Tier 1

Tier 1 is available at level ten, when your first talents open up.

Convection

Reduces the mana cost of your shock, lightning bolt and chain lighting spells by up to 10%.

Mana can be a real issue for elemental shaman, since you can burn through it so quickly. This talent reduces your core spells mana cost by 10% allowing you to last that much longer in fights.

This talent is well suited for PvE builds where length of each battle is longer.

If the other level one talent wasn't also very strong this would be considered a must, however your can really only take one of them or you will not have enough points later in the tree.

Strongly Recommeded, especially for PvE

Concussion

This talent increases the damage dealt by your shock, lighting bolt and chain lightning spells by up to 5%.

This is a very good talent for elementalists, since these are your core abilites.

This talent is well suited for PvP builds where burst damage is critical.

If the other level one talent wasn't also very strong this would be considered a must, however your can really only take one of them or you will not have enough points later in the tree.

Strongly Recommeded, especially for PvP

Tier 2

Earth's Grasp

This talent increases the health of your stoneclaw totem by up to 50% and the the radius of your earthbind totem by up to 20%.

Neither of these increases have any meaningful effect in the game. The radius increase amounts to a whopping 2 yards and stoneclaw can't hold aggro from you past the very low levels of the game so extra health will not mean very much if it's not hit.

Skip it.

Elemental Warding

This talent reduces the damage you take from fire, frost and nature sources by up to 10%.

This is a highly situational talent that can either be viewed as worth every point and more, or as worthless. In raids when most of the damage is elemental based it can prove very worthwhile if it is one of the damge types listed. In PvP it can prove valuable against mages, druids and other shaman. In almost all other situations it is completely useless.

Strongly Recommended for Raiders, otherwise Skip it

Call of Flame

Increases the damge dealt by your fire totems by 15%.

This is a fairly useful talent as the upgrade in damage can be significant at later levels. However since both concussion and convection are so strong at tier 1, you are better taking both of them than spending the points here.

Skip it.

Tier 3

Elemental Focus

Gives you a 100% chance to enter a clearcasting state after any critical hit from a fire, frost or nature damage spell. While in the clearcasting state your next damage spell will have its mana cost reduced by 100%.

If there could only be one must have talent in the whole tree, this would be it! Once geared in the end game this could equate to at least every 8th spell free. Where else can you get that kind of return for just 1 talent point.

This should be the elevent point spent in the tree at all times.

Must have Talent.

Reverberation

This talent reduces the cooldown on all shock spells by up to 1 second.

While only a so-so talent for leveling and PvE, it is a must have for PvP where speed of the kill is critical. It is a useful increase in DPS output for any shaman though so can be used for anything. Just be advised that you wil burn though your mana that much faster.

Recommended for PvP

Call of Thunder

Increases the critical stike chance of your lighting bolt and chain lighting spells by up to 6%.

This is a highly recommended talent because of the damage increase and it being a prerequisite for lightning mastery. 6% is a significant amount of damge on your lightning spells since they are a staple cast in your rotation.

Stongly Recommended

Tier 4

Improved Fire Nova Totem

This talent decreases the time before your fire nova totem activates by up to 2 seconds and decreases the threat generated by your magna totem by 50%.

The big bonus here is the drop in time before your fire nova totem goes off, allowing less time for it to be killed. This makes the totem much more reliable to use, especially in PvP.

While useful though, there are better talents available, that should get your points.

Skip it

Eye of the Storm

This talent provides up to a 100% chance to gain a focused casting effect for 6 seconds after being hit by a critical strike. While under this effect you will not lose casting time when you suffer damage.

This is a very strong talent, allowing you to continue to cast and dish out damage at a good rate, even when being attacked. In fact, there are very few players that skip this talent, other than those that already have healing focus from the enhancement tree.

Recommened (unless you have Healing Focus)

Elemental Devastation

This talent increases your chance to get a critical strike with melee attacks by up to 9% for 10 seconds after scoring a critical hit with an offensive spell.

This is a very hard talent to rate, since on paper it should be very strong. However, if you are specced and geared to cast, you are probably better off continueing to cast instead of attempting melee combat. The same goes in reverse, if you are specced and geared for melee, do you really want to take time casting, trying to get a critical cast?

If you try to mix your gear to maximize this ability, you will be suffereing from lack of elemental damage and melee damage, which this ability just can't make up.

It's a very cool idea to promote cross enhancement/elemental shamans, but it just doesn't do enough to make it viable.

Skip it.

Tier 5

Storm Reach

This increases the range of your lighting bolt and chain lightning spells by up to 6 yards.

Since you will be geared for range combat at this point, you want to start it further out to provide you with the chance to do more damage before the opponent closes range. This talent can provide the chance to get an additional cast in before you are being hit.

Strongly Recommended

Elemental Fury

This talent increases the critical strike damage bonus of your searing, magma and fire totems along with your fire, frost and nature spells by 100%.

This means that your critical hits from these sources cause 200% of your base damage instead of 150%.

This is a solid talent that increases all of our weapon buffs, and needs to be taken for any serious melee build. The windfury buff is especially nice since it increases the proc damage by 40% not just the attack power.

If your this far into enhance you must take this talent.

Strongly Recommended!

Unrelenting Storm

This talent gives you a chance to parry melee attacks and reduces the threat you generate on melee attacks by up to 15%.

Another must have talent! The parry bonus alone is well worth the points, toss in the much needed threat reduction for when you group and there is no way you can skip this talent.

Strongly Recommended!

Tier 6

Lightning Mastery

This talent reduces your casting time of your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells by 1.0 sec.

This is definatly the most powerful talent in the elemental tree. It reduces the casting time of your main spells by a significant time (33% on lightning bolt and 40% on chain lightning) allowing you to do additional damage or rotatate additional spells into your rotation.

As soon as it becomes available you should spend your next 5 points here.

Must have talent

Elemental Precision

This talent increases your chance to hit with Fire, Frost, and Nature spells by up to 6% and reduces the threat caused by Fire, Frost, and Nature spells by up to 10%.

This is a very powerful talent for both PvE and PvP. In PvE you need the reduced threat since you will be putting out a ton of damge. In PvP you need the additional to hit chance to ensure your big spells hit.

The issue with this talent is its placement at the same tier as Lightning Mastery, making it very hard to find points for it in many builds.

Recommended.

Tier 7

Elemental Mastery

This talent gives you a new spell that when activated gives your next Fire, Frost, or Nature damage spell a 100% critical strike chance and also reduces the mana cost by 100%.

This is a very good talent and one that should not be missed if you are into the elemental talent tree this far already. Every 3 minutes you get a free criticaly hitting free spell.

Must have Talent

Elemental Shields

This talent reduces you chance to be critically hit by ranged and melee attacks by up to 6%.

This is an OK defensive talent, especially in PvP where critical hits are more common. It allows you to reduce the spike damage that you take. While decent it can be hard to find points for it due to all the other amazing talents in the tree.

Recommended.

Tier 8

Lightning Overload

This talend gives your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells a 5% chance to cast a second, identical spell on the same target at no additional cost.

While this seems like a good talent, however the 5% proc rate means that it happens so inoften that it rarely procs when it would be useful. In almost any situation it is useful, however it can't be relied on so many players skip it.

Skip it

Tier 9

Totem of Wrath

This 1 point talent grants you the abilit to summon a totem of wrath. The totem increases the chance to hit and critically hit with spells by 3% to all party members within 20 yards. The totem lasts for 2 minutes.

If this talent did not require you to fill the lighting overload talent with 5 points it would be worth taking for raiders. However since lightning overload is not spectacular, it is better to save the 6 points total to go elsewhere.

If you do raid all the time and are placed with the caster group, then it can be a huge benifit. Otherwise, ignore it.

Skip it, unless you raid.