In this article, we present you the viable talent and glyph choices for your Elemental Shaman (WoW MoP 5.3). We detail what each of the talents and glyphs do and in which situations they should be taken.

The other articles of our Elemental Shaman guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Leeds, one of the best Elemental Shamans in the world, who raids in Method. You can watch his stream on Twitch.

1. Talent Choices↑top

• Performance-enhancing
• Survival
• Crowd Control
• Movement
• Utility
• Situational

There is no longer such a thing as a default build. Most of the talents are now viable. They can easily be changed, thanks to Dust of Disappearance (and Tomes of the Clear Mind from level 86 to 90). You will frequently find yourself changing talents and glyphs between encounters, in order to adapt your play style to different mechanics. Therefore, it is important to understand what each of your talents does and how they affect your play style.

2. Tier 1 Talents↑top

Tier 1 talents have been designed with your own survival in mind.

• Nature's Guardian will proc every time you receive a damaging attack that brings you below 30% health (although not more often than every 30 seconds). When Nature's Guardian procs, it immediately reduces your threat towards your attacker and increases your maximum health by 25% for 30 seconds (when the effect ends, your health percentage is preserved).
• Stone Bulwark Totem is an Earth totem on a 1-minute cooldown that grants you an absorption shield for 30 seconds.
• Astral Shift reduces damage taken by 40% for 6 seconds. It has a 2-minute cooldown.

Nature's Guardian is useful in a progression environment where you will often find yourself below 30% health. It can also help you when you pull aggro from the tank.

Stone Bulwark Totem and Astral Shift are also viable, depending on how often you will need damage reduction during an encounter. Astral Shift is best for mitigating infrequent, large sources of incoming damage. Stone Bulwark Totem is best for mitigating damage more frequently, or for mitigating smaller chunks of damage over long periods of time.

3. Tier 2 Talents↑top

Tier 2 talents have been designed with crowd control and utility in mind.

• Frozen Power causes your Frost Shock to also root the target for 5 seconds.
• Earthgrab Totem summons a totem that remains in place for 20 seconds, rooting every enemy within 10 yards for 5 seconds, after which time their movement speed is reduced by 50% (for as long as the totem is up and the enemies are within 10 yards).
• Windwalk Totem grants immunity to movement-impairing effects to all party and raid members within 40 yards. The effect lasts 6 seconds. Note that it also removes movement-impairing effects that are already applied on players.

Earthgrab Totem and Windwalk Totem are the best choices, depending on which one will be the most useful to your raid. Windwalk Totem is basically a raid-wide version of Hand of Freedom and can be useful on many encounters. There often are other classes that can do a better job than Earthgrab Totem, so the opportunities to use it are rather limited.

Frozen Power suffers from only being useful on a single target, but in that particular case (rooting a single enemy) the short cooldown of Frost Shock makes Frozen Power better than Earthgrab Totem.

4. Tier 3 Talents↑top

Tier 3 talents have been designed with totem cooldown and mobility in mind.

• Call of the Elements, which does not trigger the global cooldown, resets the cooldown of your totems that have a base cooldown shorter than 3 minutes:
  • Grounding Totem: 25-second cooldown;
  • Earthbind Totem: 30-second cooldown;
  • Earthgrab Totem: Tier 2 talent with a 30-second cooldown;
  • Healing Stream Totem: 30-second cooldown;
  • Capacitor Totem: 45-second cooldown;
  • Stone Bulwark Totem: Tier 1 talent with a 1-minute cooldown;
  • Tremor Totem: 1-minute cooldown;
  • Windwalk Totem: Tier 2 talent with a 1-minute cooldown.
• Totemic Restoration reduces the cooldown of your totem proportionally to the duration that remained on them before they were destroyed or replaced, up to a maximum of 50% of the full cooldown. This description is very misleading. What happens is that when your totem is destroyed with, let's say, 20% remaining on its duration, then the remaining cooldown on your totem is shortened by 20% (the remaining duration on your totem) multiplied by 50% (the maximum amount the talent allows you to remove from your totem's cooldown), which means the cooldown of your totem is shortened by 10%. To make things clearer, we take the example of your Fire Elemental Totem (60-second duration, 300-second cooldown).
  • If it is destroyed after 15 seconds, then 75% of the duration remained on the spell and you remove 75% of 150 seconds off the cooldown, which equals to 112.5 seconds.
  • If it is destroyed after 30 seconds, then 50% of the duration remained on the spell and you remove 50% of 150 seconds off the cooldown, which equals to 75 seconds.
  • If it is destroyed after 45 seconds, then 25% of the duration remained on the spell and you remove 25% of 150 seconds off the cooldown, which equals to 37.5 seconds.
• Totemic Projection enables you to relocate your totems to a new location. Casting this spell does not trigger the global cooldown.

Call of the Elements will be the default choice when neither of the two other talents can apply, although it will not work on totems that have a 3-minute cooldown.

Totemic Projection will be useful for moving your totems (mostly Searing Totem and Magma Totem) to a new location without spending a global cooldown for it. This talent is primarily meant for encounters with a lot of movement, although you can use it with great success to keep relocating your crowd-control totems ( Capacitor Totem, Earthbind Totem, or Earthgrab Totem) as the enemies you are targeting are moving out of the area of effect.

Totemic Restoration is rather disappointing. On the paper, it looks as if it gives you a relative freedom to use your totems with a long cooldown for exactly the amount of time you need them for. While it does give you a bit of freedom, this freedom comes with a huge penalty on the cooldown of your totems.

That said, there are cases when it can be beneficial: for example, if you need your Fire Elemental Totem twice, each time for 30 seconds, within 4 minutes, or if you die while your Fire Elemental is up.

5. Tier 4 Talents↑top

Tier 4 talents have been designed to improve your performance.

• Elemental Mastery increases your haste by 30% for 20 seconds. It has a 90-second cooldown.
• Ancestral Swiftness gives your next Nature spell an instant cast. It has a 1-minute cooldown. Ancestral Swiftness also passively increases your spell haste by 5% and your melee haste by 10%.
• Echo of the Elements gives you a chance to duplicate your spells that do direct damage or healing.

Echo of the Elements is your default choice here, as it provides you with the most DPS and it scales best (by far) with your gear.

However, if the encounter demands you to provide really heavy burst outside of Bloodlust / Heroism / Time Warp, you can also use Elemental Mastery.

6. Tier 5 Talents↑top

Tier 5 talents give you a new healing cooldown or a new healing mechanics.

• Healing Tide Totem heals the 5 most injured nearby players every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. It has a 3-minute cooldown.
• Ancestral Guidance causes you to heal up to 3 nearby injured party or raid members for 60% of the direct damage or healing you do for 10 seconds. This ability has a 2-minute cooldown.
• Conductivity is a passive ability that causes you to both increase the healing you do with direct spells to allies standing in your Healing Rain and heal nearby allies standing in your Healing Rain every time you damage an enemy.

Ancestral Guidance should be your default choice here, as it provides you with nearly as much healing as Healing Tide Totem, but with a lower cooldown.

However, if it is not guaranteed that you can DPS properly while healing is needed, you can use Healing Tide Totem instead.

Currently, the healing provided by Conductivity is too low to ever be worth using.

7. Tier 6 Talents↑top

Tier 6 talents have been designed to improve your performance.

• Unleashed Fury upgrades your Unleash Elements by making it also increase the damage you do with Lightning Bolt by 20% and with Lava Burst by 10% for 10 seconds.
• Primal Elementalist causes your Earth Elemental Totem and Fire Elemental Totem to deal 80% more damage. They become regular pets (although they are not permanent) with abilities.
  • The Earth Elemental automatically casts Angered Earth, Pulverize, and Harden Skin. If you instruct it to, it will channel Reinforce on you, which will decrease the damage you take by 20% and increase the healing you do by 10%.
  • The Fire Elemental automatically casts Fire Blast, Fire Nova, and Immolate. If you instruct it to, it will channel Empower on you, which will increase the damage you deal by 5% and increase the healing you do by 10%.
• Elemental Blast is on a 12-second cooldown and will enable you to maintain a 66% uptime on a buff that changes randomly each time you refresh it: +3500 Critical Strike Rating, +3500 Haste Rating, or +3500 Mastery Rating. For Enhancement Shamans, the buff can also be +3500 Agility. The ability also deals a bit of damage every time you use it.

For a single-target encounter with little to no movement, you should use Elemental Blast.

If the encounter requires you to move a lot, or if you often have to AoE down adds with Chain Lightning, or you need a heavy damage burst, then you will go with Primal Elementalist.

Unleashed Fury is currently not performing as well as any of the other two talents and should never be used.

8. Major Glyphs↑top

Below, you will find other glyphs that can improve your DPS, in specific situations.

• Glyph of Chain Lightning causes your Chain Lightning spell to strike 2 additional targets, but it deals 10% less initial damage. This glyph is a significant DPS increase if your Chain Lightning hits 4 or 5 targets.
• Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem reduces the cooldown and duration of your Fire Elemental Totem by 40%. This means that your Fire Elemental Totem will have a duration of 36 seconds (down from 1 minute) and a cooldown of 3 minutes (down from 5 minutes). This is extremely potent if you choose Elemental Mastery as your Tier 4 talent, because you will be able to combine your Fire Elemental and Elemental Mastery for every other cast of Elemental Mastery.
• Glyph of Grounding Totem turns Grounding Totem into a damaging ability that reflects a harmful spell back to its caster. We have yet to see how many boss abilities will be allowed to be reflected back with this totem.
• Glyph of Spiritwalker's Grace increases the duration of Spiritwalker's Grace by 5 seconds, making it last 20 seconds in total. You will want to use this glyph when an encounter has periods of movements that last longer than 15 seconds.
• Glyph of Thunder reduces the cooldown of Thunderstorm by 10 seconds, which will be very beneficial in AoE situations.

Finally, there are major glyphs that bring more utility to your spells.

• Glyph of Capacitor Totem reduces the charging time of your Capacitor Totem by 2 seconds. This means that it will stun all enemies within 8 yards after 3 seconds (instead of 5 seconds, without the glyph). This can be useful if a pack of enemies needs to be controlled rapidly.
• Glyph of Flame Shock causes Flame Shock to heal you for 30% of the damage it deals.
• Glyph of Ghost Wolf makes you less susceptible to movement-hindering effects while in Ghost Wolf form. This glyph can be useful in fights where you have to travel through areas that slow your movement speed.
• Glyph of Healing Stream Totem adds a damage reduction component to your Healing Stream Totem spell, which can be useful if your raid will be taking Fire, Frost, or Nature damage when you need to use Healing Stream Totem.
• Glyph of Hex reduces the cooldown of Hex by 10 seconds, which can be useful if you are assigned to crowd-controlling adds.
• Glyph of Lightning Shield causes you to take 10% less damage for 6 seconds every time your Lightning Shield is triggered. Note that Static Shock cannot trigger this damage reduction.
• Glyph of Purge causes your Purge spell to remove 1 additional Magic effect from an enemy target, but adds a 6-second cooldown. It can come in handy if your raid ever needs to simultaneously remove 2 Magic effects from a boss. Note that in most cases, it may be better to just let Mages Spellsteal the effects.
• Glyph of Unstable Earth causes your Earthquake to also reduce the movement speed of enemies by 40% for 3 seconds (in addition to knocking them down).
• Glyph of Wind Shear increases the cooldown of Wind Shear by 3 seconds, but increases the school lockout duration it causes on the target. This glyph can be useful if having a 15-second cooldown on Wind Shear will not hinder your interrupting duties.

9. Minor Glyphs↑top

Minor glyphs are mostly cosmetic, although there are two of them that might be situationally useful.

• Glyph of the Lakestrider enables you to walk on water when Ghost Wolf is active.
• Glyph of Thunderstorm removes the knock-back component of Thunderstorm. It may be useful when you want to keep the enemies you are damaging in one place.

10. Changelog↑top

• 19 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: removed Glyph of Unleashed Lightning and added Glyph of Lightning Shield.
• 22 Apr. 2013: Update following Leeds' review of our Elemental Shaman guide.
  • Improved advice for choosing talents from Tiers 4, 5, and 6.
  • Emphasized just how useful Glyph of Unleashed Lightning is.
  • Made Glyph of Chain Lightning appear more appealing that was previously mentioned in the guide.
• 04 Apr. 2013: Update following Purge's review of our Enhancement Shaman guide.
  • Fixed description of Nature's Guardian (the initial description was correct, but the discussion on the Tier 1 talents was still mentioning that the healing is taken back when the spell expires, which is no longer the case).
  • Added more information to help people decide between Astral Shift and Stone Bulwark Totem for their Tier 1 talent.
  • Improved advice for when to choose Frozen Power as your Tier 2 talent.
  • Mentioned that Totemic Restoration can be useful if you die while Fire Elemental Totem is up.
  • Updated relative strengths of the Tier 5 talents and added more information regarding when to choose each of the talents.
  • Added more information on the synergy between Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem and Elemental Mastery.
  • Improved the description Glyph of Spirit Walk.
  • Added Glyph of Hex, Glyph of Healing Stream Totem, and Glyph of Wind Shear.
• 27 Mar. 2013: Updated description of Nature's Guardian to properly reflect the Patch 5.2 change.
• 09 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
  • Updated Elemental Mastery's cooldown, which is now 90 seconds (down from 2 minutes).
  • Updated Ancestral Swiftness explanations (now increases melee haste by 10%, up from 5%).
  • Updated Ancestral Guidance explanations, as this spells now copies 60% (was 40%) of the amount healed.
  • Updated Conductivity explanations (enemy no longer needs to be standing inside Healing Rain).
  • Updated Unleashed Fury explanations. The Flametongue component now increases the damage of Lightning Bolt by 20% (was 30%) and of Lava Burst by 10%.
  • Updated relative strength of Tier 4 talents.
  • Updated relative strength of Tier 6 talents.
  • Glyph of Flame Shock has been completely redesigned and no longer has anything to do with DPS (it heals for 30% of the damage of Flame Shock).
  • Glyph of Purge now adds a 6-second cooldown to Purge.