Like c’mon. They ain’t fun and ain’t good. Do something with them blizzard. We knOw you can do anything
1 Like
I made a suggestion for the 4pc Resto bonus to only effect Healing Stream/ Cloud Burst totem, but double the CD effect, this way Cloud Burst be a more situational talent opening flash flood for quicker healing consuming tidal waves or Downpour for a larger on demand heal.
Cloud Burst Totem talent has dominated that tier forever, it’s amazing, my solution was because the CD effect is essentially more for healing stream and being able to drop more than one of them which the Crit of it then feeds the 2pc bonus, Resto shaman essentially has opened up other talents to be played.
It be a crazy cycle of Healing Stream totems, feeding greater chains heals that quicken the CD on Healing Stream, we’d be Totem Kings/Queens again, plus with Flash Flood giving quicker heals or Downpour for quick AoE Burst healing it’s win win.
And hey, for those who wanna continue to use cloudburst totem, it be good to know it will always be available no matter what.
Agreed. For Enhancement in particular, Ice Strike, Stormkeeper, Crashing Storm, and Earthen Spike are pretty much never taken. Fire Nova should be included there as well, but with the Flame Shock spread in 9.2, we might start seeing some use from Fire Nova. Though right now it is looking like the buff to Frost Shock’s baseline damage will make Hailstorm a stronger pick over Fire Nova, so we still might not see Fire Nova.
Every talent should have a priority use in some type of situation. Talents like Sundering which deal the most damage and provide an incapacitate shouldn’t dominate the row to be used for every situation.
1 Like
Probably, sundering should be made baseline, since it’s hard to imagine any talent I’d want to pick over heavy AoE damage with a stun. I guess another tact to make that row competitive would be to reduce sundering’s damage or remove the stun component. But I hate that idea.
Honestly, Sundering is fine as it is. If anything, I wouldn’t even say it is heavy AoE damage. I think that its damage is a bit weak since it is a hard 40 second CD that is limited to a rather short line and can be easy to miss/dodge. The problem isn’t with Sundering, it is with the other two talents on that row.
On single-target, the other talents in the row are moderately close in damage but they are still behind and also have downsides, Crashing Storm being that it is limited to being a location-based DoT and Stormkeeper is just far weaker and doesn’t feel good to use. On AoE, those two talents fall even further behind being nowhere close to Sunderings damage and they still lack the utility of Sundering’s incapacitate effect. Sundering also has the benefit of being able to fill a rotational gap.
I hate that idea too. Because our damage is already on the low end, I don’t think that nerfing talents is the right response to try to balance a row. Always better to buff the others.
To make up for its location-based limitation, Crashing Storm should have either higher damage and/or potentially a secondary effect. Since it’s a “storm” and storms have rain, maybe it should also drop a Healing Rain in that location for the same duration to make it a ground-based AoE that can damage enemies and heal allies. That would already be a different type of utility that would be a more beneficial pick for raids. Stormkeeper could simply be changed to apply to the next couple of spells that have a cast time, giving it some versatility and a bit more strength in single target. Though honestly, I don’t believe that Stormkeeper fits us very well and should instead be replaced. Personally, since this row leans more towards AoE, I would move Fire Nova to this row to replace Stormkeeper. Then the choice would be Fire Nova for pure AoE damage, Sundering for AoE with the utility of its incapacitate, and Crashing Storm for AoE with healing utility. This example goes back to reflect what I said where every talent should have a priority use in some type of situation. It then just becomes a matter of tuning their output so that one talent doesn’t become better in situations that the others make more sense to be used.
1 Like
I think there was an ability in Mists of Pandaria that revolved around improving healing rain through damage, but we had a larger kit back then. I can’t remember if it did something like that or if you still had to cast it. In addition to the damage through Crashing Storm, I always thought it would be cool to have more interaction with our shields when striking an energized target like triggering lightning shield and the MSW bonus on strike instead of waiting to get hit or letting the target of your earth shield recover charges / heal; kind of like a Holy Paladin’s Judgement of Light. There was actually something like this called static strikes in Cataclysm I think. It would probably still be the passive option on this row regardless. Of course that was before the set bonus was introduced so we are getting more MSW through that now.
Sundering definitely takes the lead in damage when you factor in windfury, particularly with doomwinds up and it’s always great to have given our lack of quick stuns.
Stormbringer needs to be something like instant cast, 1 charge of 500% chain lightning or Lightning Bolt (probably wouldn’t apply to extra lightning bolts via primordial wave), and instantly grant 5 stacks of MSW to add some flexibility for on demand MSW generation without feeling like you waste MSW.
Maybe if they tacked primal earth elemental on a shorter cooldown onto Earthen Spike I’d seriously consider it for some cases.
In Legion, we did have Rainfall as a talent which was similar to Healing Rain and its duration was extended by using Stormstrike and Lava Lash, the idea to bake something like that into Crashing Storm came from that.
I was also thinking something similar to having Static Shock active while standing in the Crashing Storm AoE area, but I didn’t like the idea of dealing passive damage while you stand in a ground AoE that deals passive damage. The other idea I had in mind was standing in the Crashing Storm would generate Maelstrom Weapon, which could be good but I feel that we can get Maelstrom from so many sources as it is.
Even without Doom Winds, Sundering still wins out in damage.
Stormkeeper would be more attractive if it worked similar to how the Anima Power for it worked, giving us a benefit passively after a certain period of time.
Throwing something else into Earthen Spike would definitely be nice. But it already deals instant damage and then increases most of our damage to the target by 20% with a 50% uptime on that damage boost. It’s actually decent, but that whole row just feels underwhelming and the other two talents have better synergies.
Rainfall was what I was thinking of too though it slipped my mind.
Though it is pretty, I also dislike ground effects and would prefer something like the Lightning Conduit Azerite trait from BfA or maybe just a bit of both like refreshing the debuff occasionally while in the area.
It’s really the synergies that are the deciding factor on the last row. If Legacy of the Frost Witch could be made to work, Earthen Spike might be okay as is. Maybe something like just modifying Stormbringer and the legendary’s own reset to grant a temporary charge so you get the full benefit of the reset and switch over to nature damage on storm strike (probably removing a bit of of the flat bonus damage due to mastery scaling).
Yeah, the problem is that damage tends to get amortized over windows, instead of thinking about them across the board. Here’s what I mean:
Sundering: 140% AP, 40s cooldown
Crashing Storm: 18.816% AP, 6s duration
In the same time for Sundering to Sundering (40s), Crashing Storm will have done 125.44% (still below), and that’s assuming optimal conditions where, e.g. the mobs never move out, Crash Lightning is pressed every 6s. It’s “close” but it carries all sorts of assumptions that are just not sound.
Stormkeeper is not a good option for Enhancement. I think the talent can be salvaged by it making your Chain Lightning become a 5 target cap baseline, but I honestly see them ignoring the sad 3 target cap for Enhancement CL for quite some time. With that change, I think it sees a lot more play for the spec to get larger lightning spread and give more damage to the Chain Lightning portion of the AoE kit (and would pair really nicely with Fire Nova).
TLDR; Crashing Storm buff at least 50%, rework Stormkeeper, and Sundering is fine.
@Regentotem, in Cata, enhancement was healing entire raids, so I don’t expect a Healing Rain effect on Crashing Storm. If it were added, the bonus healing would be pathetic enough that it just still wouldn’t get picked 9 times out of 10 (as the role is Damage first and foremost, from a design philosophy).
Yeah that’s why I was originally thinking more along the lines of Static Shock also from Wrath/Cata (which is basically what Crash Lightning is now) for utility as an alternative source of MSW if you didn’t want to pick Elemental Assault as well as some extra quality of life in maintaining earth shield for single target trickle healing or something if you choose it.
Passive 5 target Chain Lightning on Stormbringer would also be great, bonus points if they add the Storm Blast animation for it.
1 Like
You guys are referring to the MoP talent (Conductivity?) that allowed you to cast a healing rain and then extend it by doing damaging spells while standing in it. It was never tuned properly but it had niche uses, like the Tortos fight in Throne of Thunder. If you had an Enh shaman in your group, the melee group would essentially park itself up front and stand in an almost neverending Healing Rain while the healers helped the range DPS shoot turtle shells. For 10-man comps, it was like having a cheat code.
In Legion, I can’t remember (didn’t play Enh much that xpac) but I think they kept that as sort of a passive; you didn’t have to talent into it.
OhpleaseOhpleaseOhpleaseOhplease…
My favorite AoE talent in the game ever since Cata/MoP. I also wonder if you can do a fire-centric build around it with Lashing Flames, Hot Hand and Fire Nova and get good numbers. I do know I’ll be trying it out.
Lashing Flames isn’t likely to be great simply because it only effects the target you hit with Lava Lash, and Lava Lash has a fairly long cooldown that it doesn’t become realistic to maintain it on multiple targets. Hot Hand can help, but it is so unreliable with its RNG proc rate. If Lava Lash’s cleave from Crash Lightning would affect targets with Lashing Flames, then it would be amazing and probably OP. The potential combination of Lashing Flame and Hot Hand could work well with Primal Lava Actuators for a low target cleave for good priority/funnel damage, but Fire Nova wouldn’t be used in that situation as its numbers are too low and Fire Nova performs worse with fewer targets.
1 Like