Elemental Basics

We’re Shamans and we’re hybrids. This makes dual spec a fantastic opportunity to collect gear for a second talent specialization and switch to a DPS role from time to time. In all honesty, I’d be perfectly happy with a second healing spec as well, and some times I look over at my fellow priests, who switch from holy to disc and back to holy, and this makes me a tiny bit jealous. But at this point there is really no need to use dual spec for two different healing specs, which I personally would find very cool (Something like investing 15 points in the elemental tree would make us strong single target healers and if we shift those 15 points to the enhancement tree, we could boost our group healing capabilities).

In BC I would go enhancement every second I could. It was good fun and I would often be the only enhancer in the raid and thus providing tons of important melee buffs. In my actual guild, the raid leader is enhancer and the whole guild is very melee heavy. So the obvious choice for my secondary spec was going elemental.

This post should summarize important points about playing elemental, gearing up and how to do some decent DPS with maybe not optimal gear.

The Spec

This should be the the best way to distribute your points. This leaves you with two optional points to finalize your spec. You could stick them into Improved Ghost Wolf for additional mobility, Improved Fire Nova Totem for controlling AoE packs or Convection if you feel that mana is an issue (which it shouldn’t be). Elemental Warding really helps you survive, I’d take it over 5/5 Convection in any case.

The Stats

Your first goal should be reaching the hit cap. This is at 368 (342 for Alliance. If you take raid debuffs into account (Misery or Improved Faerie Fire), the cap drops down to 289 (263 for Alliance), those buffs should really be available all the time if you raid heroic raid instances.

If you’re hit capped, it is SP and haste all the way. Stack it, gem for it, push it with flasks and buff food. Out of the two stats, SP is more solid. Haste is an excellent way to squeeze more LBs in between your LvBs. Just remember, that the amount of LBs you cast between two LvBs is not only not only influenced by haste, but by lag, reaction time and the nature of the encounter as well, so it’s not as easy to put a value on haste as you might think. Additional Information on haste can be found in the EJ – TTT entry.

Glyphs

The first two Glyphs are easy to Pick: Glyph of Flame Shock is absolutely required to keep up a tight rotation with as less FS refreshing as possible. Glyph of Lighting Bolt is a very solid damage increase, just by the fact that LB is the spell that will account for the biggest chunk of your damage. The last Glyph slot should go to Glyph of Totem of Wrath, which offers 84 SP. Glyph of Lava would be a better choice only at very high SP levels.

The Rotation

My elemental Rotation is based on priorities:

1. FS hast to be up all the time, no LvB should land on a target without FS

2. LvB

3. LB

Target dummies are really a nice way to practice your Rotation. Especially for resto shamans, who might not raid as elemental too often. If you want, you can add CL to your rotation as well. It does higher single target damage than LB at higher mana cost. Generally I would recommend to train really getting into the flow of the rotation without CL first, so you really squeeze as much LBs as possible into your rotation and don’t leave LvB off cooldown ever.

The Addons

There are two important things you have to watch: 1) is FS on the target? 2) When does LvB comes of the cooldown.

For debuff watching and trinket procs as well I use NeedToKnow. A bar is just the simplest way for me, to see when FS needs to be refreshed.

For cooldown management I just use the standart action bar with OmniCC, especially since OmniCC can show tenth of seconds. I’ll just create some 2-3 action buttons very close to my character, actionbar mods like Dominos can handle this easily.

A more and more prominent addon for handling cooldowns is EventHorizon.

Resto Gear

It is possible, that you just recently started to collect elemental gear. And getting of gear is a lot easier than it was in BC (Tier Gear for Emblems!), but still most of the time you will leave the good pieces to your caster DPS. So, don’t be afraid to wear Resto Gear or even Spirit. Often that healing piece with mp5 might still be a better pick than some blue item or an epic from a heroic instance. Band of Channeled Magic is a good example for a decent, cheap caster ring, not perfectly itemized for an elemental but still with very good stats. After all, it is still easier for us to get some decent off-gear, because we wear mail and don’t have to compete with all clothies out there.

Resources

EJ – TTT: Shaman – Elemental (this is really all you need)

Binkenstein’s Spreadsheet

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