Enhancement Shaman DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities in Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.0.1
Table of Contents
General Information
On this page, we list your Enhancement Shaman core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth 8.0.1. We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that you will need to know if you want to excel at playing an Enhancement Shaman.
The other pages of our Enhancement Shaman guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.
About Our Author
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.
1. Enhancement Shaman Ability Priority List
Enhancement Shaman plays with a priority list much like many other resource-based classes, but it is much more reactionary based on procs and resource flow. Due to this, learning and practicing the fundamentals is very important, and following the list one to two Global Cooldowns in advance is crucial to maximizing your output.
Given that Enhancement currently has a relatively limited selection of strong
talents, this list will show the priority regardless of ideal talents, but it is
recommended to follow the choices given in the talent section for ideal
performance. Use the checkboxes offered below to allow you to tailor the
rotation based on your selections. Similarly, if you are interested in how to
increase your AoE damage, check 
Crash Lightning below to add that
into the list.
- Hot Hand
- Totem Mastery
- Searing Assault
- Hailstorm
- Overcharge
- Fury of Air
- Crashing Storm
- Sundering
- Earthen Spike
- Ascendance
- AoE with Crash Lightning
- Cast
Flametongue if the buff is not active. - Cast
Feral Spirit on cooldown. - Cast
Stormstrike with or without 
Stormbringer. - Cast
Rockbiter if below 70 Maelstrom and about to reach 2 charges. - Cast Flametongue if the buff has less than 4.5 seconds remaining.
- Cast
Lava Lash if above 40 Maelstrom (50 with 
Fury of Air taken. - Cast Rockbiter.
- Cast Flametongue with nothing else available.
The largest portion of your active damage is sourced from your
Stormstrike casts, with the frequency increased via your
Stormbringer procs. This can lead to a fluctuating combat style as
your usage not only increases through the cooldown reset, but casts following a
Stormbringer proc are also free; leading to a volatile Maelstrom state. Due to
this, you need to try and keep your resource balanced toward the lower end to
avoid waste during extended chains, but still have enough to make sure you can
keep Stormstrike on cooldown and fill Global Cooldowns as much as possible with
your general build-and-spend gameplay using 
Rockbiter and
Lava Lash.
The more that you play with Enhancement, the more you will adjust to the ebb
and flow of Maelstrom as you are generating a lot more passively than actively.
Being able to react to your Stormbringer procs while keeping
yourself as close to Global Cooldown locked as possible will make or break your
ability to push your damage output.
2. Enhancement Shaman Opening Rotation
While the opener is very rarely a high impact point for Enhancement as most of your damage is tied to the sustained output over the course of the fight, a general sequence will look like the following:
- Use
Battle Potion of Agility before the pull. - Cast Rockbiter to generate a small surplus of Maelstrom.
- Activate Fury of Air if taken.
- Cast Flametongue.
- Cast
Frostbrand with 
Hailstorm taken. - Cast Feral Spirit.
- Cast
Earthen Spike if taken. - Cast Stormstrike.
- Cast
Ascendance to reset the cooldown on Stormstrike, or if Stormbringer is active if taken. - Cast
Windstrike. - Continue with single target rotation.
Where you go from here depends largely on whether or not
Stormbringer activated, but this will grant the largest window to
allow for a proc to occur in the opener while setting up your buffs
sequentially, and giving enough Maelstrom to sustain yourself throughout your
opening burst.
3. Important Notes for Enhancement Shaman
3.1. Crash Lightning Explained
Crash Lightning is simple on the surface, but has a relatively
complex set of mechanics behind it. While this is no longer used in the single
target rotation unless taking 
Crashing Storm due to the increased
strength of Lava Lash in Battle for Azeroth, knowing how to play
around it in cleave and AoE situations can optimize your performance
significantly.
First of all, the Nature damage proc while the buff is active will trigger
in single target as well, so finding opportunities to trigger it in a fight will
augment your already powerful single target toolkit further, so always look for
chances to trigger from two targets. Second, any hits from the initial strike
have a chance to trigger Stormbringer due to them all being counted
as a weapon strike, so you should always be trying to hit multiple targets to
game this. Finally, these hits all have a chance to cause 
Windfury
on targets struck, so you should again be trying to force this for additional
damage on a priority target. This is even more important when using
Forceful Winds, which can gain multiple stacks per Crash Lightning
cast and significantly boost your sustained AoE package.
Other than this, in regular AoE, Crash Lightning operates in a
simple way; it converts your single target tools into splash AoE which should be
used often and aggressively. The boost to your Stormstrike damage
is also useful, allowing you to funnel the AoE damage you deal into a single
priority target, and as such should be used as frequently as possible in multi
target situations.
3.2. Optimizing Sundering
While 
Sundering is the ideal choice at all times, and still
remains a relevant tool even in single target, it does require some playing
around. You should always be attempting to maximize the number of targets you
hit with each cast, so if at any period during its cooldown additional targets
would spawn if considering using it in single target, do not, and save it for
those add spawns. This is the largest source of Enhancement AoE currently if
played correctly, so making the most out of each cast is crucial to remaining
relevant in the AoE landscape.
3.3. Tier 2 Talents
Landslide is entirely single target oriented, but is currently
very weak. If you opt into this, the trigger chance is too low to meaningfully
impact your rotation, so nothing will change outside of occasional high power
Stormstrike casts.
Forceful Winds provides the most versatile option that will
outperform both other options on the tier. While it does have a random element due
to the cyclical nature of the stacks, it contributes not only to damage via the
Windfury damage but also to Maelstrom generation at the
same time. This also extends to being a stronger choice in cleave and AoE
situations due to Crash Lightning casts having the chance to
trigger Windfury on each target hit. Bear in mind that there is
little you can do to actively game the output of this talent.
Totem Mastery, on the other hand, provides an option to
buff the player in various aspects for the 2-minute duration, but has much less
room to impact your output with effective play. It also comes with the downside
of requiring awareness of your totem uptime, and range to make sure they are
always active. This can serve as an option that potentially boosts your damage
if played pro-actively, but has a much lower ceiling than Forceful Winds
due to its limitations currently.
3.4. Tier 4 Talents
Overcharge is intended to replace Lava Lash as a
filler Maelstrom dump for the same cost, but with a cooldown. When using
Overcharge, you need to be calculating your Maelstrom expenditure to make sure
you have enough banked to use it immediately. This can cause disruption in your
rotation if that cooldown lines up with Stormbringer procs, which
require quick reactions to capitalize upon.
Searing Assault requires very little playstyle changes, and serves
as a flat bonus to your 
Flametongue casts via a short DoT effect.
All this does is increase the value of casting it regardless of your buff
uptime, but do not require additional rotational caveats to make use of.
Hailstorm adds a second buff to the rotation that operates almost
identical to Flametongue, aside from requiring Maelstrom to
maintain. Making sure that you refresh this as late as possible and keep it
active as close to 100% as possible when taken is the core hook of the
talent.
3.5. Tier 5 Talents
The Tier 5 talents offer a lot of flexibility in both raid utility and personal mobility. Your decision should not be made based on the opener as Enhancement already have a number of ways to start damage early as the fight begins and get onto a target.
Feral Lunge will allow you to move around the battlefield in
hectic add fights much more efficiently and switch to targets across the map on
demand. This is also only on a 0.5-second Global Cooldown, making it a flexible
a quick swap tool to engage targets that are far away when aggression is
required.
Due to this, 
Wind Rush Totem should be your go-to in group content
as it allows for a large speed increasing zone that can be refreshed as needed.
While Wind Rush reads as "within 10 yards", it is actually a 10-yard radius,
allowing you to create a large 20-yard diameter zone that can span the breadth
of the gap between melee and ranged.
Nature's Guardian has very little player requirement, however, and
is simply a free boost to sustain in situations where you are frequently
dipping below the 35% health threshold.
3.6. Tier 7 Talents
All 3 of these talents have their own caveats to use, due to them being tied to different styles of damage delivery windows. Knowing when and where to make use of each, and adapting your build and playstyle around their timings will provide a large boost to your adaptability and strength as Enhancement in different encounters.
Elemental Spirits alters your Feral Spirit dropping it
to a 90-second cooldown, making it more frequently available to start with. It
also provides three different effects depending on the wolves that you generate
with each cast:
- Fire —
Molten Weapon. This increases the value of
Fire damage you deal, but it does not make Lava Lash more
valuable than Stormstrike currently even with 2 instances. - Frost —
Icy Edge provides a flat damage buff and is
also the easiest to capitalise upon, having no direct impact on differing
spells, instead affecting them all equally. - Lightning — has large swing potential by boosting the impact
of Stormbringer chains alongside potential with high stacks of
Forceful Winds. This serves as the highest RNG procs of the 3, as
you have little control over the consistency but can have explosive
outcomes.
While all of these effects may sound important when reading them, they currently do not drastically alter your playstyle in any observable way, and you should treat them as bonuses that come with the talent that will ideally average out over the course of an encounter. The difficult part of the talent is to optimize its use with the altered cooldown.
Ascendance, on the other hand, injects a new cooldown
into the spec on a 3-minute cooldown, that has extremely high consistency for a
short window — something Enhancement can often be lacking. While 3-minute
cooldowns frequently desync from encounter timings, the power of Ascendance
should not be ignored. This is coupled with additional range that allows us to
hit targets otherwise unavailable due to range or mechanic issues, providing
great utility for free.
Earthen Spike provides the most consistent, although currently
weakest option. Your choice on this tier largely comes down to how much
maintenance you want to subject yourself to, and if the encounter leans toward
needing burst cooldowns or sustained damage windows. Compared to Ascendance and
Elemental Spirits, the increased frequency of Earthen Spike also lends very well
to encounters that have priority targets spawning more frequently than
Ascendance or Feral Spirit is available.
3.7. Pandemic
Some of Enhancement's personal buffs ( Flametongue and
Frostbrand) benefit from the "Pandemic" effect, meaning that they
can be refreshed when they have less than 30% of their duration remaining
without penalty. The remaining duration will be added to the newly applied buff
when under this threshold, allowing for much more flexibility for when you
refresh. Ideally, you want to refresh during periods where
Stormbringer and Stormstrike are unavailable. You should
also consider your current Maelstrom status so you can avoid overcapping
resources. Remember that all of these "enhancement" spells have a 20-yard range,
so if you are dealing with mechanics that force you just out of melee range,
that can be an ideal time to refresh and capitalize on that downtime by making
use of the increased range. Pandemic values are currently the following:
- Flametongue: 4.8 seconds;
- Frostbrand: 4.8 seconds.
3.8. Healing Surge
Healing Surge will consume 20 Maelstrom, if available,
to become instant. This can allow for a lot of personal sustain during high
damage moments of an encounter to keep yourself ticking over if the healers
cannot reach you or are under high stress, and is important to make use of due
to the relatively weak Enhancement defensive toolkit. Mechanics will
occasionally force you out of range of the boss and put you in dangerous
positions, so using this can be very beneficial. Always be aware of this if you
have excess Maelstrom and are in danger, as it can save your life.
3.9. Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt costs and generates no Maelstrom,
and deals weak damage, but is instant cast with a 40-yard range. If you are
ever forced entirely out of melee range, you can lean on
Lightning Bolt to offer you a little bit of damage
until you can return to the boss. You should avoid the use of
Lightning Bolt otherwise, as it resets the melee
swing timer causing a significant dip in damage by reducing Maelstrom generation
for very little damage in return.
Note that if using Overcharge, this will not be as easily
accessible at all times due to being used on cooldown. This means it will not be
available to fill up all globals when out of range due to both the cooldown and
Maelstrom cost, so be aware of that. Overcharge does, however, remove the melee
swing timer reset, so you should not worry about that when using the talent.
4. Enhancement Shaman Core Concepts
On the surface, Enhancement can appear quite simplistic due to the fire and forget nature of the toolkit. Once you look past this, however, you can see that there is a lot of focus on managing your Global Cooldown and making the most of your Maelstrom resources available in between procs; making it a very reactionary and high paced specialization. Being able to master the flow of all of these at once will form the core of mastering Enhancement, and any mistakes you make in these situations will impact you further down the line as a misstep can cause waste you cannot recoup. There are generally two core aspects to Enhancement that should be grasped first and foremost when trying to optimize your gameplay:
- Maelstrom management;
- buff uptime & proc management.
4.1. Maelstrom Management
The first and most important thing to grasp is mastering your Maelstrom. Due to how sporadic gains can be, and how less than half of your generation is really in your hands, having a general grasp of how it will flow will help you significantly when predicting what you need, should you need it during a proc string. Due to the drastic differences between periods of high generation versus low generation, it is very easy to underestimate just how vital keeping tabs on this can be.
The most important thing is to aggressively spend as much as possible due to
the 100 Maelstrom cap in Battle for Azeroth via Lava Lash to
prevent wastage. On the other hand, you should also ideally have a bearing on
how close you are to fully draining, as this may prevent you from keeping
Stormstrike on cooldown if it is about to become available. Also
make sure to utilise Rockbiter frequently to create that
comfortable buffer, but do not over-commit to generation too much if it will
cost you Global Cooldowns you could spend on high damage spenders.
Try to hover around the 30 Maelstrom mark, as this will always be a good
amount to have in a situation where you will need to repeatedly spend with back
to back Stormstrike casts and
Lightning Bolt / Overcharge will be in reach
of this value as it is about to cool down.
During Feral Spirits, Maelstrom will be generated at a
significantly increased rate, allowing Lava Lash to be used more
often with less punishment. Having roughly 20 Maelstrom in reserve is
important, allowing you to immediately react to Stormbringer procs
without fear of draining yourself too far. If you are sitting on minimum levels
of Maelstrom and Stormstrike is on cooldown, it is best to build up
a surplus via Rockbiter for when it does happen, or take the
opportunity to refresh Flametongue if it is falling off soon.
4.2. Buff Uptimes & Proc Management
Most prominently, Flametongue provides the most basic buff
management aspect of Enhancement — a goal of 95-100% uptime of this effect
is the goal. Using Flametongue outside of maintaining the buff serves solely as
a filler, but making sure that you fill dead time with this so you are not
required to refresh during periods filled with high procs from
Stormbringer vastly improves your rotational efficiency. To go
alongside this, maintaining your Crash Lightning effect in AoE to amp
up both your single target and AoE damage if there are targets to
activate it upon will hugely boost your output. Having to refresh these because
they were neglected during a long Stormbringer chain is very
detrimental, so learning to track these timers either mentally or with a
tracking addon will be a huge increase to your ability to react to procs.
Making use of Stormbringer is vital, and remembering it can
happen at any time is an important lesson to learn. Given how much of a factor
Stormstrike plays on your output, being able to cast it on cooldown
as soon as a reset happens is crucial, meaning that you generally want to have
your buffs as primed as possible unless you are forced out of doing so. If using
Landslide, you also need to be making sure that you do not allow any
Rockbiter charges to go to waste, as these are all potentially
missed opportunities to trigger the damage boost to Stormstrike. On top of this,
ideally you should be consuming the buff before re-casting Rockbiter, but due to
RNG issues related to Stormbringer this is sometimes unavoidable.
5. Changelog
- 26 Aug. 2018: Updated to remove references to Landslide rotation changes due to simulation updates.
- 13 Aug. 2018: Updated for Battle for Azeroth launch.
- 16 Jul. 2018: Updated for the Battle for Azeroth pre-patch.
CONTENTS
FROM THE SHAMAN FORUMS
- Your experience with resto shamans in mythic +
- Thinking of going with Enhance Shaman
- Macro Helps...
- Help with Enhancement
- Stat confusion
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