Feedback: Enhacenment Storm

Classes Shaman
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I’ve genuinely tried to leave the feedback as private however, the in-game option was removed… It’s a bit heartbreaking that trying to enjoy the game as others are and how its being develop for its player creates such hatred towards other players rather than constructive feedback about the specialization.

After indulging about the viability of this spec, because?, apparently for this game is still a thing to go a find someone else’s knowledge rather than the one in-game to reach the self game end content. For me this can be fine as I appreciate by tons how other players figure it out their playstyles and their max output.

With that said, rather than finding constructive ideas and suggestions it’s more about trolling and harassing someone else rather the common well being of the game community which makes me as well doubt about how leaving this post will be actually read by devs or one actually at blizzard as I figure out theres low to no moderation on this forums I’might be highly wrong I am not clear whats allowed to be shared here.

As tittled, Enhancement Storm, which apparently only few people including me, really likes it. I do have so much fun when playing shaman storm building and path.

I don’t want to get personal, but, I joined dragonflight last season thinking I would get that glance of dopamine this game has for me specially this specialization and how I remember that I’ve always played it. I understand the game has changed and I advocate for changes that improve previous gamestyles to make the original idea reach its apice. Which I thought was done after reading from the outside as returning player to the game such as reading talents, spells, seeing gameplays,etc.

What catch me up again, seeing the covenant influence gone. How ascendance got more interactions as well as ice strike and few of the things that storm build has and yes I understand some other people might be bored of it because it was a conjuction of past things. But for me, it really felt like all of those merged in one idea that when you execute it, at least for me, its delightful, specially when you get a Deeply Rooted Elements proc’s.

While I still advocate for who likes the Fire path and the ‘elementalist’ build this for me it creates ambiance and competitiveness on the spec rather than with other classes which creates more fun at least for me. It comes now as that theres only one way to play the spec and you will not be invited for endgame(Mythic) with the storm build.

My little feedback about the spec, as I’m seeing that we could’ve the potential if we wouldn’t have to rely on gambling, which I truly like, I understand others not. Hence the duality of the build should be balanced for you to choose which path you enjoy and allows to do your max at both endgame mechanics and output.

Current tier set interacts little with this path(this is something that I believe happens with other specs, which is in my opinion shouldn’t be, for me, your tier should improve your base spells, provide new ones or benefit both builds, rather than force you into a single playstyle)

While these changes might never be applied, my real feedback is to please, have someone take a loot at the enhacement shaman talents to improve or buff the storm path. Which could’ve as a personal thought I don’t think is definitive solution but an idea of what could improve it.
Alpha Wolf
Alpha Wolf: your wolves attacks also copies your stormstrikes.
Or
Alpha Wolf buffs also triggers and stack from stormstrikes and lighting bolts.
Ascencion
With gambling:
DRE Can be triggered now by (icestrike,lavalash,stormstrike or stormstrike/lighting bolts, chain lighting)
DRE Also benefits from Mastery talent: Stormbringer, this would increase our ascendance uptime)

Without gambling;
DRE is now an ascendance path choice where the chances are to reset its cooldown.
Ascencion has one minute cd, to emulate the constant damage booster that other melee classes has(Apocalypse, Avenging Wrath, Pillar of Frost, Fury of Odyn, you name it, there are plenty of specs with 1min cds, and shaman only has the wolves outside primordial wave if talented , which personally I don’t like.)

Hopefully no one takes this long post as a statement of hate or anything of the sort, as if you enjoy playing elementalist I truly support you. But I also, want to enjoy the game as you are without learning a completely new gamestyle rather than improving, retaking and owning current end game content… But also, very personally I do not find elementalist enjoyable even after learning it.

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You are not alone, I love the Storm Build, personally it brings a little nostalgia of Shaman from 19-20 years ago, the whole random proc from Windfury but substituted into DRE. (I still have that Shaman :smiling_face:).

In saying that I do think the Storm Build needs adjustments and tuning but it’s definitely a play style that I love and will always gravitate towards regardless the “Meta”, to me it’s fun, nostalgic and I love it.

I think moving into TWW expansion and after seeing basically every hero spec tree that’s been revealed favouring a certain play style, I do have high hopes this play style will be more fleshed out and better then ever with Stormbringer, as Totemic although it’s only been datamined seems to already push into the Elementalist Build.

I think once we see Stormbringer and Totemic and a lot of the changes happening to class/spec trees, as it seems all classes are getting talent adjustments and pruning things will be better then currently being left in the dark.

Personally I despise tier sets that force you into a certain play style, it shouldn’t happen. You shouldn’t be punished playing how you like due to Tier Sets.

Both Storm and Elementalist builds should exist, both viable, let the player decide what they enjoy.

Regardless good to see another Storm Build enjoyer, let’s pray TWW lets us bring the Storm moving forward.

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That’s a nice sentiment and all, but it’s impossible for Storm and Elementalist to coexist as equally viable builds in their current states due to the wide gulf in difficulty between them.

Let’s not mince words, Elementalist is much more difficult than Storm is to play. Its power is spread over far more keybinds which require much more juggling and optimizing from moment to moment, while Storm is about the closest this game has ever had to a literal one-button spec.

Storm and Elementalist were able to coexist in seasons 1 and 2 not because they were equal, but because they weren’t competing with each other; each was stronger in one niche. Storm was stronger for pure ST situations, while Elementalist was vastly superior for any multi-target. S3 fixing Elementalist’s problems with ST MSW generation got rid of that niche divide, leaving Elementalist the clearly superior build for all situations.

So that leaves Storm dying a lingering death as a clear inferior to Elementalist, but if they performed equally, then Storm would be driving Elementalist to extinction because it’s so much easier to reach that top end performance with. Bringing back some kind of niche divide like the ST/AoE split from S1 and 2 is a terrible solution, too, because that just forces players to swap to a build they may hate because it’s the stronger for the content they’re running that night, as we Elementalist players despised being forced into Storm for the majority of Aberrus in S2.

For Storm to be competitive with Elementalist without killing it due to vastly easier performance, Storm’s complexity would have to be dramatically increased to be closer to Elementalist’s, to the point it might not even be recognizable as Storm except in the broadest strokes.

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Which again, in my personal preference shouldn’t be the case for a spec that had a core mechanic over the years now, being thorn from it in the way that it is. If in the case of the duality not working as you express, then its something that blizzard should remove from the talents and the way the present the game, which I don’t think has been blizzard intentions.

Your idea of topping the metters and finding enjoyment on the complexity on the class is up for you to decide as much as I have my own decision. If the idea of you suddenly changing from the ‘elementalist’ build because the storm build seems to be the one topping the metters as Storm is buffed to be competitive and easier to execute in your opinion, perhaps, makes me doubt about your enjoyment with the elementalist build. It would be so nice to hear , “even if they buff it I’m staying as elementalist”.

Lastly, if a rework for the base ‘Stormbringer’ core needs to be done then so be it. Elementalist has zero no reference on enjoyment from Stormbringer procs. Which is an idea for me, and I respect that you have another one. Hence, I’m not telling you that shouldn’t play your spec because it’s more complex.

It’s hard to understand how can I express with such amount of words, the exact feedback for my spec plus, what I like about it, and to be told that I like it only because its easy which didn’t come even as synonym or as any syntax of my sentences. What is easy for you doesn’t mean that is easy for others, whether it is easy or not, your enjoyment should not define what others should enjoy too, specially on whats the base fantasy of the class and has been since forever.

At this point you can call the elementalist a rework of the Enhacement Shaman and it would fit the definition.

Regardless of the difference of performances, the only reason why I’m seeing the different performance thought the expansion is due to the lack of revamping and follow up from the devs on this spec, why I made my post.

Wow is the only game where you will go saying I’m liking this so much and, instead of creating an employment and feedback together again, is to thorn your liking with hatred using or not using fancy words. I would have loved to, if you would have one. Ideas on how to improve the Storm specs rather than, it has be left nerfed and leave it there.

To be honest, based on the WoW player idealization of the game instead of calling this MMORPG, this should be called champion/hero based mmo, where you can customize your appearance, cause this so far is none of what made wow reach where it is today and has no immersion. It would be just way easier to say come “to take a look at a this hero and their toolkit” rather than all the blatant fantasy that is being sell which hits different when you truly play the game.

Why as a enjoyed elementalist feel so pressed that if storm is buffed up you will need to change back? If both are performing equally and one is more ‘complex’ as you stated is for you to choose if you want to go that path, and prove to others that you can rock with your ‘complex’ build. That doesn’t mean as much as it doesn’t mean for me or for you. That the game itself and the content we do should be complex and is up to each indivual player on how they want to enjoy this complexity. If you like the ‘more buttons to press’, that’s a you idea and doesn’t define the whole game population.

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I think I made a post on this many months back, and general opinions with the issues with Storm that needed fixing are that:

  • It lacked complexity and it would be “unfair” for Storm to be comparable to Elementalist given the difference in degree of difficulty

I personally don’t think that just because a build isn’t as complex that it should perform so poorly, I mean just compare it to some of the rest of the specs in game. Barring a few outliers, High M+ in this game is practically dominated by specs with fairly simple rotations and high-target or uncapped AOE.

  • It didn’t scale as well with stats

From my amateur sim sessions, Storm, like Elementalist, works best with Haste/Mastery, even though it benefits far less from Mastery than the other build. I think changing Stormstrike damage to Nat/Physical all the time instead of just with the Stormblast talent would go a long way to fixing that.

  • Prim Wave is too powerful as an AOE Nuke and consistent haste buff, leading to having to talent at least through the Flame Shock spread.

I think that fixing Doom Winds to not be basically a joke would go a long way in fixing the disparity in builds. As a 1.5 min CD with no CD reduction, that lasts 8 sec you should feel like a GOD in those 8 sec, instead it hits like a limp noodle is basically irrelevant. Upping the damage amp to Windfury weapon to at least 50% instead of 10% and possibly extending it to a 12 sec duration or reducing it to a minute CD would neatly fix that issue.

  • Tempest Strikes is ridiculously weak

When simming a Storm build, ele blast often sims for more damage then the talent literally added for a Storm build. Maybe tweak the damage a little higher? It’s currently 35% attack power, maybe tune up to 50% attack power.
Or conversely, they could add an additional effect like having Tempest Strikes apply a stacking debuff to make targets take more Nature dmg, which would also add a minor bit of complexity to the build.

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Tempest strikes was such a lazy addition. Especially considering that the same patch they introduced it, they nerfed our overall dmg. Essentially a net zero change and waste of a talent point.

What I think it should’ve been was some range of our melee

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And I agree, doom winds feel so powerful only when pair up with sundering and stormstrike during wolves physical buff. If Doom Winds would be instead reduced to a base spell such as having 12 sec cooldown, would remove the option of choosing lavalash and give more room to the interaction of doomwinds and the triple melee attack windows more constant throught the fight.

And I do think that Elemental blast could’ve fit both builds perfectly if stormstriking would have the same priority as a maelstrom spender making it proc’s either stormbringer or dre elements procs.

The path just need someone to log-in and try the class for a few mythic dungeons/raid if they’re invited to and figure it out right after that the storm tunning and supportive tree is weak in terms of flat damage output.

I do agree that the specs needs more complexity than priority 1 button, but this is what shaman has been forever. Either if it is Elemental with Lava Surge or Enhacement with Stormstrike. If we want to add more complexity lets add interactions and more tunning to the current base talents THAN adding more ‘spells to press’ so I can say that my class is more complex and it consolidates with the other ones that have complex rotations so I can feel good with my own progress.

I just feel that people has been playing a spec that they don’t like and I don’t see or remember when Stormstrike got so much hate. As all I remember is that the spec was cool but people would not keep it up with it because of how fast phased it is.

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What i would like to see is this:

1: P wave primal maelstrom becoming a baseline interaction for that spell. Replace primal malestrom with current tier set, but instead of working with wolves it works with MSW generation.

2: Unite static accumulation into ascension, replace static accumulation with a cdr talent if you have ascension talented, or an increase in the proc chance of DRE if you have it talented. Although to be honest, DRE is a bit of a problematic talent. It would probably work better if it worked with msw generation, but it wouldn’t solve all the issues.

This way, enhance will be able to retain the very fun gameplay of s3/4 elementalist, but these changes should also make storm competitive, at least in st.

But overall, storm needs some more changes in order to be as good as elementalist.

Even if it has the st, it lacks the aoe compared to elementalist. Unless it’s mass aoe, where alpha is pretty good.

The good thing is, they could do this, and elementalist still likely would not want to take dre/ascension because they are good for completely different builds.

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  • Storm has no good crossover talent, forcing you to all in either ST or AoE.

It’s the biggest problem for Storm is being unable to do both ST and AoE, they have to sacrifice a significant portion of either. Storm can’t flex talents for both ST/AoE like Elementalist can. They have to spend points on worthless utilities and talents such as Storm’s Wrath (it’s a useless talent because SS hits like a noddle and it increases 0.1% DPS). Fire Nova is worthless talent because you can do tank DPS with it in ST/cleave and Hailstorm outclasses Fire Nova in everything.

  • Storm is an extremely shallow damage profile.

Storm has no controlled burst other than Doomwinds which is a bad damage cooldown. Storm is all about random procs and Storm has no good cleave or other perks. DRE is the main problem of Storm build because it enables spamming SS and ignoring everything. Storm is unsalvagable as long as they have current DRE in a tree because the design of Storm is a very bottom rock. Completely reworking or deleting DRE is the only way to save Storm.

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Okay, some thing I want to say and ask about. But first giving some context of where I come from as an Enhance Player: PvPer most of my wow life. Can deff relate so some of the things you are saying about SS, based entirely off the past. I can look back on my youtube and watch 2v2 games vs Mes/Cdew at 2400 mmr where my SS were connecting for 30% of peoples HP. And that felt fun. But I’ve also been playing maining the “Elementalist” build since SL. Yes, I was necrolord while everyone was venthyr. But my reasoning has to do with the mechanical complexities of arena. By this I mean, the reliability of the damage how effective it is as well as how I can play around it. This is during the time where doomwinds was crazy good but everyone has a 45 second CD disarm and able to prevent you from melee damage for 8 seconds during the window.

Having said that, I did (and fully intend to this season) pull out the ole Doomwinds/SS build in DF S1. Was great into specific match ups where I knew I could connect and there was no threat of disarm. So with that in mind, here comes my questions:

I remember that with crash lightning cleave effect and wolves auto hitting when you do specific attacks, why is Storm considered ST? Elementalist only really has flame shock spread and prime wave LB? I just remember the physical build feeling great in AoE. But im not current with things in PvE.

Also, DRE is actually very useful for the elementalist build. The activation damage and not the ascendance effect. The huge AoE nature damage hit that scales off wolves/mastery/crit give your SS a random chance to kind of 1 shot. But you dont go fishing for it. I was actually looking forward to the current 2 piece with Storm. I think it will be just fine as theres enough nature damage to compliment it and you get the haste from PW, which we all know SS loves. But please tell me how things really are, because this is just my opinion from someone not doing keys/PvE.

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I played Storm for raid and Elementalist for M+ in S2, and I truly, truly despised playing Storm. Mashing one button nonstop was horribly boring, I always seemed to proc DRE the instant a boss went into an immunity phase or I got targeted by something that had to be run out, and even when I did well on the meter I felt no satisfaction from it because it didn’t feel like I’d done anything to earn that damage, it just happened on its own.

So yes, my preference for the Elementalist build is tested and proven. That said, were it and Storm truly equivalent in performance, I would be hard-pressed to justify continuing to play Elementalist because:

It’s not a matter of simple builds not deserving to perform well, it’s a matter of theoretical vs practical DPS. If both builds for a spec perform roughly equivalently at optimal play levels (theoretical DPS), then the simpler spec is actually the stronger build because there are fewer opportunities for the player to make mistakes (practical DPS) barring some other factor.

This is actually already the case for Storm vs Elementalist, which will do relatively similar damage on a target dummy over enough time. The only thing that keeps the above from happening and Storm supplanting Elementalist due to ease of play already is that Storm has no agency whatsoever over its own damage profile due to DRE. Storm is entirely dependent on DRE procs for its damage, but when those happen is totally out of the player’s control, which makes it terrible for anything but Patchwerk bosses where it doesn’t matter a lick when your damage happens as long as it does, but Patchwerks are usually about one a tier, if at all.

Any boss with phases that prioritize burst like Smolderon’s burn phase or Dathea’s add platforms has decent odds of DRE never proccing during those windows. On the flipside, it can often proc right before windows that waste DPS like the intermissions between council members switching in on Forgotten Experiments or any boss with “run this out NOW” mechanics. And M+ turns those up to 11.

DRE is both the thing that enables the Storm build, and the biggest thing holding it back, because reliability over when you damage happens is so crucial to the modern game. But without that unreliability, Storm’s extreme simplicity makes it hard to justify playing the much more demanding Elementalist build, because it’s so much easier to achieve optimal play – and therefore maximum DPS – with than Elementalist.

For PvE at least, it’s mainly opportunity cost. Enhancement is a very point-starved spec, and DRE is a near-cap talent. Taking it comes at the cost of another point somewhere in the final talent tier, of which the only one you could even consider without dumpstering the build is Elemental Assault, which still tanks the build’s ST MSW generation. The gain from DRE activation bursts isn’t worth the loss of consistent MSW generation, since MSW spenders are such a massive chunk of our damage profile, plus all the reasons above for why being reliant on DRE procs for damage is terrible in the modern game.

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Sure, but I was more referring to the gameplay loop. Crash Lightning, chainlightning cyles into wolves cleaving and all your melees cleaving with Crash buff. Doomwinds sunders into packs. I remember all of that being incrediable. I would imagine it would be better still then elementalist in AoE. Unless I am missing something. And ofcourse DRE procs only make that better with the aoe pop.

I would think Storm is better in AoE and Elementalist is more Single target. Which is what I was asking why that is not the case.

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So its OK when its done to others, but wrong when its done to you? That doesn’t sound very fair.

Does it bother you when other relatively ‘simple’ specs like frost DK, frost mage, ret pally, and BM hunter are competitive? If a more complex class is fun for you then great, but not everybody is you.

The three mage specs are very different, and yet all three are competitive and all three have a following. Storm and elementalist can coexist in a similar fashion.

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Because the primordial wave aoe lightning bolt nuke is very strong, and thanks to the current tier set has a very short cooldown. Storm would likely pull ahead on the pull, but elementalist would catch it and pass it quickly due to the discrepancy in ability cooldowns.

Doom winds cooldown is 1.5 minutes. Prim wave ends up being about 24ish seconds and sometimes less than that.

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So PW aoe LB out performs the standard aoe grinder that is storm in the 24 seconds? I would of thought all that cleave and CL would be roughly the same and a lot easier to manage.

If anything, wouldn’t storm get access to that as well making it even better? You get still 1 lightning wolf and the mastery for both specs isn’t too far apart.

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I’m saying the current forms of the two builds means they are inherently a pendulum. Tuning Storm and Elementalist to be equally viable is impossible without reworking at last one of them to bring their difficulty closer together, because Storm’s ease of play makes it functionally stronger than Elementalist if all other factors are equal. So no, it’s not fair to Storm players, but as long as there is a massive difficulty gap between Storm and Elementalist, one of the builds is going to be screwed, and making Storm stronger is just swinging the pendulum the other way.

For Storm to be equally viable to Elementalist without just making Elementalist obsolete, Storm would need a major rework of the build to bring their play complexity closer together.

You’re comparing apples and oranges. No matter how strong frost DK or Ret paladin is compared to Enhancement shaman, they are entirely different classes that I could not play without switching to a completely different character, so the cost of switching to them is steep. Even with the mage example, spec identity is a major thing, and feeling pressured to switch specs because of power gaps can be a hefty ask psychologically.

Different builds within the same spec are much, much smaller chunk of identity, and much smaller cost to switch, so much so that a lot of specs routinely shift their builds around from season to season depending on tier bonuses, and everyone adjusts builds to tuning changes.

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Again, opportunity costs of the final talent tier. Storm would have to give up either Stormstrike resets from Legacy of the Frostwitch, MSW generation from Elemental Assault, or Alpha Wolf to pick up Primordial Wave.

Plus, since you’re definitely not spending the 2 points for the free 10 MSW on PWave cast, your DRE is liable to proc while you’re manually building up the 10 MSW for the megabolt and autocast it at only half power.

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Storm also isn’t getting the massive haste buff with near 50% uptime.

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Ahh, I see. Basically Storm wants all of the final tier talents at the same time. This tier specifically.

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So here’s my disappointment as I’ am playing this game. I spent my first week of this season getting my bullions and equipment to rock my storm enhacement shaman. I could have by now at least half of the bis gear heroic version. It disappoint that even I’m doing my best as a player my game enjoyment is limited by the own game and the current balance of things. Which makes me play something that I definitively not enjoy and forces me to play instead another class that I might enjoy. We are on 2024 and this game has been up with this type of issues since the moment it was released and it happens on a context where you feel excluded both enterprise wide as for the ones that releases the content and community wise as the whole end game community will always follow the bots that already did the endgame content for them as a guide.

I know the game and anyone will not lose anything If I stop playing. But just a little side story.

I’m not from a native English speaking country. I’ve played this game so far now for 15 years, since I was 11 years old. This game help me learn English as I remember learning how to pronounce all the shaman spells and as well to help lead raids and telling people to get out of fire. My first work was as a 12 hour worker at college cyber coffee. The amount of work that I went through was exhausting and the payrate was less than the average illegal worker even for constructions. In this work I would transcript or completely write people final thesis for their studies for literal to 0 amount of money.

When I moved to a better place and a better work, to a United States Enterprise, in my interview the first thing that I said without hesitation was that I’ve learn English and my computing skills AFTER spending my whole youth on this game World of Warcraft.

Again, I do respect whoever got tired of playing the same, hence why we have the new build. But what about the others were the feeling of playing this game is more than just proving a top meter but actually progressing and truly taking to your heart what this game can offers?

I will surely say in the past as I said that WoW was for me amazing game, which now may still be the same for others but not for who’s feeling excluded. Based of 1st paragraph. And with this experience believe THAT it doesn’t feel nice to feel excluded this way.