Elemental Shaman DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

1. Cast Stormkeeper ~3 seconds before the pull.
2. Cast Lava Burst ~1.5 second before the pull so it lands right after the pull.
3. Use Ancestral Swiftness
4. Cast Ascendance with on-use trinkets and Tempered Potion.
5. Cast Lava Burst.
6. Tempest
7. Cast Lightning Bolt.
8. Cast Lava Burst.
9. Cast Lightning Bolt.
10. Cast Lava Burst.
11. Cast Earth Shock.
12. Cast Lightning Bolt.
13. Cast Lava Burst
14. Proceed with regular rotation.

1. Cast Stormkeeper.
2. Use Ancestral Swiftness
3. Cast Voltaic Blaze.
4. Cast Ascendance with on-use trinkets and Tempered Potion.
5. Proceed with regular rotation.

1. Cast Stormkeeper. Make sure the procs are available during Ascendance, typically cast one or two GCDs before it .
2. Use Ancestral Swiftness.
3. Cast Ascendance, sync it with on-use trinkets, Bloodlust, Tempered Potion.
4. Cast Earth Shock if Ascendance will fade within the next 3 seconds.
5. Cast Elemental Blast if Ascendance will fade within the next 3 seconds.
6. Refresh Voltaic Blaze if Ascendance will fade within the next 3 seconds.
7. Refresh Flame Shock if Ascendance will fade within the next 3 seconds.
8. Cast Voltaic Blaze to refresh Flame Shock when it has 6 seconds or less remaining, use the window you have to optimize your movement with this flexible instant cast.
9. Refresh Flame Shock when it has 6 seconds or less remaining, use the window you have to optimize your movement with this flexible instant cast.
10. Cast Tempest. If possible, try casting Tempest with the Master of the Elements buff.
11. Cast Tempest.
12. Cast Earth Shock whenever you are less than 15 Maelstrom from capping or when Master of the Elements is up.
13. Cast Elemental Blast whenever you are less than 15 Maelstrom from capping or when Master of the Elements is up .
14. Cast Earth Shock whenever you are less than 15 Maelstrom from capping.
15. Cast Elemental Blast whenever you are less than 15 Maelstrom from capping.
16. Cast Lava Burst if Flame Shock is up and Master of the Elements is not up.
17. Cast Lava Burst if Flame Shock is up.
18. Cast Lightning Bolt.

If you are only fighting 2 targets, you still want to keep up the single-target rotation, but you want to:

• Cast Chain Lightning instead of Lightning Bolt.
• If using Lightning Rod switch targets between each spender.
• Cast Earthquake instead of Earth Shock.
• Cast Earthquake instead of Elemental Blast

FAQHow many targets make Chain Lightning worth using over Lightning Bolt? ?

Typically two, although if there is a priority target and a Stormkeeper buff is available you should use Lightning Bolt.

FAQHow many targets make Earthquake worth using over Earth Shock or Elemental Blast?

It is a tiny increase to use Earthquake with as few as 2 stacked targets that will live for its full duration when using Earth Shock, or if you are playing a Farseer build with Elemental Blast.

If you use a Stormbringer build with Elemental Blast, you want a minimum of FIVE targets for Earthquake to be worth using.

If you are fighting 3 or more targets:

1. Cast Stormkeeper. Make sure it is available during Ascendance.
2. Use Ancestral Swiftness
3. Cast Voltaic Blaze.
4. Cast Ascendance, sync it with on-use trinkets, Bloodlust, Tempered Potion.
5. Cast Tempest.
6. Cast Earthquake.
7. Cast Earthquake if there are at least 5 targets.
8. Cast Elemental Blast if there are at most 4 targets.
9. Use a Lava Surge proc to consume Purging Flames.
10. If there are at most 3 targets, keep one Flame Shock up.
11. Cast Chain Lightning.
12. Use Lava Surge while moving.

You should avoid casting Maelstrom-generating spells above a certain Maelstrom threshold that would make you go over the Maelstrom cap. Because of all the talents and procs interacting with that threshold, it is difficult to give exact numbers without making a detailed list that would be very impractical to use. Instead, we simply recommend you follow our recommended rotation priorities in order to never overcap. Keep this in mind when pooling Maelstrom as well. It is likely these spells will overload. Therefore, if you cast Lava Burst and would go over your Maelstrom cap if you gained more than 8 Maelstrom, it is likely you will overcap Maelstrom and waste valuable resources. In practice, it is safer to cast these spells at lower Maelstrom than their limits to avoid wasting your overload procs. The key to success is managing all of your separate procs without overcapping Maelstrom too often.

Note that for Stormbringer builds in AoE, particularly when using Aftershock, you may overcap regularly and sometimes it will be correct to cast a generator even when at the cap. This is one of the reasons Stormbringer is more difficult to handle.

The reason why Flame Shock should always be up on your target is because:

• Each tick has a chance to proc Lava Surge, which resets the cooldown of Lava Burst;
• Your Lava Burst will always critically hit if Flame Shock is on the target. This is very important due to Elemental Fury and our multiple other sources of Critical Strike Damage.

You should only cast Lava Burst when Flame Shock is active on the target.

Flame Shock/ Voltaic Blaze benefits from Pandemic, meaning that you can refresh it any time that it has less than 30% of its original maximum duration remaining, and the remaining duration will be added to the new debuff. Therefore, you are able to refresh Flame Shocks without wasting any duration when it has 5 seconds or less remaining, and it will be extended by 18 seconds. For example, if your Flame Shock has 5 seconds left and you refresh it, your new Flame Shock would last 23 seconds. Note that these numbers are all doubled if you have a Fire Elemental in play.

Elemental is relatively mobile thanks to its active abilities: between Spirit Walk or Gust of Wind, Spiritwalker's Grace, Ghost Wolf form and its many instant rotational spells. Outside of these however, you have few instant spells to adjust your positioning, making it more important to do so properly. Proactively position yourself to reduce potential movement from mechanics. Keep careful track of boss timers and mechanics, as they can spell disaster for your damage if you are targeted when all your cooldowns are out.

• Stormfury (from Fury of the Storms with Primal Elementalist) has no target limit but does reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
• Meteor is limited to 8 targets.
• Earthquake has a soft-cap at 20 targets. This cap is high enough that it should rarely matter.