← Back to Index

On this page

ENH SHAMAN ADVANCED TIPS

ENH PRIMORDIAL WAVE TIPS

Welcome back to another video in our Enhancement Shaman damage course. Today we're going to be taking a look at Primordial Wave, being the most powerful offensive cooldown that you must know about when playing Totemic.

We're going to walk you through the details of it, how it functions, and how to use it properly. Primordial Wave blasts all targets that's affected by Flameshock, dealing an incredible amount of damage as well as generating 5 stacks of Maelstrom.

Before every use of this cooldown, you want to apply Flameshock to as many targets as possible. The more targets affected by Flameshock, the more damage Primordial Wave is going to deal, so keep it up on targets you want to apply pressure to.

A big tip that helps with this is using Surging Totem, so your next Flameshock can be spread to all nearby targets in one singular global. Another way to help spread Flameshocks is through your Lava Lash.

When you Lava Lash, you have a talent called Molten Assault that allows you to spread Flameshocks up to 5 additional targets. You can only have 6 Flameshocks up at once, so this talent is a good way to spread Flameshocks up to 5 additional targets.

This talent is a good way to spread Flameshocks up to 5 additional targets. This talent is a good way to spread Flameshocks up to 5 additional targets.

This talent massively helps you to maximize your damage. Now that we've covered how to use Primordial Wave properly though, you also get a new spell called Primordial Storm, which becomes available once you press Primordial Wave.

Primordial Storm deals a monstrous amount of damage on all nearby players within melee range, being your biggest burst damage as this spec. Its damage is affected by Maelstrom, meaning you ideally are going to want to have 10 Maelstrom stacks and be in melee range before using this cooldown.

If you use it while you're not in melee range, then the damage won't land and it's just going to be wasted, so make sure to use it when in melee range, allowing you to land this massive burst damage on your target.

Again, its damage is like that of Bladestorm, improving when you hit more targets as the damage doesn't split unless you hit more than 5 players. So try to abuse it in cleave situations, bursting down everyone in your path.

ENH ASCENDANCE TIPS

In this next segment of our course, we're going to be meticulously dissecting each and every one of your key offensive cooldowns, which is going to give you a comprehensive breakdown on how they work and the rules behind using all of them.

And starting off, we're going to go with one of the strongest abilities available to Shamans, which is called Ascendance. Ascendance is undeniably the strongest cooldown available to Shamans, but it is exclusively utilized by those running the Stormstrike Doomwinds build.

This is due to the incredible synergy it has with the talents in this build. Ascendance has a baseline 3-minute cooldown, reduces the cost and cooldown of Stormstrike by 60%, allows your attacks to bypass armor, and even gives Stormstrike and your auto-attacks a 30-yard range.

This combination really does make it the best ability for maximizing your damage output during your burst windows. Now, while Ascendance doesn't have inherent cooldown reduction, the Thorum's invocation... talent reduces the cooldown by 60 seconds.

Even better, when you use Windstrike, it automatically consumes your Maelstrom weapon stacks to fire a lightning bolt at your target if you have at least 5 stacks. This significantly boosts your burst potential, allowing you to cast lightning bolts nearly every other global.

So given how powerful Ascendance is, we need to be a little bit more strategic about its usage, especially since it has a lengthy cooldown. Proper timing is really going to be key here to maximize... its impact and ensuring that you can actually close out the game.

So you might be wondering now, how do I know when to use Ascendance? Well, the timing can really vary depending on the situation in your game, and generally the best moment to use it is going to be when the enemy healer is in crowd control and their team has no defensive cooldowns available.

This is especially important in Solo Shuffle too, where you usually only get one opportunity to use Ascendance. So here's a great example of Ascendance in action.

Let's watch this VOD. The Paladin is in full stun, with no Trinket available, creating the perfect opportunity for the Shaman to close out the game with Ascendance.

So when a target has no defensives or a Trinket, even if it's the healer, the overwhelming damage from Ascendance can really make it nearly impossible to survive without significant peels from their teammates.

Now, if the match is starting to hit the late game and Ascendance is off cooldown, don't hesitate to use it, even without crowd control. So at this point in the match, match, building pressure as quickly as possible is more important than anything.

Sitting on your biggest cooldown for too long, especially three, four, or five minutes into the match, can cost you valuable opportunities. Forcing enemy cooldowns becomes more important than ever in the late game.

So make sure you're capitalizing on your cooldowns when it matters most.

DOMINATE SHUFFLES ON YOUR 2ND ASCENDANCE!

What if we told you there's an almost guaranteed way to win solo shuffles as an enhancement shaman? It's kind of crazy, and it sounds too good to be true, right?

But in reality, it's a lot easier than you think it is. So what we did is we talked with Axiom, who currently holds both the number one and number two spots as an enhancement shaman on the EU solo shuffle ladder.

He told us that almost every single time he gets to his second ascendance, he obliterates his opponents and wins the round 95% of the time, even if he's last overall on DPS.

So to do this, whenever you're in a solo shuffle game, you're going to want to pop your first ascendance as soon as possible to create pressure and start forcing major defensive cooldowns. The earlier you use it, the quicker you're going to get back to your second ascendance, so apply pressure right away.

After your first ascendance, continue creating pressure. With your partner's cooldowns, you should be able to force out even more major defensives before you get to your second ascendance.

So if you're in a solo game, you can use the first ascendance to force out your second ascendance. This is going to set up your win condition, since by the time you reach your second ascendance, the enemy team should be out of defensives.

Without defensive cooldowns ready for your second ascendance, there's virtually no way for the enemy team to survive the pressure. The only exceptions are if they have massive peels or immunity cooldowns to negate the damage.

However, this also means that before reaching your second ascendance, you need to adopt a defensive playstyle if you're the target, since enhancement is pretty dang squishy and you can't do much with it. Now, this may mean running back, line of sighting, or doing whatever it takes to live until your second ascendance.

It's unlikely you're going to secure a kill before then, unless your DPS partner can create a win condition. Once you reach your second ascendance, though, there should be little to no defensive cooldowns left on the enemy team.

Pick that easiest target to kill based on their defensive situation and unleash that second ascendance to secure the round and help towards winning the lobby overall.

DOOMWINDS TIPS

Welcome back to another video in our Enhancement Shaman damage course. Today we're going to be taking a closer look at Doomwinds.

We're going to talk you through how Doomwinds works, when to use it, and the strategies to ensure that you are getting the absolute most out of this ability. Doomwinds is a powerful one-minute offensive cooldown that boosts your chance to proc Windfury by 200% and the damage of it by an additional 10%.

It can now be used with either both hero talent since it procs from other abilities outside of Stormstrike. With Totemic, you use Doomwinds whenever you can get your Globals off outside of Primordial Wave windows.

Doomwinds is straightforward to use, but the first cast should always be paired with Ascendance. With your auto-attacks gaining a 30-yard range during Ascendance, combining it with Doomwinds ensures you maximize both your burst potential and the value of this cooldown.

So after the first cast, aim to use Doomwinds to get the most out of your burst potential. Use Doomwinds as close to off cooldown as possible.

While it is ideal to pair it with Crowd Control, don't hold onto it for more than 5 or 10 seconds. The goal here is to ensure every other Doomwinds cast aligns with Ascendance.

Using Doomwinds out of sync can really create problems later on, which forces you to activate it during your Ascendance window. This overlap really wastes Globals and it reduces your overall damage output, so proper timing is really going to be crucial.

If you take a look at the Shaman's cooldown, you're going to notice that Ascendance and Doomwinds are almost perfectly synced. This is exactly how you should aim to maintain them throughout the match, as your win condition with the Stormstrike build revolves around Ascendance.

A random Doomwinds is pretty unlikely to secure a win, so keeping these cooldowns synced up can really help you win the game. When playing Totemic, the main way to use Doomwinds is typically when you have uptime, so you can create Maelstrom stacks as soon as possible.

Ideally, it's used after your Primordial Rift, or after your Wavewinds, as this is the most effective way of dealing your damage in your normal rotation.

So make sure to try and create as much uptime as possible during Doomwinds, which can include when you have mobility cooldowns, or when your targets are locked down in stuns.

FERAL SPIRITS

Welcome back to yet another video in our Enhancement Shaman Damage course. Today we're going to be taking a closer look at Feral Spirit.

We're going to walk you through how Feral Spirit works, when to use it, and the strategies to ensure that you're getting the most out of Feral Spirit. Feral Spirit is a versatile talent that's used in both the Lava Lash and Stormstrike focused builds.

When it's summoned, the two wolves increase your physical damage by 15% and provide passive maelstrom weapon stacks every few seconds. This makes it a solid cooldown that enhances your overall damage and it provides some decent resource generation.

If you're running the Lava Lash build, you're going to want to pick up the Elemental Spirits talent. This talent focuses your Feral Spirits to increase your fire, frost, or lightning damage by 20% depending on which Elemental Spirits you summon.

This talent isn't necessary for the Stormstrike build though. With the Rolling Thunder talent from the Stormbringer Hero Tree, you passively summon nature Feral Spirits from your Tempest cast, which enhance your nature damage.

Totemic is going to play with Witch Doctor's Ancestry, which is a talent that reduces the cooldown of Feral Spirits by 1 second for every maelstrom weapon stack you generate. This effectively brings the cooldown of Feral Spirits down to about 45 seconds.

Now because of this cooldown reduction, it is best to use Feral Spirits early and often to maximize the value of this talent throughout the match. As with your other cooldowns, Feral Spirits should be paired with your burst, especially in the opener.

If you're running Ascendants and Doomwinds, always summon the Feral Spirits talent. If you're running the Feral Spirits talent, you can easily summon your Feral Spirits first.

This ensures their damage buff is active as you begin bursting, which prevents any wasted uptime during your actual go. In the Lavalash build, it's still optimal to use Feral Spirits first though too.

However, summoning them later in your sequence isn't really as bad given that you don't have a limited burst window like you do on the ladder. After the opener, we want to aim to use Feral Spirits as close to off cooldown as possible, but the goal should be to try to align it with your other cooldowns whenever possible.

In this In this clip, Feral Spirits is coming off cooldown in just a few seconds, and once it's off cooldown, they have just a few Globals of Ramp before pushing this ability, leaving about a 5 second gap between when it comes off cooldown and when it's used.

If Surging Totem or Doomwinds is available, it's worth holding Feral Spirits briefly to sync with these cooldowns. Now that said, avoid holding Feral Spirits for more than 10-15 seconds.

Doing so risks lowering the total number of casts you can achieve over the course of the match.

BLOODLUST TIPS

The last offensive cooldown we're going to explore in detail for this course is Bloodlust. Bloodlust isn't typically usable in PvP, but with the Shamanism talent, you can use it on yourself and a teammate.

In PvP, think of Bloodlust as the Shaman's version of a Power Infusion. With the Shamanism talent, Bloodlust has a 1-minute cooldown, it provides 20% haste, and it lasts for 10 seconds.

With the Shamanism version of Bloodlust functioning just like Power Infusion, it is purgeable. If you're playing alongside a healer with limited buffs, like a Holy Paladin, you should definitely expect Bloodlust to be removed pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, there's really not much you can do to protect this buff. A good rule of thumb, though, is to lock down any targets you want to burst on before you pop Bloodlust to limit the chances of it getting purged.

So as you might expect, Bloodlust works best when it's paired with your other cooldowns as well. If you're running the Stormstrike build, you're going to want to sync it with your Doomwinds.

With the Lavalash build, you can also sync your Bloodlust with Doomwinds and Primordial Wave to deal incredible one-shot pressure. In this clip, we see the Shaman lands a double stun on both DPS with Capacitator Totem before activating Bloodlust.

Most Shamans run Greater Purge, which adds a 10-second cooldown to Purge. This makes it much harder for the enemy team to remove Bloodlust, and it allows you to capitalize on this high damage window.

USING YOUR TOTEMS AS ENH

Are you getting the most out of your Shaman toolkit? Let's talk about the one thing that separates good Shamans from great ones.

Totems. No, you don't have to be running a Totemic build to make the most out of them either.

In fact, using your Totem strategically is key to stopping enemy setups and securing those game-winning plays. So let's break down how.

One of the most impactful tools in your arsenal as a Shaman is Grounding Totem. This Totem negates all incoming spells, including crucial crowd control like Polymorph and Cyclone.

Now as a Shaman, it's your job to keep a watch out for these casts. But it doesn't stop there.

You can also ground damage spells. If you spot a Warlock casting a Chaos Bolt or a Mage popping Icy Veins, dropping a Grounding Totem can save the game, especially if your healer is in CC.

Tremor Totem is another essential tool in any Shaman's kit. Sure, sure, most of us know it's great for removing fears, but here's where many Shamans really slip up.

They assume Tremor Totem only works on fear effects. In reality, Tremor Totem also removes sleeps and it removes charm effects.

This means it can remove abilities like Mind Control, Seduction from a Succubus, and even Sleepwalk. With this versatility, Tremor Totem becomes invaluable against a wide variety of comps.

Capacitator Totem doesn't get nearly the love it deserves, but it is a game-changer when it's paired with Static Field Totem. Here's how.

You can use Static Field Totem to group up the enemy team. Then drop Capacitator Totem to stun everyone at once.

Capacitator Totem works wonders for helping to CC the healer. You can drop Capacitator Totem on him and follow up with a Hex, and this is almost going to guarantee that it lands.

Now, speaking of Static Field Totem, this is an incredible tool that can be used both offensively and defensively. Offensively, it can group enemies together, setting up massive AoE bursts.

Defensively, it's perfect for peeling, as it keeps your team from getting killed. It's a great tool to use both offensively and defensively.

It's also a great tool to use both offensively and defensively. You can reposition Static Field using Totemic Projection, which allows you to grab additional enemies and lock them in place.

You can drop it on one enemy, then use Totemic Projection to move it onto another enemy, locking both of them in the totem.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR RANGED ABILITIES

Are you an enhancement shaman who loves getting up close and personal in every single arena? So what if I told you that you don't have to sit in melee range to do damage?

Enhancement is technically a melee, but that doesn't mean you have to sit in melee range all game to do damage. In fact, some of your largest burst damage comes from Primordial Wave, which is done entirely from range.

Now let's be clear here, we're not saying to not go into melee if you can help it. But if you're being kited, or you need to kite, remember you can still dish out some pretty serious damage from range.

The idea is that you don't want to just chase your target aimlessly. Use abilities like Lightning Bolt or Elemental Blast to keep the pressure on while closing the gap.

This strategy is especially effective against high mobility classes like mages or hunters. The shaman wants to connect with the hunter, so they use Elemental Blast and Frost Shock while they're trying to close the remaining distance.

Even when Frost Shock... isn't empowered, it's a great tool to use against high mobility targets. It helps slow them down, giving you the opportunity to close the gap.

ENH HEX TIPS

So you line up the perfect hex on the enemy healer, and then it's gone. Where the heck did it go, man?

Did it break? No.

Did they shrink it? No.

Well, don't forget that DPS can also dispel hex. If you ignore the DPS, then there's going to be a good chance that many of your hexes are just going to be dispelled.

So before casting hex, it's really important to identify how you're going to prevent the DPS from dispelling, or better yet, you can hex the DPS that has the ability to dispel. For instance, if you're up against a mage and the healer on their team isn't able to dispel curses, you can simply hex the mage.

This effectively locks them out of the game for six whole seconds. Druids can definitely be a little bit trickier to handle, but if you catch them in human form, then you got a chance to land a hex.

Feral and Restoration Druids, for instance, need to shift into human form to cast Clone, which makes them vulnerable to hex. Now, on the other hand, Balanced Druids are essentially unhexable since they rarely, if ever, leave moon conform, which makes them immune to hex.

Now, in these cases, you may need to stun the Balanced Druid before going for a hex. When facing another Shaman, just be careful when trying to hex them.

If they Windshear your hex cast, you're going to be locked out of the nature school, leaving you with no real counterplay. Windshear and Grounding Totem are both nature school, which means they can't be used when you're kicked.

This can be especially dangerous if you're trying to hex to peel during a critical moment in the game. So to avoid this, be prepared to juke their Shear, or consider stunning them first with a Capacitator Totem to safely get your hex off.

MOBILITY TIPS

If you've been playing Enhancement Shaman during the War Within, you've probably noticed that keeping up with other classes can be an absolute nightmare. While most classes have been gifted with incredible mobility, Enhancement Shamans, unfortunately, well, they really fell short in that mark.

So in this guide, we're going to go over some mobility tips to help increase your uptime and show you what to do when you're struggling to connect to your target. Now, generally speaking, Enhancement Shaman mobility is weaker than most other classes, and that's putting it lightly.

With only Ghost Wolf, Feral Lunge, and Gust of Wind or Spirit Walk, it's kind of difficult to keep up with classes that have far more mobility cooldowns than you do. You're going to want to use Feral Lunge and Gust of Wind to catch up to ranged classes.

These two abilities are going to help you stay in melee range, allowing you to maintain pressure. Now, the only time you should switch from Gust of Wind to Spirit Walk is if you specifically need the Root Breaker.

Now, that said, most Enhancement Shamans prefer Gust of Wind due to its shorter cooldown, giving you a better chance of getting a good amount of time to get to the target. and giving you more mobility overall in any matchup. However, against classes like Mages or Evokers, your mobility ain't going to be enough.

If you choose to chase them, you're going to often be stuck in Ghost Wolf without dealing meaningful damage in the process, which can absolutely be costly in longer games, especially if you fail to win during your Ascendance windows. One way to help combat this is by using your Earthgrab Totem.

Rooting them can buy you time to get in range for a Feral Lunge or to naturally run into melee. This can also help you maintain pressure.

Most of the time, though, if a melee is on you, you should focus on hitting them while chasing the Mage or kite behind a pillar defensively. This way, you're still contributing damage instead of being completely shut down.

KEEP UP EARTH SHIELD

At this moment in time, Enhancement Shamans lack good hybrid healing that they're usually known for. Most of the time you want to be spinning your Maelstrom stacks on damage since it's so powerful and using stacks for healing really feels extremely lackluster.

Now that being said, one key healing ability that you should make the most out of is Earth Shield. You want to keep up Earth Shield on yourself and another partner as much as possible as it still deals good sustained healing.

The extra healing throughout a fight can really make it easier for your healer to keep you alive since you have the added healing bonus which could definitely be seen as hot in terms of its healing output. More importantly though, Earth Shield can also provide a buff effect.

This means that when you're against teams that are offensively dispelling you often, Earth Shield could be a nice form of buff protection when you have other potent buffs. So keeping up Earth Shield when you don't have much damage or when being countered is a good thing.

So keep an eye out for that. The Earth Shield can be in your best interest to make the most out of its healing.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF RANGED ABILITIES

Did you know that Enhancement Shamans have a lot of ranged abilities to deal damage with? While Enhancement needs to be in melee range to deal a huge portion of their damage, they also have access to ranged spells that they can utilize while they're unable to be in melee range.

As such, knowing which spells you can abuse while being kited or kiting yourself can be a great way to min-max your globals when you're not in melee range. Spells such as Elemental Blast, Primordial Wave, Frost Shock, and Ice Strike are all damaging spells you have access to that can be used in a 40-yard range.

Using these while you're being kited is an excellent way to keep up with your pressure until you can move back into melee range. Additionally, you can also look to press other spells if you're still unable to reach your target.

Things like Earthgrab Totem, Windshear, and Earthshield are all spells you'll use throughout a game and can again use when unable to connect in melee range.

This strategy is especially effective against the most vulnerable players in the game, and it's a great way to use it when you're against high mobility classes like mages or hunters.

The Shaman wants to connect with the hunter, so they use Elemental Blast and Frost Shock while they're trying to close the remaining distance. Even when Frost Shock isn't empowered, it's a great tool to use against high mobility targets.

It helps slow them down, giving you the opportunity to close the gap.

ASTRAL SHIFT

Hello everyone and welcome back to this Enhancement Shaman course video. Now we talked about all the ways you can apply pressure and look for winning opportunities, but now we're going to go through what it takes to live.

Knowing how to use your defensive cooldowns properly and utilizing spells that can help you live is going to be an excellent way to help your team. Now with that in mind, we're going to get into this video talking about how to use Astral Shift in detail.

The main defensive cooldown you have is Astral Shift. It's a baseline two-minute cooldown that's going to reduce all damage you take by 40% for 12 seconds.

This is a powerful defensive cooldown likely to keep you alive if used at relatively high HP. Now typically you're going to trade this defensive against enemy offensive cooldowns to reduce its pressure.

Ideally you'll again use it at decently high health, but also you want to make trades with the same cooldown timers of your Astral Shift. This is where Planes Traveler really comes into play.

It reduces the cooldown of your Astral Shift by 30%. It's a good trade in your favor, reducing their pressure and making it more likely for you to survive.

If you don't need the 30 second cooldown reduction, then you can swap to the Astral Bulwark talent.

It bolsters your Astral Shift, putting it at a whopping 60% damage reduction, and this makes it ideal to use against heavy, two-minute offensive cooldowns, being able to reduce its pressure significantly, helping you survive. Now in rare cases, you may need to preemptively pop Astral Shift.

Against the likes of rogues or teams that can take you down in stuns, if you have no trinket, you might be prone to going down before you can use this defensive. If you know you don't have a trinket and an offensive setup is coming up that's likely to take you down, you could try to pre-Astral Shift it.

Now the best case scenario, you're going to pre-wall the stun and save yourself from death, and in the worst case, you're going to delay their go for 12 seconds and maybe find another win condition.

Now we stress again that this is a rare situation to happen, but if you read it well, you could keep yourself alive in situations where you'd most likely go down. Generally speaking though, you're going to most of the time use Astral Shift when you can trade it for offensive cooldowns.

You could also use your Medallion Trinket for it in situations where it's desperately needed to survive, and as a last point here, always be mindful of what you're up against. Knowing what offensives you have to use, you're going to have to be careful of what you're up against.

So that you can trade your Astral Shift in times of need.

STONE BULWARK TOTEM

Welcome back to another video on Enhancement Shaman defensive plays. Today we're going to be looking at the defensive cooldown Stone Bulwark Totem in detail, covering when to use it in the most ideal situation.

Stone Bulwark Totem grants you a huge shield that can absorb a ton of damage on a 3 minute cooldown. The best way to trade this cooldown is against other offensive cooldowns while you don't have Astral Shift available.

Using it this way is good to reduce the pressure of offensive cooldowns. Now more importantly, the reason why you use it when you don't have Astral Shift ready is so you can rotate your defensive cooldowns better throughout the game.

In a scenario where you use Astral Shift then Bulwark Totem later, you're going to get your Astral Shift back a whole lot sooner, making the defensive cooldown rotation a lot easier for you to survive in any game.

Another great use of Stone Bulwark Totem is simply when you're getting low on health and you need an extra defensive to live. The shield can prevent you from getting dangerously low and help you avoid execute mechanics.

Increasing the likelihood of you surviving.

BURROW TIPS

Welcome back everyone to yet another Enhancement Shaman Defensives video. In this course we're going to be continuing to talk about important spells that can help with your defensive plays.

Now one defensive cooldown that you're going to have to know how to use is Burrow, and we're going to get into detail on this right away. The PvP talent Burrow is a 2 minute cooldown that puts you underground and it makes you unattackable for 5 seconds.

It's essentially a lifesaver cooldown, similar to Immunity effects, so it should be used when you're on the brink of death. This is mainly used when your Astral Shift and Stone Bulwark Totem are on cooldown.

You're going to want to abuse your other defensive cooldowns first when you can reduce pressure, and then Burrow when you truly need it. Now in dire situations against setup teams, you may need to do it during a setup where you know you're going to die.

This can be the case where you have no damage reduction defensive cooldowns, and you need to survive the next setup from the enemy team. One thing to note about Burrow is that if someone casts damage just before you Burrow, the cast is going to go off.

Dangerous spells such as Chaos Bolt or Disintegrate will continue to do damage if they get the cast off before Burrow. Even DOT damage is still going to occur in Burrow, so make sure to use this cooldown a little bit earlier in these cases so the damage doesn't take you down.

EARTH ELEMENTAL

Hello and welcome back to another video on Enhancement Shaman Defensives. Today we're going to be discussing the use of Earth Elemental, being another key defensive that Enhancement Shamans really have to know how to use properly.

We're going to tell you exactly how to make the most out of this defensive. Your Earth Elemental is a 5 minute cooldown that gives you 15% maximum HP for up to 1 minute.

It also gives you a 5% damage reduction buff due to the Primordial Bond talent. This helps you bolster your defensive, and considering the duration of this cooldown, it's quite a decent defensive, but not as powerful as your previously mentioned spells in this course.

Now most of the time you're going to use it at the start of your arena games, just before you get in combat. Having this at the start of the game is going to make you a little bit more durable, and unlikely to die in the opener of games.

Most of the game's pressure really happens at the start, so having this up is really going to be good in most matchups. Now that being said, this defensive is definitely not powerful, enough to survive the likes of big offensive cooldowns.

So treat it like you don't really have a big defensive up, more kind of like something that can help you survive for the time being. In 3v3 games where the fights can last longer, you can start to use this as more of a rotational cooldown when your Astral Shift isn't ready.

This is perfect at around 1 minute before your Astral Shift cooldown, so you can increase your likelihood of living until your big defensive is ready.

GROUNDING TOTEM

Welcome back everyone to another Enhancement Shaman Defensive Course video. Today's topic is going to be on Grounding Totem and how you can utilize this effectively to be one of your strongest defensives in an arena game.

We're going to discuss this totem in detail, showing how to maximize using this spell to deny casters in the arena. In nearly every single matchup, Grounding Totem is going to be an essential PvP talent to pick.

With the Totemic Surge talent, Grounding Totem is a 24-second cooldown, redirecting all harmful spellcasts within 30 yards to the totem, preventing it from landing on your teammates.

As such, this is a highly-versatile spell and can be an excellent defensive against casters shutting down important damage or crowd control spells. You'll want to typically deny a big spellcast from this, being either a damage spell on your teammates or an important CC spell on your healer.

For example, against Mages, you can look to shut down Polymeril and bring in a unique spell that will be an excellent defensive skill for the enemy. For example, against Mages, you can look to shut down Polymeril and bring in a unique spell for the polymorph when you know it's going to be on your healer.

Usually, mage compositions will favor sheeping your healer and chain CC. Now, by stopping a full or even a half sheep, you can prevent important CC on your healer, which keeps you alive.

So, an example where it's good against a damaging spell can definitely be against a warlock casting Unstable Affliction or Chaos Bolt. If you use Grounding Totem before the cast finishes, you're going to negate their pressure while the totem is still up.

A key thing to make sure your Grounding Totem is useful is by timing this well. Use it too early means the enemy team can cancel their cast and kill your totem, which makes it much more lackluster.

Using it too late means the spell cast are going to go through, making it almost useless since you didn't stop the appropriate spell from landing. So, make sure to try and time the use of Grounding Totem well in order to guarantee that you can deny the CC or the damage.

Now, there are several big tips with Grounding Totem outside of this. First, make sure you have a good amount of this.

One is that you can also get instant CC or damage spells as well. The timing, of course, is going to have to be a little bit more difficult, but if you're confident, you can use Grounding Totem on important instant CC or damage, denying them completely.

Generally, you can also try your Grounding Totem behind a nearby pillar, making it much more difficult for the enemy team to kill. Totemic Projection can massively help with this, allowing you to place your totem out of line of the enemy team.

Now, this may seem like some effort, but it can be extremely disrupting against enemy spellcast, so make sure to abuse this.

SEASONED WINDS

Welcome back to another video on Enhancement Shaman Defensive Plays. In this video we're going to be taking a look at Seasoned Winds and how you can take advantage of it in defensive situations.

Now we're going to talk about when to use it and why you should sometimes play with this talent. This talent empowers your Windshear, giving it 10% damage reduction when you land an interrupt on that specific spell school for 18 seconds, stacking up to 2 times.

That means you could have a massive 30% damage reduction against certain spell schools for the entire game, assuming you can successfully interrupt your enemy every single time.

This can be incredibly powerful against casters that have most of their damage tied to a specific spell school, using Shear on them so you can be tanky against that certain type of spell school.

For instance, against Shadow Priest, interrupting Vampiric Touch, Void Torrent, or other Shadow School cast is going to make you durable to all of their pressure. If they're playing with a Warlock buddy, then you'll also have the damage reduction to any shadow damage the Warlock deals as well.

So knowing what spell schools are for different cast is really going to be important for you to know what to win Shear, so you can gain the damage reduction for the right school.

The main time to pick seasoned wins, then, will be against casters where you want to interrupt their damage often, making you more durable throughout a fight. It can be highly situational, so do try to pick it in the right matchups where you need the extra defensiveness.

It's only going to cost a talent point, so it's really worth the investment. Now, it also goes without saying that this is only going to work if you land win Shear on the cast.

You have to improve your interrupt skills to make sure you proc the damage reduction buff. Otherwise, it's just going to be a waste.

And just because you play seasoned wins, it doesn't mean you should only interrupt the DPS. If an opportunity arises where you can interrupt the enemy healer for pressure, then still do so if it's beneficial for your team.

HEX TIPS AS ENH

Welcome back to another video on defensive plays for enhancement shamans. Today's topic, we're going to go over Hex, going over how to make the most out of it in defensive situations.

Hex is a 30-second cooldown that can turn a player into a frog, which makes them unable to use any spells during that time. Now, for defensive plays, you can use it on enemy DPS, preventing them from dealing any damage or any CC, negating literally all of their pressure.

This can be a fantastic peel when your partners are in trouble and you're able to cast it off. Now, one thing to bear in mind is that Hex is a curse spell, meaning it can be decursed by classes that have access to it.

So you definitely want to play around this, and the best way to do that is typically Hexing the class that can decurse. A good example is against mages, who can decurse, but they usually play with teammates that can.

However, if you are in a scenario where you're against double decursed teams, then you may want to not actually go for a Hex. It can be time-consuming to get this cast off, and it can be a bit of a pain in the ass to get it off.

However, if you are in a scenario where you're in a situation where you have to go to the enemy team to get rid of it in an instant, then it just feels like wasted time. You can try to do it in desperate situations for living, but most of the time you probably don't want to bother against such compositions.

It also doesn't work on certain shapeshift forms, such as a Druid's bear form, or even travel form. Getting it off on the likes of Resto Druids can happen if you catch them off guard, but smart ones are going to make it a lot trickier for you to land this.

You could also try to CC chain it on them if you can catch them in the normal form, and last but not least, you could still use it on enemy healers as long as you can counter pressure the enemy DPS.

Sometimes it could be more beneficial for your team to Hex the healer instead and burst down the DPS, forcing them to kite or play defensive themselves.

Again, a good defense can be a good offense in this situation, so if you can easily land a Hex on the enemy healer, it could not only help you live, but look for your own win conditions instead.

EARTHGRAB TOTEM

Welcome back to another video on Enhancement Shaman Defensive Place. Here we're going to continue to talk about important spells that play a major part in your defensive toolkit.

In today's video, we're going to take a look at Earthgrab Totem in detail, showing you all the ways you can abuse this to help your team live. Earthgrab Totem is a small AoE root effect spell that roots all nearby players for 8 seconds on a 30 second cooldown.

It's going to become a 24 second cooldown if you take Totemic Surge, having more Earthgrab usages during an arena game. Its main purpose is to get one or multiple melee off your team, rooting them in place.

This can be an excellent peel, preventing them from having uptime on their target. Earthgrab Totem can be highly powerful into the likes of pet teams, rooting multiple pets to delay most of their pressure.

For example, it's excellent against BM Hunters during their Bestial Wrath. Using Earthgrab Totem can root all the pets within its range, denying the Hunter's pressure for quite some time.

It can also be best abused when the enemy healer doesn't have enough health. If you're looking to use Earthgrab Totem, you can use Earthgrab Totem to get rid of the enemy healer's and have their Dispel ready.

Healers might look to Dispel your Flameshock or other important spells from your teammates. If they don't have it ready, then you can simply use Earthgrab on the DPS, preventing them from moving without using a root breaking effect.

EARTH SHIELD

Hello everyone and welcome to another video on Enhancement Shaman Defensive Plays. Today's topic is going to be on Earthshield, moving on to the healing of an Enhancement Shaman.

We're going to be discussing the full use of this spell and how to make the most out of it during an arena game. Now with all your main defensives covered, one spell buff that you should try to maintain most of the game is your Earthshield.

This spell increases all your healing on the target by 20% and has 9 charges of healing, proccing when the enemy team hits you. With the Elemental Orbit talent, you can give someone else other than your partner an Earthshield while having one yourself.

Typically this will be used on the other DPS player as you're both the main targets of choice. The main strength of this spell is the free healing it gives over time, so ideally you want to try to keep up this buff on yourself and your partner of choice.

Then having the free healing can make passive pressure a little bit easier for your healer to deal with, so keeping up Earthshield when you have the free global is going to make it a bit more durable.

Another huge benefit of this spell is that it provides some buff protection, which can be important depending on who you play with. Most healers do have important buffs or hots that could bolster your defense, such as Power Word Shield or Rejuvenation.

Having your Earthshield up is going to make it more difficult for offensive Dispelers to essentially remove your healer's healing. It'll then be in your best interest to keep this buff up, especially if your teammates are in trouble, giving them extra healing.

HEALING SURGE

Hello and welcome back to another enhancement shaman video on defensive plays. The last topic in this course will be to do with your healing surge.

This video is going to go over when to best utilize your healing to keep your team alive. The main healing spell you have as an enhancement shaman is healing surge and with 5-10 stacks of maelstrom weapon you can use this heal instantly on anyone.

This can be used as a last ditch effort to try and keep someone alive. The healing throughput of this spell is super low being fairly weak so don't spam heal throughout a game as you won't do much healing with it.

It also costs you all your maelstrom weapon charges which means you're going to fall behind a ton in pressure. Without using elemental blast or primordial storms your damage is going to fall significantly behind losing any momentum you might have had.

That means the only time you should use healing surge is in absolutely dire situations where your partner is going to die. This includes not having a healer on hand.

Not having any other defensive cooldowns and if you know for a fact they're going to fall soon. Here you can look to chuck a healing surge if possible in an attempt to keep them alive.

But bear in mind that your earth shield also increases the healing of healing surge by 20% so you definitely want to make sure you have earth shield up on your target before you send them a heal. If you want to further increase your healing capabilities you can pick up the stormweaver talent.

This talent allows you to convert maelstrom spent on damage into stacks for your healing surges. This makes it much easier to maximize your healing.

Since healing surge can provide very high burst healing it's often going to be in your best interest to use this during heavy pressure situations where survival is going to be critical.