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Rotations - dot clipping

Math Notes - Damage Bonuses

Damage bonuses that are passive will stack additively, but multiply with buffs.

Additive bonuses: Booming Echoes, Concussion, Call of Flame, Storm Earth & Fire
Multiplicative bonuses: Elemental Oath (via Clearcasting), Raid Damage Buffs/Debuffs

Additive bonuses multiply base damage and Spell Power (with bonus SP talents).
For Lava Burst, we'd see the following:
100% + 5% + 6% = 111%

Flame Shock has different bonuses for the Direct Damage and Damage over Time portions:
DD: 100% +5% +20% = 125%
Dot: 100% +5% +60% = 165%

The multiplicative bonuses come into effect after the passive bonuses are calculated. For this example, the start point is the final passive damage calculated above.

100% * 110% *103% *116% = 131.428%

Clearcasting = 110%, Raid Damage buff = 103%, Raid Spell Damage Debuff = 116%

Math Notes - Critical Damage

Critical Damage Bonuses calculate as follows:

Base Crit Bonus * (Crit Bonus 1 + Crit Bonus 2 +....)

Firstly, the "Base Crit Bonus" is able to be modified by the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond. The calculation goes like this:

1.5*1.03=1.545 or 154.5% of base damage.

The 54.5% bonus is then multiplied by critical damage bonus talents. All talents will act as a multiplier of this 54.5%, but stack additively. In the case of Lava Burst with the T7 4pc bonus, it works as follows:

54.5% * (1+100%+24%+10%) = 54.5% * 234% = 127.53%

The 100% is from Elemental Fury, 24% from Lava Flows, and 10% from the T7 4pc bonus. This 127.53% bonus is then added back on top of the base 100% to give a total 227.53% figure. Without the 10% set bonus, we'd see a 222.08% bonus like so:

54.5% * (1+100%+24%) = 54.5% * 224% = 122.08%

Math Notes - Mana

To be merged into the guide later.

Mana: Regeneration and Reduction

With the lack of mana use as Elemental, the question is whether to take the points from mana regeneration or cost reduction talents, and use them in damage or utility talents.

Firstly, we need to look at the mana consumption of Flame Shock, Lava Burst and Lightning Bolt under various conditions:

Spell	% of Base Mana	Base	Convection	Sham-Focus
Flame Shock	17%	747	672	411
Lava Burst	10%	439	395	439
Lightning Bolt	10%	439	39	439

Assuming a "standard" rotation with 9 Lb, 2 LvB and 1 FS, we would expect to see the follow mana use per second (or mps) from the above conditions (with an average ClearCasting uptime of 84.61%, meaning mana costs are reduced by 33.844%)

Condition	mps	Saving	per point
Base	181	0	0
Convection	163	18	3.6
Sham-Focus	170	11	11

As you can see, Shamanistic Focus appears to be better, point for point, than Convection. The next question is how these values compare with Unrelenting Storm. As the above figures are in mps, and US uses mp5, we need to first calculate the mp5 and convert to mps.

Assuming raid buffs, an average elemental shaman will be around 1100 Intellect. This converts to 132 mp5, or 26.4 mps. Also, if we assume a mana pool of ~ 21000, we can add Thunderstorm into the mix (using once every 50 seconds), we see the following:

Condition	mps	Saving	per point
Base	181	0	0
Convection	163	18	3.6
Sham-Focus	170	11	11
Thunderstorm	NA	33.6	33.6
Unrelenting Storm	NA	26.4	8.8

On a point by point comparison, Convection comes out as the best place to remove points from, followed by Unrelenting Storm and Shamanistic Focus.

Elemental Guide - Part 3.1: Elemental Talents

Tier	Talent	Recommendation	Notes
1	Concussion	Required	Stacks additively with Call of Flame
1	Convection	Optional	The weakest of the mana efficiency talents, Convection would be taken if you have mana problems, or spare points to use.
2	Elemental Devastation	Ignore	Despite being in the Elemental tree, this is a pure Enhancement talent. Should not be taken at all.
2	Elemental Warding	Optional	A useful filler talent, effectively gives you a 6.4% hp bonus.
2	Call of Flame	Required	Stacks additively with Concussion for a 11% damage bonus on Lava Burst
3	Elemental Fury	Required	Multiplies with CSD to give 109% damage bonus critical strikes. Stacks additively with Lava Flows.
3	Elemental Focus	Required	While this only procs from damage spells, it can be consumed by damage and healing spells. Is calculated after passive mana reductions (1-Concussion)*(1-Clearcasting) = LB costs 5.4% (263) of base mana rather than 10% (419)
3	Reverberation	Not Recommended	This talent is not useful for Elemental, as we do not cast shocks on a frequent basis.
4	Eye of the Storm	Recommended	A useful filler talent. Very handy for levelling, and for encounters with high pushback frequency. Elemental suffers more than other casters from pushback due to lower cast times.
4	Improved Fire Nova Totem	Optional	Semi-useful filler talent, more orientated towards PvP than PvE
4	Unrelenting Storm	Recommended	A useful filler talent. A passive regen talent that generates more mana per point than Convection saves.
5	Call of Thunder	Required	This is one of the most valuable talent points in the tree, because of the low point investment
5	Elemental Reach	Recommended	Increases range to allow more time casting while farming, but also allows the player to more easily avoid ranged abilities in both PvE and PvP.
6	Lightning Mastery	Required	The equivalent of 25% haste in 5 easy points.
6	Elemental Precision	Required	Hit is the most valuable stat you can have, and the threat reduction is mandatory as the only shaman de-agro ability has a 20 yard range.
7	Storm Earth & Fire	Recommended	Provides some extra damage output, and utility.
7	Elemental Mastery	Required	20% Crit & mana cost reduction. More mana efficiency, and higher ClearCasting uptime.
8	Booming Echoes	Recommended	20% direct damage bonus to FS with reduced shock cooldown after FS & FrS can be quite useful.
8	Lightning Overload	Required	Effectively a 16.5% damage bonus for CL and LB due to the 33% chance and 50% damage modifier. Crits can proc ClearCasting and Oath. Chance for CL is split over all three hits (so 11% chance per hit).
8	Elemental Oath	Required	Short duration 5% crit buff (does not stack with Moonkin aura). The Clearcasting bonus is a 10% damage bonus, rather than a 10% spellpower gain.
9	Lava Flows	Required	The critical strike bonus stacks additively with Elemental Fury, so there is a total 112% increase of the normal critical strike bonus damage (0.5*(1+1+0.24)=112%) and is calculated after CSD is applied (0.545*(1+1+0.24)=122.08%). The haste bonus on FS dispells is not applicable for PvE
9	Totem of Wrath	Recommended	High spellpower buff with a 3% crit debuff aura.
9	Astral Shift	Not Recommended	Primarily a PvP talent, no real bonus for PvE
10	Shamanism	Required	Increases the co-efficient of Lightning Bolt (10%) and Lava Burst (20%). This is a direct co-efficient gain, rather than a % spellpower gain.
11	Thunderstorm	Optional	See: Spells

Elemental Guide - Part 3.0: Talents

Elemental Shaman will spend a majority of their talent points in the Elemental Combat tree, with the remaining put into Enhancement. Restoration talents are less valuable, as most only affect healing spells. The following section covers the full Elemental tree, as well as the early Enhancement/Restoration talents to explain why you should or shouldn't put points into them, and what the effects of each talent is.

Elemental Guide - Part 2.1: Totems

Air
Wrath of Air is the only totem for Elemental Raiding. It is important to note that, depending on the number of casters/melee and their abilities, Windfury may be a better totem to drop if you are the only shaman present.

Earth
There are no practical Earth totems for casters. That said, be prepared to drop Strength of Earth, Stoneskin or Tremor depending on requirements.

Water
Water will be used for Healing Stream, unless you don't have enough Paladins for Blessing of Wisdom, or a Resto Shaman that can drop Mana Spring (with 3/3 Restorative Totems). Cleansing

Fire
Primarily fire will be used for Totem of Wrath. Occasionally, the additional AE damage from Magma may prove useful, and in high frost damage fights (eg: Sapph/KT) Frost Resistance may be needed if no Paladins or other Shaman are present (note that Imp MotW gives 75 resist, vs the 130 from the totem).