Enhancement Shaman DPS Mythic+ Tips — Shadowlands 9.2
In this guide, you will find tips and advice to tackle Mythic+ dungeons with your Enhancement Shaman in World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.2.
- 1. Unique Challenges of Mythic+
- 2. Enhancement Shaman Mythic+ Talent Build
- 3. Best Mythic+ Legendaries for Enhancement Shaman
- 4. Best Mythic+ Covenant, Soulbind and Conduits for Enhancement Shaman
- 5. 9.2 Tier Sets for Enhancement Shaman in Mythic+
- 6. Dealing With the 9.2 Seasonal Affix: Encrypted as an Enhancement Shaman
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 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.
Enhancement Shaman Mythic+ Talent Build
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 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
25 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
30 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
35 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
40 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
45 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
50 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Tier 1 Talents
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.
Tier 2 Talents
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.
Tier 3 Talents
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.
Tier 4 Talents
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.
Tier 5 Talents
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.
Tier 6 Talents
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.
Tier 7 Talents
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.
Best Mythic+ Legendaries for Enhancement Shaman
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.
Best Mythic+ Covenant, Soulbind and Conduits for Enhancement Shaman
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.
9.2 Tier Sets for Enhancement Shaman in Mythic+
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.
Dealing With the 9.2 Seasonal Affix: Encrypted as an Enhancement Shaman
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 Event Affix: Infernal
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.
Rotational Considerations for Enhancement Shaman in Mythic+
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:
Mythic+ AoE Burst Opener for Enhancement Shaman
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 |
---|---|---|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
|
![]() |
![]() |
|
![]() |
![]() |
- Pre-cast
Windfury Totem on the way to each pack.
- Cast
Flame Shock on your priority target.
- Cast
Feral Spirit on the way to the pack.
- Cast
Crash Lightning — this should grant a large amount of
Maelstrom Weapon.
- Cast
Lava Lash to spread
Flame Shock from your anchor target.
- Continue with the normal AoE cycle.
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 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.
Cooldown Usage
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.
Doom Winds Optimization
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.
Enhancement Shaman Utility in Mythic+
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.
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 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.
Changelog
- 21 Feb. 2022: Page reviewed and approved for Patch 9.2.
- 01 Nov. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.5, adjustments to Covenant section.
- 29 Jun. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.
- 09 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5; small changes to soulbinds.
- 08 Dec. 2020: Page updated for Shadowlands Season 1.
- 13 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands 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.
- Free Character Moves from Firemaw
- Shadowlands 9.2 Season 3 Mythic+ DPS Log Rankings, Weeks 10 and 11
- Eyes of the Wolf Calia Menethil Quest in Patch 9.2.5
- Everything We Know About the Shrouded Affix in Shadowlands Season 4
- New Oribos Portals in Patch 9.2.5
- Patch 9.2.5 Build 43741: Achievement Changes
- Patch 9.2 and Burning Crusade Classic Hotfixes: May 17th
- Patch 9.2.5 PTR Development Notes: May 17th