Elemental Shaman Frequently Asked Questions — The War Within Pre-Patch

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 has an effect on 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:

Your tier sets will remain functional. This does mean Fire-dominant builds will be preferred.

There is no specific cap 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 almost always 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. That being said, Elemental is currently one of the specs where secondary stats can matter a lot depending on your build, mostly due to interactions with our Mastery, and Lava Burst always being a Critical Strike.

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

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%. This is particularly true when using Shaman Elemental 10.2 Class Set 2pc, as the uptime of the Mastery buff will be high. 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 almost always 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. That being said, Elemental is currently one of the specs where secondary stats can matter a lot depending on your build, mostly due to interactions with our Mastery, and Lava Burst always being a Critical Strike.

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

Currently Fire-dominant are strictly superior for every target profile.

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 Tauren 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, although it may not necessarily be optimal with every party composition or on every boss. Regardless, there is no content at any level where Elemental Shaman will be unwelcome.

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

If using a Lightning-dominant build, you should not cast Flame Shock when fighting multiple targets, unless you are using Splintered Elements, in which case, you should use Flame Shock and Primordial Wave on 2 to 3 targets, assuming they will live for most of the DoT's duration.

If using a Fire-dominant build, you should have as many targets affected by Flame Shock as possible (up to the hard limit of 6), unless they are about to die.

You do not need to adjust your rotation at all; follow the regular priority list.

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

Yes.

You should use Earthquake with as few as 2 stacked targets if using Earth Shock. However, if you are using Elemental Blast, you should only use Earthquake when there are at least 4 or more stacked targets that will live for the duration.

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

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

Almost all of them. Here is the list:

• Flame Shock
• Stormkeeper
• Storm Elemental
• Reincarnation
• Astral Shift
• Thunderstorm
• Lightning Lasso
• Gust of Wind
• Wind Shear
• Spiritwalker's Grace
• Nature's Swiftness
• Totemic Recall
• Totemic Projection
• Nature's Guardian
• Earth Elemental
• Bloodlust
• Ancestral Guidance
• Cleanse Spirit
• Purge
• Greater Purge
• Hex
• Astral Recall
• ALL totems except Liquid Magma Totem
• It notably does NOT work on Spirit Walk