Enhancement Shaman DPS Easy Mode — 12.1

In Raids and single-target in Season 2, Stormbringer takes the lead due to its stronger burst and potent cleave baked into the toolkit. It has a heavy focus on your Maelstrom Weapon resource usage, and uses Stormstrike as its main melee ability.

It takes Ascendance as its cooldown, providing extremely high burst every 2 minutes.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!

Much like in single-target, Stormbringer has firmly pulled ahead in AoE and dungeon situations. It makes use of Ride the Lightning, Chain Lightning and Tempest to deal additional damage through Conductive Energy, and deals especially well with lower target counts.

It has extremely strong and reliable burst every two minutes with Ascendance, and unreliable burst through Doom Winds and Tempest procs that need to be reacted to.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!

Before entering combat, always remember to apply the following effects.

• Apply Shield & Imbues
  Instinctive Imbuements applies all Shields and Weapon Imbues via Lightning Shield.
• Cast Group Buffs
  Use Skyfury to buff you and your party with Mastery and auto-attack procs.
  Cast Earth Shield on your tank, as Elemental Orbit allows for two.

In single-target, Enhancement needs to manage its resources correctly to remain GCD locked, while avoiding Maelstrom Weapon waste as Stormbringer. It also has a number of procs to react to:

• Spend your Maelstrom
  Maelstrom Weapon is spent at 10 stacks with a Tempest proc, and Lightning Bolt otherwise.
  Can be used at lower stacks for Elemental Tempo CDR on Stormstrike.
• Use Crash Lightning and Melee Strikes
  Cast Voltaic Blaze on cooldown, and Crash Lightning when available.
  Rotation Priority – Voltaic Blaze ➜ Crash Lightning ➜ Stormstrike ➜ Lava Lash.
• Utilize your Cooldowns
  Ascendance should be used every two minutes.
  While active, cast Crash Lightning when available, otherwise Windstrike.
  Cast Voltaic Blaze whenever available using the new 2-piece.
• React to Procs
  Stormbringer has three procs – Tempest, Storm Unleashed & Thunder Capacitor.
  Tempest – replaces Lightning Bolt, spend with 10 stacks.
  Storm Unleashed – resets Crash Lightning, use ASAP.
  Thunder Capacitor – refunds Maelstrom Weapon for back-to-back spenders.

When trying to learn Enhancement's rotation principles, it can be a lot to take in at once. We recommend learning things in stages, in the following order:

Enhancement Single-Target

Melee Strike Juggling ➜ Maelstrom Weapon Management ➜ Cooldown Usage

In AoE, Stormbringer plays almost exactly the same, with a higher focus on Maelstrom Weapon efficiency due to additional resources:

• Spend Maelstrom Weapon
  Maelstrom Weapon is spent on Chain Lightning in AoE. Spend at 10 stacks.
  Tempest procs should always be spent as a priority with 10 stacks.
• Use Rotational Abilities Effectively
  Voltaic Blaze is top priority with the 2-piece:
  Ability Priority – Voltaic Blaze ➜ Crash Lightning ➜ Stormstrike ➜ Lava Lash.
• Use Cooldowns Effectively
  Ascendance is used every 2 minutes, ideally on dangerous pulls.
  While active, cast Crash Lightning whenever available, and otherwise Windstrike.
  Still cast Voltaic Blaze on cooldown with the 2-piece.

In AoE Enhancement can be a little overwhelming due to how much is going on. It can be easy to get lost in what to do, so we'd recommend focusing on things in chunks, ideally in the following order:

Enhancement AoE

Learn Single-Target ➜ Optimize Maelstrom Weapon Management ➜ Burst Cooldown Windows

If you feel comfortable with these more basic breakdowns and are looking for a deeper understanding, you can check our Rotation Page, which covers decision making at a deeper level:

All recommended builds on this page play with four points in the Apex Talent, Storm Unleashed. This is simply an extra proc to watch out for - whenever it triggers, try to spend it on Crash Lightning quickly. Since the buff overlaps thanks to the first point, you don't lose out on anything by refreshing the effect early.

Enhancement's Season Two Tier Set, the Ophidian Oracle's Prophecy, provides the following two bonuses:

• Shaman Enhancement 12.1 Class Set 2pc – Voltaic Blaze causes your primary target to erupt in a Fire Nova every 2 sec for 6 sec. Fire Nova deals 200% increased damage to the primary target of your Voltaic Blaze.
• Shaman Enhancement 12.1 Class Set 4pc – Fire Nova reduces the cooldown of Crash Lightning by 2 sec, and increases the damage of your next Crash Lightning by 8%, stacking up to 5 times.

Both of these bonuses are quite complicated in how they work, but in practice it only changes a couple of things. It puts Voltaic Blaze at the top of your rotational priority, and adds extra importance on keeping Crash Lightning on cooldown. These heavily incentivize picking up Fire Nova in AoE, and all 4 points in the Apex Talent, Storm Unleashed.

Enhancement has infrequent active defensives in its toolkit, but each of them can be quite potent when they're available. This means you need to be a little more careful when engaging in combat.

Astral Shift - provides 40% damage reduction for 12 seconds on a 1.5-minute cooldown (using Planes Traveler). This is Enhancement's strongest defensive tool, and while it has a longer cooldown than most defensives, it provides a lot of safety while active.

Earth Elemental - grants 15% maximum health for 30 seconds, on a 3-minute cooldown. This is a "backup" cooldown when you cannot use Astral Shift, and can cover longer periods of damage. Primordial Bond is important to avoid it taunting enemies and dying, though this can be dropped when solo to provide a personal tank.

Spirit Wolf - provides up to a 20% damage reduction after remaining in Ghost Wolf for an extended period. This is a last resort defensive tool if you have nothing else available, as we cannot deal any damage while shapeshifted.

Overflowing Maelstrom - when spending Maelstrom Weapon, it provides an equal number of stacks of a separate buff. This will apply the same effect to your Healing Surge or Chain Heal, allowing you to weave in some self-healing if needed. This is a less painful DPS loss than previous iterations (though is equally less potent), and it's almost always available in a pinch.

Earth Shield - grants a modest amount of healing over the course of an encounter. Therazane's Resilience is strongly recommended here to keep it permanent, alongside Elemental Orbit so you can maintain Lightning Shield. This can also be applied to a second ally for a small amount of off-healing.

Windveil - provides powerful damage reduction after successfully interrupting a spell, giving us an extra incentive to do so if there is a lot of damage happening.

The most versatile Enhancement stat priority that will cover both builds on offer here is as follows. For more information on what's presented on this page, check out our main Stat Priority page.

1. Agility
2. Mastery = Haste
3. Critical Strike
4. Versatility

When it comes to gearing in Season 2 in Midnight, you want to prioritize your Tier Set as quickly as possible, and crafting a weapon is a quick way to gain a lot of power right out the gate. Due to how many different options are available when it comes to gearing a character, it's best to jump over to our main Gearing page for a more comprehensive breakdown on things to chase.

Added during The War Within, this has slowly improved, and is a bit better in Midnight. With some of the simplification happening to some of the more complex Enhancement mechanics, this is a more reasonable jumping off point if you're looking to learn the spec. It comes in two versions - an action bar highlight based off a curated Blizzard priority, or a single keybind that automatically presses that button (though, with a 25% GCD penalty between casts when used).

It does, however, come at a performance loss, and some extra limitations. Most importantly, the tool will currently not use Ascendance when taken, any racial bonuses or on-use trinkets - these all need to be cast manually by you if you use it. This also extends to movement, defensive and crowd control abilities.

While the tool is definitely better in Midnight, it does still require manual input to make use of it. Both Hero Trees now work similarly, but since Totemic doesn't take Ascendance, it fares better due to it making use of the full toolkit without manual assistance. When used this way, it acts as a good learning tool when trying to get to grips with the spec, or if you want to take it easy during some slower content.