Pro's and Con's of Enhancement Re-work

Classes Shaman
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I think we’ll be better off overall, the spec feels more smooth to me now. Without sounding ungrateful or cynical, there’s still some issues, but I generally like the changes.

What is the pros and cons to you guys?

Pros: Overall, it seems pretty good, mostly the ascendance changes. Voltaic surge is pretty cool. The double stormstrike is nice. They gave us another point to use as well.
Some nice improvement to Totemic Capstone. A few improvements to Stormbringer tree.

The spec “flows” better. It is a considerably better talent tree. It’s a pretty vast improvement over what we had just a few months ago for sure.

Cons:

  1. Further decimation of P-wave builds: Issue is if you play without ascendance for certain builds and go beyond the single point into P-wave for the AoE. I hate what they did to the bottom left P-wave side of the tree. Splintered elements went from 20% haste down to 10% haste some time ago and now primal maelstrom went from having P-wave generate 10 stacks of maelstrom…down to just 5. I feel like they nerfed one side of the tree to balance out the stormbringer hero talents and the new ascendance changes. They nerfed around the actual issue itself and mangled P-wave, which enhance already had mixed feelings about.

  2. Mobility: Still didn’t adequately address mobility. They added a couple mobility options in stormbringer tree. But getting struck by lightning super RnG style to run around real fast for 5 seconds every once in awhile doesn’t fix mobility issues. Getting trained in combat while being stuck in the mud…to only then be struck by fast lightning when you’re checking your gear out of combat is…a bit agitating.

Totemic is still horrendous for high mobility fights in PvE and against high mobility ranged classes in PvP. Dragging that totem around and having them just step out of it is frustrating to say the least. The totem just needs to be re-designed. Have it be auto positioned on you when you use lava lash or stormstrike. Having to wait 10 secs to use totemic projection, just to have to move it gain 5 secs later is a poor design.

There’s an issue around Enhance mobility just not being proficient to both close the gap like a melee and move around like a caster true hybrid style. They need to improve upon existing abilities like Thunderous paws. Have ghost wolf become electrified and boost movement speed further while becoming immune to movement impairing effects for 3 secs. Almost like a mini blessing of freedom.

Conclusion: Spec is moving in positive direction. Overall positive development. Still issues around the spec feeling a bit “clunky” and inefficient mobility. But both these things do not require a major overhaul to fix. There’s pretty straightforward, relatively minor solutions to improve the pre-existing mobility issues.

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For Totemic, they should make the damage a wave from the totem to the player instead of a ring around the totem.

All the changes that aren’t specifically listed for Totemic seem entirely focused on Stormbringer. The nerf to Witch Doctor, the addition of Nature AoE Flame Shock application, the rework of DRE, the gutting of Primordial Wave, all seem to be squarely designed around either balancing Stormbringer at the expense of all other Enhancement shaman, or feeding into making Tempest the only damn thing that matters to your rotation.

I am extremely discouraged for my ability to enjoy Enhancement this expac.

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I like that.

This is the core of it right here. They’re trying to nerf different things to see what brings balance instead of directly dealing with the issue itself.

In the process of balancing stormbringer, they mangled P-wave side of tree and the Spirit Wolves up-time through witch doctor. I believe their thinking was Stormbringer tree already generates a nature wolf after you use tempest as well as maelstrom generation after hitting lightning bolt. So then they go and nerf witch doctor and Primal maelstrom to balance this out.

But what about people who don’t play stormbringer and play the totemic elemental build with the P-wave talents and spirit wolves/witch doctor? In the attempt to bring one build into balance, they gutted another build in the process.

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The wolves issue is an easy fix, too, because the actual cuprits are Static Accumulation and Rolling Thunder.

Change Static Accumulation to a 20% chance to not consume Maelstrom instead of a 20% to refund Maelstrom, and you’ve fixed the Witch Doctor’s Ancestry problem without nerfing all Enhancements in the course of adjusting Stormbringer.

If they’re still getting too many wolves, cap the number of wolves it can have up at once, with fresh procs refreshing the duration of the one closest to expiration.

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Yeah, this is the part I understand, but still think they came to the wrong solution, as you point out.

What’s the reasoning behind the primal maelstrom nerf? P-wave went from generating 10/10 to 5/10 stacks? I’m not even getting mangling P-wave the way they did. Further hurting a part of the tree that is increasingly unpopular as it is.

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there no cons now with latest changes from yesterday,

Update it to live , we need those fixes now.

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I am overall not happy with the changes.

Why even make hero talents if you’re just gonna nerf the interactions in the base build?

This is not what I was excited about when hero talents were introduced.

I do not think the spec is moving in the correct direction at all.

Why was the p wave nerf a thing? Why do they have such a hate bone for resource generation? Why did they nerf bones instead of either doing nothing? Or changing static accumulation. Why did they change ice strike for the sake of people who don’t even play the spec and turned it into a strictly inferior version to what it was before?

The pwave thing is especially disgusting, you have to spend 2 points for 5 msw gen every 30 seconds and an extra one for 10 % haste in st? Who in their right minds would think this is acceptable? Just wtf are you doing blizz?? Wtf is this garbage?

The new talent added for flame shock yet again favors storm so elementalist will likely once again have msw generation issues like at the start of dragon flight we have gone full circle when the spec itself has been going in the correct direction since now.

These changes are not good

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I want this ascendance 2 minutes NOW not in 6 months , and the doomwind buff , see what good in it ? yes there is bad stuff indeed , but the bad stuff will be removed let them time to figure it out and playtest with it they actually listen for ONCE so give them a chance.

We need good changes and fast , the PvP season has started ~

I agree that Primal Maelstrom & Splinted Elements nerf are bad but why cares so much ?

Thorim with stormbringer is so good rn , so lets push in that direction.

You speak of issues with maelstrom generations but play thorims !! get those 20% proc that refund all your maelstroms you’ll be impress how rng is soooo good and fun that sometime it proc 6 times in a row with 2-3 tempest and some scary things happens.

The new icestrike option is indeed terrible but im pretty sure they will balance it out to be good we’ll see , but it dosent matter because we now have the option to keep icestrike like it was , issued solved.

The new talent for Flame Shock is rly cool I mean I tested on PTR its Instant Cast and it proc often and it does high damage , had crit of 800k with it that you can do AFTER SPENDING . To me it extended our Burst Window in PvP and it’s really cool.

Stormstrike with 2 charges kinda how can it be not cool ? i mean we just got buffed by 60% damage in PvP strormstrike and now we can get a free charge , what bad here ?

People cry about mobility so they added movement speed buff in stormbringer , to me personally … mobility is not bad on ENH , Thunderous Paw , Spirit Walk , Feral Lunge , Wind Rush Totem , Ghost wolf , i mean … we already have plenty , what do you want ? teleport the whole map like a dragon , a blink totem lol idk what people are expecting for better mobility but a blink totem would be pretty neat haha XD

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The problem is that basically everything they’re doing is pushing Stormbringer harder and harder, and not all of us are enjoying that playstyle. Stormbringer has basicaly killed the gameplay I enjoyed from Elementalist in DF to move it closer and closer to the Storm build that I hated.

I don’t want to turn into an Ascendant. I don’t want my entire library of varied spells and attacks reduced to filler between Tempests. I don’t want my damage profile entirely at the mercy of RNG on Static Accumulation streaks and DRE procs.

It doesn’t matter how much you tell me the build pumps. I don’t like the gameplay. And the more they slant the spec tree itself to catering to Stormbringer, the less viability any alternative has.i

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Well the people playing ENH is already a minority and from that minority the majority of that minority wants stormbringer to pump and be a good MID A tier in PvP and below that there is you…

I don’t think that WHATEVER they do , you’ll find an happy ending on ENH in TWW and i am sorry to says.

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THE PEOPLE WHO USE IT BRO. But seriously, I have respect for how you like playing, you could do the same back in return. Different strokes for different folks.

Again, so people are not entitled to be annoyed the build they play get nerfed because another build is better now? A good amount of people don’t like the Ascendance build. The primal maelstrom nerfs are ridiculous and further erode the P-wave side of capstone talents from being viable. They’re forcing you into other builds with the nerfs. 10/10 msw to 5/10 msw is pretty big. 20% haste from splintered elements to 10% is pretty big. They mangled the P-wave heavy builds and some people are rightfully annoyed.

See one example here from this post that nails it on the head:

You’re just listing abilities mindlessly. A lot of the most experienced PvPers and a good amount of PvE people think they’re still issues with Enhance mobility, it’s not crying, there’s valid feedback. People aren’t asking for major unreasonable changes either dude. Asking for a lowered cooldown on Feral lunge or improving thunderous paws isn’t asking to be a magical dragon.

There’s some people that are going to be unhappy or cynical, no matter the situation. I said I like a lot of the changes. I do think there is positive direction, but just because they throw us a few bones, doesn’t mean we should lose sight of some of the glaring issues with the spec.

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I can live with the witch doctor nerfs. Not happy about it, but I can kinda sorta see it. I still don’t think it was the right choice.

The further P-wave nerfs are what really gets me as well. They are all but saying they want this part of the tree to be dead. It’s like they’re putting caution tape and barbed wire around that left capstone side and saying, “Only go down the middle and to the right. The left side is a pile of crap and unstable, don’t walk there.” 10% haste for a capstone talent?? 5/10 stacks of maelstrom once every 30 seconds??? What’s even the point. Just replace it with something else at that stage.

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I feel like they are trying to do too much.

Enhance in s4 DF was super fun to me and all they really needed to do was fix the Ascendance side of the capstone area with 2 minute option. Honestly once they got rid of some of the 2 point nodes and we got those three extra talent points I thought enhance was banger to build into and play.

The only change I like from these patch notes is the extra charge of stormstrike. DRE proccing from spenders I’m not sure that will be better than proccing from storm strike but I might just use 2 min Ascendance anyway.

The passive wolves might be good if they proc double from the tier set but otherwise they seem worse than witch doctors.

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This right here. They over-extended and butchered an already diminished P-wave part of the tree.

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That’s what also pisses me off, people were very satisfied with s3/4 enhance, and current enhance, yea, stormbringer favors storm but the fix was really easy, they just needed to add some elemental blast interactions to the tree like they did for rod, change static accumulation, and buff pwave a bit, and elemental would have likely been as good as storm. Strombringer elementalist is even more fun than DF enhance, they just needed to fix some stuff.

All they needed to do was remove some or all 2 talent nodes, fit new talents, and that’s literally it, the new choice node with bones? Allright, add it, the flame shock talent? Add a couple more to fill the talent tree back up. Fine, but that’s all it needed, why did they see fit to significantly change resource generation, change stormbringer, while fixing nothing, in fact i think storm will be even stronger than before due to the nerfs to pwave, and do other crap changes when enhance was already the MOST FUN IT’S EVER BEEN!

Though what i really do not like is mostly the pwave nerf at this point, that was WAY TOO EXCESSIVE. Like what the hell blizzard?

Here’s some actual feedback then.

Remove 2 talent nodes, fit the new talents in

Make tempest always refund 3 msw.

Make supercharge and awakening storm interact with elemental blast, and revert it to 3 msw not 2, frankly speaking this talent isn’t super strong, for elementalist, but it’s getting in the crossfire due to strom build, even though the problem is static accumulation and thorim invocation interactions, 3 msw proc refund is fine. Instead change static accumulation as other people suggested, not even a nerf, just a change so it doesn’t interact too strongly with talents such as these.

Make voltaic blaze interact with ele blast as well as soft cap it instead of hard cap.

Unnerf both bones and pwave, in fact, pwave probably needs a buff even after you unnerf it.

The 4 % msw proc rate from bones is baseline, bones is 2 sec cdr per msw generated, and then you have the other option.

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P-wave part of the tree has been getting mangled for awhile now. They just pretty much finished it off. They need to at least restore it, if not improve it, otherwise you have a dead branch.

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Over incentivization of MSW and spenders bad for the rest of the kit. Shoulda seen these problems coming.