Hey there everybody, today I'm making an Enhancement PvP guide. When i played retail, I didn't know what the hell an enhancement was, because at first in MoP i never saw them, then me and my buddy were doing 2s and an Enhance just blew us up and my first though was "Ohhhh yeah, that's my spirit class." So, I'm here to help you out on playing Enhance in PvP.
Table of Contents
1. Talents
2. Glyphs
3. Stat Priority/Reforging/Gems
4. Enchants/Professions
5. Rotation
6. Bursting
7. Crowd Control
8. Defensives/Survivability
9. Keybinds
10. Macros
11. Addons
12. Viable comps
1. TALENTS:
Tier 1:
Nature's Guardian
Whenever a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, your maximum health is increased by 25% for 10 sec, and your threat level towards the attacker is reduced. This effect cannot occur more often than once every 30 sec.
Stone Bulwark Totem
Summons an Earth Totem with 10% of the caster's health at the feet of the caster for 30 sec that grants the caster a shield absorbing (Spell power * 0.875 * 4) damage for 10 sec, and up to an additional (Spell power * 0.875) every 5 sec thereafter. 1 min cooldown.
Astral Shift
Seek haven by shifting partially into the elemental planes, reducing damage taken by 40% for 6 sec. 1.5 min cooldown.
This is our survivability tier.
Nature's Guardian
Nature's Guardian has been good since MoP came out, and was always the one you chose. Now that Stone Bulwark is more viable, they are almost on par with each other in terms of survivability. This talent was great last patch and still is today. It will proc no matter what situation you are in so you don't have to manage it well to make good use of it the way you do with SBT. It procs every 30 seconds for 10 seconds, which is incredibly often. Think of this as a passive self Rallying Cry, only it doesn't have a 3 min cd, and is even 5% more effective!
Stone Bulwark Totem
Stone Bulwark Totem gives a great defensive absorptive shield. The downside to it is that it can be dispelled. However during a burst phase from the enemy team (that's when you should be using this totem), it is very unlikely that you'll lose this absorbtion shield to a dispel. Stone Bulwark works best with your own cooldowns/cds (dancing steel or trinket proc), because the more agility you have, the more spellpower you have, and spellpower increases the amount absorbed by the shield. Tip - you can place the totem before engaging in combat to avoid the first absorbption shield being affected by Battle Fatigue.
Coupled with Call of the Elements, a double Stone Bulwark shield can absorb more than enough damage to keep you alive. You have to bear in mind that you cannot use this totem while silenced or stunned, or while under any other form of cc for that matter. This means you'll have to time your totem well enough so that it actually has a chance to keep you alive.
Astral Shift
Astral Shift... Ugh. I don't even know why anyone would use this talent and I've never really seen it used in PvP (maybe in RBGs as a 'don't touch me' button, but nowhere else). While the damage reduction is great, the cooldown is still too long and it doesn't stack with Shamanistic Rage (caps at around 60%~) and it only lasts 6 measly seconds. It's easy for the enemy team to just wait out those few seconds until your biggest defensive is expires and then go for the kill (Because face it, most bursts last longer than that). I'ts just not worth it.
Tier 2:
Frozen Power
Your Frost Shock now also roots the target in ice for 5 sec.
Earthgrab Totem
Summons an Earth Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 20 sec. The totem pulses every 2 sec, causing roots to ensnare the legs of all enemies within 10 yards for 5 sec, preventing movement. Enemies that have already been rooted once by the totem will instead have their movement speed reduced by 50%.
Replaces Earthbind Totem. 30 sec cooldown.
Windwalk Totem
Summons an Air Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 6 sec, granting raid members within 40 yards immunity to movement-impairing effects. 1 min cooldown.
Frozen Power
Frozen Power is usually used so that you can catch up to your target. You can also use this to peel for your teammates by rooting the enemy that is attacking your partner. This talent can also be used in smart ways such as catching an enemy healer in a bad position, rooting him in place so that he LoS's (Line of Sight) your kill target. Or if you are playing with a druid and have Symbiosis, you can root the enemy in place, and the Solar Beam them, leaving them potentially silenced for 5 seconds unless they have a means of escape. So as you can see, this can work as a strong cc aswell.
Earthgrab Totem
Earthgrab Totem is an okay choice in this tier. It's more suitable for Elemental and Restoration shamans. It can be useful when trying to kite someone, but most of the time you'll be trying to catch up to someone instead of running away, so it's not exactly the best idea to take a talent which does the opposite of what you want. A helpful tip if you decide to use this talent is that if someone gets rooted, you can replace the totem with Totemic Projection and root the same enemy again. (All in all, this is more of a Ele/Resto talent)
Windwalk Totem
What Windwalk Totem provides is just beautiful in my opinion. You already have a 1 min root breaker (Spirit Walk). With this talent, you have the potential to have 3!! Say goodbye to sitting in roots waiting for the next expansion to come out. Windwalk Totem is off the global cooldown, so you can use it without wasting a GCD. The totem benefits your party members too, which means you can also use it to peel for your teammates. Slow your enemy with Frost Shock/Earthbind totem, pop Windwalk Totem down, and voilla! - Make sure to communicate with your teammates so that they know when you are using this ability so that they can make the most of it.
This totem's cooldown lines up perfectly with other classes' offensive abilities, so you should think twice about using it just to break a root because it might save your life, for example:
You can get out of a Mage's Frozen Orb (1 min cd) preventing the Mage from getting a stack of Fingers of Frost.
You can use the totem to escape from a Death Knights' Remorseless Winter (1 min cd) so that it doesn't stack enough on you to stun you.
You can also drop the totem down when a Warrior activates Bladestorm (usually with Bloodbath because both are 1 min cd), and Spirit Walk away from the Warrior to avoid all of that damage.
Tier 3:
Call of the Elements
When activated, immediately finishes the cooldown on all totems with a base cooldown shorter than 3 minutes. 3 min cooldown.
Totemic Persistence
Summoning a second totem of the same element no longer causes the first totem to be destroyed. (I think this is bugged)
Only one totem may benefit from this effect at a time. Does not affect Fire totems.
Totemic Projection
Relocates your active totems to the specified location. 10 sec cooldown. (Also thinking this is bugged)
Call of the Elements
Here's the list of totems that get reset using Call of the Elements:
Grounding Totem
Capacitor Totem
Earthbind/Earthgrab Totem
Tremor Totem
Stone Bulwark Totem
Windwalk Totem
Healing Stream Totem
The thing you have to have with Call of the Elements is totem awareness and good totem management. It would be a waste to use CotE just to reset Stone Bulwark while all of your other totems from the above list are off cooldown. If it will save you, then do use it by all means. Just do remember to make the most out of all those totems before you use this talent to reset them. This talent brings a lot of utility and defensives, but it is up to you to put it to good use, depending on how you choose to use it. I like this talent because you can use it on demand. If you see your partner get Scatter Shotted, but your Grounding Totem is on cd along with many of your other totems, you can always CotE and still get a chance to save your partner from the Freezing Trap.
Totemic Restoration
With Totemic Restoration gone (okay maybe it was a little OP), we have a new talent now called Totemic Persistance. In my opinion it's a joke of a talent and I don't know why anyone would use it in PvP. It lets you ground while windwalking, or tremor while earthbinding, or healing stream while healing tiding, but how often do you find yourself needing to do both at the same time? Most totems act on instance, they fill their purpose the moment you put them on the ground and that's about it. For example once Grounding Totem eats a spell, it's gone, so you don't really need to worry about setting down another air totem. Overall - bad talent!
Totemic Projection
The main use of Totemic Projection will be so that you can put your Capacitor Totem to good use. As shamans, we don't have as many cc's as other classes do. But with this talent, we can have enough to let us score kills much easier. Once your totem is down, you have to either countdown the timer yourself, or use an addon like myself such as TotemTimers. Just before the totem detonates (provided it hasn't been destroyed yet), you switch it's position to whoever you wish to stun. The ideal scenario would be to pop the totem down, root your target with Frost Shock, and then replace your totem next to them. There are other uses that Totemic Projection can be put to such as moving your totems out of harm if for example they are being destroyed or to re-root with Earthgrab.
Tier 4:
Elemental Mastery
Call upon elemental forces, empowering you with 30% haste for 20 sec. 1.5 min cooldown.
Ancestral Swiftness
Your next Nature spell with a base casting time less than 10 sec. becomes an instant cast spell.
Passive:
Increases spell haste by 5% and melee haste by 10%. 1.5 min cooldown.
Echo of the Elements
When one of your spells causes direct damage or healing, you have a chance to gain Echo of the Elements, duplicating that spell's effect.
Elemental Mastery
This is a great talent for short games. If you are in a double dps 2v2 team, and your comp depends on the burst in the opener, then this is your best choice. It is also great for duels. There isn't much to this talent, it's just a relatively short cd mini Bloodlust for yourself. Make sure to use it with other cd's. Since it has a 1.5 min cd, it lines up perfectly with Ascendance.
Ancestral Swiftness
This is your go-to talent in this tier. It's best for 2v2 with a healer or any 3v3 comp. The 10% passive haste will give you much better overall pressure than EM or Echo throughout the whole fight (And if you think instant casting hexs isn't pressure in itself, then the passive haste should change your mind). This talent also proves an instant cast every 1.5 minutes. The best use of this is to spend it on Hex. If you have 5 Maelstorm stacks and this talent on at the same time, the maelstorm stacks will be prioritiesed and spent first - so be careful if you wanted to Hex and then heal somebody because the heal won't be as effective without the Maelstorm stacks!
Echo of the Elements
Echo of the elements procs are too low a chance to happen for Ele Blast (only 6%), while the heals are only half as effective because they do not benefit from Maelstorm Weapon stacks. The copy chance is 30% for most spells and 6% for Ele Blast. It can be great when it copies a heal, but it doesn't happen often enough. Also, if it copies a Frost Shock, and you are using Frozen Power, the enemy will only sit half the duration of the root because of DR (Diminishing Returns).
Tier 5:
Rushing Streams
Your Healing Stream Totem now heals two targets at once for 15% additional healing.
Ancestral Guidance
When you deal direct damage or healing for the next 10 sec, 40% of damage or 60% of healing is copied as healing to up to 3 nearby injured party or raid members. 2 min cooldown.
Conductivity
When you cast Healing Wave, Greater Healing Wave, Healing Surge, or Chain Heal, your Healing Rain's duration is increased by 4.00 sec.
When you cast Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Earth Shock, or use Stormstrike, your Healing Rain's duration is increased by 4.00 sec.
This cannot cause Healing Rain to last longer than 40 sec.
Rushing Streams
This talent can dish out a lot of over time heals during long games. I like to take this one versus DoT comps where there is constant pressure everywhere. It will make your healer's job a bit easier. The healing isn't actually that great because of how it's affected by Battle Fatigue just like any other heals, but it's still decent nonetheless.
Ancestral Guidance
What Ancestral Guidance provides that Rushing Streams doesn't is the on-demand, big burst of heals that can save you from certain death. Coupled with your burst cds (especially ascendance), you can heal yourself and your teammates up in no time, and if the enemy team has the upper hand and is focusing you, it can give you a chance to turn the tables around (Dem baits). This talent is especially good in duels and when playing with or against a bursty comp.
Conductivity
Not much to say here. While we do get Healing Rain, this talent should never ever even be considered for Enhancement . It's only viable for Restoration shamans really. Steer clear from this one!
Tier 6:
Unleashed Fury
Your elemental weapon imbues are empowered, granting additional effects when triggered with Unleash Elements:
Flametongue Weapon
Increases the enemy target's damage taken from your Lightning Bolt by 30%, and from your Lava Burst by 10% for 10 sec.
Windfury Weapon
For 8 sec, your melee autoattacks can trigger Static Shock.
Earthliving Weapon
Further increases the effectiveness of your next single-target heal on the targeted ally by 50%.
Frostbrand Weapon
You leech heat from the enemy target, gaining 50% movement speed for 4 sec.
Rockbiter Weapon
You take 40% reduced damage from the enemy target for 5 sec.
Primal Elementalist
Your Earth and Fire Elemental Totems draw forth powerful primal elementals directly from the elemental planes. These servitors are 80% more powerful than regular elementals, act as pets directly under your control, and gain additional abilities.
Elemental Blast
Harness and direct the raw power of the elements towards an enemy target, dealing 4372 to 5079 (+ 211.2% of Spell power) Elemental damage and increasing the caster's Critical Strike, Haste, Mastery or Agility (Enhancement only) by 3500 for 8 sec. 12 sec cooldown.
Uneashed Fury
If you do spec for it, you'll have to be imbued with Windfury/Flametongue the whole time or you will lose too much dps if you imbue dance. It can still give out decent pressure but it peaks when you have 100% uptime on your target, which never happens in PvP. While the pressure is good, it doesn't quite have the burst to score kills, which can be a big problem sometimes where you might find your target at low hp but don't have anything to finish them off with. It's quite a fun talent but I don't recommend using it anymore.
Primal Elementalist
Fire Elemental totem with this talent does insane damage. It can also Empower you which increases your own damage by 5% and healing by 10% (channeled so elemental doesn't attack while it's on). The totem can be easily destroyed though so I recommend using this talent only in duels or short 2v2 games where the fights is expected to be short and bursty (so the enemy doesn't have time to focus on your elemental). The Earth Elemental can give you a mini shield wall, reducing damage taken, as well as stun enemies. - The macros for these will be in the Macro section. (Really do recommend this for Resto though, the earth ele giving you an easier stun to land rather than cap toteming them)
Elemental Blast
This talent here is simply beautiful this patch. It can hit for a measly 40k, but it can also crit for 150k~ or more. Thanks to it benefitting from the Stromstrike debuff, it has much more chance to crit now. Always make sure to Unleash Elements (with Flametongue on off-hand) before you Ele Blast to make the most of it, as it will increase the damage dealt. This talent alone can easily force enemy defensive cooldowns, leaving you to be able to finish them off with Ascendance.
Well that's it for the talents. What do I use? Personally I go with either:
Nature's Guardian
Windwalk Totem
Totemic Projection
Ancestral Swiftness
Ancestral Guidance
Elemental Blast
2. GLYPHS
Firstly I will go list all the glyphs that are around for enhancement shaman to use and outline their good and bad points. (unless they are completely pointless like Glyph of Chaining =]
1. Glyph of Capacitor Totem
This glyph reduces the charging time of your Capacitor Totem by 2 sec.
As we all know Capacitor Totem is one of the worst stuns in the game. Taking this glyph can make it a whole lot easier to stun your opponent as they have two seconds less time to destroy the totem or move out of the way. Sadly I really do not think this glyph is good enough compared with others to consider taking in any situation
2. Glyph of Feral Spirit
Increases the healing done by your Feral Spirits' Spirit Hunt by 40%.
Healing from Feral Spirit is crap to start off with. Buffing crap by 40% just ends you up with slightly less crap crap. Not worth taking
3. Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem
Reduces the cooldown and duration of your Fire Elemental Totem by 50%.
Sure this may be a fun glyph to take in random battlegrounds but in arenas, ideally you want to be ending it before 3 minutes is up and even if you do not the sacrifice in duration is quite a big hit on our pressure up-time. Also having this totem at 5 mins cooldown makes it line up perfectly with Stormlash Totem and so further contributes to burst. You will have about the same output weather you take this glyph or not and so is not worth taking
4. Glyph of Flame Shock
When your Flame Shock deals damage, it heals you for 30% of the damage dealt.
Unless you can spread flameshock likabaws in battlegrounds, this glyph will be largely useless to you. Also in arenas there are no way near enough people to make this glyph viable. Plus when you factor in base resilience and battle fatigue the heals you will get off this are pitiful
5. Glyph of Frost Shock
Decreases the cooldown incurred by your Frost Shock by 2 sec.
Not really worth taking. Frost shock stays on your target if you apply it with the standard cooldown anyways and using the spare time for earth shocks will not boost your damage at all.
6. Glyph of Grounding Totem
Instead of absorbing a spell, your Grounding Totem reflects the next harmful spell back at its caster, but the cooldown of your Grounding Totem is increased by 20 sec.
This glyph would be pretty epic if it wasn't for the extra cooldown time that is added on to it. Grounding totem is far too valuable a tool to be increasing the cooldown on as you need to ground dem chaosboltz (nerf chaosbolt) However it is pretty funny in battlegrounds for spellreflecting death grip, deep freeze and the like (can you still do it with thunderstorm?)
7. Glyph of Healing Storm
Each application of Maelstrom Weapon also increases your direct healing done by 20%.
Completely mandatory COMPLETELY. Any enhancement shaman in PvP without this glyph is a disgrace to the class and should be fed to the hounds! This improves our survivability a hundredfold and you should ALWAYS have this in a glyph slot.
8. Glyph of Healing Stream Totem
When your Healing Stream Totem heals an ally, it also reduces their Fire, Frost, and Nature damage taken by 10% for 6 sec.
Meh. This glyph is okish vs a heavy caster comp (Mage/warlock) as you should be using it whenever it is off cd and the damage reduction can be quite nice. With rushing streams this glyph becomes even more viable as it protects another player in your team but it doesn't protect from all schools of magic, not at all from melee and has limited uptime so you shouldn't be using this glyph very often, if at all.
9. Glyph of Hex
Reduces the cooldown of your Hex spell by 10 sec.
Useful when with a partner with limited CC and it means you can get more hexes in before your "Hexee's" trinket comes off cooldown. Can be used dependant on situation.
10. Glyph of Lightning Shield
When your Lightning Shield is triggered, you take 10% less damage for 6 sec.
I'm gonna call it and say that this glyph is mandatory too. 10% damage reduction at all times is simply too good to refuse. It can be the difference between life and death. If you can remember the uproar had by shadow priests when their 15% damage reduction was taken away you will see how important it is)
11. Glyph of Purge
Your Purge dispels 1 additional Magic effect but has a 6 sec cooldown.
Used to be the best glyph we had but nerfed to the ground by adding a cd to purge. It can be useful for saving GCDs but when a target has 3 buffs and you want to dispel their shield there is a chance you will dispel every single thing BUT the shield and you will have to wait a whole nother 6 seconds to purge again.
12. Glyph of Purging
Successfully Purging a target now grants a stack of Maelstrom Weapon.
This is a pretty nice glyph, especially against targets where you are likely to be kited alot as you can get stacks while on the run which means you can heal on the run which means you do not die..... on the run!
13. Glyph of Shamanistic Rage
Activating your Shamanistic Rage ability also cleanses you of all dispellable harmful Magic effects.
Almost mandatory. Can however be swapped for other suitable glyphs. This means that you have an extra trinket on.... Pala stuns, Mage deep freeze, Death knight Remorseless Winter and you can dispel dots you which can significantly reduce damage done to you (Aflicci Locks and Shadow priests.)
14. Glyph of Spirit Walk
Reduces the cooldown of your Spirit Walk ability by 25%.
This is quite a big cd reduction and can be good against frost mages, but you are likely to be snared withing a few seconds of using this ability due to the stupid amounts of cc this game has to offer and so this is not that big of an advantage.
15. Glyph of Ghost Wolf
While in Ghost Wolf form, you are less hindered by effects that would reduce movement speed.
Used to be baseline but no longer is Q_Q this is a pretty good glyph to be using vs classes with a constant snare (rogues and ferals)
IN SUMMARY
Your lineup of glyphs 95% of the time should be......
Glyph of Healing Storm
Glyph of Lightning Shield
Glyph of Shamanistic Rage/Glyph of Hex
(The last one can be interchanged on what your preference is, the first 2 really are mandatory unless you're bad.)
3. STAT PRIORITY / REFORGING / GEMS
There are two stat priorities that you can follow in 5.4 which are both viable.
Expertise (3%+) >= Melee Hit (3%) > Agility > Mastery > Haste > Crit
or
Expertise (3%+) >= Melee Hit (3%) > Agility > Mastery > Crit > Haste
In both cases you should have at least 3% of Expertise and Hit so that you don't miss attacks and stops casters from being able to dodge/parry your attacks and abilities. You can aim for more than 3% Expertise because other melees (Death Knights, Warriors, Windwalker Monks, Rogues, Ferals, and Retribution Paladins) will all still be able to parry/dodge some of your attacks and abilities despite it being 3%. This can be really frustrating when for example you're trying to burst someone down but your Stormblast gets parried or dodged during Ascendance, completely negating the damage because of simple luck.
The first prio focuses more on passive pressure from your auto attacks and grants you Maelstorm Weapon more often while the second once is a lot more bursty and focuses on getting your Elemental Blast to crit as often as possible (you can get about 40% crit chance on Ele Blast with this prio).
It's entirely up to you which one you prefer and feel more comfortable with.
Reforging
Your reforge priority should be either Mastery > Haste > Crit or Mastery > Crit > Haste
Gems
For Meta slots (helmet):Agile Primal Diamond or Tyrannical Primal Diamond - Both are perfectly fine to use. They both give you roughly the same boost to your damage (Agile maybe a little more, but the Tyrannical one makes up for it with Resilience which gives more survivability.)
Prismatic slot (use Living Steel Belt Buckle to add one to your belt) - Delicate Primordial Ruby
Blue slot - Assassin's Imperial Amethyst
Red - Delicate Primordial Ruby
Yellow - Adept Vermilion Onyx
4. ENCHANTS / PROFESSIONS
Enchants:
Shoulders - Greater Tiger Claw Inscription or Secret Tiger Claw Inscription (if you have Inscription)
Cloak - Enchant Cloak - Superior Critical Strike or Swordguard Embroidery (if you have Tailoring)
Chest - Enchant Chest - Glorious Stats or Enchant Chest - Super Resilience
Bracers - Enchant Bracer - Greater Agility or Fur Lining - Agility (if you have Leatherworking)
Gloves - Enchant Gloves - Superior Mastery
Belt - Living Steel Belt Buckle
Legs - Shadowleather Leg Armor
Boots - Enchant Boots - Blurred Speed
Rings - Enchant Ring - Greater Agility (if you have Enchanting)
Weapons:
Main hand - Enchant Weapon - Dancing Steel
Off-hand - Living Steel Weapon Chain or Enchant Weapon - Glorious Tyranny (Costs 1000 Conquest Points and requires 2200 rating in 3v3, 5v5 or Rated Battlegrounds). Personally I carry 3 weapons, 2 with Dancing Steel and 1 with a Chain. I use Dancing Steel/Chain when facing an enemy with a disarm (Warriors, Monks, Rogues, Priests), and use 2x Dancing Steel against enemies without it for more dps. (For duels and when arenas come out)
Professions
When it comes to professions, it doesn't really matter which you have maxed, just as long as you have 2 of them (preferably both primary). All professions provide some kind of a unique benefit. They are usually either a passive stat bonus, a proc buff, or an on use ability. You can find more about them here:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1170277-MoP-Profession-Bonuses
Personally I like to go with Engineering and Tailoring as it improves my burst potential and I prefer on use and procs rather than passive stat bonuses. Right now, however, I'm testing out JC+Enchanting to see if i like this better. (Plus monies)
5. ROTATION
Weapon Imbues
First of all, your weapon imbues should be Windfury on main-hand and Flametongue on off-hand at all times. I don't recommend imbue switching anymore as it's only possible with the Unleashed Fury talent as all the imbues have a stronger effect, and you should be using Ele Blast most if not all of the time. It's just not optimal to use anything other than Flametongue on your off-hand as your Lava Lashes will hit for 40% less. You should also never ever replace the Windfury on your main-hand. Flametongue provides better DPS than Frostbrand, AND makes Lava Lash hit more. There just isn't any reason to use anything other than Flametongue. Also with Elemental Blast being the best talent choice in that tier, without Unleashed Fury, you shouldn't even consider imbue swapping during a fight.
Your dps priority looks something like:
Elemental Blast (with 5 stacks of Maelstorm Weapon and Unleashed Flame from Unleashed Elements) -> Lava Lash (with 5 stacks of Searing Flames) -> Stormstrike -> Unleash Elements -> Earth Shock
You can also use Lightning Bolt which would be prioritised last however I tend not to use it as it wastes Maelstorm stacks which can be saved for a Healing Surge, Hex, or Ele Blast.
As well as the rotation, always make sure to have Searing Totem up so that it can generate Searing Flame stacks. If you're facing a melee enemy, you can Earth Shock in the opener to apply the Weakened Blows debuff which reduces their physical damage dealt by 10%.
At the start of the fight, place searing totem down before you engage your target. Open with a Frost Shock to catch up to the target, Earth Shock for the debuff or Flame Shock for the dot and then Stormstrike to get the debuff going. After that you should Lava Lash, and Unleash Elements. After that you should have enough Maelstorm Stacks to cast an instant Ele Blast which will benefit from Unleashed Flame. From then on you can just follow the dps priority rotation.
6. BURSTING
When bursting, the ideal situation is to have your PvP trinket off cooldown, that the enemy healer's trinket isn't, and that your team has a cc ready for the healer that he can't get out from. When you activate your burst, the enemy team will try their best to counter it and make you sit as much cc as possible during it, so you really need your trinket ready for that.
It's also important to force as many defensives as possible from the enemy before actually using your big cooldowns. Sometimes you will struggle to do so without using any cooldowns at all, so it's okay to use spirit wolves or even your fire elemental to force those defensives. It's Ascendance that you want to save till the end so that you can finish them off with it.
I'm not going to give you a one-shot macro because they only promote bad play. I can give you a cast sequence though which will optimise the burst you do:
Fire Elemental Totem -> Feral Spirit -> Stormlash Totem -> On-use trinket/on-use profession perk -> Stromstrke (only if target doesn't have the debuff, otherwise use after Elemental Blast) -> Unleash Elements -> Instant Elemental Blast with 5 Maelstorm Weapon Stacks -> Ascendance -> Stormblast -> 5 Searing Flame stack Lava Lash
7. Crowd Control
People often complain about Shamans not having enough CC. While that is somewhat true compared to other classes, I think our CC is actually perfectly fine, and it's the other classes who should have less. This is what you'll be using to CC people:
Hex
Transforms the enemy into a frog. While hexed, the target cannot attack or cast spells. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Lasts 1 min. Only one target can be hexed at a time. Only works on Humanoids and Beasts. 45 sec cooldown.
Capacitor Totem
Summons an Air totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster that gathers electrical energy from the surrounding air and then explodes after 5 sec to stun all enemies within 8 yards for 5 sec. 45 sec cooldown.
Wind Shear
Disrupts the target's concentration with a burst of wind, interrupting spellcasting and preventing any spell in that school from being cast for 3 sec. Also lowers your threat, making the enemy less likely to attack you. 12 sec cooldown.
Hex
Lasts 7 seconds on players to start with. The duration gets cut in half every time it DR's with something. For example if your Hunter partner traps an enemy target in a Freezing Trap and you Hex afterwards, your Hex will only last 3.5 seconds.
Hex can also be dispelled by certain classes (Druids, Mages, and other Shamans) as they all have an ability that removes a curse effect from a friendly target. Because of this, you have to be careful who you Hex because it might just turn out to be a waste.
You also cannot Hex a shapeshifted Druid. Say goodbye to Hexing Balance Druids as they are always in Moonkin form. You might be able to get a Hex off on a Feral once he leaves his Cat Form to cast Cyclone or Tranquility/try to offheal. This also applies to Restoration Druids in Tree Form. Be careful when hard-casting Hex on a Resto Druid because a good player will notice you casting it, and shapeshift before your cast is finished, making himself immune to Hex.
As with any form of CC, you should communicate with your teammates so that you can set up CC chains (instead of CC'ing at the same time by accident) or to cross CC.
Capacitor Totem
Unless you are specced for Totemic Projection, you won't be able to put this totem to much use. It only has 5 hp and 5 sec discharge, meaning it's really easy for the enemy to destroy it before it goes off (which most if not all better players will do). If you are glyphed for this totem, it will only have a 3 sec discharge time. That's better, since the enemy has less time to react, but I don't feel like it's enough, and it also takes up an important major glyph slot.
It's not easy to catch a target in the Capacitor stun if they know what they're doing and you will get frustrated with it a lot of the time.
With Totemic Projection however, it's a whole other story. If you want to put this totem to good use, I suggest using Totemic Projection, as well as Frozen Power. Once your totem is down, you have to either countdown the timer yourself, or use an addon like myself such as TotemTimers. Just before the totem detonates (provided it hasn't been destroyed yet), you switch it's position to whoever you wish to stun. The ideal scenario would be to drop the totem down, root the target with Frost Shock, and then project your totem next to them. If they don't have any root breaker's ready, they will most likely get caught in it. There is a macro that lets you use Capacitor Totem and Projection in one button which will be in the Macro section.
Wind Shear
Out of all the melee interrupts, ours has the longest range, that's why it can be used as a cc. It also has a relatively short cooldown compared to other melee interrupts. What you want to do with this ability, is interrupt important enemy casts. Don't waste it on minor spells such as a Mage's Frostbolt for example. You're better off saving it for when he's trying to cast Polymorph or Ring of Frost. Because of this ability's long range, you can often use it to interrupt enemy healers when they are casting a heal or cc and lock them out.
It's important to have sharp awareness of what's going on around you, and not just tunneling your kill target, so that you can notice when someone else is casting a cc and interrupt it with Wind Shear. Bear in mind many good players can 'fake cast', where they will attempt to cast something, and stop just before it finished, in order to fool you into interrupt them. There is no doubt you will at some point fall for a fake cast, everybody has at some point.
It's worth noting that there are exceptions where it can be a good idea not to interrupt a cast, or at least not straight away, here's why:
If you notice an enemy Shaman casting a Hex on your teammate, you can let him pull it off and then instantly remove your partner's Hex with Cleanse Spirit. This way your teammate won't even notice he got Hexed, and there's a good chance that the next CC your teammate suffers from will only last half the duration because of DR. However you have to be careful as the enemy team might play smart and cross CC at this point where they will Hex your teammate and silence/stun you so that you can't remove it. You're going to have to use your best judgement.
Similar idea applies to Priest's Dominate Mind, you can interrupt it once it's being channeled, that way if they try to do it again, it will only last half the duration.
8. DEFENSIVES / SURVIVABILITY
I have to say our survivability is quite solid this patch. It really just depends on how well you use them. Many people tend to just throw their defensives when they don't need to or too early, and then complain about being too squishy. As with everything in arena, communication plays a key part. You and your partners need to speak to each other all the time, about bursting, about using cc, about using defensives, everything, I can't stress enough how important it is to be able to line up your CC perfectly and then synchronise your burst. Anyhow, using your defensives really depends on the situation so it's not that simple to just describe how to use them.
Here's what you'll be using for survival most of the time (non-talents only as those have been covered before):
Frost Shock - to slow/root people as you're kiting them
Earthbind Totem - aoe slow
Shamanistic Rage - When you're getting bursted and your healer is sitting in cc with no trinket (can also be used to break magic stuns (Deep Freeze / Hammer/Fist of Justice).
Hex - Don't hesitate to Hex the target that is bursting you so that you can avoid their damage, even if just for a few seconds. It might mean the difference between surviving and dying.
Feral Spirit - This can be used offensively and defensively since the wolves deal damage and heal you at the same time.
Spiritwalker's Grace - With this you can cast while kiting (heal yourself up or hex while running away).
Spirit Walk - Use this to get away quickly and run around the pillar avoiding your enemy. You can have crazy movement speed in Ghost Wolf form with this on.(110%)
Purge - I want to add this to the list because it has many defensive uses too. You can and should always purge things such as a Fire Mage's Pyroblast procs before they can use them. That way you're thinking ahead and avoiding the damage before it even happens.
Healing Surge - This is the only heal you should be using. Healing Rain doesn't benefit from the Healing Storm glyph. You can use Chain Heal when you're close together with your teammates but I would recommend just using Healing Surge at all times.
Water Shield - You can use this if you're low on mana after healing up to get some quick mana regen before you jump into the fight again.
My best tips would be:
Communicate with your teammates
Don't waste your defensives or use them too soon
Kite as much as possible during enemy burst phases.
Pay attention to where your teammates are so that you don't LoS your healer.
Remember that Enhancement's offense is our best defense (Ancestral Guidance heals when you attack and you generate Maelstorm Weapon stacks when attacking)
However, don't be afraid to pull back if you're in trouble and hide behind a pillar for a moment so that your healer can get you back up.
If your healer is about to sit a CC chain, kite and pull back as there's a good chance you're going to get killed.
9. KEYBINDS
You should never need to bind anything to F1/F2/F3 etc, but use 1-6 (and ?ยข to the left of 1) and then CFETYHQZXVB (R and C aswell if you don't need the char screen or reply bound). After that just use the same buttons but coupled with Shift or Ctrl, so Shift+1 or Ctrl +1 etc etc.
Moving on, I'm going to make a few lists to let you know wich spells you'll need to have bound and handy. Here we go:
A) Frequently used spells and attacks/abilities that need a separate keybind:
Stormstrike
Lava Lash
Unleash Elements
Healing Surge
Ascendance
Hex
Shamanistic Rage
Searing Totem
Wind Shear
Earth Shock
Frost Shock
Flame Shock
Earthbind Totem
Feral Spirit
Purge
Lightning Bolt
Capacitor Totem
Grounding Totem
Spirit Walk
Spiritwalker's Grace
B) Abilities that "should" be bound but can be sacrificed for a keybind:
Fire Elemental Totem
Earth Elemental Totem
Stormlash Totem
Bloodlust (doesn't need a bind at any point, but should be handy on the bars).
Lightning Shield
Fire Nova
C) Talent choices that need to be bound:
Tier 15: Stone Bulwark Totem
Tier 15: Astral Shift
Tier 30: Earthgrab Totem
Tier 30: Windwalk Totem
Tier 45: Call of the Elements
Tier 45: Totemic Projection
Tier 60: Elemental Mastery
Tier 60: Ancestral Swiftness
Tier 75: Ancestral Guidance
Tier 90: Elemental Blast
10. MACROS
For the macros I'm just going to make a list of macros that you can use to make your life easier and explain briefly what their purpose is:
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Here is that macro for Totemic Projection and Capacitor Totem all in one button. Press once to drop the totem, and then again to move it. It's good to have Projection on a separate bind though so you can move your other totems if needed (moving Tremor Totem closer to your partner if they are feared and too far away to benefit from it).
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=5 Capacitor Totem, Totemic Projection
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The following two macros are for the Primal Elementalist talent where your Elementals gain special abilities that was also mentioned earlier on.
This one casts Empower one you which increases damage by 5% and healing by 10% and is channeled by your Fire Elemental.
#showtooltip Fire Elemental Totem
/cast Empower
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This one makes your Earth Elemental use his Pulverize stun.
#showtooltip Earth elemental totem
/cast Pulverize
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The one below will use Reinforce which is the mini shield wall that your Primal Earth Elemental provides 20% less damage received and 10% more healing done.
#showtooltip Earth elemental totem
/cast Reinforce
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If you have a Druid partner who uses Symbiosis you will receive a new ability called Solar Beam. The best way to use it is to be specced for Frozen Power and use this macro:
(You need to have the target that you want to Beam as your focus before you use it though)
#Showtooltip Solar Beam
/castsequence [@focus] Frost Shock, Solar Beam
Solar Beam is off the gcd but make sure to press the button twice just in case because i've have cases where I Solar Beamed my focus but didn't Frost Shock because I only pressed it once.
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This one casts Healing Surge on yourself so that you don't have to target or click on yourself when you want to heal up.
#showtooltip Healing Surge
/cast [target=player] healing surge
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Similarly, this one casts Cleanse Spirit on yourself.
#showtooltip
/cast [@player]Cleanse Spirit
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I also have a mouseover Cleanse Spirit because I use the addon Grid for my party frames, and I set it to show me when they are Hexed. This way I just hover my mouse over their big square party frame, and dispel Hex with this macro:
/cast [target=mouseover] Cleanse Spirit
You can replace "mouseover" with party1/party2 etc if you prefer that instead.
...
For example the way I have done so with my friendly heal:
/cast [nomodifier, @party1] Healing surge
/cast [modifier:shift, @party2] Healing surge
The way this one works is if you bind it to the key 'Q' for example, if you press Q it will heal the first party member, and if you hold Shift-Q, it will heal the second party member.
You can even have an all-in-one macro heal if you tweak around those modifiers, having self heal on Q, party1 heal on Shift-Q, and party2 heal on Alt-Q.
...
I really enjoy arena123 macros so I use them for the important cc:
Cast Frost Shock at arena target 1 (you will know which one is which once you are inside the arena):
/cast [@arena1] Frost Shock
Stop casting (if you were) and cast Hex instead at arena target 1:
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [@arena1] Hex
Stop casting (if you were) and cast Wind Shear instead at arena target 1:
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [@arena1] Wind Shear
Set arena target 1 as your focus:
/focus arena1
Simply make 3 of each of these and change the numbers between 1 and 3.
12. VIABLE COMPS
We are in quite a good spot when it comes to viablity and there are a lot of comps we can fit in:
2v2
Enh/Hunter
Enh/Rogue
Enh/Warrior
Enh/Feral
Enh/Frost Mage
Enh/WW Monk
Enh/Any healer other than another Shaman really
Of course some of these comps work better than others, but they are all somewhat decent and viable. There are more comps that could potentially work, and it just depends more on how good the player is rather than how well the classes fit together. It's also worth noting that double dps comps often struggle this season because it's often easier to play with a healer, so you have to play extremely well to reach a high rating as a double dps Enh Shaman in 2v2.
3v3
Enh/Warrior/Healer
Enh/Hunter/Healer
Enh/Mage/Healer
Enh/Rogue/Healer
Enh/Ret/Healer
Triple Enh is also pretty funny.
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Anyway guys that's it I think. I hope the guide has been helpful, that you found what you were looking for and had all of your questions answered, if not, don't hesitate and ask anything you want to know and we'll see if we can answer for you. I say 'we' because there are many active posters here who help people out, and I feel like this guide isn't even mine, but the community's itself. I'll try to keep this updated and meanwhile all feedback, suggestions, comments and questions are more than welcome! (Credit goes to all of the websites i used to collect this information, and I had so many tabs pulled up so I'm not going to list them all off.)
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Member
Enhancement PvP Guide
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Member
This is a rank one guide from a retail player. I have played with him both on retail and on molten. I have been playing WoW for 6 years now, and I know what I am doing, and he can still just BARELY beat me in a 1v1. You would do well to listen to this guide.
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Banned
"Puffypaws" is "NumberOneLion"?
They guide is great but sadly my dmg still sucks :D
Cant compete with Bm hunter, lock and Warrior.
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Member
This was mine originally, I have on from "Fitzkah" that's a dumbed down version of this on US battle.net forums.
I also have no clue what you mean by Dmg still sucks, my stormstrike while in burst will hit for upwards of 60k, and ele blast the same.
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Banned
Well, my burst with Ascendance, pvp trinket and stormlash totem is great.
The problem is that i do barely any dmg when this abilitys are on their long cd.
I have done 107 bgs so far and i have never seen a shami beeing on rank 1 - 4 in dmg done. I know its not everything about topping the dmg charts and it doesnt make u win the bg but Bm hunter, lock and Warrior pull such a significant higher dmg.
It might also be a matter of gear. I dont know if Enhance shami is more gear dependent than the mentioned classes..
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Member
I honestly don't know what you're doing wrong then man, i can pull 1-4 on dmg if i try hard.
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Banned
Whats ur ilvl, are u full epic?
Do u think its worth to go straight for pvp power gems?
Im curious because classes have higher passive dmg reduce than they had on retail on the current season gear.
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Member
I'm 466 ilvl w/ Tyran knuckles & Malev chest, so i only have those 2 gems of Pure agi (the 320 one, i have 600 JC) and the Agi+Mastery, but i just blasted a rogue in the face for a 100k ele blast. (1 tyran knuckles, 1 malev knuckles)
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Member
if u wanna play enh shaman be sure to have atleast tailroing for the cloak proc , your dmg depends mainly on ur weapons & procs (pvp power is must have ), if u can time all that with ascendance you can almost 1 shot ppl with stormblast , and always purge whenever you are runing after the target purge purge purge , enh is all about timing , my highes crit was LL 187k , not counting ascendance + SB since it hits liek a truck and its unfair :P
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Member
It's not a MUST have, it depends on the persons playstyles in my opinion, but yeah Enhance are definitely unfair.
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Banned
100k ele blast and 187k lava lash on a level 90 player that has at least 72% dmg reduce?
Sorry but i can hardly believe these numbers.
Im item lvl 471 and my highest lava lash was around 80k and highest ele blast also around 80k in pvp.
U guys had these numbers with a single attack or with a echo of the element proc?
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Member
Take into consideration that i have 40% smting pvp power , no i had no echo proc , echo on elemental blast is too low to proc that much , but if it procs its crazy dmg... will leave u SS next time i manage to score atleast close to it
edit :
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Member
Yeah i have around 40% PvP power as well, so those numbers aren't un-believable, and like i stated in the guide, Echo of the Elements isn't too good b/c roughly 6% chance to duplicate Ele blast and even less for heals? Not worth taking it.
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Banned
Nice, how do u reach 40 % pvp power? Im now full epic geared and have barely 33%. U are both full tyrannical geared or what?
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Member
Probably pvp power gems.
Nice guide anyway ^^
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