Blue Post: Enhance Shaman Direction

[Slappyjoe]

The big difference is that Fulmination isn't worth casting unless Lightning Shield stacks up to a certain number of stacks, whereas Lava Lash IS worth casting at less than 5 stacks. Not optimal, but better than not using it at all. That's how priority works. Same reason Elemental started off casting Fulmination at 7+ stacks; it was worth more DPS to us to use it before it stacked fully, for various reasons.

I think a lot of Enhancement get too focused on Searing Flames and having to cap it out before using Lava Lash, rather than establishing how the charges adjust its priority.

I think his comparison is more for the fact that regardless of which target you're on, fulmination charges still stack. This isn't the case with ST, which added to how much more quickly lightning shield charges stack compared to Searing Flames, gives Enhancement much less on-demand burst than Elemental when you have to switch targets.

[Endus]

Oh come on, you're just trying not to admit it. EQ is situational at best and not really rotational, you get one before the adds spawn and don't bother anymore. Magma too is just an opening gcd since it lasts 1 min. But hey, arcane mages have been AB'ing forever and I'm fine with that.

Admit what?

EQ is a core part of Elemental's AoE. If you're not using it on stacked AoE fights like Yor'sahj, you're doing it wrong.

In pve endgame it's decent. In fights like yor'sahj I'd rather not have it, but for questing and 5-mans (and probably scenarios too) it's just the worst nuisance imaginable to man.

Which applies to basically every other AoE in the game. You can't just exclude the majority of circumstances where you'd use AoE and say "our AoE has no uses".

I think they're kind of tackling each class at a time. Warrior thread had a lot of responses and views and we didn't hear from them until yesterday. I'm sure they'll get to shamans.

Well, they're probably working on each class at the same time, it's just that when they choose to respond in a blue post (as most of those have been a response to someone's thread, not a blue announcement post), they give the current state of development for that class. A lot of the stuff that's being announced in those threads are "we know it's an issue, we'll tune it later" or "we want it to work like X, if it isn't we'll get back to that" or the like. The same kind of stuff they'd likely say to Shaman if they responded to one of ours as well.

We can't even hit level 90 and test the final tier of talents yet. Seriously, this is still VERY early beta. We have to hit 90, and THEN we get to start running heroic dungeons and raids, and after a month or two of THAT plus the commensurate tweaks, THEN we'll be preparing for launch. It's months away. And they're pushing a beta build once a week or more. Acting as if anything we currently have is 100% going live is pointless; this is the time for constructive thoughtful feedback, not "the world is ending, Blizz hates us" QQ.

I think his comparison is more for the fact that regardless of which target you're on, fulmination charges still stack. This isn't the case with ST, which added to how much more quickly lightning shield charges stack compared to Searing Flames, gives Enhancement much less on-demand burst than Elemental when you have to switch targets.

And my point was that Fulmination needs 7+ extra LS charges to be worth casting, while Lava Lash is worth casting even with zero. Lava Lash with zero stacks isn't comparable to Fulmination with 3 LS stacks, it's comparable to Fulmination with 7 LS stacks. Elemental casts it at 7+ because waiting for full stacks is, for us, a DPS loss. I'm not saying that translates directly to Enhancement, since there's a bunch of mechanics that don't apply, but the point is that a Lava Lash with no stacks is going to be better than doing nothing. By the time you get to 5 stacks, LL will be back up. Where LL is based on the number of stacks SHOULD be a part of the Enhancement priority you're considering.

The point was that Fulmination is often used without stacking to full. You need to consider damage done within a given time frame, not damage per ability use.

[Satori]

Admit what?
EQ is a core part of Elemental's AoE. If you're not using it on stacked AoE fights like Yor'sahj, you're doing it wrong.

That elemental is a 1 button rotation. Underlined rotation because precast earthquake and dropping magma totem isn't included in a rotation. If you get black+yellow you're not using EQ again.

Which applies to basically every other AoE in the game. You can't just exclude the majority of circumstances where you'd use AoE and say "our AoE has no uses".

I was refering to Searing Totem. I checked back to see if I worded it poorly, but you misunderstood my statement.

And just to be clear, I'm fine with Enh's AoE rotation, aside of the weird 4 sec cd of FN, but I can live with it. The only thing that bugs me to death is indeed searing totem.

[TheThirdTry]

I agree, these are valid concerns and mainly mechanics issues not just pure damage tweaks and have not really been addressed at all. I would add "haste and mw5" to that list as well. I have made a few suggestions for these issues in another thread that I posted on the official forums but hasn't caught attention yet unfortunately. If you can post on US beta forum, please support my thread! http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4837664151


1. Having to work a little for AOE is fine, I don't mind some setup. But requiring LL makes it too limiting since it's on a 10 sec cd. Making it based off FN makes alot more sense.
2. SF is a debuff on the enemy, so no amount of planning will allow you to use this smartly. If it was a buff like fulmination is, you could work on gaining stacks but hold off on using LL until you switch targets for full damage.
3. Yea, we do have some cd's. Feral Spirits still needs to be buffed though, its been gimped alot each xpac. Some short cd way to get quick burst would be good too like wordup's suggestion for instant 5SF.
4. Totem has many problems, specifically tied to SF. No class has so little control over their main burst mechanic as we do with SF. This has been discussed to death tho so not gonna retype it here lol.

2. I would love more control over searing flames, but I don't think blizz is gonna' do away with the searing totem-searing flames mechanic, unfontunately. Maybe they could implement a glyph for players that want more control over it like:

Glyph of searing totem - Your searing totem now attacks all targets within a 40 yd range, simutaneously, but the damage is now distributed evenly among the enemy players This will stack the searing flames debuff on all enemys at once while sacrificing damage.

Regarding MSW being a low priority, I think it is fine the way it is, but it's just a little underwhelming. MSW should just be buffed to make it so it buffs your next nature attack by 20% stacking up to 5 times.
When you deal damage with a melee weapon, you have a chance to reduce the cast time, mana cost, and increase the damage of your next Nature spell with a base cast time shorter than 10 seconds by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec.

LB would now be high priority plus it would buff feral sprit since it is a nature spell with cast time less than 10 sec. If they buffed it accordingly we could potentially have great on demand burst and the good thing about that is you could save pool all SF5-LL, SS, MW5 LB for some big dmg. This would also make stacking haste for more MW stacks more attractive making Tier 6 : ELm mas, Ans Swif, and EotE all benefit MW in differnet ways:

Elem Mastery: Haste CD - burst MW charges
Ancestral Swiftness: Passive Haste - More steady MW charges
Echo of the elements: Proc- Chance to proc double mw5 Lightning Bolts

I also like the way stormstrike is on a long-ish CD. I don't want to spam it like mutilate, but again it is a little underwhelming. It needs some new effects giving it a little more burst potential.

Stormstrike - Instantly strike an enemy with both weapons, dealing 200% weapon damage, turning your windfury procs into nature damage and granting you an additional 25% chance to critically strike that enemy with your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lightning Shield, Earth Shock spells for 15 sec.

[IronRabbit]

1> "I just want to press one button to top meters" is not really a valid complaint.
2> This boils down to player skill. You should know when you're switching and be ready for it. You should also understand your priority queue. Target swaps are an issue for most classes, especially a quick burn like the Bolt; you get classes like Warlocks who have to debate whether it's worth using their DoTs when they KNOW they won't get more than a tick or two out of them, and their DPS ends up being meh as a result. Enhancement doesn't need a magical target swap with no forethought ability.
3> Ascendance, Elemental Mastery, Fire Elemental Totem. I count two, possibly three DPS CDs.
4> In what way? The AI works just fine.

1) Let's move the straw man out of the way. I don't think anyone is calling for a one button meter-topper. The big problem with Enh AOE is it being tied to LL, which has a 12 second cooldown, and is out best single target ability. If we know that AOE is coming, we have the choice of either holding off on our best ability, or risk missing out on an AOE phase completely. I can't think of any other class offhand that is in the same situation. Rets have to choose between Crusader Strike and Divine Storm, but the CD is so short it ends up not mattering. A secondary problem is the slow rate of our AOE. FS->LL->FN takes some time, as many other posters have pointed out.

2) I'm in partial agreement, as most classes have at least some difficulty with target swaps. The mechanic is fine, but unwieldy. A better application of Searing stacks would be if they built on us, or even better on our weapon, rather than the target. Then the wonky totem AI would be no problem then.

3) Obviously, none of these are applicable right now, and none have been tested to see what their effect on Enh is going to be. My reckoning so far is that Ascendence will be a better CD for Ele than Enh (spam LvB vs. nature damage on melee and SS? I know which one at least sounds better), and Ascendence may not truly shine for Enh until we start getting a lot of mastery. It's certainly the type of burst CD that Enh is sorely lacking now, and I look forward to using it. As far as EM goes, we don't even know if we will take it. Haste is pretty well useless now, and I haven't seen much this far in the beta to indicate that it will stink less in Mists. Fire elemental is another unknown, as we don't use it now. Again, counting on it as a good cooldown is premature, but at least it's viable now.

4) I honestly don't understand why every time someone brings up the question of totem AI, the only response you give is, "It's fine!" Clearly, for some people, it is not. It's also a much bigger deal for Enh than Ele that the searing is active and hitting the right thing. Half the time, Ele doesn't even have ST up, and when it is up, most of what you need out of it is the buff. Enh needs Searing Flames, and it needs it on the right target. Clearly, some people have issues with the AI on these things, and simply dismissing those concerns is silly. Again, switching Searing Flames to a player-based buff would solve this.

[Protoman]

EQ is a core part of Elemental's AoE. If you're not using it on stacked AoE fights like Yor'sahj, you're doing it wrong.

Stuff like EQ and Magma are for sustained AOE on longer fights where adds last like 10+ sec. For both specs its worth it to drop there, but it's not their main form of AOE. For Ele it's CL, for Enh its FN+CL. The difference is that Ele can spam theirs with no restriction, while Enh can only achieve full potency every 10 sec cause it's tied to LL. This is why I think the "FLS spread" mechanic is best if tied to FN instead. Then it's limited to a 4 sec cd, which is similar to other aoe's.

And my point was that Fulmination needs 7+ extra LS charges to be worth casting, while Lava Lash is worth casting even with zero. Lava Lash with zero stacks isn't comparable to Fulmination with 3 LS stacks, it's comparable to Fulmination with 7 LS stacks. Elemental casts it at 7+ because waiting for full stacks is, for us, a DPS loss. I'm not saying that translates directly to Enhancement, since there's a bunch of mechanics that don't apply, but the point is that a Lava Lash with no stacks is going to be better than doing nothing. By the time you get to 5 stacks, LL will be back up. Where LL is based on the number of stacks SHOULD be a part of the Enhancement priority you're considering.

The point was that Fulmination is often used without stacking to full. You need to consider damage done within a given time frame, not damage per ability use.

Fulmination stacks give the same +dmg with each stack, while the stacks of SF are multiplicative. You can also hold onto your ES until you have enough stacks for it to be bursty, once you pass 7+ basically, and in the meantime just use filler casts of lb/lvb. Enhance does not have that choice, we have to use LL since it's an important ability in our rotation and we have no filler so lose a big chunk of dps if we try to save it for 5 SF.

Making SF a buff that stacks on the Shaman just like Fulm would go a LONG way to improving the mechanic and making it much easier to use. It would make the AI/targeting a non-issue, and also make target switches much easier to do.

Regarding MSW being a low priority, I think it is fine the way it is, but it's just a little underwhelming. MSW should just be buffed to make it so it buffs your next nature attack by 20% stacking up to 5 times.
When you deal damage with a melee weapon, you have a chance to reduce the cast time, mana cost, and increase the damage of your next Nature spell with a base cast time shorter than 10 seconds by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec.

LB would now be high priority plus it would buff feral sprit since it is a nature spell with cast time less than 10 sec. If they buffed it accordingly we could potentially have great on demand burst and the good thing about that is you could save pool all SF5-LL, SS, MW5 LB for some big dmg. This would also make stacking haste for more MW stacks more attractive making Tier 6 : ELm mas, Ans Swif, and EotE all benefit MW in differnet ways:

Elem Mastery: Haste CD - burst MW charges
Ancestral Swiftness: Passive Haste - More steady MW charges
Echo of the elements: Proc- Chance to proc double mw5 Lightning Bolts

The problem with buffing nature damage or LB damage is that it will gimp you in PVP where you might use MW5 for heals or hex. I'm also hesitant about giving too much damage to just LB, would rather see MW5 buff our melee strikes somehow so that we don't feel dependent on passive damage/spells too much. Being a low priority is def not OK, this is our signature proc and procs such as these should be used right away. They should feel powerful and make you want to use asap to get more of it's benefit. They also help make the rotation more interesting, and give a noticeable effect when you are under Blust and get alot more MW5 procs.

Using my suggestion to allow 3 full MW5 consumptions to let you use SS twice in succession would really help enforce the idea of "haste lets you do more of your abilities". It would give us a way to get around our set cd's. And it would make all forms of haste more noticeable and influential.....everything from 5% haste to 30%.

I also like the way stormstrike is on a long-ish CD. I don't want to spam it like mutilate, but again it is a little underwhelming. It needs some new effects giving it a little more burst potential.

Stormstrike - Instantly strike an enemy with both weapons, dealing 200% weapon damage, turning your windfury procs into nature damage and granting you an additional 25% chance to critically strike that enemy with your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lightning Shield, Earth Shock spells for 15 sec.

I agree the longer cd works to keep our rotation from being too clogged. If MW5 becomes top priority it prob won't be a big issue. But having haste reduce it's cd would be a very easy and noticeable way to use abilities more often. Could make it 1s reduction every 30%......that way during BL you would have 7s SS instead of 8s, and instead of fitting 4 SS within 30s you could fit in 5.

Having SS proc WF w/ nature damage would be pretty cool, that could alternatively work for ULE WF or ULF WF. My one main issue with having WF as nature damage though is its one of our few sources of physical damage left along with SS. This would make way too much of our overall damage influenced by Mastery which I think Blizz wants to avoid. We already have FT that gets buffed by mastery, so WF as physical seems fine to me.....it will be nature during Ascendance though.

[Slappyjoe]

And my point was that Fulmination needs 7+ extra LS charges to be worth casting, while Lava Lash is worth casting even with zero. Lava Lash with zero stacks isn't comparable to Fulmination with 3 LS stacks, it's comparable to Fulmination with 7 LS stacks. Elemental casts it at 7+ because waiting for full stacks is, for us, a DPS loss. I'm not saying that translates directly to Enhancement, since there's a bunch of mechanics that don't apply, but the point is that a Lava Lash with no stacks is going to be better than doing nothing. By the time you get to 5 stacks, LL will be back up. Where LL is based on the number of stacks SHOULD be a part of the Enhancement priority you're considering.

The point was that Fulmination is often used without stacking to full. You need to consider damage done within a given time frame, not damage per ability use.

Yeah, the damage done within a given time frame is exactly the issue. I think we're all fully aware LL + 0 SF is still worth using over waiting for SF to stack again, but that's completely beside the point. The main issue in the post that brought up how the LL/SF mechanic affects target-switching was that when Enhance changes targets, they have no choice but to deal with no SF stacks and their burst damage is affected because of that. Elemental at least has a choice with Fulmination because of how quickly you can build LS charges back up to 7 and the fact that you can save any charges you already have if you know a target switch is coming up. The longer ramp-up due to how LL/ST works is the problem, only made worse by the fact that you'll also need to redrop ST to make sure it's actually hitting the new target. I don't think anyone's screaming about how Enhancement's broken because of it, but it's not so terrible to hope it gets addressed.

What I'd really like to see is for SF to get detached from the totem completely and have it work like Fulmination does with Lightning Shield, except make it a Fire Shield for Enhancement. Since LL+SF is already pretty close to Fulmination mechanically, I think basing LL on the shield would be a pretty good solution for the target switching issue. Plus having a fire shield would be pretty damn cool.

[Gray_Matter]

Not every class will be top-shelf for AoE. If they have other strengths, it's fine. Enhancement AoE may not be OMG amazing, but it's completely functional.

It's functional and much better than it was but only really useful on Yor' in it's present form.

I DO think classes need to have strengths and weaknesses, and if AoE isn't a strength for Enhancement, something else should be, but we haven't gotten to level 90 scaling yet to check on how things are working there. If Enhancement has really solid single-target DPS, I'm okay with having lower-shelf-but-still-competitive AoE.

The problem with enhance is that it's pretty much a jack of all trades and master of none. There is absolutely no reason to bring an enhance over other DPS but there are often lots of reasons to bring those other DPS over enhance. We can only really soak on Ultraxion with outside help, we aren't a ranged which is a big minus, we don't have the burst which is critical on spine. We can't off tank anything like the plate wearers can if a tank dies quickly. We can't soak stomps on Morchok like rogues can, etc.

Rogue combo points aren't DPS CDs. The three I mentioned are, and you were talking about DPS CDs. CDs have cooldowns; that's what the "CD" part means.

I should have said burst because that's what I was really talking about.

The big difference is that Fulmination isn't worth casting unless Lightning Shield stacks up to a certain number of stacks, whereas Lava Lash IS worth casting at less than 5 stacks. Not optimal, but better than not using it at all. That's how priority works. Same reason Elemental started off casting Fulmination at 7+ stacks; it was worth more DPS to us to use it before it stacked fully, for various reasons.

That doesn't make a difference. LL works from stacks 0-5 Fulmination works from stacks 7-9. Elemental can hold onto their stacks and release them at a crucial time in line with the fight mechanics. What can enhance do to help the cause?

I think a lot of Enhancement get too focused on Searing Flames and having to cap it out before using Lava Lash, rather than establishing how the charges adjust its priority.

No, not at all. I use LL on CD as all good enhance do as long as SS is not off CD.

The thread I linked has two posts and zero discussion. It's not the official discussion thread, it's the beta changes sticky that I keep updated for precisely this purpose. I also update the title to reflect the last update, so it's clear at a glance if there's been anything recent changed.

Sorry, went to the wrong thread. Will take a look at it.

---------- Post added 2012-05-07 at 08:05 PM ----------

4) I honestly don't understand why every time someone brings up the question of totem AI, the only response you give is, "It's fine!" Clearly, for some people, it is not. It's also a much bigger deal for Enh than Ele that the searing is active and hitting the right thing. Half the time, Ele doesn't even have ST up, and when it is up, most of what you need out of it is the buff. Enh needs Searing Flames, and it needs it on the right target. Clearly, some people have issues with the AI on these things, and simply dismissing those concerns is silly. Again, switching Searing Flames to a player-based buff would solve this.

I think another big difference between enhance and elemental is how much of an impact does searing on the wrong or no target have to elemental DPS as opposed to enhance?

[Endus]

That doesn't make a difference. LL works from stacks 0-5 Fulmination works from stacks 7-9. Elemental can hold onto their stacks and release them at a crucial time in line with the fight mechanics. What can enhance do to help the cause?

Elemental is losing DPS by doing what you're talking about. DoT classes also have issues with burst, because they need to get everything ticking to max out DPS, and on short bursts, their DoTs aren't tuned to deal reasonable damage in that duration. Burst DPS is a place you CAN have strength, but it's not a place you NEED strength to be competitive. In DS, the only place single target burst really mattered was Spine, or arguably Zon'ozz (H) during black phase (but I'd argue that Enhancement's ranged capacity gives them an edge over other melee there to offset that).

[Gray_Matter]

We can't even hit level 90 and test the final tier of talents yet. Seriously, this is still VERY early beta. We have to hit 90, and THEN we get to start running heroic dungeons and raids, and after a month or two of THAT plus the commensurate tweaks, THEN we'll be preparing for launch. It's months away. And they're pushing a beta build once a week or more. Acting as if anything we currently have is 100% going live is pointless; this is the time for constructive thoughtful feedback, not "the world is ending, Blizz hates us" QQ.

Again, my post was not, "blizzard hates us" but rather that the lack of feedback gives the impression that we are last on the list. We have had over a month with any reasonable changes and the changes we have had over the last month are far less than any other spec including elemental and resto shamans. Pick a spec that has even the same amount of changes and feedback, not less, just the same amount. The WF change was before that month and was just a scaling change that happens every expansion to bring the AP in line with the new levels. I don't unfortunately have the beta so the best I can get is the feedback here and from the blues and what I have seen to date does not inspire me. Every enhance I chat with says the same thing about the searing mechanic - get rid of it or put the stacks on the shammy. Please give me one that doesn't. People who don't play enhance are happy with the mechanic. The biggest problem here is feedback from Blizzard, I make the same comment every point release. Just give us some feedback, acknowledge that we are here and that you are working on the problems that we have.

---------- Post added 2012-05-07 at 08:38 PM ----------

Elemental is losing DPS by doing what you're talking about. DoT classes also have issues with burst, because they need to get everything ticking to max out DPS, and on short bursts, their DoTs aren't tuned to deal reasonable damage in that duration. Burst DPS is a place you CAN have strength, but it's not a place you NEED strength to be competitive. In DS, the only place single target burst really mattered was Spine, or arguably Zon'ozz (H) during black phase (but I'd argue that Enhancement's ranged capacity gives them an edge over other melee there to offset that).

Ranged capacity? 1 shock on a CD, UE on CD and very slow LB's. I can understand not having burst but we should be able to bring something to help a raid and in DS we don't really, at least not in 25 man. We have no burst and a AOE with a high ramp up time. Again, as I said before, we are jack of all trades and master of none.

[Protoman]

The problem with enhance is that it's pretty much a jack of all trades and master of none. There is absolutely no reason to bring an enhance over other DPS but there are often lots of reasons to bring those other DPS over enhance. We can only really soak on Ultraxion with outside help, we aren't a ranged which is a big minus, we don't have the burst which is critical on spine. We can't off tank anything like the plate wearers can if a tank dies quickly. We can't soak stomps on Morchok like rogues can, etc.

To be fair, alot of this will change in MoP.....and we will have a few more on demand dps cd's including one that lets us dps at range, plus ULF or primal earth ele will allow us to offtank for a bit.

But you are right about our lack of burst. We will get some thru cd's but there is no way to use our abilities differently to squeeze out alot more dps in a small window with some short cd or mechanic that builds up and can save to unleash whenever. LL must be used on cd and can't be stored for when we need it, while fulm you can hold onto and use filler spells until you need that burst.

That doesn't make a difference. LL works from stacks 0-5 Fulmination works from stacks 7-9. Elemental can hold onto their stacks and release them at a crucial time in line with the fight mechanics. What can enhance do to help the cause?

I think another big difference between enhance and elemental is how much of an impact does searing on the wrong or no target have to elemental DPS as opposed to enhance?

I also feel we are too reliant on searing totem. I do not like the idea of having a core mechanic tied to totems. I gave the example of our AOE tied to fire totems and how much of a pain this was until it was finally removed and upgraded. Our totems should be simple and easy to switch around without much penalty. Searing totem is a fine dps totem, but when SF is attached to it we get annoyed cause now we gotta totally rely on it and it's not always responsive.

Our core burst mechanic/resource feels out of our control since it stacks passively and from a totem, as opposed to from the shaman and using our own abilities.

A suggestion Wordup gave for LL to have some on demand burst was an ability called "Incite" I think, which basically resets the cd on LL and gives you instant 5 stack SF, on a 30s-1min cd. This would let you chain 2LL together in a short period as well as get full burst damage.

The main issue in the post that brought up how the LL/SF mechanic affects target-switching was that when Enhance changes targets, they have no choice but to deal with no SF stacks and their burst damage is affected because of that. Elemental at least has a choice with Fulmination because of how quickly you can build LS charges back up to 7 and the fact that you can save any charges you already have if you know a target switch is coming up.

What I'd really like to see is for SF to get detached from the totem completely and have it work like Fulmination does with Lightning Shield, except make it a Fire Shield for Enhancement. Since LL+SF is already pretty close to Fulmination mechanically, I think basing LL on the shield would be a pretty good solution for the target switching issue. Plus having a fire shield would be pretty damn cool.

Yea, the major difference between SF/LL and Fulm/ES is that Fulm can be stored and used whenever, Ele still has spammable, filler spells to sustain DPS till they need the burst, but for LL we have to use it right away or else we take a big drop in DPS. This is the main problem with being a cd class and having no secondary resource to build/store for burst.

I would love a fire shield that stacked SF similar to fulm. It could proc similar to static shock but work on melee abilities and swings, maybe even shocks and ule. Anything that allows it to stack as a buff would be a huge improvement.

[Endus]

Again, my post was not, "blizzard hates us" but rather that the lack of feedback gives the impression that we are last on the list.

No, that's the impression you're taking. You aren't guaranteed feedback during the beta. This isn't about establishing an equal and open discussion with the devs. It's for us to give feedback about bugs and issues.

And there are plenty of other specs that haven't gotten any special treatment. Enhancement, in particular, has gotten blue posts. It has already gotten more attention than most specs have. The idea that you're being ignored is demonstrably wrong. Aside from the one side comment in the Warrior posting, which at least shows they still are thinking about Enhancement enough to bring it up as an example, they also specifically addressed community concerns about Enhancement damage a short while back.

We have had over a month with any reasonable changes and the changes we have had over the last month are far less than any other spec including elemental and resto shamans.

Yes, when you pick a deliberately biased sample, your results reflect the bias. By picking a time frame around the duration we haven't gotten much direct feedback, you carefully avoid the feedback we HAVE gotten, to falsely portray us as being ignored.

It's like a store having a sale, and using the sales numbers from that period as their yearly projection. I'm not saying you're doing it deliberately, but it's bad statistics.

[Manu9]

2. I would love more control over searing flames, but I don't think blizz is gonna' do away with the searing totem-searing flames mechanic, unfontunately. Maybe they could implement a glyph for players that want more control over it like:

Glyph of searing totem - Your searing totem now attacks all targets within a 40 yd range, simutaneously, but the damage is now distributed evenly among the enemy players This will stack the searing flames debuff on all enemys at once while sacrificing damage.

Regarding MSW being a low priority, I think it is fine the way it is, but it's just a little underwhelming. MSW should just be buffed to make it so it buffs your next nature attack by 20% stacking up to 5 times.
When you deal damage with a melee weapon, you have a chance to reduce the cast time, mana cost, and increase the damage of your next Nature spell with a base cast time shorter than 10 seconds by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec.

LB would now be high priority plus it would buff feral sprit since it is a nature spell with cast time less than 10 sec. If they buffed it accordingly we could potentially have great on demand burst and the good thing about that is you could save pool all SF5-LL, SS, MW5 LB for some big dmg. This would also make stacking haste for more MW stacks more attractive making Tier 6 : ELm mas, Ans Swif, and EotE all benefit MW in differnet ways:

Elem Mastery: Haste CD - burst MW charges
Ancestral Swiftness: Passive Haste - More steady MW charges
Echo of the elements: Proc- Chance to proc double mw5 Lightning Bolts

I also like the way stormstrike is on a long-ish CD. I don't want to spam it like mutilate, but again it is a little underwhelming. It needs some new effects giving it a little more burst potential.

Stormstrike - Instantly strike an enemy with both weapons, dealing 200% weapon damage, turning your windfury procs into nature damage and granting you an additional 25% chance to critically strike that enemy with your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lightning Shield, Earth Shock spells for 15 sec.

I like those Ideas

@Proto: We can't use our abilities differently to squeeze more imo comes from the fact that our "resource" system is basically cooldown based.

@Endus: I agree with what you said, but all we want is a conformation that they are working on our MW like they said they would, or a change to SF or LL AoE issue.

[Endus]

@Endus: I agree with what you said, but all we want is a conformation that they are working on our MW like they said they would, or a change to SF or LL AoE issue.

I'm not trying to say "YOU DESERVE NO FEEDBACK, MAGGOTS", just that not having gotten feedback does not mean that A> they haven't been working on us or B> they aren't paying attention to feedback from the community.

[Ihnasir]

I liked the Enhance style in Wrath and Cata, but I feel we need a bit more to feel properly viable. We are more or less a button mashing class, cooldown based with the use of Wolves and providing BL/Hero. There is an empty feel, however, that comes with empty space while certain abilities are on cooldown. I like the Unleash Elements allowing a 2 shock rotation which has shifted gameplay toward this playstyle for more damage. There are certain deadzones in my experience. This is probably because I haven't played Enh competitively since as an offspec in ICC. (I use my Shaman now primarily for Truegold xmutes and soloing MC/AQ10 for extra gold and fun) But I feel that the Fulmination mechanic was a great addition to Elemental, and it would be nice to see that used with Static Shock in Enh instead of a filler shock when the Stormstrike debuff is active. Using Flame Shock with the UE selfbuff active is fun and allows some wrenches to be thrown into the rotation making it more priority based. But, the biggest issue I feel with Enh is the utility and amount of buttons we usually use (on a Patchwerk-esque fight). SS, ES, FS, LL, Totem placement, Wolves, BL, and Wind Shear if called for. Using Mana as our current resource, I never see myself running low, so it runs more or less like a full Rage or Energy bar. Shamanistic Rage comes in handy on AoE dmg, but other than that, feels useless to me. If they can make Monks switch resource by switching specs, they can do it for Enh. The spec would need a huge overhaul, but it would be nice to see some changes.

[Teriz]

They should honestly remove the Searing mechanic altogether, scale back the reliance on Lava Lash, and return Enhance to a lightning-theme.

A lightning-based resource utilized from lightning shield and MW would be great.

[Manu9]

They should honestly remove the Searing mechanic altogether, scale back the reliance on Lava Lash, and return Enhance to a lightning-theme.

A lightning-based resource utilized from lightning shield and MW would be great.

That would probably be a change that wouldn't fare well with a lot of Enhas.

I myself am fine with Cooldowns being our resource, bar 2 parts, first, the cooldowns on our main attacks are quite long, which is boring. Secondly, the problem with a CD resource and the lack of a talent like rets, is that we don't get to do more with more haste technically, as in no matter what you do, your main attacked will be used once every 8 and 10 secs, which means less burst.

What I'd like to see done is, remove the CD from LL and have it scale with how many stacks of SF there is, like TV, have it be quite weaker at anything less than 5 + have searing totem affected by haste. (optional part: reduce the CD of SS by 2 secs, and the damage accordingly)
OR
Give a talent like ret and have haste reduce the CD of those two attacks.

Even then, I'd like a frost based melee attack with a low CD, and make that have synergy with something else in the spec, I'd say have it stack a debuff for LL instead of SF, 2 secs CD, buff stacks to 3. But that might leave very little time for other stuff like MW and utility, It can be a x4-5 stack but the attack is off the gcd, still a 2 sec cd.

[Protoman]

I'm not trying to say "YOU DESERVE NO FEEDBACK, MAGGOTS", just that not having gotten feedback does not mean that A> they haven't been working on us or B> they aren't paying attention to feedback from the community.

I am sure they have a dedicated group working on us, but the majority of us Shaman would really like to see some feedback. I have yet to see a single GC post regarding shaman feedback and answering questions being asked, commenting on suggestions, or giving us an update on what to expect in the future. The few posts regarding Shaman are basically a line or two. After looking at the front page, GC has AGAIN replied to warrior feedback after already giving 2 pages of commentary, this time with upcoming changes for prot warr. He also commented on future druid updates. I have seen a few detailed posts about other classes too like lock, priest, and dk.

But NOTHING for Shaman, what gives? The entirety of blue posts about Shaman info during this beta is less then the # of words I have written in this post. There are plenty of good Shaman threads on the forums as well, one for each spec....I even have one, and even threads for specific issues like Telluric Currents. Nothing has been done yet. It seems this upcoming patch will release the lvl 90 talents, so I will have to see if they have changed our talents around, but if they do make root shift baseline for druids I expect nothing less for freedom effect on ghost wolf.

Either they should not comment at all, or spread feedback between all classes. The mindset that Blizz favors certain classes like warr, mage, and priest is specifically because of actions like these.......3 pages of Warrior commentary vs 2 lines of Shaman.

[Deleted]

I see a lot of people complaining about Searing Totem / Searing Flames / Lava Lash and these three spells usage. I do not play enhancement, so I might not see the picture accurately. I would like to give a suggestion, open for discussion, just to see what you guys think about it, and what are the most obvious drawbacks to it.

My suggestion: change the searing flames mechanic from a stacking debuff on the target to a stacking buff on the casting shaman. Obviously this is very similar to Fulmination, but I think that works well in the elemental playstyle. Why wouldn't you copy someone that is already working well?

[Protoman]

I see a lot of people complaining about Searing Totem / Searing Flames / Lava Lash and these three spells usage. I do not play enhancement, so I might not see the picture accurately. I would like to give a suggestion, open for discussion, just to see what you guys think about it, and what are the most obvious drawbacks to it.

My suggestion: change the searing flames mechanic from a stacking debuff on the target to a stacking buff on the casting shaman. Obviously this is very similar to Fulmination, but I think that works well in the elemental playstyle. Why wouldn't you copy someone that is already working well?

Yea, I've actually made that suggestion a few times including my own thread here and on official forums lol. Making SF a buff would solve alot of problems. Specifically:
-No more AI complaints. Long as it attacks something you gain the buff.
-No more problems with target switching. You can switch on fly and still consume SF for max LL damage on whoever you want.
-Harder to dispel, and will stay with you not lose burst if enemy runs away or dies.