Lots of people have been on here showing support for 2H shamans getting bespoke, new tools. I’ll be happy to get those in any form but I want to talk about what specifically they could get. Any of these buffs would require you to have a 2H equipped.
Stormstrike cooldown reduction. This seems like a gimme, it could drop by 8-10 seconds without seriously harming the PvP experience.
Stormstrike AOE? This one is a little more contentious but I think it’d be cool to give it either a small chain lightning effect or leave an AOE of pulsing lightning on the ground.
Maelstrom Weapon. This one doesn’t have to be specific to 2H, but it would feel pretty unexciting if you’re not attacking fast. However, if this weapon imbue can be stacked with other ones on 2H weapons that would alleviate that problem (and be super cool).
If not Maelstrom Weapon, something to make Chain Lightning/Heal instant cast. Not at the beginning of a fight or random on attack, to avoid heavy burst. But perhaps after a certain duration in combat and at regular intervals after, your next spell with a cast time casts instantly? This would really bring to the forefront the hybrid aspect of the class and feel like an off healer or a melee spellcaster.
Windfury changes. This isn’t a strict buff, nor would it require a rune. But if Windfury’s burst took a significant hit to allow it to better increase the DPS the game would be healthier and Shaman would be opened up for power positive changes. WF hits dealing maybe 60% of what they do now but proccing twice as often would be power positive in PvE without allowing for instant kills in PvP.
I think a cool down reduction + mana back on cast for stormstrike (like crusader strike) instead of a large mana cost would work. If we get a reduction it will just oom us faster and we won’t really gain much dps anyway even with shamanistic rage.
I like the idea of stormstrike having a cleave to it aswell, seems fitting for the ability seeing as it’s almost like a mini thunderclap.
I kind of assume that enh is gonna get something to solve their mana issues that isn’t tied to DW. If I’m wrong then yeah, SS should return mana on use like crusader strike.
The burst from 2H WF would still be much higher than DW, trust. And there will be other new tools that increase your burst, we already have a new ability and it won’t be the last.
I want to use a 2 hander in raids, and I suspect that the reason they aren’t supporting that is specifically because of WF burst in PvP. If that’s the thing they need to tune in order for me to raid 2H, then I will gladly accept that. I know how fun it is to blow someone up like the Unbreakable video, but outside of a few rare highlight reel moments it’s pretty miserable. I’d be having fun way more often if it was even a little bit more consistent.
I don’t mind more consistent damage but not at the cost of burst potential. I actually did run a 2H WF Enhance Shammy in Vanilla (PvP only)… Trust me I didn’t like fighting my way to someone only to wet noodle them upside the head and die… Though it made for some funny moments.
Another issue with 2H in a raid environment would likely be threat spikes…
If I’m being honest I think raid is the reason 2H enhance was abandoned not PvP.
I raided Naxx in classic as Enh. Threat spikes are simply not a problem (barring WF on pull) because you’d have to WF like 3 times in a row to cause a pull aggro. And if that was the problem with Enh shaman they could easily have reduced the spikiness. Which is the same fix for PvP. Either way, the burst is the problem.
Okay so i like the ideas, but not sure atleast stormstrike could be done.
Stromstrike: For me since it is already in the enhance specc line it really can’t be a rune option. Though having it on a rune that affects other spells in some way like a chance on hit to reset stormstrike could be interesting.
Maelstrom: I think changing maelstrom weapon into maelstrom strike could be really fun with it having a chance of procs a buff that reduces your cast time on lighting bolt/chain lightning an healing spells, but the proc chance or the chance to gain a stack to reduce the cast time could be based using dw or two hander.
Totemic-strike: I love the idea of a shaman that is more tied to their totems, and having a pair of strikes that either boost your totems effects and/or duration, while the other might syphon off some of your totem’s elemental energy to empower a strike to deal higher damage based on how many totems you have active could be interesting. even the idea that using totem linked strike might cause your searing totem to increase the rate of fire and your nova totem to pulse fire damage after using a strike could be different.
The burst is what made it fun, you nerf that and might as well just play Dual Wield… I really don’t expect them to do anything with 2H enhance. There has clearly been a very long-standing decision to never embrace that specific path.
I’ve spent way too much time on this. Shaman was my first 60 and I love the class and I love it because of its one shot potential. Windfury. Big elemental crits LB/NS chain lightning/Shock. I don’t want to take that away. So for the most part, shaman are getting mana issues fixed which will address some of its sustained dps. I’ve edited this down a lot so here’s the main points of increasing sustained dps and things to avoid.
Avoid Maelstrom Proc
It works better for dual wield certainly and is okay but it blurs the line between elemental and enhance too much imo
Enhance might do instant cast lightning bolts/CL for near same damage as elemental where it takes them time to cast that spell. It’s weird. Elemental is a master at casting spells of the elements. Enhance is more of a warrior with elemental magic imbuing their weapon and using totems on the front line. They should focus on shocks, totems, melee strikes and entirely different spells. Earthquake would be a fitting spell being within melee range.
Don’t Nerf Windfury
We need the juicy dopamine of big procs and crits.
It needs to be supplemented by consistent dps.
Lightning/Lava Shield – Static Shock Talent from Wrath
First idea for consistent dps. This makes it so your attacks trigger lightning shield charge on the enemy + increases the amount of charges
Lava Shield - Fire shield is taken by the imp’s version of thorns. So let’s call it Lava shield for shamans. We now have lightning, earth, water and lava. All four elements? WoW elements are weird when looking at shaman 4 totem elements vs schools of magic in wow vs reality. Anyways, lava shield should work with static shock, instead it explodes in aoe damage, so if you get hit using this you give a burst of aoe lava damage. Your melee attacks can also trigger this charge
Totemic Warriors - Use Totems to Fill DPS gap and QOL
“A totemic warrior who strikes foes with weapons imbued with elemental power.” Why do they barely have any offensive totems besides fire?
Searing totem is a no brainer here, we can buff this. Increase damage, shorten duration, but why is fire the only element able to do damage? Add an ice water totem that throws ice around. Maybe you can get all 4 elemental totems hurling bolts at enemies. Have it scale to enhance shaman’s attack power.
Fire nova totem is griefed hard just by design. NPCs need to not auto target it and kill it. It’s terrible and shuts down a big part of shaman aoe potential.
I’d prefer the wotlk totem bar and the recall totem ability along with this, unsure about putting down 4 totem template at once. Depends how demanding the rotation is. If the rotation isn’t too demanding, then leave it as is.
Earth Spikes and Windfury
Every time you don’t proc windfury with a 2hander you create an earth shard that floats near you, after getting 5 shards, your next stormstrike ability, auto attack , or shock will launch all 5 at your target. Something like that, adds damage, makes it feel impactful and not like it’s just random numbers showing up all the time.
Stormstrike and Primal Totem – 5th Totem Slot to Alter Stormstrike (best idea)
So obviously, stormstrike needs a shorter CD and probably reduced mana cost as it is. As the counterpart of paladins, shamans aren’t getting an aoe strike. They should though, but copy pasting is boring and removes shaman/pally flavor. They need a unique inverse counterpart. So instead of just adding more abilities to the evergrowing list of totem abilities on a shaman, let’s have a totem that alters the stormstrike depending on what totem you have down.
Primal Totem Rune - Lvl 50 or 60 rune for enhance. It doesn’t conflict with the other 4 totem elements, it’s like a 5th “element” totem. It changes stormstrike into elemental strike which increases all elemental damage by 10%. If you put down a Storm Primal Totem, it becomes stormstrike increasing nature damage by 20%. If you put down a Volcanic Primal Totem, it makes your elemental/stormstrike into Volcanic Strike which cleaves/explodes and does aoe damage with a dot. Waterfall Primal Totem, where your strike heals you and allies and/or regens mana. An earth one that aoes but also knockdown enemies in a small distance around you. A wind one that is actually a ranged strike and roots the enemy. Give these totems a little bit more health than the 5 hp maybe.
These strikes can share CD or have their own unique CD so you can do a stormstrike, place a volcanic primal totem, then do a volcanic strike immediately after. If that’s the case, maybe the longer cooldown isn’t such a big deal.
Spirit wolves and summon elemental totems
These were mostly offensive CDs for burst not permanent, but classic bosses are not long, so these too would also increase sustained dps. Can also have shamans be able to bloodlust only themselves if we want to avoid the tbc shaman stacking meta of group wide or raid wide buffing.
I’d rather avoid this option to be honest.
Better Design Overall
Its kind of better for classes to have some concept of how the dps rotation will be like a mini-game. Warriors and rogues are excellent examples of having this. Warriors inspired from fighting games with the rage bar and it led to great scaling. Before the rage bar, it was a boring monotonous class that just waited for CDs to pop up. Whack a mole gameplay. Rogues were similar and they created the energy and combo point system leading to builder/spenders but with setup and finisher moves. Leading to more interesting gameplay in a pve dps scenario. Warriors obviously had the better scaling because of gear, crit, rage, world buffs, CDs and that cycle of increased dps through rage and crit.
Shamans’ main gimmick is totems and the elements. A battle mage, mixed with a witch doctor, farseer, and the shaman. They have great class fantasy but not designed around the most on gameplay of dps and what would be fun, but supportive + offensive utility. Most engaging and rewarding dps classes have a simple but good mini game in their rotation. I think of ret paladins seal twisting in TBC for this. Totem twisting is interesting but not rewarding because it doesn’t impact you and your own dps. It’s only obstructing it at the expense of increasing others. It wasn’t until tbc and wrath when dps rotations started becoming a bigger focus for all the classes, leading to some good stuff like wrath’s solar/starfire becoming lunar/solar eclipse in retail. Yet, it also led to some homogenized ideas of builder/spender gameplay where a lot of the classes feel boring, similar, doing little damage with builder abilities to then have a big spender ability. I want to see more unique innovative stuff that is also extremely simple. Seal twisting is very simple, but rewarding and it was unintended.
Enhance is going to need some more unique utility I think since druids can bring windfury in a better way too. I’m kind of guessing they’ll bring in bloodlust later.
As an aside, it’s also an issue for all shamans when they’re stuck with basically 1 spammable school of magic. They could work well as a stance switcher switching between elements of doing lightning bolt or another bolt spam since AQ will give their nature damage a harder time. Or primal totems for them but it changes lightning bolt and chain lightning into lava or water/ice.
To recap, I would like to see Enhance as the totemic warriors they were designed to be. Focusing on elemental melee strikes, imbued weapons from the elements, aoe spells near the shaman, totems, and shocks instead of casting spells like the elemental shamans doing lava burst, lightning bolt and chain lightning. For example, if shamans got hex to cc, enhance shouldn’t be doing hex it fits the resto witchdoctor fantasy more, while lightning lasso or thunderstorm fits elemental. Enhance should use their weapon, totems and elemental imbues to smack the ground and send an earthquake trail to their target and stun them. Don’t nerf WF, supplement their dps with totems, a totem to alter stormstrike depending on the totem, and lightning/lava shield with static shock talent.
Edit: Oh I don’t want dual wield at all. Just make 2 hand viable.
You attack the target for 500% weapon damage, causing the ground beneath them to shake. Cracks form under your target and deal 1,000 nature damage every second for 20 seconds. Your target is rooted to the ground, silenced, and stunned for these 20 seconds. After the 20 seconds expires, the shaman’s 2handed weapon is engulfed in flames, which shoot out from the weapon hitting the target for 2,800 fire damage, causing the target to burn for 700% of the damage over the next 15 seconds. Damage caused in this way heals the shaman for 8000% of the damage done. While this ability is on cooldown, your melee attacks have a range of 80 yards, deal nature damage, and automatically trigger windfury weapon which each successful hit.
A ramping combat buff would work,kinda like momentum. Max stacks would be a reduction on the internal CD on windfury,possible add another attack aswell? This would keep 2h great for pve and not break it in pvp. Maybe a reduction in mana cost for SS too.
They have so many options to do tbh. Lets see what happens.
I’m confident that Ele will be doing more damage with their CL/LB casts because they’ll have invested a lot more in spell power, and that if Enh gets a way to instant cast then so will Ele. Also even if they’re similar in damage Enh won’t be casting it outside of the instant cast proc because they’ll be attacking. So they get 1 instant cast every, say, 30 sec? Doesn’t sound like too blurry of a line to me.
I don’t think they’d need to implement a whole 5th totem, but they could certainly easily tie it to which totems you have down. Giving it extra effects based on your air totem makes most sense to me. Add a cleave if you have X totem, causes no threat if you have Y totem, etc.
Yeah maybe in classic you’re right about the ele/enhance being different because of SP. It depends on if they make flametongue weapon give spellpower and if they give the talent that converts AP to SP. Then we’ll have the dualwielding spellhance potential as well.
For the 5th totem, I completely agree, but I didn’t want to take away from their current possible totems being out because of how some are useful buffs or resistances. Plus I just really liked the idea of more types of elemental strikes with different effects. Fire always was the damage totem and aoe totem, so seeing a type of lavastrike instead of lava lash to cleave fits.
Maelstrom stacks can generate faster with a dual wield build yea, but theres also another benefit to the buff.
When you have at least one stack of maelstrom, your cast wont reset the swing timer granted your cast finishes before the swing timer.
With a big slow weapon cast weaving is much easier and can be made efficient with just a little assistance with a rune idea i cooked up
Rune of Storm, Earth, and Fire
Your spell damage is increased by 30% of your attack power and allows usage of lava lash with a 2h weapon
In addition while wielding a 2 handed weapon your stormstrike, earthshock, and lavalash all grant 1 stack of maelstrom weapon.
This rune will benefit both dw and 2h (since i have to cope with dw existing) and can also allow for some freedom in the 2h enh build by letting you choose between lavalash or lavaburst to make for a more strike focused build or a more cast weave focused build
Dual wield will still completely wreck 2h in maelstrom generation but with this little boost you can efficiently cast weave making it almost a non issue
It could transform your wf procs into fire damage (might be an issue in mc). Or you could use it in conjunction with frostbrand and slow people without having to use a shock.
This is just going back at an idea of being able to put two shaman weapon enchants on a 2h weapon at the same time.
