Enhancement Stormbringer, THE STORM IS APPROACHING!

Classes Shaman
46

Not sure if I agree with this. I don’t believe it’s a matter of blizzard missing the point of what the players want. They know what it is we want. But more in line of it not being what they want shaman to play. Fairly confident that they want shaman to not play defensively the same as everyone else. So far, it’s trade major CDs constantly. But they clearly want shaman to be more passive survivability. In which case it’s not there yet, but doesn’t look like they want to stray from that model.

If anything, it’s the players don’t understand what Blizzard wants for the class. Its a fine line to balance passive survivability vs active. Very easily can make it go too far with a knob turn in regards to HP/DR/Healing throughput.

Last night I crit a 734k Healing surge. People are going to be upset about that, and say it’s too strong right?

47

I know you primarily do pvp and I can’t speak to that, but in pve that 734k healing surge crit cost you a 950k elemental blast crit. I’m not aware of any other dps that loses that much damage to use a defensive. In fact, many classes actually do more damage by timing their defensives well in the form of resource generation, damage reflections, and absorb shields doing damage when they break.

I agree completely. Both options are borderline useless for enhancement. I was hoping for some defensive component added to lightning shield. Even if it were weak, it would at least be reliable.

1 Like
48

Why doesn’t Astral Shift take a Evokers - Obsidian Scale approach.

  • Obsidian Scale - Reinforce your scales, reducing damage taken by 30%. Lasts 12 sec. 1.5min cd, (2 Charges Talent).

Vs

  • Astral Shift - Shift partially into the elemental planes, taking 40% less damage for 12 sec. 2 min cd, (can be 1.5min or 60% DR depending on Talents.)

Why not instead of the Talent to reduce it down to 1.5 min, we get an extra charge, I think having 2 charges at 2 min cd would bring much more value then 1 charge at 1.5 min.

It’s 10% better DR by comparison so justify its 2 min cd, but the extra charge would be a godsend.

Then they could maybe bump the Astral Bulwark to 30% rather than 20%, so we can have either 2 charges at 40% or 1 charge but at 70%. So 2 weaker defensives or a single giga one.

Simple solution same keybind just an extra Astral Shift. Also Earth Elemental simply needs more!.

1 Like
49

Anything is better than nothing at this point, but do keep in mind that those charges would recharge in sequence- not at the same time. So while it would give you an extra use early, after that it still would be sitting on the same 2 minute-ish cooldown.

Having two charges of something that you proc resets on is fantastic because you’re getting an extra full use each time it procs (assuming you keep both charges on cooldown). With things that have to recharge naturally you’re gaining an extra charge early and that’s really it unless you go so long without using it that the second charge can refresh itself.

This is why paladins do not take the two charges of Judgement talent, but many do take the two charges of BoJ talent (not all). They do not have a way to reset Judgement and thus the second charge is useless, but they do have a way to reset BoJ and thus the second charge is quite useful.

51

Just make cdr like it is with wolves. Every time we spend msw, it reduces the cooldown of an astral shift charge.

2 Likes
52

I love the idea but in practice they would most likely retune AS if it had CDR either by increasing the CD or reducing the DR itself. That and it would lead to some frustrating moments of needing AS but because of bad MSW generation you may not have it back up. It’s a dope idea but would mostly likely get with “no fun allowed” type tuning by Blizzard.

I was cooking the idea of something like every time you spend MSW you get an absorb shield so we’re more passively more defensive, similar to how DKs get some passive defensiveness from running permafrost. It would also make it so we’d get the most benefit when we’re in CDs since regardless of build, you’re generating a massive amount of MSW and would make it less risky continuing to do damage instead of burning MSW to heal ourselves.

I would love if this happened. More often than not, AS in high keys or raid is something you plan ideally or save for specific situations like getting a huge dot like on the 2nd boss on Uldman. 2 charges would make life so much easier especially since there’s a lot of stuff we can’t just heal off since its just going to either 100 to 0 you or being you super low then you just die to a tick of something.

I still think we need more passive defenses. Especially for fights that have heavy and consistent damage events that don’t trigger Earth Sheild (looking at you 3rd boss of Halls). If they want to keep it with the Stormbringer theme, they could add to the Nature Protection choice to give you 3% DR if you have Lightning Shield up on top of it. For the Surging Currents option, they could make it so that free heal you get after using Tempest gives you a HoT or an Absorb shield for like 5% health or something if you’re using Lightning Sheild.

2 Likes
54

Then why many Enhancement Shaman still used elementalist build in S2 when storm cleave has no target cap? S2 tier set can go either storm or elementalist but many Enhancement Shaman still don’t play storm in M+.

Storm cleaves in S2 did ok ST and ok AoE, nothing impressive. It just can’t beat elementalist’s damage profile. Elementalist’s damage profile is much better and distribution, it had great ST, great cleave and great funnel potential on bosses when you can pwave things.

Elementalist’s problems was much easier to fix which was just fix the MSW generations. The storm’s design invalidates Enhancement’s entire toolkits and pure degenerate gameplays, they are much harder to fix than elementalist’s problems because storm’s design-wise is in a very bad shape.

55

Then they need to actually give us passive survivability, because our current set is absolute crap. All we have for passive defense is mail armor (worthless because the vast majority of damage dealt to non-tanks in PvE is magical), 8% increased health (middle of the road among all specs with max health talents), and 2% increased Leech and Avoidance (virtually nothing). The best passive defense we have is 6% magical damage reduction, which while good, is not so strong as to make up for every other area in which we’re lacking.

On top of which, the even bigger issue for PvE is that having strong reactive healing does absolutely nothing for you if you can’t survive the initial hit without a damage reduction CD. This is the biggest thing holding dps shaman back from high Mythic+, as our pathetic range of personal defensive CDs has us hitting a wall on our ability to survive unavoidable damage events much earlier than most.

2 Likes
57

As mentioned before, I do PvP. So I don’t know a lot of the specific details regarding PvE stuff. Though I was familiar with the issues holding shamans back from high M+, but I do have a question in regards to that.

My understanding is that 80% of these situations, as well as in raid, its aoe damage that kills. I know in PvP there’s a ton of that as well, some of people’s strongest hits are actually aoe or at least cleave. I’ve personally believed shamans have always needed more health not DR. But that doesn’t address the PvE concerns. I thinking giving passive DR is a very slipperly slope in terms of balancing. But I think a combination of both HP and Avoidance may resolve both issues.

Realistically, in your opinion how much % HP increase and avoidance would a new talent have to give for it to be practical. Not overpowered but actually give shamans a playable chance. Defensively. I am aware this doesn’t solve the target cap issues.

Thinking something like a 2 point node being deep into the tree that says: Gain 15% more max HP and 15% Avoidance.

58

I agree with you, personally I think Elementalist currently is a better, it was more thought through, insanely more fluid aswell and its damage in AoE was more consistent.

But they’ve seemed to tackle essentially all the issues in Stormbringer, if anything Storm Build on Alpha is insane, Static Accumulation + Thorims Invocation set up after a Tempest, With only just the Lightning Wolf, our AoE (although subject to tuning) is doing more. Don’t forget Awakening Storms further adds Tempest Procs and Chain Lightning Damage that just feeds the loop. Chain Lightning is hitting like a truck that we can pump continuously.

By the way this looks like it will be even higher as Conductive Energy is NYI so we missing out on the additional Lightning Rod effect, if that makes it into Alpha. Which is going to add so much more to cleave and funneling.

The beauty of it, it requires little to no set up, with the literal amount of tempest procs, free chain lightning’s, Crash Lightning resets, MSW we get refunded and generate it literally never stops plus the haste from Unlimited Power. The damage is insane, the flow is great.

Btw this is at ilvl 426 on Alpha they rocking like 25% haste, so imagine when geared. My only problem now is I wish Feral Spirits was off the GCD as it’s disrupting the flow of gameplay, you wanna be pressing more Stormstrike, Crash/Chain Lightning and Tempest. :joy:

But 100% I agree currently the Elementalist Build does do better you can’t argue with that, and the Tier Set double downing on Primordial Wave essentially locks that in.

I’m in no way even saying the Storm Build in TWW is going to be the right choice or meta pick, but from everything on testing and people stepping away from Primordial Wave and Lava Lash it looks like the Storm Build is going to definitely be a competitive contender vs the Elementalist Build.

And definitely it’s not degenerate anymore, you use to say all you want is to press Stormstrike and nothing else, now they’ve fixed that and put huge emphasis on using our MSW charges. They essentially did everything you’ve asked for to fix the degenerate gameplay, if anything Stormstrike, Ice Strike and Lava Lash (if you choose this) are just fillers when not pumping Lightning. So looks like they took your feedback onboard. So I’m glad Blizzard listened.

That’s what I’m happy about, let the player decide how they prefer to play, you love the Elementalist Build and seems just as passionate about it as I’m with the Storm Build and I just hope you continue to love and play that way regardless of the Hero Spec.

Now all they need is to fix and adjust our class/spec tree and defensives and we eating good, if they make DRE interact with Tempest and MSW that’s the dream, and Feral Spirits off the GCD is the cherry ontop.

Praying aswell Totemic is a home run too. :crossed_fingers:t4:

Edit: Maybe add a cool player cast animation for Tempest too, lifting hands in the air like you just don’t care isn’t great :joy:.

1 Like
59

Crash Lightning and Sundering are technically uncapped but they don’t do good damage. Storm cleave build did running DRE and they didn’t have to put points in Primordial Wave in S2. Everyone still runs elementalist build in S2 regardless because it had way more pro than storm cleave. Storm cleave can’t beat elementalist at damage profile and distribution because storm cleave’s damage profile is so shallow.

There’s a reason that I referenced S2, the S2 tier set bonus can go either elemenetalist or storm but many people run elementalist build in m+ even Freehold. If storm wants ST, they can’t AoE. If storm wants AoE, they were dpsing like a tank due to Fire Nova.

60

They should definitely tie defense to lightning shield. It’s an iconic shaman ability that has been weakened over time. Let it proc from all damage taken instead of melee hits, and then tie some form of mitigation to it.

3 Likes
61

Yeah, like I said Storm build did have a lot of fundamental issues, even in S2, you are completely right.

But I think going forward comparing S2 to what’s on Alpha is literally now comparing Apples to Oranges.

We need to start focusing not on past iterations and performances, more so what the changes and what’s current in Alpha.

62

The swing from pressing Crash lightning counts as a physical attack and while it does extreme fall-off damage past 6 targets, each of those hits can proc Windfury on each target hit so during Doomwinds crash does a pretty good amount of uncapped damage via Windfury damage along side Sundering being uncapped and procing windfury as well.

2 Likes
64

I know you hate comparisons, but in a competitive environment where everyone is trying to accomplish the same task some comparisons must be made. Let’s compare us to DKs. (keep in mind that us PVE’ers don’t get access to those pvp talents that you do)

-They get a 20% health increase to our 8%
-They have plate armor (most mechanics are magical, but some are still physical)
-They have 3 defensive cooldowns to our 1
-We get a free heal when low on health with an ICD- they get a 35% DR below 30% health with no cooldown
-They can use deathstrike in place of their normal spender for a decent amount of healing (it doesn’t heal as much as a msw healing surge, but it also doesn’t cost them as much and can be used much more often if necessary)
-They get 3% aoe DR and leech to our 2%
-They constantly build up an absorb shield just from auto attacks

We get the 6% magic damage DR and EE’s health boost on a 5 minute CD that they don’t. Your suggestion of 15% health and aoe DR would be welcome, but we would still come nowhere close to a DK’s survivability.

1 Like
65

Sure, but how much % Hp and avoidance would we need access to be able to compete? And when I say compete, I mean do higher keys even if its not the max but top 80th percentile of keys being ran. Say the highest ever is a 20, we would be able to do 17s 18s if we had 20-30% more HP and 20-30% passive avoidance?

66

With our current kit unchanged? 25-25 would work, but the outcry from other classes would never allow Blizz to do it.

67

Even on current tier, storm is competitive in raid ST very very much. And the ST loss for the m+ build is not that much when it comes to the huge amount of aoe that you do and how fast it gets m+ clean or what also some other specs from other classes gets to do aswell when going M+ builds and it still can get better due to somewhat rng factor of the amount of stormstrikes resets during a legacy of the frost witch increase, which is a lot. The gameplay is not degenerate, there’s no MSW craving and it also flows, I still will say it definetively needs more tunning on the base talents and skills to justify the loss of Static Accumulation and Thorims when switching from AOE/ST, so yes, it still has its flaws but the combos are fun, to me. This is coming from someone using storm in-game as of today.

Still I don’t use fire nova because of what said, there’s no single target value, plus, one combo of Crash Lighting - Chain Lighting does more damage than fire nova, simply because of strong the combo is for storm when there are 6+ targets even 4+, just the amount of alpha wolfs that you trigger within spirit wolves its a lot and also, the amount of them, you’re always with 5 wolves during add pulls and seeing that alpha wolf damage increase feels fun to me.

I still will agree that elementalist is the most tuned of the two and the one that will gain the most benefit from current tier.

68

Storm is competitive in ST only and it still gets beat by elemental ST focused spec. As soon as there are 2 targets storm falls off a cliff. Storm Cleave isn’t competitive at all since it’s way behind elementalist in Aoe and ST. Storm AOE has the worst ST by a wide margin and it’s AOE is well behind until you hit 6 targets and it pulls ahead at 7+. Meanwhile elementalist AOE is great at ST and the best at AOE up to 6 targets, which comprises most situations.

I don’t think stormbringer is going to make storm spec competitive unless we see some talent changes or tuning. Storm AOE’s ST is the worst and stormbringer isn’t going to improve that much. Storm cleaves ST isn’t good and it’s AOE isn’t good either, SB will improve it’s AOE but it needs 20% to even be comparable to current elementalist. Storm ST would do a little more ST and gain some AOE damage but in situations with AOE we will have better specs. The fact that Stormbringer will also work with elementalist is also hard to account for. The question becomes how much more MSW does storm generate vs elementalist, because if it’s close enough elementalist with stormbringer will be better than storm spec in most situations. That of course ignores totemic probably making elementalist way better in general, which I hate since I find totem gameplay very annoying.

Storm talents are too one dimensional and are all or nothing. You can either do ST and that’s it or mass AOE and everything inbetween you’re not great or even good at. Stormbringer will kind of help in the middle, but it also helps elementalist just as much. It would require talent changes to truly make up that middle ground without giving up too much elsewhere.

I would love to play storm, but given the variety of pulls in M+ elementalist is just far better in more situations. Once we see Totemic and the first stormbringer tuning/changes we will have a better idea, but I’d wager Elementalist is still going to be the go to spec. I hope I’m wrong, I just think we are at the end of the line for reworks and in true Blizzard fashion they are going to rush the expansion and run out of time for balance so we won’t see anything until 3-6 months into the expansion.

69

Couldn’t agree more

Honestly, I wish we got something that affected the elemental shields we can cast. Specifically Lightning shield.

Maybe a talent that causes it to produce a soul leech like effect based on the damage we deal with a cap up to 10-15% of our health?