Save enhancement! (pvp)

Classes Shaman
64

That’s a fair point. I don’t think the MSW heals are as ‘free’ as the current state of the game implies by their power. I do think there is hope for a tuning pass with discrepancies like this; all we can do is keep pointing it out as long as we try to keep requests reasonable and grounded in facts rather than hyperbole.

Word of Glory may be the closest comparison we have rather than just saying “other classes”. I think a big struggle is the tradeoff between instant casts and power; you could interrupt an elemental shaman, but not much you can do about instant casts and the potency suffers for it. At the very least though, it should be comparable to paladins without the severe mana or conduit costs.

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65

Great post Darkshock! I pray Blizzard is listening. Enhance shamans just need a few extra pvp buffs to balance us among the other melee classes.

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66

Bump bump bump

:smile:

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67

Bump because enhance is terrible in PvP and has been for so long.

Shamanistic rage, healing wolves, totems with hp, instant cap totem would go a long way to fix this.

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68

Plz fix enh! I don’t want to play ele for another xpac.

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69

Bumping this for attention. Blizz pls.

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70

Enhance vs Feral Druid:

Comparison looking at base kit w/talent options (setting aside PvP talents):

Forms:

Druid :

immune to hex/sheep,
root break via shapeshift,
use energy to DPS allowing for mana to regen while DPSing and decoupling DPS and healing resources
Bear form provides huge armor and stam increase + minor DPS kit
Cat form provides 30% move speed bonus and primary dps kit
travel form for 100% move speed bonus

Shaman :

Ghost wolf - dispellable, 30% move speed increase, can’t be slowed below 100%
Talent to give it 20% DR and 20% move speed over 4 sec
Can’t do anything in ghost wolf but run
Provides no CC protection and possibly CC’d by beast only CCs?

Movement:

Druid:

+15% baseline move speed increase,
+30% move speed increase in cat form,
AOE 60% move speed increase via stampeding roar (basically wind rush totem but baseline, with larger area of effect - 18 yd vs 10yd, and longer duration - 8 sec vs 5 sec),
Talented 200% move speed sprint on 45 sec CD (or choice of 30% health instant heal talent)

Shaman:

Spirit Walk - 1 min CD, breaks root/snare on cast but provides no protection, 8 sec duration, 60% move increase
Ghost wolf as discussed above
Wind rush totem via talent but shares talent row with nature’s guardian
Feral Lung talent for 25 yard charge on 30 sec CD but shares talent row with nature’s guardian

CC:

Druid:

4 sec stun on opener from stealth (rake)
5 sec stun, 20 sec CD finisher (maim)
4 sec stun, 1 min CD talent (mighty bash), shares row w/heart of the wild
no CD disorient, 1.7 sec cast (cyclone),
no CD 35 yard range root (entangling roots) - 1.7 sec cast but can be instant cast and useable in forms every 5 combo points spent on damage,
Hibernate - 1.5 sec cast, no CD, beast/dragonkin only CC (useable against GW?)
Built-in 12 sec slow debuff via basic rotational dps ability (infected wounds via rake)
Ursol’s vortex for AOE slow/pull back via resto affinity talent

Shaman:

Cap totem - 1 min CD, AOE stun for 3 sec. 2 sec delay. Totem has 5 health and is typically killed or targets move out of range before stun goes off
Hex - 1.7 sec cast. 20 sec CD
Earth bind totem - AOE slow, 30 sec CD, 5 health totem
Frost shock - 6 sec CD, single target, 6 sec duration, dispellable (AOE via hailstorm talent after spending 5 MSW stacks)

Heals:

Druid:

free mana instant regrowth heal every 5 combo points spent on damage - can be used in forms (heals for more than 5 stack MSW healing surge),
Plus, when talented with healing affinity:
swiftmend (heals for 5x what healing surge does baseline/2.5x as good as a 5 MSW stack heal, instant cast, 15 sec CD, 18% mana cost),
instant cast no CD HOT via rejuvenation (heals for more than 5 MSW healing surge),
Ursol’s vortex (AOE slow with pullback),
AOE heal via wild growth,
passive 3% heal every 5 seconds at all times (switches to ally if you are at full health),
Heart of the Wild talent: for 45 seconds, mana cost of heals reduced by 50%, healing done increased by 30%, 5 min CD

Shaman:

Baseline heals nerfed 50%, have cast times and cost 25-30% of mana,
Made full regular strength (still a little less healing than a druid’s basic regrowth or rejuvenation) and instant for 5 MSW stacks but still cost full mana,
3-4 heals OOM the sham
Basic rotation uses mana meaning mana regen is extremely slow in combat and heals may cause inability to DPS and vice versa
Healing stream totem for location limited minor single target smart HOT for 15 sec on 30 sec CD

Mana:

Druid:

Regenerate mana while in forms using energy so no conflict between DPS resources and healing resources,
Heals cost 0 mana every 5 combo points spent on damage
Massive heals via talented swiftment for minimal mana cost
Heart of wild talent for 50% mana reduction and 30% heal increase for 45 sec

Shaman:

Mana costs on both damage and heals,
No mana reduction for MSW,
Shaman OOM after 3-4 heals,
Hard to regen mana in combat due to basic rotation and utility costing substantial mana and no mana regen ability or mana cost reduction ability

Defensives:

Druid :

50% DR via survival instincts, 6 sec duration, 3 min CD,
barkskin: 12 sec duration, 20% DR, useable during all forms of CC, 1 min CD
bear form (220% armor + 25% stam) + iron fur (x2 armor for 7 sec for 40 rage, no CD)

Shaman:

Astral Shift - 12 sec duration, 40% DR, 1.5 min CD. Not useable while in any form of CC including stuns.
Nature’s Guardian talent - 20% heal on 45 sec CD when dropping below 35% health

Miscellaneous:

Druid:

Stealth,
Dispel curses AND poisons, useable in all forms,
Ranged DOT w/no CD (moonfire),
Ranged full strength DPS kit via moonkin form
Battle rez for PvE, 10 min CD

Shaman:

Dispel curse, offensive dispel via purge
Ranged DOT via flame shock on 6 sec CD
Ranged lightning spells when you have 5 stack MSW (which is only generated in melee)
Ranged spells w/o MSW but with long cast times and at 50% strength
self-rez only via ankh for PVE, 30 min CD

10 Likes
71

Great comparison Zezu. You have been posting a lot of great stuff. Few things to add onto your comparison with feral druid, which is also NOT a top tier spec.

  1. Druids are basically immune to all roots/slows where we have to sit in all roots. something as simple as a monks disable can shut us down for 5-6 secs and we have 0 mobility to get back on the target other than running in ghost wolf.

  2. Druids have MAIM also. A 5second instant stun 20 SEC CD. This allows feral druids to be able to 1v2 when necessary even with insane control. Can pounce one target bash another then maim after and instant root as well into a clone if needed. Insane amount of control. 3 stuns one of them with barely any CD at all.

  3. Our ghost wolf defensives take time to actually kick in. If we want the full 20% damage reduction we have to wait 4 seconds. Which is super irritating because by the time that even kicks in most of the damage is already done to us. A rogues kidney shot is 6 seconds if we don’t have our damage reduction until the 4th second we spent the majority of the stun taking the Dams hard. This is super sad to play because even if you predict a kidney and pre-wolf the stun u still die pretty much or fall super behind whereas if a druid does the same thing they tank it like its nothing with their bear form as the defensives don’t take several seconds to apply and its instant. This may seem like something small but it makes playing shaman way way more difficult in pvp.

  4. Survival instincts had 2 CHARGES! so they have 2 walls usable withing 3 mins and i think barkskin is usable when stunned as well. and thorns is also considered to be a wall as most melee who ignore it take a massive amount of damage which causes them to jsut get off the druid. Our counterstrike ability on the other hand gets right clicked and ignored.

At minimum we need Shamanistic rage back. -Regens mana, Usable in stuns and 1 min cd and Lasts 15 seconds - Make pvp talent to dispel all magic effects when it is used as well the same way the glyph was in Cata.

I also really loved Stone claw totem. was a short CD defensive for us that fit the totemic warrior ideology and it also protected our other totems too.

Also need our non MSW heals to be higher for sure and MSW needs to reducce mana of heals imo.

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72

Correct me if i’m wrong but I believe they are back to 1 charge for SL

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73

Good point on maim. Would add it but I’m prohibited from making more edits atm. Apparently there’s a cap and a timer on making edits.

Survival instincts is 1 charge on beta. Ironfur and barkskin are now baseline though so feral gets them too.

The root break from shape shift and 4 sec build up on feral spirit DR/move increase I mentioned in the “forms” section at the beginning.

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74

Druids also get mighty bash for another instant CC, 4 second stun (talent).

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75

Thanks. I had mentioned that in the heal section as the alternative talent choice to heart of the wild but probably should have put it separately in the CC section. Still can’t make changes to the original post yet.

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76

Set of suggested adjustments to make enhance competitive in PvP:

  1. Baseline damage/heal spells restored to 100% strength,
  2. MSW increases damage/healing by 10% and reduces mana cost by 10% per stack,
  3. Nature’s guardian baseline, new talent replacement - earthgrab totem,
  4. Totems get 25% of shaman’s health,
  5. Spectral recovery PvP talent baseline for 10% more move and passive heal,
  6. Root/snare immunity for first 4 sec of spirit walk,
  7. Shamanism and Thundercharge off GCD, Ride the lightning doesn’t break CC
  8. WF totem recast/reposition mana free & off GC like vesper totem,
  9. Astral shift - replaced by sham rage for enhance - 30% DR, 15 sec duration, 1 min CD, useable while stunned, melee attacks generate mana,
  10. Hex - instant cast for 5 MSW stacks (CD, PvP duration adjusted as necessary).
7 Likes
77

This is basically everything in a statically charged nutshell, perfect.

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78

As long as damage reduction is tied to Ghost Wolf, we will never see an additional defensive.

Also, I’d rather just get Mental Quickness / Primal Wisdom back where we battery mana on melee attacks all the time rather than going back to only during a cooldown. This allows off-heals to be much more efficient, which in turn results in more survivability as long as we have uptime.

Totems getting more health - agreed
Baseline spell power restored - agreed
Nature’s Guardian Baseline - Agreed, but this will be at the cost of an actual new defensive (or will remain the same as long as DR is tied to Ghost Wolf)
Root/Snare Immunity for first 4 sec spirit walk- agreed
Shamanism/Thundercharge of GCD - agreed
Ride the Lightning - disagree, just remove this and bake the damage in baseline
WF Totem changes - agreed
Astral Shift - I’d rather have Stone Bulwark back with baseline mana regen on auto attacks
Hex on MSW - agreed, why the f isn’t this a thing

Ideally, I would see MSW changed to proc a self-heal at 5 stack intervals (the way frostwolf resilience works in HotS) - this rewards uptime with passive heals that don’t sacrifice dps (standard of every other melee) while also punishing lack of uptime or stuns.

Then they can keep the crap healing because we are already getting a passive heal at 5/10 stacks, and can choose to boost that with a subpar heal, give the heal to someone else, or do damage.

Edit - my personal concern for survivability in pvp is the loss of the engineering azerite traits and stacking resounding protection. Resounding protection’s absorb, combined with ghost wolf DR, and Auto-Self-Cauterizer is going to hurt my survivability personally. I get that stuns are an issue, but stacking these and making sure to spend any time not engaged in combat in ghost wolf allowed me to survive a lot of cheap shot openers (then trinket the kidney), and get through stuns that I otherwise would not have gotten through.

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79

Resounding protection was nerfed 80% in pvp. You should get more juice out of spectral recovery if it was baseline.

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80

Even nerfed, any buffer to incoming damage is welcomed and has been key to helping me survive things I know I wouldn’t otherwise. (Especially the bleed removal engi trait).

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81

2 seconds of spectral recovery at 500k health = 15k healing.

80k of resounding protection x 20% = 16k shield every 30 seconds.

So if you sit even a few seconds in stunlock in GW w/spectral recovery you’ll get more benefit than you will out of azerite defensives.

4 seconds in GW, even w/MS on you would be 22k healing.

82

Everything here. Add Baseline grounding and SR, Healing wolves usesable in stun.

4 Likes
83

Haven’t pvp’d on my enh yet. From a PVE perspective I agree here. While I was leveling it seemed as if I was doing a ton of healing. If I had several mobs on me I had to heal hard or summon pet. At no point could I take on 3 mobs and not heal about 4-5 times. My Blood DK was beyond easy…just kill things and I auto healed like no tomorrow and it killed things just as quickly as the enh if not quicker.

  1. Hex instant but with a slightly longer cool down. I see this in present form as something that is constantly interrupted.
  2. Earth shield acts as damage reduction.
  3. Less things on the GCD. Big one right here.
  4. One of our damage attacks should give a percent back as healing.
  5. Lightning shield has a small chance to stun and said chance gets higher the more a single attacker is hitting it.
2 Likes