Enhancement Shaman Dragonflight Leveling Guide From 1 to 60 (Dragonflight 10.1)
On this page, you will find our Level by Level Enhancement Shaman leveling guide for Dragonflight Make sure to use the slider to make the guide adapt to your level. For more general leveling information, please refer to our Shaman leveling guide.
Gear Options
When leveling up, you should always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level. You will often be replacing these gear pieces very quickly, so just equip whatever comes to you without worrying about secondary stats.
Level by Level Rotation and Talents
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
Talents to Level Up as an Enhancement Shaman
During levels 1 to 9, you will have very few abilities
to fight with, notably Lightning Bolt,
Flame Shock and
Primal Strike. This will change at level 10, when you can select
Enhancement as your specialization and begin to unlock additional abilities in
the talent tree. You will additionally start with
Lightning Shield
In Dragonflight, your talents can be changed anywhere in the world as long as you are out of combat. Be sure to explore various combinations of talents at will while leveling to best combat a variety of encounters and use it as an opportunity to familiarize yourself with what the spec is capable of. We have included a sample leveling path through the Class and Enhancement skill below. This is an easy to learn but still effective leveling experience that forges a middle path between introducing complex mechanics without delving into some of the more complex aspects that need to be managed.
Immediately at level 10 you will gain access to Chain Lightning and
Maelstrom Weapon.
Maelstrom Weapon is the cornerstone of the
entire Enhancement spec and it will both reduce the cast time of your spells
and increase their damage. It is important that you practice only using your
offensive spells when you have at least 5 stacks of
Maelstrom Weapon,
but at lower levels this is less critical. Use
Chain Lightning while
fighting at least 3 targets.
Additionally unlocked at level 10 is Mastery: Enhanced Elements,
increasing your Fire, Frost and Nature damage dealt and increasing the chance
to trigger
Windfury Weapon/
Stormbringer. Each point of
Mastery you find on equipment will improve this effect.
The first 10 points you spend in each tree will be by far the most impactful choices you make and will define your gameplay all the way until level 70. Short descriptions of these important talents are included below:
Level 26: Astral Shift - Your first major defensive cooldown. Use when fighting multiple enemies or elites.
- Make sure to have
Flametongue Weapon imbued on your off-hand weapon at all times and
Lightning Shield active.
- Level 10:
Lava Burst - This will be your primary
Maelstrom Weapon spender until you reach max level. Be sure to cast
Flame Shock first to ensure it deals critical damage.
- Level 11:
Stormstrike - A massive upgrade over
Primal Strike, begin using this attack on cooldown.
- Level 12:
Frost Shock - Another spell to fill in between your other attacks - having more things to cast will reduce downtime.
- Level 13:
Lava Lash - This will deal increased damage so long as you keep your off-hand weapon imbued with
Flametongue Weapon. Be sure to re-apply it once per hour.
- Level 14:
Flurry - A critical strike from any spell or weapon attack will increase your passive attack speed for a few hits, helping increase resource generation.
- Level 15:
Ice Strike - More attacks, this will begin to round out your core rotation. Be sure to use
Frost Shock at least once between each
Ice Strike cast to take advantage of its damage buff.
- Level 16:
Wind Shear - An extremely effective interrupt. Practice using this against enemies you fight now so interrupting becomes second nature by later levels.
- Level 17:
Windfury Weapon - Your second weapon imbue, except for your mainhand weapon. Be sure to cast at least once per hour.
- Level 18:
Earth Elemental - An extremely effective defensive tool - use it any time you fight multiple enemies or against dangerous Elite targets and feel at risk of dying.
- Level 19:
Improved Maelstrom Weapon - The first of several enhancements to
Maelstrom Weapon, this will improve the damage scaling it gives by 10% per stack.
- Level 20:
Chain Heal - A group healing tool, mostly taken for pathing purposes.
- Level 21:
Improved Maelstrom Weapon - Rank 2 increases the total benefit per stack to 20%.
- Level 22:
Earth Shield - A "set and forget" self-heal, use this regularly between enemies to reduce time spent during combat healing yourself. Does not stack with
Lightning Shield until
Elemental Orbit is also learned.
- Level 23:
Raging Maelstrom - This is where Enhancement starts to get interesting - the ability to hold up to 2 instant spells at once is extremely powerful and introduces a lot of nuance to your rotation.
- Level 24:
Elemental Orbit - You can now run
Lightning Shield and
Earth Shield together. This makes for a nice combination of offense and defense while leveling.
- Level 25:
Molten Assault - Improves
Lava Lash by allowing it to spread your target's
Flame Shock to nearby enemies. Free AoE!
- Level 26:
Surging Shields - The first of two points, increasing the chance to trigger
Maelstrom Weapon from
Lightning Shield for more resources.
- Level 27:
Molten Assault - Further reduces the cooldown of
Lava Lash and
Flame Shock now spreads to 4 targets.
- Level 28:
Surging Shields - Your second point, guaranteeing each trigger to generate
Maelstrom Weapon.
- Level 29:
Hailstorm - Even further improve your
Frost Shock casts and add some much needed cleave to your toolkit!
From this point on your gameplay loop will remain
about the same - cycle through your various short cooldown spells and
attacks while casting high powered Lava Bursts,
Chain Lightning, and
Lightning Bolts while mowing through
enemies with little downtime thanks to a robust healing kit.
Notable talents you may want to aim for now that you are in the middle of each tree include:
- Shaman Tree:
Astral Shift - a potent defensive tool that should be grabbed as soon as you've rushed to
Surging Shields.
Spirit Walk /
Gust of Wind - Effective mobility tools to help you zip around the playfield.
Focused Insight - can provide a lot of extra healing should you be feeling vulnerable.
Nature's Guardian - An automatic self heal when reaching low hp, this can help keep you in the fight.
Brimming with Life - An effective passive health increase, with the additional effect of reducing the cooldown of your
Reincarnation ability.
- Enhancement Tree:
Crash Lightning - Further improves your AoE potential and adds another short cooldown to reduce downtime.
Swirling Maelstrom - Generates a ton of
Maelstrom Weapon in all scenarios, letting you cast even more spells.
Sundering - A powerful burst tool when fighting large groups of enemies.
Doom Winds - the earliest accessible major cooldown, very useful for dealing with large groups of enemies or powerful elites.
Elemental Blast - Supercharge your
Lava Bursts into an even stronger spell.
Overflowing Maelstrom - For when you eventually feel like you are gaining more
Maelstrom Weapon stacks than you can reasonably spend, pick this up to start dealing devastating damage, at the cost of more stacks per cast.
Now that you have reached the final tier of talents in the Enhancement tree, you have a choice between 3 very powerful cooldowns:
Primordial Wave - Buffs your next
Lightning Bolt, causing it do deal increased damage and strike every target afflicted by your
Flame Shocks. This is a potent burst AoE damage ability.
Feral Spirit - Summons 2 spirit wolves to assist you. They will attack your target and buff all of your physical damage, or can be upgraded to buff your fire, lightning and nature damage instead. With
Witch Doctor's Ancestry this ability is available extremely often.
Ascendance - Has a very long cooldown, but deals high AoE damage on activation and can be upgraded to automatically cast
Lightning Bolt and
Chain Lightning on each
Windstrike. Very strong when fighting against elite enemies.
War Mode Talents to Level Up as an Enhancement Shaman
If you are willing to take the risk and utilize War Mode, the following PvP talents are recommended during leveling or for other open-world content. There may be times where you would like to use other options, and are encouraged to experiment! PvP talents can be freely changed at any time.
Your first PvP talent slot will unlock at Level 20, your second at Level 30, and the final at Level 40.
Recommended Enhancement PvP Talents
- Level 20:
Ride the Lightning adds additional damage to your
Stormstrike casts, helping you to dispatch groups of enemies quicker so is the most universal pick
- Level 30:
Stormweaver provides free healing whenever you spend
Maelstrom Weapon for damage, giving even more sustain without costing nearly as much damage to do so.
- Level 40:
Counterstrike Totem lets you pull aggressively and deal the damage back to enemies, using your own Health as a resource! Alternatively,
Burrow is an option as well as an escape tool if you get caught in a bad position, or for some opening burst.
Congratulations!
Congratulations on reaching Level 70! Now that you have reached end game, we recommend looking at our Easy mode page and Talents section to learn how to play at max level.
Changelog
- 01 May 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.
- 22 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
This guide has been written by Wordup, a frequent theorycrafter involved in a number of class communities. He is also an experienced player who has been in the world top 100 since the days of Sunwell, currently raiding in Echoes. You can also follow him on Twitter.
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