Enhancement Shaman DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within Pre-Patch

This is the strongest performing single-target build in the pre-patch, thanks to the synergy with the set bonus. It is quite flexible, and with the new tree there is some room for customization with your last few points:

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The biggest payoff of this build is your Maelstrom Weapon spenders, and the numerous effects the build has to amplify them. Between Elemental Assault and Swirling Maelstrom, we generate a very healthy amount to cycle consistently with our rotational strikes. It also has a good amount of free cleave built into the kit with Hailstorm and the funnel effects it takes throughout the tree. We also have a frequent burst moment every 30 seconds with Primordial Wave, made more frequent with the Season 4 set bonus. Alongside this, it cycles Feral Spirit extremely quickly to maintain multiple Elemental Spirits effects.

• Elemental Blast is your big payoff moment, being spent during the large damage amplifier windows of Elemental Spirits. Primordial Wave also provides a punchy instant setup hit that can leverage extra targets for Haste via Splintered Elements.
• Hot Hand forms the crux of the proc gameplay for the build, granting much higher access to your primary strike that triggers a 1-2 cycle with it and fillers when active.
• There are 3 points that are leftover after building the core that can be spent on supporting talents. We recommend Forceful Winds, Unruly Winds and Storm's Wrath to bring the value of Windfury Weapon up. This is mostly because this is generates additional Maelstrom Weapon and does not require any GCDs to be committed to get value.

Elementalist also provides the best AoE and Funnel option by a decent margin due to its flexibility when forced into single-target for Mythic+, and thus is the current pick:

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While this has a lot more moving parts than other builds, it makes use of a wide suite of synergistic effects to convert most of our regular toolkit into hard-hitting AoE spenders. It functions by combining a number of packages together that have enough space to interlink, with a fluidity achieved through the additional Maelstrom Weapon available in AoE. It is, however, hard-capped at 6 targets for the majority of its tools, which is a limitation the spec can sometimes suffer from.

• In the pre-patch, the extra points available makes it possible to once again pick up Sundering and Swirling Maelstrom, while still being able to fit in Flurry following its move to the spec tree.
• It has a heavy focus on Lava Lash even in AoE, thanks to Molten Assault and Lashing Flames, and can convert those targets into extra funnel with Ashen Catalyst.
• Crash Lightning pairs with this to generate a large amount of additional Maelstrom Weapon and add a splash effect to those activating Lava Lashes, forming the filler core.
• The additional Maelstrom leads to Chain Lightning as a very frequent spender, that in turn leads to Hailstorm casts that can be further amplified with Ice Strike.
• To cap it off, all of that extra generation leads to more instances of Feral Spirit thanks to Witch Doctor's Ancestry, and explosive finisher casts with Primordial Wave as a burst, setup and funnel tool thanks to Splintered Elements.
• The Season 4 bonus increases the availability of Primordial Wave significantly, making it a core component of the AoE cycle alongside giving extremely high uptime on Splintered Elements.

It sounds like there is a lot going on with the above, but in practice it plays intuitively with a little experience, as there is a logical progression with each cast. All of this flexibility and synergy makes for an extremely engaging Mythic+ playstyle.

Due to the structural changes of the tree in The War Within, some of the build problems that held it back at the tail end of Dragonflight are now gone and it is a much more reasonable competitor, though Storm still sruggles with consistency:

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Storm is a fairly skinny gameplay profile, with the central theme of the entire build being quite simple: pressing Stormstrike as much as possible. Everything taken here is to further the goal of hitting this as often as you can, culminating in proc burst windows via Deeply Rooted Elements. Instead of the careful Maelstrom Weapon management of other builds, it instead uses it to trigger the Legacy of the Frost Witch reset portion for, you guessed it, more Stormstrikes. This has very little baseline cleave, but it can swap out Ice Strike or Lava Lash to grab Crash Lightning at very little cost.

Of all the benefits from the talent changes in The War Within, Storm AoE benefited the most by being able to mix together effects that were previously too restricted to be combined. It now has options to pick up a good mix of both single-target and AoE tools, without needing to sacrifice build defining options. This provides a strong uncapped AoE build for us to use:

Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!

The biggest change is the ability to still pick up the entire Deeply Rooted Elements leaf while still maintaining one point in Primordial Wave for the set bonus. Alongside that, it can now very comfortably pick up Fire Nova for AoE while still maintaining a good amount of single-target amplifiers for Stormstrike for situations where you are forced into boss encounters. Key things to note are:

• The build has uncapped AoE via empowered Windfury Weapon procs triggered through Crash Lightning and Sundering casts, and a 1-minute burst in Doom Winds to guarantee them.
• Alpha Wolf converts Feral Spirit into a direct damage uncapped AoE tool, and cycles extremely quickly.
• At the bottom, a point in Elemental Assault vs. the second point in Legacy of the Frost Witch depends on how often you are forced into single-target, with the latter being strongly preferred for AoE to amplify the variety of Physical AoE effects available.
• Storm's Wrath is always taken, and your selection between either Stormblast or Tempest Strikes is largely up to preference for single-target talents in the middle. Flurry is generally weaker and as such is avoided.

These talents establish the core of your playstyle and include many of your basic abilities. Key talents include:

Talent	Explanation
Stormstrike	Our core generator ability strikes with both weapons, so can trigger weapon imbues and generate a high amount of Maelstrom Weapon.
Windfury Weapon	Our main-hand imbue can trigger special bonus attacks on main-hand auto-attacks and ability hits.
Lava Lash	Deals moderate Fire damage, increased by 100% if Flametongue Weapon is imbued on your off-hand weapon. This has a lot of supporting talents further in the tree.
Forceful Winds	Grants a cycling buff that increases Windfury Weapon damage stacking up to 5, but does not refresh itself.
Improved Maelstrom Weapon	Causes your Maelstrom Weapon stacks to additionally increase the damage of affected spells by 20% per stack consumed, massively increasing the damage of spenders, and is always taken.
Molten Assault	Reduces the cooldown of your Lava Lash ability by 6 seconds, and Lava Lash casts against a target affected by your Flame Shock reapplies the effect and spreads it to 4 nearby enemies. This allows you to maintain Flame Shock in single-target for free and forms the crux of multi-DoTs in AoE.
Unruly Winds	Causes your Windfury Weapon procs to trigger a third attack.
Elemental Blast	Deals massive Elemental damage to your target, and grants a buff for 10 seconds that grants either 3% Critical Strike, Haste, or 6% Mastery. This gains an additional charge if you are also talented into Lava Burst. This is always taken in Elementalist builds to provide punchy single-target.
Tempest Strikes	Causes each of your primary strikes ( Stormstrike, Lava Lash and Ice Strike) to deal additional Nature damage to the target. Very simple, and leans into the strength of Storm. Also removes the need to juggle two different spenders.
Raging Maelstrom	Increases the maximum number of Maelstrom Weapon stacks you can have to 10, and it increases the damage dealt by spells that consume the effect by an additional 5% per stack.
Ice Strike	Deals moderate Frost damage with your main-hand weapon and increases the damage of your next Frost Shock by 100%.
Hailstorm	Causes Maelstrom Weapon spending abilities to give you Hailstorm stacks that increase the damage of your next Frost Shock cast and causes it to hit an additional target per stack. This provides powerful single-target and AoE at the same time, making it very versatile, and is almost always taken by Elementalist builds.
Fire Nova	Causes all of your active Flame Shocks to erupt, dealing Flamestrike damage to up to 6 nearby enemies. This is very specialized for AoE and contributes little to single-target, but Storm builds will often take this thanks to the number of Physical multipliers the build takes.

There are 13 points available in this section, and you need to spend at least 8 points to advance to the next part of the talent tree, so many of These abilities will be included in every build you can make. Although every talent in this section (other than Stormstrike) is technically optional, it is strongly recommended that you have the following talents as they are both versatile and play an essential role in all builds.

• Lava Lash
• Windfury Weapon
• Improved Maelstrom Weapon
• Raging Maelstrom
• Molten Assault
• Elemental Blast / Tempest Strikes

From this point on, your main decision will be whether you want your build to focus more on Physical and Lightning damage effects with Stormstrike and Windfury Weapon on the left paired with Tempest Strikes, or the varied magic schools on the right side of the tree with Lava Lash paired with Elemental Blast. Both of these options have single-target and AoE variants, so your choice here will often dictate how you path down the tree based on which damage profile you desire.

These talents establish the overall theme of the build and include a variety of tools to specialize in different damage delivery profiles. Key talents include:

Talent	Explanation
Doom Winds	Adds a cooldown to your toolkit that significantly increases the proc chance of Windfury Weapon and increases its damage dealt by 10% for 8 seconds when cast. On the GCD, and causes a small main-hand strike when cast. Storm builds take this to leverage the various Physical damage amplifiers on the tree.
Flurry	Causes ability critical strikes to grant 15% attack speed for your next 3 auto-attacks. This has incredibly high uptime, and provides extra ways to trigger our on-hit effects in single-target especially. A good all-round pick taken in the majority of builds.
Overflowing Maelstrom	Maelstrom Weapon spenders can now consume up to 10 stacks at once, up from 5, and is always taken to help with our Maelstrom Weapon management.
Sundering	deals heavy Flamestrike damage to enemies in a line in front of you and disorients them briefly. This is always picked in Storm builds for pathing, and is an option for Elementalist AoE.
Swirling Maelstrom	Causes the surrounding talents ( Hailstorm, Fire Nova and Ice Strike) to generate Maelstrom Weapon when used.
Hot Hand	Gives all your auto-attacks a 5% chance to trigger an 8 second buff that reduces the cooldown of Lava Lash and increases its damage. This is a key reactive proc for Elementalist builds and provides a lot of throughput.
Storm's Wrath	Increases the gains from the Mastery stat on the proc chance for Stormbringer and Windfury Weapon by 150%, improving Mastery scaling for Storm builds.
Crash Lightning	Deals Nature damage in a 120-degree cone in front of you, and if 2 or more targets are hit, you gain a buff that causes Stormstrike, Ice Strike, and Lava Lash to trigger a separate Nature damage splash when cast. Initial casts can trigger the Windfury Weapon imbue, and this is a core part of our rotational AoE and Maelstrom Weapon generation when additional targets are present.
Stormflurry	Grants Stormstrike a 25% chance to strike your target again for 40% of the damage dealt, and can chain off itself. These extra hits can also trigger any of our weapon procs and effects, including Crash Lightning.
Ashen Catalyst	Causes Flame Shock ticks to give a stacking buff that increases the damage of your next Lava Lash by 12%, and reduce the cooldown of Lava Lash by 0.5 seconds. This significantly increases access to the ability and is important for all situations — especially funnel.
Stormblast	Causes Stormbringer empowered Stormstrike casts to deal an additional 25% of damage dealt as Nature. This adds an extra Mastery scaling component for single-target.
Elemental Weapons	Provides 5% additional magic damage dealt per Weapon imbue active. While this can technically be activated via double Flametongue Weapon, it is never worth dropping Windfury Weapon to do so.
Gathering Storms	Causes each individual target hit by Crash Lightning to increase the damage of your next Stormstrike cast by 25%, up to 150%.
Crashing Storms	Increases the damage of your Crash Lightning by 40% and causes your Chain Lightning to jump to 2 additional targets. This is taken in all high-target AoE situations.
Lashing Flames	Causes Lava Lash to apply a debuff for 20 seconds that increases the damage the target takes from your Flame Shock effect by 100%. This forms the core of the Flame Shock multi-dot playstyle.

This section offers the most significant number of talents, with up to 16 points available. Unfortunately, you will likely want to spend between 9-11 points above the 8-point gate and another 9-10 points below the 20-point gate, leaving you only 9-11 points to spend here. This constraint forces you to pick the type of damage delivery profile you want to specialize in at this point in the tree and forms the most significant part of the puzzle when building your character. It also dictates what you will invest in for the final rows.

Depending on your choices made above the 8-point gate, you will likely want to continue specializing along the left or right sides of the tree:

• Storm builds will want to specialize in abilities that have extra interactions with Stormstrike, picking up talents such as Doom Winds, Stormflurry and Storm's Wrath. It can also specialize into single-target by grabbing Stormblast here.
• Elementalist builds instead tend to take similar core talents regardless of target count, completing the right side of the tree with the Fire talents — Hot Hand, Ashen Catalyst, and Lashing Flames.

All builds will path through the center, and can easily access any tools it wants via the links from Raging Maelstrom. Both builds will also always pick up Elemental Weapons for the high damage boost and to open the path into the bottom section of the tree. In AoE situations, we take Crash Lightning and Crashing Storms to add more AoE to our toolkit. Overflowing Maelstrom is a staple in all builds due to how busy our GCDs already are, reducing the number needed to efficiently use our resource.

The final rows dictate your cooldown toolkit and round out the build you have selected and how versatile it is at various target counts. Which you select below the 20-point line is generally decided by what you choose earlier on the tree, with a few exceptions. Key talents include:

Talent	Explanation
Elemental Assault	Causes Stormstrike, Lava Lash and Ice Strike to have a 50/100% chance to generate an additional Maelstrom Weapon when cast, and increases Stormstrike's damage by 10/20%. This talent is taken in all single-target builds, and even in AoE for Elementalist to fix its resource economy.
Legacy of the Frost Witch	Resets the cooldown on Stormstrike whenever you spend Maelstrom Weapon, and grants 5/25% increased Physical and Frost damage for 5 seconds whenever this triggers. The first point is the most valuable, though the second has good value with supporting builds. The stacks spent are counted internally, so you do not have to spend 10 all at once.
Primordial Wave	Deals moderate Elemental damage and applies Flame Shock to your current target, granting you a 15-second buff that causes your next Lightning Bolt to echo to all targets affected by your Flame Shock for 150% of the damage. At least one point here is mandatory with available set bonus.
Primal Maelstrom	Causes Primordial Wave to generate 5/10 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon when cast. Extremely helpful for setting up burst.
Splintered Elements	Consuming the Primordial Wave effect grants 20% Haste for 12 seconds, increasing by 4% for each additional Lightning Bolt echo generated on secondary targets. Provides a consistent Haste amp that gets even stronger in AoE to speed up our rotation and improve funnel.
Feral Spirit	Summons two wolves that deal damage to your target for 15 seconds and generates one stack of Maelstrom Weapon instantly and an additional stack every 3 seconds while active. Each wolf also increases all Physical damage you deal by 15% while active.
Witch Doctor's Ancestry	Grants 4% additional chance to trigger Maelstrom Weapon, and causes each stack generated to reduce the cooldown of Feral Spirit by 2 seconds. Incredibly powerful for the resource alone, and converts into significantly higher uptime on our wolf buffs.
Elemental Spirits	Replaces the Physical damage buff from the baseline effect with a combination of Fire, Frost, or Nature damage increases, selected randomly when summoned. This is used exclusively by Elementalist builds.
Alpha Wolf	Causes your Crash Lightning/ Chain Lightning casts with Feral Spirit active to cause them to pulse for Physical damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. This AoE damage is uncapped and provides a large amount of damage to Storm builds due to its high Feral Spirit uptime. This does also trigger from the wolf summoned by the Tier 31 2-piece bonus.
Ascendance	A 3-minute burst cooldown that converts your auto-attacks and Stormstrike into special attacks that ignore armor, have a 30-yard range, and reduce the cooldown of Stormstrike by 60% for 15 seconds. It provides a large on-demand burst window, but unfortunately is too weak to justify with such a long cooldown so is not taken.
Deeply Rooted Elements	Alternative to Ascendance that gives access to the same effect, with a ramping chance to trigger for 6 seconds from each Stormstrike cast. Much stronger than the above and provides Storm with explosive moments throughout an encounter, but extremely volatile.
Static Accumulation	Whenever you are affected by Ascendance, you generate 1/2 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon every second. It also grants a 10/20% chance to refund all Maelstrom spent on Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning. This is the most powerful source of additional resources in the tree, and causes Storm to often be overloaded with additional resources and Feral Spirit resets.
Thorim's Invocation	Causes your Windstrike casts during Ascendance to also discharge a Lightning Bolt / Chain Lightning (based on your most recent cast). This allows us to make use of the resource flood much more efficiently and completes the Ascendance leaf. Also increases Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning damage by 20% at all times.

Once you reach these rows in the talent tree, you will have at most 10 points left to spend, and you will likely already have decided on a build archetype. That means your decisions are largely intuitive, as most of the abilities here lean toward one damage profile or ability school.

All builds will make sure to take Feral Spirit and Witch Doctor's Ancestry, and Elementalist builds will select Elemental Spirits while Storm builds will avoid it. Storm builds, on the other hand, will always spend 10 points here, grabbing the aforementioned wolf talents and then one point in Primordial Wave for the set bonus, and then the entire Deeply Rooted Elements leaf to completion, with 3 points spent between Legacy of the Frost Witch, Elemental Assault and Alpha Wolf depending on content type.

There is some room to deviate from these, though, depending on the requirements of a given encounter, and there is some plug-and-play with all of the talents below this row.

Enhancement Shamans are given Chain Lightning and Astral Shift by default, and there is only a small handful of additional damage-increasing talents on the Shaman class tree should be included in every build:

• Lava Burst
• Frost Shock
• Enhanced Imbues
• Fire and Ice
• Nature's Fury

We would also generally recommend whenever points allow it to take Totemic Projection to allow you to move your Windfury Totem around off the Global Cooldown to avoid outranging it. This can be done using a macro with very little effort and is a big quality-of-life improvement.

* Lava Burst is required whenever you are playing Elementalist builds, but can be skipped by Storm.

In addition to the above talents, it is generally recommended for all builds to include a variety of defensive talents. The list of defensive talents includes:

• Planes Traveler / Astral Bulwark
• Earth Shield
• Earth Elemental + Primordial Bond
• Brimming with Life
• Elemental Warding
• Nature's Guardian
• Seasoned Winds
• Stone Bulwark Totem + Totemic Recall*

Totemic Recall is taken to reset the long cooldown of Stone Bulwark Totem for an additional defensive tool. Call of the Elements can also be added here for more uses.

Finally, it is also strongly recommended that all builds include a few mobility talents:

• Spirit Walk / Gust of Wind
• Wind Rush Totem
• Spirit Wolf / Thunderous Paws

Not all defensive or mobility talents need to be included, but you should try to incorporate an appropriate number of each into your builds, as having none is often a bad idea. The remainder of your points can be spent as you desire for specific Utility, crowd control, or pathing requirements; however, we strongly recommended that you at least consider including some of the following generally applicable utility options

• Wind Shear
• Capacitor Totem
• Ancestral Guidance
• Thunderstorm + Thundershock
• Wind Rush Totem
• Cleanse Spirit
• Purge

For a more detailed description of each of our class talents, please refer to the Enhancement Shaman DPS Spell Summary page.