Q: What is an Elemental Shaman?
A: The elemental Shaman is a utility damage class. The Elemental Shaman brings totem buffs for casters (i.e Mages, Locks, Spriests, Any Healing Class) and also buffing the casters with Heroism along with some great personal DPS.
Q:What is Spell Hit and WHY is it important to the Elemental Shaman?
A: Spell Hit increases your chance to hit any lvl 70 target. Every Casting DPS class has a certaint Spell Hit Cap, luckly for shamans ours is only 51 with talents (38 for the sexy Allicane shaman b/c of the 1% racial aura)
Lvel 73 Targets (Raid Bosses) Recruit a 16% spell hit.
Meaning Shamans only need 4% from gear. The rest of yorur Spell Hit comes from Talents.
Elemental Percision: +6%
Nature's Guidence: +3%
Totem of Wrath: +3%
Alliance racial aura: +1%
Now that Spell Hit has been covered, it is now time to talk about Itemisation.
Q: What sort of stats should I, as an elemental shaman look for?
A: Well i suppose there is a very simple answer in my mind. Lets start out with Intellect
Every point of Intellect = .02 mp5 per point in Unrelenting Storm.
Because of the abundance of Int. on damage gear, it should not be enchanted, gemed, and socket bonuses with + Int should be ignored.
Besides Int the First real stat Elemental Shamans should look for is Spell Damage.
Spell Damage is one of the two main stats for the Elemental Shaman because it provides the greatest increaces on a point by point basis to their damage output. Spell damage is affected by Concussion and Lightning Overload in the same way that the base spell damage is.
The Second of the two main stats for the Elemental Shaman is Spell Crit.
Spell Crit has a chance of adding 50% damage to a spell. This is increased to 100% if spec'd into Elemental Fury. (Which is a no-brainer for anyone that is not a complete noob)
Spell crit is also important because when you land a critical hit from a spell Clearcasting comes into play. This will help with mana issues for any elemental shaman.
Stacking Crit in itself is not a very smart move. You should aim for 40% crit including talents.
The Next itemisation that should be aimed for is Spell Hit which was already covered.
Last is Spell Haste.
Spell haste is broken down into 4 different parts for the Elemental Shaman.
1% haste = 15.76 Haste Rating
Hate recuces the cast time of our spells based on the following formula: Cast Time/(1+Haste%)
It increases the nubmer of spells cast within a time period by X%
Haste cap is 100% for LB (Lightning Bolt) 53% With Heroism, while for CL (Chain Lighting) it is 50% with Heroism.
Haste is a state that is a contentious issue. If increases DPS via more casts but at the same time you only will see the gain from this if you actually have the opportunity to make an extra cast.
Haste is important for some of the High End DPS rotations which i will go over next.
DPS ROTATIONS:
Q: What is our DPS Rotation as an elemental Shaman?
A: Basicly there are 4 DPS rotations that can be used as a Elemental Shaman The first being;
Spam Casting Lightning Bolt - This is the easiest ( noobest ) but yet most mana efficient rotaion for the elemental shaman. Using this rotation will result in DPS decreasing by 100-150. As sad as this is, this is the suggested DPS rotation for lower geared elemental shamans because of mana.
The second DPS rotation is:
3 Lightning bolts / 1 chain lightning - This DPS rotation along with the next two revolve around the 6 second CD on chain lightning. You basicly cast 3 lightning bolts then chain lightning and repeat, waiting on the CL cooldown to expire. This is the most practical DPS rotation for the higher end DPS (Non-hasted) rotations.
The thrid DPS Rotatoin is:
4 Lightning bolts / 1 chain lightning - This is the first of the two hasted DPS rotations. This rotation will only increase your dps once your LB drops below a 2 second cast time. A 4th LB is casted while waiting for the CL cooldown to complete.
The 4th and final viable DPS rotation for the Elemental Shaman is:
5 Lightning bolts / 2 Chain Lightning / 1 FS
This rotation is the highest DPS rotatoin, but is also the highest in mana use. It is 4 LB, 2 CL and 1 flame shock. This is not a recommended DPS rotation.
*Note if you do use this rotation, do not exchange Frost Shock or Earth Shock inplace of Flame Shock because of their overall lower DPS.
Relics:
Q: What Relics should i be using end-game raiding?
A: There are really only 2 Relics that you as an elemental shaman should be equiping.
(Pre BT Gear)
They are both from badge vendors:
First being Skycall Totem - This can be bought for 20 badges
Second being Totem of the Pulsing Earth (Reduces the mana cost of LB by 27 mana) - This can be bought for 15 badges
If you are a elemental shaman in a BT guild you should be using Totem of Ancestral Guidence - Drops from Teron Gorefiend in BT.
Gemming:
Q: What Gems should i be using?
A: Unless you are socketed full damage or haste gems you should be using maiinly orange and purple gems. As for Meta Gems, the best choice would be the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond. 2nd to that is Insightful Earthstorm Diamond ( This should be used if mana is an issuse )
Subject: Elemental Shaman Q/A 
Tue May 20, 2008 4:17 pm