Elemental Shaman PvP Guide (2024)

Last updated on Oct 03, 2023 at 16:00by Seksixeny14 comments

Welcome to our PvP Elemental Shaman guide for Wrath Classic. Here you will learnall you need to know to properly play Elemental Shaman in PvP scenarios.

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

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

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

The general idea is to gain more defensive and utility tools while droppingSpell Hit, some Mana regen, and less-important throughput talents. Lava Burstis 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 Lavaas 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 afine balance between casting damage spells, utility spells, healing, and evendrinking, 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 andFrost Shock;
• Pressure enemies with Lava Burst and Chain Lightning, potentiallyempowered by Elemental Mastery and quickly followed up with Frost Shock.Purge, Bloodlust, and Hex are also important pressure toolswhich you should use in coordination with your team;
• Against casters and enemy healers, look for opportunities to Grounding Totemand Wind Shear their important casts;
• Keep an eye on your Mana pool, as it is possible to lose due to running outof Mana. You can try to drink if enemies are trying to hide away from you, inorder to force them to return, and a well placed Thunderstorm can oftenleave key enemies completely exposed!

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 3v3, the most notorious compositionsare Thundercleave (Arms Warrior and Holy Paladin) which combines the strongest2v2 composition with an Elemental Shaman and LSD (Destruction Warlock and Restoration Druid), whichworks similarly to the first 2v2 composition mentioned but adds aDruid who can contribute extra CC and setup with Cyclone and Entangling Roots.

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