Elemental Shaman PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Dragonflight / 10.0.2)

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. Sustaining damage and generating Maelstrom.
2. Dealing large amounts of damage by using Flame Shock, Primordial Wave, Lava Burst, and Earth Shock on cooldown, along with Stormkeeper/ Lightning Lasso when you are able to line up burst damage.
3. Playing defensively.

This is done through spreading damage and disrupting the enemey team.

1. Maintain Flame Shock on up to 4 enemies on cooldown (including pets), using Primordial Wave to help spread Flame Shocks. This helps generate Maelstrom if talented into Searing Flames.
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 Earth Shock if Maelstrom is above 80.
4. Cast Lava Burst.
5. Cast Lightning Bolt as a filler.
6. Cast Purge or Greater Purge as a filler.
7. Cast Wind Shear on the healer or enemy casters.
8. Cast Hex on enemy melee to reduce incoming damage.

The burst of Elemental Shaman is high compared to other classes at this point.

1. Ensure Flame Shock is on your kill target and as many other enemy team members as possible.
2. Ensure you have 80 or more Maelstrom to be able to use Earth Shock.
3. Ensure you have Power of the Maelstrom buff.
4. Use Fire Elemental.
5. Cast Stormkeeper.
6. Use Primordial Wave.
7. Use Skyfury Totem.
8. Cast Lava Burst, along with Fire Elemental's Meteor since this ability is off global cooldown.
9. Use Earth Shock.
10. Cast Lightning Bolt, empowered from Stormkeeper and with the Surge of Power buff.
11. Use Lava Burst with Lava Surge procs from Splintered Elements.
12. Use Earth Shock.
13. Cast Lightning Bolt, empowered from Stormkeeper and with the Surge of Power buff.
14. Fill with Lava Burst.

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 or Greater 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.

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.

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.

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.