Elemental Shaman DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.0.7

Welcome to our Rotation page for Elemental Shaman. On this page you will find everything you need to know about actually playing the spec in Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.

Due to simulations still being a work in progress and the many changes, these lists are a work in progress. Additional details for Fire-focused are coming soon.

If the rotations below seem overwhelming to you, you might benefit from visiting our Easy Mode page, which outlines a close-to-optimal rotation in simpler terms.

The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, please visit our PvP page below.

Neither our single-target nor our multi-target rotations change in Mythic+ content. If you are looking for information and tips specific to Mythic+ content, please visit our Mythic+ page below.

Our tier set bonuses should not change our rotation much overall.

Elemental Shaman 2pc makes it more important not to cast more than 5 Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and Lava Burst without casting a spender, but in practice it should not really happen anyway.

Elemental Shaman 4pc is similar, in practice this should be up most of the time and does not change our priorities.

There is some awkwardness for AoE, Elemental Shaman 2pc leads Echoes of Great Sundering users to try to game the stacks by using single-target spenders with as few stacks as possible, meaning ideally right after Earthquake. The anti-synergy with Elemental Shaman 4pc is pretty clear. In practice if you have both, you are probably better off ignoring Elemental Shaman 2pc and focusing on maintaining Elemental Shaman 4pc uptime, particularly if you use Echo Chamber and Mountains Will Fall.

The rotation of an Elemental Shaman revolves around the following priority list. Note that for the special "rotation" involving Stormkeeper, Surge of Power and Icefury, we assume you are using Eye of the Storm, Flow of Power and Swelling Maelstrom. If you are not, adjust accordingly.

Note that this does not currently support all the viable fire build variants introduced with the latest hotfix, this is currently a work in progress and will be updated for Dragonflight's release.

• Storm Elemental
• Fire Elemental
• Lava Surge
• Stormkeeper
• Surge of Power
• Icefury
• Electrified Shocks
• Master of the Elements
• Elemental Blast
• Primordial Wave
• Deeply Rooted Elements
• Ascendance
• Primal Elementalist
• Liquid Magma Totem
• Primordial Surge
• Further Beyond
• Windspeaker's Lava Resurgence
• Lightning Lasso

1. Cast Primordial Wave whenever available.
2. Apply or Refresh Flame Shock if it will expire in under 6 seconds, unless Primordial Wave will be available before or immediately after Flame Shock expires.
3. Apply or Refresh Flame Shock if it will expire in under 6 seconds, unless
   • Primordial Wave will be available before or immediately after Flame Shock expires.
   • a Surge of Power proc is available
4. Apply or Refresh Flame Shock if it is absent or will expire in under 6 seconds.
5. Apply or Refresh Flame Shock if it is absent or will expire in under 6 seconds unless a Surge of Power proc is available.
6. Cast Fire Elemental if it is off cooldown. Always pair your elemental with Haste buffs (e.g. Bloodlust/ Heroism) if possible, but do not sacrifice an extra usage by delaying your elemental.
7. Cast Storm Elemental if it is off cooldown. Always pair your elemental with Haste buffs (e.g. Bloodlust/ Heroism) if possible, but do not sacrifice an extra usage by delaying your elemental.
8. Make your Fire Elemental cast Meteor.
9. Make your Storm Elemental cast Tempest once your Elemental has used Call Lightning (not before).
10. Cast Lava Burst if Stormkeeper is up and you have no Master of the Elements or Surge of Power proc active
11. Cast Lightning Bolt if Surge of Power is active.
12. Cast Lava Burst whenever you gain a Lava Surge proc, even if doing so will make you overcap Maelstrom.
13. Cast Ascendance.
14. When in Ascendance form cast Earth Shock whenever available, but always alternate it with Lava Burst.
15. When in Ascendance form cast Elemental Blast whenever available, but always alternate it with Lava Burst.
16. When in Ascendance form, cast Lava Burst.
17. When in Ascendance form, cast Lava Burst.
18. Cast Stormkeeper whenever available.
19. Cast Elemental Blast whenever your next cast will make you overcap Maelstrom. Use Nature's Swiftness when available to make it an instant cast.
20. If you are about to cast Stormkeeper, cast an Icefury-empowered Frost Shock either right before or right after casting Stormkeeper
21. Cast Stormkeeper whenever Surge of Power you have 108 or more Maelstrom. You must then cast the following spells in that order:
    1. If Electrified Shocks will fade before 2 GCDs, apply it with an Icefury-empowered Frost Shock
    2. Cast Elemental Blast
    3. Cast Lightning Bolt
    4. Cast Lava Burst
    5. Cast Frost Shock
    6. Cast Elemental Blast
    7. Cast Lightning Bolt
22. If you are about to cast Stormkeeper, cast an Icefury-empowered Frost Shock either right before or right after casting Stormkeeper.
23. Cast Stormkeeper when you have 58 or more Maelstrom. You must then cast the following spells in this order:
    1. If Electrified Shocks will fade before 2 GCDs, apply it with an Icefury-empowered Frost Shock
    2. Cast Earth Shock
    3. Cast Lightning Bolt
    4. Cast Lava Burst
    5. Cast Frost Shock
    6. Cast Earth Shock
    7. Cast Lightning Bolt
24. Cast Lava Burst whenever you gain a Lava Surge proc.
25. Cast Elemental Blast whenever you have the Maelstrom for it but never cast it twice in a row. Use Nature's Swiftness when available to make it an instant cast.
26. Cast Earth Shock if your next cast will make you overcap Maelstrom.
27. Cast Lightning Bolt empowered by Stormkeeper if Master of the Elements is active.
28. Cast Liquid Magma Totem whenever available. Delay the usage if multiple stacked targets will be present within the span of its cooldown.
29. Cast Earth Shock if you have enough Maelstrom and the Master of the Elements buff is active.
30. Cast Elemental Blast if you have enough Maelstrom and the Master of the Elements buff is active.
31. Cast Frost Shock if any Icefury buff is active and Electrified Shocks is absent or about to expire.
32. Cast Lava Burst if you have a Flux Melting proc.
33. Cast Icefury-empowered Frost Shock if Flux Melting is not up. If you will need to move, consider leaving one or more empowered Shock(s) unused as long as the buff does not fade.
34. Cast Lava Burst whenever available.
35. Cast Icefury.
36. Cast Lightning Bolt if Storm Elemental is active.
37. Cast Lava Burst whenever available.
38. Cast Lightning Lasso
39. Cast Lightning Bolt as a filler on a single target.
40. Cast Flame Shock as a filler while moving, unless Primordial Wave will become available
41. Cast Frost Shock as a filler while moving.

For more information on your opening sequence, please refer to our dedicated section.

Note that if you are using Primal Elementalist without Storm Elemental, you can cast Meteor whenever you want, as you can only cast it once per Elemental. Since its damage is not split, you ideally want to hold onto it if multiple targets are going to be present.

Note that this does not currently support all the viable fire build variants introduced with the latest hotfix, this is currently a work in progress and will be updated for Dragonflight's release.

• Storm Elemental
• Fire Elemental
• Surge of Power
• Stormkeeper
• Electrified Shocks
• Primordial Wave
• Ascendance
• Deeply Rooted Elements
• Primal Elementalist
• Elemental Blast
• Echoes of Great Sundering
• Liquid Magma Totem
• Splintered Elements

1. Cast Fire Elemental.
2. Cast Storm Elemental.
3. Cast Meteor.
4. Cast Tempest once your Elemental has used Call Lightning (not before).
5. Cast Earth Elemental if it is off cooldown and you either are not using Primal Elementalist or your Fire Elemental is not currently active. You cannot have 2 Primal Elementals active at the same time.
6. When your Fire Elemental is out, cast Flame Shock on targets unafflicted by it on cooldown as long as they will live for most of the duration.
7. If there are at most 4 targets, Cast Primordial Wave on one of them. If your Fire Elemental is out, do this no matter how many targets exist. Follow up with a Lava Burst, ideally trying to have Flame Shocks on as many targets as possible beforehand.
8. Cast Liquid Magma Totem then cast Primordial Wave and Flame Shock on targets not afflicted by the Flame Shock DoT. If there is no such 5th target for your Flame Shock skip that last cast. Follow this with a Lava Burst. Use Totemic Recall before using another totem to have Liquid Magma Totem back faster.
9. Cast Liquid Magma Totem on cooldown. Use Totemic Recall before using another totem to have Liquid Magma Totem back faster.
10. Cast Stormkeeper on cooldown.
11. If all targets are split, keep Flame Shock up on as many of them as you can as long as they will live for the whole duration.
12. If no more than 5 targets are cleavable and they will not die soon, try using your Surge of Power procs with Flame Shock.
13. If no more than 2 targets are cleavable and will either die soon or have long duration Flame Shocks on them, try using your Surge of Power procs with Lightning Bolt. This is also valid if there is a priority target in a 3-target cleave situation.
14. Cast Icefury on cooldown. If there are more than 4 targets and you will not need to move, you can skip this.
15. Use an Icefury-empowered Frost Shock if the Electrified Shocks debuff is not present or will expire before the next cast. If there are many targets, you will not need to move, and Stormkeeper will not be used, you can skip this.
16. Cast Elemental Blast if there are at most 3 targets. Earthquake does similar damage if 3 or more stacked targets will live for the duration.
17. Cast Elemental Blast to empower your next Earthquake with Echoes of Great Sundering.
18. Cast Earth Shock to empower your next Earthquake with Echoes of Great Sundering.
19. Cast Earthquake.
20. Cast Lava Beam when in Ascendance form.
21. Cast Lava Beam when in Ascendance form.
22. Cast Lava Burst if there are 3 or fewer targets and if a Flame Shock is up
23. Cast Chain Lightning.
24. Cast Flame Shock when moving

• Tempest has no target limit, but does reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
• Meteor is limited to 8 targets.
• Earthquake and Liquid Magma Totem have a soft-cap at 20 targets. This cap is high enough that it should rarely matter.

Funneling means using the fact that there are multiple targets present in the fight to gain damage on a single target. For Elemental Shamans, this means having multiple Flame Shocks running on several targets and using the additional Lava Surge procs to gain a significant amount of DPS on one target. If this is an important part of the fight, you may want to gear toward Haste, as this is a very good stat for this strategy.

If you are using the talent Master of the Elements you may want to try to use the buff on the most appropriate spell for the situation, usually your spender. From best to worst, you ideally want to use Master of the Elements on:

1. Lightning Bolt empowered by Stormkeeper
2. Earthquake if it will hit 4+ targets or 2+ if empowered by Echoes of Great Sundering.
3. Elemental Blast
4. Earth Shock
5. Frost Shock empowered by Icefury
6. Lightning Bolt empowered by Power of the Maelstrom
7. Icefury
8. Lightning Bolt
9. Frost Shock

Note that the list above is what will give the most value for the proc, but IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT THIS IS THE ACTUAL SPELL PRIORITY IF YOU HAVE A PROC. It should not override the fact that you should cast Earth Shock if you have 90 or more Maelstrom or that casting Elemental Blast should generally take priority over everything else if long term efficiency is the goal. Obviously there are plenty of situational exceptions, but it is impossible to give static priorities for every situation.

In most scenarios, especially in a raid, there are two main uses for Surge of Power. Either you use it on Lava Burst in order to get a full additional use of Fire Elemental, or, if the fight will not last long enough, you use it on Lightning Bolt for additional Mastery: Elemental Overload procs.

In addition, against exactly 2 targets within 8 yards of each other, you want to use Earth Shock to empower your Flame Shock to hit both targets, but only if Flame Shock is not already present on both or is within the pandemic window.

If you do not know what the "pandemic window" is, look here

Finally, if you are using Stormkeeper as well, you should almost always want to pool Maelstrom before casting it, so that both Stormkeeper-empowered Lightning Bolts become also empowered by Surge of Power. The exact amount of Maelstrom required depends on the talent whether or not you are using any combination of these talents: Eye of the Storm, Flow of Power, Elemental Blast, Searing Flames.

Here is an example assuming you use our recommended single-target build, with Eye of the Storm and Flow of Power:

1. Pool Maelstrom until you have at least 58; if specced into Electrified Shocks cast an Icefury-empowered Frost Shock just before or just after casting Stormkeeper.
2. Cast Stormkeeper
3. Cast Earth Shock
4. Cast Lightning Bolt
5. Cast an Icefury-empowered Frost Shock if specced into Electrified Shocks
6. Cast Earth Shock
7. Cast Lightning Bolt

This talent has some interesting synergy with Primordial Wave and Skybreaker's Fiery Demise for heavy multi-dotting of split targets.

Before using each of your cooldowns, you should take special care to consider several factors. Our offensive cooldowns have lengthy recharge times, but when correctly utilized, can be responsible for a large percentage of our damage output. You should always take into account:

• Your raid's Bloodlust/ Heroism/ Time Warp usage.
• The mechanics of the current boss, including intermissions and abilities that necessitate movement.
• The spawn timers of any adds that might be present, as we may want to use or delay certain cooldowns with respect to cleave and AoE.

There are a few things to consider before each Ascendance usage.

• Ensure Flame Shock is present on as many targets as possible.
• Ensure no boss mechanics will interfere, such as intermissions, boss movement, or mechanics that will force you to move. It can be a good idea to use Spiritwalker's Grace to ensure full DPS uptime.
• Clear Lava Surge if active, and any remaining Lava Burst charges.
• If using this talent, cast Elemental Blast immediately before activating Ascendance.

Do not let yourself Maelstrom cap; be sure to cast your spender when or before you reach 90 (140 with Swelling Maelstrom) Maelstrom,. If using Further Beyond, make sure you do not let Ascendance fade when you could have used a spender to extend it.

Fire Elemental (or Storm Elemental) has a long cooldown, and its usage should be considered carefully. The best time to use this cooldown is always during periods of increased Haste or damage, and therefore we typically will pair it with the Bloodlust/ Heroism/ Time Warp usage. That said, we never want to lose a potential usage of Fire/Storm Elemental by delaying it for maximum efficacy. For example, on an encounter that lasts 3 minutes, you would use Fire Elemental immediately on the pull and once again as soon as it is off cooldown, regardless of when Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp is used. Remember not to use Earth Elemental when your Fire/Storm Elemental is still around if you use Primal Elementalist.

Stormkeeper is used more or less on cooldown on pure single target encounters.

On multiple-target fights, or fights with intermittent cleave and AoE, it can be a good idea to delay your Stormkeeper until you are able to Chain Lightning the adds.

Elemental is a lot more mobile in Dragonflight, between getting Spirit Walk or Gust of Wind with some talents increasing your movement speed further especially in Ghost Wolf form and Icefury being a must. Fire-focused builds also have formidable mobility thanks to massive amounts of Lava Surge procs. Elemental is at worst a fairly mobile spec, especially if you use your instant spells to adjust your positioning. Pro-actively position yourself to reduce potential movement from mechanics. Keep careful track of boss timers and mechanics, as they can spell disaster for your damage if you are targeted during a damage dump.

You should avoid casting Maelstrom-generating spells above a certain Maelstrom threshold that would make you go over the Maelstrom cap. Because of all the talents and procs interacting with that threshold, it is difficult to give exact numbers without making a detailed list that would be very impractical to use. We recommend instead that you use Swelling Maelstrom and follow our recommended priorities in order to never overcap. Keep this in mind when pooling Maelstrom as well. It is likely these spells will overload at raid levels of gear, therefore, if you cast Lava Burst at 90/140 Maelstrom or Icefury at 75/125 Maelstrom it is likely you will overcap Maelstrom and waste valuable resources. In practice, it is safer to cast these spells at lower Maelstrom than their limits to avoid wasting your overload procs. The key to success is managing all of your separate procs without overcapping Maelstrom.

This section is currently somewhat obsolete unless Lava Burst gets buffed.

The reason why Flame Shock should always be up on your target is because:

• each tick has a chance to proc Lava Surge, which resets the cooldown of Lava Burst;
• your Lava Burst will always critically hit if Flame Shock is on the target. This is very important due to your Elemental Fury passive.

You should only cast Lava Burst when Flame Shock is active on the target, or the target will live for less than 5 seconds. Flame Shock ticks every 3 seconds without accounting for Haste, meaning that you have to take advantage of Lava Surge within one global cooldown to avoid potentially wasting a new Lava Surge proc from the next Flame Shock tick. By the same token, casting Lava Burst immediately as it comes off cooldown is also imperative so that Lava Surge is not wasted while Lava Burst is off cooldown.

Flame Shock benefits from Pandemic, meaning that you can refresh it any time that it has less than 30% of its original maximum duration remaining and the remaining duration will be added to the new debuff. Therefore you are be able to refresh Flame Shocks without wasting any duration when it has 5 seconds or less remaining, and it will be extended by 18 seconds. For example, if your Flame Shock has 5 seconds left and you refresh it your new Flame Shock would last 23 seconds.

• Surge of Power
• Stormkeeper
• Icefury
• Primordial Wave

1. Cast Stormkeeper 4.5 seconds before the pull.
2. Do NOT precast Stormkeeper, delay until you can do a combo with Surge of Power.
3. Cast Fire Elemental/ Storm Elemental 3 seconds before the pull.
4. Use Elemental Potion of Power.
5. Cast Icefury 1.5 seconds before the pull.
6. cast Lava Burst 1.5 seconds before the pull.
7. Apply Flame Shock on pull.
8. Cast Primordial Wave.
9. Cast Frost Shock.
10. Cast Lava Burst.
11. Proceed with normal priority.