Elemental Shaman DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (Season 1)

Welcome to our Rotation page for Elemental Shaman. On this page, you will find everything you need to know about actually playing the spec in Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.

Due to simulations still being a work in progress and the many changes, these lists are a work in progress. Additional details for Fire-focused are coming soon.

If the rotations below seem overwhelming to you, you might benefit from visiting our Beginner page, which outlines a close-to-optimal rotation in simpler terms.

The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, please visit our PvP page below.

Neither our single-target nor our multi-target rotations change in Mythic+ content. If you are looking for information and tips specific to Mythic+ content, please visit our Mythic+ page below.

2.

Best Openers for Elemental Shaman

Single-target Opener Multi-target Opener Single-target Rotation/Action Priority List Multie-target Rotation/Action Priority List

Hero Talents
Stormbringer	Farseer

• Earth Shock
• Elemental Blast
• Storm Elemental
• Fire Elemental
• Surge of Power
• Primordial Wave
• Liquid Magma Totem
• Echoes of Great Sundering

3.

Single-target opener

1. Cast Storm Elemental 3.5 seconds before the pull.
2. Cast Fire Elemental 3.5 seconds before the pull.
3. Cast Stormkeeper 2 seconds before the pull.
4. Cast Primordial Wave so it lands right after the pull.
5. Cast Liquid Magma Totem.
6. Cast Lava Burst so it lands right after the pull.
7. Cast Flame Shock.
8. Cast Ascendance with on-use trinkets and Tempered Potion.
9. Use Ancestral Swiftness and cast Lava Burst (macro recommended).
10. Cast Lava Burst.
11. If at any point you get Icefury, cast it immediately.
12. Cast Lightning Bolt.
13. Cast Lava Burst.
14. If you have enough Maelstrom, Cast Earth Shock.
15. If you have enough Maelstrom, Cast Elemental Blast.
16. Cast Lightning Bolt.
17. If you are able, Cast Earth Shock.
18. Cast Lightning Bolt.
19. If you are able, cast Elemental Blast.
20. Cast Lightning Bolt.
21. Proceed with regular rotation.

3.

Multi-target opener

1. Cast Storm Elemental.
2. Cast Fire Elemental.
3. Cast Stormkeeper.
4. Cast Primordial Wave.
5. Cast Liquid Magma Totem.
6. Cast Ascendance with on-use trinkets and Tempered Potion.
7. Use Ancestral Swiftness and cast Lava Burst (macro recommended).
8. Cast Lava Burst.
9. Cast Chain Lightning.
10. Proceed with regular rotation.

3.

Single-target Rotation / Action Priority List

1. Cast Storm Elemental. Delay further casts for your next Ascendance unless it will make you waste an entire use.
2. Cast Fire Elemental. Delay further casts for your next Ascendance unless it will make you waste an entire use.
3. Cast Stormkeeper. Make sure it is available during Ascendance, ideally cast two GCDs before it (you want to cast Primordial Wave if talented immediately before Ascendance).
4. Use Ancestral Swiftness
5. Cast Primordial Wave. Make sure it is available during Ascendance, cast it right before it, after using Stormkeeper.
6. Cast Primordial Wave. Make sure it is available during Ascendance, cast it right before it, after using Stormkeeper. You do not have refresh it with Flame Shock, you can just let it fall off until the next Primordial Wave.
7. Cast Liquid Magma Totem when Flame Shock has less than 12 seconds remaining.
8. Apply Flame Shock or refresh it when it has 6 seconds or less remaining.
9. Cast Ascendance, sync it with on-use trinkets, Bloodlust, Tempered Potion.
10. Use the Lava Surge granted by Primordial Wave to gain Splintered Elements.
11. Cast Tempest when Surge of Power is available.
12. Cast Tempest. Avoid casting it twice in a row but it is fine to "waste" Arc Discharge. If possible, try casting Tempest with the 4P buff on and after casting a Lava Burst.
13. Cast Earthquake if the Echoes of Great Sundering buff is on.
14. Cast Earth Shock whenever you are less than 15 Maelstrom from capping.
15. Cast Elemental Blast whenever you are less than 15 Maelstrom from capping.
16. Cast Icefury but consume the Fusion of Elements buffs before you cast it again.
17. Cast Lightning Bolt when Surge of Power is available.
18. Use Lava Surge to proc Fusion of Elements even if there is no Flame Shock present.
19. Cast Lava Burst if Flame Shock is up but not twice in a row.
20. Cast Earth Shock.
21. Cast Elemental Blast.
22. Cast Tempest. Avoid casting it twice in a row but it is NOT worth casting Chain Lightning buffed by Arc Discharge in-between two casts until Blizzard fixes a bug about overload damage.
23. Cast Lightning Bolt.
24. Cast Frost Shock while moving (ideally empowered by Icefury, making them only a tiny loss).

3.

Multi-target Rotation / Action Priority List

1. Cast Storm Elemental. Delay further casts for your next Ascendance unless it will make you waste an entire use.
2. Cast Fire Elemental. Delay further casts for your next Ascendance unless it will make you waste an entire use.
3. Cast Stormkeeper. Make sure it is available during Ascendance, ideally cast two GCDs before it (you want to cast Primordial Wave/ Flame Shock immediately before Ascendance).
4. Use Ancestral Swiftness
5. Cast Primordial Wave. Make sure it is available during Ascendance, cast it right before it, after using Stormkeeper.
6. Cast Liquid Magma Totem.
7. Cast Ascendance, sync it with on-use trinkets, Bloodlust, Tempered Potion.
8. Use the Lava Surge granted by Primordial Wave to gain Splintered Elements.
9. Cast Tempest when Surge of Power is available.
10. Cast Chain Lightning when Surge of Power is available and there are at least 6 cleavable targets.
11. Cast Earth Shock if the Echoes of Great Sundering buff is NOT on.
12. Cast Elemental Blast if the Echoes of Great Sundering buff is NOT on.
13. Cast Earthquake if the Echoes of Great Sundering buff is on.
14. Cast Earthquake.
15. Cast Tempest unless Arc Discharge is up.
16. Cast Chain Lightning.
17. Cast Icefury while moving.
18. Cast Frost Shock while moving when they are empowered by Icefury.
19. Use Lava Surge while moving.

Before using each of your cooldowns, you should take special care to consider several factors. Some of our offensive cooldowns have lengthy recharge times, but when correctly utilized, they can be responsible for a large percentage of our damage output. You should always take into account:

• Your raid's Bloodlust/ Heroism/ Time Warp usage.
• The mechanics of the current boss, including intermissions and abilities that necessitate movement.
• The spawn timers of any adds that might be present, as we may want to use or delay certain cooldowns with respect to cleave and AoE.

Make sure you have as many things as possible lined up with Ascendance:

• Bloodlust/ Heroism/ Time Warp
• Tempered Potion
• Splintered Elements right before or immediately at the start
• Storm Elemental cast before
• Stormkeeper
• On use trinkets, most notably Spymaster's Web. Treacherous Transmitter also lines up well.

Before each Ascendance use, ensure no boss mechanics will interfere, such as intermissions, boss movement, or mechanics that will force you to move. It can be a good idea to use Spiritwalker's Grace to ensure full DPS uptime. If using this talent, try casting Elemental Blast immediately before activating Ascendance.

Do not let yourself Maelstrom cap; be sure to cast your spender when or before your next cast would cause you to go above maximum Maelstrom.

Keep in mind that all our Elementals' damage abilities are now available to autocast, and so in single-target in particular, you do not need to manually cast their abilities, although in other situations, it may be worth trying to manually cast Meteor or Tempest.

Remember not to use Earth Elemental when your Fire/Storm Elemental is still around if you use Primal Elementalist, as it will despawn the latter.

Stormkeeper is used more or less on cooldown on pure single-target encounters.

On multiple-target fights or fights with intermittent cleave and AoE, it can be a good idea to delay your Stormkeeper until you are able to Chain Lightning 5 targets (or 6 with Surge of Power).

In most scenarios, there are two main uses for Surge of Power. Either you use it on Chain Lightning in order to hit a 6th target if possible, or, in a single-target fight, you use it on Lightning Bolt for additional Mastery: Elemental Overload procs.

In addition, if fighting against multiple targets within 8 yards of each other, you may want to empower your Flame Shock to spread to another target, but only if Flame Shock is not already present on either target or is within the pandemic window, and it is not possible or practical to use Liquid Magma Totem or Primordial Wave.

If you do not know what the "pandemic window" is, look here.

Finally, if you are using Stormkeeper as well, it is a solid damage increase to have Surge of Power available for at least one of the Lightning Bolt casts, ideally both if it is practical.

Elemental is quite mobile: between Spirit Walk or Gust of Wind, Spiritwalker's Grace, Ghost Wolf form and its many instant rotational spells. Elemental is, at worst, a fairly mobile spec, especially if you use your instant spells to adjust your positioning. Proactively position yourself to reduce potential movement from mechanics. Keep careful track of boss timers and mechanics, as they can spell disaster for your damage if you are targeted when all your cooldowns are out.

You should avoid casting Maelstrom-generating spells above a certain Maelstrom threshold that would make you go over the Maelstrom cap. Because of all the talents and procs interacting with that threshold, it is difficult to give exact numbers without making a detailed list that would be very impractical to use. Instead, we generally recommend that you use Swelling Maelstrom and follow our recommended priorities in order to never overcap. Keep this in mind when pooling Maelstrom as well. It is likely these spells will overload. Therefore, if you cast Lava Burst and would go over your Maelstrom cap if you gained more than 8 Maelstrom, it is likely you will overcap Maelstrom and waste valuable resources. In practice, it is safer to cast these spells at lower Maelstrom than their limits to avoid wasting your overload procs. The key to success is managing all of your separate procs without overcapping Maelstrom.

The reason why Flame Shock should always be up on your target is because:

• Each tick has a chance to proc Lava Surge, which resets the cooldown of Lava Burst;
• Your Lava Burst will always critically hit if Flame Shock is on the target. This is very important due to Elemental Fury and our multiple other sources of Critical Strike Damage.

You should only cast Lava Burst when Flame Shock is active on the target.

Flame Shock benefits from Pandemic, meaning that you can refresh it any time that it has less than 30% of its original maximum duration remaining, and the remaining duration will be added to the new debuff. Therefore, you are able to refresh Flame Shocks without wasting any duration when it has 5 seconds or less remaining, and it will be extended by 18 seconds. For example, if your Flame Shock has 5 seconds left and you refresh it, your new Flame Shock would last 23 seconds. Note that these numbers are all doubled if you have a Fire Elemental in play.

Funneling means using the fact that there are multiple targets present in the fight to gain damage on a single target. For Elemental Shamans, this means having multiple Flame Shocks running on several targets and using the additional Lava Surge procs to gain a significant amount of DPS on one target. If this is an important part of the fight, you may want to gear toward Haste, as this is a very good start for this strategy.

• Tempest has no target limit but does reduce damage beyond 5 targets.
• Meteor is limited to 8 targets.
• Earthquake and Liquid Magma Totem have a soft-cap at 20 targets. This cap is high enough that it should rarely matter.