Season of Discovery Phase 2 Shaman Dual-Wield DPS Build Guide & Best Runes

We’re back with Phase 3, a new lv 50 cap, and some fun new tools like Static Shock and Rolling Thunder that will make our Lightning Shield a bit more relevant to our rotation!

Build Summary

Pre-combat you’ll want your main-hand enchanted with Windfury Weapon and your off-hand with Rockbiter Weapon to maximize your melee damage – especially against armor shredded targets. If threat is an issue (I’d suggest first making use of the new Spirit of the Alpha rune to resolve this) then you can make use of Flametongue Weapon on your off-hand with a relatively minor raw damage loss thanks to its synergy with the Lava Lash rune. Make sure you have Lightning Shield up as we have new toys to make it a more offensive option in our new Static Shock and Rolling Thunder runes!

For totems you’ll want to make sure your Strength of Earth Totem is down, and you’ll now have access to the in-demand Windfury Totem. If your group is already making use of a Druid’s Wild Strikes rune, you can swap your air totem to a Grace of Air Totem to give your group a considerable agi buff. If you’re looking for some utility options in the air totem slot, then Grounding Totem to absorb some negative spells, or a Tranquil Air Totem if your tank is struggling with threat a bit are your best bets.

For our combat rotation, it’s going to start feeling like what an Enhancement Shaman should be! You’ll want to have your Searing Totem down in almost all situations sans very large AoE pulls, in which case a Magma Totem might be appropriate. Make sure to keep Flame Shock running at all times, but try not to overlap casts too much. Open up with a Stormstrike, follow up with Lava Lash, and when you hit 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon then dump it into Chain Lightning (Or Lightning Bolt if the former is on cooldown). The raw damage of Chain Lightning is going to outperform Lightning Bolt, even in single target situations, at the cost of being on a fairly short cooldown. Earth Shock offers a fairly high damage filler, but keep in mind that shocks share a cooldown and Flame Shock is still going to take priority if it’s about to fall off your target. Lastly, keep an eye on your Lightning Shield stacks and try to keep it applied as stacks will be consumed both defensively and offensively.

Runes

Bracers

Static Shock (Rune Guide)

As of right now this is likely going to be your primary option for the bracer slot. It offers consistency and it doesn’t require much upkeep or thought except to reapply Lightning Shield when you have an open GCD. With a few points in Improved Lightning Shield the DPS gains from a rather passive source will definitely be welcome!

Rolling Thunder (Rune Guide)

This is a bit of a controversial one at the moment. On paper, it sounds like it might be quite useful as not only does it increase damage but it also generates a not insubstantial amount of mana for us, which is nothing to scoff at! That said, there are currently reports that the damage and mana generation are not working as they should. Combine that with a fairly weak proc chance of 30% for adding a Lightning Shield stack I’d avoid this for now. While we do cast Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning with our Maelstrom Weapon stacks, it’s debatable on whether it’s enough to make use of a 30% proc chance.

Helm

Mental Dexterity (Rune Guide)

A passive effect that’s going to be far and away our primary option for the helm slot. As melee users this should essentially have 100% uptime, and gives us incentive to make use of intellect to boost our mana pool as well as our damage. This also has the added benefit of adding scaling of 30% your attack power to increase spell damage/healing.

Waist

Maelstrom Weapon (Rune Guide)

An absolute powerhouse of an ability that gives this build a lot of its identity! With every melee hit you’ll have a chance of gaining one stack of this buff, up to five stacks total, with each stack reducing the cast time of Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lesser Healing Wave, Healing Wave, Chain Heal, or Lava Burst by 20%.

At 5 stacks of the buff the spells that this buff applies to will be instant-cast, so make sure to wait for max stacks before consuming them. Keep in mind that this does not reduce the mana cost of the spell, so keep your mana pool in mind before mindlessly flinging out whatever button is available. That said, stacks don’t accumulate past 5, so if you have the mana available you should be spending it as you max out or you’ll be overcapping. This will not only be a valuable damage tool, adding some decisions to your rotation, it’ll also allow you to more easily off-heal if the need presents itself.

Fire Nova (Rune Guide)

This option for your waist slot is going to be primarily in heavy AoE encounters. This will allow you to place down a Magma Totem, and cast Fire Nova from it – essentially double dipping on AoE damage. This will also work with any fire totem you place down, including Searing Totem, if you have another totem more appropriate for the situation in the fire slot.

Feet

Spirit of the Alpha (Rune Guide)

This has a lot going for it, and has been given a passive effect to add a 5% physical damage bonus to us as well as a personal threat reduction buff if we cast it on another player. A massive 45% threat generation buff on a character of your choice with little to no uptime required as it lasts for a whopping 30 minutes! This is obviously a great spell to cast on a tank, although you’ll want it up even if the tanks are covered for the damage bonus it gives. I’d suggest putting it on a character unlikely to pull threat, or with abilities that can dump threat easily.

Chest

Dual Wield Specialization (Rune Guide)

This is the bread and the butter that makes this build what it is and thus I’d consider it 100% required. It allows us to equip two one-handed weapons as well as increases both our melee and spell hit chance, which gets us all the hit we’ll need to take on end-game content for Phase 3.

Gloves

Lava Lash (Rune Guide)

A core skill enhancing your dual-wielding abilities to make it so that more than just your auto-attacks lay the beatdown on your enemies. While Flametongue Weapon does offer a buff to the damage of this ability, Rockbiter Weapon still performs slightly better. One of the major advantages of this rune is that it’s a very cheap spell to cast, so keep your hands hot by slamming this when you can!

Lava Burst (Rune Guide)

While this remains an option, it’s not going to be as desirable as Lava Lash. First, while you can instant cast it now with Maelstrom Weapon stacks, it will still cost considerably more mana. With our mana pool being strained by new spells, and the GCD still getting rather good value from a spell like Chain Lightning, this isn’t as appealing of an option as it once was.

Legs

Shamanistic Rage (Rune Guide)

A reliable defensive CD that’s great against predictable bursts of damage, as well as offering you the benefit of some fantastic mana regeneration as well. It’s up for a full 15 seconds, and offers mana regeneration scaling based off 5% of your maximum mana each second it’s active! This will also provide 20% of the mana generation you generate for yourself for your group as well. A 2 minute cooldown is fairly reasonable, so don’t be afraid to pop this simply to stop yourself going OOM. This will likely be your standard option in the slot.

Ancestral Guidance (Rune Guide)

If in group content and some extra off-healing is what’s called for then this can serve as a reliable option – scaling off your damage done to heal 3 nearby party members. This will also benefit you if you’re really in trouble and need to bust out some healing spells for your allies as the enemy with your most recent Flame Shock application will receive 100% of your healing done as damage.

Talent Build

We now have an extra 10 points to play around with when we’re done maxing out the Enhancement tree with the new level cap of 50. For the Enhancement tree it’s going to be fairly simple with picking up most of the same raw increases to our DPS as last phase until we can claim our point in Stormstrike. The main difference is an increase in points to Improved Lightning Shield as there’s an actual offensive use of the Lightning Shield ability with the new Static Shock rune you should be taking.

Keep in mind that Stormstrike synergizes with our ability to dual wield and strikes with both weapons, while also applying a debuff to our target. This debuff increases the damage of the next two nature spells cast against that target by 20%. We also have access to a fully maxed Flurry talent which, among other synergies, will incentivize us to run slow weapons.

Moving into what you should do with the extra 10 points we’ve been given – the Elemental tree is the obvious choice. All 5 points in Concussion is an easy one, with a follow-up of all 3 points into Call of Flame to buff our Searing Totem damage. You’ll have 2 remaining points of wiggle room that is in Convection, but could be shifted to something like Improved Ghost Wolf for improved mobility if doing outdoor content. Elemental Warding is another option that offers a decent damage reduction buff if you’re taking fire, frost, or nature damage.

Key Spells and Abilities

Windfury Totem

An absolute must-have in any group. Offering a nerfed version of our own Windfury Weapon to the group is extremely powerful. Groups and raidteams will be seeking your services for this alone at times! Do keep in mind that there is a Druid rune that does overlap with this though in the form of Wild Strikes, so make sure to coordinate with your party/raid so that you’re utilizing all the advantages possible.

Windfury Weapon

This is going to be your far and away main choice for your main-hand weapon. The chance at 2 extra strikes with increased attack power bonus is going to offer large damage gains. The chances of procing this ability is going to be fairly high with us running two weapons and having Flurry maxed out. These strikes will also benefit us by providing more opportunity to stack Maelstrom Weapon.

Rockbiter Weapon

While this does have the downside of offering a slight increase to threat generated, it shouldn’t be a major issue at this phase of the game. This is going to be your superior off-hand enhancement as it offers quite a large bump to raw attack power. Not only does our attack power make our swings hit harder, it also makes our spells hit harder with the addition of the Mental Dexterity rune!

Flametongue Weapon

This has become more of a niche option, being edged out by its competition in most situations. It’s not so far behind Rockbiter Weapon as to not be in the contending, but it’s not going to be your first choice currently. You may want to use this on your off-hand if the threat situation is a bit too dicey for Rockbiter Weapon.

Stormstrike

This ability should be pressed off cooldown. It will hit with both weapons we have equipped, offering a considerable amount of damage, and puts a debuff that empowers our next two nature spells to do 20% more damage to the target. So not only will this offer decent damage on its own, it’ll make our Chain Lightning or Lightning Bolt instant-casts quite a bit more potent.

Chain Lightning

This spell has a 6 second cooldown, but when it’s off cooldown and you have 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon this is going to be your main choice as it not only has better AoE damage than Lightning Bolt, it also has better single target damage as well. Just make sure to keep an eye on your mana, as this is a high-cost spell.

Flame Shock

One of the most important damage abilities available to us at any point in the game once you’ve trained it. It offers fairly good damage, isn’t terribly difficult to keep permanently on your main target, and has extra synergies with Lava Burst spell available through runes if you so choose to go that route.

Searing Totem

A solid single-target option that gives a lot of value for one GCD in single-target situations. While Magma Totem does exist, and is available as an AoE option, if you’re not in a situation with enough AoE to call for something like Fire Nova, then Searing Totem will serve as the better option.

Earth Shock / Frost Shock

These two shocks will offer significant instant damage bursts. Your shocks share a cooldown, so which one you choose to use will be situational. Earth Shock offers considerably more damage, an interrupt to your target’s spellcasting, but has the downside of generating more threat. Earth Shock is likely the primary shock you’ll be casting as its raw damage is superior.

For Frost Shock, while it’s less DPS, it’s a safer option if threat is an issue, and also has added kiting potential if you or your tank gets in a dicey spot and needs a breather.

Lightning Shield

With Static Shock giving us a reliable way of using our stacks offensively, the priority for keeping this buff up has been kicked up a few notches. You’ll now have 9 stacks of Lightning Shield to start, and while the damage is appreciated it still isn’t going to be your primary output. As such, while you should keep this up, look for an empty GCD to refresh it rather than prioritizing it.

Noteworthy Items

Before hopping into the item recommendations, it should be noted that weapons have some extra considerations. At this point your best weapons are both going to be rather slow. The reasoning being a combination of the full Flurry buff, your Windfury Weapon, Stormstrike hitting with both weapons, and Lava Lash scaling better from high damage off-hands.

Cacophonous Chain Shoulderguards

Again, a leatherworking item is going to offer us a huge piece – so if you haven’t picked up leatherworking yet it’s definitely recommended! While the proc chance would be absolutely insane in a raid environment, sadly it only works in Nightmare Incursions. That said, the stats on this piece alone are well above average. Every single raw stat on this piece offers us benefits.

Windtalker’s Wristguards

You can get a pair of these from grinding out some Warsong Gulch. Even if PvP isn’t your thing, they’re not terribly expensive, and they have a ton of raw AP on them as well as us making use of the intellect due to the Mental Dexterity rune passive.

Totem of Tormented Ancestry

This is a drop from the Sunken Temple raid, but finally we see something for our totem slot that isn’t just utility or an insignificant boost. We can make use of both the +15 AP and SP, and the uptime should be 100% as Flame Shock should be up at all times anyways.

Race Choice

Orc

Axe Specialization won’t be as useful in this phase as our hit requirements are already going to be met by Dual Wield Specialization for the time being. Blood Fury is just a solid DPS cooldown that benefits us as melee players, and might be worth embracing the zug-zug life all on its own!

Tauren

War Stomp and Endurance give bonus survivability if that’s something you’re worried about, but there’s no real DPS bonuses to picking a Tauren. If you’re looking to eek out every ounce of damage you can, probably not the choice for you, but don’t let your moos be unheard if the cow life is your dream!

Troll

Berserking is going to be your main reason for picking a Troll Shaman. It does require you to be damaged to get the full effect of the haste buff, but even at a 10% increase to casting and melee speed it’s still worth considering. Beast Slaying can also give you some incidental bonus damage when fighting against beast-type mobs.