Elemental Shaman DPS Mythic+ Tips — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.3

Elemental Shaman is currently a middle of the pack ranged-DPS specialization for Mythic+ in Battle for Azeroth. It can provide strong multi-target burst and sustained damage, as well as a lot of utility. Talenting for strong multi-target burst, however, prevents you from having strong single-target burst, so you have to pick one or the other, and your single target damage is otherwise mediocre.

If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our dedicated Mythic+ page below.

Both the single target and multi-target rotations do not change in Mythic+ content. For more information about the Elemental Shaman DPS rotation, refer back to the Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities page.

The only additional habit you should practice in Mythic+ is to pool your Maelstrom towards the end of every trash pull, in order to reduce the ramp-up time needed to reach your maximum output.

Elemental Shamans provide support for the party through heavy crowd control, a variety of dispels and occasional healing.

• Your Earthquakes will always knock down non-Boss enemies once. Being able to spam Earthquakes results in considerable crowd control at no DPS-cost.
• Healing Surge heals for a moderate amount with a fast cast time. It costs 25% of your Mana pool. Do not hesitate to use it on yourself or others.
• Earth Elemental is a summon that is primarily used to help with tanking for 1 minute. It can taunt and, in Battle for Azeroth, can now take quite a bit of punishment before dying, while also dealing decent damage.
• Wind Shear is your "kick". It is fairly unique in that its 30 yards range and 12-second cooldown are shorter than most other ranged characters. This makes Wind Shear one of the best interrupts in the game, and you should use it a lot.
• Capacitor Totem is your only way to stun targets. You cast it at a target location and, after 2 seconds, it will stun enemies within 8 yards for 3 seconds. This ability has a 1-minute cooldown, which can be reduced by using the Static Charge talent.
• Hex is the Shaman equivalent of Polymorph. This spell transforms 1 enemy into a frog for 60 seconds, preventing it from attacking or casting spells as long as you do not attack it. It only works on humanoids and beasts.
• Earthbind Totem projects a totem that slows everything around it for 20 seconds. It is very useful, especially if you kite around the totem.
• Thunderstorm does very little damage, but knocks away enemies around you and slows them by 40% for 5 seconds. It is quite useful, especially when you use it to displace an enemy in a specific direction.
• Tremor Totem summons a totem removing all Fear, Charm and Sleep effects on party and raid members within 30 yards every few seconds for 10 seconds.
• Purge remove 1 beneficial effect from an enemy target.
• Cleanse Spirit removes all curses from a friendly target.

Below are the suggested talents for Mythic+.

Level	Choices
15	✓ Earthen Rage	✗ Echo of the Elements	✗ Elemental Blast
30	✓ Aftershock	✗ Call the Thunder	? Totem Mastery
45	✓ Spirit Wolf	✗ Earth Shield	? Static Charge
60	? Master of the Elements	✓ Storm Elemental	✓ Liquid Magma Totem
75	✓ Nature's Guardian	✗ Ancestral Guidance	? Wind Rush Totem
90	✗ Surge of Power	✓ Primal Elementalist	? Icefury
100	✗ Unlimited Power	✓ Stormkeeper	✗ Ascendance

As you can see, for all tiers except two, nothing is an automatic pick. Talents that are too weak will not be mentioned.

For level 15 talents, Earthen Rage requires no input and does very well in nearly every situation.

The level 30 row has all three talents fairly close in power for AoE. Totem Mastery is generally the best, especially if you can cast it before engaging, although having to constantly replace it and stay in range can be annoying. It is also by far the best for single target. Aftershock is solid for large AoE pulls, however this is an all-or-nothing gambling talent. Call the Thunder is weak for single-target and still falls behind for AoE.

Static Charge is a good default choice on the level 45 row, if you think the additional crowd control will be needed. Otherwise, the speed and damage reduction from Spirit Wolf is always nice to have.

Assuming you take Primal Elementalist, Storm Elemental gains Eye of the Storm, granting a significant AoE/Cleave boost for 8 seconds. Liquid Magma Totem lasts twice as long and has less than half the cooldown, but targets have to be stacked and mostly static to gain its full effect. Both are very strong talents. Avoid Master of the Elements as it gives no benefit in AoE situations.

The level 75 row provides a choice between passive survivability with Nature's Guardian or active group healing with Ancestral Guidance. We recommend the former, especially if you are unfamiliar with the content you are playing, but Ancestral Guidance can be very helpful to help your group through significant damage phases.

In most situations, Primal Elementalist is just the better choice in the Level 90 row, although Icefury allows constant single-target DPS throughout the dungeon even if heavy movement is required. Surge of Power could be used if you have several Echo of the Elementals traits.

Stormkeeper is now the best choice by far in nearly every situation.

For general information about Mythic+, please visit our general mythic+ page.

Elemental Shamans will excel during Fortified weeks as our multi-target damage has a short ramp up time and then will sustain at high numbers with or without the use of cooldowns. During Tyrannical weeks, players may want to take more single-target oriented trinkets, gear, or even talents but that will be both dungeon and key level dependent.

Elemental Shamans should use Thunderstorm to push enemies off of Sanguine zones when on this affix.

Use Healing Surge liberally during Grievous weeks and bring consumables to assist your healer when out of combat.

Necrotic debuffs the target of enemy melee swings with stacking healing reduction and minor DoT. Elemental Shamans should utilize Thunderstorm, Capacitor Totem, Earthbind Totem and potentially Earth Elemental to assist tanks in kiting enemies before they become unhealable when doing a dungeon with the Necrotic affix.

Skittish reduces the amount of threat generated by tanks throughout the dungeon. If needed, use Earth Elemental as an artificial taunt on Skittish weeks.

The seasonal affix, Awakened, is mainly about bursting down a dangerous mini-boss, so do not spend all your cooldowns before starting a fight with one.

Stormkeeper is especially useful to deal with the adds summoned by all three Corrupted Lieutenants. We recommend that, by default, you always keep that cooldown to deal with those adds.

You can deal with Voidweaver Mal'thir's Lingering Doubt debuff with Cleanse Spirit and remove Samh'rek, Beckoner of Chaos' Cascading Terror ability with Tremor Totem.

• Natural Harmony and Blightborne Infusion are very good for any content.
• Igneous Potential is excellent for 1-2 targets, but mostly if you are using the raid build with Echo of the Elements and Master of the Elements, which can be viable in dungeons.
• Tectonic Thunder is the best AoE trait but is weak for single-target

The best traits for AoE are the following:

1. Tectonic Thunder;
2. Blightborne Infusion;
3. Natural Harmony;
4. Swirling Sands;
5. Treacherous Covenant.