Elemental plays a short upkeep list and one filler. A fire totem and 
Flame Shock stay up, 
Lava Burst goes out whenever it is ready, and 
Lightning Bolt takes every cast in between. On a long fight your mana, not your cooldowns, decides which rank of Lightning Bolt that is.
Before the pull
- 1At -2 s: Cast Lightning Bolt
Begin a rank 10 Lightning Bolt with two seconds to go. It finishes as the fight starts and lands a second later, which is worth 4.3 %. Your first global after it goes to 
Searing Totem.
Priority
Whenever you are free to cast, go down the list and press the first spell that is ready and whose condition is met. Treat it as a ranking of what to press, not a script.
- 1Cast Searing Totem if number of bosses = 1 and Searing Totem not ticking2.0/min+11 DPS · 2.0 %
- 2Use the other cooldowns as they come up+49 DPS · 9.0 %
- 3Cast Flame Shock if Flame Shock not ticking5.3/min+38 DPS · 6.8 %
- 4Cast Lava Burst5.0/min+20 DPS · 3.6 %
- 5Cast
Chain Lightning if number of bosses ≥ 2 or mana ≥ time remaining × 946.6/min+17 DPS · 3.2 % - 6Cast Lightning Bolt if mana ≥ time remaining × 3516/min+237 DPS · 43.1 %
The reasons behind each line:
- A fire totem when yours is down. Searing Totem lasts 55 seconds and attacks one target about every 2.4 seconds. Its attack keeps Classic's damage but only 1.7 % of your spell damage, so it is cheap and worth a steady 3.4 %. Against two or more bosses
Magma Totem takes this line. - Your trinket and racial on cooldown, and your mana potion and rune as soon as they won't waste mana. Their timing is under Cooldowns below.
- Flame Shock once the burn has ended. Its ticks can crit in Forever, and Lava Burst deals 20 % more while it is on the boss. The Shock cooldown is 6 seconds but the dot lasts 12, so don't recast it early. It is worth 6.8 %.
- Lava Burst on cooldown. It casts in 2 seconds, and its base damage sits about 10 % above Lightning Bolt's. The line is worth 3.6 %.
- Chain Lightning only with a free cast or two or more targets. On one boss it does no more per second of casting than Lightning Bolt, costs over twice the mana and, in our simulator, overloads a third as often. On a three-minute single-boss fight the sim does 1.4 DPS better without the line, a small loss but the same for both factions, so skip it there. One-minute fights never run you dry, and there the line is worth 3.2 %.
- Lightning Bolt rank 10 while you can afford it. The tuned rotation weighs your mana against the time left and keeps casting rank 10 while it will last. That line is worth 43.1 %.
- Lightning Bolt rank 4 when you can't. It costs 60 mana against rank 10's 220 and hits for about four-fifths as much, so it keeps you casting to the end. Across three minutes that fallback line is worth 3.7 %.
More than one target
From two bosses, drop Magma Totem instead of Searing Totem and cast Chain Lightning whenever it is ready. On a three-minute fight against three bosses Magma Totem does 24.7 % of your damage and Chain Lightning 22.0 %. Both cost far more mana than single-target spells, so the rotation spends about half its casting time on rank 4 Lightning Bolts, which deal 27.4 % there. On a one-minute pack, put Flame Shock on all three bosses.
Cooldowns
None of your cooldowns is big enough to plan the fight around. Use them like this:
Talisman of Ascendance as the fight opens and again each time its one-minute cooldown is back. Each of your next five spells adds 40 spell damage, stacking. In game it ends after six spells, about 12 seconds of casting, while our simulator keeps it for the full 20.
Blood Fury (Orc) opens the fight and returns two minutes in.
Demonic Rune once you are down by 1,500 mana and 
Major Mana Potion once you are down by 2,250, the most each can restore, so none of it is wasted. They have separate cooldowns, and on three minutes you use two of each.
| Cooldown | Uses | At |
|---|---|---|
| Blood Fury | 1 | 0:01 |
| Talisman of Ascendance | 1 | 0:01 |
| Demonic Rune | 1 | 0:12 |
| Major Mana Potion | 1 | 0:27 |
What your log should show
Set your Warcraft Logs damage-done page beside this table. If your casts per minute come out lower, you spent time not casting.
| Ability | Casts per minute | Of damage | Crit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lightning Bolt | 16.0 | 46.8 % | 24.4 % |
| Lava Burst | 5.0 | 17.6 % | 21.5 % |
| Flame Shock | 5.3 | 15.6 % | 21.6 % |
| Chain Lightning | 6.6 | 14.3 % | 24.8 % |
| Attack | – | 5.7 % | 21.6 % |
| Searing Totem | 2.0 | – | – |
| Blood Fury | 1.0 | – | – |
| Major Mana Potion | 1.0 | – | – |
| Demonic Rune | 1.0 | – | – |
| Talisman of Ascendance | 1.0 | – | – |
The numbers to check: about 16.0 rank 10 Lightning Bolts a minute, Lava Burst near 5.0 a minute and Flame Shock near 5.3. Lightning Bolt's row also counts its overloads, so its hits run above its casts.
Uptimes
| Buff or debuff | Uptime | Times per fight |
|---|---|---|
| Searing Totemon the boss | 99.8 % | 2.0 |
| Flame Shockon the boss | 88.1 % | 4.9 |
 Elemental Devastation | 67.9 % | 6.9 |
| Ascendance | 33.4 % | 1.0 |
| Ascendance | 33.3 % | 1.0 |
| Blood Fury | 25.0 % | 1.0 |
Aim for about 88.1 % on Flame Shock and 99.8 % on Searing Totem. A Flame Shock that misses applies no dot, so part of the gap is misses you can only fix with hit.