Enhancement Shaman DPS Liberation of Undermine Raid Guide — The War Within (11.1.0)
On this page, you will find tips, tricks, and strategies tailored to your Enhancement Shaman for each boss of the following raid: Liberation of Undermine. All our content is updated for World of Warcraft — The War Within (11.1.0).
Introduction
Below, you can find class and spec-specific advice for every fight in Liberation of Undermine. If you are looking for a general overview of the Raid that is not spec-specific, check out our dedicated Liberation of Undermine Boss guides.
On this page, you will find tips and tricks specifically tailored toward Enhancement Shamans and its toolkit. It does not include general tips for mechanics, which are included in the full raid guide instead, whereas this page assumes that you are already familiar with most of the major mechanics of each encounter.
Our general recommendation following the release of Liberation of Undermine
leans strongly toward Totemic on all bosses due both to its
flexibility and front-loaded damage. In particular in encounters with add spawns
it provides something relatively unique.
Stormbringer is still very
capable of performing well - in particular on single-target bosses - but is
slightly behind in raw throughput and lacks the burst AoE tools of its
counterpart.
All recommendations are progression-based tips and will not necessarily be the best for an overall DPS ranking.
Liberation of Undermine Boss Guides for Enhancement Shaman
Liberation of Undermine Raid Builds, Tips, and Tricks for Enhancement Shaman
Tips for Vexie Fullthrottle for Enhancement Shaman
Vexie and the Geargrinders is an AoE fight in the primary phase, with
a single-target burn intermission meaning we need a mixture of damage profiles.
Both hero talents work, with Totemic being the general recommendation
as its cooldown timers allow it to burst down adds and deal with the
boss burn efficiently in the intermission.
Stormbringer still has
extremely powerful intermission damage however, so either work.
Defensive Tips
- Use
Astral Shift if targeted by
Spew Oil as you will get hit by the initial pool landing. Also save
Spirit Walk for these moments to get to the correct drop spot.
Cooldown Usage
- The burn intermission is generally triggered around the 1m45s spot by most
groups, meaning you should plan cooldowns around this:
Totemic should be sending cooldowns on pull, and using each
Primordial Wave on biker sets that spawn. Your third use of
Doom Winds should line up with the pit mechanics arriving at the boss in the intermission.
Stormbringer should be using
Ascendance on the pull, and it should be ready again part-way through the intermission for the boss burn
Mechanical Tips
- Make sure to focus target a Pit Mechanic as they come in at the
intermission start so you can interrupt
Repair without switching targets.
Flame Shock can be spread to bikers as they pass through the boss with a well timed
Lava Lash to maximize your
Splintered Elements buff. Failing that, use
Whirling Elements motes to efficiently apply it when available.
Crash Lightning isn't necessary for
Totemic, but if playing
Stormbringer as it already picks it up it can make use of it for free cleave onto adds and use them for funnel in the intermission via
Converging Storms.
Best Talents
Use the Copy button below to generate an Import Code to use in-game!
Tips for Cauldron of Carnage for Enhancement Shaman
The Cauldron of Carnage combines a single-target main phase and a
2-target cleave intermission, repeating until the encounter is complete. The
free cleave Totemic provides for the intermission plus its higher
throughput makes it the preferred pick, though managing positioning can
sometimes be awkward.
Defensive Tips
- There are no specific defensive requirements for this boss, so use
Astral Shift freely when you feel unsafe, such as during
Colossal Clash.
Cooldown Usage
Doom Winds should be used on the pull, but then always held roughly 10 seconds before each
Colossal Clash to make use of it during cleave. Similarly,
Primordial Wave can be used on the pull and once in each phase, then held to align with
Doom Winds in the intermission.
Mechanical Tips
- For the Flarendo side you need to actively dodge a lot of mechanics,
so use
Spirit Walk if you get caught in a bad position. Use
Wind Rush Totem to assist the raid during particularly bad wave patterns.
- If targeted by
Blastburn Roarcannon this is a good spot to use defensives and
Spirit Walk to get out of the beam after it locks on.
- If targeted by
- For the Torq side you need to be much more careful with movement to
avoid being stunned. Stutter step during
Thunderdrum Salvo to avoid the swirlies while avoiding a lethal stun.
- Taking
Thunderstorm is an option here to allow you to knock back
Voltaic Images, just be careful you don't send them through allies being targeted!
- Taking
Feral Lunge is your tool of choice to get to each side following
Colossal Clash as
Spirit Walk is more valuable for dodging.
Totemic also needs to make liberal use of
Totemic Projection and the
Surging Totem relocate to keep it active under the active boss.
Best Talents
Use the Copy button below to generate an Import Code to use in-game!
Tips for Rik Reverb for Enhancement Shaman
Rik Reverb is predominantly a single-target encounter, however the add
spawns triggered by Sparkblast Ignition need to die as quickly
as possible to avoid a wipe. Due to their frequent spawns,
Totemic's
cooldown timers suit this fight perfectly and make it an exceptionally strong
spec here.
Defensive Tips
- Use
Astral Shift if assigned to soak
Lingering Voltage. If not, make sure to use it if targeted by
Faulty Zap.
Cooldown Usage
- Enhancement can cover a lot of damage on Pyrotechnics with some
cooldown holding that happens right from the start of the encounter, as uses
will be lost regardless due to the intermission timing:
- Hold
Primordial Wave and
Doom Winds on the pull, using them both on the add wave that spawns at 25 seconds.
Primordial Wave is an optional hold here, and can be squeezed in on pull and half way through the add spawn.
- Hold
Primordial Wave when it becomes available again for the wave that spawns at 1:05.
- Hold both
Primordial Wave and
Doom Winds again for the wave that spawns at 1:50 to burst them down before the intermission starts.
- Rinse-repeat with each new phase after the intermission.
- With
Sundering taken, align these with the
Primordial Wave casts.
- Hold
- As each intermission comes at 2 minutes, there will always be some cooldowns wasted and time floated, so holding to efficiently deal with these is ultimately more useful considering how much we can carry the damage on them.
Mechanical Tips
Sundering is an optional pickup here in place of
Lashing Flames and
Flurry, but it provides a lot of extra on demand burst for the Pyrotechnics spawns. It's up to your preference depending on how much AoE you want to bring.
- Use
Wind Rush Totem during the intermission to help the raid get to amplifiers and avoid
Sound Cloud
- Be careful of positioning to avoid the
Sonic Blast frontal.
Best Talents
Use the Copy button below to generate an Import Code to use in-game!
Tips for Stix Bunkjunker for Enhancement Shaman
Stix Bunkjunker has single-target as the most important aspect, but
frequent add waves that require burst AoE to avoid them overwhelming the tank
is very helpful. Due to that, Totemic's cooldown profile suits best
here.
Defensive Tips
- There are no specific defensive requirements for this boss, so use
Astral Shift freely when you feel unsafe.
Cooldown Usage
Totemic has two options for its cooldowns. Territorial Bombshells need to be burst down very quickly to break
Territorial so they can be moved in for cleave. If these are a problem, use them here, otherwise save
Primordial Wave for them to be grouped up.
Sundering on the other hand can comfortably be saved to burst down the smaller adds that will be clumped up and dropped under the boss using
Rolling Rubbish.
Mechanical Tips
- Save
Wind Rush Totem for the intermission to help the raid get out of the final
Trash Compactor slam.
- Interrupt Scrapmasters from ranged so you can still target Bombshells without having to run around the arena.
Sundering is an optional pickup here in place of
Lashing Flames and
Flurry, but it provides a lot of extra on demand burst for the add waves. Depending on what your raid needs more of you can just focus on boss damage instead if necessary.
Best Talents
Use the Copy button below to generate an Import Code to use in-game!
Tips for Sprocketmonger Lockenstock for Enhancement Shaman
Sprocketmonger Lockenstock is a pure single target encounter that has
a large amount of movement throughout. While managing Totemic can be
quite obnoxious here and
Hot Hand may be disrupted, its higher
throughput when executed properly still makes it the preferred pick.
Stormbringer remains very competitive here though with good cooldown
usage and extra comfort from
Ascendance in the intermission.
Defensive Tips
Astral Shift is best saved for the intermission as healers will be busy moving to get into position, and raid damage is high.
Cooldown Usage
Primordial Wave and
Doom Winds need to be held briefly at the 2 minute mark, as the intermission cast will force you away during it. Save it here and use them as you get to the boss after
Beta Launch finishes casting.
Ascendance with
Stormbringer should be used on the pull and then during the intermission to freely hit the boss during the high movement period.
Mechanical Tips
Wind Rush Totem should be organized with your raid to cover the most awkward movement sections. There are a lot of different moments in the encounter that require additional speed, so discuss where the problem points are.
Feral Lunge can be used to jump to the boss in the intermission, but beware your hitbox is active while travelling and it is quite easy to take lethal damage doing this.
Best Talents
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Tips for One-Armed Bandit for Enhancement Shaman
The One-Armed Bandit is a long encounter split between a phase with
extremely high priority adds and a pure boss burn. Due to how important burning
the adds down are in the first phase, the extra flexibility of Totemic's
cooldowns paired with its free cleave makes it much more suited.
Defensive Tips
Astral Shift is best saved for the most dangerous combinations involving the Flame coins that deal raid-wide damage.
Cooldown Usage
Totemic has two options depending on how heavily you want to invest in contributing to the Reel Attendants:
- Use
Primordial Wave and
Doom Winds on the pull, and then use
Primordial Wave again part way through the first
Spin To Win! add set. Hold
Doom Winds for the spawn at 1:20, and it should then naturally align throughout.
- Hold everything on the pull, then use on the first add set at 20-seconds which should naturally align everything to these spawns.
- Dynamite Booty should also spawn roughly 2:45 in on the third set of reels
which should roughly align with an in-between
Primordial Wave cast to kill them off quickly, regardless of your on-pull decision.
- Use
- The advantage of the first method is more boss damage and on-pull burst against the spawned attendants, but it comes at a slight cost to your throughput on the first spawns. Decide based on your raid's damage.
Mechanical Tips
- Pay very close attention to
Pay-Line spawns, both to gain the
High Roller! damage buff by standing next to it, and to avoid being killed by standing in its path.
Earthbind Totem and
Capacitor Totem are useful specifically during
Reward: Shock and Bomb to keep adds stacked for longer during cleave.
Best Talents
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Tips for Mug'Zee for Enhancement Shaman
Mug'zee is mechanically very complex, but there is not as much in the
way of DPS optimization needed as they are all encounter specific things that
need to interact. The higher throughput of Totemic is the general
recommendation, especially as it can help burn down some adds very quickly
between phases.
Stormbringer however is a solid pick for the final
burn as it will often get two
Ascendance casts in before
the hard enrage.
Defensive Tips
Astral Shift is best saved for soaking either
Goblin-guided Rocket or
Earthshaker Gaol, as these initial hits cause heavy raid damage.
Cooldown Usage
Totemic has a handful of notes:
- Hold
Primordial Wave and
Doom Winds briefly on the crossover between platforms at 1 minute and 3m10s to burn down the first Electro Shocker quickly.
- As the enrage cast starts
Doom Winds should be ready again and needs to be used immediately following the first charge, and on cooldown after to get 3 uses in.
- Hold
- With
Stormbringer remember the boss transitions at exactly 40% to begin the final burn. Make sure to have
Ascendance ready for this as you will just about squeeze in a second use before the final enrage if you use it immediately.
Mechanical Tips
- While there are a lot of add spawns, it is hard to get much cleave value as
Unstable Crawler Mines are immune and
Earthshaker Gaol will be split. Electro Shockers however will often give you room to get some cleave in onto the boss following the right to left platform swaps.
- During
Static Charge you should use
Feral Lunge to keep up with him, but be careful of your landing position to avoid standing in the cones and stun telegraphs.
Totemic Projection and
Surging Totem relocate are both invaluable here to keep it under the boss as he dashes away as well.
Earthgrab Totem can be taken to give an extra emergency root for
Unstable Crawler Mines until longer CC can be applied to manage them.
Best Talents
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Tips for Chrome King Gallywix for Enhancement Shaman
Chrome King Gallywix is predominantly a long single-target encounter,
but add waves that spawn are important to kill very quickly, which
Totemic is perfectly suited for especially with its cooldown timers.
The mechanical advantage is strong enough here that
Stormbringer
struggles to contribute in the same way.
Defensive Tips
Astral Shift has a lot of places to be used, and often healers will tell you when they need defensives due to the massive raid damage intake.
- When any mechanic applies
Mechengineer's Canisters don't be afraid to use healing potions, healthstones and
Maelstrom Weapon healing. This needs to be cleared very quickly and healers may struggle to get it all.
Cooldown Usage
Totemic has a lot of room to cooldown optimize for AoE here as the Technician spawns are very important to kill off quickly:
Primordial Wave and
Doom Winds should initially be used on the pull.
- Hold
Doom Winds at 1 minute, and
Primordial Wave at 1m30s for the first wave of adds that spawns at 1m50s, and use both here.
- Hold both again for the second set of adds at 3 minutes, using both again to burn them down quickly.
- Use again during the intermission shield cast on cooldown, they should both be ready again for the next wave of add spawns 50 seconds into the final phase.
- Hold
Doom Winds again for the second set in the final phase at 2m20s after phasing, with
Primordial Wave also being held for this.
-
You can click the segment here to see it in a drop down, but note depending on your phasing time the exact fight timer will be different - especially with variance on how long the boss is held in the shield cast - Click for Timers
- Pull -
Doom Winds +
Primordial Wave
- 30s -
Primordial Wave
- 1m -
Primordial Wave
- 1m50s -
Doom Winds +
Primordial Wave
- 2m20s -
Primordial Wave
- 3m -
Doom Winds +
Primordial Wave
- Intermission -
Doom Winds +
Primordial Wave as soon as available
- ---Phase 3---
- Whenever ready -
Primordial Wave
- 50s in -
Doom Winds +
Primordial Wave
- 1m20s -
Primordial Wave
- 2m20s -
Doom Winds +
Primordial Wave
- Pull -
Mechanical Tips
- Use
Wind Rush Totem when moving between quadrants for
Big Bad Buncha Bombs. These can be positioned very awkwardly so be aware and move quickly.
Feral Lunge moves you to a fixed position, so be careful when using it as it may be very disorienting.
Ghost Wolf and
Spirit Walk make us good candidates for carrying
Charged Giga Bombs, but if you're not running it to a platform use it to pick up and throw off bombs after AoEing the adds.
Best Talents
Use the Copy button below to generate an Import Code to use in-game!
General Cooldown Usage
Enhancement Shaman has a variety of cooldowns with different use cases. The general rule of thumb is to make sure you never miss out on a use of any of these:
Ascendance — a big 2-minute cooldown that floods us with resources. This also makes us ranged while active, so if you can overlap this with downtime, it gains a lot of extra value.
Doom Winds — a smaller 1-minute cooldown that provides a smaller amount of extra damage and some additional resources. Aim to only use this when you can guarantee uptime on your target.
Feral Spirit — incredibly high uptime due to the cooldown reduction from
Witch Doctor's Ancestry. Treat this more as a rotational button you need to use ASAP, ideally overlapping with the above two cooldowns. If playing with
Flowing Spirits these will trigger automatically.
Primordial Wave — a 30-second burst tool that gains even more strength in AoE situations by leveraging
Molten Assault. Align this with any add spawns; otherwise, use on cooldown to blanket other cooldowns with
Splintered Elements. The follow-up
Primordial Storm is a big burst moment that is especially powerful in AoE, so make sure to use it within the following 15 seconds.
If you see an opportunity to get extra value out of any of these cooldowns in an encounter, always assess whether or not it will cost you a use before the encounter ends. If it will, decide whether or not it is absolutely necessary to do extra damage at that key moment in an encounter, and if not, do not hold them. We have more details on cooldown usage on our Rotation page:
You may also find it helpful to use a time-to-die weakaura, or, if you are using
Method
Raid Tools, this has a built-in option to display this. If you are aware of how
long is left in an encounter, you can better estimate how much you are able to
hold cooldowns for key moments, Bloodlust, or your potion uses.
General Defensive Usage
Enhancement Shaman has a handful of key defensive spells that you should plan out to mitigate the most dangerous moments throughout an encounter. Your active mitigation tools, in order of strength, are:
Astral Shift (1.5-minute cooldown with
Planes Traveler)
Stone Bulwark Totem (3-minute cooldown)
Earth Elemental (5-minute cooldown)
Ideally, you should be using these to reduce the largest incoming hits in an
encounter to give your healers more breathing room when things are hectic. If you
are in particular danger as something is coming up and do not have these available,
make use of Maelstrom Weapon to cast strong, instant
Healing Surges
on yourself.
Changelog
- 15 Mar. 2025: Updated with more relevant live info and Gallywix tips.
- 04 Mar. 2025: Updated to account for March 4th Flowing Spirits hotfix.
- 20 Feb. 2025: Guide added.
More Shaman Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Wordup, a frequent theorycrafter involved in a number of class communities. He is also an experienced player who has been in the world top 100 since the days of Sunwell, currently raiding in Echoes. You can also follow him on Twitter.
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