Talk about clunky!

[Tumble]

If you think enhancement is clunky on live, you are going to hate legion. Watching the finalboss video, it looks TERRIBLE, and 10 steps backwards. Almost every other class is getting simplified, and while I don't want an easier class than what we have now, I don't really want to have to manage so many micro-buffs that it becomes a case of staring at the upper right hand corner of my monitor all the time. I don't honestly see what their plan is for enhancement. They look more bloated than ever, and again, having to use X to buff Y so you can cast Z before W runs out just seems like poor design. He was already talking about just sitting there and pooling maelstrom (rage) because it was more beneficial than using certain spells because they are so terrible comparatively. I know everyone will just say use rotation helpers so that it takes the guessing out of it for you, but then there goes any element of skill that the class took. If you have a big icon in the middle of you screen going X-Y-Z-W-X-X-X-Y-Z-W-H-W-Y-Z-X there is no challenge. That's one thing I've never used in game, rotation helpers.


Honestly I think this is it for me and my shaman, unless they make some changes before it goes live I don't think I will like the acquired taste enhance has become. Thoughts,comments, criticism welcome. Maybe I misunderstood what he was saying and someone can set me straight, but my first impressions of the new design is disappointing.

[nazrakin]

If you dont want to track a bunch of actives then.. dont take those talents?

I'm not trying to be totally dismissive but thats kinda the point of removing a lot of the baseline actives. Right now @ baseline you have a 7 ability ST rotation, a 6 ability AE rotation, and 3 CDs. In Legion that becomes 5, 3, and 1 respectively. You have lots of options in the Legion talent tree on how to fill that out and shape it into something you are most comfortable with -- and frankly, that's exactly what a talent tree should be. If you long for the old WOTLK days, then take 5 talented actives and enjoy your crazy 10 button rotation. If youre not into the "piano" style of play, then go for the passives.

[Professor Expert]

Seems like I'm with you on this, and I'd be coming from a pvp perspective. I was just by looking at the legion talent tree and ability list...enhancement is going to be ruined come legion. Mark my words...it is going to suck and I didn't even see any gameplay videos yet I can just tell.

Right now enhancement is a CD based spec where maelstrom provides bonus damage or healing options...but is not required to have MW5 to use any of your key abilities and that is one of the unique things that makes enhancement fun - the fast pace with options on what you can do at any given time. Enhancement has a fairly high skill cap and it's rewarding to get good at it...it's a lot of fun.

The legion proposal shifts enhancement to a warrior "rage" based spec, where all abilities require maelstrom (aka rage) to be used, aside from a few weak fillers to generate maelstrom. This shifts it from a fun, fast, tactical spec to a derpy "build up your resource then spam your hard-hitting ability just like every other melee spec in the game" spec, but if you don't have maelstrom all you can do is rockbiter.

All shocks are gone. Weapon enhancements are now temporary buffs that have to be activated. Purge costs a lot of maelstrom, effectively making it non-spammable and a trade-off between attacking or using purge.

It's incredible that blizzard feels the need to take what is arguably the only fun, well-balanced melee spec in the game (for me enhancement is by far the most fun class/spec combo of any type) and ruin it like this. There is so much fail here...this whole "change for the sake of changing" nonsense that produces these horrendous results is the kind of thing that ensures that once the initial spike of new players fades, the total player base gets halved from what it was prior to the expack.

All of this is irritating, but nothing is more irritating to me than the fact that enhancement is so much fun right now as it is and yet they are completely re-writing the spec from the ground up to make it less unique, less fun. Enhancement spec doesn't need any changes...just a few tweaks here and there would be fine. Elemental is the only shaman spec that should be getting a major overhaul. Resto is fine for the most part, and enhancement, while not the best it has ever been, is far from being in a bad spot...they should just leave it alone. I am not bothering with legion if this is the direction the game is headed.

[Tumble]

If you dont want to track a bunch of actives then.. dont take those talents?

I'm not trying to be totally dismissive but thats kinda the point of removing a lot of the baseline actives. Right now @ baseline you have a 7 ability ST rotation, a 6 ability AE rotation, and 3 CDs. In Legion that becomes 5, 3, and 1 respectively. You have lots of options in the Legion talent tree on how to fill that out and shape it into something you are most comfortable with -- and frankly, that's exactly what a talent tree should be. If you long for the old WOTLK days, then take 5 talented actives and enjoy your crazy 10 button rotation. If youre not into the "piano" style of play, then go for the passives.

You are confused, I LOVE the piano style game play, it is the reason I've stayed enhancement for so long, it is just so different from anything else in game. What I don't like and will never like, is having to manage so many micro-buffs ( a couple isn't bad). Watch the video, read his review and wordups review, it is essentially a new spec, which doesn't play at all like the current class/spec. If I wanted to play another class I would re-roll, I wouldn't just wait until the next expac for them to change it for me.

Professor expert, I couldn't have written it better myself. Like you said, realistically enhance has a higher skill cap than a lot of other melee. The only reason people think enhance is so OP in it's current form is because we sync really well with one other melee class in 3v3, however, instead of fixing that issue, they are just ruining the entire spec. Anyone can spam purge all day long, and I know pvp isn't balanced around 1v1, but I find it funny how I can go up against another enhance 1v1 in a bg, and despite them having equal or better gear, I come out on top with almost full health. There is a difference between being a good spec in a group setting and being a good player. I remember when I'd be the only enhancement shaman I'd see all weekend in bg's, and while it doesn't me much and is purely anecdotal, I'd be top dmg and kb's with highest flag returns, node caps, and overall objecives a large portion of the time.

I don't know, it just seems like whoever is in charge of shaman design is pissed off because he got rolled by a shaman and is taking out his revenge on the spec.

[Irian]

It's alpha.

Contrary to popular belief (and my god do so many people on this forum say the opposite and I don't know why) balance and rotation fluidity-wise, with the exception of WoD, classes often underwent a huge amount of iterations. Granted, conceptually enhancement seems really borked currently, but I wouldn't be too alarmed until beta.
Let's just hope they actually read feedback this time instead of a WoD all over again...

[Deleted]

TBH i secretly hoped that enhancement would have so crappy rotation (imo) in legion that i would switch to elemental. Added bonus to get rid of that fucking orchammer artifact.

Though yeah, i would choose passive talents anyway.

[Tumble]

It's alpha.

Contrary to popular belief (and my god do so many people on this forum say the opposite and I don't know why) balance and rotation fluidity-wise, with the exception of WoD, classes often underwent a huge amount of iterations. Granted, conceptually enhancement seems really borked currently, but I wouldn't be too alarmed until beta.
Let's just hope they actually read feedback this time instead of a WoD all over again...

We have heard its alpha/beta/ptr for so many years with shitty issues being ignored it's not even funny anymore. They are going to tweak numbers, I have no doubt, what I do doubt, is that they are going to change their minds and revert the changes made to the spec. They had time and OH SO MANY forums about just how shitty the changes looked and sounded. Enhancement shamans had the lowest rated changes of every other class/spec, by not only shamans but by other people looking and going "wow that looks like shit, poor shamans". I get they want to freshen up the spec a bit, okay fine, but a complete rework isn't the answer. They could have given us better maelstrom spenders, especially aoe wise. They could have altered our aoe to require a bit less setup, mainly for lower lvl stuff, but having to have what, 6 buttons before you can do aoe (albeit amazing) damage is a bit silly. They could have just attached flame shock directly to LL, remove the buff aspect of unleash elements and just bake it all into 1-2 things.

Also just curious, is enhancement your main, if so for how long, and if not, what is your main? That goes for everyone that responds in here. I'm curious if these changes look great/poor from the outside by other players, or great/poor from the inside by other shamans?

[kosajk]

well to make long story short i will say only one thing:
make us as competitive and fun to play as we were in MOP
kkthxybye

[Deleted]

I already see a bunch of macros you can make and pretty much half your amount of keybinds :P
Shocks pretty much just had their names and icons change.
You can just switch your flameshock weakaura to flametongue and maelstrom weakaura to maelstrom power?
We no longer have a searing totem to track. Or almost any totems at all.. the sonic one is nice for raids I guess.
Rockbiter instead of frost shock filler.. nova/chainlightning>crashlightning+fury of air etc.

It doesn't really look any harder. Just a metric ton of rng that takes away your control.

Atleast lavalash and stormstrike will have a clear spot in your rotation instead of fighting over it like they do now.
No more 400% stormstrike buffs :P

[jon041065]

Also just curious, is enhancement your main, if so for how long, and if not, what is your main?

Enhance main here since the start of cata. I was really against the concept of enhance in legion at the time of the shaman class preview but I think it will be fun after watching it in a few streams over the last couple days. We do not know what some doomhammer traits do yet as they can not be unlocked in the current build and their descriptions are ambiguous. The spec still looks fast and has great burst in the current build.

My concerns with it are all the bugs enhance has in the current build, how strong will our aoe be in a raid (single target looks strong), and the build up time for our opener and aoe. There's also the problem of capping maelstrom during cooldowns. It might be that blizzard intends for us to use our wolves, doom winds, and ascendance (if specced into it) separately to have a more even maelstrom generation but really hoping that's not the case.

Bottom line, I like how the spec is looking in legion and just hope blizzard doesnt screw up the balancing so we can be in a stronger place than WoD.

[nazrakin]

You are confused, I LOVE the piano style game play, it is the reason I've stayed enhancement for so long, it is just so different from anything else in game. What I don't like and will never like, is having to manage so many micro-buffs ( a couple isn't bad). Watch the video, read his review and wordups review, it is essentially a new spec, which doesn't play at all like the current class/spec. If I wanted to play another class I would re-roll, I wouldn't just wait until the next expac for them to change it for me.

In terms of "microbuffs" all you really have to pay attention to @baseline are Flametongue and Lava Dredger, the latter of which procs pretty rarely atm. Unleashed Doom could potentially become a third but since no one can get it yet we cant say for sure how it'll work. The other baseline buffs like the rockbiter proc and stormlash arent things that youll need to keep track of, they are just incidental flavor damage.

Talents are where things get more complicated because you can choose to take windsong, landslide or lightning shield, fury of air, and earthen spike. And if you take them all then things absolutely get chaotic. However, maybe you just take Windsong and FoA... then youll just need maintain FT (16sec), Windsong (30sec), FoA (60sec), and the occasional lava dredger. Compared to now where you're tracking UF (10sec), FlS (30sec), ST/Magma (60sec), and either EF or LM. Granted, UF is technically the only microbuff but thats splitting hairs since you are still reacting to procs and timers just the same.

And I have seen wordup's stream and he said that while its very different (which was obvious), he also says that it flows well, isnt just a blue warrior, and is fun to play. Which is a far cry from the terrible doom and gloom/blizzard hates us/this spec is a clunky mess that you are portraying it as.

[Fadewind]

The thing is that our two major procs (Windfury and Stormlash) are currently tied to Mastery, so being in level 100 greens and a bit beyond isn't going to give a full view of what the spec can do. Right now in alpha the Maelstrom generation leans more towards Rockbiter than it will on live (since I guarantee most Enh shamans will have significantly more mastery).

The major difference between Maelstrom and Rage lies in consistency in the generation and use. Maelstrom is much more consistent and can be more easily spent. (At least comparing it to Fury.) Fury now only has 2 rage dumps that are significantly different in terms of rage dumping (Carnage with 90 rage, 40 when talented, and Furious Strike with 5 rage) at least baseline. Maelstrom has 2 major dumps that are much more consistent (30 for LL and 60/30 for SS). The generation is also more consistent. Rockbiter generates 10 no matter what. Windfury generates 15 no matter what. There will probably be a 60~75 Maelstrom sweet spot to stay in with no procs up.

This version of Enhancement is nowhere near clunky as Wrath Enhancement. Hell, the current implementation is clunky as fuck. Blizz has stated for numerous expansions that the biggest issue with Enhancement balancing was that damage was too spread out over too many abilities. Boiling everything down to a basic level is something they should have done sooner. Flametongue is even less clunky than UE is now. There's no harm in using it off CD at the moment, which would guarantee 100% uptime. But there's also a 4 second buffer meaning it's not extremely tight so you can try to space things out more. Using it every 12 seconds means you use 25 GCDs for a 5 minute fight compared to 20 GCDs using it every 15 seconds. Minor change, but both guarantee 100% uptime and still have a bit of wiggle room

[Schmilblick]

I knew it fro the first build, overbloated spec.

[Ham on Rye]

If you think enhancement is clunky on live, you are going to hate legion. Watching the finalboss video, it looks TERRIBLE, and 10 steps backwards. Almost every other class is getting simplified, and while I don't want an easier class than what we have now, I don't really want to have to manage so many micro-buffs that it becomes a case of staring at the upper right hand corner of my monitor all the time. I don't honestly see what their plan is for enhancement. They look more bloated than ever, and again, having to use X to buff Y so you can cast Z before W runs out just seems like poor design. He was already talking about just sitting there and pooling maelstrom (rage) because it was more beneficial than using certain spells because they are so terrible comparatively. I know everyone will just say use rotation helpers so that it takes the guessing out of it for you, but then there goes any element of skill that the class took. If you have a big icon in the middle of you screen going X-Y-Z-W-X-X-X-Y-Z-W-H-W-Y-Z-X there is no challenge. That's one thing I've never used in game, rotation helpers.


Honestly I think this is it for me and my shaman, unless they make some changes before it goes live I don't think I will like the acquired taste enhance has become. Thoughts,comments, criticism welcome. Maybe I misunderstood what he was saying and someone can set me straight, but my first impressions of the new design is disappointing.

If you haven't played it, you don't get to comment on how it feels. I have and it feels wayyyy better than I initially thought it would. Once you get a little bit into your artifact tree, it's not low-damage-rockbiter spammy at all, and maelstrom is easy to generate. Plus when you use your doomhammer dps cooldown, you can actually spam stormstrike 6-7 times in a row, hit like a truck on all of them, and still be at 100 maelstrom.

[Sencha]

I don't really want to have to manage so many micro-buffs that it becomes a case of staring at the upper right hand corner of my monitor all the time.

You don't play with Weak Auras 2?

[Aleksej89]

Maintaining buffs is one of the most annoying things in WoW, i really hope Enha will lose all of those.

[High-Chief Greathoof]

Alpha is alpha. Blizzard will tune it. The only problem is there are a bit too many buffs to get up for rotations (seven for single-target and five for multi-target). Reduce that number and Enhancement looks perfect.

Also, it is not clunky.

[Wowforlife79]

I know its early alpha still and ppl are saying if you dont like all the bloat dont take the passives. But what happens if all that bloat is the "BEST" dps option in a raid. Does that not mean we are going to be forced into taking/using all of the micro buff talents? From what i have seen from Wordup/finalboss/preachgaming/heelvsbabyface vids the spec is looking purdy interesting and fresh but damn id hate to have to track so many little buffs arggg haha. Ahh well have to wait and see if things change again.


Also i know allot of ppl use weakauras and other mods to track buff uptimes etc. But since vanilla i have always liked using the base ui. Only raiding mods i usually use are skada and dbm. I consider my self a purdy average raider but have never realy liked the need or had the urge to have a ton of mods to have to track stuff going on around me. Just my 2 cents anyways

[Manu9]

While it has little concerns, I don't want for Enha to become the new Frost DK. There are 2 reasons for why I play Enha, the concept/lore of it, and the complexity.

[Pull My Finger]

I don't know anything about the Shaman in Alpha and I don't wanna know - I'm going in blind as always - but there's a certain design direction I already noticed in WoD and I expect that to carry over and even increase in Legion, and it's not something I'm excited about.

Overall the number of abilities of classes is being slimmed down - which is a great thing - and the basic rotation/prio/whatever you wanna call it is being streamlined. Which is good to a certain extent but in some cases verges on the mundane and banal, which is not so great.

What irks me though is that their approach seems to be: very basic core gameplay, "spiced up" by introducing one or more variations of some stupid internal "minigame" to the spec. Which to me is the wrong approach. It shifts the player's attention way too much towards micromanaging character-internal events - procs, durations of stuff, opportunity "windows" while the stuff that's actually happening in the game world and on-screen is mundane in comparison. I don't like too much of this game-inside-of-the-game thing, because I feel like playing the GUI more than looking at what my enemies are doing and what happens around me. It feels like solving a crossword puzzle while walking on your way home.