Elemental Shaman DPS Spell Summary — Shadowlands 9.2
On this page, we present you with all spells and procs that you need to understand as an Elemental Shaman in World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.2.
If you were looking for TBC Classic content, please refer to our TBC Classic Elemental Shaman spells.
Elemental Shaman Spell Summary
If you are new to Elemental, it is recommended you read this before proceeding! In this section we will discuss what abilities you have, what they are used for within the specialization, and how they interact with important cooldowns. If you have played this spec before or have already achieved a level of comfort playing this spec in a practical environment, it is recommended you skip this section and move on to the rest of the guide.
Main Resource for Elemental Shaman
Maelstrom is the primary resource of Elemental Shamans. Maelstrom is essentially a clone of the Rage resource Warriors use. It is generated by casting spells and using specific abilities, while other abilities covert Maelstrom into powerful damage. Maelstrom is generated and consumed fairly slowly for Elemental, which makes the rotational priority very easy to predict and contributes to a fluid state of play.
Note that this page simply lists all the different abilities, assuming you are at max level. If you are leveling, check out our dedicated Shaman Leveling page, which has detailed information on when you unlock all of these abilities.
Basic Abilities for Elemental Shaman
These abilities are available no matter what talents you chose, and form the bread and butter of this specialization.
Lightning Bolt is your main filler. It deals weak damage
and generates 8 Maelstrom.
Lava Burst is your Maelstrom generating nuke. It deals
strong damage, has a short cooldown, and is a guaranteed critical strike if your
Flame Shock is active on the target.
Lava Burst generates 10 Maelstrom.
Earth Shock is your Maelstrom consuming nuke. It deals
powerful instant damage, has no cast time and costs 60 Maelstrom.
Flame Shock is a damage over time spell you should keep
applied to your primary target at all times. It deals weak damage over time but
has an important interaction with your
Lava Burst. Not only does it
guarantee that all Lava Burst casts will be critical hits, but each tick also has
15% chance to proc
Lava Surge (see next section). Flame Shock has no
Maelstrom cost but has a 6-second cooldown.
Frost Shock is your filler spell during movement. It also slows the
target by 50% for 6 seconds. It deals a moderate amount of damage but does not
generate Maelstrom unless empowered by
Icefury. You should only use
this for movement, when you need the slow, or if you really need extra damage
immediately.
Chain Lightning is your main Maelstrom generating nuke
for AoE/Cleave. It deals weak damage and generates 4 Maelstrom per target hit.
It can chain to up to 5 targets.
Earthquake is your main Maelstrom consuming nuke for AoE/Cleave.
It deals good damage over 6 seconds in the targeted area, and can knock down
enemies within.
Lightning Shield is a maintenance buff that needs to be refreshed
every 30 minutes if you use
Static Discharge or in fights where there
is a risk of getting hit in melee. It does not stack with
Earth Shield, so keep that in mind for solo play in particular.
Flametongue Weapon and
Primal Strike are technically in
Elemental Shamans' arsenal, but they should never really be used.
Important Procs for Elemental Shaman
Lava Surge is the main proc to watch out for. Your
Flame Shock has a 10% chance to activate Lava Surge,
which resets the cooldown of your
Lava Burst and makes it an
instant cast.
For more information on how to use these abilities together in your rotation, please read our rotation page.
DPS Cooldowns for Elemental Shaman
Most Elemental DPS Cooldowns are gained through talents, and are covered in the Builds and Talents page.
Fire Elemental is a 2.5-minute cooldown that summons a powerful Fire
Elemental for 30 seconds. You do not have control over it, but it deals significant
damage and you usually want to pair it with
Bloodlust/
Heroism/
Time Warp.
Once you reach Level 58, when it is active, it increases the duration of new
Flame Shock
casts by 100%.
Bloodlust/
Heroism is the signature Shaman cooldown,
increasing the haste of all your party and raid members by 30% for 40 seconds,
with a 5-minute cooldown.
Defensive Abilities for Elemental Shaman
Astral Shift is a 1.5-minute cooldown reducing your damage taken by
40% for 8 seconds. It is your main defensive cooldown and you should use it often.
Once you reach Level 54, it lasts for 12 seconds.
Reincarnation is a passive ability allowing you to raise from the
dead with 20% of your Health and Mana. This has a 30-minute cooldown which does
not reset on wipe. This is an incredibly powerful ability when it is available.
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. Particularly useful for solo content, especially with the
Swelling Waves War Mode talent.
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 and also deals decent damage.
Healing Stream Totem does some decent healing over 15 seconds. It is
a useful thing to use in before starting fights or when moving to help with healing
your party.
Chain Heal should mainly be used in 5-man parties when your healer is
either struggling or dead.
Crowd Control Abilities for Elemental Shaman
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. 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. Quite useful, especially when
you use it to displace an enemy in a specific direction.
Additional Utility abilities for Elemental Shaman
Ghost Wolf transforms you into a wolf, preventing you from casting
but increasing your movement speed by 30% as long as you stay in this form.
In addition, your movement speed cannot go below 100% while in this form.
Spiritwalker's Grace is a very helpful tool for movement which should
be used to kite or to keep dealing damage when you have to move a lot.
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.
Ancestral Spirit allows you to resurrect allies after a very long
cast. It is not usable in combat.
Astral Recall is essentially a second Hearthstone
on a 10-minute cooldown.
Far Sight is one of the least useful spells in the game, allows you
to see at a distance. You can safely remove this from your bars.
Water Walking allows you or whoever you target to walk on water as
long as no damage is taken.
Abilities from Talents
Aside from the basic toolkit, you will come across new abilities via your Talents, depending on the ones you choose. We will outline the active abilities here.
Static Discharge does moderate damage to a target you used
Flame Shock on, over 3 seconds. It is instant and has a
30-second cooldown.
Elemental Blast deals good damage and increases either your Critical
Strike, Haste, or Mastery by 91 for 10 seconds. It has a 2-second cast time
and a 12-second cooldown.
Echoing Shock does moderate damage then replicates your next spell
for free. It is instant and has a 30-second cooldown.
Earth Shield places a shield that heals its target for a small
amount whenever they take damage. This heal can only occur once every few
seconds, and has 9 charges.
Storm Elemental replaces
Fire Elemental. It summons
an elemental for 30 seconds that deals significant damage and reduces the cast
time of and the GCD incurred by your
Lightning Bolt and
Chain Lightning by 3% each time you cast either spell, up to
20 times. This has a 2.5-minute cooldown.
Liquid Magma Totem summons a totem at the target location for 15
seconds that hurls liquid magma at a random nearby target every 1 sec, dealing
Fire damage to all enemies within 8 yards. It has a 60-second cooldown.
Ancestral Guidance converts 20% of your damage and healing done into healing
on up to 3 nearby party and/or raid members. Lasts 10 seconds, with a 2-minute
cooldown.
Wind Rush Totem summons a totem for 15 seconds that increases the
speed of allies within 10 yards by 60% for 5 seconds. The speed buff is
continually refreshed, as long as they are within range.
Icefury hurls frigid ice at the target, dealing high damage and
causing your next 4
Frost Shock to deal 100% increased damage.
It generates 15 Maelstrom, has a 2-second cast time, and a 30-second cooldown.
Stormkeeper has a 1.5-second cast time and causes your next 2
Lightning Bolt OR
Chain Lightning to be
instant cast and trigger an additional Elemental Overload on every target hit.
If you use the buff on Lightning Bolts, they will also do 150% more damage.
Ascendance transforms you for 15 seconds, removing the
cooldown from
Lava Burst and transforming
Chain Lightning
into
Lava Beam. The damage of
Lava Burst is further
increased by your Critical Strike chance while Ascendance is active.
Ascendance has a 3-minute cooldown.
For a more in-depth look at all the Elemental Shaman talents, including the ones that do not add active abilities but grant passive benefits, visit the link below.
Once you reach max level, it can be somewhat overwhelming to completely change the way you play by suddenly implementing a large number of addons in a short space of time, especially if they have a heavy visual impact on your UI. We recommend using some of the more basic addons recommended on our Addons page below while leveling, so that you have more time to get used to them during the easier phases of playing your class.
Changelog
- 22 Feb. 2022: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.2.
- 01 Nov. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.5.
- 29 Jun. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.
- 09 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 24 Nov. 2020: Page updated for Shadowlands release, updated information on Astral Shift and Fire Elemental.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
More Shaman Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Stormy, Elemental main since Wrath of the Lich King and member of the Storm, Earth and Lava Elemental theorycrafting team.
- Malaysian Hospital Showing Mists of Pandaria Trailer on Repeat
- The Burning Crusade Classic Character Clone Service Retiring Soon
- Patch 9.2 and Burning Crusade Classic Hotfixes: May 13th
- Warcraft II Inside World of Warcraft (Arcade Tab Fan Concept)
- Shadowlands Season 4 Keystone Master Mount Color Changed on the 9.2.5 PTR
- Social Contract Now Available on the 9.2.5 PTR
- World First Classic Sunwell Plateau Kill Claimed by Old School
- Blood Elf and Dark Iron Dwarf Weapons No Longer Race Locked on the 9.2.5 PTR