Enhancement Shaman DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents (Legion 7.3)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 7.3 Changes
  • 3. Patch 7.2.5 Changes
  • 4. Strengths
  • 5. Weaknesses
  • 6. Viability in the Current Patch
  • 7. Contents
  • 8. ChangeLog
• +Easy Mode
  • 1. The Basics
  • 2. Talent Choice
  • 3. Stat Choice
  • 4. Basic Rotation
  • 5. ChangeLog
• +Spell Summary
  • 1. Spell Summary
  • 2. Main Resource
  • 3. Basic Abilities
  • 4. Important Procs
  • 5. DPS Cooldowns
  • 6. ChangeLog
• ×Builds and Talents
  • 1. Talent Choices
  • 2. Talent Cheat Sheet
    • 2.1. Raid Encounters
  • 3. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
  • 4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents
  • 5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents
  • 6. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
  • 7. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
  • 8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
  • 9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
  • 10. ChangeLog
• +Artifact Traits and Relics
  • 1. Artifact Progression
    • 1.1. Early Progression
    • 1.2. Patch 7.2 Post 35 Trait Path
  • 2. Artifact Ability
  • 3. Relic Choice
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Netherlight Crucible Relic Paths
  • 1. Optimization between Light/Shadow Tier 2 and Relic Tier 3 Choices
  • 2. Tier 2 Priorities
    • 2.1. Best
    • 2.2. Good
    • 2.3. Weak
  • 3. Tier 3 Priorities
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Ability Priority List
    • 1.1. Opening Rotation
  • 2. Important Notes
    • 2.1. Doom Winds
    • 2.2. Crash Lightning Explained
    • 2.3. Tier 2 Talents
    • 2.4. Tier 5 Talents
    • 2.5. 7.2.5 Ascendance vs. Earthen Spike
    • 2.6. Pandemic
    • 2.7. Healing Surge
    • 2.8. Lightning Bolt
  • 3. Core Concepts
    • 3.1. Maelstrom Management
    • 3.2. Buff Uptimes & Proc Management
  • 4. Tier 19 Set Bonuses
  • 5. Tier 20 Set Bonuses
  • 6. ChangeLog
• +Stat Priority
  • 1. Basics
    • 1.1. Breakpoints & Ratios
  • 2. Getting a Better Understanding
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Gems
  • 2. Enchants
  • 3. Consumables
    • 3.1. Potion Choice
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Macros and Addons
  • 1. Addons
    • 1.1. ElvUI
    • 1.2. Weak Auras
    • 1.3. Boss Mods
      • 1.3.1. BigWigs Bossmods
      • 1.3.2. Deadly Boss Mods
    • 1.4. Name Plates
      • 1.4.1. KUI Nameplates
      • 1.4.2. TidyPlates
    • 1.5. Damage Meters
      • 1.5.1. Skada
      • 1.5.2. Details
    • 1.6. Extra AddOns
      • 1.6.1. Mik's Scrolling Battle Text
      • 1.6.2. Death Note
      • 1.6.3. Doom CooldownPulse
      • 1.6.4. Angry Assignments
  • 2. Macros
    • 2.1. Generic Macros for Shamans
    • 2.2. Wind Shear
    • 2.3. Purge
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot
  • 1. Raid Best in Slot List
    • 1.1. Tier 19 & 20 Bonus Combinations
    • 1.2. Evaluating Upgrades with dynamic Item Levels
  • 2. Racial Bonuses
  • 3. Legendaries
    • 3.1. 7.1.5 Legendaries
    • 3.2. 7.2 Legendaries
    • 3.3. 7.2.5 Legendaries
    • 3.4. Recommended Choices
  • 4. Loot Competition
  • 5. ChangeLog

General Information

On this page, we present the viable talent choices for Enhancement Shamans in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3. We detail what each of the talents do and in which situations they should be taken.

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. Talent Choices

Level	Choices
15	? Windsong	? Hot Hand	✔ Landslide
30	? Rainfall	? Feral Lunge	? Wind Rush Totem
45	✔ Lightning Surge Totem	✘ Earthgrab Totem	✘ Voodoo Totem
60	✘ Lightning Shield	✔ Ancestral Swiftness	? Hailstorm
75	✔ Tempest	✔ Overcharge	? Empowered Stormlash
90	✔ Crashing Storm	✔ Fury of Air	? Sundering
100	✔ Ascendance	✘ Boulderfist	✔ Earthen Spike

Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area (such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

2. Talent Cheat Sheet

Optimizing talents on a contextual basis is the highly recommended method of setting up your build, as many talents offer unique strengths in the right situation. I have decided to list a "cheat sheet" of sorts below, however, to help with a quick set up that should be just fine for most encounters. If you want to fully optimize your ability to play this specialization, I recommend reading the entire talents section here to gain additional insight on when swapping your talents would be beneficial.

2.1. Raid Encounters

This build is an excellent starting point as a standard raid setup and extends well into Mythic+ without requiring any legendary specific talents.

• Level 15: Landslide
• Level 30: Wind Rush Totem
• Level 45: Lightning Surge Totem
• Level 60: Ancestral Swiftness
• Level 75: Tempest
• Level 90: Crashing Storm
• Level 100: Ascendance

3. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents

? Windsong

? Hot Hand

✔ Landslide

Tier 1 talents offer a variety of buffs to help increase your combat effectiveness.

• Windsong provides an additional ability on a 45-second cooldown, dealing heavy Nature damage with a 10 yard range, and also increasing attack speed by 30% for 20 seconds.
• Hot Hand provides a chance for all melee attacks whilst imbued with Flametongue to proc an empowered Lava Lash that costs no Maelstrom and deals 100% increased damage.
• Landslide causes Rockbiter and to increase Agility by 8% for 10 seconds.

Currently all 3 options have a place, but some become much stronger in certain circumstances. Generally speaking, this tier is up to choice, but Legendaries interact heavily here.

Landslide is the most consistent choice in this tier, providing a constant 8% Agility and not interfering with the rotation.

Windsong is less consistent, but can sync very well with Doom Winds and Ascendance, so is a perfectly viable choice as a burst option.

Hot Hand is a good choice when considering a build focusing around the Legendary Akainu's Absolute Justice, due to its synergy with Lashing Flames. Outside of this situation, it is still a solid choice, but has more downsides so struggles against Landslide.

4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents

? Rainfall

? Feral Lunge

? Wind Rush Totem

Tier 2 talents offer an increase to raid utility and personal mobility.

• Rainfall places down a Healing Rain that lasts 10 seconds, but can be increased up to 30 seconds total with successful Stormstrike and Lava Lash.
• Feral Lunge is a medium range charge that also does minor Physical damage.
• Wind Rush Totem summons a totem for 15 seconds that increases the speed of allies within 10 yards by 60% for 5 seconds. As long as allies remain in the area this will be refreshed, and the totem has a 2-minute cooldown.

In any situation where your group can capitalize upon Wind Rush Totem, it is the best choice by far. The refresh effect in the area is extremely powerful as it allows for unique benefits to the group to deal with mechanics. If this is not necessary however, Feral Lunge provides a strong amount of personal mobility to stick to targets, and is a great choice in those circumstances.

Rainfall is useful in any low movement encounter where additional healing could be useful, this is also an option to help healers out with very low impact to your damage.

5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents

✔ Lightning Surge Totem

✘ Earthgrab Totem

✘ Voodoo Totem

Tier 3 talents offer a variety of totem choices that increase your ability to control mobs.

• Lightning Surge Totem explodes after 2 seconds to stun all enemies within 8 yards for 5 seconds. This is an upgraded version of the old Capacitor Totem from previous expansions.
• Earthgrab Totem pulses a root effect to all enemies within 10 yards for 5 seconds. If the roots are broken, the next pulse will instead slow the targets.
• Voodoo Totem summons a totem for 10 seconds that Hexes all targets within 8 yards.

Lightning Surge Totem is the default choice for this tier. It provides a lengthy 5-second stun with only a short charge time and has the widest variety of use out of the 3 totems. Earthgrab Totem and Voodoo Totem could see very specific use on fights that require AoE roots or crowd control, but should be avoided for general usage.

6. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents

✘ Lightning Shield

✔ Ancestral Swiftness

? Hailstorm

Tier 4 talents offer a minor damage increase.

• Lightning Shield lasts 1 hour and has a chance to deal low Nature damage when you deal or take melee damage.
• Ancestral Swiftness increases Haste by 6%.
• Hailstorm causes Frostbrand to deal additional Frost damage whilst active, in a similar way to Flametongue.

The default choice in most situations currently is Ancestral Swiftness, as the flat additional Haste currently performs better both other options more consistently, with less input required.

Hailstorm if using the legendary Akainu's Absolute Justice should be your default choice as this enables the talent and item effect to work effectively.

Lightning Shield has power in open world content, but generally falls far behind both other options.

7. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents

✔ Tempest

✔ Overcharge

? Empowered Stormlash

Tier 5 talents augments some of your basic abilities to grant significant bonus damage.

• Tempest causes the Stormbringer effect to increase the Critical Strike chance of your next Stormstrike cast by 40%.
• Overcharge causes Lightning Bolt to consume up to 40 Maelstrom for significantly increased damage, but causes it to have a 12-second cooldown.
• Empowered Stormlash causes Stormlash to spread to an additional target for a total of 3, and deal 50% increased damage.

As a general choice, Tempest will perform the best without interfering with your rotation at all. Overcharge is competitive however, and will provide a powerful burst source on a short cooldown. Tempest synergises much better with other talent options and is much easier to play around, so is the recommended pick on this tier. Note, do not combine Overcharge with Akainu's Absolute Justice however, as this will directly reduce the amount of Maelstrom you can funnel into Lava Lash casts.

Empowered Stormlash remains very close, but requires group content to be useful. This has no impact on the rotation at all, so is the easiest to pick up and make use of if you are learning the spec in group play.

When considering your choices with the Soul of the Farseer ring, both Overcharge and Empowered Stormlash are solid picks. The former provides additional rotational complexity and can augment your damage further depending on talent picks, whilst the latter will provide consistent damage in group content. Both perform very similar so decide based on your personal choice.

8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents

✔ Crashing Storm

✔ Fury of Air

? Sundering

Tier 6 talents focus on providing additional cleave and AoE damage.

• Crashing Storm causes Crash Lightning to also leave an electrified zone on the ground for 6 seconds, dealing low Nature damage each second.
• Fury of Air creates a vortex 8 yards around you, damaging and slowing enemies in the area. This costs 3 Maelstrom per second to maintain, and will remain as long as you have enough available to sustain it.
• Sundering does massive Physical damage in a line and knocks enemies to either side, with a short 2 second mini stun, with a 40-second cooldown at the cost of 20 Maelstrom.

Crashing Storm is a low gain talent, but as it has no impact on your resources or rotation is the easiest talent to make use of.

Fury of Air has a lot of potential when 2 targets are consistently active, and can with higher end gear become the ideal talent when combined with the Smoldering Heart legendary even in single target; however it has a much higher skill cap, requiring additional Maelstrom maintenance, so bear that in mind when picking this and other talents that also require that.

Sundering can have very strong burst AoE applications, and is a worthwhile choice due to the low value of both alternative talents now. This should only be taken however if targets are going to last for a very short duration and Crashing Storm will not gain value, or additional crowd control is needed such as in Mythic+ dungeons.

9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents

✔ Ascendance

✘ Boulderfist

✔ Earthen Spike

Tier 7 talents add new abilities and major damage increases to your kit.

• Ascendance transforms you into an Air Ascendant for 15 seconds, reducing the cooldown and cost of Stormstrike by 80% and changing it into Windstrike for the duration, alongside changing your auto attacks into Windlash, granting them a 30 yard range and bypass armour.
• Boulderfist reduces Rockbiters recharge time by 15%, and causing it to deal 20% increased damage.
• Earthen Spike deals heavy Physical damage and increases the Physical and Nature damage you do to the affected target by 30% for 10 seconds, on a 20-second cooldown.

Currently both Ascendance and Earthen Spike are the most powerful choices, and preference dictates which you aim for.

Ascendance provides a short, high damage burst window that allows you to frontload your DPS into a 15-second period. As this is very easy to predict and play around, it has the potential to be a powerful talent due to the relatively similar performance it shares, alongside the flexibility of adding a burst cooldown to your arsenal.

Earthen Spike is more consistent over the duration of a fight, augmenting Physical and Nature damage intermittently. This is an equally good choice, and the talent you take between these two is generally down to personal preference.

The newly added Boulderfist however performs very poorly, and should not be taken in any situation.

10. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 28 Aug. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.3.
• 10 Aug. 2017: Edited Level 100 talent section to explain Earthen Spike and Ascendance parity.
• 09 Jul. 2017: Updated to reflect Tomb talent choices in the current environment, in particular Fury of Air.
• 17 Jun. 2017: Added note regarding Overcharge & Akainus legendary.
• 12 Jun. 2017: Updated for Patch 7.2.5 changes to talent tiers.
• 27 Mar. 2017: Updated talent recommendations for Tier 1, 4, and 6.
• 21 Jan. 2017: Added Tier 19 4-piece set bonus specific builds.
• 09 Jan. 2017: Update for 7.1.5 with new talent changes and recommendations.
• 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
• 24 Jul. 2016: Improved clarity and updated talent balance.
• 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.