Elemental Shaman: Midnight Expansion Preview

Welcome to our Midnight expansion guide for Elemental Shaman. Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about the Elemental Shaman spec in the forthcoming expansion, including changes, new Hero Talents, and some light predictions on the state of the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regular changes expected as updates hit the Midnight Beta. This is not meant to be a launch guide for Elemental Shaman, but instead serves as a resource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving, and what you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

• Deeply Rooted Elements is gone.
• Icefury is gone.
• Stone Bulwark Totem and Totemic Recall are gone.
• Liquid Magma Totem and Primordial Wave are gone and have been consolidated into Voltaic Blaze.
• Ascendance now replaces the Fire Elemental button, and you can get a talent that makes Ascendance spawn a Fire Elemental.
• Storm Elemental now only exists via Fury of the Storms.
• Fusion of Elements now procs from Power of the Maelstrom.
• Stormbringer: Tempest now procs from casting Ascendance and randomly from spending Maelstrom.
• Stormbringer: Casting Tempest now grants a charge of Stormkeeper.
• Farseer: Ancestors now spawn from Stormkeeper (and still from Ancestral Swiftness) instead of Primordial Wave.

1. 2-set bonus: Casting Stormkeeper increases your Haste by 15% for 10 seconds.
2. 4-set bonus: Stormkeeper grants an additional charge when cast. Stormkeeper increases Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning damage by 25%.

This comes along with halving baseline Stormkeeper to 1 charge instead of 2, dramatically cutting the value of the cooldown, though remember it now procs an Ancestor for Farseer and grants 10 Maelstrom for Stormbringer. The Haste will feel very nice especially early in an expansion and will have solid uptime with the cooldown reduction available for Stormkeeper ( Herald of the Storms, Rolling Thunder for Stormbringer and Offering from Beyond for Farseer.

You will definitely want to get the 4-set bonus as soon as possible, restoring the original 2 base charges on the spell, and boosting the enhanced spells by a quarter, essentially giving an additional 150% effectiveness to the base cooldown effect. You will also want to press Stormkeeper whenever it comes up, much more so than even now.

All that being said, these are relatively weak set bonuses, as is expected from the first tier of an expansion, and while you have no reason not to get them immediately, the power jump is not as drastic as The War Within Season 2 and 3 set bonuses

Each specialization now automatically learns 1 spell instead of 2 through the Shaman talent tree, meaning you now need to spend a point to learn Chain Lightning.

Lava Burst base damage reduced by 20% but its damage is now increased by its critical strike chance.

• New talents being added:
  • Spiritual Awakening — Mastery increased by 3%.
  • Instinctive Imbuements — Lightning Shield increases your Intellect by 3%. Casting Lightning Shield also applies Earth Shield to yourself and any weapon imbuements if known.
  • Previously exclusive to Restoration: Therazane's Resilience — Earth Shield no longer loses charges and is 115% effective (Choice node with Reactive Warding)
  • Previously exclusive to Restoration: Reactive Warding — When refreshing Earth Shield, your target is healed for each stack of Earth Shield they are missing. Additionally, Earth Shield can consume charges 1.0 sec faster. (Choice node with Therazane's Resilience)
• Talents being removed or moved elsewhere:
  • Several talents have changed positions in the talent tree.
  • Thunderstorm is now a base ability learned by all Elemental Shamans at level 30.
  • Lightning Lasso is now a PvP talent.
  • Stone Bulwark Totem
  • Totemic Recall
  • Guardian's Cudgel
  • Call of the Elements
  • Creation Core
  • Arctic Snowstorm
  • Totemic Recall
• Modified talents:
  • Wind Shear interrupt duration increased to 4 seconds (was 2 seconds), does not affect PvP combat.
  • Chain Heal cast time is now 2 seconds (was 2.5), jump range is now 20 yards (was 15).
  • Poison Cleansing Totem is now a choice talent against Tremor Totem
  • Seasoned Winds renamed to Windveil and redesigned — Interrupting a spell with Wind Shear reduces all spell damage taken by 15% for 12 seconds
  • Winds of Al'Akir is now a 2-point talent — Increases your movement speed by 3%/6% and the movement speed bonus of Ghost Wolf by an additional 5%/10%.
  • Nature's Fury is now a 2-point talent, increasing Nature critical strike chance by 2% per rank.
  • Earth Elemental now lasts 30 seconds (was 1 minute) and has a 3 minute cooldown (was 5 minutes).
  • Brimming with Life is now a 2-point talent — Stamina increased by 5/10%. While you are at full health, Reincarnation cools down 50%/100% fater.
  • Static Charge is now a 2-point talent — Reduces the cooldown of Capacitor Totem by 8 seconds/15 seconds..
  • Encasing Cold has been redesigned - Now increases the cooldown of Frost Shock by 15 seconds and causes Frost Shock to freeze its target in place for 4 seconds.
  • Totemic Surge reduces the cooldown of most totems by 5 seconds (was 6), no longer works on Wind Rush Totem or Static Field Totem.

With all the talents being removed without any being added, our class tree becomes quite small, and while we already had enough points to get everything we wanted in any raid, you now can get pretty much all you could need for dungeons and even PvP and should not need to change your class tree much aside from choice nodes.

Windveil is in most cases a welcome survivability buff although it not stacking anymore does mean we are not unkillable on certain packs anymore. The Earth Elemental changes are fairly neutral overall though in practice are probably a slight buff on most encounters, though it does not make up for the loss of Stone Bulwark Totem.

The new Therazane's Resilience is quite good and will allow ourselves and a designated ally to get significant free healing over a raid encounter or a dungeon.

Elemental damage gain from Mastery reduced by 10%.

Apex talents are a new set of talents within your Spec tree that focus on enhancing one of your core abilities. As of now, these talents are not yet announced for Elemental Shaman, but as soon as they do we will add them!

• New talents being added:
  • Apex talent: Feedback Loop — Elemental Overload damage increased by 35%.
  • Apex talent: Feedback Loop — Spell critical strike chance increased by 5%/10%. Elemental Fury increases spell critical strike damage by an additional 25%/50%.
  • Apex talent: Feedback Loop — Elemental Overloads have a 25% chance to cause an additional Elemental Overload. This can only occur once per cast.
  • Lava Flows — Lava Burst damage increased by 5%. Lava Burst and Lava Burst Overload generate 1 additional Maelstrom.
  • Tectonic Collapse — Earth Shock, Elemental Blast, and Earthquake deal 20% additional damage. Choice against Aftershock.
  • Molten Wrath — Lava Burst deals 25% additional damage. Choice against Master of the Elements
  • Elemental Resonance — All Elemental damage increased by 3%. Choice against Thunderstrike Ward.
  • Storm Infusion — Increases the effect of Elemental Resonance, by 2%, increases the chance for Thunderstrikes to occur by 30%, and increases Thunderstrike damage by 75%.
  • Inferno Arc — Lightning Bolt, Tempest, Chain Lightning, Earth Shock, Elemental Blast and Earthquake deal 15% increased damage to targets affected by Flame Shock.
  • Voltaic Blaze — Instantly Shocks the target and 5 enemies within 10 yards with blazing thunder, applying Flame Shock and dealing significant Nature damage. Always critically strikes. Replaces Flame Shock.
  • Improved Voltaic Blaze [NNF] — Voltaic Blaze's cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds.
  • Purging Flames — Voltaic Blaze unleashed volcanic rage, causing your next Lava Burst cast to hit all Flame Shocked targets at 80% effectiveness with reduced Maelstrom generation. Lava Burst damage increased by 10%.
  • Call of Fire — Ascendance summons your Fire Elemental when used.
  • Crackling Fury — Voltaic Blaze's cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds/6 seconds and its Nature damage is increased by 50%/100%.
  • Path of the Seer — Intellect increased by 3%.
  • Amped Up — Haste increased by 3%.
  • Flames of the Firelord — Flame Shock damage increased by 100%.
• Talents being removed
  • There is no such information in patchnotes but Echoes of Great Sundering seems to have been removed
  • Fire Elemental no longer exists as a talent and now only appears when pressing Ascendance when using the Call of Fire talent
  • Deeply Rooted Elements
  • Liquid Magma Totem
  • Primordial Wave
  • Icefury
  • Storm Elemental
  • Erupting Lava
  • Splintered Elements
  • Elemental Equilibrium
  • Flux Melting
  • Magma Chamber
• Modified talents:
  • Several talents have changed positions in the talent tree.
  • Flametongue Weapon now replaces Improved Flametongue Weapon and does not exist anymore without the talent, preventing new elementals from using the old base ability when it did nothing for Elemental.
  • Undocumented change: Fire Elemental cooldown reduced to 2 min (from 2.5)
  • Storm Frenzy has been redesigned — Now reduces the cast time of Lightning Bolt, Tempest and Chain Lightning by 15%.
  • Ascendance now increases the damage of Elemental Overloads by 75% while Ascendance is active (was 150%). Remains 25% in PvP combat. It also replaces Fire Elemental when talented.
  • Fusion of Elements has been updated — Consuming Power of the Maelstrom additionally fires an Elemental Blast at your target at 40% effectiveness.
  • Elemental Unity now increases damage dealt by 6% (was 10%).
  • Flames of the Cauldron now reduces the cooldown of Flame Shock and Voltaic Blaze by 2 seconds (was 1.5 seconds).
  • Power of the Maelstrom's chance to trigger was reduced to 40% (was 60%).
  • Earthquake now does Nature damage (was Physical).
  • Fury of the Storms now summons a Greater Storm Elemental (was a Greater Lightning Elemental).
  • Herald of the Storms has been redesigned — Now reduces the cooldown of Stormkeeper by 15 seconds.
  • Flame Shock application logic has been updated for Voltaic Blaze to prioritize enemy players and ignore enemies in breakable crowd control.
  • Removed the activation overlays that appear when you have enough Maelstrom to cast Earth Shock, Elemental Blast, or Earthquake.
  • Echoes of Great Sundering now has an activation overlay when gaining its effect.
  • A sound now plays when Aftershock refunds Maelstrom.

The obvious immediate consequences of these changes are that you have a lot fewer buttons and the complexity of the rotation has been gutted. While it may sound good to new players, alts or people who generally prefer simpler rotations, people who enjoy current elemental will likely be disappointed. In single-target we are back to Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, a spender and Flame Shock and that is it.

Our damage profile will be much flatter with the removal of Deeply Rooted Elements, a significant nerf to Ascendance and losing Storm Elemental.

• New talents being added:
  • Stormbringer: Natural Gift — Nature damage is increased by 2%
  • Stormbringer: Descending Skies — Ascendance upgrades your next Lightning Bolt to Tempest
  • Stormbringer: Stormwell — Storm Elemental lasts 2 seconds longer and Stormkeeper generates 10 Maelstrom.
  • Farseer: Ancestral Influence — Your Intellect is increased by 1% for each Ancestor active.
  • Farseer: Windspeaker — The cast times of Healing Surge, Chain Heal and Lava Burst are reduced by 10%.
  • Farseer: Mystic Knowledge — For 8 seconds after casting Ancestral Swiftness, increases the chance for Lava Surge to occur by 20%.
• Modified Talents:
  • Stormbringer: Tempest no longer triggers based on total Maelstrom spent and now has a 0.3% chance to occur per Maelstrom spent.
  • Stormbringer: Awakening Storms has been redesigned — Now increases the chance to gain Tempest by an additional 0.3% per Maelstrom spent.
  • Stormbringer: Rolling Thunder has been redesigned — Now reduces the cooldown of Stormkeeper by 15 seconds.
  • Stormbringer: Arc Discharge has been redesigned — Now causes Tempest to grant a stack of Stormkeeper.
  • Farseer: Call of the Ancestors has been updated — Stormkeeper calls an Ancestor to your side for 8 seconds (was 6 seconds and Primordial Wave)
  • Farseer: Routine Communication can now also trigger from Flame Shock and Voltaic Blaze.
  • Farseer: Elemental Reverb increases Lava Burst damage by 10% (was 20%).
  • Farseer: Offering from Beyond now reduces the cooldown of Stormkeeper by 3 seconds when an Ancestor is called (was reduces the cooldown of Fire Elemental/ Storm Elemental by 5 seconds).
  • Farseer: Ancestors now last 8 seconds (was 6 seconds).

These Stormbringer changes are mainly targeted at dropping the necessity (or at least the feeling of it) of tracking many different Stormbringer related procs and resources. This achieves that goal, at the cost of significantly increasing the RNG involved, although adjusting the old Rolling Thunder effect into instead making Tempest grant a charge of Stormkeeper will feel nice. The loss of Arc Discharge's original damage increase will significantly lower the power of the Hero tree unfortunately. Notably, the changes and loss of the tier will lead to far fewer Tempest procs and generally "chain" procs, making the spec more manageable but less exciting.

The Farseer change is inevitable following the removal of Primordial Wave, with another source of ancestors being added to Routine Communication to make up for Stormkeeper's cooldown being higher. The other changes seem to further solidify Farseer as being focused on single-target and 2-3 targets cleave.