Bound elemental

Bound elemental
	; A Bound Air Elemental
Faction/Affiliation	Elemental Lords, Independent; Formerly:; Old Gods' forces
Racial leader(s)	Elemental lords
Homeworld	Elemental Plane
Language(s)	Kalimag

Not to be confused with unbound elemental.

Bound elementals are a type of elemental, that are bound to cages, introduced in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Freeing a bound elemental makes him an "unbound elemental" as seen during [30-35] Unbinding. There are other bound elementals in World of Warcraft not using the "Bound elemental" model. Some of them like the Bound Fire Elementals even share the same name.

Types

Notable

Anthracite
Magma Lord Kolob
Rasha'krak <Minion of Calcinder>

As a companion pet

Air Storm Essence is obtained from defeating the rare version of Vortex on the Forbidden Reach.
Earth Storm Essence is obtained from defeating the rare version of Tremblor on the Forbidden Reach.
Fire Storm Essence is obtained from defeating the rare version of Wildfire on the Forbidden Reach.
[Lesser Circle of Binding] is a rare drop from the Ascendant Council in the Bastion of Twilight.
Water Storm Essence is obtained from defeating the rare version of Flow on the Forbidden Reach.

Designing

World of Warcraft Art Director Chris Robinson explained that during the development of Cataclysm the art team was sick of seeing the old elemental models in the game, so they wanted people to look at new content. Throughout the process they also started working with the Twilight's Hammer art heavily keyed into the Elementium vibe. Since the Twilight's Hammer needed to subjugate elementals, the art team wanted to integrate the elementium vibe to the new look of the elementals. The solution was that the Twilight's Hammer literaly cage them in a physical elementium structure around the elementals to control them, meaning that all the different new elemental models got the same cage holding them.^[1]

The purpose of the cages comes up in quests like [30-35] Twilight Extermination, [30-35] Mercy for the Bound, and [30-35] Unbinding, but not all elementals that use these models are enslaved by the Twilight's Hammer.

Notes

"Binding" in the context of elementals can also mean imprisoning one, as in [10-30] Stones of Binding, or summoning them into a coherent form from their element, as in [30-35] Core of Our Troubles.