Elemental Shaman DPS Guide — Shadowlands 9.2.5

Elemental Shaman is a damage dealing spellcaster with a rich and flexible toolkit. Elemental Shamans can approach a multitude of environments without feeling compromised. Through certain talents, Elemental can also provide very significant burst damage, allowing them to surge ahead during short damage checks or dungeon bosses. Overall, this specialization has a tool or talent for every scenario, although its sustained single-target damage might be lacking.

Strengths

• Best single-target talent build is very fun and mobile.
• Some talent builds are very straightforward to play.
• Potential for massive burst damage in Cleave/AoE.
• Excellent utility outside of Raids.
• Talent choices allow for excellent flexibility and varied playstyles.

Weaknesses

• Most survivability tools are talent-related and can be awkward to use properly.
• Tends to be outclassed by other specializations outside of specific situations.

We are maintaining a list of changes for Shamans, so you can see what changes with every patch of Shadowlands. Be sure to also check out Elemental's specific changes from the previous patch, 9.2, to hear our thoughts on the tier set bonuses that arrived at that time.

From Patch 9.1.5 onward, both Legion Timewalking and the Mage Tower have returned. As such we have created a separate guide detailing what you can expect from the Mage Tower challenge available to Elemental Shamans.

Within the new Sepulcher of the First Ones raid that will be coming in Patch 9.2, every class will once again earn pieces of a gear set that is uniquely class-themed with its own two- and four-piece bonuses for every specialization. For Elemental Shamans, these set bonuses are:

• Elemental Shaman 2-Piece — While your Fire Elemental or Storm Elemental is active, your Lava Burst deals 20% additional damage and you gain Lava Surge every 8 seconds.
• Elemental Shaman 4-Piece — Casting Lava Burst extends the duration of your Fire Elemental or Storm Elemental by 1.5 seconds. If your Fire Elemental is not active, Lava Burst has a 20% chance to reduce its remaining cooldown by 10 seconds instead.

Flame Shock now has a target cap of 6. This only matters for Enhancement Shamans because of a new mechanic they get.

Frost Shock damage increased by 40%. This seems huge but as you will see below, Icefury has been nerfed significantly. This still results in an overall ~12% buff for Icefury on paper, however for several reasons we will explain below, once you obtain set bonuses, Icefury becomes much less desirable. However, having Frost Shock do 40% more damage baseline is still quite helpful in itself, giving Elemental Shamans more leeway to move whenever needed without losing much DPS if they do not have a Lava Surge or Earth Shock ready.

Fire Elemental has had the Mana cost of its abilities reduced by roughly 90% and should no longer run out of Mana. This is a fix caused by the new tier set bonus which extends the duration of Fire Elemental. On PTR, the Elemental would run out of Mana during its extended duration and stop doing anything!

Icefury now causes your next 4 Frost Shocks to deal 225% increased damage (was 300%). This combined with the changes to baseline Frost Shock results in an overall buff to the talent which most Elemental Shamans will likely take advantage of early in the patch. However, Elemental's tier set bonuses in patch 9.2 synergize way too much with Primal Elementalist for Icefury to remain a likely contender in most PvE encounters.

Elemental Conduit, the Venthyr Legendary, now also causes Flame Shock critical strikes to reduce Chain Harvest's cooldown by 1 second. This is a significant buff to this currently largely-unused Legendary when multidotting is appropriate. Combined with the newfound ability to equip 2 Legendaries, one of them being a Covenant Legendary, this buff may well be enough for Venthyr to catch up to other Covenants in many situations, as well as put it in a fantastic place in the content where it was already strong.

Splintered Elements's Haste bonus now lasts for 12 seconds instead of 10. This is a welcome buff to a marginal Legendary which remains unfortunately lackluster for single-target.

If you want to play an Elemental Shaman, but currently do not have one at max level, you can check out our leveling guide for tips on your journey.

After the leveling phase, you may want to optimize your performance by using one or several addons. In order not to be overwhelmed, we recommend you start using at least some of our recommended addons during the leveling of your Shaman, so you can get acquainted with them and configure/customize them to your liking.

Elemental Shaman is a spec with simple fundamentals for both single-target and AoE, with a wide array of customization available from your talents. Some talents allow for Elemental to be very easy to play, or very complex and rewarding.

Most of your time will be spent casting Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst, while maintaining Flame Shock and casting Earth Shock once you have enough Maelstrom. Beyond these fundamentals, gameplay largely depends on your talent choices.

If you are just starting as an Elemental Shaman and are interesting in learning the basics of the spec, visit the Spell Summary first, then the Easy Mode page below.

If you already know how Shamans work, head directly to the Talents and Rotation pages in order to find out more detailed information.

Gearing is not as simple as it once was, although the easy access to simulations are extremely helpful. Our gearing page will help you learn about how best to gear your Elemental Shaman.

After you have acquired some gear, you must then use the right enchants, gems and consumables. Visit our dedicated page, as well as our stats page so you get a better idea which stats you should look for.

Shadowlands introduces 4 Covenants, new unique "factions" that do not like each other, so much so that you can only join one of them! They are core to the Shadowlands experience and which Covenant you join is one of the biggest decisions you can make in World of Warcraft.

Shadowlands also introduces an arsenal of Legendary Powers, but you can only have one at a time, and crafting them takes time and money, choose wisely! Legendary Powers are to be acquired from the new end-game activity, Torghast.

While your core gameplay loop is accessible early on, max level gameplay can be wildly different than during leveling. Our Torghast, Mythic+, Raiding, and PvP guides will help you fine tune your gameplay in any end-game content.

If you are struggling with doing good DPS and are unsure what you are doing wrong, visit the pages below in order to find answers and advice.