Enhancement Shaman DPS Mythic+ Tips — Dragonflight 10.0.7
In this guide, you will find tips and advice to tackle Mythic+ dungeons with your Enhancement Shaman in World of Warcraft — Dragonflight 10.0.7.
Unique Challenges of Mythic+
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 keystones, when playing as Enhancement, your responsibility to contribute to the group's success will be higher than in most raiding groups due to the smaller size. Therefore skill and execution of strategy are crucial. 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 Dragonflight Season 1 page below.
Enhancement Shaman Mythic+ Talent Builds
If you want more information about talent options and whether some could be useful in certain situations, you should use our dedicated Talent page.
There are currently two build archetypes available in Elementalist and Physical, each having strengths and weaknesses in different situations. They also come with several flexible talents that can be switched around depending on what specifically you want to round out a group composition. That said, currently, the most commonly used build in most keys is Elementalist, with some small variations depending on specific dungeons. Below are import codes for a sample build of each, and underneath we will go into more detail specifically about this build:
- Elementalist Mythic+: BcQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIJJpEJISSISCUSkAAAAAAAAAAAAAKRIJkolioQSLJpAoEkQgA
- Physical Mythic+: BcQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIRSKASSSiIJSSLRCAAAAAAAAAAAAoEhkQiWKiCJtkkCgSQCBC
Recommended Build: Elementalist
While both builds can work, builds that follow this archetype are significantly more flexible with talent points and provide excellent single-target, cleave, and AoE with frequent access to burst cooldowns. This allows it to slot in easily to any dungeon type without necessarily needing a bespoke route to make it work. We recommend this over the more specialized Physical options. Specific talent quirks are discussed underneath:
Talent Considerations
One of the best parts of this build is that it has a pool of 5-6 talents that allow you to select up to 3-4 of them, each providing a tailored benefit should a dungeon or weekly affix lean into you requiring one damage profile. The talents in question are:
Elemental Blast &
Storm's Wrath - good in Tyrannical weeks, and provides more single-target and priority damage should your group need it. In any situation where you do not take Elemental Blast, you should always drop Storm's Wrath alongside it as this is entirely for pathing, so it opens up two points.
Windfury Totem - should your group contain a multiple melee players that have a strong benefit from this effect, this should be taken, but is otherwise avoided if in a caster heavy group.
Stormflurry* - when you drop both of the above talents and there is no strong Windfury Totem synergy, this is the best alternative.
Swirling Maelstrom - This is very good for consistency due to the
Ice Strike /
Hailstorm package and provides some reliable
Maelstrom Weapon generation in all situations.
Windfury Weapon - should you want to take all of the other talents here, there is an option to drop this and replace the imbue instead with a
Howling Rune for additional Haste. Do not use double
Flametongue Weapon, it provides no extra effects when doing so.
Crashing Storms - this heavily leans into AoE, and as such, if you are doing more modest pulls or need less sustained AoE, it is an option to drop in exchange for other talents.
Notes on Physical
While not the recommended build, there are Physical variations that can be used depending on preference. There are two primary areas that it excels at over the alternatives:
- Uncapped Burst AoE - Through the pairing of
Doom Winds,
Splintered Elements and
Alpha Wolf, you can have an explosive uncapped burst of AoE if you pull around these cooldowns. In some dungeons, such as Algeth'ar Academy, when this type of damage is required this is our best way of doing so at an inflated target count.
- Pure single-target - if your group already has AoE covered and you
want to go all in on boss damage; there is an option to play a variation taking
the
Deeply Rooted Elements pathway to provide an extreme (but unreliable!) boss damage profile at a high cost to AoE.
Dragonflight Season 1 Affix: Thundering
In Dragonflight Mythic+ Season 1 the seasonal affix is Thundering,
and is present in every keystone at leveel 10 or above. In short, a lightning
storm will periodically be triggered throughout the dungeon, creating several
dodgeable lightning strikes. At this time, everyone in the party will be marked
with one of two debuffs, increasing damage and healing by 30%. However, if this
debuff is not removed within 15 seconds (by having two players with opposite
debuffs make contact with one another), debuffed players will be stunned and
suffer heavy Nature damage over 5 seconds.
Enhancement has no immediate tools to cheat with this, but since you are melee, the group should usually be aware of where you are standing to orient around you. Be especially careful if you intend to clear with the tank, as frontals can be a quick way to get yourself killed if you time it poorly. You should ideally orient yourself so you can clear this without panic as comfortably as possible with a DPS or healer before resorting to this. Ideally, when playing the affix properly, you will remove this debuff as late as possible for the damage increase, but sometimes this is not possible, so do not risk letting it expire.
Rotational Considerations for Enhancement Shaman in Mythic+
The main rotation will 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. This also means
you should consider holding high damage tools such as Primordial Wave
for a fresh pack if the current one is about to die.
The details below are primarily specific to the make-up of dungeons, so if you are looking for a general overview instead, then use our Rotation page:
Mythic+ AoE Burst Opener for Enhancement Shaman
Our opener is contingent on what your current build is. As such, we have provided a small tool to select your choices that significantly alter how you perform this sequence. Please note that this list assumes that you are familiar with the basics of Enhancement's AoE damage kit.
Talent Selections | ||
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- Cast
Flame Shock on your priority target.
- Continue with the normal AoE cycle.
Since Algeth'ar Puzzle Box is a popular trinket, if you are using this
you should pre-cast it just before a pack is pulled to get the Mastery buff
for the opener.
An alternative here if you are playing Doom Winds plus
Splintered Elements
is that you can forego much of the cycle and repeat
Crash Lightning and
Chain Lightning during the window due to the enormous amount of Haste.
This sacrifices some damage but leads to enormous amounts of
Maelstrom Weapon,
allowing for multiple
Feral Spirit casts and thus
Alpha Wolf damage
if taken.
Maelstrom Weapon Management
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 stacks to finish them off
and instead carry them to the next group of mobs. This advice also extends to
Hailstorm stacks if you know another pull is coming up soon.
Cooldown Usage and Optimizations
Primordial Wave
This is one of our strongest Mythic+ tools and as such is the thing you
should play around the most. Your entire opening sequence should be setting up
for as many Flame Shocks as possible and then casting this for a strong
Splintered Elements window to get yourself started. Due to its low
cooldown, this is used as often as possible to avoid wasting uses unless a
pack is about to die and the follow up buff would be wasted.
In boss encounters this is simply a burst tool, so if there are adds
that are going to spawn then make sure this overlaps with them to gain additional
damage from hitting extra targets - it is almost always worth delaying it
to do so. Also, make sure that Feral Spirit is on cooldown when
you cast this to avoid wasting the cooldown reduction provided from the
Maelstrom Weapon it generates.
Doom Winds
Make sure to get as many active Crash Lightning casts inside the
window as possible. This usually caps at 2-3, so long as you have spare
Maelstrom Weapon to activate the cooldown reduction from
Chain Lightning, so have this ready as you cast it. Try to also sync it
up with
Sundering as this also triggers
Windfury Weapon in AoE.
If you are playing
Splintered Elements, aim to fit these windows in
during the buff, as it lasts 12 seconds and makes it significantly easier to
get extra
Crash Lightning casts in.
Feral Spirit
If you use the base Feral Spirit or
Alpha Wolf talents,
you will gain a multiplicative stacking buff to your physical abilities for
each active wolf. As a result, you should try to align your
Sundering
and
Doom Winds casts with these windows to capitalize on
increased burst damage from stacking cooldowns. Alpha Wolf, on the other hand,
should naturally be getting activated by your rotation.
If you have the Elemental Spirits talent instead, then the buff provided
by your wolves will depend upon the type randomly summoned, increasing
the damage done by your Fire, Frost, or Nature abilities by 20% stacking
multiplicatively per wolf of the same type.
Elemental Blast derives full
benefit from any combination of these buffs, so you should bank your
Elemental Blast charges to unleash into
Elemental Spirits
windows where possible if you have incorporated it into your build.
Additionally, all versions of Feral Spirit serve as a significant
source of
Maelstrom Weapon stacks and contribute a bit of extra
single-target damage with their attacks. This ability should be mostly used
on cooldown, especially if you are talented into
Witch Doctor's Ancestry
as this effect will rapidly refresh the cooldown of your wolves, and thus any
time spent sitting on a
Feral Spirit cooldown is time spent, not reducing
its cooldown - resulting in a significant DPS loss over time.
Ascendance
Ascendance generates a powerful AoE Nature damage
explosion from the on-cast burst, so if you are anticipating the arrival of a
large pack of enemies, it may be worth holding off on using it right away in
order to benefit more from the explosion. If talented into
Thorim's Invocation, make sure that your
Windstrike is primed to
fire the correct
Maelstrom Weapon spender (either
Lightning Bolt
or
Chain Lightning) for the situation, you are facing before you use the
cooldown - otherwise, your
Windstrike casts will not convert your
Maelstrom Weapon stacks into damage as efficiently as possible.
Enhancement Shaman Survival and Mobility in Mythic+
Having access to some strong movement and survival tools is necessary for success in Mythic+, but usually the most important is your defense out of the two. You should only take as much mobility as you need to get through rather than what is comfortable, and focus the rest on defense to survive punishing mechanics. For defense, considerations are:
Astral Shift + Follow-up Talents - Always taken, it is our strong off-GCD defensive tool and is the staple for surviving dangerous mechanics.
Brimming with Life - a flat 8% Health bonus is mandatory in higher keys, and is very painful to lose if you have to Ankh in a dungeon.
Spirit Wolf - a consideration if lethal mechanics are too frequent to cover with active defensives, but does cost damage to make use of.
Earth Elemental - the flat HP boost can be used alongside damage reduction tools to survive extremely high damage events, and has a long duration, but the cooldown can be restrictive depending on the dungeon being run.
Earth Shield - Provides a small amount of bonus healing at the cost of some GCDs, alongside boosting our off-healing on ourselves. Worth taking due to being a low cost point and the Patch 10.0.7 buffs.
Ancestral Defense +
Elemental Warding - passive damage reduction tools that work at all times, at a low point cost. Over the course of a dungeon will grant a lot of additional survival so should always be considered.
For mobility we can usually get away with just Ghost Wolf and
Spirit Walk
to deal with most situations, and should not need any other tools. Instead, points
should be spent on some of our utility options.
Enhancement Shaman Utility in Mythic+
Single Target Crowd Control
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 for an
excellent tool to disrupt targets with interruptible casts continually. You
should be the one aggressively going after dangerous interrupts; allow other
classes with longer interrupt cooldowns to handle less frequent casts or to be
saved for emergencies if possible. Coordinate this with your group
before starting the dungeon.
Lightning Lasso can be used as a single-target stun, but the damage
it deals is nowhere near as much as you would be doing when not channeling. This
is moreso used to interrupt a cast then cancelled to continue dealing damage
through other methods, and has a very contentious choice on the node which
makes it more niche.
Hex is somewhat similar to
Wind Shear as it allows you to
either control a dangerous enemy before combat begins or interrupt a cast in
an emergency. This cooldown can be reduced by 15 seconds if you
talent into
Voodoo Mastery, or it can be made to apply a 70% slow to an
enemy after the polymorph effect expires with
Enfeeblement.
Area of Effect Crowd Control
Sundering is an incredibly versatile tool, often able to act as a
pseudo-interrupt against multiple targets that are otherwise immune, and does so
while also delivering a huge burst of damage. While it will not work on every
target, be sure to pay attention to enemies that it does incapacitate so you can
effectively use this feature in the future. Using this depends on each
dungeon, and you can gain value from both effects throughout each run, so use
this often and early.
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 allow the
tank to grab aggro before enemies begin casting or to prevent key
effects. This can be further enhanced with the
Guardian's Cudgel or
Static Charge talents.
Guardian's Cudgel is extremely potent in
spawning a second
Capacitor Totem when the first one triggers,
increasing the stun duration, while
Static Charge will reduce
its cooldown per target struck.
Thunderstorm (with
Thundershock) is another powerful AoE
pseudo-interrupt, being able to knock several enemies up into the air and
disrupt spells that cannot be cast while moving. Be sure to practice using it
to learn which enemies it works against and which are immune. For
the vast majority of the time,
Thundershock will be the preferred form of
this ability, as keeping enemies together will make follow-up crowd control more
effective and maintain DPS uptime on targets in AoE. In niche situations,
you may need to utilize
Thunderstorm's knock-back effect to deal with a
specific mob or group of mobs or to move enemies out of
Sanguine
pools.
Earthbind Totem and
Earthgrab Totem can significantly
impair the movement of groups of enemies, aiding in your tank's ability to kite
them should it be required.
Hailstorm is also useful as a constant
slow while executing the rotation if talented.
Offensive / Defensive Dispels
Your toolkit includes an offensive dispel in Purge, a decurse in
Cleanse Spirit, a fear, charm, and sleep break with
Tremor Totem, and a poison removal with
Poison Cleansing Totem.
These effects are frequent in many dungeons, and you will often find yourself
using these to deal with certain enemies. Be sure to adjust your talent load-out
per dungeon to best support your party.
Healing
While healing is not your primary role, we can use multiple tools to help the
party in deadly situations. A Maelstrom Weapon empowered
Healing Surge or
Chain Heal can help to stabilize you or an
ally and should be used in emergencies.
Healing Stream Totem can be
taken and used whenever a gap in your rotation happens to help out, but points
are usually too tight to be able to take this. We can also talent into
a powerful healing cooldown with
Ancestral Guidance, which provides
huge group healing during situations where we are dealing AoE damage.
Being proactive with healing tools is an effective skill to learn as an Enhancement Shaman, and while you should not be taking responsibility for the group's health, recognizing when you can jump in at critical moments can be the difference between life or death for the party.
Other Utility
Earth Elemental is a potent emergency tool if the tank
either dies or is struggling to handle a pack. It can also be used as a personal
defensive cooldown to grant yourself additional maximum health. This has a long
cooldown, so use it wisely. Also, be aware that the AI can sometimes be
problematic, as it will rarely move with you once it has grabbed aggro -
a particular problem in
Sanguine weeks.
Mana Spring can help out your healer with some additional Mana
regeneration should they be struggling to keep up in a dungeon, and is an easy
point to access. However, our talent points begin to get quite tight with all
of the control tools we often take, so this is an optional bonus rather than
a locked in pick.
Reincarnation allows you to resurrect after dying. This can be
used to get back up after a lethal ability, or more importantly, it can
skip certain packs. The ability to run ahead with your group, die, self-revive,
and then resurrect them is a niche tactic that some dungeon routes opt to
use.
Bloodlust and
Heroism are mainstays of all group content,
and providing it is almost always a benefit to your party. Be sure to coordinate
with your group when the most effective time to use it will be.
Gear and Trinket Options for Enhancement Shaman in Mythic+
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 character to make sure. Having Patchwerk and then Hectic Add Cleave/Dungeon Slice profiles alongside a full 5-6 target AoE profile at varying durations to see what can be optimized are the ideal profiles to use and use all of that information to make decisions. Unfortunately, this is a time-consuming process but due to the nature of dungeons, simulating them is slightly more awkward.
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 picked in raids. We tend to lean toward one passive proc/stat trinket paired with an on-use trinket to align with cooldowns and burst windows. You can look at our gear page to know more about gear to aim for.
Two particular on-use trinkets of note worth considering, though, due to their unique frontloaded strength are:
Algeth'ar Puzzle Box - the massive amount of Mastery this provides effectively turns it into a cooldown for us, granting upward of 40% damage increase to the majority of our AoE when active. While the cooldown is long, overlapping this with particularly dangerous pulls can be incredibly strong.
Windscar Whetstone - flat out deals a lot of damage around you when activated and is respectable in single-target too. These hits also come with the added benefit of triggering
Maelstrom Weapon, so if you cannot get a Puzzle Box, this is a good replacement.
Lastly, it is worth noting that Seal of Filial Duty provides a large
amount of additional shielding over the course of a dungeon which drastically
improves our survivability, so if you can get hold of one you absolutely should
use it.
Valor and Valor Upgrades
In Dragonflight Mythic+ Season 1, running a Mythic+ dungeon will reward you with the Valor currency. This currency can upgrade any item received in a dungeon up to a max of item level 415. For a recommendation on what items to focus your upgrading efforts on, see our gearing page below:
Changelog
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed and added small improvements 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.
More Shaman Guides
Guides from Other Classes
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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