Enhancement Shaman Level 58 Boost Guide

The purpose of this guide is to help you decide on whether you want to boost an Enhancement Shaman to Level 58, and to give a quick rundown on talents, important spells, and stats so that you can start playing right away!

Enhancement Shamans are, arguably, the best physical damage support class in TBC Classic (TBCC). Their powerful melee support totems, Windfury Totem, Grace of Air Totem, and Strength of Earth Totem grant high damage increases to their group while utility totems such as Tremor Totem and Poison Cleansing Totem can keep allies safe and out of crowd control.

Their damage is also quite good, being just a step under the top classes of TBC Classic, although this damage is mostly single-target focused.

Draenei is the only race available. Unfortunately, even though you mostly need Physical Hit as Enhancement, in TBC Classic Draenei Shamans will always provide a 1% Spell Hit aura which is less than ideal.

Orc is the go-to PvP race due to Hardiness, which allows you to occasionally resist stun effects. They are also PvE all-stars, with two DPS increases from Axe Specialization and Blood Fury which is improved from Vanilla Classic and now only reduces your healing taken for its 15 second duration!

Trolls are a decent choice if your goal is to maximize your throughput due to Berserking, which speeds up your attacks and casts — especially if activated at low health. Beast Slaying can also be useful against beast-type enemies.

A Tauren's War Stomp is quite reliable in PvP, often allowing for an emergency Lesser Healing Wave cast, but has few uses in PvE. The 5% increased health from Endurance is minor. Finally, Tauren have a larger hitbox — especially male Tauren — which grants them a slightly increased casting range, but also allows them to be hit by enemy abilities more easily.

The talent build listed below is a jack-of-all trades with which you can do PvE, PvP and level to 60, while using only the talent points available at Level 58.

The most important new TBC Classic talent is Dual Wield, which allows Enhancement Shamans to dual wield and greatly increase their DPS potential! Stormstrike and the Enhancement tree are also changed to accommodate dual wield as the primary way to play Enhancement.

Shamanistic Rage is another new active ability that doubles as a Mana regenerator and defensive cooldown, which gets better alongside your gear due to the Mana return being based on your Attack Power.

The list below compares the relative value of 1 point of the stat, or rating in the case of Hit Rating, for example.

1. Physical Hit up to the 9% cap vs bosses, 5% in PvP;
2. Expertise up to the 6.25% cap vs bosses;
3. Strength / Attack Power (1 Strength = 2 Attack Power and gets even better when buffed with a Paladin's Blessing of Kings);
4. Critical Strike;
5. Agility;
6. Hit over 9%;
7. Haste;
8. Armor Penetration;
9. Intellect;
10. Stamina;
11. Mp5;
12. Spirit.

This is the stat priority that will generally result in higher DPS. Although Stamina does not give damage it does help you stay alive, especially against unavoidable damage; make sure to not neglect it!

In single-target you will use:

1. Place down your totems (group-dependent but generally will include at least Strength of Earth Totem);
2. Stormstrike whenever it is up, followed by Earth Shock to make use of its debuff;
3. Rotate between Flame Shock and Earth Shock on cooldown to keep Flame Shock's damage-over-time effect up if it will have time to run its full duration. Earth Shock is especially powerful when you can finish off enemies with it, or whenever Stormstrike's debuff is on the target.

For area-of-effect damage you will use:

1. Fire Nova Totem;
2. Magma Totem while Fire Nova Totem is on cooldown;
3. Flame Shock on multiple targets;
4. Your single-target-rotation priority in the remaining global cooldowns.

While all professions have their unique benefits, Enhancement benefits particularly from Blacksmithing, as it allows you to reliably get good weapons — such as Dragonmaw for non-Orcs or Black Planar Edge for Orcs — without needing to wait for a raid weapon drop or achieving a high arena rating for the gladiator weapons.

Leatherworking is also a strong profession as it allows you to craft and use the Primal Intent set or the Netherscale Armor set. You will also get Drums of Battle, which are an important consumable only brought by Leatherworkers.

Alternatively, Engineering has many explosives that will drastically increase your area-of-effect damage, such as the new Super Sapper Charge.

Finally, Alchemy is a good passive goldmaking profession due to the transmute recipes and the new elixir, potion, and transmute masteries making it a strong profession on an alt that you do not want to min-max your throughput on.

A Totem is instantly placed on the ground near you when you cast it, it does not move and generally has single digits of health, allowing it to be destroyed by your enemies with any single-target ability. Their effects only apply to your group or 5-player group, even when you are in a raid group.

Every Shaman Totem has a specific niche role to fill and a distinct ability. There are four types of Totems: Air, Earth, Water, and Fire, and you can have only one Totem of each element placed at a time which will be replaced if you cast a new Totem of the same element.

Windfury Totem is the largest DPS increase a Shaman can provide to its group, assuming it has Warriors and Rogues in it. It grants a temporary weapon enchant to your group, allowing them to sometimes do multiple auto attacks with extra Attack Power whenever they hit the enemy with melee abilities. Warriors are a particularly good target for this effect, due to the extra Rage gained by the extra auto attacks and from two-handed weapons hitting harder.

Grace of Air Totem boosts the Agility of group members. While not as high of a DPS increase as Windfury Totem for Warriors and Rogues, it provides a higher benefit to Hunters and Druids who cannot make use of Windfury with their forms and ranged attacks and should thus be used whenever you are in the Hunter or Druid group.

Tranquil Air Totem lowers threat caused by group members by 20%. This allows tanks to be more defensive and still keep aggro on the enemies and, as such, is a great tool when threat is the limiting factor. Do keep in mind it does not provide a direct DPS increase, however.

Grounding Totem will redirect to itself any harmful spell cast at a nearby group member, which is great to handle problematic spells in PvP such as Counterspell.

Nature Resistance Totem increases the Nature Resistance of your group, allowing them to more easily survive Nature-based attacks.

Sentry Totem grants vision over an area when the buff it leaves on the casting Shaman is right-clicked, which causes your vision to swap to the Totem's. It also gives warnings to you when it is being attacked, which is useful when exerting control over an area — especially in PvP.

Windwall Totem lowers ranged damage taken by your group by a small amount per hit. This can be useful when dealing with Hunters, but for the most part incoming ranged damage will rarely warrant using this Totem.

Strength of Earth Totem grants extra Strength to your group and is the only DPS-increasing Earth Totem, making it the general go-to in groups with melee players.

Tremor Totem removes Fear, Charm, and Sleep effects from your group every 5 seconds and is the only effect of its kind for the Horde. This makes it invaluable in fights with Fear effects, such as Onyxia, Nefarian, or in PvP. Make sure to drop it when slightly under 5 seconds are left for the Fear effect to hit the group, so that it is removed almost instantly.

Earthbind Totem slows nearby enemies, allowing for kiting. By running around the Totem you can keep this effect active while only going into melee range whenever your swing timer is ready, avoiding a lot of damage in the process if you are using a slow, two-handed weapon.

Stoneskin Totem lowers melee damage taken by your group by a small amount per hit. This makes it useful against Rogues or other fast-hitting enemies, or when supporting a tank against multiple enemies.

Stoneclaw Totem taunts enemies, serving as a distraction for a short period with its small health pool. It is mostly of use while leveling or soloing.

Fire Resistance Totem increases the Fire Resistance of your group, allowing them to more easily survive Fire-based attacks.

Mana Spring Totem regenerates the Mana of your group for a small amount every 2 seconds. This improves your group's Mana sustainability, and you should aim to always have this Totem active while in a caster or healer group.

Healing Stream Totem heals your group for a small amount every 2 seconds. While its healing is low, it is still usually worth keeping it out as it also has a long duration.

Disease Cleansing Totem cures diseases from members of your group every 5 seconds.

Poison Cleansing Totem cures poisons from memebers of your group every 5 seconds.

Searing Totem deals a small amount of single-target damage to nearby enemies. If you can spare the Mana, keep it up for the added damage.

Fire Nova Totem deals a large amount of area-of-effect damage to nearby enemies a few seconds after it is placed on a 15-second cooldown. Its burst damage can be helpful, especially when facing multiple enemies.

Magma Totem deals small amounts of area-of-effect damage to nearby enemies periodically. Since it has no cooldown, you can use it to help deal with multiple enemies when Fire Nova Totem is not available.

Frost Resistance Totem increases the Frost Resistance of your group, allowing them to more easily survive Frost-based attacks.

Flametongue Totem, much like Windfury Totem, enchants your group's weapons. This enchant, however, causes extra Fire damage on hit. Since Windfury Totem is more powerful and its effect does not stack with Flametongue, this Totem goes mostly unused.

Stormstrike deals your weapon damage to a single target and causes a debuff that increases the Nature damage taken by the target by 20% for the next two Nature damage hits. This debuff will typically be used to boost your Earth Shock.

Earth Shock deals damage and interrupts its target for 2 seconds. While the damage increases with ranks, the interrupt effect duration does not, making it a good spell to downrank if you are mostly interested in the interrupt.

Frost Shock deals damage and slows its target by 50% for 8 seconds. This makes it useful when chasing or fleeing from enemies.

Flame Shock deals damage over time to its target. This can contribute a small, but consistent chunk of damage in a fight and has the added usefulness of preventing Rogues and Druids from staying in stealth while it is active.

Lightning Bolt deals damage to a single target from range. This will be your main damage spell in PvE due to having the best damage-to-Mana ratio in our kit and no cooldown.

Chain Lightning deals damage to three targets from range. Like Lightning Bolt, you will only use this spell when melee is not possible.

Lesser Healing Wave casts much faster than Healing Wave, but also heals for much less baseline and it also gains less benefit from your gear's Spell Healing as a result of its fast casting speed. Use it in PvP or as an emergency heal.

Healing Wave is a strong-but-slow single-target heal. This makes it likely to overheal, so be prepared to stop casting at the last moment if it looks like that will be the case.

Chain Heal is the best area-of-effect heal in the game due to its high healing relative to cost and smart-heal properties, which will cause it to jump to the most-injured targets in range regardless of the group they are in.

Lightning Shield grants you a buff that causes damage to melee attackers when they hit you. While not the most useful spell, there is no harm in having it up, either.

Rockbiter Weapon enchants your weapon, granting additional melee attack power and causing your melee attacks to generate extra threat. This will be your first weapon enchant, which you will use until you have Windfury Weapon, and even afterwards when soloing as it deals more overall damage than Windfury Weapon, at the cost of pulling significant threat and lacking burst-damage potential.

Windfury Weapon enchants your weapon, granting your melee abilities a 20% chance to activate two extra auto attacks with added Attack Power instantly. This is a sizable, unpredictable damage boost which you should aim to have active whenever you are in a group.

Flametongue Weapon enchants your weapon, causing each hit to deal additional Fire damage. As you will not search for Spell Damage on your gear, this is a generally inferior choice compared to the alternatives.

Ghost Wolf boosts your running speed by 40% but can only be used outdoors. You can learn it at an early level, making this is a very important movement skill for leveling Shamans.

Reincarnation allows you to return to life after dying, as long as its 30-minute cooldown is ready. You can use it to recover from mistakes.

Ancestral Spirit brings the target back to life, but can only be used while out of combat.

Purge removes two buffs from the targeted enemy. You will typically be using it to remove heal-over-time effects, shields, and buffs.

Cure Poison cures a poison effect from the targeted ally. Use it to remove Rogue poisons or dangerous PvE debuffs.

Cure Disease cures a disease effect from the targeted ally. Use it to remove a Priest's Devouring Plague or dangerous PvE debuffs.

Astral Recall recalls you to your set Hearthstone location, with a cooldown of 15 minutes. This is pretty handy for quickly traveling the world.

Water Walking allows you, or another friendly player, to move over water for 10 minutes. Taking any damage will cancel the effect, but you can still use it to quickly move through certain parts of the world.

Water Breathing allows you, or another friendly player, to have unlimited breath while underwater for 10 minutes. This is generally useless, but can save you sometimes when doing underwater quests or gathering.

Far Sight grants you vision over an area, allowing you to detect enemy players without actually putting yourself in danger.