TBC Classic Enhancement Shaman Spec, Builds, and Talents

In TBC, the points required for Enhancement Shaman builds force you to decide between going for Elemental sub-spec or Restoration sub-spec. Both options are viable and discussed below in more detail.

If you were looking for leveling builds, please refer to our leveling guide for Shamans.

This build has multiple improvements from the Elemental tree, such as Reverberation which allows you to have a smoother rotation where shocks and Stormstrike align perfectly with totem twisting timings.

You also improve your area of effect damage through Improved Fire Totems and Call of Flame.

While points requirements are tight, you can max out Improved Weapon Totems instead of Improved Fire Totems if you prefer the extra group support.

Restoration is the chosen sub-tree here, for the Totem improvements of Totemic Focus and Totemic Mastery. This allows this build to perform even better than the previous one at the totem twisting job, especially in long fights, but loses some personal damage in return, especially in area of effect situations.

Point requirements are as tight as ever, but you could take Improved Reincarnation and / or Improved Weapon Totems by sacrificing the minor shock damage gain of Concussion.

While the core of this build is very similar to the Elemental PvE one, there are two significant differences:

1. Fire Totem talents and Improved Weapon Totems are swapped out for Toughness, which provides a very needed mobility boost.
2. Enhancing Totems is swapped out for Guardian Totems, which provides Grounding Totem cooldown reduction that is great when trying to outplay CC and caster burst in PvP.

The general idea is to gain more defensive / mobility tools while dropping talents that boost Totems that are likely to be instantly destroyed in PvP. You could also consider swapping some points out of Dual Wield Specialization, as only 5% physical hit is needed against PvP enemies.

The Elemental Tree has some interesting talents, such as Elemental Focus and Elemental Devastation, but is ultimately outperformed by the Restoration tree in the secondary tree role.

Elemental Focus increases your Mana sustain by giving you a 40% discount on damaging spells after you land a Spell Critical Strike. The main problem with this talent is that Spell and Physical Crit are separate stats in TBC Classic, and you will be gearing first and foremost for Physical Crit, rather than Spell Crit, making your Spell Crit very weak.

Reverberation reduces the cooldown on your shocks. This smooths out your rotation, and allows you to interrupt / slow / DoT enemies more often.

Elemental Devastation increases your Critical Strike chance by up to 9% after you deal a Spell Critical Strike, which has good synergy with Flurry. Similarly to Elemental Focus, it suffers from Enhancement's lack of Spell Critical Strike on gear and lack of spell casts in general, making its uptime low.

The Enhancement Tree is your main tree for melee damage increases and damage support talents.

Guardian Totems increases the damage reduction of Stoneskin Totem by up to 20%, which is a small boost to your support tanking capabilities. It also reduces Grounding Totem's cooldown, which is great in PvP.

Improved Ghost Wolf makes Ghost Wolf instant cast, which is great for quickly moving around when outdoors.

Improved Weapon Totems increases the melee attack power granted by your Windfury Totem, which makes it even stronger at boosting your melee party's damage, but it can be safely skipped if you are never in a Warrior / Rogue / Ret Paladin party.

Stormstrike provides an extra melee attack that also causes the target to take 20% additional Nature damage from the next two Nature damage spells to hit it. This has natural synergy with Earth Shock and is overall a great damage-increasing talent.

Dual Wield allows you to use two one-handed weapons, which is a massive damage boost due to the nature of combat and auto-attacks in TBC Classic.

Unleashed Rage is a physical support talent that increases the Attack Power of nearby allies when you land a physical Critical Strike. This should have 100% uptime on your party and is one of the reasons why Enhancement is such a good melee support class.

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

The Restoration Tree provides extra Physical Hit and some of your Mana sustain, making it a great secondary tree to invest on.

Improved Healing Wave decreases your Healing Wave's cast time by up to 0,5 seconds. This is typically not impactful enough to warrant being taken as an Enhancement Shaman, but could be decent if you off-heal often.

Ancestral Healing increases your target's armor significantly after you land a Critical Heal. While a niche talent for us, it can help stabilize an ally in danger, especially in PvP.

Totemic Focus reduces the Mana cost of your Totems significantly. This is mandatory to have for an Enhancement Shaman, as you will not have enough Mana to Totem Twist otherwise.

Healing Focus lowers the chance of suffering spell pushback from taking damage when casting Heals. This is useful when you need to heal yourself or others when under pressure in PvP, but you will generally not have enough talents to acquire this.

Totemic Mastery increases the range of your totems to 30 yards, allowing them to affect targets that are further away.