Elemental Shaman DPS Guide — Dragonflight 10.0.7

Elemental Shaman is a damage dealing spellcaster with a rich and flexible toolkit. Elemental Shamans can approach a multitude of environments without feeling compromised. The specialization has unmatched utility in many scenarios and can be customized to provide serious AoE burst damage or reliable highly mobile single-target DPS. Overall, this specialization has a tool or talent for every scenario, although the relative strength of its sustained single-target damage is currently unclear.

Patch 10.0.7 brings a light overhaul to our class tree as well as some significant changes, many fixes, and UI improvements:

• Electrified Shocks duration increased to 9 seconds (was 6 seconds). This is a significant buff to the talent, making it much more comfortable to use and increasing the uptime on the debuff.
• Earth Elemental and its Primal version no longer taunt or pulse threat to enemies the Shaman is not in combat with. Great change!
• Astral Shift duration increased to 12 seconds (was 8 seconds). Well-needed buff to our defenses, especially when compounded with the next change.
• Astral Bulwark now reduces damage taken by an additional 20% (was 15%). Now the default pick in most situations.
• Planes Traveler no longer increases the duration of Astral Shift.
• The Improved Lightning Bolt talent has been removed, but Lightning Bolt damage is increased by 20%. We free up 2 points from this mandatory DPS tax.
• Go with the Flow now reduces the cooldown of Spirit Walk by 10/20 seconds (was 7.5/15 seconds). It makes Spirit Walk slightly more attractive.
• Thunderous Paws can trigger once every 20 seconds (was 60 seconds). We will greatly increase our burst mobility if we do not need Spirit Wolf to survive .
• Poison Cleansing Totem now removes all Poison effects from the target (was 1). Finally, this totem is worth using in some situations, like in Algeth'ar Academy.
• Enfeeblement now applies during Hex and lasts 6 seconds after Hex ends. A powerful buff, but it remains very niche. It might be worth it in PvP.
• Ancestral Wolf Affinity has moved to the class tree and is replaced by Focused Insight. You do not want to pick either of those talents now...
• Swirling Currents has been redesigned - Increases the healing done by Healing Stream Totem by 40/80%. This is a nerf to burst/panic healing but gives us stronger healing over time to assist with healing without losing too much damage.
• Several talents have moved positions in the class tree. Some things are easier to pick up overall, mostly due to Improved Lightning Bolt going away.
• Earthgrab Totem now replaces Earthbind Totem.

In addition, there have been fixes to Earth Shield and Elemental Orbit, Totemic Projection, Electrified Shocks, Ghost Wolf, Fire and Ice, and Primordial Surge. Several new abilities now show on the Personal Resource display: Spiritwalker's Grace, Spiritwalker's Aegis, Ancestral Guidance, Astral Shift, Echoes of Great Sundering, Primordial Wave and Ascendance.

Moreover, a hotfix shortly before Patch 10.0.7 brought the following buffs:

• Lightning Bolt damage has been increased by 10%
• Lava Burst damage has been increased by 6%
• Earth Shock damage has been increased by 6%
• Elemental Blast damage has been increased by 6%
• Icefury damage has been increased by 80%
• Frost Shock damage has been increased by 15%
• Frost Shocks buffed by Icefury now generate 14 Maelstrom (from 8)

Note that the damage buffs are PvE only and that these changes do not impact our rotation significantly. However, proper use of Icefury is now significantly more beneficial.

The main change of the patch is making Mana Spring Totem into a passive effect, ( Mana Spring) and doubling its mana gain. It was negligible before and not worth the talent and GCD cost. It is still not powerful but is probably worth considering on any healing intensive fight where mana may be a concern, especially if you have some floating talent points.

Beyond this change, Totemic Surge now reduces the cooldowns of your totems by 3/6 seconds instead of 2/4 seconds. This makes it quite a bit more usable if you want totems for specific timings, but it remains mostly a luxury talent unless the cooldown reduction enables specific timings.

Healing Surge received at 15% buff.

Finally, several abilities received a 10% buff:

• Flame Shock
• Chain Lightning
• Lava Beam
• Earthquake

This does not change our rotations.

We are maintaining a list of changes for Shamans, so you can see what changes with every patch of Dragonflight.

The largest and most expansive change to Shaman and Elemental in particular is the consolidation of several systems (notably Shadowlands Legendary Powers) into the new Class and Specialization Talents Trees. The additions and changes are extensive and we go into a lot of detail about them in our dedicated Spell Summary, explaining how they work (the tooltips are generally clear enough) and Talents Page, discussing their viability.

The most notable additions to all Elemental Shamans' arsenal are Thundershock, Nature's Swiftness, Greater Purge, Spirit Walk or Gust of Wind (you can only have one of the two), Electrified Shocks, Flash of Lightning, Searing Flames, Mountains Will Fall, Further Beyond, the comeback of Lightning Rod, the reworked Elemental Blast and Lightning Lasso being a regular talent available in instanced PvE.

We discuss all these in detail in the aforementioned pages, however we will highlight that Thundershock is a game changer in dungeons, fixing Thunderstorm's awkward knock-back and making it a strong crowd control effect that does not pull packs on accident. Nature's Swiftness is a lovely talent that can either smooth out your DPS by making a hard-cast instant or give you an instant, mana-free heal. This is a great addition to Elemental's tool-belt in just about every circumstance. It is important to note that both of these abilities have their cooldown reduced significantly by Flash of Lightning.

Speaking of which, Flash of Lightning is a very powerful talent whose cooldown reduction work on just about every ability Shamans have. We have a whole list on our talent page, but most importantly it works on: Stormkeeper, Storm Elemental, Astral Shift, Reincarnation, Spiritwalker's Grace, Wind Shear, Thunderstorm, Nature's Swiftness, and just about every totem we have (but not Liquid Magma Totem).

Elemental's mobility gets a variety of boosts. You can now pick between Spirit Walk or Gust of Wind, potentially with some cooldown reduction from Go with the Flow (and from Flash of Lightning in Gust of Wind's case). Additionally, Lightning Lasso is now potentially an option in raids, giving you an additional way to deal some damage in raid fights requiring heavy movement, and its cooldown is also reduced by Flash of Lightning. It does not do much damage in raids, however.

Electrified Shocks allows Icefury to be used in both single and multi-target, especially with a fully stacked Lightning build with Lightning Rod. Who says you have to choose between good AoE and good priority target damage?

Mountains Will Fall and its parent talent Echo Chamber makes Mastery more valuable across the board. Previously Mastery was a problematic stat because it gave very little value in AoE and did not affect spenders. This is not the case anymore with this talent. Similarly, Further Beyond makes it so using spenders during Ascendance will actually feel good.

Finally, Searing Flames, associated with other Flame Shock-enhancing talents, greatly enhances the potential of multi-DoTting builds.

First, the usual disclaimers: major tuning is happening regularly, simulations are only now starting to function somewhat, several things still do not work properly, and nobody can give accurate relative rankings of DPS classes without many assumptions and guesswork.

That being said, it is quite clear that Elemental's utility, which was already very good, is now probably unmatched in many situations in PvP, Mythic+ and solo play, from a large variety of customizable crowd control effects to serious mobility, better healing potential than before, and the ability to get rid of almost any debuffs.

The amount of customization and real choices available to Elemental Shaman is the best it has ever been, and is definitely on the top end of classes in that regard.

Many build variants seem potentially viable and hopefully Blizzard will balance things so you actually get to customize your build often. Lightning & Fire builds are pretty close and what is best will depend on a variety of things. Playstyles also vary a lot, the main Lightning builds have more static rotations with decent complexity, Fire builds are generally more straightforward & mobile in single-target. In addition, Elemental Blast is currently very strong and worth using for AoE purposes on up to 3 targets, which is somewhat counter-intuitive and awkward, and lowers your mobility potential.

On the plus side, both Fire & Lightning builds are currently competitive damage-wise, especially in Mythic+. Sustained AoE (with bonus crowd control for free), burst AoE, priority target with cleave/AoE, spread target multi-DoTting and strong sustained single-target are all on the menu.

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.

While your core gameplay loop is accessible early on, max level gameplay can be wildly different than during leveling. Our Mythic+ and PvP guides will help you fine tune your gameplay in any end-game content. We highly recommend using some of the macros in our Addon page as well.

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.