Elemental Shaman Raid Guide (2024)

Tier Set

• (2pc): Primordial Wave also casts an Elemental Blast at the target at 70% effectiveness, and grants you all three Elemental Blast bonus effects for 10 seconds.
• (4pc): Lava Burst burns your target for 10% additional damage over 4 seconds, and after consuming Primordial Wave, causes your next 2 casts of Lava Burst to also hit up to 3 additional targets affected by your Flame Shock for 65% of normal damage.

Single-Target

Opener Rotation

• Your goal is to cast as many Lava Bursts as possible while spending Maelstrom on Elemental Blast. The opener for Elemental Shaman is extremely simple and looks ridiculous when written down.

• You want to spam cast Lava Burst and spend Maelstrom on Elemental Blast whenever you can. You are very likely to proc Deeply Rooted Elements early on to extend your Ascendance, so this rotation can continue for approximately 30 seconds depending on your luck.

Priority List

This is a general priority you aim to maintain throughout the fight.

1. Use Fire Elemental off cooldown unless you are talented into Echo of the Elementals, then you need to wait for your main elemental to despawn first.
2. Use Primordial Wave.
3. Use Flame Shock if it is not active.
4. Use Ascendance.
5. Use Elemental Blast with Master of the Elements active.
6. Use Lava Burst.
7. Use Icefury
8. Use Frost Shock to consume Icefury, ideally with Master of the Elements.
9. Use Lightning Bolt.

Multi Target

2 Target Opener Rotation

• Below, you see an example of how your opener looks like using the recommended Multi Target talents. If you are fighting more than 2 targets you, keep applying Flame Shock constantly to other targets as well.

• You want to spam cast Lava Burst and spend Maelstrom on Elemental Blast whenever you can. You are very likely to proc Deeply Rooted Elements early on to extend your Ascendance, so this rotation can continue for approximately 30 seconds depending on your luck.

2 Target Priority List

1. Use Fire Elemental off cooldown unless you are talented into Echo of the Elementals, then you need to wait for your main elemental to despawn first.
2. Use Primordial Wave.
3. Use Flame Shock if it is not active on both targets.
4. Use Ascendance.
5. Use Earthquake if Echoes of Great Sundering and Master of the Elements is active.
6. Use Elemental Blast with Master of the Elements active.
7. Use Lava Burst.
8. Use Icefury.
9. Use Frost Shock to consume Icefury, ideally with Master of the Elements.
10. Use Chain Lightning on 2+ targets.
11. Use Lightning Bolt.

3+ Targets Opener Rotation

• This opener can vary by a lot depending on your Maelstrom and what talents you are playing. If you are fighting more than 2 targets, you keep applying Flame Shock constantly to other targets as well.

• You want to spam cast Lava Burst and spend Maelstrom on Elemental Blast whenever you can. You are very likely to proc Deeply Rooted Elements early on to extend your Ascendance, so this rotation can continue for approximately 30 seconds depending on your luck.
• If you are talented into Liquid Magma Totem you can skip both Flame Shocks and get it from your totem's application instead.

3+ Target Priority List

1. Use Fire Elemental off CD unless you are talented into Echo of the Elementals, then you need to wait for your main elemental to despawn first.
2. Use Primordial Wave.
3. Use Liquid Magma Totem.
4. Use Flame Shock if it is not active on all targets.
5. Use Ascendance.
6. Use Earthquake if Echoes of Great Sundering and Master of the Elements is active.
7. Use Elemental Blast with Master of the Elements active.
8. Use Lava Burst.
9. Use Icefury.
10. Use Frost Shock to consume Icefury, ideally with Master of the Elements.
11. Use Chain Lightning on 2+ targets.
12. Use Lightning Bolt.

Master of the Elements

• You never want to end up in a situation where you need to cast your Maelstrom spenders, Elemental Blast or Earthquake, or your powerful Icefury empowered Frost Shocks without having a Master of the Elements buff. This means when you are NOT in Ascendance you need to plan your next casts so that you can empower your relevant abilities coming up soon.
• The simple explanation is to alternate Lava Burst casts with your other spells instead of using all of your Lava Burst charges back to back.

Understanding Mechanics

Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.

• Pandemic
• Spell Queue Window
• Stat Diminishing Returns

Vault, Aberrus & Amirdrassil

The current focus is on the relevant bosses from Season 4, covering important aspects such as talent specs, cooldown management, and other crucial details. For the upcoming Raid in "The War Within," you receive a comprehensive look at all the bosses in the next update.

← Scroll for more Bosses →

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Raid boss fights as anElemental Shaman. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.

• All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!

Tertiary

• Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
• Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing. The damage of your pets does not heal you thus Leech is a great tertiary for you since most of your damage is coming from your own spells.
• Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. Makes playing certain mechanics a lot easier.

Trinkets

Below you can find active and passive alternatives to the recommended trinkets. Do note that some trinkets are better than others depending on the scenario.

Active Trinket alternatives

• Belor'relos, the Suncaller
  • Simple on use trinket that deals massive damage around you.
• Desperate Invoker's Codex
  • Decent up front damage. Make sure you don't suffer from any debuff that amplifies nature damage taken before using this trinket.
• Nymue's Unraveling Spindle
  • A good on use Mastery buff that you can combine with Ascendance. Make sure you don't have to interrupt the channel.
• Ashes of the Embersoul
  • Strong 2 minute on use Intellect buff with a 1 minute Haste debuff once the active portion is over.

Passive Trinket alternatives

• Whispering Incarnate Icon
  • Grants a bunch of Crit when equipped and when tanks and healers equip this trinket it can proc Versatility and Haste respectively.
• Vessel of Searing Shadow
  • Solid single target trinket that loses significant value on AoE.
• Furious Ragefeather
  • A great passive damage trinket.
• Tome of Unstable Power
  • This is a very strong passive trinket on AoE while being slightly weaker than other options on single target.

Simcraft

To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.

• Adaptive Dracothyst Armguards
  • Overall your best option.
• Elemental Lariat
  • Your second best Embellishment.
• Blue Silken Lining
  • A great option to put on a low item level piece while you are gearing up.

Remaining Sparks

• Make sure to apply Alchemical Flavor Pocket if you have an additional crafted item equipped.
• Crafted items are 525 item level and regular items are 528 on max item level therefore it is not beneficial to equip crafted items outside of your 2x embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.

Phials

• Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage -- Maximum DPS.
• Phial of Tepid Versatility -- Less DPS but more survivability.

Food

• Grand Banquet of the Kalu'ak
• Deviously Deviled Eggs

Combat Potion

• Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power
• Residual Neural Channeling Agent -- Can be used while being dead if your potion is ready

Health Potion

• Potion of Withering Dreams -- A big burst of healing
• Dreamwalker's Healing Potion -- Less healing upfront but an additional small heal over time.

Weapon Rune

• Elemental Shaman do not use weapon runes as they don't stack with Flametongue Weapon.

Augment Rune

• Dreambound Augment Rune -- Requires Reputation
• Draconic Augment Rune

Sockets

• Skillful Illimited Diamond or Fierce Illimited Diamond -- Unique, made by work order
• Keen Ysemerald

For min-maxing an Elemental Shaman in raiding, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your characters. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.

• Stoneform -- Dwarf
  • Can dispel Magic and Bleed debuffs. Has been useful in the past on some bosses with Bleeds and dispelable debuffs.
  • As well as having Stoneform, Might of the Mountain is a very strong racial bonus granting Critical Strike damage which synergizes especially well with Elemental Shaman as the main portion of your damage is Lava Burst which is always a Critical Strike.
• Rocket Jump -- Goblin
  • A small jump in the direction your character is facing.
  • While in the Rocket Jump animation, you are placed on a global cooldown until your character lands.
• Berserking -- Troll
  • Strong DPS racial that lines up with Ascendance.
  • Reduce the duration of movement impairing effects by 20%. Was only useful once in the recent history of progression raiding but worth noting.
• Blood Fury -- Orc
  • Strong racial for damage, but doesn't line up with Ascendance.
  • 20% reduced stun duration on you which can be useful in some situations.

Recommendation

In general, it's safe to say that if you care about min-maxing your DPS you should go with the highest DPS racial. That being said the story is a bit different if it's about progression raiding. Some help out massively to speed up the progression of certain bosses. Notably Dwarf with their Stoneform helped out on Tindral Sageswift & Fyrakk the Blazing in the latest Race to World First by having easy access to dispelling yourself at crucial points of the fights mentioned.

Discover recommended macros for Elemental Shamans during Raid encounters and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.

Macro Import Guide Video

#showtooltip/cast [@cursor] Earthquake

#showtooltip/cast [@cursor] Liquid Magma Totem

#showtooltip/cast [@cursor] Wind Rush Totem

#showtooltip/cast [@cursor] Totemic Projection

Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Elemental Shaman, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Raids to make your life easier.

Credits

Written By: Clickz

Reviewed By: Wolfdisco