Cataclysm Classic Elemental Shaman Talent Builds

Elemental Shaman, like most Cataclysm specs, is heavily restricted to its namesake specialization tree, Elemental. You will always want to put points into this tree first and foremost, with the few leftover points after you hit 31 points being dedicated to passive damage increases in the Restoration tree.

If you want to maximize your potential DPS and raid utility as an Elemental Shaman there are next to no optional talents in the build that you could swap around, unfortunately.

In this section we will go over some of the key talents you will use when you are playing a Elemental Shaman. Be sure to understand your most important talents as they are vital to play the build to its top strength.

• Elemental Precision — increases your damage by up to 3% and, more importantly, your ability to hit enemies considerably by making Spirit a stat that converts seamlessly to Spell Hit.

• Elemental Focus — improves your Mana management by causing Spell Critical Strikes to reduce the Mana cost of your next two spells by 40%, and you will be critting very regularly with Lava Burst, even at low levels of Critical Strike rating on gear.

• Rolling Thunder — is another Mana management talent, but it will also build Lightning Shield charges which can later be used for extra DPS with the Fulmination talent.

• Elemental Oath — increases your damage by 10% while Elemental Focus's proc is active, and always provides 5% extra critical strike to your raid, making it one of your raid buffs.

• Lava Flows — increases Lava Burst and Flame Shock damage and, importantly in PvP, grants you 90% Spell Haste whenever your Flame Shock is dispelled.

• Totemic Wrath — is your other raid buff and grants 10% more Spell Power to your raid group while you have a Fire Totem active. This is a very important and rare raid buff, with only Demonology Warlocks being able to bring an equivalent one in Demonic Pact.

• Fulmination — makes Earth Shock become a heavy damage hitting ability if you have enough Lightning Shield stacks.

• Elemental Mastery — increases your damage by 15% and Haste by 20% for 15 seconds, and makes your next damage spell instant cast when used. This is a strong DPS cooldown for Elemental.

• Lava Surge — causes your Flame Shock periodic damage to have a 20% chance to reset the cooldown of Lava Burst and make it instant cast, allowing for more burst damage.

• Feedback — causes your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells to reduce the cooldown of Elemental Mastery by 3 seconds per cast. This will increase your DPS and burst damage capabilities significantly over the course of a long fight.

• Totemic Focus — reduces the Mana cost of your totems by 30% and, more importantly, increases their duration by 40%. This makes this talent a great quality of life increase, and also a huge damage increase when combined with a properly snapshotted Fire Elemental Totem.

Prime glyphs are new to Cataclysm, giving you a third "row" of glyphs you can use on your character. While there are a couple of different options to choose from, there are some very clear front runners for each specialization.

• Glyph of Lava Burst — a nice passive boost to your Lava Burst damage.
• Glyph of Unleashed Lightning — is a gameplay-changing glyph that allows your Lightning Bolt to be cast while moving, drastically increasing your mobility.
• Glyph of Flame Shock — increases the duration of Flame Shock by a large amount.

Major glyphs typically offer utility-based options and can be highly situational. While there are many different options for Elemental, we will list below the ones we find more useful.

• Glyph of Lightning Shield — causes Lightning Shield to no longer go under 3 charges when you are attacked, making it a powerful glyph for soloing, especially!
• Glyph of Healing Stream Totem — removes the need for using Elemental Resistance Totem by baking its power into Healing Stream Totem.
• Glyph of Chain Lightning — increases the targets hit by Chain Lightning by 2 while decreasing damage taken by the first target, a very worthwhile trade off against large clumps of enemies. This can be a good glyph swap in large area damage scenarios.
• Glyph of Thunder — reduces the cooldown of Thunderstorm, which is of small, but occasional use.

Minor glyphs typically provide very minor benefits. Your choices will typically depend on what quality of life increase is the most meaningful for you. We give a few suggestions below.

• Glyph of Water Walking — allows you to cast Water Walking without a reagent, saving gold in the process.
• Glyph of Renewed Life — removes the reagent requirement from Reincarnation, saving some gold over time.
• Glyph of Astral Recall — lowering the cooldown of your Astral Recall allows you to move around more frequently, especially if you have your Hearthstone at your faction's central hub and all its portals.
• Glyph of Thunderstorm — increases the Mana gained from Thunderstorm and removes the knockback, which can be useful if you want the Mana return but do not want the knock.