Enhancement Shaman DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents - Dragonflight 10.2.7 (2024)

Elementalist STElementalist AoEStorm STStorm AoE

This is the strongest performing single-target build in Season 4by a decent margin, thanks to the synergy with the set bonus. It isgenerally quite flexible gameplay, but a very rigid talent setupwithout much room to change picks:

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The biggest payoff of this build is your Maelstrom Weapon spenders,and the numerous effects the build has to amplify them. Between Elemental Assaultand Swirling Maelstrom, we generate a very healthy amount to cyclequickly and consistently with our rotational strikes. It also has a good amount of freecleave built into the kit with Hailstorm and the funnel effectsit takes throughout the tree. With the addition of the Season 4set bonus, we also gain increased access to our big damage moment in Primordial Wave,allowing us to cycle Feral Spirit faster and generate Maelstrom Weaponquickly for priority targets.

• Elemental Blast is your big payoff moment, being spentduring the large damage amplifier windows of Elemental Spirits. Primordial Wave also provides a punchy instant setup hit thatcan leverage extra targets for Haste via Splintered Elements.
• Hot Hand forms the crux of the proc gameplay for the build,granting much higher access to your primary strike that triggers a 1-2cycle with it and fillers when active.

Elementalist also provides the best AoE and Funnel optionby a large margin, alongside being easier to execute than Storm alternatives.Therefore, it is the pick for Mythic+:

Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the bestbuild directly into your game!

While this has a lot more moving parts than other builds, it makesuse of a wide suite of synergistic effects to convert most of our regulartoolkit into hard-hitting AoE spenders. It functions by combining a numberof packages together that have enough space to interlink, with a fluidityachieved through the additional Maelstrom Weapon available in AoE.It is, however, hard-capped at 6 targets for the majority of its tools,which is a limitation that cannot really be avoided when playingEnhancement.

• It has a heavy focus on Lava Lash even in AoE, thanks to Molten Assault and Lashing Flames, and can convert thosetargets into extra funnel with Ashen Catalyst.
• Crash Lightning pairs with this to generate a large amountof additional Maelstrom Weapon and add a splash effect to thoseactivating Lava Lashes, forming the filler core.
• The additional Maelstrom leads to Chain Lightning as a veryfrequent spender, that in turn leads to Hailstorm casts thatcan be further amplified with Ice Strike.
• To cap it off, all of that extra generation leads to more instancesof Feral Spirit thanks to Witch Doctor's Ancestry, andexplosive finisher casts with Primordial Wave as a burst, setupand funnel tool thanks to Splintered Elements.
• The Season 4 bonus leans into this even further, utilizing theadditional Feral Spirit cycling to return us back to Primordial Wavecasts very frequently, giving it a high-paced playstyle without manyslumps in damage.

It sounds like there is a lot going on with the above, but in practiceit plays intuitively with a little experience, as there is a logicalprogression with each cast. All of this flexibility and synergy makesfor an extremely engaging Mythic+ playstyle.

While this is more of a throwback, it can still play with the Season 4set and be competitive in single-target. This is less consistent and lessflexible than the alternatives, but Storm can still provide a fast-paced build:

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Note: If you are playing this without the current tier set,switch the point from Primordial Wave over to a second point in Elemental Assault.

Storm is a fairly skinny gameplay profile, with the central theme of the entirebuild being quite simple: pressing Stormstrike as much as possible.Everything taken here is to further the goal of hitting this as often as youcan, culminating in proc burst windows via Deeply Rooted Elements.Instead of the careful Maelstrom Weapon management of other builds,it instead uses it to trigger the Legacy of the Frost Witch reset portionfor, you guessed it, more Stormstrikes. This has very little baselinecleave, but it can swap out Lava Lash to grab Crash Lightning at very little cost.

In Season 4 Storm AoE simply does not have the option to simplify due tothe nature of the set bonus, alongside its very specialized talentsthat have little flexibility at different target counts. This can still dealstrong damage, but the burden of execution for very little performance andmessy gameplay loop makes it an acquired taste:

Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the bestbuild directly into your game!

The main sticking point is not so much the Primordial Waverequirement, but all of the Lava Lash and spread prerequisites toleverage it in AoE. This causes a huge point squeeze in the center of thetree, forcing us into the problem of having to pick betweenAoE and single target options, sacrificing a huge amount of the otherin doing so. While it does get some extra benefits from the set like anadditional Alpha Wolf activator and bonus Nature damage, thereare some key things to consider when specializing:

• Tempest Strikes / Storm's Wrath / Stormblast - your single targetcenter block options. These contribute a lot to bosses in Mythic+, buthave little in the way of AoE conversion. This is the big sticking pointin the middle.
• Fire Nova / Swirling Maelstrom - allows you to leaneven further into AoE (which the build already brings a lot of), but atthe cost of the previous talents it really hurts when forcedinto single-target.
• Pathing to Splintered Elements - going all the way down netsyou huge extra Primordial Wave value in both single-target andespecially AoE, but...
• The Deeply Rooted Elements path - without access to this, theonly real payoff moment for Storm is gone, but there is simply noway of comfortably fitting it all in without huge sacrifices.

The above contention makes it hard to really recommend the build, aswhile it can do some good things, it runs into a lot of roadblocks in termsof fluidity. While it is still playable to a degree, for now in Season 4I would heavily encourage you to try one of the Elementalistbuilds instead.

Spec Rows 1-4Spec Rows 5-7Spec Rows 8-10Class Talents

These talents establish the core of your playstyle and include many ofyour basic abilities. Key talents include:

Talent	Explanation
Stormstrike	Our core generator ability strikes with both weapons, so cantrigger weapon imbues and generate a high amount of Maelstrom Weapon.
Windfury Weapon	Our main-hand imbue can trigger special bonus attacks onmain-hand auto-attacks and ability hits.
Lava Lash	Deals moderate Fire damage, increased by 100% if Flametongue Weaponis imbued on your off-hand weapon. This has a lot of supportingtalents further in the tree.
Forceful Winds	Grants a cycling buff that increases Windfury Weapondamage stacking up to 5, but does not refresh itself.
Improved Maelstrom Weapon	Causes your Maelstrom Weapon stacks to additionallyincrease the damage of affected spells by 10/20% per stackconsumed, massively increasing the damage of spenders, and is alwaystaken.
Molten Assault	Reduces the cooldown of your Lava Lashability by 3/6 seconds, and Lava Lash casts against atarget affected by your Flame Shock reapplies the effect andspreads it to 2/4 nearby enemies. This allows you to maintain FlameShock in single-target for free and forms the crux of multi-DoTs inAoE.
Unruly Winds	Causes your Windfury Weapon procs to trigger athird attack.
Windfury Totem	Drops a totem at your feet for 2 minutes that grants party membersa 20% chance of triggering an additional auto-attack, which can trigger anyon hit effects. This is a unique raid buff provided only by Enhancement,and is a staple in raids or compositions where you have other melee present.
Raging Maelstrom	Increases the maximum number of Maelstrom Weapon stacksyou can have to 10, and it increases the damage dealt by spells thatconsume the effect by an additional 5% per stack.
Ice Strike	Deals moderate Frost damage with your main-hand weapon andincreases the damage of your next Frost Shock by 100%.
Hailstorm	Causes Maelstrom Weapon spending abilitiesto give you Hailstorm stacks that increase the damage of your next Frost Shock cast and causes it to hit an additional target perstack. This provides powerful single-target and AoE at the same time,making it very versatile, and is almost always taken by Elementalistbuilds.
Fire Nova	Causes all of your active Flame Shocksto erupt, dealing Flamestrike damage to up to 6 nearby enemies. This isvery specialized for AoE and contributes little to single-target,but Storm builds will often take this thanks to the number of Physicalmultipliers the build takes.

There are 13 points available in this section, and you need to spend at least8 points to advance to the next part of the talent tree, so many ofThese abilities will be included in every build you can make. Althoughevery talent in this section (other than Stormstrike) is technicallyoptional, it is strongly recommended that you have the following talentsas they are both versatile and play an essential role in all builds.

• Lava Lash
• Windfury Weapon
• Improved Maelstrom Weapon (2 points))
• Raging Maelstrom
• Molten Assault (1 point)
• Windfury Totem (raid)

From this point on, your main decision will be whether you want yourbuild to focus more on Physical and Lightning damage effects with a focus on Stormstrike and Windfury Weapon on the left, or the variedmagic schools on the right side of the side of the tree with Lava Lashand our spell toolkit. Both of these options have single-target and AoEvariants, so your choice here will often dictate how you path down the treebased on which damage profile (either sustained or burst in this case)you desire and personal preference.

These talents establish the overall theme of the build and includea variety of tools to specialize in different damage delivery profiles. Keytalents include:

Talent	Explanation
Doom Winds	Adds a cooldown to your toolkit that significantlyincreases the proc chance of Windfury Weapon and increases itsdamage dealt by 10% for 8 seconds when cast. On the GCD, andcauses a small main-hand strike when cast. Storm builds take thisto leverage the various Physical damage amplifiers on the tree.
Elemental Blast	Deals massive Elemental damage to your target,and grants a buff for 10 seconds that grants either 3% Critical Strike, Haste,or 6% Mastery. This gains an additional charge if you are also talentedinto Lava Burst. This is almost always taken in Elementalistbuilds to provide punchy single-target.
Tempest Strikes	Causes each of your primary strikes ( Stormstrike, Lava Lashand Ice Strike) to deal additional Nature damage to the target. Verysimple, and leans into the strength of Storm. Also removes the needto juggle two different spenders.
Overflowing Maelstrom	Maelstrom Weapon spenders can now consume up to 10stacks at once, up from 5, and is always taken to help with our Maelstrom Weapon management.
Sundering	deals heavy Flamestrike damage to enemies in a line in frontof you and disorients them briefly. This is a mandatory pickup if usingthe T30 set bonus, but is otherwise more of a utility/niche pick.
Swirling Maelstrom	Causes the surrounding talents ( Hailstorm, Fire Nova and Ice Strike) to generate Maelstrom Weaponwhen used.
Hot Hand	Gives all your auto-attacks a 5% chance to trigger an 8second buff that reduces the cooldown of Lava Lash and increasesits damage. This is a key reactive proc for Elementalist buildsand provides a lot of throughput.
Storm's Wrath	Increases the gains from the Mastery stat on theproc chance for Stormbringer and Windfury Weapon by150%, improving Mastery scaling for Storm builds.
Crash Lightning	Deals Nature damage in a 120-degree conein front of you, and if 2 or more targets are hit, you gain a buff thatcauses Stormstrike, Ice Strike, and Lava Lashto trigger a separate Nature damage splash when cast. Initial casts cantrigger the Windfury Weapon imbue, and this is a core part ofour rotational AoE and Maelstrom Weapon generation when additionaltargets are present.
Stormflurry	Grants Stormstrike a 25% chance to strike your targetagain for 40% of the damage dealt, and can chain off itself. These extrahits can also trigger any of our weapon procs and effects, including Crash Lightning.
Ashen Catalyst	Causes Flame Shock ticks to givea stacking buff that increases the damage of your next Lava Lashby 12%, and reduce the cooldown of Lava Lash by 0.5 seconds. Thissignificantly increases access to the ability and is importantfor all situations - especially funnel.
Stormblast	Causes Stormbringer empowered Stormstrike caststo deal an additional 25% of damage dealt as Nature. This adds an extraMastery scaling component into Storm builds for single-target.
Elemental Weapons	Provides 5% additional magic damage dealt per Weapon imbue active.While this can technically be activated via double Flametongue Weapon,it is never worth dropping Windfury Weapon to do so.
Gathering Storms	Causes each individual target hit by Crash Lightning toincrease the damage of your next Stormstrike cast by 25%, upto 150%.
Crashing Storms	Increases the damage of your Crash Lightning by 40% andcauses your Chain Lightning to jump to 2 additional targets.This is taken in all high-target AoE situations.
Lashing Flames	Causes Lava Lash to apply a debuff for 20 seconds that increasesthe damage the target takes from your Flame Shock effect by 100%.This forms the core of the Flame Shock multi-dot playstyle.

This section offers the most significant number of talents, with up to 17 pointsavailable. Unfortunately, you will likely want to spend between 10-12 pointsabove the 8-point gate and another 8-10 points below the 20-point gate, leavingyou only 8-12 points to spend here. This constraint forces you to pick the typeof damage delivery profile you want to specialize in at this point in the treeand forms the most significant part of the puzzle when building your character.It also dictates what you will invest in for the final rows.

Depending on your choices made above the 8-point gate, you will likely wantto continue specializing along the left or right sides of the tree:

• Storm builds will want to specialize in abilities that have extra interactionswith Stormstrike, picking up talents such as Doom Winds, Stormflurryand Storm's Wrath. It can also specialize into single-target by grabbing Stormblast here.
• Elementalist builds instead tend to take similar core talents regardless oftarget count, completing the right side of the tree with the Fire talents — Hot Hand, Ashen Catalyst, and Lashing Flames.

All builds will path through the center, and can easily access any tools it wantsvia the links from Raging Maelstrom. Both builds will also always pick up either Elemental Blast or Tempest Strikes to open up the left side of the treeand pick up a core tool for each respective build. In AoE situations, we take Crash Lightning and Crashing Storms to add more AoE to ourtoolkit. Overflowing Maelstrom is a staple in all builds due to howbusy our GCDs already are, reducing the number needed to efficiently use our resource.

The final rows dictate your cooldown toolkit and round out the build youhave selected and how versatile it is at various target counts. Which you selectbelow the 20-point line is generally decided by what you choose earlier onthe tree, with a few exceptions. Key talents include:

Talent	Explanation
Elemental Assault	Causes Stormstrike, Lava Lash and Ice Strike to havea 50/100% chance to generate an additional Maelstrom Weapon when cast,and increases Stormstrike's damage by 10/20%. The extra generation makes this amandatory pickup for Elementalist builds to fix its starvationproblems.
Legacy of the Frost Witch	Resets the cooldown on Stormstrike whenever you spend Maelstrom Weapon,and grants 5/25% increased Physical and Frost damage for 5 seconds whenever this triggers.The first point is the most valuable, though the second has good value with supportingbuilds. The stacks spent are counted internally, so you do not have to spend 10 all at once.
Primordial Wave	Deals moderate Elemental damage and applies Flame Shock to your current target,granting you a 15-second buff that causes your next Lightning Bolt to echoto all targets affected by your Flame Shock for 150% of the damage. At least one pointhere is mandatory with the Tier 31 set bonus.
Primal Maelstrom	Causes Primordial Wave to generate 5/10 stacks of Maelstrom Weaponwhen cast. Extremely helpful for setting up bursts.
Splintered Elements	Consuming the Primordial Wave effect grants 20% Haste for 12 seconds,increasing by 4% for each additional Lightning Bolt echo generated on secondarytargets. Provides a consistent Haste amp that gets even stronger in AoE to speed upour rotation and improve funnel.
Feral Spirit	Summons two wolves that deal damage to your target for 15 seconds and generatesone stack of Maelstrom Weapon instantly and an additional stack every 3seconds while active. Each wolf also increases all Physical damage you deal by 15%while active.
Witch Doctor's Ancestry	Grants 2/4% additional chance to trigger Maelstrom Weapon, and causes eachstack generated to reduce the cooldown of Feral Spirit by 1/2 seconds.Incredibly powerful for the resource alone, and converts into significantly higheruptime on our wolf buffs.
Elemental Spirits	Replaces the Physical damage buff from the baseline effect with a combinationof Fire, Frost, or Nature damage increases, selected randomly when summoned. This isused exclusively by Elementalist builds.
Alpha Wolf	Causes your Crash Lightning/ Chain Lightning casts with Feral Spirit active to cause them to pulse for Physical damage every 2seconds for 8 seconds. This AoE damage is uncapped and provides a large amount ofdamage to Storm builds due to its high Feral Spirit uptime. This doesalso trigger from the wolf summoned by the Tier 31 2-piece bonus.
Ascendance	A 3-minute burst cooldown that converts your auto-attacks and Stormstrikeinto special attacks that ignore armor, have a 30-yard range, and reduce the cooldownof Stormstrike by 60% for 15 seconds. It provides a large on-demand burst window, butunfortunately is too weak to justify with such a long cooldown so is not taken.
Deeply Rooted Elements	Alternative to Ascendance that gives access to the same effect, with a rampingchance to trigger for 6 seconds from each Stormstrike cast. Much stronger thanthe above and provides Storm with explosive moments throughout an encounter,but extremely volatile.
Static Accumulation	Whenever you are affected by Ascendance, you generate 1/2 stacksof Maelstrom Weapon every second. It also grants a 10/20% chance to refund all Maelstromspent on Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning. This is the most powerful sourceof additional resources in the tree, and causes Storm to often be overloaded withadditional resources and Feral Spirit resets.
Thorim's Invocation	Causes your Windstrike casts during Ascendance to alsodischarge a Lightning Bolt / Chain Lightning (based on your most recentcast). This allows us to make use of the resource flood much more efficiently and completesthe Ascendance leaf. Also increases Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightningdamage by 20% at all times.

Once you reach these rows in the talent tree, you will have at most 10points left to spend, and you will likely already have decided on a buildarchetype. That means your decisions are largely intuitive, as most of theabilities here lean toward one damage profile or ability school. Virtuallyall builds will make sure to take Feral Spirit and Witch Doctor's Ancestry,and Elementalist builds will select Elemental Spirits while Stormbuilds will avoid it. Storm builds, on the other hand, will always spend10 points here, grabbing the aforementioned wolf talents and thendeciding between Primordial Wave or Deeply Rooted Elements tracksto completion, with 2-3 points spent between Legacy of the Frost Witch and Elemental Assault.

There is some room to deviate from these, though, depending on therequirements of a given encounter, and there is some plug-and-play with allof the talents below this row.

Enhancement Shamans are given Chain Lightning and Maelstrom Weapon by default, and there is only a small handful ofadditional damage-increasing talents on the Shaman class tree should beincluded in every build:

• Lava Burst*
• Frost Shock
• Flurry
• Fire and Ice
• Nature's Fury

We would also generally recommend whenever points allow it to take Totemic Projection to allow you to move your Windfury Totemaround off the Global Cooldown to avoid outranging it. This can be done usinga macro with very little effort and is a big quality-of-life improvement.

* Lava Burst is required whenever you are playing Elementalistbuilds, but can be skipped by Storm.

In addition to the above talents, it is generally recommended for all buildsto include a variety of defensive talents. The list of defensive talentsincludes:

• Astral Shift
• Planes Traveler / Astral Bulwark
• Earth Shield
• Earth Elemental
• Brimming with Life
• Elemental Warding
• Ancestral Defense

Finally, it is also strongly recommended that all builds include a fewmobility talents:

• Spirit Walk / Gust of Wind
• Wind Rush Totem
• Spirit Wolf / Thunderous Paws
• Go with the Flow

Not all defensive or mobility talents need to be included, but you should tryto incorporate an appropriate number of each into your builds, as having none isoften a bad idea. The remainder of your points can be spent as you desire forspecific Utility, crowd control, or pathing requirements; however, we stronglyrecommended that you at least consider including some of the followinggenerally applicable utility options

• Wind Shear
• Mana Spring
• Capacitor Totem
• Ancestral Guidance
• Thunderstorm
• Thundershock
• Cleanse Spirit
• Purge

Of note here is Mana Spring. This can be a strong passive boost to yourraid's healers, providing extra Mana, mostly for free, while you execute the rotation.Given it is very easy to access and only costs one point, it is generally recommendedin most situations unless you require an excess of control tools.

For a more detailed description of each of our class talents, please refer tothe Enhancement Shaman DPS Spell Summary page.