Pandaria [Guide] Enhancement Shaman PvP

[Yirkarja]

Enhancement Shaman

5.4.2
Grevious Season

Introduction
I've seen many Enhancement Shamans ask me basic questions and since I didn't have anything to do this afternoon I've decided to write down this guide. This guide will cover pretty much everything I can tell about Enh Shamans and hopefully it will help others who need help. I am Whatisatotem (Totem for short) and I play on Frostwolf some of you might know me but the vast majority of you most probably don't really care. I've had a lot of experience playing mainly Enh Shaman and Feral Druid on retail on the server of Outland, but since I'm not planning to tell anyone on a private server who I am on retail it's pointless to say what I've managed to do, nobody won't believe anyone without proof, I wouldn't either. All I'm going to say is that I've had enough rating to not care anymore, my goal has been achieved. I'm playing here to relive the old days of MoP mainly because Enh had better days before WoD happened. I'd rather not say how old I am but that doesn't matter, it's still the same game after all. I live in Sweden but I was never born there. And I will be more than happy to see other Enh Shamans on this server.

Enhancement is an extremely fun spec to play, it has giant burst, a lot of survivability and is quite mobile. First of all Enhancement is a hybrid melee caster support spec, which means the following: Enhancement Shamans are fighting in close distance with the ability to cast spells at range and if need comes to be they can even heal injured allies and support them with totems, slows and hexes. They can do pretty much everything and they work best in groups, they can of course work playing solo but you most likely would want an ally with you at all times just like any other hybrid.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Table of Contents
Spells
Passives
Talents
Glyphs
Stat Priorities
Gems
Enchants
Professions
Macros
Rotation
Burst
Crowd Control
Strengths
Weaknesses
Strategies

Spells
I'm going to explain every spell and on some of them I'm going to explain how I feel about them. You can ignore this wall of text if you feel like you know how all of the spells work.

Stormstrike: A spamable melee attack with an 8s cooldown, it applies a 25% critical chance bonus to your target with Lightning Shield, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Earth Shock and Elemental Blast. Use it whenever it is off cooldown on your attack target.
Lava Lash: A spamable melee attack with an 10s cooldown, it spreads your Fire Shock(DoT) on up to 4 targets around you. Damage is increased by 40% if Flametongue Weapon is applied on your off hand. Searing Totem gives you stacks of Searing Flame which increases the damage dealt by Lava Lash by 20% for each stack up to 100% extra damage. Use it whenever it is off cooldown on your main attack target or the target which has Fire Shock(DoT) applied depending on the situation.
Frost Shock: An instant cast spell with 25yd (30yd with PvP gloves) with a 6s cooldown (4s if glyphed). It applies a 50% slow for 8s and 5s root if talented into Frozen Power.
Earth Shock: An instant cast spell with 25yd (30yd with PvP gloves) with a 6s cooldown. it applies Weakened Blows which in turn reduces Physical damage dealt by 10% by your target.
Fire Shock: An instant cast spell with 25yd (30yd with PvP gloves) with a 6s cooldown. it applies a 30s long DoT.
Fire Nova: Instantly makes all targets affected by Fire Shock(DoT) explode dealing damage to everyone around them including themselves with a 4s cooldown. Used whenever you don't have anything else to cast.
Ancestral Spirit: Resurrection that drains your entire mana pool.
Lightning Bolt: A 2,5s spell which deals little to no damage, can be used while moving. Use only if you desperately need to kill someone on range while chasing.
Water Shield: A shield effect which gains mana on damage taken
Lightning Shield: A shield effect which deals damage to attackers
Hex: An 8s long polymorph effect which can be dispelled, it has a very long 45s cooldown (can be glyphed down to 35s)
Cleanse Spirit: Removes all Curse effects from targeted friendly players on a 6s cooldown. Use whenever you can dispell anything important
Purge: Dispells one magical buff off of your enemy without a cooldown.
Bind Elemental: Banishes an elemental for 8s. Use on Water Elementals and talented Earth and Fire Elementals
Chain Lightning: Use when two or more of your enemies have extremely low hp and they're far away. 3s cooldown, you mostly won't ever feel the cooldown
Chain Heal: Use when two or more of your allies are 90% hp and nobody has below 80% hp.
Healing Surge: Use whenever you have free Maelstrom Stacks on people with low hp.
Healing Rain: I never use this ability
Heroism: Use when in big fights in BGs or wPvP
Feral Spirit: Use when attacking your enemy, use whenever on cooldown since they're not that important to save and have a 2min cooldown.
Ghost Wolf: Instantly increases your speed by 30%, all spells remove this effect
Spirit Walk: Instantly increases your speed by 60% for 15s on a 60s cooldown, can be used during Ghost Wolf. Use whenever chasing or escaping, works well with Ghost Wolf and/or Windwalk Totem.
Spiritwalker's Grace: Causes all of your spells to be castable during movement for 15s on a 2 minute cooldown, works perfectly with spirit walk.
Ascendance: Ascends killing everyone on the entire server. Causes your melee attacks to have 30yd range, fully ignore armor and be increased by your mastery, also causes your Stormstrike to become Stormblast and be a 30yd long spell which also fully ignores armor and is increased by your mastery.
Shamanistic Rage: Reduces all damage taken by 30% and all of your offensive spells become free to cast for 15s on 1min cooldown
Totemic Recall: Destroys your totems and gives you back mana, I rarely use this
Water Walking: Allows you to walk on water
Wind Shear: Interrupts your enemy spell cast and locks the school of magic for 3 seconds, has a 12s cooldown.
Far Sight: 'Nuff said.
Searing Totem: A totem which attacks a nearby enemy every second, every hit grants you a stack of Searing Flames which increases damage done by Lava Lash up to 100%.
Magma Totem: Attacks everyone around the totem every second, good for defending flags and taking people out of stealth.
Fire Elemental Totem: Summons a giant Fire Elemental which attacks your enemies and grants you stacks of Searing Flames which increase damage done by Lava Lash up to 100%. Use whenever you're trying to deal as much damage as possible.
Earth Elemental Totem: Summons a giant Earth Elemental that will taunt everything around you, Briefly taunts pets, good when hunters use Stampede.
Earthbind Totem: Slows down everyone around the totem by 50%, lasts 20s, good for kiting.
Tremor Totem: Removes all Charm and Fear effects from you and everyone around the totem every second for 10s. 1min cooldown, use on AoE fears if in group, use on whatever you want when solo.
Grounding Totem: "Eats" the next spell casted around the totem (can be glyphed to reflect the spell). Use on big spells like and Chaos Bolt.
Capacitor Totem: After a 5s (3s if glyphed) delay stuns everyone around the totem for 5s. A good but unreliable stun on 45s cooldown.
Stormlash Totem: Causes every ally around you to deal a lot of damage every time they damage their enemies. Insane burst if used correctly but it sadly has a 5min cooldown.
Healing Stream Totem: A totem which heals injured allies, on a 30s cooldown, lasts 15s. Use on cooldown.
Healing Tide Totem: A totem which heals 5 most injured allies on a 3min cooldown, lasts 10s. Use when taking a lot of damage
Windfury Weapon: Has a chance to deal 3 extra melee hits with 8550 extra attack power instantly. Unleashing this will cause your 6 next attacks to be faster. You want to have this on your Main Hand.
Flametongue Weapon: Increases spell damage by 5% and deals damage on attack. Also increases damage from Lava Lash by 40% if used on your off hand. Unleashing this will cause you to deal 30% extra damage with your next fire spell. You want to have this on your Off Hand.
Frostbrand Weapon: Slows your enemy by 50% and deals damage on attacks. Unleashing this inflicts the slow on your enemy, if the enemy already has the slow on him the slow is going to be stronger
Rockbiter Weapon: Reduces damage taken by 5% Unleashing this works as a taunt, very crucial in PvP
Unleash Elements: Unleashes Elements, 'nuff said.

Passives
A lot of players miss their passive abilities, it's good to point them out

Burning Wrath: Increases Spell Power by 10%
Dual Wield: You can use two one-handed weapons at the same time and you can parry with them
Flurry: Your melee critical hits increase your melee haste by 15% and your haste from items is increased by 50% for 15s or until you hit 5 times.
Grace of Air: Increases Mastery by 3000
Maelstrom Weapon: Melee hits have a chance to decrease your next spell cast time and mana cost by up 20% each stack up to 100%
Mail Specialization: If you have only mail armor your Agility is increased by 5%
Mastery: Enhanced Elements: Increases the damage dealt by Fire, Nature and Frost spells.
Mental Quickness: 65% of your Attack Power is also Spell Power, also makes all of your spells very cheap (Except Healing surge). Has a 40% chance on melee hits to gain 5% mana.
Reincarnation: Resurrects yourself every one hour, good in BGs when people leave and you can steal the point or something.
Searing Flames: Searing Totem and Fire Elemental hits increase damage by Flametongue Weapon by 8% each hit up to 5 stacks, lasts 15s. You can spend these stacks to increase damage dealt by Lava Lash by 20% from each stack up to 100% extra damage dealt.
Static Shock: Stormstrike and Lava Lash spells have a chance to proc your Lightning Shield on your enemy
Unleashed Rage: Increases Attack Power by 10%

Talents
I'm going to sit here and put down another wall of text (the third one already? geez I should start talking about interesting stuff) I'm going to explain why I pick some talents over the other ones. Talents are of course personal preference, don't forget that.

15
Nature's Guardian: Basically a built-in Rallying Cry, I'd say this is the best option since it's passive and it gives you free HP on a 1min ICD.
Stone Bulwark Totem: A totem that grants you a shield that can easily be dispelled and the totem dies very fast either way. not the best but it has its moments
Astral Shift: The worst option, the cooldown is too long and the duration is too short.
30
Frozen Power: I'd say this one is my favorite since Frost Shock deals more damage than Fire Shock and it isn't worth using more than once, that's where Earth Shock and Frost Shock comes in.
Earthgrab Totem: It's good but the root can be removed and the cooldown on this thing is quite long. This is mainly used due to the fact it's bugged and you can root the same target more than once.
Windwalk Totem: It's good and it's even better once you combine Spirit Walk with it, a very strong option.
45
Call of the Elements: Good for using Capacitor Totem twice, not in my taste though.
Totemic Persistence: I personally don't like this talent but if you want it, sure take it.
Totemic Projection: Very good because you can throw your Capacitor Totem at your enemy and have a pretty much guaranteed stun.
60
Elemental Mastery: This is best in PvE, in PvP I never use it not even with Ascendance.
Ancestral Swiftness: Has it's moments and if you want it feel free to take it.
Echo of the Elements: I love this talent, you can get TWO critical Healing Surges at the same time both affected by Glyph of Healing Storm, the healing can potentially be insane same goes for eventual damage. Enhancement has 30% proc chance unlike other specs which only got 6%. I'd suggest picking this one
75
Rushing Totems: It's mainly a Resto talent
Ancestral Guidance: The more damage you deal, the more you heal, just my style. The healing this can grant is insane. I'd suggest using this one
Conductivity: You will never want to use Healing Rain so it's kind of worthless.
90
Unleashed Fury: It has it's moments, mainly with Rockbiter Weapon, it basically gives you Astral Shift whenever you unleash elements.
Primal Elementalist: Can be good but I personally don't like it.
Elemental Blast: This is what defines Enh Shamans, The highest crit I've ever got was 200k and the enemy made a new lvl 1 character to whisper me and call me a hacker, ahh the sweet good times. My strongest suggestion is to use this talent without even looking into other talent options.

What I'm using is Nature's Guardian, Frozen Power, Totemic Projection, Echo of the Elements, Ancestral Guidance and finally Elemental Blast. I just love all of the talents and I've been using this set long enough to recommend it to others.

Glyphs
And here comes the fourth wall of text, let's break right through it (bad puns are bad (I should really find friends)). There are some good glyphs, two of them are bound in stone and the thrid one is situational.

Major Glyphs
Glyph of Shamanistic Rage: A good glyph which removes all dispellable magical effects from you, including Hammer of Justice and Deep Freeze. Very good usually what I'm using unless i need something else
Glyph of Purging: A very good glyph if you need to dispell someone a lot, works good vs druid and priest healers.
Glyph of Purge: A good glyph that helps you dispell someone more efficiently .
Glyph of Frost Shock: Good because it let's you spam Frost Shock, it is even better if you have Frozen Power, very stitutional in my opinion.
Glyph of Lightning Shield: I'd say this is a must 10% less damage taken with pretty much 100% uptime is just too good to pass up on.
Glyph of Healing Storm: This is definetly a must, you really don't want to pass up on 100% extra healing on your instant cast Healing Surges
Glyph of Capacitor Totem: This is quite situational, it's good if you need to stun someone and you can't spare 2 seconds.
Glyph of Hex If you really need the extra CC, reduces the cooldown of hex by 10, down to 35 from 45.

Minor Glyphs
Glyph of Lakestrider: Grants you Water Walking when casting Ghost Wolf, saves you one GCD.
Glyph of Lava Lash: Doesn't Spread Fire Shock(DoT), this is good when you and do arenas with a Mage/Hunter/Rogue and you really don't want to break CC.
Glyph of Totemic Encirclement: This is good to confuse the enemy, there is a chance they will attack the wrong totem. This glyph is better the worse the enemy is.

These are the only minor glyphs that actually affect your PvP experience, all of the others aren't going to help you in any way.

I'm personally using Glyph of Shamanistic Rage, Lightning Shield, Healing Storm, Totemic Encirclement, Lakestrider and Spectral Wolf(Changes the model of your Ghost Wolf). I like how Shamanistic Rage can be used as an extra 'trinket' when playing against Paladins and Mages

Stat Priorities
Here I'm going to talk about things that people actually 'care' about (that's something new)

The Enhancement specialization for Shamans uses Agility as their primary stat, all of the other stats are more or less worthless.
Mastery is the best secondary stat you can get, critical chance isn't necessary because you get all the critical chance you need from items and Stormstrike debuff. Haste is the second best secondary stat since it gives you shorter global cooldowns, faster hits, more procs, more Maelstrom stacks, more everything. Haste is also better because it's increased by 50% during Flurry (it has somewhere close to 75% uptime).
You also want to have at least 3% hit and expertise, not much more than that though (unless rogues really get on your nerves)
The ideal Stat priority would look somewhat like this:
3% Hit=3% Expertise>Mastery>Haste>Critical Chance
I didn't put PvP Power there because it's good to have but it's completely worthless to gem for, the gain is too low to justify using it. All you get from items and the Glorious Tyranny enchant worth 1000 conquest points (600 PvP Power and 50% shorter disarm duration) is enough.

Gems
Let's hope someone won't threaten to kill me after reading this part (if they do, send money to Suicidestreet 123).

What you want to gem for is of course Agility since it's your main stat, Mastery since it's your second main stat and then it gets a bit tricky. If you don't have enough hit, go for hit rating combined with agility purples, if you don't the only real options you have left is either Agility/PvP Power and Agility/Stamina and since PvP Power is terribad in my opinion (I'd rather pick intellect over it) I'm using Agility/Stamina and I'd recommend you to do the same

What I'm using is:
Red Gem - Delicate Primordial Ruby (160 Agility)
Blue Gem - Shifting Imperial Amethyst (80 Agility/120 Stamina)
Yellow Gem - Adept Vermillion Onyx (80 Agility/160 Mastery)
Meta Gem - Agile Primal Diamond (216 Agility/3% increased Critical effect)

Enchants
Let's hope you will find this more interesting than everything else I put my blood, tears and sweat into (You won't? Ah, okay then, I'll call this project "at least I tried" from now on).
The Enchants you actually will use are going to differ depending on your profession and your economical standing point.

Shoulders: This enchant comes from scribes and gives 200 Agility and 100 Critical Chance. Tiger Claw Inscription
Cloak: This enchant gives 200 Stamina, and it's the best choice because 180 Critical Chance is a bit worthless and you can of course use the 180 Hit rating one if you really need it. Tailors want to use their own enchants and Engineers tend to use Goblin Glider. Greater Protection
Chest: 80 to all stats is the best you'll find for chests. Glorious Stats
Wrists: This enchant gives 180 Agility and is the best you'll find unless you have Leatherworking because you can get a 500 Agility Fur Lining. Greater Agility
Gloves: This gives only 170 Mastery but you won't find anything better unless you're an Engineer, in that case you want to have Synapse Springs which give you 1920 Agility for 10s on a 1min cooldown. Superior Mastery
Belt: This is the only option you have really, it might be a bit expensive but it's good to have. Living Steel Belt Buckle(160 Agility Gem)
Legs: This gives 285 Agility and 165 Critical Chance, this is the only thing you can get. Shadowleather Leg Armor (If you have problems with money you can always use the cheaper version "Sha-Touched Leg Armor"
Boots: These increase your Agility by 180 and give you extra 8% movement speed. Blurred Speed
Rings: If you're an Enchanter you want to use these ring enchants which give you 160 Agility for each ring. Greater Agility
Main Hand: Dancing Steel is hands down the best enchant because they give you a buff which in turn gives you 1650 Agility. Dancing Steel (If you're short on money you can buy Windsong)
Off Hand: You just need to have this or Living Steel Weapon Chain which is slightly worse, you just need to have 50% disarm reduction. Glorious Tyranny (If you don't have the money you can always run with Elemental Force)

Professions
Okay I have a slight feeling it's going to backfire a lot if I keep on with my silly talk (talking with myself, what am I? Insane or something).

Professions are pretty much whatever you want to have they all got their ups and downs.
Engineering is good for BGs because of the tinkers.
Tailoring gives you a nice back enchant.
Blacksmiths get extra gem sockets.
The list goes on, pick whatever you want it's not a big deal, personally I'm using Leatherworking and Enchanting and I'm perfectly fine with it, it's not like I'm min/maxing for 10 extra agility.
Don't take me wrong, it's always good to have First Aid, healing is always appreciated

Macros
Calm down, one beautiful day the voices are going to stop, it's going to be alright, don't you worry about that *maniacal laugh*

The only macros I really use are [target=focus] macros, except of that I'm using the macro for Unleash Elements to avoid using it without a target and that isn't any longer than 2 lines

#showtooltip Unleash Elements
/cast [harm,nodead] Unleash Elements

If you wish to create a Swafty oneshot macro feel free to do it, I personally prefer to use all of my spells one by one.

Rotation
There isn't a real rotation set in stone, there are priorities, first of all you want to always have your Fire Shock on your enemy, that's always good to have because it's mindless damage. If your enemy already has Fire Shock(DoT)you should use Earth Shock for the 10% damage reduction and Frost Shock for the slow/root. Second of all you need to have Searing Totem up (unless you have Fire Elemental Totem up) because it gives you stacks of Searing Flame (increases damage dealt by your next Lava Lash by 20% from each stack up to a total of 100%). Once you've learned how to use your shocks and flame totems it's time to use damaging attacks. You always want to have Stormstrike debuff on your enemy (25% extra critical chance to a lot of damaging spells) always use it on cooldown when you can. You also want to use Lava Lash on cooldown even if you don't have 5 stacks of Searing Flames, it's not worth waiting for them and if you use your fire totems properly you should've enough stacks to deal a lot of damage. You never want to use Lightning bolt, you want to use Lightning Bolts big brother, Elemental Blast. In most cases you don't want to use Elemental Blast on cooldown even if it deals a lot of damage (unless your enemy is very close to death of course), what you want to do is wait for Unleash Elements (increases damage of your next fire spell by 30%) and use it before using Elemental Blast, this maximizes your damage output. When you need to fill in a GCD and all of your damaging spells are on cooldown you can feel free to use Fire Nova, it's a ranged attack which deals damage to your target and everyone around it. It might feel like it's completely useless but it's still 10k damage you normally wouldn't deal. If you had a 'rotation' it would look like this:

(Searing Totem) -> Shock -> Stormstrike -> Lava Lash -> (Searing Totem/Fire Nova) -> Unleash Elements -> Elemental Blast -> Shock -> Stormstrike -> Fire Nova -> Lava Lash -> whatever pops up first

You can use Searing totem on two different occasions and it all depends on if you need to use Frost Shock or not.
Your opener is more or less going to look like your 'rotation' and don't forget that Frost Shock is in most cases better to start with than other shocks because of the slow.

I'd like to point out the priorities:
Elemental Blast(UE)>Lava Lash(5)>Stormstrike>Elemental Blast>Lava Lash>Unleash Elements>Shock>Fire Nova
These priorities are of course for damaging spells, you always want to have totems up and spend the majority of your instant casts on heals.

Burst
This is the part that makes Enhancement the funniest spec in the game.
Your burst is unbelievable because of Ascendance, it is just unbelievably broken. It makes all of your weapon attacks and stormstrike become ranged, bypass 100% armor and be affected by your mastery.
You want to always use your Stormstrike right before Ascendance unless your enemy is too far away and is very close to dying.

(Shock) -> Feral Spirit -> Fire Elemental Totem -> (Heroism/Bloodlust) -> Stormlash Totem -> Unleash Elements -> Stormstrike -> Ascendance -> Stormblast -> Elemental Blast -> Lava Lash

This burst sequence is very lethal and can definitely /delete someone with 50% hp, that's why Enhancement Shamans can force cooldowns just by passing by.

One thing to keep in mind is that Feral Spirit deals only 500 damage and you don't need to use them because of it but it's still a kind of "fire and forget" spell, you use it once and it does it's work all by itself for 30s plus it gives you mindless heals.

Crowd Control
Shamans do lack a lot of CC mostly because we got only three of them and two of them have a long cooldown timer.

Hex: This is a 8s long Polymorph effect with a 45s long cooldown(35s if glyphed) and unlike Polymorph, it is a curse effect that can be dispelled. You might be thinking that this is a 3x worse version of Polymorph, well if you do then you're wrong. Hex let's your enemy move freely, that's a clear downside but you need to remember that it doesn't break instantly. That opens the possibility to use it offensively, it takes 2-3 seconds of constant damage on your target for it to break and since you can't cast during the duration of the curse you can treat it as a situational silence.
Capacitor Totem: This is a 5s long stun after a 5s delay(3s if glyphed) in an 8yd wide radius on a 45s cooldown , this combined with Totemic Projection can grant you a 48yd long range stun that you can 'snipe' people with. This totem has a great use when chained right after Hex to prolong the CC chain, to do that you want to use Cap Totem 2-3s after casting Hex and then once the delay slowly ends you can throw the totem at your enemy and stun him for another 5s of CC.
Wind Shear: This is the longest melee Interrupt, it has a 30yd range and interrupts your enemies spell cast and locks out the magic school for 3s, this has only a 12s cooldown. If you want to CC a healer you can use Wind Shear, count to 2-3, Hex him, wait 2-3s put down Cap Totem, wait 3-4s and throw the totem at your enemy and once the stun ends your Wind Shear cooldown reset and you can interrupt his cast one more time, unless he removes the CC early with a PvP Trinket.

Like I mentioned earlier, this combo can potentially ruin your enemy healers day if he doesn't have a way to get rid of your CC.
Wind Shear -> Hex -> Capacitor Totem -> Wind Shear

Talented Roots
Earthgrab Totem: This roots everyone around your totem for 5s only once (it is currently bugged and overused because it roots the same target multiple times) and the totem has a fairly long cooldown and like other totems, dies fast.
Frost Shock: This is a 5s root on your Frost Shock target which has a very low cooldown compared to Earthgrab totem and it can have an even shorter cooldown if you use the glyph of frost shock.

Strengths
Now that you guys know what to do it's a good time to start talking about what you can do. I'd love to call this part of the guide "the bragging section".

Enhancements Shamans have a lot of healing, you need to use that to your advantage, don't use your Maelstrom stacks on Lightning Bolts and on Elemental Blasts without Unleash Elements unless your enemy is low HP, you're much better off by using them to heal with Healing Surge.
This means that you want to play defensively, you might be wondering how can you play defensively and get Maelstrom stacks, well it's simple, Enh Shamans follow this rule: Offense is the best Defense. This means that the more damage you deal the more you're going to heal, Ancestral Guidance is literally making your damage done become healing done, with it, you can really turn a fight around. Using Healing Surge with 5 Maelstrom stacks (with Healing Storm glyph of course) together with the talent Echo of the Elements during Ancestral Guidance can get you from 0 to 100 if stars align with one single instant cast, this has happened to me countless times. You also need to take advantage of your burst, a 180k Stormblast followed by a 160k Elemental Blast does hurt A LOT, and that is in one second. Enhancement Shamans are good in 3v3 not because of Ascendance, they're good because of the fear of Ascendance, when was the last time you saw a Druid use Might of Ursoc with Survival Instincts with 50% HP?, that does happen a lot at higher ratings. I've played countless 2v2 with double Enh and we literally /delete one of our enemies and then fight a 'fair' 2v1.
You have to use your totems to their full potential, if you're trying to run away from someone, try using earthbind, a lot of people forget about this poor totem. I've seen people who don't use their cap totem because it's unreliable, just pick up Totemic Projection and there you go, you can even place it between two enemies and get even more value out of your little unreliable cap totem. If you use them better you're going to have an easier time killing people. Think of ascendance burst, op right? now think about it during a stun. Cap totem is also a stun on 48yd range if used with Totemic Projection, you have a much easier time controlling your enemies than others. You can use that together with a healing totem to save your allies. Using Grounding totem with Totemic Projection saved people from a nasty Chaos Bolt multiple times in my life without me even being near the warlock.

Weaknesses
You might be thinking this *they're op*, well they are but they're vulnerable to stuns, even if they have Tremor Totem, Glyphed Shamanistic Rage and the regular PvP Trinket they're still going to die in one kidney shot if they can't remove it. Shamans are very weak against slows, they have one Windwalk Totem every minute but that's talented and you can't be sure if the shaman you're kiting has it or not, Spirit Walk is only available each minute, if you root him right after he gets rid of it, that shaman is going to sit the entire duration. If he's going to sit the duration he's going to lose hp without being able to retaliate and the kiter is going to gain distance on him. The worst thing you can do vs an Enh Shaman is to slow him, just slow him all day and he's going to ragequit that's just how it is, a slowed shaman is an unhappy shaman.

Strategies
There are things you need to think about when playing Enh shaman, first of all you need to always have Lightning Shield up, second of all you need to always have Windfury on your mainhand and Flametongue on your off hand. Always try to keep a searing totem on the ground, it's always mindless dps you don't need to care about PLUS you're going to get a very big Lava Lash if you get enough stacks. Use Healing Stream Totem whenever it's off cooldown and someone is taking damage next to you. Comboing Spirit Walk with Spiritwalker's grace is pretty much free healing surges and easier elemental blasts, it's especially effective if kiting a pillar, escaping and healing at the same time is always good. In BGs you want to use your Spirit Beast and Fire Elemental Totem BEFORE using Heroism, they're going to get affected by it. Wind Shear has a 30yd range, you can interrupt a healer on the other side of the map while continuing to kill a DPS in arenas. Don't forget your racials, Stoneform is perfect against ferals, Gift of the Naaru is always good to have on you when taking damage, Berserking and Blood Fury is always good to have during your burst. It's better to use Chain Heal if you and your allies have lost a bit of their hp not too much, its better having three of you at 95% instead of one at 100% and the other two at 85%. While defending points, always keep Magma Totem up. When a rogue opens on you, it's wise to use Shamanistic Rage, it's pretty much a better Barkskin without the glyphed Crit Resistance. Don't underrate Bind Elemental, a FMage without his pet active can't really freeze you from behind a pillar. Try to always use Elemental Blast with Unleash Elements. Purge, Purge a lot, Purge like you've never Purged before. If you already have Fire Shock(DoT) on your enemy it's better to use Earth Shock (10% Physical damage reduction) and Frost Shock (slow/root) + they're dealing more damage on impact than Fire Shock. Enhancement is really doing good with other DPS because they can sustain them just like a healer does, I've outhealed healers multiple times in BGs because I focused more on healing than mindlessly spamming Lightning Bolt like some people tend to do, It's better to have allies alive than an enemy lying dead right next to your teammates. Another thing to think about is using Cleanse Spirit, you don't want 10 stack Agony ticking on you nor any of your allies, a lot of people look down on their cleanse abilities. Don't forget that Fire Nova does deal damage, for me it's 10k, it's not much but it can fill up an empty GCD and put people in combat if they're trying to escape, plus damage is always damage, this is another spell people look down on.


I'd like to point out that this was the first guide I ever wrote in my entire life and I'm more than sure I've messed something up somewhere, helpful tips are always appreciated, they'll help to create better guides in the future and in process make this particular guide better.

[kidarkness]

it's a good and honest guide imo, but it lacks some stuff, first; you need to introduce yourself, talk a bit about your background (exp etc.) it makes your guide more credible. second thing is, please use some sorts of illustrations; for glyphs and talents. and at last, use tool-tip links for the abilities it make it easier to recognize the spells. #Feedback

[jblunt]

Glyph of Purging is bugged on warmane

[Yirkarja]

Glyph of Purging is bugged on warmane

Well that does complicate things a bit, you can't run the full purge build (purge everyone around you and heal allies with instant casts, this works best in BGs and can be effective if you don't have a healer on your team and your enemies have a lot of things to purge) but you can always pick other talents over it. Without Glyph of Purging you can't escape while purging and get heals that way which also cuts down your defensive. I'll check if it has been posted on the bugtracker because it's a very good talent that opens interesting playstyle options as well as give you extra reward in form of instant cast during normal play.

[jblunt]

I don't think it's not reported yet because you know, who plays enhance shammy here lol. I was really disappointed to discover that it's bugged.

[Yirkarja]

I don't think it's not reported yet because you know, who plays enhance shammy here lol. I was really disappointed to discover that it's bugged.

It has been reported on the bugtracker but that was one month ago and no real actions have been taken. All we can do is hope that they fix it fast since it is a great talent.

Yesterday someone asked me how to actually deal damage, what the rotation is, how to open, how to CC and how to burst so I decided to update the post, it should be updated as soon as it is finished.

[Longynus7]

Echo of the Elements Talent is bugged right now in frostwolf, it does n't proc with shocks neither healing surge, no elemental blast, only sometimes (erratical) stormstrike and fire nova, it has good proc only with Lightning Bolt

[Jakkre]

Echo of the Elements Talent is bugged right now in frostwolf, it does n't proc with shocks neither healing surge, no elemental blast, only sometimes (erratical) stormstrike and fire nova, it has good proc only with Lightning Bolt

Just tested it on the dummy.
EoE procs with shocks, healing surge and also has a low chance of 6% to proc from elemental blast.
It also happened not a single time that it proced from stormstrike.
So everything fine so far.
It only doesnt proc from Chain heal.
Bug report is here: https://www.warmane.com/bugtracker/report/8519

[Longynus7]

Hey, the majority of enhancement shamans do not know that we have parry faculty actually bug, we have 0% of it, you can see this in the defense sub window of your pj statistics, when per default we must have 5% of parry rate.

[BrodanGhizzle]

I don't want to be rude but this guide is terrible. I played whole season 14 and 15 on retail and from my experience and from watching streams nobody would take half of these talents. I don't know what's the cause of your choices etc. but maybe it's becouse something works wrong. It's just private server. To begin with.

Talents:

15 lvl talents - you are absolutly correct there is no other choice than Nature's Guardian. In every spec (I played all 3 - just had 4 shamans) it's the best of 3 in pvp.

30 lvl talents - windwalk all the way. Frozen power has dr so it won't be as effective as you might think + it's on cd with other useful shocks. Unleashed Elements + Flame Shock gives pretty nice damage too. People tend not to use it at all. Frozen Power maybe in 2s otherwise I don't recomment it on any shaman spec pvp. Windwalk is just too good for your team not only for you.

45 lvl talents - Call of the Elements number one. Most of top shammys - Swapxy, Diablous, Shamguardz (Vanguardz shaman) played with it. It's the best talent for pvp for every shaman. 2 tremors, 2 groundings, 2 healing streams, 2 windwalk totmems. It's just amazing how much it gives. Of course it's 3 min. cd but it's still very strong. Totemic projection is cool and fun to use but on higher lvl arenas I found enemies cc me while I place my Capacitor totem + you are the main target in most comps so it's hard to land it. The only spec that's perfectly viable is resto when you pilar hug.

60 lvl talents - to be honest you've chosen the worst of the three availible. Elemental Mastery is very strong and I won't agree that's pve talent as we enhancements go for Agi > Mastery > Haste it gives actually a lot. Check how much your white swings does on Ascendance as your damage is nature so you just ignore armor. It gives more Maelstorm procs etc. However I'd take it only for 2s in some cases when arenas are going to be bursty. The best talent here is Ancestral Swiftness. This on use instant is just priceless + 10% haste. The biggest problem of MoP enh is lack of sustain damage. We have great burst on cds but sustain just sucks. This talent change it a bit. About Echo of Elements it sucks on enh. Even pve scrubs doesn't take it and it's RNG. As you know RNG is the biggest enemy of real pvpers. On ele and resto this talent has 30% or 35% chance I don't remember exactly but on enh it's 8% not 6% as somebody mentioned. It's just too little to be viable, sorry and it's not bug. It was said in one oficial hotfix by Blizzard just after 4.0.1. Blizzard decided that 30% for enh is too strong so everybody changed that talent for other option.

75 lvl - rushing streams for sure. I don't know why you called it mainly resto talent. Healing stream heals really nice compared to wotlk and cata. In s15 there were a lot of dot based teams so this talent was priceless and it works nicely unless it's bugged. What's more you don't have to rely on your cds to heal. Ancestral Guidance is good for bursty 2v2s but that's all. If you play 3s rushing streams is 90% way to go. Ancestral only for very bursty arenas.

90 lvl - Every of these 3 are great but I gave advantage to Elemental Blast. That's how you burst down your enemies. Other talents are good for 2s but in 3s they suck.

Glyphs:

Major:

Lightning Shield - more survivability
Healing Storm - must have
Shamanistic Rage/Hex/Sprit Wolves - Shamanistic for every mage/paladin team without warlock affliction or spriest. Hex on every other 3s comp. Spirit Wolves for more survi vs bursty comps but I almost didn't use it.

Minor:

Lava Lash - a must not to brake cc's.
Totemic encirclement - I quit using it on 5.2 when it was bugging the talent that lowered cd of totems by half. There was macro that you was destroying your totems on your own so their cd was halfed. With this glyph it didn't work. Then I just used to not using this glyph.
Other glyphs aren't really important.

Other things are correct but I'd add something about meta gems. If you play orc there was great meta with stamina + reduced stun duration. It stacks with orc passive which is incredibly strong. I used it personaly and it was just op. When I played my other dwarf enh I used pvp power + resilience meta gem becouse it was pretty strong when I compared stats. It's just personal use.

Trinkets REALLY IMPORTANT! People who are used to play cata would probably take on use trinkets but in MoP after cd change procing ones are better. They give more and have great uptime + your wf gives you more chance to proc it. As on use trinket use engineering gloves enchant or just risk and play with 2 damage trinkets. Many people do it and it works in 3s.

What I'd add to this guide are pvp comps. I'm curious why people here just type about duels but nothing about comps.

2s - I didn't really play them seriously. There are even no rewards from this unbalanced bracket. I just helped cap my friends chars but I found Enh / Boomkin very strong. Any enh healer teams sucks becouse of how warriors or rogues can peel you + you can't kill druid resto on your own it's imposible vs good resto druids.

3s:

That's what we like the most. So the comps are:

Beastcleave MoP edition:

Enh / MM hunt / H priest - for everyone who played WOTLK it may sound strange that team with MM hunter is called beastcleave but it was in MoP. Personaly I played it the most it works great with H priests becouse of their great instant heals, good utility and cc that's not on dr with yours or hunters. If you don't know any good H priest becouse people were used to play disc and some people couldn't adapt just try with R druid, H pala or MW monk but for sure H priest is the best. It works mainly like this. You have to be the "warrior" here. You go first and take the damage not to let enemies open on hunter. You have to stop enemy war or dk before he reach hunter. Then you just do damage and melt enemies defences. When you see kill opportunity and trinket used on enemy healer cc him and pop cds.

Turbocleave:

War Arms / Enh / H pala - in MoP it was more common to use pala in this comp. It's also one of the strongest Enh comps. The problem is that you are always main kill target where in Beastcleave it's hunter. You have to play more defensive and practice survivability a lot.

Feral / Enh / H priest - it's 2nd tier comp for Enh but it's very fun to play.

Boomkin / Enh / H priest - as before but here you have more off heals.

Affli / Enh / R druid - really strong comp but underrated.

and last but my favourite:

WW monk / Enh / H priest - I didn't expect that this comp is strong. I was looking for MM hunter and H priest on OQ addon to brake 2k in S15 but I couldn't find good hunter. All the time Arabians were answering. I have nothing against them but you can't be succesful playing on EU with almost 200 ms. Then priest said that he knows good Monk and we may try. We did it in one evening. There was some language barrier between me and Monk but we were understanding each others very well without many words. We were just telling short commands and it was working. The key to this comp is good H priest and players who know how to survive as Monk and Enh. They can't panic. You kill here by using CD's fist of fury + ascendance (remember you can't trinket fists) during enemy healer being cc'ed or crosscc.

It's all I wanted to say. Thanks for so much effort in making your guide but I find some things wrong. I don't want to say you are bad or whatever but it's based not only on my playstyle but my observations of top streamers and my tests. I hope I also helped.

Edit:

What I also add is that it's good to have 2 sets of weapons. 1 with chains on mainhand and one with Danicing Steel / Bloody Dancing Steel. It doesn't cost so much but it helps a lot.

[Yirkarja]

As I don't play on this server anymore because the hype for Legion is too real this answer took a long time. A friend of mine asked me to check out the guide I wrote on this server, so I did.
I understand that you don't think this guide is good, it never was supposed to be a guide on how to get rank 1 titles in WoW. This guide was supposed to bring new players who asked me everyday after every battleground and arena match how is it possible to do this amount of healing/damage and support to the team. Unlike most of the other guides I made on other forums that took weeks and sometimes months to make this particular one took only a stunning 3-4 hours. Most of the Enh Shamans on this server at the time the guide was made used fast weapons, double windfury imbues, specced full into worthless stats, used wrong enchants etc. This is a beginners guide for people who wish to start playing an Enh Shaman covering the basics, imo everyone who reached at least 2k in any bracket shouldn't need to read a guide (especially this one) because they know what they're doing they just need to learn timings and movement patterns of both teams and how to move accordingly.
I chose the talents I did because I was running a very, very aggressive Turbocleave with Enh/Arms/RDruid. I was the one getting symbiosis which led me to use Frozen Power to capitalize on the power of Solar Beam. The strategy was to force defensive cooldowns and trinkets early on with a fast and early wave of cyclones, hexes and storm bolts. The Druid opens with Pounce and stacks 5 combo points for the kill. Warrior saves the most major cooldowns and the Shaman (you) uses spells that look scary for example Fire Ele and Spirit Doggies. Because our healer is on the offensive getting combo points and cycloning you NEED Echo of the Elements to greatly boost your healing capabilities with Healing Surge (that now has 30% chance to heal a second time which also has a crit chance). The Warrior has to be capable of peeling for you and when your cc comes back up (enemies hopefully used trinkets in the early aggression) after close to a minute you finish the game by literally destroying one enemy. Druid DBeasts into the kill target and Bashes him, Shaman and the Warrior use Hex and Storm Bolt to cross cc the enemy team. Warrior Charges/Leaps to the kill target and unleashes his strongest cooldowns followed by a barrage of attacks. In this moment you try to stand back close to the enemies preparing a Cap Totem with Totemic Projection (Once that's done you use Stormlash Totem to increase everyones damage.) and Frost Shock Solar Beam if it's needed. on the range you're still capable of using Ascendance to dish out lots of damage on the range. The Druid who earlier DBeasted and Bashed the kill target stays in Cat Form uses Heart of the Wild offensively and Ferocious Bites the enemy for a very, very large chunk of his HP (due to the fact that you have a lot of spare Energy and 5 Combo Points combined with the HotW boost). At this point the druid gets out of cat and helps with Cyclones to secure the kill or Wraths to kill him outright.
You stating that Elemental Mastery is the good honestly shows your lack of knowledge because it gets dispelled 99% of the time within seconds of its use. Ancestral Swiftness has a fairly long cooldown compared to Echo which has an internal cooldown of seconds, but Swiftness does have that base haste increase which is good but not in the comp that I use where I need the often occurring double healing increase (since you'll be going to use your instant casts on pretty much only healing early on).
Rushing Streams is bad because all totems of any kind that give any advantage to your team get sniped by any competitive player especially those with range that can freely change targets and deal low amounts of instant damage. Healers use this talent because they can stand back with their totems out of range plus the effect is stacking with their healing increase from being a healer.
You use Ancestral Guidance because your healer is on the offense setting up later kills and not focusing on healing you 24/7 that's why you need a strong healing boost to get yourself out of trouble when needed this again is a choice depending on my choice of comp.
As for glyphs you basically use it not only for the Shamanistic Rage for removal of stuns, it removes snares, slows, pretty much all dots except bleeds and is overall good especially as you yourself stated that in later s15 (where I played Enh Shamans the most) a lot of comps were reliant on dots. Plus there are (or at least were) lots of complaint forum posts because Shamanistic Rage didn't proc dispel protections or wear off effects (Unstable Affliction, Living Bomb etc.) because it outright REMOVES them not DISPELS them, how can something that doesn't exist do something?
Lava Lash glyph isn't necessary for this comp because you don't run easily breakable cc like polymorph. Hex targets can take quite a beating before hex wears off that's why it can be used as a budget silence when trying to kill a healer. And the more fire shock targets you have the more power you'll get out of your empty global cooldowns spent on fire nova.
And then again, if this was a guide how to get far in arenas (which it isn't) I would obviously state that it's a great idea to have 3 weapons instead of 2 for comps without disarms (most spellcleaves) and how you might need to change talents/glyphs depending on your comp and enemy comp. This is an overall well rounded build that is capable of a lot of burst, survivability and peeling for allies especially if they know what they're doing because that's what an Enh Shaman is, a bursty supportive hybrid class who relies on helping their allies for them to do good and you capitalizing on them doing good with a major burst finisher.

Oh and I wish everyone to have a nice day.

[Jakkre]

About Echo of Elements it sucks on enh. Even pve scrubs doesn't take it and it's RNG. As you know RNG is the biggest enemy of real pvpers. On ele and resto this talent has 30% or 35% chance I don't remember exactly but on enh it's 8% not 6% as somebody mentioned. It's just too little to be viable, sorry and it's not bug. It was said in one oficial hotfix by Blizzard just after 4.0.1. Blizzard decided that 30% for enh is too strong so everybody changed that talent for other option.

Echo of the Element’s proc chance is 6% for Elemental and Restoration, and 30% for Enhancement.
Elemental Blast is an exception. It only has a 6% proc chance for Enhancement.

Echo of Elements is mainly a supporter talent because it is has a 30% chance to proc from healing surge so a pretty high chance to heal twice as much.

[BrodanGhizzle]

Echo of the Element’s proc chance is 6% for Elemental and Restoration, and 30% for Enhancement.
Elemental Blast is an exception. It only has a 6% proc chance for Enhancement.

Echo of Elements is mainly a supporter talent because it is has a 30% chance to proc from healing surge so a pretty high chance to heal twice as much.

I'm sure it was opposite but anyway nobody even considered picking Echo of Elements over Ancestral Swiftness. This 10% haste + instant were just too damn good. As I mentioned before. You can set up burst easier with hard switches what's MoP pvp all about. Remember RNG is the biggest enemy of pvp player.

About picking Frozen Power above Windwalk Totem while playing with Drood. It still has dr with other roots from Druid so it was risky becouse he might need this root to kite enemy warrior or dk. Windwalk is just too good vs mage comps becouse dispel has 8 sec cd and with druid you have no freedom for you and war but if it worked it's good for you.

If you want to develop watch some Diablous, Totemtoe, Vanguardz (on Shamguardz) and mainly Swapxy old videos or streams.

This 3rd weapon etc. is easy to get in MoP so everybody who treat pvp seriously should have it. I even had 2 sets of gear one offensive and 1 resi gemmed which worked vs Monk TSG.

Anyway I don't know if this MoP realm is bugged or not but so it may be different.

I gave you some advices so it may be useful. It's your choice to use them or not.

P.S.:

I used cd's in two parts mostly first set of cds Wolves + Elemental + Stampede + Stormlash was in purpose to burn some def cds and next set of cds to score a kill. Always use Blood Fury + Synapse (if you are orc and have engi) for first Stormstrike and then Ele Blast and instant Ascendance + Storblast for big damage burst. You should hit Storm Blast right after Elemental Blast hit the target but after first Stormstrike for damage buff. Shamguardz did it very well.

About elemental mastery and rushing stream are based on what? Your pvp experience? You can trust you 1500 guides or watch some Diablous, Vanguardz, Swapxy or Totemtoe vids, old streams and make some conclusions. Most of time you will score kill in cross cc so there is nobody to dispel. Purge dispeling 1 buff, priest also or spell steal cost shouldn't be reason not to take Elemental Mastery. Ancestral Swiftness is also 10% haste buff which is amazing for enhancements who lack sustain damage. Anyway read this it says enough:

http://www.skill-capped.com/forums/s...er-s-PvP-Guide

It's one of rank 1 enhancements so guys read this it's 100x better. The only thing that this guy agree with you is ancestral guidance but as I sad LSD and LSD2 was played a lot so rushing streams was highly viable. Would you just say that rank 1 player isn't right and he has lack of class knowledge.

[Jakkre]

I'm sure it was opposite but anyway nobody even considered picking Echo of Elements over Ancestral Swiftness.

Lol, its not the opposite.
U really wanna claim that EoE has a 30% proc chance for ele and resto?
30% chance to do twice as much dmg with any spell as ele shami? 30% chance to do twice as much healing as resto?
Do u know how freaking overpowered that would be.

Before u give any talent advice u should inform urself about what the talent actually does.
EoE is absolutely viable for enh. Especially for double dps setups when u have to offheal a lot.

[BrodanGhizzle]

Lol, its not the opposite.
U really wanna claim that EoE has a 30% proc chance for ele and resto?
30% chance to do twice as much dmg with any spell as ele shami? 30% chance to do twice as much healing as resto?
Do u know how freaking overpowered that would be.

Before u give any talent advice u should inform urself about what the talent actually does.
EoE is absolutely viable for enh. Especially for double dps setups when u have to offheal a lot.

I don't care how much it was becouse it was RNG and not viable I didn't even take this talent serious from the begining of expansion so I don't care. Check skillcapped guide if you don't believe me. To be honest I never say anybody above 2k with this talent becouse it's RNG I repeat one more time. Instead of this you could pick Ancestral Swiftness but not only for instant cast but mainly for that 10% haste buff which gave you much more maelsotrm stacks and sustain damage. So simply what would you like 30% chance for double heal which can save your teammate but also sometimes will not proc and then you would say "Sorry bro, bad luck" or 10% more haste which gives more procs and also 1 istant which can be used for 1 more offheal for example. Think about it you either want to play serious pvp and reach for higher goals or play as noob with you friends at 1500 rating and pray for these EoE procs. Real pvpers avoid RNG as much as posible becouse you can pretend when it will proc. The point of MoP pvp is to manage burst during short period of time while enemies are cross cced or only healer is cced. Anyway my guide is 3s focused which is real pvp. If your crap build is 2s focused I don't mind. I never took this bracket seriously and after WOTLK Blizzard also didn't. I don't know you exp but you both seem to be below 2k player. I watched a lot of streams then and tried to learn from top enhancement players. I finaly did 2,4 k in Monk WW/Enh/H priest and never saw anybody above 2k without ancestral swiftness. Few times I saw people with elemental mastery but only in Turbocleave when they tried to nuke me asap becouse they knew that otherwise they are dead.

Also 1 of you pretend that I don't know mechanics but then he says that he played with Frost Shock in team with druid... DR! It's just basic. You could pick Frozen in 2s for Frost Shock + Solar Beam but in 3s with druid?! Just pathetic... When you consider amount of dispels from druid for both meele damage specs.

Anyway I won't say anything in this thread anymore it's not worth to argue with players who don't know what are they talking about. I gave you good Skill Capped guide. Just don't read this crap one. It's your choice read guide from random below 2k player or rank 1 enh.