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Spec Overview
Enhancement Shamans employ natural elements during a fight in a much more primal manner than Elemental Shamans do. They imbue their weapons with savage elemental energies and call upon earth, air, and fire to directly support them in melee engagements. Their totems manifest natural energies and are able to shift the tide of any battle. Enhancement Shamans are known for their strong sustained single-target damage and some flexible utility tools.
Pros | Cons |
Great flexibility | Reliant on good RNG |
Strong Single Target sustained Damage | Uptime-dependant |
Good priority Target Damage, and strong Cleave | lackluster defensive capabilities, type of a glass cannon spec |
Versatile utility toolkit | Performance largely depends on the Gear quality |
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Statistics Priority
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The Best Talent Choices
Level 15: Recommended choice - Lightning Shield |
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Lightning Shield - A 1hour self-buff that does minor Nature Damage to melee attackers, and generates 2 charges for each Stormstrike cast. At 20 charges it resets to 1 charge and causes all your melee attacks to strike for additional Nature damage; this buff lasts for 10 seconds. This is a very flexible choice, that does not unnecessarily complicate your rotation. | |
Boulderfist increases Damage done by the Rockbiter by 35% and reduces its recharge time by 15%. This Talent complicates your priority list and does not offer enough to compensate for that fact unless you combine it with the Strenght of Earth Azerite power. Hot Hand causes your melee attacks made when your Flametongue is active to sometimes reduce the Maelstrom cost of the Lava Lash to 0 and increase its damage by 100%. This provides a solid Damage increase, but conflicts with your other procs. When combined with the Primal Primer Azerite power, it becomes a very solid option. |
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Level 30: Recommended choice - Forceful Winds |
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Forceful Winds - Your Windfury causes each successive Windfury Attack made within 15s to generate 1 extra Maelstrom per swing, and increase Windfury's Damage by 80%. This effect stacks up to 5 times and does not refresh itself. This Talent provides a solid Single-Target Damage increase and synergizes well with the Crash Lightning in AoE situations, giving you some extra flexibility. | |
Landslide causes your Rockbiter to, 40% of the time, increase Damage of your next Stormstrike by 100%. This complicates your rotation and is focused mostly on Single-Target Damage, and as such can be picked for purely Single-Target engagements. Totem Mastery summons 4 Totems for 2 minutes. Each of the totems provides a different buff, Storm Totem - Damage of your Stormstrike is increased by 10%, Resonance Totem - 1 Maelstrom is generated every second, Tailwind Totem - Windfury's trigger chance is increased by 2%, Ember Totem - Damage of your Lava Lash is increased by 10%. This Talent gives you good passive buffs, but it limits your mobility and forces you to spend first Global Cooldown after relocating on the Totem Mastery. You can swap Forceful Winds with it for static engagements, or when you have Primal Primer Azerite Powers selected. |
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Level 45: Recommended choice - Spirit Wolf |
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Spirit Wolf - While transformed into a Ghost Wolf your damage taken is reduced by 5% and movement speed is increased by 5% every 1 second; this effect stacks up to 4 times. This, while a bit slow to stack up, is a 20% damage reduction which is a very useful lifesaver in many Raid and Mythic+ encounters. | |
Earth Shield has too low of an impact to put it on a tank and finds its uses mostly in Solo play, where that extra heal may prove to be helpful. Static Charge improves your Capacitor Totem by reducing its Cooldown by 5s for each stunned enemy (for a maximum of 20s CD reduction). Pick this only if you need some extra crowd control potential (during Mythic+ progression, for example). |
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Level 60: Recommended choice - Searing Assault |
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Searing Assault - Flametongue Weapon now also burns your Target, dealing additional Fire Damage over 6 seconds(this effect only applies on the initial Flametongue Weapon casts, and is not an on-hit effect). This Talent provides the highest Damage increase and does not impact your rotation at all, which makes it the strongest, and the simplest choice. | |
Hailstorm causes all your melee attacks to deal extra Frost Damage when your Frostbrand is active. This requires refreshing every 16 seconds, which complicates your priority list, and eats up resources, and is a poor choice because of that. However, it can be picked for AoE-heavy engagements if you have Natural Harmony Azerite traits selected. Overcharge gives your Lightning Bolt a 9-second Cooldown, and causes it to consume up to 40 Maelstrom charges, and deal up to 1200% increased Damage. This Talent, while strong on paper, is very tricky to use, as it can disrupt your rotation when used at the wrong time, which makes it quite a bad choice. |
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Level 75: Recommended choice - Nature's Guardian |
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Nature's Guardian - When your Health drops below 35% you get instantly healed for 20% of your max HP; This effect can trigger once per 45s, and will not prevent taking Fatal Damage. This is the recommended choice, as it can save your life and doesn't require any input from your side. It is great for chaotic encounters in which you often lose your concentration and are too slow to react to some deadly mechanics. | |
Feral Lunge makes you jump to your Target and deal minor Damage; It has a 25yd range and 30-second Cooldown. This Talent provides you with some extra mobility during Multi-Target engagements with a lot of Target-swapping and should be picked when an encounter requires you to have that extra gap-closing ability. Wind Rush Totem provides a 60% movement speed buff for 5s to everybody who passes within 10yd of it; The Totem lasts for 15 seconds and has a 2-minute Cooldown. It has some uses in movement and kite-heavy encounters where you put it in a predesignated location to help with mob-kiting or passing through an area quickly. This helps in dealing with a lot of Raid and Mythic+ mechanics and should be picked over Nature's Guardian if needed. |
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Level 90: Recommended choice - Sundering |
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Sundering - Deals very high amounts of Fire/Physical Damage to all enemies in front of you, and incapacitates them for 2 seconds; It costs 20 Maelstrom and has 40-second Cooldown. This Talent provides you with great Burst AoE Damage Spell and is the most flexible of the three, as it is also the best choice for Single-Target engagements. | |
Crashing Storm causes your Crash Lightning to leave an energy field, that damages all Targets within it over 6 seconds, on the ground. This Talent excels in fights that require you to switch between Single-Target and AoE DPS on a regular basis and should be picked if the Cooldown of the Sundering is too long to keep up with the AoE phases of an engagement. Fury of Air is an aura-type spell that deals rather low AoE Damage to all enemies within 8 yards around you and slows them by 30% for 3 seconds; It costs 3 Maelstrom to activate and another three every second. The amount of Maelstrom required for the maintenance of this spell is not worth it unless you desperately need some additional sustained AoE damage. |
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Level 100: Recommended choice - Ascendance |
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Ascendance - Transforms your Stormstrike and auto attacks into Wind attacks that bypass Armor, gives them 30yd range, and reduces the cost and cooldown of Stormstrike by 66%; It lasts for 15 seconds and has a 3-minute Cooldown. This Talent opens a solid Burst Damage window and lets you deal with a multitude of DPS-related Raid mechanics. | |
Elemental Spirits imbues your Feral Spirits with Lightning, Frost, or Fire which enhances your abilities, and reduces the cooldown of your Feral Spirit ability by 30 seconds. This gives you two out of three buffs when Feral Spirits are active: Crackling Surge - increases the Damage of your Windfury hits and Stormstrike by 35%, Icy Edge - all attacks slow hit Targets by 30% for 2 seconds and deal additional Frost Damage, Molten Weapon - Lava Lash deals additional 35% Damage over 4 seconds, and all Fire Damage done is increased by 20%. This provides you with burst windows that are more frequent, but less reliable than those provided by the Ascendance, and with an RNG factor attached. This Talent increases in value if you have the Primal Primer Azerite traits active, and should be picked accordingly. Earthen Spike impales your Target on an Earthen Spike, dealing Physical Damage and increasing your Nature and Physical Damage dealt to the Target by 20% for 10 seconds; It has a 20-second Cooldown and a 10yd range. This provides you with the least amount of burst Damage but can be activated frequently, giving you some extra priority-target Damage boost without any Cooldown-related punishment. Earthen Spike is a very flexible option and should be picked if that extra flexibility is needed. |
The Basic Rotation
As a resource-based Specialization, Enhancement Shaman follows a Priority List instead of a standard Rotation. Said Priority list revolves around resource generation, resource expenditure, and the proper procs utilization.
Use the following priority list to maximize your Single Target Damage output: | |
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Use the following priority list to maximize your AoE Damage output: | |
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Tips and Tricks for Improving your Gameplay
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END NOTE This is an early version of our guide, we plan to upgrade upon it, and add further sections. So please leave your suggestions in the comments section below. We would also like to state that this is meant as a pocket guide and therefore we will not go into too much detail (however, if we are missing some information that is important to you, please let us know, and we will gladly add it). |
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