PvE Enhancement Shaman
Stat Priority
Welcome to the Enhancement Shaman PvE guide for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King!
In this guide, you will learn how to properly play an Enhancement Shaman in PvE scenarios, whether those might be spooky dungeons or fearsome raids.
Initially designated as a counterpart to Paladins for the Alliance in Vanilla WoW, the Enhancement Shaman is a hybrid class capable of providing high-burst damage, utility, and fast healing in PvE scenarios. The Enhancement Shaman has the power to take down a target in mere seconds, invoking the wrath of the primal elements and raining them down upon his enemies. In addition, he can sustain his allies through powerful spiritual guidance, through the use of his totems.
Best Races
Since the expansion we are reviewing is Wrath of the Lich King, the shaman class has several interesting choices when it comes to PvE content. The most notable choices for Enhancement are Draenei for the Alliance and Orc for the Horde.
Horde
- Orc: First of the available races for the Shaman class on the Horde, Orcs come with several interesting racials, and are often considered the best race for the Shaman class in general (the sole exception being the Restoration specialization).
The first racial is Command. At first, you might think that it doesn’t count for the shaman class – however, the effect does apply to your spirit wolves, as well as your earth and fire elementals.
Other beneficial racials are Blood Fury, which increases your attack power, and Axe Specialization, which increases your expertise with axes and fist weapons.
Lastly, the racial which offers quite a powerful effect is Hardiness, providing a reduction to the Stun effect by 15%.
- Tauren: Another available race for the Shaman class on the Horde is the Tauren. These mighty spiritual beings have a deep connection with the elements and nature. They provide several powerful racials for PvE scenarios.
First one is Endurance, which increases the Tauren’s base health by 5%. Second one is the War Stomp, which is a stun that lasts 2 seconds. War Stomp provides increased survivability in clutch situations, like when you are overwhelmed.
Another useful racial is the Nature Resistance, which reduces the chance to be hit by nature spells by 2% – a similar passive to the Blood Elf racial.
Lastly, this race provides a racial which can help guide your profession choices – Cultivation, which increases your base Herbalism skill by 15.
- Troll: The last available race for the Shaman class from the Horde, Trolls provide several interesting racials which can bring you an edge during a PvE encounter.
The first one is Regeneration, which increases your base health regeneration factor by 10%, and also allows 10% of your health regeneration to continue during combat.
Another useful racial is Da Voodoo Shuffle, which offers a 15% reduction to movement-impairing effects, which can help with kiting in situations when you are slowed and pick up mob aggro.
Berserking is one of the stronger racials offered by the Troll race, giving your attack and casting speed a 20% increase. Berserking is considered to be one of the most powerful racials in the game – make sure to use it in conjunction with Bloodlust to make the most of it.
Trolls also provide Beast Slaying, which increases your damage against beasts by 5%, which can prove to be useful during your leveling phase.
Alliance
- Draenei: The only race which allows the choice of the Shaman class from the Alliance, the Draenei provide some very strong racials for PvE encounters.
One of the most beloved racials is Heroic Presence, which increases the hit chance of all party members in a 30-yard radius by 1%.
Gift of the Naaru is also worth discussing, since it provides an instant-cast heal-over-time ability that could become the difference between life and death in clutch situations. You can cast it either on yourself or on the tank in cases when your healer is struggling. Since you are a hybrid class, you can also switch to off-healing altogether to help out injured party members – in that case, use your spells alongside the Gift of the Naaru.
Other racials from the Draenei race are the Gemcutting (racial which increases your base Jewelcrafting skill by 5, similar to the Tauren racial), and the Shadow Resistance (decreases the chance you will be hit with shadow spells by 2%).
Best Professions
- Engineering becomes almost a necessity to every DPS who wishes to min-max their stats for the endgame content. The Enhancement Shaman, in particular, benefits from haste quite a bit, so the Hyperspeed Accelerators with their haste bonus (which you can use every 48 seconds) will increase your damage by a considerable amount.
You can also benefit from Nitro Boots when you need to escape from certain dungeon/raid mechanics or to catch up to the stacking points.
Overall, engineering will provide you with a lot of fun gadgets for both PvE and PvP content. As you continue to use them every day, you will fall further and further in love with this profession.
- Mining will generate you a good source of income, while also generating enough raw materials to level up professions like Engineering or Jewelcrafting. Most people underestimate the profitability of mining, but rest assured that it will go a long way.
Not only will it provide you with a sustainable source of gold, but it will also grant you a special passive – Toughness, which will increase your stamina by 60 at max rank.
- Jewelcrafting is one of the professions which can lend you plenty of gold while also contributing to the min-maxing aspect of the game. A Jewelcrafter can create special gems like the Quick Dragon’s Eye, which boost your stats more than normal gems.
- Alchemy can be an incredible choice of a profession – it definitely becomes a money-maker when combined with Herbalism. On top of that, you gain access to 2-hour flasks, transmutations, and access to a lot of useful potions. Since raiding requires a high amount of consumables, you will want to pair Alchemy with Herbalism to maximize your efficiency and gains.
- Skinning is mainly used as a gatherer profession, which can be very profitable. Skinning grants you the ability to remove the pelts of the animals you kill across your journeys. It also offers you a nice boost to your critical strike rating in the form of Master of Anatomy.
- Leatherworking will allow you to convert pelts and leather straps into useful pieces of armor throughout your journey – that’s why it’s generally paired up with Skinning. Leatherworking will come with a few interesting options for generating gold, patching up your old armor, and (of course) creating a new one.
- Tailoring will allow you to create cloth armor and various bags from different cloth pieces found throughout the world. Generally, this profession is paired up with Enchanting, as the latter allows you to disenchant the crafted gear from tailoring in order to turn it into magical essence. Tailoring is not specifically helpful to an Enhancement Shaman per se, but it will generate you a generous amount of gold when paired with Enchanting.
- Enchanting offers you the ability to enchant your equipment, as well as your ally’s equipment with various magical effects that give you an edge. This profession also allows you to disenchant equipment to break it down into rare magical essences required not only for the practitioners of this craft, but for other professions as well.
This profession is best paired with Tailoring due to the Disenchanting ability, allowing you to effectively craft equipment that can be broken down into magical essence.
