ENH change ideas.

[XxxFranchisexxx]

I been reading lately of all the qq about ramp up time maelstrom weapon and searing totem. I think a couple changes would fix this first being, when using unleash elements with windfury on one weapon it would automatically proc windfury regardless if its on cd or not, maybe lower the cd of internal wf as well, that would help proc more maelstroms. As for searing totem, maybe change the talent so that after 5 seconds of being in x radious the target gets x stacks on them. Thoughts? I been playing enhancement/or shaman since 2004. Most of WOTLK I have been resto and ele with some enhancement here and there.

[Direfen]

As a long time Enhancer I can assure you Maelstrom Weapon and Searing Flames are perfectly fine in their current states.

Maelstrom Weapon seems fine to me. It procs enough for it to be useful in PvE, and procs fast enough in PvP so you get at least a 60%-100% spell cast reduction to keep me alive.

Searing Flames isn't exactly bad either. Sure the stacking is a bit tedious, but the end result is to make our Lava Lash hit harder, and it does.

I don't see the point of trying to fix something that isn't exactly broken.

If you can't get used to these 2 simple talents then your better off playing Elemental or something instead. They're really not hard to manage.

As for Unleash Weapon, none of us have it yet so it's not going to help until the Cataclysm content is released.

[XxxFranchisexxx]

Oh I was going on the facts the people been listing about logs at 85 is all. The subpar dps, ramp up times, less haste on gear meaning less maelstrom procs etc etc. NOT whats going on right now on live, which for every class is completly bogus. As elemental i can pull 11k with 5700 gs. Before patch that wasn't the case. But I'm speaking for numbers that are based on logs of enhancement players, at 85. They were just ideas that would not take a toll on pvp but also give us a dps boost, from what I have heard were a couple thousand behind other class at 85 beginning raids. Hopefully the game will not be balanced around the last 6 months of cataclysm.

[Castia]

As a long time Enhancer I can assure you Maelstrom Weapon and Searing Flames are perfectly fine in their current states.

Maelstrom Weapon seems fine to me. It procs enough for it to be useful in PvE, and procs fast enough in PvP so you get at least a 60%-100% spell cast reduction to keep me alive.

Searing Flames isn't exactly bad either. Sure the stacking is a bit tedious, but the end result is to make our Lava Lash hit harder, and it does.

I don't see the point of trying to fix something that isn't exactly broken.

If you can't get used to these 2 simple talents then your better off playing Elemental or something instead. They're really not hard to manage.

As for Unleash Weapon, none of us have it yet so it's not going to help until the Cataclysm content is released.

Are you kidding me? sorry but I dont like playing a spec that has 4-5 second dead spots every 30 seconds or so...yes I know we get Unleash Elements but even that's on a 15 second CD.

Numbers are down on both live and beta (read other posts suggesting at level 85 enhance is so low that its barely above the tanks) and something needs to be done about it.

[Endus]

I been reading lately of all the qq about ramp up time maelstrom weapon and searing totem. I think a couple changes would fix this first being, when using unleash elements with windfury on one weapon it would automatically proc windfury regardless if its on cd or not, maybe lower the cd of internal wf as well, that would help proc more maelstroms. As for searing totem, maybe change the talent so that after 5 seconds of being in x radious the target gets x stacks on them. Thoughts? I been playing enhancement/or shaman since 2004. Most of WOTLK I have been resto and ele with some enhancement here and there.

Maelstrom Weapon and Searing Totem are fine. The issue with Enhance is that their abilities aren't scaling nearly well enough.

sorry but I dont like playing a spec that has 4-5 second dead spots every 30 seconds or so

This is why I swapped my main spec to Elemental. It's got nothing to do with performance, everything to do with enjoying the gameplay.

That said, the new design paradigm for Enhancement, and in fact most classes, is that there should be "dead spots" in the rotation, to remove pressure and allow for more utility without losing significant DPS. I think that design decision is bollocks, more or less, since I hugely enjoyed the advantage (yes, it's a GOOD thing) of being GCD locked. Kept Enhancement engaging and fun.

That said, this isn't the reason Enhancement is underperforming. They're doing poorly because they aren't scaled properly. They're one of the rarer specs in the game, which is often why they don't get handled well by the development team; they have many more voices clamoring for fixes for everything else, we sort of get lost in the noise, apparently.

It also doesn't help that Shaman were deliberately tuned low prior to 4.0.1 due to our powerful and unique totem buffs, and Heroism/Bloodlust. The buffing was intended to make up for the loss of DPS. That's no longer the case, since totems have been removed and/or normalized and buffs have been spread around, so we have every reason to expect our DPS to be comparable to, say, a Fury warrior. I honestly think Enhancement shaman DPS as it stands is an oversight, not intentional. Here's hoping it gets fixed.

[XxxFranchisexxx]

I do not agree with you at all when you say that dps should have dead spots for utility, you see mages, elemental shaman, warlocks etc stopping to help become utility.. no. They constantly have spells to cast and keep going, even arms warriors are gcd locked. We are basically on a cd lock waiting for stuff to finish. As for scaling, they buffed windfury big time for 85, and our mastery i think is significant damage as well as we get 50 percent attack power as SP now. I don't see anything else they can do scaling wise to fix dps. It's a mechanics change which is obvious. I think my suggestions would at help pvp and pve. As for searing being fine, dude you play enhancement? It has a 20 yard range and fires slow, takes a couple seconds to even realize there is a target to attack. This is not qq about the class, but more towards your ignorance towards probably the least played spec in the game. Enhancement pvp I think is mediocre to fine. Faster application stack would mean another controlled burst, which stated burst damage should not be the key factor, I Think its more along the lines of the totem just getting destroyed before we can even get 5 stacks then having to refresh, anyways thats pvp. Pve is different, doing nothing in large gaps wont help us, we dont have a talent like ret paladins that increases our damage when healing someone else. Since they went with wf/ft i guess getting rid of the wf cd wouldnt matter much, but that could be another aspect of the class like fury warriors have dual wield one handed or 2 handed. I personally wouldnt mind dual wf, and again would lead to more maelstrom thus increasing dps. But the searing totem is the biggest problem. Maelstrom is not fine btw, you need to look at logs from 85 raids, it procs far less then prior patch, mostly due to less haste.

---------- Post added 2010-10-26 at 04:20 PM ----------

I just think a lot of people avoid the politics of arguing a class needs help, and won't help support it with facts. Others have done the homework for me thankfully, I'm suggesting legitimate changes that could help.

[LyskaWF]

We don't need another ill-thought out thread here. Yes, we need help. No, we don't need this. You're right in saying that people have done your homework for you.. and that's why their suggestions are good =]

[Endus]

I do not agree with you at all when you say that dps should have dead spots for utility, you see mages, elemental shaman, warlocks etc stopping to help become utility.. no. They constantly have spells to cast and keep going, even arms warriors are gcd locked.

Casters and melee have two different paradigms. Casters have to hit spells to do damage. Melee can autoattack. Thus, every ranged class has a spell with no cooldown, which is their version of an "autoattack". You hit the enemy with your sword, the Elemental Shaman fires a lightning bolt at them. Casters do not have white damage. Melee do. That's the difference.

As for the design concept that melee "should have" dead spots for utility, this isn't MY idea, it's Blizzard's. I happen to disagree with it in principle, too, but Blizzard said, very clearly, in the Shaman cata preview; "We want to free up Enhancement global cooldowns to make the spec more dynamic to play". They want "free" GCDs so you can do other stuff. That's Blizzard's decision.

We are basically on a cd lock waiting for stuff to finish. As for scaling, they buffed windfury big time for 85, and our mastery i think is significant damage as well as we get 50 percent attack power as SP now. I don't see anything else they can do scaling wise to fix dps. It's a mechanics change which is obvious.

A big reason why casters are doing better than melee right now is that casters get the biggest boost to their DPS from stats, whereas melee get it from their weapons, because not only do the stats matter, but the base DPS of the weapon is also a factor; they basically "double-dip" on the weapon slot.

Casters, thus, are getting a bigger boost out of Mastery than melee, because you can't Reforge the base DPS of your weapon to be higher. This is why Blizzard keeps saying "balanced for level 85".

I think my suggestions would at help pvp and pve. As for searing being fine, dude you play enhancement? It has a 20 yard range and fires slow, takes a couple seconds to even realize there is a target to attack.

You're confusing Searing's cast time with the time it takes to "realize there's a target".

Also, I'm not sure why Enhancement would have any issue with their totem being able to target anything within 20 yards, since they're supposed to be in melee range anyway. Searing Totem's range is an issue for Elemental Shaman, not for Enhancement. At the very least, even for a mobile fight, it's better than Magma Totem has been.

I've been playing Enhancement throughout WotLK. I only swapped to Elemental with 4.0.1. Searing Totem IS fine. It lasts three times as long as Magma Totem did, costs less to re-cast, and has a much better range. Sure, it fires slowly, but perhaps that's because Searing Flames isn't intended to stack quickly. You're arguing design from a player point of view, where you just want to change everything to make yourself more powerful, not from a developer point of view.

Is Enhancement fine? No. Is it because Searing Totem is broken? No.

Since they went with wf/ft i guess getting rid of the wf cd wouldnt matter much, but that could be another aspect of the class like fury warriors have dual wield one handed or 2 handed. I personally wouldnt mind dual wf, and again would lead to more maelstrom thus increasing dps. But the searing totem is the biggest problem. Maelstrom is not fine btw, you need to look at logs from 85 raids, it procs far less then prior patch, mostly due to less haste.

WF/FT is likely here to stay. The WF internal cooldown exists because, back in Vanilla, when it didn't, people cried about Enhancement shaman getting the once-in-a-blue-moon shot of getting 7-8 Windfury strikes off a single hit, and one-shotting people regardless of spec or gear.

As for Maelstrom not proccing "enough", this is because, as you said, shaman are gearing/gemming Agility now, not Haste. Because they do better damage by doing so. The issue, again, is scaling, not that the ability is somehow broken. There's nothing wrong with Maelstrom Weapon taking twice as long to charge up, if you get twice the damage out of it per shot.

Searing Totem, as a design concept, works just fine. There's some bugs with the new targeting which I've seen, but that's a bug, not a design flaw.

[Aleksej89]

There have been tons of ideas already, both on MMO and WoW USA and EU and PTR and Beta forums.

I'm sorry to break it to you all, but Blizzard just does not wanna waste mouse clicks on Enhancement.

[Xqqsme]

[QUOTE=Endus;9229989
A big reason why casters are doing better than melee right now is that casters get the biggest boost to their DPS from stats, whereas melee get it from their weapons, because not only do the stats matter, but the base DPS of the weapon is also a factor; they basically "double-dip" on the weapon slot.

Casters, thus, are getting a bigger boost out of Mastery than melee, because you can't Reforge the base DPS of your weapon to be higher. This is why Blizzard keeps saying "balanced for level 85".
[/QUOTE]

So then casters won't be rolling on those weapons that "increase" our dps that will make us all "equal"? Oh wait, they will, along with EVERY other class in the game.