Introduction
This guide is maintained by Weber, moderator for the Shaman Class Discord and long-time Shaman player. I have been maining Shaman since Siege of Orgrimmar, and I currently raid with Deposit Coin on Stormscale (EU), where we have maintained our world ranking just outside the Hall of Fame on a casual two-night schedule since I joined in Battle for Azeroth. You can catch me streaming my raids on Twitch, or contact me on Discord if you have any questions about the spec.
Enhancement is a high-intensity, proc-based melee spec that rewards you for quickly reacting to random resource generation, random procs and carrying momentum by minimizing downtime. Unlike many other specs, Enhancement currently does not have a big cooldown window or singular finisher ability that all our efforts lead to. This means that while there is less emphasis on perfecting one key moment, you have to keep a continued focus throughout the fight to do well.
The main strength of Enhancement is that it provides very strong sustained cleave and funnel without sacrificing in the single target department. However, its weakness is that, due to the nature of our resources and procs feeding back into each other, the spec needs a moment to get going and to then carry that momentum throughout the whole fight. Because of this, the spec is very vulnerable to losing uptime to boss mechanics.
Enhancements key contributions to a raid are providing the raid buff Skyfury, movement speed through Wind Rush totem and the best kick in the game in Wind Shear. In addition to these more broadly useful utilities, Enhancement also comes with a lot of unique niche utility that, while mostly not of use at all, can be encounter warping if applicable, such as removing fears via Tremor Totem or removing snares via Jet Stream. Enhancement also excels at AoE crowd control through Capacitor Totem, Guardian’s Cudgel, Thundershock, and Sundering, being able to lock down packs of mobs for much longer than most other specs in the game.
What has changed
Patch 11.1 Changes
March 4th Class Tuning: Flowing Spirits and its interaction with the season 1 tier set has been nerfed, so we are using active Feral Spirit with Witch Doctor’s Ancestry again.
Coming into Season 2, Blizzard has made many tuning changes to Enhancement with the intention of shifting damage out of Maelstrom Weapon spenders and into all other abilities. Additionally, there have also been a lot of mechanical changes and talent tree adjustments:
- Primordial Wave has been completely redesigned, dealing damage to Flame Shocked targets
- Elemental Spirits now split their buff between their element and physical damage instead of only providing an elemental damage buff
- Deeply Rooted Elements now has a chance to proc per Maelstrom Weapon spent instead of per cast of Maelstrom Weapon spenders
- Molten Assault has been changed to 5 Flame Shock applications, making up for the loss of Primordial Wave as an extra Flame Shock
- Lashing Flames is now applied by Sundering, removing the need to tab-target to apply it
- Molten Thunder has been reworked to be more consistent by making Sundering reset itself
- Ancestral Guidance has been removed
Totemic has once again been overhauled, shifting damage out of Surging Totem and into weapon imbues, Lava Lash and Searing Totem.
- Sunderings triggered by Reactivity now trigger Windfury Weapon and Earthsurge
- While Surging Totem is active, it now turns into a spell to relocate it
Stormbringer has seen some minor adjustments:
- Tempest now procs at 4 Awakening Storms instead of 3
- The new Primordial Wave still applies Lightning Rod
- Chain Lightning now applies Lightning Rod to a secondary target, if it is already on the primary target
The War Within Changes
Going into the new expansion, Blizzard has done the bare minimum to preserve the two distinct builds Enhancement has had throughout Shadowlands and Dragonflight and leave their gameplay mostly intact. If you currently enjoy Enhancement, it is very likely you also will in The War Within. Your priorities will however be warped somewhat by the new hero talents, with both of them pointing the spec into very different directions by emphasizing different parts of the core kit.
Other than that the spec has received some minor changes and gained some new tools, among them:
- Skyfury, a new raid buff replacing Windfury Totem (which is now available to all Shamans)
- Increased range on Crash Lightning and Molten Assault
- Primordial Wave and Doom Winds having their cooldowns reduced
- Stone Bulwark Totem, a new powerful defensive ability
- Jet Stream, an AoE snare removal