Forever Enhancement Shaman Stat Priority

Welcome to our Stats guide for Enhancement Shaman in WoW: Forever! On this page, we'll be covering what stats to look out for on gear, and how each of them interact with the specialization. While most of this page is oriented around Level 60, the general principles do also apply to leveling as well.

Release Disclaimer

As the Beta only lasted until Level 30, lots of endgame gear is currently unknown. The exact gear landscape isn't currently clear, so this page is speculative based on what information was available to us in the testing period. Due to that, you will likely see this page evolve over the course of the first few months following Forever's release.

In Forever, Enhancement saw a number of talents included that add bonus scaling to otherwise unappealing stats. Based on the gear we have seen, it can now make use of a very eclectic mix of different options, but some are clearly a higher priority than others.

Below are stats ideally found on as many of your gear pieces as possible, and pieces with at least one or two of these are worth considering. If none of these are present on a piece, it's unlikely to be of use.

Weapon DPS is always your most valuable stat. Following that:

Due to the mix of Spells and Melee attacks, the dual benefit of Hit outdoes Expertise, but both are priorities to help your abilities to connect with targets. Following that, Crit provides high value through raw damage and Flurry uptime.

Strength provides the highest Attack Power conversion to increase your weapon attack damage. Intellect is also now extremely competitive, providing extra Mana sustain, spell Crit, Attack Power through Mental Dexterity and Spell Power through Mental Quickness. A mix-and-match of these two main stats should be found on the bulk of your gear.

While not listed above, Agility and Spell Power are found on a lot of Enhancement gear. These stats are still valuable, but should be treated more as a bonus on already good pieces. The benefits of bonus Melee Critical Strike from Agility are useful due to Flurry, but generally you want this to be mixed with a piece that has one of the higher priority stats already present.

Spell Damage is found on a lot of Shaman gear, even pieces specifically built for Enhancement. While the spec does use spells through its hybrid toolkit, weaker scaling and a lower portion of its damage comes from these compared to melee attacks. Treat this as a bonus on top of priority stats, rather than something to seek out.

In WoW: Forever, there's a significant number of different stats found on gear that all affect your character in different ways. In the table below, we've provided general information on how each stat functions, with a more in-depth advanced section underneath.

Stat	Effect
Weapon DPS	Improves the damage of your melee attacks based on the speed of your weapon.
Hit Chance	Increases the chance for your Melee Attacks and Spells to hit your target.
Expertise	Reduces the chance for enemies to Dodge and Parry your attacks.
Critical Strike	Provides a chance for melee attacks to deal 200% damage, or spells to deal 150% damage.
Attack Power	Every 14 points increases your Weapon DPS by 1, improving your melee attack damage.
Strength	Each point provides 2 Attack Power.
Intellect	Each point provides 15 Mana, and increases your Spell Critical Strike chance. Also provides 1 Attack Power with Mental Dexterity, and 0.3 Spell damage/healing with Mental Quickness.
Spell Power	Increases the damage dealt by your Spells.
Agility	Increases your Melee Critical Strike and Dodge chance.
Haste	Increases your auto-attack and spell casting speed.
Spirit	Increases passive Mana Regeneration when you haven't spent Mana within the last 5 seconds.
Mp5	Provides Mana Regeneration every 5 seconds regardless of the 5-second rule.
Spell Pierce	Allows your Spells to ignore part of your enemies' Magical Resistance.

Weapon DPS always provides the largest benefit per point on your character, and dictates how hard your auto-attacks and melee abilities hit for. Generally, Enhancement plays with slow 2-handed weapons, ideally with a 3.3 swing speed or slower. Unless the gain is significant, you generally want to avoid 2-Handed weapons with a swing speed much lower than that.

Weapon DPS Scaling Details

All of your melee attack damage is calculated through a combination of your base Weapon DPS, Attack Power, and swing speed. The damage range can vary with weapons, but the core formula is as follows:

(Weapon DPS + Attack Power / 14) x Weapon Speed = Damage Dealt

This means that slower swing speeds result in harder hitting attacks. In particular, due to Windfury Weapon providing bonus swings, the strength of each swing usually outweighs attacking more often. While Enhancement is a hybrid between spells and melee attacks, it has three core attacks that all use this formula:

• Auto-Attacks
• Windfury Weapon
• Stormstrike

Stormstrike is unique however, instead of using your base Weapon Speed, it is a normalized attack, using a fixed value to calculate its damage. Two-Handed weapons are fixed at 3.3, One-Handed weapons at 2.4, and Daggers at 1.7.

All of your offensive melee attacks and spells have a chance to miss your target, which increases depending on the level difference between you and them. The amount of bonus chance to Hit needed to guarantee attacks is known as the "Hit Cap". Melee attacks and Spells both scale with the same bonus chance to Hit, but have different caps to prevent misses.

Enhancement should be aiming for 8% Hit at least, which is the melee hit cap against Raid Bosses. You can click below for a more detailed breakdown of Hit Chance.

Hit Chance And Hit Caps

Hit Chance is variable depending on the level difference between you and your target, so the precise cap on abilities is sometimes a moving target. The most important value to keep in mind is the Hit needed for targets +3 above your level, as Raid Bosses are treated as Level 63 enemies. Below, we have a table showing the chance to miss with melee attacks and spells at various level deltas:

Target Level Difference	Melee Miss Chance	Spell Miss Chance
Same Level	5%	4%
+1 Level	5.5%	5%
+2 Levels	6%	6%
+3 Levels	8%	17%

Shaman also have access to Tidal Focus on the first tier of the Restoration Tree, providing 1% Hit to melee attacks and spells per talent point. This can help with reaching caps if needed, or points can be removed once caps have been reached with gear to spend elsewhere.

Due to Enhancement splitting its damage between melee attacks and spells, improving your Hit chance remains relevant past the melee cap. However, most value is lost beyond 8%, since a large amount of your damage and effects are sourced from weapon swings.

For Enhancement, the following rolls on your Melee Hit chance:

• Auto-Attacks
• Windfury Weapon
• Stormstrike

And the following rolls on your Spell Hit chance:

• Earth Shock, Flame Shock & Frost Shock
• Lightning Bolt
• Flametongue Weapon
• Fire Nova
• Searing Totem / Magma Totem
• Purge

While more of your abilities roll on the spell Hit table, they contribute less to your overall damage. Therefore, while bonus Hit chance for your spells is beneficial, it's not nearly as valuable once your melee attacks no longer miss.

Much like your chance to miss, all enemies also have a chance to Dodge and Parry your melee attacks, reduced by your Expertise. This is listed as "reduces the chance for attacks to be Dodged or Parried" on gear, but is functionally the same as Expertise from previous iterations of the game.

Enemies can Dodge your attacks regardless of where you attack from, while they can only Parry while you're standing in front. Make sure to always be standing behind your target, as the chance to Parry is significantly higher. Your auto-attacks, Windfury Weapon and Stormstrike all suffer from this chance, and benefit from Expertise. Against Level 63 Raid bosses, 6.5% Expertise is required to remove the chance for targets to Dodge your attacks.

Expertise Disclaimer

Very little Expertise was available on gear to thoroughly test its value, so the stat's value is inferred currently. Similarly, Weapon Skill is far more limited with few details, so its value and impact on the Glancing Blow table is still currently unknown. This section will be updated over the course of Forever's release.

Critical Strike increases the chance for your melee attacks and spells to deal bonus damage or healing. This chance can be increased individually for either ability type with some stats, or universally with flat bonus Critical Strike chance on gear. The amount of bonus damage dealt is also different for melee attacks and spells.

Melee attacks trigger Flurry on a successful Critical Strike, and direct damage spells trigger Elemental Devastation. This makes Critical Strike a high value stat for Enhancement, and should be sought out on gear when possible. You can click below for a more detailed breakdown.

Critical Strike Details

Melee attacks deal 200% damage when they critically strike, calculated based on your Melee Critical Strike chance. Windfury Weapon and Stormstrike both fall into this category, alongside your auto-attacks. Additionally, your melee attacks trigger Flurry on a successful Critical Strike.

Spells deal 150% damage when they critically strike. This can be increased to 200% with Elemental Fury, but isn't realistic to include in Enhancement talent builds. The following abilities roll on your Spell Critical Hit Chance:

• Earth Shock, Flame Shock & Frost Shock
• Lightning Bolt
• Flametongue Weapon
• Fire Nova
• Searing Totem / Magma Totem

Your Shocks and your Lightning Bolt cast with Maelstrom Weapon also trigger Elemental Devastation on a successful critical strike.

Attack Power (known as AP) directly increases your Weapon DPS, improving your melee attack damage. Strength provides 2 Attack Power per point, and is generally the strongest stat available to increase your melee ability damage. Due to raid buffs such as Blessing of Kings, this roughly equates to 2.2 AP per point of Strength.

In WoW: Forever, Intellect has been given a lot of additional scaling for Enhancement through the talent tree. Each point provides the following:

• 15 Mana
• 0.017% Spell Crit Chance
• 1 Attack Power through Mental Dexterity
• 0.3 Spell Damage/Healing through Mental Quickness

This makes it a very versatile stat, improving your Mana pool while also improving a variety of combat stats. In many builds this causes it to rival Strength in value, and is a core stat for Enhancement. This can also be boosted by 2% per point in Ancestral Knowledge on the Enhancement tree.

Spell Crit Disclaimer

As we couldn't reach Level 60 on the Beta, the Intellect required per 1% of Spell Crit is speculative based on client data. If this changes, the page will be updated with new values.

Spell Damage (also referred to as SP or Spell Power) increases the damage your magic spells deal to your target. Put in simple terms, this improves all of your non-melee attack damage. All of your spells, however, come with their own specific modifier that dictates how much of your bonus Spell Damage is applied to each of them.

Since Enhancement is a hybrid of melee and magic attacks, its value is lower than traditional spellcasters. It can still make use of it though, and is found on a lot of gear oriented toward the spec. For a more detailed breakdown of how it works with your toolkit, you can click below.

Spell Power Explained

Under the hood, Spell Damage has a number of unique scaling effects applied to each of your spells to calculate how effective it is. Every spell has its own value, known as a coefficient, that decides what ratio of your Spell Power is included in its damage calculation:

Base Damage + (Spell Power * Spell Coefficient) = Damage Dealt

The Spell Coefficient is unique to each spell, and determines how well each ability scales with Spell Damage provided by gear. While there are some general rules for how this is calculated, below are individual spell coefficients listed for abilities frequently used by Enhancement:

• Earth Shock & Frost Shock – 0.386
• Flame Shock – 0.214 (direct), 0.1 (DoT)
• Lightning Bolt – 0.714
• Fire Nova – 0.143
• Flametongue Weapon – 0.1 * Weapon Speed
• Searing Totem – 0.017
• Magma Totem – 0.033
• Chain Lightning – 0.571

Talent Modifiers such as Concussion apply as a multiplier to the spell after Spell Damage benefits have been calculated, so are multiplicative boosts.

Agility is a stat that's nice to have on gear, but not generally something for Enhancement to seek out. Each point of Agility provides the following:

• 0.051% Melee Crit Chance
• 0.05% Dodge Chance
• 2 Armor

Most importantly, Agility does not provide Attack Power for Enhancement. Despite Critical Strike chance being valuable due to Flurry, it struggles compared to the raw value of Strength and the versatility of Intellect.

Melee Crit Disclaimer

As we couldn't reach Level 60 on the Beta, the Agility required per 1% of Melee Crit is speculative based on client data. If this changes, the page will be updated with new values.

Spirit increases your Health regeneration (out of combat), and your Mana Regeneration passively, but is paused for 5 seconds whenever you spend Mana. With Improved Stormstrike active, 50% of this regeneration continues even after spending Mana. Mindfulness also provides similar effects at all times. Mana per 5 (known as Mp5) found on gear is always active.

Mana Regen and the 5-second rule

Spending Mana on any spell or ability will incur a 5 second window where all Spirit based Mana Regeneration is paused. This only activates on successful spell casts when completed. This is known as the "5 second rule", utilizing wait time to allow for regen to kick in when resources are low. Enhancement makes use of Improved Stormstrike in Forever, allowing 50% of all Mana regeneration to continue regardless, allowing you to ignore this rule in combat.

Due to the very short cooldowns of your Shocks and Stormstrike, you will be spending most of your time with this in effect. This limits your passive regen and requires more awareness on your resource use during combat.

More WoW Forever Shaman Guides

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