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elemental guides
Elemental stats: Intellect, Spirit & MP5
With Cataclysm looming ever larger on the horizon – I’d be surprised if we don’t see it around November/December time – the series on how primary stats work for elemental finally gets around to the less important stats. Except they’re actually really important, and will get more so when Cataclysm launches. Wait, what? No, that’s … Continue reading
Elemental stats: Crit
Welcome back to the series on elemental stats. Following two posts on the subject of spell haste, we now move on to a rather simpler stat – critical strike rating. Critical strike rating is one of two stats on our gear that increase our chance to get a critical strike. The other is intellect, but … Continue reading
Elemental stats: Haste and spell rotation
This is part two of a series on stats and, by remarkable coincidence, also part two of a post on the haste stat. How very convenient. The previous post dealt in some depth with the ins and outs of haste as a stat, particularly the question of whether it was subject to “caps” or potential … Continue reading
Elemental stats: Haste caps and relativity
This is the first post in a series on our primary DPS stats – which are Hit Rating, Spellpower, Haste Rating, Critical Strike Rating and Intellect. Yes, they’re all yellow stats except Spellpower. No, I’m not dealing with them in that order. Yes, Zing already talked about all this in a much more concise post. … Continue reading
Glyphs: Lava vs. Flametongue
Since 3.3.3, Glyph of Flame Shock is no longer a contender for our third glyph slot. So what is? In my last post I left the question open by just noting that Lava and Flametongue looked about the same sort of value. This post will ask the question, “which is really better?” – and hopefully … Continue reading
Fire DPS totems
The signature totem and 41-point talent of Elemental Shamans is Totem of Wrath, which when dropped uses our fire-school totem slot. This totem is a powerful combination of buff/debuff which greatly benefits any raid or party; however, we also have a number of fire-school totems which can do direct damage and there are times when … Continue reading
Black Magic: Stay away from da voodoo
Patch 3.3 changed the Black Magic weapon enchant to a haste proc effect: 35% chance to proc 250 haste rating for 10 seconds, with a 35 second internal cooldown. When the change first appeared on the PTR and at intervals since as more information has emerged, various Elemental Shaman folks at Elitist Jerks have done … Continue reading
Elemental: Relics/Totems
Current for patch 3.3.2. A quick post today and one of my last in the elemental guides series. This time we’ll look at the options for our relic (“totem”) slot, the shaman equivalent of a wand/ranged weapon. As our relics are all both class- and spec-specific, there’s not really a huge amount of choice for … Continue reading
Elemental: Set bonuses
Current for patch 3.3.3. Today’s post is a quick look at the relative value of our tier set bonuses, as well as some notes on the sets themselves. Tier 7: Earthshatter Garb Tier 7 is the most accessible of the item sets – tokens drop in Naxxramas and Obsidian Sanctum, and you can purchase the … Continue reading
Elemental: Chain Lightning
Note: this guide was originally written for patch 3.2. The numbers are now a bit out and it’s missing stuff like the new Fire Nova, but the conclusions remain accurate. Chain Lightning has always been an iconic elemental shaman spell – remember gibbing entire armies with a level 5 Farseer in WC3? In World of … Continue reading
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