I propose a redesign of the enhacement shaman that, personally, would work very well. Broadly speaking, it’s a mix of the legion / bfa spec with the classic spec: he uses the maelstrom bar for his abilities, but he also has ranged, shocks, and healing spells in his rotation. I describe below the basic skills that I would have:
Generating Maelstrom Skills
Primal Strike
A melee hit that deals physical damage and generates 20 maelstrom. 4 seconds cd and 2 charges.
Flame Shock
Ranged spell that deals direct fire damage and then over time. Generate 10 maelstrom at the start and then 3 for each tick. 6 seconds cd.
Maelstrom Weapon (Passive)
Each melee attack generates 2 maelstrom.
-Weapon Enchants
Stonebiter Weapon
Increases physical damage dealt by 10% and armor by 10%. Lasts permanently or until you change to another enchant.
Flametongue Weapon
Your auto attacks deal bonus fire damage to all nearby enemies. Lasts permanently or until you switch to another enchant.
Windfury Weapon
Increases melee attack speed by 20%, and your attacks have a high chance to trigger three extra attacks that deal more damage. Lasts permanently or until you switch to another enchant.
-Abilities that spend maelstrom
Enhanced Strike
A powerful skill that consumes 30 Maelstrom and has 6 seconds cd. Its effect changes depending on the weapon enchant you have active:
Stonebiter Weapon: EARTH ASSAULT
Deals moderate physical damage to the target and reduces damage dealt to you by 10% for 6 seconds.
Fire Tongue Weapon: LAVA LASH
Deal moderate fire damage to all enemies in front of you. Deals extra damage to targets affected by Flame Shock.
Windfury Weapon: STORM STRIKE
Deals high Nature damage to the target and increases their damage taken by 10% for 6 seconds.
All other spells (lightining bolt, chain, healing wave, etc)
Enhacement shaman will be able to cast them normally by casting them, but they can also be cast instantly if they consume 40 Maelstrom.
Other skills and talents are obviously lacking here, but with this basic rotation, we would get, in my point of view, these benefits:
More versatile. We would have an enchant that we would use depending on the situation: unitarget, multitarget and defensive. Specially, last two things have always been very weak in this spec and people want to fix it.
More “authentic”. The weapon enchants have always been the most characteristic of enhacement shaman, and with this rework they play a fundamental role in the gameplay, not like what we have had now and in other expansions, which is clic before the combat… and forget.
Less RNG. The classic maelstrom stacking system adds too much RNG than the spec already has. By using maelstrom as a bar resource, from generating points and spending them, we have more control over rotation and it makes it more dynamic, not with so many dead times and with more sense.
I hope you like my contribution. Sorry for the writing errors. I am Spanish and I have done what I could xD. Greetings.
I didn’t hate Legion/BFA Enhance by any means, but I can certainly understand why people would prefer rotational CD management over Rage-lite spending, or especially, say, the Earthbite filler it previously used (Primal Strike here).
That said, I can also understand why others would take issue with “dead zones” in rotation, however brief or few they may be, prior to gearing up or getting meta legos, or having only one means of banking resources by which to fill them (Maelstrom-spending spells). Personally, I kind of like that dead zones more or less point out how well you’ve managed those rotational CDs, but they can be jarring, and can make Crash Lightning feel rather more filler-like than it used to feel.
Moreover, I certainly wouldn’t mind a more intuitive display for my available progress towards instant-charge casts than showing only the last 5 out of up to 10 stacks, and the idea of our weapon enchants amounting to more than merely passive “white damage” is appealing.
(Yes, I already turn off the Maelstrom graphic and use a WeakAura display instead, but the default presentation is unintuitive at present.)
Edit:
(I could have sworn I made this edit yesterday, but apparently I must have cancelled it. Better late than never… maybe?)
On topic: While I don’t want to go back to a BfA/Legion style Maelstrom system (though I’d be open to other version of Maelstrom as a granular resource), I really like the idea of having actual enchant choices and gameplay impact from them.
I think the delineation usually implied between a “builder/spender” model of Enhance and, well, not that, isn’t that one builds and spends (since literally every spec does so), but simply that certain gameplay loops aren’t reduced to building/spending through being absorbed by more flexible systems.
The rotational CD management seen in SL Enhance, for instance, is increasingly watered down as otherwise CD-based skills are turned instead to spenders (think Lava Lash, Crash Lightning, etc., even if Shocks, say, were to have both individual CDs and Legion-style Maelstrom spending).
at this point and how old the game they need to put real effort in and do some rewrking totally for all kinds of specs. bringing back lil things here or there are quite boring. i’m ready for some new lightning build or fire build or something.
The deliniation — is that in Legion/BFA I had a builder resource that was needed to use any other abilities besides my weapon buffs.
I couldn’t stormstrike or lava lash on cooldown. I had to rockbiter until I had enough resource to dump into the other abilities.
Yes, we have that under maelstrom with stacks + healing/lightningbolt/eleblast, but its supplemental to the idea of…hit whatever comes off cooldown (no longer restricted by the resource you have).
Even healing/lb/eleblast aren’t restricted by the system, and are instead just modified by it.
Lightning Bolt x 8 is our highest priority not because its our highest damage, but simply because it makes the best use of that stacking resource, to not run into its cap and waste rng procs. Outside of elemental assault, we also have zero control over how that resource is built — unlike rockbiter directly increasing maelstrom as part of the base mechanic.
Right, we do gain/expend maelstrom, but enh isn’t currently a true builder/spender class because our rotation’s rhythm isn’t built around pressing x ability (rockbiter) to generate resource then y ability (cl/lb) to spend it. Our resource generation is currently proc based, and our rhythm is built around cooldown management, which produces a “rotation” that is more reactive and requires a bit more thought, which… for me, anyway, is more engaging.
But note that none of that has to do, inherently, with being focused around building/spending.
For instance, your highest potency-per-GCD or most thematic skills could have as easily been the free ones, and Earthbiter could have been spent as afforded filler.
And let’s not make more out of those costs than they actually amounted to. By the time you’d reached your third builder, Stormstrike would only ever be used on cooldown. Lava Lash was not only because it had no cooldown; instead, you simply depleted excess Maelstrom on it, retaining enough for your next Stormstrike.
But by the same token, Legion was “hit whatever you can afford (hardly restricted by cooldown)”. Following a couple GCDs of ramp-up, neither system was any more or less inflexible than the other when managed well. The broader spending system we had offered slightly more skill choice and the more CD-centric system now offers slightly more cognitive load.
And the funny thing is, we could have both. It’s not an either-or scenario by nature of being more or less of a builder-spender system, but simply based on skill interactions.
SL is literally the stormbringer spam reset mechanic from BFA (the part that worked) with the maelstrom weapons spender system from pre-legion.
In Legion/BFA it was still, use this ability to build enough resource to hit this ability OR this other ability when on cooldown. Pre-legion we were not like that. In SL we are not like that either. Our resource generation is random, outside taking Elemental Assault.
We have less choice over what skill to use than in Legion/BfA, by nature of everything else being on cooldown eventually. This did not have to be the case.
Legion/BfA had very little cognitive load required to play well due to how rarely your priority order was forced to shift. Its spending concerns weren’t just broadened, but purposely simplified, an altogether separate issue. That did not have to be the case.
Legion/BfA had additional ramp-up (e.g. Rockbiter) required to get to the more thematic skills (e.g. Stormstrike), even while other specs seeing equally radical changes did not face similar delays (see Legion Mongoose Bite, as compared to the current version) or built in affordances (the equivalent, say, of 30 resting Maelstrom from which to open). That did not have to be the case.
I’m aware. I’ve had Enhancement at least geared enough to normal raid every expansion since tBC.
My point was merely that both broad spending systems (and Legion only made a small start in that direction) and very contained ones, as with barely CD-limited and almost wholly CD-driven systems, each have their affordances, but moreover are rarely so either-or. We too often take a particular iteration’s designs as a package deal just because its experience was, and thus reduce comparisons to a lesser evil in those packages rather than looking at how either could be improved beyond swapping to the other.
Then why are you referring to things like Earthbiter?
Legion/BFA was a copy of Fury warrior stripped and placed into the Enhancement ability list. It was a poor excuse for an overhaul, was boring, and completely destroyed the playstyle that enhance players had come to enjoy since WotLK (WotLK, Cata, MoP, WoD).
Again, cooldowns are not build spender. And while maelstrom weapons is a build/spender, it is not the mechanical system that the spec is built around. We currently operate around our cooldowns, with the maelstrom weapons system supplementing that.
It’s a priority system, not hindered by any resource or requiring us to build anything. If we get no Maelstrom Weapons, it doesn’t impact the rest of our abilities.
With Legion/BFA, we were gated by using rockbiter to have enough maelstrom (or late on just running Fury of Air with lolcorruptions to have endless maelstrom). There was a priority system in the sense that you pressed Stormstrike before Lava Lash, but ultimately there was no good flow to the spec. It wasn’t fluid and felt clunky, especially when you had to weave in abilities that did ZERO dmg (flametongue maintenance buff).
Basically like a poorly designed monk??? they have CDs which genrate CPs to spend but not bound to CPs. So we went from Blue fury warriors to blue monks???
Sort of, except Monks have constantly regenning energy that gates them, in addition to cooldowns. ( Correct me if I am wrong, but I think they can spam tiger palm as long as they have the energy).
I also think Monks have direct control over generating chi.
Also, Maelstrom Weapons system pre-dates monks by 2 expansions.
Never said they were. I said SL Enhance still includes building-spending, and that none of your complaints levied thus far at Legion/BfA were things inherent to building-spending.
Every system is. It had one before Legion/BfA, it had one then, and it has one now, just as every spec has.
That’s a matter of resting resource and/or which resources absorb cost, not an issue of Maelstrom being allowed to do more than merely accelerate and thereby empower casts.
The same can be said for Crash Lightning in ST now (since FT did, in fact, deal damage, only minorly, much like CL’s trivial contibution), unless you wish to pose that no DoTs deal damage, or the likes of Feral Spirits are not damage cooldowns.
Tiger Palm has no cooldown, true, but consumes 50% of maximum Energy. It’s hardly something spammed, even if not for Windwalker’s Mastery or the Combo Strikes talents making any consecutive repetition of any skill very costly.
They 100% did, and several other players will point this out, and have…in many many threads. Fury and BFA Enhance played incredibly similar. I played both at the time, and there were minor differences but ultimately felt the same mechanically.
I’ll concede on this, but I think the argument I am trying to make is that our rotation is superceded by the priority, and it changes based on reaction to procs, how many enemies we fight, etc.
Something like Rogue does have a priority system, but is much more concerned with building to 5 then using spender — especially in PvP where their priorities shift — Enhance priorities don’t exactly shift except from AoE to ST.
Yes and no. If you run doom winds, Crash Lightning gets considerably higher priority because it procs Windfury. Crash also has way more importance to AoE rotation, and synergy with CL/SS/LvL during AoE. Flametongue just did single target weaksauce and buff regardless of what you were running/doing. Flametongue is akin to current Flame Shock’s initial dmg.
The point still stands — Monk is about balancing your two resources against each other — using energy to build chi, then consuming chi while energy regens to get a nice flow going — Enhance isn’t like that.
I, too, played both through NH and ToS, side by side. They felt so similar to me than, say, Legion’s Arcane and Destruction, Shadow and Affliction, or Survival and Subtlety.
Not in any meaningful way, no. You could remove Energy and the spec’s playflow would be unchanged. At most, the ability to spam builders would end up a trap for new players. Heck, Tiger Palm could practically be reverted to its MoP state as a short damage buff, and CP removed and it would still play exactly the same: skills popped in the same order, by the very same priorities, and ultimately to the exact same frequencies.
CDs, not any system of building-spending, ultimately run its playflow, and CP itself forces no meaningful choice beyond what Combo Strikes already provides it.
Rogue at least has and had a reason for CP to exist, but it’s not particularly “more” concerned with building to 5 (which it doesn’t always, in ideal play) and using spenders than with its CDs. It’s nearly the opposite. The actual play or cognitive load attached to Rogue’s building-spending, beyond the shallowest bit of bar-watching, has everything to do with CDs.
In practice, meaningful interplay with CP is present only to the extent CDs allow, and Rogue’s case ultimately has far more to do with Energy than CP. Getting CP to an optimal value given the chance otherwise for overcap is more or less an after-thought, something to make for thematic rhythm while sometimes flipping priorities between large and fine generators (sometimes the numbers just run too deep for perfecting play around CP not to be an overall damage loss). Because the actual CP generation is tied to rate of action, Energy is ultimately the bottleneck that creates the minimum interval between finishers and thus any interplay with builders (equally important in providing big chunks just after a finisher or minimizing potential waste just before it) or rarely-ever-CD-based spenders (think Death From Above in Legion, or Secret Techniques now).
You’re just incorrect, because if things come up and you haven’t built Chi, you aren’t going to be using Rising sun Kick, or Blackout Kick.
This is unlike Enhancement, who can still use lightning bolt at zero maelstrom stacks — and does not need maelstrom stacks to hit Lava Lash, Frost Shock, Flame Shock, Stormstrike, etc.
Again meaning, if Rising Sun Kick comes off cooldown, but you don’t have the chi…you can’t use it. Enhance can use anything the moment it comes off cd.
You also have to manage energy as a resource and not spam things on monk. Both Monk and Rogue (and feral) reward thoughtful play around when your energy ticks. Enhance has nothing like this. Enhance does have mana resource management, but its only an issue if self-healing, or in Torghast with ungodly amounts of haste.
So you’d just waste the hypothetical Tiger Palm’s damage buff? See how that works out for you outside of leveling. (It certainly wouldn’t have worked out in MoP…)
Why would you not have CP when RSK is about to come off cooldown? No Monk worth salt is going to be making a mistake like that.
That has nothing to do with Energy, though.
Remove Energy from Monk, swap Tiger Palm to a two-charge builder, and its play is unchanged because, given higher-priority CDs that would otherwise be delayed, it should never use those two charges back to back.
Remove Energy from Monk, and semi-revert Tiger Palm to a very short damage buff and its play is unchanged in sustained combat.
Monk’s Energy truly does not matter; it is system-bloat.
The energy system separates good monks from bad monks. There are plenty of bad rogues that just spam abilities and play around having zero energy and waiting for the tick from zero.
Same with monks.
It’s a skillcap to the class and why they aren’t just a 2 charge spender. And I guarantee if you only have 2 tiger palms, you will run into moments where you are waiting for tiger palm cooldown to come back — something that doesn’t exist with energy system when doing proper management. Again, something Enhancement does not have to deal with.