If anyone needs ability pruning... its Shaman

[nazrakin]

Not really, Blizzard made the game have a lot more of these micro management situations due to addons like Power Auras. IMO the difference most of the time between really good raiders and average raider is that these top tier raiders have really good addons that are set up very well. Sadly you need to be a programmer just about to track some things in the game. Such as In vanilla I used a Logitech G9, and now I use a Razer Naga. I use the Naga because you really need one if you want to do well.

There were no Dot Trackers back then, LoL just ask anyone who killed Lucifron before addons how hard that was. Addons made life a lot easier, so Blizz made their game more complicated. Seems now they realized possibly that everyone needed addons is not the ideal way to make a game.

I'm not sure what you are disputing, especially with examples that prove my point? A good UI "makes life easier" by putting pertinent information in a format that you can quickly parse -- that is all Word ups WAs do, they dont play the game for you. In the default UI you are expected to constantly shift focus from the top left to the top right to the very bottom to the center of your screen... its horribly cumbersome and it wouldnt surprise me if many would be "good raiders" end up being average because of it. WA takes all the exact same information and puts it together in a clean format that you can read.

Back in vanilla it wasnt any different. Decursive came to prominence because bosses were blanketing the raid in effects that needed to be removed and the default ui wouldnt surface that unless you clicked on each person individually. DOTtimers were required because the default ui didnt show how much time a debuff had left on a target and when blizz eventually removed the debuff limit the ui could not even display them all and nor did they initially prioritize your own, so if you were just in the dark if you didnt have an add on. I dont agree about the game requiring a naga, thats more a personal preference.

[Valkaneer]

I'm not sure what you are disputing, especially with examples that prove my point? A good UI "makes life easier" by putting pertinent information in a format that you can quickly parse -- that is all Word ups WAs do, they dont play the game for you. In the default UI you are expected to constantly shift focus from the top left to the top right to the very bottom to the center of your screen... its horribly cumbersome and it wouldnt surprise me if many would be "good raiders" end up being average because of it. WA takes all the exact same information and puts it together in a clean format that you can read.

Back in vanilla it wasnt any different. Decursive came to prominence because bosses were blanketing the raid in effects that needed to be removed and the default ui wouldnt surface that unless you clicked on each person individually. DOTtimers were required because the default ui didnt show how much time a debuff had left on a target and when blizz eventually removed the debuff limit the ui could not even display them all and nor did they initially prioritize your own, so if you were just in the dark if you didnt have an add on. I dont agree about the game requiring a naga, thats more a personal preference.

No I'm not proving your point. I don't see how your missing the point. Bloat is not about a bad ui. It's about more and more buttons being added to maintain a level of difficulty mainly due to addons.

I think everyone knows that there has been more abilities and buttons added since vanilla. In Vanilla you had a rotation system, now we have a priority system. Buffs, dots, passives now provide a large source for procs which we just had a LOT less of in vanilla and even BC. We also had a lot more CC, raid buffs, and purge type abilities. Every xpac they want to add new buttons, and it got to the point where you just have to track to many things at the same time for most people to do well. I don't care how good the ui is, is hard enough trying to get past the 3 to 5 mechanics going on your screen at the same time while also trying to track your own buttons and cd's. It's to much Bloat and it needed to be toned down.

[nazrakin]

No I'm not proving your point. I don't see how your missing the point. Bloat is not about a bad ui. It's about more and more buttons being added to maintain a level of difficulty mainly due to addons.

I think everyone knows that there has been more abilities and buttons added since vanilla. In Vanilla you had a rotation system, now we have a priority system. Buffs, dots, passives now provide a large source for procs which we just had a LOT less of in vanilla and even BC. We also had a lot more CC, raid buffs, and purge type abilities. Every xpac they want to add new buttons, and it got to the point where you just have to track to many things at the same time for most people to do well. I don't care how good the ui is, is hard enough trying to get past the 3 to 5 mechanics going on your screen at the same time while also trying to track your own buttons and cd's. It's to much Bloat and it needed to be toned down.

You totally proved my point: the default UI was deficient at displaying the info people needed, so they turned to add ons. Both decursive and Dottimers are great examples of that occurrence. And I'm not missing your point at all, I just dont agree and you arent really showing any direct connection between ability bloat and the add ons. Ability bloat is the consequence of a 11 year old game that revolves around character progression, it makes total sense that they continued to add more abilities with each new expac. Its something you can see in every other long standing MMO, 95% of which have no add on customization.

Even calling what we had in vanilla "rotations" is an awfully generous way to describe how most classes actually played during that time. And thank god we use priority systems and procs because they're vastly more fluid and interesting than rotations. If you want to see what real rotational gameplay looks like go play FFXIV where the melee have 10-12 button rotations that you pretty much repeat in the exact same for order for 5-6 minutes straight. Also, its not like Legion has abandoned anything we're talking about here. You'll still have priority queues, plenty to timers to track, procs to react to, and (likely) all the same add ons you do now.

[Valkaneer]

You totally proved my point:

It's like i'm talking to a wall or a troll. A UI can only do so much, most people can't track 20 things at the same time, no matter if the UI has every thing perfectly noted or not. Every Xpac more and more bloat gets added on to what we have to do, Addons reduce the stress and difficulty so Blizzard adds more buttons and bloat to try and bring the difficultly back up. Addons have changed Blizzards actions more than a few times effecting the way we play the game. Trying to make an argument that the Addons have no effect on the bloat we now have is comical.

The UI was not deficient, it was the way the game was made. I see lots of people try explain the difficulty of vanilla and BC all the time now as under tuned. That's frankly a load of crap. Every game back then was that hard. Blizzard just found they can make more money by making the game a lot easier. Just like Carbonite. The UI was not deficient, it was not intended for everyone to know exactly where to go and what to kill, but everyone was using it and blizzard caved. Now they like to blame flying on what carbonite and the new quest log caused. Another example is Gatherer, same deal as carbonite, was not ever intended for everyone to know where every node was going to spawn. Now they do other things like Gating your Professions to slow you down. A lot of these addons saved alot of time and make the game a lot easier. Many of these were not Intended to ever be easy so blizzard added bloat to slow you down and make it harder.

If you want to see what real rotational gameplay looks like go play FFXIV where the melee have 10-12 button rotations that you pretty much repeat in the exact same for order for 5-6 minutes straight

That was vanilla. A Rotation over and over the same buttons, some classes had a few procs, but we call it a rotation for a reason.

I'm done beating the horse......

[nazrakin]

It's like i'm talking to a wall or a troll. A UI can only do so much, most people can't track 20 things at the same time, no matter if the UI has every thing perfectly noted or not. Every Xpac more and more bloat gets added on to what we have to do, Addons reduce the stress and difficulty so Blizzard adds more buttons and bloat to try and bring the difficultly back up. Addons have changed Blizzards actions more than a few times effecting the way we play the game. Trying to make an argument that the Addons have no effect on the bloat we now have is comical.

The UI was not deficient, it was the way the game was made. I see lots of people try explain the difficulty of vanilla and BC all the time now as under tuned. That's frankly a load of crap. Every game back then was that hard. Blizzard just found they can make more money by making the game a lot easier. Just like Carbonite. The UI was not deficient, it was not intended for everyone to know exactly where to go and what to kill, but everyone was using it and blizzard caved. Now they like to blame flying on what carbonite and the new quest log caused. Another example is Gatherer, same deal as carbonite, was not ever intended for everyone to know where every node was going to spawn. Now they do other things like Gating your Professions to slow you down. A lot of these addons saved alot of time and make the game a lot easier. Many of these were not Intended to ever be easy so blizzard added bloat to slow you down and make it harder.

That was vanilla. A Rotation over and over the same buttons, some classes had a few procs, but we call it a rotation for a reason.

I'm done beating the horse......

Im a wall or a troll because I don't agee with you? If you're going to be petulant about it then it is best that you stop "beating the horse".

[Riistov]

Honestly OP, from reading your post I feel like you just want Enhancement to be something that it's not, and has never been. I played in Wrath, Enh was much more complicated than it is now. The thing that most of us enjoy about this class is the robust and diverse toolkit. Through all the ups and downs we have been through with this class over the years (many downs, sooooo many downs), the reason we have stuck it out is that, at the end of the day, Shaman feels and plays like no other class.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

I was a huge fan of enhancement in Vanilla, continued to play through BC (though not viable),

Stopped right there. You should of just got on with your point.
Enhance wasn't viable in Classic. It was just a gimmick spec.
It was incredibly strong in TBC, especially with the buffs it afforded the other heavy hitters.


Either way, I agree. Shaman in general still have way too many abilities, but I don't really find any of them something that can be removed.
In fact, I sort of like what I saw from Resto Shaman and Enhance this build.
If anyone needed the prune it was indeed Enhance, but they will never go back to being:
Stormstrike > Earth Shock > wait for windfury.

[Deleted]

I believe he meant tbc pvp when he said "(though not viable)".
Vanilla pvp, enh could wreck faces, even though it was heavy on rng.
Ignoring the first few months of tbc where you could exploit a shortsight of wf design, enh wasn't a particlularly good pvp spec in bc though.

Pve is the other way around. Enh was non-existant in raids in vanilla. Resto or go home. In bc, enh had decent enough damage together with Unleashed Rage, totem twisting and Blood Lust to be rather desirable.

[zurm]

I've had the opportunity to play enh shaman on the alpha for a decent bit of time (leveled mine to 106 so far, almost completed the last of the three available zones). I will preface by saying my experience with enh on live is limited to messing around on an alt mostly in pvp, nothing serious. In fact, the state of enhancement on live actually made it one of the last DPS classes I tried with my alpha access, because I just feel like the class is all over the place. I can empathize with those of you who love the current state of the class, but to me it just comes off as clunky (the illustration of DK AoE vs Enh paints a good picture in my mind, along with all the little annoying upkeep things like searing totem and flame shock that feel like busywork).

What I can say is that Enh shaman on alpha was far and away the most fun and fleshed out class that I've yet to play (disclaimer, this is of the current state of the alpha, obviously a lot can and will change before live and I haven't had a chance to play a few specs I'm interested in like Demo lock or Assassination rogue). Maelstrom works well as a resource, and having rockbiter as a builder means you always have something to do and press. The animations and flow of the class are satisfying and fun. In fact, my only real complaint so far with the class is there are too many short-CD abilities via cooldowns that, in the current state of numbers in alpha, are just the best (again disclaimer, number tuning hasn't even come close to beginning). It's not my favorite because it's the most powerful (that privilege goes to fire mages and shadow priests) or my favorite thematically (ret pally), but because it's just... fun. Every ability feels like it has a clear and defined purpose, and aside from AOE feeling a little clunky atm (I think it's a bug with hit detection for crash lightning, but fury of air is incredibly powerful AoE on a short CD) I always feel like I can handle whatever is thrown at me.

The point I'm trying to make is that you should wait to try it before dismissing it completely. I know a lot of you really like the live implementation, but the implementation on alpha is coherent, fun, and in a much better place than other classes (like the mess that is sub rogues, MM & surv hunters, demon hunters, etc). The current design actually strikes me as something that's simple on the surface, but with a lot of depth and room for nuance (much like destro warlocks currently). Definitely voice your concerns in the proper channels (I don't think that's MMO champion forums... but twitter or the official forums are a good start), but try to keep an open mind.

I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you might have!

[Stormspellz]

I completely disagree with just about everything you're saying... but it doesnt matter anyway since this topic is 2 months too late. In Legion Enhancement is probably getting the most significant overhaul of anyone. Most of the kit is being thrown away and replaced with abilities and talents that are specific to Enhancement.

pretty much spot on.

[Deleted]

@ Zurm: awesome! Thanks for affirming my own suspicions. A lot of the stuff they've been implementing is stuff that has been asked for for years. Got really irritated when people left and right critisized us losing our "iconic" type of play.

Questions I'd have/Things that concern me atm in terms of legion:
1) How is the overall feel of our survivability/selfheal on alpha? I know with number tweaking still a long way off and such, it is hard so say anything in terms of numbers, but how does it feel like in terms of frequency? Those heals aren't instant anymore, right? And we lost a lot of other survivability in form of talents/HST/Feral Spirits etc. We also have to sacrifice more of our damage for heals now, as it shares its recource with SS/LL now.

2) I guess in a similar drawer would be the use of purge, which I heard uses maelstrom now as well. How does offensive dispell against others feel on alpha?

3) Some things they introduced (or kept) feel meh somehow. LB, MT and FT among them. How do you feel about those? Are there things your less enthusiastic about (I know you said most things feel like they serve a purpose, but do they all feel ~fun~. Is our current (passive) FT still present and seperate from our future, active one? I'd hope for the removal of the passive one, I guess, though the active one feels like a weird mix of UE and FS, without the range.

4) I feel like enh may be very potent as far as cc goes, with a 5s ST stun and an instant aoe hex. Is it as high up their vs others as I think it is?

5) Have you tried yet how enh feels when lining up lots and lots of haste? (troll racial, bl, windsong, feral spirits, possibly trinket/potion, artifact trait, pvp talent... :P)

6) How mobile did the spec feel in comparison with other spec like feral, warrior, rogue and ww monk? Our new mobility tier leaves me with high hopes!

7) How is the relation of SS/LL/RB on alpha? Since we're low geared there (I guess), I believe RB often used will be high up there and SS every now and then? How frequent do we get Stormfury? Lots of SSs?

8) Concerning talents:
-I think that Fist of Stone is in for a big buff and theme-wise would be nice to have a synergy with Stonefist Strike
-Windrush Totem feels so powerful that I fear we'll have to talent it for raid's sake. Even with other (ele/resto) talenting it, stacking it for certain fights like in bc with bl feels like a possibility for high mobility encounters. Do you feel it as powerful as that?
-Feral Lunge, how does it's damage component come into play? there's people considering pressing it on cd just for the damage.
-CC-tier: Does Voodoo Totem trump the other two as hard as I think it does? Have you tried yet teaming up with two other shamans, one with each totem, to hex/root multiple targets and then stun them as it runs out? Sounds like a possible strong pvp combo for legion, taking out an entire team for...13? 15?s
-How does Sundering feel like after the buff? Worth it vs the other two? Or is the knockback to annoying?
-How did Feral Kin and Earthen Spike feel? I know Ascendence is supposdely trumping them dmg-wise, but how did they feel gameplay/spec-flair-wise?


That's all I can think of at the spot. Hope I'm not over the top with my questions

[nazrakin]

Since DPS Shaman utility is shaping up to be pretty bare, I would like to see Windrush made baseline and maybe bring back Windwalk in that tier.

[zurm]

I'll try to get to everything. Hopefully I don't forget one!

@ Zurm: awesome! Thanks for affirming my own suspicions. A lot of the stuff they've been implementing is stuff that has been asked for for years. Got really irritated when people left and right critisized us losing our "iconic" type of play.

Questions I'd have/Things that concern me atm in terms of legion:
1) How is the overall feel of our survivability/selfheal on alpha? I know with number tweaking still a long way off and such, it is hard so say anything in terms of numbers, but how does it feel like in terms of frequency? Those heals aren't instant anymore, right? And we lost a lot of other survivability in form of talents/HST/Feral Spirits etc. We also have to sacrifice more of our damage for heals now, as it shares its recource with SS/LL now.

Compared to live, it feels about the same as my current enh sham (with healing surge being pretty underwhelming). However, this is the same across all the characters I've played (outside of my aff lock, which had a pet tank and absurd life drain). Almost every class lost a bunch of sustain and self healing. The only class with absurd leveling sustain is demon hunters, thanks to every kill spawning an orb that heals you for 25% of your HP. That said, I basically toss a healing surge on myself every other mob, and as long as I had some maelstrom in the cast, it's usually enough to top me off. Interesting note: not only is the power of healing surge increased with maelstrom, but the speed of the cast is based on how much maelstrom you had when you cast it (ie, a cast at 100 maelstrom is nearly instant maybe a 0.5s cast, while a cast at 0 maelstrom takes the full 1.5s cast).

2) I guess in a similar drawer would be the use of purge, which I heard uses maelstrom now as well. How does offensive dispell against others feel on alpha?

I haven't done any pvp or dungeons, and haven't had much of a need to purge. That said, with the talent "Spiritual Resonance" (level 15 tier), 20 maelstrom is very easy to come by (just hit rockbiter once!).

3) Some things they introduced (or kept) feel meh somehow. LB, MT and FT among them. How do you feel about those? Are there things your less enthusiastic about (I know you said most things feel like they serve a purpose, but do they all feel ~fun~. Is our current (passive) FT still present and seperate from our future, active one? I'd hope for the removal of the passive one, I guess, though the active one feels like a weird mix of UE and FS, without the range.

Basically, rotationally, Flametongue replaces flameshock. It adds a certain kind of of base "additional" damage. Unfortunately it's bugged on alpha and randomly falls off so it's hard to gauge how big of a boon it is (ie, do you ALWAYS apply it, or only if the mob lives for 10s+, etc) until number tuning and bug fixing is done. There is no passive effect that I saw: rather, upon use you hit the mob for medium-light fire damage and get a buff on you which enhances your attacks to do small additional fire damage (think something like paladin seals but short duration?). Nice part: a lot of these abilities are actually 10yd range, NOT melee, making the ease of use pretty nice. Lightning bolt is NOT rotational, but rather your instant ranged mob tag/pull mechanic. It's damage isn't really significant even if you spend maelstrom on it. Plus side: it's better than almost every other melee class' equivalent, being instant and spammable with no CD and no effective cost if used at 0 maelstrom. Not sure what you're referring to with "MT", so I can't comment.

4) I feel like enh may be very potent as far as cc goes, with a 5s ST stun and an instant aoe hex. Is it as high up their vs others as I think it is?

Again, haven't done any pvp and any kind of balance or number tuning is way off. What I can say is our burst is downright retarded right now on alpha. The stun talent (stonefist strike?) is kinda useless for leveling, where as fury of air does an absurd amount of aoe damage, so it's how I live through large pulls I should have died from.

5) Have you tried yet how enh feels when lining up lots and lots of haste? (troll racial, bl, windsong, feral spirits, possibly trinket/potion, artifact trait, pvp talent... :P)

I've lined up windsong, feral spirits, and the doomhammer ability (guaranteed windfury on every attack for 5 or 6s). It blew up an elite, and the auto attack animations just looked like a jerky mess. Number tuning is hilarious. Plus, even with JUST feral spirits and the talent Spiritual Resonance, it is IMPOSSIBLE to dump maelstrom faster than you earn it. Overall maelstrom generation is very active and I didn't find myself hitting any ability more than 2-3 times in a row regularly. You certainly aren't spamming rockbiter 90% of the time.

6) How mobile did the spec feel in comparison with other spec like feral, warrior, rogue and ww monk? Our new mobility tier leaves me with high hopes!

Gust of wind is awesome, and as a perk can be used to save yourself from a big fall! (It basically resets your fall at the height you used it). Feral charge is comparatively poo. Haven't tried windrush totem. Monk was the clear mobility winner (flying serpent, roll, and tiger's lust are still in the game), with DH not far behind. Rogue is kinda just "meh" now; no burst of speed, sprint is a 30s cd that lasts 8s. I'd say given that GoW doesn't require a target, can be used to leap gap (read: no pathing errors unlike warrior charge, because it actually puts you in the air and you fly in a small arc), is easier to aim than disengage, and has a relatively short CD, I'd put enh shaman above warriors, hunters and rogues for mobility, BUT PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THIS IS JUST MY PERSONAL OPINION FOR AN EARLY ALPHA BUILD AND NOT NECESSARILY FACT.

7) How is the relation of SS/LL/RB on alpha? Since we're low geared there (I guess), I believe RB often used will be high up there and SS every now and then? How frequent do we get Stormfury? Lots of SSs?

This is a loaded question, because any answer will have to be heavily qualified (aside from the obvious "alpha, no number tuning, yada yada"). Since stormfury is dependant on auto attacks, it is therefore dependant on haste. Talent choice, CD usage, etc, plays a big part here. Here is talent build I used for leveling on alpha. It may not be optimal, just what my dumbass picked.

Given these talents, and mediocre leveling gear (which has haste on most pieces, but sometimes haste is the light stat, etc), I found that without any CDs, going mob to mob, I'd probably get a stormfury proc every 2nd or 3rd leveling mob. Use of the doomhammer ability, any kind of haste CD, or good windfury rng greatly increases these odds (to the point that when under 50% haste and doomhammer, I almost always get more stormfury than I can actually use all 3 "charges" of). It felt frequent enough that I didn't ever go like "wtf where are my procs!", but rare enough that they retained their power and value, and made a noticeable difference in killing the mob. Lava lash was used pretty frequently, not much less than rockbiter, thanks to my first tier talent. I suspect for live the amount of extra maelstrom you get will be toned down, because I often felt like I was swimming in it; you get a sizeable amount from just auto attacks, especially if you get windfury procs. I rarely had to spam the same ability 3x in a row (outside of stormfury procs with the tempest talent), barring the occasional rockbiter x3 to start a fight if you start out with 0 maelstrom.

8) Concerning talents:
-I think that Fist of Stone is in for a big buff and theme-wise would be nice to have a synergy with Stonefist Strike
-Windrush Totem feels so powerful that I fear we'll have to talent it for raid's sake. Even with other (ele/resto) talenting it, stacking it for certain fights like in bc with bl feels like a possibility for high mobility encounters. Do you feel it as powerful as that?
-Feral Lunge, how does it's damage component come into play? there's people considering pressing it on cd just for the damage.
-CC-tier: Does Voodoo Totem trump the other two as hard as I think it does? Have you tried yet teaming up with two other shamans, one with each totem, to hex/root multiple targets and then stun them as it runs out? Sounds like a possible strong pvp combo for legion, taking out an entire team for...13? 15?s
-How does Sundering feel like after the buff? Worth it vs the other two? Or is the knockback to annoying?
-How did Feral Kin and Earthen Spike feel? I know Ascendence is supposdely trumping them dmg-wise, but how did they feel gameplay/spec-flair-wise?

Can't comment on the first two, didn't really touch em.

Feral lunge is weak. The damage component hits weak and sometimes doesn't land at all. It's really complete poo compared to Gust of Wind right now.

I only used the lightning stun totem. Voodoo can only hex ONCE, and it's easy to break them out of it (incidental damage from buff after crash lightning, for example). The range is also really short and I found it unwieldy.

Sundering was still poop, and it was more annoying than anything.

Feral kin seems useless in the current iteration. The stronger pet does not make up for the much more frequent gain of 50% haste. Earth spike isn't very strong when solo, but if it goes live in its current form it will be mandatory for the raid buff component, which I'm not a fan of (same goes for ret pallies and their blessings).

Hope I got everything!

[Deleted]

1) Good to know that healing surges get sped up still. Would've hated having to fully cast it all the time, like Hex in WoD. I'm not worried about numbers (for now), since it is just that early and we've had traditionally pretty numbers on our side. My hope lies in that legion's Surge will be strong enough to offset the loss of our healing cooldowns.

2) I guess a lot will depend on how much buffs will be present come legion. Hopefully not that many .

3) I really hope that FT will be stronger than it's current version. Having to play flame shock's maintain-game with it to get a similarly weak rehash of the old version would be underwhelming, to say the least.
I really hope the passive one is gone. I guess the two sources I've seen in alpha logs are the initial damage, and the applied buff. The 10y range is better than nothing I guess, but as it feels like a mix of UE/FS/FT, the first two (unleash elements and flame shock) have no/low range limitations in comparison, so I personally see it as a step down to not be able to apply your buff before engaging. 10y sounds like not much, tbh.
Yeah, I guessed as much concerning LB as a range pull. Good it cant consume more than 15 MS, I'd haste to waste to much MS on a range pull. That said, I'd rather have FT on a higher range and replace LB. The initial damage of FT sounds comparable to LB, and the added range to FS would be nice QoL, saving you a gcd once you get close enough.
And with MT I meant Magma Totem. I think it wasn't in the list of removed abilities when blizz introduced the specialisations with their fantasies at the very beginning of legion data. I assumed it stayed with us, but ofc I cant be sure. Is it still there? ( I hope not).

5) I'm grinning from ear to ear, reading that. Now I really want to try that out on alpha .
Yes, the notion of extreme Rockbiter spammage never entered my mind from the get go. Having mained an MM hunter in legion, I instantly new that generating from hit AND through a (instant) builder ability, you'd be extremely fast paced.

6) Sounds like the goblin racial to me. I expected this. You think goblin shamans can do a triple jump come legion?
What about Feral Rushes' damage component?
The instant gap close aspect of it sounds good to me, but you already said you haven't tried pvp, yet, so it's hard to tell how much it's accounting for. I believe it has higher range to...? 25y...dunno how much GoW has from the tooltip.
GoW sounds really awesome now. I already appreciated the low cd, but you're right, the format of it is pretty sexy as well.
Oh! Another important factor! Feral Lunge requires GW, so we need 2 gcds, GoW only needs one.

7) Sounds very awesome in regards to Stormfury proc rate. I assume the same in terms of MS generation. Them lowering RB from 15 to 10 was the first step in that direction.

8) Hmm, I guess it's for the better for FL to not deal that much damage. I do think it sad to have it feel so underwhelming though. I hope it ends up more impressive than a weaker version of GoW. I guess I'll have to see the Hex totem for myself. I hope you're not correct in your assessment in it's unwieldyness, or them improving on it if it's true. We'll see.
Sundering sounds more and more like it will have the same fate as elemental fusion for enhancement... I guess we might be able to get some fun out of it in EotE bgs though...meh...maybe they should make it a pvp talent instead.
Feral Kin is like to have to deal god-like damage to be competitive, I fear. Ascendence by itself sounds like it's performing better as a talent already, without giving up the more frequent benefits of Feral Spirits. They could make it a seperate ability maybe...maybe have the talent create a permanent pet to fight along your side and have it the no-keybind/passive damage-choice of the tier...I'd enjoy that, theme-wise and as a non forced talent option.
Yeah. Earth Spike's buff reminds me of old Stormstrike's debuff. Not a fan of being forced into it, even more so if it's weak. Damn though, 775% weapon damage sounded more impressive than that.


Really, thank you so very much for your time spend on this. We need more people like you in alpha. Really, much appreciated!