Back when Legion came, the rogue spec “Combat” was renamed to “Outlaw” in order to fulfill some of the class fantasy. I personally think the same thing needs to be done for Enhancement. There seems to be little in common with enhancing your group on the spec as a whole. I believe the spec was named so because back in classic (I don’t play classic so I could very well be wrong about this) the idea was that the talents in addition to providing melee skills to the shaman was also about making your totems preform better to “enhance” your party’s effectiveness in combat.
I firmly believe that the spec has fallen away from that design is now taken the form of a warrior who acts as a conduit for the elements and strikes a foe with weapons that are imbued with storms and fire and earth and that’s awesome. But the name Enhancement just doesn’t seem to fit the identity anymore.
Personally; I would change the name of it to “Archon” as the shaman would act as a conduit for the elemental forces and channel them through his or her weapons.
So the question I have at the end of this that I pose to my fellow shaman is this: If Enhancement shaman is to be renamed; what would you suggest the new name would be and why?
It’s an interesting idea. Imo “Combat” might be the worst name a spec could possibly have, which was probably a good chunk of the renaming. Enhancement still makes some sense because of things like Windfury totem, weapon enhancements, Crash Lightning enhancing SS and LL. It isn’t as applicable as it used to be but I don’t personally think it needs a change too badly.
Weapon Imbues, Shields, Totems (Yes, we still have them, we lost searing but we still have Windfury and other totems that enhance/buff)
Just because the class isn’t all purely about enhancing things does not mean the name does not fit. Could Enhancement Shaman “enhance” more? Sure, but the name seems fine.
Heck, even Maelstrom Weapon “Enhances” Cast TIme spells. I don’t know, I am just not seeing the same things you are TC.
I feel like, while it’s a cool name, it would fit better with Elemental.
Not going to lie, I saw mostly negative comments on the change from Combat to Outlaw. I mean, personally, I thought it was a cool change but I don’t play rogue… so…
So Enhancement back in vanilla was a awkward and clunky spec. In Tbc and up until wod when our totems were removed that’s when we truly became enhancement shamans. We had totems that as you stated would enhance our groups combat. Like Windfury totem, Now Windfury totem is coming back. But we had totems that did all sorts of things everything from giving armor to taking a spell that was meant for someone and pulling it into the totem.
And as stated we also enhanced our combat with the elements. Shocks, and our weapon embuments and other abilities. Then they decided to prune us in Wod and then we were to be just melee in legion and bfa.
I am glad we are going back to what we were as Enhancement Shamans.
Enhance needs to function as it’s name sake. Like “Wind Fury” turning into Tempest Wrath with additional effects and higher damage and “Flametongue” turning into “Firestorm” and giving us enhancery effects.
Other players should get base effects from is…
Healing Wave should actually be a healing wave per maelstrom stack up to five. Since we are squishy turds.
We used to have good hybrid healing till they thought it was a good idea to take it away.
I would have gone with “Warchief” or “Chieftain”.
By and large, this is pretty much the spec used by Thrall/Cairne so I believe one of those two is more descriptive and cooler than “Enhancement”.
EDIT: Or, maybe even “Primal”. The other DPS has an adjective for its name (“Elemental”).
…I like the name. It describes us enhancing ourselves and our allies with the elements. Plus you could argue Maelstrom Weapon stacks “enhance” our other spells (Lightning Bolt, Healing Surge, etc.).
Sure we aren’t purely about enhancing, but I really don’t think a rebranding would end well… I have a strong suspicion Blizzard would completely change the spec to match the new name just like Outlaw, and I really don’t want that.
It’s sheer luck both the Legion and pre-Legion incarnations of Enhance were good and rolling the spec design dice again because of a rebranding is not something I want for my main.
. That being said I’m not very cool, so that checks out.
