[Enhancement] Future Legion Resources

[-aiko-]

how about my first question, how often do you have a free GCD on 110 with boulderfist?

Currently the entire playstyle revolves around pooling maelstrom so there is a lot of downtime. However, as we get further into the expansion and get more and more mastery we will be able to squeeze in more LLs.

[Imnick]

No, Boulderfist competes with the other T15 talents, not with Rockbiter alone.

I would assume by "Rockbiter build" they did not mean "Boulderfist and Rockbiter should be tuned to be equal" but "Boulderfist and builds that use Rockbiter (IE: those that picked either other talent) should be tuned to be equal" :P

[Deleted]

Thanks a lot for the answers, Hekili!

No, Boulderfist competes with the other T15 talents, not with Rockbiter alone.

By "Rockbiter builds" I meant Hot Hands/Windsong builds, but these still show as 15% ahead of BF in Wordup's spreadsheet...

That's the only issue I have with Boulderfist at this point. With even a little bit of haste, it recharges so quickly that you're about to cap BF charges before you've actually done anything.

So you are saying that when we start getting haste, there is not that much of downtime?

- - - Updated - - -

Currently the entire playstyle revolves around pooling maelstrom so there is a lot of downtime. However, as we get further into the expansion and get more and more mastery we will be able to squeeze in more LLs.

That is sad to hear :/ But I stilk hope thay will bring the t15 row in line...pooling is good mechanic, as are free GCDs, but at least for me it gets annoying when there is a lot of downtime - no fun in just looking at my char autoattacking a boss... I mean, everyone can change their own playstyle, but 15% dps isn't something you can ignore if you are at least half-serious about the game

[Christhammer]

Can't stand the Rockbiter spam anymore so switched to Boulderfist. Yes, it has some downtime but my main focus now is to get some more haste gear. Focused on mastery before but haste is definitely needed with Boulderfist. The 700 haste ring enchants helped. Also, i'm using Hailstorm instead of Ancestral Swiftness. AS would give me 10% haste but the damage from Hailstorm is too good to give up.

[Mhyroth]

Thanks @wordup that picture looks so juicy.

[ufta]

I'm assuming that most/all of you guys are basing your findings on lvl 110 performance on beta.
I have no beta access but have been playing quite a bit of enhance on the PTR.
Obviously I have no artifact, but I do have end-of-expansion level gear, so there likely are some parallels that can be drawn from my PTR performance at lvl 100 in current gear, and what eventual 110-level enhance will look like with end-of-expansion tier gear.

On PTR at 100 I'm currently sitting at 30% haste and 50% mastery (and also 30% crit) in ilvl 708 gear. The flow feels very good to me with Boulderfist, and I am drawn to high APM specs. There is an occasional breather in the rotation, but not overly often, and it definitely doesn't feel "slow". It feels very bursty.
I did some dummy testing last night to try out the buffed Windsong, and had some parses where that build was giving me basically identical output as with BF....but holy jeez after about 10 minutes of spamming Rockbiter my hand felt like I needed to go to carpal tunnel therapy.

[Hekili]

I have a feeling that a lot of the "BF has too much downtime folks" are either repeating what they heard back when the Maelstrom nerfs hit and/or haven't done much testing since we got Maelstrom back from WF.

I don't feel like I have too little to do, at all. With BF or without it.

[BiggestNoob]

Those logs

The second Shaman's skill priority?! Looks like hes playing enhance for the first time and is still topping meters, dear god we're doomed and destined for nerfs. Was this your guild or a PUG? Even the Spriests are miles apart with what looks like bad dot uptime for the 2nd one.

There's possible downtime for melee in that fight. The only time I got picked by the mechanic was near the end so I just didn't move with it (weren't going to have another P2 so it was pointless to try and get it into a good position). It seems to hurt melee DPS the most, and so some people will have big dips in DPS. I got 26 SB procs and she only got 10, and considering I was able to spend basically all of them, that's basically all of the SS difference. It's a guild run but most people in there haven't been playing beta at all and so either don't have an artifact or have an artifact with no traits unlocked and don't have practice with their rotations at all. Mainly the people at the top have been playing and the people at the bottom haven't.

But yeah, Shaman does a lot of DPS, even with bad SB RNG, so we're definitely gonna get nerfed, probably across the board.

[Zirhark]

I have a feeling that a lot of the "BF has too much downtime folks" are either repeating what they heard back when the Maelstrom nerfs hit and/or haven't done much testing since we got Maelstrom back from WF.

I don't feel like I have too little to do, at all. With BF or without it.

I can back this claim up, I have beta access and have been doing some testing after the changes. The only time I feel BF is too slow is if I take 3 or more MP costing talents. Even with fury of air going I can keep my APM up to a decent level. Of course there is the occasional breather, and if tempest proc's back to back to back you'll run out but BF doesn't take long to come back.

My note is that I am not yet testing in raids or anything this is all just in dungeons and questing.

[Throdin]

So there's been a decent amount of rumbling concerning Enhancement survivability. On the other hand many expect nerfs to come our way to tone down our damage.

How likely would it be that Blizzard's vision for the spec at this point is to allow Enhancement the capacity for top end damage, but the skill cap is determined by how many healing surges you have to use to correct your boss mechanic failures.

Since WotLK, Enhancement has always been a pretty high skill cap spec. Requiring at lot more input and forward thinking than most melee specs, which makes executing boss mechanics at the same time all the more difficult.

The idea of top end output potential, but if you mess up your damage takes the hit really appeals to me and reignites that competitive side that I've always really enjoyed about the spec. Any one else getting this impression or are nerfs inevitable?

[Lavindar]

So there's been a decent amount of rumbling concerning Enhancement survivability. On the other hand many expect nerfs to come our way to tone down our damage.

How likely would it be that Blizzard's vision for the spec at this point is to allow Enhancement the capacity for top end damage, but the skill cap is determined by how many healing surges you have to use to correct your boss mechanic failures.

Since WotLK, Enhancement has always been a pretty high skill cap spec. Requiring at lot more input and forward thinking than most melee specs, which makes executing boss mechanics at the same time all the more difficult.

The idea of top end output potential, but if you mess up your damage takes the hit really appeals to me and reignites that competitive side that I've always really enjoyed about the spec. Any one else getting this impression or are nerfs inevitable?

That kinda of balance don't really work when you have dedicated healers roles.

[Imnick]

Blizzard seem to have tried to juggle Mobility, Defensiveness, and Healing with classes this time around, so that nobody gets all of them.
DKs have a lot of defensives and some healing but very little mobility, Paladins have a sort of similar balance.
Demon Hunters have almost nothing in terms of defensive abilities but have very high mobility and a little bit of healing.
IDK about Rogues I don't care very much about that class so I haven't read into them :P

Enhancement Shamans seem to be in the boat of having above average mobility, above average healing, and few defences.
On the scale of "who gets the most out of this" they're probably on the lower end, but not enormously so?

[nazrakin]

I can back this claim up, I have beta access and have been doing some testing after the changes. The only time I feel BF is too slow is if I take 3 or more MP costing talents. Even with fury of air going I can keep my APM up to a decent level. Of course there is the occasional breather, and if tempest proc's back to back to back you'll run out but BF doesn't take long to come back.

My note is that I am not yet testing in raids or anything this is all just in dungeons and questing.

Yeah, I think malestrom gen feels great now with both BF and RB for ST. Still not sure how I feel about it during AE, though Ive not had much time to mess around with it.

[-aiko-]

Yeah I really need to get off my lazy ass and start doing real dungeons/raids. Training dummies are nice but I really don't have a clue when it comes to the fine details like AoE and how things feel in real-time situations.

[Hatexon]

So which playstyle should I get used to? BF or Rockbiter? I am finally after 10 years getting the option to play DPS (coming from holy paladin) and I chose enhancement shaman and have been playing BF on beta. It has been okay and I am used to the play style but if it is not as good as the other two I should switch to get used to them.

[Imnick]

Let's be real here. The shifting of balance tweaks, gear, trinkets, legendaries, relics, and so on and so forth as the expansion evolves mean that at some point in the expansion Boulderfist is going to be king, and at some other point it isn't.
You should get used to playing both :P

[Hatexon]

I'm talking about right now, not at 'some point'. Once I get used to playing enhancement in general I am sure I can play both.

[Hivey]

I'm talking about right now, not at 'some point'. Once I get used to playing enhancement in general I am sure I can play both.

Impossible when every patch changes things.

[Imnick]

I'm talking about right now, not at 'some point'. Once I get used to playing enhancement in general I am sure I can play both.

Unless you want to be competitive in the beta only, there's no point asking about right now, because the beta/ptr balance isn't going to be the same as live balance.
I'm pretty sure they've even said that they aren't done with Shamans, that they needed to tune Maelstrom first and now are going to have another pass at the numbers.

[Ranmauri]

In other words: learn how to play the one that appeals to you more for now, then start practicing on the other style a bit for when the final balancing is complete.