Cataclysm Classic Enhancement Shaman Stat Priority

The stat priority for Enhancement Shaman is as follows:

1. Agility
2. Hit Rating (17% Spell Hit Cap)
3. Expertise Rating (6.5% – 26 Expertise Cap)
4. Mastery Rating
5. Critical Strike Rating
6. Haste Rating
7. Hit Rating (27% Hard Melee Hit Cap)

Agility is the primary stat you should be focusing on for increasing your damage. Because of how items are configured in Cataclysm, you will naturally gain Agility as you equip higher item level gear, and it will also get multiplied by raid buffs such as Blessing of Kings, making it even more important.

At Level 85:

• 1 Agility = 2 Attack Power before multipliers

Your best secondary stat is Hit until you hit the Spell Hit cap of 17%. It is important to hit the Spell Hit cap specifically because of Enhancement having so much of its damage coming from spell sources such as Maelstrom Weapon-powered spells, Lightning Shield, and shocks. You Mastery, Enhanced Elements also only affects your spell damage, making it scale even harder with your gear.

At Level 85:

• 120.1 Hit Rating = 1% Hit Chance

Expertise reduces the chance that the target will Dodge or Parry (when attacking from the front) which increases your damage and reduces burst damage taken from enemy parry hasting. 26 Expertise is enough to reduce most enemies 6.5% dodge chance to 0 making Expertise only useful against parries from that point, and thus have next to no value in group content.

Rating	Skill	Percent	Information
30.02	1	0.25%	1 Expertise Skill
691	23	5.75%	Dodge cap on bosses when racial is active: Mace Specialization, or Axe Specialization.
781	26	6.5%	Dodge cap on bosses without racial
1592	53	13.25%	Parry cap on bosses when racial is active: Mace Specialization, or Axe Specialization.
1682	56	14%	Parry cap on bosses without racial

You can input these breakpoints into the Reforgelite Classic addon to easily calculate your optimal reforging with any gear setup.

The Mastery stat was introduced in Cataclysm, and for Enhancement Shamans Enhanced Elements is a simple, yet powerful, elemental damage increase. As much of your damage comes from elemental damage sources such as Maelstrom Weapon-powered spells and shocks, this is a good DPS stat, but all Enhancement secondary stats are close enough together that the difference between Mastery DPS value and the other stats is minor.

At Level 85:

• 179.28 Mastery Rating = 1 Mastery = 2.5% more elemental damage

Critical Strike is rather strong for Enhancement as it synergizes with Flurry and Elemental Devastation. On the other hand, it is not the best of stats because it takes a lot of rating to get 1% Crit, making it an inefficient stat to stack.

At Level 85:

• 179.28 Crit Rating = 1% Crit

Haste rating is the lowest rated secondary stat due to Enhancement having multiple talents that give massive Haste like Flurry and Maelstrom Weapon. On the plus side, you do not need much rating in order to get 1% Haste, making it decent, overall.

At Level 85:

• 128.05 Haste Rating = 1% Haste

At 27% Hit rating you guarantee a hit every time with your off-hand weapon but this is a relatively small damage increase compared to stacking any other stat. Thus, just keep in mind that Hit continues having a small amount of value even beyond the 17% Spell Hit cap.