I recognize enhance is not in a great spot right now in arena, but Enhance feels very….strange. I can’t quite put my finger on it. I played it to 2100 in MOP and I remember it feeling and flowing amazing I loved it. What are you guys feeling about Enhance? I’m not really liking Sundering it doesn’t feel good to press with such a long CD, maybe if it was a stun instead of an incap? I think the damage is here but I feel so squishy. I swear I used to have a freedom with wolves at some point that feels bad also. Overall I feel like I have to many buttons to press and weird talents that bloat the class
I don’t think bloat is the issue. We just don’t do enough damage to justify how much we take. The two play-styles are both fun to play though! But I like Sundering. It’s very good that it is not a stun since we have two already and Diminishing Returns would mean a third is useless.
2 Likes
I have yet to beat any other melee in damage
Enhancement is great everywhere except PvP. I’m sticking to Elemental and Restoration.
Enhancement is too reliant on PvE multi-target situations. Needs some tuning, some of which I think could be very simple.
Fire suffers needing to spread Flame Shock to buff single target Lava Lash, Storm suffers needing to use Crash Lightning to buff single target Stormstrike. In both cases, more targets offer more Maelstrom generation, which feels awful with only one target.
I want to play a Fire build. Spreading ticking Flame Shocks buffed by double with Lashing Flames, taking Elemental Weapons and Elemental Spirits for even more elemental damage. Nuking with Elemental Blasts channeled by the Fire Nova, Swirling Maelstrom. Pumping burst with Primordial Wave, Lightning Bolts that ramp all of the above more with Splintered Elements.
Good on paper. Good in PvE. Abysmal in PvP.
If only Lava Lash, Molten Assault spread Flame Shock to targets in 40 yard range like wowhead suggests. I think this is all this build needs to be arena viable, but of course mostly for 3s like Elemental spec. As it stands, needing targets to be in melee range to spread it is pointless, with Flame Shock’s cooldown being longer than Elemental and also having no dispel protection.
Storm works… better, but I wouldn’t say well. You’d think this was the single target build, and I guess it is. But it still feels bad to rely on Crash Lightning with multiple targets for rotational single target burst and Maelstrom generation.
I won’t go through the build / fantasy of Storm like Fire, but again it looks good on paper and in PvE, but not in PvP.
Maybe one day Enhancement will be good. But probably not.
2 Likes
After picking the game back up at the end of Shadowlands on a Druid, only to have balance nerfed heavily, I leveled a shaman as one of the classes I had never tried. It was fun for about 4 weeks until they nerfed the elementalist enhance build. I didn’t mind that there were still multiple classes that could destroy me with ease, as I could, at least occasionally do some respectable damage.
This physical enhance build is so lacking and frustrating. Either you get kited, connect and do a minimal amount of healable damage before being kited further, or you get destroyed by another, better kitted melee class.
It’s not good and the fact that they’re making it worse means it’s time to stop subscribing.
The flow of enhancement in pvp boils down to having to give yourself carpal tunnel with the amount of GCDs you are spending, often times to set up things that other classes can do with just one button.
some examples are:
- our already gcd-starved dps rotation, but needing to constantly be wary of things to purge, ground totem, and cleanse spirit (none off the gcd)
- several totems feeling slow to deploy unless you are using macros for @cursor placement
- Every totem being on the GCD, making haste a priority stat just so we can deploy them faster
- totemic projection abilities in regards to lining up good cc
- needing to spend 2 gcds to project cap totem so its not gibbed before its stunned
- needing to spend 2 gcds to move people around with static field totem
- needing to spend 2 gcds to readjust our roots/snares with earthbind and
earthgrasp - needing to spend 2 gcds to line up knockback on enemies to trap them in static field/earthgrasp totem
- totemic projection just not working randomly and not moving your totems
- decision on whether or not to keep pressure up or stay alive by using our maelstrom stack charges for healing vs damage
- having to start each match by popping Earth Elemental and Feral Spirits even when you are not engaged in combat just so you get the 1 minute HP boost to survive openers, and start your maelstrom stacks rolling (meaning you don’t even get to start out mounted if you want to ensure they are up before you get to a pillar because feral spirits doesn’t generate charges unless popped after the countdown is over)
- spending a GCD to refresh earth shield
- not having a defensive available during a stun, so having to pre-empt your astral shift
I am not the best player for enhance, but there are times where I feel so overwhelmed with my utility and what I need to do that no dmg is going out.
If I am trying to peel for allies, or peel for myself — I need to first put out static field/earthgrasp, second thunderstorm, third totemic projection
That’s 3 gcds spent not dealing any dmg — not including if I need to purge, go into ghost wolf to get away, press Astral shift, etc.
Enhance just feels like doing a lot for little reward. Maybe I am wrong, but there is a reason only the most skilled players seem to be able to make this spec work.
6 Likes
I agree with everything you said. Feels awkward at times.
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Yep I agree as well with all this you should be a dev
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Nah — I have a lot of bad takes as well. And a lot of decades old vitriol for things I should have gotten over years ago but am too stubborn/immature to do so.
been playing enhancement since cata with 0 breaks
and IMOOO mechanically this is the best iteration of the spec
love stormbringer, love crash lightning, love feral spirit cooldown reduction on maelstrom generation, love elemental blast, love doomwinds, love access to all of the iconic elemental utility abilities
it really feels like we got to take all of the best mechanics from over the last decade and put them into a really refined and smooth version of the spec
just my opinion though
This is a really big issue, the crash lightning buff is a really cool mechanic but it suffers from being WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too strong in the right conditions or making stormstrike feel WAAAAAY too weak in the wrong conditions
like pure single target enhancement shaman damage is actually extremely underwhelming
once you have access to 3-4+ targets the damage is more than competitive, even overwhelming
here’s about 200k damage in a single global with both wolves and frostwitch ontop of a demo with crash cap imps
here’s about 160k damage in a single global under the same modifiers except with dk pets bringing me just under the crash cap i believe
here’s an average stormstrike with modifiers and no crash buff
the swing from one end to the other is really frustrating for both the player and the enemy
IMO i wish they’d reduce the crash buff to 15% per target (down from 25%)
and buff stormstrike at it’s base (in PvP) by probably 10-20%
additionally i wish they’d buff windfury by 10-20%
and potentially increase the duration of forceful winds to 20 seconds
it would be nice to feel like my damage with all modifiers was consistent and threatening vs a singular target like a caster cleave elemental shaman or affliction warlock sitting 40 yards from their partners and not almost exclusively strong vs a bmhunter/unhdk/demolock or stacked melee cleave
like i cannot stress enough how poor the actual damage can be without the powerful hits even against 2-3 targets from crash buffed stormstrikes every 8 or so seconds
i’m personally really worried they look at the crash buff and cut the top end without realizing how much that impacts our damage outside of the obviously overwhelming extreme scenarios (10292974297 pets) and they compensate us with sustained damage buffs
while i’m ranting i’d really really really like to see an honor talent that reduces doomwinds cooldown to 60 seconds
i’m fully aware making doomwinds(off global) and 60 sec + 5 sec on forceful winds would impact PvE but an honor talent doing both of those things seems like an insanely good fix to a spec that’s functionally pretty underwhelming right now
7 Likes
Wish I could like more than once. Agree 100% with the above post.
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The thing is we DON’T need damage. We can still 1-2 global people under the right conditions. What we need is defensive options that are tangible.
Enhance shaman defensives:
Earth Ele: 15% hp boost
Earth Shield: Dispellable ‘hot’
Healing Stream: laughable; and dampening
Ancestral Guidance: Does nothing when stunned or CC
Ancestral Defense: two percent passive leech …
Nature’s Guardian: 20% heal when dropped to 35% on 45sec cooldown; and healing nerfed in arena due to dampening
MSW Healing Surge healing: getting nerfed with patch AND and dampening; optional 50% extra healing but again dampening
Astral shift: 40% dr on 2min cd (55% with talent, or 90sec cd); OR you can spec into Ethereal form and stop all physical dmg; which only effects a handful of classes significantly
Spirit wolf 20% dmg reduction requires you to stay in form and you can only auto attack, dispell or purge with talent; this is a joke right?
Spectral Recovery: Passive heal while in wolf form but dampening
I’m not including stoneskin as it’s nearly useless in current form.
And now lets look at some other classes
Unholy:
IBF 30% 3(2) min cd
AMS: 1/3 HP * vers with talents for +40% and 60(40) second cd against magic
Lichborne: 15% DR, 2min cd
Which doesn’t include Lichborn self healing via deathcoil; but dampening
Insidious Chill: passive auto attack reduction on target (forever)
Blood Draw: AoE like steal (vs flat hp%); but dampening?
Will of the Nercropolis: ALL damage below 30% hp is reduced 35%
Glood Ward: ALL absorb effects are stronger on you by 15%
Permafrost: Auto attacks give you a shield up to i think 10% hp?
Sac Pact: 25% hp heal, 2min cd; but dampening
Death Pact: 50% hp heal with 30% heal absorb, 2min cd; but dampening
AMZ: 20% dr against magic, 2min cd up to 30% with talent and gives resource
Life and Death, Necrotic Wounds and Spellwarden in pvp…
And not to mention Death Strike but dampening
Demon Hunter:
Shattered Souls healing; but dampening
Soul Rending: 10% (20 with meta) passive leech
Charred Warblades: 3% fire damage leech
Darkness: 20% chance to avoid all damage from an attack
Blur: 50% dodge and 20% damage reduction
Fodder to the Flame: ~25sec 25% total hp heal; but dampening
Cleansed by the Flame: Magic removal on self every 30sec
Glimpse: 35% damage reduction for about 1.5sec and also grants cc immunity
Rain from Above: Become unhittable and able to attack
Reverse magic: self and party magic removal
Druid: (lol)
Frenzied Regen; dampening
Rejuv with Swiftmend, dampening
Iron Fur, fwiw
Barkskin: 20% damage reduction USABLE WHILE STUNNED
Matted Fur: Absorb shield from using barkskin
Nature’s Vigil (Ancestral guidance); dampening
Free Frenzied Regen every 90sec when dropping below 40% hp
Survival Instincts (Feral) 50% dmg 3min
Free Regrowths from finishers, with 5% damage reduction while hot remains active
High Winds: Cylone reduces an enemies dmg by 30%
Leader of the pack: passive heal for whole party (dampening)
Reactive Resin: Regrowth triggers additional healing (dampening)
Devoker:
Obsidian Scales: 30% dr on 90sec with optional 1 extra charge
Renewing Blaze (getting buffed) effectively nulifies damage for 8 sec if not dispelled; with optional increased healing taken while active or 60sec cd from 90.
Rescue shield: 30% hp every 1 min
Verdant embrace ; but dampening
Immune to CC during deep breath fwiw
(Evoker’s are probably the only class close to shaman in terms of lack of defensives)
Hunter:
Exhileration: 30% heal every 2min reduced by spending focus with optional 10% hp hot (dampening)
Survival of the Fittest: 20% DR on 2min cd with optional 20% additional DR or 30sec off cd
Binding Shackles: -10% Damage dealt on enemy after hitting a trap
Feign Death
Deterrence (Turtle) Complete immunity every 3min and reduces any damage taken by 30%
Should I keep going?
Our biggest defensive is one and done; the rest of our defensive kit is nerfed in arena from dampening. Unless they bring back 300K EB or PW>LB procs; we need serious defensive toolkit considerations to be considered a viable melee in arena. Our defensive kit is from 2008; the game has had 15 years to evolve and enhancement shaman still only realistically have Astral Shift, a proc heal and self healing that retards our damage beyond belief. As it stands, there isn’t anything we can do that another class can’t do better; the only class we really work with is Warrior, and sometimes hunter,
4 Likes
I gave up on my affliction warlock because of only having one school of magic for both defense and offense and always having a melee in my face constantly interrupting. I decided to try an enhancement shaman because I never played one.
So far he’s only level 40, but it has the potential to be fun. Only thing holding me back from possibly making it my main is the terrible user interface blizzard implemented for keeping track of all the cooldowns you need to constantly hit every few seconds. And I’m sure they’ll also be a bunch of procs popping in and out as I reach level 70.
And I’m not someone who likes to download addons. The only one I use is details so I know if I’m sucking in PvE anyhow.
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you missed the entire part of my post where i explained how that’s possible and how it’s obviously not healthy to have such high extremes and such low consistencies
we need the old lightning shield glyph (triggering lightning shield procs a 10% damage reduction for a few seconds)
and / or shamanistic rage (1 minute cooldown NOT usable in stuns but not replacing astral shift)
it would be nice to have a smaller wall to rotate so we can pick and choose our offensive windows better or play the game a little bit longer before needing to re establish defensive positioning
defensives usable in CC are just poor design and make it too hard to punish people playing poorly
2 Likes
this would be good
we need new defensives, not modifiers on what we have, unless you’re adding a charge to AS
197% agree
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yeah agree with that, the more I think about what it takes to fix enh the more I realise the impacts of how this game is iterated on over the years, it needs a proper big overhaul and rebalancing of every class. I think they just decided to give everyone a whole lot more and let it balance itself out but many specs were left out and simple tuning here n there isnt cutting it for pvp
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Personally I agree with the opinion that the spec tree is pretty well designed with some of the best things from past included in it. However, much like most things it can be improved.
Doomwinds 1 minute CD.
Primordial Wave and Refreshing Waters removed from the spec trees and put in the class trees. Primordial Wave should be a capstone. These are in every spec tree and so really they belong in the class tree. Not sure what to replace it with for ENH, maybe chain harvest?!?! But open to ideas here.
Hot hands and molten assault reduced to 1 point talents. It takes 8 points to go full Lava Lash but only 4 to go full windfury. This severely limits the ability to create fleshed out builds within the spec tree.
Tremor totem and Grounding totem off the GCD. This would make us less reliant on haste and actually give us the ability to stat for our different builds
A real second defensive, one that makes people stop targeting us, because Astral Shift doesn’t do that. My idea would be to improve Counterstrike totem. Remove the damage cap from it. Buff the health to be 50-75% of the shamans health. Make it only redirect direct damage to the target and damage it redirects heals the shaman for X percent of the damage. This makes it effected by dampening, there’s still counter to play because you can still CC the shaman. Combine it with grounding totem as a PvP talent and call it Defensive totems (something like that).
Make earth elemental gives us a 30% HP buff. It’s a 5 minute CD, it should be so high since it can only happen once every 5 minutes.
Give us a reliable stun, rework lasso if necessary.
If they are not willing to give us a second defensive, then give us ridiculous mobility like DH or Monk. Make thunderous Paws 40-50% increase on 20 second CD. Give us a port totem on a 1 minute CD. Keep both Earthgrab and Earthbound totem.
Make greater purge cost less mana. This gives us a real choice between the two other than just globals.
Gives us a MS effect. It absurd that so many melee have MS that we are forced to play only melee cleaves or with Demo that has a MS. Put it on frost shock or flame shock. You can put into the ENH tree.
Also, I know this may not be a popular idea, but remove overflowing maelstrom. It makes casting anything less than a 9 stack feel horrible. This make us having really extreme damage swings when we are having to heal, not allowing us to fully counter pressure. It’s why we have been constantly nerfed and are C-D tier now. Just make it go back to 5 to spend but still can bank up to 10.
Just my $.02.
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