Totem Talk: A fresh take for elemental shaman in patch 4.2
by Josh Myers 
Jul 12th 2011 at 2:00PM
Sarah Nichol, our most recent elemental columnist, has been kidnapped by patriarchal Daleks loyal to Lord Voldemort after losing the Game of Thrones. Due to this, I, Josh Myers, enhancement shaman extraordinaire, have agreed to take on the Defense Against the Dark Arts-esque position of elemental columnist. Please welcome me as your benign, bovine overlord.
Now for why you're really reading: Patch 4.2 hit approximately two weeks ago, and the game has changed for elemental shaman everywhere. Bringing us the Glyph of Unleashed Lightning, useful tier bonuses, and a legendary stat stick that would make Gandalf jealous, 4.2 is looking to be the best patch of the expansion for elemental. Not that that's hard, considering the competition.
Terrific new tier gear
Patch 4.2 introduced the new Firelands raid instance, and with a new tier of content comes a new set of tier armor. Elemental shaman were lucky to have a very nice four-piece bonus last tier, but it came at the cost of having three tier pieces with critical strike rating on them and only one piece with spirit/hit rating. Considering that hit capping is an elemental shaman's first priority for secondary stats, and the fact that crit is elemental's worst stat, tier 11 left something to be desired.
The Volcanic Regalia, elemental's tier 12 set, offers a clear upgrade over tier 11. First off, the two-piece bonus -- your damaging spells have a chance to reset the cooldown on your Fire Elemental Totem -- is ridiculously good, offering you the chance of having 100% uptime on your Fire Elemental Totem. On a fight where you can manage to get your Fire Elemental to work properly, it offers as much as a 3,000 DPS increase from two pieces of gear.
Of course, the small downside is that Fire Elemental Totem is the most temperamental DPS cooldown in the game, a totem that does his best to always attack the target you don't want him to attack or totally ignore the one you do. It's still an amazing bonus, though.
However, the four-piece shines brightest in movement fights, which is nearly every fight this tier. Between Glyph of Unleashed Lightning, instant Lava Bursts, Fulmination, Flame Shock, and Unleash Elements, an elemental shaman in full tier 12 who gets lucky with Lava Surge procs will be one of the first classes in the game who can keep up a full DPS rotation while moving. That is pretty cool.
To top it all off, this tier is slightly better itemized than its predecessor. While it's a bummer that only one piece has spirit on it, it's nice to see that only two pieces have crit rating. Even better, one of the pieces with crit on it is the Erupting Volcanic Headpiece, a token drop from Ragnaros (who also drops the significantly better and higher ilevel Crown of Flame). The hardest tier piece to get is also one of the worst, meaning it's going to be very easy to get your four-piece bonus. Sarah already has you covered with a look at some of the other gear you'll be getting in Firelands.
Getting your glyphs on
Prior to 4.2's hitting the live servers, I thought Glyph of Unleashed Lightning might be a myth. It was the candy, we were the babies, and Blizzard was the mean kid from The Simpsons who was going to take it away and go, "Ha, ha." Somehow, this beautiful boon to elemental DPS went live, and now we get to reap the benefits of transforming from a turret to a jet fighter.
Of course, not all that glitters is gold, and including Glyph of Unleashed Lightning as a prime glyph means dropping one of the three we were already using: Flame Shock, Lightning Bolt, and Lava Burst. Glyph of Flame Shock is not a contender, as it saves us GCDs and maximizes FS uptime while allowing for more Fulmination casts that don't clash with FS falling off.
For those fights where you do need Glyph of Unleashed Lightning, your third glyph slot will often be based on your gear. In early Firelands raiding, where you're uncomfortable with the fights and moving a lot, it's likely that you'll be losing a lot of potential Lava Burst casts in favor of Lightning Bolt, making Glyph of Lightning Bolt the better choice. Once you get decked out in your four-piece and you can Lava Burst while moving, you'll be hitting Lava Burst significantly more often. In this case, Glyph of Lava Burst might be the better choice.
Shaman AOE: Still bad, but less so
When shaman cried out last patch that our burst AOE was lacking and required entirely too much time to set up, I don't think any of us meant, "we want our Flame Shocks to have an increased duration when hit by Fire Nova!" However, that is what we got. At least Blizzard stuck it onto Call of Flame, so we don't need to waste talent points on that functionality. Also, it gave us the 15% Fire Nova damage increase as a baseline.
PVP: Slightly less painful
The last thing Blizzard did this patch was provide some solid PVP buffs to elemental shaman. While I'm no elemental PVP expert (I hit 1,790 as ele in Wrath of the Lich King but haven't played it since), I'd be blind not to see how nice Glyph of Unleashed Lighting is for elemental PVP. On top of that is the change for Lava Flows, which now gives elemental shaman a 90% haste buff if their Flame Shock is dispelled, up from 30%. Thunderstorm now also has a 40% snare on everyone it hits for 5 seconds, allowing a small defense against melee with their gap closers on cooldown. And Lightning Shield can no longer be dispelled, and the new four-piece bonus for the Gladiator's Thunderfist set causes your Lightning Shield to generate charges when struck, not lose them. More Lightning Shield procs means more Fulmination casts, which means more dead Alliance. #winning
Show your totemic mastery by reading Totem Talk. Ready to take your elemental shaman up to the new level cap? We'll help you get to level 85, dig into pre-raid gear and DPS trinkets, and find the addons that'll help your performance shine.
Filed under: Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Raiding, (Shaman) Totem Talk, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
HJACK1 Jul 12th 2011 2:18PM
Nice post. Keep up the good work. I for one welcome our benign, bovine overlord.
Tovin Jul 12th 2011 2:51PM
Indeed. Welcome, Josh! Just make sure you don't let the light from the crack in the wall touch you...I'm pretty sure that's what happened to Sarah.
That one Joey Jul 12th 2011 2:20PM
Whats ele's secondary stat priority? I've been going under the assumption:
hit/spirit > mastery > haste > crit
DeathPaladin Jul 12th 2011 2:47PM
Last I read, haste and mastery are close enough in priority to be effectively equal in weight.
redikolous Jul 12th 2011 2:58PM
I would say haste over mastery, by a bit.
VSUReaper Jul 12th 2011 3:01PM
I would think that between mastery and haste, it all depends on your playstyle: if you like to be a machine gun with spells, then stack the haste more.
But if you like the idea of free casts going off with out you having to do anything other than your normal rotation (mind you the free cast doesnt hit as hard) then mastery is the stat to stack for you.
Josh Myers Jul 12th 2011 3:51PM
Haste and Mastery have essentially the same EP. While no to stats have exactly the same, the two are so close that one isn't highly valued over the other. The basic strategy becomes: Hit capping is first, then comes haste/mastery. You reforge out of crit/spirit to whichever of those two stats aren't on the piece you're reforging. If neither are on, you reforge into whichever you have less of at the moment.
Basic overview is here: http://elitistjerks.com/f79/t110309-elemental_cataclysm_discussion_patch_4_2_a/#Stats_and_Gearing
The MUX Jul 12th 2011 2:24PM
Pretty sure ele priority after hit cap is haste/mastery/crit
Devo_AS Jul 12th 2011 2:25PM
"More Lightning Shield procs means more Fulmination casts, which means more dead Alliance."
Horde is spelled completely wrong there!
Matthew Jul 12th 2011 2:31PM
More dead alliance. You said it. :-)
Note to PvP'ers, you don't get double resistance from mixing sets (heal / dps set) so now, the 4 piece bonus is even more attainable. Enjoy!
DeathPaladin Jul 12th 2011 2:50PM
You'll want to be careful about who you target with those Fulminations. If you aim it at us new Dwarf Shaman, we won't teach you the secrets of the Booze Elementals.
Khegh Jul 12th 2011 3:35PM
Spirit? For Elemental? Since when? It's been Haste then Mastery since Cat came out.
Josh Myers Jul 12th 2011 3:48PM
You need to hitcap at 1742 first, and you get that through spirit.
danielabrems Jul 12th 2011 3:49PM
... and 1639.x for us spacegoats. :3
danielabrems Jul 12th 2011 3:48PM
I'm quite sure that the base casting time for us Elementals is 1.5s (due to our passive, reducing it by .5). So, on paper, there isn't any DPS gain in having the t12 4p on standstill fights. In reality, it's a nice way to make sure your 'Surge doesn't ''double-proc'' (having it proc while you're already casting, wasting the proc entirely, since it (with the 4piece) now goes off instantly. Oh, and of course the movement fights (read: all).
You might wanna fix that typo, btw. :3
Josh Myers Jul 12th 2011 4:27PM
Wow. I can't believe I missed that. Thank you for the heads up!
connor.carleton Jul 12th 2011 5:52PM
Just to clear some stuff up here
1) Lightning bolt glyph will never...NEVER be replaced by the lava burst glyph. EVER. It makes up more than half our DPS. For the lava burst glyph to take priority over the lightning bolt glyph lava burst would have to overcome the damage % lightning bolt does. And that will never happen in the current form of elemental shamans.
The UL glyph will be very handy for certain fights, but Firelands isn't as movement intensive as other content has been in the past. Baleroc, Majordomo, and Alysrazor are big no nos for this glyph. The movement is easily taken care of by well timed SWGs. Rag is a big yes. Shannox, Beth, and Ryolith are slightly up in the air, but could be justified. As for heroic content I have no idea yet, and that may change.
2) You're missing the point with the Tier 12 2 piece. The 2 piece bonus is at least a 3k dps increase, and over 4k if you time it well with int pot/procs. This is the biggest DPS increase a set bonus has ever seen, not to mention it's a 2 piece bonus. People may whine about the AI about the fire elemental, but that's also not the point because any player worth their salt knows Blizzard isn't going to balance an ability over the knowledge that an ability bugs out often enough to only be a mediocre buff.
The 4 piece bonus is crap. It's so bad that if our off-set tier was better itemized we wouldn't get it. As someone said above the casting time of LvB is low as it is, so the fact that it's instant is no DPS gain. The only benefit is movement. This plays well with the UL glyph for this content, but there really isn't a whole hell of a lot of movement in my experience so far (6/7 with progression on Rag).
The fact is that many players are thinking that Blizzard is going to give elemental shamans the fire elemental as a permanent pet in the near future.
I've discussed the our bonuses from our tier quite clearly here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1869559022 (Starts on Post #11)
Josh Myers Jul 12th 2011 8:34PM
For your first point, there is evidence that Lava Burst will be glyphed over Lightning Bolt in high movement fights once you hit 4pc t12. For instance, Moshne's simcraft post at Totem Spot: http://totemspot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8518#p8518
To the second point, I'm not sure what you mean. I'm aware the 2pc is amazing, and said as much. Fire Elemental control is annoying, but I'm not trying to downplay how incredible the bonus is because he likes to leash.
valorendk Jul 12th 2011 9:36PM
The kid from The Simpson's is Nelson Muntz.
connor.carleton Jul 12th 2011 9:33PM
I find that hard to believe, but more to the point this is simcrafting which usually means having better reaction times/playing than humans can do so those #s probably won't reflect for us
Regardless: Really really small DPS differences. I mean at BEST it's almost a 100 dps gain instead. If you really wanna mix/max to the core then go for it but over the course of a 10 minute fight that's around 60,000 more damage. Pretty much trivial since that's where it caps out, on other fights you'll probably see around half that.
As for point two I'm merely pointing out that any discussion towards that two piece should be focused on where we, as players, think we're heading in terms of a PvE permanent pet. There is the kneejerk reaction some players have about the clunky AI. Everyone knows that the fire elemental is a huge DPS bonus over searing (when it attacks the right target) so we should care more about the placement of the tier bonus, and what it may hold in store for us.
Your post about the bonus wasn't bad. I'm just saying.