Elemental Shaman DPS Mythic+ Tips — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1.5

1. Elemental Shaman in Mythic+

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.

1.1. Elemental Shaman Mythic+ Rotation

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.

1.2. Elemental Shaman Utility

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.

2. Mythic+ Talents for Elemental Shaman

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.

3. Mythic+ Affixes

The way Mythic+ affixes are tiered in Battle for Azeroth has changed quite a bit since their launch in Legion.

There are now three weekly affixes and one seasonal affix. The first affix available instantly at level two and three, the second affix starts at level four, the third affix enabled at level seven, and finally the seasonal affix at level ten.

3.1. Tier One Affixes

• Fortified increases the Health pool of all non-boss enemies by 20% and damage dealt by 30%.
• Tyrannical increases the Health pool of boss enemies by 40% and their damage dealt by 15%.

Fortified and Tyrannical are the two affixes every player will see. These affixes shift the focus of dungeons from boss to trash depending on the week. 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.

3.2. Tier Two Affixes

• Raging increases the damage dealt by enemies below 30%, by 100%, until they die.
• Teeming adds additional trash mobs to certain packs throughout each dungeon.
• Bolstering buffs remaining enemies Health pools and damage dealt by 20% when an enemy dies nearby. To counter this affix, DPS all mobs down evenly and focus your casts into high Health mobs if there are any.
• Sanguine places a pool of blood on the ground when a mob is slain. This pool will heal remaining enemies who stay inside the zone and also damage players. Elemental Shamans should use Thunderstorm to push enemies off of each Sanguine zone.
• Bursting forces enemy mobs to detonate when slain, afflicting the group with a stacking debuff that causes players to suffer 10% of their max Health in damage every four seconds. When handling the Bursting affix, ask how many stacks your healer can handle and try to not mindlessly DPS and exceed your healers stack limit.

3.3. Tier Three Affixes

• Volcanic spawns volcanic plumes underneath and around players when in combat with any enemy. When damaged by Volcanic, players suffer 50% of their maximum Health pool in damage. The more enemies you are in combat with, the more Volcanic that will spawn.
• Grievous afflicts players with a stacking DoT when they fall below 90%. Use Healing Surge liberally during Grievous weeks and bring consumables to assist your healer when out of combat.
• Quaking will periodically attempt to interrupt casters by creating a damaging zone around each player. About 3 seconds after the zone forms, it will deal 20% maximum Health in damage to each player caught in the zone as well as interrupting any hard casts being finished during the shockwave.
• Explosive will occasionally spawn Explosive Orbs that need to be targeted and burned down within a short period of time or they will deal significant damage to the party. Explosive Orbs are not cleaveable and the amount of orbs that spawn scales with the amount of enemies pulled.
• 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.
• Skittish reduces the amount of threat generated by tanks throughout the dungeon. If needed, use Earth Elemental as an artificial taunt on Skittish weeks.

3.4. Seasonal Affix

Reaping is the seasonal affix for Season 2 of Battle for Azeroth. Reaping causes Souls to rise from the dead and attack the party at intervals of 20% completion on the Enemy Forces count. There are three different enemy types to be aware of:

• Risen Soul: Will apply Reap Soul to their current target, dealing 2% maximum health in damage every 3 seconds, per stack. This can be dispelled.
• Tormented Soul: Will cast Grave Bolt, which deals 25% maximum health in damage to the cast target. This cast can be interrupted.
• Lost Soul: Will cast Shadow Smash at their current target, a frontal cone ability that can be sidestepped. If you are hit by this, your maximum health will be reduced by 20% for 1 minute. Additionally, when Lost Souls die they will cast Expel Soul, spawning swirls on the ground that must be dodged. If you are hit by this, your damage and healing done will be reduced by 10% for 30 seconds.

Careful planning is required to deal with Reaping effectively. Be sure you keep track of when and how a Reaping will occur, and try to plan your pulls so that they end just as you hit the 20% interval. Once the Souls spawn, you will want to group them together for maximum AoE and cleave. Make use of ranged interrupts to bring the Tormented Souls in close, and use Thunderstorm to group them up even further. Wind Rush Totem may be useful in helping your party dodge the swirls from Expel Soul.

Note that the Souls enter combat immediately upon spawning, although they can reset if in-combat stealth techniques such as Shadowmeld are used. Any Souls remaining from the previous wave will re-enter combat during the next wave. Like other trash mobs in dungeons, Souls will drop combat once the dungeon completes (all bosses are killed and Enemy Forces is at 100%), so you may want to kill the last boss before finishing off your trash count to avoid the final Reaping wave.

4. Mythic+ Azerite Traits

• Treacherous Covenant 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.

The best traits for AoE are the following:

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

5. Changelog