State of Enhancement in WoD

[Raiju]

Caster weapons lasted 3 patches (majority of an expansion) before they decided to remove, double FT ran for over a patch, going haste instead of AP back in wrath, lava burst being in rotation for a patch, just to name some off the top of my head.

Lasting a patch or more is not "swiftly fixed". Blizzard could've hotfixed any of these in PTR when they were found out - a caster axe even had expertise on it to begin with! Blizzard has watched our spec manage itself through an awkward toolset and over time cut off avenues and added new ones. They've paid very little attention to either shaman dps spec until MoP and that was clear in the dps meters and how we stayed competitive.

[Schizoide]

Caster weapons, double FT, and stat priorities didn't change gameplay, as I recall. You played the same, you just used different weapons/gear/imbues.

When was Lava Burst in the primary priority? Are you thinking of beta phases? It was used during beta for the last two expansions, and a shaman by the name of Hothgor infamously got it nerfed in both of them.

IMO, lasting only one patch is swiftly fixed. Two or more patches I agree doesn't count as swift. But of course that's subjective.

[Deleted]

First of all - CH isn't bad for enhancement. It can easily cover over half the hps Healing rain was doing last patch (and that's fine because it not only covers a much larger range, but isn't a target for nerfs as being out of line for a dps healing potential)

Secondly, AG has been far too strong that nothing could really compare. That doesn't make the tier bad when 1 is amazing, 1 is mediocre and 1 is near useless. A bad tier is the totem tier - where all 3 are near useless and 1 if not 2 of them should be baseline.

And let's not target out hardcasting as the accident of enhancement. The majority of the specs play aside from the forced depency on lava lash and unleash is due to various accidents and oversights. Until MoP the spec was a red-headed stepchild so ofcourse we are in almost entirety, an accident. That is not a reason for something to be removed in such a situation.

I never said CH is bad for Enh, in fact I actually thought it was really really good in the 10m format, especially with AG (and echo) on it was like a mini tranq. My train of thought though is focused on WoD, the MSW perk suggest our DPS will be more focused on LB and the active abilities since we don't have that many damage sources anymore. This adds up to make me belive our off healing will drop substantially because of that. I'm perfectly fine with sacrificing dps for healing but to a certain point.

AG has been ridiculous compared to other classes cooldowns, especially other hybrids. The Healing Rain thing in ToT was out of this world and the AG interaction actually made us BETTER than a healer. The other 2 choices in that talent row are day and night compared to AG, even in its nerfed form because we can explore this CD in various ways, the HR/CH thing is one of them, AOE'ing with CL spam or FN is another and single target burst also as good but the least reliable one. I can't say I've ever tried conductivity outside Raden but that only happened once and that was under a patchwerk fight where we were broken and the talent actually worked.

The totem tier being boring is a understatement and no shaman says otherwise, but at least they are usable without being a huge DPS loss for any spec. I also standby the idea that out of those 3, Projection should be baseline because Magma/earthbind|grab and especially capacitor issues are 100% solved with it.

[Raiju]

Lava burst was in primary priority the entirety of firelands, and some debated earlier. Lasting 6-12 months is NOT a swift fix in any way shape or form.

Sooooo I suppose we have Chain Heal, Healing Rain, Healing Surge, Healing Stream and Frost Shock. The first 2 being nerfed to the ground for Enh and more harmful than good for Ele.

Right here is where you said it. If you didn't mean it nvm, but I didn't make it up.

[Deleted]

Lava burst was in primary priority the entirety of firelands, and some debated earlier. Lasting 6-12 months is NOT a swift fix in any way shape or form.


Right here is where you said it. If you didn't mean it nvm, but I didn't make it up.

It is being nerfed to the ground, 1 or 2 builds ago CH got axed in the healing per jump for all specs. Its really good as of right now but I did say "being nerfed" not "was nerfed" xD

Now that I think about it I think Healing Stream also got a 50% cut, which makes Rushing Streams all that more interesting to us.

[Schizoide]

Technically you're right, LvB was used during 4.2 with a caster mainhand at the very lowest priority, below MW2_LB. I would seriously question how much of a performance gain it was. But technically, correct.

[Raiju]

Are you talking WoD changes? Being nerfed can be used both present and past so my mistake, it wasn't clear. Almost all healing is taking 50% nerf so 50% nerfs is not nerf to the ground, it's functionally the same.

Lava burst was happily 2-3% of your dps. It was well worth doing and the melee time lost wouldn't have even made up 1%. Our sims were broken as shit back then and I found personally it was fine to even slow above the lowest LB. I'm sure our resident simcrafter will be around to deny it all, but this was the same patch where the sim put in around 64 seconds of actions in a 60 second timeframe, and the mage developer handling teh shaman sim around the time was raving over the importance of flame shock...

[Schizoide]

Rouncer was the enhsim guy at the time, and I certainly trust him. That priority came from the EJ Enhance thread for 4.2, back in EJ's glory days when they were the definitive location for this sort of thing.

Also it's not just the autoattacks (and attached WF/FT/flurry/weapon enchant procs) lost, it's also the opportunity cost of skipping a MW1_LB. It was a pretty small DPS gain, the sort of thing you can only really show in a sim. But you're right, it was totally a real thing and some people did it.

[Raiju]

enhsim wasn't being updated much anymore - and i was referring to simcraft. enhsim had been unreliable throughout cata since rouncer wasn't interested in the game anymore.

[Schizoide]

That EJ thread used enhsim-- you're really getting into minutae here; this was a long time ago and while I did keep up on theorycraft and raid on him, my shaman wasn't my main at the time! Anyway, you were right, hardcast LvB was a thing in 4.2 with a caster mainhand.

[Pantsless]

Hard-casting has never been a CORE part of our rotation, and the main reason for this is that blizzard has never maid it official. At one point GC said on twitter that they are fain with hardcasting as long as the damage gain did not made it mandatory, and this post was during the firelands hardcasting maddness with Eye of Purification and the 4pc tier set. Today, choosing Elemental blast makes hard-casting mandatory, so we could say that in MoP hard-casting became an option, how ever it still feel unpolished, very much like paladins Holy Power fiasco during Cataclysm. With UF and PE talents, hardcasting LB is just a way to fill the many gaps in our rotion, the damage gain is minimal ( some one said around 1,3 %, corect me if im rong). The new perk with 20% damage per cast will make things even worse. What i want from Bilzz is an official statment saying : ok guys, we like the hardcasting option and we want to reward players that manage to squiz in as many LB as possible, so we are making this change to MW.

[Wowforlife79]

I always thought hard casting was only a dps increase in a simulated/perfect situation, and not in game/real world situations? Anyways i have always hated hardcasting and felt like blizz adding dmg bonuses for full 5 stacks was incentive enough to stack it to 5, my personal preference anyways.

[Schizoide]

Hard-casting has never been a CORE part of our rotation, and the main reason for this is that blizzard has never maid it official.

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...59230292840448

It is official now. They're thinking about removing the MW leveling perk to preserve the hardcast LB gameplay. If you disagree, I suggest you respond to that tweet.

@Wowforlife79: I feel exactly the same way. And you're right, it isn't necessary in 5.x, but it sounds like it may be in 6.x. Hopefully it is balanced to provide a small performance increase, small enough that we can reasonably opt out of doing it without hurting ourselves too much.

[Pantsless]

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...59230292840448

It is official now. They're thinking about removing the MW leveling perk to preserve the hardcast LB gameplay. If you disagree, I suggest you respond to that tweet.

I neither agree nor disagree, in the end it is blizzards game. However, i do feel like MW hard-casting is something that came to be not by design but by accident, and that makes it an uncomfortable mechanic to use. The current MW design does not support am intuitive use of stacks, nor does it allow for any kind of management of stacks other then just using them preemptively in order not to loose them, or to use them as fillers. I believe this complete lack of user control and consistency is the sign of a bad design. So, in conclusion, i dont care if they keep hardcasting or they remove it as long as it well designed and feels nice to use. And i believe we can all agree it is neither.

[Emophia]

I've always hardcasted LB during empty spots with at least 2-3 MW since mid cata. I wasn't aware there was any controversy about it.

That said, if they're removing LB on the move, I'd rather they remove hard casting it as enhance as well, going back to doing it while not being able to move after a whole expansion of doing it while moving is going to be a pita.

[Pantsless]

I've always hardcasted LB during empty spots with at least 2-3 MW since mid cata. I wasn't aware there was any controversy about it.

That said, if they're removing LB on the move, I'd rather they remove hard casting it as enhance as well, going back to doing it while not being able to move after a whole expansion of doing it while moving is going to be a pita.

Blizzard is yet again using a double standard when it comes to shamys. Cast-time Slam and Exorcism where removed from the game because they didnt fit the mobile melee design, and know we will have to stop to cast as a melee.

[Omanley]

They WILL become long duration sticks in WoD.

It's their plan, yes. However, plans can still change. Adding the reset mechanic to fire totems would kind of cement those fire totems as needed, instead of optional damage sources. Also, you again, forgot the pvp POV. What if ST gets outranged, LoS'ed or simply destroyed? You'd be robbed of your procs. Again, it's dumb in pvp to be tied to a totem, dont bring this madness back.

What irritates me is that all Ele shamans complain about Searing and want to give it a purpose like Enh currently does but they instead just make it a boring ass imp for everybody.

It does not fulfill a purpose. SF automatically always ends up at 5 before LL cd finishes, it was completely pointless. And ST would be just as boring as it is anyways. All you're doing is swapping the proc from one dot to another. You wont make totems fun or exciting this way.

You could argue that Frost and Water spells (healing stuff) are of the same element in the eyes of Shamans and our water totems make up for it. Oh yeah I forgot this isn't Vanilla anymore and all the old resistance totems and mana spring and what not are gone and all water stuff is locked into Resto. Sooooo I suppose we have Chain Heal, Healing Rain, Healing Surge, Healing Stream and Frost Shock.

Read my point again "Frost is scarce among our damage sources".

Note: Our Healing Tier as a whole for the DPS specs is much worse than the Totem Tier IMO.

Both aren't exactly brilliant, esp with the AG nerf. Totems are still worse though. 2/3 should be baseline in any case, the third is a maybe. Totems need to be better baseline, requiring totems to be less "sucky" is fail.

My initial thought was the same until I saw this tweet, to which I followed up with a question.
https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...56235668832256

Hmpf. Multiple disappointments there:
-They intend FrS to be an argument for mobile Ele dmg, while not intending for it to actually deal its current damage? I dont mind FrS not being part of the prio(even though I would've enjoyed seeing more frost damage), since it would be on the very end of it, but defending ele's big nerf with an argument they intend to make empty right along the nerf? Hypocrits.
-Why would they think people would use FrS on the move in pve, if it did not deal worthy damage? Snaring just for the lols? This annyos me.
-They introduce the msw perk and raise hopes that they wish to end the whole hardcasting crap, and then this crappy statement? WE. ARE. MELEE. MELEE DO NOT HARDCAST. What's with them?

[Pantsless]

@Omanley. You know what is even worse ? they say that UF will be one of the spells to cast on the move even though it deals no damage and the damage buff affects guess what? LB ... LB lol. so in order for UF to be a dps gain in movement situations you have to cast LB on the move... see the paradox ?

”Also Unleash Weapon was listed in mobility damage skills. But Unleash Fire/Frost/Wind no longer deal damage so uh... wat?
They don't *directly* do damage, but they are a significant net damage gain. (Celestalon)”.

As for Enhace it looks like hard-casting is here to stay, there is nothing to do about it. All we can hope for is that they will change talents so we get a choice between no hard-casting or very little gain from it, hard-casting LB and Elemental Balst

[Embermoon]

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...59230292840448

It is official now. They're thinking about removing the MW leveling perk to preserve the hardcast LB gameplay. If you disagree, I suggest you respond to that tweet.

@Wowforlife79: I feel exactly the same way. And you're right, it isn't necessary in 5.x, but it sounds like it may be in 6.x. Hopefully it is balanced to provide a small performance increase, small enough that we can reasonably opt out of doing it without hurting ourselves too much.

Either you misread the tweet, or I did. I didn't see anything about a consideration of removing the leveling perk. My read on that tweet was that what they're considering, is allowing less than 5 MSW-stack casts of LB to be an option, just as it is, now.

[Omanley]

@Omanley. You know what is even worse ? they say that UF will be one of the spells to cast on the move even though it deals no damage and the damage buff affects guess what? LB ... LB lol. so in order for UF to be a dps gain in movement situations you have to cast LB on the move... see the paradox ?

”Also Unleash Weapon was listed in mobility damage skills. But Unleash Fire/Frost/Wind no longer deal damage so uh... wat?
They don't *directly* do damage, but they are a significant net damage gain. (Celestalon)”.

As for Enhace it looks like hard-casting is here to stay, there is nothing to do about it. All we can hope for is that they will change talents so we get a choice between no hard-casting or very little gain from it, hard-casting LB and Elemental Balst

Yes, herp-derp idiocy as we shamans always knew it, at its finest.
-No more LB on the move => severe drop of lb in arena => severe drop of fulmination in arena => severe ES damage drop => ES still shares cd with FS, so probably wont be used at all => complete reliance on maintaining FS on multiple targets and lots of Lava Surge procs
-And UE will go from hardly damage to no damage, with its support toward LB made obsolete

How blizz is to dumb to see that conclusion, along with ele being a dead pvp spec in WoD, is beyond me. Unless they are holding back some new skills or mechanics to allow for more cast-on-move/instant casting, no number juggling to make them all the stronger as turrets will safe ele of its recurring pvp demise.