Elemental Shaman PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / 9.2)
PvP requires you to perform various actions in the course of a duel, match, or battleground: interrupting/silencing enemies, damaging them, bursting them down, defending yourself, keeping yourself alive, etc.. It is a game mode that fully utilises your kit, especially spells that are rarely used in PvE. On this page, we go through all the spells you need to use in PvP as a Elemental Shaman, how you should use them, and we explain what your playstyle should be.
This page is part of our Elemental Shaman PvP Guide.
Playstyle for Elemental Shaman
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:
- Sustaining damage and generating Maelstrom.
- Dealing large amounts of damage by using
Echoing Shock,
Earth Shock, and using
Stormkeeper-empowered
Lightning Bolts.
- Playing defensively.
Sustained Damage
This is done through spreading damage and disrupting the enemey team.
- Maintain
Flame Shock on up to 4 enemies on cooldown (including pets), using
Primordial Wave to help spread Flame Shocks.
- Use
Lava Burst if you have a
Lava Surge proc, on a target with
Flame Shock active to guarantee a critical strike.
- Cast
Lava Burst.
- Cast
Lightning Lasso on kill target, while avoiding being interrupted by being max range or move behind a pillar while channeling.
- Cast
Lightning Bolt if single target or
Chain Lightning if 2 or more targets are close to each other (including pets), to generate Maelstrom.
Burst Damage with Surge of Power or Primal Elementalist
The burst of Elemental Shaman is decently high compared to other classes at this point.
- Ensure
Flame Shock is on your kill target and as many other enemy team members as possible.
- Ensure you have 60 Maelstrom to be able to use
Earth Shock.
- Use
Fire Elemental.
- Cast
Stormkeeper.
- Use
Skyfury Totem.
- Use
Primordial Wave to spread another
Flame Shock and activate the buff from the Covenant ability.
- Use
Lava Burst to empower you with
Master of the Elements.
- Use
Echoing Shock on any target to activate the buff (and the
Elemental Equilibrium legendary effect if equipped).
- Use
Earth Shock and
Meteor; since Meteor is off of the global cooldown it can be pressed while pressing Earth Shock if you have
Primal Elementalist selected.
- Use
Lightning Bolt, with
Stormkeeper buff.
- Use
Lightning Bolt, with
Stormkeeper buff.
- Use
Lava Burst if you have a
Lava Surge proc.
- Use
Earth Shock, if you have sufficient Maelstrom.
Burst Damage with Vesper Totem
Vesper Totem can do significant burst damage. The totem itself
is easily killed though. The Elemental Shaman should hide the totem while
triggering 2 of the 3 total bursts of damage from the totem. For the third
burst, use
Skyfury Totem, then the Elemental Shaman should place
the totem on the enemy who should be isolated with no other targets nearby.
Then, quickly press another damaging ability to proc the 3rd and largest
explosion from the totem.
Playing Defensively
Healing or Crowd-Controlling the Opposing Team
Healing Stream Totem should be used to provide low amounts of
passive healing, or for the increased healing from
Swirling Currents.
Getting this buff along with the 20% benefit if
Earth Shield is on
the target will provide significant side healing.
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 is a placed totem which slows any enemies
within the radius. This totem is incredibly useful and should be used on
cooldown. This helps your 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.
Defensives Abilities
Astral Shift 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.
Macros
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.
Changelog
- 27 Feb. 2022: Updated for Patch 9.2 of Shadowlands
- 17 Nov. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.5 of Shadowlands.
- 17 Jul. 2021: Removed optional rotation references.
- 04 Jul. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1 of Shadowlands.
- 19 Mar. 2021: Updated based on Patch 9.0.5 for Shadowlands.
- 02 Dec. 2020: Updated in preparation for first PvP season of Shadowlands.
- 29 Nov. 2020: Removed Azerite mentions. There is a trait mention left to remove.
- 14 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch.
This guide has been written by Tiqqle, a PvP enthusiast who has repeatedly achieved 2400 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.
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