Enhancement Shaman DPS Mythic+ Tips — Shadowlands 9.2

In Mythic+ Dungeons, in particular at higher key levels, you will be presented with some of the most challenging and competitive PvE content available in WoW alongside Mythic Raiding.

In these when playing as Enhancement, your responsibility to contribute to the groups success will be higher than in most raiding groups due to the lower group size, therefore skill and execution of strategy is crucial. The importance of being versatile and able to adapt to any situation is a key factor here, and one of the main things that differentiate it from the more specialized builds used in raiding.

On top of damage, you will also be required to interrupt, dispel, and support the group at the same time. That means some of the abilities you otherwise would not use often can be invaluable to your group so make sure to utilize your entire suite of tools.

In this guide, we will be discussing the finer points of Enhancement Shaman and how to get the most out of it, how to gear and set up your character, and some tips to push yourself further.

If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our Shadowlands Mythic+ Season 2 page below.

If you want more information about all of the talent options and whether some could be useful in certain situations, you should use our dedicated Talent page.

Recommended talent choices for Enhancement in Mythic+ are as follows:

It is important to note that a lot of your talents and decisions are dictated by your Covenant of choice and Legendary selected, as there is a lot of inherent synergy between certain rows and these effects.

Level	Choices
15	✓ Lashing Flames	? Forceful Winds	✗ Elemental Blast
25	? Stormflurry	✓ Hot Hand	✗ Ice Strike
30	? Spirit Wolf	? Earth Shield	? Static Charge
35	✗ Elemental Assault	✓ Hailstorm	✓ Fire Nova
40	✓ Nature's Guardian	✗ Feral Lunge	? Wind Rush Totem
45	✗ Crashing Storm	✗ Stormkeeper	✓ Sundering
50	✓ Elemental Spirits	✗ Earthen Spike	✗ Ascendance

In Mythic+ your tier 1 choice is, in the majority of builds and situations, Lashing Flames. This deals very competitive single-target damage and now that we can spread Flame Shock, we can apply this to multiple targets to gain value in AoE. It can also find easier paths to applying this with both the Hot Hand and Primal Lava Actuators effects. Forceful Winds is a niche option if playing Doom Winds for uncapped AoE situations, while Elemental Blast is too focused on single-target and should never be taken.

Hot Hand is the consistently best choice on this tier, providing extremely strong single-target and also upping the frequency of your ability to spread Flame Shock and apply Lashing Flames. While this can be RNG, the procs are explosive enough to make it worthwhile. Stormflurry is another niche pick to pair with Doom Winds in uncapped AoE situations, but is otherwise weak. Ice Strike should be avoided in all circumstances, and in certain AoE situations is a DPS loss to even press.

Spirit Wolf is generally the pick here, just as an extra emergency damage reduction tool and additional mobility. Earth Shield can increase your sustain if needed, but prevents you from using Lightning Shield. Lastly the chances of Static Charge consistently granting extra uses of Capacitor Totem when it is actually needed is low.

Your decision here is dictated by the dungeon you are doing and the average size of pulls being done. Hailstorm will win out in lower pull count areas (such as Tyrannical weeks or those with 2-4 mob pulls), while Fire Nova will win out in all other situations. The latter also is much less disruptive to the rotation that can get busy when playing Primal Lava Actuators. Elemental Assault is extremely focused on single-target and as such is not recommended.

Nature's Guardian provides the only passive survival tool on the entire tree, which Enhancement is sorely lacking. It is relatively low impact, but helps with sustain in bad situations. Feral Lunge has niche uses in certain encounters if you need instant displacement, but is a greed pick. Wind Rush Totem can assist your group and improve your pace within dungeons, and is the selfless choice.

Sundering is the go-to talent here. An ability that provides both high burst AoE and crowd control in one package on a medium cooldown is too nice to pass up for a spec that needs exactly that. Stormkeeper provides very little gains and is heavily target-limited to 3, while Crashing Storm suffers from requiring time to deal its damage and the issue of enemies moving out of the pool, alongside us no longer having the free global cooldowns to consistently trigger it.

Due to a number of factors such as the tier bonus and the other talents that have risen to the top, the only pick on this row is Elemental Spirits. The other two options here are too low impact in the majority of situations and also flood us with high-demand global cooldowns we simply do not have the room to make use of, so they are not recommended.

Currently, there are 4 options that have builds that can be used depending on the situation. They are listed below in order of how useful they are alongside what Covenant to pair it with:

• Primal Lava Actuators — this is consistently the best option in most situations, and is paired with Necrolord.
• Doom Winds — a niche pick for situations where you absolutely require uncapped AoE, as it is the only way we can gain this. This can be paired with any Covenant.
• Skybreaker's Fiery Demise — niche for sustained AoE to gain extra cooldown reduction on Chain Harvest and is focused on pure 5-target AoE. This only works with Venthyr.
• Witch Doctor's Wolf Bones — niche for specifically Tyrannical weeks where you need to focus on extra boss damage. This is paired with Night Fae.

For more information about different Enhancement Shaman legendaries, you can look at our dedicated Legendary page.

Your choice here is dictated by the type of damage you want to deal, your talent build, and Legendary selection as each has synergy with different aspects of the spec. The current dominant pick in most situations is Necrolord due to the strength of Splintered Elements for funnel paired with Primal Lava Actuators.

• Necrolord provides some strong Soulbind options for extra Mastery, which works with all of the tools we make use of in AoE situations. There are two options for Soulbinds, those being Plague Deviser Marileth for more single-target with Kevin's Oozeling (Recommended Build), or Bonesmith Heirmir for more upfront AoE with Carver's Eye (Recommended Build).
• Venthyr provides burst AoE and additional support via healing from Chain Harvest. It has a reliance on 4-6 targets being active to maintain cooldown reduction via Elemental Conduit, which makes it more specialized. It specifically uses Theotar the Mad Duke for high uptime on Wasteland Propriety (Recommended Build).
• Night Fae is more specialized because a lot of what it excels at is more single-target oriented, which hurts it. The strength of Korayn has also gone down, and while it can be played for First Strike we generally prefer to play Dreamweaver for the extra burst it provides with Field of Blossoms (Recommended Build).
• Kyrian is generally the weakest option, and while it does bring some good AoE burst the lack of strong synergy and the globals required to make full use of Raging Vesper Vortex makes it weaker. We still always opt into Forgelite Prime Mikanikos if playing it due to the strength of Hammer of Genesis (Recommended Build).

For Conduit choices you will always be picking Focused Lightning for your first Potency slot. After that, you will generally pick your selected Covenant choice, and your third pick will be Magma Fist or Unruly Winds depending on your Legendary selection. Endurance should always take Condensed Anima Sphere first, and after that it is personal preference. Finesse follows the same rule of pick what you think you can find the most use out of as they have low impact.

Covenant and Soulbind selections have a lot of different factors, so we recommend looking at our page discussing them for more information.

Our tier set bonuses are generally very low impact in Mythic+ due to how focused they are on single-target. They are nice to have for bosses and the extra wolf spawns can align with certain effects (in particular if it is Fire), but have no strong impact on the way we play nor how we build.

This season's affix activated at key level 10 and above is Encrypted. This causes 3 different relics to spawn in specific packs throughout a dungeon, and always with every boss when engaged. Depending on which relic you kill, a different enemy will spawn that will provide a specific buff when killed:

• Urh Relic — will spawn a large automa that applies a tankbuster to its target and casts Force Slam which should be avoided. When killed, you gain Decrypted Urh Cypher for 10 seconds which grants 200% cooldown recovery rate and restore 10% Health and Mana every second.
• Vy Relic — will spawn a ranged automa that will fire at random party members and occasionally teleport away to cast Fusion Beam, a large line attack that is extremely dangerous and should be avoided. When killed you will gain Decrypted Vy Cypher for 45 seconds that grants 15% Haste and an on-hit damage proc.
• Wo Relic — will spawn a caster automa that will cast Burst that needs to be interrupted. When killed you will gain Decrypted Wo Cypher for 1 minute, granting 150% movement speed, 15% reduced damage taken and providing stealth when out of combat.

Due to the nature of our damage profile being quite good for focusing a single anchor target and cleaving off it, we are very good at killing the correct relic. You should aim to focus the desired relic down while others begin AoEing to make sure the wrong automa does not spawn.

Generally most groups will kill the Urh Relic because it is the least difficult mob to deal with, and benefits the entire group. Each of these buffs equates to roughly 20 extra seconds off your longer cooldown abilities, and will also allow you to fire off rotational abilities extremely quickly. As such you should plan around these windows and not hold onto cooldowns too much and waste the effect.

Legion Timewalking comes with a new Keystone Level 10+ Seasonal Affix, Infernal and will spawn an object that can be interacted with in front of each boss. This will either spawn a Legion Lieutenant with a wave of adds when interacted with, or will immediately trigger when the boss is pulled, so depending on which boss you are dealing with you may want to handle it on its own.

The main rotation is going to be very similar to the one outlined in our rotation page for either single-target or AoE situations. However, unlike in raids the majority of pulls are much shorter than raid encounters and there is downtime between them that can be leveraged for extra benefits.

The details below are mostly specific to the make-up of dungeons, so if you are looking for a general overview instead then use our Rotation page:

Our opener is contingent on what your current build is, and as such we have provided a small tool here to select your choices that significantly alter how you perform this sequence.

Talents	Covenant	Legendaries
Hailstorm	Vesper Totem	Doom Winds
Fire Nova	Primordial Wave
Sundering	Fae Transfusion
Ascendance	Chain Harvest

1. Pre-cast Windfury Totem on the way to each pack.
2. Cast Flame Shock on your priority target.
3. Cast Feral Spirit on the way to the pack.
4. Cast Fae Transfusion to activate the Seeds of Rampant Growth buff.
5. Cast Crash Lightning — this should grant a large amount of Maelstrom Weapon.
6. Cast Vesper Totem if Kyrian — make sure you are in combat so you trigger Effusive Anima Accelerator.
7. Cast Lava Lash to spread Flame Shock from your anchor target.
8. Cast Primordial Wave, aim to cast this on a target not affected by Flame Shock.
9. Cast Lightning Bolt with 5 Maelstrom Weapon stacks to trigger Splintered Elements.
10. Cast Fire Nova.
11. Cast Ascendance, hit as many targets as possible with the AoE.
12. Cast Windfury Totem to trigger Doom Winds.
13. Cast Crash Lightning.
14. Cast Chain Harvest with 5 Maelstrom Weapon charges.
15. Cast Chain Lightning to gain cooldown reduction on Crash Lightning.
16. Cast Sundering
17. Cast Chain Lightning to generate Hailstorm stacks.
18. Cast Frost Shock to consume Hailstorm charges.
19. Continue with the normal AoE cycle.

Starting a pull with some Maelstrom Weapon left over from the previous pack is usually very helpful for smoothing out the opening. If a pull is about to end and mobs are dying, avoid overspending it to finish them off and carry it to the next. This also extends to Hailstorm stacks if you know another pull is coming up soon.

Enhancement only comes with one baseline cooldown in Feral Spirit, which is amplified by the locked-in talent Elemental Spirits. Baseline, it has little impact and mostly serves as a Maelstrom Weapon generator and a bit of extra single-target damage, but with some lucky Fire wolf rolls it can be useful if it aligns with Sundering, Fire Nova, and Hot Hand windows. This is mostly fired on cooldown and does not need to be played around because of how low-value it is.

On the rare occasions when playing Ascendance, it is mostly an AoE cooldown from the on-cast burst, while the Windstrike access it gives is more for single-target.

If you are playing with Doom Winds, that means that you should not be pre-casting Windfury Totem before each pull to make sure you get full benefit from the buff. Make sure to get as many active Crash Lightning casts inside the window as possible. This usually caps at 3 so long as you have spare Maelstrom Weapon to activate the cooldown reduction from Chain Lightning, so have this ready as you drop it. Try to also sync it up with Sundering as this also triggers Windfury Weapon in AoE.

Due to its low cooldown make sure to use this as much as possible, this is a huge burst tool in all situations and is the main reason to play this Legendary.

Sundering is an incredibly versatile tool that, despite being a talent is hugely useful. This can interrupt targets that are otherwise immune and do a huge burst of damage. Making use of this depends on each dungeon, and you can gain value from both effects throughout each run so use this often and early.

Hex is somewhat similar in its role allowing you to either control a dangerous enemy or emergency interrupt a cast. This can also be paired with the Crippling Hex Conduit for a little extra defense.

Capacitor Totem is your AoE stun tool to lock down mobs as you begin a pull to stabilize. This tends to be extra useful on larger pulls to give the tank a chance to grab aggro before enemies begin casting, or to prevent key effects.

Wind Shear is your interrupt tool and is one of the best available to any class. Being both ranged and having such a low cooldown makes you excellent for locking down targets with interruptible casts. You should be the one aggressively grabbing these and allowing those with longer cooldowns to handle less frequent casts if possible. Coordinate this with your group before starting the dungeon.

Earth Elemental is an extremely powerful emergency tool if the tank either dies or is struggling to handle a pack. This has a long cooldown, so use it in emergencies.

Reincarnation allows you to resurrect after dying. This can be used to get back up after a lethal ability, or more importantly can be used to skip certain packs. The ability to run ahead with your group, die and then resurrect them is often key to a lot of routes.

Dispels: your toolkit includes an offensive dispel in Purge, a decurse in Cleanse Spirit and a fear break with Tremor Totem. These effects are frequent in many dungeons and you will often find yourself using these to deal with certain mobs, and should be used as much as possible.

Off-Healing: while healing is not your primary role, we can use multiple tools to assist in dangerous situations. A Maelstrom Weapon empowered Healing Surge will often stabilize yourself or an ally, and should be used in emergencies. Healing Stream Totem should also be used whenever a gap in your rotation happens to help out. Lastly, three of the four Covenant options all come with off-healing benefits with Vesper Totem, Chain Harvest, and Fae Transfusion.

We also bring both Windfury Totem for other melee in your group and Bloodlust. With the reduction in strength of the consumable drums, this is even more valuable now if your group has no other access to this effect.

There are no significant alterations to the gear choices you should be making compared to normal single-target and AoE situations, however we heavily recommend simming your own character to make sure. Having Patchwerk, and then Hectic Add Cleave/Dungeon Slice profiles to see what can be optimized are the ideal profiles to use.

Trinkets tend to lean toward on use or proc effects that are powerful in all situations rather than specific ones, so your mileage may vary compared to those that are picked in raids. We tend to lean toward one stat stick paired with another on-use trinket due to our more consistent damage profile with small bursts. If you want to know more about gear to aim for, you can look at our gear page.