Elemental Shaman DPS Mythic+ Tips — The War Within (11.1.5)

Wind Shear is your "kick" and your most important bit of utility in Mythic+, used to stop enemy casts for the benefit of the group and especially the tank. It is highly recommended to use a Focus Kick macro for this.

• /stopcasting
• /stopcasting
• /cast [@focus,exists,nodead][@mouseover,exists,nodead] [] Wind Shear

This macro will kick your focus target if you have one, mouseover if you have no Focus target, and your target if you have neither of those.

To quickly set a focus target in hectic scenarios, we also recommend a Focus Mouseover macro.

• /focus [@mouseover]

Make sure that your UI shows your Focus Target's casts clearly so that you are always able to kick it on cooldown or in coordination with the rest of your group.

Elemental Shamans have a large variety of "hard" crowd-control abilities available to them, but they all work in different ways.

Earthquake will "naturally" knock enemies down from time to time, giving you free stops, though its unpredictability makes it so you should never count on it to reliably interrupt any cast. Think of it as a bonus.

Capacitor Totem is delayed but reliable, and both of the talents improving it are useful, especially Guardian's Cudgel if your party is short on stuns. Note that Totemic Recall can allow you to cast it back-to-back if that is helpful.

Thunderstorm, whether or not you are using Thundershock, will interrupt enemies and knock them away or up. Be very careful of the direction you will knock enemies to if not using Thundershock.

Hex is meant as a long-duration crowd-control but can serve as a stop in a pinch, though it is rarely practical or efficient.

Note that Earthgrab Totem "roots" a target but is not a "stop"; it only prevents movement. Same thing with Frost Shocks buffed by Surge of Power.

Technically, Earth Elemental with Primal Elementalist also brings a stun, but because we cannot have two Primal Elementals up at the same time and our Storm Elemental will have extremely high uptime; it is difficult to really make use of it.

Elemental has reasonably good mobility for several reasons:

Many Instant spells:

• We have many instant abilities in our rotation: Primordial Wave, Storm Elemental, Earth Shock/ Earthquake, Liquid Magma Totem, Icefury, Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning buffed by Stormkeeper or Arc Discharge
• With our current rotation, Frost Shocks can be used as movement cooldowns. When they are empowered by Icefury, they are barely a dps loss in most circumstances.
• Stormbringer users can use Nature's Swiftness as a reactive instant, and gain additional instant Chain Lightning from Arc Discharge.

Powerful mobility tools:

• Wind Rush Totem, especially boosted by Jet Stream or Ascending Air, and potentially by Totemic Focus, is a powerful ability that is useful for any content, having a powerful effect and the possibility of getting 2 in a row with Totemic Recall. Moreover, you can extend its benefits by using Totemic Projection to reposition it!
• Spiritwalker's Grace not only gives you full mobility while casting for 15 seconds (19 for Farseer users), it also gives you 20% movement speed and has fairly short cooldown thanks to Graceful Spirit .
• Gust of Wind is fantastically versatile burst mobility, while our other choice Spirit Walk has a much higher cooldown but gets rid of root and snare effects.
• Ghost Wolf form needs to be used sparingly in combat but is very useful, especially due to Thunderous Paws or potentially Spirit Wolf in higher keys.

Shamans have an excellent toolkit that greatly benefits from being tailored to each dungeon:

Off-healing:

• Earth Shield, especially when also cast on your tank, can add up to very significant healing almost for free, especially when paired with
• Healing Surge is a generic fast heal that only really shines when you are healing yourself and have Earth Shield and Refreshing Waters talented, but is still solid.
• Healing Stream Totem is one of those abilities you drop when you have nothing else you can do; it helps a little bit, and Elemental Resistance can potentially help surviving one-shots. It is hard to justify the talent points for it however.

Many kinds of "opt-in" dispells:

• Purge can remove scary magic buffs on enemies, as well as help deal with the Ascendant Affix.
• Cleanse Spirit removes curses and can help deal with the Devour Affix.
• Poison Cleansing Totem removes all poison effects on your entire party every 1.5 seconds for up to 9 seconds. When it is useful, you most likely want to have Totemic Focus as it increases its duration by 50%.
• Tremor Totem removes Charm, Fear, and Sleep effects. It is rarely useful, but is the best tool in the game to deal with these debuffs when they happen.

• Cinderbrew Meadery:
• Purge
• Poison Cleansing Totem
• Darkflame Cleft:
• Thunderous Paws and/or Spirit Walk
• Tremor Totem
• Priory of the Sacred Flame:
• Purge
• The Rookery
• Cleanse Spirit (optional)
• Purge (optional)
• Operation: Floodgate:
• Purge
• Poison Cleansing Totem
• Theater of Pain:
• Purge
• Cleanse Spirit
• Operation: Mechagon:
• Purge
• The Motherlode!!:
• Purge
• Poison Cleansing Totem

In this dungeon, we recommend getting the following talents in order to help deal with specific mechanics:

• Purge

• No fancy tips yet. Please check back throughout the Season, as I am sure to find fancy tips to put here!

• Purge can be used to remove Rejuvenating Honey cast by Flavor Scientist, as it heals for up to 45% of their Max Health in 18 seconds.

In this dungeon, we recommend getting the following talents in order to help deal with specific mechanics:

• Thunderous Paws and/or Spirit Walk
• Tremor Totem

• Tremor Totem can be used against the Candle King's Paranoid Mind AoE fear.

• Thunderous Paws and/or Spirit Walk can be used to remove Flaming Tether cast by Sootsnout. This is interruptible.

In this dungeon, we recommend getting the following talents in order to help deal with specific mechanics:

• Purge

• No fancy tips yet. Please check back throughout the Season, as I am sure to find fancy tips to put here!

• Purge can be used to remove Templar's Wrath from Zealous Templar (30% damage for 10 seconds).

In this dungeon, we recommend getting the following talents in order to help deal with specific mechanics:

• Purge
• Cleanse Spirit

• No fancy tips yet. Please check back throughout the Season, as I am sure to find fancy tips to put here!

• Purge can be used to remove the Lightning-Infused buff that all Cursed Thunderers have(1st boss room).
• It is not really necessary, but you could help a bit by using Cleanse Spirit, to remove Seeping Corruption, inflicted by Corrupted Oracle, otherwise the target will drop damaging circles for 8 seconds.

In this dungeon, we recommend getting the following talents in order to help deal with specific mechanics:

• Purge
• Poison Cleansing Totem

• No fancy tips yet. Please check back throughout the Season, as I am sure to find fancy tips to put here!

• Purge can be used to remove the Restorative Algae HoT cast by Disturbed Kelp.
• Poison Cleansing Totem can be used against Undercrawlers' Lethargic Venom ability

In this dungeon, we recommend getting the following talents in order to help deal with specific mechanics:

• Purge
• Cleanse Spirit

• Cleanse Spirit can be used to rescue people hit by Mordretha, the Endless Empress' Grasping Rift ability (the black hole), as it applies a long stun that also does damage.

• Purge should be used to remove Bone Shield from Bone Magus.
• Cleanse Spirit can be used against Nefarious Darkspeakers' Curse of Desolation.

In this dungeon, we recommend getting the following talents in order to help deal with specific mechanics:

• Purge

• No fancy tips yet. Please check back throughout the Season, as I am sure to find fancy tips to put here!

• Purge can be used against Defense Bot MK III's Defensive Countermeasures and if necessary against Mechagon Mechanic's Overclock ability.

In this dungeon, we recommend getting the following talents in order to help deal with specific mechanics:

• Purge
• Poison Cleansing Totem

• No fancy tips yet. Please check back throughout the Season, as I am sure to find fancy tips to put here!

• Purge should used to remove Tectonic Barrier from Stonefuries
• Poison Cleansing Totem can be helpful against the stacking DoT from Hired Assassins' Toxic Blades, as well as against Venture Co. Alchemists' Caustic Compound.

Elemental has quite a few ways to deal with this affix:

• Wind Shear
• Purge
• Thunderstorm
• Capacitor Totem potentially twice in a row with Totemic Recall, and available more often if specced into Static Charge
• Earthquake (unreliable, only for orbs stacked on enemies)

Nothing special here beyond making sure to soak them when you are not in danger of killing yourself, as it deals significant damage. Remain close at least one other party member so your pulsar gets soaked.

Poison Cleansing Totem immediately dispels everything. Pretty strong! You can get a second one if needed with Totemic Recall.

You can also spec into Cleanse Spirit, but unless it is good in that particular dungeon, it should not be necessary.