On this page, we list your Elemental Shaman coreabilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of WarcraftMoP 5.4. We also explain whento use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtletiesthat you will need to know if you want to excel at playing an ElementalShaman.

The other pages of our Elemental Shaman guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.

1. Single Target Rotation↑top

In the case of a single target, the rotation of an Elemental Shaman is a prioritychecklist:

1. Keep Flame Shock up on the target. Refresh when there are 3 seconds or less left.
2. Cast Lava Burst on cooldown
   • watch out for its cooldown being reset by procs of Lava Surge.
3. Cast Earth Shock when you have 6 or 7 charges of Lightning Shield.
4. Keep Searing Totem up.
5. Cast Lightning Bolt as a filler.

If you chose Elemental Blast as your Tier 6 talent, then using it on cooldownbecomes your priority number 3, after keeping Flame Shock up and using Lava Burst. You do want to delay it at certain points, for example to have it readyright when you enter Ascendance (this will increase burst damage).

If you chose Unleashed Fury as your Tier 6 talent, then Unleash Elementsbecomes part of your rotation and is your main priority, after keeping Flame Shockup on the target.

See our Opening Sequence for instructions onwhat to cast when the fight starts.

2. Multiple Target Rotation↑top

If the enemies are spread out, simply maintain your Flame Shock on as many of them as possible whileperforming your single-target rotation on one of them.

If the enemies are in the same area, proceed as follows.

• For 2 enemies:
  • keep Flame Shock on both of them;
  • maintain you single-target rotation on one of them, replacing Lightning Bolt with Chain Lightning.
• For 3 enemies:
  • keep Flame Shock up on all three of them (though you can keep it on only one, to keep the rotation simple);
  • maintain you single-target rotation on one of them, with the following tweaks:
    • replace Lightning Bolt with Chain Lightning;
    • use Earth Shock only at 7 stacks of Lightning Shield.
• For 4 or 5 enemies, spam Chain Lightning.
• For 6 or more enemies:
  • spam Chain Lightning;
  • use Thunderstorm on cooldown.

Note that if targets will live at least 1 minute and are tanked atthe same spot it is worth using Magma Totem. That said, it is currentlynot the case in any encounter in Siege of Orgrimmar.

3. Shield and Weapon Imbue↑top

Use Lightning Shield and Flametongue Weapon.

Lightning Shield lasts for 1 hour and damage does not cause itto drop. Thanks to your Rolling Thunder passive ability, Lightning Shieldis an integral part of your Elemental Shaman play style.

4. Cooldown Usage↑top

As an Elemental Shaman, you have 6 main cooldowns:

• Ascendance is your Mists of Pandaria ability. This abilitycauses your Lava Burst to no longer have a cooldown and your Chain Lightning to become Lava Beam, a more powerful AoE ability.Ascendance has a 3-minute cooldown and should be used whenever it is available.You can also save it to line it up with periods during which you deal increaseddamage.
  • For single-target damage, spam Lava Burst.
  • For AoE damage, spam Lava Beam.
  • Before using Ascendance, make sure that Flame Shock will not need to be refreshed while Ascendance is active.
  • Stack Ascendance with Elemental Mastery, if you have chosen it as your Tier 4 talent.
• Fire Elemental Totem and Earth Elemental Totem are importantDPS cooldowns (especially the former, which is by far the most powerful), they should be used whenever yourElementals will be able to attack the boss for 1 minute without beinginterrupted (unless you are using Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem).These twototems are mutually exclusive, as using one causes a 1-minute cooldownon the other. So, use Fire Elemental Totem with higher priorityand use Earth Elemental Totem when your Fire Elemental Totem ison cooldown.
• Spiritwalker's Grace can be used to cast Lava Burst when youare on the move.
• Thunderstorm is both
  • an AoE DPS cooldown, which you should always use when you have 6 or more enemies to attack and;
  • a mana management tool, which you should use on cooldown if you are having mana issues (most likely from spamming Chain Lightning).
• Stormlash Totem is a raid-wide DPS cooldown that causesevery players within 40 yards of the totem to deal additionalNature damage for 10 seconds. Use it when the raid will deal increaseddamage (while Heroism / Bloodlust / Time Warpis active, for example). You can also use it to push past animportant encounter phase.

Your elementals benefit fromyour Spell Power, so it is beneficial to summon them during times when yourSpell Power is increased ( Enchant Weapon - Jade Spirit proc, for example).

In addition, your talents grant you a number of other DPS and healingcooldowns, as we explain in our additionalcooldowns section.

5. Optional Read: Mastering Your Elemental Shaman↑top

The advice provided above will enable you to play your Elemental Shaman veryefficiently. The only real optimisations are regarding the use of Unleash Elementsin conjunction with Lava Burst and Flame Shock, and regarding the managementof your charges of Lightning Shield. We detail them below. Other thanthat, you might be interested in the various mechanics your class have.

5.1. Using Unleash Elements

Normally, using Unleash Elements for Flame Shock or Lava Burst does notincrease your damage enough that it will make up for the global cooldown you used to castUnleash Elements.

However, there is a trick to make both Flame Shock and Lava Burst benefitfrom the Unleash Flame buff that Unleash Elements gives you. Simply castLava Burst immediately followed by Flame Shock, while Unleash Flame is active. Bothspells will land on the target at the same time and both spells will benefit fromUnleash Flame.

The only time when you should use this trick is when you want to refresh Flame Shockand Lava Burst happens to be off cooldown. In every other situation, it is not worthdelaying your cast of Lava Burst or refreshing Flame Shock early just for using the trick.

5.2. Fulmination and Charges of Lightning Shield

When you deal damage with Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning,you have a 60% chance to generate an additional charge of Lightning Shield, thanks to Rolling Thunder. Damage done by Mastery: Elemental Overload (your mastery) also has the same chance toproc Rolling Thunder. Your charges of Lightning Shield willnot drop when you take damage.

Note that each of the jumps of Chain Lightning has a chance togenerate an additional charge of Lightning Shield. This means that ina multiple-target situation, you will generate charges of Lightning Shield muchfaster than in a single-target situation. Depending on the number of enemies,you may find yourself in a situation where you generate these charges fasterthan you can spend them (but there is nothing you can do about the wastedcharges).

Using Earth Shock when you have 1 or more charges of Lightning Shield consumes the extra charges and deals Fulmination damage proportional to the number of charges consumed.

Ideally, you should always use Earth Shock when you have 7 charges of Lightning Shield. Unfortunately, things are not so easy. There is a slightdelay between the moment you finish casting Lightning Bolt and the momenta new charge of Lightning Shield is being granted to you. This means thatwhen you receive your 7th charge of Lightning Shield, you will have alreadystarted casting something, most likely another Lightning Bolt. As you cansee, this runs the risk that this new cast will generate a wasted charge ofLightning Shield (since you cannot have more than 7). Therefore, to avoidwasting charges, we advise you to try and cast Earth Shock at 5 or 6charges of Lightning Shield (remember that Lightning Bolt can generate twocharges, due to Mastery: Elemental Overload, your mastery).

You also need to keep an eye open for Flame Shock, which you need torefresh right before its last tick (when its remaining duration is below 3seconds). Since you need to sometimes save the spell shock cooldown for Flame Shock, this means that you will sometimes have constraints onyour timing for casting Earth Shock. Approximately 8 seconds beforeFlame Shock expires, you have two courses of action, depending onyour number of charges of Lightning Shield.

1. If you have 6 or 7 charges of Lightning Shield, cast Earth Shock and refresh Flame Shock as soon as the shockspell cooldown finishes.
2. If you have 5 or less charges of Lightning Shield, do not cast Earth Shock and refresh Flame Shock as soon as possible(ideally, right after the duration hits the 3-second mark). When the shockspell cooldown finishes, you will have enough charges of Lightning Shieldto use Earth Shock.

Note that you should always prioritise casting Lava Burst overconsuming your charges of Lightning Shield with Earth Shock,even if you have 7 charges. Indeed, Lava Burst does not generate extracharges of Lightning Shield, so you will never run the risk of wasting acharge of Lightning Shield when you cast Lava Burst.

5.3. Lava Burst and Flame Shock

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

• each tick has a chance to proc Lava Surge, which resets thecooldown of Lava Burst;
• your Lava Burst deals 50% more damage, if Flame Shock is on thetarget.

Conversely, you should only cast Lava Burst when Flame Shockis up on your target.

Flame Shock ticks every 3 seconds, which means that you have 3seconds (or less, depending on your haste) to make use of a proc of Lava Surge before running the risk tosee it wasted by a new proc of Lava Surge. To prevent wasting procs of Lava Surge, you should always cast Lava Burst as soon as itscooldown is reset.

The reason why you want to refresh Flame Shock with 3 secondsremaining or less is because if you refresh the spell with one tick remaining,this tick will simply be added to the new duration (and will therefore not bewasted).

5.4. Opening Sequence

1. 2-3 seconds before the pull, prepot and drop Fire Elemental Totem.
2. 1-2 seconds before the pull, start casting Lightning Bolt or Elemental Blast (if talented).
3. Cast Unleash Elements at the pull. This will proc your meta-gem and buff Lava Burst/ Flame Shock.
4. Cast Lava Burst immediately followed by Flame Shock (they will both benefit from the Unleash Flame buff).
5. Cast Ascendance.

Heroism/ Bloodlust and Stormlash Totem can also be partof this opening sequence, depending on how your raid wants to use them.If you are supposed to cast the first Stormlash of the fight, then you shoulddo so right before casting Ascendance. The same applies to Bloodlust/Heroism.

5.5. Mana Management

As we will see in this section, you have many talents andabilities to ensure that you will never go out of mana.

You have several passive mana management tools:

• Rolling Thunder, a passive ability that causes each hit with Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning to have a chance torestore 2% of your mana (for Chain Lightning, each target struck countsas a hit);
• Elemental Focus, a passive ability that causes critical strikeswith non-periodic spells to reduces the mana cost of your next 2 spellsby 25%.

In addition to this, you have Thunderstorm, which you can use torestore 15% of your mana every 45 seconds (35 with Glyph of Thunder).Thunderstorm will mostly be useful when you are faced with the high manacost of spamming Chain Lightning.

Finally, you have Shamanistic Rage, which causes your offensive spellsto cost no mana for 15 seconds (in addition to also reducing damage by 30%).

5.6. Additional Cooldowns

5.6.1. Defensive Cooldowns

Shamanistic Rage reduces all damage taken by 30% for 15 seconds.With Glyph of Shamanistic Rage, it also removes all dispellable debuffsfrom you. It has a 1-minute cooldown.

Healing Tide Totem is a powerful healing cooldown, especially in 25-manraids, where it will target the 12 most injured players.

5.6.2. Tier 1 Talents

Your Tier 1 of talents gives you access to 2 additional defensive cooldownsthat are mutually exclusive: Stone Bulwark Totem and Astral Shift.Simply use them whenever needed, following the guidelines we gave inthe talents page.

5.6.3. Tier 4 Talents

Ancestral Swiftness gives you an instant-cast Lightning Boltor Chain Lightning every minute. The best way to use it is tomake a macro (see our AncestralSwiftness macro).

Elemental Mastery greatly increases your damage throughputfor 20 seconds, so you should use it on cooldown orkeep it for times when you deal increased damage.

5.6.4. Tier 5 Talents

Ancestral Guidance is a powerful healing cooldown that you should usein times of high raid-wide damage during which you also deal a large amountof damage.

5.6.5. Tier 6 Talent: Primal Elementalist

If you chose Primal Elementalist as your Tier 6 talent,you can get your Earth Elemental Totem and your Fire Elemental Totem to respectively channel Reinforceand Empower on you. While they are channeling,your Elementals are not doing any damage.

Reinforce reduces the damage you takeby 20%. As your Earth Elemental does not do much damage, youshould never hesitate to let it channel Reinforce if youare taking damage.

Empower increases the damage you do by5%. Your Fire Elemental does a significant amount of damage and,in the general case, increasing your damage by 5% does notmake up for the damage your Fire Elemental is not doing whilechanneling. If you are in a situation where 5% of your damagerepresents a larger amount than the damage your Fire Elementaldeals, then it is beneficial to let your Elemental channelEmpower.

Both channels also increase the healing you do by 10%, but thiswill rarely affect your decision as to whether you should letyour Elemental channel.

6. Changelog↑top

• 04 Feb. 2014: Added an opening sequence and a mention of Unleashed Fury in the single-target rotation. Thanks to Tickle fromTotemspot.
• 10 Sep. 2013: Patch 5.4: nothing to change.
• 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: Lightning Bolt can now be cast while moving. The Lava Burst change has no impact on playstyle.
• 22 Apr. 2013: Improved single-target and AoE rotations following review from Leeds.
• 29 Mar. 2013: Added Shamanistic Rage to the Mana Management section.
• 09 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
  • Updated Lava Burst and Flame Shock explanations to account for the factthat Lava Burst is always a critical strike and that it deals 50% more damage when Flame Shock is active on the target.
  • Removed tip for Unleash Elements, Lava Burst, and Flame Shock.
  • Improved explanations for using your Elemental Totems.
  • Improved explanations for when to use Earth Shock.

Builds, Talents, and Glyphs

Buffs, Debuffs, and Useful Abilities