PVE Elemental Shaman DPS Guide

PvE Elemental Shaman

Stat Priority

Talents & Builds

Pre-Raid & Best In Slot (BiS)

Gems, Enchants, & Consumables

Rotation, Cooldowns, & Abilities

Welcome to the Elemental Shaman PvE guide for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

In this guide, you will learn how to properly play an Elemental Shaman in dungeons and raids, whether those might be normal or heroic. Empowered by the elements themselves and channeling them into physical form, the Elemental Shaman is a very powerful burst-type caster that burns its enemies with molten lava and shocks them with powerful electric bolts, even summoning a tremendous thunderstorm to blow all the enemies away when it feels threatened.

The elemental Shaman is a hybrid class capable of providing burst damage, utility, and fast healing in PvE scenarios. Initially, a class that was the counterpart of the Paladin available only for the Horde, since the TBC era this class has been seen and enjoyed by both factions.

Although in the early stages of the game it does considerably less damage than the other casters, the Elemental Shaman picks up the pace when it reaches the end-game gear.

This guide covers the Elemental Shaman in regards to the latest patch (3.3.5) which includes:

BiS gear, gems, enchantments, gameplay, and spell rotation tips.

Best Races

Considering the expansion we are reviewing is Wrath of the Lich King, the Shaman class has several interesting choices when thinking about PvE content. The most notable choices when considering Elemental are Draenei for the Alliance and Orc for the Horde.

Horde

• Orc: The first of the available races for the Shaman class, Orcs have several interesting racials and are often considered the best race for the Shaman class in general, with the sole exception being the Restoration specialization. Orcs offer the following racials:  Command which actually amplifies your Earth and Fire elementals, Hardiness which provides a reduction to stun effects that can prove useful in PvE scenarios when it comes to survivability. Orcs also provide Blood Fury, a racial which offers a spell power steroid.
• Tauren: Another one of the available races for the Shaman class in the Horde is the Tauren. Those mighty spiritual beings have a deep connection with the elements and nature. The Tauren race does not provide specific offensive racials for the Elemental specialization but they do provide some rather interesting racials which can help your overall survivability and professions. The first of them being Endurance, a racial that provides an increase of base health by 5%, which just might be enough to evade a wipe mechanic. War Stomp provides a stun effect, which can be useful in case you pick up aggro from mobs in certain encounters or dungeons and can be a lifesaver if timed right. Another useful racial is Nature Resistance, which reduces the chance to be hit by nature spells by 2%, a similar passive to the Blood Elf racial. Lastly, the Tauren race provides a racial which helps with the Herbalism profession, Cultivation, which increases your base skill by 15.
• Troll: The last available race for the Shaman class on the Horde, Trolls, provide several interesting racials which can bring you an edge during a PvE encounter. The first one being Regeneration, which increases your base health regeneration factor by 10% and also allows 10% of your health regeneration to continue during combat. Other racials include Da Voodoo Shuffle, which offers a 15% reduction to movement impairing effects which can help you kite better in case you are slowed and you pick up mob aggro. Berserking is one of the stronger racials offered which provides you with an increase of 20% of your attack and casting speed. Trolls also have Beast Slaying, which increases your damage against beasts by 5%, which can prove to be useful during your leveling phase.

Alliance

• Draenei: The only available race for the Shaman class in Wrath of the Lich King for the Alliance, the Draenei provide some very strong racials for PvE encounters. One of those beloved racials being Heroic Presence, a racial that increases the hit chance of all party members in a 30-yard radius by 1%. Gift of the Naaru is another racial worth talking about as it provides an instant-cast heal-over-time that can prove to be the difference between life and death in clutch situations. You can cast it on yourself or the tank in case the healer is struggling. Being a hybrid class you can also switch to off healing the injured party member with your spells alongside Gift of the Naaru . Other racials that the Draenei race provide are Gemcutting, which increases your base Jewelcrafting skill by 5, working similarly to the Tauren racial and Shadow Resistance which decreases the chance you will be hit with shadow spells by 2%.

Best Professions

• Engineering: When it comes to every DPS that wishes to min-max their stats for end-game content, Engineering becomes almost a necessity. For the Elemental Shaman, the haste provided from HyperSpeed Accelerators will increase your damage by a considerable amount since the Elemental Shaman benefits from haste by a large amount. Other than the haste buff which you can use every 48 seconds, you can also benefit from Nitro Boots to escape a certain dungeon/raid mechanics or to catch up to the stacking points. Engineering will also provide you with a lot of fun gadgets for both PvE and PvP content, with each passing day that you use them you will be more and more in love with this profession.
• Mining will generate you a good source of income while also generating enough raw materials to level up professions such as Engineering or Jewelcrafting. Most people underestimate the profitability of mining but rest assured that it will make you go a long way. Not only will it provide you with a sustainable source of gold but it will also provide you with a special passive, Toughness, which will increase your stamina by 60 at max rank.
• Jewelcrafting is one of the professions which can lend you plenty of gold while also contributing to the min-maxing aspect of the game. A Jewelcrafter can create special gems like the Quick Dragon’s Eye which will help you boost your stats more than normal gems.
• Enchanting is one of the professions usually taken by casters paired with Tailoring. It’s a standard bread-and-butter profession that can help you empower your character with powerful enchantments in order to increase your stats or the stats of other players. Having enchanting on your own gives you access to special enchantments for your rings and the ability to disenchant equipment you find in the world to create high-value materials that you are going to use for those said enchantments.
• Skinning is mainly used as a gatherer profession, but it also offers you a nice boost to your critical strike rating in the form of Master of Anatomy
• Tailoring is the profession that allows you to create cloth armor for your character from cloth found all over the world. It is usually paired up with Enchanting since you can disenchant everything you create with Tailoring. It is a very useful profession due to the gear you can create during your leveling journey or high-end content, while also making you a steady amount of gold, especially when paired with Enchanting.