Ideas and discussions for improving Elem and Enha in PvE.

[Aleksej89]

I just wanted to talk to my fellow shamans about Elem and Enha in PvE, and what realistic suggestions do you have that would improve those specs.

I would like some (or all) of the following for Elemental:
- Unleash Elements now makes our next 3 damage spells be castable on the move.
- Spiritwalker's Grace has either reduced cooldown or improved duration by default.
- Healing brought up to par, so our off-healing is equal to druids/paladins/monks/priests in PvE.
- Flame Shock DoT significantly increased to help out with 2 target fights.
- Chain Lightning does increased damage if it only hits 2 targets (helps with 2 target fights).
- Searing totem removed (Liquid Magma talent reworked to launch from the Shaman).
- Earth Shock now applies Flame Shock at full duration (could be a major glyph).

For Enhancement i would like to see (some or all of) these:
- Healing brought up to par so that it is equal to other hybrid DPS specs that can off-heal
- Significant reduction of button bloat. Currently Enha can have 17 separate damage/cooldown buttons, not counting passive damages!
- Main damage dealers should be Lava Lash, Stormstrike and Maelstrom. Secondary damage sources should be Windfury, Flametongue and shocks.
- Searing and magma totem removed (Liquid Magma talent reworked to launch from the Shaman).
- Maelstrom procs made more consistent so that we do not suffer from bad luck streaks.
- Increase of our single target as well as "2 targets" damage output (opposite of big AoEs), probably through improved scaling.
- Lava Lash automatically applies Flame Shock at full duration to it's target (minor glyph can be made to disable this effect for CC effects).

General Shaman PvE things i would like to see are:
- Chain Lightning and Chain Heal jump distance increased by default. Looks awesome and fixes quite a few "spread targets" issues.
- Overall improvement of our talents. Totem talents are generally boring and inferior, or just way too situational for PvE.
- More access to various weapon types, like 1-handed swords and wands.
- Pet/minion/guardian AI improved OR we get complete control of all our pets (for the duration).
- Some interesting major glyphs, or at least some pretty minor glyphs.
- We lost so much unique utility (all of it?!)... would be nice to be able to get some other class utility like conjure water/health-stones/portals/summoning or whatever new.

Those are just some random ideas i thought of, but i am sure a lot of you fellas got your own wicked wicked wishes
If possible try to keep it realistic so that we actually gather some decent feedback, in case a blizzard fellow accidentally checks out MMO-C's forums.

[Nami69]

I want them to nerf unbuffed Earthquake dmg and buff Empowered Earthquake dmg for 6.1 so I don't have to use an unbuffed Earthquake on cleave fights. \o/

[Aleksej89]

I want them to nerf unbuffed Earthquake dmg and buff Empowered Earthquake dmg for 6.1 so I don't have to use an unb
uffed Earthquake on cleave fights. \o/

Well that sounds logical, but depends on what fights are classified as cleave.
On 2 target fights i do not want to use EQ, but on 3+ target fights i think using EQ would be appropriate.

That would work out well i think

[Hots]

I disagree with alot of peoples suggestion to fix mobility. Most of them is just to go back to the "run while casting" it takes alot of skill away. I would much rather see a movement spell. Im personally havent thought of an idea of a spell thats unique yet.

Maybe glyph thunderstorm so knock us away from with. But i would like to see a totem spell. It would have made much more sense if a torem of ours gave run while casting to the raid then a hunters fox. But ye. I dont think mobility is to bad and that Elemental is ina solid state, we just lack that extra mobility to be at the top

[Ashenrune]

I think the best/healthiest change for chain lightning's jump issues would be to change how it calculates jump range from target to target. Currently it targets from the center of the model for each jump. this is problematic for bosses with larger models. But if you changed it to where it calculates jump distance based on the targets distance from the edge of the initial target. This means that no matter how large the model it will always jump 10 yards from that model.

This makes it so you don't have to really stack larger mobs to get chain to hit them all or really stack smaller units around a larger one. It makes it consistent and easy to predict.

[Tellaria]

Enhancement:
Major damage cooldowns all having different durations and CDs, making cooldown usage extremely clumsy, and heavily reduces the damage potential of these damage CDs if it was possible to sync them up.

At the moment if you use all your CDs at the start of a fight, the only time they will all be back up again is around 6 minutes in (delaying Fire Elem by 1 minute).
This is fine if a fight lasts around 7 minutes, but leaves very little flexibility for other durations (you either have to delay some CD's to align them if burst is needed at a given point of the fight, or stagger the usage of your CDs each time they are up).

[Deleted]

I got a question regarding Elemental Fusion. Why does it not buff ES/FrS damage like it leads you to believe in the tooltip, it only seems to buff FS, is this a bug???

[Shinela]

I'm only going to cover enhance since I'm not very good at elemental xD

For Enhancement i would like to see (some or all of) these:
- Healing brought up to par so that it is equal to other hybrid DPS specs that can off-heal

I agree here. We have to sacrifice our lightning bolt damage in order to send out a decent heal. Then it heals for quite a bit, but it feels off. I'd say more ways to get our healing would be most interesting. Some way we can use the healing other than sacrificing damage. Right now, I can plop down Healing Stream, but it costs a precious global and I have barely any downtime to do so.

- Significant reduction of button bloat. Currently Enha can have 17 separate damage/cooldown buttons, not counting passive damages!

I don't know... I love enhancement as it is, and I don't feel its buttons are too much. In fact, that's the reason I love enhancement. It's more complex, it's not a 3-button spec like many others. Please, I like Enhancement's amount of buttons.

- Main damage dealers should be Lava Lash, Stormstrike and Maelstrom. Secondary damage sources should be Windfury, Flametongue and shocks.

They.. Kind of already are in this order... Aren't they?

- Searing and magma totem removed (Liquid Magma talent reworked to launch from the Shaman).

Well, totems are sort of what tells us as Shaman. I think we'd just need a rework on totems, not have them removed. I can't think of things right out of my head, but I'd love the buffing totems back, though.

- Maelstrom procs made more consistent so that we do not suffer from bad luck streaks.

.. meh.. I don't know. There's just as many bad luck streaks as there are good luck streaks. I'm quite happy with how it works.

- Increase of our single target as well as "2 targets" damage output (opposite of big AoEs), probably through improved scaling.

Completely agreed. I love single target on my Shaman, I absolute adore it actually. Opposite to that, I dislike AoE. Well, it could be worse of course, but I find it boring. Flame Shock, Lava Lash, Unleash Ele, Fire Nova, Lava Lash, Fire Nova, Fire Nova, Fire Nova, ....
AoE is boring. So few buttons. Single target is absolute fun! ....... But weak.

- Lava Lash automatically applies Flame Shock at full duration to it's target (minor glyph can be made to disable this effect for CC effects).

Quality of life. I wouldn't be for nor against it. I wouldn't mind having it, I guess it saves me from having to look at it, but on the other hand I quite like having to look at it. Kind of... Distinguishes us a bit from one another in terms of skill. More or less. I don't know, I just don't find it "that bad".

- Overall improvement of our talents. Totem talents are generally boring and inferior, or just way too situational for PvE.

I agree with you on this one as well. Our talents feel incredibly dull compared to other classes. I'd bring some ideas, but I don't want to make this massive post even larger.

- Pet/minion/guardian AI improved OR we get complete control of all our pets (for the duration).

Meh. I don't really bother about this to be honest.

- More access to various weapon types, like 1-handed swords and wands.

We've been asking for swords a few times now, I believe :P

- - - Updated - - -

I got a question regarding Elemental Fusion. Why does it not buff ES/FrS damage like it leads you to believe in the tooltip, it only seems to buff FS, is this a bug???

It does buff FrS at least, I can tell you that much :P

[Deleted]

It does buff FrS at least, I can tell you that much :P

Cancel my last, it does buff both, its just hitting for such low numbers i thought it didnt ><

[Deleted]

Significant reduction of button bloat. Currently Enha can have 17 separate damage/cooldown buttons, not counting passive damages!

This is the whole reason I play Enh and I'm sure I'm not alone in that one

[Tore]

For Enh-

What I'd like most is for Blizzard to be clear in their intentions. Do they intend for Enhancement to be a top 3 AoE spec? Do Blizzard intend for Enhancement to have no feasible 2/3 target cleave? Do they intend for Enhancement's single target damage to entirely cooldown and pet-dependent? I want to know if when WoD is over and the next expac is coming, will I still be an AoE-focused class with heavy reliance on pets, or will I be something else?

Assuming that, yes, our forte is to be Fire Nova spam, all our single target is to be derived from CDs, and that the Echo change from PTR goes live, I'd:

-Leave Fire Nova as is
-Remove Frost Shock from the PvE rotation by increasing the direct damage portion of Flame Shock
-Allow Unleash Elements' Unleash Wind buff (60% increased attack speed for 6 swings) to apply to our pets.
-Make Ascendance work with our 4th tier talents. Something like:

-Elemental Mastery: While Ascendance is active and spec'd into EM, Windlash CD is reduced by 1 second.
-Ancestral Swiftness: While Ascendance is active and spec'd into AS, Maelstrom Weapon may proc off spell damage.
-Echo of the Elements: While Ascendance is active and spec'd into EoE, Flameshock ticks may grant 1 charge to all abilities, not just Lava Lash.

The ideas behind these changes:

-Enhancement AoE is currently on par with Boomchicken and Rogues are quickly catching up, leaving Fire Nova as is seems fine.
-Frost Shock doesn't even feel like it belongs in the rotation. It's there just to be there to fill whatever void Earth Shock left.
-If our single target is going to be reliant on pets, then let Enhancement enhance their pets with Unleash Elements.
-Ascendance should be more powerful (and more interesting) given that it's a 3 minute CD.

[TheTieThatBinds]

Nn the enhancement idea, they could end up making the Earth Elemental a self buff. Maybe use it like ascension, where you're more infused with the element rather than summon a minion of the element. You'd get increased armor, attack dmg, and health. Maybe even make it more damage oriented instead, like adding bleeds to our attacks by imbuing our attacks with shards of earth rather than the increased armory/health. Possibly even make said bleeds stack.

Theres even an idea I had of completely removing the earth elemental all together, and making the LS elemental only increasing SP and has a chance to Earth Shock someone at reduced dmg. when your spells hit them(excluding AoE abilities), making ES enhancement only and adding the bleeds or AD(possibly both) to it, and making the WS resto only adding a HoT to whoever is hit by CH.

Theres also, dare i say it, the chance to have Enhancement be like druid's feral tree, where you can Tank or do Melee DPS. I know in Vanilla they were wanting enhancement to be able to do both but removed the "tanky" talents later on.

Another take is use the "spirits" as a form for each class. Would be kind of hard for Ele though, since everything for them comes back to "storm". Enhancement could use wolf, and resto could use spirit of the ancient since the ancients are kind of already incorporated into the shaman as a helpful force.

[Ayaxandra]

I do not want any more of my buttons removed as Enhance, you've done enough damage already. If you want a low button-spec you have PLENTY to choose from, please stop mucking with my unique spec that I quite enjoy.

Returning chain heal and boosting it and HR with MW would be sufficient to return Enhancement off-healing without making it free from trade-offs.

I hate the sound effect of Magma Totem, but please do not remove my totems. I like having something to be mindful of. If anything I wish they still interacted with lava-lash, I like inter-ability synergy.

Improving Enhancement cleave would really be terrific. It would be nice if Lava-Lash would deal damage to a secondary damage in addition to spreading Flame Shock, perhaps if it dealt the initial Flame Shock damage every time it spread it rather than just spreading the DoT (obviously this would be impossible without more flame nova nerfing).

In terms of fixing Enhancement single-target: just return our old Ascendance. If this puts mastery ahead of Haste, so be it, it isn't like we have reforging to wholly control our secondary stats any more, we'll have plenty of haste regardless.

They could also return Static Shock, proccing charges on two targets. That's an improvement to cleave and provides a reason to use lightning shield beyond the glyph.

I also happen to LIKE it bursty and uneven. If I didn't like that, I'd play a rogue.

Look, just going to summarize this one more time. There are a LOT of specs out there, an incredible number of DPS specs. The game benefits from variety. If you don't like how Enhancement plays, go play something else. If you want to have free GCDs, if you want to have more even, less-proccy damage, if you want to be resource capped rather than GCD capped, if you want to have big abilities that hit for really satisfying amounts of damage rather than many numerous smaller sources that add up to an impressive aggregate, if you don't want to watch totem timers and numerous cooldowns, GO PLAY SOMETHING ELSE. There are options for you, many of them. If you got your way and changed the way Enhancement plays, what options will you leave those of us who actually LIKE the spec? There is only one other spec that plays remotely like Enhancement, and that's Retribution, and being a spec of the class that's intended to be easiest to play its much less complicated and satisfying than Enhancement. Don't screw with the core of our spec, go find one you enjoy instead.

[COFFEEMAN69]

Honestly just need to buff the teir 7 talents. storm elemental needs to either stack with fire elemental or have a way to merge the 2 CDs together to creat a super elemental. EF needs to to just be a flat 60% extra damage to all shock spells. i mean cmon this talent sucks the D its so hard to snap shot flame shock because odds are youll be caped on LS stacks by the time u get the LS procs. for magma totem they just need it to be able to snap shot elemental unleash so it does 30% more damage if u snap shot that ability. this should help both specs. i also dont know why they removed the mastery scaling on ascension for enhancement. i guess for pvp but just remove the mastery scaling in pvp. i think blizz just doesnt give a fuck about hybrid classes tbh.

[Aleksej89]

I do understand some people liking the "complex" rotation, but i honestly do not see Enha as complex.

To me it seems very overbloated, since most spells are either macro-ed (cooldowns) or are simple-minded choices (which shock, which fire totem, which Lbolt/CL...).

Blizzard definitely will trim a few spells off Enha as they stated in a few developer interviews, personally i hope that we lose 1 shock and both basic fire totems - perhaps even unleash elements.

[Ayaxandra]

Unleash is a bizarre ability because its a short-term buff that requires a target to cast (mine is simply macroed to target myself, but nonetheless that's a strange requirement for a spell that does no damage or healing, and does not place a debuff on the target). I would vastly prefer it go back to dealing damage, but that seems unlikely.

What makes Enhancement "complex" is its fast-paced priority system focused around a dynamic MW proc system that interacts with the priority (as does the number of targets). The correct decision with 3 MW procs is not the same as with 2, or 5. Where to put Fire Nova in the priorities depends upon how many mobs are available to hit, while the cooldowns add complexity from the perspective of having to monitor their CDs and consider their usage. Compare Enhancement CDs to our closest brethren spec, Retribution, which has no dynamism within its rotation excepting Divine Purpose and to a lesser extent Improved Divine Storm, while having only one independent CD to watch (regardless of spec) compared to our typical of four (Ascendance, Feral Spirits, Fire Elemental Totem, and Liquid Magma), while having nothing to maintain in comparison to our Fire totems. This is absolutely a case of simpler versus more complex, there is no other way about it. [After posting I realized that by this criteria, Ret does have two: Execution Sentence (or similar talent)]

I also like it this way, and do not want to see it change. Removal of UE or totems would both be detriments to the spec and the way it plays. If those bothered me I could play retribution instead. Why reduce variety when people obviously enjoy the spec? There is no reason.

[Deleted]

Unleash elements does NOT require a target to be cast.. not since they removed its damage component. But yeah I'm SO PRO at my bloated, but imo complex, underrepresented spec that I just had to put together a post with a lot of versions of the word 'dynamic' and other bla-bla shit to try and prove it.

[Aleksej89]

I honestly can not imagine how someone views UElements or Searing/Magma totems as a "bonus" to Enha's quality of life/play - but to each his own.

Blizzard always does as they see fit, and our feedback is unlikely to help... but we oughta try anyway (for the 5th expansion in a row).

[Deleted]

I agree with the merging of some spells idea, enhancement feels like playing Whack-a-mole.

[jayinjersey]

I can fix Enhancement cleave by removing Lightning Bolt, and upping Chain Lightning to be shaman's only MSW damage use.
make the glyph no longer work for Enhancement so it is capped at 3 targets...but do live LB damage to first then 75% to second and 50% to third and be effected by all Enhancement's increases to LB (Mastery, MSW, I think UF does too...maybe that's just the talented version)

Gives us a decent cleave addition (since we can still FS spread and FNova)
Clears up some button bloat by removing LB
Gets us to use the cool animation of CL more often...since they took the Ascendance Lightning Strike effect away (which was awesome)

And more importantly...it would be a simple fix, so less Dev time on their side meaning better chance to implement