Here is the current Best in Slot or BiS list as of patch 3.2.2. This list includes some of the more difficult items to get in the game at this time so I will list some alternatives at the end of this post until you can fill out your gear.
Now that Blizzard has made the Race Change Service live The Shaman Tavern wants to know if you will be changing your race or not and why or why not?
Here are the specifics on changing your race:
There is a $25.00 USD charge for the Race Change.
Race Changes are immediate after payment and the process is completed.
Your home cities reputation and mounts will be switched.
You can only Race Change to available race able to be your class.
Race changes can be done every 3 days.
You can change your name with a Race Change.
You must be level 10 or above and level 60 or above if you are a Death Knight.
You can change back to your original race but you will have to have the fee again.
There can be a few racial abilities that make changing your Shaman to one race or another but keep in mind Cataclysm is coming next year and all racials will be redone for the expansion. I love my Tauren but I love the Orc models and maybe a Troll would be pretty sexy. After playing my cow for years I think its time for a change, might even feel like I rerolled my Shaman!
With the Devs hard on work on the Icecrown patch I started thinking about the changes Shamans can expect in the upcoming patch. I made a compilation post of all the shaman changes in 3.3 that you can check out here. Some of the changes they have put in place so far are the changes to reincarnation, a new totem mechanic/spell Fire Nova, and of course our Tier 10 set bonuses.
The changes I would like to see introduced in 3.3 to address some of the issues we are facing right now fall into two categories. The first being what I consider easy and very realistic changes the second changes that will be more involved and might have to wait for Cataclysm.
Changes that should be made
Ghost Wolf should become an insta cast baseline spell and should have the indoor restriction removed. Improved Ghost Wolf talent removed.
Totem of Wrath buff moved to all fire totems when talented or in addition to current effects the totem will convert 10% of the shaman's intellect to spell power.
Searing totem scale with the shamans haste.
Elemental pets tethered the shaman and not the totems.
Allowing fire totems to be thrown even if it is at a shorter range say 15-20 yards.
I am not going to comment on some of the Resto changes that need to be made but the community has brought up some real concerns heading into Icecrown.
Shaman Cataclysm Changes
Elemental needs a stun or at least a daze effect on Thunderstorm.
Update totem effects so that we are not losing our class identity. Our totem buffs are being over run by other classes right now. I do like the direction they are going with our totems currently i.e. Cleansing Totem.
Look at making Shaman Tanking a viable spec. Druids and Pallies can why not Shamans.
I am going to keep updating this post with ideas up until Cataclysm is released. Also I would like to hear from our readers on ideas they would like introduced for Shamans in 3.3 and beyond. Good ideas will be added to the list and credit given to the author so make sure you don't comment anonymously.
Shaman Tier 9 4-Piece Set Bonus (Elemental): This set bonus now places a damage-over-time effect on the target when Lava Burst deals damage instead of increasing the size of the Lava Burst.
This will take some testing but it looks like a nerf for PvP to me.
Update: the current PTR build is: 20% burn over 6 seconds.
Update 10/26
1. The main issue was shaman using the PvE set bonus in Arenas. We don't want to lock PvE gear out at the door, but we want it to always feel like a poor man's alternative to the PvP gear.
2. The change should have very small if any PvE implications.
3. You should be upgrading to the Icecrown tier of gear "soon," which is why we made the change now.
4. We have some other ideas we're exploring to make PvE gear in PvP less attractive.
5. We are still evaluating the Elemental T10 set bonuses, especially the 2 piece.
Ghostcrawler
Lead Systems Designer
This is response from GC when asked if the change was a nerf.
The Tavern is looking for some Halloween screen shots from our community for an up coming post on the holiday. If you would like to submit a screen shot please email it to shamantavern@gmail.com. Please include your character's name and server.
I would love some alliance screens since I play horde.
Know your Role will be a new series of post breaking down an Elemental Shamans role in raid boss encounters. We will explore the encounter and what you should be doing to help your raid group succeed. This is not written as a raiding guide but written in respect to what an elemental shaman's role is. As an elemental shaman one of the most important roles you fulfill is DPS. Now any shaman can DPS but it takes knowing your role to really shine. Since you are a pew pew stationary caster the most important thing you must learn is where to stand on each fight so you can maximize your dps potential. Every boss encounter is different, some with multiple phases and there are many adjustments you will have to make during the fights. Blizzard has stated they prefer to keep boss encounters to approximately 5 or 6 minutes. The second role you provide is utility through use of your totems. This is very important to understand as your raid group will need this utility to be more successful. Remember you have 22 different totems at your disposal some more useful than others. The third role you can fulfill is a back up healer in case your healers decide to stand in fire.
The first boss encounter will will discuss is 25 Man Heroic Northrend Beast. This encounter is a 3 phase fight with 3 different sets of bosses you will have to take down. The 3 bosses are Gormok the Impaler, Acidmaw and Dreadscale and finally Icehowl. For this segment of Know your Roll I will break down the fight into 3 phases. For phase 1 Gormok the Impaler it is very important to start the fight standing near the middle of the room since your raids tanks should be tanking him near the coliseum door that he came through. There are two reasons you should stand there. One it gives you the ability to move left or right when the snobolds start fire bombing your raid group. Don't Stand in the Fire. The second reason you will be in the best position to start burning down the snobolds that jump on any of your ranged dps or healers as they work their way to the melee dps to clear the snobold off of them so they can rejoin the fight. Don't Stand in the Fire. As an elemental shaman your role will be to sustain dps on Gormok until a snobold jumps a ranged or healer, then immediately focus on that snobold. For this phase you should use a combination of Totem of Wrath, Wrath of Air, Healing Stream, and Stoneskin Totem. ToW and Wrath of Air are staples but use healing stream as you should have wisdom from a paladin and even tho the ticks are very weak any extra healing you can provide will help your tanks and the people that still don't understand that standing in fire is bad. Stoneskin Totem will provide your tanks with an additional 1150 armor to help with the impales Gromok hits them with. This phase is timed and your raid will want to make quick work of Gormok before Acidmaw and Dreadscale enter the arena. Remember Don't Stand in the Fire.
Phase 2 begins when the next boss timer expires whether Gormok is dead or not. In phase 2 you will face two giant jormungars Acidmaw and Dreadscale. Again positioning will depend upon where your tanks decide to set up but they should be facing them away from the raid. Try to position yourself within 25 yards from the tank on Dreadscale in case you get the toxin debuff from Acidmaw. Dreadscale's tank should have a debuff called Bile and you will be able to cleanse Acidmaw's toxin. Your raid should be focused on Acidmaw to start the fight. The same totems you used in Phase 1 apply here, try to lay them in between the bosses some where near the center of the arena. This phase the the real dps check of the encounter. If your raid does not have enough dps you will not be able to defeat the jormungars before Icehowl enters the arena. This phase will require the use of Bloodlust/Heroism to finish the dps burn. One tip you can apply to your raid is using BL/Heroism after they have burrowed one time. If you pop the spell then your raid should be able to burn down Acidmaw right before they burrow again. If successful when Dreadscale comes back up he will not enrage making this phase much easier on your healers and tanks. Continue the dps race on Dreadscale and you should have him down before phase 3 starts and Icehowl enters the arena.
Hopefully things have gone smoothly and your raid is ready to take on Icehowl. In phase 3 your role is pure dps as you and the raid will be up against the enrage timer. The most important thing you should be paying attention to is positioning as clumping together with other ranged will ruin you dps when Icehowl does his Artic Breath spell that will freeze you and you will not be able to dps during the effect. During phase 3 Icehowl will perform a move called Massive Crash blowing you backwards into the wall at the edge of the arena stunning you for a few seconds while you take massive damage. Hopefully you are topped off as it normally hits my shaman for 18,000 damage. If I am still feeling the effect of Artic Breath a well timed healthstone before Massive Crash my be the only thing that saves me. Once he has knocked the hell out of you he will pick a target to charge. If his target does not move out of the way before he gets to them he will enrage and probably wipe your raid. If he misses Icehowl will become dazed and take an additional 100% damage for 15 seconds. Remember that enrage timer this is what phase 3 is all about, burn him with every cooldown you have. It is also important to drop your totems in range of your fellow raiders so they can take advantage of your utility and increase their dps. After a couple of charges Icehowl should be down and your raid can enjoy their new shinny epics.
Update: Changes to Tier 10 set bonus and relic. Included video of Fire Nova in action. One of the WoW websites I check multiple times per day is MMO Champion they are hard at work again breaking down the next patch and I love their work. Not only do the recap all the Blue's post but they data mine all the information hidden in the next patch and let us know about them. With their help I am going to keep updating all of the Elemental Shaman changes coming in the next patch in one convenient place so you can keep coming back to this post without going through a bunch of posts to find the Elemental changes. Bookmark this page for easy access and leave a comment to let the rest of us know how you feel about the new patch 3.3.
Tier 10 Set Bonuses
Tier 10 Elemental 2 Piece Bonus - Your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells reduce the remaining cooldown on your Elemental Mastery talent by 2 sec. (Old - Your Lightning Bolt spell reduces the remaining cooldown on your Elemental Mastery talent by 1 sec.)
Tier 10 Elemental 4 piece Bonus - The cooldown on your Lava Burst ability is reduced by 1.5 sec.
Spell/Talent Changes
Elemental Mastery: This talent now increases spell haste by 15% instead of critical strike chance while active.
Reincarnation: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 60 minutes down to 30 minutes (Improved Reincarnation will continue to lower the cooldown by 7/15 minutes).
Fire Nova Totem: This totem has been replaced with a new spell, Fire Nova, which is available at the same ranks as the old Fire Nova Totem. Existing characters will automatically learn this new spell in place of the totem. With a Fire Totem active, shamans will be able to use Fire Nova (fire magic) to emit the same area-of-effect damage as the old Fire Nova Totem from the active Fire Totem, not consuming the totem in the process. Fire Nova will activate a 1.5-second global cooldown when used and has a 10-second spell cooldown. The caster must be within 30 yards of the totem to use this ability, but does not need to be within line of sight of the totem.
Improved Fire Nova Totem: Renamed Improved Fire Nova. This talent now provides an additional 10/20% damage to the spell and reduces the cooldown by 2/4 seconds
Fire Nova - now Causes the shaman's active Fire totem to emit a wave of flames, inflicting 893 to 997 Fire damage to enemies within 10 yards of the totem.
Elemental Reach now affects Fire Nova.
Improved Fire Nova - now Increases the damage done by your Fire Nova by 20% and reduces the cooldown by 2/4 sec.
Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt, Earth Shock, Flame Shock, Searing Totem, Frost Shock, Stoneclaw Totem, Magma Totem had the mana cost of their lower ranks reduced.
Earth Elemental Totem: The cooldown for this totem has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
Fire Elemental Totem: The cooldown for this totem has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
Race Changes
Orc, Dwarf and Troll shamans now have their own unique totem art.
Dwarf Totems
Orc Totems
Troll Totems
Here is a video of the New Fire Nova Spell in action brought to us by Pandamonium. If you have not seen his elemental shaman videos on youtube you can check them out here.
The periodic damage from your Flame Shock spell grants 44 haste rating for 30 sec. Stacks up to 5 times. (Old - Your Earth Shock, Flame Shock, and Frost Shock spells grant 73 haste rating for 30 sec. Stacks up to 3 times.)
So now that Elemental Shamans have received some buffs to our spec in the last patch and some future buffs coming in 3.3 according to the PTR notes, I wanted to ask my fellow shamans how do they feel about the current state of our class/spec?
Do you like the changes to the rotation, glyphs, or spells?
Do you feel blizzard has us going in the right direction?
Is the elemental shaman still a viable raider or should another class be taken instead?
I am going to save my opinions until I receive some feedback on these topics.
Recent changes by Blizzard to the talent Shamanism have had a major effect on the Elemental Shaman dps rotation. The old rotation was Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt x5, Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt x4. Restart by applying a new Flame Shock. Now that 3.2.2 has been out for a few weeks and I have had some time to raid with the changes in 3.2.2 there is a very different rotation since Shamanism effects our Chain Lightning spell.
Shamanism: Your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells gain an additional 3/6/9/12/15% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus damage effects.
First Lightning bolt received a 5% buff and Shamanism includes Chain Lightning as well now. These changes have brought up a lot of opinions on which rotation to use and there has been some excellent testing and theory crafting done by Blinkenstein on his Elitist Jerks Blog. To summarize the findings it came down to 2 rotations. The first rotation involved using Chain Lighting on every cool down, the second using Chain Lightning after every Lava Burst. The most effiecent dps rotation came down to using Chain Lightning after every Lava Burst.
The dps rotation Elemental Shamans should be using post 3.2.2 will be LB, FS, LvB, CL, LBx4(if you have enough haste to fit in), LvB, CL, LBx3. Rinse and Repeat.
With the recent changes to our base elemental mechanics in patch 3.2.2 I know many raiders are asking which glyphs the should be using and the reasons behind each one. First to recap the changes in in 3.2.2:
Flame Shock: The duration of all ranks has been increased by 6 seconds.
Lava Burst: This ability no longer ever consumes a Flame Shock debuff off of the target.
Shamanism: Your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells gain an additional 3/6/9/12/15% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus damage effects.
Glyph of Flame Shock: Redesigned. This glyph now makes Flame Shock periodic damage able to be critical strikes.
With the changes to Lava Burst it is no longer required to Glyph Flame Shock since the spell will not purge the debuff off the your target now. This brings up the question most Elemental Shamans ask "Can I drop Glyph of Totem of Wrath now for Glyph of Lava?". Before I answer that question lets look at the Glyphs.
Answer: To achieve the highest DPS you should use the following glyphs. Lightning, Flame Shock, and Lava. Glyph of Totem of Wrath has now fallen behind in dps due to the fact that it does not scale. The exception to the rule is if you are still using 2 piece Tier 8 then you can replace Flame Shock with Totem of Wrath but once you start using Tier 9 four piece Glyph of Lava replaces Totem of Wrath. I also mentioned the minor glyph Thunderstorm since you should be using this spell more with the mana drain our new rotation has with Chain Lightning.
