It is clear that currently, absent any future new runes, dual wield enhancement shaman will be much more viable than 2h enhancement in SoD. And not just more viable in the sense of performance, but more viable in the sense of gaining new abilities and quality of life improvements, which seems to be the spirit of SoD.
Personally, I’m not asking for dual wield to be taken out of SoD. I think the variety of builds that will be eventually available to players is one of SoD’s strongest selling points. But the absence of any added 2h support (and again, it doesn’t have to be “better” than dual wield) seems very strange, especially when the 2h talent remains in the tree.
I hope that the plan is to add new runes to shaman that will add new tweaks to the traditional way of playing vanilla Enh (and probably one of the spec’s most iconic iterations) while also preserving the “new” dual wield play style. Some might say shaman shouldn’t get technically 5 distinct play styles, but there is nothing stopping blizzard from expanding on the other classes further as well (e.g., smite priest, gladiator prot).
Edit: Credit to Pepino, who posted this interview from blizz:
Regardless of whether or not disfavoring the original play style of a spec from vanilla is a good development decision (imagine forcing dual wield ret pallies), as many have pointed out in the thread, windfury isn’t learned until level 30, among other QoL things for 2h sham.
This decision is livable for p1, but we have to make noise if we want to see the original play style of vanilla enh shaman expanded on and given the same treatment as the rest of the dps specs in SoD. It doesn’t have to be the best, but having choices in a game mode about discovery is a good thing.
43 Likes
I 100% agree that 2h WF needs to be supported by Blizzard here. I would also like to point out that during the Blizzcon presentation the presenter emphasized quite specifically that you CAN be dual wield enhancement. Now whether she was being coy about future 2h specific runes, or referencing the fact that you can yank as enh now I am uncertain.
25 Likes
I think it’s possible but since it needs to be talented into maybe there just waiting till we have more than 15 points to work with idk.
3 Likes
It could go both ways like you say and Aerra have said. Getting further clarity would be ideal. I appreciate them not spoiling us on every detail, but in terms of balance and what new builds/roles are possible, they already have spoiled a lot of it.
I just think this could become a bigger issue at launch when people realize old school 2h WF plays identical to vanilla and received few changes, compared to the new, almost “usurper” role dual wield plays.
2 Likes
The base kit essentially supports 2H enhance already. I do agree they should add additional support though. I look at it like DKs in Wrath who are Unholy and still use 2H. I knew one personally and he still parsed well. I think it’ll be the same idea for 2H Shaman.
2 Likes
I think this can be SoD’s biggest selling point. IMO one of the biggest complaints you can make about vanilla raiding is that it has massive amounts of spec/class stacking.
SoD will meet expectations if rogue, warlock tank, mage heal etc. is viable and sees a lot of play in raids. But IMO it will exceed expectations if it carves out new specs and makes fringe ones more viable, which would include things like having multiple ways of playing 1 dps spec, to the point that you can walk into not just a new 10 man raid, but even a 40 man raid and have very little class/spec repeats.
Seeing 2h Enh shaman getting tweaks/additions to bring it in line with this vision would be a good sign of it happening, and getting raiding with a ton of build/class diversity.
3 Likes
2h will probably fall behind in pve without supporting runes but it’s still going to be very dangerous in pvp because of windfury, if the elements are with you that is, kind of how 2h is, it either feels like you have unlimited power or are absolutely powerless.
I think something simple like increased chance for windfury to proc or a rune to alter stormstrike in some way with 2h weapons, maybe allow it to restore mana and have 1-2 windfury procs on cast.
2 Likes
I like your idea of having the rune change how stormstrike works with two handers, because the dual wield rune in SoD gives stormstrike its dual wield double hit. Its a nice sort of parallel to help make dual wield and two hand feel similar but also different in how they are built and attack.
1 Like
2H enhance won’t be a thing, and its not going to be supported in SoD.
Its very clear they are replacing it with DW enhance shamans, with a combination of skills from TBC/WoTLK.
Just accept your Classic Enhance shaman won’t exist in SoD.
Your support role dps is taken over by druids non-weapon buff better WF that has 100% uptime as its an aura now.
Sucks to suck.
Well after the Q&A for classic/sod they said Enhancement is modeled after TBC with dual wield and lava lash, with nothing really for 2h enhance, but are willing to hear feedback…
Honestly currently it seems 2h enhancement is never going to happen, but at least we save a talent point.
Do you have a link to this QA? Only thing I’ve seen is the Crix interview and the initial panel.
About 55 min in. As of current no point going 2h enhance especially in season 1 of SoD.
Which is personally a disappointment but maybe in future… but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Enhancement is modelled now off TBC. In saying that it still might be a great dps just sort of makes a talent and spec play style completely redundant that was so iconic to classic.
6 Likes
Damn they really just don’t get it do they.
8 Likes
It’s a shame, but like mentioned they’ll have to add a 5th rune and to them seems like more work then rather just making it like tbc.
But going off the runes we have and that Q&A, 2h enhance is clearly not going to be a thing currently and most likely not be. Most definitely not in season 1.
All they need to do is change the names of the enh runes and add in additional functionality based on equipped weapons. Also Lava Lash was created in the middle of wrath to force DW because even after two expansions devotees were trying to keep the 2h shaman dream alive. There’s no reason for it to still be an OH attack, especially since it makes shaman players either put their highest dmg weapon in their OH, which does not feel good, or causes people to fool around with weapon swapping macros which is very fiddly and can fail/cause other actions to fail due to global cd.
8 Likes
I’ll be honest I don’t think I ever heard anyone want dual wield enhance in classic… 2h enhance was literally the iconic fun play style that semi worked… but I guess they’ve heard differently.
I’ll still be going shaman, most likely ele or resto in hopes the future runes do support 2h, but it’s more a hope and dream now.
7 Likes
Calling me a troll for voicing my complaints.
Shame shame…
2 Likes
You’re obviously trolling because your entire existence in the forums is trying to rule people up.
That is a wild accusation.
1 Like
They haven’t heard differently, they’re just throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. It makes sense to use a model like what we got in THC and Wrath because it already exists, but I hope those of us who want 2h voice our opinions enough to be heard and recognized.
2 Likes
