glyphs Enhancement Shaman: Mists of Pandaria Rotation Changes, Talents, and Glyphs (Patch 5.0.4)

[Damien 1,514]

This article is no longer being updated. Please check our Enhancement Shaman guide, which is fully compatible with Mists Pandaria, and is being constantly updated. Thank you.

In preparation for the updates to our guides for Mists of Pandaria Patch 5.0.4, we are releasing articles such as this one, explaining what has changed for a particular class and spec, and what the new rotation is likely to be.

Keep in mind that this is still a work in progress (both from Blizzard's side and from our own) and that this article assumes you are at least somewhat familiar with the Cataclysm version of the Enhancement Shaman rotation and playstyle (such as from reading our guide).

We will first list the most important changes to the Enhancement Shaman Cataclysm abilities, and then we will proceed to explaining the (likely to be) optimal rotation. Keep in mind that we do not document every single change or new ability, only those that impact the rotation.

Finally, we will give you some information about the most useful talents and glyphs you should choose.

Totem Changes

Mists of Pandaria is bringing a number of important changes to Shaman totems.

First of all, all your buff totems have been removed or replaced.

• Flametongue Totem has been replaced by Burning Wrath, a new passive Shaman ability.
• Elemental Resistance Totem has been removed from the game. Now, your only way to provide these resistances is to use Healing Stream Totem with Glyph of Healing Stream Totem.
• Stoneskin Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem, and Wrath of Air Totem have been removed from the game.

As a result, you will no longer need to drop all your totems at once. It gave Blizzard an excuse to remove your call spells (don't choke). Call of the Ancestors, Call of the Elements, and Call of the Spirits are gone.

In addition, your other totems have undergone the following changes.

• Earthbind Totem has had its duration reduced to 20 seconds, down from 45 seconds, and its cooldown increased to 30 seconds, up from 15 seconds.
• Grounding Totem has had its duration reduced to 15 seconds, down from 45 seconds.
• Earth Elemental Totem and Fire Elemental Totem have had their cooldown and duration reduced by 50%, from 10 minutes to 5 minutes and from 2 minutes to 1 minute, respectively.
• Mana Spring Totem, Stoneclaw Totem, and Totem of Tranquil Mind have been removed from the game.

Finally, there are six new totems.

• Stone Bulwark Totem is a Tier 1 talent that replaces Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem.
• Capacitor Totem provides you with a 5-second stun.
• Earthgrab Totem is a Tier 2 talent that roots enemies for 5 seconds and then reduces their movement speed.
• Windwalk Totem is a Tier 2 talent that provides you with a raid-wide movement-impairing effect removal.
• Healing Tide Totem is a Tier 5 talent that provides you with a powerful healing cooldown.
• Stormlash Totem is a new DPS cooldown.

New Abilities

Besides the totems that we listed above, you only gain three new abilities.

• Ascendance is a powerful DPS cooldown that causes your autoattacks and Stormstrike ability to deal pure Nature damage and to have a 30-yard range. By dealing pure Nature damage, these abilities are now affected by your Mastery and they are no longer mitigated by armor. Stormstrike is changed to (changed to Stormblast while Ascendance is active.
• Grace of Air is a raid-wide passive Mastery Rating increase, available to all Shamans.
• Spirit Walk is on a 3-minute cooldown, removes all movement-impairing effects, and increases movement speed by 60% for 15 seconds.

Changed Abilities and Mechanics

Many of your current mechanics and abilities have been replaced by new mechanics or abilities that are very similar.

• Ancestral Swiftness has been removed, as Ghost Wolf being instant made it obsolete.
• Primal Wisdom has been brewed into Mental Quickness.
• Searing Flames and Improved Lava Lash have been merged into your Searing Flames passive ability. Searing Flames is now a stacking buff on the Shaman, instead of being a stacking debuff on the target, and it also increases the damage dealt by Flametongue Weapon by 15% per stack.
• Earth Shock applies Weakened Blows on the target. This debuff reduces damage dealt by 10%. Previously, Earth Shock applied a debuff that reduced melee and ranged attack speed.
• Lightning Shield now lasts for 1 hour and no longer has charges, which means that it will never drop.
• Flurry (which affects the next 5 attacks, up from 3), Maelstrom Weapon, Static Shock, Unleashed Rage (which now increases melee and ranged attack speed, instead of attack power), Shamanistic Rage, and Feral Spirit are now given to you by default when you choose the Enhancement specialisation.

Removed Abilities and Mechanics

• Water Breathing
• Elemental Devastation

Rotation

Your Enhancement Shaman rotation will remain largely the same in Mists of Pandaria (see our Enhancement Shaman guide).

• Summon Searing Totem and re-summon it every time it is about to expire.
• Cast Lightning Bolt whenever you have 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon.
• Cast Lava Lash.
• Cast Stormstrike.
• Apply Flame Shock and keep it up.
  • Cast Unleash Elements before Flame Shock to make it benefit from Unleash Flame.
• Cast Earth Shock.

As in Cataclysm, you will need to use Windfury Weapon on your main-hand weapon, Flametongue Weapon on your off-hand weapon, and Lightning Shield as your shield.

Totem Cooldowns

As we have seen earlier, you have a number of totems that act as DPS cooldowns. With the removal of your buff totems, the only totem you will need to constantly keep is Searing Totem (because of Searing Flames). Other than that, you are free to make use of your totems however you see fit, including for using these DPS cooldowns:

• Earth Elemental Totem;
• Fire Elemental Totem, with which you can temporarily replace Searing Totem, thanks to Searing Flames;
• Stormlash Totem.

In addition, you have two Water totems that you can use as healing cooldowns: Healing Stream Totem (30-second cooldown) and Healing Tide Totem (a powerful raid healing ability on a 3-minute cooldown, given by a Tier 5 talent).

Finally, Call of the Elements is a Tier 3 talent that enables you to finish the remaining cooldown on all your totems with a base cooldown shorter than 3 minutes.

Regular Cooldowns

In addition to Spiritwalker's Grace and Feral Spirit, which work in the same way as in Cataclysm, you gain two new DPS cooldowns.

• Ascendance greatly increases the damage dealt by your autoattacks and Stormstrike for 15 seconds, on a 3-minute cooldown.
• Elemental Mastery increases your Haste by 30% for 20 seconds, on a 2-minute cooldown.

AoE Rotation

Your AoE rotation will not change much.

Against 2 enemies, simply keep doing your single-target rotation on one enemy. Lava Lash will spread your Flame Shock to the other enemy.

Against 3 or more enemies, replace Lightning Bolt by Chain Lightning in your rotation. In addition, use Fire Nova as soon as possible.

Talents

Tier 1 talents have been designed with your own survival in mind. You have the choice between:

• Nature's Guardian, which is a passive ability that reduces your threat and increases your maximum health when you get below 30% health;
• Stone Bulwark Totem, which is an Earth totem on a 1-minute cooldown that grants you an absorption shield;
• Astral Shift, which is a damage mitigation ability on a 2-minute cooldown.

Nature's Guardian will be useful if you find yourself pulling aggro from the tank. Otherwise, your choice between Stone Bulwark Totem and Astral Shift will depend on how often you will need damage reduction during an encounter.

Tier 2 talents have been designed with crowd control and utility in mind. Whichever you will choose will largely depend on the encounter you are attempting. You have the choice between:

• Frozen Power, which grants Frost Shock a 5-second snare effect;
• Earthgrab Totem, which is a 5-second snare followed by a movement speed reduction;
• Windwalk Totem, which provides you with a raid-wide movement-impairing effect removal.

Tier 3 talents have been designed with totem cooldown and mobility in mind. You have the choice between:

• Call of the Elements, which resets the cooldown of your totems that have a base cooldown shorter than 3 minutes, and will most likely be the default choice for Enhancement Shamans;
• Totemic Restoration, which reduces the cooldown of your totem proportionally to the duration that remained on them before they were destroyed or replaced (very useful if you want to use, for example, Fire Elemental Totem every 2 minutes for 24 seconds);
• Totemic Projection, which enables you to relocate your totems to a new location (useful in movement-heavy encounters).

Tier 4 talents have been designed to improve your DPS throughput. You have the choice between:

• Elemental Mastery, which has a 2-minute cooldown and increases your haste by 30% for 20 seconds;
• Ancestral Swiftness, which has a 1-minute cooldown, gives your next spell an instant cast, and also provides you with a passive +5% increase to your melee and spell haste;
• Echo of the Elements, which gives you a chance to duplicate your offensive spells.

We believe that Elemental Mastery is the best alternative there, as it provides you with a powerful DPS cooldown.

Tier 5 talents give you a new healing cooldown or a new healing mechanics. All the talents are viable and will depend on the encounter you are progressing on.

• Healing Tide Totem will heal the 5 most injured nearby players for 10 seconds.
• Ancestral Guidance can be used as a healing cooldown. You can use it every 2 minutes to copy, for 10 seconds, 40% of your healing to the 3 most injured nearby players. We believe that this will be the default choice for Enhancement Shamans.
• Conductivity is a very potent ability that will increase the healing done to players standing in your Healing Rain. It will be particularly useful in fights where you can make extensive use of Healing Rain.

Tier 6 talents increase your DPS throughput.

• Unleashed Fury improves your Unleash Elements, which will grant you the following buffs:
  • for 8 seconds, your melee autoattacks can trigger Static Shock and
  • for 10 seconds, Lightning Bolt will deal 30% damage on your target.
• Primal Elementalist causes your Earth Elemental Totem and Fire Elemental Totem to deal 50% more damage.
• Elemental Blast is a on a 12-second cooldown and will enable you to maintain a 66% uptime on a buff that changes randomly each time you refresh it: +3500 Critical Strike Rating, +3500 Haste Rating, or +3500 Mastery Rating. The ability also deals a bit of damage every time you use it.

Which of the three talents will provide the highest DPS increase remains to be seen. Unleashed Fury will require you to use Unleash Elements on cooldown, which is not something usual for Enhancement Shamans. Primal Elementalist and Elemental Blast seem to be the two real choices here.

Glyphs

Glyph of Flame Shock is the only major glyph that provides a direct DPS increase. The other major glyphs will have situational uses:

• Glyph of Chain Lightning increases the number of targets hit by your Chain Lightning.
• Glyph of Feral Spirit increases the healing done by your Feral Spirit.
• Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem can be useful for lining up your Fire Elemental Totem with periods of increased damage on the boss, by increasing its duration and cooldown by 40%.
• Glyph of Fire Nova increases the radius of your Fire Nova by 5 yards.
• Glyph of Healing Storm increases the healing you do by 20% for each stack of Maelstrom Weapon.
• Glyph of Shamanistic Rage causes your Shamanistic Rage to also cleanse you of all dispellable harmful magic effects.
• Glyph of Spirit Walk reduces the cooldown on your Spirit Walk by 25%.

Minor glyphs mostly have cosmetic effects. The only two minor glyphs that could be useful are Glyph of the Lakestrider and Glyph of Astral Recall. However, they serve no purpose in a raid.

This concludes our Enhancement Shaman preview for Mists of Pandaria. We hope you have enjoyed reading it and that it proved useful to you. As always, we are looking forward to reading your opinions on the matter!

[rodalpho 8]

Bunch of notes here.

- 4.x Earthbind totem cooldown was 15s with a 45s duration, not 1m.

- 5.x Earthbind totem cooldown is 30s with a 20s duration. Uptime is doubled. Major buff, not a nerf.

- 4.x Grounding totem cooldown was 25s with a 45s duration, not 1m.

- 5.x Grounding totem cooldown is 25s with a 15s duration. This is technically a nerf, but is a zero sum change in most situations as it only lasts 1 spell anyway.

- Abilities under Ascendence also are not mitigated by armor, which is another 15-25% damage.

- Searing flames is no longer a DoT on targets hit by searing totem. Instead it's a buff on the shaman that makes flametongue do more damage. This is an enormous improvement and one of the most important enhance changes in 5.x.

- Fire elemental attacks stack searing flames

- Flurry now affecte the next 5 attacks, up from 3.

- Earth Shock now applies Weakened Blows, changed from an attack speed debuff.

- Lightning shield now lasts an hour and has infinite charges.

- Unleashed Rage is now 10% physical haste, changed from 10% attackpower

- Searing totem is much higher priority than flame shock. Also unleash elements is very high priority with the unleashed fury talent

- Early sims do show unleashed fury as the best L90 talent, but Primal Elementalist is close

http://dread-gaming....son_r12963.html

- The same sim shows that echo of the elements is the best choice under all circumstances

- Proper single-target priotity should be:

searing totem > unleash elements (if UF picked) > MW5 LB > stormstrike/stormblast > lava lash > flame shock > earth shock > feral spirit

Technically there are periods where you will "slam-cast" LB even with less than 5 stacks of MW, but those are much higher-level play and not really appropriate for an article like this.

Edited July 18, 2012 by rodalpho

[Damien 1,514]

Bunch of notes here.

- 4.x Earthbind totem cooldown was 15s with a 45s duration, not 1m.

- 5.x Earthbind totem cooldown is 30s with a 20s duration. Uptime is doubled. Major buff, not a nerf.

- 4.x Grounding totem cooldown was 25s with a 45s duration, not 1m.

- 5.x Grounding totem cooldown is 25s with a 15s duration. This is technically a nerf, but is a zero sum change in most situations as it only lasts 1 spell anyway.

These are rather minor changes. I was afraid it would clutter the totem section.

- Abilities under Ascendence also are not mitigated by armor, which is another 15-25% damage.

- Searing flames is no longer a DoT on targets hit by searing totem. Instead it's a buff on the shaman that makes flametongue do more damage. This is an enormous improvement and one of the most important enhance changes in 5.x.

- Fire elemental attacks stack searing flames

- Flurry now affecte the next 5 attacks, up from 3.

- Earth Shock now applies Weakened Blows, changed from an attack speed debuff.

- Lightning shield now lasts an hour and has infinite charges.

- Unleashed Rage is now 10% physical haste, changed from 10% attackpower

Thanks for these, I've added a few notes here and there in the text to mention all these things.

- Searing totem is much higher priority than flame shock. Also unleash elements is very high priority with the unleashed fury talent

- Early sims do show unleashed fury as the best L90 talent, but Primal Elementalist is close

http://dread-gaming....son_r12963.html

- The same sim shows that echo of the elements is the best choice under all circumstances

- Proper single-target priotity should be:

searing totem > unleash elements (if UF picked) > MW5 LB > stormstrike/stormblast > lava lash > flame shock > earth shock > feral spirit

Technically there are periods where you will "slam-cast" LB even with less than 5 stacks of MW, but those are much higher-level play and not really appropriate for an article like this.

Searing Totem does nothing unless there is Flame Shock on your target, so I fail to see how it can have a higher priority than Flame Shock.

Also, I have little confidence in simulation tools in general, so I have almost no confidence in these tools when it comes to the MoP beta test.

[rodalpho 8]

The totem duration stuff was actually correcting errors in your article.

If no enemies in range have flame shock or the stormstrike debuff on them, searing totem will randomly pick one and start attacking. Note that this does not work on training dummies.

I don't place much faith in beta sims either, but the enhance sim is one of the more mature ones right now, behind mages. That priority is certainly much better than the one with flame shock near the top.

Edited July 19, 2012 by rodalpho

[Damien 1,514]

The totem duration stuff was actually correcting errors in your article.

If no enemies in range have flame shock or the stormstrike debuff on them, searing totem will randomly pick one and start attacking. Note that this does not work on training dummies.

I don't place much faith in beta sims either, but the enhance sim is one of the more mature ones right now, behind mages. That priority is certainly much better than the one with flame shock near the top.

Thanks for all this! Sorry about the totem stuff, I probably read it too fast and didn't see you were actually correcting values I was giving on this page.

For the dummies, the problem seems to be that these NPCs are not considered as enemies so I guess it's messing up the behaviour of Searing Totem. I'll be making the changes soon That said, I still don't see any justification for the rotation those simulation tools are advising. Why casting Lightning Bolt with a higher priority than Lava Lash? Anyway, this is just a preview and to do proper testing, I need to get my hands on a pre-made level 90 character with proper gear. I can't farm gear for every class I'm writing about

[rodalpho 8]

MW5_LB has a higher priority than stormstrike or lava lash because MW stacks quickly and you can't get more stacks once you hit 5. So if you don't spend them, it's a significant opportunity cost.

[Damien 1,514]

That depends on stats. I can't wait for the level 90 premades, so that I can test things further.

[Stoove 347]

Rodalpho; Approximately how often do you gain a MW proc? In the simple case, this determines what priority it should gain over Lava Lash. (The simple case being that LL comes off CD the same time as MW's 5th proc happens. How likely are you to get another MW proc in that 1s?)

If the LL damage is still somewhat higher than LB, then it may end up being more sensible in actual gameplay to use up LL first if the MW proc chance is low(ish).

[Peelyon 416]

That depends on stats. I can't wait for the level 90 premades, so that I can test things further.

I thought they said that they werent making level 90 premades this time round due to the fact they want players to test the levelling process? Fire them an email Damien asking for special access ;)

[Damien 1,514]

Then, I have more work to do :P

[rodalpho 8]

MW is 10 PPM on each weapon plus enhance dualwields, has flurry, windfury weapon, and uses lots of instant attacks, all of which can proc MW as well. It procs every 2-5 seconds.

Additionally, echo of the elements has a 30% proc chance for enhance, so LB effectively does 30% more damage, and LB has a very high crit chance due to Stormstrike.

If you look at the updated sim output (Purge optimized it further), LB+LB_EOE is 16.9% of total damage. Lava Lash is 9.5%. Of course it's not quite that simple, because Lava Lash also procs flametongue weapon and static shock, consumes searing flames stacks, and can stack MW itself-- but that's why we have sims, because it quickly becomes too complex to approximate via napkin-math.

http://dread-gaming.com/simc/enh_t14_set_comparison_r12995.html

[Damien 1,514]

I'll take your word for it and I've moved Lightning Bolt higher up in the priority list (ahead of Lava Lash, basically). I wish I could just go ahead and test this properly on my own, but there is so much work to do for our Mists of Pandaria coverage that I need to learn to trust you guys and let you help me in the task :P

[rodalpho 8]

Actually I misspoke. Maelstrom Weapon doesn't proc every 5s, it stacks to five every 5s. In the sim I linked, it took an average of 4.63s to hit 5 stacks. Of course that was fully raid buffed and includes Heroism for 40s of each 450s iteration. Suffice it to say, MW really does stack up extremely quickly.

Nobody can really test any of this past verifying basic information, like PPM and damage scaling. It's not possible for players to generate ideal priorities or stat weights without simulation. Some classes work well with spreadsheets, like rogues, but enhance systems are just way too complex.

[Damien 1,514]

Thanks for all the information. I agree that the Enhancement specification is too complex for us humans to extract stat weights and spell priorities without resorting to simulation or very extensive in-game testing (the latter being often subject to lag and human error).

The reason why I always try to avoid simulation tools is because I know far too well that the most tested computer systems still have bugs, and serious ones at that. As a consequence, I generally have many doubts over the accuracy of a simulation tool, especially when it's trying to model the behaviour of something that is currently undergoing a beta test. That said, I recognize their utility in helping us decide what the best rotation is likely to be.

By the way, in these simulations, there is no test of whether Lava Lash is given a higher priority than Stormstrike. I've always been an advocate of this, and I have arguments to push forward this spell priority (in Cataclysm at least).

[rodalpho 8]

The priority used is under the actions priority section. It prioritizes stormstrike right on top of lava lash.

As to why it's using that priority, the author tried both and this one performed better.

Edit:

I took the author's profile for Enh_509_4p_Echo_PE and ran it in simcraft 503-2, which is now publicly available.

With stormstrike prioritized over lava lash, I got 114,253 DPS.

With no other variables changed and lava lash on top of stormstrike, I got 113,912 DPS.

So, prioritizing Stormstrike over Lava Lash is worth 341DPS, which is 0.03% of total DPS. However, the margin of error in both sims is 0.08% with 10k iterations. So the two priorities are effectively identical.

Anticipating your next question, moving MW5_LB below both stormstrike and lava lash resulted in 114,238 DPS, which is again well under the margin for error.

So... is the author's priority optimal? Well strictly speaking, yes. It's optimized to such an extent that it's within the error margin at 10k iterations. Of course he ran 25k iterations to generate it.

Since it's so incredibly close, does it actually matter which order you put stormstrike, lava lash, and MW5_LB in? Well, human reaction time and network lag certainly obviate any difference. But that priority is technically more correct, and IMO it's what should be in a FAQ, even if the difference is miniscule.

But I would probably add a note that unlike every other melee class in the game (who all have real resource systems of some kind) it's all very close and doesn't really matter if you adhere precisely to the priority. The most important things to keep in mind are to keep searing totem up and in range of your target and and hit buttons the instant they come off cooldown.

Edited July 23, 2012 by rodalpho

[Damien 1,514]

With stormstrike prioritized over lava lash, I got 114,253 DPS.

With no other variables changed and lava lash on top of stormstrike, I got 113,912 DPS.

So, prioritizing Stormstrike over Lava Lash is worth 341DPS, which is 0.03% of total DPS. However, the margin of error in both sims is 0.08% with 10k iterations. So the two priorities are effectively identical.

Thank you. That's great news because in a guide, it is also important that the reader easily grasp why we gave a particular rotation. Lava Lash > Stormstrike is very intuitive as Lava Lash does more damage than Stormstrike and the buff that Stormstrike gives lasts 15 seconds, so there is no apparent reason to give Stormstrike a higher priority. I believe the main reason for having Stormstrike > Lava Lash is because it desynchronizes their cooldowns and overall, you get to use both spells more often, but this is harder to explain :P

[rodalpho 8]

Well like I pointed out, enhance is really unique because it has no resource mechanic at all. Even ret has holy power. But maelstrom weapon stacks so quickly, and is generated passively, that it does not function as a resource. As such, my takeaway wouldn't be that stormstrike>lava lash but that "here is the optimal priority" and then proceed to explain why it doesn't really matter if you ignore it.

But it's your guide. :)

[Jonzino 0]

Instead of of MW5 LB, wouldn't it now be MW5 Elemental Blast? Granted you have the talent chosen, it does a lot of damage.

[rodalpho 8]

Elemental Blast simmed the lowest of the 3 L90 talents, so no.

Primal Elementalist is 0.9% better than Unleashed Fury, which is in turn 3.5% better than Elemental Blast.

So really you can choose between PE and UF as you prefer, as the difference is extremely close to the margin of error. I'll probably end up taking UF myself. However, Elemental Blast is much weaker and should not be taken.

Edited July 23, 2012 by rodalpho

[Hawke 0]

It's late and maybe I'm just being stupid, but does the removal of Ancestral Swiftness mean that we no longer get our passive 15% movement speed bonus? Or is that just something we get if we go Enhancement now?

Thanks.

[Damien 1,514]

It's late and maybe I'm just being stupid, but does the removal of Ancestral Swiftness mean that we no longer get our passive 15% movement speed bonus? Or is that just something we get if we go Enhancement now?

Thanks.

You no longer get the passive +15% movement speed bonus.

[Hawke 0]

You no longer get the passive +15% movement speed bonus.

Ah right, guess I'll be using ghost wolf more then.

Thanks for the reply. :)