Shaman Hero Talents — The War Within (Season 1)

This page is specifically about Hero Talents in The War Within. If you want to learn more about the best regular talents for Elemental Shaman, check out our Talents page:

If you want a detailed list of all the new Hero talents, check out our Spells page:

Farseer is extremely strong for single-target and is very easy to use, giving you extra mobility as the cherry on top and not distracting you with additional mechanics. Almost certainly the Hero Talent of choice for the vast majority of raid encounters.

Stormbringer can be complicated to optimize and is only ahead of Farseer when sustained heavy AoE/Cleave is guaranteed. This might warrant a spot in raid fights with such a component, but there is no reason to pick it otherwise.

Farseer is very strong in single-target (~15% stronger) and remains competitive for smaller add pulls but starts losing out the more targets you add. For most lower key levels, we recommend Farseer, but higher keys with large pulls will likely favor Stormbringer unless you really need more single-target damage.

Stormbringer gives you top-tier heavy AoE/Cleave damage, which makes Elemental Shaman shine in Mythic+ situations with large pulls that last for a while. The added mechanics can be somewhat annoying, but they add significant power.

2.

Best Hero Talent Builds for Elemental Shaman

Farseer Lightning (universal) Stormbringer Mythic+ Farseer Fire (NOT recommended) Stormbringer Single-target (NOT recommended)

3.

Best Farseer Lightning Builds for Elemental Shaman

Natural Harmony will, most of the time, be much more practical than Earthen Communion. Currently, aside from solo play, you should always take Ancient Fellowship because of the important synergies with Final Calling and Offering from Beyond. Routine Communication is not good enough with Lightning builds.

3.

Best Stormbringer Mythic+ Builds for Elemental Shaman

Nature's Protection is vastly better than Surging Currents in every circumstance and is essentially a non-choice. You take Arc Discharge in most circumstances, although for Tyrannical keys or generally when single-target damage will be more important than clear taking Storm Swell is reasonable.

3.

Best Farseer Fire Builds for Elemental Shaman

Natural Harmony will, most of the time, be much more practical than Earthen Communion. Currently, aside from solo play, you should always take Ancient Fellowship and Routine Communication because of the important synergies with Final Calling and Offering from Beyond.

3.

Best Stormbringer Single-target Builds for Elemental Shaman

Nature's Protection is vastly better than Surging Currents in every circumstance and is essentially a non-choice. We take Storm Swell instead of Arc Discharge, for obvious reasons.

You press Ancestral Swiftness on cooldown. It really is about it. We recommend macroing it to Primordial Wave, Lava Burst or both. Remember to put it BEFORE those spells in the macro. You might think there is some potential benefit from holding it one GCD to gain the damage bonus on a stronger ability, or make something instant, but in almost every case you are better off putting it on cooldown immediately so you can start reducing its cooldown again. There is no other rotational change for Farseer.

Stormbringer is more interactive, but that is unfortunately not as fun as it sounds, as it adds multiple things to track and is so difficult to fully optimize that in practice, most people are likely better off just using the procs as they happen and not thinking too hard about them. Otherwise, you will want WeakAuras tracking Rolling Thunder timing, tracking Maelstrom spendings for Tempest availability, and an Awakening Storms tracker to at least know if your next proc will give you Tempest. You probably do not need to track Arc Discharge, but ideally, you want to desync your Tempest procs (since you have two different sources of them) in order to avoid munching Arc Discharge procs and keep Nature's Protection for longer.