Enhancement Shaman PvP Rotation and Playstyle — The War Within (Season 1)
PvP requires you to perform various actions in the course of a duel, match, or battleground: interrupting/silencing enemies, damaging them, bursting them down, defending yourself, keeping yourself alive, etc.. It is a game mode that fully utilizes your kit, especially spells that are rarely used in PvE. On this page, we go through all the spells you need to use in PvP as an Enhancement Shaman, how you should use them, and we explain what your playstyle should be.
This page is part of our Enhancement Shaman PvP Guide.
Playstyle for Enhancement Shaman
The Enhancement Shaman should focus on maximizing their damage as much as they can. Maximizing damage and using instant utilities like Wind Shear and Grounding Totem will give windows where your team can do devastating damaging bursts.
Before Gates Open
Have a plan for who you will be mainly using your crowd control on. Although Enhancement Shaman do lack crowd control, they still have Hex.
If you are playing against a team that has the ability to fear your healer, you can use Tremor Totem. This is a great utility spell.
Set your focus target to the main enemy team member who will be likely using crowd control like Polymorph or Fear.This will allow you to know when to use Wind Shear and Grounding Totem to stop the crowd control.
Use Earth Shield on your teammate who will be focused, which is usually the Enhancement Shaman.
Use Flametongue, and Windfury Weapon on your weapons before the gates open. Buff yourself with Lightning Shield and Skyfury.
Offensive Playstyle
Sustained Damage
Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.
- Use and maintain Flame Shock on the enemy as you approach.
- Use Lava Lash, generating Maelstrom Weapon.
- Use Stormstrike, generating Maelstrom Weapon.
- Use Stormstrike when you get a Stormbringer proc.
- Use Ice Strike, generating Maelstrom Weapon.
- Use Tempest if you have more than 8 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon stacks available.
- Use Elemental Blast if you have more than 8 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon stacks available.
- Use Lightning Bolt if you have more than 8 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon stacks available, while Elemental Blast is on cooldown.
- If you cannot connect to your target use, Frost Shock, Flame Shock, or Lightning Bolt.
- Use utility like Healing Stream Totem, Greater Purge, Purge, Earthbind Totem, Earthgrab Totem, or Earth Shield.
- Use your burst rotation.
Burst Damage
When you have the enemy healer in crowd control, and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage. If you can, stun the kill target with Capacitor Totem or have your team stun the target so they cannot move or use defensives.
- Once 10 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon.
- Use Feral Spirit.
- Use Static Field Totem on the kill target, if talented.
- Use Tempest if you have more than 8 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon stacks available.
- Use Elemental Blast to spend all Maelstrom.
- Use Primordial Wave.
- Use Lightning Bolt to spend all Maelstrom, and proc Primordial Wave.
- Use Lava Lash on cooldown, ideally with Hot Hand buff.
- Use Lightning Bolt to spend all once it is available for more casts.
- Use Stormstrike, to give more Maelstrom stacks.
- Use Ice Strike, to give more Maelstrom stacks.
- Use Frost Shock as filler.
Defensive Techniques
Astral Shift is the main and only defensive cooldown on a Enhancement Shaman. This cannot be used while stunned and reduces damage taken by 40% for 12 seconds.
Stone Bulwark Totem is a useful totem providing an absorption shield to the Shaman. This can be reset with Totemic Recall to be used back to back. In addition the actual totem can be relocated with Totemic Projection to avoid it being focused.
Healing Stream Totem should be used to provide low amounts of passive Healing, further buffed by Swirling Currents. This is also increased through the 20% benefit if Earth Shield is on the target will provide significant side healing.
Healing Surge should only be used with 5 or more Maelstrom Weapon stacks to gain the benefit of the increased throughput. Try to only use Healing Surge on teammates with your Earth Shield, and after pressing Healing Stream Totem with the Swirling Currents buff active.
Spirit Walk will mostly be used to break root effects to keep on a target or to move to safety.
Macros
It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.
Changelog
- 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for TWW Launch.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for TWW pre-patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated for Dragonflight Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Updated for Dragonflight 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Updated for Dragonflight 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updatedfor Dragonflight 10.1.5.
- 23 May 2023: Updatedfor Dragonflight 10.1 start of season.
- 06 May 2023: Updated for Dragonflight 10.1.
- 21 Mar. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight 10.0.7.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight post-launch.
- 22 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
- 31 Jul. 2022: Updated for Shadowlands Season 4.
- 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 27 Feb. 2022: Updated for Patch 9.2 of Shadowlands.
- 17 Nov. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.5 of Shadowlands.
- 04 Jul. 2021: Updated based on Patch 9.1 of Shadowlands.
- 19 Mar. 2021: Updated based on Patch 9.0.5 for Shadowlands.
- 02 Dec. 2020: Updated in preparation for first PvP season of Shadowlands.
- 18 Oct. 2020: Updated based on the 9.0.1 Pre-Patch for Shadowlands, and new author.
- 12 Jul. 2020: Updated Burst and Sustained damage rotations.
- 09 Mar. 2020: Updated Burst and Sustained Damage rotations.
- 20 Jan. 2020: This page was checked for Patch 8.3 and no update was deemed necessary.
- 05 Jan. 2020: Page added.
Other PvP Guides
This guide has been written by Tiqqle, a PvP enthusiast who has repeatedly achieved 2400 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.
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