Table of Contents


Introduction

This guide was made possible by:

  • Amani (Discord: amanizandalari | Discord Server (RU) | Twitch)
  • Elivrio (Discord: elivrio, in-game: Tyrindra-Ysondre)
  • Eokira (Discord: eokira)
  • Gaka (Discord: gakamoment)
  • HawkCorrigan (Discord: hawkcorrigan)
  • James⚡ (Discord: james.phr | Twitch | Twitter)

Information on this page is written with the assumption that you understand the new priority list and talents in Dragonflight Season 1. If you have not done so, we highly recommend reading our other resources to learn about them!

This guide is intended to help you identify critical mobs and abilities as well as improve your mechanical literacy in using your toolkit as an Elemental Shaman in each dungeon. If you have suggestions to improve the information in this guide please contact Eokira#7823 using the Earthshrine Elemental channel or the Storm, Earth & Lava discord.


Talents

There are two main build that will be used in Dragonflight Season one : Wildfire and Lightning. You can find variation on each of them in the build page.

This page will only note the important utility options that are available to you as an Elemental Shaman. Those remain suggestions and depending on your group, you might not need some of the talent suggested in this guide.

Standard Class tree for S1 Dungeons:

A few remarks on this tree:

  • It has Totemic Recall and points leading up to it. This is due to Liquid Magma Totem being a staple in dungeon builds, making Totemic Recall a required DPS node. If you are not playing Liquid Magma Totem, you can remove the 4 points below Gust of Wind and allocate them elsewhere.
  • Earth Elemental could be flexed around into another utility option but I believe it is the best single all rounder node to get to 20 points.
  • Purge is recommended in all dungeon because of its high value this season.
  • Some people spec out of Frost Shock. It is still a very useful movement global, even without Icefury.

The Last 4 Points

Depending on the dungeon you are running and the group you’re in, here is a list of good options to pick from:

Defensives:

  • Earth Shield is a 2 points investments as you have to pick Chain Heal to get it but it gives pretty good sustain.
  • Spirit Wolf is improved mobility on a long distance, and most importantly can be used as a defensive.
  • Healing Stream Totem and Swirling Currents are good off-healing CDs. But the fact that you cannot predict who it will heal, paired with the GCD loss each time you use it make it very suboptimal and situational.
  • Brimming with Life is still a 8% max HP, even if it has the worst design in our whole tree.
  • Stoneskin Totem is a very situational talent which gains a lot of value in higher keys, saving your tank and your party from big physical attacks and bleeds.

Mobility:

Crowd Control:

  • Static Charge will allow you to have Capacitor Totem on every packs. Very useful to complement another Class AoE CC.
  • Guardian’s Cudgel on the other hand, will be best used when you are the only AoE CC of the group, or if you need successive interrupts on a pack (Blazing Imp in Court of Stars for example).
  • Hex can be used to control Patrol’s pathing and as a hard CC in general.
  • Thunderstorm has some niche uses to gather pulls or deal with Sanguine. It can also be used as a Hard CC but Thundershock will be better in that case. It’s also not that easy to utilize for less experienced players as it requires good positioning and awareness of timings to actually interrupt casts.

General Utility:

  • Tremor Totem has a lot of minor uses this season but nothing… groundbreaking.
  • Cleanse Spirit is used only in Temple of the Jade Serpent this season, you can spend that point elsewhere when you’re not in it. Note that the healers that cannot remove Curses are: Monk, Paladin and Priest
  • Totemic Focus is a nice passive that will make it less likely for your tank to kite out of Liquid Magma Totem’s range. The duration and width on Wind Rush Totem can also be nice.
  • Mana Spring is less potent in dungeon than it is in raid. It’s nice to have but doesn’t really provide a lot either.
  • Poison Cleansing Totem has a lot of minor uses this season but nothing… incurable.

24 keys and higher:

When pushing in higher keys, some talents become mandatory to survive:

  • Spirit Wolf is used as a defensive talent, requiring you to sit and tank the damage in wolf form until it’s safe to switch back.
  • Brimming with Life is required for the 8% max HP. In certain dungeons at this key level, if you lose Reincarnation, it can instantly be a deplete because you will die on other abilities later on.

Note: Again, these become mandatory only in higher keys and can be skipped when you are not in the hardest version of m+.


Miscellaneous Tips

  • Although strategies are listed for mobs and bosses, communicating with your group how each pull should be executed is more important. Some suggestions may not be applicable depending on your group’s strategy. For example, plan with your group in advance on where to use Bloodlust/Heroism.

  • Stop cast, or Hard CC, refers to cancelling enemy casts using hard Crowd Control abilities. While some casts cannot be interrupted, they can be cancelled by other means. Regularly be mindful of lethal trash abilities. Also know what you can do to stop a cast and look for alternative ways to interrupt casts if no interrupts are available. Elemental Shaman may stop casts with Capacitor Totem, Hex, Thunderstorm (or Thundershock), Lightning Lasso and Earthquake’s knockdowns.

  • Line of Sight, or LoS, refers to hiding behind a wall or structure to prevent an enemy’s ability from targeting or damaging you. Like player casting, mobs must see their target for their spell to cast. Positioning behind a wall or structure breaks their line of sight and stops an enemy from casting; in other words, if you are not within line of sight of a mob, the mob is not within line of sight of you. There are many strategic uses for line of sighting mechanics, such as (Fel Detonation from Felbound Enforcer in Court of Stars). As you practice new dungeons, be mindful of your environmental surroundings and identify opportunities to utilize nearby structures to line of sight mobs.

  • Routinely support your healer and your group with healing abilities such as Ancestral Guidance, Healing Stream Totem or even Cleanse Spirit.

  • Often times, your tank may need to kite. Remember the kiting tools at your disposal (Earthbind Totem, Frost Shock, Capacitor Totem, etc.) to distance trash packs away from your tank.

  • Use your CDs. Fire Elemental, Storm Elemental, Stormkeeper, Liquid Magma Totem or even Earth Elemental, Spiritwalker’s Grace and Ancestral Guidance are useless if you never press them cause you are waiting for “the right moment”. Planning CDs is even better but learn to press them first and foremost.

  • Try to setup pulls in advance. In Wildfire builds, try to keep maelstrom at the end of a pack to get Earthquake, Surge of Power and Flame Shock spreading at the start of the next pull. In Lightning builds, try to get an Echoes of Great Sundering buff ready when the pull is being setup by the tank. Try to cast Stormkeeper before pulls to keep uptime during it, etc.

  • Earth Elemental is a potent ability best used to soak damage away from the tank or as an emergency button to avoid a party wipe. Communicate with your tank on using Earth Elemental for challenging trash packs as well as remind your healer to keep the Earth Elemental healthy as needed. Remember that with Primal Elementalist, you can manually move the pet and single-target stun with Pulverize. However, keep in mind that you cannot have Earth Elemental and Fire Elemental summoned at the same time with Primal Elementalist.

  • Die and retry. You need to experience a lot of death and bad keys to know when a key is good.

  • Doing m+ with Pick Up Groups (PUGs) is a pain cause they expect you to already have the experience. Take your time, mute people if you have to, the only way to get better is to play.

  • Scaling isn’t linear. That means that going from 15s to 16s is way easier than going from 19s to 20s. You are not bad, the game is making it more difficult.

  • Learn to log your dungeon runs! Warcraft Logs filters dungeons with pull-by-pull analyses and records replays of dungeon runs. Having logs available to share is helpful for you to receive actionable feedback.


Affixes

The affixes Necrotic and Inspiring were removed at the end of Shadowlands.

Level 2:

Note: Unlike many of the previous extensions, the balance between these two affixes is quite good. As normal mobs are generally easier to navigate than bosses, keys during Fortified weeks will usually be easier to finish but also harder to do in time, since 60% to 70% of the timer in a key is spent doing mobs. On the contrary, hard bosses during a Tyrannical week can be huge walls that will stop you from finishing the key. But the timer will often be more lenient.

Level 4:

  • Bolstering: Damage trash packs down as evenly as you can. Swap to priority damage rotation for any lethal mobs or if mob health within trash packs are uneven.
  • Bursting: Support your party members and use your healing abilities to mitigate the Burst debuff. Use Astral Shift as needed if stacks are high.
  • Raging: Be ready to use your kiting toolkit to support your tank when needed. Consider using Capacitor Totem and Stormkeeper to finish Enrage mobs more safely and quickly.
  • Sanguine: Damage trash packs down as evenly as you can to lessen time spent in Sanguine, but be sure to not slow or stun mobs dying unevenly. Use Thunderstorm as needed to knock mobs out of Sanguine Ichor.
  • Spiteful: As mobs are dying, be ready to use your kiting toolkit to support your melee players. Consider taking advantage of Spiteful Shade as additional Chain Lightning or Flame Shock targets.

Level 7:

Seasonal Affix:

  • Thundering is the new Seasonal Affix for Season one of Dragonflight!
    • Every 60 seconds that your group is in combat, players will be marked with a debuff, either Mark of Lightning or Mark of Wind (plus or minus).
    • While the debuff is on you, you deal 30% bonus damage and healing.
    • There will be 3 Mark of Wind and 2 Mark of Lightning.
    • The tank always gets a Mark of Wind. Don’t pair with him during packs with many frontals.
    • When the debuff expires, you will be affected by Primal Overload which will stun you for a long period of time and deal a lot of damage.
    • Remove the debuff by running into a player with the opposite mark.
    • You are not affected by Primal Overload if no player with the opposite mark is within 100 yards.
  • The goal of this affix is to have high uptime on the debuff to benefit from the 30% bonus damage and healing, but not to be too greedy as you never want to suffer the penalty.
  • Try to always identify with whom you can clear your mark.
  • If possible, communicate your partner as soon as possible. In PUGs, move close to a player with the opposite mark to easily get rid of it later.
  • Use Spiritwalker’s Grace to keep uptime while finding your partner.
  • During high stress situation, it might be best to clear the marks as soon as possible to avoid bad overlaps.
  • When running back after dying, consider waiting a bit before entering the 100 yards range of your party if they are still in battle. If you have the debuff on you, you would most likely kill your party and yourself.

Dungeons

Click on a dungeon banner to expand it.

Algeth'ar Acedemy

Notable Talent Choices


Dungeon buffs


Vexamus Notable Trash Mobs

Spellbound Scepter

Unruly Textbook

Corrupted Manafiend

Arcane Ravager


Vexamus


Crawth Notable Trash Mobs

Guardian Sentry

  • Get out or line of sight the big Expel Intruders cast.
  • Dodge Deadly Winds swirlies and tornadoes. In higher keys, a single tick can kill you. Move straight away even if you have to cancel your cast.
  • Use Spiritwalker’s Grace to keep uptime while dodging.

Alpha Eagle


Crawth


Overgrown Ancient Notable Trash Mobs

Hungry Lasher

Vile Lasher

Aggravated Skitterfly

  • These mobs will charge on you with Darting Sting, do not be at max range to keep them near melees for uptime.
  • Consider using Astral Shift at low health.

Overgrown Ancient


Echo of Doragosa Notable Trash Mobs

Algeth’ar Echoknight

Spectral Invoker

Ethereal Restorer


Echo of Doragosa

Court of Stars

Notable Talent Choices


Patrol Captain Gerdo trash

Duskwatch Guard

Guardian Construct

Duskwatch Sentry

Mana Saber

  • They jump on you with Mana Fang and leave a nasty DoT around you. Stay spreaded and use Astral Shift if needed.

Bound Energy

Duskwatch Arcanist

Arcane Manifestation


Patrol Captain Gerdo


Dungeon Buffs

The area before the second boss is full of items that players can interact with based upon race, profession choice, class, or even role. Shamans can interact with the Waterlogged Scroll that is accessible near the fountain to give 35% movement speed to their party. You can find a complete list of all of the accessible items and buff on this link.


Talixae Flamewreath Notable Trash Mobs

Watchful Inquisitor

Blazing Imp

Legion Hound

Shadow Mistress

Felbound Enforcer

Talixae Flamewreath lieutenants

Imacu’tya

Baalgar the Watchful

Jazshariu


Talixae Flamewreath


Hide and Seek minigame

Good luck for the mini-game ! Remember to pick up all of the clues, especially if you have a DH in your group so that they can use Spectral Sight faster.

Gerenth the Vile


Advisor Melandrus

Note: The fight is significantly easier if you stack all of Advisor Melandrus’s clones in the same area. Train yourself to always go back near his clones after Slicing Maelstrom and Piercing Gale to bait Blade Surge in the same area !

Halls of Valor

Miscellaneous Tips

  • There are many frontals and cleaves in this dungeon. Staying away from the tank is generally a good idea.

Notable Talent Choices


Hymdall Notable Trash Mobs

Valarjar Champion

Valarjar Thundercaller

Storm Drake


Hymdall


Hyrja Notable Trash Mobs

Valarjar Runecarver

Valarjar Mystic

  • Use Wind Shear to interrupt Holy Radiance.
  • You don’t need to interrupt Rune of Healing, the tank can kite out of it. Be sure to stand in the rune for free healing if the cast is successful.

Valarjar Marksman

Valarjar Shieldmaiden

Stormforged Sentinel

Valarjar Aspirant

  • This mobs jumps on a player with Valkyra’s Advance then uses Blast of Light, a frontal beam, on the tank. Always be aware of her position.
  • You can make her reset her Valkyra’s Advance jump by Line of Sighting it in the stairs. It’s useful to keep her in place and let the mobs packed.

Solsten

Olmyr the Enlightened


Hyrja


Fenryr Notable Trash Mobs

Angerhoof Bull

Steeljaw Grizzly

Ebonclaw Worg

  • These mobs are super deadly. They buff themselves while pulled together then jump on ranged players with Leap for the Throat. Stay close to melee but spreaded and use Astral Shift as required.

Fenryr


God-King Skovald Notable Trash Mobs

The 4 kings in the area must be defeated for God-King Skovald to spawn. They each have a unique ability and defeating one grants his ability to the other ones. You must engage one, then another, then the last two will attack together. It’s possible to speed up this proccess by picking up a Mug of Mead in the banquet’s hall. Throw the Mug of Mead on a king, then talk to another one then kite it over the king spreaded with mead. They will start to fight allowing you to engage the second king. This video explains the method and this one explains an advanced version with all 4 kings.

King Ranulf

King Haldor

  • He does damage on the tank with Sever.

King Bjorn

  • He will use Wicked Dagger on a random party member for huge damage and a 50% healing debuff. In higher keys, track who is targeted and use Astral Shift if needed.

King Tor

God-King Skovald

Odyn

Ruby Life Pools

Notable Talent Choices

  • Purge is very potent in Ruby Life Pools, allowing you to execute adds and dispel shields.
  • Ruby Life Pools is a really intensive healing dungeon, Ancestral Guidance has a lot of value, notably on bosses and minibosses.
  • The bosses are pretty dangerous, notably in Tyrannical. Consider running Spirit Wolf and Brimming with Life for extra survivability.
  • Stoneskin Totem can be used in higher key to reduce tank damage on the second and third boss.

Melidrussa Chillworn Notable Trash Mobs

Flashfrost Chillweaver

Flashfrost Earthshaper

Primal Juggernaut

Defier Draghar


Melidrussa Chillworn


Kokia Blazehoof Notable Trash Mobs

Primalist Cinderweaver

Primalist Flamedancer

Blazebound Destroyer

Thunderhead

Flamegullet


Kokia Blazehoof

Note: Learning the timings to correctly bait the Molten Boulder and Ritual of Blazebinding will make this fight significantly easier.


Kyrakka and Erkhart Stormvein Notable Trash Mobs

Storm Warrior

  • One of the only mobs that does nothing but tank damage this season. Worth noting.

Primal Thundercloud

Tempest Channeler

Flame Channeler

High Channeler Ryvati


Kyrakka and Erkhart Stormvein

Shadowmoon Burial Grounds

Notable Talent Choices

  • Purge has some good uses, allowing you dispel big shields after the first boss notably.
  • Tremor Totem can be used on the adds after the first boss.

Sadana Bloodfury Notable Trash Mobs

Shadowmoon Bone-Mender

Void Spawn

Shadowmoon Loyalist

Defiled Spirit

  • Get away from them when they teleport on you and cast Cry of Anguish.
  • Stay near the group so that they don’t teleport too far.

Sadana Bloodfury


Nhallish Notable Trash Mobs

Shadowmoon Dominator

Shadowmoon Exhumer

Exhumed Spirit


Nhallish


Bonemaw Notable Trash Mobs

Monstrous Corpse Spider

Plagued Bat

Carrion Worm


Bonemaw


Ner’zhul’s Elementals


Ner’zhul

Temple of the Jade Serpent

Notable Talent Choices

  • Cleanse Spirit is a mandatory talent in Temple of the Jade Serpent.
  • Tremor Totem has some uses, notably to counter the fear sha if people do not kick, but it could be skipped.
  • Purge has can be used a single time in the dungeon. Probably the best moment to drop it.

Wise Mari Notable Trash Mobs

Fallen Waterspeaker

Corrupt Living Water


Wise Mari


Strife and Peril Notable Trash Mobs

Haunting Sha

Jiang and Xiang

The Talking Fish

Lesser Sha

The Songbird Queen

The Crybaby Hozen

The Golden Beetle

The Nodding Tiger


Strife and Peril


Liu Flameheart Notable Trash Mobs

Shambling Infester

Sha-Touched Guardian

  • Stay farther than 6 yards away to ignore Leg Sweep.

Depraved Mistweaver

Minion of Doubt


Liu Flameheart


Sha of Doubt Notable Trash Mobs

The mobs before the last boss were all already present in the dungeon so they don’t need additional explanations. The packs are nonetheless really difficult because of the mobs arrangement. They notably require a lot of interrupt and have many deadly mechanics. In Fortified weeks, you might want to keep Bloodlust/Heroism for the last pack of the dungeon.


Sha of Doubt

The Azure Vault

Notable Talent Choices

  • Thunderous Paws is really useful to reset the slow on the last boss
  • Gust of Wind gives you extra mobility in the long corridors of the dungeon and allows you to execute the jump down skips without dying.
  • Tremor Totem can make some packs less heavy on interrupt requirements but it isn’t mandatory at all.

Leymor Notable Trash Mobs

Conjured Lasher

Shrieking Whelp

  • If your route doesn’t plan for the crystal adds in the beginning, avoid pulling this mobs at all cost. And if you ever do, interrupt Shriek at all cost.

Arcane Tender


Leymor


Azureblade Notable Trash Mobs

Arcane Elemental

Unstable Curator

Rune Seal Keeper

Crystal Fury

Crystal Thrasher

Arcane Construct

Astral Attendant

Scalebane Lieutenant


Azureblade


Telash Greywing Notable Trash Mobs

Drakonid Breaker

Nullmagic Hornswog

  • Null Stomp will make them jump to a random location, typically preferring to jump to farther players. Stay close melee as much as possible.

Telash Greywing


Umbrelskul

The Nokhud Offensive

Notable Talent Choices


Granyth Notable Trash Mobs

Nokhud Longbow

Nokhud Warspear

  • They will charge at you and apply Pierce. Consider using Astral Shift if needed.
  • Do not be too far out of melee. You don’t want them to charge to Uganda. Don’t be too close either to avoid stomp AoE of the packs.

Nokhud Hornsounder

Nokhud Lancemaster


Granyth

Note: Using Dragonkiller Lance early will prevent the second Shards of Stone and reduce party damage by a lot.


The Raging Tempest Notable Trash Mobs

Primalist Stormspeaker

Primalist Thunderbeast

Primal Stormshield

Primalist Arcblade

  • Don’t be on the tank to avoid getting cleaved by Arcing Strike.

Stormcaller Arynga, Stormcaller Boroo, Stormcaller Solongo and Stormcaller Zarii


The Raging Tempest


Teera and Maruuk Notable Trash Mobs

Ukhel Deathspeaker

Ukhel Beastcaller

Ukhel Corruptor

Ukhel Willcrusher

  • Actually one of the only mobs that does nothing but tank damage this season. Worth noting.

Desecrated Ohuna

Soulharvester Duuren, Soulharvester Galtmaa, Soulharvester Tumen and Soulharvester Mandakh


Teera and Maruuk


Balakar Khan Notable Trash Mobs

A common route skip most of the trash in Nokhudon Hold, as they are very inneficient. You can find this route here.

Balara

Batak


Balakar Khan

Phase 1

Intermission - 60% HP

  • Balakar Khan becomes immune to damage.
  • The longer this phase lasts, the more damage Stormwinds does, making this phase really hard in higher keys. You might want to plan offensive and defensive CDs for this.
  • Use Wind Shear to interrupt Storm Bolt
  • Assign a Nokhud Stormcaster to kick per person and quickly pack them. Depending on your group, you might be asked to Hex one of them.
  • Dodge lightning blue swirlies during the phase.

Phase 2

  • The whole group will be pulled on the position of the target of Static Spear. If targeted, be a bit away from the boss but don’t pull your party into the wall. Use Astral Shift if needed. Move as soon as the spear hits to dodge Iron Stampede.
  • Dodge the Crackling Upheaval frontal and drop the Crackling Cloud out of the way.
  • Lightning blue swirlies will appear during the whole phase. You should have the time to finish your cast before moving in most cases.

Note: You can use the rock in the boss arena to block Iron Stampede. Check this video for a fast guide. Be careful about dropping Crackling Cloud far from the rock if you are using it.



Useful WeakAuras


Additional Resources