Enhancement Contents Enhancement Shaman DPS Talents Enhancement Glyphs Enhancement Stats Rotations Gems Enchants Consumables Professions Races Leveling Quickly

This Enhancement Shaman guide is primarily intended for use in PvE and Raids at level 90. However, the principals will still apply during the leveling process. If you’re looking for advice on leveling your Shaman, check out our Shaman Leveling Guide. Other Shaman Guides:  PvE: Restoration Healing, Elemental DPS PvP: Restoration Other: Shaman overview, Shaman leveling If you want the same in-game step by step leveling guide that we use to get to level 90 as fast as possible, take a look at our favorite in-game leveling guide.

 

Enhancement Shaman DPS Talents

1. Nature’s Guardian is useful if you anticipate dropping to low levels of health on a frequent basis.
2. Stone Bulwark Totem is not recommended.
3. Astral Shift is a useful damage mitigation tool, pick either this or Nature’s Guardian although personally I’m partial to Astral Shift.

1. Frozen Power is the least potentially useful of the three talents in this tier, only effective on a single target.
2. Earthgrab Totem is an AoE root/slow.
3. Windwalk Totem gives you and your raid immunity to movement impairing effects for a short time, quite useful under the right circumstances.

1. Call of the Elements is the most useful choice of this tier.
2. Totemic Projection offers value only for movement heavy encounters.
3. Totem Restoration offers less of a benefit than the other talents, avoid it.

1. Elemental Mastery is a decent DPS increase, but sub-optimal.
2. Ancestral Swiftness is an instant cast spell every minute plus a passive haste buff.
3. Echo of the Elements has a chance to duplicate spells that deal direct damage or healing, this is the optimal DPS choice at this time.

1. Healing Tide Totem is an effective raid healing tool.
2. Ancestral Guidance is similar in effectiveness only it depends on your damage dealt and is thus best paired with other effects/cooldowns that boost your damage output.
3. Conductivity is only useful for situations where the raid and enemies stack up in a single position.

1. All three of this tiers talents are DPS increases, Unleashed Fury being the choice I recommend.

 

Enhancement Glyphs

Most of these are useful only in certain situations.

1. Glyph of Flame Shock - Increased duratiuon of Flame Shock allows more castings of Earth Shock.
2. Glyph of Chain Lightning - Great for 4+ targets, not so hot otherwise. Use if you’ll be fighting appropriate groups.
3. Glyph of Fire Nova - Pretty much required for A of E fights, just beware of the possibility of pulling additional enemies.
4. Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem - Only useful if it allows youi to sync your elemental with other 3 min cooldowns.
5. Glyph of Feral Spirit - Takes a bit of the load off your healers.
6. Glyph of Healing Storm - Useful if you’re assisting with the healing, but it’s a DPS loss.
7. Glyph of Spirit Walk - Great if you have to travel between bosses, less so if bosses and encounters are close.

Minor Glyphs – Most of these are purely cosmetic.

1. Glyph of Lava Lash – only useful when your Lava Lash might break CC or the rare situations where spreading damage might be bad.

 

Enhancement Stat Priorities

1. Primary stat: Agility – provides Spell Power as well as Attack Power and some Crit.
2. Secondary: Hit and Expertise to 7.5% > Mastery = Haste
3. Weak: Critical, Hit over 7.5%
4. Useless: Hit over 27% (dual wield cap) or Expertise over 7.5%, Spell Hit over 15%.

Expertise adds directly to your Spell Hit. Orcs get 1% Expertise if equipping an axe in the main hand. All Hit and Expertise will add together into your spell Hit.

Hit over 7.5% applies to your spells, over 15% is just for white damage from your dual wield hacking and chopping.

Crit looks like a pretty weak stat and should be avoided.

Reforging:  Get your Hit, Expertise, and Spell Hit where they need to be, then reforge everything else to Haste and/or Mastery.

 

In-Depth Rotation Guide

Buffs

1. Keep Lightning Shield active at all times.
2. Use Windfury Weapon for your main-hand and Flametongue Weapon for your off-hand weapon.

Prioities

1. Apply and maintain Flame Shock on your target.
2. Cast Lightning Bolt when you reach 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon. Each stack of Maelstrom Weapon reduces the cast time and mana cost of your next nature spell by 20% up to a maximum of 5 stacks and therefore an instant cast with no mana cost.
3. Use Stormstrike, Lava Lash and Unleash Elements on cooldown.
4. Cast Unleash Elements and then use Flame Shock while Unleash Flame is active. If none of the above are available, use Earth Shock. When facing multiple targets use Lava Lash to spread Flame Shock to up to 4 targets at a time.

Three or More Targets

1. Replace Lightning Bolt with Chain Lightning if facing 3 or more targets. Also begin using Fire Nova totem on cooldown and replace the regular use of Searing Totem with Magma Totem.

1. Ascendance enhances your melee attacks to deal nature damage for 15 seconds, allowing them to benefit from the effects of our mastery. This ability has a 3 minute cooldown and should be used as often as possible.
2. Feral spirit should be used on cooldown. The summoned wolves are improved by your attack power and so will benefit if summoned while you’re under effects that increase your attack power. The wolves have a passive ability Spirit Hunter that heals you for 150% or 210% of the damage they do, the latter value coming from the Glyph version of the ability.
3. Your Fire elemental should be used as often as possible assuming that the elemental will actually be able to effectively attack the boss for the full duration of the ability. The Glyph reduces the cooldown and uptime of the elemental by 40%.
4. Earth Elemental should also be used on cooldown.
5. Spiritwalker’s Grace should be activated whenever movement is required during an encounter.
6. Stormlash Totem boosts raid DPS for 10 seconds on a 5 minute cooldown.
7. Spirit Walk removes all movement impairing effects and increases your movement speed by 60% for 15 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown. The Glyph reduces the cooldown by 30 seconds to a total of 1 minute and 30 seconds.
8.  Shamanistic Rage is a defensive cooldown that reduces all damage taken by 30% for 15 seconds. The Glyph makes it also remove all dispellable harmful magical effects. This ability has a 1 minute cooldown.

Tier 4 Talented Abilities

1. Elemental Mastery provides a 30% haste for 20 seconds and should be used on cooldown.
2. Ancestral Swiftness allows for an instant cast spell every minute and should be used as often as possible.

Tier 5 Talented Abilities

1. Both Healing Tide Totem and Ancestral Guidance are healing cooldowns and should be used when your raid needs them.

 

Enhancement Gems

Agility increases all of your important abilities, including spell casting. Gem for Agility where possible. Socket bonuses are worth matching if they’re Agility and might be worthwhile if Mastery or Haste. Use the orange gems for the yellow sockets and purple for blue sockets.

Gems
Meta		Agile Primal Diamond: 216 Agil & 3% Increased Crit Effect
Red		Delicate Primordial Ruby: 160 Agility Precise Primordial Ruby: 320 Expertise
Yellow		Quick Sun’s Radiance: 320 Haste Fractured Sun’s Radiance: 320 Mastery
Orange		Adept Vermilion Onyx: 80 Agility, 160 Mastery Deft Vermilion Onyx: 80 Agility, 160 Haste
Purple		Glinting Imperial Amethyst: 80 Ag, 160 Hit Accurate Imperial Amethyst: 160 Expertise, 160 Hit
Prismatic		Delicate Primordial Ruby: 160 Agility
Cogwheel		Fractured Tinker’s Gear: 600 Mastery Quick Tinker’s Gear: 600 Haste - requires an engie helm, such as this.

 

Enchantments for Enhancement

Helm enchants are gone in Mists of Pandaria, shoulder enchants all come from the Inscription profession.

Short on gold? Most of the enchants below have similar enchants available, of lesser value, for less cash. We’ve linked to a couple of these. Check with the rep vendor or the Auction House for others. If you want to buy the best enchants, fund all of your alts, donate to the guild, etc., but don’t have the cash, then see what the Tycoon Addon can do about about improving your situation.

 

Enchantments for Enhancement
Weapon	Enchant Weapon – Dancing Steel: Sometimes add 1,650 Ag when striking.
Shoulders	Secret Tiger Claw Inscription 520 Ag, 100 Crit, requires Inscription 575 Greater Tiger Claw Inscription: 200 Agility, 100 Crit
Cloak	Swordguard Embroidery: Sometimes pops 4k AP for 15 sec. Requires Tailoring. Enchant Cloak – Accuracy: 180 Hit rating
Chest	Enchant Chest – Glorious Stats: 80 to all Stats
Bracers	Fur Lining, Agility: 500 Agility, requires Leatherworking. Enchant Bracer – Greater Agility: 170 Agility Socket Bracer: Self only, Blacksmithing, pop in a nice Agility gem.
Gloves	Enchant Gloves – Greater Haste: 170 Haste Enchant Gloves – Superior Mastery: 170 Mastery Socket Gloves – Self only, Blacksmithing, pop in a nice gem.
Belt	Living Steel Belt Buckle: put a nice gem into this slot.
Leggings	Shadowleather Leg Armor: 285 Agility & 165 Crit rating
Boots	Enchant Boots – Blurred Speed: 140 Agility and Slight run speed increase.
Rings	Enchant Ring – Greater Agility: 160 Agility, Requires Enchanting 550

 

Race Choice for Enhancement Shamans

As prime Hacking and Chopping Engine of Destruction your race doesn’t matter all that much. If being big and furry or short and annoying is more important than every last iota of DPS then go for it.

Pandaren

• Can choose to be either Horse or Alliance upon leaving their starting area.
• Take less falling damage, though this has little PvE use.
• If you’re leveling then your rest XP lasts twice as long
• If you eat then you get increased benefits from food buffs.
• Can stun melee opponents for four seconds, which is pretty nice.
• Good with cooking.

Draenei

• Self-Heal: You have plenty of heals, but this one is free and there are times when that’s a nice thing to have.
• +1% Chance to Hit – Self-Only: You can’t kill what you can’t hit. Now you only need another 6.5% Hit to get that raid boss.
• Jewelcrafting skill increase: JC has some nice self-only gems. This will get you into those gems that much sooner.

Dwarf

• Stone Form washes away bleeds and other effects, but this is of value mainly in PvP.
• Ranged weapon expertise is pretty useless for you, but Mace expertise is useful and it also adds to your Spell Hit, if a mace is the best weapon available and you’re equipping it in the main hand.
• Good with Archeology.

Orc

• Blood Fury increases Spell Power for 10 seconds, which is a good thing in all cases.
• Resistance to Stuns has PvP value and is occasionally useful in PvE, but will only reduce a 6 second stun by about 1 second.
• Expertise with Axes is useful and it also adds to your Spell Hit, if an axe is the best weapon available and you’re equipping it in the main hand.

Tauren

• War Stomp is strictly melee range so has very infrequent use in PvE, but has definite use in PvP when melee types get in your face.
• Health Increase is good in all cases, but is actually kind of puny at high level.
• Good with Herbalism, and this skill provides a Haste buff.

Troll

• Berkserk increases casting speed, once every three minutes, which can be rather nice.
• Regeneration Increase isn’t big enough to care much about, especially since you can heal.
• Ranged Weapon Expertise is a pretty useless stat for you.
• Damage Increased Vs Beasts: Nice for leveling, occasionally useful in PvE, useless in PvP since Worgen and Draenei don’t count as beasts for this ability.
• Da Voodoo Shuffle is always useful in PvP (though not nearly as good as an escape ability or trinket.) Occasional value in PvE. It reduces a six second root to about 5 seconds.

Goblin

• Rocket Jump is a nice little escape from, or entry into, combat. Kinda like a cheap Blink spell.
• Increased Haste (1%) is always useful.
• Increased Alchemy skillis nice if you have that skill. Keeping a pile of mana potions on your bar is a good idea anyway.

PvE Choice? Orc or Troll, since you can pick the timing of your abilities for greatest effect. Draenei, followed by Goblins, for their passive hit/haste increases.

 

Comsumables

Note that Pandarens get twice the food buff. All food buffs last one hour. Elixirs provide secondary stats and there are none which are better than the Flask.

The Food

• Sea Mist Rice Noodles: 300 Ag
• Valley Stir Fry: 275 Ag

The Flask

• Flask of Spring Blossoms: 1,000 Ag for one hour

The Potions

• Virmen’s Bite: 4k Ag for 25 seconds. If you pop one immediately before combat you will be able to pop another during combat.
• Master Healing Potion: Heals 60k HP
• Master Mana Potion: About 30k Mana

 

Professions for Enchancement

All of the professions provide some benefit for any class/spec, though clearly some are better than others, such as Blacksmithing with its two gem slots or Herbalism with its 2880 Haste buff.  The gathering professions will be better used to build a larger gold stash if you are a bit short.

Most of the professions add an average of about 320 Agility. Since gems with secondary stats are twice the value of those with primary stats (320 Haste Vs 160 Agility, for example) Blacksmithing might be the most valuable profession if you’re just looking for the buffs. You’ll be able to slot 640 points of Mastery instead of the 320 Agility, for example.

Jewelcrafting provides only 320 in any stat over non JC gems.

Professions
Tailoring	Cloak enchant sometimes adds 4k Attack Power for 15 seconds.
Leatherworking	Bracer enchant adds 500 Ag.
Jewelcrafting	Make nicer gems for your own use.
Enchanting	Enchant both rings, for a total 320 Ag gain.
Inscription	Shoulder enchant adds 520 Ag and 100 crit.
Alchemy	More effect from your own potions. Adds 320 Ag and an extra hour to your main flask.
Engineering	has lots of interesting toys, some of which have situational use, and Synapse Springs, which increases Ag by 1940 for a short time. If you take this use a macro to activate it along with other short term buffs.
Blacksmithing	gives two extra gems slots. Since gems with secondary stats have twice the value of gems with primary stats Blacksmithing might be a very valuable profession. For example, you’ll be able to socket the two gems for 640 Mastery instead of 320 Ag.
Skinning	provides 480 crit rating
Herbalism	Small heal and 2880 Haste for 20 seconds
Mining	480 Stamina

 

The Really Fast Enhancement Shaman Leveling Guide

The best way to get to the level cap fast is to do it with an in-game Shaman leveling guide. If it shows you where to go, when to go there, and what to do every step of the way, such that you don’t have to look anything up then your leveling is going to be really fast.

Zygor’s Guide fits this bill and can get you to the level cap faster than you might think possible, assuming you stay out of the RPing, fussing around, PvP ganking, and endless shopping. Zygor’s shows up as a small window in your main game screen and it not only tracks everything that you need to do, but it displays an arrow that points your way to the next task. You’ll never have any doubt as to where to go or what to do, regardless of what level you happen to be.

Leave the game and come back and the guide will remember where you left off. Gain a bunch of levels in PvP and/or the dungeons and Zygor still has your back. It will detect your new level, adjust appropriately, and let you delete your old quests.

Zygor’s is always updated for the latest patches and expansions, and this includes its nifty Talent Advisor tool.

Go here to snag your copy of Zygor’s Guide now (or read our review) and get leveled fast.

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