Rework Enhacement Shaman

Classes Shaman
21
Off-topic (@Bubbliess)

It’s the exact same “skillcap” that was seen on Rockbiter. The most differences they can carry are solely in (1) their cooldowns, (2) the number of competing actions that can be delayed without loss (or, whether the flexible builder can ever out-prioritize an inflexible CDed spender), and (3) the number of other actions affordable per use.

If you have 100 max Energy, your single spender spends 50 of that, and the 100 Energy is recharged over 8 seconds, there is literally no difference between that requiring an extra UI bar and your skill being on a 4 second cooldown with two charges save that the latter gives you one extra use per fight. In sustained combat, they are absolutely identical.

But here, let’s consider how we can make them identical enough for your satisfaction—i.e., more than just having the same gameplay:

You create two a Progress Bar WeakAura, each for Tiger Palm’s cooldown, and set them back to back. You then create on either an extra text element, in which you include the word “Energy”, and another which when one charge is readied, adds half the % progress to 50 and when no charges are ready, simply displays half the current progress.

1 Like
22

Okay, but that’s not what Blizzard did. They chose energy. And coupled it to a few other abilities on monk as well — then paired it with the Chi resource, so you were balancing between the two to get a flow going to the class.

That way, it didn’t just feel like rogue/feral…but it didn’t feel like other build spenders either due to having a replenishing resource.

I get that you want it to be something else…and see no difference. But they chose it to be the way it is for a current reason.

And it doesn’t feel like Enhance.

Maybe the CHI portion is similar to maelstrom stacks (which in itself is a combo point system), but the fact that we don’t control its generation makes it feel entirely different.

The fact that we aren’t gated by a resource to hit our abilities, and don’t need to first hit Stormstrike to be able to Lava Lash makes it unlike monk who MUST tiger palm (generate chi) in order to black out kick.

23
Off-topic (@Bubbliess)

And yet, look at the position of CP on Brewmaster. Wait, that was removed.

Or, Energy on Mistweaver. Wait, that was removed, too.

Rogue has something of a “flow” between them, even if more or less just a toggle between—

  1. “Except where less important than competing priorities, empty CP before any especially large builder comes off CD” and
  2. “Except where less important than competing priorities, nearly cap CP before your especially fine builders comes off CD (e.g., Garotte) or reenter usability (e.g., Backstab following Shadow Dance’s end)”.

Monk, however, does not. It’s decoration. There is no way to bank Energy to meaningful effect. There are no competing actions. Even the most expensive spender still has room thereafter for Tiger Palm’s contribution, and it is not difficult to spend FoF soon enough to be sufficiently emptied just before FotWT comes off CD.

…You’re honestly going to try to tell me that there is an inherent difference between Chi Points and Combo Points? Seriously?

I’ve never made this claim. Only you have.

And Maelstrom is not a combo point system. It’s nothing like a combo point system except in that it involves a number with a maximum is less than 100 (i.e., an aesthetic choice). It’s a granular banked system that therefore greatly delays its spenders’ priority.

24

I forgot both Feral and Rogue can bank extra combo points by having them manifest in game in a specific location, and then running over them after spending their current chi.

Also, the goal of feral and rogue is to get MAX points to dump the highest point spender. That is not the goal of Chi. Generally a rogue will not spend Combo points below 5 in pve. A Monk will spend chi points below their max, because their abilities don’t increase in dmg/duration with extra chi points.

Looking at the rotations you can already see how they differ, because shaman do not have situations where “Use this is you are under X amount of Maelstrom Stacks and about to cap resource”. We use Maelstrom stacks at 8 to avoid cap, and that’s our entire resource management, outside refreshing flame shock and windfury. We don’t have a mastery that requires us to hit alternate abilities or lose damage and are in fact incentivized to spam stormstrike with stormbringer procs.

25
Off-topic (@Bubbliess)

No, again, it’s not. If you would waste CP generation in doing so, it will very often not be worth using a finisher at the exact maximum. DoT finishers, moreover, extend duration far more than they do damage per tick; wasting CP on what would otherwise tick only after the target’s death is far from ideal.

Hence, again, the difference between them and Monk. On Monk, it’s just a way to force in Tiger Palm every so often, and force combat to open with Tiger Palm. Chi has no further nuance. Being able to have resource “manifest in a specific location” to be collected later only devalues already very lenient concerns.

IcyVeins’ Enhance rotation page is badly oversimplified and decontextualized. If you’ve actually been leveraging the “CD management” aspect of SL Enhance, you should know this already…

But, in case this still isn’t somehow clear:

Is your claim, not mine.

And is, again, quite irrelevant to my points here. They are, again:

  1. A Builder/Spender system, even one that is not merely decorative, does not inherently delay gameplay or thematic skills, nor reduce cognitive load.
  2. The exact allowances themselves, whether they be through back-loaded through additional systems or front-loaded through CDs, and dependent further upon the intersections between competing priorities in both a give GCD and across a whole rotational string, will ultimately form the core a spec’s play, regardless of whatever system it utilizes. Rage, Focus, Energy, Arcane Charge, and Maelstrom, are all quite nearly tinting glass to place over a bulk of common systemic affordances.
  3. (And, since we’ve spent so much time on Monks already) When a system intuitively encapsulates its affordances, making them seem simpler in practice than they would otherwise be on paper, it is typically well made; when it makes much out of what would otherwise have been a commonly-seen characteristic of a single skill, or the like, it is typically not well made.
26

And it was, but … isn’t that exactly the enhancement shaman? A warrior who combines melee attacks with spells? XD

What I did not like about Legion was just that, that they removed the shocks, the lightning bolt, chain heal, etc, and that the weapon enchants, such as to firetongue, that you mentioned, became irrelevant .

But the new method of resources seemed like a success, because you felt that you had more control over the pj. It does not seem to me that the shaman of now has more thought. Unlike. You just have to worry about not reaching the maelstrom cap and refreshing flame shock. Come on, if the only two melee abilities DO THE SAME. Lava lash could be multitarget to differentiate it from Stormstrike, and remove crash lightining, which is a boring skill to use for do areas.

Stormbringer proc is good. It is rng, but it s satisfactory, and it would be compatible with the builder / spender system. But the other … I think it could be done differently.

2 Likes
27

This is just blatantly false.

Also, the people who are trying to make a false equivalency between bfa shaman being builder spender and MWS are being disingenuous at best and trolling at worst.

In my opinion one valid point of criticism of the current design when compared to bfa are the dead gcds. While most of this can be prevented by executing your rotation correctly and effectively, it can still happen rarely throughout an encounter anyway.

HOWEVER - this problem will be gone as we gain haste naturally through 9.1. I agree that we shouldn’t have to rely on gear to solve a weak point in the design. But at least we won’t have to worry about it anymore.

I’ve played enhance a lot every xpac in mythic raid on multiple characters. This one is currently ilvl 225, and even at this gear level there’s aspects of the spec that feel clunky or out of place. I have recommendations if anyone is interested but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the maelstrom resource / BFA model is not the answer. it was the worst iteration of “modern” day enhance shaman in my opinion.

2 Likes
28

There is much more nuance to current Enhance than just not capping and refreshing flame shock — dependent on your legendary, as well as your talents, the inclusion of adds, etc.

BFA’s damage was built around feast or famine stormstrikes, which just felt bad. You had all these buttons to press that did minimal damage, and only when you were feasting on stormbringer did things feel meaningful.

Currently, there are 3 different specs all viable for single target that compete: Doom Winds, Frost Witch, Wolf Bones — all of them change priorities

If everything is coming off cd at the same time, you make a conscious decision which to press. If a second add runs into range, crash lightning shoots up higher on the priority list so you can start cleaving. Doom Winds allows for great burst during burst phases where you might hold some abilities you otherwise wouldn’t ( Sludgefist is a good example as it times up really nice with his debuff). Wolf Bones alters priorities based on what wolves you have out (particularly for lava lash).

The spec is also just not gated by anything other than cooldowns. BFA was gated by how well you managed your maelstrom. And for a class that had no real resource outside cooldowns for six expansions before that — one that had streamlined the Maelstrom Weapon stacks system to feel great (MoP/WoD) — it felt terrible.

Did it bring in new people? Sure. But it was largely hated by the shaman community, as seen by it being taken away and replaced.

Thematically, you might call us warriors that use the elements — but we are shaman, not warriors — taking away iconic spells hurts the flavor. Furthermore, Enhance has spent a large time of its life feeling like a melee who is using their attacks to charge up to a big nuke spell. Currently, there is a balance around where our dmg comes from, that shifts depending on what legendary you use. This is ultimately because one of the biggest complaints about MWSx5 was overcaps and too much dmg tied to Lightning Bolt. So in SL, they fixed overcaps by bringing the stack to 10 instead of 5, and adjusted our dmg to not completely rely on a 5 stack nuke LB.

I agree that this is one of the valid points of criticism (the other being mana regeneration in PvP). But I also think this is done in purpose, specifically for pvp. Making Enhance fully gcd locked hurts their damage if they have to use utility spells (purge, cleanse, totems) in the pvp format. Elemental doesn’t have this issue in regards to PvP.

29

(the other being mana regeneration in PvP)

Do you think it’s too high? I’m assuming you don’t mean too low. If they raise it they will unfortunately have to nerf the heal amount as Enh and Ele puts out crazy heals at the moment.

Edit: This is Hashi, forgot my PC is logged into my Pally still.

30

Ironic coming from someone posting on a paladin.

It’s too low for the amount of defensives a shaman has to survive.

The solution has only ever been to have the healing coefficients operate separately for the shaman than other people.

Passive: Eye of the Storm - Passive - Upon reaching 5 stacks of maelstrom weapon, you gain the Eye of the Storm buff, increasing the healing you receive from your healing surge, healing stream totem, and chain heal by an additional X%.

The current healing on live should be how a shaman utilizes SELF-Healing, with mana regen allowing them to battery so long as they have uptime (punished through CC). This is how the spec worked prior to Legion. It should be noted that during this time, when enh shaman could battery mana infinitely with uptime, they were not considered meta or overpowered.

You keep baseline healing moderate, then use a personal buff applied to the shaman to increase the healing on themselves. This allows off-healing to not be overpowered, due to baseline heals being considerably lower. Self-healing, as blizzard has stated being one of our major defensives, stays at the same level, or tweaked slightly lower.

The main issue is, that unlike other hybrids — Enhance runs into being unable to DPS due to using their off-heals considerably faster and more often. We don’t have a secondary resource that consumes itself as a spender. Holy Power allows Pallies to heal without using mana, but a 5 stack MW Healing Surge costs just as much mana as a 0 stack…which directly competes with most dps abilities. Combined with the mana cost of shamanism, and Enhance has maybe 3-4 heals before going oom…less if they are utilizing purge.

31

Ironic coming from someone posting on a paladin.

Wait how did you miss my edit when I added it two seconds after my post? I’m a Shaman main. You some how missing that colored your entire response to me. Sigh.

32

Because the Irony is , regardless of what you play, Paladins have infinite healing through holy power word of glory that doesn’t impact their mana whatsoever (and the conversation is about mana issues for healing).

Posting on a retail Paladin, you should understand this…compared to the mana issues that Enhancement has.

33

Yes. Paladin off heals are also way too strong. Like, WAY too strong. I agree. It also has NOTHING to do with what I was talking about.

34

It does, because the game isn’t balanced in a vacuum. You have to look at how every other class is performing, when considering things like balance.

Enhance survivability is horrible, which is one of the reasons Warrior is one of the few team comps it can works well with. Intervene, spell reflect, stormbolt, hamstring, charge all do a lot to cover the weaknesses of Enhance (same with Mortal Strike).

You are arguing they need to bring Enhancement healing down if they increase mana regen. If other hybrids, with just as much burst and more defensive utility, can push out massive heals that don’t affect their mana regen or dps — then its directly relatable.

35

I’ll drop it although the fact remains that your response was a knee jerk reaction due to you missing the last sentence in my post, and you thought I was attacking my own main spec. But I knew that would happen if I posted on an alt and I should have been more careful. Let’s move past this point.

I’m on your side here brother. You’re not understanding my full point. All specs off heals need to be brought down. And even with that, we need to buff enhances survivability. But not through healing. Healing has too much of an effect on your partner and doesn’t address the core problem of the spec itself. I’d much rather see Enhance get some damage reduction outside of just astral as an example. It would also be better when dampening is involved.

36

Again, you are ignoring my entire solution to the issue that you see as a problem (High Healing with High Mana Regen).

Because you are focusing on me calling out the irony of a paladin pointing that out.

Healing has to be handled, because until it is, mana regen ( and ability to do damage in long fights) will suffer because of it.

Adding baseline damage reduction through any other means would likely result in a decrease in overall healing anyway. Their current attempt is Seasoned Winds pvp talent, which Enhance will struggle with what they need to give up to use it.

37

Again… let’s move on. I’m doing my best here.

On topic: I’m not ignoring you. I disagree with you. That’s not the same thing. Please read my entire last post. Enhance needs better defensive tools, particularly through damage reduction, and/or different abilities to survive through CC. I’d actually love to see Shamanistic Rage come back.

Edit - Obviously a reworked Shamanistic Rage that fits the modern class better.

1 Like
38

I should note. I’m also looking at this from the perspective of all game systems. Including Raid and M+.

On a different subject. I was personally very disappointed when they nerfed hailstorm so hard. I had been very excited to use it. With the way the targetting works for chain lightning (IE: wont hit 3 targets if you cast on the middle target since it wont pass back through) and also how small the radius of crash lightning is, we desperately needed a way to do slightly more spread out AOE and hailstorm fit perfectly. It was probably too strong before the nerf but the nerf went too far. Splitting the difference would be nice.

Also, for all that is sacred. PLEASE remove the shared cooldown of flame/frost shock.

39

Unless you’d also consider Survival hunter and Ret Paladin as playing “the same” as Fury, I don’t see how you could call Legion Fury and Legion Enhance the same. In terms of the actual decision making going on in their play, they were no more alike than, say, Demonology and Fire or Arcane and Balance at the time.

Are you quite certain you’re not just bandwagoning on “blue Warrior” memes, built mostly just off their both being dual-wielders with no unavoidable downtime?

Sorry if I’m overgeneralizing your take here, but it feels like too many play a few classes without playing the rest and call them “the same” simply because they’ve yet to see equal similarities among other specs, or base such claims on their aesthetics or some ultimately irrelevant system (“they both have Energy!!”) alone, so it’s gotten hard to tell if, let alone what, actual gameplay similarities one finds present when calling something “Bomb Rogue” (Survival), or “Holy Arms” (Legion Ret), etc.

...

Current Stormbringer: 5% chance on special attack to refresh cooldown of Stormstrike (which is free), increase next Stormstrike’s damage by 25%, and cause it not to trigger its cooldown.

Old Stormbringer: 5% chance on special attack to refresh cooldown of Stormstrike, make its next use free, increase next Stormstrike’s damage by 25%, and cause it not to trigger its cooldown.

  • I.e., they’re nearly identical.

SL Stormstrike: 214.8% Attack Power
BfA Stormstrike: 214.8% Attack Power

  • They’re exactly identical.

In Castle Nathria, Stormstrike+Windstrike now average to some 24% of our damage in ST, or around 18% in AoE.

In Nyalotha,Stormstrike+Windstrike averaged to some 22% of our damage in ST, and about 18% in AoE across a given raid.

  • Again, that looks awfully similar…

What are you going off on? The person you’re replying to there is literally the guy who just agreed with parts of what you said above, and has only been reasonable in his responses… Why assume he’s somehow flipping the table over class bias, to the detriment of Shamankind, just because he has a Paladin in addition to his Shaman?

As much as that’d be nice for PvP, what then happens to the spec’s flow and PvE capacity when you make freely available an extra 45% Spell Power attack every 4 GCDs (almost double the direct ST damage of Crash Lightning)?

1 Like
40

[quote=“Vitwolfen-nazjatar, post:39, topic:957619, full:true”]

...

Current Stormbringer: 5% chance on special attack to refresh cooldown of Stormstrike (which is free), increase next Stormstrike’s damage by 25%, and cause it not to trigger its cooldown.

Old Stormbringer: 5% chance on special attack to refresh cooldown of Stormstrike, make its next use free, increase next Stormstrike’s damage by 25%, and cause it not to trigger its cooldown.

  • I.e., they’re nearly identical.

SL Stormstrike: 214.8% Attack Power
BfA Stormstrike: 214.8% Attack Power

  • They’re exactly identical.

In Castle Nathria, Stormstrike+Windstrike now average to some 24% of our damage in ST, or around 18% in AoE.

In Nyalotha,Stormstrike+Windstrike averaged to some 22% of our damage in ST, and about 18% in AoE across a given raid.

  • Again, that looks awfully similar…

What are you going off on? The person you’re replying to there is literally the guy who just agreed with parts of what you said above, and has only been reasonable in his responses… Why assume he’s somehow flipping the table over class bias, to the detriment of Shamankind, just because he has a Paladin in addition to his Shaman?

Thank you.

As much as that’d be nice for PvP, what then happens to the spec’s flow and PvE capacity when you make freely available an extra 45% Spell Power attack every 4 GCDs (almost double the direct ST damage of Crash Lightning)?
[/quote]

That’s an interesting point. I was actually coming at this from the PVE angle. I’m ok if frost shock over takes crash in ST. It kind of makes sense intuitively that it would. But also I didn’t mean to remove the cd of frost shock. Just to not have it share with flame. Though honestly I don’t think it would be broken to just remove the cooldown on frost all together.