Enhancement Shaman DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents Battle for Azeroth 8.0.1

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Last updated on Aug 25, 2018 at 21:02 by Wordup 37 comments

General Information

On this page, we present the viable talent choices for Enhancement Shamans in World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth 8.0.1. 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 for Enhancement Shaman

Level	Choices
15	✘ Boulderfist	✘ Hot Hand	✔ Lightning Shield
30	✘ Landslide	✔ Forceful Winds	✘ Totem Mastery
45	? Spirit Wolf	? Earth Shield	? Static Charge
60	✔ Searing Assault	✘ Hailstorm	✘ Overcharge
75	? Nature's Guardian	? Feral Lunge	? Wind Rush Totem
90	✘ Crashing Storm	✘ Fury of Air	✔ Sundering
100	✔ Elemental Spirits	✔ Earthen Spike	✔ Ascendance

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 Icon Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind Icon 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. Enhancement Shaman 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. We have provided 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, we recommend reading the entire talents section here to gain additional insight on when swapping your talents would be beneficial.

2.1. Raid Encounter: Single Target Oriented

This build is an excellent starting point as a standard raid setup, focusing on single target which is Enhancement's strongest niche currently. Player choice tiers are reserved for Utility options, which have no strict answer.

Level 15: Lightning Shield
Level 30: Forceful Winds
Level 45: Player's Choice
Level 60: Searing Assault
Level 75: Player's Choice
Level 90: Sundering
Level 100: Ascendance

2.2. Mythic+: AoE Oriented

This build focuses more on versatility and flexibility, allowing you to pick and choose things that will complement your tools in a Mythic+ or Dungeon environment.

Level 15: Lightning Shield
Level 30: Forceful Winds
Level 45: Static Charge
Level 60: Searing Assault
Level 75: Player's Choice
Level 90: Sundering
Level 100: Elemental Spirits

3. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Enhancement Shaman

✘ Boulderfist

✘ Hot Hand

✔ Lightning Shield

Tier 1 talents offer additional ways of dealing additional damage alongside increased Maelstrom generation.

Boulderfist reduces Rockbiters recharge time by 15%, and causing it to deal 20% increased damage.
Hot Hand provides a chance for all melee attacks while imbued with Flametongue to proc an empowered Lava Lash that costs no Maelstrom and deals 100% increased damage.
Lightning Shield applies a 1 hour buff to you that
- reflects a small amount of Nature damage to melee attackers;
- generates 2 charges per Stormstrike cast;
- at 20 charges, consumes them and resets to 1, generating 100 Maelstrom over 10 seconds and causing each melee attack to deal additional Nature damage.

Currently, Lightning Shield Icon Lightning Shield outperforms both other options by a large margin, alongside providing the most flexible interactions with your abilities, having the lowest impact on your rotation. This is highly recommended and currently, neither other option are worth considering based on the current tuning.

Hot Hand Icon Hot Hand is entirely single-target, and while it does provide additional Maelstrom by allowing for a free Lava Lash Icon Lava Lash cast, the procs are very sporadic and can sometimes lead to waste. The damage increase is solid.

Boulderfist Icon Boulderfist requires additional Global Cooldowns to be spent purely on generation, which the rotation currently cannot support as well as free generation provided by Lightning Shield, and Rockbiter Icon Rockbiter does not deal enough damage to alleviate this.

4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents for Enhancement Shaman

✘ Landslide

✔ Forceful Winds

✘ Totem Mastery

Tier 2 talents provide a mixture of raw additional damage, and some Maelstrom generation options.

Landslide grants your Rockbiter casts a 20% chance to increase the damage of your next Stormstrike cast by 100%.
Forceful Winds causes each successive Windfury Attack within 15 seconds to increase all Windfury damage by 100%, and Maelstrom generated by 1 (per swing), stacking up to 5 times. This effect does not refresh itself.
Totem Mastery summons 4 totems at your feet for 2 minutes with no cooldown, granting the following effects:
- Resonance Totem — generates 1 Maelstrom every second.
- Storm Totem — 5% increased Stormstrike damage
- Ember Totem — 10% increased Lava Lash damage.
- Tailwind Totem — 2% increased chance to trigger Windfury.

Currently, you will be selecting Forceful Winds Icon Forceful Winds in all situations.

Landslide Icon Landslide is single target-oriented, adding an additional proc to your rotation that can provide additional damage through buffed Stormstrike Icon Stormstrike hits. This talent however is very inconsistent, applies extra strain on the rotation to take advantage of it and has very little additional gain during AoE.

Forceful Winds Icon Forceful Winds, on the other hand, provides a solid single target increase and a large gain in AoE situations due to the additional speed it can be stacked up via Crash Lightning Icon Crash Lightning. Do note that the swing that triggers the effect gains the benefit (so for example, if 3 are triggered by a Crash Lightning cast, all 3 will gain 300% increased damage and generate a total of 6 extra Maelstrom).

Totem Mastery Icon Totem Mastery is very versatile, but it is just a little too weak right now to consider, and has limitations based on needing to use up a Global Cooldown to place them before each encounter or during movement. Due to that, it is not currently recommended.

5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents for Enhancement Shaman

? Spirit Wolf

? Earth Shield

? Static Charge

Tier 3 talents provide various utility tools that are useful in different situations.

Spirit Wolf causes Ghost Wolf to grant an additional 5% Movement Speed and 5% damage reduction each second while active, stacking up to 4 times. These stacks are all lost when leaving Ghost Wolf.
Earth Shield applies a shield to your target with 9 charges, increasing all healing you do to them by 10%. If the target takes damage, a charge will be consumed and heal them a small amount. This can only be active on one target at a time.
Static Charge reduces the cooldown of your Capacitor Totem by 5 seconds per target hit, up to a maximum of 20 seconds.

All 3 of these options have their place depending on the current content you are doing, and a lot of your choice will be decided by that and personal preference, as none are significantly stronger than the alternatives.

Spirit Wolf Icon Spirit Wolf provides a more consistent way of reducing damage if it is needed frequently during an encounter alongside improving your Ghost Wolf Icon Ghost Wolf movement speed bonus, but has a significant opportunity cost as you cannot deal damage while taking advantage of it, and need the buff to ramp up.

Earth Shield Icon Earth Shield grants a small amount of additional self sustain when doing solo content, or in encounters where there is constant but low ticking damage. It is otherwise relatively underwhelming and will not keep you alive in emergencies.

Static Charge Icon Static Charge provides additional AoE crowd control in particular in Mythic+ where it shines, and in encounters were more frequent stuns are needed. This has no impact on survival or movement, however, so make sure the situation calls for it before selecting.

6. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents for Enhancement Shaman

✔ Searing Assault

✘ Hailstorm

✘ Overcharge

Tier 4 talents offer single target damage increase options.

Searing Assault causes your direct Flametongue casts to deal additional Fire damage over 6 seconds to the target.
Hailstorm makes Frostbrand cause your melee attacks to also deal additional Frost damage while the buff is active.
Overcharge causes Lightning Bolt to consume up to 40 Maelstrom for significantly increased damage, but at the cost of a 12-second cooldown.

Currently, Searing Assault Icon Searing Assault is by far the superior choice due to it having little to no direct impact on the rotation while still providing more damage than the alternatives. Note that this DoT only applies from the initial cast of Flametongue, and not the on hit effects.

Hailstorm Icon Hailstorm damage is very low, and the additional maintenance and resource required to sustain it makes it a very weak option.

Similarly, Overcharge Icon Overcharge requires significantly more management and resource allocation to make use of, and the damage gain over a simple Lava Lash Icon Lava Lash does not warrant the pick.

7. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents for Enhancement Shaman

? Nature's Guardian

? Feral Lunge

? Wind Rush Totem

Tier 5 talents provide additional movement and healing options.

Nature's Guardian causes you to heal for 20% of your maximum health when you drop below 35% health. This effect has a 45-second cooldown.
Feral Lunge is an 8-25 yard range charge that also does minor Physical damage. This is on a 30-second cooldown and a 0.5-second Global Cooldown.
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. This has a 2-minute cooldown and can be placed up to 40 yards away.

In any situation where your group can capitalize upon Wind Rush Totem Icon 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 Icon Feral Lunge provides a good amount of additional personal mobility and sticking power, so is a great choice in those circumstances.

Nature's Guardian Icon Nature's Guardian, on the other hand, gives you a modest amount of additional self-sustain that will also automatically activate, keeping you healthy in situations where you are brought low. This is a solid choice for Raids and Dungeons, especially in the event that you are not in need of extra mobility.

8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents for Enhancement Shaman

✘ 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 active as long as you have enough resources to sustain it.
Sundering deals massive FlameStrike (Fire/Physical) damage in a line and incapacitates targets hit for 2 seconds. This has a 40-second cooldown and costs 20 Maelstrom.

Sundering Icon Sundering is by far the best, and most flexible choice on the tier. It shores up the biggest problem Enhancement suffers from which is burst AoE, alongside being the only solid increase in single target.

Crashing Storm Icon Crashing Storm is a less impactful talent, but as it has no impact on your resources or rotation during AoE is the easiest talent to make use of. This does also bring Crash Lightning Icon Crash Lightning back into the rotation as a low cost filler in single target if selected.

Fury of Air Icon Fury of Air causes too much disruption within the rotation, adding additional strain on your Maelstrom balance for little to no gain, so both of these choices are not ideal.

9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents for Enhancement Shaman

✔ Elemental Spirits

✔ Earthen Spike

✔ Ascendance

Tier 7 talents enhance existing or grant additional burst windows.

Elemental Spirits reduces the cooldown of Feral Spirit by 30 seconds, and and causes you to spawn two wolves in any combination from a pool of 3 Elements that provide the following buffs to you for the 15-second duration:
- Fire — Molten Weapon increases your Fire damage by 20% and causes Lava Lash to burn the target for an additional 35% of the damage dealt over 4 seconds. This effect accumulates much like Ignite for Fire Mages.
- Frost — Icy Edge causes all of your attacks to deal a fixed amount of additional Frost damage and slow the target by 30% for 3 seconds.
- Lightning — Crackling Surge increases the damage of Stormstrike and Windfury Attack by 35%.
Earthen Spike deals heavy Physical damage and increases the Physical and Nature damage you do to the affected target by 20% for 10 seconds. Has a 20-second cooldown and costs 20 Maelstrom.
Ascendance provides a 15 second buff that for the duration converts Stormstrike to Windstrike with a 66% reduced cooldown, and your auto attacks into Windlash. These both ignore armour and have an additional 30-yard range.

All three of these options fit into the kit and the choice you pick largely depends on the content or encounter type you are doing.

Ascendance Icon Ascendance provides the highest reliable burst window, but comes alongside the longest cooldown. It effectively limits RNG when active and has the greatest benefit in situations where additional single target burst is needed that match up with 3-minute cooldown window.

Elemental Spirits Icon Elemental Spirits, on the other hand, increases the frequency of your Feral Spirit Icon Feral Spirits, and the buffs are versatile, both increasing your single target and AoE damage significantly (in particular pairing Fire with Sundering Icon Sundering, or Lightning with Forceful Winds Icon Forceful Winds), but has RNG included.

Earthen Spike Icon Earthen Spike is ideal for frequent priority damage requirements, and making use of AoE damage funneling into a single target. It has the lowest burst of the 3 options, but it also relies the least on having fights line up with the cooldown timer, so is one of the least punishing as long as it can be used on cooldown.

10. PvP Talents (War Mode)

In Battle for Azeroth, there will be the option to go into "War Mode". Enabling War Mode provides the following benefits:

PvP talents that can be used in the outdoor world.
10% increase in World Quest rewards at max level.
10% more experience gained while leveling.
Ability to earn Conquest Points in the outdoor world, which can reward powerful gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open world PvP, and the possibility to be "ganked" while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

10.1. Enhancement Shaman War Mode Talents

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing open world PvE gameplay.

10.1.1. General PvP Talents

Adaptation is likely your most passive choice since it will automatically remove loss of control effects over 5 seconds. It is recommended for leveling to take this PvP talent.
Relentless is also a passive ability but it does not automatically remove crowd control abilities, but instead reduces the duration.
Gladiator's Medallion is an on-use ability that removes all movement impairing effects and all loss of control effects.

10.1.2. Enhancement Shaman PvP Talents

Generally the selections are made to optimize your ability to kill enemies faster, increasing your pace when moving through content.

Ride the Lightning is by far the best option, adding damage to your Stormstrike and augmenting it with additional cleave.
Forked Lightning is similar to Ride the Lightning, adding some long range cleave to your Stormstrike hits.
Shamanism allows for more liberal Bloodlust / Heroism usage without having to worry about the 10-minute lockout. Great for solo and duo content.
Skyfury Totem provides a moderate boost when staying in the same area, increasing your Critical Strike damage and Healing by 20% for 15-seconds, with a 40-second cooldown that is low enough to be used liberally, and boosting allies within its range on top of that.
Static Cling increases sustained damage against high health targets. Its use on multiple targets is limited due to two Stormstrikes usually killing a target before you gain any benefit.
Counterstrike Totem replicates and reflects damage you take for 15 seconds, on a 45-second cooldown. This can be really strong when in a high damage area to deal some chip damage to targets around you, and convert your health pool into additional damage.

Other options that are useful include Swelling Waves Icon Swelling Waves and Spectral Recovery Icon Spectral Recovery as healing tools, increasing your sustain either while in combat or moving between encounters. Thundercharge Icon Thundercharge can have some limited uses, increasing the recovery rate of your cooldowns between areas, but Enhancement does not have a lot of impactful tools to make use of this effect.

Ethereal Form Icon Ethereal Form, Purifying Waters Icon Purifying Waters, and Grounding Totem Icon Grounding Totem, on the other hand, have very limited PvE uses, being more focused on in-combat control more suited to a PvP engagement, and as such are not really recommended for large groups of low health enemies.