TBC Classic Enhancement Shaman Guide

Enhancement Shamans are, arguably, the best physical damage support class in TBC Classic. Their provide powerful melee support totems: Windfury Totem, Grace of Air Totem and Strength of Earth Totem, which grant high damage increases to their party and also have utility totems such as Tremor Totem and Poison Cleansing Totem that can keep allies safe and out of crowd controls.

TBC introduces Shamans to the Alliance side through the new Draenei race, which can be leveled from the pre-patch onwards.

If you would like to see where Enhancement Shamans fall in the overall rankings among DPS specs for both PvE and PvP in TBC Classic, we have created pages dedicated to explaining what classes and specializations are the best of the best through multiple factors. However, ultimately, you should not let these lists dissuade you from playing what you enjoy.

Strengths

• Excellent scaling with gear.
• Best melee and physical damage support in the game with Windfury Totem,
• Grace of Air Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Unleashed Rage
• and Bloodlust / Heroism.

Weaknesses

• Low DPS at low gear levels, gear dependent.
• Low survivability, made worse by melee range requirements.
• Can struggle with Mana in longer fights, especially if Totem Twisting.

Dual Wield allows Enhancement Shamans to dual wield in TBC, greatly increasing their DPS potential! Stormstrike and the Enhancement tree were changed to accommodate dual wielding as the primary way to play Enhancement.

Shamanistic Rage is a new active ability that doubles as a Mana and defensive cooldown, which gets better alongside your gear due to the Mana return being based on your attack power.

Ghost Wolf can now be made instant cast with Improved Ghost Wolf as its base cast speed is reduced to 2 seconds.

Water Shield is a new baseline spell that creates a shield on yourself which provides passive Mana regeneration and extra bursts of Mana whenever you are hit. This is great in all types of content, but especially so if you are being consistently hit for the extra Mana returns, so expect to get a ton of Mana back while soloing and leveling!

Bloodlust / Heroism are new meta-defining spells, which grant a huge amount of Haste for 40 seconds to the Shaman's party. By rotating Shamans into your DPS parties for this cast, you can ensure near-permanent uptime on the buff in any given fight, drastically increasing raid DPS.

Wrath of Air Totem is a new support totem that increases spell power for the Shaman's party, making it a must-have in any caster party.

Totemic Call is a new spell that allows you to destroy your current totems in order to recover 25% of their Mana cost. You can use this to avoid pulling patrols with your totems, to recover some Mana when moving to a new place and even just to recover some Mana for free when your totems are about to expire!

Earth Elemental Totem creates an Earth Elemental that taunts and generates threat on nearby enemies. Due to its relatively high health, it can serve as an emergency tank for you and your group.

Fire Elemental Totem creates a Fire Elemental that deals significant single and area of effect damage, making it great for contributing damage to your group or while soloing.

The overall result of all of these changes and additions is a much stronger Enhancement Shaman, mostly courtesy of Dual Wield and Bloodlust.

Draenei is the only race available. Unfortunately, even though you mostly need Physical Hit as Enhancement, in TBC Draenei Shamans will always provide a 1% Spell Hit aura, which is less than ideal.

• Gemcutting increases your Jewelcrafting skill by 5.
• Gift of the Naaru is a short cast with a 3-minute cooldown that heals over time. Because it is free, it can be occasionally useful, and being on the Holy school allows you to cast it in PvP even while interrupted on Nature.
• Inspiring Presence increases your party's chance to hit with spells by 1%.
• Shadow Resistance increases your Shadow Resistance by 10.

Orc is the best race for all types of content, Troll is a decent alternative, especially if you will not be using axes and Tauren has some nice survivability tools but nothing for DPS.

• Axe Specialization increases your expertise by 5 while wielding an Axe.
• Blood Fury is a 2-minute cooldown that increases your Attack Power by 282 (at level 70) for 15 seconds, but also reduces healing effects on you by 50% during that time.
• Command increases your pet damage dealt by 5%.
• Hardiness increases your chance to resist stuns by 15%.

Orc is the go-to PvP race, due to Hardiness, which allows you to occasionally resist stun effects. They are also PvE all-stars, with two DPS increases from Axe Specialization and Blood Fury, which is improved from Classic and now only reduces your healing taken during its 15 second duration!

• Beast Slaying gives a 5% damage bonus against Beasts.
• Berserking is a 3-minute cooldown that gives you between 10-30% increased attack and casting speed depending on your health, with the effect being greater the more hurt you are.
• Bow Specialization increases your Critical Strike chance by 1% when using a Bow.
• Throwing Specialization increases your Critical Strike chance by 1% when using a thrown weapon.
• Regeneration gives +10% passive health regeneration and allows you to regenerate 10% of your total health regeneration during combat.

Trolls are a decent choice if your goal is to maximize your throughput, due to Berserking, which quickens your attacks and casts, especially if activated at low health. Beast slaying can also be useful against beast-type enemies.

• Cultivation increases your Herbalism skill by 15.
• Endurance increases your total health by 5%.
• Nature Resistance increases your Nature Resistance by 10.
• War Stomp is a 2-minute cooldown that stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds, with a 0.5 second cast time.

War Stomp is quite reliable in PvP, often allowing for an emergency Lesser Healing Wave cast, but has few PvE uses. The 5% increased health from Endurance is minor. Finally, Taurens have a larger hitbox (especially males), which grants them a slightly increased casting range, but also makes them more likely to be hit by enemy abilities.

While all professions have their unique benefits, Enhancement in particular benefits from Blacksmithing as it allows you to reliably get good weapons ( Dragonmaw for non-Orcs or Black Planar Edge for Orcs) without needing to wait for a raid weapon drop or having to get a high arena rating for the gladiator weapons.

Leatherworking is also a strong profession, as it allows you to craft and use the Primal Intent set or the Netherscale Armor set. You will also get Drums of Battle, which are an important consumable only brought by Leatherworkers.

Alternatively, Engineering has many explosives that will drastically increase your area of effect damage, such as the new Super Sapper Charge.

Finally, Alchemy is a good passive goldmaking profession due to the transmute recipes and the new elixir, potion and transmute masteries, making it a strong profession on an alt that you do not want to min-max your throughput on.

If you would like to learn more about how your profession of choice can be used to supplement your goldmaking, along with a variety of other means to bolster your income, see our full goldmaking guide linked below:

Using macros and addons makes your life significantly easier when playing TBC Classic, and they can improve your experience a lot, depending on how skilled you are at customizing them.

If you are interested in learning more about addons and macros suited to Enhancement Shamans, check out our guides below: