Enhancement Shaman PvP Rotation and Playstyle — The War Within (11.0.7)
PvP requires you to perform various actions in the course of a duel, match, or battleground: interrupting/silencing enemies, damaging them, bursting them down, defending yourself, keeping yourself alive, etc.. It is a game mode that fully utilizes your kit, especially spells that are rarely used in PvE. On this page, we go through all the spells you need to use in PvP as an Enhancement Shaman, how you should use them, and we explain what your playstyle should be.
This page is part of our Enhancement Shaman PvP Guide.
Playstyle for Enhancement Shaman
The Enhancement Shaman should focus on maximizing their damage as much as
they can. Maximizing damage and using instant utilities like Wind Shear
and
Grounding Totem will give windows where your team can do
devastating damaging bursts.
Before Gates Open
Have a plan for who you will be mainly using your crowd control on.
Although Enhancement Shaman do lack crowd control, they still have
Hex.
If you are playing against a team that has the ability to fear your healer,
you can use Tremor Totem. This is a great utility spell.
Set your focus target to the main enemy team member who will be likely
using crowd control like Polymorph or
Fear.This will allow
you to know when to use
Wind Shear and
Grounding Totem to stop
the crowd control.
Use Earth Shield on your teammate who will be focused, which is
usually the Enhancement Shaman.
Use Flametongue, and
Windfury Weapon on your weapons before
the gates open. Buff yourself with
Lightning Shield and
Skyfury.
Offensive Playstyle
Sustained Damage
Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.
- Use and maintain
Flame Shock on the enemy as you approach.
- Use
Surging Totem where your enemy is positioned.
- Use
Lava Lash, generating
Maelstrom Weapon.
- Use
Stormstrike, generating
Maelstrom Weapon.
- Use
Stormstrike when you get a
Stormsurge proc.
- Use
Elemental Blast if you have more than 8 stacks of
Maelstrom Weapon stacks available.
- Use
Lightning Bolt if you have more than 8 stacks of
Maelstrom Weapon stacks available, while
Elemental Blast is on cooldown.
- If you cannot connect to your target use,
Frost Shock,
Flame Shock, or
Lightning Bolt.
- Use utility like
Healing Stream Totem,
Greater Purge,
Purge,
Earthbind Totem,
Earthgrab Totem, or
Earth Shield.
- Use your burst rotation.
Burst Damage
When you have the enemy healer in crowd control, and you are trying to kill
an enemy, you use your burst damage. If you can, stun the kill target with
Capacitor Totem or have your team stun the target so they cannot move or
use defensives.
- Once 10 stacks of
Maelstrom Weapon.
- Use
Feral Spirit.
- Use
Static Field Totem on the kill target, if talented.
- Use
Surging Totem where your enemy is positioned.
- Use
Elemental Blast to spend all Maelstrom.
- Use
Sundering.
- Use
Primordial Wave.
- Use
Lightning Bolt to spend all Maelstrom, and proc Primordial Wave.
- Use
Lava Lash on cooldown, ideally with
Hot Hand buff.
- Use
Lightning Bolt to spend all once it is available for more casts.
- Use
Stormstrike, to give more Maelstrom stacks.
- Use
Ice Strike, to give more Maelstrom stacks.
- Use
Frost Shock as filler.
Defensive Techniques
Astral Shift is the main and only defensive cooldown on a
Enhancement Shaman. This cannot be used while stunned and reduces damage taken
by 40% for 12 seconds.
Stone Bulwark Totem is a useful totem providing an absorption
shield to the Shaman. This can be reset with
Totemic Recall to be used
back to back. In addition the actual totem can be relocated with
Totemic Projection
to avoid it being focused.
Healing Stream Totem should be used to provide low amounts of
passive Healing, further buffed by
Swirling Currents. This is also
increased through the 20% benefit if
Earth Shield is on
the target will provide significant side healing.
Healing Surge should only be used with 5 or more
Maelstrom Weapon
stacks to gain the benefit of the increased throughput. Try to only use Healing
Surge on teammates with your
Earth Shield, and after pressing
Healing Stream Totem with the
Swirling Currents buff active.
Spirit Walk will mostly be used to break root effects to keep on a
target or to move to safety.
Macros
It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.
Changelog
- 15 Dec. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.7.
- 21 Oct. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for TWW Launch.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for TWW pre-patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated for Dragonflight Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Updated for Dragonflight 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Updated for Dragonflight 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updatedfor Dragonflight 10.1.5.
- 23 May 2023: Updatedfor Dragonflight 10.1 start of season.
- 06 May 2023: Updated for Dragonflight 10.1.
- 21 Mar. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight 10.0.7.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight post-launch.
- 22 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
- 31 Jul. 2022: Updated for Shadowlands Season 4.
- 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 27 Feb. 2022: Updated for Patch 9.2 of Shadowlands.
- 17 Nov. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.5 of Shadowlands.
- 04 Jul. 2021: Updated based on Patch 9.1 of Shadowlands.
- 19 Mar. 2021: Updated based on Patch 9.0.5 for Shadowlands.
- 02 Dec. 2020: Updated in preparation for first PvP season of Shadowlands.
- 18 Oct. 2020: Updated based on the 9.0.1 Pre-Patch for Shadowlands, and new author.
- 12 Jul. 2020: Updated Burst and Sustained damage rotations.
- 09 Mar. 2020: Updated Burst and Sustained Damage rotations.
- 20 Jan. 2020: This page was checked for Patch 8.3 and no update was deemed necessary.
- 05 Jan. 2020: Page added.
Other PvP Guides
This guide has been written by Tiqqle, a PvP enthusiast who has repeatedly achieved 2400 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.
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