Enhancement Shaman Mid-Expansion Retrospective - Hero Talents, Current Issues & Season 3 Wishlist

Posted 2025/05/10 at 1:30 PM by wordup

Mid-Expansion Retrospectives & Season 3 Wishlists

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Our Class Writers share their expert opinions based on rigorous testing and theorycrafting in hopes of contextualizing the changes coming in future patches of the War Within. Check out all of our released articles in our Editorial Section.

Wowhead Editorials

Enhancement Shaman in the War Within So FarwaySeason 1veryWindfury TotemmuchSkyfuryStormbringerTotemicElemental SpiritsRolling Thunder4-piece bonusWitch Doctor's AncestryverySince even breaking it down to key changes is quite long, click here for an abridged list of changes

Deeply Rooted Elements was tuned so strongly it almost resulted in a 40-50% Ascendance uptime on PTR, but was effectively taken out back before launch. If this would have gone live, the spec would have easily eclipsed others in single target by 20%+.

Ascendance was reduced to 2-minutes as a cooldown via Thorim's Invocation. This was just a straight up incredible QoL buff on top of the damage it brought, as 3-minute cooldowns are just much more awkward to plan around.

Feral Spirit was introduced and had none of its proc mechanics explained. This took a lot more research than I'd like to admit between me and even more from others, and was also nerfed very aggressively to cap the number of potential Feral Spirit wolves that could spawn. Once again, if this hadn't happened the spec would have been even more oppressive than it was. This talent was also massively inflated by the 4-piece bonus, as it received double the benefit of Witch Doctor's Ancestry when it was already a strong set

Stormblast was changed to give Stormstrike a second charge (a huge improvement) and Doom Winds was given more impact as a 1-minute burst AoE cooldown when pressed.

An attempt was made to reign in the amount of Maelstrom Weapon generated by Stormbringer, including nerfs to Supercharge, and a rework to Storm Swell. Arc Discharge was also extended to Lightning Bolt instead of just Chain Lightning.

Totemic saw its first attempt at a redesign, switching Totemic Rebound to Maelstrom Weapon spending, reworks to Whirling Elements motes and a build much more suited toward Oversurge and Earthsurge damage due to the new Molten Thunder talent.

a lotthis Wowhead articleConductive EnergyPrimordial WaveallStormbringerTotemicTotemicStormbringerthat goodallSeason 2TotemicbalanceMaelstrom WeaponAs this was another significant series of changes, you can click here for an abridged list of key changes

Primordial Wave was redesigned to a direct damage cast that hit all targets with Flame Shock present and generated Maelstrom Weapon . Surging Elements was converted to a 2-point talent, and Primordial Storm was added as a combo Maelstrom Weapon consuming follow-up to the initial Primordial Wave cast.

Molten Thunder was redesigned to be a bit less RNG weighted, and more consistent around a 30-second timer with scaling resets in AoE.

Elemental Spirits were redesigned to give less Elemental damage increase, but still retain some of the baseline Physical damage increase for each wolf - this included wolves spawned by Rolling Thunder. Feral Spirit was also changed to now trigger at random rather than specifically being linked to the school of the spell that triggered them.

All strikes including Crash Lightning had their base damage increased, and Lashing Flames was changed to now apply from Sundering hits. Molten Assault also had its spread count increased to 5, up from 4. Lightning Strikes also had its duration increased to 8 seconds.

Stormbringer had Awakening Storms require 4 stacks instead of 3 to trigger Tempest. Arc Discharge was also changed to stack to 2, and Conductive Energy was given smarter spreading rules with Chain Lightning.

Totemic changed Earthsurge to include Splitstream triggers of Sundering, and those same Sundering procs were also flagged to enable Windfury Weapon triggers. Surging Totem and the percentage conversion of Earthsurge were significantly nerfed, alongside Oversurge.

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Totemic serves as a 30-second/1-minute burst AoE spec with free cleave and very consistent sustained damage, making it ideal for some of Undermine's hardest bosses. It provides good uncapped AoE, a good amount of priority damage and a moderate amount of funnel. It also has a relatively easy execution sequence to pull off its combos with a little practice, and requires very little planning to slot into a fight or Mythic+ route.

Stormbringer instead provides powerful 2-minute single target bursts when in Ascendance, and a higher ceiling when in a pure single target scenario making it an ideal pick for specific raid encounters. It can also flex its tree very easily into AoE without much loss, and brings extremely strong priority damage and funnel. It is however slightly more capped, and requires much more micro-management around Tempest and Primordial Wave, but when done so it's an extremely potent Mythic+ spec in the current meta.

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Threat - I know Enhancement isn't the only spec dealing with this problem this season, but this was a problem in Season 1 that was just barely covered by Timelessness thanks to Augmentation still being a go to spec. I'd consider this the number 1 problem for us in Mythic+ as both of our hero talents are incredibly sensitive to ripping threat, with Totemic's huge frontloaded burst during Doom Winds and Stormbringer's aggressive spread funneling during Primordial Wave. I've seen more than a few Enhancement players express that it's so bad this season they aren't interested in playing because of how frequently they take a trip back to spawn, which isn't fun. What helps even less is the spec is so heavily built on momentum and short bursts that the game is practically daring you to cheat death by pressing the buttons you're supposed to be pressing.

Base UI Problems - ironically topical with the announcement of UI assistance coming in the near future, but both of Enhancement's hero talents have core UI problems that require external addons to operate properly. For Stormbringer the lack of innate tracking for Maelstrom Weapon spent toward Tempest has been an issue since day 1 of the expansion, and we have no feedback on what state the core of the hero tree is in without using an external Weakaura. This also goes for Thorim's Invocation for Ascendance, which while only a small component of the spec confuses a lot of players who don't understand the elaborate conditionals on how to control it. For Totemic with the addition of Surging Totem having a relocate spell replacing it while active, a cancel macro (and external Weakaura to support it) is needed if we ever want to drop another via Totemic Recall. What's worse, the cooldown manager and hotkey visuals completely overwrite the cooldown tracking, meaning you need an external tracker to even know your totem is currently active at all.

Self-Healing and Defense - To an extent bringing this up yet again feels a bit like a broken record, but we really are firmly behind the field in every way compared to all melee currently. We have powerful individual defensive tools, but their long cooldowns means we have to plan very carefully about when we deploy them, and often are the first to run out of things to use if dangerous events are too frequent, meaning it needs to rely on Windveil a lot. Ancestral Guidance being lost was a massive hit (even if it was very strong), and our self-healing has been reduced entirely down to spending Maelstrom Weapon for Healing Surge - a very costly damage-to-healing conversion that takes time to build up. We have no passive healing, and no free personal or group sustain that doesn't cost something. Considering we're a healer hybrid class, us being eclipsed by almost every single other DPS in the game seems incredibly off base and only exacerbates our survival problems further.

Tuning - While I very much understand why there were a lot of repeat nerfs on the 11.1 PTR in the lead up to release due to how good Enhancement looked there, I feel like it'd be unfair to not mention that some of them in hindsight were a bit overkill. Most decisions were very healthy and the return to theme is absolutely praiseworthy, but some of the things lost in the process stings a lot. The repeated iterations on the current set bonus in particular lead to a lot of confusion from players which is worth highlighting. Right now, our main weakness is pure single target relative to the field as it was the part hit the most by the 11.1 changes.

Utility - This is very close to the same umbrella as self-healing, but losing Ancestral Guidance with nothing in return (no, Healing Stream Totem doesn't count) took out one of the best pieces of utility we had access to. This stings in raids and is agonizing in Mythic+, so while we have a good suite of tools for specific mechanics, having no universally useful "this is always good to have" button feels like a downgrade, and took away one of the few exciting pickups we have on the entire class tree.

Enhancement Shaman Hero Talents: Stormbringer vs. Totemic incrediblyStormbringerTotemicanddefined StormbringerStormbringerfeelnever

Burst - It very strongly hooks into Ascendance through its mechanics and has reinvigorated what was previously a pretty mid cooldown. On the other hand, it also tapped into a long standing powderkeg-in-waiting via Rolling Thunder and Elemental Spirits, and as Season 1 showed multiplicative scaling can get really out of control if it can be forced.

Complexity - On the surface, Stormbringer is very intuitive - spend Maelstrom Weapon, do big damage. It hooked into the simpler build archetypes we had and limited filler we had previously, but when you got deeper into the optimization and really pushing to make it go nuclear, it got really advanced with what needed to be juggled. It unfortunately doesn't really give much feedback on how to truly pilot it in-game, and external resources remain the best way to learn how it does so well. It's also heavily dependent on how willing your group - but more importantly your tank - is willing to chain pulls around your management of these opportunities, because having them fizzle while waiting on the 30 second timer is utterly miserable. In many ways for advanced players this is an optimization playground, but for the average user it remains a bit of a nightmare.

UI - Mentioned before and will again, weakauras were a requirement to execute on this in Season 1, and still are to this day. There is no way to realistically pull the type of damage people can pull out of this tree without external tracking elements not innately provided by Blizzard in any way.

Spec Impact - While the concept is really cool, Stormbringer also effectively overwrote the spec underneath. The core of Enhancement from the past was gone, and everything was about the Hero Talent, which I found got a bit stale as the season went on. 11.1 did an exceptional job pulling things closer together and marrying the two rather than focusing everything into one key aspect, and devs did a great job with that second iteration.

TotemicTotemic

Launch and Fractured Design - Where we began was a tree that pulled in every direction and never came together to really add anything. The spec tree was filled with things to hook into, and instead of picking one and running with it, it tried to do everything at once. That lead to the outcome of nothing working, plus Surging Totem being obnoxious to play around and sitting on an island as well.

11.0.5 and the First Pass - The first swing took out some of the more convoluted attempts to marry Stormstrike, Lava Lash and Maelstrom Weapon spenders and instead focused on one thing: Surging Totem itself. It was definitely a successful raid tree from a damage perspective, but it was remarkably stale relying on Oversurge to beef up Earthsurge, leading to ludicrously high RNG moments too unreliable for Mythic+.

11.1 and Crystallizing the Loop - 11.1 took the entire tree and effectively redesigned what it wanted to care about. It picked Hot Hand as the focus, and turned Surging Totem into a supporting character rather than the lead. Picking a core mechanic and bolting onto it rather than adding diversions to me turned out very well - and it made a perfect foil to Stormbringer and its focus on Maelstrom Weapon.

TotemicSurging Totemright now todayveryRolling ThunderEarthsurgeSeason 3 Enhancement Shaman Wishlistexplicitly clearlove

Threat - If the issue affecting so many DPS this season isn't getting addressed universally, we either need a passive threat reduction bolted onto the tree or specific abilities need to be paired with active threat reduction. In particular Primordial Wave is a hot spot of threat for both Totemic and Stormbringer currently.

Defense & Healing - This simply needs a second eye to look over what tools we have relative to the field. We gain less from the class tree (Earth Shield, Chain Heal and Healing Stream Totem are all varying levels of GCD/resource costs for little to no real world benefit), none in the spec tree and both Hero Trees provide disproportionately weak defensive benefits compared to other spec trees - both Wind Barrier and Nature's Protection are extremely low impact. A way to maintain Earth Shield naturally, or have Healing Stream Totem pulse on us and another player would be steps in the right direction as quick examples.

Feral Spirit - Take a second pass at just how much impact these changes made to the spec. It was definitely too strong, but now it's in a fairly strange spot. Feral Spirit may need a revisit, and Elemental Spirits had its uses effectively removed as the RNG is too stark. There could likely be a better middle ground found for these to alleviate the lower single target we're finding in the current patch.

Dead Talents - The trio of Ice Strike, Fire Nova / Hailstorm and Swirling Maelstrom are dead on an island, and are only ever taken as rock bottom filler. Players find it confusing when they're taken and think they're far more important than they are - and the new rotation assistant is going to exacerbate this. Give them a purpose or remove them from the tree.

Totemic - Maelstrom Weapon spenders are in a very strange spot. AoE spenders in particular are so weak it prefers to cast Elemental Blast in mass AoE, and Totemic Rebound doesn't do nearly enough to incentivize avoiding waste. Fire Nova might be worth exploring as a spender here. If possible, also add a way to re-cast Surging Totem if we reset it via Totemic Recall without using an external macro/weakaura.

Stormbringer - First and foremost, please add a visual Maelstrom Weapon counter to next Tempest in the UI buff elements. Second, Tempest needs some kind of simplification, as it's extremely easy to misplay without realizing it currently. Pre-stacking in keys is a clever optimization, but it's an obscure workaround for massive gains that fixes a flaw, as is the demand to roll buffs between pulls to get damage out of it. I'd really like to see something in the same vein as Killing Strikes from Feral attached to Conductive Energy, where we can force trigger a Tempest once per combat in exchange for removing the ability to pre-stack (even if it's carrying our opener right now). As it is right now, Tempest IS Stormbringer's cooldown, so unless the slow start is addressed people will keep looking for ways to game it.

PTR Tests - This is a bold ask but please be more iterative on significant changes in the long period of PTR testing. 11.0.5 in particular had a lot of dead air and a lightning round at the end which was hard to quantify, resulting in an extremely volatile state when launched.

Set Bonuses going forward - Both set bonuses this expansion have had wild swings of power over the course of their testing. In the case of Season 1 it was astronomically overpowered, and Season 2 was convoluted and confusing, while also being hit several times with nerfs to the point the 4-piece was only circumstantially worth using at all. I really appreciate how involved our sets usually are with the spec's gameplay hooks, but the two so far this expansion have been a swing an a miss on different sides of the balance coin in my opinion.

Comment by MistoesTrue , give 2 hander Tmog option for enhance.
Buff stormstrike.
Buff gap closers in pvp we are the least mobile melee in pvp and cant keep on a target.
Worst melee spec in pvp giga sadge feels like playing mini elemental shaman as totemic enhance in pvp 99% of enhance is ranged and ranged spenders only strange spot for a melee spec or even for a hybrid to have only 2 abilities in melee.Comment by DonRonaldson100% agreed. I really enjoy SB generally, but having to pre-stack tempest before the key (or do no damage if you don't) is terrible and I hate it. It can also be rough in pugs if gaps btwn pulls are too long.

My biggest gripe, though, is defenses. Cd's are too long and the passive DR is essentially nothing. We need to bring back shamanistic rage. Another 20% DR on a short CD. The mana regen is kind of unnecessary nowadays but can keep it and remove mana spring from the tree for enh, or can make it actually good and give it nerfed AG style healing. Something like 5-10% of damage done as healing but only for self would be really good imo.Comment by MountainBanditEnhancement not only needs UI assistance for the hero talents, but for maelstrom weapon as well. It is a MASSIVE issue that there is no proper UI element for maelstrom stacks (like Rogue combo points or Paladins' holy power). After this patch broke the personal resource display, it is now essentially impossible to track maelstrom stacks properly without using addons which SHOULD NOT be the case.

Maelstrom spenders in general just need to have their functionality tweaked. There's a reason every other builder/spender class in the game has base costs for the spenders without which they can't be cast at all. Their insistence on having enhancement function off of a mechanic that's outdated by over a decade, with insanely higher APM requirements and a high amount of high-priority buttons, makes it insanely clunky and unintuitive. Apart from all that, Enhancement is getting much better and the rotation is in a pretty decent spot once you get over the clunky hurdle. But no spec should have such a steep learning curve/ such heavy reliance on external rotation assistance and I think its easy for higher-end players and the devs themselves to forget how impossible the spec is for new players to approach right now.Comment by AugmentumI love playing Stormbringer, but it really annoys me that the entire rotation and procs are actually built around waiting for Tempest.

If the elemental shaman has Lava Surge and Elemental Overload, then the enhanced shaman needs to build a whole chain of sequences to play.
And I'm not talking about openers or boosters, but about the bare rotation.Comment by kpiaumThe fact that they release our tier set in this state and never did a pass is shocking. The 4pc for Totemic on Raid are dead.Comment by D3NvTrue , give 2 hander Tmog option for enhance.
Buff stormstrike.
Buff gap closers in pvp we are the least mobile melee in pvp and cant keep on a target.
Worst melee spec in pvp giga sadge feels like playing mini elemental shaman as totemic enhance in pvp 99% of enhance is ranged and ranged spenders only strange spot for a melee spec or even for a hybrid to have only 2 abilities in melee.Comment by SharkonI really want to see Ice Strike and Hailstorm brought back into prominence. Frost has been an almost completely absent element from our kits for most of WoW's history, and Dragonflight was the first time I ever felt like I was really wielding all the elements the way our class fantasy promises we're supposed to. Having them fall back to the wayside feels like such a step backwards, and the loss of Ice Strike also feels like tilting the melee/caster balance a little too far back to caster, even if we do hit Stormstrike and Lava Lash more to make up for it.Comment by SharkonAfter this patch broke the personal resource display, it is now essentially impossible to track maelstrom stacks properly without using addons which SHOULD NOT be the case.Comment by itruliaI also with for EA (our generator talent for the non enhance players) not to be a bottom row and 2 point talent. We are the only generator/spender spec that has their generator talent at the bottom of the tree.

This makes current Stormbringer very clunky to play in m+ due to the lack of 2 talents.Comment by MillerEUTrue , give 2 hander Tmog option for enhance.But no spec should have such a steep learning curve/ such heavy reliance on external rotation assistance and I think its easy for higher-end players and the devs themselves to forget how impossible the spec is for new players to approach right now.Comment by BellanteHear hear on the prestacking before m+ starts. It is the most obnoxious thing to have to do, especially in pugs, and at the same time it feels necessary or you lose a ludicrous amount of dps on the first pull. Also feels punishing in dungeons that are indoors and dummies can't be used. Not many pugs will accept you going outside, stacking the damn thing, run back in, do a hurried pull timer, and hopefully the stress of the entire thing doesn't make you the enhancer screw it up.