Classic Elemental Shaman DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents
On this page, you will find out the best PvE talent choices and builds for your Elemental Shaman DPS in WoW Classic.
If you were looking for TBC Classic content, please refer to our TBC Classic Elemental Shaman talents.
Talent Builds for Elemental Shamans
Elemental Shaman talent builds vary in focus between maximizing damage throughput, maximizing group utility and the infamous 30-0-21 PvP burst damage / burst healing build which is good at everything.
Leveling Builds
If you were looking for leveling builds, please refer to our leveling guide for Shamans.
Elemental Shamans Talent Builds: Elemental Mastery
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This build's namesake, Elemental Mastery is a powerful talent that
guarantees that your next spell will be a 0-Mana cost critical strike. This has
great synergy with the
Chain Lightning /
Earth Shock combo, as
often you can land a critical strike on both and one shot someone.
Because we want to focus on ranged DPS with this build, there are not many good options for point swaps, as all of the remaining Restoration talents are healing focused and the Elemental talents that were not taken are less than ideal for our Mana conscious rotation.
Elemental Shaman Talent Builds: Nature's Swiftness
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While this build's damage potential is slightly under an Elemental Mastery
build, it more than makes up for it by picking up
Nature's Swiftness
and the flexibility it provides. You can use
Nature's Swiftness defensively,
with
Healing Wave, or offensively with
Lightning Bolt.
Compared to the previous build, we are taking more PvP / soloing oriented talents
here such as Eye of the Storm and
Ancestral Healing. Feel free to
swap them to
Totemic Focus and
Elemental Warding if you only want
to focus on raiding.
Elemental Shamans Talent Builds: Melee Hybrid
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This build is a full Elemental / Enhancement hybrid which picks Flurry
alongside
Elemental Devastation and the maximum damage Elemental talents,
capping at
Elemental Mastery.
By picking up Flurry and
Two-Handed Axes and Maces, you
gain better soloing abilities and, especially, the capacity to efficiently keep
up the weapon debuffs of
Nightfall and
Annihilator.
With this sort of build you can afford to just dish out as much damage as you
can with your maximum rank spells, as you will be able to regenerate Mana when swapping
to melee attacks during Elemental Devastation procs.
Keep in mind that casting most spells will reset your swing timer, and as such
you should always wait until your next melee swing before resuming your spell casting
after Elemental Devastation wears off.
The only arguable talent in this build is Guardian Totems, which can
be swapped to
Improved Ghost Wolf if you prefer.
Notable Elemental Shamans Talents
Elemental Tree
The Elemental Tree has several useful ranged damage-oriented talents and some PvP utility, which you can learn more about in our Classic Shaman PvP guide.
Earth's Grasp increases the health of your
Stoneclaw Totem and
the radius of your
Earthbind Totem. While this can occasionally be useful,
the other options are generally more impactful.
Call of Flame increases your Fire Totem damage by 15%. Since you will
want to have your Fire Totems out in most fights, this can contribute a small amount
of damage to your rotation.
Elemental Focus causes you to have a 10% chance to make your next damaging
spell cost no Mana whenever you cast a spell. You can easily fish for these procs
with lower rank shocks and
Lightning Bolt if needed, and every time this
procs you get to use a maximum rank spell for free!
Reverberation reduces the cooldown on your shocks. This allows you
to interrupt / slow / DoT enemies more often and to proc
Elemental Focus
/
Elemental Devastation more often, but Elemental Shamans should rely more
on their
Lightning Bolt /
Chain Lightning spells than on shocks.
Eye of the Storm is a great talent for PvP, as it will allow you to cast
all of your spells without interruption when you really need it, because you were
just hit by a critical strike!
Elemental Devastation increases your critical strike chance by up to
9% after you deal a spell critical strike. This can easily be activated as an Elemental
Shaman, but it is generally not worth swapping to melee attacks unless you are using
the hybrid Enhancement build with
Flurry.
Elemental Fury is a great burst damage increase, as it doubles the bonus
damage you get whenever you critical strike with your spells.
Elemental Mastery allows you to deal massive damage on demand, and also
makes the spell free. This has great synergy with
Elemental Fury and
Chain Lightning's
status as a very High Mana, high damage spell. Try to use an
Earth Shock
immediately after the Chain Lightning for even more burst damage!
Enhancement Tree
The Enhancement Tree is your main tree for melee damage increases and offensive totem boosting talents.
Guardian Totems increases the damage reduction of
Stoneskin Totem
by up to 20%, which is a small boost to your tanking support capabilities. It also
reduces
Grounding Totem's cooldown, which is situationally useful.
Improved Ghost Wolf reduces
Ghost Wolf's cast time heavily,
which is great for quickly moving around when outdoors.
Enhancing Totems increases the Strength and Agility granted by
Strength of Earth Totem
and
Grace of Air Totem by up to 15%, making them stronger DPS increases for the
melee players in your group.
Two-Handed Axes and Maces allows you to use its namesake's weapons.
Besides the high damage boost it brings to a Shaman, it allows you to use
Nightfall,
which is one of the best raid boosting tools in WoW Classic.
Flurry increases your attack speed by up to 30% whenever you land a
critical strike. This allows you to keep your weapon debuffs more reliably, and is
a significant damage increase.
Improved Weapon Totems increases the melee attack power granted by your
Windfury Totem, which makes it even stronger at boosting your melee group's
damage. While you will generally leave this talent to Enhancement or Restoration
Shamans, it can be difference between in the raid or the bench.
Restoration Tree
The Restoration Tree is where much of your Mana sustainability and healing power comes from, and as such you will almost always want at least some points into it.
Improved Healing Wave decreases your
Healing Wave's cast time
by up to 0.5 seconds. This is typically not impactful enough to warrant being taken
as an Elemental Shaman.
Ancestral Healing increases your target's armor significantly after
you land a critical heal. While a niche talent for us, it can help stabilize an
ally in danger.
Totemic Focus reduces the Mana cost of your Totems significantly.
This is generally not that useful for an Elemental Shaman, as you will not have enough
Mana / time to Totem Twist
while performing your spell rotation.
Healing Focus lowers the chance of suffering spell pushback on heals
from taking damage. This is useful when you need to heal yourself or others under
pressure, but
Eye of the Storm is generally a superior talent and only takes
3 talent points!
Totemic Mastery increases the range of your totems to 30 yards,
allowing them to affect targets that are further away. While this talent does
not stack with our Tier 1's 3-piece bonus (
Increased Totem Radius), it
is generally a good talent to use, ensuring maximum uptime on your Totem's
effects.
Tidal Mastery increases your critical strike chance with heals and lightning
spells. This has great synergy with
Elemental Fury and is a nice reason
to go deep into the Restoration tree as an Elemental Shaman.
Nature's Swiftness causes your next Nature spell to become instant. This
is great when trying to land an emergency
Healing Wave on a struggling ally,
when trying to finish off a running enemy with
Chain Lightning or as part
of the
Lightning Bolt into Nature's Swiftness Lightning Bolt into
Chain Lightning
and
Earth Shock one shot combination.
Changelog
- 18 Nov. 2024: Page updated for Classic Anniversary.
- 19 Aug. 2019: Page added.
More Classic Shaman Guides
More Classic Guides from Other Classes
Classic Dungeon Guides
Classic Reputation Guides
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This guide has been written by Seksi, original vanilla player and multi-class player, currently playing on Gehennas Horde. You can find him on the Classic Warrior, Mage and Shaman Discords, as well as the Icy Veins Discord.
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