(7 votes, average: 4.43 out of 5)

Hey, this is Fizzly. I’m an experienced Elemental PvE raider, and I’m here to tell you about gear, gems, hit rating, crit rating, spell power, and haste!

Latest Update: 2009/08/25

Quick Menu:

1) Shaman Lore
2) Attributes
3) Talent Spec
4) Socketing
5) Glyphs

Shaman Lore:

“Shamans are spiritual visionaries of tribes and clans. These gifted healers can see into the world of spirits and communicate with creatures invisible to eyes of normal beings. They are beset by visions of the future and use their sight to guide their people through troubled times. Although the shaman may seem wise and serene at first glance, he is a formidable foe; and when angered, his wrath is as fierce as though who have a connection to eternals or nature.”

Attributes:

First, you have to choose the perfect spec for you, and think of the gear that you would need. You have to think deep. What does an elemental shammy need? This is how i laid my thoughts out.

Spell Power, Hit Rating, Critical Strike Chance, Haste, Mana per 5 seconds.

• Spell Power is a very important factor; the more spell power you have, the more damage you do in your spells.
• Hit rating. Just as it says, it is the rate of what you hit. As of patch 3.1.0, the hit rating for shamans with a Shadow Priest/Druid (Fraerie Fire) is 289, however the solo hit cap is 368. (Note: This is with the elemental spec ‘Elemental Precision’)Why does this go over Crit? “Because you need to hit, to crit”
• Critical Strike Chance is another important factor the shaman, think about it. If you cast 10 spells in a row with no-crits, doing 2.5k damage each, that would be 25,000 damage done, however if you cast 10 spells WITH crits, and let’s say you crit about 5k damage per spell: 50,000 damage would be put out. Basically, it increases your dps.
• Haste increases your casting speed, and it is another important factor for damage per second, however it cannot meet the same criteria as SP, CRIT, MP5 can.
• Mana per 5 seconds is a very important factor as of patch 3.1.0 where Mana Spring Totem no longer stacks with a paladin’s wisdom. It’s basically regenerating mana in a fight, so that you can stand and cast spells longer, however there’s always mana shield.

So you can conclude that mainly, a shaman would need a spec that fits the criteria of SP > HIT > CRIT > HASTE > MP5.

You can also conclude what kind of gear the shaman needs. (i.e. Gear that has reasonable mana, stamina, maybe hit rating, spell power (a must), crit and haste.

Talent Spec:

This is a Elemental PvE spec that many fellow shamans use, and it is proved to be one of the best, and simple specs. Even i use it.

http://thottbot.com/shaman/t#J3op.ZWY6/gFM1

The reason i have gone further in the Enhancement tree is because of the 5% crit, the 45% reduced mana cost as elemental shammies need to use many shock spells for their rotation, and lastly 3 points in enhanced weapons – Flametongue Weapon increases your spell power, and this spec increases the additional spell power buff on your weapon.

In the elemental tree, we need both 5% less mana cost, and 5% damage to some spells. The reason i have not chosen reverbation is because a 1 second cooldown reduction to shocks may be helpful, however in most elemental shammy rotations, the 1 second cooldown reduction is not necessarily needed. (i.e. the cooldown usually resets while your in the middle of casting a spell) Unrelenting Storm is a MUST, as of patch 3.1.0 a paladin’s wisdom DOES NOT STACK with Mana Spring Totem, which causes shamans to go oom (out of mana) faster. Elemental Precision is a must, as without it you would need more gear that contains hit, and more places to gem hit when you can gem spell power.

Socketing:

For your meta gem, i suggest [21 critical strike rating, 3% increased damage] because in both ways it helps elemental shammies. Increased crit, and imagine 3% increased damage in all spells. (i.e. You do 10,000 damage. Well what do you know? You do 300 extra damage. This adds up to a lot in long boss fights.)

If you have red sockets, stack them with 19 spell power.

If you have Yellow sockets, socket them with 16 hit rating if you aren’t raid hit capped/solo hit capped, however if you are socket them 16 critical strike rating. (Next in the criteria)

If you have blue sockets, you can either get 9 spell power, 12 stamina or 9 spell power, 3 mana every 5 seconds to get the set bonus, or just stack 19 spell power for spell power.

Glyphs:

I chose 10% increased damage from your spellpower to your lava burst, as lava burst is a very frequently used spell.

I chose 1 second reduction to the global cooldown caused by spells: this increased my damage per second by about 500, imagine all the time when your waiting for your spells to be able to cast, when with this glyph you can start casting already.

I chose also Glyph of Totem of Wrath, whenever you cast Totem of Wrath it gives you 30% of its base spell power as a self buff for 5 minutes. (About 80 spellpower)

You may think that because shamans are a hybrid class, they cannot out-dps a pure dps class. This is wrong. Get your spec right, your gear matched in and enchanted, and rotations correct; play your class well and i can guarantee you that you can out-dps that hunter, mage, rogue topping the dps charts in your raid.

Thanks! Enjoy.