Elemental Shaman DPS Gear and Best in Slot — Dragonflight 10.2

Welcome to our Gearing Page for Elemental Shaman. This section will cover everything you need to know about equipping your character correctly.

If you have a new piece of gear for which you need gems and enchant advice, you can find everything on our dedicated page below.

At this stage in the game, there are so many variables and layers of optimization that you can apply to your character that there is no way for a guide or anything else to tell you exactly what gear you should wear. This is why we always recommend simulating your own character using Raidbots. The website can help you choose set bonuses, trinkets, and combinations in a way tailored completely to your specific character. Learning to use this tool is essential to maximizing your potential, as there is simply no other way to consider all the variables.

The easiest way, and also the method we suggest, to compare multiple items is to use Raidbots' Top Gear. Here, you can input an export from the Simcraft AddOn, select the items to compare, and it will find out which of the items are best.

Many people overthink the distribution of their secondary stats. An important thing to remember is that a higher quantity of stats is nearly always better than a better quality of stats. Because of this, wearing higher item-level gear with worse stats tends to be better than lower item-level gear with great stats. Keep this in mind when considering gear. For more stats information, please refer to our dedicated page.

That being said, T31 incentivizes a very clear stat distribution for both Single-target and AoE: Mastery to soft cap (88% or ~7200 Mastery), then a lot of Haste, some Versatility, and as little Critical Strike as possible.

We only provide "Best in Slot" lists as a mandatory requirement stemming from certain guilds and players thinking they absolutely need to blindly chase that one item in that one slot and nothing else will do. Sometimes, it is raid leaders enforcing a very strict "BiS list" for loot council without any nuance; other times, it is players themselves enforcing it on themselves.

Static Best in Slot lists are only an indicative tool in a vacuum; we recommend using the following tools: Raidbots Top Gear and its Droptimizer options.

Once you finish the Dragonflight campaign and reach max level, you will want to upgrade your gear. There are many ways to do this. We recommend that after some World Quests and Heroic Dungeons, you try getting into Mythic Dungeons, preferably with friends, and do every single dungeon during the weekly lockout.

This weekly loot system remains much the same. You can select ONE item out of a maximum pool of 9, depending on how many raid bosses you defeated, your Dungeon clears and how much Honor you farmed the previous week.

You can learn more about this system on our dedicated Great Vault page.

The Valor Upgrade system is gone in Season 3 and is replaced by a new system that allows for item upgrades to be obtained from a wider variety of content.

Dragonflight Season 3 replaces Shadowflame Crests with Dreaming Crests. They can be used to upgrade gear up to Item Level 480, which is entry-level Mythic Raid Item Level. They can also upgrade Crafted Gear up to iLvl 486, which is late-Mythic Item Level.

For more information on the new Gear Upgrades system, check out our dedicated page for it below.

Unsurprisingly, you should sim your character to determine which upgrades give the most bang for your buck at any point in time. Beyond that, you generally want to maximize your weapon, then your trinkets, then whatever slot is your worst, and after that, it is generally best to upgrade the slots that give the most stats, especially the tier set pieces: Chest, Helm or Pants, with a lower priority on whatever has the best secondaries, but maximizing Intellect remains the best way to gain DPS.

Do not craft Undulating Sporecloak, Blizzard massively nerfed it at the last minute.

I would recommend waiting for week 2. With Undulating Sporecloak getting obliterated, there is no obvious craft choice anymore, as Adaptive Dracothyst Armguards are very good but not worth crafting week 1 as they do not give that much damage and you may need to fill a more important slot with a craft in the medium term. Crafting a weapon is always tempting, but again, at least wait for your first vault/clear. Crafting a ring can also be a good idea.

You will want to have your full T31 4-set, no matter what content you are looking to do, as soon as possible. In the meantime, you probably want to keep your Shaman Elemental 10.1 Class Set 2pc until you can get Shaman Elemental 10.2 Class Set 4pc.

What tier piece you skip can matter in this tier, though it will probably depend on what you gain access to and whether you want to keep using the Horizon Strider's Garment set (but we recommend switching to Undulating Sporecloak and Adaptive Dracothyst Armguards). Overall, the Helm piece is probably the one you will most likely want to skip once you have the 4 other pieces, as it has the worst stats for the relevant builds. Second worst are the shoulders.

This set somewhat forces us into using a Fire-Focused build and can be pretty "spammy", and not very complex. While this is a welcome change from the "set rotation" of the T30, this will not be to everyone's taste either.

Note that sites likes Bloodmallet are using a mastery-capped profile that dramatically lowers the value of most notably Balefire Branch but generally any trinket that gives Mastery. Sim your OWN character!

Our overall recommendations are:

For Raids:

1. Balefire Branch
2. Sea Star
3. Belor'relos, the Suncaller (very close but has downsides)
4. Pip's Emerald Friendship Badge (even better if you are below the Mastery soft cap)
5. Vessel of Skittering Shadows
6. Coagulated Genesaur Blood
7. Fyrakk's Tainted Rageheart
8. Lady Waycrest's Music Box
9. Augury of the Primal Flame
10. Oakheart's Gnarled Root
11. Sustaining Alchemist Stone (technically higher but not worth crafting in practice)
12. Darkmoon Deck Box: Dance (Emberscale) (technically higher but not worth crafting in practice)

For Mythic+ or AoE heavy raid encounters (very similar list since, for once, our single and multi-target stat priorities are similar):

1. Balefire Branch
2. Belor'relos, the Suncaller
3. Pip's Emerald Friendship Badge (even better if you are below the Mastery soft cap)
4. Sea Star
5. Coagulated Genesaur Blood
6. Fyrakk's Tainted Rageheart
7. Vessel of Skittering Shadows
8. Augury of the Primal Flame
9. Corrupted Starlight
10. Caged Horror
11. Ashes of the Embersoul
12. Lady Waycrest's Music Box
13. Sustaining Alchemist Stone (technically higher but not worth crafting in practice)

Be careful if using Time-Thief's Gambit as its delayed stasis effect can have disastrous outcomes.

The only notable jewelry piece in Amirdrassil for Elemental Shaman is Ouroboreal Necklet which drops from Volcoross. It has mediocre stats, but we are one of the few specs who can fully benefit from its unique bonuses, and while not as powerful as Diurna's ring from Vault of the Incarnates, it is still worth a look, if only because few other specs can benefit from it.

Because jewelry pieces do not have Intelligence on them, you must pay more attention to the secondaries they have. For example, a ring with your 2 worst stats will be worse than a ring 10 item levels lower with your 2 best stats.

There are a couple special weapons available in Amirdrassil:

• Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno drops at the highest item level and has incredible stats and a damage effect to boot, which is mostly strong on untouched targets. It does come with the hefty downside of slowly killing you, however...
• Dreambinder, Loom of the Great Cycle has very good stats and a high item level. It has a unique use effect which immobilizes one target and slows all enemies within 8 yards by 80% for 4 seconds. If it is not a channel, this is an excellent effect. If it is a channel, it is still pretty good. It also synergizes with Nymue's Unraveling Spindle, making it do 50% increased damage, although there are other ways to immobilize targets.

Other than those, I recommend weapons with the best stat combos for the best builds available. It can be a good idea to start by crafting a weapon with Mastery and Haste, although I would heavily recommend waiting at least week 2 to craft anything.

The best weapons for all content are:

From dungeons:

1. Morchie's Distorted Spellblade
2. Jagged Iris Sica
3. Iridal, the Earth's Master

From Amirdrassil:

1. Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno
2. Dreambinder, Loom of the Great Cycle
3. Eternal Kindler's Greatstaff

While professions do not generally give player power, there are possible exceptions in some circumstances. Suppose you want to min/max your player power in all possible situations. In that case, you should be an Alchemist and an Engineer. Note that the actual uses of their unique bonuses are highly conditional and, for the most part, should not dictate your profession choice.

Tl;dr: Get Adaptive Dracothyst Armguards, and then it depends on what you need to craft.

Allied Legguards of Sansok Khan perform well in most situations despite mediocre stats and forcing you to equip the T31 Helm. Do keep in mind that if your closest allies are healers or tanks, the buff will go to them, which is not necessarily ideal.

Witherrot Tome is the best Single-target dps option.

Venom-Steeped Stompers are a good option if you are struggling to reach the Mastery cap, and they have great stats, but you will want to swap them out at some point.

Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch remain a very solid option.

The Horizon Strider's Garment set with Wind Spirit's Lasso and either Scale Rein Grips or Ancestor's Dew Drippers is good for M+ and heavy multi-target fights, but like the Legguards, using the set forces you into using the T31 helm, which has mediocre stats.

Elemental Lariat can be bis or near enough with max sockets, but there is an incredible neck we can get from Tindral in Amirdrassil, Eye of the Rising Flame, and we could also get Ouroboreal Necklet from Volcoross, which has worse stats but a defensive effect that can be very handy.

Acidic Hailstone Treads's downsides are not worth the trouble anymore, especially not since they straight up do not give you much more damage than alternatives that do not have a downside. Witherrot Tome is strictly superior in a bis setup.

Do not forget that Alchemical Flavor Pocket does not count for your embellishment limit, and you always want it on!