Elemental Shaman Playstyle and Rotation Guide

General Rotation:

Can you press Lava Burst? Press Lava Burst. The rotation for this build is extremely simple, Lava Burst has such high priority that it should be cast at every opportunity that doesn’t overcap Maelstrom.

Don’t over-complicate Icefury and Frost Shock, their only purpose is to serve as improved filler spells for when Lava Burst can’t be cast.

1. Fire Elemental
2. Primordial Wave
3. Elemental Blast if the next Lava Burst would put you way past 150 Maelstrom and Master of the Elements is active.
4. Lava Burst
5. Elemental Blast with Master of the Elements
6. Icefury
7. Frost Shock with Icefury active
8. Lightning Bolt

Openers:

1. Fire Elemental 3 seconds before pull
2. Lava Burst
3. Flame Shock
4. Primordial Wave

Barely even qualifies as an opener, just follow the default priority list after this.

Multi Target:

All the priority lists for AoE are fairly similar but value Chain Lightning and Surge of Power to different levels.

AoE build 1-2 targets:

1. Fire Elemental
2. Liquid Magma Totem
3. Maintain as many Flame Shocks as possible, use Surge of Power to get more per cast if needed.
4. Stormkeeper with 70+ maelstrom.
5. Lightning Bolt with Stormkeeper and Surge of Power
6. Primordial Wave
7. Lava Burst with Lava Surge
8. Earth Shock with Master of the Elements
9. Lava Burst
10. Lightning Bolt at 1 target, Chain Lightning at 2

AoE build 3-5 targets:

1. Fire Elemental
2. Liquid Magma Totem
3. Maintain as many Flame Shocks as possible, use Surge of Power to get more per cast.
4. Stormkeeper
5. Chain Lightning with Stormkeeper and Master of the Elements
6. Primordial Wave
7. Lava Burst with Lava Surge
8. Earthquake with Master of the Elements
9. Lava Burst
10. Chain Lightning

AoE build 6+ targets:

1. Fire Elemental
2. Liquid Magma Totem
3. Maintain as many Flame Shocks as possible, use Surge of Power to get more per cast.
4. Stormkeeper
5. Chain Lightning with Stormkeeper and Surge of Power.
6. Primordial Wave
7. Earthquake with Master of the Elements
8. Lava Burst with Lava Surge
9. Chain Lightning with Surge of Power
10. Lava Burst
11. Chain Lightning

Playstyle

Elemental in Dragonflight has a more robust toolkit than it has had in many years.

It has more mobility than it has ever had before with Gust of Wind, Spiritwalker’s Grace with Graceful Spirit and Thunderous Paws.

Survivability wise it has lost a very powerful ability in Harden Skin which the Primal Earth Elemental no longer provides, it now instead retains part of the Shadowlands conduit that increases your max health while it’s active, reduced to 15%.

No longer is choosing Wind Rush Totem a loss of Nature’s Guardian. Brimming with Life is a fantastic new talent, Elemental Warding with Ancestral Defense provides some additional passive damage reduction.

Elemental retains its position as a robust caster that will survive a lot of damage but still doesn’t compare to the tankiness of Warlock. It still has very weak self-sustain and relies heavily on healers to stay alive.