Warriors are fun when you have a healer in your pocket, if i were to switch to Enhance, would that be a smart move or a low iq move?
So let me tell you about Enhancement.
We are no longer the poor mans fury warrior.
We only have one defensive and it can not be used while stunned. Our sustain is heals that will make us go oom after 3-4 heals. And our heals are not instant unless you have a 5 stack of msw. Lightning bolt and chain Lightning are not instant cast unless you have 5 stack of msw.
Our dps cd is a talent ascendance. With dw we have a burst window every minute and when paired with ascendance does a ton of damage.
This is a small window of Enhancement shamans
5 Likes
Enhancement shaman is super fun and versatile imo. I love it and whenever I play one of my alts, it’s not long before I’m back to playing my enhance.
I also think it is a high skill cap class with alot of different elements to master. There’s always stuff to work on and improve upon.
You’re a melee dps with a rotation based on CDs, procs, and multiple forms of resource management (mana, maelstrom).
You’re an off-healer that can heal, cleanse curses, remove fears/charms/sleep, and ground spells in PvP so you need to constantly keep track of the status of your teammates health and debuffs as well as what your opponents are casting.
You have a ranged interrupt and grounding/tremor totems so even though you are typically engaged in melee combat, you can be countering enemy casters at range at the same time so you need to be aware of what’s happening 30-40 yards away from you even when you’ve got one or more targets standing right in front of you.
You have a powerful cc in hex that has to be hard cast despite being a melee player so you have to work for your opportunities to use it effectively.
You have a ranged AOE stun but it has a 2 second delayed cast and 5 health so you have to be careful how you use it and potentially cover it with other cc like follow on to a teammate’s cc or after another one of your own like door of shadows disorient or sundering.
You have multiple shields if you spec into earth shield and will want to rotate who you have earth shield on and keep lightning shield on yourself when you do. So you want to track the status of each of your shields at all times and swap as necessary. Your shields can also be purged and earth shield can run out of charges, so you also have to track their status to reapply them as they fall off.
You have an offensive spammable dispel, but it costs alot of mana so you have to always be aware of what dispellable buffs your opponents have and be ready to purge them off or prepurge when you are preparing a go or expecting one from them that relies on a magic buff like dark soul or combust.
Enhancement is also very reliant on mana for its healing and utility. And can run out fast. So you also have to be careful to manage your mana and be selective on when to use mana intensive abilities (choosing when to maximize the benefit of a heal by avoiding healing into sharpen or waiting until you or a teammate is low enough to avoid wasting mana on overhealing for example, or choosing to fight through a mage’s triune ward instead of purging it off, etc.).
Enhance is super fun in PvP and challenging to play well and has alot of potential to impact the outcome of PvP fights due to its versatile kit.
1 Like
It’s fun, but you are just as reliant on a healer if not moreso.
Enh goes oom in 4 heals so you have to manage mana carefully against purging, windfury, shamanism, etc.
Furthermore you don’t have the escapes a warrior has. If you commit to a fight, there is no out…you need to keep going til they die or you do. You don’t have a charge, AoE fear, heroic leap, etc.
We have one defensive that needs to be used before you suspect you will be taking burst.
Enh is largely a glass cannon. You hit hard in your burst windows, but you go down quickly if you do not have the proper peels/help.
One of the reason you see turbo work so well is that a warrior’s utility works as the enhance’s defensives. Hamstring to peel, intervene to reduce damage, instant ccs that enh doesn’t have…same with why you see enh/ret work in 2s: sac, bop, bod, instant stun cc
That said, enh is still super fun and if your focus is PvE it’s fine. M+ is rough simply because melee is largely discouraged…but we are fine for up to 15s and fine for raiding (middle to low end dps).
The real benefit is, you have 2 alternative roles when you spec enh:. Ranged DPS and a healer.
If you’re looking to just random BG, enhance can be pretty self-sufficient. Heals are limited by mana but each one can be really strong. Particularly with certain conduit/talent buildouts.
You have to understand that the Shaman design philosophy is, we do in 3 steps what other classes do in 1.
For example, Mortal Strike
For warriors, hit the button
For shaman, have the correct shield up, use your puddle talent, hope the enemy stands it the puddle
Buffing:
Priests - Press button. Party is buffed
Shaman - drop totem, hope people don’t leave it’s AoE, you’ll have to recast once you’ve cleared some mobs
Water Walking:
Death Knights - push button, whole party gets water walking
Shaman - Individually apply this to everyone, if someone takes damage its gone, you personally have to dismount to apply it.
This is called a skill floor, apparently.
Hey man, I did exactly what you’re thinking about and swapped from arms/fury to enhance so I wasn’t relying on a healer in pvp to have fun. I gotta say, pressing buttons feels a lot more fun and powerful, but sometimes I look back and miss furys pve significance, and arms pvp dominance. Id probably look into ret paladin.
In PvE, Enhance shamans are pretty terrible, but I got into a CE guild as one so I don’t think it’s too much of a problem. They’re decent in keys, and Ele is broken in both.
In PvP, they’re great in 3s, not too hot in 2s, and I found it extremely hard to get into Battlegrounds because of stigma against them. I don’t think they’re that bad in them though.
They’re super fun, I swapped from arms to enhance this tier and I’ve been loving it. Kinda wish I had the power of a warrior though haha