Elemental Shaman DPS Guide — Midnight Season 1

Midnight Season 1 launch is finally upon us, bringing three new raids, a new Tier-set and the usual Mythic+ and PvP Season. For detailed overviews we recommend you check out our dedicated sections!

The only change to Elemental with the initial Season 1 balance pass is a 10% buff to Chain Lightning and Earthquake, which helps bolster our already solid AoE. We will make sure to update the guide whenever Blizzard brings out further tuning changes, as are expected in the next few weeks

• Deeply Rooted Elements is gone.
• Icefury is gone.
• Stone Bulwark Totem and Totemic Recall are gone.
• Liquid Magma Totem and Primordial Wave are gone and have been consolidated into Voltaic Blaze.
• Fire Elemental does not exist anymore as a talent or an ability you can use.
• Ascendance now gets a talent that makes Ascendance spawn a Fire Elemental.
• Storm Elemental now only exists via Fury of the Storms.
• Thundershock is gone.
• Fusion of Elements now procs from Power of the Maelstrom.
• Stormbringer: Tempest now procs from casting Ascendance and randomly from spending Maelstrom.
• Stormbringer: Casting Tempest now grants a charge of Stormkeeper.
• Farseer: Ancestors now spawn from Stormkeeper (and still spawn from Ancestral Swiftness) instead of Primordial Wave.

Elemental, like most specializations, is getting “pruned” in World of Warcraft: Midnight . This means a number of abilities, both actives and passives, are getting cut, in order to simplify the gameplay, making it more accessible to new players and not requiring the until now expected level of UI customization via addons such as WeakAuras.

Most notably for Elemental: Icefury, Primordial Wave, Liquid Magma Totem, Deeply Rooted Elements and Stone Bulwark Totem are gone and you do not need to summon an Elemental pet manually anymore. Several abilities from the Stormbringer hero talents have also been simplified. Altogether, you will need 5 or 6 fewer binds compared to the current version of Elemental, and will have few things you need to track.

There is much more to it however, as while many talents were removed, some were added, and while most of the class tree additions are underwhelming to say the least, there are some interesting things in there. Moreover, many talents have been reworked or significantly adjusted. Once Midnight launches on March 2nd, three Apex Talents will also be available in the Elemental tree, and each Hero talent will receive three new nodes (and you get 3 more points so they will still be fully filled).

The Stormbringer changes are mainly targeted at dropping the necessity (or at least the feeling of it) of tracking many different Stormbringer related procs and resources. This achieves that goal, at the cost of significantly increasing the RNG involved, although adjusting the old Rolling Thunder effect into instead making Tempest grant a charge of Stormkeeper will feel nice. The loss of Arc Discharge's original damage increase will significantly lower the power of the Hero tree unfortunately. Notably, the changes and loss of the TWW tier will lead to far fewer Tempest procs and generally "chain" procs, making the spec more manageable but less exciting.

The Farseer change making Stormkeeper generate your ancestors was inevitable following the removal of Primordial Wave, with another source of ancestors being added to Routine Communication to make up for Stormkeeper's cooldown being higher. The other changes seem to further solidify Farseer as being focused on single-target and 2-3 targets cleave.

All in all, Farseer's main appeal is being more mobile largely due to not needing Elemental Blast, while Stormbringer really wants it. Stormbringer now does much more damage in most situations if you can handle the mobility and added complexity, and will be the go-to Hero Talent for most content for advanced players.

Elemental has a lot fewerbuttons and the complexity of the rotation has been gutted. While it may sound good to new players, alts or people who generally prefer simpler rotations, people who enjoy current elemental will likely be disappointed. In single-target we are back to Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, a spender and refreshing Flame Shock and that is it.

In multi-target, Voltaic Blaze with Purging Flames will emulate the previous Liquid Magma Totem + Primordial Wave combo with one fewer buttons, and the loss of Echoes of Great Sundering and Icefury means we are back to spamming Chain Lightning and spenders between Voltaic Blaze casts (though you add Tempest for Stormbringer and Lava Burst for Farseer to proc Purging Flames).

Our damage profile will be flatter with the removal of Deeply Rooted Elements, a significant nerf to Ascendance and losing Storm Elemental.

With all the talents being removed without any being added, our class tree becomes quite small, and while we already had enough points to get everything we wanted in any raid, you now can get pretty much all you could need for dungeons and even PvP and should not need to change your class tree much aside from choice nodes.

Windveil is in most cases a welcome survivability buff although it not stacking anymore does mean we are not unkillable on certain packs anymore. The Earth Elemental changes are fairly neutral overall though in practice are probably a slight buff on most encounters, though it does not make up for the loss of Stone Bulwark Totem.

The new Therazane's Resilience is quite good and will allow ourselves and a designated ally to get significant free healing over a raid encounter or a dungeon. Its sister talent Reactive Warding could potentially be used but will require tracking more things and the benefit is small.

Midnight introduces "Apex" talents, which are supposed to be different than regular talents, but for Elemental they're basically just "more damage" and do not really influence your gameplay in any way, you just gain slightly more Maelstrom, and they make Mastery more valuable. For the most part, they are "do more damage" talents, but since they are tuned very high, they are absolutely mandatory picks in every circumstance.

• Apex talent: Feedback Loop — Elemental Overload damage increased by 35%.
• Apex talent: Feedback Loop — Spell critical strike chance increased by 5%/10%. Elemental Fury increases spell critical strike damage by an additional 25%/50%.
• Apex talent: Feedback Loop — Elemental Overloads have a 25% chance to cause an additional Elemental Overload. This can only occur once per cast.

Each specialization now automatically learns 1 spell instead of 2 through the Shaman talent tree, meaning you now need to spend a point to learn Chain Lightning.

Lava Burst base damage reduced by 20% but its damage is now increased by its critical strike chance.

The healing of some abilities have been increased:

• Healing Surge healing increased by 130%
• Healing Stream Totem healing increased by 50%.
• Earth Shield healing increased by 50%
• Nature's Guardian healing increased by 100% (40% of max life from 20%)

• New talents being added:
  • Spiritual Awakening — Mastery increased by 3%.
  • Instinctive Imbuements — Lightning Shield increases your Intellect by 3%. Casting Lightning Shield also applies Earth Shield to yourself and any weapon imbuements if known.
  • Previously exclusive to Restoration: Therazane's Resilience — Earth Shield no longer loses charges and is 115% effective (Choice node with Reactive Warding)
  • Previously exclusive to Restoration: Reactive Warding — When refreshing Earth Shield, your target is healed for each stack of Earth Shield they are missing. Additionally, Earth Shield can consume charges 1.0 sec faster. (Choice node with Therazane's Resilience)
• Talents being moved elsewhere or removed:
  • Several talents have changed positions in the talent tree.
  • Thunderstorm is now a base ability learned by all Elemental Shamans at level 30.
  • Lightning Lasso is now a PvP talent.
  • Stone Bulwark Totem has been removed.
  • Totemic Recall has been removed.
  • Guardian's Cudgel has been removed.
  • Call of the Elements has been removed.
  • Creation Core has been removed.
  • Totemic Recall has been removed.
• Modified talents:
  • Wind Shear interrupt duration increased to 4 seconds (was 2 seconds), does not affect PvP combat.
  • Chain Heal cast time is now 2 seconds (was 2.5), jump range is now 20 yards (was 15).
  • Poison Cleansing Totem is now a choice talent against Tremor Totem
  • Seasoned Winds renamed to Windveil and redesigned — Interrupting a spell with Wind Shear reduces all spell damage taken by 15% for 12 seconds
  • Winds of Al'Akir is now a 2-point talent — Increases your movement speed by 3%/6% and the movement speed bonus of Ghost Wolf by an additional 5%/10%.
  • Nature's Fury is now a 2-point talent, increasing Nature critical strike chance by 2% per rank.
  • Earth Elemental now lasts 30 seconds (was 1 minute) and has a 3 minute cooldown (was 5 minutes).
  • Brimming with Life is now a 2-point talent — Stamina increased by 8/15%. While you are at full health, Reincarnation cools down 50%/100% fater.
  • Nature's Guardian healing increased to 40% of maximum life (from 20%).
  • Elemental Warding now reduces Magic damage taken by 8% (was 6%).
  • Static Charge is now a 2-point talent — Reduces the cooldown of Capacitor Totem by 8 seconds/15 seconds.
  • Encasing Cold has been redesigned - Now increases the cooldown of Frost Shock by 15 seconds and causes Frost Shock to freeze its target in place for 4 seconds.
  • Totemic Surge reduces the cooldown of most totems by 5 seconds (was 6), no longer works on Wind Rush Totem or Static Field Totem.
  • Primordial Bond has been redesigned – Your Earth Elemental no longer taunts nearby enemies or generates threat and instead increases your maximum health by 15% while active. Earth Elemental no longer increases the maximum health of the Shaman. This effect has been moved to Primordial Bond.

With all the talents being removed without any being added, our class tree becomes quite small, and while we already had enough points to get everything we wanted in any raid, you now can get pretty much all you could need for dungeons and even PvP and should not need to change your class tree much aside from choice nodes.

Windveil is in most cases a welcome survivability buff although it not stacking anymore does mean we are not unkillable on certain packs anymore. The Earth Elemental changes are fairly neutral overall though in practice are probably a slight buff on most encounters, though it does not make up for the loss of Stone Bulwark Totem.

The new Therazane's Resilience is quite good and will allow ourselves and a designated ally to get significant free healing over a raid encounter or a dungeon.

Elemental damage gain from Mastery reduced by 10%.

• New talents being added:
  • Apex talent: Feedback Loop — Elemental Overload damage increased by 35%.
  • Apex talent: Feedback Loop — Spell critical strike chance increased by 5%/10%. Elemental Fury increases spell critical strike damage by an additional 25%/50%.
  • Apex talent: Feedback Loop — Elemental Overloads have a 25% chance to cause an additional Elemental Overload. This can only occur once per cast.
  • Lava Flows — Lava Burst damage increased by 5%. Lava Burst and Lava Burst Overload generate 1 additional Maelstrom.
  • Tectonic Collapse — Earth Shock, Elemental Blast, and Earthquake deal 20% additional damage. Choice against Aftershock.
  • Molten Wrath — Lava Burst deals 15% additional damage. Choice against Master of the Elements
  • Elemental Resonance — All Elemental damage increased by 3%. Choice against Thunderstrike Ward.
  • Storm Infusion — Increases the effect of Elemental Resonance, by 2%, increases the chance for Thunderstrikes to occur by 30%, and increases Thunderstrike damage by 75%.
  • Inferno Arc — Lightning Bolt, Tempest, Chain Lightning, Earth Shock, Elemental Blast and Earthquake deal 15% increased damage to targets affected by Flame Shock.
  • Voltaic Blaze — Instantly Shocks the target and 5 enemies within 10 yards with blazing thunder, applying Flame Shock and dealing significant Nature damage. Always critically strikes. Replaces Flame Shock.
  • Purging Flames — Voltaic Blaze unleashed volcanic rage, causing your next Lava Burst cast to hit all Flame Shocked targets at 80% effectiveness with reduced Maelstrom generation. Lava Burst damage increased by 10%.
  • Call of Fire — Ascendance summons your Fire Elemental when used.
  • Crackling Fury — Voltaic Blaze's cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds/6 seconds and its Nature damage is increased by 50%/100%.
  • Path of the Seer — Intellect increased by 3%.
  • Amped Up — Haste increased by 3%.
  • Flames of the Firelord — Flame Shock damage increased by 100%.
• Talents being removed
  • Echoes of Great Sundering
  • Fire Elemental no longer exists as a talent and now only appears when pressing Ascendance when using the Call of Fire talent
  • Deeply Rooted Elements
  • Liquid Magma Totem
  • Primordial Wave
  • Icefury
  • Storm Elemental
  • Erupting Lava
  • Splintered Elements
  • Elemental Equilibrium
  • Flux Melting
  • Magma Chamber
  • Echo of the Elementals
• Modified talents:
  • Several talents have changed positions in the talent tree.
  • Flametongue Weapon now replaces Improved Flametongue Weapon and does not exist anymore without the talent, preventing new elementals from using the old base ability when it did nothing for Elemental.
  • Storm Frenzy has been redesigned — Now reduces the cast time of Lightning Bolt, Tempest and Chain Lightning by 15%.
  • Ascendance now increases the damage of Elemental Overloads by 75% while Ascendance is active (was 150%). Remains 25% in PvP combat.
  • Fusion of Elements has been updated — Consuming Power of the Maelstrom additionally fires an Elemental Blast at your target at 40% effectiveness.
  • Elemental Unity now increases damage dealt by 6% (was 10%).
  • Power of the Maelstrom's chance to trigger was reduced to 15% (was 60%).
  • Earthquake now does Nature damage (was Physical).
  • Fury of the Storms now summons a Greater Storm Elemental (was a Greater Lightning Elemental).
  • Herald of the Storms has been redesigned — Now reduces the cooldown of Stormkeeper by 15 seconds.
  • Flame Shock application logic has been updated for Voltaic Blaze to prioritize enemy players and ignore enemies in breakable crowd control.
  • Echo Chamber now increases Elemental Overload damage by 25% (was 40%).
  • Primal Storm Elemental’s Stormfury now deals its full damage over 4 seconds (was 8 seconds).
  • Fire Elemental’s Fire Blast damage increased by 500%.
  • Primal Fire Elemental’s Immolate damage increased by 500%.
  • Primal Fire Elemental Meteor damage increased by 300%.
  • Storm Elemental Wind Gust damage increased by 100%.
  • Storm Elemental Call Lightning damage increased by 100%.
  • Primal Storm Elemental’s Stormfury damage increased by ​100%.
  • Fixed an issue causing Fury of the Storms to not summon a Primal Storm Elemental with Primal Elementalist talented.
  • Primal Elementalist now only grants direct control over your Primal Fire Elemental (was all 3 elementals).
  • Removed the activation overlays that appear when you have enough Maelstrom to cast Earth Shock, Elemental Blast, or Earthquake.
  • A sound now plays when Aftershock refunds Maelstrom.

The obvious immediate consequences of these changes are that you have a lot fewer buttons and the complexity of the rotation has been gutted. While it may sound good to new players, alts or people who generally prefer simpler rotations, people who enjoy current elemental will likely be disappointed. In single-target we are back to Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, a spender and Flame Shock and that is it.

Our damage profile will be much flatter with the removal of Deeply Rooted Elements, a significant nerf to Ascendance and losing Storm Elemental.

• New talents being added:
  • Stormbringer: Natural Gift — Nature damage is increased by 2%
  • Stormbringer: Descending Skies — Ascendance upgrades your next Lightning Bolt to Tempest
  • Stormbringer: Stormwell — Storm Elemental lasts 2 seconds longer and Stormkeeper generates 10 Maelstrom.
  • Farseer: Ancestral Influence — Your Intellect is increased by 1% for each Ancestor active.
  • Farseer: Windspeaker — The cast times of Healing Surge, Chain Heal and Lava Burst are reduced by 10%.
  • Farseer: Mystic Knowledge — For 8 seconds after casting Ancestral Swiftness, increases the chance for Lava Surge to occur by 20%.
• Modified Talents:
  • Stormbringer: Tempest no longer triggers based on total Maelstrom spent and now has a 0.3% chance to occur per Maelstrom spent.
  • Stormbringer: Awakening Storms has been redesigned — Now increases the chance to gain Tempest by an additional 0.3% per Maelstrom spent.
  • Stormbringer: Rolling Thunder has been redesigned — Now reduces the cooldown of Stormkeeper by 15 seconds.
  • Stormbringer: Arc Discharge has been redesigned — Now causes Tempest to grant a stack of Stormkeeper.
  • Farseer: Call of the Ancestors has been updated — Stormkeeper calls an Ancestor to your side for 8 seconds (was 6 seconds and Primordial Wave)
  • Farseer: Routine Communication can now also trigger from Flame Shock and Voltaic Blaze.
  • Farseer: Elemental Reverb increases Lava Burst damage by 10% (was 20%).
  • Farseer: Offering from Beyond now reduces the cooldown of Stormkeeper by 3 seconds when an Ancestor is called (was reduces the cooldown of Fire Elemental/ Storm Elemental by 5 seconds).
  • Farseer: Ancestors now last 8 seconds (was 6 seconds).

These Stormbringer changes are mainly targeted at dropping the necessity (or at least the feeling of it) of tracking many different Stormbringer related procs and resources. This achieves that goal, at the cost of significantly increasing the RNG involved, although adjusting the old Rolling Thunder effect into instead making Tempest grant a charge of Stormkeeper will feel nice. The loss of Arc Discharge's original damage increase will significantly lower the power of the Hero tree unfortunately. Notably, the changes and loss of the TWW tier will lead to far fewer Tempest procs and generally "chain" procs, making the spec more manageable but less exciting.

The Farseer change is inevitable following the removal of Primordial Wave, with another source of ancestors being added to Routine Communication to make up for Stormkeeper's cooldown being higher. The other changes seem to further solidify Farseer as being focused on single-target and 2-3 targets cleave.