ENH SHAMAN FUNDAMENTALS COURSE

ENH SHAMAN PLAYSTYLE

Welcome to our Enhancement Shaman Damage Course for The War Within, which is custom designed to equip you with all the essential knowledge needed to excel in PvP. In this introductory video, we're going to be exploring what to expect from the Enhancement Shaman playstyle and what's changed going into The War Within.

So if you're familiar with Enhancement Shaman, then you know we have two main styles of play. And luckily for us, both of our hero trees complement these styles, giving us some flexibility on what we play.

The first style is often referred to as the Lava Lash build. And as you might expect, this build focuses on picking up the talents for Lava Lash on the right side of the tree, leaning more toward an elemental damage build.

If you enjoy random bursts of damage and the feeling of winning the proc lottery, then you're really going to love the Lava Lash build. The nice thing about the Lava Lash build is that you're doing damage all game.

You don't really rely on any particular setup to win. The second build is called the Stormstrike build.

It is a little bit more bursty, a little bit more of a simpler to play playstyle, and some would even call it predictable. This build revolves around using Doom Winds and Ascendance for massive bursts and then falling back into a more steady damage priority.

This build does struggle a little bit to land kills outside of the go, whereas the Lava Lash build excels at dealing damage consistently throughout the game. If you enjoy setting up massive goes that can instantly wipe out the entire team, then the Stormstrike build is definitely going to be for you.

Now you might be wondering how our hero talents fit into all this. Well, Totemic is the more elemental focused hero tree and pairs nicely with the Lava Lash build.

It adds the new surging totem to our kit and boosts the elemental damage on our core abilities like Lava Lash and Frost Shock. The goal here is to maximize our consistent damage throughout the game.

Stormbringer is really quite simple. The key is to spend as many Maelstrom weapon charges as humanly possible, as you want to keep cycling through Tempest and proccing all the nice buffs Blizzard has generously given us in this tree.

Now what this means is that you're going to be using Stormstrike a lot more compared to the Lava Lash build. Again, this build is a lot more simple, but when played correctly, it can be very rewarding.

Now that you have an understanding of the playstyle for Enhancement Shaman, it's time to take a look at your goals. Goals inside of Arena.

ENH SHAMAN GOALS

Welcome back! In this video we're going to be outlining some key goals for enhancement shaman that you should aim to follow throughout your games.

These are the objectives that top players strive to achieve in every single match. Our first goal is pretty simple, you should be as disruptive as possible.

You're a shaman and there's a reason everyone hates fighting shamans. You have hex, ground, shear, lasso, roots...

I mean need we say more? It's a class that's incredibly frustrating to deal with and you simply cannot neglect all of that utility.

How you use your utility is really going to make or break the game here. The biggest mistake shamans make when using their disruption is not recognizing what they need to disrupt.

When your healer is stunned by a hunter what should you do? Easy, you should throw down a grounding totem.

This completely negates their go or at least buys your healer some time to get off a few extra globals. See a priest running to fear?

Toss an earth grab totem! They're now stuck in the middle of the map and now you can either hex, lasso, or target them.

Recognizing what the enemy team wants to do and stopping it is crucial as a shaman. This leads to our second goal.

Don't tank unnecessary damage. Shamans are notorious for being an easy kill target and you don't want to make that even easier for the opponent.

If you look at some of the best enhancement shamans you're really going to notice that they retreat to the pillar when they need a breather. Recognizing when to use the shaman and when to not.

You can't just go in and out of the shaman and just go in and out of the shaman. You can't just go in and out of the shaman and just go in and out of the shaman and just go in and out of the shaman.

Recognizing when to step back and avoid taking damage is just as important as being aggressive in your place. Remember all that disruption we were talking about?

Well this is really going to help make it easier for you to kite. You can use earth grab on melee, pull targets away with static field, or simply just use frost shock to slow them and make kiting easier.

With these tools at your disposal you can easily slip away from danger and create space when you really need it. Our next goal is to never ever waste maelstrom weapon stacks.

Maelstrom weapon stacks up to 10 times and each stack increases your damage and your healing. Even better if you have at least 5 stacks your next spell becomes an instant cast.

And what this means is that if you're sitting at 8 stacks or more you should use them to avoid over capping and make the most out of the bonus damage and the bonus healing. Now speaking of maelstrom weapon increasing healing that is our fourth and final goal.

Don't neglect your healing abilities. Enhancement Shaman has incredibly strong off healing with not only healing surge but earth shield and healing stream can make it significantly easier on your healer.

If you don't have one we highly recommend using a weak aura to track earth shield. This buff can be purged and tends to fall off frequently.

And as a general rule you want to swap earth shield to the primary target on your team who's taking the most damage. If you want to further increase your healing storm weaver is a good option.

Now a strong additional pvp talent especially when playing a storm bringer. This talent makes off healing much much easier as it converts maelstrom stacks into its own stacks for healing.

Make sure to keep up with your off heals in dire situations to help you and your teammates stay alive.

ENH SHAMAN DAMAGE PRIORITY: STORMBRINGER

This next video is going to show you how your priority changes based on your hero tree. This is much more burst oriented, and the rotation is much simpler compared to Totemic, so if you're new to enhancement, you might want to consider starting with Stormbringer.

Since there's no surging totem, we simply want to keep up Flameshock on as many targets as possible. Now, you typically won't play Ashen Catalyst or any of the other talents associated with Flameshock, but it's still a decent amount of our damage, so we don't want to ignore it.

Primordial Wave comes after Flameshock since we aren't using splintered elements for the haste buff. Instead, we use it primarily as an extra way to apply Flameshock and to get those bonus lightning bolts.

Tempest is the hero talent we get with Stormbringer. After spending every 40 Maelstrom weapon stacks, your next lightning bolt turns into Tempest, which deals some pretty big damage.

Better yet, it boosts your next lightning bolt by 40% and triggers an extra cast thanks to Arc Discharge. If Tempest isn't ready, simply use lightning bolt as we don't spec into Elemental Blast when running Stormbringer.

Whether or not you have Primordial Wave doesn't really matter here as there's nothing else to spend our stacks on for damage. For generators, Stormstrike is now your top priority and we use it every time it's available.

Remember how in Totemic we focused on talents to enhance Lava Lash? Well, now we're choosing talents like Stormblast and investing two points in Elemental Assault to amplify Stormstrike's power.

If Stormstrike is on cooldown, you're going to prioritize using Lava Lash. Since we're not talented into lashing flames, you can use Lava Lash on your primary target without needing to worry about managing any debuffs.

We then have Ice Strike, which deals moderate damage itself, but then more importantly will buff your next Frost Shock by 100%, making it deal quite big damage. This is a great way to bolster your Frost Shock and have another filler in your DPS rotation.

We then have Voltaic Blast. We're going to use it to boost our DPS.

This just amplifies your next Flame Shock and it makes it AoE. It's always going to be better to spend your Maelstrom or push Stormstrike, but it's definitely good to use when you have nothing else available to use.

Finally, we have Frost Shock. Now, as with Totemic, this is really just a filler for when you're getting kited or you need to kite.

ENH SHAMAN BURST SEQUENCE: STORMBRINGER

In our previous video, we covered how to burst when using Surging Totem in conjunction with the Totemic Tree. For this video, we're going to be swapping to the Stormbringer Tree, which relies more on Doomwinds and Descendants.

The first step before you activate your burst pressure is to apply Flameshock. Then spread your Flameshocks with a Lava Lash, which should be spread to all nearby targets.

This is integral for your Primordial Wave, which you'll press now, dealing huge damage to all targets with Flameshock. Then you're going to cast a Lightning Bolt or Tempest depending on what you have access to, and at this stage you can now pop Ascendants.

Then press your Doomwinds and spam Windstrike as much as possible. You should be able to spend every Global on Windstrike during Ascendants, which is actually the best thing you can do during this cooldown, creating your biggest burst pressure.

ENH SHAMAN HERO TALENTS: STORMBRINGER

So with Totemic fresh in your mind, it's time to explore the alternative hero tree of Stormbringer. Is the trade-off for a simpler rotation really going to be worth it?

Well, let's find out. Stormbringer truly lives up to its name, as every 40 stacks of Maelstrom weapon spent transforms your Lightning Bolt into Tempest.

Tempest hits almost three times harder than Lightning Bolt and deals damage to anyone around your target. Now, much like Totemic, there are several talents that synergize well with Tempest, making it even stronger.

Let's start with Arc Discharge. So when you cast Tempest, this talent makes your next Lightning Bolt an instant cast with a 40% damage boost and an even cast in additional time.

This provides some immense finishing power, allowing you to chain Tempest and Lightning Bolt together when the enemy is low or combined with Maelstrom weapon stacks for a massive hit.

When you cast Tempest, you can also cast Lightning Rod on your target, which will also apply Lightning Rod to them, thanks to Conductive Energy. If you're familiar with Elemental Shaman, well, it's really going to be exactly the same here.

With Lightning Rod active, the target takes 10% of the damage you deal with your Lightning Bolt and Tempest. This effect can hit hard, especially when paired with Primordial Wave.

Rolling Thunder is amazing. Every time we cast Tempest, we summon a Nature Spirit for 15 seconds.

Having a Nature Spirit out increases your Nature damage, which further amplifies your burst damage. This is a great way to get a Tempest charge, and you can have multiple Nature Spirits out if you're fast with spending your stacks.

Now, you might be wondering, is there any other way to get a Tempest charge? And that answer is absolutely.

The Awakening Storms talent gives every Stormstrike and Lightning Bolt a chance to deal bonus damage. And when this happens three times, it's going to turn your Lightning Bolt into Tempest.

This Tempest functions the same way as the one we get from 40 stacks of Maelstrom weapon. Now, let's dig into some of our choice nodes, starting with Supercharged.

Supercharged versus Stormwell. Supercharged is our pick here, as it gives Lightning Bolt and Tempest a chance to refund two charges of Maelstrom weapon.

With the additional refunds from Static Accumulation, you're building Tempest back even faster. Stormwell just provides a little bit of mastery when you use Tempest, but the opportunity to use more Tempest throughout the game is simply just going to be more valuable.

We then have Lightning Conduit versus Electroshock. Electroshock is going to be our pick pretty much every single game.

This increases our movement speed when we use Tempest, whereas Lightning Conduit is a random movement speed bonus. Electroshock is much more predictable and allows us to close in our target when we're bursting.

Our final choice node is Nature's Protection and Surging Currents. Nature's Protection is just a flat 3% damage reduction.

It isn't much, but it can make a difference in prolonged games. Surging Currents sounds good, and it can be.

Your Tempest makes your next healing surge 20% stronger, stacking up to 100%. This incentivizes you to hold onto your healing surge for a crucial moment, which can definitely make it harder overall on your healer.

ENH SHAMAN DAMAGE PRIORITY: TOTEMIC

Hello everyone and welcome to the next step of our Enhancement Shaman course guide on your damage priority with the Totemic Hero Talents.

Totemic is now becoming the more popular choice for Enhancement Shamans with it dealing some huge damage with short cooldowns that can really make it difficult for the enemy team to deal with. So here we've set up a priority system for you to use as a guideline when dealing damage as an Enhancement Shaman.

Note that this is a priority system, not a damage rotation. If you're playing Totemic, your highest priority is getting down Surging Totem.

This is one of the highest damaging abilities and it buffs several abilities with your talents from the Totemic Hero Tree. The Totem has a 40 yard range and you can move it once every six seconds to keep benefiting from its damage output.

The next priority here is Flameshock which should be applied to as many targets as possible. Every time Flameshock ticks you have a chance to reduce the cooldown of Lava.

The Flameshock will buff the damage of your next Lava Lash. It's also going to increase the damage of your Primordial Wave later on which is going to be crucial for increased burst damage.

So at this point you really want to activate your Elemental Spirits. Even though this has a cooldown due to Witch Doctor's Ancestry, you can significantly reduce the cooldown of your Elemental Spirits throughout a game.

Doing so will adopt a playstyle to use Elemental Spirits whenever you have it ready which benefits from the extra damage they bring to your elementals. This is a great way to get rid of the damage that you're dealing with the ring as well as generate some extra Maelstrom.

Then you want to prioritize Primordial Wave, bearing in mind that it now gives 5 stacks of Maelstrom. It will also blast every target affected by Flameshock with big damage so you want to make sure you use Primordial Wave with as many Flameshocks up as possible.

Straight after you want to use Primordial Storm as long as you have 10 stacks of Maelstrom. This is going to be your biggest burst damage by far so make sure to have the maximum stacks in order to deal some incredible damage to your target.

When you don't have Primordial Wave ready, then your next Maelstrom Spinder is going to be Elemental Blast when you have at least 8 stacks of Maelstrom. In addition to dealing big damage, it provides you with extra stats which further increase your sustained damage.

After that you can use Lava Lash with the Hot Hand buff. Hot Hand buffs your Lava Lash's damage and reduces its cooldown which makes it a pretty nice Maelstrom builder.

Without the Hot Hand buff, the next spell should be Ice Strap. So, if you're a Maelstrom user and you're looking to get a good deal of damage from the Maelstrom, you can use the Ice Strap to get a good deal of damage.

If you're a Maelstrom user and you're not a Maelstrom user, you can use the Ice Strap to get a good deal of damage from the Maelstrom. It deals some pretty moderate damage but more importantly, it's going to buff the damage of your next Frost Shock significantly.

We then have Lava Lash without any procs in the next priority. By itself, it's a nice Maelstrom generator and damage spell that's ideal when building your Maelstrom for your Elemental Blast or Primordial Storm.

After that, we have Frost Shock. Frost Shock should be used when both Lava Lash and Ice Strike are on cooldown but you have the Ice Strike buff in at least 5 stacks of Hailstorm to further buff the damage.

Then, the next priority is Storm Strike which deals a bit of damage and building some Maelstrom. For a Totemic build, Storm Strike really isn't all that important and it becomes more of a filler spell here when you don't have anything more important to press.

Last of all, at the bottom of the priority list, we have Frost Shock as a filler. This can be used when being kited or you simply want to use a global with nothing else available.

Without the Ice Strike and Hailstorm buffs, it won't deal some great damage but it could help you reconnect the targets that are kiting you.

ENH SHAMAN BURST SEQUENCE: TOTEMIC

Now on to another juicy video that's going to be in your best interest as an enhancement shaman playing with the Totemic Hero Talents. Here in the next section of this course, we're going to be breaking down the exact sequence you want to be following in order to set up the highest burst damage possible.

First things first, you want to start by dropping down your Surging Totem. Doing this is going to give you elemental motes, empowering your next abilities, which is also important for the next global, being Flameshock.

This Flameshock should apply to all nearby targets, which is going to be a crucial part to your burst damage. Then summon your elemental spirits, giving you additional damage buffs and increasing your Maelstrom generation.

Next up, you want to use Primordial Wave, hitting all targets with Flameshock up, dealing a huge amount of damage. Following this, you want to use Lava Lash to help spread additional Flameshocks and also build additional Maelstrom stacks quickly.

Now you can activate Doom Winds, which is now an excellent option. This is an offensive cooldown for Totemic since it can proc from your passive rotation.

Here, another Lava Lash is used, but this spell slot can be any Maelstrom builder spell, trying to get to 10 stacks of Maelstrom so you can unleash your burst. With 10 stacks of Maelstrom, Primordial Blast will now be used, dealing a monstrous amount of damage, being most of your burst pressure to all nearby targets.

After that, you'll then continue with your basic rotation using the priority list from the video before, building your Maelstrom, and spending your Maelstrom as it instructs.

ENH SHAMAN HERO TALENTS: TOTEMIC

Hey everyone, welcome to the next video in our Enhancement Shaman damage course. Now as you likely know by now, while talents have mostly stayed the same in the War Within, one major new feature is the introduction of hero talents.

The tree you choose and the talents you select are going to have a significant impact on your overall gameplay and your overall rotation. So in this video we're going to be breaking down exactly what those impacts are, and we're going to share some tips and tricks to help you maximize your damage.

Totemic is certainly the more intimidating of the two trees due to its more complex rotation, which involves managing various procs and various buffs. The core mechanic of this tree is, well, you probably guessed it, a totem.

Surging totem, by itself, really isn't all that special. It's a totem that you place on the ground and it deals some damage over time.

However, it's the talents in this tree that really elevates surging totem, which makes it a powerful tool in your arsenal. So let's break down each of these talents.

One of the most powerful talents in this tree is Whirling Elements. When you summon Surging Totem, it begins empowered with three separate elemental motes.

Each of these motes is consumed upon use, meaning you get one of each every time you place Surging Totem. The air mote causes your next lightning bolt to unleash three surging bolts at your Surging Totem.

We're going to explain what this means soon. The earth mote increases the damage of your next flame shock by 300%, but perhaps more importantly, it allows flame shock to hit up to five nearby targets.

The fire mote makes your next lava lash grant you hot hands, which is just a nice damage boost. Let's now circle back to Surging Bolt, which is triggered by the totemic rebound talent.

It can be a bit tricky to understand at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's definitely straightforward. Every time you cast lightning bolt, chain lightning, or elemental blast, there is a chance that you'll get a lot of damage.

So let's get started. First, you get a chance to send out a surging bolt.

The surging bolt does a small amount of damage to your target, but it also increases the damage of your surging totem by 10% per stack. When you consume the air mote, it guarantees that three surging bolts are cast, thus increasing the damage of your surging totem by 30%.

This synergizes nicely with the pulse capacitator talent, which is a flat 25% damage increase to our surging totem. The last talent that directly complements surging totem is the air mote, which is a flat 25% damage increase to our surging totem.

The third talent is earth surge, although there is the option to take totemic coordination. Earth surge is clearly the preferred option, as it significantly increases our burst potential.

On the flip side, totemic coordination is definitely underwhelming here, as it only boosts the critical strike chance and the damage of searing totem, not surging totem. Now, you might be wondering, what is searing totem?

This totem has a chance to spawn whenever you use lava lash, which adds a bit of extra single target damage. When you use empowered frost shocks or lava lash, it also pulses and adds a little bit of AOE damage.

Now, while this might sound like a useful boost, investing in support talents for searing totem just really isn't worth it. Now, let's talk about our other choice nodes, starting with oversized totems and swift recall.

At first glance, it might seem like a tough call, since both offer some solid benefits here, but oversized totems is simply, too good to pass up. Not only does it increase the radius of our totems by 15%, it also increases their health by 30%.

This makes totems like capacitator totem and static totem significantly harder to kill. In fact, some classes may not even be able to kill these totems.

The last choice node that we haven't covered is amplification core versus over surge. In reality, this isn't much of a choice, since over surge only benefits surging totem during ascendance, and totemic totem is a good choice.

But totemic doesn't spec into ascendance. So, amplification core is the clear pick here, which is really just a small damage and healing boost.

ENH SHAMAN OPENER

Let's move past the theory and get to the practical. In this next part of our Enhancement Shaman Damage course, we're going to be guiding you through the best strategies for how to approach openers.

We're going to cover the goals, the thought processes, and the decision making, drawing insights from Rank 1 Enhancement Shaman, Loveless. Before the gates even open, it's necessary that you have all your Enhancement Shaman buffs up.

Wind Fury Weapon, Flame Tongue Weapon, Lightning Shield, Earth Shield, and Sky Fury are all buffs that should be active when the game starts. Then, when the gates open, you can use Earth Elemental to give yourself extra HP and some damage reduction.

This is great in quick matchups or when against stealth classes that may open on you at the start of the game. Then, pop your Feral Spirits, buffing your damage in the near future and giving you Maelstrom Generation instantly.

This is good, leading to your first burst damage sequence, which allows you to get it earlier on. After that, you'll Earthgrab your opponents in place.

This could be used earlier. This is immediately followed by a Surging Totem so you can get your damage rolling and have your elemental modes up and ready, which allows you to Flameshock, spreading it to all nearby players instantly.

Remember from our previous video in your burst rotation that this is vital to getting off your burst damage sequence, so try to spread your Flameshock as much as possible. If needed, you could use Lava Lash afterwards to spread even more Flameshocks.

Loveless then follows this up with a Cap Totem, attempting to stun all targets. Then pops his Doom Winds buff, looking to deal with incredible burst damage early on.

Intro a Primordial Wave, then immediately Primordial Blast since he's at 10 stacks of Maelstrom due to all he's done in the opener. He then carries on with the rest of his rotation, but since he's against double DPS, the game is over instantly.

ENH SHAMAN WIN CONDITION

Alright, so far in this course we've outlined our goals in Arena, we've provided you with a straightforward damage priority, we've thoroughly explored each ability, and even covered how you should be approaching Openers.

Now, it's finally the time to bring it all together and demonstrate precisely how you should use all of this knowledge to win you games. The win condition varies with each build, so let's start with the straightforward win condition of Stormbringer.

Stormbringer plays like classic Turbo. The goal is to CC the healer, pop Ascendants and Doom Winds, and then burst down the enemy so fast they can't even react to the damage.

But how do we set up for this moment? Well, let's take a look at this game as an example here.

We have an Enhancement Shaman teamed up with a Rogue. The Rogue starts by using Blind on the Holy Paladin, and then follows up with a Sap off the Blind.

With that Sap, the Shaman pops Ascendants. Timing Ascendants with CC is really going to be key here, as no CC would allow that healer to respond with cooldowns or simply out-heal the burst.

Now, watch the Evoker's health bar. If you blinked, you really might have missed it.

They dropped from 75% to 30% in just a couple of Globals, which forced two Trinkets and a Blessing of Protection from the Paladin. As a Stormbringer Shaman, your primary win condition is to consistently set up massive burst windows with Ascendants, and Doomwinds, forcing the enemy to burn through their cooldowns.

Eventually, you're going to wear them down until they have nothing left to respond with, and that is when you can secure the kill. If the enemy healer isn't on in-cap DR, you might even want to consider Hexing them before you use Ascendants.

This can be particularly effective if it's set up off a stun or other form of CC on the healer. However, because of how quickly Ascendants can shred through the enemy, a single CC is often enough to secure the kill, especially if the kill target is a single CC.

If the target doesn't have defensive cooldowns. Totemic is different to Stormbringer, as you won't be as reliant on big offensive cooldowns to win you the game.

Now that being said, you still have a huge burst window with your new Primordial Wave and Primordial Storm talents, allowing you to burst down your targets swiftly around every 30 seconds. This combo can deal absurd burst damage, easily catching your opponents off-guard, that can lead to kills.

So, your win condition can be during your Primordial Wave burst sequence, as well as your sustain pressure when playing this build. Your sustain pressure is also powerful, having access to Surging Totem, Lava Lash, and Empowered Frost Shocks.

These all deal great damage passively and can be a win condition when your opponent runs out of ways to survive.