Enhancement Shaman DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.0.7)

Enhancement Shaman plays with a priority list that focuses on managing your Maelstrom Weapon stacks and keeping your main abilities on cooldown while reacting to procs. Enhancement tends to take a bit of time building up muscle memory so you know what to focus on, and what to ignore.

1. Warning - cannot pair Ascendance and Deeply Rooted Elements talents!
2. Cast Surging Totem.
   • Immediately consume Whirling Air with either Windstrike or Lightning Bolt with 5+ Maelstrom Weapon after dropping.
3. Cast Primordial Wave.
4. Cast Feral Spirit.
5. Cast Tempest whenever available and at 8+ Maelstrom Weapon stacks.
6. Cast Ascendance.
7. Cast Sundering with Surging Totem active.
8. Cast Doom Winds.
9. Cast Lava Lash with Hot Hand active.
10. Cast Windstrike on cooldown during Ascendance.
11. Cast Windstrike on cooldown during Ascendance.
12. Cast Lightning Bolt with 8+ Maelstrom Weapon stacks.
13. Cast Maelstrom Weapon spenders with 8+ stacks - Click for
    • Cast Elemental Blast with 4+ Feral Spirit wolves active;
    • Cast Lightning Bolt otherwise
14. Cast Stormstrike with 2 charges.
15. Cast Voltaic Blaze with Whirling Earth active.
16. Cast Lava Lash
17. Cast Stormstrike.
18. Cast Crash Lightning.
19. Cast Flame Shock if it's not active on your target.
20. Cast Lava Lash with Hot Hand active or 7+ Ashen Catalyst stacks.
21. Cast Stormstrike if at 2 charges.
22. Cast Stormstrike if at 2 charges.
23. Cast Voltaic Blaze.
24. Cast Stormstrike.
25. Cast Crash Lightning.
26. Cast Lightning Bolt with 5+ Maelstrom Weapon stacks.
27. Cast Ice Strike.
28. Cast Stormstrike.
29. Cast Frost Shock with Hailstorm active.
30. Cast Crash Lightning.
31. Cast Lava Lash
32. Cast Stormstrike.
33. Cast Lava Lash.
34. Cast Crash Lightning.
35. Cast Lightning Bolt with 5+ Maelstrom Weapon stacks.
36. Cast Fire Nova.
37. Cast Lava Lash, Crash Lightning, Frost Shock or Frost Shock or Flame Shock to fill.
38. Cast Lava Lash, Crash Lightning or Flame Shock to fill.

Enhancement has a strong ebb and flow that you will slowly get used to when playing, as the general "feel" of Maelstrom Weapon and ability cooldowns is a pattern you learn. Reacting to quick bursts of stack generation and Static Accumulation procs is very important, as is making sure you are always active each Global Cooldown. Quick notes (populated based on tool choices) are:

• With Stormbringer, you should be aggressively spending Maelstrom Weapon on Lightning Bolt to fish for Supercharge refunds. With Elemental Blast taken, you should aim to spend these charges during your active Feral Spirit cast with a Rolling Thunder overlap to take advantage of the 4+ wolf multiplier. Note this does work with Supercharge. Whenever Tempest triggers, it is your highest priority cast, ideally with as much Maelstrom Weapon as possible.
• Primordial Wave can be sent on cooldown, unless you need to hold it for a specific burst moment. Treat it as banking an extra Lightning Bolt for your next spender.
• While playing Totemic, you need to make sure to cast Surging Totem immediately on cooldown, and keep it near your target via Totemic Projection. You should also ideally consume Whirling Air in your first 1-2 globals by spending Maelstrom Weapon to empower each fresh totem.
• Totemic always makes sure to play the trio of Sundering, Molten Thunder and Earthsurge for huge Surging Totem pulses. Reaching to these procs is your highest priority, especially during Ascendance with Oversurge considered.
• Make sure to always be primed to Lightning Bolt before entering into Ascendance. While it is active, make sure to cast Windstrike on cooldown. Generation is often so high that you will be weaving Windstrike casts between other Maelstrom Weapon spenders.
• When Hot Hand is active, weave Lava Lash in between every other GCD to maximize its output. Note that this currently does not take priority over spending, as cycling Tempest is too important. This is especially true with Totemic as it also triggers Reactivity, so plan your globals around this 1-2 cylce.
• Voltaic Blaze procs are generally consumed as a high priority filler due to the bonus direct damage it deals. While playing Totemic, this should ideally also be paired with a Whirling Earth mote for even higher damage. Aim to consume it before dropping a new Surging Totem and overwriting the buff if possible.

Enhancement AoE gets very busy due to the number of different tools we have. While there are additions, the core focus is maintaining Crash Lightning for additional Maelstrom Weapon, and spending that on Chain Lightning.

1. Warning - cannot pair Ascendance and Deeply Rooted Elements talents!
2. Cast Surging Totem.
   • Immediately consume Whirling Air with either Windstrike or Chain Lightning with 5+ Maelstrom Weapon after dropping.
3. Cast Flame Shock with Whirling Earth if you have less than 6 active.
4. Cast Primordial Wave.
5. Cast Flame Shock if you have none active.
6. Cast Lava Lash on a target with Flame Shock to spread it with less than 6 active.
7. Cast Feral Spirit.
8. Cast Tempest whenever available at 8+ Maelstrom Weapon stacks.
9. Cast Ascendance while primed to Chain Lightning.
10. Cast Doom Winds.
11. Cast Sundering with Surging Totem active.
12. Cast Windstrike on cooldown during Ascendance.
13. Cast Windstrike on cooldown during Ascendance.
14. Cast Doom Winds.
15. Cast Chain Lightning with 8+ Maelstrom Weapon stacks.
16. Cast Maelstrom Weapon spenders with 8+ stacks - Click for
    • Cast Lightning Bolt with Primordial Wave active;
    • Cast Elemental Blast against two targets;
    • Cast Chain Lightning otherwise.
17. Cast Chain Lightning with 8+ Maelstrom Weapon stacks.
18. Cast Maelstrom Weapon spenders with 8+ stacks - Click for
    • Cast Lightning Bolt if Primordial Wave is expiring;
    • Cast Elemental Blast against two targets;
    • Cast Chain Lightning otherwise.
19. Cast Crash Lightning during Doom Winds, or if the buff is not active.
20. Cast Lava Lash, cycling between targets to apply Lashing Flames.
21. Cast Voltaic Blaze.
22. Cast Flame Shock with Whirling Earth if you have less than 6 active.
23. Cast Fire Nova with Flame Shocks active.
24. Cast Stormstrike.
25. Cast Fire Nova with Flame Shocks active.
26. Cast Lava Lash, cycling between targets to apply Lashing Flames.
27. Cast Voltaic Blaze.
28. Cast Crash Lightning.
29. Cast Chain Lightning with 5+ Maelstrom Weapon stacks.
30. Cast Fire Nova with Flame Shocks active.
31. Cast Ice Strike.
32. Cast Frost Shock with Hailstorm active.
33. Cast Sundering.
34. Cast Stormstrike.
35. Cast Crash Lightning.
36. Cast Lava Lash.
37. Cast Chain Lightning with 5+ Maelstrom Weapon stacks.
38. Cast Lava Lash.
39. Cast Ice Strike.
40. Cast Frost Shock with Hailstorm active.
41. Cast Crash Lightning.
42. Cast Lava Lash.
43. Cast Ice Strike.
44. Cast Chain Lightning with 5+ Maelstrom Weapon stacks.
45. Cast Frost Shock and Flame Shock to fill.
46. Cast Frost Shock and Flame Shock to fill.

Our AoE priority can often be overwhelming at first glance, but many things are dictated by quite simple rules. Generally, maintaining Crash Lightning when possible and making sure to spend Maelstrom Weapon without wasting any is the central focus, while weaving in your chosen rotational abilities / cooldowns and casting Feral Spirit as frequently as possible. Key notes based on your rotation tool selections are:

• When playing Stormbringer you should very aggressively spend Maelstrom Weapon to cycle to Tempest. This is our biggest damage moment, dealing massive AoE, so ideally cast with 10 Maelstrom Weapon.
• If comfortable, try to tab-target your Chain Lightning casts to maintain Lightning Rod on multiple enemies. Additionally, aim to spend each Arc Discharge proc in between multiple Tempest casts if you have multiple available procs, as these duplicate Chain Lightning will smart target and apply the debuff to secondary enemies.
• In AoE Totemic needs to make sure to keep Surging Totem active at all times, as uptime is a big component of its damage. Use Totemic Projection to keep it near the biggest group of enemies.
• Make sure cast Sundering as frequently as possible with Surging Totem active, reacting to any Molten Thunder procs that occur. This is especially valuable during Ascendance due to Oversurge.
• Use Primordial Wave as a 30-second burst cooldown after setting up targets. This is especially potent for Stormbringer as it sets up Lightning Rod on all targets hit.
• Make sure to be primed to Chain Lightning whenever possible, and cast Windstrike on cooldown during Ascendance. Generation is often extremely high meaning you will be weaving Windstrike with Maelstrom Weapon spenders in a 1-2 cycle usually.
• During Doom Winds your Crash Lightning casts generate even more Maelstrom Weapon, so use it as a surge of extra resources, and use Chain Lightning for the cooldown reduction effect.
• With Flowing Spirits taken, the value of Nature school casts is significantly higher than other elements due to the influence it has on Elemental Spirits. That means spending is a higher priority, and Fire/Frost fillers are avoided whenever possible.
• It can be beneficial to tab-target and maintain Lashing Flames on multiple enemies to further amplify Flame Shock, but can be difficult in the regular priority when things get hectic.
• Cast Fire Nova as an additional burst Maelstrom Weapon generator to set up spenders.
• Hailstorm should be treated as a priority filler when resources are not going to overcap and other AoE tools are on cooldown. It should be active most of the time anyway.

Our opener changes quite a lot depending on build and target count. Use the tool below to adjust the display based on the fight style, and it will populate depending on your choices in the rotation tool.

1. Cast Primordial Wave on the way into melee to apply Flame Shock.
   • Cast Flame Shock on a secondary target if 6+ are present.
2. Cast Flame Shock on the way into melee to apply the debuff.
3. Cast Crash Lightning to get the buff active.
4. Cast Lava Lash to spread Flame Shock.
5. Cast the following until you generate a Tempest proc (see notes):
   • Cast Stormstrike / Crash Lightning / Lava Lash to generate Maelstrom Weapon;
   • Cast Chain Lightning at 5+ Maelstrom Weapon to spend;
   • Repeat until Tempest triggers from any source, then move on.
   • If Primordial Wave is expiring within 4 seconds, move on.
6. Cast Stormstrike.
7. Cast Lava Lash to apply Lashing Flames.
8. Cast Feral Spirit.
9. Cast Surging Totem.
10. Cast Flame Shock to consume Whirling Earth and spread the debuff.
11. Cast Tempest at 5+ Maelstrom Weapon to consume Primordial Wave.
    • If a proc has not occured, use Lightning Bolt instead.
12. Cast Crash Lightning to get the buff active.
13. Cast Ascendance.
14. Cast Windstrike once.
15. Cast Doom Winds.
16. Cast Windstrike to trigger Whirling Air.
17. Cast Doom Winds.
18. Cast Sundering to trigger Earthsurge.
19. Cast Windstrike on cooldown during Ascendance.
    • Cast Lightning Bolt with 5+ Maelstrom Weapon if it is on cooldown.
    • Cast Chain Lightning with 5+ Maelstrom Weapon if it is on cooldown.
20. Cast Windstrike on cooldown during Ascendance.
21. Cast Windstrike.
22. Cast Lava Lash to consume Whirling Fire.
23. Cast Tempest with as much Maelstrom Weapon as possible as soon as it procs.
24. Cast Feral Spirit as soon as thier cooldown resets.
25. Cast Elemental Blast with 5+ Maelstrom Weapon and a Feral Spirit overlap.
26. Cast Elemental Blast if you reach 10 Maelstrom Weapon.
27. Continue with normal ability priority.

Enhancement has quite a few things to set up before it can get started when entering combat, but once its major cooldowns are rolling you can usually transition smoothly into our priority list. Key notes to bear in mind are:

• Feral Spirit is always cast very early to make sure it overlaps all of our other opening burst effects.
• Stormbringer's main goal in the opener is to get everything on cooldown as quickly as possible and begin cycling Maelstrom Weapon. With Ascendance, as soon as you start this window your number one goal is to weave Windstrike between Maelstrom Weapon to try to avoid capping out on resources.
• Your opening Elemental Blast casts should ideally be overlapped with as many Feral Spirit wolves as possible. Pay attention to when they are expiring, and dump the charges when as many as possible overlap. Aim to be at zero charges when your initial Feral Spirit cast expires.
• Primordial Wave replaces our opening Flame Shock to get it applied in the opener. In AoE, an additional cast is needed on another target to reach the required 6 for the follow-up Lightning Bolt.
• Note: In AoE, ideally you want to consume Primordial Wave with Tempest to trigger Rolling Thunder and immediately enter into Ascendance. Since we also do not want to hold Primordial Wave for too long, setting it up and repeating a gen/spend cycle in hopes of a proc is the best way of doing this if you do not manage Maelstrom Weapon / Awakening Storms from previous pulls. If you see Primordial Wave is expiring, stop the cycle, consume it and move on instead of letting it go to waste.
• Totemic needs to make sure it gets Surging Totem down as early as possible on combat entry. As soon as it is down, you want to enter into Ascendance and cast Windstrike to trigger Whirling Air.
• Similarly, once you begin Ascendance and have buffed your Surging Totem by consuming the mote, you need to get Sundering on cooldown as quickly as possible to make room for Molten Thunder resets.
• Thanks to Whirling Earth, Totemic does not need to set up a Flame Shock spread to enable Primordial Wave and can instead immediately Flame Shock after Surging Totem to cover 6 targets.
• Due to the short duration of Doom Winds and that it also requires a GCD similar to Ascendance, there will always be something wasted regardless of the order pressed. Generally, it is recommended to use it after entering into Ascendance to make use of the extra procs from repeat casts of Windstrike to fish for Stormsurge. This is especially true for Totemic, as Molten Thunder procs during Ascendance are incredibly valuable.
• As Elementalist you want to enter into Ascendance ASAP similar to other builds, but once major cooldowns are set up you will trigger a Hot Hand window with Lava Lash and begin weaving it in between Windstrike casts, watching out for Molten Thunder resets.

Feral Spirit summons two wolves to fight with you for 15 seconds on a 90-second cooldown. When this is cast, you instantly generate one stack of Maelstrom Weapon and gain an additional Maelstrom Weapon stack every 3 seconds for their duration. The first follow-up talent, Witch Doctor's Ancestry, reduces the cooldown by 1 second every time you generate a stack of Maelstrom Weapon, which reduces the cooldown to roughly 30 seconds in active combat. This means in endgame combat, this is much more of a rotational ability rather than a big cooldown moment, as uptime is extremely high. Flowing Spirits instead removes Feral Spirit as an active cast, and gives every ability a chance to summon a wolf to your side.

While active, the physical damage of your abilities (not including auto attacks) is increased by 15% per active wolf, stacking multiplicatively - meaning the default effect before other stacking buffs is 32.25% increased physical damage. This physical buff can be paired with our other physical cooldowns, such as Doom Winds and Sundering, to devastating effect.

Feral Spirit also has a choice of two capstones to empower it further, both with very different effects:

• Elemental Spirits replaces the physical damage buff with a pool of 3 different elemental wolves that buff either fire, frost, or nature damage by 20% chosen at random. This puts a significantly higher focus on the magic damage you deal with your tree, and is often paired with similar builds and effects to make sure our wolves are amplifying a damage type that aligns with our build.
• With Flowing Spirits taken, the above will spawn a wolf of a specific type based on the school of ability you cast. The list of abilities that trigger it and their associated school is:
  • Fire: Flame Shock, Lava Lash, Sundering, Elemental Blast, Voltaic Blaze (DoT application) and Primordial Wave.
  • Ice: Frost Shock and Ice Strike.
  • Nature: Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Tempest, Crash Lightning and Voltaic Blaze (direct damage).
• Alpha Wolf causes Chain Lightning and Crash Lightning casts to make each individual Feral Spirit pulse for uncapped, armor-ignoring physical damage to all nearby enemies every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. This affects any wolf spawned through any means such as through Stormbringer's Rolling Thunder, and turns the ability into a stronger AoE tool.

Ascendance has two methods of activation — either with the active ability on a 3-minute cooldown for 15 seconds, or through procs triggered by Lightning Bolt, Tempest or Chain Lightning using Deeply Rooted Elements for 6 seconds. While this is active, Stormstrike's cooldown is significantly reduced and both it and your auto-attacks are replaced with 30-yard range, armor-ignoring alternatives in Windstrike and Windlash. While active we generally aim to cast Windstrike as often as possible, but the base cooldown is quite weak. Instead, a lot of value is from the follow-up talents.

Whenever playing these nodes, it is highly recommended to complete the entire talent row with both follow-up talents. This is especially true when playing Stormbringer due to the extreme synergy with Static Accumulation.

• Static Accumulation — each point causes you to generate one Maelstrom Weapon per second while Ascendance is active, and spending Maelstrom Weapon on Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning has a 10% chance per point to fully refund the amount spent. This is an enormous source of resource generation and often alters our priorities. With Stormbringer taken, this completely shifts our Maelstrom Weapon spending into lightning spells, due to the dual chance to refund with this and Supercharge.
• Thorim's Invocation — reduces the cooldown of Ascendance by 1 minute, and extends the duration of Deeply Rooted Elements procs by 2 seconds. Also increases the damage of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning by 20%, and causes Windstrike to also spend up to 5 Maelstrom Weapon to discharge either Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning, depending on your most recent cast. With this taken it means no matter your build you will want to cast Windstrike on cooldown, as it both generates and spends Maelstrom Weapon at the same time.

There is a lot of complex parts of Thorim's Invocation when it comes to how it interacts with other specific talents, and what changes its priming state between Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning. Below are key details to bear in mind, in particular for AoE scenarios:

• Any Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning, regardless of Maelstrom Weapon spent, will set Thorim's Invocation manually to the respective spell.
• Tempest is dynamic, meaning the number of targets hit dictates what it is primed to. If it hits only one, it will be set to Lightning Bolt, While if it hits two it will change to Chain Lightning
  • Thorim's Invocation will consume Tempest procs if you are primed to Lightning Bolt, but will not consume it if you are primed to Chain Lightning.
• Primordial Wave is dynamic with Lightning Bolt casts that consume it. If one echo is triggered, it will be set to Lightning Bolt, while if multiple occur it will be changed to Chain Lightning.
• The rule to follow is that, before each Ascendance cast, you want to always be primed to the correct spell:
  • Single Target - Lightning Bolt
  • AoE - Chain Lightning

Casting Primordial Wave does heavy Elemental damage, and applies Flame Shock to your target when it lands. After casting this, your next Lightning Bolt cast is empowered, echoing 175% of its normal damage to your target and any other enemy affected by Flame Shock. Each target hit will also have Lightning Rod applied via Stormbringer's Conductive Energy effect. This has a 30-second cooldown, so serves as a good additional cooldown to set up on a target, and is incredibly powerful for dealing burst AoE damage provided you set Flame Shock up properly. This can be taken as a single talent point and a lot of builds do so, but it does have some useful follow-ups talents.

Both follow-up talents have been reduced in value going into The War Within relative to the rest of our toolkit, so are generally less appealing.

• Primal Maelstrom — causes Primordial Wave to generate 3/5 Maelstrom Weapon. This is extremely nice quality of life and serves as a resource reset, but its raw power is not very high so no builds currently pick it up.
• Splintered Elements — consuming the Primordial Wave effect grants you 10% Haste, plus an additional 4% for each extra Lightning Bolt echo you trigger. This is good for getting started in a pull and especially nice for AoE, but due to the reduction to 10% in The War Within is falls quite short of being desirable, especially with the added power below the 20 talent point line.

Doom Winds deals minor physical damage to your target and empowers you for 8 seconds, tripling your chance to activate Windfury Weapon and increasing the damage of your Windfury Weapon attacks by 10%. While the buff is active; you should aim to fit as many main-hand abilities within the window as possible without sacrificing Maelstrom Weapon spenders. Our main-hand attacks include:

• Stormstrike
• Ice Strike
• Crash Lightning
• Sundering

These abilities will have elevated priority during Doom Winds windows to fuel additional Windfury Weapon procs. Try to keep an eye on the cooldown so you can prepare to spend resources or get other effects active beforehand, even if they are not regularly at the top of your priority.

A lot of players ask how this is considered an AoE cooldown, and it is due to both Crash Lightning and Sundering counting as direct main-hand strikes to targets hit. This means when they are cast, potentially every target hit is struck by an individual Windfury Weapon attack, dealing both high damage and generating a huge amount of Maelstrom Weapon.

Maelstrom Weapon management is crucial if you intend to play Enhancement at a competitive level. This has a 20% chance to trigger from any melee hit and stacks up to 5 times (or up to 10 times with Raging Maelstrom). Each stack reduces the cast time of your next Lightning Bolt / Chain Lightning cast by 20%, and also increases the damage of affected spells by 25% when using Improved Maelstrom Weapon and Raging Maelstrom. At 5 stacks, ability casts that consume this become instant, and only 5 stacks can be consumed at once. When talenting into Overflowing Maelstrom, this is increased to 10 stacks to increase the damage multiplier.

While it is tempting to cast these spells as soon as you hit 5 stacks, you should train yourself to make use of the 10-stack limit granted by Raging Maelstrom. If you are not at risk of overcapping your Maelstrom Weapon stacks, then it makes more sense to focus on keeping your other abilities on cooldown as much as possible. Certain builds approach expenditure differently:

• Stormbringer builds aim to spend at 8+, but can often find themselves spending lower depending on the situation to fish for Static Accumulation and Supercharge triggers.
• Totemic with Elementalist aims to spend at higher stacks to maximize the damage of Elemental Blast and open up GCDs to cast Lava Lash. It still aims to avoid as much waste as possible to make sure it can stack up Totemic Rebound efficiently.
• Totemic with Storm also aims to spend at higher stacks to make room for Stormstrike casts to fish for Molten Thunder, but still avoids waste to make sure it can stack up Totemic Rebound.

Due to the passive refund proc on Static Accumulation, when playing this talent it removes Lava Burst (if you are not playing Elemental Blast) from your rotation. It also raises the priority on Lightning Bolt even at 5 stacks, as the chance to refund here is significantly more valuable than any other generation source.

Crash Lightning looks simple on the surface but has many moving parts and is an essential aspect of Enhancement gameplay. There are some core components to bear in mind with how it works:

• The Crash Lightning buff is triggered for 12 seconds whenever it strikes two targets, and should be maintained in any multi-target situation.
• While active, Stormstrike, Lava Lash and Ice Strike will trigger a separate damage splash event called Crash Lightning.
• All Crash Lightning damage, both active and splash component, can trigger Maelstrom Weapon individually, while only the active cast hits can proc Stormsurge.
• The initial cast of Crash Lightning can trigger individual Windfury Weapon events on targets hit.

The above means that any time we can get more than one target together, we want to get this active for a free additional boost to our primary strikes. This also leads to additional resources. In AoE situations, this causes a flood of extra Maelstrom Weapon which confers a number of benefits to both builds allowing for extra cooldown access, AoE and funnel. Storm generally uses this as a primary damage delivery tool due to its gameplay structure (and the additional synergy with Forceful Winds, Windfury Weapon and Doom Winds). Elementalist on the other hand uses it as a supporting resource generation tool to fuel other things and raise the value of Lava Lash casts.

Chain Lightning also has two interactions to both increase access to, and amplify the damage of Crash Lightning:

• Each target hit by Chain Lightning reduces the cooldown of Crash Lightning by 1 second (up to a maximum of 5 with Crashing Storms)
• Each target hit by Chain Lightning increases the damage of your next active cast of Crash Lightning by 20% per target hit (up to 100% with Crashing Storms).

This creates a generate-spend relationship between the two that leads to both extra access to the resources to activate it, and increased frontloaded power of the activating tool keeping them both relevant in AoE.

Finally, Converging Storms can be taken to cause each target hit by the initial Crash Lightning to increase the damage of your next Stormstrike cast by 25% per target hit, stacking up to 6 for a maximum of 150%. This activates even on a single-target, giving a small boost to funnel on priority targets when taken.

Some builds opt into picking up Unrelenting Storms to use Crash Lightning as a back-up single-target filler, in particular Mythic+ builds looking for point efficiency. This causes Crash Lightning to have a reduced cooldown when it only hits a single target, and guaranteeably procs Windfury Weapon on your target. This is considered an independent proc, so your cast can technically trigger it twice. When played, this is still generally a low priority filler but it covers gaps in the rotation that some AoE builds struggle to fill.

It is often mentioned that Enhancement has a unique ability to "funnel" damage into priority targets, using extra enemies as fuel to amplify its single-target damage. There are a number of effects throughout the tree that enable this.

Crash Lightning is the primary driver, due to the additional Maelstrom Weapon mentioned in the Crash Lightning section. Alongside this, Ashen Catalyst when played significantly increases in stack rate allowing for more frequent, empowered Lava Lash casts.

With Stormbringer, there is also the added benefit of Conductive Energy. This allows you to make use of tools such as Primordial Wave and Arc Discharge to hit multiple targets with Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning, and convert that into more primary target damage in the process.

Your Weapon Imbues should always be active as they confer a strong benefit. Some notes on each are:

• Windfury Weapon - only applied to the main-hand, these additional strikes are considered special attacks and, as such, can generate Maelstrom Weapon and trigger procs such as Stormsurge.
• Flametongue Weapon - only applied to the off-hand, this causes all weapon attacks to trigger an additional hit of fire damage and doubles the damage your Lava Lash deals while active.

While Weapon Imbues do block you from using temporary weapon buffs such as Ironclaw Whetstone, the extra mechanical effects these provide to the Enhancement toolkit make them more valuable and as such we always use them. This is made even more mandatory by the locked-in talent Elemental Weapons, and you should never use double Flametongue Weapon - this confers no benefit.

Lightning Shield should always be kept active in solo content thanks to the additional Maelstrom Weapon it generates, but has little value in group contentand also confers damage reduction for Stormbringer with Nature's Protection taken. Generally, Earth Shield is played and maintained for the minor additional sustain it provides, so pick up Elemental Orbit to use both.

Enhancement also brings a small package of extra effects that help the party or specific members of your raid group:

Skyfury, granted by any Shaman provides a flat increase to Mastery rating to all Party and Raid members. It also has additional benefits for melee characters, granting them a 20% chance to proc an additional auto-attack when swinging, with a 0.5-second internal cooldown per player, does not trigger from missed attacks, and can miss itself. These extra attacks count as regular auto-attacks, meaning they proc all on-hit effects, but they do not affect Hunter auto-shots, pets, or guardians.

This allows us to convert Stormstrike casts into Mana for healers, especially in raid situations. This is even more potent if you are playing a Storm build as this will often be pressing significantly more Stormstrikes. Since points are not very tight on our class tree, this is a great option for many situations should you have room for it.

Flame Shock is more of a secondary component of your tree in The War Within (and the degree of its importance depends on talent selections). It plays as a passive, low-maintenance damage source in single-target and an AoE enabler, meaning that it will be a part of your rotation in almost every situation in most builds. There are some additional details to note when using it that are not quite as intuitive on the surface:

In single-target situations, you want to make sure that you keep Flame Shock active whenever possible when playing Lashing Flames, but otherwise maintain it indirectly with effects such as Primordial Wave or Voltaic Blaze. You can refresh it based on the pandemic window whenever the damage over time effect has less than 5.4 seconds. With Molten Assault, Lava Lash will reapply Flame Shock if it is active on the target of the Lava Lash cast, meaning that it often maintains itself with regular gameplay. Often, Storm builds (especially with Stormbringer) will find this falls off especially during streaks of Maelstrom Weapon. This is not anything to worry about, it is far lower priority here.

Molten Assault allows the Shaman with an active Flame Shock on their target to apply Flame Shock to nearby targets via Lava Lash casts. This enables a lot of other parts of our AoE kit, such as Fire Nova, Primordial Wave, and Ashen Catalyst. When you cast Lava Lash, it does not just apply the damage over time effect to other targets; rather, it casts an extra Flame Shock on them, dealing the direct damage at the same time.

Voltaic Blaze also grants an extra way to apply it in AoE, though with an 18% chance to trigger from spenders it is not reliable enough to be your only method of supporting talents such as Primordial Wave. Totemic also has the benefit of the Whirling Earth mote that allows Flame Shock casts to apply the debuff to 6 targets at once, making setup significantly easier following each Surging Totem cast.