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Patch 12.0.5
4.6/5
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Elemental Shaman DPS Starter Guide - Shadowlands 9.2.5
By HawkCorrigan
Updated:
2022/11/28
Welcome to our Elemental Shaman starter guide, which covers everything you need to start playing a new character in . While our other guide pages go into more detail about individual aspects of Elemental Shaman gameplay, this simple starter guide covers all the basics in one place.
Visit the complete Elemental Shaman guide pages linked in the navigation on the left-hand side of the page for more in-depth information!
Overview
BiS Gear
Rotation
Talent Builds
Consumables
Stats
Basics
Best Elemental Shaman Covenant
Elemental shaman is a very versatile class, able to fill a plethora of different niches in PvE content.
As such the choice of covenant is highly dependant on your own group and preferences.
Night Fae & Necrolord take the top spots for Elemental, with the former being strong at all points and the latter right behind it for most use cases. Both Kyrian & Venthyr are viable and offer good utility in the form of substantial offhealing but cannot keep up with the damage done be the other two covenants. All covenants offer their own special abilities, soulbinds, conduits, transmoggable armor sets, and other perks, so check out our Covenant pages for more information to help you decide which covenant to pledge to. In 9.2 the chosen covenant can always be changed in Oribos if you have leveled any covenant to 80 previously.
Best Elemental Covenants and Soulbinds for Raid
Single Legendary
Double Legendary
Night Fae
Dreamweaver/Korayn
Night Fae
Dreamweaver/Korayn
Necrolord
Plague Deviser Marileth
Best Elemental Covenants and Soulbinds for Mythic+
Single Legendary
Double Legendary
Night Fae
Korayn
Night Fae
Korayn
Necrolord
Bonesmith Heimir
Necrolord
Bonesmith Heimir
There's no major gameplay differences between the covenants, as it is generally best to use each covenant damaging ability as frequently as possible.
Best Elemental Shaman Covenant
Kyrian Elemental Shaman GuideNecrolord Elemental Shaman Guide
Night Fae Elemental ShamanGuideVenthyr Elemental Shaman Guide
Best Elemental Shaman Legendaries
Best Single Legendaries for Elemental Shaman
Raid Legendary
:
Windspeaker's Lava Resurgence
/
Echoes of Great Sundering
Mythic+ Legendary
:
Echoes of Great Sundering
Best Double Legendaries for Elemental Shaman
Raid Legendaries
:
Windspeaker's Lava Resurgence
/
Echoes of Great Sundering
and
Seeds of Rampant Growth
Mythic+ Legendaries
:
Echoes of Great Sundering
and
Seeds of Rampant Growth
For Legendaries, Elemental Shaman have three options, depending on the type of content being prioritized.
Windspeaker's Lava Resurgence
is primarily used in single-target/raiding,
Echoes of Great Sundering
is used for 3+ target AoE and is our second-best single-target legendary which makes it a strong contender for M+, while
Skybreaker's Fiery Demise
is more niche as it is extremely strong for funneling damage from multiple targets into a single target over a long period of time which makes it the legendary of choice for council-style fights. Additionally you always want to craft
Unity
regardless of what content you do.
If you plan to make two or more, remember that you don't have to upgrade them at the same rate. If you primarily raid and only casually do Mythic+, you can max out
Windspeaker's Lava Resurgence
while leaving
Echoes of Great Sundering
at rank 1 or 6. Take a look at our legendary guide to learn more about the legendaries available to Elemental Shaman, or our crafting guide to find all the materials you need to craft them.
Elemental Shaman Legendaries Guide
Best Elemental Shaman Talents
Elemental Shaman use a variety talents for different content, and even within those types of content there are many times where more than one option is viable on a given row. Common swaps based on the content that you're doing might be things like using
Aftershock
or
over
Elemental Blast
for AoE/M+, or
Icefury
over
Primal Elementalist
for single-target fights with high movement. This talent build is primarily focused on single target/raiding for players getting started with end game activities, but our Elemental Shaman Talent Guide goes into more detail for each talent, as well as providing specific builds for questing, Mythic+, and Raids.
Elemental Shaman Talents Guide
Elemental Shaman Stat Priority
Unlike previous expansions, primary stats such as Intellect are much more important than they used to be, and secondary stats are close enough together that item level is usually more important factor when it comes to choosing gear. You can find out more about how stats work in the Stats Guide, or get an overview of the best-in-slot gear to look for from dungeons and raids in the Elemental Shaman Gear Guide.
Intellect > Versatility > Haste > Crit ~= Mastery
Intellect
: Increases all damage done by native class spells, and abilities. Previously one of the weakest stats, but now much more impactful, making raw item level much more important again.
Versatility
: Increases damage done and reduces damage taken by half the amount. This affects all damage done including trinkets, potions, and enchantments.
Haste
: Compresses the rotation by reducing the base Global Cooldown (GCD) for all abilities and the cast time of our spells.
Critical Strike
: Increases damage done by spells and trinkets. While some talents, legendaries, and covenant abilities interact with critical strike, and we get increased critical damage from
Elemental Fury
, the value of this stat is quite low due to
Lava Burst
's 100% crit rate.
Mastery
: A chance for a few of our spells to duplicate their casts at reduced effectiveness. Looks cool, but is generally weak because it doesn't work with our entire toolkit and receives a heavy penalty (66% reduced effectiveness) on AoE.
Elemental Shaman Stats Guide
Elemental Shaman Enchants and Consumables
Cloak
: Increase stamina and tertiary bonuses, which are largely interchangeable. When in doubt, choose speed or avoidance.
Enchant Cloak - Fortified Avoidance
,
Enchant Cloak - Fortified Leech
,
Enchant Cloak - Fortified Speed
,
Enchant Cloak - Soul Vitality
Chest
: Intellect & damage proc -
Enchant Chest - Eternal Insight
Wrists
: Increases Intellect -
Enchant Bracers - Eternal Intellect
Gloves
: Quicker Gathering Speed -
Enchant Gloves - Shadowlands Gathering
Boots
: Reduced fall damage -
Enchant Boots - Soul Treads
Rings
: Increases Versatility
Enchant Ring - Tenet of Versatility
or
Enchant Ring - Bargain of Versatility
(lesser)
Mainhand Weapon
: Stats -
Enchant Weapon - Celestial Guidance
Elemental Shaman Enchants Guide
Best Elemental Shaman Rotation
This is a typical Elemental Shaman DPS rotation, using the talents recommended above. More optimized rotations and notes on on cooldown use can be found in the Elemental Shaman Rotation Guide.
Fire Elemental
on cooldown
Flame Shock
and keep it active on your enemy at all times.
Earth Shock
to dump
Maelstrom
Elemental Blast
on cooldown
Lava Burst
Make sure you never have both charges of the spell available at the same time
Lightning Bolt
Storm Elemental
or
Fire Elemental
on cooldown, depending on your talents
Chain Lightning
to generate
Maelstrom
Earthquake
to dump
Maelstrom
Elemental Shaman Rotation Guide
Back to Top
Our Elemental Shaman guides are always updated with the latest information from in-game experience, simulations, and logs. Make sure to check our changelog for this page by clicking on
View Changelog
in the Quick Facts column or on the book icon at the top of the page. If you are interested in more in-depth Elemental Shaman guides for , make sure to browse the
Navigation Bar
at the top of the page.
Feedback
Thanks for reading our class guides! If you have any feedback, feel free to leave a comment in the section below, and we will reply as quickly as possible. If you'd like to talk with any of our writers directly, you can do so by joining our
Discord server
and finding them there!
Share your comments about this guide in our Shaman forum!
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