Enhancement Shaman Frequently Asked Questions — The War Within (11.0.5)

Right now, although the guide does support both trees, I would recommend playing Stormbringer. Patch 11.0.5 has made this recommendation a little looser thanks to significant improvements to Totemic though, and both are viable.

As of Patch 11.0.5 the internals of this talent were changed a lot. It has a cumulative 0.24% chance per trigger, increasing each time you meet the conditions to roll for a proc. The current understanding is that each time you cast Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning (including echo casts from Primordial Wave and Arc Discharge, or triggers from Thorim's Invocation) it rolls for a proc, until it triggers and resets back to 0%. It reaches a guaranteed proc state roughly 40 casts in.

Broadly speaking, we do not know. The entire talent is built on a server side script, and after tens of hours of exhaustive log generation and testing, the exact way it works is not clear nor is its exact proc rate. The basic understanding however is as follows:

• Without Elemental Spirits — every ability has a chance to trigger a wolf. Unruly Winds adds in a second chance each proc, Stormflurry procs and Doom Winds pulses also count. Only one proc can ever trigger from each event.
• With Elemental Spirits — only magic school abilities can trigger it, with the wolf being spawned on a fixed whitelist based on the school of the spell that triggered it. Elemental Blast and Primordial Wave count as Fire at all times.
• You can never have more than 4 procs (8 wolves with the current set bonus) active from Flowing Spirits (not including Rolling Thunder) at one time before the first set expires.

Yes. You should be making sure that you do not overcap the Maelstrom Weapon effect by going above 10 stacks. You should aim to consume it at around 8 stacks, allowing room for procs to happen and pool slightly without hitting the upper limit.

If you are playing Stormbringer, spending as efficiently and as often as possible becomes significantly more important due to both Supercharge and the often paired talent, Static Accumulation. The act of cycling through this resource to trigger Rolling Thunder is the driving force of the strength in the tree.

This remains a firm no. Too much of our damage is still sourced from our Main Hand, and Lava Lash does not do enough, even with supporting talents, to make this a good choice.

Generally speaking, this is a no. Assuming it has full uptime on a target and can live the entire duration, the amount of damage will be a marginal increase over an alternative cooldown. However, it is also prone to dying, poor AI, or disrupting a group with its taunt. It is much more beneficial to save it as a survival tool thanks to much additional health granted and Primordial Bond's defense.

Never. "Hard casting" is the practice of casting below 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon (and thus incurring a cast time). Whenever you do this, it resets the swing timer if used without at least 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon, so it should never be done due to the resource loss being greater than the damage benefit.

Depending on your build, yes. Most of this will involve pooling Elemental Blast charges to deal significant damage during your Elemental Spirits windows, as Elemental Blast benefits from every type of elemental spirit. There are also some minor considerations, such as burning off effects like Hailstorm or abilities like Sundering with the appropriate wolf if it is about to expire, but otherwise, do not overthink it.

If it is included in your talent build, yes. It should be used as a low-priority filler that slots in whenever nothing else is available. With Unrelenting Storms, some builds use it a bit more aggressively, but it still remains more of a filler tool.

If taking Elemental Blast, 3 or more, otherwise whenever a second target is present.

No. Currently there is no played build that actively wants to spend its Maelstrom Weapon on Lava Burst due to other selections made on the tree.

No. The generation is always given regardless of how much is wasted due to overcapping. However, you should still try to avoid wasting any whenever possible.

Never in PvE content. While doing this does activate Elemental Weapons and grants an extra talent point, no talent really makes up for it as a second Flametongue Weapon does effectively nothing.

The answer to this question in any context will always be to simulate it. This is because what is an upgrade for you may not be an upgrade for someone else. In other words, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all answer, even when talking about 2 completely identical comparisons from you to another person. Everything in your gear affects everything else.

This applies to gear, set bonuses, trinkets, and, in certain circumstances, talents.

The only exception to this rule is when a specific fight dictates a certain set of optimal talents and gear pieces that enhance their strength. If you are curious about what kind of setup to go for a specific fight, WarcraftLogs.com's rankings and statistics are a good place to see what others are doing.

We have a guide on how to sim yourself here:

For Enhancement, there is no strict "amount" or breakpoint of any stat you are required to reach, nor are there any points at which a stat stops being desirable. In most cases, your specific secondary is less important than the volume. This is, however, another situation in which a simulation done to check your ideal gear pieces and stat values will provide you invaluable information.

Currently, races are fairly even from top to bottom, and the the choice you make will likely result in a minimal difference. Current simulations to demonstrate how low the impact is are as follows: