For the past 2-3 expansions, Enhance has been a fast-paced, in-your-face-style melee dps that admittedly required a little bit of spinning plates on top of a whack-a-mole style gameplay. I’ve only ever experienced this with Fury War and Enh Shaman.
With the SL changes, and everything being changed to having a 4-9 second cooldown, I feel Enhance has become a version of Windwalker Monk just with elemental spells. Just like WW, there are gaps in our rotation that feel kind of awkward that need to be filled by putting a totem on the ground or just waiting an extra GCD for a spell or five to come off cooldown.
Does anyone else feel this way?
TL;DR: Enh Shaman used to feel like a Fury Warrior, but now it’s feels like Windwalker Monk. Is this a fair comparison, or am I crazy?
I’m with you 100%. As an Enhance player since classic, this rotation feels very reminiscent of that Wrath era rotation that people like to pretend that they liked. Critically, I think the main problem is that it doesn’t feel like I’m using melee abilities anymore, just melee range spells. Replacing the elemental melee abilities with shocks was a disastrous move.
That being said, I do like the return of hardcasting elemental blast (because I like to be difficult and weird), so I hope it gets buffed and I applaud its re-implementation.
This goes away with haste and playing correctly. At 15% haste on beta I am GCD locked with little downtime in ST (can’t hit buttons fast enough if playing hot hand) and zero downtime in aoe ever
I’m currently trying to learn the spec. I am struggling with down time at the moment. So haste will fix that?
I’m still leveling and a big enhancement noobie.
I also try not to take anything from leveling too hard.
I did feel like when my spell changed to stormstrike my damage dropped quite a lot. Like miles ahead of others to low end. But it could just be me learning the spec and all that.!
Not so much haste as levels, for a low level Enhance.
You’re missing a ton at that point.
Haste helps too, but at 27 you’re missing Crash, Maelstrom Weapon, Elemental Assault/Hailstorm, Sundering, and Windfury Totem.
They’ll fill up a lot of those gaps.
If storm strike was a longer animation like hitting 6 times for the same total kind of thing it may no longer feel like a gap in rotation even tho we aren’t pushing anything
no, it didn’t really feel like a fury warrior, there was no build-a-rage-bar or automatic heals or predictable format with abilities being available on cue … or probably other things too … like fury had awesome mobility
BFA enh was it’s own thing, shamany … it didn’t hit like a truck but with enough haste and dancing around it kind of worked. It took haste corruption through to really make it more functional, still had that survivability problem though. It was true to form.
yeah, it’s way different now, it’s a throwback to an old form that evolved from the post vanilla windfury nerfs. shrug
funny … the start of BFA was so long ago I’ve forgotten that. I never ran into that, and that was a good thing. Sure I couldn’t spam heal indefinitely. Sure I couldn’t spam the frost snare indefinitely. But that wasn’t because the limitation didn’t exist, it’s because it was baked into my decision making, from playing the shaman so long.
regardless, the fury references (edit) I think are a mischaracterization.
I started playing WW more since prepatch and it feels better.
Enh shaman with maelstrom weapon sucks. Rng combo points to unlock skills and half of everything you do is trash. PvP ramp up for damage is garbage. Plus enh survival is junk.
WW is reliable damage, good burst, and solid survival.
I just dont get this “gaps” complaint. Even on single target im gcd capped. I suspect people aren’t using crash enough. Failing that, take earthen spike. Highly underrated and adds another rotaional button for you.
About surviving. Ya it’s bad. Need to be able to drop totems and use astralshift while ccd. Also mw stacks need to reduce mana cost of healing surge by 10% per stack.
No ur right. I would just say that it still has a wack a mole component to it with atormsteike procs still being a thing. I actually love this rotation. Feels natural and fun. The only issue that hasn’t been addressed is survivability and that needs to be addressed in order for me to feel completely comfortable maining it. I’m still torn between hunter and shaman
Lightning Shield and Earth Shield should be useable at the same time, again.
Lightning Shield should not be dispellable… Or if you want it to be dispellable, give us the 10% damage reduction back.
Give us back Shamanistic rage, we need mana regen and another defensive.
MSW should reduce mana cost by 20% per stack… Like it used to… you currently get 3.5 heals before you’re oom. Its not good and using MSW to sacrifice damage for healing does not feel good.
MSW should affect HEX again.
Flame Shock and Frost shock should NOT share a CD.
Lightning Bolt should be instant again but weak and then EMPOWERED by MSW. I loved using it as a pull in BFA and it felt so good with the mobility of enhancement. It isn’t going to break the class.
Lava Lash should spread Flame Shock again… (maybe even for 50% of the current duration/damage… SOMETHING… it doesn’t need to be op) because Fire Nova is completely USELESS .
Ghost Wolves need a little stronger boost in damage AND should heal again … I don’t care if they just give like 3-5 % leech while they are active… We need something.
Lava Lash feels lame and weak, it needs a little boost and can you just take away the weapon requirement so we can do 2H again? Why not? Again, we are aiming for player agency and fun. So many people want it… and listen, me personally, I am not a 2h shaman fan but would it really break the game? I don’t understand why Frost gets 2H back and Fury gets single minded fury but an iconic thing like 2H enhance is so off limits? Come on.
Talents
Level 15 Talents are all good. I think they are fine and I respect them.
Level 25 Talents: get rid of Ice Strike no one likes it, replace it with something else.
Level 30 Talents: All are fine, make Earth Shield useable with Lightning Shield.
Level 35 Talents: Fire Nova will only work if Lava Lash Spreads Flame Shock OR you just make it into a pulsing fire totem… Currently Enhance has NO fire totems.
Level 40 Talents: Nature’s Guardian should be baseline, you are absolutely punished in almost every Scenario when you don’t take it and I would love to use Feral Leap without feeling like I’m gimping myself.
Level 45 Talents: Crashing Storm is boring and lame, you have internal metrics… Can’t you see that literally no one uses it and if they do and I’m not aware… Please prove that it isn’t a dead talent maybe change it so it gives a few seconds of Earthquake!! That would make it more fun and interesting!! Stormkeeper is subpar and not fun, I would suggest changing it from 2 to 3 casts to justify its use over Sundering.
Level 50 Talents: Elemental Spirits are a gamble which is okay I suppose but compared to Ascendance who really wants them? You should move this to the level 25 tier to replace Ice Strike! That would be an excellent change! Earthen Spike, I’ve never liked it… some people like it so yeah I have no feedback. I’ll never use it… My last bit of feedback is for Ascendance… Please update the Ascendant model or give us a glyph like boomkins where we can be like a spirit version of our normal character so we don’t need to use that model?