Nothing will change for enhancement with shadowlands

Classes Shaman
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Enhancement hasn’t felt fun to play. Let’s look at what shaman is right now, and what it’s doing right and wrong.

The theme of shaman is the elements aiding you. That’s pretty cool. Elemental has these casts and elementals. Throwing lava shock, flame shock, earthquakes, etc. It fits the fantasy of someone using the elements as a caster

Now let’s look at enhancement. A melee fighter, a warrior some might say… using the elements to help aid them in fights. That’s also very cool. However, it’s bare bones. Natural harmony fits that class fantasy, but it ruins the rotation because you have to keep up flametongue and hailstorm buffs. So what does that leave us with?

A proc based class, that has to manage buffs and maelstrom. That’s not a good thing. Most people have issue with maelstrom, or that it’s a melee based spec. I don’t have issues with that. In fact, it adds a hell of a lot to a different way to play the class.

Yes we are getting imbues back, but that’s not enough.

So we’re getting lightning bolt, and chain lightning back like elemental. That’s not a good thing. We have an opportunity to really bring enhancement into its own. Let it be a really cool different take on a shaman, instead… its just a watered down elemental at this point. If you want proof of this, look at torghast. All the anima powers have been for flame shock, fire surge, and lightning bolt. (chain lightning)

Enhancement plays similar to warrior. Whether people hate that or not, right now it’s true. What i’d like to see out of enhancement? That’s an easy answer because I’ve been stewing on this since BFA released.

Fury warrior functions as a very well put together spec. There’s always something to press, and you’re always building something. Why can’t enhancement shaman just be an elemental themed fury warrior?

Instead of whirlwind, you have crash lightning as builder and aoe access. You have overcharge baseline and your dinky lightning bolt becomes a maelstrom spender. Sundering is baseline. Stormstrike is that big rampage you want to build towards. There’s so many cool things you could do to move the fantasy of enhancement forward. Instead, all we’re doing is moving backwards. I don’t want that from my favorite spec in the game man.

Until the devs actually decide to make it enhancement it’s own thing, I’d rather is just be a carbon copy of fury warrior, because at least that’s a functional spec. It’s a serious problem that I want addressed and fixed.

I didn’t enjoy it in bfa, and i’m not going to enjoy it in shadowlands. Different reasons, same results.

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Hasn’t enhancement been fine in multiple patches, including this one seeing how they’re seeing wins over notable teams with both enhancement, and elemental?

On top of just pvp seeing how EU shamans seem to be at a much better and higher caliber than NA shamans (not firing shots just my own prespective) they could use small buffs and changes, but tons of classes already do for pvp EG: disc, hunter mm/bm, ret, etc? This class is fine currently but they’re still alpha and long before the games full release.

And from the non pvp part of the game, enhancement has been used in multiple runs, world fist runs, has seen patches where they’re top dps, patches where they aren’t like every class who rotates the rng meta rotation.

The only real thing they could do to help shamans, especially enhancement, is making earth shield damage reduction % instead of healing. But I love enhancement and think they’re fine and just have a meh roll currently in the rng meta.

Edit: Even seeing videos and feedback from more experienced and top players shamans got a bone thrown at them and they’re happy with absolutely everything except for their defenses, couple tweaks on windfury and magma totem and everyone seems to be fine, maybe shaman just isn’t a class for you.

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I’d want to agree with you about the class isn’t for me. Unfortunately, I try to play every class, specs included at a reasonable level. I like to know all the ins and outs of a spec. It’s where I enjoy the game the most in that regard.

I have issues with a number of specs in 8.3, and I genuinely think removing maelstrom was a good choice for elemental. I think it will benefit that spec a significant amount more. Enhancement on the other hand, I can only see this change gimping it.

I know there are a number of changes, one of the biggest things getting a free cast of chain lightning, or lightning bolt via maelstrom weapon stacks. I don’t think this is a good thing. I think it actively hurts anything that could’ve been in it’s place. Something that fits the theme of an elemental warrior, vs the elemental mage. This is what i’m trying to get at.

I don’t have an issue with each spec playing different than the other, in fact I think it actively adds more depth to a class. I definitely love swapping play styles after I’ve burned out on one. It’s a breathe of fresh air, and I can’t see myself really wanting to shaman come Shadowlands.

Maybe I need to limit myself to a smaller horizon, but it doesn’t feel good to me. Whatever I undertake, i want to master what I’m doing from a small, to a large scale. It’s just unfortunate that this is the route Blizzard is taking with something that could’ve been so much more in a different direction.

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The op is talking about how fun the class is over dps numbers. So I do agree with him that at the moment we are not fun to play especially with the builder spender bs but hopefully with sl it will be better.

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Shaman is meant to be a battlemage, not a warrior. A direct quote from the developers on class design, “a mage fighter with the emphasis mage first and fighter second.” Getting spells like chain lightning, shocks, and chain heal is a very good thing and is really pushing shaman in the right direction of supportive battlemage that they were always intended to be. I really think that you should just go and play warrior instead because it seems like there is really no reason why you should want to play a shaman if all you want is fury warrior.

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That is factually incorrect in every way. Kevin Jordan, one of the class designers for vanilla had this say about shaman being endgame windfury 2h build.

“Yes, enhancement was supposed to be melee up close dps, rather than… you know the elemental, the caster sitting back in the background dpsing”

What I’m pushing for is a melee dps that uses the elements in a different way. Earthen spike, crashing storm, sundering, stormstrike, rockbiter, lava lash. There’s enough abilities to start building a consistent rotation. That’s what I want out of enhance. I don’t want chain lightning, I want crash lightning to feel like that chain lightning. There’s the fundamental difference. It allows cleave, it looks like i’m calling down lightning. That’s wonderful.

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Yeah, if you read the last sentence it says the class might not be for him, from my personal experience I find shaman extremely fun and the class may not be for the people who are saying it’s unfun, try a different class and find more enjoyment in the game somewhere else than complaining about it

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That’s not even close to factually incorrect…? A mage fighter uses both up close/ranged abilities, but enhancement obviously focuses on up close battle unless you have issues figuring out your own class identity, so Jerlbays is factually correct actually.

Having some ranged abilities doesn’t make you automatically a ranged fighter… Warriors have weapon throw, are they a ranged dps now? Survival hunters have multiple ranged moves, are they a ranged dps now? No.

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I do agree i do wish enhancement would also get earth shock back. I love that ability and I want it back for enhancement.

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I do agree with you I just hope that in SL they fix how squishy we are.

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About shaman being a battle mage, a mage fighter with the emphasis mage first and fighter second

For a melee spec, this means mage themed melee abilities. Beating someone upside the head with a supercharged lightning weapon is a mage themed melee ability. Calling down lightning via crash lightning is also a mage themed melee ability. Enhancement shaman, is a mage themed warrior.

Now, having some ranged abilities doesn’t automatically make you a ranged. I can agree on this. However, look at what Blizzard has added back in. Lightning bolt, chain lightning, flame shock, and lava burst. I’ll repeat this. This isn’t a good thing.

Instead of Enhancement shaman getting a fresh coat of paint, with new abilities, or existing ones that aren’t tied to elemental. It will never be it’s own thing.

If you want proof of that, look at how Blizzard is balancing torghast right now. There’s no love for stormstrike, crash lightning, rockbiter, lava surge. Those are the core of enhancement rather than the core of elemental; lava burst, lightning bolt, chain lightning, flame shock.
I’ve made a suggestion about making sundering, overcharge, and earthen spike baseline abilities.

The problems I had with enhancement are being fixed in SL, kind of… getting imbues instead of tying the abilities to our rotation is fine. That’s a change that should’ve happened a long time ago, and been kept in.

However, this leaves enhancement with bare bones rotation. Again, a new problem has arisen. So, instead of taking time to develop new abilities or you know… what i suggested. It won’t feel complete, but adding in old elemental abilities? That’s a conflict of the spec. It’s not supposed to be 3/4ths elemental, and 1/4th enhancement. That game design sucks.

For game design right, when you need to change something, you play to the strengths whatever you’re changing, and leave the weaknesses behind. Enhancement was stronger with maelstrom, it was stronger being stormstrike focused, and it was stronger without needing a crutch from elemental. It needs time to grow into its own. That means dropping the abilities from elemental, and putting something better in its place. Something that fits the as it were “mage warrior.”

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Disagree I like that I’ll be able to sling lightning bolts as melee dps. That’s an improvement.

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Just remove Sundering instead. The burst damage is over-tuned, it adds a disorient, and it’s punishing to anyone who doesn’t like the way it feels and chooses something else.

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Everyone hates all my favorite abilities :(.

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Ha! I just hate that it’s the go-to because of how much up-front burst it provides compared to Crashing Thunder (DoT) and Fury of Air (permanent small damage).

It’s mechanically a totally different skill. That said, I’m also salty because I take Fury of Air and it’s being removed instead…

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Sad thing is, I agree completely. I love the idea of Crashing Thunder, but you are right. That’s why I want Sundering baseline. People will always pick on-demand burst damage, over something different. It’s not helpful to the design of enhancement

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Shadowlands is all about class design. You’re a shaman first, enhancement second.

That is the design philosophy for this expansion. There are many shared abilities for all classes now. Whether you think this is a good thing or bad thing is whatever.

Spec game play design was legion.

I agree enhancement, elemental need some help and work, especially in defensives.

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