Blizz, please revert the proposed ice strike changes, which are terrible and unwelcome.
Other things look good (besides the new intern-made asc form, but it is not affecting the rotation).
Thank you.
6 Likes
I have to really disagree on one point almost nothing looks good here, and the ice strike change feels awful indeed.
Having tried this on the PTR I have to say I was really disappointed
Ice strike is not like ice fury, this proposed change is not good. Now you’re lucky if you get an ice strike every 4th frost shock, and for what? To make people happy who don’t actually play the spec?
2 Likes
I guess they are trying to solve the problem of button bloat, but taking the same approach as in elem spec is not welcomed for enhancement:
- Ice Strike lets ME (not rng) decide when I want my frost shocks buffed. I don’t like this vital aspect of being a slot machine.
- The RNG aspect will make the rotation less fluid since we will have to press Frost Shock when it’s glowing, breaking the rhythm of other buttons.
- Blizz, there is also a critical PVP thing with this ability (yes, some of us still enjoy playing PVP on B-tier spec) - this is a snare on demand that keeps melee spec connected to range DPS, so IMO, this is a hidden PVP nerf. You should remove the CD of frost shock to compensate.
4 Likes
Button bloat is a buzz word. People who seriously played enhance never considered ice strike bloat because bloat is not about the number of abilities, bur rather how they interact, and ice strike was a good ability with good interactions.
Also let’s say for sake or argument that they buff it back to one ice strike every other frost shock, you didn’t reduce the number of abilities you use, just the number of keybinds.
I really don’t understand why blizzard deemed it fit to do these changes when enhance was the best it’s ever been, if they are not gonna improve the gameplay even further I’d rather they just kept twiddling their thumbs. What’s the point of introducing hero talents if you’re gonna nerf everything else? This is not why I was excited about tww.
Even stormbringer got some changes that I frankly didn’t like.
6 Likes
The issue to me would be ice strike being melee and frost shock being a ranged spell. What if your fighting against a ranged class in PvP or a more ranged fight in a PvE setting and want to hit them with a frost shock, but the ice strike procs and you have to be in melee range?
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They changed ice strike to a 40 yd range
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I agree, please keep Ice strike as an active ability.
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I’ve played enhance for a long long time, it’s got button bloat. Button bloat is, shocker, about the number of buttons. It has ZERO to do with interactions, no clue where you came up with that. Ice strike was/is a bad ability with a good interaction, which is exactly why it’s a good fit to reduce bloat. Did you press Ice strike for it’s damage? Nope, you pressed it solely to buff frost shock and would continue to do so even if it did no damage. Now look at it the other way, if you removed the interaction would you still press it? It does about the same damage as stormstrike, which most agree hits like a wet noodle, and it’s on a 15s cooldown so probably not. That’s why most not going hailstorm don’t take it.
Abilities that only really exist to buff another one are bad design.
A reduction in keybinds is exactly what enhancement needs for the average player. There are constant complaints about button bloat, aka needing too many keybinds. If you can handle 35 keybinds thats fine, but most can’t. That’s why we continue to see posts about it.
The easy solution here is to make ice strike a choice node. One where it’s still an ability and another where Frost shock turns into Ice strike every 15s. These appeases both sides as the min maxers can have their on demand ice strike and those that struggle with keybinds can have an all in one button.
I’m definitely not a fan of making it a proc, but I am a fan of making it a passive/share frost shock.
9 Likes
That is plain wrong.
Ice strike also generates 2msw procs and 1 baseline, procs main have effects it simply is not bloat.
You cannot compare ice strike to something like siphon life, you know, actual bloat button, you’d be insane to make a comparison like that.
These changes were awful from start to finish aside a 1 point reduction, the choice node with bones and maybe the new sunder talent, everything else was trash.
At least they need to significantly increase the proc rate of this ability to the point where the proc is on average about as frequent as before, and frankly speaking the rng works better than other options, If they make it work every other frost shock that’s worse than just being an ability, at least if they make it based on msw spent you actually have the chance to get back to back procs and significantly increase the damage of frost shock as well as a big boost in msw generation. But looking at how it’s tuned right now it’s literally an inferior version to before. But let’s be real, why even change this when it’s fine?
Also as I pointed out before, if the goal is to reduce this non existent bloat, then why does the ability still exist but as a passive? Siphon life, an actual bloat ability was removed, you no longer have the ability siphon life to press, what does this suggest? Think about it.
The only logical conclusion is that bloat is not about the number of abilities but rather interactions, this is blatantly obvious.
They are waging war on resource generation on many specs, they even further nerfed elemental shaman Ms generation which literally nobody asked at this point, in fact many were asking for more, not less, especially on chain lightning, and I am getting really pissed off at this trend. Blizzard, these changes are not fun, this is not better, you are just making everything worse and you need to bloody stop, ok? Is that clear enough?
3 Likes
IceStrike is not bloat …
Feral Lunge , IceStrike for PvP kinda the thing … you got to stop thinking about your PvE Rotation … Ice Strike has a meaning like Hamstring for warrior.
I could be sold on it then. Not sure yet. It’s just in pvp I rely on keeping a frost shock up on the target cuz enhance plod around, so if it doesn’t effect that, I welcome it.
- Enhancement can sometimes struggle with balancing the feeling of being a hybrid and slip too far into being just a caster at the expense of the melee aspect. Ice Strike being a third special melee attack complimenting Stormstrike and Lava Lash did a ton to solidify the melee feeling of the spec.
Only right now because we’re all at crap gear levels being fresh into the expansion before the first raid tier and M+ season have opened. Ice Strike benefits from our mastery, unlike Stormstrike, and is going to quickly outscale Stormstrike over the course of the expac.
I’m willing to concede that Ice Strike may be a bridge too far for some Enhancement players ability to juggle, but the ability is absolutely crucial for the spec’s flow for those of us who can handle it.
I’m okay with a choice node for this, but we absolutely need Ice Strike as a standalone active button to remain an option.
Something they’ve been told before. It’s still ~5% of msw gen currently not counting HS.
lol
1 Like
MSW procs are an interaction. You’re not pushing ice strike for ice strike, you’re pushing ice strike so that other talents do things you actually want. If you don’t take those talents is Ice strike worth pushing? As an ability it’s bad, but it has good interactions.
I feel like you’re not grasping the difference between a Button(on a keyboard/mouse, aka keybinds) and an ability. The goal here isn’t to reduce abilities, it’s to reduce buttons. That’s why Ice strike shares the same button as frost shock, to reduce buttons. It has zero to do with interactions, if they wanted to reduce interactions that could easily be done by nerfing those interactions directly. They didn’t do that though, Ice strike still interacts with all the same talents. If they wanted to reduce abilities they could have just deleted Ice strike all together. They did it because it reduces a button, it’s also something that has come up time and time again from enhance players that ice strike is a logical choice to reduce button bloat.
Now there current incarnation of it does have the side effect of reducing resource generation, we don’t know if that was intended or not. It can easily be explained as them not knowing what the proc rate needs to be. If they crank up the proc rate then it could generate more MSW than currently, we won’t know till everything is final. One thing is certain changes won’t be made unless they get feedback about it on the PTR.
Most of the enhance changes were awful, I posted as such, but I don’t think attempting to reduce the obvious button bloat by making Ice strike passive is bad. I think it’s current proc form is bad and hopefully they come up with something better or at least make it proc way more.
2 Likes
The best Enh Shammie from Tx here also agrees that Ice Strike should not be messed with. Go back to the Drawing Board… Make Totemic an aura or somthin instead.
There’s more than just the removal of ice strike as a problem here to be honest.
If anything i think that’s the lesser problem, since they can increase the proc rate to equal what it is now, so basically once every 12/15 seconds or so, although honestly, why bother.
The general reduction of msw gen, pwave to 5 msw, high possibility of higher downtime, bones nerfed, stormbringer changes, there is a LOT to complain about here.
I really do not understand where they pull these “reworks” out from? Like who the f was asking for enhance rework? Most of the feedback was to remove a couple of 2 talent nodes and fill back up with other options, but the shaman community view on enhance in general was that this is literally the most fun it’s ever been.
The msw gen was fine, the flow was good, why the hell did they see it fit do make these drastic resource generation changes? Are they just trying to create more work for themselves when nobody asked? This reeks to me like s priest rework, where people were asking for a few improvements here and there, and they pulled out a rework out of nowhere that didn’t even make the spec feel better to play.
Please JUST STOP BLIZZARD! Abort this clown show before it ever sees the light of day. If you’re gonna waste time making such bad changes and being unserious about improving enhance, at least use it to improve spec that actually might need help.
This is basically the devs creating their own problems to fix when no one asked.
1 Like
Lol, she’s right right.
Lol, you’re wrong.
Lol, it’s over anyways.
Lol, lol, lol.
I am 90% certain that most of these changes are being aimed at nerfing Stormbringer, which was reaching some insane levels of AoE burst through stacked wolves and MSW resets.
Problem is, they’re doing this by targeting universal talents that will hurt all Enhancement shaman while still leaving Stormbringer a mile ahead because the actual culprit here is the 20% chance MSW refund from Static Accumulation, which they’re not touching.
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What they are up about is the standard bad faith debate tactics of “straw manning” and “goal post shifting”.
The vocal minority who enjoy piano builds are terrified they might have to go find another class/spec to play, the very thing they often demand we do.
2 Likes
uh, alright. thank you pvp casual with no relevant anything tied to their account for this quick burn. awesome.
5 Likes