Shaman Hero Talents — The War Within (11.0.5)

This page is covers only the new Hero Talents available in The War Within. If you want to learn more about the best regular talents and complimenting builds for Enhancement Shaman, check out our Talents page:

In Single-Target, both Stormbringer and Totemic should perform roughly equal.

Stormbringer provides extremely powerful spenders and a much more potent cleave, though it does require some extra finesse to pilot to its maximum potential. Even when played very loosely though, it deals extremely good damage and is flexible enough to adapt to any encounter, making it the general recommendation.

Totemic had some major improvements in 11.0.5, and can dish out very competitive single-target damage, in particular every 2 minutes with Oversurge. It suffers from being slightly more unreliable and requires additional management around Surging Totem, but is still a solid pick.

The Current recommendation for Hero Talents in Mythic+ is Stormbringer.

The versatility found in Stormbringer's toolkit, alongside having access to a powerful AoE spender makes it better suited to the demands of Mythic+. It scales upward very well with additional targets due to the additional Maelstrom Weapon access, and provides a small defensive benefit in Nature's Protection.

In Mythic+, the value of Surging Totem from Totemic is explosive, but making sure it is always hitting all targets is a much bigger ask in high movement scenarios alongside its high RNG components in Molten Thunder. While not as strong, it is relatively simple to grasp so is a niche pick.

Due to the ease of strength and flexibility of Stormbringer, it is currently the recommendation in current content. Each of the tabs below have a brief explanation of the build choices, and a separate section covers Totemic. You can find full loadout recommendations and details for it on our Talents Page.

3.

Best Hero Talent Builds for Enhancement Shaman

Stormbringer
Single-Target Stormbringer
Mythic+ Totemic
Details

3.

Best Stormbringer Single-Target Build for Enhancement Shaman

Stormbringer heavily shifts your focus toward Maelstrom Weapon generating and spending, so the most important talent on our entire spec tree is Static Accumulation, so is always taken. Go to our talent page for more information about these loadouts.

As there are three choice nodes on the tree, for single-target Supercharge is much too important for resource cycling to ever drop, so is always taken. Electroshock is picked up for the reliable movement boost, and Nature's Protection is superior for defense.

3.

Best Stormbringer Mythic+ Build for Enhancement Shaman

Stormbringer in AoE puts an even bigger focus on Maelstrom Weapon spending to cycle between big Tempest casts to trigger both Rolling Thunder and Arc Discharge to amplify our other spenders, while leveraging Conductive Energy on multiple enemies. This means it always needs to path through Static Accumulation as a core part of the build.

As there are three choice nodes on the tree, much like in AoE Supercharge is much too important for resource cycling to ever drop, so is always taken. Electroshock is picked up for the reliable movement boost, and Nature's Protection is superior for defense.

3.

Totemic Details

Totemic is a little less tangled in Patch 11.0.5, focusing more on using Maelstrom Weapon to amplify Surging Totem and using Sundering (and the new Molten Thunder reset procs) to trigger Earthsurge. There are supported builds covered on the Talents page, and it is supported on the Rotation page as well, if you are interested in playing it.

Both builds now always take the same subset of talents regardless of the situation:

• Earthsurge is crucial to leverage Sundering to trigger massive Surging Totem pulses, as is Oversurge to further amplify the strength of Ascendance every 2 minutes.
• Pulse Capacitor is also taken, as regardless of build the key focus is empowering Surging Totem as much as possible.
• The utility node mostly does not matter, but Oversized Totems helps with keeping your Surging Totem in range of more targets.

Stormbringer aims to cycle Maelstrom Weapon as quickly as possible to trigger Tempest and spend it as soon as possible to trigger both Rolling Thunder and Arc Discharge. This builds a huge amount of momentum and shifts the rotational priority so much that spending efficiently and aggressively is the most important thing, no matter your build.

Totemic needs to use Surging Totem every 24 seconds as soon as it comes off cooldown, and also manage its position to keep it under targets using Totemic Projection. Sundering is always taken with Molten Thunder and cast aggressively to trigger Earthsurge, with Maelstrom Weapon being the secondary priority to stack up Totemic Rebound. Lastly, each time you cast Surging Totem three Whirling Elements motes are generated that need to be consumed before your next totem:

• Whirling Air — ideally consumed instantly to empower your Surging Totem for its duration by spending Maelstrom Weapon.
• Whirling Fire — Storm builds ignore this, while with an Elementalist loadout this is consumed ASAP to enter into a Hot Hand window.
• Whirling Earth — ideally only ever consumed in tandem with a Voltaic Blaze proc to amplify its damage as much as possible.