Basically just the title. I’ve mained my Enhance Shaman since Mists of Pandaria but with Season 4 I’m really struggling to stick with it. Only other time I stopped playing was at the start of Shadowlands, where the state of it was just unenjoyable for me. For context I’m an Enhancement main but also a player who believes strongly in playing what you want opposed to meta, you’ll have more fun that way and likely change a lot of minds.
We’re in such a weird place right now as a class. Our forums are on fire without any communication to even indicate some of our worries will be addressed. I felt that the return of class trees is great for the game but Shaman’s trees have struggled immensely since their inception. They may have been one of the best looking initially but between not having any genuinely impactful capstones in the main class tree and heavy point investments in general mean that you don’t get many of the things that should be baked in (looking at you Feral Lunge, Windfury Totem) while at the same time many of the tools which we had all of previously(and have been pruned under the pretense that we had all of them) we now have to pick and choose despite them not being generally impactful at all.
As a class we’ve suffered from having the tree be as rigid as it is. The idea behind an Enhancement Shaman was a totemic warrior capable of going toe to toe with some magical firepower under the hood, with totems and imbues to help provide control and in some cases years past power. I understand that designing spec trees is difficult but I don’t think the class was ever supposed to decide between Physical and Elemental damage. (Same goes for Elemental. Elemental caster, not strictly Fire or Lightning)
I’ve been really trying to hold out hope that we’ll have some strong adjustments made during the alpha-- some classes have had some really awesome work done, with care and consideration to how it plays and it’s thematics. But seeing just how long it took to get our very undercooked hero trees I’m starting to sweat a little. And where are the Shaman visual updates? Not only does Lightning Shield look like garbage, it’s basically unfunctional and that same sentiment can be extended to a lot of our abilities. Frankly not having more Ghost Wolf options is insulting, and given how many elemental effects came out during Dragonflight I thought we were a sure thing for a visual update.
Wildly the class has felt like it has had concepts and ideas sent to other classes over the last few years as well, but nothing as egregious as creating a set of Hero Talents with the idea that we’re the sole lightning casters and then giving Stormstrike damage to Warriors instead of creating our talents around that. Something that arguably should already be a thing in the case of our ability, Stormstrike.
When the Mage rework came out I balked at how awesome the changes were to their trees. With Retribution I was blown away. I’ve loved the class fantasy and aesthetic of Shaman and Enhance in particular for years but it’s really hard to keep putting effort into my shaman when it no longer feels rewarding. (And in truth, can be frustrating when you don’t have the defensives to play the video game. Ankh is not a defensive.) We’re simply outclassed and after years of erosion and lack of visual updates it feels like playing a class stuck a few years back, but without some of the cool things from it’s past that have made people want to play it. (Few Honourable mentions: Redirecting Totem, Healing Tide, Primal Earthen Bulwark, Flame Ele/Liquid Magma for Enhance)
I guess to end my rant, those who have played a long time and are thinking about moving on-- where? I myself am considering heading back to Druid.
