Enhancement Comprehensive Talent Feedback

Classes Shaman
1

Overall, I think the class and spec trees for Enhancement have great bones, but they just need a lot of minor fixes. Below I have given my thoughts on the tree, working from top-to-bottom and left-to-right. I hope this feedback is helpful!

Enhancement Tree

Doomwinds – Nerfing the proc-chance and duration of this ability makes it feel worse to play as opposed to just nerfing its damage. I would rather see damage elements of forceful winds / unruly winds nerfed or just reduce the windfury damage increase on DW itself.

Overflowing Maelstrom – There NEEDS to be a way to increase max stacks beyond 10 for this to feel good. Otherwise, you are absolutely going to overcap MSW frequently.

Windfury Totem – This would make more sense as the central ability compared to CrL, since you would very rarely not take this talent (see Crash Lightning below)

Elemental Weapons – This would make significantly more sense in power level and at this place in the tree if it were limited to only Frost & Fire damage. Otherwise, this far-off-center node will be mandatory for all builds (even if it were severely nerfed)

Ancestral Wolf Affinity – This feels odd to be on the spec tree (for all specs). It seems it would fit much better on the class tree in a branch with the other wolf talents.

Refreshing Waters – This seems unnecessary in the spec tree, but also in the class tree as well. With the addition of Orbit and Swirling Currents, we will likely already be topping our bar with surge.

Crash Lightning – This is an odd ability to have in the absolute center of the tree. It is ubiquitous on any 2+ targets that you would take this, but in pure ST it would be nice to be able to avoid.

Storm Flurry – This is not in the correct place

Ice Strike – The new effect is interesting, but I’d rather this just be an off-GCD short cooldown in this case.

Improved Stormbringer – Its fine. Not the most interesting point to spend, but its fine.

Hot Hand – This is in a really odd position in the tree. Also, the flat 5% proc rate still feels bad. I would very much like to see this scale with mastery.

Swirling Maelstrom – There is no world where you would take both Fire Nova and Ice Strike, so this talent loses major value. Also, since LL and Nova do not interact with MSW, that playstyle already is in danger of over-capping all the time. I think this talent is more of a hindrance than a benefit in most scenarios.

Primordial Wave & Ascendence – These should switch places (along with the subsequent talents) to better match the talents above

Primordial Wave – Since Enh can now access Lava Burst and can buff it with MSW, would it be possible to let PW buff either Lava burst or Lightning Bolt?

Primal Maelstrom – The 1-point version of this talent is better/more fun since it will not cause over-capping

Elemental Assault – The 2nd point in this talent is significantly less interesting. I think this should just be a 1 point node that gives the generate effect. Also, this should be higher up on the tree and part of the SS branch.

Legacy of the Frost Witch – The 2nd point in this talent is currently less interesting. Could it instead allow this ability have 2 charges/stacks instead? That would fix any issues this playstyle current has with “proc-munching”

General Thoughts about the Enhancement Tree

It is possible to make a build that uses 29 of the 30 points and it is identical to how my Enhancement shaman currently plays in raid (ST with light cleave). Except without the tier set. Admittedly, picking up lava actuators or ascendence with the last point feels good, but the fact remains that Enh is getting very little added in DF compared to many other specs. Frost DK can barely make it halfway down the tree before they are “forced” to pick up something new. Enh has only 16 points to spend below the “20 points required” line compared to 23 on the Ele tree. And one of these “capstone” choices is a current level 35 talent. I recognize Enhancement is the most recently updated (reworked) spec in the game so maybe it doesn’t need anything new, but it just feels a bit lacking to me.

Mastery – Enhancement’s mastery currently influences the proc rate Stormbringer and refers to such in the tooltip on alpha. However, the Stormbringer talent says it is a flat 5% proc rate. I’d much rather this proc rate (and hot hands, as mentioned above) scale with the mastery as well as any other proc rates. These procs are such a core part of Enhancement at this point that I think it makes more sense for the mastery than the Elemental damage buff.

Elemental Damage buffs - This would be the first time in 6 years that Enhancement does not have some kind of mixed magic damage aspect to it. No eye of the twisting nether. No Natural Harmory. No Elemental Equilibrium (not that this was commonly used). I don’t know that we need this, but if you were looking for additional nodes, this seems like an easy one to add.

Deeply Rooted Elements – Why did the other two specs get this as an option, but not Enh? Even if it were just an option against Ascendence like the Ele talent, it would be nice to have the choice.

Shaman Class Tree

(from an Enhancement perspective)

Earth Elemental – I like that the conduit has survived to DF, but I’ve never liked that it was tied to Earth Ele. This presents an odd situation in M+ where you still threat from the tank in order to survive a mechanic.

Planes Traveler/ Astral Bulwark – Both talents are great. It would be neat if Bulwark also let you use AS during stuns as a callback to Shamanistic Rage.

Thunderous Paws/ Spirit Wolf – The placement of movement abilities all throughout the tree is a bit odd, but this is an excellent node. However, I would love to see a side branch with this, Ancestral Wolf affinity and Winds of Al’Akir for a build choice that focuses more on using ghost wolf

Cleanse Spirit – The placement of this node seems very strange since it is technically locked behind 2-3 additional points and is positioned such that it feels like an inconvenience to take. For both druid and priest the “cleanse” abilities are much more central and feels obvious to take when a situation requires a debuff dispel.

Focused Insight – This is an extremely odd talent choice to see in the “enhancement” section of the tree. I would expect to see this with other healing spells and it actually would fit perfectly if swapped with Totemic Surge.

Elemental Orbit – Can there be some discussion around removing the charges from our shields? I love the idea of Elemental Orbit, but maintaining 3 shields could also become extremely irritating. Alternatively, a way to generate charges on your personal shields would mitigate a lot of the potential frustration.

Spiritwalker’s Grace – I’ll go into more details below, but this should probably be a choice node with Spirit Walk.

Ancestral Defense – Extra defense is always nice, but this talent is boring. Maybe make this effect like the other trees and give some stats when you successfully Interrupt/Purge/Cleanse?

Hex – Similar to cleanse above it, this is in an odd location where you would need to spend several extra points to get Hex in a situation where you need it. I’d rather see this far more isolated, take for example Hibernate/Maim on the druid tree.

Totemic Surge – Boring and mostly a waste of 2 points. Also, has anti-synergy with Call of the Elements

Elemental Warding – Boring, but of all the basic talents we have this is the one I would least like to lose

Winds of Al’Akir – I’ll explain my issue with totems in detail, but encouraging the maintenance of multiple totems is extremely bad right now

Ancient Ankh Totem – If you maintain 100% for the entire duration, this will be about 11 mins off of Reincarn, which is nice but also still terrible. Paladin gets bubble every 5 min, rogue and Veng get cheat death every 8 mins, Blood get purg every 4 mins. Just because some WF raider might break a mechanic should not be the reason I am stuck with an archaic 30 min CD. Also, if Anhk doesn’t reset on boss wipes in raid, then the 10% hp buff is going to HEAVILY incentivize never using ahnk.

Gust of Wind/ Spirit Walk – I’ve never felt that Enh needed gust of wind, but I won’t complain about getting it. However, I cannot think of any scenario where I would rather have spirit walk over gust. I suggest moving Spirit Walk to a choice node with SWG where it will be an easier 1-to-1 comparison. Thanks though, this talent will make Shaman one of the most mobile classes now, which is a huge and welcome change.

Totemic Focus – Extra radius on totems is nice, but the duration increase is only significant for Earthgrab and Poison Cleansing totem (niche totems with a more niche increase). I think this talent is fine (the extra radius amount seems a bit weak), but it should just be much higher on up on the tree. Given it usefulness for windfury totem, I could see it being on the “Enh” side in place of something like Focused Insight.

Surging Shields – This talent is bad. 2 points for a 50% buff to something you never want to see proc anyways is extremely bad. I like the idea of new/better effects on our shields, but this is not the best way. Something like 1% secondary stat based on the shield you have applied could be cool. Also, this talent should be much higher on the tree and probably gated behind Orbit.

Call of the Elements – I hate this talent, mostly because it is worse than the original in my opinion. The only good uses I see for this talent is the extremely niche CDR on Wind Rush or having an extra Cap totem. Which will be nice to have a 12 second stun, but also is going to be frustrating to use properly given the charge-time on cap totem. This is also making the totem problem worse by incentivizing spending even more GCDs on totems. I just think there must be better options for capstone talents.

Totems

My issue with totems ultimately boils down to one simple request: take totems off the GCD. Maintaining all these different effects and buffs is frustrating in SL at times. With all the returning totems in DF, this problem is going to be significantly worse.

Tremor totem is frustrating on the first boss of Mists since the fear effect does not have consistent timing and you are forced to be reactionary with it, but it is impossible to react when you are on a GCD and your M+ keys collapses because of it. Windfury Totem is frustrating because it is a GCD I must waste to maintain every minute or so of a raid, while a monk brings their debuff without any thought. Healing Stream Totem is going to be frustrating when I want a big Healing Surge, but have spend a GCD on HST first to get the buff. Stoneskin Totem is going to be enraging when I need to spend a GCD every 30 seconds to maintain this on a Sludgefist-like physical damage encounter.

Please just take these buttons off the GCD. At least the 4 mentioned above. I’ll happily spend talent points to do so. I’d spend a point on my class tree to do so. Just please don’t make me try to maintain 3+ group buffs while they are on GCD. “Totem-twisting” was fine in classic, but I don’t want anything even remotely resembling that in DF.

5 Likes
2

You have to think outside of how you play. The talents are actually really good and they made shamans a true hybrid with lots of party help. On top of that our burst is going to be insane. 200% increase to Lighting Bolt/Lava Burst/Elemental Blast. With primordial wave that is back to back heavy hitters. Which you can also follow up with ascendance which is a spell I already dislike. Honestly only thing I found weird, no reason to take Focus MS over Overflowing MS.

Being able to get MS fast just means tons of procs to either dish out damage or heal. You can use Call of Elements for defensive CDs for Stone skin, earth grab. For Resto rushing streams.

They did a good job at least what I can say for enhance. Only thing I dislike is where Earth Elemental is.

It will be coming down to the numbers though. Enhance looks like it will be doing some nasty damage unless they make our spells hit like crap then we will need all those increases.

Have to understand though, not all talents are suppose to be great for every encounter. Talents are niches. Before numbers come out, we can have a good ST build or an insane cleave/aoe build. Just hope they don’t make our numbers low. I think we will see changes, shaman seems very strong.

1 Like
3

This is a standalone node that is optional to take. Personally, I like having it here and expect I would take it. Just because there are other healing modifiers in the general tree doesn’t mean everyone will have all of them. when I look at the general tree, I foresee running some builds that would not. Making the option to spec into additional healing in the enhance tree important.

Agree. This incarnation of doomwinds seems really weak. Like the SL version and unlike the Legion version, it requires ramp up with forceful winds. But w/such a short duration and not even a guaranteed proc, it seems like it could be alot weaker than both the previous version of this ability. And that’s assuming it isn’t disarmed which would pretty much entirely negate it. At least with the SL version, you still have 6 seconds to build FFW stacks outside of the disarm window. Would be nice if it went back to 12 seconds to provide time for FFW to ramp up and to still get some value out of it into teams with disarms.

This would make for a more interesting choice.

This might be nice if we could use lava burst with primordial wave. Although, if we just got the ele version (80% lava burst damage) then it might be worse than what we have (150% lightning bolt damage). Particularly if you spec into Improved lightning bolt. So maybe enhance is better off sticking with lightning bolt.

I like this idea of 2 charges. Would make it feel better to play with and really incentivize spending the second point.

Ya. Let MSW cap at 15 if you choose the 10 at once spending talent. Overcapping feels bad and so does not being able to bank any MSW stacks. Although maybe that’s the intended trade-off for the power.

1 Like
4

F still no 2h enhancement back. ded on arrival

1 Like
5

Personally, the Enhancement tree both shows promise while also feeling like a taunt for myself as someone interested in a Two-Handed play style (which I will elaborate on)

So, looking at the Enhancement Tree (Wowhead Link)

I started looking at it going “Oh wow, look at all that Windfury love on the left hand side of things. If Stormstrike was reverted to it’s pre-WoD state where it could be used with a two-handed weapon there might be a legitimate choice here!”

But there in lies the first of two major problems. One, Stormstrike still requires dual wield as it is still using the post WoD model. Ignoring that, Primal Strike can still be used with Two Handed weapons, I don’t see what Stormstrike can’t work with either dual wield or Two-Handed but okay.

That’s when I realized the second issue. In order to move any further down you HAVE to put 8 points in the first segment of the tree before you can proceed any further down and you can not move backwards along talent lines which means you HAVE to take Lava Lash no matter what. So even though the left hand side of the tree has all this delicious, promising looking, Two-Hander possibility behind it you are still forced no matter what you do to take Lava Lash which is an Offhand only attack.

So even if Stormstrike were made for Two-Handed use I would still waste an entire point on an offhand only move.

I blindly started looking at the tree on Wowhead and got myself so excited only to realize that it could never be and yet its so so SO close. It COULD be a thing it’s so close.

Honestly, and this is my personal feedback. I would LOVE for Stormstrike to be reworked to work with both Two-Handed weapons and Dual Wielding and if another talent could be positioned between Unruly Winds and Raging Maelstrom so that you could build without getting Lava Lash.

I legitimately feel that if those changes were made, and obviously balancing would need to be done, that Two-Handed Enhancement could move into the realm of possibility.

I say this for myself, speaking for no one else, but I would LOVE to see that reality.

2 Likes
6

I know this is a non concern for most people but I would like to see more earth themed abilities in the enhance tree.

We have a lot of air/lightning in left portion of the tree
Fire/Lava in the right portion
Ice/Water mixed throughout the general and enh tree
But for earth we have sundering and … earth shield?

It would just be cool to have something like earthern spike as a MW spender or Unleash Doom back. These trees look really good and I’m excited to play it but a little theming would go along way imo.

2 Likes
7

Don’t forget to look at the damage calculation for Crash Lightning.

So not sure if it’s an error or intentional, but maybe there’s still hope that Blizzard might make a few minor changes (because all it would take is a few minor changes) and 2h could be a thing.

8

Ah yeah, good catch there.

9

So yall just giving up the entire right half of the tree for 2h? And severely gimping yourself in AE to the point of being useless?

You can be useless in WoW today as a 2h enhance already. No need to change the talents around as suggested.

1 Like
10

Honestly, it’s a good start. Things will still take balancing but it would be a nice move in the right direction.

1 Like
11

How do you put flame tongue and windfury weapon on a singular weapon?

12

Don’t engage with Akston, they are very biased Anti-Two-Hander and never even attempt any kind of genuine discussion even when other’s provide theoretical solutions.

For whatever reason this guy just does not want anyone who wants to see 2h Enhancement to return to ever see that and actively goes around targeting anyone who wants to see that.

It’s legitimately best to just ignore him as legitimately nothing productive in the 2h discussion has ever come from speaking to them.

5 Likes
13

For Hot Hand,

Instead of it being a 5% proc chance. Since we can now get Lava Burst, have it proc when we use Lava Burst and give Lava burst a bit longer of a cooldown. I feel that its an elegant solution that would solve many of the the talents frustrations while thematically fitting.

14

My Enhancement Tree feedback:
Stormbringer - Should be more accessible, perhaps where Forceful Winds is now.
Swirling Maelstrom - Should just be the Chilled to the Core conduit from SL, or maybe equivalent with a fire aspect to it, too.
Elemental Assault - Taking two points only increases damage, not increased MW stacks per Stormstrike.
Elemental Weapons - I have a big opinion on this. I’d prefer it be on the Class Tree as the Enhance side capstone or near to it. It would replace Improved Flametongue Weapon on the Elemental Tree as well. Give us Frostbrand Weapon back baseline and give the weapon enchantments a boost:
Flametongue - 5% increased Fire damage
Frostbrand - 5% increased Frost and Nature damage
Windfury - 5% increased effect
Earthliving - 5% increased HoT healing

This gives every spec and build a weapon enchantment to pick from, and gives Enhancement an interesting choice.

My favorite idea is a midrange Enhancement Shaman that uses Chilled to the Core with Hailstorm to cast Frost Shock, Lightning Lasso and Chain Lightning from a distance, then closes in for an Ice Strike, Crash Lightning and Lava Lash before moving out again. It would be cool to have a use for a Flametongue Weapon/Frostbrand Weapon combo without Windfury needed.

15

You can choose Lava Burst. Doesn’t mean it is going to make it into the rotation. I would rather Lava Burst not be added for enhance. Right now if you even choose it, you would have to give up some other talents to make sure you are using it more than EB and LB.

16

I am sorry that asking a simple question on how you would get a major aspect of 2h to work…one which you have ignored…

Offends you so much.

Seriously.

This is why no one of any purpose will take these 2h talks seriously. If you DARE to ever question them and engage in any conversation, they blast you like this. If you do not instantly agree that 2h should be brought back, you are not allowed in the conversation.

Seriously.

Get over yourself.

Your reply is in no way equal to the sincere questions I just asked. You are out of line.

Anyways, I am sorry that as a MVP…a beacon of these boards. You feel “targeted” because someone disagrees with you.

3 Likes
17

They just need to stick with the two enchants. Besides people who just want it, it will never be viable. Even if it is a constant slow. You would be losing massive DPS from not taking WF or FT.

In PvP you’re constantly looking for pressure and that would be taking away pressure

18

Here is my enhancement/shaman feedback.

Enhancement Tree:
Stormstrike- Should be Nature Damage like lava lash is fire so it has synergy with other nature talents.
Windfury- shouldn’t this be baseline considering flametongue is?
Lava Lash(passive)- Make this increase the spread to 5 targets. That caps us out at 6 targets(assuming we are still capped at 6 while other classes have uncapped AOE…)
Primal Primer- This seems super underwhelming considering it’s competing against PLA. At 1000dmg lava lash you only need 3 PLA ticks to outdmg it and with AOE+hothands PLA does WAY more dmg.
Raging Maelstrom- This needs to be at least 10 more stacks because of Overflowing Maelstrom so we aren’t constantly capping out and dropping to no maelstrom.

Overflowing Maelstrom- Again unless we can get 15 stacks or more of maelstrom this leaves us capping out, which can miss out on stacks(since stacks can happen randomly before we get to use the 10), but also leaves us with no maestrom after use which means we lose access to instant healing in case we need it.
Doomwinds- Wish this was a proc like hothand.
Windfury Totem- Wish this was baseline or in the Shaman tree. It’s such a tiny group buff and only really benefits with multiple melee making it a hard choice. Not to mention Constantly dropping Windfury totems every pack in dungeons isn’t fun.
Stormbringer- Should scale or have a higher proc chance since 5% is too unreliable.
Improved Stormbringer- Just combine this with the previous talent and make StormStrike Nature dmg baseline.
Elemental Weapons- Pretty much a must have since it buffs almost all of our damage.
Ancestral Wolf Affinity- Super niche, should be in the Shaman tree, this will be rarely if ever picked.
Crash Lightning- Wish it incorporated Crashing Storm Talent or this was an option Below it
Chain Lightning- Not super useful given that crash lightning is already a short cooldown and it’s effect lasts longer than the cooldown. The damage isn’t worth spamming vs other options.
Ice Strike- Damage is a little low given it’s position and compared to elemental blast which also has a buff and shorter cooldown.
Elemental Blast- Make this replace lightning bolt and drop the cooldown.
Swirling Maelstrom- Ice Strike is only worth taking with hailstorm, so fire nova will never use this. Plus 2 maelstrom is just super underwhelming given those spells cooldowns.
Hot Hand- This proc chance needs to scale or increased. It can be pretty inconsistant.

Primordial Wave- Not a fan. Make this also effect Lava Burst for enhancement. Without a way to reset this faster like the Necro Legendary this is pretty meh for a last tier big talent. It’s only real synergy with lightning bolt, which itself has no other real synergies in the talent tree. This and ascendance should switch sides.
Splintered Elements- Underwhelming given it’s position, maybe make this the PW reset on top of the haste buff.
Legacy of the Frost Witch- Weird position, 2nd point is meh, should be put in place of Improved Stormbringer and combine Improved stormbringer with Stormbringer.
Ascendance- I hate long cooldown burst buffs in general. This needs to include a lava Lash option. It’s on the “fire” side of the tree and after taking all these fire options suddenly our “ascended” form has no fire?
Static Accumulation- Should be baseline with Ascendance or combined with Thorim’s Invocation
Feral Spirits/Witchbones- We need the Shadownlands set bonus incorporated as a talent to make any of these talents work well. That’s exactly what makes the witchbones spec work on live
Alpha Wolf/Elemental Spirits- These need combined. Baseline spirits are pretty meh so having them as a final tier talent when they’ve been baseline is just weird.

Shaman Tree:
Chain Lightning- Make it hit 6 targets so we can keep up with the classes that I’m sure Blizzard will leave uncapped.
Ancestral Defense- why is this even here? It’s insignificant and has nothing to do specifically with the class.
Winds of Al’akir- This is super weak. 5% per point? We will almost never have 3 totems up and even then 15% is weak given the requirement. This is gatekeeping Spirit Walk, which is way better and only 1 point. Make this talent a 1 point.
Totemic Projection- This should be baseline, it’s QOL. For enhancement it’s pretty un-needed in general. We either have to go through this or winds to get Surging shields which feels bad.
Call of Elements- Pretty much useless for Enhancement. Our totem use is niche and they are fairly short cooldowns so they are usually up when needed.
Thunderstorm- This should be like Rain of fire, Blizzard, etc but with lightning. If it stays as it is this should knock up baseline for enhancement.
Thundershock- Why is this here? You have a choice of a high damage spell that stuns, or this that really does nothing but slightly modifies the previous spell and does no damage and has no further utility.
Lightning Lasso- Should drag the target to us like Grip.

Big notes:
Where is all the “new” stuff? This really just looks like Shadowlands 9.3, which is SUPER boring and dissapointing for an expansion. It’s cool all the different legendaries specs are being incorporated, but I expect some new things to shakeup the gameplay and I just don’t see them. We get access to some more utility but nothing that drastically alters how the class plays.

TOO MANY BUTTONS! We just have way too many short cooldowns that we need to use regularly already and this adds in even more. Some of these things need to be stronger with longer cooldowns, passive/procs, or become stronger replacements for baseline abilities. The GCD/proc whack-a-mole spam isn’t fun.

Lightning Bolt has zero synergy talents in the enhancement tree besides Primordial wave and the nature damage increase. Just really weird that this spell we use a lot has no talents dedicated to it. Given the issue with too many buttons I’d love to see Lightning bolt and chain lightning combined. Lightning bolt damage to the first target and then chain lightning damage with falloff on the rest. This frees up a button and gives the new spell(s) more synergy. Primordial Wave could just do the extra damage on top of the “chain lightning” dmg.

Primordial wave in general doesn’t feel like a last tier talent and wouldn’t have been my covenant ability of choice. Really wish they would have thought outside the box and given us something new or a mashup of covenant abilities here as well as the ascendance slot. Just super boring and really clunky given how it works into the rotation. I hope this and ascendance get changed the most.