow it like the bible, so don't.