As an enhancement shaman with no legendary, made from an alt on Area 52 that is becoming a main for DF.
Not that prepatch means much, but if anyone would like some advice to cheese the last few days before DF I’m happy to share what I’ve learned.
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Please share, I am curious what your build is for enh. Is it stacking to 10 and dropping a big crit?
To echo Tahom, I’m new to enh (and shaman in general) so I’d love to get some tips.
Sorry I got sick with COVID!
So, things are going to change dramatically with the release of Dragonflight. But in general, we want to adopt a few strategies that are going to hold true even post DF launch.
What Enhancement excels at currently, in Solo Shuffle, is a supportive, stockpiling role. Surprisingly, you are quite tanky. This sounds strange because we don’t have incredibly strong defensives; however, we skyrocket to a large amount of Health and use that as our bastion for absorbing pressure, with Lightning Shield being our primary maelstrom generator.
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Here is a talent build I highly recommend, with PvP talents Swelling Waves, Skyfury Totem, and Shamanism (this talent flexes often).
Strangely, I actually find best success when I am not running insignia, but instead using Gladiator’s Emblem (HP Trinket Steroid) and Badge of Ferocity (Agility Steroid). We’re lucky because, in solo shuffle, if anyone is being crowd controlled it is generally your healer, and people do not coordinate their stuns as well as they would in a Discord 3s. Your job is to survive, endure, absorb, and exchange your stockpiled maelstrom stacks into either substantial burst self heals (80K+), or into substantial burst elemental blasts (120K+).
When a typical match-up begins, try scanning your enemies for their roles. Is there a melee in the match-up? If yes, you want his attention to generate stacks of maelstrom from your lightning shield. If not, then you have to hug the caster and be prepared to keep yourself alive, as your healer is likely going to be using a pillar and Line of Sighting.
Our advantages are in what we bring to the team. When the match starts, buff your ally with heroism and skyfury when they are in position. Almost everyone in solo shuffle immediately crowd controls and tries to burst, so preloading the fight by using Earth Elemental (+15% HP for 1 minute) is non-negotiable.
Your burst damage is not only from Elemental Blast. Your Frost Shock and Lava Lash will also crit for 40K+ if you are stockpiling properly.
Let me explain stockpiling:
Stockpiling is the idea that you are sacrificing DPS to stockpile burst. Instead of just wailing on each other, I’m constantly in ghost wolf using my ice strike and roots totem to alleviate pressure on me or my allies, stockpiling maelstrom until I can safely do my rotation combo.
If the enemy makes a fatal flaw of leaving me alone after I’ve generated 10 maelstrom, I can put down Skyfury, pop my Agility Steroid Trinket, use elemental wolves (These buff elemental blast dmg), and pre DF I used my night fae transfusion for the mastery steroid.
With all of these (takes about 4 - 6 seconds to frontload), I exchange my stockpiled damage into serious burst. Elemental Blast will hit anywhere from 45K (non crit) to 120K (depending on debuffs on target). Follow that up with a Lava Lash (35K - 45K crit), and a Frost Shock that is empowered after Ice Strike (another 35K - 45K crit), and people will disintegrate.
The issue you will find as enhancement is you have to truly find the fine needle of being a frontline for your team, being able to absorb pressure and burst, and most critically: knowing when to disengage and kite. You don’t have to be a warrior constantly smacking things, they have a different role. Our role is to use our strengths of utility, stockpiling, and self preservation to excel. I don’t need to be #1 damage in the round, let the affliction warlocks boast about that - I need to do my job and stay alive so I can throw out 100K burst combos when my DPS ally is throwing out his rotations.
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This playstyle is called jousting — originally from WotLK where you run away in ghost wolf while searing flames stacked to 5 than ran through the enemy hitting your abilities to smack them for a big glob of damage.
Glad to see it’s made its way back into the playstyle. Though I still wish Ghost Wolf Affinity was viable for enhance.
Congrats on 2200.
It will be interesting to see if this playstyle can still hold at 70 when HP is significantly increased for everyone and burst is devalued.
Hi Bubbliess!
Yes, I am very curious how it will hold at 70. I know it will impact our burst worth a bit, but I’m strangely optimistic with my theorycrafting that we’ll be able to throw out massive numbers.
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I think so as well. But I don’t think it will be like now where we can 100-0 someone. I do think we will be in a solid position to throw out high burst that when combined with our teammate can sink someone very quickly.
I really like the tanky direction, as it also reminds me of MoP where we were also incredibly tanky and the goal was to survive to the next stormblast.
So I’m 2350cr on beta solo Q. Tanky is not a term I’d use for enh at 70. Your main kill target every game and your trying to end it quickly as a result. There are a fair amount of classes that deal enough pressure on their own to keep you on the back foot healing yourself. However, we do have some big burst damage going for us when you can create windows to use it. Max damage if everything goes your way is about 220-250k ele blast, and 320-350k 2xLB total. <—crit with perfect wolves/enchant procs,etc. very front loaded into this, but fairly squishy with only 1 real wall, and faster dampening ramp since the changes. Glass cannon is the best term to describe enh shaman at 70 on beta atm.
Was that wrath enh? I thought 5stack searing flames + lava lash was a cata thing. (?)
I tend to get cata pre-patch and wotlk confused quite a bit, so its very possible.
Edit: I just look it up and it was 4.0.1, so you are correct.
Double Edit: I was way off, the redesign I am talking about is in MoP. I do remember kiting a lot and jousting in WotLK though, but maybe that’s just cause I remember the goal was to survive for each wolves cooldown.
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Reading your thing I saw you say stormblast and wotlk and I got super confused so i didn’t reply to it, but in my head I saw like I remember searing totem stacks for lava lash in mop, huge ele blast into storm blast all mop.
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I am a boomer, forgive my shoddy memory
MoP being 10 years ago would make anyone forget, it’s my favourite expac is the only reason I truly remember. Hard to even think about it being 10 years ago.
All i remember from enh mop was unleash ele blast → stormblast able to execute targets from like 70% to dead.