Welcome to Skill Capped’s Guide on the Best PvP Talents & Hero Talents for Elemental Shamans in The War Within 11.0

All sections for Elemental Shaman PvP have been divided into corresponding sections for the most optimal hero talents, class talents, spec talents, race, stats, gear, enchants, gems, and macros. This will help you have a good understanding of Elemental Shamans in PvP for The War Within, the strengths and weaknesses associated with this specialization, and help you conquer the arena. This section will guide you on the best Elemental Shaman PvP Talents in The War Within.

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Hero Talents: Totemic
Hero Talents: Stormbringer
Class Talents
Spec Talents
PvP Talents

The War Within expands our arsenal of talent options, which include our new talent hero talent trees, Totemic and Stormbringer. With both Hero trees being viable regardless of what bracket you are in, let’s cover more in depth breakdown on the effects of these talents in order to optimize your gameplay.

Hero Talents: Totemic

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Starting off we have Totemic, which grants us slightly more consistent direct and AoE damage. This primarily focuses on Surging Totem, to which we can place down for some AoE damage from its tremor effect.

Further in the tree, we have some talents that require a bit more explanation in terms of how to maximize their effects.

Totemic Rebound makes it important to use Stormstrike while Surging Totem is active, as this will occasionally proc a Surging Bolt to buff our Surging Totem damage. After buffing our Surging Totem, the bolt will redirect back to the target you’re attacking for some added consistent damage.
Earthsurge makes the tremor effect from Surging Totem way stronger after using Sundering, as long as the totem is currently active.
Whirling Elements gives us three unique buffs we can use to make our rotation feel stronger and more fluid, solely to enhance our single-target and AoE damage.

Hero Talents: Stormbringer

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Next up, we have our Stormbringer Hero tree. This tree requires some slight ramp-up to build Maelstrom stacks to benefit out of Tempest, which forces us to select talents like Doom Winds to generate Maelstrom stacks slightly faster.

Now, we have some talents further down the tree that help make this build feel more fluid to our rotation.

Lightning Rod, which can be applied from Tempest, Lightning Bolt, Elemental Blast, and Chain Lightning to your selected target. Having this on the right target can help close out a game, as the target takes 20% of all total damage dealt from either Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning.
Awakening Storms provides you easier access to Tempest without having to rely solely on ramp with Maelstrom Weapon stacks.

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Shaman Class Talents

In the Shaman Class talent tree, most of your talent choices will be mandatory when advancing onto each tier. Some of the most noteworthy talents are:

Greater Purge to remove 2 magical buffs on enemy targets instead of one, making us a bit more efficient with our globals. The only downside is that it is now on a 12 second cooldown.
Stone Bulwark Totem to grant us a hefty absorb on ourselves upon use, but be mindful as this absorb can be purged off.
Ancestral Guidance to help keep our team healthy if used at times where we are dealing some powerful upfront burst.
Totemic Projection, which places your totems in different locations then where it was originally placed. This can be used to either protect your totems if placed behind pillars, or on targets to increase their effectiveness.

There will then be a few points which can be moved around depending on the composition that you are facing.

Regardless of what Hero tree you play as, we recommend swapping out of Totemic Recall and / or Primordial Bond to any of these optional talents.

Poison Cleansing Totem to remove poison effects, and is great into Assassination Rogues, or Hunters that apply Chimaeral Sting to healers, which negates the silence effect if placed before the effect is active.
Traveling Storms on maps where Z-axis is prevalent, mainly for Dalaran Sewers, Mugambala, and Blade’s Edge Arena.
Cleanse Spirit against another Shaman or Warlock to remove Curse spells off our team. We can apply this on ourselves to remove amplified Warlock curses.
Healing Stream Totem and Elemental Resistance, if facing Fire or Frost Mages, Elemental or Enhancement Shamans, or Balance Druids, to help us out with our team’s survivability.

Enhancement Spec Talents

Our Enhancement spec talents vary depending on which Hero tree you choose, but both have talents that are fundamental to our rotation.

Improved Maelstrom Weapon makes it crucial to build Maelstrom Weapon stacks, as it not only reduces cast time but makes our off-healing and direct damaging spells way stronger.
Sundering helps us stop casts or micro-control targets at times where all of our Crowd Control and utility has been used up. This can also help set up for your team if used pre-emptively.
Witch Doctor’s Ancestry incentivizes us for gaining Maelstrom Weapon stacks, as it reduces the cooldown on Feral Spirit.

Instead of focusing on Lava Lash and Primordial Wave, we will pick up talents that greatly assist us with our Maelstrom Weapon generation as well as our burst damage. These primarily include Doom Winds, Ascendance, and Thorim’s Invocation.

Doom Winds makes your Windfury Weapon procs way higher, greatly increasing the chance that you generate Maelstrom Weapon stacks while also enhancing your burst windows.
Ascendance is our 3 minute burst cooldown, as it reduces the cooldown on Stormstrike and converts it into a ranged wind attack.

Enhancement Shaman PvP Talents

In most matchups, you’ll have a default loadout you’ll almost always select when entering in a PvP matchup. These are Shamanism, Ride the Lightning, and Grounding Totem.

Shamanism is another newly introduced PvP talent we receive, which allows us to apply a weaker version of Heroism on ourselves and an ally every minute without receiving the Exhaustion debuff.
Ride the Lightning is now quite valuable regardless of what Hero tree you play as, making your cleave damage relatively stronger. This becomes more effective against pet-based comps, or if your opponents are constantly stacking.
Grounding Totem allows you to redirect harmful spells to the totem within 30 yards for 3 seconds, making it possible to negate some heavy hitting damage before the cast finishes, or some magic Crowd Control, such as Fear or Polymorph.

However, we do recommend swapping from / to Ride the Lightning, or Grounding Totem if you find it to be negligible in certain matchups, to some of our optional talents depending on what you’re playing or up against.

Burrow is great if you feel like you’re going to be the primary kill target in setup compositions, primarily Jungle Cleave and RMP. This talent allows you to go underneath the ground for 5 seconds, giving you some additional movement speed and let’s you avoid all attacks while active. Once this spells ends its duration, you can come up and deal some hefty physical damage to any nearby target.
Stormweaver is only worthwhile if you are free to cast. This talent makes your Healing Surge stronger after using Maelstrom Weapon stacks on a damaging spell, but it comes at the cost of not benefiting from the reduced cast time on Healing Surge.
Static Field Totem if you are playing with a Marksmanship Hunter or Affliction Warlock that needs to hard-cast in order to create momentum. This totem allows us to constrain targets in its radius until the totem has been killed. Pairing this with Totemic Projection, you’ll mainly use this to drag out targets in the open, launch targets away from your team to help peel, or pseudo Crowd Control enemy healers as long as your opponents are in its radius to begin with.