Elemental Shaman DPS Stat Priority — The War Within (11.2.7)
On this page, you will find out the optimal stat priority for your Elemental Shaman. We first present the stat priority, before delving into more complex explanations. Our content is updated for World of Warcraft — The War Within (11.2.7).
If you were looking for Mists of Pandaria Classic content, please refer to our Mists of Pandaria Classic Elemental Shaman stat priority.
The Basics of Stats for Elemental Shaman
Intelligence is your most important stat. This means you should most of the time equip your highest item level gear and sim yourself from there for adjustments that will be specific to your gear.
Note that in some extreme cases, stacking too much of one stat can lead to significant diminishing returns beyond the usual relative values.
For exact ratios, this will vary depending on your talents and other factors. To obtain the exact relative values for your character, we recommend simming your character.
Ideal Secondary Stats Spread for Elemental Shamans
For pure single-target, out of 100% of your secondary stats you ideally want to have a spread of roughly:
- 40% into Mastery;
- 25% into Haste;
- 25% into Versatility;
- 10% into Critical Strike.
Haste and Versatility are very volatile secondaries at the moment and, depending
on your exact gear, sims may recommend you getting much higher Versatility or much
higher Haste, which is not unexpected.Once you have
Shaman Farseer 11.2 Class Set 2pc,
Versatility will usually become more desirable than Haste.
Note that these are for
Farseer and optimized for raid fights.
AoE favors Critical Strike more than Versatility, and
Stormbringer
also values Critical Strike more in general. If you absolutely want to optimize for AoE,
drop some Versatility in favor of Critical Strike.
FAQIs there a Mastery cap for Elemental Shaman?
Mastery has a hard cap when you reach 100% Mastery. When using
Elemental Blast,
you should consider a "soft" cap of 88%, as Elemental Blast could bring you to 100%.
Neither cap is currently reachable, so you do not need to worry about that.
Mastery is currently highly desirable and your best overall secondary. When in Best in Slot 730 gear you will want to have around 22,000 Mastery IF you are not using a trinket giving you Mastery on use. That being said, it is very common for people to overestimate the importance of having the "right" secondaries when, in reality, having a higher quantity of stats will usually beat having "better" stats. Having 130 of your worst stat is often better than having 100 of your best stat, as the differences in value between stats are not that big.
FAQIs there a Haste cap for Elemental Shaman?
Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
The gems, enchants, and consumables you will use are directly derived from your stat priority, and you can find our advice on this topic in our dedicated page.
These statistics have been obtained by combining common sense, in-game testing, and simulations using SimulationCraft.
Statistics Explanations for Elemental Shaman
Mastery, through
Mastery: Elemental Overload, increases all your
Elemental and Physical damage done and causes some of your spells to have a
chance to deal additional damage and generate extra Maelstrom. Note that with
the
Mountains Will Fall talent, your Mastery will apply to your spenders,
making Mastery more valuable.
Haste increases the speed of your casts as well as the tick rate of your damage-over-time effects.
Critical Strike increases the damage of your spells. Worth noting that Elemental Shaman has multiple talents increasing their Critical Strike damage.
Versatility increases all damage done increase and reduces all damage taken.
Changelog
- 30 Nov. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.2.5, added FAQ blocks.
- 05 Oct. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.2.5.
- 15 Aug. 2025: Added a sentence regarding the Farseer 2-piece bonus favoring Versatility.
- 05 Aug. 2025: Added an explanation on Haste / Versatility volatility.
- 04 Aug. 2025: Updated and reviewed for Patch 11.2.
- 15 Jun. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.1.7.
- 21 Apr. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.1.5.
- 07 Mar. 2025: Updated recommendations to be less focused on pure single-target.
- 25 Feb. 2025: Added detail for more builds.
- 24 Feb. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.1.
- 15 Dec. 2024: Updated and reviewed for Patch 11.0.7.
- 22 Oct. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated some wording, removed unnecessary sentence.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Split stat priorities between builds. Added some words to make the relative value of stats clearer.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within pre-patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 4.
- 17 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 05 Mar. 2024: Updated Fire Builds AoE priority.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated with the new stat priority for 10.2 builds.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5.
- 02 May 2023: Simplified into two main builds, added commentary.
- 01 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1 and added priorities for builds using the T30 tier set.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Shaman Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Stormy, Elemental main since Wrath of the Lich King and member of the Storm, Earth and Lava Elemental theorycrafting team.
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