Enhancement Shaman DPS Easy Mode — The War Within (11.2)

In Raids, Enhancement currently plays Stormbringer, and therefore focuses very heavily on the resource management aspect of Maelstrom Weapon to leverage Tempest. It also boasts strong 2-minute burst cooldowns using Ascendance.

It still maintains a solid cleave toolkit for different encounter types, and picks up a variety of different melee strikes to fill space in between casts of your primary resource generator - Stormstrike.

If you are interested in a deep dive on this or a Totemic build, check our talent page:

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

In AoE, while the execution requirement of Stormbringer is higher, it's simply too far ahead with the Season 3 Tier Set to recommend anything else. This focuses on Maelstrom Weapon cycling at its core, using Tempest to fuel huge burst damage when aligned with cooldowns.

It fills space with a mixture of Crash Lightning, Stormstrike and other resource generating abilities, and spends aggressively on Chain Lightning. It also comes with strong 30-second burst with Primordial Wave / Primordial Storm, and explosive 2-minute damage during Ascendance.

If you are interested in a deep dive on this or a Totemic build, check our talent page:

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

Before entering combat, always make sure to do the following:

• Apply Weapon Imbues - Windfury Weapon on your main-hand, and Flametongue Weapon on your off-hand. These automatically apply to the appropriate weapon when cast.
• Cast Group Buffs - Use Skyfury to buff you and your party with Mastery and auto-attack procs.
• Apply Your Shield - Stormbringer always uses Lightning Shield due to Nature's Protection.

In single-target, Enhancement is GCD locked when playing Stormbringer, and the focus is solely on good Maelstrom Weapon management. Here's a brief breakdown to get you started:

• Spend your Maelstrom - Maelstrom Weapon should be spent whenever above 8+ stacks.
  Priority - Tempest ➜ Elemental Blast ➜ Lightning Bolt.
• Use Melee Strikes and Fillers - Cast Stormstrike on cooldown. When unavailable, cast fillers.
  Priority - Ice Strike ➜ Voltaic Blaze ➜ Lava Lash ➜ Sundering.
• Use Your Minor Cooldowns - Feral Spirit is cast on cooldown, roughly every 30 seconds.
  Every minute, cast this just before activating Doom Winds.
• Time Your 2-minute Burst - Ascendance is used every 2 minutes.
  Set up minor cooldowns first before using. Cast Windstrike every GCD while active.

In AoE, it's very hard to simplify some of the complex aspects of Stormbringer. Here, I'm going to preface that some of these rules are very condensed to help get you started, in particular when it comes to Tempest management:

• Spend Maelstrom Weapon - Maelstrom Weapon should be spent whenever above 8+ stacks.
  Priority - Tempest ➜ Chain Lightning.
• Use Strikes to Generate - Time between spenders should be used to generate.
  Priority - Crash Lightning ➜ Voltaic Blaze ➜ Stormstrike ➜ Ice Strike ➜ Lava Lash.
• Execute Primordial Wave - Every 30 seconds Primordial Wave requires a key combo:
  Have Flame Shock applied and spread with Lava Lash.
  Cast Primordial Wave to apply Lightning Rod and Splintered Elements.
  Cast Primordial Storm using 10 Maelstrom Weapon before it expires.
• Use Cooldowns - Ascendance is used every 2 minutes.
  Every GCD while active should be Windstrike to cycle Maelstrom Weapon.
  Doom Winds is used every minute to overlap other cooldown effects.

When you feel comfortable with this core foundation, you've got the building blocks needed to dive deeper into the more advanced Tempest optimization that Stormbringer is capable of. You can find details and more on our full Rotation Page:

Enhancement has a lighter defensive toolkit, having powerful individual tools with longer cooldowns. 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 and 5% damage reduction for 1-minute, on a 5-minute cooldown. This is a "backup" cooldown when you cannot use Astral Shift, and can cover very long periods of time. It does, however, have a habit of getting itself killed due to its taunting, so be wary of using it if it will bother your tank.
• Stone Bulwark Totem - provides a 30% max health absorb shield, and an additional 3% shield every 5 seconds for 30 seconds, on a 3-minute cooldown. This is a decent survival tool against burst damage with some additional help against rot effects, but its long cooldown makes it inflexible, so plan accordingly.
• 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.
• Maelstrom Weapon - can be used to make Healing Surge instant, providing emergency healing to ourselves, but this comes at a very high cost to damage by spending our offensive resources to do so.
• Earth Shield - grants a modest amount of healing over the course of an encounter with each charge consumed, and increases the healing we do to ourselves while active. This has a high GCD requirement to maintain, but does provide some extra sustain if used pro-actively.
• Seasoned Winds - provides very powerful damage reduction after successfully interrupting a spell, giving us more 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:

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

Remember that stat priorities will change based on other talents taken in different builds. In general, the above should serve you well in most content, but for for finer details regarding each stat you can look at our stat priority page linked below.

Added in Patch 11.1.7, the Rotation Assist tool curated by Blizzard has two modes: the first highlights action bar buttons with a recommended priority, while the second provides a single keybind that automatically presses the top priority ability on that same list, but with a 25% GCD penalty between casts.

This provides a good starting point when jumping into Enhancement, as it can often be overwhelming with the sheer amount of options it has. It does, however, come with a performance loss and has some issues when using it to keep in mind. The most important of these is that it currently does not use Ascendance, any racial bonuses or on-use trinkets - these all need to be cast manually while using the tool. It will also not make use of defensive, utility or crowd control tools for you.

The estimated losses compared to a standard rotation based on Hero Talent choice and content type can be found in the table below:

Hero Talent	Single-Target	AoE
Stormbringer Assist	-16%	-34%
Stormbringer One-Button	-32%	-46%
Totemic Assist	-6%	-8%
Totemic One-Button	-18%	-28%

Due to the tools poor handling of Maelstrom Weapon for Stormbringer in particular, we strongly recommend switching to Totemic whenever using this tool to avoid significant performance losses. This is especially true in AoE where, even with cooldowns inserted, it still struggles to manage its resources properly.

Due to the recommendations elsewhere on this page, we've provided a suitable Totemic single-target build if you're intending in using this feature: