Elemental Shaman PvP Guide for WotLK Classic

Elemental Shamans are one of the top casters in Wrath PvP and have a very complete kit with tools for every situation. Their main weakness is being trained down by melee cleaves, but the new Thunderstorm and Storm, Earth and Fire talents provide control against those, on a cooldown, and it is harder to die in stuns due to Astral Shift.

Weakness aside, Lava Burst, Chain Lightning, and Frost Shock (plus Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket with Engineering) can be cast in quick succession for near one-shot damage if allowed to go off, and Elemental provides massive utility for its team in the form of shared Shaman tools such as Bloodlust, Purge, and Grounding Totem, and also through unique tools such as Totem of Wrath and the aforementioned Thunderstorm, which can easily break the enemy team's position and open up kill windows, or straight up send enemy players off the map in certain Battlegrounds.

This build is quite different from the standard PvE one, as Elemental has multiple PvP-oriented talents in Wrath which make it an Arena and Battleground powerhouse.

The general idea is to gain more defensive and utility tools while dropping Spell Hit, some Mana regen, and less-important throughput talents. Lava Burst is a key spell in PvP and has multiple talents that boost it which need to be picked, but Fire Nova-boosting talents can be safely ignored.

Use Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem, Glyph of Thunder, and Glyph of Lava as major glyphs for maximum survivability, utility, and burst damage.

As minor glyphs, use Glyph of Ghost Wolf, Glyph of Water Shield, and Glyph of Water Walking.

Rather than a fixed rotation, Elemental Shaman gameplay is about treading a fine balance between casting damage spells, utility spells, healing, and even drinking, if given the chance. Here are some basic pointers:

• Keep yourself alive and away from enemy melee with Thunderstorm, Earthbind Totem (Storm, Earth and Fire), Ghost Wolf and Frost Shock;
• Pressure enemies with Lava Burst and Chain Lightning, potentially empowered by Elemental Mastery and quickly followed up with Frost Shock. Purge, Bloodlust, and Hex are also important pressure tools which you should use in coordination with your team;
• Against casters and enemy healers, look for opportunities to Grounding Totem and Wind Shear their important casts;
• Keep an eye on your Mana pool, as it is possible to lose due to running out of Mana. You can try to drink if enemies are trying to hide away from you, in order to force them to return, and a well placed Thunderstorm can often leave key enemies completely exposed!

Due to your reliance on cast times, learning and mastering fake casting is fundamental. This is the act of starting a cast, just to cancel it at some point before it finishes, hopefully baiting enemy interrupts while you were not casting and thus wasting them. The main difficulty with fake casting is timing it correctly, as canceling too late means you get interrupted, and too early means enemies see you stopped and do not waste their interrupts.

Totems stomping is no longer a big deal in Wrath, as Stoneclaw Totem protects them and Call of the Elements can instantly place up to four new totems if your current ones are destroyed, making it much harder for Hunters and Warlocks to disrupt your totems.

Tremor Totem pulses every few seconds, removing charm, fear, and sleep effects from yourself and nearby allies. This is amazing against fears especially, but be wary of using Stoneclaw Totem during Tremor's duration, as it will replace it since it is also a Earth Totem.

You can find our recommended gear, gems, and enchants for PvPing as a Elemental Shaman in the link below.

As one of the most meta DPS, Elemental Shaman can fit into a large array of compositions, but shines particularly in a few:

In 2v2, Shaman + Destruction Warlock, Shaman + Rogue, Shaman + Mage, and Shaman + Discipline Priest are your best compositions. The idea is to have a partner who can help crowd control enemies and peel for you, allowing you to deal damage uninterrupted.

In 3v3, the most notorious compositions are Thundercleave (Arms Warrior and Holy Paladin) which combines the strongest 2v2 composition with an Elemental Shaman and LSD ( Destruction Warlock and Restoration Druid), which works similarly to the first 2v2 composition mentioned but adds a Druid who can contribute extra CC and setup with Cyclone and Entangling Roots.

In 5v5, Shaman can fit into just about any team, and does not have any specifically-favored composition. Matches tend to be quick and explosive, which makes Bloodlust a must, and Shaman's high burst with Elemental Mastery helps get quick kills. Totem of Wrath is also particularly useful in caster cleave setups.