Elemental Shaman Shadowlands Leveling Guide From 1 to 60
On this page, you will find our Level by Level Elemental Shaman leveling guide for Shadowlands Make sure to use the slider to make the guide adapt to your level. For more general leveling information, please refer to our Shaman leveling guide.
Gear Options
When leveling up, you should always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level. The only exception to this rule is if you have a Ring or Necklace with a slightly lower item level, but 2 secondary stats on it instead of 1.
Level by Level Rotation and Talents
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
Talents to Level Up as an Elemental Shaman
Your first talent row unlocks at Level 15.
Your talent set up should be as follows.
- Level 15:
Earthen Rage
- Level 25:
Aftershock or
Echoing Shock
- Level 30:
Earth Shield
- Level 35:
Master of the Elements or
Liquid Magma Totem
- Level 40:
Nature's Guardian or
Ancestral Guidance
- Level 45:
Primal Elementalist or
Icefury
- Level 50:
Stormkeeper
Rotation to Level Up as an Elemental Shaman
Starting at Level 1, you only have one main damaging
ability: Lightning Bolt. This will change at level 10, when you select
Elemental as your specialization and unlock other ranged abilities. Until
then, use
Lightning Bolt to kill targets, and make use of
Flame Shock when it unlocks at level 3 and of
Lightning Shield
once it unlocks at level 9.
- Keep
Lightning Shield active on yourself
- Apply
Flame Shock if it is absent
- Cast
Fire Elemental if it is off cooldown. Try to pair your elemental with Haste buffs if possible (e.g.
Bloodlust/
Heroism).
- Cast
Earth Elemental if it is off cooldown.
- Cast
Stormkeeper whenever available. Delay the usage if multiple stacked targets will be present within the span of its cooldown
- If talented, cast
Liquid Magma Totem whenever available. Delay the usage if multiple stacked targets will be present within the span of its cooldown.
- Cast
Earth Shock if Maelstrom is 90 or greater; or 60 or greater if you have
Master of the Elements's buff.
- Cast
Lava Burst whenever available.
- If
Icefury is talented, use the empowered
Frost Shocks before the buff fades.
- If talented, cast
Icefury whenever available.
- Cast
Earth Shock if Maelstrom is 60 or greater.
- Cast
Lightning Bolt as a filler on a single target.
- Cast
Frost Shock as a filler while moving.
Ability Upgrades from Level 50 to 60
Every 2 levels from Level 50, you unlock one ability upgrade.
- At Level 52,
Elemental Fury now also causes your healing spells to crit for 250% instead of the normal 200%.
- At Level 54,
Astral Shift lasts for an additional 4 seconds.
- At Level 56,
Hex's cooldown is reduced by 10 seconds.
- At Level 58, when
Fire Elemental is active, your
Flame Shock lasts 100% longer.
Summary of Unlocked Abilities for Elemental Shaman
With the new leveling system in Shadowlands, class abilities are a prominent part of specs again, and represent many of the abilities you gain while leveling. You will only start unlocking Elemental specific abilities and passives once you select it as your active specialization past Level 10.
In order to avoid overloading the guide with redundant information which is easily understood from opening your spell book, we would advise you to read our detailed spell guide for the detailed information on each spell and how it is used in WoW.
Elemental Shaman War Mode Talents for Leveling
In this section, we will rank the PvP talents for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content in order of priority. Below is a ranking of both General PvP Talents and Elemental Shaman-specific PvE talents.
General PvP Talents
Adaptation is likely your most passive choice, since it will automatically remove loss of control effects over 5 seconds.
Relentless is also a passive ability, but it does not automatically remove crowd control abilities. Instead, it reduces the duration. I personally favor this option.
Gladiator's Medallion is an on-use ability that removes all movement impairing effects and all loss of control effects.
Elemental Shaman PvP Talents for Leveling
Skyfury Totem increases the critical effect of spells of allies within 40 yards by 20% for 15 seconds, with a 40-second cooldown. It is good for solo play, but excellent if you are doing outdoors content with others.
Swelling Waves makes your
Healing Surges 50% stronger.
Elemental Attunement increases your maximum Maelstrom by 50, allowing for a lot more banking and control.
Counterstrike Totem replicates and reflects damage you take for 15 seconds, on a 45-second cooldown. This can be really strong when in a high damage area to deal some chip damage to targets around you, and convert your health pool into additional damage.
Grounding Totem,
Lightning Lasso,
Purifying Waters,
Spectral Recovery,
Traveling Storms
and
Control of Lava have either niche uses or just are not very useful
compared to the other talents. Do not dismiss them entirely but for the most part,
you can safely ignore them.
Quest Rewards
You should equip new quest rewards when their item level starts beating out your previous set of gear. If you are currently wearing Ny'alotha gear, it is best to let the quest rewards significantly beat your existing item level before using them.
Consumables
There are several consumable items that can be purchased that will help you with your leveling speed.
Skystep Potion increases your movement speed by 150% (more than a mount!) for 8 seconds. It has a 1-minute cooldown. This is extremely useful and should be used often and aggressively for any travel that is more than ~100 yards long.
Goblin Glider Kit is very useful for covering long distances from high places.
Gunshoes are an Engineering item that increase your movement speed by 200% for 25 seconds. These will make you almost as fast as a Flying mount. We recommend having a lot of these, and using them whenever you are traveling more than ~250 yards.
Gunshoes Macro
The Gunshoes will not let you stop moving as long as they are active. Using this macro twice will click the buff off and allow you to stop.
- #showtooltip
- /use Gunshoes
- /cancelaura Gunshoes
Congratulations!
Congratulations on reaching Level 60! Now that you have hit Level 60, we recommend looking at our Easy mode page and Talents section to learn how to play at max level.
Changelog
- 31 May 2022: Page reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 29 Jun. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.
- 09 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 30 Sep. 2020: Guide added.
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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