Elemental Shaman PvP Rotation and Playstyle (BfA / Patch 8.3)

Elemental Shaman are dependent on combining the benefits of multiple talents to kill their opponents, which requires Maelstrom and preparation. Elemental Shaman will either be one of three states during PvP:

1. Building up Maelstrom and Lava Shock stacks by using moderate to low damaging abilities.
2. Dealing large amounts of damage by spending Maelstrom, Lava Shock stacks, using Stormkeeper, and Lightning Lasso.
3. Playing defensively.

Building up Maelstrom and Lava Shock stacks is done using moderate to low damage abilities. The objective of this is to maximize your Maelstrom bar, which goes to at least 80 with the Call the Thunder talent, or 100 with Totem Mastery talent.

1. Maintain Flame Shock on up to 4 enemies on cooldown (including pets).
   • This generates the maximum amount (20) of Lava Surge procs, and providing maximum Maelstrom generation through Lava Surge procs.
2. Use Lava Burst if you have a Lava Surge proc, on a target with Flame Shock active to guarantee a critical strike.
3. Cast Icefury.
4. Use Frost Shock, if empowered by Icefury.
5. Cast Lava Burst.
6. Cast Lightning Bolt if single target or Chain Lightning if 2 or more targets are close to each other (including pets).
7. Use Fire Elemental, if casting is too challenging.

The burst is some of the highest in the game at this point. Spending Maelstrom to deal massive damage requires you to have maximum 20-stacks of Lava Shock, and at least a 80% full bar of Maelstrom. When this This combination can potentially one shot opponents if they do not use a cooldown.

1. Use Fire Elemental or Storm Elemental.
2. Use Skyfury Totem.
3. Cast Stormkeeper.
4. Use Lava Burst to empower you with Master of the Elements.
5. Use Blood of the Enemy, or other Major Azerite Essence on your kill target.
6. Use Earth Shock, with 20 Lava Shock stacks, to activate the Surge of Power talent. Also use Meteor if you have Primal Elementalist selected.
7. Use Lightning Bolt, with Stormkeeper buff.
8. Use Lightning Bolt, with Stormkeeper buff.
9. Use Earth Shock, if you have sufficient Maelstrom.

Taking Icefury changes and decreases the burst window to be dependent on Master of the Elements instead of Surge of Power. The conditions to burst are the same but require including Lava Burst between the Stormkeeper's empowered Lightning Bolts.

1. Use Fire Elemental or Storm Elemental.
2. Use Skyfury Totem.
3. Cast Stormkeeper.
4. Use Lava Burst to empower you with Master of the Elements.
5. Use Lightning Lasso.
6. Use Earth Shock.
7. Use Lightning Bolt, with Stormkeeper buff, and use Eye of the Storm if you have selected Storm Elemental.
8. Use Lava Burst to empower you with Master of the Elements.
9. Use Lightning Bolt, with Stormkeeper buff.
10. Use Earth Shock, if you have sufficient Maelstrom.

Healing Surge is a spammable heal, which provides significant side-healing. This should be used if your healer is stunned or crowd-controlled.

Hex is a curse 7-second crowd-control which can be broken by damage. In general you do not want to damage a target that has been hexed. That player does still have control of their character to move out of line of sight. This is best used on the enemy team when their have used an offensive or defensive cooldown, or the healer as part of a crowd-control chain.

Earthbind Totem this is a placed totem which slows any enemies within the radius. This totem is incredibly useful and should be used on cooldown. This helps you team's positioning. This totem can also help you land Capacitor Totem.

Thunderstorm knocks back all enemies around the Elemental Shaman as long as they are not rooted or have an immunity to knock-backs or magic effects active like Anti-Magic Shell from Death Knights. This is incredibly useful and can be used to save your teammates on arena maps with ledges, Dalaran Sewers and Blades Edge Arena. This is also a great ability for battlegrounds in Eye of the Storm or certain areas of Twin Peaks and Arathi Basin, which can kill the enemies from fall damage in these cases.

Purge can be used defensively to purge off your opponents offensive cooldowns or Mana back cooldowns which are purgeable. One very important use is during a Priest's Mind Control of your teammate. When a Priest does this it is better to use purge on your Mind Controlled teammate, and not use your Wind Shear interrupt. This is because Purge has no cooldown, while Wind Shear is on a 12-second cooldown.

Astral Shift this is the main defensive for Elemental Shaman which is on a 1.5 minute cooldown. This ability decreases damage taken by 40% for 8 seconds and is not usable while stunned. It is best to communicate with your healer and use this cooldown at high health when your opponents are using their offensive cooldowns and your healer needs help keeping you alive.

Ghost Wolf is an underrated ability; it allows the Shaman to stay at 100% movement speed with any slowing debuff active. This can further be enhanced to 110% base speed using the Spectral Recovery PvP talent. This is the way Elemental Shaman can kite melee opponents and stay very mobile. If you are moving beyond a very short distance, ghost wolf is worth the global cooldown it incurs. Ghost wolf can be purged, which is one of the reasons why the Spirit Wolf talent is not as good as it could be.

Harden Skin is a 40% reduced damage with a 10 second duration, activated if taking the Primal Elementalist talent, from the Earth Elemental. This is a stronger defensive cooldown than even Astral Shift due to the longer duration, though the 5-minute cooldown means this will likely only be available once per arena. This ability can only be cast on the Elemental Shaman, though it can be cast on the Elemental Shaman while stunned, as long as the Earth Elemental is not stunned. The main way to use this ability is through a "/cast Harden Skin" macro.

It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.