Enhancement Shaman DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — 12.1

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Throughout Midnight, Enhancement saw some significant changes to its talent tree, with a more slimline set of options to suit its Hero Trees. It often allows for very flexible damage profiles, and there's significant overlap in key talents for both Stormbringer and Totemic. Current recommendations for Season 2 are as follows:

• Raid - Stormbringer provides stronger single-target, burst and cleave, suiting it well to encounters in The Venomous Abyss. Totemic can keep up, but has a busier rotation with the new Tier Set.
• Mythic+ - Stormbringer firmly pulls ahead in Season 2, dealing higher damage at almost all target counts aside from mass AoE. It also has an easier time integrating the Tier Set into its rotation.

Due to tuning that came with Season 2 paired with the new Tier Set, Stormbringer has established a clear lead in all content. While it has a stricter 2-minute burst timer (and a lot more RNG), its damage profile flexibility makes it the clear pick for both Raids and Mythic+. Due to the extremely high amount of cleave required in The Venomous Abyss, the damage advantage it has at low-to-mid only increases the tuning gap it has over Totemic. Below, we have some import codes if you want to jump straight in-game:

Quick Start Import Codes:

The builds listed above are recommendations based on strength and popularity, covering each area of content in endgame PvE. Each build has its own rotation to execute, with unique aspects to master, with their own tricks up their sleeve to assist your group in different encounters.

Combat Information

Rotations and Mythic+

Want to dive deeper? These guides will teach you how to utilize our Talent Builds in endgame content!

RotationMythic+

Introduced in Patch 12.0.7, the Omnium Folio is a player power system that provides a small number of performance boosting effects, unlocked through a series of quests. These bonuses aren't related to any gear pieces, and are always active on your character. Some provide additional damage, while others grant some healing and extra defensive tools.

Below, we've listed recommendations on each of the five Runes, unlocked as you complete the Folio quest chain:

• Rune 1 - Rune of Unleashed Fire
• Rune 2 - Rune of Self-Mending
• Rune 3 - Rune of Lingering
• Rune 4 - Rune of Burning Haste
• Rune 5 - Rune of Overload

It's worth noting that the difference between most of these effects is very minor. The fourth stat boosting Rune, however, can shift around depending on your gear, so it's a good place to balance out stats if you're lacking any. With the high amount of Crit present on Season 2 gear, generally either Mastery or Haste are the best picks here.

The Enhancement Apex Talent, Storm Unleashed, focuses on Crash Lightning, while also providing extra bonuses to core parts of the toolkit. These lean heavily into making it a rotational pillar for both Hero Trees. All four points are taken by most builds, providing good single-target and AoE benefits:

• Storm Unleashed - Grants each stack of Maelstrom Weapon spent a 2% chance to cause your next Crash Lightning cast to ignore its cooldown. Additionally, the Crash Lightning weapon enhancement buff can now stack and overlap.
• Storm Unleashed - Increases the damage dealt by Maelstrom Weapon spenders by 7.5%, and weapon imbue damage by 10% per point.
• Storm Unleashed - Causes Crash Lightning to also create a static pool, dealing an additional 100% of the initial cast's damage over 2 seconds. Additionally, the weapon enhancement buff grants 15% increased auto-attack speed per stack.

Even just the first point solidifies Crash Lightning as a core part of the rotation at all target counts, adding an extra proc to react to. Since it allows for the effect to overlap, it means it's hard to waste the procs by refreshing, the only real way to misplay it is to not press it at all. The follow-up points are largely passive increases - though they improve things that we use so frequently that there's a lot of value in each point.

Enhancement has two distinct Hero Talent choices available that, as covered in the above sections, drastically alter your build choices and gameplay loop depending on your selection.

This tree grants access to Tempest, a powerful proc that empowers your next Lightning Bolt. This can happen randomly when spending Maelstrom Weapon, converting it into a huge AoE burst tool. Additionally, this Hero Talent provides the following:

• Descending Skies causes Ascendance to trigger Tempest on activation, making it the preferred cooldown of choice.
• Conductive Energy applies a debuff to targets hit with your spenders, converting a portion of damage dealt into extra damage. This allows it to deal additional priority damage to key targets when active.

This orients Stormbringer strongly around our resource gameplay, rewarding good management and cycling with explosive burst. It's able to leverage a variety of tools to cleave without any single-target loss, but can be prone to bad RNG streaks.

Conversely, Totemic focuses strongly on Lava Lash through the Hot Hand effect, while also granting access to a new cooldown, Surging Totem. This pulses AoE damage while active, and also links into a number of different abilities for bonus effects.

• Splitstream causes Lava Lash to also trigger Sundering while Hot Hand is active, which through Earthsurge also causes your Surging Totem to pulse.
• Totemic Rebound also causes your Surging Totem to deal additional damage whenever you cast a Maelstrom Weapon spender, amplifying future damage it deals until it expires.

This adds an extra cooldown that aligns with Doom Winds into the Enhancement toolkit. When paired with other options on the tree, it gives it some potent options to deal with 30-second and 1-minute burst timers, while dealing strong priority damage without any sacrifices to cleave or AoE.

"War Mode" is an optional feature that enables open-world PvP encounters that confers some benefits when active:

• Grants access to PvP talents in the open world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at max level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is an optional way to maximize your leveling speed and reward potential. However, you will open yourself up to open-world PvP, so be aware of hostile enemy players who could interfere with you; this is a risk you will have to decide on your own if you want to take.

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

• Shamanism allows for more liberal Bloodlust / Heroism usage without having to worry about the 10-minute lockout. Great for solo and duo content.
• Burrow gives you an emergency escape if you get into trouble with a 2-minute cooldown, and also deals massive Physical damage when you emerge from the ground.
• Counterstrike Totem copies the damage you take and repeats it onto the enemy that dealt it, allowing you to return the favour against dangerous enemies!

Static Field Totem, Unleash Shield, Electrocute, and Grounding Totem have very limited PvE uses, being more focused on in-combat control. While these are very strong for some situations, they are much more suited to PvP engagements, and as such, are not recommended for efficient enemy killing.

Wordup

Guide Author

Follow Wordup

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 follow him on Twitter.

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