Enhancement Shamans turn back to Windfury

Blizzard reworked the Enhancement Shaman in a hotfix on 10 November. Stormstrike and Mental Dexterity hit less hard, Maelstrom Weapon procs less often, and Windfury Weapon now works next to Windfury Totem. The goal: Strength gear instead of caster gear before the raids.

What changes

• Stormstrike: 100% weapon damage, down from 150%. The cooldown goes from 6 to 8 seconds.
• Mental Dexterity: attack power equal to 33, 66 or 100% of your Intellect, down from 50, 100 or 150%.
• Maelstrom Weapon: every stack now makes your next Lightning Bolt 20% faster and cheaper at every rank, instead of 4% per point. The proc rate now grows with your points: 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 times per minute. Before, it was 20 times per minute at every rank.
• Weapon imbues and totems: a weapon imbue and a weapon totem now work at the same time. With Windfury Weapon on your weapon and Windfury Totem in the group, both can proc on your attacks.

The tooltip of Maelstrom Weapon now shows your chance per swing, based on the speed of your main hand. Blizzard gives an example with 5 points: a weapon with 3.6 speed procs on 60% of your swings, a weapon with 2.0 speed on 33%. Maelstrom Weapon can now also be tracked in the Cooldown Manager.

Why Blizzard does this

The beta changes to Enhancement, together with the Shock and Lightning Bolt changes for Elemental, made Enhancement favor spell power and Intellect too heavily, says Blizzard. That pushed the spec away from Windfury, which Blizzard wants at the heart of Enhancement. Many of the changes undo the beta tweaks.

We want to make this adjustment now because it has significant implications for gearing in the upcoming raid.

The raids open on 9 December. Fixing Enhancement now keeps Shamans from winning contested caster items that lose their value after a later change, Blizzard explains. The plan was announced last week, and the quest mace Rage of the Storm already got Strength on the same day.

What it means for your gear

Strength is now clearly better than Intellect. A point of Strength gives 2 attack power, a point of Intellect at most 1 through Mental Dexterity. A slow two-handed weapon matters even more: more Maelstrom Weapon procs per swing, and bigger Windfury hits.

How much damage Enhancement loses overall, Blizzard does not say. Our Enhancement Shaman guide follows the new values.