1. #1

    Does Enhancement still have a lot of downtime?

    So I dropped my enhancement shaman main for the most part during cata because the gameplay felt much slower and there was a lot of downtime. I played occasionally, keeping up with justice and valor gear but no raiding

    To be clear, I liked enhancement most during Wrath when we were gcd locked. I understood the problems with ramp-up time and being gcd locked, I thought the direction cata went would've been a good thing. In the end though, I realized it was the level of activity that made me love playing the shaman.

    I tried playing again yesterday, but it was even slower than before. I haven't reforged my gear to get more haste, but as far as I know this won't lower the cooldowns anyway. Also, there are a few more cool downs but it doesn't really fill the active combat downtime any.

    This is not a complaint thread. This is just personal preference. I was just hoping someone who's properly geared knows if the level of downtime is the same as in cata. Maybe also if it's the case at 90, for anyone in the beta. I'm thinking haste and ascendance might play some role.

    As far as I know though, there aren't many demands to go back to the wrath style of combat. Lightning shield even became an hour long and has unlimited charges (though that was practically the case already due to the lightning shield glyph in cata). So many they're going in the opposite direction.

    Enhance aoe was also one of the reasons I stopped but they fixed that amazingly.

  2. #2
    OK so your doing it wrong. if you have nothing to cast you should be casting LB with 1 or 1< stack. Enhancement is in one of the bests spots its been in a while with the amount of crazy burst you can get. Like my opener is UE>FS>FE totem>FS>BL>SL Totem >regular rotation and its few and far between that I'm not at the top of the meters. This is without Ascendance i might add, which will increase our dps even more. If you were ever to play enhance, now is the time.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Outcry View Post
    OK so your doing it wrong. if you have nothing to cast you should be casting LB with 1 or 1< stack. Enhancement is in one of the bests spots its been in a while with the amount of crazy burst you can get. Like my opener is UE>FS>FE totem>FS>BL>SL Totem >regular rotation and its few and far between that I'm not at the top of the meters. This is without Ascendance i might add, which will increase our dps even more. If you were ever to play enhance, now is the time.
    Did you read the whole OP? I don't care about how enhancment is doing on the meters or anything. This is entirely about the activity level. I'll try hardcasting LB as I haven't done that, though that seems counter intuitive since I would lose out on wf procs and flame tongue hits. I believe you if you say it's a dps gain though.

    I always liked enhancement because it was about actively managing passive damage. I'm not having a problem with damage right now, just with the activity levels. I'm asking if this is different at level 90 or with substantial haste. Otherwise, I would be hardcasting LB a lot. I can see that haste will increase MW stacking, but i'm hoping someone with that haste can tell me if it is faster.

    As I said before, I liked the ramp-up in Wrath despite all the problems and imbalance associated with it. I'm never going on the official forums to ask for it, because I understand the issues with it. You say that we have huge burst now, and that's really the opposite of ramp-up.

    EDIT:

    Quote Originally Posted by caballitomalo View Post
    There will be gaps in the "normal" rotation and that's by design. But when you factor in big cool downs (in pandaria we'll have Heroism, Storm Lash Totem, Feral Spirits, Ascendance and Fire Elemental Totem) you're going to be wishing you had more time to cast them all.

    With the way flurry works now, haste really helps on bringing in those MW charges up fast and with that less down time. AoE also helps to add some buttons to the rotation.

    Still, I don't expect there will be too many Patchwerk fights in pandaria so we will be needing that down time for sprints, heling spells, defensive abilities, utility, purgins and silencing. When you account for PvE fight mechanics and PvP environments then you are left with very little actual "down time". But this is true for every other class.
    Thanks for the reply. I do understand the design and that was meant to be the point in cata too, but I still found it slow. Though with all the new cooldowns and the more movement required in MOP, this really might be compensated for. I prefer not being able to keep up with my rotation than having downtime. I even liked stopping my rotation to provide utility.

    I'll reforge and try it out more, but I think you're probably right when you put it like that.
    Last edited by Allyrion; 2012-09-15 at 10:52 PM.

  4. #4
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    Thats why I don't play as enhancement anymore: it's slow and hardcasting as melee feels wierd and wrong, imho. I found that retri pally, especially during BL feels really close to WotLK enha gcd-capped style.
    Last edited by SenSayNyu; 2012-09-16 at 10:21 AM.

  5. #5
    Hardcasting seems to be even more annoying now, worse than T12 I think. I liked enhancement when it was more gcd-capped and it could interrupt spells every 5 sec. Right now it feels like it is the ret paladin's retarded brother.

  6. #6
    No, we can't cast Lava Burst anymore.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Allyrion View Post
    Did you read the whole OP? I don't care about how enhancment is doing on the meters or anything. This is entirely about the activity level. I'll try hardcasting LB as I haven't done that, though that seems counter intuitive since I would lose out on wf procs and flame tongue hits. I believe you if you say it's a dps gain though.

    I always liked enhancement because it was about actively managing passive damage. I'm not having a problem with damage right now, just with the activity levels. I'm asking if this is different at level 90 or with substantial haste. Otherwise, I would be hardcasting LB a lot. I can see that haste will increase MW stacking, but i'm hoping someone with that haste can tell me if it is faster.

    I feel enh is terribad on the meters. Yet, when I reforged for haste I enjoyed Ultraxion a lot more than I did last week with mastery. With wolves LB pops 5 like every 2-3 gcds (which is top priority now btw) and even without them theres a lot of MW coming around.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Misirlou View Post
    I feel enh is terribad on the meters. Yet, when I reforged for haste I enjoyed Ultraxion a lot more than I did last week with mastery. With wolves LB pops 5 like every 2-3 gcds (which is top priority now btw) and even without them theres a lot of MW coming around.
    Uhm, i was under the distinct impression that when wolves turned into guardians and not pets, our setbonus went bai bai.
    Last i tried making wolves attack a dummy and just wolves, i got 0 Maelstrom charges
    You sure its not just the fact that you're using EM & BLoodlust or something.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Tides View Post
    Uhm, i was under the distinct impression that when wolves turned into guardians and not pets, our setbonus went bai bai.
    Last i tried making wolves attack a dummy and just wolves, i got 0 Maelstrom charges
    You sure its not just the fact that you're using EM & BLoodlust or something.
    It got fixed. Just try attacking a dummy with wolves out at range so you don't do melee swings with just shocks and you'll see MW charges popping up.
    It's the internet. You never know if people are either sarcastic or just bad.

  10. #10
    As much fun as the GCD-capped playstyle in Wrath was, remember that you had to pull that off not to top the charts, but to place somewhere in the mid-to-low end. Our DPS was awful back then, and we were a perfect example of the old "take the class not the player" system. The only reason a raid would want us was for our buffed Strength of Earth totem; when that was removed and before our DPS could be bumped up at 85, there was no reason you'd take an enhance over anything else. It's why I got benched for the last couple months of Cata while my guild worked on heroic LK 25.

    While I found Cata's playstyle to be slower, I've never really noticed much in terms of gaps in the rotation after getting Unleash Elements. Between our five primary attacks, refreshing ST, and now managing cooldowns, if you're playing enhance and getting downtime, you're doing something wrong. It's not the same as flailing on our keyboard, but it's much more relaxing and fun, and does more damage to boot. With our AOE finally getting fixed to be not terrible in 4.3, haste being a non-awful stat, and so many more toys to play with, enhance is in an excellent position in Mists.

    I for one never hope to see the GCD-capped playstyle make a resurgence. It was fun at the time, but really got to your fingers.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Allyrion View Post
    Did you read the whole OP? I don't care about how enhancment is doing on the meters or anything. This is entirely about the activity level. I'll try hardcasting LB as I haven't done that, though that seems counter intuitive since I would lose out on wf procs and flame tongue hits. I believe you if you say it's a dps gain though.
    I was just trying to give you more reasons to play enhance, to get more shamans playing the best class/spec combo in game imo. Hope you figure out what you want and remember, with our 90 talent, UE should be at the top of our priority, giving LB a 30% buff as well, giving us more reason to hard cast LB in our down time.

  12. #12
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Tides View Post
    Uhm, i was under the distinct impression that when wolves turned into guardians and not pets, our setbonus went bai bai.
    Last i tried making wolves attack a dummy and just wolves, i got 0 Maelstrom charges
    You sure its not just the fact that you're using EM & BLoodlust or something.
    Nope, I got EotE instead of EM, however I am a troll and use berserk after the guardians are out. The bonus did get fixed last week

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Outcry View Post
    OK so your doing it wrong. if you have nothing to cast you should be casting LB with 1 or 1< stack. Enhancement is in one of the bests spots its been in a while with the amount of crazy burst you can get. Like my opener is UE>FS>FE totem>FS>BL>SL Totem >regular rotation and its few and far between that I'm not at the top of the meters. This is without Ascendance i might add, which will increase our dps even more. If you were ever to play enhance, now is the time.
    You clearly didn't play Enh befor patch if you think we do more burst than befor. Stormstrike hits less with a damage buff, lava lash does 150% less damage windfury Ap increase was lowered UE damage was lowered earth shock and fire shock are slightly better.And stormlash totem is a 5min cd that dosn't even put our burst on par with our old burst.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Coraulten View Post
    You clearly didn't play Enh befor patch if you think we do more burst than befor. Stormstrike hits less with a damage buff, lava lash does 150% less damage windfury Ap increase was lowered UE damage was lowered earth shock and fire shock are slightly better.And stormlash totem is a 5min cd that dosn't even put our burst on par with our old burst.
    You clearly weren't paying attention after patch if you think we do less burst than before. Hell, I don't think we even HAD burst before the patch.

    First, note that weapon damage scaled differently after the patch, so while the percentages are "smaller," the damage is roughly the same. Second, the freeing up of at least a couple hundred secondary stats from hit/expertise means more damage-dealing secondaries. Also, the reforging is no longer straight mastery, thanks to the rework of Flurry and how much better haste is for us now. Remember, wolves were buffed to be not-awful, and if you're not dropping FET when you need burst, you're doing it wrong. Finally, realize that our best DPS cooldown, Ascendance, isn't available until 87. Our spec is currently built around this consideration because it would be silly to have us like we were before only to nerf us in a couple weeks.

    All of these things give us a great burst which should only get better when we hit 90. Take the big picture and realize that we're only 85 for a week more.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Dblbaconator View Post
    You clearly weren't paying attention after patch if you think we do less burst than before. Hell, I don't think we even HAD burst before the patch.

    First, note that weapon damage scaled differently after the patch, so while the percentages are "smaller," the damage is roughly the same. Second, the freeing up of at least a couple hundred secondary stats from hit/expertise means more damage-dealing secondaries. Also, the reforging is no longer straight mastery, thanks to the rework of Flurry and how much better haste is for us now. Remember, wolves were buffed to be not-awful, and if you're not dropping FET when you need burst, you're doing it wrong. Finally, realize that our best DPS cooldown, Ascendance, isn't available until 87. Our spec is currently built around this consideration because it would be silly to have us like we were before only to nerf us in a couple weeks.

    All of these things give us a great burst which should only get better when we hit 90. Take the big picture and realize that we're only 85 for a week more.
    Im well aware that weapon damage is higher that still dosn't make up for the lowered damage on abilites. and i don't know where you randomly got a few hundred stats you could throw around but mine stayed relatively the same. And reforgeing still is for the most part straight master if your taking into account ascendance.Wolves had over a 200% damage increase and now hit for less than they did befor but blizzard gave them a secondary attack that hits 4-5 times during their duration for about 4k (2k each) and i am dropping FET for burst but again that dosn't make up for the loss of previous damage. And to comment on your initial statement, enh did have burst befor patch it was about predicting procs and not being retarded with lava lash. In your first post you were compareing current 85 to pre patch 85 so ascendance is irrelevant. you stated that we were better off burst wise and in fact we arn't.

  16. #16
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Coraulten View Post
    and i don't know where you randomly got a few hundred stats you could throw around but mine stayed relatively the same.
    4.3: You need 1742 Hit Rating and 542 Expertise Rating to hit the caps; 2284 stat points total.
    5.0.4: You need 768 Hit Rating and Expertise rating to hit the caps; 1536 stat points total.

    So you should be netting a gain of something close to 700-750 secondary stat points, just from the stat changes. If you aren't, then you didn't reforge to the new caps like you were supposed to.

    And to comment on your initial statement, enh did have burst befor patch it was about predicting procs and not being retarded with lava lash.
    You can't "predict procs". That's in the nature of being procs. Even PPMs are relatively random.

    And being able to hold off on a single big-hitting ability is not the same thing as having a reliable burst tool.


  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    So you should be netting a gain of something close to 700-750 secondary stat points, just from the stat changes. If you aren't, then you didn't reforge to the new caps like you were supposed to.
    It's called itemization


    You can't "predict procs". That's in the nature of being procs. Even PPMs are relatively random.

    And being able to hold off on a single big-hitting ability is not the same thing as having a reliable burst tool.
    Yes, you can predict procs to an extent. The procs will not appear to my eye on my screen until 0.2-0.5 after the SS/windfury hits, but you will almost always get a proc from them. It's generally quite predictable when the next proc's should come in by how long it's already taken, but I would never hit LB in expectancy of that one.

    Other than that yes our burst is much better in 5.0 and moreso in mists.

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