Elemental Shaman DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.2

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 Beginner 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.

Shaman Elemental 10.2 Class Set 2pc : Primordial Wave also casts an Elemental Blast at the target at 70% effectiveness, and grants you all three Elemental Blast bonus effects for 10.0 seconds. This Elemental Blast, of course, does not cost Maelstrom, and a pseudo "Pandemic" effect has been implemented, allowing subsequent Elemental Blasts to extend a buff's duration to up to 130% of its original duration.

Shaman Elemental 10.2 Class Set 4pc: Lava Bursts burn your target for 10 percent additional damage over 4 sec, and after consuming Primordial Wave, your next 2 casts of Lava Burst also hit up to 3 additional targets affected by your Flame Shock for 65 percent of normal damage. Those extra Lava Bursts generate Maelstrom, as you would expect.

We advise you to use our recommended T31 Fire-focused builds once you have Shaman Elemental 10.2 Class Set 4pc.

Shaman Elemental 10.1 Class Set 2pc grants you ONE charge of Stormkeeper. Assuming you are using a Lightning-focused build, the main thing to do is to make sure you have Electrified Shocks on the target(s) and have a Surge of Power proc either for single-target (2 targets also, you would just cast Lightning Bolt to benefit from Surge of Power) or with 6+ targets.

Shaman Elemental 10.1 Class Set 4pc helps getting more spenders (making Elemental Blast even more desirable). It does not particularly change our gameplay otherwise.

This section is dedicated to providing an action priority list tailored to our recommended T31 Single-Target build which you can find in our Talent Page.

Note that as your opener, you can simply follow this list as well.

• Stormkeeper
• Surge of Power

1. Cast Fire Elemental.
2. Cast Primordial Wave if Splintered Elements is not up.
3. Cast Flame Shock during the pandemic window if Primordial Wave will not be available in time.
4. Cast Stormkeeper when you have at least 116 Maelstrom (so you can always boost both bolts with Surge of Power)
5. Cast Lava Burst if either Lava Surge or Ascendance is up.
6. Cast Elemental Blast if Master of the Elements is up.
7. Cast Lava Burst.
8. Cast Frost Shock if Icefury buffs are available and Master of the Elements is up.
9. Cast Lightning Bolt if Surge of Power is available.
10. Cast Icefury.
11. Cast Elemental Blast.
12. Cast Frost Shock if Icefury buffs are available.
13. Cast Lightning Bolt.
14. Cast Flame Shock and if really needed Frost Shock while moving.

Splintered Elements is mentioned as with its reworked effect, it is now worth considering for many raid fights that include AoE elements.

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.

• 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, you have no Master of the Elements proc and will cast Lightning Bolt next.
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. Cast Stormkeeper whenever you have 81 or more Maelstrom. You must then cast the following spells in that order:
    1. Cast an Icefury-empowered Frost Shock
    2. Cast Lava Burst
    3. Cast Elemental Blast
    4. Cast Lightning Bolt
    5. Cast an Icefury-empowered Frost Shock
    6. Cast Lava Burst
    7. Cast Elemental Blast
    8. Cast Lightning Bolt
21. Cast Stormkeeper whenever you have 93 or more Maelstrom. You must then cast the following spells in that order:
    1. Cast an Icefury-empowered Frost Shock
    2. Cast Lava Burst (depending on its remaining cooldown, skip either the first or the second Lava Burst)
    3. Cast Elemental Blast
    4. Cast Lightning Bolt
    5. Cast an Icefury-empowered Frost Shock
    6. Cast Lava Burst
    7. Cast Elemental Blast
    8. 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 31 or more Maelstrom. You must then cast the following spells in this order:
    1. Cast an Icefury-empowered Frost Shock
    2. Cast Lava Burst
    3. Cast Earth Shock
    4. Cast Lightning Bolt
    5. Cast an Icefury-empowered Frost Shock
    6. Cast Lava Burst
    7. Cast Earth Shock
    8. Cast Lightning Bolt
24. Cast Lava Burst whenever you gain a Lava Surge proc.
25. Cast Lava Burst whenever you reach 63+ Maelstrom and will cast Elemental Blast next.
26. 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.
27. Cast Earth Shock if your next cast will make you overcap Maelstrom.
28. Cast Lightning Bolt empowered by Stormkeeper if Master of the Elements is active.
29. Cast Liquid Magma Totem whenever available. Delay the usage if multiple stacked targets will be present within the span of its cooldown.
30. Cast Earth Shock if you have enough Maelstrom and the Master of the Elements buff is active.
31. Cast Elemental Blast if you have enough Maelstrom and the Master of the Elements buff is active.
32. Cast Frost Shock if any Icefury buff is active and Electrified Shocks is absent or about to expire.
33. Cast Lava Burst if you have a Flux Melting proc.
34. 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.
35. Cast Lava Burst whenever available.
36. Cast Icefury.
37. Cast Lightning Bolt if Storm Elemental is active.
38. Cast Lava Burst whenever available.
39. Cast Lightning Lasso
40. Cast Lightning Bolt as a filler on a single target.
41. Cast Flame Shock as a filler while moving, unless Primordial Wave will become available
42. 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.

This section is dedicated to providing an action priority list tailored to our recommended T31 AoE / Mythic+ build which you can find in our Talent Page.

1. Cast Fire Elemental if Ascendance is not up.
2. Cast Stormkeeper if Ascendance is up and a previous Stormkeeper buff is not available (for people still using Shaman Elemental 10.1 Class Set 2pc).
3. Cast Totemic Recall if Ascendance is not up and Liquid Magma Totem is on cooldown for a long time, depending on how long adds will live.
4. Cast Liquid Magma Totem if Ascendance is not up.
5. Cast Primordial Wave on whichever target is closest to losing the Flame Shock effect, unless it is close to dying.
6. If specced into Surge of Power, cast Flame Shock when it is up on whichever target has the lowest duration Flame Shock effect, unless it is close to dying.
7. Cast Lava Beam if Ascendance and Master of the Elements are up.
8. Cast Lava Burst if Ascendance is up.
9. Cast Earthquake if Master of the Elements is up, you have 15 or more stacks of Magma Chamber and Lava Surge is not up
10. Cast Chain Lightning if Master of the Elements is up but neither Ascendance or Lava Surge are up
11. Cast Lava Burst.
12. Cast Earthquake.
13. Cast Chain Lightning.
14. Cast Flame Shock on whichever target is closest to losing its DoT effect.

• Storm Elemental
• Fire Elemental
• Lava Surge
• Surge of Power
• Stormkeeper
• Electrified Shocks
• Power of the Maelstrom
• 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. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. Cast Liquid Magma Totem on cooldown. Use Totemic Recall before using another totem to have Liquid Magma Totem back faster.
9. Cast Stormkeeper on cooldown unless there are 6+ targets, in which case, you want to have enough Maelstrom to immediately cast the next appropriate spender.
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 3 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 a 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 Lava Burst if Lava Surge is up.
15. 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.
16. Cast Elemental Blast to empower your next Earthquake with Echoes of Great Sundering.
17. Cast Earth Shock to empower your next Earthquake with Echoes of Great Sundering.
18. Cast Earthquake.
19. Cast Lava Beam when in Ascendance form if Power of the Maelstrom is available.
20. Cast Lava Beam when in Ascendance form if Power of the Maelstrom is available.
21. Cast Lava Beam when in Ascendance form if Master of the Elements is available.
22. Cast Lava Beam when in Ascendance form if Master of the Elements is available.
23. Cast Chain Lightning if Power of the Maelstrom is available.
24. Cast Lava Burst if there are 3 or fewer targets, and if a Flame Shock is up, ideally right before using Stormkeeper-boosted abilities, or an Echoes of Great Sundering Earthquake.
25. Cast Lava Beam when in Ascendance form.
26. Cast Lava Beam when in Ascendance form.
27. Cast Icefury on cooldown. If there are more than 4 targets and you will not need to move, you can skip this.
28. 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.
29. Cast Chain Lightning.
30. Cast Flame Shock when moving

• Tempest has no target limit but does reduce 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 start 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 (50 with Shaman Elemental 10.1 Class Set 4pc); 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, they 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. Proactively 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 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.

Note that there are several ways this opener can be adjusted. If you would want Stormkeeper before it comes off cooldown, you can hold onto it instead, this means adding at least one Lightning Bolt before each Lava Burst.

The second part of the opener will depend on your 2PC timer; you want to, if possible delay the Frost Shock -> Lava Burst -> Elemental Blast sequence until you know the follow-up Lightning Bolt will be buffed by the 2PC.

1. Cast Stormkeeper 3 seconds before the pull
2. Cast Storm Elemental 1.5 second before the pull
3. Cast Icefury on pull
4. Apply Flame Shock
5. Cast Frost Shock
6. • Did Icefury overload?
7. Cast Frost Shock
8. Cast Lava Burst
9. Cast Elemental Blast
10. Cast Lightning Bolt
11. Cast Lava Burst
12. Cast Lightning Bolt
13. Cast Frost Shock
14. Cast Elemental Blast
15. Cast Lightning Bolt (possibly several times in a row depending on your 2PC timer)
16. Cast Frost Shock
17. Cast Lava Burst
18. Cast Elemental Blast
19. Cast Lightning Bolt
20. Proceed with normal priority.

1. Cast Storm Elemental 1.5 second before the pull.
2. Cast Icefury on pull
3. Apply Flame Shock
4. Cast Frost Shock
5. Cast Lightning Bolt (which should be buffed by Shaman Elemental 10.1 Class Set 2pc
6. Cast Lightning Bolt
7. Cast Frost Shock
8. Cast Lightning Bolt
9. Cast Stormkeeper
10. Cast Flame Shock
11. Cast Lava Burst.
12. Cast Elemental Blast
13. Cast Lightning Bolt
14. Cast Frost Shock
15. Cast Lava Burst
16. Cast Elemental Blast
17. Cast Lightning Bolt
18. Proceed with normal priority.

• 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. Cast Icefury 1.5 seconds before the pull.
5. cast Lava Burst 1.5 seconds before the pull.
6. Apply Flame Shock on pull.
7. Cast Primordial Wave.
8. Cast Frost Shock.
9. Cast Lava Burst.
10. Proceed with normal priority.