First to start this off, at no point do I think or want Windfury one shots. I suspect a lot of people will immediately go to that. Here we go:
I think having 2H being for Storm build makes more sense, with the SS resets it can be a very active playstyle. The extra weapon damage would boost the stormstrike damage to the level it prolly does need to be at. It is very lack-luster atm. I do think Windfury would need to be % of the weapon damage instead of attack power based if we go this route.
Dual wield for Elementalist makes sense, get the extra 10% magic damage per weapon imbue is perfect. Faster auto attacks for Hot hands procs.
I’d love to realistically be able to transmog 2H weapons while DWing, similar to how you can mog any legion artifact appearance. But I wanted to entertain the thought of how/what it could look like if it implemented. The fact that we still have 2H maces and 2H axes as a equipable weapons gives me hope they WANT to do something with it.
Hey I remember playing Windfury Weapon back in vanilla on my Staff farming Ogres, I’m not opposed really to bringing it back, either way how you suggested it.
I think transmog would be the path of less resistance.
Trying to balance DW and 2h has been the bane of frost DKs, and frost isn’t too different from enhance mechanically. It just causes more problems than its worth and they are impossible to balance on classes where your weapon actually matters.
Posting obviously from my sod character, but yes this would be awesome.
They can make storms 2 hand playstyle also have a focus around ice strike and frost shock hooks as well.
Sod is actually COMPLETE GARBAGE. But it’s the only version of the game with a viable 2h pvp spec for enhance and it’s VERY FUN compared to dual wield pvp.
But obviously based on our uninspired stormbringer talent tree, and our “windfury totem does something cool” from the data mine, we know these devs aren’t putting the effort into enhance to make it work.
This is a back burner class spec that the devs put the least work into.
Thanks for posting this. I play dragonflight not SoD.
I think the design space for customizing your weapon styles is gimped. They removed Windfury from being passive, and they made it a bufg you had to apply every hour. The experience of suddenly doing no damage because you forgot to refresh it isn’t a positive one.
Theoretically, enhancement shaman is supposed to be centered around those weapon imbues as their original design space, but they decided it’s too hard to make choosing 2h/DW, Windfury/Frost brand/Rockbiter/Flametongue interesting, engaging, and balanced.
Several years ago I suggested the idea that instead of lava lash, we’d get an ability that changed depending on the offhand weapon imbue, and do something interesting with each one. But alas, that’s 4 different spells to tune against each other as they directly compete.
Likewise the 2h/DW directly compete. They just don’t have the labor that’s needed to make it both balanced and interesting at the same time.
Hmm when thinking more about, it could technically be implemented with success but it’s a tough one, like I’m 50/50 on it.
I think if they learned from the errors they’ve made from Frost DK and I’m sure once they get their rework they’ll be tackling this issue, if they can sort that mess out properly maybe Enhance could see it happening with little to no downsides.
I think the biggest issue is for those Shamans who change playstyles a lot, collecting 3 weapons to switch playstyles, 2h for Storm a 2x1h for Elementalist.
That’s why I think to avoid a lot of conflict or possible issues it may just be easier to allow 2H’s to be transmog ontop, we know this works as a lot of Legion Artifact Weapons can be Transmog onto whatever weapon.
Like I’m down for it, I think it will give the added “oomph” to Stormstrike and as a Storm Build connoisseur and very old school WoW player it be good nostalgia going to 2h roots.
But I’m sure the community would be split on this decision, and perhaps Blizzard doesn’t want to dip into controversial decisions.
Transmonging it is fine but there are several significant balance issues at play here that make it not feasible as a gameplay option. For example: how do you balance Natural MSW generation from auto attacks between the weapon types given they contribute a significant amount of resource gain? This is something they have not been able to balance properly say with Warriors with auto attack rage generation for Fury or Runic Power generation via Ruinc Attenuation. Hell, this is a large reason why 2-hand Enhance is outperformed by Dual Wield Enahnce in SoD because it turns out you can’t just slap a magic number on it. Current Storm Build and with the way Stormbringer Build is going to rely on MSW gain and spending would be incredibly hurt by reduced natural MSW generation.
Not to mention there is no way to guarantee weapon types from M+ drops or in your Vault. I can tell you it was absolutely one of the most demoralizing things playing Unholy DK in season 1 of SL but wanting to get Dual Wield weapons to play Frost on SLG, only to continue to get 2-handers (despite having bis 2 handers for both Frost and Unholy by week 4) while have Frost Specialization selected for pretty much 12 weeks worth of vaults. Enhance does not have an option to guarantee a weapon type like how DK or Warriors have. Imagine wanting two-handers and only getting one-handers and vice versa. You also dilute loot pool options in your vault; say you only want to play 2 handers but still can have one-handers show up in your vaults, of which there are 5 options, you now just lowered your probability of getting something useful our of your vault.
They can’t even add a simple defensive properly in for us. I highly doubt they would take the time to make 2 hand work and hold a parody with Dual Wield. They literally can’t do it in SoD, a significantly simpler version of Enhance.
Honestly as frost dk or fury warrior it was also just dumb they didn’t just add a slot of weapon type in the loot specialization dropdown (frost 1h, frost 2h) I guess it’s a clunky additional window but still. I guess my years of classic has me thinking , “imagine not getting a good piece of loot” and going huh , so any potential raid lockout haha.
But it would be horrible in retail but also not even something blizz can’t not address now for frost dk or fury warrior.
I would totally run a 2H build for Enhancement if given the option. I just don’t see it happening in Retail without a complete overhaul of the Shaman class. And since Hero Talents aren’t going to radically change how a spec plays, I doubt we’re going to see such a rework happen in TWW.
Just going to have to play SOD for 2H Enhancement for the foreseeable future.
EDIT: Not to mention they would have to make sure all 2-handed axes and maces could swap between STR and AGI, thus making the Shaman compete against Warriors, DKs, and Paladins for weapons.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a lot of work to implement, but I don’t buy the excuse that it couldn’t be done.
Things like combat potency procs are easily normalized for different speed weapons on outlaw rogue for example. So wind fury / maelstrom procs could too.
The reason Stormstrike feels like poop is that it does physical damage. If they made it stormstrike damage it would ignore armor and scale with mastery.
