Enhancement Shaman DPS Mythic+ Tips — The War Within (11.2)

Stormbringer builds elevate the value of Maelstrom Weapon spenders, encouraging you to cycle aggressively to build up Tempest charges. These are then used during Conductive Energy windows applied by Primordial Wave for big payoffs. It brings powerful 2-minute burst with Ascendance, and incorporates Crash Lightning into its rotation for additional resource generation.

It has a lot of management requirements, as Tempest procs need to be pooled up for the right moment. With the Season 3 Tier Set involved, that extends even further to additional RNG Ascendance triggers to watch out for.

While the below build is what we currently recommend, there are alternative talent packages that can be picked up to specialize further. Many of these are, however, more difficult in practice.

• Elemental Assault / Legacy of the Frost Witch - one point in Legacy provides a lot of value from the 15% Physical buff alongside the extra Stormstrike access. While Elemental Assault really shines at 2 points for extra reliability, it cannot outclass the value Legacy gives at one point.
• Feral Spirit + Witch Doctor's Ancestry - this is the only wolf option worth considering. This does give extra single-target power, but the cost to your single-target comfort too high to jusfify.
• Deeply Rooted Elements - a more RNG option that can be played instead of Ascendance. This theoretically provides more damage, especially with the new Tier Set, but the loss of control is a big trade-off in Mythic+ where reliable burst is king.
• Ice Strike vs. Sundering - your final point comes down to whether you want more single-target - at which point you take Ice Strike - or more AoE and an extra stop with Sundering.
• There are a variety of control options on the tree, and while the current recommendation picks up Static Charge, Guardian's Cudgel can also be used for more up-front control. Lightning Lasso can also be picked up as a single-target stun.
• Dungeon specific utility such as Cleanse Spirit and Poison Cleansing Totem are on a case-by-case basis, and there are a number of talents taken here. As examples, Purge and Totemic Surge can be switched out to tailor your tree when needed. Similarly, Call of the Elements can be taken if you need even more access to a specific totem in a dungeon.

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Totemic leans into a 30-second cooldown timer, using Primordial Wave and the follow-up Primordial Storm to deal high burst AoE. It adds the extra wrinkle of maintaining Surging Totem every 24-seconds, and is much more focused on sticking to a priority. Doom Winds is added in every minute, dealing even more intense burst damage when combined with the previous cooldowns. The Season 3 adds on to this, giving more payoff to playing around Whirling Elements motes, and even allows you to use Totemic Recall as a true offensive cooldown.

Its core is built around Hot Hand, and the Hero Tree talent Reactivity. This, alongside both Sundering and Molten Thunder, are used to activate your Surging Totem with Earthsurge. This creates a synergistic loop that maintains single-target during AoE, giving it good priority damage.

The build linked below is the universal recommendation for Totemic, and it does not have very many spare points after picking up its core tools. In the spec tree, it has three float points available:

• Elemental Assault (2nd pt.), Crashing Storms and Flurry are all optional picks from the build below. These are good all-rounders, but Lashing Flames is competitive, as is a pairing of Storm's Wrath with Stormblast if you need single-target comfort.
• There are a variety of control options on the tree, and while the current recommendation picks up Static Charge, Guardian's Cudgel can also be used for more up-front control. Lightning Lasso can also be picked up as a single-target stun.
• Dungeon specific utility such as Cleanse Spirit and Poison Cleansing Totem are on a case-by-case basis, and there are a number of talents taken here. As examples, Purge and Totemic Surge can be switched out to tailor your tree when needed.

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Stormbringer has some extra gameplay nuance in Mythic+, and requires a large amount of extra management to optimize properly. There's extra pooling potential to optimize your Tempest, as the following effects can be carried between pulls:

• Tempest charges (lasts up to 30 seconds)
• Maelstrom Weapon counter progress toward Tempest
• Awakening Storms stacks
• Awakening Storms counter toward Season 3 Tier Set Ascendance procs

Your most important ability in Mythic+ is Tempest, and as such, the whole tree revolves around playing around it. You ideally want to be going into each pull either with a Tempest charge already active, or close to ticking over one of the various ways to activate it. The difference between having one ready to go with your opening Primordial Wave or not is enormous, so you really need to get used to doing this.

While previously in The War Within you were able to pre-stack some Tempest charges in a variety of different ways, in Season 3 this isn't possible anymore. That means your opening pull at the start of a dungeon is much weaker, and instead you need to rely on the RNG, cycling quickly, and the Season 3 Tier Set to provide on-demand stacks.

While on the surface Conductive Energy can be an intimidating tooltip, it's not as difficult to optimize as it first seems. Lightning Rod does contribute a lot to our damage, but thankfully we have a few ways to apply it to multiple targets:

• Primordial Wave applies it to all targets hit with Flame Shock
• Chain Lightning will apply to secondary bounce targets if it's already active on the first.
• Arc Discharge will "smart target" a different enemy without it already applied.

This mostly means you don't need to worry about tab-targetting. The only ability that really benefits from doing so is Tempest itself, which should be cast on your priority target instead of being used for extra debuff applications.

As mentioned earlier, Tempest is your most important ability in Mythic+. You can bank up to two charges at any time, but generating an extra stack above this will cause it to be wasted. It only replaces your Lightning Bolt keybind, meaning you can still spend Maelstrom Weapon with Chain Lightning if you want to hold onto them for upcoming burst.

At its most basic, you want to try and pool around each of your Primordial Wave csts. Having two Tempest charges available (either actively, or about to tick over from different sources) is your goal, casting them after Lightning Rods are applied to deliver explosive burst. This is especially true for Ascendance, where you should be able to cycle through extra procs to cast it multiple times in succession.

When pulls are about to end, it's time to start thinking about holding onto charges. It's not just the up-front damage of Tempest that's important, but the extra multiplier granted from Rolling Thunder as well. If you have stacks of Arc Discharge present, casting this (for some reason) refreshes the duration of your active Tempests, which should be done if you're trying to carry charges over to the next pull.

Totemic requires osme extra proc juggling to optimize, and it also has a lot of cooldown timer management. It operates more with fixed combos, following a clearer priority.

Surging Totem always needs Totemic Surge and Totemic Projection talented on the class tree, and with the Season 3 Tier Set, additionally needs Call of the Elements. You need to keep your Totem active underneath enemies, and if they move relocate it with either Totemic Projection from a distance (10-second cooldown), or an off-GCD re-cast to bring it to your feet (6-second cooldown).

If all things go wrong and you don't have a Surging Totem active, remember you have Call of the Elements to reset its cooldown as a backup - just bear in mind this won't work if you've cast a different totem in between.

Doom Winds is an explosive cooldown window for Totemic, and it aims to fit as many AoE main-hand strikes as possible during it. Abilites that fall into this category are:

• Crash Lightning
• Sundering
• Reactivity procs
• Primordial Storm (all 3 strikes)

This is to trigger Windfury Weapon in AoE as much as possible, triggering multiple Imbuement Mastery events. This window should ideally always be started with Feral Spirit active, Primordial Wave cast to activate Splintered Elements, and a recent refresh of Legacy of the Frost Witch.

The general order these windows are executed is as follows: cast Sundering until Molten Thunder doesn't reset ➜ Lava Lash (with Hot Hand) ➜ Primordial Storm (to refresh Legacy), and Crash Lightning is a backup.

All three Whirling Elements motes have different management rules you want to pay attention to. Additionally, with the Season 3 Tier Set, you want to make sure you consume these motes as soon as possible to set off an extra Primordial Storm. Details on each are:

• Whirling Air — consumed ASAP with a Maelstrom Weapon spender to buff Surging Totem.
• Whirling Earth — used to apply Flame Shock at pull start.
• Whirling Fire — consumed after setup to start Hot Hand.

You want all of your mote setup to be done before Hot Hand, as this increases how busy your priority is with Lava Lash. This is especially true during cooldowns, where you want everything set up before you start this burst cycle. With the Season 3 Tier Set, once all 3 motes are consumed, you can also use Totemic Recall and repeat the cycle to squeeze out an extra Primordial Storm + 4-piece combo.

Enhancement has a wide variety of tools to stop enemy casts, and could be considered a control specialist. Due to the large amount on offer, we've broken them down into single-target and AoE options.

• Wind Shear - your interrupt, and is one of the best available to any class. Being both ranged and having such a low cooldown is a huge advantage, allowing you to to disrupt targets much more often than usual. You should be the one aggressively going after enemy casts; allow other classes with longer interrupt cooldowns to handle less frequent threats, or to save them for emergencies. Coordinate this with your group before starting the dungeon.
• Lightning Lasso - can be used as a single-target stun, but the damage it deals is nowhere near as much as you would be doing when not channeling. This is moreso used to interrupt a cast and then canceled.
• Hex - your hard-CC, allowing you to lock down a dangerous enemy for 1-minute before a pull starts. Bear in mind damage can break this effect, so your tank will need to pull them away. This can also be used as a last resort in combat to interrupt a cast, but the time needed often makes it hard to land properly. Also, while crowd controlled, mobs will still aggro to you and other party members, so cannot be used to skip like some other tools.

• Sundering -a versatile tool, usable as an AoE interrupt against multiple targets that are otherwise immune to being stopped. While it doesn't work on every target, it often works on the majority of threats in a dungeon, so whenever taken this is a go-to tool to add to your suite. Remember, this does not incapacitate with Molten Thunder taken, nor from Reactivity procs as Totemic.
• Capacitor Totem - your AoE stun tool to lock down a pack for 3 seconds. This tends to be extra useful on larger pulls, to allow the tank to grab threat and stabilize before enemies begin casting. It comes with two follow-up nodes:
  • Static Charge reduces the cooldown by up to 20-seconds in AoE. Reliable, and always useful.
  • Guardian's Cudgel spawns a second totem after the first expires. Doubles the number of stops, but doubles the stun diminishing returns you cause. Great if your group hasn't got many stuns available, but disruptive otheriwse.
  Always be aware though, the 2-second wind-up time requires you to be much more aware of when enemies are about to cast, as using it reactively can often be too late.
• Thunderstorm (with Thundershock) - an excellent AoE stop, knocking up nearby enemies on an extremely short 25-second cooldown. There aren't many enemies that can't be affected by this, so it's always your go-to stop in any situation. Just be aware that, in a handful of specific cases, enemies can still cast while moving. These enemies cannot be stopped using this, so use a different tool.
• Earthbind Totem (with Earthgrab Totem) - roots targets around your target for 8 seconds, keeping them in place, and slowing them after it expires. For certain mechanics this can be extremely useful, allowing your group to position enemies in a certain spot, or keep them out of range while you deal with other things.

Due to being a hybrid class, Shaman has access to a few tools that help keep both you and your group alive. We've separated these abilities into two categories:

Staying alive is extremely important in Mythic+, and often, you may find yourself responsible for your own life if the healer is busy putting fires out elsewhere. The key tools we have to deal with bad situations are:

• Astral Shift - your personal defensive for a 40% damage reduction, always paired with Planes Traveler for cooldown reduction. Used to survive otherwise lethal mechanics.
• Stone Bulwark Totem - has a long 3-minute cooldown, but provides a big absorb shield (and some small follow-up ones). Due to the long recharge time, this planned for use against single lethal hits.
• Earth Elemental - has an even longer 5-minute cooldown, providing 15% max health and 5% damage reduction through Primordial Bond. This lasts a minute, often covering multiple mechanics. This does taunt enemies, and if it dies then these effects are lost. Be careful when you deploy this to avoid getting in the way of your tank.
• Spirit Wolf - stacks up while in Ghost Wolf, providing up to 20% damage reduction. This prevents you from damage, but it having no cooldown means it's always there as a backup.
• Stormbringer - also has access to Nature's Protection for 3% damage reduction via Lightning Shield, while Totemic has passive absorb shields via Wind Barrier.

Enhancement is considered one of the least defensive specializations in Mythic+, so you're going to need evry single one of these to survive. The higher the key level goes, the more you need to plan defensives for dangerous mechanics, because the healer can't always save you!

While healing is not your primary role, we do have some tools to help the party in deadly situations. Maelstrom Weapon empowered Healing Surge or Chain Heal can help to stabilize the group, and should be used in emergencies. Healing Stream Totem is an extremely niche optional choice, providing a small amount of healing and damage reduction through Elemental Resistance.

Being proactive with healing tools is an effective skill to learn as an Enhancement Shaman. While it's not completely your responsibility, you should be aware of when the party is unstable so you can keep at least yourself stable.

Currently, Surging Currents for Stormbringer builds is bugged, gaining a stack from every target hit by Tempest, so it immediately reaches max stacks in AoE. This can be very good for emergency healing if used, if you're willing to give up Nature's Protection.

Alongside the more traditional tools for Mythic+, Shaman has some class-specific extras.

Enhancement comes with quite a few different dispel tools for different situations. These are all present on the class tree, which is also very flexible, so you can tailor your loadout to the dungeon. Options are:

• Purge — offensive dispel
• Cleanse Spirit — allied Curse dispel
• Poison Cleansing Totem — group-wise Poison dispel
• Tremor Totem — Fear dispel

Being able to switch between so many choices (or all at once) often means you have a bespoke tool available for each dungeon. Remember to swap to the appropriate picks and use them!

• Skyfury - your group buff, providing bonus Mastery and granting party member melee auto-attacks a 20% chance to strike an additional time. This is one of the more potent (and universal) buffs that all specs like having, so it makes Shaman desirable.
• Bloodlust / Heroism - every group wants at least one of these effects, shared with Time Warp / Fury of the Aspects / Primal Rage. Co-ordinate with your group for the best time to use it every 10 minutes.
• Wind Rush Totem - party-wide movement tool, lasting up to 20 seconds with refreshes. Good for moving between pulls or avoiding mechanics, and with Jet Stream has the added benefit of being an AoE snare removal.
• Reincarnation - allows you to resurrect after dying, including during combat, ignoring the battle-res counter. This is especially helpful if you get caught by a lethal mechanic without defensives available.
• Earth Elemental - an emergency tool, useful if the tank either dies or is struggling to handle a pack. Remember that it doubles as a defensive tool, and these effects are lost if it dies, so using it for this purpose is quite specific. It also rarely moves due to some problematic AI, so you may need to cancel it if it's stuck in a bad place.
• Mana Spring - can help your healer with some additional Mana regeneration over the course of a dungeon, and can be picked up easily on the class tree. With its low value, paired with the utility it competes with for the same points, it can be hard to fit in Mythic+ setups.

Xalatath's Bargain: Ascendant will periodically spawn a number or orbs in waves that need to be crowd-controlled in some way, before they complete a cast. Each orb successfully stopped provides the group bonus Haste, so it is a high priority to deal with.

Enhancement comes with a wide array of stop tools that we can sequentially use to deal with these: Thundershock, Capacitor Totem, and if taken, Sundering. There is also some consideration to pick up Guardian's Cudgel for a back-to-back clear if your group is lacking stops, so long as you move the follow-up totem around with Totemic Projection to catch any stray orbs.

Xalatath's Bargain: Voidbound will periodically summon a large Void Emissary that will begin to cast Dark Prayer. This enemy must be killed before the cast completes to stop it, otherwise it provides significant damage reduction to nearby enemies. If successfully stopped, the group is granted a large amount of Versatility and cooldown reduction.

This needs to be killed off quickly. Ideally, have short, bursty cooldowns like Primordial Wave or a Tempest ready to go when it spawns to make things a lot easier on the group.

Xalatath's Bargain: Pulsar spawns an orb that orbits each player, which needs to be soaked by a separate player before they expire. Each orb will grant the party 4% Mastery and 2% Leech, stacking, with a 30-second duration. Unsoaked orbs will increase nearby enemies' damage done, and reduce their damage taken.

Enhancement has no specific utility to deal with this, instead you need to be aware of your positioning both to make sure other players can soak up the orb circling you, and so you can catch orbs from nearby players.

Xalatath's Bargain: Devour applies a debuff to each party member, that must be either dispelled or healed off (though bear in mind this does not absorb incoming heals). Each debuff dispelled provides the group with maximum health and Critical Strike, stacking, for 30 seconds. Any debuffs not cleared will heal nearby enemies a large amount.

On these weeks, I'd particularly recommend picking up Cleanse Spirit and Poison Cleansing Totem to assist your healer. If you find the group struggling to clear the debuffs and these tools aren't available, Maelstrom Weapon heals can be substituted to assist.