Lost the love for Enhancement now

[Daffan]

While they were not "bad" in design, they sure were outdated as hell. The whole totem mechanic in itself never recieved a lot of love designwise over the last 6 years or so.
I personally miss some utility (Grounding & Tremor probably the most), but I sure as hell wont miss totems as a whole, as they were mostly REALLY clunky (hello there Capacitor Totem) or just not worth using at all (Earth Elemental Totem comes into mind, which is actually still a thing for elementals)... especially Searing and Magma Totem, which both were subpar AoE/ST wannabe-dots and never felt like "fun" to use at all.

magma totem with the lava talent and fire nova was really fun

searing was lame as i said

grounding and tremor was cool because it was a group effect, killable but also timeable

cap totem only sucked due to the talent requirement of moving it and the glyph requirement of making it 3sec instead of 5.

[Deleted]

Difficulty is not something to avoid, but you don't seem to realize that some of these fights simply won't go down in progress ilvl without optimizing setup for it. We're not talking 20 rings and +20 ilvls here. And it's never been different.

We are talking about "the race" here, because that is what a "progress guild" is by definition.

There is a large majority out there that does not play that way, and that is a different discussion.
Even for them, having DKs for Xhul and Mannoroth, as well as Rogues for soaking, for example, is a huge, huge asset. Some encounters were simply tailored to specific class strengths. I would even argue that the lower the general ability of a raid, the more important having the right specs becomes. Good luck beating such fights with underperforming DPS or a suboptimal healing setup without even having the specs that make them more doable.

Elemental was not "perfectly fine" in progress, it was barely usable at all for almost any fight.
Enhancement was alright, but not amazing, while UH and rogues performed better/equally but with far, far better utility that made the fight manageable. What do you think a smart raid group will do?

I must also address your last sentence: we are talking about progress in Mythic here. It is not a question of who kills faster. It is a question of who kills at all. Do you even realize how tight and close first kills usually are?

This. And it was often the enhancer who offered low utility and low dps. E.g. council enhance was the worst dps AND had no execute for those important sub 30% phases. They made an analysis and wanted only 3 melees max and classes that can have execute abilities for that sub 30% phase. Not to mention those powerful massgrips and soaks.

And additionally rogues were 10 to 30% stronger dps. That was not fair at all.

[miffy23]

This. And it was often the enhancer who offered low utility and low dps. E.g. council enhance was the worst dps AND had no execute for those important sub 30% phases. They made an analysis and wanted only 3 melees max and classes that can have execute abilities for that sub 30% phase. Not to mention those powerful massgrips and soaks.

And additionally rogues were 10 to 30% stronger dps. That was not fair at all.

My post was more to illustrate the misconceptions Lucrece has about what is being talked about.

Your side isn't very balanced either. You repeatedly argue that Enh is "in a bad spot" simply because it wasn't taken for every fight in HFC, or Tiers before that. Yet it did have its niche in HFC and excelled on some fights, and went to very competitive DPS levels as the Tier wore on.

I'm one of those that would argue that it's alright for every spec to have weak spots and be preferred for certain fights while neglected for others. It's in the nature of the very mechanics of class and encounter design in the game. If you try to water it down to the point where it doesn't matter which specs you bring, you might as well abandon classes as a whole.

If you play in a competitive environment, as you say, you should have no problem playing multiple characters/specs and bringing what is most beneficial to the raid on any given fight.

It's true that some specs had unfair advantages, rogues and mages being the frontrunners for those positions, always.
But that's about it. Everyone else deals with the same issues of being great for some fights and less preferable for others.

[Krothar]

I'm enjoying the new Enhancement Shaman, though I always enjoyed it most during WoTLK and Cataclysm when you almost always had something to press. I started to dislike it in Mists because of the downtime' (Though I didn't raid much in MoP, so perhaps it improved with better gear)

So getting back to that "Almost always got something to press" playstyle is pretty exciting for me. Enhance may once again become my main.

[Aori]

I'm enjoying the new Enhancement Shaman, though I always enjoyed it most during WoTLK and Cataclysm when you almost always had something to press. I started to dislike it in Mists because of the downtime' (Though I didn't raid much in MoP, so perhaps it improved with better gear)

So getting back to that "Almost always got something to press" playstyle is pretty exciting for me. Enhance may once again become my main.

I thought Enhance felt best during Cataclysm. It just seemed to flow really well and didn't feel like any of the other classes.

- - - Updated - - -

Because you're obviously talking out of your ass. You clearly didn't spend more than 5 minutes with it and proceeded to telling the world how butthurt you are instead.

Why are you so angry? If I think the specs animations are boring and it plays like a Warrior that is my opinion. I don't think I'm alone in that opinion judging from the official forums.

[Pull My Finger]

I don't think I'm alone in that opinion judging from the official forums.

Bunch of totally clueless folks out there.

[miffy23]

I'll have to agree, the spec has very little to do with Warriors and feels nicely unique.
If "having a resource to build and spend" is too similar, then all specs with resources are too similar to Warriors.

[Murderdoll]

Yeah, this is what they get for listening to the "DERP TOETEMZ ARE OUTDAYDED BREHY". Totems were a thing unique to only shamans.

They were outdated. Theres no dancing around the fact that they had not been brought in line with other tools.

Unique DOES NOT equal good and they werent even unique anymore anyway.

Did they need to be removed? No, they needed to be updated. Projection needed to be baseline, the range needed to be increased for buffs, the health needed to be addressed/ease of killing them, the fact we were using two-three gcds and having to spec into and gylph into things that made them even usable was a major issue.

Blizzard tends to go either one extreme or the other though and they went for one extreme this expansion and just scrapped almost everyones utility and gutted the totems.

Am I upset though? Not really, lets be honest with ourselves. Totems are one of those rose tinted glasses things. We will miss the imagery. But in reality, they provided a token damage source and a crutch for burst dps. Some of the other totems are still there. Im happy theyre essentially utility now.

If youre only concerned about the imagery, lets move it onto something else. I am happy that Elemental has the FET, Shaman can have emphasis on the Wolves.

[rayden54]

Whether or not it's an objectively good change is sort of irrelevant. It is fundamentally a different class now. So the enhance that I liked playing for years is now gone. I might grow to like it after time, but it's still not my old shaman.

I get this.

It seems every time I find a spec I really like, Blizzard goes "REVAMP!" Had that happen to my poor DK.

[wordup]

I'm enjoying the new Enhancement Shaman, though I always enjoyed it most during WoTLK and Cataclysm when you almost always had something to press. I started to dislike it in Mists because of the downtime' (Though I didn't raid much in MoP, so perhaps it improved with better gear)

So getting back to that "Almost always got something to press" playstyle is pretty exciting for me. Enhance may once again become my main.

I'm struggling on this one, because I remember, clear as day, the complaints that Enhancement had downtime in Cataclysm (which it very much did) in comparison to Wrath. Wrath was 100% GCD locked and had a priority system of refresh and buff management alongside low prio fillers, Cataclysm had a lack of filler spells that caused there to be delay in GCDs very frequently.

[tanksin the enhance shamy]

i find that if you want to play a fast spec enhance you are gimped pretty hard by the builders being the only thing you can spam, just feels weak when the main ability (rockbiter) hits like a tissue, mind you this is in pvp on live not beta or pve in those regards im fine with it but without wolves or other cds building up maelstrom feels kinda slow, they should make rockbiter also gain the range buff from ascendence so we can actually use stormstrike when its up

[powahgg]

new shaman rotation feels really clunky hopefully it gets bettter when we get doomhammer

[Murderdoll]

I'm struggling on this one, because I remember, clear as day, the complaints that Enhancement had downtime in Cataclysm (which it very much did) in comparison to Wrath. Wrath was 100% GCD locked and had a priority system of refresh and buff management alongside low prio fillers, Cataclysm had a lack of filler spells that caused there to be delay in GCDs very frequently.

Not only that but we also had no burst so a lot of us were benched for Heroic DS (no great loss there I spose in hindsight) and we were interupt bots for T11.

I certainly have a very low opinion of Enhance during Cata.

[Levisaurus]

I'm quitting my warrior after 8 years to play enh in legion, imho it flows and feels great, also wind rush totem is insane, especially because it's a targeted ability.

[Deleted]

new shaman rotation feels really clunky hopefully it gets bettter when we get doomhammer

What is so incredibly clunky about it?

I don't share your opinion, the Boulderspec playstyle is smooth, so I'm wondering what I'm missing ;-)

[Xanda]

Not only that but we also had no burst so a lot of us were benched for Heroic DS (no great loss there I spose in hindsight) and we were interupt bots for T11.

I certainly have a very low opinion of Enhance during Cata.

And basically no Aoe unti Dragon soul

[Deafyx]

Currently mained a Sub Rogue for all of HFC while playing a main alt Feral because I love the playstyles of both specs before prepatch hit. Assuming I continue playing in Legion, I plan to move over to an Enhance Shaman as my main. Their rotation and gameplay style is what I love the most about them.

[Lavindar]

Not only that but we also had no burst so a lot of us were benched for Heroic DS (no great loss there I spose in hindsight) and we were interupt bots for T11.

I certainly have a very low opinion of Enhance during Cata.

That feeling of being worthless in Spine when people called burst in the tentacles :|

[Lavindar]

It'll get a lot better with Doom Winds Artifact CD (increased damage and Maelstrom Generation) and other Doomhammer traits such as Doom Wolves and Alpha Wolf which have great synergy with Feral Spirits and Crash Lightning. If only we had a way to have Feral Spirits up more often.

There is a legendary that will make their cooldown be faster while in Ghost Wolf, doubt it would be good for raiding, but could be pretty handy in world content.

[wordup]

There is a legendary that will make their cooldown be faster while in Ghost Wolf, doubt it would be good for raiding, but could be pretty handy in world content.

It's pretty great for dungeon content sitting in GW between packs or in downtime when you're moving, but you won't be actively sitting in GW to get them back.