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Enhancement Shaman DPS Starter Guide - Shadowlands 9.2.5
By wordup
Last Updated:
2022/11/28
Changelog
Patch: 10.1.7
Table of Contents
Rating: 4.8/5
(
11
Votes)
Guide Navigation
Rating: 4.8/5
(
11
Votes)
Welcome to our Enhancement Shaman starter guide, which covers everything you need to start playing a new character in Shadowlands. While our other guide pages go into more individual detail, this simple starter guide covers all the basics in one place, whether you're a new Enhancement Shaman, a returning player to Shadowlands, hardcore, or casual alike, it's the best place to get a beginners overview on the class. Included are basic talent builds, simplified rotations, stats, legendary recommendations, and more to get you started as quickly as possible.
Please keep in mind that this page is meant to get players started quickly as an introduction, and does not contain much in the way of detailed explanations, mechanics, competitive options, gearing, simulation comparisons, or nuance. For more in-depth information, including all those optimizations and more, check out the complete Enhancement Shaman Guide pages linked in the navigation on the left-hand side of the page, and if you're leveling up in Shadowlands, you can take a look at our
leveling tips
.
10.1.7 Season 2
10.1.7 Cheat Sheet
10.1.7 Primordial Stones
10.1.7 Mythic+
10.1.7 Raid Tips
10.1.7 Talent Builds
10.1.7 Rotation
10.1.7 Support Buffs
10.1.7 Gear
10.1.7 Tier Set Bonus
Overview
Abilities & Talents
Advanced Concepts
Stats
Consumables
Macros & Addons
WeakAuras
Common Terms
Mythic+
Common Questions
Leveling
Simulations
Hotfixes
PvP Overview
PvP Builds
Mage Tower
About the Author
This guide is written by Wordup, a long-time Enhancement player and moderator on the
Shaman Discord server, Earthshrine
. I've played every iteration of Enhancement since Sunwell, and played in Echoes on Laughing Skull (EU) since Warlords of Draenor. You can catch me on
Twitter
, or in Discord if you have any guide related questions!
Covenant Choice for Enhancement Shaman in Shadowlands
To make it very clear, there is no "one and done" Covenant pick that will cover different fight styles, and Covenants play a very big part in Enhancement's toolkit now. At a bare minimum, you will likely need two (one Single Target, one Cleave/AoE oriented).
Ideal Covenant Picks
Content
Priority 1
Soulbind
Priority 2
Soulbind
Raids
Night Fae
Dreamweaver
Necrolord
Heirmir
Mythic+
Necrolord
Heirmir
Venthyr
Theotar
Open World/PvP
Venthyr
Nadjia
As a starter, I would recommend picking up
Night Fae
for the single target benefit given it's our focus, but pair it with
Venthyr
so you have a solid AoE option available that's easy to pick up and play without too much of a learning curve. These two work well in tandem as two different picks for different situations, and you really do need to have access to both given how important each individual ability is to each damage profile.
Best Enhancement Shaman Covenant
Kyrian Enhancement Shaman GuideNecrolord Enhancement Shaman Guide
Night Fae Enhancement Shaman GuideVenthyr Enhancement Shaman Guide
Legendaries for Enhancement Shaman in Shadowlands
We have a lot of different legendaries that are very important to our damage, but as a first craft to emphasize what we're good at I'd recommend starting with
Witch Doctor's Wolf Bones
. This won't cover all avenues of content, but it will set you up with a nice core single target build paired with
Night Fae
.
Best Single Legendaries for Enhancement Shaman
Raid Legendary
:
Witch Doctor's Wolf Bones
/
Primal Lava Actuators
Mythic+ Legendary
:
Primal Lava Actuators
/
Doom Winds
Best Double Legendaries for Enhancement Shaman
Raid Legendaries
:
Witch Doctor's Wolf Bones
with
Seeds of Rampant Growth
Mythic+ Legendaries
:
Primal Lava Actuators
with
Splintered Elements
/
Doom Winds
with
Elemental Conduit
I
heavily
recommend taking a look at our legendary guide to learn more about the legendaries available to Enhancement Shaman due to how important they are to our build, and our crafting guide to find all the materials you need to craft them.
Enhancement Shaman Legendaries Guide
Talents for Enhancement Shaman in Shadowlands
This Enhancement Shaman build will provide you with a solid all round single target package with a bit of cleave given the other recommendations above;
though it is not the absolute best
in any specific metric. There are definitely some important choices you can shift around to enhance your AoE or single target if you want to specialize, but these have a higher requirement to adjust to when learning. I'd once again recommend the deeper look we have at each talent and more specialized builds for specific activities in the Enhancement Shaman Talent Guide.
Enhancement Shaman Talent Guide
Stat Priority for Enhancement Shaman in Shadowlands
Enhancement Shaman like many classes in Shadowlands now heavily prioritizes our primary stat Agility, and after that has a strong leaning toward Haste for the cooldown reduction it provides, but your gear may alter this slightly so keep that in mind. Find out more about how stats work in the Stats Guide, or get an overview of gear to look for from dungeons and raids in the Enhancement Shaman Gear Guide
Agility
Haste
Mastery
Versatility
Critical Strike
Two quick notes:
Mastery is the most volatile stat but the recommended build likes it alongside it granting some bonus AoE, but bear in mind that these stats are
extremely
volatile depending on if you change your selections.
If you opt into playing
Venthyr
in any way, then Critical Strike rises to an equal level of Haste.
Enchants, Gems & Consumables for Enhancement Shaman in Shadowlands
Shadowlands comes with a lot of Enchant options and the usual consumable choices. Note that many of the stat based ones will fluctuate with your gear, but with our general leaning toward Haste we opt for them here.
Cloak
:
Enchant Cloak - Fortified Avoidance
Chest
:
Enchant Chest - Eternal Skirmish
Boots
:
Enchant Boots - Eternal Agility
Ring
:
Enchant Ring - Tenet of Haste
Primary Weapon
:
Enchant Weapon - Celestial Guidance
x1
Secondary Weapon
:
Enchant Weapon - Sinful Revelation
x1
(single target) or
Enchant Weapon - Sinful Revelation
x1
(AoE)
Gems
:
Quick Jewel Cluster
Weapon Oils:
Enhancement cannot use Weapon Oils currently as they clash with our Weapon Imbues
Windfury Weapon
and
Flametongue Weapon
and can't be combined. Imbues are much better, so oils aren't worth considering no matter what.
Rotation for Enhancement Shaman in Shadowlands
This is a typical Enhancement Shaman DPS rotation, using the talents recommended above. More optimized rotations and notes on cooldown usage can be found in the Enhancement Shaman Rotation Guide. It is strongly recommended you refer to the rotation page here, because there is a lot of nuance and rules that can improve your gameplay, but you will still do just fine following these rules.
Cast
Windfury Totem
if it isn't active.
Cast
Lava Lash
if
Hot Hand
is active.
Maintain
Flame Shock
on your target.
Cast
Feral Spirit
on cooldown.
Cast
Fae Transfusion
.
Cast
Lightning Bolt
/
Chain Lightning
if at or above 8 stacks of
Maelstrom Weapon
.
Keep
Stormstrike
on cooldown, especially with
Stormbringer
active.
Cast
Lava Lash
to fill.
Cast
Sundering
.
Fill with
Frost Shock
.
Fill with
Crash Lightning
(
even in single target
).
If you have 5
Maelstrom Weapon
stacks and nothing else available, cast
Lightning Bolt
/
Chain Lightning
.
The
Rotation
page covers a lot of the details, but as a quick tl;dr on the rules, you need to know
you don't have to immediately use your charges
of
Maelstrom Weapon
, and can pool them all the way up to 10 - use it as a pseudo filler but make sure you also don't waste any stacks by capping. You also have two key procs to watch out for with this build:
Hot Hand
sends
Lava Lash
to the absolute top of the priority, and you need to use this on cooldown until the buff ends.
Stormbringer
requires you to react and fire off
Stormstrike
quickly.
The core is making sure that your
Stormstrike
,
Lava Lash
and
Frost Shock
cyling to reduce downtime, with
Flame Shock
as the lowest priority filler. A big 9.2 change to remember is that
Lava Lash
can refresh your
Flame Shock
in single target situations on your target, which opens up more GCDs in your rotation so use this to maintain the DoT.
For AoE, just make sure to switch your Maelstorm spender to
Chain Lightning
, and
Lava Lash
from targets with active
Flame Shock
s to spread it to as many targets as you can. Also make sure to maintain
Crash Lightning
and aim to hit the most targets as possible with the burst from
Sundering
.
There is a lot to unpack with the spec because it has a lot of moving parts, and as such
I highly recommend looking at the rotation page
to break down the nuances if you want to learn more.
Our Enhancement Shaman guides are always updated with the latest information from in-game experience, simulations, and logs; make sure to check our changelog to this page, by clicking on
View Changelog
at the top of the page. If you are interested in more in-depth Enhancement Shaman guides for , make sure to browse the
Navigation Bar
below, and our list of
Related Guides
just beneath the
Table of Contents
.
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