Enhancement needs to be deleted

Classes Shaman
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Enhance shaman has been horrible for a while now, and after playing the PTR for the prepatch and reading people’s Shadowlands experiences, I can see it’s gonna be more of the same old garbage.

The Enhance Shaman’s current fighting style in Shadowlands is like if death by 1000 cuts, whack a mole, and someone that loves pushing buttons on a keyboard all got drunkenly duct taped and superglued together, resulting in the wackest melee fighting class in WoW for the 57th year running. Yes I’m aware that the game hasn’t been out that long, but everyone that plays enhancement shaman ages in dog years because of how cancerous the spec has been across all these expansions.

The first thing Blizz needs to do to fix enhance is to make windfury weapon beastly again. This chance for an extra 77 damage on swing business is an insult to throwback windfury and shouldn’t even have the same name. It’s so weak and embarassing compared to OG windfury that Blizz should just rename it “Windsassy” or “Windgrumpy”. Make windfury hit hard and make it be applicable to both weapons, flametongue is hella boring and can be repurposed somewhere else.

The next thing blizz needs to do is fully commit to the Maelstrom Weapon thing. Just get rid of the rng and give us some type of shaman energy that we deplete like rogues and hunters, or even just a passive that makes our mana regen on par with rogue and hunter energy, and along with that shaman energy give us an actual rotation that builds stacks of maelstrom like how rogues build combo points. Stacks that we can see like how Pallys can see their holy power. And when I say give us an actual rotation, I don’t mean these melee moves with long cooldowns supplemented by rng. I mean something like Stormstrike on just the GCD as an instant damage Maelstrom stacker, Flame Shock on GCD as a dot Maelstrom stacker, etc.

From there, we should be able to spend our Maelstrom stacks on a few different powerful imbue type moves. Like maybe a rockfist-punch-combo that does fat instant damage in a flurry of punches, a fire imbue move that does fat DoT damage, and a lightning bolt for a ranged finisher that does big damage.

Changes like these would make shamans fun instead of being the exercise in cancer tolerance that they’ve been for years, while having the added benefit of staying true to everything about the class and the lore and all that stuff. Enhance really just needs to be remade from the ground up, because after years of watching them be terrible it has become apparent that Blizz is just repeatedly trying and failing to polish a turd.

I know I’m pissing in the wind here but I just felt like saying it anyway.

3 Likes
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The SL incarnation of shaman existed from WotLK through Cata, MoP and WoD. MoP is largely considered the best the spec has ever been.

Plenty of people were thrown for a loop with the Legion rework, many outright quitting due to the drastic overhaul of the spec.

SL is seeking to return Enhance towards what it was when it was in its Prime. I get you might dislike it, but its a lot better than a build/spender pseudo-rage. It has issues, but Enhance has always had issues…even in classic.

The SL playstyle is indeed vastly different, and while I respect your distaste for it, it embodies Enhancement’s ideology moreso than Legion/BFA version ever did.

That being said, it still needs certain things to make it reach even WoD levels, which have yet to be added.

6 Likes
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No, it doesn’t. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the enhancement shaman community. It is a ghost of what it once was, and will be a joke of a spec until the last few patches where enough potential haste will be available to maybe make up for its poor design. Shadow lands version is not viable for PvP, and surpassed only by survival hunter as the worst dps spec for PvE. Frankly, the fact you insist on posting on a low level alt, makes me question if you play the class at all.

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This is the name I am most known for on the forums.

Again, The Maelstrom Weapons style for Enhancement has been around since WotLK from patch 3.0.2 all the way to WoD 6.0.2.

It has been the playstyle longer than Stormbringer, and Stormbringer playstyle is being combined with Maelstrom Weapons as it still exists (see Stormbringer passive, Stormfury talent, Elemental Assault talent).

From WotLK through WoD, Enhancement was a priority system following something like this

Flame Shock if about to expire or not active
Maelstrom Weapons x 5 Lightning Bolt
Stormstrike
Lava Lash
Frost Shock
Flame Shock

There were variations based on what expansion - WotLK saw a Maelstrom Weapons x 4 Lightning bolt at top end priority due to casting not resetting attack swing timers - Sundering and Earthen Spike change the priority - just like Ice Strike / Hailstorm / Hot Hands will change the priority in SL.

In WoD the healing was removed from feral spirits. That is in line with SL.

We now have Fire Nova back as a talent, when prior to Legion/BFA it was the only way to AoE as enhancement. Its no longer mandatory because we moved to a Crash Lightning + Chain Lightning system that didn’t exist in WoD.

Primal Wisdom is still missing which regenerated Mana on auto attacks (something iterated on after losing Shamanistic Rage which regenerated Mana on Auto Attacks during its duration) and needs to be returnoed if we are to stick with Mana.

Flame Shock and Frost Shock have been part of the Enhancement toolkit for Vanilla, TBC, WotLK, Cata, MoP, WoD, SL — Legion and BFA are odd-man out.

Lightning Bolt was part of the rotation for WotLK, Cata, MoP, WoD - again Legion and BFA are the odd-man out (but had a talent Overcharge in case you still wanted that playstyle, despite it being undetuned).

Windfury Totem is a blast from the past that was removed after WotLK, and an attempt to give Enhancement Shaman a buffing cooldown for group utility - something missing from WoD, Legion, and BFA - (WotLK, Cata, MoP all had Earthen Power talents as well for pvp group utility).

Windfury remains the same, except now requires maintance. Flametongue goes back to a weapon imbue.

We lose the Legion versions of Rockbiter, Flametongue, Frostbrand — which went from imbues to active abilities - again only existing as such for 2 expansions, and Flametongue and Frostbrand argueably trying to be both Shock and Imbue at a smaller range (15 vs 25/30). Prior to this Rockbiter, Flametongue, Frostbrand were weapon imbue passives for Vanilla, TBC, WotLK, Cata, MoP, WoD — again BFA/Legion are the odd man out.

As I’ve stated several times, in various threads, things still need to be done to return us to an optimal path for Maelstrom Weapons.

  • strong baseline healing
  • primal wisdom (mana regen on auto-attacks)
  • group utility (ancestral guidance/conductivity – granted these are not as important anymore, but more nice ribbons to have)
  • Survivability (Shamanistic Rage, Stone Bulwark Totem)
  • Extra way to deal damage while kiting an enemy outside flame shock (Searing Totem did this)

Tuning is still not finished yet, so trying to state how damage will be in an expansion that isn’t out yet, is still in beta, and hasn’t finished tuning passes is foolish.

Will we need Haste? Yes. Like every expansion. Haste was used for maelstrom generation, as well as just increasing auto-attacks to proc Stormbringer…which again, is still there if you want to smash Stormstrike over and over (see Stormbringer passive, Stormfury Talent, and Elemental Assault talent).

I will however, gladly welcome back our 30+ range abilities over the 15 yard ones we had in Legion/BFA (Flame Shock over flametongue especially as the DoT gets instant value without uptime, where as Flametongue punished you for using it at range because there was no DoT, just damage added to your auto attacks).

If the SL version is a ghost of what it once was in , then Legion/BFA was completely alien to what it once was because it was an entirely different playstyle compared to over most of Enhancement’s lifespan.

Try again.

5 Likes
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Aye Bubblies, wholeheartedly agree that this SL iteration is better than the psuedo-rage based gameplay we had in bfa. My main beef is that we still have the overall theme of this spinning-plates type playstyle that makes us push way too many buttons for nowhere near enough payoff. Ultimately I think that is why enhance is so bad in PvP and PvE compared to other classes with tight synergistic rotations that make sense. The removal of Maelstrom Energy was definitely a step in the right direction, but in the end we’re still too dependent on rng for Maelstrom Stacks while also contending with too basic many moves whose main purpose is increasing damage or reducing the cooldowns of other basic moves. It feels to me like the devs or designers are working from the philosophy that the spirit of Enhancement means that every move has to enhance another move, number of buttons and smooth rotation be damned.

And I feel what you’re saying about survivability in my soul, so I won’t get into that because I already went full Karen in my original post and don’t have the energy to do it again lol. Just know that I definitely agree with you there too.

2 Likes
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Enhancement traditionally was a glass cannon outside of things like Feral Spirits (WotLK) and Ascendance Stormblast (MoP).

Our toolkit has been edited altered in that we no longer bring the amount of burst or high sustain that we used to that once offset our low survivability.

The new system does little to fix this, unless we are overtuned with our damage. Enhance has always been an uphill struggle in PvP though. PvE is just down to number tuning. At least we’ll get raid spots for Windfury Totem though! (/sarcasm)

I personally like the chaotic nature of not having a set rotation, but I understand that to others it can be a nuisance. I view it similar as rogues who play assassination vs Outlaw. Outlaw has an rng aspect that needs to be adapted to, while Assass is a straight forward rotation. Different strokes for different folks.

To me, the chaotic nature of priorities feels like it embodies the primal nature of elements, which we are not necessarily in control of, but being a conduit for them to move through.

4 Likes
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From what I’ve seen, the Shadowlands version of Enh is pretty close to it’s Mop/WoD incarnation… WHICH I FREAKING LOVED WITH A PASSION!!
When I started playing my 2 favorite specs were ret pally and enh shammy because of the small cooldown management rotations they had.
So, please go back under whatever smoldering rock in Blackrock mountain you came from, tyvm
Edit:
Yes, I know the spec still has a way to go before returning to what it once was but posting things like “Enh needs to be deleted” is just inflamatory and helps nothing.
We still need LL to spread flame shock (cap the number of active FS at 3 or 5 maybe?), feral spirits being a dps CD needs to feel like one and do some decent damage (maybe bring back the healing too?) and we need to get some decent defensives back (those last two are the ones keeping enh away from being pvp viable I think).

5 Likes
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MOP enhance was good they every had to nerf the flame totem aoe and even then it was still super strong. even at 60 I feel its just slow. I have a 60sham and 60 pally and man the downtime is night and day. I haven’t played all fps spec yet so i can’t say on some of them, but the enh has one of the slowest gameplay. Im sitting there hoping for SS proc or MSW ticks. Unless i have 3 or more mobs then chain lightning and CS are like instant. but they then I’m half health lol.

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@Bubblies I miss those glass cannon days, these days it feels like we’re more of a glass vase. I do see where you’re coming from with liking how we still have that element of rng with our rotation and how it adds to class immersion. At this point I guess all I can do is just hope Blizz tunes us up to the point where we can pump out some serious dps since we’re basically playing the piano for our rotation, and I feel like that’d be a fair reward for our rotation.

@Hasshasshin If your takeaway from my post is that “Enhancement needs to be deleted” and it’s just inflammatory/adds nothing then you likely either only read the title or you did read the post and missed my point. I do think that Enhance in it’s current iteration could be scrapped and replaced with a system that makes us at least as good and smooth to play as other classes in both PvE and PvP, and I layed out some rough approximations of what that would look like in my mind, so I feel like I conveyed that decently enough in my original post. If you found my actual post purely inflammatory then I respect that and chalk it up to different preferred playstyles.

1 Like
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Sometimes I wonder if they should just erase DPS Enhancement and make Tank Enhancement.

Then they would have an internal reason to give the spec survivability while giving the class the 2H option that some have been clamoring for. Hard DPS would then become a non-issue.

It would also be nice to have the three options that paladins and druids have.

Furthermore, it would be interesting to see the tank buffs or assistance your elementals could give you.

…Just an idea.

2 Likes
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while I wouldn’t want to lose the Enhancement toolkit, a tank spec would be vastly welcomed.

Blizzard has often tried to add tanks to the game with new classes, and then claim that they don’t do anything to alter the tanking queues.

But this completely misses an entire argument. Certain classes have been asking for a tank spec for years (Namely Enhance Shaman, Hunters, and Warlocks). These people would gladly play a tank spec if it existed in their class, but none of them want to learn an entirely new class just to tank. The appeal is to use the thematics in their current class as a tank.

Blizzard denounced the idea of a Shaman tank a while back, saying something akin to the fact that we wear mail armor.

We have since gotten two new tanks (monk and DH) that tank in leather, and the tanking setup of most tanks has moved away from the idea that it must be done with a shield or vast amounts of armor since Death Knight (no shield).

We now have a High mitigation tank (Druid), Block tank (Warrior), 3 healing tanks (Demon Hunter, Prot Paladin, Death Knight), and a Dodge Tank (Monk).

Shaman could easily design a tanking spec built around the aspect of earth titled Earthwarden. It could easily re-invent old totem names into new abilities designed for tanking:

  • Strength of the Earth
  • Stoneskin
  • Stoneclaw

It could go all in on another Shield style tank, or become a dual-wield tank. Back when Rockbiter reduced incoming damage, I was a large proponent for a dual-wielding tank spec that allowed rockbiter to add the coveted 6% crit reduction needed for PvE by having each imbue grant 3%. People cried they would never have a dual-wield tank, but here we a now with one in Demon Hunter.

I am all for a Shaman Tank, but not at the expense of the current enhancement tree. If they ever decide to design 4th specs (3rd for DH) and don’t give Shaman a tank spec though, I will be beyond annoyed.

Examples of things an Earth based Shaman tank spec could have:

  • Rockbiter Weapon Imbue - reduces incoming damage and crit % by 3%. (dual-wield tanking)
  • Legion/Bfa’s Rockbiter as a ranged basic attack
  • Stone Bulwark Totem - Place an earth totem that grants you an absorb shield that absorbs X% damage (short cooldown personal dmg reduction)
  • Stoneskin - 3 min, damage reduction Cooldown (high dmg reduction)
  • Strength of the Earth - 3 min, Strength stat increase for damage (burst cooldown)
  • Earthquake - used as the spec’s AoE, casts on the ground centered around the shaman
  • Earth Shock - reinstate the old high threat, or allow Earth shock to work as a Taunt
  • Stoneclaw Totem - short duration AoE taunt totem that sends its threat diretly to the shaman
  • Windwall Totem - Place an air totem that creates a wall of wind, reducing the damage from spells and ranged attacks for all allies withiaten 15 yards for 10 seconds
  • Earth Elemental
  • Ascendance literally turning us into the Primal Guardian Earth Elemental

All of these things existed at one point or another in a similar iteration, meaning the base code already exists and just needs tweaking.

Then you could also design new ideas based on NPCS.

  • Thrall’s Stone Hand that he used to barbecue Garrosh
  • A cleave based on Dargrul’s Landslide
    Landslide – Slams the ground, causing granite spikes to erupt from the ground in a line, inflicting X Nature damage and knocking back enemies nearby.
  • Crystal Spikes from Dargrul - imagine a Tank having an ability that can create something that provides your allies a way to break LoS to avoid attacks! What a refreshing way to spice up WoW’s combat, and provide a unique way for a Tank to also be relevant in PvP! Could even give it a health bar to allow it to work like Ring of Peace does in doorways, except you can dmg it down.
  • Strike of the Mounta from Ularogg -
    Strike of the Mountain — Summons a pair of stone hands, which move inwards and explode for X Nature damage on contact.
  • Stone Breach from Ugrul Skullcleaver
    Stone Breach — Slams the ground, causing a granite fists to erupt from under the current target, inflicting Physical damage and knocking back enemies nearby.
  • Elementium Spike Shield type ability from Ozruk
    Elementium Spike Shield
    Causes spikes to errupt from Ozruk’s body. Any Physical attacks made against Ozruk while under this effect causes the attacker to bleed for X damage per second for 5 sec. This effect stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 10 sec.

etc. etc. etc.

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u can delete both the mail wearing classes

it’d make the game better

mail transmogs are all ugly anyways