6.0 Shaman Transition Guide

[Krazyito 521]

Hello Shamans! this is a guide meant to help you with what changes you'll be facing once 6.0 drops on Oct. 14th. Some classes will see a drastic overhaul, whle others may not change at all.  Here are spec specific changes for shamans for level 90 only. Please remember this is not meant to tell you what will happen at level 100, these are changes that you will face before you level to 100 while raiding Siege of Orgrimmar.
 
 

Ele Changes

• No more elemental weapon imbuements - Unleash Flame is now a non-targeted ability that increases the damage of your next fire spell by 40%
• Ele Mastery change: "Elemental Overload is now a regular passive ability and is no longer increased by Mastery. It grants 35% increased Multistrike damage and healing, and an additional 20% to Multistrike chance. It also increases the amount of the Multistrike stat gains from all sources by 5%, serving as Elemental’s Secondary Stat attunement"
  
  MS doesn't matter to much in the pre-patch since this stat isn't found on gear until WoD, but it is good to note that you will have some baseline Multistrike due to this passive.
• New Ele Mastery: Mastery: Molten Earth - causes the Shaman’s damaging spells to incite the earth around to come to their aid for 6 seconds, repeatedly dealing Fire damage to their most recently attacked target. Also increases the damage of your Earthquake 
  
  This is totally passive DPS gain, and a powerful one at that. SimCraft shows around 30-45% of your total damage will come from this new mastery at lvl 90.
• Lightning Bolt can no longer be cast on the move!
• Chain Lightning damage increased by 50%
• Earthquake damage increased by 33%
• Lightning Shield now stacks to 15
• Fulmination now causes Elemental Blast, Lightning Bolt, and Chain Lightning damage and multistrike damage to always generate an additional Lightning Shield charge, up to a maximum of 15. Earth Shock will consume any charges beyond 1, dealing their total damage to the enemy target.
• Echo of the Elements has been redesigned: The Shaman's spells and abilities have a chance to trigger Echo of the Elements, causing their next short-cooldown spell or ability to not trigger a cooldown. Elemental: It may be used on Frost Shock, Earthquake, or Lava Burst.

There are a host of other shaman changes that should be read, these however are the important ones for Elemental in how they directly effect you. Other ele changes are passive or minor that should not directly effect game play. Read the full list of shaman changes here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/13423478/warlords-of-draenor™-beta-patch-notes-august-19-8-19-2014#shaman
 
 
 

What this means for you

 

Many of these changes sound bigger then they are, such as the mastery change. It sounds big but it has almost no immediate effect on gameplay.
 
Using SimCraft to test out new talents and options for yourself will always result in the best DPS gains due to how fluid Elemental can be based on personal gear and stat break points, but as a general idea you can *normally* assume the following for 6.0.2 lvl 90 SoO raiding:

• Elemental Mastery > Ancestral Swiftness > Echo of the Elements
• Elemental Blast > Primal Elementalist > Unleashed Fury
• It is once again a DPS gain to keep Searing Totem down whenever your Fire Elemental Totem is not.
• Your precast rotation should now also included Unleash Flame since this no longer needs a target to be cast and does not have any direct damage, it is a flat free gain to your first fire spell, in the opener this would be Flame Shock. Outside of the opener the use of Unleash Flame remains the same.
• Fulmination stacking to 15 only means you will use it less, the basic idea of how to use it remains the same. Wait until you are at 13-15 stacks and then use Earth Shock. The result being that you use this half as often as you did in 5.4, but the damage it deals makes up for this change. Remember to update any WeakAuras or other addon trackers to this new value.
• YOU CAN NO LONGER CAST AND MOVE. This makes the smart use of Spiritwalker's Grace much more important, you will need to plan ahead and think about what you are about to do. 
• Due to the mastery rework and Earthquake now being buffed by it  along with the baseline buff, Earthquake is a DPS gain on AoE when combined with Chain Lightning spam. The exact number might very for you due to mastery level but it is *roughly*  3+ targets
• The basic elemental rotation and playstyle remains the same.

--Elemental contributed by Lockybalboa
 

---

ENHANCEMENT

 
Talents:

• Echo of the elements has been redesigned. It now has a chance on ability use to not incur a cooldown on Lava Lash, Stormstrike, or Fire Nova. Note - Personal Opinion: This talent now seems more in line with Ancestral Swiftness for sustained single target DPS and probably surpasses it for AoE. Elemental Mastery is still good for burst DPS.
• Unleased Fury now grants 5% multistrike instead of causing autoattacks to trigger static shock.
• Elemental Blast now also has a a chance to proc multistrike or agility in addition to the other secondaries it provided.

Spells and abilities:

• Searing Totem no longer provides stacks of Searing Flame on your target. Searing totem and Lava lash have been buffed to compensate.
• Unleash Elements now puts a buff on you instead of your target empowering your next 6 melee swings and 1 fire spell (Flame Shock / Fire Nova)
• Ascendance now empowers your stormstrike and melee abilities to do Wind-based physical damage that bypasses armor. Note - Personal Opinion: The wording of this change makes it seem as if your Ascendance now no longer benefits from your mastery since it is physical damage. This may or may not be true.
• Static Shock has been removed
• Earth Shock has been removed from Enhance Shamans, you should use Frost Shock instead. The trheat generation from Frost shock has also been removed
• Magma totem is now only available to Enhance shamans. Magma totem has also been buffed and its ticks increase with haste.
• Flurry has been redesigned to Flurry which reduceds cooldowns and GCD of spells
• Enhancement attunement is Lightning Strikes which greatly increases the valuse of haste. Note - Personal Opinion: With this, I feel haste will surpass mastery until a 'breakpoint' in haste where you have such short cooldowns on your main abilities it will be a detriment to your rotation. After that point mastery should be better again.

In general, enhancement has not changed rotationally, but benefits a lot more from haste with its attunement and cooldown reductions.
 
 
Thank you for reading this guide. Please note that this Enhancement section of the guide was made by someone who does not actively play the Enhancement spec. I tried my best to find the changes between live and 6.0 to get you the general feel of what is going to be changed and what you should do to to prepare for 6.0.
 

---

 

RESTORATION

 
Talents:

• Echo of the Elements now has a chance on spell or ability casts to have Riptide, Unleash Life, or Purify Spirit not incur a cooldown (changed from the elemental mastery effect)
• Elemental Blast now also guarantees a spirit proc each time it is used as well as a crit, haste, mastery, or multstirke proc.

Spells and Abilities:

• You no longer have to enchant your weapon with Earthliving weapon. Unleash Elements is now Unleash Life for Resto
• Mana Tide is no longer available 
• Earthliving HoT and Ancestral awakeing healing has been completely removed.
• You gain 5% mastery from all sources (as your attunement)
• Grace of Air now provides mastery and 5% haste to all party and raid members
• Chain Heal now (again) loses healing effectiveness with each jump. Shamans will now want to chain off off a riptide as much as possible.
• Ancestral Vigor (max health buff from heals) has been removed.
• Greater Healing Wave has been removed, you should use Healing wave in its place.
• Healing Wave and Healing Surge both heal for the same amount, but healing surge is much faster.
• Healing Stream Totem heals for much less of your overall healing than pre-6.0
• Unleash Life no longer buffs Healing Rain and should now be mostly used on Chain Heal.
• Water Shield persists through death.

Theres not a lot changing for Resto Shamans in general. Your playstle is not going to change from now into 6.0
 
Please note that this post was made by players who do not actively play a shaman as their main role, but are experienced enough with the class to try to find the differences to make this post. If you have any concerns or want to add to this post please comment below with your suggestions.

[Krazyito 521]

Ele is in, enhance sometime today.

[Krazyito 521]

Enhancement done.

[Lockybalboa 618]

Enhancement done.

 

 

Nice work dude.

[Thetic 0]

Asking a couple questions for clarification:

Elemental Blast and Elemental Mastery are going to be the better talents?

Is mastery still going to be the main stat for Elemental?

Any haste points that matter?

Is Unleash Flame going to be part of the rotation even if you don't have Unleash Fury talented?

Sorry if these are silly questions :<

Thanks for the transition guide :)

[Lockybalboa 618]

Asking a couple questions for clarification:

Elemental Blast and Elemental Mastery are going to be the better talents?

Is mastery still going to be the main stat for Elemental?

Any haste points that matter?

Is Unleash Flame going to be part of the rotation even if you don't have Unleash Fury talented?

 

 

Yes, yes, no, no.

 

Yes - EB and EM were a large bit ahead of the other talents in SimCraft.

Yes - Mastery is going to be a very powerful stat in 6.0, the mastery itself does a LOT of damage and more importantly in 6.0 you won't be able to mastery cap like you can now.

No - haste break points no longer exist in the game due to dynamic updating. 

No - the reason it changes in the opener is because it no larger does direct damage and no longer needs a target, making it perfect for pre-casting. Inside of the rotation however it is still a DPS loss in nearly all manner of usage. 

[Thetic 0]

Yes, yes, no, no.

Thanks for the answers :D

[Pabst 0]

• "Mana Tide is no longer available "  

False

[Krazyito 521]

Please explain why this is false. It has been removed just like other healing mana cooldowns.

[Pabst 0]

Really? Patch notes say

"Mana Tide Totem now increases the Spirit of allies by 50% (down from 200% of the Shaman’s Spirit). It remains unchanged (200%) for the Shaman activating the totem, and it still ignores temporary Spirit buffs."

 

Am I missing something?

[Krazyito 521]

I don't know what patch notes you're looking at but its right here. 

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/13423478/warlords-of-draenor%E2%84%A2-beta-patch-notes-august-19-8-19-2014#shaman

 

ALL mana cooldowns for healers have been removed, this is a basic mechanic that has been talked about for healers for a while now. It would be way overpowered if Shamans were the only ones and I'm actually on beta right now and there is no mana tide in my spellbook.

[Pabst 0]

Wow. Completely missed it. I just googled "WoD 6.0 patch notes" after I read your post and the most recent one had it changed to what I wrote in my last post.

 

 

You have my apologies.

[Finadama 0]

With the changes to racials, what would you suggest the most beneficial alliance race would be for elemental/resto?

 

I am currently Panda for the food bonus, but was thinking Draenei for the stat bonus.

 

Thanks

[Aniky 1]

Ty Krazyito!!!

[Krazyito 521]

With the changes to racials, what would you suggest the most beneficial alliance race would be for elemental/resto?

 

I am currently Panda for the food bonus, but was thinking Draenei for the stat bonus.

 

Thanks

 

Literally, all of the racials are within a 0.5% difference of each other. Play what you want.

[karashama 0]

I was reading the guide on 6.0.2 but one thing baffles me, isn't earthqauke supposed to be a heavy multitarget spell? Is the amount of stacks of fulmination you get that makes this spell benificial or is it just the raw damage?

[Morellin 0]

Hello,

What will be my goal for multistrike? 7.21% at the moment.

[Stoove 347]

Hello,

What will be my goal for multistrike? 7.21% at the moment.

 

For which spec?

[Morellin 0]

Lol sorry for Resto spec.

[Stoove 347]

So, currently it's very hard to get hold of Multistrike since it's not on most SoO gear. Once we get to WoD, it'll be a lot more common. I wouldn't say that there's a "goal" for MS, but it looks like it will be joint-worst alongside Crit in WoD.

[xkrissi 0]

Thanks alot for this :). Any idea when the guides will be updated for 6.0? Or are you not affiliated with Icy-veins?

[Stoove 347]

The guides have been updated for 6.0 (If you look at them, I actually reviewed the guide for Resto Shaman). The updates for WoD should be released sometime around the actual WoD release.

[Meatplow 0]

Hey guys, out of curiosity, how useful are the enhance tier set 2 and 4 piece bonuses now that everything has changed up?

[Stoove 347]

Hey guys, out of curiosity, how useful are the enhance tier set 2 and 4 piece bonuses now that everything has changed up?

 

The SoO set or the WoD set?