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  1. #1
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    Really annoying thing about enhancement.

    What is it with Enhancement that makes everyone only ever care about the pvp side of them?

    All the threads we ever get about them is PvP PvP PvP im sick of hearing about pvp.
    Pve wise Enhancement is a really messed up spec we have one of the clunkiest "Rotations" in the game. Yet that doesnt seem to phase most people just the pvp potential which to be fair has never really been there, we have always been a mere tool to enhance Warriors, Hunters or Ret Palas.

    So heres the thing im sure a lot of you dire hard players love enhancement and I must confess I am a die hard player myself having played since Vanilla.
    However on terms of gear and care enhancement frequently seems to be bottom of the pit when it comes to new changes that are of some use. Blizzards idea of fixing Enhancement is giving us some set bonuses on our tier gear that are decent. However the actual stats from mail gear frequently is totally wrong. The last 3 expansions mail gear has been tailored towards hunters and not Shamans.

    A few points I'd like to mention:

    < Our Aoe has debatabley the longest most frustrating ramp up time of any AoE
    < Our "Rotation" is plagued by so many parameters that can change due to circumstances it takes months to get good at the class.
    < Rarely do Blizz ever itemize for us ever
    < We lack any kind of direction we are constantly being thrown a band aid then left dead in the water
    < We should have been given swords long ago to stop our lack of decent weapons, we cant even get a crafted weapon cause the only agility crafted weapon is a sword or a strength weapon.

    This hasnt even scratched the surface, and still the only thing people care about is PvP how about we fix the core of the class before we fix pvp. Since many times its been pvp that has caused our demise in the first place (We all remember the famous windfury nerf cause of pvp).
    Oh and before you tell me to reroll no, I dont want to I want you guys to whine about something that is gonna fix our class as a whole. Maybe one of these days we will get a revamp like Warlocks did this patch or Druids did back in BC cause we sorely need it.

    Last edited by mmocaff59fb7db; 2013-01-21 at 04:10 PM.

  2. #2
    Dreadlord Eruionmel's Avatar
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    You're the 7th top DPS class in the game, and you're complaining that your rotation is clunky. While Ele sits at 4th worst in the game. :|

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  3. #3
    The Patient edlike's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eruionmel View Post
    You're the 7th top DPS class in the game, and you're complaining that your rotation is clunky. While Ele sits at 4th worst in the game. :|
    Except he's not complaining about the #'s. He is complaining about other, very specific things that I'm inclined to agree with.

  4. #4
    I am Murloc! crakerjack's Avatar
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    You're complaining now? It used to be so much worse... enhance used to be Str based and we got 2 Attack Power per strength... then they made us agi based where we got 1 AP and some % crit per agi... but that sucked, so much enhance shams stacked 40 AP gems... then finally they made us like hunters where we get 2 AP per AGI and crit. That was exhausting.

    As far as AoE goes, you don't really get to complain... this is the very thing that makes me annoyed at the current state of the game. You want to be able to AoE just as efficiently as other classes correct? Well that strips away any remaining class diversity that is left. If you could do AoE damage just as good as other classes, then what's the point of bringing different classes when you could just run with 12 shamans? Each class brings what they possess to the table... it used to be totems and windfury totem for all the melee classes, but slowly they gave everyone else our buffs like horn for DK's and warriors... You're just asking for them to make your class just like everyone else... but as far as crafted weapons go... that's just blizzard being lazy and not creating enough loot for all classes. And you know what their solution to that problem is? They'll tell you to switch one of the two stats you don't want into something you like. They've implemented so many features that allow them to be scapegoats.

    Here's my advice... WoW is near its end... content won't be amazing like it used to be and balancing of classes will only circle around PvE... if blizzard believes your class is fine, even though you show them amazing advice and feedback... it won't happen. They are out to make as much money as possible off this game before Titan rolls around. Either reroll or just quit, enhance shamans aren't going to see another pre 1.7 era where we slaughter everyone.
    Most likely the wisest Enhancement Shaman.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Tovart View Post

    A few points I'd like to mention:

    < Our Aoe has debatabley the longest most frustrating ramp up time of any AoE
    < Our "Rotation" is plagued by so many parameters that can change due to circumstances it takes months to get good at the class.
    < Rarely do Blizz ever itemize for us ever
    < We should have been given swords long ago to stop our lack of decent weapons, we cant even get a crafted weapon cause the only agility crafted weapon is a sword or a strength weapon.

    > The AoE is indeed clunky. A simple bandaid fix like FN now spreads FS to X targets (where X is a number that's considered balanced) would be a massive QoL improvement. It doesn't remove the rampup but it'll leave LL alone.

    > Our rotation is a simple priority system and a set of ability timers gets you far. The only random thing in the whole rotation are MW procs and when it's optimal to hardcast.

    > Since MoP we don't have any horrible stats left and due to the overhaul of Hit/Exp, we're in a far better place than the past 2 expansions. We don't need an obscene amount of hit rating anymore and hunters were forced to gear for expertise as well.

    > We don't need to be able to use swords. All agi raiding weapons are weapons we can use. The ability to let us use swords would not change a thing. And it might be annoying that there wasn't a crafted weapon for us but it wasn't the end of the world.
    It's the internet. You never know if people are either sarcastic or just bad.

  6. #6
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    As someone whose job it is to keep tabs on things;

    We have plenty of threads on Enhancement PvE. There's been an uptick the last couple weeks in PvP threads, is all.

    The Enhancement rotation isn't unnecessarily complex. It's fine.

    Itemization is also fine, and anyone claiming otherwise didn't play when there WERE itemization issues, to understand what they actually look like.

    The overall performance of the spec in PvE is just fine. They aren't being left behind. They're pretty darned solid currently.


  7. #7
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    The only complaint I have is the amount of buttons, too many buttons, could do with getting rid of a few. Can't fit them in a way without making playing feel a bit chaotic, besides that nothing else bothers me

  8. #8
    The only point I can agree with in the first post is aoe. Having to use 3 to 4 gcds to do the same damage as other classes with much easier rotations isn't great, especially when the mobs die quickly. That said, it has its advantages on fights like Wind lord, where we can keep up a solid single target rotation while throwing out fire novas for extra aoe damage. I would like to see something like fire nova being the spell that spreads the flame shocks so you dont need to use lavalash in the rotation. That way it would just be flame shock then fire nova with unleash elements on cd.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    As someone whose job it is to keep tabs on things;

    We have plenty of threads on Enhancement PvE. There's been an uptick the last couple weeks in PvP threads, is all.

    The Enhancement rotation isn't unnecessarily complex. It's fine.

    Itemization is also fine, and anyone claiming otherwise didn't play when there WERE itemization issues, to understand what they actually look like.

    The overall performance of the spec in PvE is just fine. They aren't being left behind. They're pretty darned solid currently.
    Out of curiousity, do you play enhancement Endus?
    Or is this conclusion based on observations? (particularly the bold part)

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Mithgroth View Post
    Out of curiousity, do you play enhancement Endus?
    Or is this conclusion based on observations? (particularly the bold part)
    I can't answer for him, but I do find that Enhancement's rotation is simple if you don't use any utility spells. If you start to factor in things like Totems that don't increase dps, the multiple heals you can cast with Maelstrom it does get a lot more complex.

  11. #11
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mithgroth View Post
    Out of curiousity, do you play enhancement Endus?
    Or is this conclusion based on observations? (particularly the bold part)
    I've played it. I've also played a bunch of other specs at 90. Enhancement was never particularly complicated a rotation, for me. It's not overly simplistic, either, it's a good middle ground.

    Like Inthrall said; are you just considering the basic rotation, which amounts to a simply cooldown-based priority, or the whole package? We've got a lot of utility.


  12. #12
    Mechagnome Xanda's Avatar
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    1 - The only part i can agree with.

    2 - Lolwut? It's almost like WOTLK ret now.

    3 - Cataclysm is an expansion ago. Or someone here still thinks that haste is garbage.

    4 - What does this even mean?

    5 - Cataclsym is an expansion ago 2
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  13. #13
    I think Enhancement has issues.

    1) Too many spells or not enough spells: This is somewhat complicated, but I think many other Enhancement Shamans feel this while playing:
    A standart enhancement rotation lasts around ~30 seconds, depending on Flame Shock, revolves around few abilities with similar cooldowns. So, either everything is on cooldown or nothing is on cooldown. The difference is around 1-2 seconds, almost equal to GCD. This is a theorical DPS loss when you have two abilities (mainly Stormstrike (8) and Lava Lash (10) or Stormstrike (8) and Shocks (6)) comes off cooldown at the same time.

    After you start the fight (or a new cycle) with UE - (Searing) - Flame Shock - Lava Lash - Stormstrike, for a few moments you will have nothing to do. Maelstrom Weapon was supposed to fill those gaps but it's uncontrollable, you might have 5 stacks when either one of these abilities comes off cooldown.

    In short, most of the time you'll have cooldowns overlapping, and you will always have to make a choice. This isn't that bad since one might argue that it's increasing the skill cap. While this is true, even if you pick the right choice it's a DPS loss compared to a design that cooldowns are aligned properly.

    2) Too many DPS cooldowns (PvE): This issue is different, I think Elemental is almost in the same boat, however Enhancement suffers this more. Normally most of the DPS specs spend 1 or 2 GCDs to go into super-duper nuking mode. Enhancement has:

    - Bloodlust
    - Fire Elemental
    - Feral Spirits
    - Ascendance
    - Stormlash Totem

    Correct me if I'm wrong, they are all on GCD.
    Since totems are too good (!), I doubt Blizzard will ever put totems out of GCD, but this needs to be solved. This is a DPS loss too, and it's the design's fault, not player's.

    3) Searing Totem: I've been reporting this at least twice a month since they made the change in Cataclysm. Searing Totem still does not respond to Stormstrike.
    On another issue that, I know some players are not very happy with this totem. However I remain undecided unless I hear a better option.

    4) AoE, Shock spreading: Terrible. What makes it worse is Blizzard's inability to solve it properly and attitude. Shock spreading should be changed like DK's disease spreading for ease of use since it's tied to Lava Lash (which has a long cooldown for AoE). Also I still hate the necessarity to maintain an AoE rotation to reach the same result whereas any other spec just spams chain lightning, multishot, blizzard, rain of fire, mind sear, bloodboil etc. Blizzard has done some experimental job on Enhancement, promised that they'll be doing the same with other specs too, failed Enhancement, failed to deliver it for other specs and swept it under the carpet.

    No, it's not having a high skill cap. It's reaching the exact same result (numbers, even less than Survival Hunters, DKs) with a lot more effort.

    edit:
    5) Elemental Blast - Lightning Bolt dilemma: Elemental Blast is great, however it makes Enhancement rotation a lot more complicated than it should.

    Consider it as "if checks" in programming or logic, it adds another condition by being on/off cooldown when MW5 happens and that leads the question: "Should I Lightning Bolt or delay?".

    It should have no cooldown at least for Enhancement and replace Lightning Bolt.
    It's tied to MW5 in the end anyway, it's impossible to hard cast it forever to keep its buff on. It will result as an absolute buff to the ability, however it won't be abusable and will be very minor. Blizzard was looking for a way to buff it for Enhancement anyway, however I don't think adding Agility is the best way to do it, RNG is increased a lot now. However, I think this might have been a better way to buff it only for Enhancement while cleaning up rotation with Elemental Blast.

    ------

    Aside from common shaman problems, an Enhancement spesific solution might be to remove Flame Shock at all for Enhancement. It can be tied to Lava Lash.
    It would mean one less global to worry about both for single and AoE rotation (AoE rotation, we are the only ones using this term in the game).

    I like Enhancement, I prefer to play Enhancement, so I don't mean "Enhancement sucks" in this post. Enhancement is a complex spec, demanding attention and foresight, which I like very much. But at some points there are obvious design faults that should be corrected by taking innotiative steps, also there are points that an Enhancement has to work harder than anyone to reach the same result, and that's not fair at all.
    Last edited by Mithgroth; 2013-01-22 at 01:39 PM.

  14. #14
    Ascendance and bloodlust are not on the GCD.

  15. #15
    As someone who has played enhance nearly all the time I've played WoW, going on three years now, I'm not sure where you're coming from with your concerns.

    If you've really been playing since Classic, then you'd know that enhance has been in a much worse place than it is now. You're probably thinking back to your glory days when nothing was balanced and imagining that that was not only a healthy state for the game to be in, but also the best possible state. Yeah, Windfury proccing off itself with no limit would be fun as hell, but it's also an incredibly unbalanced move not only for PVP, but for PVE as well.

    Hell, if you were playing during Wrath you'd actually have room to complain, especially given some of your complaints seem to echo concerns in that era. Remember having our only AOE be Fire Nova off of a Magma Totem? Remember using Magma Totem exclusively because Searing Totem was awful, despite Magma's 20-second lifespan? Remember hating armor penetration because it only affected half our damage, but finding it frequently on gear because hunters loved it? Remember having to press over a half dozen buttons just for our standard rotation? Remember hitting Lava Lash not because it was good, but because it was the only thing off cooldown, so not hitting it was a DPS loss? Remember doing all of this and still ending up middle of the charts at best? I sure do. It sucked.

    If you were still playing during Cata, you'd realize that Blizzard WAS working on fixing us. Unleash Elements gave us a new, useful ability to hit, buffing us twice every time we used it. Searing Totem's AI took pretty much the entire expansion to fix, but eventually it worked better. Our AOE took until 4.3 to really be fixed, and its ramp-up time is nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be. You want bad ramp-up, look at 4.2. Now it's just FS -> LL -> FN, and mobs do NOT die so quickly that you can't get anything off.

    Now in Mists, we've been fixed to the point that it's the most fun to play in years. One of the major complaints about enhance was the lack of DPS cooldowns, since wolves hit like dogs made of wet noodles, and Bloodlust didn't do as much for us as it did for everyone else. Now, we have not two, but FIVE, giving us one hell of a burst when we need it (another complaint that got addressed!). Our gearing issues have been fixed by giving us a second secondary that is actually good; even crit isn't outright bad, just not as good as haste or mastery. Now our priorities go beyond "hit/exp to caps, then stack mastery." And since hunters need expertise now too, expertise mail is now not as hard to find as before.

    To your specific points:
    -Our AOE has a total ramp-up time of two GCD's, three if you include UE. Yes, it's not as fast as "press butan receev deeps," but it has the potential to hit incredibly hard if things don't die before you can get a second LL out (which frequently happens). I see no problems with that; it's even a lot of fun.
    -I have a friend who's leveling an enhance shaman right now. He's asked me a couple questions along the way, but so far he's been enjoying himself, and hasn't had too many problems. I don't see how you can think it takes "months" to understand how to play the class. Once you learn Maelstrom stacks and the basic priority queue, you're pretty much set.
    -Again, see my previous paragraph. This was a problem in Cata when mastery was our only good stat and expertise was hard to find on armor, but in Mists these problems have been alleviated.
    -If anything, we have more of a direction now than we've had in years. This is, of course, debatable, as none of us work at Blizz, but when it comes to the feel of the class, I'd say we've got it pretty good. The fact that we've seen no nerfs since Mists started is a good sign to me.
    -This is one point I'll concede, for purely selfish reasons. I just like a lot of one-handed sword models, and I don't see the problem with shaman using them (I will bring up Drek'thar every time until I get my way). Plus, more weapon variety means more transmog options, and allows one-handed agi swords to drop in raids again. That would mean that rogues, monks, and shaman could all wield the same weapons. Also, even though that would mean ele shaman could wield caster swords, they still couldn't wield wands, so they wouldn't be able to wield EVERY caster weapon, just most of them, like they always have.

    So no, I don't see the need for a revamp, because enhance is in a great position right now. A lot of concerns from Wrath and Cata have been fixed, and we're one of the most unique (and, in my opinion, fun) specs in the game. Why would you want to give that up?

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eruionmel View Post
    You're the 7th top DPS class in the game, and you're complaining that your rotation is clunky. While Ele sits at 4th worst in the game. :|
    I thought Elems rotation is excellent ATM. Not mention buffs you'll be getting next patch.

    A few points I'd like to mention:

    < Our Aoe has debatabley the longest most frustrating ramp up time of any AoE
    < Our "Rotation" is plagued by so many parameters that can change due to circumstances it takes months to get good at the class.
    < Rarely do Blizz ever itemize for us ever
    < We lack any kind of direction we are constantly being thrown a band aid then left dead in the water
    < We should have been given swords long ago to stop our lack of decent weapons, we cant even get a crafted weapon cause the only agility crafted weapon is a sword or a strength weapon.
    Our itemization is fine. Our AoE mechanics have a ramp up time, otherwise it's pretty decent. Only thing I would critisize is PvP:
    Too many of our core abilities rely on MsV. And pretty low mobility for a melee.

  17. #17
    Dreadlord Eruionmel's Avatar
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    Here's my problem. You're 7th on the DPS charts and whining about how terrible your rotation. Who the hell cares if you're pulling good numbers? If Ele's rotation were 3x more complicated but I ranked in DPS where you currently do, I wouldn't be complaining. Because I'd actually be a good DPS spec.

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  18. #18
    Stood in the Fire NPSlow's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tovart View Post
    < Our Aoe has debatabley the longest most frustrating ramp up time of any AoE
    I love our AOE yeah it requires 2 gcds to get rolling but for the majority of raid encounters fire nova is just what we need and our ability to spread FS the way we do is priceless.
    Quote Originally Posted by Tovart View Post
    < Our "Rotation" is plagued by so many parameters that can change due to circumstances it takes months to get good at the class.
    Priority system, can't argue with you though to me the spec is the epitome of "hit this button when it lights up".
    Quote Originally Posted by Tovart View Post
    < We lack any kind of direction we are constantly being thrown a band aid then left dead in the water
    This just isn't true Enhance has had an incredible amount of Quality of Life changes since I've been playing the class. Maybe I would have agreed with you a year+ ago but now I feel that's just not true.
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  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by caballitomalo View Post
    < We should have been given swords long ago to stop our lack of decent weapons, we cant even get a crafted weapon cause the only agility crafted weapon is a sword or a strength weapon.
    Yeah, the hole Slow Agility weapon being a Sword and the Slow Str weapon being an axe makes me mad too. But its not such a big deal really. Its hard to balance though since only 3 spec (I think) atm really want an agility slow weapon. I like fist weapons though and since we will be able to mog any one handed weapon into another, we can weild swords visually now XD.
    This is simply not true. You have to be able to equip an item to be able to transmogrify into it. We will only be able to transmog (as enhancement) the following
    Maces->Maces
    Maces->Axes
    Axes->Axes
    Axes->Maces
    Fists->Fists.

    I do agree that we need the capability to use swords, however. But until that time, even with the transmog changes we wont be able to look like Drek.

  20. #20
    Pandaren Monk shokter's Avatar
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    Enhancement has consistently seen improvements made since I started playing them in late TBC. THe only real 'problem' you list that I agree with is the long ramp up time for the somewhat clunky aoe rotation, but you may or may not remember that we used to not really even have any AoE...so I'll take what we have over what we used to have. Could it get better? A little...but it could be a whole lot worse.

    Besides out AoE (which is actually kinda powerful on the right type of packs which sadly rarely exist) I don't think we have any real pressing PvE issues. Happier atm with enhancement (pve) than any other time in the years I have played it.
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