Going to go over why Ride the Lightning is so important for Stormbringer Enhance in PvP, and why I agree with the removal of it from PvP talents but also think it needs to be baked in somewhere else.
Why is the outcome of removing Ride the Lightning so negative especially for Stormbringer?
-Not having Ride the Lightning means less Awakening Storms procs which leads to less Tempest casts and no AoE application of Lightning Rod (in 11.1) consistently which is something we’ve been wanting badly since Lightning Rod does no damage single target. It practically feels useless in PvP.
-Finally getting Chain Lightning to AoE apply Lightning Rod while losing the talent that allows Enhance to constantly use Chain Lightning (passively) feels really bad. We do not cast Chain Lightning over Lightning Bolt in any situation, and since Lightning Rod lasts 8 sec it would require too many casts of Chain Lightning to keep it up anyway, we’d lose too much single target damage.
-It takes flavor away from Stormbringer in PvP. Having Chain Lightnings going off so frequently just adds so much to the theme of Stormbringer.
If its so important, why do I agree with its removal from PvP talents?
-Enh shamans have a lot of important PvP talent options already between Burrow, Shamanism, Grounding Totem, Static Field Totem and Stormweaver. Shamanism and Burrow are both practically must-pick talents, leaving us with a flexible option between Grounding/Static/Stormweaver, however with Ride the Lightning having so much importance and Shamanism being a must-pick, it forces Enh Shamans to pick between Burrow/Grounding which feels terrible. The removal of this talent frees up that flexible spot and we can now take Burrow permanently, and choose between Grounding/Static/Stormweaver which feels good.
What could be done to help remedy losing something so vital to Stormbringer in PvP?
-My personal ask is for this to be baked into Crash Lightning. Crash Lightning feels redundant as it kind of does the same thing twice, aoe frontal damage into aoe frontal damage which is a little on the boring side. As a side note, both parts of Crash Lightning being AoE frontal damage make this quite annoying to use consistently in PvP with all the constant movement.
-I would love to see Ride the Lightning baked into that second portion of Crash Lightning, for example: “Hitting 2 or more targets charges your weapons for 12 sec, causing Stormstrike, Ice Strike and Lava Lash to cast Chain Lightning at your target at x% reduced effectiveness”. This would give Crash Lightning interaction with the Stormbringer tree in both PvE and PvP as it really should have since its a huge thematic ability for Stormbringer especially with its new animation. Also Crash Lightning seems to accompany Chain Lightning regarding talents (Voltaic Surge in Stormbringer tree and Crashing Storms in spec tree) despite having no actual interaction with Chain Lightning, this would give these two abilities some fun interaction.
-If the above is not seen as a good solution, then ideally it can get baked in somewhere else, ie maybe Static Accumulation or Thorims Invocation can also do something like “when you use lightning bolt at 10 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon, you also cast Chain Lightning at x% reduced effectiveness”. Essentially Enhance in PvP just needs a way to have some passive Chain Lightnings consistently, and this can be done in a way that positively impacts PvE.