Elemental Shamans are in a excellent place with the new World of Warcraft expansion Dragonflight. With the full release date set to be on November 28, 2022, and the Pre-Patch event already underway, we've tested out a variety of builds for a number of classes and settled on some talent builds that will surely give you a head start. As new information and damage logs come out we will continue to update our guides with the most relevant information on each class. For now, let's take a look at what we believe are the best talent builds right now for Elemental Shamans in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight.

We've provided both Pre-Patch builds for level 60 characters and level 70 builds to progress towards as you level.

Talent System Changes

Dragonflight brings a complete overhaul to the talent system of the past few expansions. The changes are in a direction that is fairly similar to the old style of Talent Trees. With certain talent choices locked behind branches or paths and skill point thresholds.

The first things players will notice is that there are 2 talent trees. The 31-point Talent Tree on the Left is for the Shaman Class Talents. This has a number of different utilities that all shamans, regardless of specialization, can access. The 30-point Talent Tree on the Right is for the Elemental Specialization Talents; this is where players will have even more flexibility to build a truly custom talent build to suit their play style.

Take note of the Drop-down menu in the bottom left-hand corner of the Talent Menu. Here players can Select, Save, Import, and Export Talent Builds with code. The codes to all the loadouts seen in the images in this guide will be at the bottom of the article. You can copy these and import them directly into your Talent Menu.

Talent Builds For Elemental Shaman In WoW: Dragonflight

Starting with the Class Talents on the Left, there are a few key talents that will need to be in every build, but there aren't any major sacrifices required in order to create a sufficient path to get them. The paths to them pick up a number of utility based talents and are arranged nicely to provide a fair amount of flexibility for a variety of different encounters.​​​

Elemental Shaman Class Talents

Single Target Build

The class talents selected above will be the standard build for most content, with a few points being able to be moved around depending on the encounter.

Both Improved Lightning Bolt and Nature's Guardian are necessary for both Single target and AoE builds and they are conveniently nearby other very important talents.

Lightning Lasso is the main difference for Single-Target encounters, it will come in handy for fights with a lot of movement where as Thundershock is not very useful. Additionally, having access to Spiritwalker's Grace with Graceful Spirit and either Spirit Walk or Gust of Wind with Go with the Flow are essential for fights where you need to be on the move. Wind Rush Totem is a great way to bring utility to the group to improve party members speed too.

Earth Shield is an efficient healing utility to have and can be improved by Surging Shields and Elemental Orbit for an additional cast on party members.

AoE Build

Thundershock is used here for better control of adds in AoE as opposed to Lightning Lasso.

For add control, taking Capacitor Totem is fantastic. There is also the option for Hex and Earthgrab Totem, either of which opens up the path towards Improved Lightning Bolt.

The level 60 Pre-Patch variants for Raiding and Mythic+ don't have enough points to pick up Surging Shields and Go with the Flow and swap points away from Thunderstorm/Thundershock.

Elemental Shaman Specialization Talents

For the Elemental Specialization Talents, there is one primary build focused on Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Earthquake. It is also versatile in that it can be used in both Single-Target and AoE encounters. There is a level 60 variation at the bottom for Pre-Patch that swaps a few talents to be able to grab Elemental Blast and Echoes of Great Sundering

Currently, the mulit-dotting Flameshock and Fire damage focused build is underperforming in comparison so we'll instead focus on this build for now.

Single-Target Build

Note that for the Specialization Talents the only changes that could be made are to the selection of Surge of Power or Aftershock.

AoE Build

Import Talent Builds For Elemental Shaman

The variations that we've gone over above give you 2 builds at level 60 and 2 builds at level 70 for you to try out, feel free to import these builds and edit them as you see fit.