I hope this mini-guide can achieve two purposes:
- Serve as a resource for those looking to play kyrian ele since there is actually a pretty severe lack of information on Vesper totem playstyle
- Provide insight on how to handle it if this is something you are playing into and struggling with.
Normally it wouldn’t be a great idea to illuminate how the vesper cheese works because half of the reason it works is no one has an idea of what is actually going on. I do however believe that it barely matters because high rated players already do know the counters so this is more for people who actually want to learn without having pre-existing connections to high rated players. While I am by no means the best vesper ele shaman (in all honesty I only started playing it a week ago), I do think I know enough for the purpose of this mini-guide. Read on to agree or prove me wrong!
Kyrian Elemental Shaman Setup
Necessary PvE Talents: Echoing Shock, Master of Elements, Stormkeeper
Necessary PvP Talents: Skyfury Totem
Stat Priority: Crit >> Vers > else (Crit is what makes this build work, without enough it is extremely underwhelming and no other stat helps vesper damage anyway)
Soulbind: Kleia, you want all soulbind choices that give crit for reasons above.
Required Conduits: Elysian Dirge
Legendary Combination: Elemental Equilibriam + Unity
Trinket: Gladiator Badge of Ferocity
Race: Orc as Horde, Dranei as Ally
Vesper Totem Burst Sequence
Ideal:
Step 0. Lava Burst right before go for a “Master of Elements” proc
Step 1. Stormkeeper
Step 2. Skyfury
Step 3. Place Vesper Totem far away (preferably out of line of sight or up/down z-axis to make it hard to kill)
Step 4. Flame Shock a target to proc 1st vesper charge (it doesn’t need to be the kill target)
Step 5. Echoing Shock a target to proc 2nd vesper charge (again any target works) + On-use Badge Trinket + Orc racial if orc
Step 6. Move Vesper as close as possible to kill target and lightning bolt to proc 3rd vesper charge
This burst above can easily combine for 90k+ damage in less than a second.
Why it works
Step 0. Master of elements gives a 20% damage buff to next Nature/Frost/Physical move, which we are hoping to use on the stormkeeper empowered lightning bolt as it will be the 2nd hardest hitting part of the combo.
Step 1. Stormkeeper buffs next 2 lightning bolts by 150%, makes them instant and guaranteed to overload; pretty much just a lot of instant damage we can time with our 3rd vesper charge.
Step 2. Skyfury buffs crit damage by 20%, not only is critting important to a succesful burst but also getting consistently buffed by skyfury.
Step 3. If Vesper dies, Kyrian ele becomes the worst spec in the game so everything you can do to keep it alive should be done.
Step 4. Because we are prioritizing keeping vesper alive over its intermediate damage before a 3rd proc, it does not matter what moves we use to proc the 1st or 2nd charge, and flame shock won’t consume that Master of Elements buff if we have one.
Step 5. Echoing shock also won’t consume the charge and primes our empowered stormkeeper lightning bolt coming up to hit twice with only 1 use of global. This may not be the highest damage use of stormkeeper, but it is the most 1 global burst which is vital. Echoing shock will also proc the Elemental Equilibrium legendary, giving +15% (it may be +10% in pvp) to all damage.
Step 6. Due to how the Elysian Dirge conduit works above, the closest target to vesper takes around 100% more damage, so this step is vital to making sure damage connects correctly as a non-Elysian Dirge empowered vesper won’t be enough. We time our empowered lightning bolt to hit at the same time to limit people reaction with defensives or even to know who is the intended kill target. This is one of the strongest part of this burst is that while it’s set up is long and telegraphed, if it makes it to the last step, it becomes insanely strong. Once that empowered lightning bolt goes off, the 3rd vesper charge procs which does moderate damage, but due to the Unity legendary for Kyrian Shamans, every 3rd charge spent will do a burst of additional damage which hits much harder than the normal Vesper damage (this will be the number people post death logs of).
But Wait, There’s More!
I do think it is worth to mention that Vesper does not technically stop after the first burst. Vesper totem actually has 6 charges, 3 from damaging abilities and 3 from healing.
After the initial burst, it is possible (if Vesper is not killed) to proc the Unity legendary effect again. As non-dranei you can do this by Earth Shield + Earth Shield + Healing Stream Totem to try to fit in even more damage, and get a decent amount of aoe healing for your team at the same time. Often teams will kill vesper if your first attempt does not win the game so this is a side note, but still a useful one as the pressure done by a correct vesper can cause people to forget to finish it off. Where Dranei comes in is the Dranei racial “Gift of the Naaru” is off the GCD AND procs a charge of vesper. This way you can Earth Shield > Healing Stream Totem + Gift of the Naaru to get that extra burst off in two globals, which can easily hit for 35k+ to finish people off.
So why isn’t Kyrian ele in every game and winning every tournament?
While there is no shortage of angry tweets and forum posts about Kyrian ele, I do believe what separates it from the MLX overlords of current is that it actually has counterplay.
How to counter Kyrian Elemental in two steps:
- Go them
- See step 1
In all seriousness, Elemental shamans as a whole have extremely poor defensives for the shadowlands meta of extreme burst, hypermobility and general need for defensives useable while stunned.
Getting a proper vesper setup while being trained is near impossible. While it may be true that as long as they get Stormkeeper off, the rest of the burst is instant, things fall apart fast while being trained.
A. Skyfury is a 20% multiplier that can be killed by any direct damaging move in the game (1 global from any enemy)
B. If you train the ele, their vesper positioning options are much more limited. They can’t place the vesper out of line, 100 yards away anymore.
C. If they get stormkeeper off, you know its coming and need to start looking for it right away. It isn’t like Demo where they can hold the “go” for 45 seconds straight, Stormkeeper only lasts 12 seconds and is vital to ensuring the vesper go is effective.
D. By going Kyrian rather than Necro, Ele gives up a major part of their survivability so you can easily pressure them
E. If you have no way of killing the vesper, there is still a chance to pre-defensive the cds. I will repeat that if skyfury lives and the ele gets a perfect vesper setup, its going to be insane but guardian angel, bubble, netherwalk, feign death, grounding, etc all can be 1 button saves. It isn’t easy but its not completely game over.
Knowing the weaknesses of Vesper Elemental, I can anticipate what many reading would say: “Okay if Kyrian Ele has to be trained to be stopped, why not just throw in a necro frost mage, demo lock, destro lock etc” well I think the difference is that many times those kind of caster cleave setups rely heavily on the trained caster to live long enough for the free caster to counter pressure. Ele on its own has a wall they cannot use while stunned and a pet wall they can, but only once in a 1 minute window. I sincerely believe that against good teams, kyrian ele is on the fastest timer of any spec because you just run out. I think at the very least, whatever caster cleave would work with ele, works better with another caster like warlock or even shadow priest.
Suggested Compositions
With the above in mind here are my recommended compositions and why:
Kyrian Ele + Necro Frost Mage + Holy Priest/Holy Paladin/Mistweaver Monk/Resto Druid
Why: Necro Frost Mage + Caster is just overwhelming and the definition of pick your poison that caster cleaves look to employ. If you want to train the ele, you run the risk of being Deathborn frostbolted to a swift death.
Pros: Frost mage has excellent (overpowered cough) counter-pressure, snares to help kiting and solid healer control
Cons: No instant stuns, incentivizes enemy to run away during deathborne, making it hard to land vesper kills as the best vesper timing is probably when they are lined anyway (the empowered lightning bolt is really important to finishing a target as Vesper alone can rarely kill). I do think the recommended healers above can help with the stuns portion of this comp, which is why Discipline and Resto Shaman are left out
Kyrian Ele + Demo/Destro Lock + Healer
Why: Even after the nerfs, I do believe that Demo can be enough of a “if you go ele to stop the 1 shot you run the risk of the Demo getting it” and while Destro is may not as 100-0 in 1 second, it still has a solid 70-0 in 2 seconds that is fairly frequent AND has the disruption that complements any Ele playstyle, namely double coils. This comp is a lot less PvE than Frost Mage and likely has much more true counter, but nonetheless creates extraordinary pressure.
Pros: High burst pressure not as reliant on CDs from warlock. Has lots of disruption to help survivability. Fear!
Cons: Warlock damage profile (especially before 4-set) is not the scariest to handle compared to other options. Requires much more coordination and less linear playstyle.
Kyrian Ele + Frost Death Knight + Holy Priest/Holy Paladin/Resto Druid
Why: I personally think this is the “stack overflow” comp because it combines two specs that are severely underperforming into a comp that somehow works. For those of you who started playing in shadowlands, a Death Knight is a rarely picked class that does moderate sustained damage, less than average burst, and has extremely weak defensives to physical damage. In all seriousness the reason why this comp works is the use of Blinding Sleet. While caster cleaves help cover the difficulty of a kyrian ele being trained. Frost Death Knight puts all the star power back into it. The typical go is the death knight will grip > blind the dps together, with the allied healer pushing in for a stun + fear combo on the enemy healer. This creates a reliable triple CC setup where the shaman can use the blind to prime the vesper, and find the target easiest to burst down without the enemy needing to use a trinket to even attempt to break the go up. The DK then proceeds with a dragon into strangulate on the healer, creating immense pressure.
Pros: All cooldowns of this comp are timed around 1 minute (blinding sleet, stormkeeper, vesper, hpriest fear, mindgames if chosen, etc). It attempts to remove counterplay and even if someone trinkets, it becomes hard to stop stormkeeper, kill skyfury and vesper while dealing with grabby hands every other go. DK has chains to help ele survive in between goes as well as deathgrip. DK and Ele are individually natural counters to casters and this comp playstyle benefits from just running inbetween goes anyway.
Cons: I do not think this comp can literally kill an afk player in-between goes. Kyrian ele gives up all of their consistent damage for Vesper, and frost death-knights do exceptionally weak damage outside of pillar of frost, leaving no real way to counter-pressure if left alone. This comp likely does very poorly into Jungle and RMP which are fairly popular comps.
Thank you if you read this far, I hope this is useful for those trying to play kyrian elemental as well as those frustrated by it and are looking to learn more. All in all my opinion is I would rather see a more traditional playstyle of ele be viable but honestly it is so underplayed for a reason. Without 4-set I do not think Necro can work (of the hundreds of games I have played across my characters from 1800-2300 mmr), I have probably played against 2 necro eles and they did absolutely nothing, and maybe 3 vesper eles that only had 1 game win off a cheese, mostly because we forget Vesper existed and they were playing with pre-nerf Demo. I would love to see ele be more balanced for all covenants, but until then, I think Vesper offers an interesting playstyle that still has counterplay.
