Reduce Lag Now
Introduction
My name is Raime and this will be my guide for the Elemental Shaman, a spec that I’ve played for over one and a half decade. I’ve been competing in the race to world first with Method for four years and before then I co-lead the guild Halcyon for a dozen tiers or so.
Elemental Shaman Overview
Elemental Shaman is a spec with heaps of utility and simple mechanics that make it easy to learn.
Elemental Overload is the most unique thing about it, having almost all spells able to overload, which means that they cast automatically an additional time. Potentially, a single Lightning Bolt could hit upwards of seven times when the stars align for great damage and incredible visual effects.
Maelstrom is a resource that Elemental generates with abilities like Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst to then spend on heavy hitting spells like Earth Shock, Earthquake or Elemental Blast.
It generally excels in burst thanks to Ascendance, especially in AoE on exactly five targets where Chain Lightning and Stormkeeper reach their full potential.
Because of this, there’s also a very noticeable gap in Elemental’s toolkit when it comes to doing damage to two or three targets where Chain Lightning is not very impressive and Earthquake barely beats Earth Shock. It’s also not very capable of multi-dotting spread targets with a fairly long cooldown on Flame Shock and Voltaic Blaze.
Shaman is a rather immobile class and while Ghost Wolf exists, you’re not dealing damage while in that form. It’s therefore very reliant on good usage of Spiritwalker's Grace that lets you move and cast at the same time for a short time.
What has changed
Midnight Changes for Elemental Shaman
With the Midnight expansion, Elemental sees a massive simplification of its rotation and mechanics, resulting in a far easier spec to both learn and master.
Icefury, Primordial Wave, and Liquid Magma Totem have been removed, while Fire Elemental and Storm Elemental have turned into potential talents that happen automatically when Ascendance or Stormkeeper respectively.
Deeply Rooted Elements has also been removed, vastly improving the consistency of the spec but also lowering the potential ceiling it could sometimes reach when you got lucky.
Voltaic Blaze is the only new addition that impacts gameplay, an AoE Flame Shock that also, if improved by Purging Flames, makes your next Lava Burst also strike at every target affected by Flame Shock.
Defensively shaman lost Stone Bulwark Totem but has gained a stronger passive defense with buffs to Nature's Guardian, Brimming With Life and Elemental Warding.
Therazane's Resilience, paired with Elemental Orbit, lets you maintain Earth Shield on yourself and another player without it ever losing charges and lasting for a full hour.