Elemental Shaman Frequently Asked Questions — The War Within (11.2.5)

The answer to this question in any context will always be to simulate it. This is because what is an upgrade for you may not be an upgrade for someone else. In other words, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all answer, even when talking about 2 completely identical comparisons from you to another person. Everything in your gear affects everything else.

This applies to gear, set bonuses, trinkets, legendaries, and even talents in certain situations.

The only exception to this rule is when a specific fight dictates a certain set of optimal talents, for example. If you are curious about what kind of setup to go for a specific fight, WarcraftLogs.com's rankings and statistics are a good place to see what others are doing.

We have a guide on how to sim yourself here:

Mastery has a hard cap when you reach 100% Mastery. When using Elemental Blast, you should consider a "soft" cap of 88%, as Elemental Blast could bring you to 100%. Neither cap is currently reachable, so you do not need to worry about that.

Mastery is currently highly desirable and your best overall secondary. When in Best in Slot 723 gear you will want to have around 22,000 Mastery IF you are not using a trinket giving you Mastery on use. That being said, it is very common for people to overestimate the importance of having the "right" secondaries when, in reality, having a higher quantity of stats will usually beat having "better" stats. Having 130 of your worst stat is often better than having 100 of your best stat, as the differences are not as big as many people think.

For more detailed information about stats, please visit our dedicated Stats guide.

You want a good amount of Haste, it is your second best secondary. When in Best in Slot 723 gear you will want to have around 19,000 Haste. There is no specific cap you want for any secondary stat. It is very common for people to overestimate the importance of having the "right" secondaries when, in reality, having a higher quantity of stats will usually beat having "better" stats. Having 130 of your worst stat is often better than having 100 of your best stat, as the differences are not as big as many people think.

For more detailed information about stats, please visit our dedicated Stats guide.

All Elemental builds now mix Elements, although it is still possible to ignore fire abilities in some builds in AoE.

Stormbringer builds are superior in AoE/Cleave but are way behind Farseer for pure single-target.

What is best depends on a lot of factors — the other specs in your group, the dungeon you are doing, the affixes in play, and so on. That being said, the talent list recommended on the Mythic+ section of this guide should be a good baseline.

For better and more detailed information, please visit our Talent guide below.

There are multiple viable builds. While customized builds will be available on our dedicated raid pages, you can find more information about single-target focused builds on our Talent page below.

From a pure Patchwerk-DPS point of view, the best race for Elemental Shaman is Mag'har Orc for Horde and Dwarf for Alliance. However, we would not recommend picking a race based strictly on their current Patchwerk-DPS.

You can see more detailed information in our Simulations section

You can find this information in our Gear section.

Elemental is in a good spot for any kind of content and is incredibly strong in Mythic+. There is no content at any level where Elemental Shamans are unwelcome.

You can find this information in our Gems, Enchants and Consumables section.

In single-target, you will want to cast Flame Shock when the dot is about to fall off (less than 6 seconds remaining). In multi-target, you generally ignore Flame Shock altogether, unless you use a Liquid Magma Totem build, in which case you should use it on cooldown immediately after casting Flame Shock to gain a lot of value from Primordial Waveand Splintered Elements. Do not worry about keeping them up outside of that "combo".

You should not usually cast Flame Shock in multi-target situations except as a low-threat preparatory GCD when the tank is gathering multiple packs of enemies.

Yes, as using Storm Elemental does not alter our rotation.

For better and more detailed information, please go to our Rotation, Cooldown and Abilities section.

Typically two, and if a Stormkeeper buff is available and there are only two cleavable targets, cast Lightning Bolt. However, there are exceptions to both scenarios and I highly recommend checking out our Rotation, Cooldown and Abilities section.

Yes.

It is a tiny increase to use Earthquake with as few as 2 stacked targets that will live for its full duration when using Earth Shock, or if you ar playing a Farseer build with Elemental Blast.

If using Echoes of Great Sundering, you always want to alternate between the two, EXCEPT in single-target, and if you are certain to get the full damage out of Earthquake.

However, if you for some reason use a Stormbringer build with Elemental Blast and without Echoes of Great Sundering, you want a minimum of FIVE targets for Earthquake to be worth using.

Unless you really hate placing Earthquake even with a cursor macro, the "area-targeted" version is generally superior. We would recommend using the @cursor Macro from our Macros & Addons section.

None, this part of the talent was removed.