WotLK Classic Elemental Shaman Stat Priority

The stat priority for Elemental Shamans is as follows:

1. Elemental Shaman needs 17% Hit after talents, debuffs, and racial bonuses are accounted for to cap Spell Hit. This will typically result in 11% Hit for Horde raiders and 10% for Alliance raiders;
2. Spell Power;
3. Haste;
4. Critical Strike;
5. Intellect;
6. Mp5.

Although you will generally want to hit the Spell Hit cap, and prioritize gemming / enchanting stats in the listed order. The real stat weights for your character depend heavily on your current gear. Thus, we recommend using the Wowsims Elemental Shaman module, for personalized stats if you are interested in min-maxing your character.

Spell Hit allows your spells to land more often, which is a huge DPS increase, and Spell Hit is generally plentiful on the caster gear you will be chasing. Depending on the level of your enemy, you might need more, or less Spell Hit to reach the 17% cap:

• For an enemy of the same level as you, 4% Spell Hit is needed to cap.
• For an enemy 1 level higher than you, 5% Spell Hit is needed to cap.
• For an enemy 2 levels higher than you, 6% Spell Hit is needed to cap.
• For an enemy 3 levels higher than you, such as Raid bosses, 17% Spell Hit is needed to cap.

You can also get some free hit from Draenei's racial Heroic Presence, the Elemental Precision talent, and from enemies having Shadow Priest's Misery or Balance Druid's Improved Faerie Fire debuffs active.

Spell Power is applied to each spell based on their casting time.

The coefficient is calculated by dividing the cast time of a spell by 3.5. This is because a 3.5 second cast benefits from 100% of your gear's Spell Power. For example, if you have 20 additional Spell Power from gear, then this will simply affect your spells as follows:

• Damage Increase per spell cast = n * 20
• n = spell's coefficient

Instant single-target spells typically only get around 43% of the benefit, with area-of-effect spells having an even greater penalty. Chain Lightning gets about 71%, but a spell with a longer casting time such as Lightning Bolt gets more: roughly 86% of the Spell Power in your gear as added damage.

This means that 100 Spell Power on your gear would cause Lightning Bolt to deal around 86 extra damage per cast, but Chain Lightning would only deal 71 extra damage to its main target, using the same gear.

Haste decreases your cast times, allowing you to shoot more Lightning Bolts and other spells in a fight and accelerating Flame Shock ticks. While its exact value fluctuates with your gear, this is a very strong stat and often your best EP value stat when compared on a 1 to 1 basis with other stats.

Critical Strike allows your spells to occasionally deal extra damage. Due to Elemental Fury, Elemental Shaman spell critical strikes deal 200% damage instead of the normal 150% value. Unfortunately, Lava Burst is always a critical strike under normal conditions, making it gain no benefit from your Critical Strike chance, but your Flame Shock is able to crit in Wrath.

Intellect increases total Mana pool, Critical Strike chance, and gives you some Mp5 if you talented Unrelenting Storm, but has a generally low impact on your DPS.

Mana every 5 seconds, or simply Mp5, is a common stat found on healing gear and, while generally not recommended, can help you sustain your Mana over a long fight.

Spell Penetration allows your spells to deal more damage / hit more often against enemies with Magical Resistances by lowering their resistance by the spell penetration value on the item. This is mostly useful in PvP, as PvE enemies usually have fixed resistance values that cannot be lowered with this stat.

For Elemental Shamans, Spirit provides Mana regeneration, but only when you have not cast a spell for 5 seconds or more, which will rarely be the case outside of leveling / soloing. Sitting (through the /sit command, or when eating or drinking) increases Spirit regeneration by 33%.

Stamina is the only stat that will help you survive any type of attack and as such should always be valued.

Resilience is a stat that is only found on PvP gear. It reduces your chance to suffer a Critical Strike, as well as the damage you take from those, the Mana burned by effects such as Mana Burn and the damage taken from damage-over-time effects such as Corruption. This is a great stat in PvP as it makes you a lot more durable, increasing the value of your healing in the process.

Resistance, while inherently niche due to different bosses dealing different magical damage types, can be very useful while progressing specific bosses. Wearing resistance gear of a type makes you take less damage or even completely avoid damage when hit by that type of magical damage.