Stormcaller isn't one of the game's specs. It is a shaman talent build from the community that takes Elemental to 29 points and Enhancement to 22, so that Mental Quickness turns 30 % of your Intellect into spell damage and Shamanistic Focus cuts your Shock costs by 45 %. You fight from range with Elemental's spells: Lightning Bolt fills every gap, Flame Shock burns on the boss, a fire totem stays down, and Chain Lightning goes out when it pays. On long fights your mana bar decides how hard you can cast. On a one-minute single-boss fight the build scores 541.6 DPS, 25th of 25 damage specs.

Stormcaller against Elemental

The name comes from a talent preset in our simulator's engine and matches the shaman's Ahn'Qiraj tier set, Stormcaller's Garb, which no pre-raid character can wear. What defines the build is where it stops. Mental Quickness needs 20 Enhancement points above it, so Elemental ends at 29: one short of Lava Burst, the spec's 31-point talent, and one short of a fifth point in Elemental Fury. You also give up Tidal Focus's 5 % hit and Mindfulness, the Restoration points the Elemental guide's build takes.

That is why it isn't the default spec. On one boss the trade comes out even: in the benchmark of 12 October the two builds finished within 1.5 % of each other at every fight length, so leaving the game's own spec buys nothing there. Against three bosses for two or three minutes the Stormcaller finished about 6 % ahead, because cheap Flame Shocks on every boss are worth 10.1 % of its damage there.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths

• Three bosses at once. On a three-minute fight against three bosses the build ranks 20th, against 24th on one boss. Magma Totem and Chain Lightning reach every boss, and Flame Shock goes on each.
• Intellect is damage. Mental Quickness is worth 9.4 % of your damage, and Ancestral Knowledge adds 10 % Intellect on top, so every point of Intellect on gear brings spell damage as well as mana and crit.
• Flat across fight lengths. Nothing in the build waits for a cooldown window, so one boss scores 541.6 DPS over one minute and 540.5 DPS over three.

Weaknesses

• Low on the damage table. On a one-minute single-boss fight it does 49.7 % of the top damage spec's damage.
• No hit from talents. Your spells start at a 17 % miss chance against a raid boss (Classic's table, which our simulator keeps). Elemental's Tidal Focus covers 5 of those points, and this set carries 4.0 %, all from gear.
• Points that do nothing. The road to Mental Quickness runs through melee talents a caster never uses. Flurry, Mental Dexterity and Stormstrike score 0.0 % in every fight.
• Mana against several bosses. On a three-minute fight against three bosses a Major Mana Potion is worth 9.5 %, and most of your bolts are a cheap rank.

On every fight

On one boss the score hardly moves with fight length. Against three bosses it rises from 540.5 DPS to 758.3 DPS over three minutes, since Flame Shock goes on each boss and the area spells take a share of your casts. The table's fights are links, and each one resets the guide to that fight.

Races

Orc is the Horde's best on a one-minute single-boss fight. Orcs take the one- and three-minute fights with Blood Fury: 10 % more spell power for 15 seconds, every two minutes, which also scales your flask and Mental Quickness. Tauren take the two-minute fights with Endurance's 1 % hit, worth the most to a build with no hit talent. Trolls have Berserking: 10 seconds of 10 % faster casting every three minutes. On one boss the three finish close together. The table below has each one.

For the Alliance, Dwarf is the only shaman race here, and none of its racials adds damage: Mace Specialization wants a mace, and the set wears a staff.

What a Shaman brings to the raid

A shaman's totems are the class's raid value, Strength of Earth for melee and Mana Spring for casters, and the table prices each for the specs it helps. In our benchmark another shaman's totems already cover your party, so your fire totem is the only one you drop. The improved Mana Spring and Mana Tide Totem rows need Restoration talents, and this build has none.

Changes

The chart tracks the Stormcaller's score on this fight across our simulator and game-data updates. What changed in each is on the Updates page.