Enhancement Shaman

Is Enhancement worth levelling?

Yes, and the published agreement is unusually clear: "Due to its added mobility, Enhancement will remain the preferred open world leveling spec."

Its limiter is mana, not damage. "Enhancement's solo damage is already solid once it starts picking up early tools with Shocks & Fire Nova, but its Mana is a limiting factor… eventually when more points are available, it will likely round itself out into a very strong leveling spec." Ratings: Overall 3.5, Levelling 3.5, Mobility 4.5 — and it is the only Shaman spec rated highest on levelling; all three score 4.5 for mobility.

One thing to know before you shop for weapons: Shamans cannot dual wield in Forever. One big two-hander. If you have played a later expansion, unlearn that.

Your talent points

Level 20 — 0/11/0, and two independent sources publish exactly these eleven points:

1. Thundering Strikes, 5 points
2. Mental Dexterity, 3 points
3. Improved Ghost Wolf, 2 points
4. Shamanistic Focus at 20

Take Improved Ghost Wolf last on that row, and here is the reason: "Put points in this last on the row, since Ghost Wolf only unlocks at Level 20." Points in it before then do nothing.

A third source disagrees on those two points and spends them on Improved Lightning Shield instead — reasonable for a dungeon build, where travel form is worthless. Its PvP list takes Improved Ghost Wolf 2 plus Earth's Grasp 2 and only Thundering Strikes 3.

A published mana alternative, with a warning attached: "Due to the Mana concerns at Level 20, there is an alternative build that goes into Restoration to reach both Mindfulness & Water Shield… once the cap increases this path will prevent you from reaching deeper into the Enhancement tree without a costly respec."

Level 30 — 0/21/0, in order: Thundering Strikes 5 → Mental Dexterity 3 → Improved Ghost Wolf 2 → Shamanistic Focus 1 → Elemental Weapons 3 → Ancestral Knowledge 1 → Stormstrike → Flurry 4 → Improved Stormstrike 1.

Rotation

1. Imbue your weapon: Rockbiter Weapon solo, Flametongue Weapon in groups
2. Lightning Shield up before you engage
3. Totems — Stoneskin Totem if you are taking damage, otherwise Strength of Earth Totem; Searing Totem for damage; Healing Stream Totem in groups
4. Rank-1 Lightning Bolt to pull — the cheapest thing that pulls
5. Earth Shock solo, or Frost Shock once you learn it. In groups, alternate Flame Shock and Frost Shock to hold your threat down
6. Fire Nova with an active Fire totem
7. Auto-attack — most of your damage

From 30, insert Stormstrike before your Lightning Bolt or Earth Shock: 8-second cooldown, +20% for 12 seconds.

Multi-target: Fire Nova, and it is "extremely Mana hungry." The warning is worth taking literally: "especially early, Enhancement really needs to be engaging things one at a time."

Stat priority

Weapon DPS on a slow two-hander, then Hit and Expertise, critical strike, Strength, Intellect, Agility, Spell Power, Spirit, Stamina.

Intellect is higher than it looks like it should be, and there is a talent behind it: "Mental Dexterity 3/3 turns a point of Intellect into 1 attack power with its mana beside it." So Intellect is damage and uptime for this spec specifically. One published list puts Strength and Intellect the other way round and is internally inconsistent about it; take the talent as the tiebreaker.

What defines Enhancement

What Forever changed for Enhancement

• Weapon imbues last 60 minutes instead of 5. Totems last 5 minutes instead of 2 and reach 30 yards instead of 20. This is a large, unglamorous quality-of-life change and it affects how you play more than any single talent.
• New: Mental Dexterity, Shamanistic Focus (−45% mana on Shocks and Lightning Shield), Mental Quickness, Improved Stormstrike, Maelstrom Weapon, Rage of the Farseer, and Spirit Weapons. Removed: Two-Handed Axes and Maces (now known without a talent), Parry (whose slot Spirit Weapons took), Shield Specialization, Weapon Mastery, Enhancing Totems, Improved Weapon Totems.
• Improved Ghost Wolf now does two things: 3.0 seconds off the cast at 2/2, making Ghost Wolf instant, and indoor use. The spell itself is unchanged from Classic — both halves live in the talent.
• Rage of the Farseer no longer increases casting speed as of September 24. One site still says it does; that page is stale.
• A capstone conflict worth knowing early: Rage of the Farseer needs 31 Enhancement points and Nature's Swiftness needs 21 Restoration — 52 against a 51-point budget. They cannot coexist. The same arithmetic blocks Lava Burst plus Nature's Swiftness.
• Hit and critical strike are now unified across spell, melee and ranged, and Blizzard names Enhancement Shaman as a beneficiary.

On Enhancement tanking

You will see this discussed, and it is worth being precise about what is and is not known.

Spirit Weapons is new — it takes the row-5 slot (level 30) where Classic had the plain Parry talent — and it reads identically across three sources: "Gives a chance to parry enemy melee attacks, reduces all threat generated by your attacks by 30% while Rockbiter Weapon is not active, and increases all threat generated by 30% while Rockbiter Weapon is active." Note the asymmetry one source alone flags: the reduction applies to your attacks; the increase applies to all threat you generate.

The three published positions:

• For: "This talent alone allows Enhancement Shamans to perform off-tanking duties, or serve as tanks for dungeons in a pinch."
• Partly for: Spirit Weapons plus Improved Fire Nova "will turn Shamans into formidable AoE tanks" — but "The Shaman's survivability talents, however, are limited to Anticipation and Toughness. That might not be enough to let them comfortably tank end-game dungeons and raids."
• Against: "Parry and Rockbiter threat are not a reason to sign up as a raid tank; your damage build still needs a tank to hold dangerous group enemies."

There is no Blizzard statement either way — not in the Deep Dive recap, the What's Next recap, the class-design article, or the September 24 beta notes, and the relevant forum thread has no developer reply. Forever has three tanks in its own published taxonomy: Protection Warrior, Protection Paladin and Feral Druid, and Enhancement Shaman is listed as damage. Treat tanking as an experiment, not a plan.

At level 60

Unknown — everything downstream of Maelstrom Weapon rank 5 and Rage of the Farseer. Whether melee-into-instant-Bolt is a raid specialisation, and whether the Spirit Weapons threat mode has any sanctioned use, are both untested.