Pre-Cata Elemental Guide

This guide will be mostly void of math and proving things through it, because I am lazy.

-- Updated for Patch 4.0.3 --

Table of Contents:
1) Talents and Glyphs
2) Gearing
3) Rotation/Totems
4) Strategy

1) Talents and Glyphs:
Our best talent build is fairly basic with a few points left over (at 80).

Reduced Damage:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhGbGRfkzGZbh:V0o
Crowd Control:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhG0GRfkdGZbh:V0o

Above I've listed two of my favorite specs. The first allows for a bit of reduced damage, while the latter some EB action for those sloppy trash pulls (and a couple bosses). I do not recommend taking Earthquake at the cost of any other talent, it is worthless in ICC. Nobody cares how much AoE damage you did on trash, they care how much damage you did to the boss come time for it.

Moving on, our Glyph choices are a bit different now, but most should be able to tell what they need.
Primary Musts:


* Glyph of Lightning Bolt
* Glyph of Lava Burst


Primary Conditional:


* Glyph of Flametounge Weapon (most encounters)
* Glyph of Fire Elemental (longer encounters like Heroic LDW/LK)


Major Glyphs:

* Glyph of Elemental Mastery
* Glyph of Chain Lightning
* Glyph of Thunder
* Glyph of Hex
* Glyph of Lightning Shield


Use your discretion on the above glyphs, I'll leave it up to your common sense and knowledge of encounters to use the right ones.
Minor Glyphs:


* Glyph of Thunderstorm (save for fights similar to Surfang or Valithria)


Nothing else really matters raid wise. Glyph of Renewed Life is nice, but if you stay prepared it doesn't matter. That covers our Glyphs and Talent builds, as you can see it is all pretty simple (Just like everything else in WoW).

2) Gearing:
This will not be a BiS list, but rather what you are looking for in your gear. Just like every other class, we have our priorities when choosing gear. In order, the stats we look for:
- Hit (Cap at 16% Dranei/17% Everyone else -- Spirit now gives hit since 4.0.1 via talents): Missing is a huge loss, you don't want to do it...ever.
- SP/Intellect: Our bread and butter for damage.
- Haste (Get damn close to a 1 second LB w/ WoA down): Faster cast times, equals more casts, equals more damage.
- Mastery: Chance to proc an equivalent LvB/LB/CL with no threat at 75% of normal damage. This scales very well with each point put into it.
- Haste (Past damn close to a 1 second LB w/ WoA down): We haven't lost our fetish for this stat, just put it behind mastery at this point.
- Crit: We auto crit on LvB, so no it isn't THAT big a deal, but it does help with Fulmination and LB. Don't go out of your way for it though.
- Agility: Just fucking with you.

As for gems, there really isn't anything complicated.
- Meta: 21 Int/2% Mana or 21 Int/2% Reduced Threat
- Red: Int
- Yellow: Int/Haste
- Blue: Int, unless meta requirements are needed. Int/Spirit or Spirit, depending on how much hit you actually need.
*Here's a hint: If you find yourself barely short on hit, Int/Spirit can be gemmed to get what you're lacking past the meta requirement.

Reforging:
Now that you know our priority in stats to gear and gem for, lets take a look at reforging. Should we reforge everything? Most likely, yes. If you have yet to obtain your hit cap, do so now by reforging Crit into Spirit, after, look at every other piece of gear with crit on it. Take ALL your crit, and reforge it into Mastery. Like I said before, it is our least valued stat, and Mastery runs a close race with Haste values. Once all crit is reforged into Mastery, throw your WoA down and check the cast time on your LvB. Is it close to 1.10? If yes, you should probably leave your haste where its at. But, If your LvB is sitting closer to 1.01, it may be a good idea to pick up some more Mastery rating where you can (at a minimal loss to your Haste ratings).

That should pretty much cover gearing, again, a bunch of simple shit once you look it over.

3) Rotation/Totems:
Yay! Its what so many people often skip to! If you did, you may want to look back and make sure everything else is correct, otherwise, you may still suck (like my grammar and spelling)! At any rate, since 4.0.1 we have a new "Priority" system to work with. Is it easier than spamming 2 or 3 buttons? No, but its a lot more fun, and a lot more damage! On with the show...
Make Sure Lightning Shield is up before every fight, its what allows us Fulmination!

Priority Rotation
- Always kick shit off with Flame Shock! This makes LvB crit every time, and ticks for quite a bit of damage (especially at higher haste levels).

- If Flame Shock is on the target, our next priority will be to LvB that son of a bitch! Since 4.0.1 this can be a bit tricky with its resets. I have a recommended add-on list at the end of this shin dig, should you find yourself having trouble. At any rate, as long as FS is up, if LvB is off CD, cast it!

- Should LvB be on CD, and FS has a sufficient duration left on it, check your LS stacks. Again, if you need help tracking this, check my add-on list. ES should be cast depending on a short list of different things. For the most part though, you are safe to cast ES at 8-9 stacks of LS. However, if you find yourself moving, ES is our "on the move" spell. Its a better idea to cast this rather than nothing at all.

- Is LvB on CD? Are your LS stacks below the appropriate level? If so, spam the ever living shit out of LB. This spell will deal more damage overall than anything else.

Totems:
- Earth: Stoneskin or Tremor, depending on what is needed. Usually Stoneskin. In rare cases I've dropped an Earth Elemental to help finish off a boss after a tank dies. This isn't really something you should do if you don't know whats going on, but hey, it works for a few seconds, and in WoW a few seconds can be the encounter.

- Fire: Searing Totem or Fire Elemental (Magma for trash). All of these fire totems will grant everyone in the raid a 10% SP increase. It is absolutely necessary to keep one of these down for not only the SP buff, but a large portion of your DPS.

- Water: Totem of the Tranquil Mind or Healing Stream. In a raid, Mana Spring will most likely never be needed. Consecration cancels ToTM, Healing Stream will always heal. Pick a totem.

- Air: Wrath of Air hands down. The SP may die, the other Shaman may die. Keep it down.

This covers totems and rotation. A little bit more complicated, but that is what the target dummy is for. Go use it, go love it, go practice!

4) Strategy:
You can learn all of this from many places, but there are a lot of things you will not read on other sites. These are things you NEED to know to place in the top of the meters, so read on.

The Fire Elemental and your SP:
This is pretty basic. The Fire Ele benefits from your SP. What does that mean to you? Well, should you have trinkets with a SP proc, its usually a damn good idea to wait for the proc before dropping your Fire Ele. Searing will work just fine, as long as you can get the full 2 minutes out of it after dropping. To maximize DPS, make sure the Ele is dropped with at least 2 minutes left in the fight, and when he won't die. For longer fights, make sure you drop it early, so you can drop it again (with glyph).

Elemental Mastery:
Good Lord I see so many Elemental Shamans not using this to the fullest. Remember this now, Elemental Mastery is an insane boost to your DPS, and even more so when used in conjunction with trinkets and good timing! Always start the fight with EM so FS is hasted and LvB is instant, this will in turn set you up for a smoother rotation. As well, your trinket's internal CDs should be tracked. If a large SP/Haste proc is coming off of CD in a couple seconds, its best to wait for it to come up so you can proc EM with the chance of a trinket proc. EM+Procs equals very large boosts to damage. Just remember, you want this ability going every chance you get, and if you can, going with trinket procs.

Potions:
A lot of people do not pre-pot. This is either because they don't know, or because they're cheap. Potions of Speed and Potions of Wild Magic are your primary potions. Before each fight starts, you should be drinking a Speed Pot about 1-2 seconds prior to entering combat. Combine the Potion of Speed with EM and appropriate haste levels (Hyperspeed Accelerators for Engineers), and you have yourself an off the bat Heroism. Once it runs out, wait for Hero and pot with Potion of Wild Magic. EM Proc on Hero should equal out to more haste than needed, so the Wild Magic will increase your damage much more efficiently.

Movement:
Move as little as possible. We work best as turrets, so act like one. Before every fight, find a place to stand which will require little to no movement. If you should have to move make sure you take care of minor things while you are unable to cast. This can include things such as refreshing FS if needed (usually not) and re-dropping your totems (especially searing). Should you not need to do either of these, you have 2 choices depending on the timing. Either ES, or proc EM should it be up. If you are lucky enough to be able to EM, you get a instant LvB/LB while moving. Just make sure you aren't running too much with the EM method, otherwise you'll get an instant cast then waste the rest of it. When you do have to run around like a chicken with it's head cut off, make sure you take full advantage of mouse turning and strafing. Keyboard turning is very slow and can waste up time, or in some cases kill you. NEVER back pedal, its slow as hell, and usually will net you in a heap of trouble.

Macros:
Using some well hot keyed macros can benefit you fairly well. Putting EM/Potion of Speed/Hyperspeed Accelerators into one button will net you a quick start to any fight, just make sure you have a separate EM hot keyed for later on. Some people prefer to macro Hyper Accels into their LB cast, but I don't recommend this. The haste proc can be better served with trinkets or EM (its just better to have more control of it). Interrupt and Purge can be placed into a macro as well for quick benefits in certain encounter. There are others, a lot don't do shit, but are pretty fun.

Add-ons:
Nothing helps more than a good add-on to track everything you need. Myself, I run fairly bare with only 2 outside of the core raiding ones.

NeedToKnow: Set timers for many things including your Trinket CDs, Procs, Spell CDs, DoT Durations, and more. This add on can help in so many ways I would almost consider it a necessity.

PowerAuras: In 4.0.3 they built this in for us somewhat, but like most built in WoW features, it is crap. I use this to track my LS stacks (in addition to NTK above) and LvB resets. It pops up a big ass icon you can change/transform, and plays a sound (should you configure it that way). Although I still recommend keeping an eye on your bars as well, this add on will still help you more often than not.

Zamir's Spreadsheet:
http://elitistjerks.com/f79/t80396-elemental_zap_spreadsheet/
^^ Will help you get your gear right, and work out the small thing.

That covers what I can think of for the moment. I'll try to organize this a bit better later on, and maybe add in things I forgot to mention. Good luck, have fun, and stay HoarFayced! Reply for updates if you see something, thanks!