Elemental Shaman PvP Best Races and Racials — The War Within (11.1.5)

Racial bonuses can provide interesting PvP benefits. Here are the best races to choose for each faction.

In this section, we list the Horde races in rough order of strength.

• Blood Fury provides on-use damage, is off the global cooldown, and allows for an increased burst.
• Hardiness reduces stuns duration by 20%, and is one of the best racials for Elemental Shaman.
• Command increases damage of pets by 1%, and is a good damage increase for our burst, which currently includes the pet damage.

• Bull Rush can be useful for mobility and a stun on a 2-minute cooldown. This will contribute to the stun-diminishing return but could be helpful when kiting or playing against teams where you want one more interrupt. The only downside of this ability is that it is on the global cooldown and is a fixed animation, meaning once you start, you will have to finish the 1-second charge.
• Highmountain Tauren have defensive racials for Elemental Shaman, though they are slight with the 1% Versatility for damage reduction, and Rugged Tenacity, which reduces a flat amount of damage taken.

• Quaking Palm is a great 4-second incapacitate crowd-control on a 2-minute cooldown, which can be extremely useful against melee that may be focusing you, or even used as another interrupt for casters or healers. This does share diminishing returns with your Hex ability.
• Pandaren are the only race to be able to use consumables in Arena PvP or Rated Battlegrounds. They are allowed to eat a specific food providing 42 Versatility, since Pandaren receives two times the benefit from Epicurean. This food, Pre-Mixed Pot of Noodles, can be found in Ashran, Warspear, or Stormshield (Warlords of Draenor areas).

• Brawn increases Critical Strike damage by 2% and is useful mainly with Lava Burst, since this always critically strikes when Flame Shock is on the target.
• War Stomp is an area-of-effect 2-second stun which is off the global cooldown. This is a shorter cooldown than the Highmountain charge and is also off the global cooldown, making it the superior choice.

Vulpera has a strong passive, which reduces damage taken by 5% when initially taking damage. This is very good for Elemental Shaman because your positioning is usually very offensive, trying to disrupt the enemy healer. If the enemy team decides to switch targets to you, you will take reduced damage. Vulpera also has an on-use damage or healing ability, which does significant damage or healing.

• Nose For Trouble — When you first take damage from an enemy, reduce that damage by 5% of your maximum health.
• Bag of Tricks hurl a trick at a friend or foe to help or harm them.

• Azerite Surge provides a variety of options including damage, and healing. While damage is not significant, it could provide the edge required to get a kill.
• Titan-Wrought Frame additional armor is helpful against physical damage, like from an Arms Warrior or Marksmanship Hunter.

• Rocket Jump provides significant mobility that can help further enhance Elemental Shaman's mobility. This ability can be used in Ghost Wolf form as well, not pulling us out. This can allow for getting out of trouble and also to chase and score a kill.
• Rocket Barrage deals damage, though it puts Rocket Jump on cooldown. We strongly recommend holding the 90-second cooldown for Rocket Jump instead.
• The Haste buff from Time is Money is good for overall damage as well.

• Berserking provides significant Haste, but overall Haste is more significant for Elemental Shaman than burst Haste. Since we are mainly looking for Critical Strike in our burst windows, this is not very significant in PvP.
• Health regeneration from Regeneration and reduced movement impairing effects by 20% from Da Voodoo Shuffle could be useful but are not significant currently.

• Their racial, Ancestral Call, is a random secondary stat which is not reliable or as significant as damage racials. The decreased duration of poisons, diseases, and curses by 10% is not significant enough to take.

• Stoneform provides a cleanse of all poison, disease, curse, magic, and bleed effects and a good defense against physical damage. This is extremely important against Assassination Rogues and Mindgames from Priests. This is less useful than the Dark Iron Dwarf variety.
• The increased critical strike damage by 2% is useful mainly with Lava Burst since this always critically strikes when Flame Shock is on the target.

• Fireblood is a great defensive ability for clearing all poison, disease, curse, magic, and bleed effects especially given Elemental Shaman's weakness to Rogues. This is extremely important against Assassination Rogues and Mindgames from Priests. This is less useful than the Dark Iron Dwarf variety.
• This racial also provides a significant amount of primary stat, which can be used within Elemental Shaman's short yet significant burst windows.
• Forged in Flames is not very significant since even most melee have abilities which are not physical.

• Gift of the Naaru can further contribute to the great hybrid healing ability of an Elemental Shaman, though on a 3-minute cooldown.