Enhancement Shaman Patch 9.1 Changes Analysis

For this section of the guide, we will go over all of the important changes for Enhancement Shaman going into Patch 9.1 of Shadowlands. A full list of changes to the entire Shaman class can be found on our dedicated page below. For an additional list of content coming in Patch 9.1, you can also check out our Patch 9.1 Overview page.

No major changes have been introduced for Enhancement Shaman in the base kit.

No base talent changes present in Patch 9.1.

Every Covenant has been given access to a legendary exclusive to it, enhancing the effects of your given Covenant ability:

• Kyrian: Raging Vesper Vortex causes each 3 charges consumed of your Vesper Totem to trigger a bonus, high-damage pulse.
• Necrolord: Splintered Elements causes each additional Lightning Bolt generated by Primordial Wave to grant 5% Haste for 10 seconds.
• Night Fae: Seeds of Rampant Growth causes each pulse of your Fae Transfusion channel to reduce the cooldown of Feral Spirit by 7 seconds and grand 3% Critical Strike for 15 seconds.
• Venthyr: Elemental Conduit causes your Chain Harvest to also apply Flame Shock to enemy targets hit, and Riptide to allies healed.

Unfortunately, all 4 of these options are pretty underwhelming and are not worth the craft. Kyrian provides too low value on the pulses and to get the full amount requires wasted global cooldowns on healing. Necrolord simply does not give anywhere near the amount of Haste that would be required to make this worthwhile at the moment. Venthyr while a unique effect that could pair with Fire Nova, the long cooldown on Chain Harvest itself makes it too restrictive.

The one outlier of the pack is Night Fae in that it does have reasonable numbers, but is completely outclassed by similar legendaries. Doom Winds outshines it in burst, and Witch Doctor's Wolf Bones provides significantly more cooldown reduction, so there is just no niche for it to fill.

Ultimately the biggest problem with the new Enhancement legendaries is that they are competing with extremely strong powers we have elsewhere (such as Doom Winds and Witch Doctor's Wolf Bones), and these new options are nowhere near their power level in any given situation.

There are no changes to Conduit options for Enhancement in the current 9.1 build.

Every Covenant will get access to one additional Potency slot for starters, alongside one of either Endurance or Finesse based on your path for every Soulbind. Additionally, all Covenants will be gaining access to new Soulbind-specific traits depending on your selection.

We have listed all of the abilities with a DPS impact below.

• Forgelite Prime Mikanikos — Soulglow Spectrometer — Causes you to apply a damage buff on the first target you hit in combat which stacks by 1% every 3 seconds, up to 5% and expiring after 15 seconds. This can only be active on one target at a time, and the cycle will begin anew when it expires.
• Forgelite Prime Mikanikos — Effusive Anima Accelerator — Causes your Vesper Totem to deal Arcane damage over 8 seconds, split between all enemies within 12 yards of your current target. For every target hit, the cooldown of Vesper Totem is reduced by 4 seconds, up to a maximum of 20 seconds at 5 or more targets hit. The cooldown reduction alone gives this a lot of potential for AoE situations, and the extra damage is just a free bonus on top.
• Pelagos — Better Together — grants a 40 Mastery rating buff for 1 minute to you and an ally when you move within 3 yards of them. You can only be affected by one buff at a time. This is free damage and also has benefits allowing you to share the buff to another player in your group.
• Pelagos — Newfound Resolve — Occasionally spawns a "Doubt" unit near you while in combat. Turning to face it despawns the enemy and grants you 12% increased Agility and Stamina for 15 seconds. Currently, this is expected to be at a 1 RPPM (so roughly 3% average Agility), making it an extremely good end trait.
• Kleia — Light the Path — Causes your Valiant Strikes Soulbind Ability buff to also grant 0.25% Critical Strike per stack. It also causes its heal effect to grant you and the target you heal 5% Critical Strike for 12 seconds. Due to the 1-minute lockout on generating stacks after it triggers, this is fairly weak (especially considering the newly improved alternatives) but does provide benefits to allies.
• Emeni — Pustule Eruption — Causes Fleshcraft to grant you 9 pustule stacks. When you take damage or get healed, they blow up for a small amount of damage to nearby enemies. This damage is respectable, but not particularly strong and relies on you using Fleshcraft on cooldown to optimize, which is not usually ideal for defensive tools.
• Bonesmith Heirmir — Carver's Eye — Grants you a Mastery buff when you hit a target above 90% health which lasts 5 seconds and stacks up to 5, and refreshes its duration when you generate a new stack. Each individual target you generate a stack from, however it has a 10-second lockout before another stack can trigger, meaning you need multiple enemies to stack this.
• Bonesmith Heirmir — Mnemonic Equipment — Causes your attacks on targets below 35% health to deal 3% extra damage over 5 seconds. This is really weak compared to alternatives because of the limitation on target health and overall gain, despite it being on a strong Soulbind tree.
• Plague Deviser Marileth — Kevin's Oozeling — Causes your Primordial Wave casts to spawn an Oozeling to attack your target. This deals minor damage and increases the damage you deal to its target by 2%, and lasts for 16 seconds after being spawned. The uptime of this is far too low in power level to be equal to many other options, and does not do much to help an already weak Soulbind tree.
• Niya — Bonded Hearts — Causes your Grove Invigoration procs (both from casting Fae Transfusion and the RPPM effect) to increase the Mastery granted by all stacks present by 50% for 5 seconds if you are close to non-Night Fae allies when triggered.
• Dreamweaver — Dream Delver — treat this as a flat 3% damage to targets if you are active on them, with a small ramp up.
• Korayn — Wild Hunt Strategem — When you hit a target above 75% health, you gain a 1-minute buff. If you then attack an enemy below 35% health, this buff will be consumed and increase your damage to sub-35% targets by 5% for 10 seconds.
• Nadjia the Mistblade — Fatal Flaw — improves the Thrill Seeker effect by causing it to increase either Critical Strike or Versatility by 20% (depending on your highest rating) when the Euphoria Haste effect ends, for 10 seconds. This is just a flat boost to an already good trait, and increases the time spent with a high value buff to blanket your cooldown windows.
• Theotar the Mad Duke — Party Favors — grants an item with a 1-hour cooldown that grants either 3% Agility or a random secondary stat with a 4-hour duration. This is fine, but the buff is removed if you swap Soulbinds making it a bit awkward if you ever want to change it up, or you get a bad stat from the item.
• General Draven — Battlefield Presence — increases your damage done and reduces damage taken by 1% for every enemy within 5 yards of you, up to 3%. In any multi-target situation this is an excellent pick based on the average power level of most Soulbind traits, but unfortunately is on a tree that is currently low-value.

As it stands currently the big outlier is Kyrian, with the trees all gaining two additional offensive traits compared to others that got one, alongside them being strong individually. Despite it being a Covenant option that fell behind in 9.0, most of that was tied to a weak soulbind selection as Vesper Totem is quite good, so this seems likely to see play coming into 9.1. Big things to look at is Forgelite Prime Mikanikos' new tree. Due to it already providing Hammer of Genesis, the addition of Effusive Anima Accelerator makes this look like a really strong AoE pick for some encounters and Mythic+ situations. It also comes with a newly buffed Bron's Call to Action and Soulglow Spectrometer for a pretty robust set of single-target traits as well.

Night Fae is a Covenant pick that saw a lot of growth for us in 9.0.5 with single target power in the base ability tied to Niya's Grove Invigoration to boost up our Feral Spirit windows with Witch Doctor's Wolf Bones. It also brings First Strike for Mythic+ and AoE to pair with Doom Winds burst. Both of these are staying, and while Niya did get Bonded Hearts to slightly improve that, the gap is going to close compared to the better options other trees gained.

Venthyr got a nice boost to Nadjia the Mistblade with Fatal Flaw improving the ease of use for Thrill Seeker, while other trees did not really receive much. Given that Nadjia has been the dominant Soulbind so far however, not much will change.

Necrolord was already the weakest option due to the inflexibility and low gains provided by Primordial Wave, and while the baseline Soulbinds do have some good picks in there Patch 9.1 did not improve them. Bonesmith is still a good all-rounder, but both end traits are extremely low value when compared to gains found on other trees.

• Heart of the Deathseer has been removed.