Elemental Shaman

Is Elemental worth levelling?

Viable but weak at the current cap, and the source calls it that directly. The heading is "Weak Damage": "Because they are denied access to some of their best talents on the Level 20 bracket, such as Lava Burst and Elemental Alacrity, Elemental is quite weak at low levels. This is also not helped by the lowering of base spell damage in WoW Forever in favor of gear with more Spell Damage."

That second clause matters more than it reads. Forever cut base spell damage across the board and moved the power onto gear, so "all caster specs, and for Shaman that's Elemental, will need to constantly upgrade their gear to deal decent damage." An Elemental Shaman in stale gear is genuinely weak in a way a Classic one was not.

Chain Lightning is level 32, so you do not have it at any beta cap. Ratings: Overall 3.0, Levelling 3.0.

Your talent points

Level 20 — 11/0/0. Two published builds, both legal.

Build A:

1. Concussion, 5 points
2. Call of Flame, 3 points
3. Elemental Warding, 2 points
4. Elemental Focus at 20

Convection is offered as a swap for Elemental Warding — take it if mana is your problem rather than survival.

Build B: Convection 5 / Concussion 5 / Elemental Focus 1.

A PvP variant: Convection 1 / Concussion 5 / Reverberation 5.

Level 30 — nothing publishable. See the warning above: the one circulating build cannot be entered on the current client.

Rotation

1. Pre-place your totems before the pull — Call of the Elements at 20 does it in one button. Searing Totem last, because it starts attacking
2. Lightning Bolt to pull
3. Flame Shock, refreshed on anything long-lived
4. Back to Lightning Bolt

Multi-target: Fire Nova on cooldown at three or more enemies — and it requires an active Fire totem. That is the whole area rotation. Chain Lightning is level 32 and is not available in this beta at any cap.

Stat priority

Spell Power, then Hit, Haste, critical strike, Intellect, MP5, Spirit, Stamina.

Nature damage and plain spell power lead equally, then "Intellect, which is how many bolts you get before you have to sit down." Take leather over cloth where the stats are otherwise equal.

Given that Forever moved caster power from base spells onto gear, item level is worth more to this spec than to most. Replace pieces aggressively.

What defines Elemental

What Forever changed for Elemental

• New: Lava Burst, Lightning Overload, Earthbound. Removed: Elemental Mastery, Totemic Mastery.
• Fire Nova Totem became Fire Nova — an instant 10-yard explosion cast from your active Fire totem, rather than a totem you drop and wait on. (The 30 yards is how far away you may now place a totem, up from 20 — a different number.) Improved Fire Nova replaces Improved Fire Totems. This is a real improvement and it changes how you open a pull.
• Lightning Bolt casts in 2.5 seconds instead of 3.0 from rank 4 — level 20 — upward, so the buff is live at the current cap. Chain Lightning casts in 2.0 instead of 2.5 at every rank.
• Base spell damage was cut across the board, with the power moved onto gear's spell power.
• Elemental Alacrity (renamed from Lightning Mastery) moved up to row 3, and Elemental Fury moved down to row 6 on September 24 — and Elemental Fury now requires Call of Thunder. Call of Thunder itself is now 1 rank at 3%. This is the change that invalidated the published level-30 build.
• Weapon imbues last 60 minutes instead of 5; totems last 5 minutes instead of 2 and reach 30 yards instead of 20.
• Hit and critical strike are unified across spell, melee and ranged.

At level 60

Unknown: whether Lava Burst plus Lightning Overload is enough to make Elemental a raid caster. Both are untuned against raid gear whose stats are hidden until it drops, and there is no Chain Lightning or mana benchmark to compare against.