Level 100 shaman talents

As I first saw the level 100 talents for shaman on Wowhead, it didn't take long 'till I had found my favorite.

Yep. Storm Elemental Totem definitely sounds like the best choice for raiding, particularly when we're talking about single-target oriented fights. It also sounds like the best one for Brawler's Guild style soloing - and I do hope we get new Brawler's bosses for level 100, since that was definitely one of my favorite features in Mists of Pandaria. And of course I'll welcome any new elemental companion. What will this one be called, air or storm idiot? Gusting idiot? I do wonder, though, if it will either replace one of the existing elementals, or if it can be summoned simultaneously with either of the two.

At the moment I don't play enhancement on any shaman of mine, but I don't get the "I'm definitely not going to get that one" feeling from any of the talents considering that specialization. I have to say that none of the talents sound particularly exciting for restoration, at least from my point of view. So far it looks like I'll be going for either Storm Elemental Totem or Rainstorm on my resto shaman Damjan, who I've really enjoyed later in Mists of Pandaria.

For elemental, Rainstorm sounds like the average passive talent. Very simple, no need to worry about it or think about it. One that I might consider going for if I was new to the class, or if I didn't play it as main.

If Reach of the Elements was passive for elemental, I would probably go for it in most situations, even if they nerfed its AoE effect. Exceptions would be those where I need extra burst and the Storm Elemental would come in handy. With my current talents I've tried to maximize sustained DPS over burst, which is a decision I've been rather happy with. I'd like to continue doing so with a passive talent like this one.

Naturally some, or all of the talents will be changed somehow before they go live. For now, you can view all the current talents here. If we leave the shaman subject for a moment, some talents for other classes that I really like include Defile for death knights, With or Without You for hunters and Death from Above for rogues.

Nicasia's transmog in the spotlight

I'm no fashion blogger, but I've stuck to my main character Nicasia's transmog for quite a while now. I'm still not bored of it, so I figured I'd share it. It was the result of a sudden impulse, not the most serious one either, yet I am quite happy with the result.

My goal with her mog was to show as little skin as possible - quite unusual for a female draenei, eh? And to make it black. It had to be black. The belt is not entirely fitting, but I've loved it since WotLK. It was the first thing I bought with my emblems of... frost, valor, what were they again that bought you 264 gear? Although I do miss her signature look, the "frost shaman" that goes with her backstory, I am sticking to the following for now - probably until I get a 1-hander and a shield.

Earthfury Helmet
Ironaya's Discarded Mantle
Cloak of the Brood Lord
Chestguard of the Lasher
Gloves of Taut Grip
Waistband of Despair
Leggings of Dubious Charms
Stillwater Boots
Jin'ya, Orb of the Waterspeaker

Something to always be noted with Nicasia is that she does not show her hair. Not unless it's an intimate situation, and well, she doesn't end up in those very often. So now I would love nothing more than a black mail hood.

Nica's guide to elemental shaman PvE - Abilities, rotation and cooldowns (5.1)

Prologue

Elemental shaman is the only class/spec combination I have ever truly fallen in love with in World of Warcraft. I created my first and most notable shaman in June 2010. She soon became my main, pushing aside the rogue who had lingered in the spotlight for a good while. She has remained my main character to this day, and I don't see that fact changing.

I have raided as an elemental shaman since late Wrath of the Lich King. The information I'm about to present is, in its entirety, acquired through experience, making mistakes and learning from them, and use of common sense. I'm not much of a mathematician, so if you are looking for accurate numbers and calculations, you should turn towards another source of information, such as Mr. Robot.

Elemental shaman is an interesting and active caster with a bunch of options to make influential changes to your playstyle. Playing effectively as an elemental shaman consists of maintaining one damage-over-time spell, keeping track of totems, dealing with short duration cooldowns and filling that relatively bursty rotation with some lightning.


Single target damage

As an elemental shaman, always cast Lightning Shield on yourself and self-enchant your weapon with Flametongue.

Elemental Blast: If you did like me and chose this talent, you should use it as often as possible. It doesn't only hit hard, but also increases your critical strike, haste or mastery rating by 3500 for 8 seconds. Ideally you would hope for haste with mastery as your second best option, but extra crit doesn't hurt you either. Elemental Blast will be your third most damage dealing ability. The major downside of this talent is that the numbers are solid: the worse your gear is, the greater the benefit is, which makes the talent particularly powerful for a shaman that is new to level 90, and less effective for a shaman with raid level gear.

Flame Shock: Your only damage-over-time spell and an extremely important tool when dealing damage to your foes. Whatever you cast after Elemental Blast benefits from the stat boost, which is why you should take as much advantage of it as possible, also by casting Flame Shock afterwards. Always keep Flame Shock active and refreshing a second or two before the last tick. If you have the option to cast Flame Shock on multiple targets that aren't going to die within a few seconds, do it. It will increase the amount of your Lava Surge procs, thus increasing your single target damage.

Lava Burst: What you will do the majority of your damage with. Lava Burst is guaranteed to crit when Flame Shock is active. Cast it as often as possible, and keep in mind that Lava Surge procs make Lava Burst instant, which allows you a moment to move without a loss of DPS time, should you need it.

Lightning Bolt: While Lightning Bolt's importance in an elemental shaman's rotation has constantly decreased, often referred to as a "filler spell", its power shouldn't be underestimated, as it will be responsible for dealing the second most damage of all of your abilities. Cast it when none of the other abilities are available, excluding Earth Shock and Unleash Elements in their own ways (see below for explanation).

Earth Shock: While dealing damage with Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning, you will eventually gain up to seven stacks of Lightning Shield. You should unleash the offensive power of those charges somewhere between five (5) to seven (7) stacks, whatever fits the global cooldown of your shocking best, but make sure not to keep a fully charged Lightning Shield up.

Unleash Elements: Unless you have chosen Unleashed Fury as your level 90 talent, cast Unleash Elements before Lava Burst only when you need to move or need a little bit of extra burst in a short time. If you chose Unleashed Fury, cast Unleash Elements as often as possible, preferably when you know you will be using Lightning Bolt a lot.

Searing Totem: You should have Searing Totem up constantly while damaging a single target, unless you can use Fire Elemental Totem.


AoE damage

Note: This is how I AoE as an elemental shaman and without Glyph of Chain Lightning. I am sure there are differing opinions, but after crawling through a lot of different techniques, I noticed this one having the highest damage output.

Elemental Blast: As with single target damage, you want to get the stat boost from Elemental Blast for AoE as well.

Flame Shock: The idea is to cast Flame Shock on as many targets as possible. It will be more beneficial to cast and refresh Flame Shocks than it would be to use the cooldowns on Earth Shock.

Lava Burst: A critting (guaranteed with Flame Shock) Lava Burst hurts more than a Chain Lightning that hits three targets. With a lot of Flame Shocks active, there will be a lot of Lava Surge procs, which allows you to cast a lot of Lava Bursts.

Chain Lightning: For when Elemental Blast or Lava Burst are not available, or there is no need to recast/refresh Flame Shock.

Magma Totem: Magma Totem deals more damage to two (2) or more targets.

Fire Elemental Totem: Fire elementals do occasional AoE damage as you do it.


Cooldowns

Ascendance: Before activating Ascendance, make sure you have just refreshed Flame Shock and cast Elemental Blast and Lava Burst, and you have not procced Lava Surge. Also make sure you have used all global cooldowns, such as Stormlash Totem or Heroism before Ascendance.

Heroism: Your best known raid-wide cooldown. It's preferable to agree with your raid leader when to use Heroism in each encounter, if its use lies on your shoulders. If you use it for yourself, it's best to use Heroism together with other cooldowns for maximum benefit.
The following macro makes you unable to cast Heroism out of combat, thus saving you from unfortunate accidents.

#showtooltip Heroism
/cast [combat]Heroism

Stormlash Totem: Best used together with Heroism, as they both benefit the entire party. If you use it for yourself, combine it with other cooldowns for maximum benefit. Elementals do not benefit from Stormlash Totem.

Fire Elemental Totem: Your fire elemental benefits from any short term stat increases such as trinkets, Elemental Blast and potions, so the ideal time to use this cooldown is when you have such effects, preferably during Heroism as well. As elementals are on a five (5) minute cooldown, you probably won't get to use them more than a maximum of two times in an encounter.

Earth Elemental Totem: Doesn't provide a major damage increase. Also doesn't taunt raid bosses, so it doesn't hurt to use it during raid encounters. As with the fire counterpart, benefits from short term stat increases. Note that you cannot use both earth and fire elemental at the same time, but they do not share cooldown, so you can use one after another.

Elemental Mastery: The level 60 talent Elemental Mastery is best used together with Ascendance for maximum benefit of the latter, with any possible 2+ minute trinket cooldowns.

Ancestral Swiftness: The level 60 talent Ancestral Swiftness should be used as often as possible, preferably before Elemental Blast or Lava Burst.


Miscellaneous

Solar Beam (Symbiosis): The druid ability Symbiosis grants elemental shamans their silence, Solar Beam, and the druid either Purge, Feral Spirit or Spiritwalker's Grace depending on their specialization. You cannot use Solar Beam to silence raid bosses, but casting it while they are casting a spell interrupts the cast (for example the Spirit Kings of Mogu'shan Vaults).

Wind Shear: The following macro makes you stop casting any other spell when casting your interrupt spell Wind Shear:

#showtooltip Wind Shear
/stopcasting
/cast Wind Shear

The following macro makes you Wind Shear a "focus interrupt." If you have /focused on something, and your current target isn't casting, Wind Shear will interrupt your focus instead. If your target is casting, it will interrupt your target.

#showtooltip Wind Shear
/stopcasting
/cast [target=focus , exists] Wind Shear
/cast Wind Shear

As always, any suggestions, corrections and questions are most welcome.

Mogu'shan Vaults as an elemental shaman

So, I finally got around to writing something half-useful! This is not a general elemental raiding guide, nor a guide to boss tactics, but focuses on the fights encountered in the Mogu'shan Vaults raid on normal mode from an elemental shaman's point of view. I may be a wee bit late with this, but perhaps it'll provide a tip or two for an elemental shaman that's paying the raid a visit for the first time.

Mogu'shan Vaults is quite friendly and nice for an elemental shaman to raid. We bring a whole of three raid-wide buffs: spell power, spell haste and mastery, so we make valuable additions to any raid group - even more so, if we know how to best make use of our abilities. Below are some elemental-specific things that I pay attention to in this raid.


The Stone Guard

While one of the quilen in each trash pack goes bananas, bringing the little ones a protection buff against AoE damage, don't be fooled. Chain Lightning continues to damage them as usual, as it's not tied to an area.

Tips: Cast and refresh Flame Shock on both guards that are tanked together. All three of them share their health pool, but you will still get to have two individual dots on, which doesn't only increase your damage as it is, but also gives you more Lava Surge procs. If you wish, you can replace Lightning Bolt with Chain Lightning while damaging the two that are together, but keep in mind that this makes it more challenging to maintain the rest of your DPS rotation: Lightning Shield charges will build up faster and you need to plan your shocking more carefully and with less time to spare. Using Chain Lightning instead of Lightning Bolt is also way more mana costly.

Preferred talents: Both Astral Shift and Stone Bulwark Totem are useful for this fight. It doesn't make any major difference if you go with one over the other. The totem has a shorter cooldown and a lesser effect. In this fight you'll pretty much be DPSing constantly, so for healing, you can practically go with either Healing Tide Totem or Ancestral Guidance. The greater your damage output is, the more efficient Ancestral Guidance is. If handled correctly, people should barely take damage from overloads, so I would rather go with Ancestral Guidance, as there shouldn't really be need for raid-wide healing, but rather specific.


Feng the Accursed

Tips: Spiritwalker's Grace allows you to keep your usual DPS rotation up while having to move in phases two and three. Astral Shift is very useful when Arcane Resonance prevents you from stacking on the boss during Arcane Velocity.

Preferred talents: While both specific and raid-wide damage is involved in this fight, the raid-wide damage is much more powerful. Therefore I recommend using Healing Tide Totem for this encounter. If your tanks don't manage to interrupt Epicenter in the first phase, and the protective shield is on cooldown, Healing Tide Totem comes in extremely handy, letting healers save their major cooldowns for later. Epicenter makes you miss a lot, due to which Ancestral Guidance wouldn't be of much use at all.

In the second phase your raid may also be dealing with high raid-wide damage from the stacks that Feng's Draw Flame ability gives him. Although you can continue casting while moving using Spiritwalker's Grace, and therefore get the full benefit of Ancestral Guidance, Healing Tide Totem still makes for a more powerful heal for all raid members. As the last phase is mostly about coordination, having to deal with necessary damage isn't so essential.


Gara'jal the Spiritbinder

Tips: If possible, take the chance to visit the spirit world right away, if you don't become a Voodoo Doll in the first lot. Save the use of Ascendance until you return to the physical world with your secondary stat and damage boosting buff. However, if you are one of the first players to become a doll, don't save cooldowns until you get to go to the spirit world, as it'll be more beneficial to just use them.

Preferred talents: Although the damage the raid takes in the frenzy part of the fight can potentially get high, the fight is quite short overall and Ancestral Guidance is my choice for a healing talent. It'll be a fast remedy for players that suffer from Voodoo Doll. Stone Bulwark Totem is at its best in encounters like Gara'jal, providing you with minor absorption half the time. Astral Shift gives you powerful protection against damage taken through Voodoo Doll, or late in the encounter.


The Spirit Kings

Tips: If possible, have a druid cast Symbiosis on you. It will give you Solar Beam, which, together with your Wind Shear, makes you an interrupt machine for the two spirit kings that require it: Meng the Demented and Zian of the Endless Shadow.

Use Thunderstorm to knock back the shadowy adds. You can easily participate in killing an Undying Shadow that's fixated on you with the help of Spiritwalker's Grace. Don't use damage-reducing cooldowns during Meng's Maddening Call - although that sudden drop in your health may look alarming, you want to be released through damage.

Preferred talents: There shouldn't really be any major raid-wide damage in this encounter, which is why I go with Ancestral Guidance when it comes to healing talents. This also means that Stone Bulwark Totem may end up being more useful than Astral Shift.


Elegon

For the first trash before Elegon and Will of the Emperor, a PvP trinket isn't the worst choice - while the magic debuff can just be dispelled, too, but not by elemental shamans, as we can only remove curses. Just remember to swap your trinket back to a PvE one once you are done with the petrifying trash! You can also make use of Windwalk Totem here.

Tips: All ranged DPS should take a moment to find that particular spot on the edge of the celestial zone that allows you to reset your stacks of Overcharged simply by jumping. It's easy to find by first taking a step into the celestial zone, and then a tiny step back... by backpeddling! If you can't find that spot, or you'd rather reset your stacks by moving out and back into the celestial zone, do it while you're casting an instant spell or get a Lava Surge proc.

If you decide/have to reset your Overcharged stacks during the last phase, popping Astral Shift for your visit outside the celestial zone is a good idea, as you're be taking a lot of damage regardless of where you are. Astral Shift can also be a useful talent for soaking the damage of Total Annihilation from a Celestial Protector. Using a cooldown like that is particularly important if you aren't at full health, as it may save your life in those situations. Both Astral Shift and Stone Bulwark Totem are helpful in the last phase of the encounter.

Popping Spiritwalker's Grace as you begin your journey towards your designated Draw Power phase spot is a good idea, as it maximises your DPS on Elegon. Killing the Energy Charges in second phases is quite easy for a bursty spec like elemental. It's essential to keep DPSing the boss while you don't have a charge to kill. Keep your burst spells, like Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Elemental Blast and highly charged Earth Shock mostly off cooldown for the charges. It may save you some close calls.

Preferred talents: I personally go for Astral Shift over Stone Bulwark Totem for this one. The berserk timer doesn't allow much spare time between your offensive attacks, so using a global cooldown for a minor absorption every minute doesn't really help maximise one's damage output. Ancestral Guidance works well in this fight, because you want to be DPSing as much as possible and most of the time, but there can be situations where you can't do enough damage to make Ancestral Guidance useful. So, although the cooldown is one minute longer, I use Healing Tide Totem for Elegon, as there are a lot of moments when the raid takes a ton of damage.


Will of the Emperor

Tips: As with the Stone Guards right at start, have Flame Shock active on as many targets as possible, but particularly Jan-Xi and Qin-Xi. There isn't much time to just DPS the bosses, so those dots will make a good contribution to the damage they receive. Again, while their health pool is shared, you have two individual dots ticking.

Emperor's Rage adds fixate on random targets. Both Frozen Power and Earthgrab Totem are useful talents for slowing and preventing them from getting to their targets. Keep in mind that while Earthgrab Totem replaces Earthbind Totem with an improved version of the totem, you can use Earthbind together with Frozen Power. You should use Thunderstorm to knock them back if they are about to reach their targets, and no other methods are used. Capacitator Totem, together with the Totemic Projection talent, gives you an AoE stun that you can relocate if your targets move out of its range. This, as other means of crowd control, only work on the smallest adds, the Rages, but you can use Earthbind Totem to slow down Emperor's Courages. You may also want to crowd control the Rage adds with Hex at some point, usually towards the end of the encounter.

The best time to use Stormlash Totem in this encounter is during Titan Gas, as this is when melee DPS will likely be damaging the bosses as well, there's little to no target swapping and people get the most out of their DPS rotations. Save Heroism/Bloodlust for the last/fourth Titan Gas phase that you encounter in the fight, and preferably cast Stormlash together with it. Keep in mind that you get to use Stormlash Totem and Fire Elemental Totem twice in this encounter.


Preferred talents: As Titan Gas does relatively high raid-wide damage, I recommend using Healing Tide Totem in this encounter. Both Frozen Power and Earthgrab Totem are useful talents for add control. Totemic Projection allows you to relocate Capacitator Totem to stun any Emperor's Rages within 8 yards of the totem.


Please do let me know, if you feel that something is missing from the list. I'll make sure to add anything new I discover.

I'm going to get WHAT?!

Nerfed!!!

Patch 5.1, titled Landfall, hasn't yet hit Europe, but it will do so in just a few hours, which means that a couple of changes apply to classes I play actively; in this case shaman and particularly death knight. Why particularly death knight, although my main is a shaman, I'll tell you now.

Death strike is getting its bonus healing removed in PvP with 5.1. As this only applies to player verses player combat, blood death knights will still heal themselves as they used to in PvE, and retain the basic healing from death strike in all situations, as well as the blood shield absorption, while the bonus healing is lost in PvP. Below is the description of death strike at level 90, and the bolding indicates which part (according to my understanding) no longer applies to it in PvP.

Focuses dark power into a strike that deals 280% weapon damage plus 748 to an enemy and heals you for 20% of the damage you have sustained during the preceding 5 sec (minimum of at least 7% of your maximum health). This attack cannot be parried.

I generally PvE way more than PvP, although there have been seasons that I've been quite active in PvP - but the truth is that it's still fairly rare activity for me. During Mists of Pandaria I've completed a total of two battlegrounds. Not impressive. I did, however, have plans for it and particularly in the case of Vlad. I was going to distinguish myself in the PvP area, as a blood death knight, because, well... If you compare my skill when it comes to, say, raiding and when it comes to PvP, there's a big difference, so I need it to be easymode! EZmode, I tell you. Also because PvP is a nervewracking experience for me, it makes me nerdrage.

I mentioned shaman, too. There's more bad news for me when it comes to my PvP future. Totems will now be considered spells, which means they cannot be cast while silenced. This may not sound like much to a non-shaman, but a ton of shaman abilities come from totems. With totems we're able to, for example, remove fear and absorb/reflect a harmful spell. Although the talent and ability changes in the pre-Pandaria patch made totems less important in a way, they're still a great part of shaman gameplay.

While I am nearly traumatised by PvP as elemental shaman, I haven't completely abandoned the thought of it, as I have great and fun memories of it, too, not only losing my nerves and taking it out on the wrong people. Like that one time in Arathi basin, when I annoyed a priest healer by throwing him down the cliff at Lumber Mill. He came back with revenge in his mind, trying to mind control me off the cliff, but I prevented that three times, first by interrupting, then with a totem, and once more by interrupting - as back then wind shear had a 5 second cooldown. Until I get over the upcoming nerfs, it seems that my only hope of the holy trinity for PvP will be my somewhat holy paladin.

I think this was about all I wanted to rant about this evening, thank you and sorry! Now a long, deep breath and...

85-90 in screenshots: Part III - Townlong Steppes & level 90

Here's the final part of leveling screenshots with a few level 90 things included. There will be more of that: we're getting started with challenge modes and raiding, and I'm going to be doing more solo attempts with Vlad.
I don't like how I've been so unfair towards some zones, for example the Dread Wastes. It was there, in Klaxxi'vess that I hit level 90, but I only had one very bad screenshot from the whole zone. Hmph.

Hieno juttu, Hermanni!

Hieno juttu, Hermanni! II

My old enemy and I meet again... -- The moment you realise you've been running to the wrong direction the whole time.

Start of legendary thingies with Wrathion.

My overall feelings regarding leveling in Pandaria? I think it's been great. I've enjoyed the quests - of course not all of them, but generally. I'm not sure if the questing experience itself was anything awesome compared to, say, Cataclysm or WotLK. In fact I've never had anything against the start of Cataclysm. It was amazing. Then it got a bit... flappyfloppysloppy. And nothing can ever beat WotLK for me, so that's the end of that.

During my leveling process I really tried to get into the sha concept and realised that it's the worst possible enemy one could face - oneself. One's negative feelings in a physical form. The concept is definitely different from what we've seen previously, but not at all less devastating. And this, if something, isn't inspiring at all, right? Wink wink.

Now how do I go forward? I'm going to get into the legendary quest chain. I've been very lazy with it so far... We're getting into our raiding stuff in Menagerie and challenge modes with some. I'm leveling Vlad and Ral up to 90, then having a look at monk and other alts. I feel positive about the future, I think it's going to be good.

Here, have some music.

85-90 in screenshots - Part II: Valley of the Four Winds, Krasarang Wilds, Kun-Lai Summit

Thing is, Nicasia has been 90 for ages now, I've just been lazy with the blog and updating this leveling screenshot series. Anyways, here's part two with some shots that I chose among the bunch that I took!

My first pet battle! I got pwned by that bunny.

Divine yaks or something. I don't know.

85-90 in screenshots - Part I: Stormwind City & The Jade Forest

Most of them feature my UI, but you'll just have to deal with it. I wanted to capture those moments as accurately as possible - not to mention as fast as possible. It's basically my first and therefore most memorable journey from 85 to 90 in the form of screenshots.

Menagerie "base" highlighted. :D

This is where our server froze.

This quest took me/us at least 30 minutes to complete due to server lag.

Loads of gyrocopters!