Enhancement Shaman DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within (11.1.7)

Currently, Stormbringer can dish out extreme burst while still maintaining excellent single target in between. In encounters where you can play around its 2 minute timers it can bring excellent boss damage, and paired with its higher raw throughput it's just barely the recommended choice:

Totemic brings extremely good single-target, while also bringing a lot of cleave and burst AoE without making any sacrifices. This makes it well suited to a number of encounters in Liberation of Undermine, and can easily compare to the alternative when executed correctly without needing to worry about cooldown timers:

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Stormbringer builds heavily focus on Maelstrom Weapon, making generation and expenditure a high priority to cycle through Tempest casts. This makes both Elemental Assault and Static Accumulation core talents, and dictate our pathing at the bottom. Its primary strike is Stormstrike, so makes sure to pick up Stormblast and Legacy of the Frost Witch for significantly smoother GCD management alongside all supporting Stormstrike talents. It also grabs Ascendance on the bottom right choice node and completes the path to the bottom. Some specific talent notes are:

Totemic is significantly different this patch, focusing heavily on the interaction between Lava Lash, Reactivity and Earthsurge. Conversely, Maelstrom Weapon takes a back seat as a secondary resource. Its main goal is to keep Surging Totem active throughout combat, so picks up totem management tools on the class tree such as Totemic Projection to make this easier. Hot Hand procs are a key pillar of the build, so it picks this and Ashen Catalyst up for additional Lava Lash access. It avoids Sundering and Molten Thunder in single-target as it is less impactful, instead grabbing Elemental Blast to make spenders a bit more relevant. Some specific talent notes are:

• Due to the increased value of Stormstrike in 11.1, we pick up Feral Spirit and Witch Doctor's Ancestry for an additional controlled burst cooldown, but avoid Elemental Spirits. These casts are aligned with Doom Winds when possible, and cast on cooldown otherwise.
• Currently Ascendance is by far the best choice on its node, as even with the changes to Deeply Rooted Elements' proc mechanics, its uptime is too unreliable.
• It also picks up Crash Lightning, Crashing Storms either Unrelenting Storms or Converging Storms depending on encounter as soon as it has access to the Season 2 set bonus. This fills in the remainder of your GCDs.
• Before acquiring the new set, it instead grabs Hot Hand and Ashen Catalyst for the same purpose.
• Due to the large amount of Physical and multi-school damage in Totemic's breakdown, it picks up Feral Spirit and Witch Doctor's Ancestry for additional Physical damage amplifiers, and avoids Elemental Spirits. These casts are synced up with Primordial Wave making our 30-second cycle even stronger.
• Imbues are also a significant portion of the damage breakdown, so it always picks up Doom Winds and Storm's Wrath.
• At the bottom of the tree, it picks up both Elemental Assault and Legacy of the Frost Witch for additional Maelstrom Weapon and Physical multipliers. It also paths through to Primordial Storm to form a 30-second/1-minute burst cycle with Splintered Elements. Due to the reduced value of Ascendance for Totemic in 11.1, the right side path is avoided.
• While Lava Lash is the core strike, it still needs to cast Stormstrike frequently in empty GCDs. It therefore picks up all of the supporting talents - especially Stormblast - to lift up their value.

In AoE situations Stormbringer can dish out incredible burst, making it well suited for Mythic+ pull styles. It also still retains a solid single-target core while picking up other talents, making it a strong contender when piloted correctly:

Totemic is an extremely strong Mythic+ option in 11.1, having access to frequent and extreme burst tools, some of which are uncapped. It sacrifices very little single-target comfort to get there as well, so is the recommended choice:

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In AoE the goal of Stormbringer is to generate and spend as much Maelstrom Weapon as possible, while casting Crash Lightning whenever you can. It picks up both Crash Lightning and Crashing Storms, while also taking most Stormstrike options to build a solid single-target core for both filler and boss situations. Some additional notes are:

Totemic's AoE style in 11.1 is very different, focusing heavily on Reactivity and Earthsurge to do the heavy lifting. This means all of the Lava Lash related talents are kept relevant, and are always taken as the core of the tree. It also wants to pick up the entire Windfury Weapon section due to how frequently it triggers it in AoE to capitalize on Imbuement Mastery. Additional Notes are:

• Picking up Ascendance for a heavy flood of Maelstrom Weapon is currently recommended as it lets us pick up Static Accumulation, our biggest generation tool.
• Primordial Wave through to Primordial Storm also gives us a massive 30-second burst cycle, and the Haste layered over other cooldowns is extremely strong. Due to needing both, there are currently a couple of options for the last 2 points:
  • Legacy of the Frost Witch + Elemental Assault (1pt each) - this provides similar value to Feral Spirit throughout from the single point buff Legacy gives, and while Elemental Assault is much nicer at two points the squeeze forces us to only grab one. This combo makes bosses and single target situations much smoother, and is recommended.
  • Feral Spirit + Witch Doctor's Ancestry is generally the weakest option, but gives an additional burst layer to Doom Winds. The cost for single-target comfort and lower overall damage makes it much more niche.
• Due to having Primordial Wave, it also needs Flame Shock setup to activate it in AoE. Molten Assault covers the initial setup, and Stormbringer has enough spare points in the middle to also pick up Voltaic Blaze. This gives us a backup proc to reapply every Primordial Wave, or even AoE apply it from range.
• Crash Lightning is a large extra source of Maelstrom Weapon and Windfury Weapon procs, so is always taken when playing in AoE.
• At the bottom of the tree we pick up Primordial Storm for an extremely strong 30-second burst cooldown, alongside Witch Doctor's Ancestry to layer over these windows. We avoid Elemental Spirits as most damage is either Physical or Flamestrike, so reliability is preferred. Lastly, two points in Legacy of the Frost Witch boosts Physical damage further.
• Elemental Blast is taken to give more punch to our Maelstrom Weapon spenders, as in AoE they start to fall off for Totemic quite a lot. The extra stats also lifts its value above Chain Lightning, making it the spender of choice.
• For our final handful of points you have quite a few options. The current best performing option is 2 points in Elemental Assault with Flurry, but there are some other great options depending on preference:
  • Lashing Flames is a solid all-rounder that can be substituted for any of the above.
  • Storm's Wrath and Stormblast can be substituted in for Flurry and one point in Elemental Assault for much more single-target comfort and additional Windfury Weapon damage.
  • Crashing Storms is an option to be dropped due to the low value of spenders, but it broadly outpaces other options here. Swapping this has little impact either side of the decision.
• Sundering and Molten Thunder are also taken to give a short section of condensed Earthsurge triggers during Doom Winds which we can cast back-to-back on a shorter GCD.

For Delves, Stormbringer is well suited due to its very flexible damage profile, allowing it to pool resources between pulls and having a variety of cooldowns to deploy. The heightened Maelstrom Weapon generation also makes it easier to commit to self-healing, so is recommended:

Totemic is much improved in Delves for 11.1, as it can consistently deploy a huge amount of burst on every dangerous pull, often killing off the most dangerous target quickly. Its higher positional requirement and uptime dependancy however makes it slightly less favorable compared to the alterntive:

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