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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 Legion 7.3.5. 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 on a priority list much like many other resource
based classes, but is very reactionary and context specific. Due to this, practice
and learning the rules is very important, and following the chain in each given
Global is crucial to optimising your output. This assumes the ideal talent build,
which is optimised around having 
Concordance of the Legionfall at
52 weapon traits.
Due to the fluidity of the talent builds, I have added checks below in case
you are using specific talents to define where they fit in. This extends
to the AoE rotation which is very similar, and as such I have just added in lines to
indicate 
Crash Lightning use (just enable the Crash Lightning box below
to enable it).
- Hot Hand
- Windsong
- Hailstorm
- Overcharge
- Fury of Air
- Earthen Spike
- Ascendance
- AoE with Crash Lightning
- Cast
Rockbiter to generate Maelstrom and maintain 
Landslide. - Cast
Flametongue if the buff is not active. - Cast
Feral Spirit on cooldown. Follow this immediately with a 
Crash Lightning cast to activate 
Alpha Wolf. - Cast
Windstrike with or without 
Stormbringer active. - Activate
Doom Winds whenever available, try to have 
Stormstrike available, your on-hit buffs & the 
Earthen Spike debuff active with this. - Cast Stormstrike with Stormbringer active.
- Cast Crash Lightning if the Tier 20 bonus
Lightning Crash is not active. - Cast Rockbiter with the Tier 21 bonus
Force of the Mountain active. - Cast Stormstrike.
- Cast Rockbiter.
- Cast Flametongue if the buff has less than 4.5 seconds remaining.
- Cast
Lava Lash if you have more than 40 Maelstrom.
The majority of your damage is sourced from 
Stormstrike via your
Stormbringer procs. This has a have high Maelstrom requirements, so needs
a solid buffer of Maelstrom to make use of on cooldown. Make sure you do not
drain yourself by over-committing to 
Lava Lash and casting 
Rockbiter
too infrequently. 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 whilst keeping
yourself Global Cooldown locked will make or break your ability to make use of the
toolkit.
Note that the dump point for your Maelstrom expenditure differs if you are
using 
Fury of Air, due to the additional strain on your generation,
meaning that you may find extra gaps in the rotation when using it; this is
normal.
Finally, note that without the Tier 20 2-piece bonus, Crash Lightning is not
used in single target, and should be avoided outside of the Feral Spirit condition
listed above.
2. Enhancement Shaman Opening Rotation
Whilst 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
Potion of Prolonged Power before the pull. - Cast Rockbiter to generate burst Maelstrom and activate Landslide.
- Activate
Fury of Air if taken. - Cast Flametongue.
- Cast
Frostbrand with 
Hailstorm taken. - Cast Feral Spirit.
- Cast Crash Lightning to activate Alpha Wolf.
- Cast Earthen Spike if taken.
- Activate Doom Winds and immediately 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 whilst setting up damage along the way, and giving enough Maelstrom
to sustain it whilst you set your cooldowns rolling.
3. Important Notes for Enhancement Shaman
3.1. Doom Winds
Doom Winds is a very powerful 1-minute cooldown that comes with
the Doomhammer, increasing the damage of all 
Windfury effects by 200%
and guaranteeing procs from all auto attacks (though off-hand triggers will suffer
from the 50% penalty). This provides a massive surge of Maelstrom and allows you
to aggressively spend during it, so make sure you have all your buffs present
before activating it.
Note that main hand active abilities that can trigger Windfury will also gain
from this damage boost, so filling as many globals during the 6-second window with
Stormstrike casts will play into this burst window perfectly, so try to have
it ready before activation by anticipating its cooldown and not casting Stormstrike
just before it cools down. Do not be afraid to cap Maelstrom during this period
either.
3.2. Crash Lightning Explained
Crash Lightning is simple on the surface, but has a relatively complex
set of mechanics behind it. Whilst this is no longer used in the single target
rotation due to previous Lava Lash buffs, knowing how to play around it in cleave
and AoE situations can increase your performance significantly.
First of all, the Nature damage proc whilst 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 toolkit further, so always look for chances to hit
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.
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.
3.3. Tier 2 Talents
The Tier 2 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. 
Wind Rush Totem however is a profoundly important tool on any
movement based fights (as Helya proved), and any situation where this can be
capitalized on should be taken advantage of fully, so look for opportunities to
use this to enhance your impact on the raid.
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 Totem 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.
Rainfall can be considered as a tool to make use of if there is no
personal or raid-wide movement cooldowns required. This can be a great option to
still provide some use from the tier as it has a very low impact on your output
whilst still providing a solid bump to help the healers along during an encounter.
Note though that due to its stationary nature, it is only really useful on fights
that are quite static, an example being Krosus.
3.4. Tier 5 Talents
Overcharge is a powerful talent, effectively granting a second high
power Maelstrom spender on a low cooldown. This requires extra Maelstrom management
to make use of due to its high 40 Maelstrom cost so some foresight is needed to
make sure it always remains on cooldown. This talent is a great option due to
its consistency within the rotation converting excess Maelstrom into damage.
Tempest however is far less high maintenance, and fits in very well
with more legendary options, and talent builds. Patch 7.2.5 has hit a happy
medium in which your choice can come down to what you enjoy, and what fights
allow you to capitalise on the most.
Empowered Stormlash takes this to the extreme as the most passive
option that has no interaction with your rotation. This is very poor in solo
content, but in large group content, can be competitive with more targets to
spread Stormlash to.
3.5. 7.2.5 Ascendance vs. Earthen Spike
7.2.5 has come with a significant rework to 
Ascendance
that has made it significantly more competitive than in the past. Alongside some
underlying issues being remedied, the core design now plays much better into
being a strong burst cooldown without domineering alternative choices on the same
tier.
Whilst playing this, it converts Stormstrike to 
Windstrike
for the 15-second duration, and reduces its cooldown, allowing it to always sit
at a 2 Global Cooldown recharge. This means you can alternate Windstrike with
any other important rotational ability or buff, whilst still firing off
powerful Windstrikes. When Stormbringer procs however, you replace
the filler space with an additional Windstrike, and continue on. Ascendance
also comes with the added benefit of frontloading a significant amount of
damage into a short cooldown window, which makes it very powerful for specific
fights. This is coupled with additional range that allows us to hit targets
otherwise unavailable and provides great utility to a cooldown that has been
neglected before this Patch.
Earthen Spike provides a more consistent option and can have some
room with specific legendaries such as
Soul of the Farseer/
Smoldering Heart. This remains competitive
with Ascendance in virtually all talent builds, and your
choice largely comes down to how much maintenance you want to subject yourself
to, and if encounter types lean on one or the other. Compared to Ascendance,
the increased frequency of Earthen Spike also lends very well to encounters
that have priority targets spawning more frequently than Ascendance can
capitalise upon. Given that it can synchronise easily with
Doom Winds, this gives it a solid place if frequent burst damage
is required rather than overwhelming burst every 3 minutes.
Currently, with optimal circumstances, Earthen Spike is slightly
better, but any situations that allow for you to optimise the range increase
component of Ascendance can swing this very quickly. This
tier still largely remains a flex choice, but could change in the future.
3.6. Pandemic
Some of Enhancement's personal buffs (
Flametongue and
Frostbrand) now 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 10-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 capitalise on that downtime by making use of the increased
range. Pandemic values are currently the following:
- Flametongue: 4.8 seconds;
- Frostbrand: 4.8 seconds;
3.7. 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.
3.8. 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 since the some builds makes use of Overcharge, this will not be
as easily accessible at all times and as such 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 nuance to managing your resource alongside juggling your Global Cooldown in between procs, making it a very reactionary, high pace space. 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 greatly as a mis-step can cause waste you cannot recover from easily. There are generally two core aspects to Enhancement that should be grasped first and foremost when trying to optimise 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 only 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
how easy it can sometimes be to generate, it is very easy to underestimate just
how vital managing this can be. The most important thing to do is never over-commit
Maelstrom to dumps such as Lava Lash, instead opting to generate with
Rockbiter to build up a surplus without going too far in the other
direction and wasting it.
Do not be afraid to hover above 90-100 Maelstrom, 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
dumps when they come up. Always avoid siphoning Maelstrom via Lava Lash if
you feel you are going to be at risk of this if a chain does happen, because due
to its unpredictable nature it can and probably will happen at the worst time for
you when taking these risks.
During both Doom Winds and 
Feral Spirits, Maelstrom will
be generated at a significantly increased rate, allowing Lava Lash to be
used more often with less punishment. Having at least 50 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
Landslide coming from Rockbiter and your Flametongue
effect both provide a relatively solid increase to overall damage, and provide
a very valuable damage per cast so should be maintained at all times during
periods in which Stormstrike is not available, ideally. Making sure these
are kept in check is very important, as is 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. 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 plays into this very well too, as it can
happen at any time. 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. This is largely, again tied to Maelstrom management,
by not over-committing resources and globals to Lava Lash, you are creating
the best environment to accommodate these procs when they do happen to actively
make use of them.
5. Enhancement Shaman Tier 19 Set Bonuses
Tier 19 has been overhauled with Patch 7.2.5 due to it being reworked into the base toolkit. Due to this, the 4-piece bonus is relatively weak, and whilst the 2-piece bonus has a place in single target, it requires high Titanforging to remain relevant with Tomb of Sargeras item levels and so should not be actively pursued.
- 2-piece: Increases the damage of Stormstrike by 10%.
- 4-piece: Lava Lash has an additional 10% chance to trigger Stormbringer.
The 2-piece is a simple, flat bonus to Stormstrike casts. Due to
the dilution of the rotation this is not as strong as it seems, and with the
multitude of other abilities now contributing, it is solid in single target,
but nothing special.
The 4-piece bonus has had a large amount of its value baked into the spec
baseline, which hurts its value. It is still useful to increase your Stormbringer
trigger rate, but is no longer generates the extreme value it did in Patch 7.2.
6. Enhancement Shaman Tier 20 Set Bonuses
Both of the bonuses from the Tier 20 set are focused on augmenting your
Crash Lightning ability, providing an additional maintenance buff and
increasing its AoE potential.
- 2-piece: Crash Lightning increases your Critical Strike chance by 5%
for 16 seconds when cast.
- 4-piece: Stormstrike casts (note: not individual hits) increases the
initial damage of your next Crash Lightning cast by 35%, stacking up to
15 times.
The 2-piece re-introduces Crash Lightning into the single target
rotation allowing an additional buff to keep up for the rest of your toolkit, but
is otherwise very simple and unremarkable.
The 4-piece on the other hand increases the value of those filler casts and
synergising well with additional Stormstrike casts in that window. Whilst
this is a pretty poor single target bonus, in AoE this increases in strength
linearly and becomes much better. Due to this, the surface value of the bonus
may seem quite week, but due to the benefit it has on our burst AoE, it is stillA
a desirable goal, especially due to the reduction in Tier 19 strength this Patch.
7. Enhancement Shaman Tier 21 Set Bonuses
Both bonuses in Tier 21 focus on Rockbiter, allowing for additional
synergy with Stormstrike through the 
Force of the Mountain effect,
and also increasing elemental damage dealt to a target for a short window.
- 2-piece: Stormstrike has a 30% chance to increase the damage of the
next Rockbiter cast within 10 seconds by 100%.
- 4-piece: Rockbiter increases the Fire, Frost and Nature damage taken
by the target by 15% for 4.5 seconds.
The 2-piece bonus provides additional value to your Rockbiter casts
that follow a Stormstrike cast triggering the Force of the Mountain
effect. This works well in single target, and you should ideally prioritise using
this above regular, non- Stormbringer buffed Stormstrike casts.
The 4-piece provides additional damage to your elemental damage effects for
4.5 seconds following a Rockbiter on the target, and is again very
single target oriented. Generally, you will have this active in your downtime
between Stormstrike chains (which are not increased by the effect), so uptime
isn't something you should worry about too much.
8. ChangeLog
- 18 Jan. 2018: Small update to rotation regarding Rockbiter & Flametongue priorities.
- 12 Dec. 2017: Updated note for Maelstrom dump point for clarity with Fury of Air.
- 27 Nov. 2017: Updated for Antorus T21 set bonuses.
- 28 Aug. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.3.
- 14 Aug. 2017: Updated rotation for new Earthen Spike information & re-arranged certain parts of the rotation regarding buff management.
- 19 Jun. 2017: Small changes in opener to prioritise buffs.
- 16 Jun. 2017: Moved Crash Lightning buff maintanence up over casting Ascendance to be active for burst.
- 15 Jun. 2017: Clarified Earthen Spike in the opener & moved above Doom Winds for syncing purposes.
- 12 Jun. 2017: Updated Patch 7.2.5 rotational changes, added details regarding Tier 20 set bonuses and Ascendance overview.
- 27 Mar. 2017: Slight changes to account for Hailstorm's return in patch 7.2.
- 21 Jan. 2017: Added Tier 19 4-piece set bonus sections: rotation/opener.
- 09 Jan. 2017: Large update with changes to rotation to factor in 7.1.5 updates.
- 28 Oct. 2016: Updated priotity system to include Alpha Wolf mention and cleaned up the opening sequence for additional clarity.
- 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
- 24 Jul. 2016: Improved clarity in some sections.
- 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.
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