Classic Enhancement Shaman DPS Guide

Shaman is arguably the best support class in WoW Classic. With their powerful and flexible totems, such as Windfury Totem, Tremor Totem and Poison Cleansing Totem, they keep their allies safe and increase their damage potential significantly.

While only Horde players can be Shamans, every group will benefit immensely from having at least one, and due to totems only being able to affect one group at a time, a 40 man raid will want to have at least 8 Shamans to have totems in every group.

This guide will be covering Enhancement Shamans, the Windfury Weapon high rollers of WoW Classic and, arguably, the best support spec for melee in the game with Improved Weapon Totems and Enhancing Totems being a staple of its talent tree. They also make for great users of the debuffing weapons Annihilator and Nightfall in the later phases.

Strengths

• Great burst damage potential with Windfury Weapon, Stormstrike and Earth Shock. While Enhancement is primarily a melee spec, it can also do significant damage from range when needed.
• Totems for every type of situation, which will always be buffed by Improved Weapon Totems and Enhancing Totems, making them the most powerful a melee player can have.
• Great support tools even outside of totems, such as Earth Shock and Purge, which contribute to the high skill cap of the class.

Weaknesses

• Weak sustained damage-dealing potential due to its attacks having a much larger cooldown than those of a Warrior / Rogue.
• Mana hungry, especially while leveling, which forces you to rest or drink often.
• Squishy and has no real escapes once focused.

Enhancement Shamans are unfortunately one of the weakest damage dealers, as they lack damage abilities with short cooldowns, making them reliant on Windfury Weapon randomness and having little ability to amplify their direct damage beyond regular melee swings.

Thus, they are unlikely to be brought for most fights, although their totems have high value as they are party-only, making them have significant party support potential for most Horde raids, especially if Restoration Shamans are not plentiful.

They have especially high support potential in groups that can benefit from both Windfury Totem and Grace of Air Totem, as their Mana can be used to keep both totems up with Totem Twisting techniques.

Mana is an Enhancement Shaman's main resource. Since you lack talents which interact with the Spirit stat, you will generally avoid it and thus not be able to regenerate a lot during a fight. You won't cast much, thus most of your Mana can be safely used on Totem Twisting to increase your party's DPS.

Totems are an unique Shaman mechanic which allows you to place an immobile and low health totem on the ground which grants buffs or special effects while active around itself. These typically provide powerful effects which are balanced in PvP by the ease of destroying the totem, and essential in PvE for Horde players.

The best profession for Enhancement Shamans who care about maximizing their performance in combat is Engineering.

Any of the other professions is fine for the second primary profession slot, but Mining synergizes the best with Engineering, allowing you to farm materials to feed it.

If you wish to learn more about the available professions in WoW Classic we recommend that you read our profession guides.

Find our new guides for Shaman in WoW Classic Season of Discovery below! The new game mode will have players find and utilize Runes that can then be engraved onto their gear to provide them special bonuses that augment already existing abilities or allow the class to use entirely new spells.

With the introduction of new Runes in Season of Discovery, not only will old builds be increased in power, but Shaman now has the option of being played as a Tank.