Enhancement Shaman DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — 12.1

Maelstrom Weapon management is crucial if you intend to play Enhancement at a competitive level. This has a 20% chance to trigger from any melee hit, and stacks up to 5 times (or up to 10 with Overflowing Maelstrom). Each stack reduces the cast time of your next Lightning Bolt / Chain Lightning cast by 20%, and also increases the damage of affected spells by 20%. At 5 stacks, these abilities become instant. Only 5 stacks can be consumed at a time, but this increases to 10 with Raging Maelstrom taken.

• Stormbringer builds aim to spend at 9+, but often find itself spending lower depending on the situation, usually to fish for Thunder Capacitor and Supercharge procs if it runs out of generators.
  • During Ascendance, Windstrike will naturally spend all of your available Maelstrom Weapon every Windstrike due to Thorim's Invocation. This is always more valuable than spending manually, both for the damage the ability itself deals, and the extra resources it generates by saving that GCD.
• Totemic aims to spend at 10 stacks, but this can be reduced down if it means you'll extend Hot Hand via Totemic Momentum long enough to squeeze in another Lava Lash.
  • During Doom Winds, both Stormstrike and Crash Lightning will automatically spend Maelstrom Weapon with each cast via Thorim's Invocation. This often means weaving these between Lava Lash casts, extending a long Hot Hand window, and utilizing Elemental Tempo CDR.

While it is tempting to cast these spells as soon as you hit 5 stacks, you should train yourself to make use of the 10-stack limit granted by Overflowing Maelstrom. If you are not at risk of overcapping your Maelstrom Weapon stacks, then it makes more sense to focus on keeping your other abilities on cooldown.

New to Midnight, Elemental Tempo provides cooldown reduction to both Stormstrike and Lava Lash whenever you spend Maelstrom Weapon. This provides 0.3 seconds off per stack spent, and bridges gaps between GCDs if you're running out of available buttons. This works well with Totemic Momentum for Totemic, bringing a 1➜2➜1 ability cycle when spending in between.

Thunder Capacitor provides a 20% chance to refund all Maelstrom Weapon spent on Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning. These procs often require some reaction speed to catch them before you hit your planned button, but this means spending at lower stacks can sometimes be worth it to fish for a refund. This is especially useful if you're running out of rotational buttons to use, and need Elemental Tempo CDR.

Crash Lightning looks simple on the surface, but has a few less obvious components. In Midnight, it's a core aspect of Enhancement gameplay in all situations, and is even the focus of our Apex Talent - Storm Unleashed, covered in the next tab. Due to that, there are some things to understand:

• The Crash Lightning buff is triggered for 12 seconds when cast. It does not matter if you hit anything.
• While active, Stormstrike and Lava Lash will trigger a separate damage splash event, also called Crash Lightning, that splits between up to 5 enemies.
• All Crash Lightning damage, both active and splash, can trigger Maelstrom Weapon.
• The initial cast of Crash Lightning can trigger individual Windfury Weapon events on targets hit.

The above means that you should aim to be casting Crash Lightning on cooldown. The benefits of bonus damage on our core strikes, while providing extra resource generation, turns it into a maintenance effect. This is especially true in AoE, since while no bonus damage is gained from hitting extra targets because it splits, it does trigger extra events that can trigger Maelstrom Weapon. Finally, in Midnight this also triggers Thorim's Invocation during either Doom Winds or Ascendance.

Converging Storms causes each target hit by the initial Crash Lightning cast to increase the damage of your next Stormstrike cast by 25% per target hit, stacking up to 6 (for a maximum of 150%). This activates even on a single-target, and is a modest boost to funnel for builds that can fit it in.

Stormwell is a Stormbringer only talent, adding additional value when cast against exclusively one target. This causes Crash Lightning to guarantee that it procs Windfury Weapon on your target if it hits no other enemies. This is considered an independent proc, so your cast can technically trigger it twice.

The Enhancement Apex Talent, Storm Unleashed, is mostly centered around Crash Lightning. This brings it more clearly into a core part of the rotation, having strong benefits for both single-target and AoE situations. While a lot of it is passive, the things it does affect are used extensively, regardless of the build played:

• Storm Unleashed first point - grants each stack of Maelstrom Weapon spent a 2% chance to cause your next Crash Lightning cast to ignore its cooldown. Additionally, the Crash Lightning weapon enhancement buff can now stack and overlap.
• Storm Unleashed second and third point - increases the damage dealt by Maelstrom Weapon spenders by 7.5%, and weapon imbue damage by 10% per point.
• Storm Unleashed fourth point - causes Crash Lightning to also create a static pool, dealing an additional 100% of the initial cast's damage over 2 seconds. Additionally, the weapon enhancement buff grants 15% increased auto-attack speed per stack.

The resets happen frequently throughout combat, with roughly one in five 10-stack Maelstrom Weapon spenders triggering the effect (using a deck-of-cards proc system) on average. These procs can be pooled up, allowing you to fire off multiple Crash Lightning casts in succession, stacking the weapon enhancement buff overlaps.

These overlaps cause the effect to amplify the damage dealt by each splash. This bonus is dealt all at once rather than additional individual procs, meaning the bonus Maelstrom Weapon it can generate remains static. The attack speed buff provided by the fourth point also stacks up as well when the buff overlaps.

Your Weapon Imbues should always be active, as they confer a strong benefit. Some notes on each are:

• Windfury Weapon - only applied to the main-hand, these additional strikes are considered special attacks and, as such, can generate Maelstrom Weapon.
• Flametongue Weapon - only applied to the off-hand, this causes all weapon attacks to trigger an additional hit of fire damage, and doubles the damage your Lava Lash deals while active.

With Instinctive Imbuements taken, this will also automatically apply both imbuements to the appropriate weapon when casting Lightning Shield. This happens all at once with no extra GCD cost.

You can have one Elemental Shield active at a time, or two with Elemental Orbit taken. Lightning Shield is the primary choice here due to the bonus Agility provided by Instinctive Imbuements.

Elemental Orbit should be strongly considered to allow you to have Earth Shield active at the same time. This should also be paired with Therazane's Resilience, allowing for permanent uptime and extra self-healing. Additionally, this lets you keep it up permanently on another party member - usually your tank.

Skyfury, granted by any Shaman, provides a flat increase to Mastery rating to all Party and Raid members. It also has additional benefits for melee characters, providing a 20% chance to proc an additional auto-attack each swing, with a 0.5-second internal cooldown per player. This does not trigger from missed attacks, and can miss itself. These extra attacks count as regular auto-attacks, meaning they proc all on-hit effects, but they do not affect Hunter auto-shots, pets, or guardians.

Doom Winds is a 1-minute cooldown, off-GCD ability that grants 50% increased chance to trigger Windfury Weapon for 8 seconds, and pulses Stormstrike (Nature/Physical) damage around you. New in Midnight, this inherits both the Static Accumulation and Thorim's Invocation effects. This generates up to 2 Maelstrom Weapon per second, and causes Stormstrike / Crash Lightning to discharge spenders when used. Additionally, Thorim's Invocation increases its duration by 2 seconds when taken.

This is also replaced by both Ascendance or Deeply Rooted Elements if taken, so serves as a lower point cost cooldown option. It's extremely well suited to Totemic, providing an option that syncs up with each Surging Totem cast to allow you to extend Hot Hand consistently.

Thorim's Invocation causes Stormstrike and Crash Lightning casts while active to discharge a Maelstrom Weapon spender, consuming all of your current stacks. This has some extra details that might not be as clear from the tooltip alone, and has a few interactions to be aware of, regardless of which cooldown you pick. It has two priming states - Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning - and can be switched dynamically by some abilities, particularly in AoE scenarios:

• Any Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning cast will set Thorim's Invocation manually to the respective spell. This switch is not triggered by Ride the Lightning.
• Make sure before each Doom Winds / Ascendance cast you are primed to the correct spell:
  • Single Target - Lightning Bolt
  • AoE - Chain Lightning
• Tempest is dynamic, meaning the number of targets hit dictates priming. If it hits only one target, it sets to Lightning Bolt, while if it hits two or more it changes to Chain Lightning.
  • Thorim's Invocation will always consume Tempest if possible, regardless of priming.
• Primordial Storm is dynamic, and will prime you to whichever of the two spells it casts at the end of its sequence. This is decided by the number of targets hit by the initial 3 strikes.

Ascendance replaces Doom Winds when taken, replacing it with a 2-minute cooldown. This is on the GCD, but also triggers Doom Winds for free when activated (with a 10 second duration). It lasts for 15 seconds, inherits both Static Accumulation and Thorim's Invocation, and while active, your Stormstrike and auto-attacks are converted to Windstrike and Windlash. These both have a 30-yard range, ignore all armor, and Windstrike has a 60% reduced cooldown.

This provides a very consistent way to repeatedly trigger Thorim's Invocation, weaving in Crash Lightning between casts. Additionally, it also provides a 0.5% chance to trigger Doom Winds per Maelstrom Weapon when Ascendance is not active.

Stormbringer additionally activates Tempest when cast, making it the preferred cooldown option at the bottom of the tree.

Also replaces Doom Winds when taken, instead providing a 0.6% chance per Maelstrom Weapon spent to trigger both Ascendance and Doom Winds, lasting 8 and 10 seconds respectively. This is significantly less predictable, but can provide explosive burst provided RNG is on your side. This isn't currently a worthwhile option for now in Midnight, but may change in the future.

Sundering deals heavy Flamestrike damage to all targets in a line in front of you, with a 30-second cooldown. When playing as Totemic, this also triggers Whirling Earth following each Surging Totem cast. Its place is as a mid-range burst tool, especially with follow-up talents in AoE.

Surging Elements provides 15% Haste for 12 seconds whenever you cast Sundering. Additionally, it causes Sundering to generate 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon when used. Note that Splitstream does not trigger the Haste boost or generate bonus Maelstrom when playing Totemic.

Primordial Storm is a combo skill follow-up available after casting Sundering. When cast, this triggers a 4 step attack that always happens in the same order:

Primordial Storm Order

Fire strike ➜ Frost strike ➜ Lightning strike ➜ empowered Maelstrom Weapon spender

The first 3 strikes are considered main-hand strikes, and hit in AoE, meaning they each individually trigger weapon imbues on targets hit. Lastly, this also consumes Maelstrom Weapon to amplify the damage of all hits. The spender chosen is decided by how many targets are hit by the strikes - Lightning Bolt is the default, switching to Chain Lightning if two or more targets are hit. This does not become available after triggering Sundering via Splitstream.