After playing the Enhancement shaman on the PTR for more than 20 hours, Maelstrom Weapon cast Lightning Bolts feel weak.
This is purely Mechanic based not numbers.
Lightning Bolt has no synergy with any other ability of the class. The only reason I currently have to cast Lightning Bolt over storm strike is that it is now instant and everything else is on CD. Or it is to play into the Hailstorm or Stormkeeper talents.
Here are my thoughts for giving it more synergy and a more enjoyable feeling when you get to cast it instantly.
Have Lightning Bolt make a creature a Lightning Conduit. Buffing Storm strike, making the next cast deal all nature damage for say 8 sec. Or make it Extend the Duration of flame shock on the target by 3 seconds capping at 50% of its original duration. Finally if neither of those 2 things work, a simple option is to make Lightning Bolt give you a stack of Maelstrom Weapon. Making it a good reason to use it. It would make single target faster like the AOE Rotation does.
Just Buffing the damage Lightning bolt would make Enhancement feel like a Paladin who has less control over their Holy power gain.
The Reason I like Chain lightning it has a continued effect that feels fun beyond a single button press. Chain lightning Buffs Crash Lightning, which then buffs Storm Strike, twice. (Aoe Damage added and +5% per target hit) its a positive feedback loop.
One other issue i have with the spec can be fixed with tuning.
Lava Lash damage is not even worth using most of the time and it just fills a GCD. It only has a use if you take one or both the talents that make it slightly more important. But at a 15 second CD the Damage should at least compete with storm strike which has half the CD.
2 Likes
I would prefer Rockbiter to return. Lightning Bolt just feels off as Enhancement.
5 Likes
Why Rockbiter? I feel like it is just a filler button. I actually like the current setup with maelstrom weapon stacks. I would just like Lightning Bolt to have a bit more synergy with the rotation.
6 Likes
It absolutely was. It was there to fill out the whack a mole playstyle legion introduced when you had nothing available.
Legion enhancement SUCKS. Anything done to get away from that abomination of a playstyle, the better.
4 Likes
I would Like to see more control over some of the building and spending. Elemental is not an RNG builder, why should Enhance be. I am ok with some RNG building but we need something other than a talent giving us a tiny bit of control.
Secondly, the spender should be powerful and meaningful. I do not want to see stormstrike is 70+% of my damage again like it is on live.
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You use whack-a-mole, but the Maelstrom Weapons system is legit the whack-a-mole style with hitting whatever comes up on your priority system first.
Legion/BFA had one whack-a-mole button that could reset, with maintenance buffs with set cooldowns that didn’t.
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Legion was press whatever button wasn’t on cooldown, with a priority system. At least we have a semblance of a rotation now.
Legion was the worst thing to ever happen to enhancement
There is no semblance of rotation in SL outside your shock cooldowns, which can also get reset via Ice Strike…its 100% priority without rotation
Maelstrom x 5 LB is at the ToP
Flame Shock if No Debuff or About to Expire
After that its up to the damage to decide
Frost Shock with Hailstorm? without its probably much lower and not pressed as much
Stormstrike? What if it resets?
Lava Lash with Hot Hands?
The only things that feel like a rotation are using Ice Strike after a shock to reset it and flame shock maintenance. If you famine on maelstrom weapon stacks, it can start to feel more like a rotation, but a lot of our kit is now up to RNG depending what you take. Random chance to reset Stormstrike, Random Chance to Proc Hot Hands and reduce Lava Lash to 3 sec cd, Random Chance to proc Maelstrom Weapons which changes priority on frost shock (hailstorm).
What if its time for Stormstrike but you just got your 5th MW stack, if you use that do you now hit Hailstorm Frost Shock over that SS? Are you at 10 stacks? do you ice strike to get a second frost shock? Or stormstrike yet? UH OH, Hot Hands just proc’d time to spam Lava Lash. etc. etc. etc.
We have to wait to see where damage is to determine what gets pressed then, and then we are still subject to Stormfury resets — Hot Hand cd reductions — Hailstorm/MW procs.
BFA was legit press Lava Lash, Flametongue, Frostbrand on SET COOLDOWNS - Rockbiter when nothing is there, and Stormbringer when it lights up.
That’s a one-button whack-a-mole with 4 abilities set in a rotation.
Go search the forums moving into Legion and see the cryfest that was enhancement shaman furious that we moved away from a priority type whack-a-mole to a rotation similar to other classes (BFA nearly identical to Legion playstyle)
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i want earth shock back. And will keep posting about it until we get it back.
I was very perplexed when I didnt see Earthshock unpruned…
Same. We got 2 of them back just give us the 3rd
I would like Ice Strike to be baseline, actually. I think it would help a little.
This is purely wishlist stuff what I’m about to say but I watched the fight between garrosh and thrall again, why can’t we have an earth hand grab ability. That would be so cool!! And he finishes him off with a lightning bolt, an execute style lightning bolt could you imagine shamans getting an execute? Lol like I said crazy wishlist fanboy stuff but cool to think about
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I really like the Chain Lightning->Crash Lightning->Stormstrike combo in SL Enhancement, so I would definitely like to see Lightning Bolt similarly interact with the rest of the kit in someway, as the OP suggests.
Something that I feel is contributing to the new playstyle feeling a touch clunky in single-target is the current iteration of Lava Lash. This ability just feels kind of random, like it has been kept in the ability pool just because it’s something Enhancement has always had. But it just doesn’t currently serve a purpose anymore… It’s an unsatisfying button on a weirdly long cooldown that doesn’t interact with the baseline kit in any meaningful way.
Perhaps Lightning Bolt could add some more interactivity with Lava Lash? Something like: Lightning bolt reduces the cooldown of Lava Lash by X secs and empowers the damage of your next Lava Lash by Y%.
I would like to see earth shock replace lightning bolt for the maelstrom stack spender and lightning bolt go back to what it was in bfa, just something I could pull/tag mobs from range. My weird and bad idea would to bring rockbiter back but have it where when you use earth shock, it buffs rockbiter (1 to 3 stacks) to cause additional damage using the Earthen Rage animation, cuz i like how it looks.
Gevander,
That sounds so cool! I loved that cinematic and I completely agree that we could harness the elements in such a cool way that we don’t currently!
PvP stone grab would be amazing or a single target stun for PvE. And the execute would be EVEN COOLER! I can imagine it being a HUGE lightning bolt with a thunderous boom that empowers our next lightning bolt to overload 3x or something.
There could be so many cool things shamans could do, we literally have any “storm” we could pick from, we control the elements for God sakes. Wind storm lightning storm, fire storm, ice storm, rainstorm. Imagine just changing the cinematics on frost wyrm for dks and have it lightning bolts striking down from the sky in a line or fire (lava burst) in the same fashion kinda like a locks rein of fire, there’s so much content and real life experiences that could be pulled from. Granted I dont need to be FOTM, if I wanted that I could have played most any other class but I’m in love with the fantasy of shamans, I mean drek’thar made a giant lightning/wind storm to bring down shear cliffs and close a mountain pass, that’s some cool sh*t
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All npc shaman do things the player cannot.
Drekthar’s tornado
Thrall’s stone hand
Erunak’s flying bubble
Some dwarf shaman in cataclysm has a slowfall
Etc. Etc. Etc.
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