Cataclysm Classic Enhancement Shaman Talent Builds

Enhancement Shaman, like most Cataclysm specs, is heavily restricted to its namesake specialization tree, Enhancement. You will always want to put points into this tree first and foremost, with the few leftover points after you hit the capstone talent, Feral Spirit, being dedicated to passive damage increases in the Elemental tree.

If you want to maximize your potential DPS and raid utility as an Enhancement Shaman there are next to no optional talents in the build that you could swap around, unfortunately.

In this section we will go over some of the key talents you will use when you are playing a Enhancement Shaman. Be sure to understand your most important talents as they are vital to play the build to its top strength.

• Ancestral Swiftness — causes Ghost Wolf to become instant cast and gives you 15% extra movement speed at all times, drastically increasing your mobility.

• Stormstrike — attacks with both of your weapons for high damage and places a debuff on the target that increases your critical strike chance against it with your spells by a large amount, especially with Glyph of Stormstrike.

• Static Shock — allows your special attacks, such as Stormstrike, to discharge Lightning Shield for added damage.

• Searing Flames — turns your Searing Totem into a critical part of your DPS rotation by making it stack up a damage over time effect on the target that serves as a conduit for more Lava Lash damage from Improved Lava Lash.

• Elemental Devastation — increases your melee critical strike chance by up to 9% after a spell critical strike. This has great synergy with Stormstrike's debuff.

• Shamanistic Rage — is your main defensive ability, as it reduces all damage taken by 30% for 15 seconds with just a short 1 minute cooldown. It will also reduce all Mana costs by 100% for its duration, making it a great ability to use often.

• Unleashed Rage — is your main raid buff and increases melee attack power by 20% and ranged attack power by 10% for everyone in your raid, as well as your own Expertise by 8.

• Improved Lava Lash — causes your Lava Lash to hit much harder on targets with your Searing Flames debuff and also spread your Flame Shock debuffs, allowing for massive area damage with Fire Nova.

• Maelstrom Weapon — your melee attacks will stack the Maelstrom Weapon buff which causes your spells to progressively become cheaper and faster to cast, as well as allowing them to cast without interrupting your melee swings. Once they are fast enough (typically at 3+ stacks) you can simply cast immediately after a melee swing in order to get your cast off before delaying your next swing for a great DPS bonus over time. You can also use these stacks with healing spells such as Healing Rain.

• Feral Spirit — is your main DPS cooldown and summons two wolves that deal high damage for 30 seconds. They also bring extra utility such as stuns, free healing, and a sprint ability that also affects yourself and applies immunity to movement impairing effects for its duration.

Prime glyphs are new to Cataclysm, giving you a third "row" of glyphs you can use on your character. While there are a couple of different options to choose from, there are some very clear front runners for each specialization.

• Glyph of Lava Lash — a nice passive boost to your Lava Lash damage.
• Glyph of Stormstrike — despite its tooltip, this glyph increases the critical strike bonus to spells applied by the Stormstrike ability.
• Glyph of Feral Spirit — another passive boost, this time to your Feral Spirit guardians damage.

Major glyphs typically offer utility-based options and can be highly situational. While there are many different options for Enhancement, we will list below the ones we find more useful.

• Glyph of Lightning Shield — causes Lightning Shield to no longer go under 3 charges when you are attacked, making it a powerful glyph for leveling, especially!
• Glyph of Chain Lightning — increases the targets hit by Chain Lightning by 2 while decreasing damage taken by the first target, a very worthwhile trade off against large clumps of enemies.
• Glyph of Fire Nova — increases the radius of Fire Nova, making it more likely to hit every other enemy in the pack your are fighting with.

Minor glyphs typically provide very minor benefits. Your choices will typically depend on what quality of life increase is the most meaningful for you. We give a few suggestions below.

• Glyph of Water Walking — allows you to cast Water Walking without a reagent, saving gold in the process.
• Glyph of Renewed Life — removes the reagent requirement from Reincarnation, saving some gold over time.
• Glyph of Astral Recall — lowering the cooldown of your Astral Recall allows you to move around more frequently, especially if you have your Hearthstone at your faction's central hub and all its portals.