How is Enhance dps looking for WoD?

[Jugaal]

Was wondering if any of you had a decent projection for how Enhance dps is looking like for WoD? The reason I ask: I currently play WW monk and WW was going to be my main for WoD, but after some time, seeing some of the more concrete changes made (e.g. WW flurry changed dramatically) I feel like Enhance might have an edge.I know we're still in alpha and ultimately I will play whichever play style I like better, but seeing as I appreciate both play styles a lot, dps could potentially be a deciding factor! Anyways, any input would be appreciated.

[Keltas]

Dps hasn't been tuned in any way at all yet.

So nobody can tell you which will be higher dps. We could tell you how they both work mechanically (as of right now on alpha, which can also change dramatically) but that's it.
Although enhance looks like it'll scale decently, so it probably won't be the worst dps, at the very least.

[Durantye]

It's alpha not even Beta WAY too early to even remotely get a feeling for how well a class will perform. Even if someone did sit down and calculate each class literally the next day all their hard work could be thrown out the window.

[Deleted]

(e.g. WW flurry changed dramatically) I feel like Enhance might have an edge.

I find this part ironic. Let me expand on this thought.


From the patch notes:

Flurry has been redesigned. Melee haste effects now reduce the global cooldown and cooldowns of Stormstrike, Lava Lash, Shocks, Unleash Elements, and Fire Nova.

Lava Lash now has a cooldown of 10.5 seconds (up from 10 seconds).
Fire Nova now has a cooldown of 4.5 second (up from 4.0 seconds).
Stormstrike now has a cooldown of 7.5 seconds (down from 8 seconds).

[Jugaal]

I find this part ironic. Let me expand on this thought.


From the patch notes:

Flurry has been redesigned. Melee haste effects now reduce the global cooldown and cooldowns of Stormstrike, Lava Lash, Shocks, Unleash Elements, and Fire Nova.

Lava Lash now has a cooldown of 10.5 seconds (up from 10 seconds).
Fire Nova now has a cooldown of 4.5 second (up from 4.0 seconds).
Stormstrike now has a cooldown of 7.5 seconds (down from 8 seconds).

I realize this, IMO enhancement flurry is a lot better than current (current=current WoD alpha) windwalker flurry.

So I think I may be misunderstood, perhaps my word choice was poor. I realize we are still in Alpha and I'm not looking for solid numbers calculations here, I'm literally just asking "how is enhancement looking so far", some of you that have been playing enhance for a while, how is enhancement shaping up thus far in your opinion? That's all. From what I've seen so far enhancement hasn't undergone much change (compared to some other classes) and this is AFTER the first big wave of ability pruning. So based on current trends, how do you see enhancement shaping up? XD

[Schizoide]

The flurry change is absolutely huge. The last time I was so excited was when we got Dual Wield... and that was immediately crushed by the Windfury ICD being added.

Beyond that, well, lets see.

Enhance will be using Frost Shock rather than Earth Shock. No biggie.

Imbues are passive now. Small QoL improvement.

Enhance lost its substantial raid healing abilities and Stormlash Totem, but I think we all knew they were OP. Other specs lost their raid cooldowns too, or had them substantially tuned down.

Enhance lost Spiritwalker's Grace. I'm not broken up about it, even though we can't move while casting LB.

Searing Flames was removed, which is actually a huge improvement. You still need Searing Totem active for its straight-up damage, but the ramp-up is gone, and this will be really nice when solo/leveling/dailies/small groups.

Echo of the Elements was changed. It'll consume a GCD now, and provides actual gameplay. Net positive change, slightly.

Flame Shock ticks now have a chance to reset the cooldown on Lava Lash. This will help with AE.

Which brings me to the one thing they haven't done a lot to improve mechanically; Enhance AE. We still spread Flame Shock at current duration. With haste, Echo of the Elements, and Flame Shock letting us use Lava Lash's much more frequently, it feels like this will be much less of a problem in 6.x. Still too early to tell, though.

Overall, enhance is coming along really nicely. I switched mains from Shaman in TBC, and haven't looked back since. But with these changes there's a solid chance I'll switch mains from DK to Shaman. Depends on final numbers, really.

[jayinjersey]

Imbues are passive now. Small QoL improvement.

I'm actually REALLY miffed about this one.....there was just NO purpose, especially for Enhancement

Did they take away Rogue's Poisons or DK's Runeforging?

And I'm going to miss the animations, I loved the "Flame and Air trails" while on the Taxis...and even after they always suggested we might have the ability to "transmog" enchantments in the future

[Schizoide]

Rogues can pick between different poisons, and DK runeforges are permanent enchants. With frostbrand removed, enhance would always use the same imbues, so why not make them passive?

[jayinjersey]

Cause they were as iconic as totems for the Shaman class?

Why not just remove Totems and make them passive? (Which is they did...I'd shut up and live with the removed imbues and quietly clap inside)

[Embermoon]

I realize this, IMO enhancement flurry is a lot better than current (current=current WoD alpha) windwalker flurry.

So I think I may be misunderstood, perhaps my word choice was poor. I realize we are still in Alpha and I'm not looking for solid numbers calculations here, I'm literally just asking "how is enhancement looking so far", some of you that have been playing enhance for a while, how is enhancement shaping up thus far in your opinion? That's all. From what I've seen so far enhancement hasn't undergone much change (compared to some other classes) and this is AFTER the first big wave of ability pruning. So based on current trends, how do you see enhancement shaping up? XD

I've played enhancement as my main, since BC. To me, the WoD changes are looking like the best mechanics changes that I've ever seen, in the spec. A few reasons as to why I say this:

- Redesign of Flurry: Currently, both our CDs, and GCDs do not scale with haste. In WoD, both will be sped up by haste. This is a good thing, for skilled players. At the same time, it doesn't create a problem for new players, to learn the spec.

- Improvements to Fire Nova: This looks to be huge, for our AoE quality of life. Whereas WW currently has the absurdly awesome RJW and FoF (both look great, feel great as abilities, and are both easy to use, and highly effective for WW AoE), enhancement has been using an AoE system that requires a fixed amount of both time and positioning, to set up, not to mention chance. If you aren't familiar with how clunky our AoE is, compared to other specs, it works like this: 1) Cast ranged flame shock (6 sec CD) on target A. 2) Run into melee to hit target A with lava lash (10 sec CD), to spread FS to targets B, C, D, and E (hopefully, if you're lucky). 3) Cast fire nova, unless you take an extra GCD to boost the fire nova with unleash elements (15 sec CD). So, it currently takes enhancement 3, if not 4 full 1.5 second GCDs, just to get off one AoE cast. In that time, if target A dies, before we can hit it with LL to spread FS, or if targets B-E die, then our AoE sputters and dies. The only areas where enhancment AoE can shine (currently) are when we have a large number of high-health mobs, like the start of Garrosh, as an example. For WoD, the current design looks to be a huge improvement. Not only are all of our CDs and GCD going to be improved by haste, but all of our major CDs are going to be base multiples of 1.5 seconds, for better synchronization of usage. Also, LL will have a chance to be reset by every FS tick, on every mob. Plus, LL's base damage is being boosted by 40%, so that we don't have to wait for 5 stacks of searing flames, just to get a full-power LL. On top of that, LL is supposed to spread FS to 6 targets, instead of 4. So, we'll have easier AoE all around, it looks like.

- Damage being moved from fire elemental to the shaman: Burst is cool, but it sucks to be low(er) on damage, outside of burst phases. I think moving the damage from pets/guardians back to the character is a better model, and will reward skillful playing, as opposed to high gear levels.

From the outside, looking in, the changes might look very subtle. But, under the hood, they're very significant.

- - - Updated - - -

Which brings me to the one thing they haven't done a lot to improve mechanically; Enhance AE. We still spread Flame Shock at current duration. With haste, Echo of the Elements, and Flame Shock letting us use Lava Lash's much more frequently, it feels like this will be much less of a problem in 6.x. Still too early to tell, though.

Don't forget about LL spreading FS to six targets, instead of four, now.

- - - Updated - - -

And I'm going to miss the animations, I loved the "Flame and Air trails" while on the Taxis...and even after they always suggested we might have the ability to "transmog" enchantments in the future

Was there a blue post, where they said they were taking away the animations? I hope not...

[Schizoide]

Don't forget about LL spreading FS to six targets, instead of four, now.

Good catch, I forgot about the leveling perk. Another improvement to enhance AE.

I'm also really excited about WoD. Best expansion for enhancement ever.

[Embermoon]

I think so, too. I also suspect that the removal of the ICD on windfury will prove to be a long-term QoL improvement for us. I can't prove it, but I think it will be, from the standpoint of "No ICD = better damage scaling with haste."

[Blithe]

Good catch, I forgot about the leveling perk. Another improvement to enhance AE.

I'm also really excited about WoD. Best expansion for enhancement ever.

/sarcasm on

I'll have to disagree with you there as the Burning Crusade was most definitely the best expansion of all time with Windfury Totem, Bloodlust and a Sword-spec Warrior.

/sarcasm off

Seriously though, I'm ecstatic for Warlords. I still think a solution to Lava Lash would be turning it into a Divine Storm like ability otherwise it will always hit the main target, and the only AoE it effects is Flame Shock applications and spreading. If not that, then maybe a Glyph similar to Exorcism?

Glyph of Mass Exorcism
Reduces the range of Exorcism to melee range, but causes 25% damage to all enemies within 8 yards of the primary target.

Glyph of Spreading Lava
Reduces the damage done by Lava Lash by 75%, but now causes it to effect all enemies within 8 yards of the primary target.

It would lower the "ramp-up" and allow us to do old content a lot better, too.

[Schizoide]

I actually switched mains from my shaman in TBC due being demoralized by the windfury ICD. I agree that shamans were very highly desired in that expansion, though, for sure.

[Blithe]

I actually switched mains from my shaman in TBC due being demoralized by the windfury ICD. I agree that shamans were very highly desired in that expansion, though, for sure.

Blasphemy! What did you play in that era?

[Schizoide]

I played a feral druid throughout TBC for bearcat. Then in WOTLK they added savage roar which had a similarly demoralizing effect for feral, and I switched to a DK. Stayed DK through cataclysm and MoP. I have 11 90s and raided off and on with all of them, so my experience is pretty wide for everything except healing and PvP.

[Blithe]

I played a feral druid throughout TBC for bearcat. Then in WOTLK they added savage roar which had a similarly demoralizing effect for feral, and I switched to a DK. Stayed DK through cataclysm and MoP. I have 11 90s and raided off and on with all of them, so my experience is pretty wide for everything except healing and PvP.

Good old Feral. That's always been something that's bugged me so much about Ferals and Rogues: Savager Roar and Slice and Dice. Having to keep track of a buff that requires a heavy resource investment was never my forte and it just drove me away, as much as I enjoy the class itself.

I've played Shaman and Paladin since Classic, and Warrior and Warlock on and off throughout Wrath and up to Cata. They're pretty dusty at the moment, as I only focus on my Shaman and Paladin (same server, different factions). I've never really changed mains, but my experience is larger in PvP and lacks the most when it comes to raid tanking. One day I'll raid tank, one day.

[Omanley]

Numbers are obviously not tuned yet. If take it you're interested about changes on game play. Well...

1) Echo of the Elements: Changed from a mock-ele mastery into: => Your spells and abilities have a chance to not cause your next Stormstrike, Lava Lash, Shock or Flame Nova spell to incur its cooldown.
Probably makes it the WoD enh talent of choice, allowing us more unprediactability in gameplay, being less tied to waiting for cooldowns. The possibility of doing double Stormstrikes adds some nice frequent mini burst capabilities, which is nice.


2) Leveling perk: Improved Lava Lash: => Your Flame Shock ticks have a 15% chance (t16 is 5%) to reset the cooldown of your next Lava Lash. Furthermore, Searing Flames was removed, the damage was merged into LL baseline (yay)
They mentioned long ago that this tier bonus could make its way into WoD and they kept their "promise". The chance is three times as high as before also. Having this proc right after LL usage, in combination with EotE, can allow for long LL/SS chains, emphasising the melee aspect of enhance much more.

3) Leveling perk: Improved Maeltrom Weapons: => Your Maelstrom Weapon charges now also increase the damage dealt by spells used on by 20% each.
Assuming blizz doesn't nerf LB/CL/EB damage down in their number pass to keep it the same, enh can expect msw to raise (even more) in significance come WoD, as well as haste as a stat, to get it. MSW was the only "fluid" aspect of our prio, not tied to a cooldown. For it to gain significance meens becoming more fluid will gain significance, which imo, is nice, esp coupled with 1) and 2) as additional fluid additions.

4) Ascendence change/nerf: => Stormblast changed to Windstrike. It will continue to ignore damage, but remain physical damage, as with the auto hits during ascendence, and no longer benefit from mastery.
This is probably (in combination with sustained prio changes) to tip us more from a burst dps monster into a slightly less bursty, but more sustained dps, which I am fine with. Being overly dependent on a dmg cooldown in pvp makes it all the more hurtful to not get a kill while it's up.

5) Imbues and Lightning Shield are made passive:
=> Not much to add, it's mainly a QoL change, but a nice one nontheless. No longer having to maintain long duration cds is definately a plus, and takes the bad thought out concept of imbue switching in pvp out of the picture. No longer having to decide between FT and FB is also good. UE/UF effects are now automatically chosen, mh attacks will always proc wf, oh ones ft. Considering 7), I'd hope for FB to be our oh imbue, allowing us the UF:FB sprint on top of the UE perk one, adding up to 80% speed for 4 seconds every <15 seconds (flurry will greatly reduce this cooldown, probably below 10s even, with great gear/socketing).

6) Static Shock gone: => replaced by increased SS damage while LS is up...
...which is pretty dumb, considering LS lasts forever come WoD anyway, might as well bake it into SS...LS is made pretty useless now. This is extended upon on UF:WF, which, instead of allowing LS to actually contribute to damage, no provides a lame MS buff (please change that back!!!)

7) Earth Shock made ele only, Frost Shock to take it's place:
This is a rather new announcement, and we haven't yet heard about it (FrS) getting a buff yet, as it is weaker than ES and not benefitting from SS debuff (might get swallowed by the numbers pass). With ES no longer providing the Weakened Blows effect, it became useless in enh pvp anyway. Likely problems with this change: Snaring/Rooting as part of the single target prio will DR the snare/root, which would be esp problematic in pvp, where it is required for gap closing (do snares DR, btw? I am not sure tbh). Having to hold damage back for utility brings us back to old Earth Shock times, which weren't very exciting. The good part is that we'll finally be using more frost spells, esp in pve. Having FB as our passive oh imbue would fit in nicely with that, making the FrS-snare not as important, allowing more mobility with the UF effect on top of adding additional frost flavor.

8) ST/MT are kept as they are and are getting dmg buffs (probably to keep up with other stuff getting stronger also):
Kinda lame, as long duration aoe is rather useless, and both are boring in pve useage. In pvp, SF made ST kinda important to have around, and all the more punishing when outranged/destroyed. With SF gone, there'll be hardly any point in using this in pvp, even less so for pvp. Blizz justifies this with requiring these totems to keep the platform of frequent totem usage around. Imo, a bad justification for keeping rotten luggage around. Especially when you consider...:

9) Offhealing nerfs and totem removals:
HST changed from a smart to a random heal will make it less attractive in pvp, and maybe not worth the gcd in pve.
HTT made resto specific, no longer avaiable. Another of our most useful raiding totems, gone.
EET was bad in having to use it for min/max. With the 90% nerf to it's damage, it probably will no longer be around in pve, reducing totem usage there.
Storm Lash Totem removed. And yet another raiding tool taken care of.

So as enh it'll probably will come down to fire totems and (in very rare ocassions) stuff like Grounding, Tremor, Capacitor and Earthbind. Kind of hypocritical to lessen totem usage through removing interesting totems, and keeping the boring ones around because you need totem usage...

Further healing nerf to AG (down to 20% of damage/healing is copied), and CH is made Resto specific also. With HS no longer affecting HR, enh offhealing aid in raids will consist of (if at all) nerfed AG and Feral Spirits, coupled with msw Healing Surges. I fear a severe drop in enh survivability in pvp, but hope for the best. To "buff" selfhealing, they...

10) Healing Storm glyph made baseline:
Nice change, many screamed for it for years, good that it's finally here. Shame that it was accompanied with many healing nerfs to enh and cloaked as a selfhealing buff by blizz, (since most already used it, it's not a buff to selfheal, but having an extra glyph slot avaiable). Still nice to have some more glyphing customisation options now. If only they added the LS glyph baseline now also. With LS becoming unavaiable to resto, it would be w/o need of additional balancing either, esp considering the selfheal nerf and additional need for survivability for ele/enh.

11) Flurry change: Haste on gear will now reduce the cooldown of our shocks, FN, SS, LL and UE, as well as our gcd.
As with the ES removal, this is rather new. As such, we dont know wether or not this will replace both the speed AND stat scaling increases, or just one of them.
My money is on us keeping the attack speed bonus, and having additional scaling with haste rating replaced by the new effect.
(edit: seems the attack speed will be gone as well)
This seems esp relevant with 12), enhance's spec specific 2ndary stat 5% extra being haste, basically including that extra scaling. Awesome change, speeds up enhance's gameplay significantly, esp in combination with the "+fluid gameplay" changes.

12) Every spec gets 5% extra benefit on a spec specific 2ndary stat. Enhance gets haste
With the change to flurry, FS (haste benefitted) ticks refreshing LL, stronger (perk) msw casts that can also proc EotE (if specced) and proc more often through haste, it is only obvious that haste would become our most important stat, esp in combination with the Ascendence change nerfing mastery and Static Shock being gone come WoD.

13) Hex no longer affected by MSW/AS:
Bad one, esp in combination with increased cast time. I still cant wrap around my head on these changes, esp with Bind Elemental gone. I know CC is taking across the board nerfes, but enh(shaman) was already behind in cc. I really hope they're making hex instant for enh at least, and lower the cd for at least ele. No problem in pve, but definately sucky in pvp .

14) UE/F will no longer deal direct damage in any way. It is now a 100% raw buff spell.
Imo they should remove it. Safe for having the FB sprint on it, I see nothing exciting about some attack speed (could be merged into Flurry, fire damage mod into FS/EB) or extra LB damage or Multistrike.

15) LB no longer castable on the move/SWG ele/resto specific.
Not much of an enh issue, esp considering that msw hardcasting will considerably lose in relevance, apparently. MSW no longer usable for utility will naturally increase the usage for selfhealing (esp with overall selfheal nerfs) and LB/EB (esp with msw perk) in pvp.

16) Enh in dire need of better pvp mobility:
With our short duration high uptime + damage ability (Ascendence) being nerfed and our sustained buffed, FB removed/requiring a glyph (UF:FB sprint replaced by weaker version), enh will be much more uptime dependent than even now. Double EotE SSes, imp LL LLes, no movement <5MSW LB/EBs, FrS being used for damage/DRing it's own snare/root when not needed, enh will definately need improvements for pvp mobility, esp when considering we need it for msw for selfhealing (which got severely nerfed). Our generated pressure on enemies as well as survviability will greatly rely and ride on getting better here.

17) Many talents in general will be interfering with each other in pvp, due to totem design. SET's shared lockout with two other elemental totems, esp annoying with PE, will be an issue, but also (PE)SET or PE EET locking out other wind/earth totems will be very bad. Basically if you take SBT, PE, SET and WWT, you'll be forced to gimp your own utility or take Totemic Persistance, no option. The totem tier needs to be replaced with a mobility one, and totems improved from the ground up. No changes/intends there though, afaics.

edit:

18) Internal WF icd gone: => Each strike reduced to 70% weapon damage (down from 100%), no longer gains extra attackpower per extra strike (synergy with UF:WF's multistrike)
Will be more interesting for haste stacking for sure, and msw will stack faster also, speeding gameplay up even further. Nice change imo.

19) T17 bonuses:

Item - Shaman T17 Enhancement 2P Bonus Windfury Weapon now deals 2 extra attacks.
Item - Shaman T17 Enhancement 4P Bonus Stormstrike reduces the cooldown of Feral Spirit by 5 sec.

Look pretty cool, imo.

Conclusion: Lots of interesting changes on how we deal our damage (new flurry, wf icd, LL perk, new EotE, etc), some meh developments like Stormblast's new visuals (Windstrike) looking boring and not benefitting from mastery, or them keeping ST/MT, but overall I've never seen more work on enh dps prio. Very pumped on this.

In term of pvp though...very sceptical.
-We still severely lack in terms of mobility
-CC nerfs hit us very hard, unjustified as were already very weak there (CPT, Hex...)
-(Self)heal nerfs will affect our survivability, hopefully we'll be fine...
-Totems are still outdated. Looking at how other's utility ends up under the nerf/removal-wheels though, it's basically wait and see (Spell Reflect and other warrior abilities requiring stances again, for example). I'm kinda upset that enh/ele are down to nerfed hst as the only water totem. They should get rid of the "1 totem/element" restriction at least, and replace totemic persistance with something better (maybe bring back old Totemic Restoration? That looked fun to use, imo)

So basically happy with pve changes, still waiting for pvp ones (so basically as always )

Dunno if I missed something.

[Schizoide]

Dunno if I missed something.

Seemed pretty comprehensive to me!

[Grimbold21]

It's alpha not even Beta WAY too early to even remotely get a feeling for how well a class will perform. Even if someone did sit down and calculate each class literally the next day all their hard work could be thrown out the window.

Look on the bright side...the test dummies supposedly were put in with this recent alpha build :P