Enhancement Shaman DPS Mythic+ Tips — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. Enhancement Shaman in Mythic+

Enhancement has remained largely the same in Battle for Azeroth with regards to its approach to Mythic+, just with the added bonus of now having access to a strong burst tool with Sundering. We still remain a spec that can funnel AoE damage into a single high priority enemy in a particular group, as well as keeping the same utility options that we had, plus a couple of extra bonuses.

1.1. Enhancement Shaman Mythic+ Rotation

Nothing specifically changes when in Mythic+ compared to other content other than using Sundering. You should save the spell for when there are large groups of mobs, rather than wasting it on smaller, less dangerous groups. For more details on the Enhancement Shaman rotation, check our Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities page.

1.2. Enhancement Shaman Utility

Enhancement Shaman provides a number of small utility tools to help control and manage enemy groups, alongside a large number of support tools, such as offensive dispels, decurses and some crowd control options. Below is a list of these abilities, as well as their descriptions and uses.

• Purge allows you to dispel a single beneficial buff from enemies. This is much more useful in Battle for Azeroth dungeons, due to the increase in dangerous buffs that are present in some new dungeons.
• Cleanse Spirit dispels curses from friendly targets, and while it rarely used, there are occasional circumstances where this can come in handy.
• Wind Shear provides Enhancement with a ranged interrupt tool on a lower than average cooldown, which is extremely useful in all dungeons to keep dangerous casts at bay, even when you are pulled out of melee range.
• Capacitor Totem is Enhancement's AoE crowd control and is always a useful way of locking down large groups of enemies, especially alongside the ability to talent into Static Charge for increased frequency of use.
• Tremor Totem provides an AoE fear break for your group, and while this is a fairly niche tool, it can be useful in specific circumstances to bypass some mechanics - such as Rezan's Terrifying Visage in Atal'Dazar.
• Healing Surge can also be used as an off-healing tool that, while not extremely strong, can help to spot heal in emergencies.
• Earth Elemental is an emergency tool that can be used in situations where the tank is in extreme danger of dying, or has already died, to catch some loose enemies for a few seconds. It will likely die quickly, but relieving a small amount of pressure can be invaluable in M+.
• Sundering is a strong DPS tool and incapacitates targets hit. This is extremely niche, as enemies will likely be broken out of this, but it does also provide an interrupt, since the cast can bypass interrupt immunity.
• Hex can be used as a crowd control option in the event that a target is too dangerous to engage with others.
• Wind Rush Totem can be talented if additional movement speed is needed for the group.
• Bloodlust / Heroism provides a powerful burst of Haste with a 10-minute debuff that blocks repeat casts. This is great for pushing through the most dangerous pulls or bosses in a dungeon.

2. Mythic+ Talents for Enhancement Shaman

Below are the suggested talents for Mythic+. These talents are recommended for all groups and keys at the current time.

Level	Choices
15	✗ Boulderfist	✗ Hot Hand	✓ Lightning Shield
30	✗ Landslide	✓ Forceful Winds	✗ Totem Mastery
45	? Spirit Wolf	? Earth Shield	✓ Static Charge
60	✓ Searing Assault	✗ Hailstorm	✗ Overcharge
75	✓ Nature's Guardian	? Feral Lunge	? Wind Rush Totem
90	? Crashing Storm	? Fury of Air	✓ Sundering
100	✓ Elemental Spirits	✗ Earthen Spike	✓ Ascendance

This is generally oriented towards being an AoE build, but some options can be taken to augment your single target instead. Utility will largely be decided depending on how much additional survival you need, and the type that you need within a dungeon.

3. Mythic+ Affixes

The way Mythic+ affixes are tiered in Battle for Azeroth has changed quite a bit since their launch in Legion.

There are now three weekly affixes and one seasonal affix. The first affix is available instantly at level two and three, the second affix starts at level four, the third affix is enabled at level seven, and finally, the seasonal affix is at level ten.

3.1. Tier One Affixes

• Fortified increases the Health pool of all non-boss enemies by 20% and damage dealt by 30%.
• Tyrannical increases the Health pool of boss enemies by 40% and their damage dealt by 15%.

Fortified and Tyrannical are the two affixes every player will see. These affixes shift the focus of dungeons from boss to trash depending on the week. Enhancement Shaman will excel during Tyrannical weeks due to our strong sustained single target, alongside being able to take advantage of some fights with cleave to allow for additional funneled damage. During Fortified, however, Enhancement may possibly see some issues, as the health pool of enemies increases past the point of Sundering being impactful front-loaded damage. Crash Lightning, however, can shore this up due to it providing a solid backup for sustained AoE on higher health targets.

3.2. Tier Two Affixes

• Raging increases the damage dealt by enemies below 30% HP by 100% until they die.
• Teeming adds additional trash mobs to certain packs throughout each dungeon.
• Bolstering buffs remaining enemies Health pools and damage dealt by 20% when an enemy dies nearby. To counter this affix, DPS all mobs down evenly and focus your casts into high Health mobs if there are any.
• Sanguine places a pool of blood on the ground when a mob is slain. This pool will heal remaining enemies who stay inside the zone and also damage players.
• Bursting forces enemy mobs to detonate when slain, afflicting the group with a stacking debuff that causes players to suffer 10% of their max Health in damage every four seconds. When handling the Bursting affix, ask how many stacks your healer can handle and try to not mindlessly DPS and exceed your healers stack limit.

3.3. Tier Three Affixes

• Volcanic spawns volcanic plumes underneath and around players when in combat with any enemy. When damaged by Volcanic, players suffer 50% of their maximum Health pool in damage. The more enemies you are in combat with, the more Volcanic plumes that will spawn.
• Grievous afflicts players with a stacking DoT when they fall below 90%. Use Healing Surge to help out your healer when outside of combat.
• Quaking will periodically attempt to interrupt casters by creating a damaging zone around each player. About 3 seconds after the zone forms, it will deal 20% maximum Health in damage to each player caught in the zone, as well as interrupting any hard casts being finished during the shockwave.
• Explosive will occasionally spawn Explosive Orbs that need to be targeted and burned down within a short period of time or they will deal significant damage to the party. Explosive Orbs are not cleavable and the number of orbs that spawn scales with the number of enemies pulled.
• Necrotic debuffs the target of enemy melee swings with stacking healing reduction and a minor DoT.
• Skittish reduces the amount of threat generated by tanks throughout the dungeon. Be especially careful of this in melee, and manage your threat between targets based on what the tank is focusing.

3.4. Seasonal Affix

Infested is the seasonal affix for the launch of Battle for Azeroth. Enemies afflicted with the Infested debuff will be scattered throughout each dungeon once you reach key level ten. These mobs will heal enemies around them and, when slain, will spawn two Spawn of G'huun that will attempt to infest remaining enemies.

There are several ways to handle Infested mobs depending on pack size, which mob is infested, and group composition. The first way to handle an Infested enemy is to burn down the infested target and the subsequently spawning Spawn of G'huun, while either crowd controlling or ignoring the other mobs in the pack. The second way is to crowd control the Infested mob and burn down all the other enemies. After you kill an infested mob and the Spawns of G'huun spawn, Enhancement Shaman can use Earthbind Totem, Frostbrand, or Capacitor Totem to keep it controlled until it dies.

4. Mythic+ Azerite Traits

Generally you will not see a serious difference in the performance compared to normal combat situations. You can check out the Azerite or the Simulations Page to find out which options you should be aiming for.

5. Changelog