Enhance PvP Guide - 5.4 Updated 12/24/2013

[Tactic6995]

It’s finally time.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can message me on my youtube (youtube.com/tactic1048), on my twitch (twitch.tv/tacticq), or add my btag: tactic#1895 with your question.

If you liked this guide, please rate it and provide feedback. There is a lot of info you need to understand a class in PvP and I want this guide to have all the information needed.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Playstyle
3. Spell Priorities
4. Talents and Glyphs
......4a. Talent overview and why
......4b. Glyphs and why
5. Gemming, Reforging and Enchants
......5a. Gemming
......5b. Reforging
......5c. Enchants
6. Professions
7. Macros and Keybinds
......7a. Macros
......7b. Keybinds
8. Tips/Tricks
9. Addons / UI
10. Other Resources

1. Introduction

Hi there, my name is Tactic. You may know me from my youtube channel: youtube.com/tactic1048. I have been an enhance shaman since the start of BC, since then I have been hardcore raiding til the end of cataclysm. It wasn’t until season 9 when I started to pvp, but since then I have gotten 2200+ in every season with a variety of comps. This includes a 2520 enh/feral/priest, 2500 beastcleave, 2350 turbocleave, 2275 enh/dk, 2250 enh/boomkin, and a 2200 enh/mage. I feel like I am one of the few enhance shamans that stray away from the common comps and try something different! It’s because of this I have learned the synergies of the class itself and ultimately learning to play it better because of the harder comps I have played.

In this guide, I am going to try to go over everything, and I will edit it as soon as I think I have missed something. Some of this info may be redundant and or new to you depending on how much you know of the class.

2. Playstyle

“Enhancement is known as the caster- melee spec, because we have an even distribution of physical damage and magic damage.” What I like the most about of enhance is how we basically have to go balls deep into combat to survive, we have to keep the pressure up or we lose control of the game. That is, you gain maelstrom weapon charges, and you heal or damage depending on the scenario. The main advantages of enhance at the moment is the huge support we offer to the team, our heals, and the most broken burst in the game, ascendance.

3. Spell Priority

As you would assume, there isn’t really a general PVE rotation you can use in pvp, but rather you push whatever is best in that moment. I like to follow a rough list for doing damage.

- Keep searing totem up: The damage it provides is little, but its brainless damage you don’t have to think about.

- Spam Stormstrike: For each class I feel there is an ability you spam all the time, for me it’s stormstrike, it provides me the crit buff for LB and EB and is a good generator for maelstrom weapon.

- Use Elemental Blast with unleash elements: When you have 3-5 maelstrom use Unleash Elements in conjunction with flametongue weapon your elemental blast will hit 30% harder. I like this macro with it, as elemental blast will show when you have the unleashed flame buff up:

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=7 Unleash Elements, Elemental Blast

-Lava lash: Don’t wait for 5 stack searing flames, just use all your abilities on CD.

-Keep flame shock up.

-Use frost shock/earth shock: Earth shock melee for weakened blows debuff, frost shock for snare if you are not on your target, if you are, then earth shock.

-Purge: Spam purge if the target has buffs.

-Lightning bolt with 5 stacks: Only use lightning bolt when you can’t heal something, use elemental blast, or hex something. Only use it if you think you can get a kill. The damage is too little, and does not outweigh our heal, EB, or instant hex.

The most important about doing damage is keeping your activity high! You should always be pushing something. Can’t reach a target? Is there something you can purge? Can your provide heals? Can you bind an elemental? Always be aware of what is going on.

4. Talents and Glyphs

In PvP you will never find a cookie cutter spec, you will need to change your talents and glyphs depending on the team you face. Here is generally what you will run the most time:




4a. Talents
Tier 1: Level 15


In this tier, I strongly recommend choosing Nature’s Guardian. It’s a free 115k heal that procs when you are low. The duration of astral shift is way too low, and you can’t use it while stunned. Stone bulwark totem use to be good, but now it scales with battle fatigue so the shield it provides is horrible now.

Tier 2: Level 30


All the talents are viable! But in most cases I recommend using windwalk totem, as most teams have a root or a snare to prevent you from reaching your target, also popping freedom totem can allow your healer your healer to run around a pillar and kite more effectively. Earth grab totem is good for for double melee teams with no root breaks and you need to snare, like TSG. I really like using Frozen Power for BGs, and double melee comps. For double melee comps, for example turbo cleave, let’s say you go on warrior, you can root and hex the enhance all game, I like using this macro, change the arena1,2,3 to whoever you want to root all game. I would have arena 1, 2, 3 for frost shock but I am running out of keybinds.

#showtooltip
/cast [@arena2] Frost Shock

The root is really good when you have solar beam (symbiosis) and when you have Totemic Projection, as you can range root your focus target and TP your cap totem to guarantee a stun. http://i.imgur.com/rHus5UX.jpg

Tier 3: Level 45


In the current state of the game, I would recommend Call of the Elements. Any team that has multiple roots, or multiple things you can tremor, take this talent. I also would recommend taking Totemic Projection for teams with little roots, and a small amount of fears. This talent can allow you to TP your grounding totem to eat a hunter’s trap from afar, or eat some damage from a deep. You can also TP your tremor totem to your healer when he is in africa. Lastly, you can make capacitor totem a guaranteed stun most of the time with this talent.

Tier 4: Level 60


I highly recommend using Nature’s swiftness all the time. It is the consistent version of Elemental Mastery, so long as you have high uptime. It allows you to provide a fast hex at the start of the game, allowing quick cross CC if needed. Elemental Mastery is only good if you want to go pure mongo mode and just do alot of burst, but keep in mind it can be dispelled! Lastly Echo of the Elements is pretty garbage dps wise, you have a small chance of dupping your elemental blast which is good, but mainly this talent is only useful for healing as it has a 30% chance of dupping your heal, and it can crit as well.

Tier 5: Level 75


Here I would recommend using Ancestral Guidance for most teams. It provides good heals when you have no damage, and a lot of heals when you use this with ascendance. Paired with ascendance you can counter some teams burst with your insane damage and healing. As for rushing streams, I would recommend you using this talent against dot cleaves, where they have little burst, and your team basically rots, ex: dk/lock, lock/sp. Overall you will do a lot more healing with this talent on a dot cleave, so long as you keep it on cooldown.

Tier 6: Level 90


For this tier, you should always be using Elemental Blast. With the changes in 5.4, we are always using flametongue weapon, and unleashed flame + elemental blast means mean damage, it can crit up to 140k with cooldowns, and I have seen it crit for 180k with crit banner up. When you see someone get one shotted by an enhance shaman, it is most likely their elemental blast crit and then they followed up with a stormblast (ascendance) crit.

In rare cases where you get trained all game and the damage is unhealable (rogue mage teams), you can spec unleashed fury and change your weapon imbues to rockbiter/flametongue and keep unleashed elements on cooldown. It gives you 40% less damage from the target you UE’d on for 5sec.

Primal Elementalist is only really good against teams that will monog-tunnel someone and won’t bother destroying your pet, like thug cleave. Even then, the large CD makes it worse. I like to use it when I really want to destroy someone in a duel, as primal fire ele and ascendance is pretty stupid.

4b. Glyphs
Recommended Prime Glyphs:
Glyph of Lightning shield: A constant 10% damage reduction, this is amazing. Always have this on.

Glyph of Healing Storm: increases your healing by 20% per stack of Maelstorm. Another great talent to have, considering half of your 5 stack maelstroms will go to healing.

Glyph of Hex: Reduces your hex cooldown by 10 seconds, making it a 35sec CD. This a great talent against teams with no dispel or just one dispeller. CC wins games, this glyph works really well when teaming up with a hunter as their scatter and traps are on a 30sec, so you can cross CC really well.

Glyph of purge: Really good for getting buffs off quick, especially when you want to purge a PoM or NS when the person is relatively clean. However, this talent can bite you in the butt if you are the only dispeller, as if you are unlucky you will be a sitting duck for 6sec while that BoP you are trying to purge off is mocking you. I recommend using this when you have other dispels on your team.

Situational Prime Glyphs:
Glyph of Capacitor: For those teams that keep sniping your cap totem, and you need to get it off.

Glyph of Spirit Walk: For those teams that you need to kite really bad, or chase.

Glyph of Purging: Every purge grants a maelstrom charge. This talent can be incredible in 2s. You can kite, and range purge to get maelstrom stacks so you can heal, this allows your healer to drink or set up for a CC.

Glyph of Ghost Wolf: For when you want to run around a pillar.

Glyph of Feral Spirit: For games that you know that will be short, and you need dem extra heals.

Glyph of shamanistic rage. For games where a paladin keeps stunning you, and/or games that a mage will deep freeze you without silencing you. Be careful when using this against UA locks and spriests as the gylph no longer ignores their dispel protection and you will be hit hard, silenced, and feared respectively.

Major Glyphs:
Glyph of Lava Lash: Makes it so your lava lash does not spread your flame shock, use this when your FS could potentially break a CC (most of the time).

5. Gemming, Reforging and Enchants
What makes you hit hard. http://i.imgur.com/cfKESRD.gif I recommend to have 2 sets of gear/pieces for certain comps.

5a. Gemming
Red slots: Agility - Delicate Primordial Ruby. +160 agility. Increase your AP, increase crit, AP good, crit good.
Orange Slots: Adept Vermilion Onyx. +80 agility and +160 mastery. Agi good, mastery good.
Blue slots: Either Assassin’s Imperial Amethyst. +80 agi and +80 PvP Power. Or Perfect Glintnig Roguestone. +80 agi and +80 hit.
Meta slot: Agile Primal Diamond. +216 Agility and 3% Increased Critical Effect. This provides the most damage. However you could use the Tyrannical Primal Diamond: 665 pvp power and 775 pvp resil, to be more tanky. In some cases you want the Powerful Primal Diamond: +324 stam and stun duration reduced by 10%, basically this is for rogue mage teams.

For legs, you can gem double agility, as the pvp power socket bonus is not that great, personal preference.

5b. Reforging
I recommend doing this priority. As crit is the new meta in the game right now and scales well with elemental blast and ascendance.

First off: 3% hit > 3% expertise
Then: Mastery > Crit > Haste > PvP Power

However this is just personal preference, with testing, I think this provides the most burst and damage overall. You could run this though:
Haste > mastery > crit
This is more for a most support case. This will net you more maelstrom weapon.

Overall you always want mastery. Mastery is what makes your elemental blast, and ascendance numbers bigger.

5c. Enchants
Shoulders - 200 Agility and 100 Crit
Back - 180 Hit or 180 Crit
Chest - 200 Resilience or 80 stats
Wrist - 180 Agility
Hands - 170 Mastery
Legs - 285Agility and 165 Crit
Feet - 140Agility and Run Speed
Weapon:
MH: Dancing Steel
OH: Tyrannical Weapon Enchant - 400PvP Power / 200 Resilience / Disarm Reduction. (2200req) or if you don’t have the rating, use the living steel weapon chain. YOU NEED A DISARM CHAIN OR GET OWNED BY DISARM ON BURST.

I recommend buying a second weapon and having dancing steel on it, this way you can swap it to your offhand for teams that have no disarm for you.

Imbues: MH - Windfury OH - Flametongue

6. Professions

This depends on what you want your enhance to be, burst, or sustained?

If you want burst, I strongly recommend having Tailoring and Engineering. At the start of the fight, your on use trinket procs, your tailoring enchant procs, and then you pop your glove enchant. This is a lot of agility O.o Someone getting owned.

If you want sustained, I recommend going Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting. This way you can choose what stats you want if the meta ever changes. At the moment, you can either put pure Mastery or Agility in the open sockets.

If you want a hybrid, I recommend taking either Engineering / x or Tailoring / X. I personally like tailoring/blacksmithing.

Whether it is burst, sustained, or hybrid, each has their benefits. I have one shaman with engi/tailoring and the other with BS/JC, both have achieved high ratings.

7. Macros and Keybinds

Do not feel like you need to change your playstyle at all when looking at my macros or keybinds, play what is comfortable to you.

7a. Macros:
Here is the pastebin for my macros: http://pastebin.com/HRBhas4h
I strongly recommend having arena 1, 2, 3 target and focus macros. It’s hard to get use to at the start, but you will get use to it, and you will love it.

7b. Keybinds:
I use a razer naga for my mouse, so a large amount of keybind is on my mouse. Let’s start with the keyboard and work our way to the mouse.

1 - Lightning bolt
Al1 - Chain Lightning
2- Ele blast
3- Earth Shock
Sh3 - Magma Totem
4 - Frost Shock
Sh4 - Focus Frost Shock
Al4 - Arena Frost Shock
5 - Flame Shock
A - Ancestral Swiftness
D - Spiritwalker’s Grace
ShE - Healing Stream Totem
R - Ancestral Guidance
ShR - Stormlash Totem
` - Spirit Walk
C - Cap Totem
Sh2 - Healthstone
F - Fire Nova
ShF - Recall Totems
G - Trinket
X - Lightning Shield
ShX - Mouseover Focus
Z - Cleanse ShZ - Cleanse1 AltZ - Mouseover Cleanse
Now the mouse, here is a SS of the side of the mouse for reference: http://i.imgur.com/Onhecmu.jpg

No modifiers:
1 - Lava Lash
2 - Storm Strike
3 - Unleash Elements
4 - Searing Totem
5 - Healing Surge (Self)
6 - Grounding Totem
7 - Purge
8 - Shamanistic Rage
9 - Earthbind Totem / Freedom Totem
10 - Ascendance
11 - Bloodlust
12 - Hex

Shift Modifiers:
2 - CotE or TP
5 - Spirit Wolves
7 - Focus Purge
8 - Symbiosis Ability
9 - Tremor Totem
10 - Target arena 1
11 - Target arena 2
12 - Target arena 3

Alt Modifiers
5 - Healing Tide Totem
8 - Focus Symbiosis Ability
10 - Focus Arena 1
11 - Focus Arena 2
12 - Focus Arena 3

Other buttons on mouse:
Mouse Wheel Button: Wind Shear
B5 - Ghost Wolves
SB5 - Earth Ele
B4 - Focus Wind Shear
SB4 - Fire Ele

Yeah... my keybinds are weird.

8. Tips/Tricks

- Stormstrike before ascendance, when you pop ascendance it resets the CD.

- Make sure you unleash elements before you elemental blast for 30% more damage.

- Alot of resto shaman will try to cover their casts in various ways to make sure you don’t interrupt them, but I say who cares! If they drop grounding totem, focus purge them and then wind shear, if you are quick you should interrupt the cast. The same goes for Spiritwalker’s Grace, their aura mastery, focus purge them until you get it off, if you are lucky and they are moving it will interrupt them, however if they are standing still get ready to interrupt them. I Suggest an addon that will tell you what you purge, and a cast addon to show when you can or can not interrupt

-If you pop your earth elemental totem on a hunter’s stampede, it will briefly taunt them.

-Try to pop your ascendance only when the healer is CC’d, preferably cross CC’d so it is a 3v1.

-We actually have an Oh Sh*t button, its called popping healing tide totem, ancestral guidance and ascendance.

-Use stormlash totem with a warriors reck bladestorm, it hurts.

-Try to purge alot, get in the habit of it. You want to get important buffs off instantly such as Spiritwalker's Grace, Presence of Mind, Nature’s Swiftness, Ancestral Swiftness, Temperal Shield (LOL Mage nerf <3), Ice Barrier, Icy Veins, Alter Time, basically any mage buffs, Hand of Sacrifice, Blessing of Protection, Divine Favor, Power word shield (if it’s not too much trouble), Freedoms. Try hitting a mage when he is clean compared to when he is not, if you connect to him with no buffs he is basically dead. The cleaner the target, the more damage you do. If you see a potential switch target in arena, start to clean him off before you go on him.

-If you know a rogue is going to open on you, pre-pop capacitor totem, and shamanistic rage (garrote silence).

- Always keep healing stream totem on cooldown.

-When you hex, always see if you can cross CC

-Look for easy ways to drop capacitor totem (when not running totemic projection), any CC that keeps the enemy still like scatter, warrior target fear, poly, etc... you can time capacitor to stun out of it.

-There is probably more things I can think off, but at the moment I am dry. I will add them in when I remember.

9. Addons / UI

So here is my UI, take it or leave it, but I like it: http://i.imgur.com/SER1AOE.jpg
Here is a list of addons I use: http://pastebin.com/BXmpvz44

I am going to upload my UI in the future for those that are interested.

10. Other Resources

The internet is full of resources for you to get better at enhance:

My youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Tactic1048
My twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/tacticq
If you are ever in a bad mood, or on the verge of quiting enhance, look at my twitch highlights, they are all one shots for the most part, they make me happy . Be sure to sub and follow! <33

There is also this:
http://www.twitch.tv/vanguardstv
http://www.twitch.tv/diablous
https://www.youtube.com/user/DiablousEu
http://www.twitch.tv/dubzs

You can also take a look at vanguards guide on AJ: http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/23...aman-guide-54/

Shaman 1: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...actic/advanced
Shaman 2: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...cticq/advanced
Shaman 3: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...cticq/advanced

Thanks for reading

[Coldbeer]

Amazing guide, im new in pvp scene with the enha and this help me a lot is the best xmas present this year.

Thanks very much.

[Velthari]

good guide but u need to gem Agile Primal Diamond>Agile Shadowspirit Diamond because Agile Shadowspirit Diamond was a lvl 80 meta on your Stormreaver shaman

[Tactic6995]

good guide but u need to gem Agile Primal Diamond>Agile Shadowspirit Diamond because Agile Shadowspirit Diamond was a lvl 80 meta on your Stormreaver shaman

Well look at that! I guess I was stuck in the past, fixed.

[Deleted]

Great guide keep up the good work

[skitzin]

Any chance of getting an upload of your ui? I kinda like it