Method Elemental Shaman Guide - Stats Races And Consumables

Stat Priorities

Stat Ranking

Stats for shaman are hard to get right, especially with our new 4-set. Not only does mastery go from our worst to the best stat, but crit also loses all of its value since Lava Burst becomes the majority of our damage. Crit is, however, still very, very good for AoE, so finding a balance for bosses that mandate both single-target and AoE becomes very difficult. Make sure to sim yourself using Raidbots to find what stat is best for you at any given time. Too much of any stat is bad, and if a fight has a bunch of AoE in it, opt to use some rings with high crit instead of mastery.

Before 4-set:

Haste = Crit > Versatility >>>>>>> Mastery

When you get 4-set:

Mastery > Haste > Vers > Crit

Mythic+:

Haste > Crit > Vers > Mastery

Stat Outline

Critical Strike:

Crit is really good for Shamans because of our 250% crit modifier. The downside of this is that our Lava Burst always crits. This means the stronger our lava burst is, the worse crit is for us on single target fights. And due to windspeaker’s, haste will allow us to cast more, generate more procs and therefore more dps.

For AoE, crit is extremely powerful. Since you don’t really cast Lava burst on AoE, it means everything can crit. So for AoE stack crit. Crit is close to a dead stat for funneling as most globals are used on Lava burst. All of this gets amplified by our 4-set, making crit even worse for single target.

Haste: Generates more casts because of shorter cast timers. In reality haste is better than it sims due to the fact you might cancel less casts because of movement. It is all around a good stat, and you should aim to have a bunch of it. Haste is strong in single target, AoE and funneling. This makes it a SUPER safe stat to always get lots of.

Versatility: Due to Lava burst critting always, Vers is actually alright for us! Adding more damage to the base of lava burst means it crits higher. Just like haste, versatility works for every type of fight, be it single target, cleave, aoe or funneling. It also grants damage reduction and is the best stat for PvP.

Mastery: Mastery has been the worst stat for elemental for quite some time since it has no interaction with any of our Shock spells, Earthquake, Stormkeeper, Fire Elemental, or our covenant abilities apart from Primordial Wave. But with the current 4-set, the value of mastery changes drastically, going from worst to best stat for single-target. This is mainly because Lava Burst becomes the vast majority of our damage, and also from no longer using Icefury we cast a lot less abilities that are unable to overload. Mastery still falls short in AoE.

A lot of people who are unaware think mastery is good for AoE, but it is not. This is because there is a hidden 0.33 modifier on it for chain lightning, which means if you have 100% mastery, Lightning bolt will always overload.

But Chain lightning will have a 33% chance to overload. Even though it's per target, you can instead get more crit, which in return will give much more damage overall. Also, on AoE most of your damage comes from Earthquake anyway, which mastery does not benefit.

The best way to calculate stat priorities for your character is to "sim" your character

Find out how to sim

Races

Tauren > Goblin > Orc

These are the top 3 races that I would suggest.

Tauren is super strong because of the 2% increased crit damage. It scales very well with Lava burst and it also gives 5% max HP which is great!
Goblin is very close to tauren in terms of throughput but also provides Rocket Jump, which is extremely useful for a class without any innate blink or teleport.
Orc is alright with their 2 min cooldown and they are also the best race for PvP.