Shamans are spiritual guides and practitioners not of the divine, but of the elementals themselves. Unlike other mystics, shamans commune with forces that are not strictly benevolent. The elements are chaotic and if left to their own devices, they fight each other with endless primal fury. The shaman's job is to balance that chaos. Acting as moderators between earth, fire, water and air, shamans invoke totems that concentrate the elements to support the shaman's allies or to punish those who threaten them »
As some readers have asked here for the Improvement Shaman guide for Warlords of Draenor, I hope that this guide can solve all your doubts regarding this specialization and that with effort you can fully master it.
Table of Contents
1. Statistics analysis:
With the recent changes that the shaman has undergone, the priority of the statistics becomes:
- Agility
- Haste (Max 50%)
- Mastery (AoE) - Multi-hit (Singletarget). We will choose one of the 2 priorities, the one we do not choose will become our next priority
- Versatility
- Critical hit
- Haste (After 50%)
Why the choice of such secondary stats?
-The haste has become a very strong point in the shaman, you can see his explanation in more detail here. In addition to that we get an extra 5% haste thanks to Lightning strikes. Why 50%? Because even if we have a lot of speed, it will not continue to climb as well as other statistics, once we reach 50% the diminishing return makes it more worth investing points in other statistics in addition to that no matter how much we hit faster we still have a 1.5 sec GCD en Windfury weapon and therefore it does not suit us exceed this limit.
-The Mastery continues to add a large amount of damage, as our spells deal fire, frost or nature damage. This statistic scales very well in terms of area damage since our main sources of damage for AoE are the Magma Totem y Fire Nova.
-Multistrike adds more damage than Mastery if it is a single target.
-Versatility adds% damage and increased healing plus reduce the damage we take(For this last reason it becomes more important than the critic)
2. Talent and glyph analysis
Let's move on to analyzing which talents and glyphs to use depending on the situation.
2.1 talents
lvl 15
Stone Bulwark Totem It does not have much competition in PvE compared to the other two talents, so in most cases we will use Guardian of nature and we will choose Astral Shift in encounters where you need to reduce drastic damage at an exact moment.
lvl 30
All these talents are very useful depending on the situation in which we find ourselves. The normal thing is to take Pillaterra Totem before Frozen power, but there are times when the latter is more worthwhile to kite well some add. Ride the Wind Totem It can mean salvation in encounters where speed reduction is something worth its salt, personally I always carry this last talent.
lvl 45
The default talent is Call of the elements , it has a good use that fits in many situations. Totemic persistence with respect to the others is not so useful, maybe if we want to have the Storm Elemental Totem active alongside some utility wind totem. Totemic projection ideal for meetings with a lot of movement, I highly recommend this talent, to be able to use the Enabling totem y Magma Totem in a more efficient way.
lvl 60
If we want Burst we use Elemental Mastery. If we want sustained damage Ancient Swiftness. If we want AoE we use Echo of the elements. As our statistics priority is now, it is best that we use Ancient Swiftness.
lvl 75
Ancestral guide It has been quite nerfed with respect to MoP although it is still a good option for encounters where we can do AoE, basically we will heal or with this talent either with Ascension and CDs or with Fire Nova in AoE. Conductivity It's not a very good talent, as Maelstrom Weapon only increases healing from direct heals and therefore our healing rain heals very little. Rushing currents he is a good talent for any situation.
lvl 90
Right now the most recommended talent is Unleashed fury, thus Lightning Bolt becomes our main source of damage. Primal Elementalist we add quite a burst. Elemental blast It is discarded for PvE, perhaps when we have more stats it will become more viable, but in the meantime its damage is even less than that of Lightning Bolt.
lvl 100
Storm Elemental Totem It is the most recommended for now, since it does a very considerable damage and we can also have it together with our Scorching Totem.Liquid magma we will use it for AoE damage. Elemental Fusion can be used for a more sustainable damage play style.
2.2 Glyphs
Almost all the glyphs out there are very situations, so I'll name the ones that I think are most useful:
- Glyph of Frost Shock: Recommended. Add some extra Dps and allow us to kite better.
- Glyph of Chain Lightning : Recommended. Useful in most situations, although we can remove it if there are no adds on the boss.
- Glyph of Lava Spread: Recommended for most cases although it can be dispensed with in unitarget.
- Glyph of Fire Nova: Recommended for AoE.
- Glyph of Ephemeral Spirits: It can be useful in certain bosses with spikes of damage, since our wolves heal us a lot.
- Glyph of Shamanistic Resolve: Very useful for the same situations as the previous glyph.
- Glyph of Healing Stream Totem: Useful in magic damage phases.
- Glyph of Shaman's Wrath: Great utility for healers now that their devices have Cd.
3. Rotation:
3.1. Rotation to a target (Unitarget)
Our rotation as an upgrade shaman is based on the priority of using the following skills:
- Have active Scorching Totem at all times.
- Use Lightning Bolt as long as we have 5 loads of Maelstrom Weapon.
- Use Storm Strike.
- Use Lava Lash.
- Use Clash of Flames and keep your Dot in time, it always applies with the effect of Unleash Elements.
- Unleash Elements.
- Frost shock.
- Use spells while we wait for the global CD (Ex: renew Scorching Totem , put Healing Stream Totem,etc)
Changes in unitarget rotation according to talents
As for color tastes, there are people who like to use other talents that are not the most recommended, so I will explain how to play them.
Lv 90 Talents
- In case you have selected Unleashed fury, our second priority will be Unleash Elements in most cases, however (very important) our next priority (Lightning Bolt) happens to depend on a good use of Unleash ElementsLet me explain: If we have 4 or more loads of Maelstrom Weapon y Unleash Elements It is without CD or it has a CD of 3 or less seconds left, then we will wait for the CD time and launch Unleash Elements before Lightning Bolt.In any other case we will launch Lightning Bolt before, because otherwise we will lose between 2-3 charges of Maelstrom Weapon, which does not suit us.
- In case you have selected Elemental blast, this becomes our second priority (as long as we have the loads of Maelstrom Weapon). Otherwise your priority becomes después de Frost shock.
- In case you have selected Primal Elementalist, I will explain it further in the section on Use of offensive CDs.
Lv 100 Talents
- If you selected Liquid magma, becomes your first priority (unless adds appear soon) as long as you Fire Totem its 10 sec duration will be available.
- If you chose Elemental Fusion, we will focus on accumulating the two charges and then using it with Clash of Flames, once the Dot does not matter if we launch Frost shock with 1 or 2 charges, unless you want to save some burst. Try to store charges when the Dot of Clash of flames It has 10 sec left to expire (this can change with haste, if your Lava Lash is 8sec, just start accumulating them when the dot has 8 sec left.)
- If you chose Storm Elemental Totem , I'll explain later in the section on Use of offensive CDs.
3.2. Rotation to a various objectives and AoE
In the case of having 2 objectives, we will follow our unitarget rotation and include Fire Nova and Magma Totem, thus:
- Have active Magma Totem at all times.
- Use Lightning Bolt as long as we have 5 loads of Maelstrom Weapon.
- Use Storm Strike.
- Use Lava Lash.
- Use Clash of Flames and keep your Dot in time, it always applies with the effect of Unleash Elements.
- Unleash Elements.
- Fire Nova
- Frost shock.
- Use spells while we wait for the global CD (Ex: renew Scorching Totem , put Healing Stream Totem,etc)
In the case of having 3 or more objectives our Maximum priority It will be to extend the Clash of Flames and use Fire Nova with the effect of Unleash Elements. I clarify one thing: if we use the effect of Unleash Elements with Clash of Flames it will not serve us a lot because Lava Lash does not extend enhanced shock to other targets. Finally we will replace Lightning Bolt with Chain of Lightning and we will stop using Frost shock.
Changes in AoE rotation according to talents
There really is not much to clarify, since there are only 2 talents that increase our AoE damage in a way quite considerable and these are Echo of the elements y Liquid magmaWhen we use Echo of the elements be careful and you don't throw skills like crazy, be patient and wait for the CD of Fire Nova, make sure you don't waste the effect of Echo of the elements on another spell other than Fire Nova.
As improvement shamans we have very powerful CDs to improve our damage and therefore you should review the effects of each one to know how to use them well.
- Ascension It is an ability with a lot of Burst, we will use it whenever it is available and if possible with other cds to increase racial damage, potions, Bloodlust/Heroism, etc. Something to highlight about this ability is that restart the cd de Storm Strike, so before use Ascension make sure you have used before Storm Strike to take advantage of the damage.
- Storm Elemental TotemIt is a very powerful CD that can be used both offensively and defensively. It always has a higher priority than Fire Elemental Totem, because its damage is almost as high as the Fire elemental primal. It also provides healing while dealing damage, which can be a relief for heals in critical situations.
- Fire Elemental Totemwe will use it when possible as long as the Storm Elemental Totem this on CD.In case you have selected the talent Primal Elementalist there are not many changes in priority because the Greater Storm Elemental is still better, keep in mind that in AoE situations it is worth it for the Fire Elemental to use potentiate about us as long as it has used its own Fire Nova before.
- Feral Spirits, their use will depend on the encounter, they do good damage but heal more than the damage they do, 225% (335% with Glyph) so we may be interested in saving them for phases in which the boss does a lot of damage. With the Tier 17 bonus link it is mandatory to use them on each CD.
So far it may have been clear to you how to do the rotation, but there is a part that many guides do not explain and that is: What should I do before starting the rotation at the start of a fight?. Well, I'll explain it being in the situation before starting the boss pull:
- We start activating Ancient Swiftness.
- We are walking towards the Boss (4 Sec before the pull).
- We launch Unleash Elements as we reach the Boss(if you have Unleashed fury as a talent wait until just before the tank calls him).
- If you have Elemental blast (and not having Ancient Swiftness) we started to launch it.
- We use Draenic Agility Potion (3 Sec before pull)
- You invoke the Feral Spirits. (So that the global CD does not overlap us)
- Scorching Totem
- We untie elements if we have Unleashed fury
- Pull begins
- If we have Elemental blast we use it (We will spend Ancient Swiftness)
- We use Storm Strike
- Ascension+Storm Elemental Totem+ Racial.
- We use Bloodlust/Heroism depending on the boss.
- Storm Strike (which was restarted thanks to Ascension) From here on it is quite safe to have 5 charges of Maelstrom Weapon.
- We use Lightning Bolt(Twice if we still had Ancient Swiftness)
And from here on we will continue with the normal rotation, try to do the Burst as well as possible since it is a very important part for the improvement. How many will choose the combination Unleashed fury y Ancient Swiftness (since they are the most viable now) I have left a different color as the rotation starts if you use other talents.
4. Enchantments, Gems, and Consumables.
Enchantments
| Groove | Name |
|---|---|
| Weapons | |
| Neck | |
| Cover | |
| Rings |
Remember that we will choose Mastery in case we have more than 50% Haste, although you can also focus on the Multistrike.
Gems
| Use if: | Name |
|---|---|
| We have less than 50% haste | |
| We have more than 50% haste |
Consumables
| Type | Name |
|---|---|
| Potion | |
| Jar | |
| Meal |
5.Tips
I reserved this section at the end to indicate things that did not fit very well in other areas of the guide or for some resolution of readers' doubts in the future.
What weapon speed should I use with my Shaman?
Ideally, they should always be weapons of a 2.6 speed or higher. And never use daggers, please ... never: (
Did I just get a new weapon and don't know where to equip it, in my primary or secondary hand?
You should pay attention to the damage of the weapon (the range of numbers), and that your weapon with the highest damage is in your secondary hand, simply because lava lash deals damage with your secondary weapon and the other ability you have with weapon damage is Stormstrike, which deals damage with both weapons.
I know very well that right now the upgrade is quite low in unitarget damage, but don't be discouraged that it is a very fun class to use and who knows if in 1 week or 1 month it will be buffed. My advice is that you always use the class that you are most comfortable with and with which you have the most fun because that is how you will be able to stand out from the rest.
Well, what did you think of the guide? Do you have any questions regarding the Improvement Shaman? Or what guide from another specialization are you looking forward to more?