I’m writing here because I don’t have permission to write on beta forum.
I tested ele and enh for a few days and tested stormbringer and far seer and totemic.
- Elemental shaman
- Far seer
Overall, the duration of Ancestor is too short, disappearing almost without doing anything. Its duration is 6 seconds, but since it appears only after using PW and waiting for the GCD to pass, less than 5 seconds remain with the current haste state. This allows only about 3 casts of LvB before it vanishes.
Additionally, Ancestor’s skill is too weak, making the overall value of this heroic talent significantly lacking. Even with improved gear, Ancestor does not benefit from Mastery or other stats. It solely depends on my haste to use skills quickly, resulting in minimal DPS increase even with better gear.
This talent is particularly ineffective in AoE situations, providing almost no DPS. While it seems specialized for ST DPS and council fights, all it casts are weaker versions of CL and LvB.
Ancestral Swiftness also introduces a problem with too many buttons. Elemental already has Nature’s Swiftness, so there’s no need for two separate buttons when one could suffice. It unnecessarily complicates the gameplay.
Overall, this talent is too weak and needs a numerical adjustment. The concept of the talent itself appears sound, but the execution falls short.
- Stormbringer
Tempest doesn’t feel very powerful compared to LB due to its long cast time. It doesn’t generate Maelstrom, isn’t affected by SE’s LB cast time reduction, and doesn’t benefit from SK’s LB enhancement. It feels like a separate skill that doesn’t interact with Flash of Lightning either. As a result, its activation doesn’t feel particularly beneficial and often disrupts DPS during single-target scenarios.
To improve this skill, it should at least be instant cast and significantly increase in power. Alternatively, its interactions with other abilities should be enhanced. For the reasons mentioned below, significantly boosting its single-target damage would be the most effective solution.
This talent tree is primarily focused on AoE. In particular, Arc Discharge feels like a key element of this heroic talent, making Tempest feel like an activation skill for this talent. The number of Tempest activations depends fundamentally on Maelstrom consumption. Since CL generates more Maelstrom than LB, the number of Tempest activations varies between AoE and single-target situations. Consequently, this talent inherently provides more DPS gain in AoE scenarios.
My suggestion is to remove AoE-focused nodes like Arc Discharge and Voltaic surge. Instead, filling the lower nodes with talents aimed at single-target DPS would help bridge this gap.
Additionally, a fundamental issue with this talent is that it requires hard casting of LB and CL, making it nearly impossible to move while dealing damage. Movement is only possible when using Spiritwalker’s Grace. Please revert the ability to cast LB while moving, as it was during Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria. It is problematic to have poor survivability and limited mobility. This should be the baseline for making this talent viable.
- Enh shaman
- Stormbringer
The gameplay experience of this talent has been the best among both Enhancement and Elemental specializations. However, there have been overall issues with ASC and Thorim’s Invocation. The problem with Thorim’s Invocation using the last cast LB or CL is exacerbated when combined with Tempest and Arc Discharge, further complicating matters.
I am not sure how to effectively improve this situation. For better AoE, I want to use Tempest to activate Arc Discharge, but as soon as ASC triggers, my plan becomes useless. Moreover, if Tempest activates during ASC, the design of this heroic talent seems extremely flawed.
The basic design of Enhancement Shaman seems to need a change. While I really enjoy the burst DPS provided by ASC and Thorim’s Invocation, combining them with this talent highlights significant issues. Despite these issues, I found this talent to be the most enjoyable to play. I really like the concept. However, many changes seem necessary.
- Totemic
I am convinced that this talent is the most problematic among all the ones I’ve played. It is incredibly unfun.
Windfury Totem already feels like a chore to place every 2 minutes. But this totem talent requires placement every 24 seconds, which is even worse.
The abilities provided by the totem are irrelevant. Knowing them doesn’t make a difference in their use, and not knowing them isn’t a disadvantage. It feels like a meaningless choice repeated over and over.
Aside from having to place the totem every 24 seconds, there’s no difference from what we’ve been doing so far. I fail to see how this makes gameplay more enjoyable.
Simply removing all the text from this talent and boosting Enhancement Shaman’s DPS by the percentage this talent would provide would be more enjoyable. Why? Because there would be no chore to place a totem every 24 seconds.
While I believe other talents can be adjusted to be fine, I think this talent is a fundamental design failure. From the beginning, trying to create a totem-centric talent in a situation where there are no DPS-related totems was a mistake.
If creating three talents per class is necessary just to fill slots, then changing this talent to have a 2-minute duration and adjusting some options would be better. This current design cannot be fun, and it is the worst change I’ve experienced in TWW.