Ehancement shamans in WoD

[Deleted]

Hi Guys

I am currently maining a WW monk on live servers, raiding endgame raiding. That means 14/14 HC cleared on both 10 and 25 man.
Because of the changes made to WW monks in WoD (taking alot of the speed out of the spec), I decided to reroll enhancement shaman in WoD. Apparently they are one of the only melee classes that will keep their high pace - I like that!
1 month ago enhancement shamans seemed to be in a pretty good place on the Beta but I also saw some pretty hard nerfs coming our way in the last 30 days. So my question to you is: How are we ACTUALLY doing on the beta? I heard people talking about players rerolling away from shamans left and right but that was the same idea I got on the monk forums.
... Can anyone help me out here? Hopefully some of you have been playing them on the beta and can give me an idea of their current state.
The reason for rolling away from monk was me wanting to keep playing a high pace, buttonsmashing class/spec. But it doesnt really make sense to me if I cant compete with the other melee classes...

Best regards
Panderp

[Deleted]

My honest opinion, if its not too much effort, give the class/spec a try (level one up or something) and do some dungeons and LFRs and get a feel for it. Its really my favorite spec and after trying out most of the other melee class/spec combos I think it is at least the most original (sort of like a battle mage).

Thanks for your reply!
I have one of each class in lvl 90 at the moment and have been playing my enhancement shaman lately. Although it's not that fun going from a WW monk with 587 ilvl to an enhancement shaman with 530 ilvl I think I got a good feel off the class/spec and I like how they are on live atm.
The thing is that they are kinda similar to WW monks (in some arriers) at the moment. They both have a very high paced feeling. In both specs you have to think about priorities all the time and every second Counts (Guess it does on all classes, but you know what I mean It's aweomse!
The difference in WoD is that the pace of WW monks will be lowered quite a bit and enhancement shamans will keep their playstyle very similar to what it is today.

I know that WoD isnt here yet and that alot of tuning is yet to be done. But would be interesting to hear what people think about enhancement shamans on the Beta compared to how they are on live. From different streams I got the impression that people are happy about the direction enhancement are heading. But that was before the nerfs this month

Again, thanks for your reply!

[EKUEOLOFi]

Out of the 3 shaman specs, Enhancement is definitely the better one. Resto is on a below average position, and so is elemental for what i have seen.

Wolfs or raptors OP like always, and AoE damage was reaaaally good, but i think is was nerfed, or about to get nerfed.

I'd say try it. I know couple of people that are gonna main enh already, i might do the same, still undecided.

[kubuntu]

Enh in WoD from my testing

-CDs are nerfed to the ground . Ascendance is 15 sec hunter mode not big dps impact, FET nerfed, Wolves get some buff. Overal Enh is no longer CD burst spec like it was in MoP

- AoE is quite decent but you need need targets that will live a litle longer then few sec to make it works. Good on hight level content, total garbage if you gona solo old contents

-DPS is in quite good spot but in my opinion enh is now to much spamy and too depend on spells insted of melee atacks

-Healing get quite big nerf and cost you much more since LB is you main source of damage

Overal for me Enh in WoD is tunelvision melee who do millions of low numbers hits and have no real CD or raid utility left. Do quite good DPS but lost its burst impact witch had in MoP.

[Deleted]

Sound sad with the loss of burst. From what I understand that is a huge part of enhancement shamans atm.
Thanks for your replies so far Its all giving me new info that I can use!

[Deleted]

It all boils down to how much credence you give to simulation data given by outside sources. If you feel that the fact that someone somewhere came up with a list of numbers in which the class/spec doesn´t stand on top of all other is a detriment to your enjoyment of the game (and plenty of people feel that way, I´m not saying its wrong) then pick the one with the big number attached to it.

From what I can tell (I´m not in beta) enhancement in WoD will be very similar to what it is now. We do have a somewhat constant stream of buttons to press (its not GCD capped like it used to though) and depending on procs and if we are AoEing or Raid Boss dpsing it can become rather intense.

Again, its not a GCD capped scenario all the time but if you factor in defensive CDs, healing totem and spells and major CDs you get something very close to what you described. Fast paced, non stop button pressing.

As far as numbers go, its still too early to tell. The tuning is constant in the beta this days and every patch brings nerfs and buffs across the board, anyone claiming to know for a fact which classes will be the top dps in WoD is jumping the gun big time. At best the only thing they can tell you which class/spec sim best on the particular sim they are using for single target patchwerk style fights using the numbers for whatever patch notes they got hold off. Not really an accurate way to know how things will roll out.

My honest opinion, if its not too much effort, give the class/spec a try (level one up or something) and do some dungeons and LFRs and get a feel for it. Its really my favorite spec and after trying out most of the other melee class/spec combos I think it is at least the most original (sort of like a battle mage).

As far as numbers go, we go from one of the highest single target dps to one the lowest. Probably even a lot of ranged dps like highly mobile fire mages will beat us.

Still hope for some numbers fix after servers go live (enhancers will be really bad, like always after raid testing) and we can only hope for the necessary buffs. I believe we are 5-10% behind all other melees which in the end means that enhancers won't be viable in mythic raiding.

Maybe they look too strong on some early raid testing because fire elemental makes us look strong for the first minute of the fight, but after that, we drop and drop and drop to the bottom. I did some premade testing with a guild rogue of mine and after 9 minutes of perfect execution and both having premade gear, i was solid 8.3% behind a assa rogue (no pvp set bonus active, but about the same stats). And i'm stronger than him on live server single target wise. Execution was nearly perfect single target dps wise as we already had a working interface.

If someone wants to do some testing, i'm ready for it. But right now, i feel that we will be solid for one minutes fights (which don't exist in highend raiding) and bad after 3+ minutes fights.

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Out of the 3 shaman specs, Enhancement is definitely the better one. Resto is on a below average position, and so is elemental for what i have seen.

Wolfs or raptors OP like always, and AoE damage was reaaaally good, but i think is was nerfed, or about to get nerfed.

I'd say try it. I know couple of people that are gonna main enh already, i might do the same, still undecided.

Yeah AOE damage is the last hope. But AOE tuning hasn't even started yet. If they nerf fire nova, like expected, we still have clunky aoe mechanics for mediocre or bad aoe output. There seemed to be some fights that could work for enhancers if they don't nerf fire nova too much.

[Deleted]

As far as numbers go, we go from one of the highest single target dps to one the lowest. Probably even a lot of ranged dps like highly mobile fire mages will beat us.

Still hope for some numbers fix after servers go live (enhancers will be really bad, like always after raid testing) and we can only hope for the necessary buffs. I believe we are 5-10% behind all other melees which in the end means that enhancers won't be viable in mythic raiding.

Maybe they look too strong on some early raid testing because fire elemental makes us look strong for the first minute of the fight, but after that, we drop and drop and drop to the bottom. I did some premade testing with a guild rogue of mine and after 9 minutes of perfect execution and both having premade gear, i was solid 8.3% behind a assa rogue (no pvp set bonus active, but about the same stats). And i'm stronger than him on live server single target wise. Execution was nearly perfect single target dps wise as we already had a working interface.

If someone wants to do some testing, i'm ready for it. But right now, i feel that we will be solid for one minutes fights (which don't exist in highend raiding) and bad after 3+ minutes fights.

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Yeah AOE damage is the last hope. But AOE tuning hasn't even started yet. If they nerf fire nova, like expected, we still have clunky aoe mechanics for mediocre or bad aoe output. There seemed to be some fights that could work for enhancers if they don't nerf fire nova too much.

Outch... So you are playing enhance on live? Are you planning on rerolling another class than or what is your plan? I need to be able to contribute to the raid on mythic.

[kubuntu]

Outch... So you are playing enhance on live? Are you planning on rerolling another class than or what is your plan? I need to be able to contribute to the raid on mythic.

probably you will by being only Shaman in raid becous ele and resto looks worst then Enh in WoD

[Deleted]

Outch... So you are playing enhance on live? Are you planning on rerolling another class than or what is your plan? I need to be able to contribute to the raid on mythic.

I dont know yet, i am considering.
I remember 5.2: enhancers were extremely bad for a whole patch cycle after tons of nerfs in 5.2. That is where i took a break because i was pretty much worthless to my raid. Then in 5.3 we got a 12%dps buff, probably a bit too much. Had some really nice time.

Then again 5.4, we once again got nerfs and nerfs and nerfs. We were once again in a weak spot, getting out dpsed by other melees pretty much everywhere.
But this time we got within one week a 7%buff, enough to buff us right to the average of all melees (bad aoe but good single target).

Right now we are again about 10 %behind rogues and probably warriors and ferals once again. I am pretty sure about rogues after doing some testing.

So if we get that dps fix until 13th nov, i night consider not rerolling. But if i feel that my dps sucks at lvl 90 and theres no dps hotfix inc, i will reroll.

Id like to reroll DK, but they arent blizzards favirites either. I regret not playing a warrior.

[Deleted]

I dont know yet, i am considering.
I remember 5.2, where enhancers were extremely bad for a whole patch cycle after tons of nerfs in 5.2. That is where i took a break because i was pretty much worthless to my raid. Then in 5.3 we got a 12%dps buff, probably a bit too much. Had some really nice time.

Then again 5.4, we once again got nerfs and nerfs and nerfs. We were once again in a weak spot, getting out dpsed by other melees pretty much everywhere.
But this time we got within one week a 7%buff, enough to buff us right to the average of all melees (bad aoe but good single target).

Right now we are again about 10 %behind rogues and probably warriors and ferals once again. I am pretty sure about rogues after doing some testing.

So if we get that dps fix until 13th nov, i night consider not rerolling. But if i feel that my dps sucks at lvl 90 and theres no dps hotfix inc, i will reroll.

Id like to reroll DK, but they arent blizzards favirites either. I regret not playing a warrior.

Sounds like a plan. I guess Blizzard will finetune the last bit in the next month and then we just have to see where we are at right before release. Hopefully they will find a better balance than we see right now. Fingers crossed!

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... I regret not playing a warrior.

Actually I see alot of warriors complaining about their changes in WoD aswell... It might be a general thing that every class are mad about their changes?

[Xanda]

Actually I see alot of warriors complaining about their changes in WoD aswell... It might be a general thing that every class are mad about their changes?

Spot on! You'll only find whiners in class forum.

[Emophia]

Actually I see alot of warriors complaining about their changes in WoD aswell... It might be a general thing that every class are mad about their changes?

No, it's because they're royally ruined warriors.

[Yagyu4k]

@xanda thats normal, because shaman get nerfs since 10 years in a row. Example wotlk: funny as fuck because of an great fast gameplay but weak as hell.
follow twitter there you can see that shamans will get an little buff

[Ham on Rye]

I was ready to play Enhancement (respeccing from Resto) in WoD and had been enjoying it on live as I tried to gear up a little to make leveling easier. However, once I started playing it on beta, I realized it felt sluggish, slower and less active. Found myself having to cast lightning bolt a lot, especially with less than 5 Maelstrom stacks. And not having lightning bolt while moving anymore made me feel more rooted than I'd ever felt on a melee class. I've since changed my mind about playing Enhancement. Feels like it lost a lot of the fun of the spec.

[Yagyu4k]

@neos so extreme for you?

[Satori]

I reconsidered rerolling to my enh shaman a lot, but decided against it. I've mained a warrior for ages and I really, really, really despise what they have done to the class, but decided to stick to it until the inevitable overhaul in 6.1 or (god forbid) 7.0. Plus they're insanely OP in dps now for the amount of effort so my guild could use me.

Here's what I have to say: enhance shaman are imo the funnest class to play. You have a fuckload of spells, the tier bonus is amazing, they're good in pvp and I love the pace. They're not however optimal or op in a PvE scenario. This is where you factor "fun" x "performance" (thus why I'm keeping mine as an alt).

Also consider that WW monks feel slugish because of the low gear. Once you're decked in full BRF or next tier gear you'll probably get back closer to your level of confort.

The only issue that bothers me is the not being able to move while hardcasting lightning bolt. It kinda removes the best part of being melee.

So: nobody can decide this but you. If you were ever tempted to roll an enhance shaman now is the best time to do it. Don't be so quick to dismiss your monk though because it's just a gear issue and they have OP mobility in PvP. If you're looking to reroll solely based on performance I'd advise to go Warrior or a ranged (probably hunter because they can dps on the move with no penalty).

[Grimbold21]

Neos: I thought the whole point of the WoD changes to enhancement was to "force" the player to cast LB only at 5 stacks.

[Raiju]

Neos: I thought the whole point of the WoD changes to enhancement was to "force" the player to cast LB only at 5 stacks.

The ideology behind that is they wouldn't make LB 20+% of our damage, which they did. They didn't comparatively nerf LB (to the rest of our toolset) enough for it to not be important to hardcast, even moreso than currently.