How is Enhance dps looking for WoD?

[Kreps]

Like everyone is saying, its way too early to decide.

[Last Starfighter]

Too early to say.

[Deleted]

Numbers are obviously not tuned yet. If take it you're interested about changes on game play. Well...
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Dunno if I missed something.

Really nice overview thanks for that!

13) Hex no longer affected by MSW/AS:
Bad one, esp in combination with increased cast time. I still cant wrap around my head on these changes, esp with Bind Elemental gone. I know CC is taking across the board nerfes, but enh(shaman) was already behind in cc. I really hope they're making hex instant for enh at least, and lower the cd for at least ele. No problem in pve, but definately sucky in pvp .

I pvp on Hance & Ele too, and as far as Hance goes I do hate this change but I think it is justified with our counterpart hybrids (Ferals) getting the same treatment earlier in this live patch (Cyclone no longer instant from there procs or abilities). Now I don't want to go into comparing Feral to Hance because yes they have Pounce/Bash(talent)/(Mass Root(Talent) but they lossed Entangling roots whilst we keep Frost shock and still have Cap Totem Baseline, so there's a balance there.

I don't like it and I agree to an extent, I wish it wasn't so... But I can understand there logic....

My only big concern is that we will lack mobility in PVP and there's been a number of suggestions on the forums over the past year + regarding this and now even more so going into WOD, lets hope they give is some improved mobility!

[Omanley]

Really nice overview thanks for that!
I pvp on Hance & Ele too, and as far as Hance goes I do hate this change but I think it is justified with our counterpart hybrids (Ferals) getting the same treatment earlier in this live patch (Cyclone no longer instant from there procs or abilities). Now I don't want to go into comparing Feral to Hance because yes they have Pounce/Bash(talent)/(Mass Root(Talent) but they lossed Entangling roots whilst we keep Frost shock and still have Cap Totem Baseline, so there's a balance there.

I don't like it and I agree to an extent, I wish it wasn't so... But I can understand there logic....

My only big concern is that we will lack mobility in PVP and there's been a number of suggestions on the forums over the past year + regarding this and now even more so going into WOD, lets hope they give is some improved mobility!

My pleasure .
I am aware of the changes to feral/cyclone, and yes, I think it is an appropritate comparison. However, they went a little overboard with the feral nerf as well. From a design POV, having a melee stop and start casting is bleh from the beginning. It's even worse when on a cooldown. Ret at least can reapply Repentence. Shamans are just screwed. Basically if you have a mate with a cc which shares DR with yours, you can leave cc to him and ignore Hex. Even if you haven't, it's probably not worth the trouble to stop chasing an enemy/applying pressure/ensuring msw selfheals to cast a spell that will then be interrupted, trinketed or dispelled and then you're cc-benched for 45sec, with CPT being even worse... I'm not sure wether cyclone still has/will have a cooldown for feral, but if it hasn't at least there's that. The 6s duration is over the top though, considering it is now more dispellable/shares DR more (not sure about the exact details about cyclone history though).

Imo, it's weird that they ignore other instant stuff like Blind, Intimidating shout and the like, if instant cc is supposed to be bad.

And yes, mobility is my no.1 worry come WoD also. Redesigning totems would be my no.2 I guess, hex/cpt no.3, pve aoe no.4

[Deleted]

From a design POV, having a melee stop and start casting is bleh from the beginning. It's even worse when on a cooldown.

Indeed, I don't like it as someone who plays Feral as well as Enhance. I love Enhance but I do hate having to run the same couple of comps in arena to be at all viable higher rated. Hope the CC nerf accross the board makes us feel less hindered.

[Schizoide]

I'm OK with hard casting CC; I just don't like rotational hardcasting, like MW3_LB, the old warrior slam, or the worst offender of all, WW monk Fists of Fury.

[Omanley]

I'm OK with hard casting CC; I just don't like rotational hardcasting, like MW3_LB, the old warrior slam, or the worst offender of all, WW monk Fists of Fury.

Sounds like a pve statement. In raids, nobody cares wether or not he has to cast 1.7s prior to a pull. In pvp though it means stopping to chase that caster, losing uptime, and with that, pressure on the enemy, as well as msw charges for selfheal, to reduce the enemy's pressure.

IMO you can sum up arena in the handling of pressure, and WoD's Hex means a drop in the pressure enh will be able to provide. And since enh will lose damage on their cooldowns (as well as losing the ft snare set bonus), while gaining more sustained, uptime percentages (which are very low for enh, compared to other melees) will be more significant. Enh may be more uptime dependant than other melees, despite shocks/LB indicating otherwise. We cant pool damage via energy while kited like a rogue, and we need uptime for survivability also (msw). The last thing we need is to be made even less mobile.

-Having a (destroyable) stationary stun with a ramp up, where most others are instant, with the only other ramped up one being mobile
-Having neither instant gap closers like every over non-ret melee, nor having a low cd freedom to pair with a low cd talented sprint like ret has
-Having no no-effort melee spam snare like most melees will have, since FT snare is turned glyph
-Having to rely on high cooldowns or weak speed increases to increase uptime
... and now...
-Having to stop running to cast a CC where other melees do not have to

[Deleted]

From what I saw on Vanguards stream the other day, he was doing 2v2s with Finalrequiem (enh + unholy) vs Venruki and Maldiva (Frost Mage + Affli) and it seemed to me even if they doubled the damage on all abilities the game would still be 3x slower than anything you see today.

[Schizoide]

Sounds like a pve statement.

You're totally right, I don't PvP on the shaman. It gets a bit tiresome qualifying every post with "from a PvE standpoint...", that's all.

[Mythologicale]

I want to play WoD beta before making any complains but there are some changes that I would like to see soon:
-Glyph of capacitator totem and glyph of Ghost Wolf made baseline
-Call of the Elements baseline and revamp the 45-tier talents for mobility ones
-Add a slow effect to Hex (remember W3?)
-Make Rushing Stream and Conductivity viable for pvp.

[Omanley]

I want to play WoD beta before making any complains but there are some changes that I would like to see soon:
-Glyph of capacitator totem and glyph of Ghost Wolf made baseline
-Call of the Elements baseline and revamp the 45-tier talents for mobility ones
-Add a slow effect to Hex (remember W3?)
-Make Rushing Stream and Conductivity viable for pvp.

yes, yes, yes and yes (nicholas cage voice)

[Protoman]

I have some big issues with ENH that have been pretty much ignored, even though I have made tons of complaints on twitter and stuff.

-The current FLS>LL>FN mechanic for AoE sucks. Really. They talk about simplifying all this stuff for WoD but somehow they forget about our AoE? Why do we have such a stupid, unnecessarily complicated and involved AoE? It should not rely on LL at all. Either make it FLS>FN which spreads FLS so you can cast multiple FN.... OR just make FN a castable spell that auto applies FLS, then FN again to spread it. Makes much more sense then the awfully designed aoe we have now.

-No mobility. Dunno how they missed this, I think they are deliberately not improving Shaman mobility. Shaman need buffs to mobility, we need a real gap closer/escape... or atleast some basic improvements to GW (like baseline imp GW glyph, maybe faster speed). Best idea is make a few of the totem talents baseline and replace its tier with a mobility one that gives us choices.

-No Earth Shock? WHAT? Having 3 shocks is fundamental part of shaman, with each one doing something different. They need to LEAVE ES in as our main damage shock after we have dots rolling, since Frost shock is for CC and with Frozen Power we can't just spam it cause of DR. This is a stupid change by Blizz, with little foresight into what they are doing.... looks like blind, dumb changes for the sake of "simplifying and reducing abilities".

-ULE should do instant damage. I don't understand why they removed the damage from this..... even just 100% weapon damage as elemental damage would be fine, but if I am using a GCD then I want my ability to do damage, esp as a melee class. A buff alone is not enough. There was NO reason to remove this.


I can't help but feel like devs are again lost and confused on what to do about Shaman. The horribly uninspired new talents are a good example of this, where they try to make interesting, fun, thematic class based talents for others like DK or Mage... Shaman have gotten some bland and boring talents that don't make much sense, are not fun or flashy or very useful.

[Schizoide]

They deliberately removed damage from unleashed elements as part of their effort to reduce the number of enhancement damage sources, so they could make the remaining ones feel better. I basically agree with that goal, but I agree it feels unsatisfying to press a button every 15 seconds for a short duration minor self-buff. It would be nice if the cooldown were increased to 90 seconds or so and the buff itself made to feel much more powerful, visual, and visceral.

That could be done as simply as adding a cool visual. For example, fire hawks (think Alysrazor) whirling around the shaman while the Unleash Elements buff is active, combined with more powerful buff numbers to compensate for the increased cooldown. That would be pretty sweet.

[Omanley]

@protoman:
Unconditionally agreeing for 1) and 2).

For 3), I partially agree. The one half of me that agrees is the one seeing issues with a utility spell becoming part of our prio. The half that disagrees is the one being excited about finally using some frost damage. ES feels VERY boring and not really deserving a spot, IMO. What is earth about this ability? It's a green flash of light!? wth?

Maybe change Frozen Power to this: Upon using Frost Shock, you can use the ability again (off the gcd, not dealing damage, ignoring the shock cooldown)) to root the target in place.
This way, you can regularly use FrS as dps ability, and unleash the root when you need it only, without disadvantaging gameplay via extra gcds required, or causing new ability bloat.

As for 4): I'd rather they remove UE as a dps ability tbh. Make it utility based ( this could also be a good compliment to 3) ).
It would be off the global cooldown and specialisation specific like they plan anyway. The 30% movement speed increase will be baked into every of its versions and extended to 6 seconds.

- Elemental: Unleash Stormfire: Your next Lightning or Fire based spell (LB/CL/LvB/EB) with a cast time becomes castable while on the move, and snares the target's movement speed by 50% for 6 seconds.
- Enhancement: Unleash Frozen Winds: Your Ghostwolf doesn't break upon using abilities and gains another 20% speed increase for 6 seconds, removing snares on yourself. Using Unleash Elements will activate Ghostwolf.
- Restoration: Your next healing spell with a cast time becomes castable while on the move, and is immune to spell push back.

Elemental and Resto would get a little bit of casting mobility as turret specs. The spell push back thingy I'm not sure about, dont know much about (pvp)healing. The base 30% speed extra from UE sounds like it would match well.

Enhance having a 80% (30% from GW, 20% from UE:Frozen Wind and 30% from UE in general) sprint for 6 seconds and a snare remover every ~10 seconds? (with new flurry reducing cds) sounds awesome and a good mobility fix to me. We would make more use of GW that way, without creating more button bloat or making GW obsolete. Attacking as GW every now and then sounds also awesome to me. It would also add more of that spiritual theme. All the while not being a dps ability!

[Raiju]

They deliberately removed damage from unleashed elements as part of their effort to reduce the number of enhancement damage sources, so they could make the remaining ones feel better. I basically agree with that goal, but I agree it feels unsatisfying to press a button every 15 seconds for a short duration minor self-buff. It would be nice if the cooldown were increased to 90 seconds or so and the buff itself made to feel much more powerful, visual, and visceral.

That could be done as simply as adding a cool visual. For example, fire hawks (think Alysrazor) whirling around the shaman while the Unleash Elements buff is active, combined with more powerful buff numbers to compensate for the increased cooldown. That would be pretty sweet.

I've hated UE since it's introduction for being a shitty buff spell that was far too bloated originally, I'd love if it were longer cd / duration. Even 30 seconds would be great.

[Blithe]

I've hated UE since it's introduction for being a shitty buff spell that was far too bloated originally, I'd love if it were longer cd / duration. Even 30 seconds would be great.

It felt right as Enhancement, and it somehow fit the bill with Restoration too (albeit being used only for Healing Rain), but as Elemental it didn't contribute much at all. If they want UE to be a "buff", they should at least make it non-consumable, and be cast on the Shaman...

[Darksoldierr]

do snares DR, btw? I am not sure tbh

Yes, it considered as a CC, therefor you will become immune to it after the third application

[Usagi Senshi]

Currently playing on the beta, my shaman feels stronger and combat more fast paced. The excellent looking female orc remodel helps reinforce that too. :P Chain lightning cleave feels so much better too.

[Protoman]

They deliberately removed damage from unleashed elements as part of their effort to reduce the number of enhancement damage sources, so they could make the remaining ones feel better. I basically agree with that goal, but I agree it feels unsatisfying to press a button every 15 seconds for a short duration minor self-buff. It would be nice if the cooldown were increased to 90 seconds or so and the buff itself made to feel much more powerful, visual, and visceral.

That could be done as simply as adding a cool visual. For example, fire hawks (think Alysrazor) whirling around the shaman while the Unleash Elements buff is active, combined with more powerful buff numbers to compensate for the increased cooldown. That would be pretty sweet.

It felt right as Enhancement, and it somehow fit the bill with Restoration too (albeit being used only for Healing Rain), but as Elemental it didn't contribute much at all. If they want UE to be a "buff", they should at least make it non-consumable, and be cast on the Shaman...

ULE DID feel right for Enh, and Resto.... maybe even Elem in certain situations (esp now that you can't cast LB while moving). I rather prefer the current 15s CD, but it makes no sense to me that it had the damage removed and its just a simple buff. If anything, ULE should do MORE damage then it previously did. A CD that is 15s long should do alot more damage then an ability with a CD less then 10 sec. I think a damage+buff ability worked well, it was basically like the Shaman version of Pally Judgements.

Also, Enh having "too many sources of damage" is only somewhat true. They did a good job of pruning some stuff like Static Shock or Searing Flames, which were boring/tedious passive damage..... but ULE was a direct source of active damage. It had benefits like a 40yd range, plus it had a variety of buffs you could trigger. Our damage meters were somewhat misleading cause some sources of damage were tallied twice cause of MH/OH like SS, Stormblast, ULE, ect. Currently we have alot fewer sources of damage.... we have: SS, LL, LB, Shocks, melee (and maybe a few more but I can't think of any). We are missing ULE now, and being a main ability we use every 15 sec it SHOULD do damage. I think they should add the damage back in, make it 100% weapon damage or even better if 100% wep damage as elemental damage (like it has been).

@protoman:
Unconditionally agreeing for 1) and 2).

For 3), I partially agree. The one half of me that agrees is the one seeing issues with a utility spell becoming part of our prio. The half that disagrees is the one being excited about finally using some frost damage. ES feels VERY boring and not really deserving a spot, IMO. What is earth about this ability? It's a green flash of light!? wth?

Maybe change Frozen Power to this: Upon using Frost Shock, you can use the ability again (off the gcd, not dealing damage, ignoring the shock cooldown)) to root the target in place.
This way, you can regularly use FrS as dps ability, and unleash the root when you need it only, without disadvantaging gameplay via extra gcds required, or causing new ability bloat.

As for 4): I'd rather they remove UE as a dps ability tbh. Make it utility based ( this could also be a good compliment to 3) ).
It would be off the global cooldown and specialisation specific like they plan anyway. The 30% movement speed increase will be baked into every of its versions and extended to 6 seconds.

- Elemental: Unleash Stormfire: Your next Lightning or Fire based spell (LB/CL/LvB/EB) with a cast time becomes castable while on the move, and snares the target's movement speed by 50% for 6 seconds.
- Enhancement: Unleash Frozen Winds: Your Ghostwolf doesn't break upon using abilities and gains another 20% speed increase for 6 seconds, removing snares on yourself. Using Unleash Elements will activate Ghostwolf.
- Restoration: Your next healing spell with a cast time becomes castable while on the move, and is immune to spell push back.

Elemental and Resto would get a little bit of casting mobility as turret specs. The spell push back thingy I'm not sure about, dont know much about (pvp)healing. The base 30% speed extra from UE sounds like it would match well.

Enhance having a 80% (30% from GW, 20% from UE:Frozen Wind and 30% from UE in general) sprint for 6 seconds and a snare remover every ~10 seconds? (with new flurry reducing cds) sounds awesome and a good mobility fix to me. We would make more use of GW that way, without creating more button bloat or making GW obsolete. Attacking as GW every now and then sounds also awesome to me. It would also add more of that spiritual theme. All the while not being a dps ability!

@ Frost Shock

I agree that its fun to finally have some more Frost spells in Enhance rotation, but I don't think this is the best route. I'd rather see our AoE or some kind of big finisher burst ability as Frost. Earth Shock just naturally works as the best primary dps shock, being nature damage it works with our SS debuff, and it had the weakened blows debuff for enemies which helped somewhat (tho I think they said they were removing this). They could always find another way to make Earth Shock interesting again, to distinguish it from the other shocks with some unique effect or even just do the most damage (with FLS being the dot, and FRS having less damage but a snare). This "trinity" of shocks is core to the shaman class, a signature, and I really don't think it should be messed with.

The problem with FRS's DR is not just Frozen Power's root (which is the bigger issue tho), but also the snare we get from FRS which will also suffer DR so after 3 the target is immune to snares which is just stupid and will make it harder for us as well as our teammates to CC them. I think your alternate suggestion for Frozen Power is interesting, but the problem with snare DR still remains. The idea would help make Frozen Power easier to use though, since it wouldn't rely on the shock CD.... so you can use it more freely. I wouldn't mind Frozen Power being a totally separate ability that doesn't rely on shocks. But it still remains that making FRS our primary dps shock instead of ES would cause alot of problems and is a poor design choice by the developers..... I hope they revert this change.


@ ULE

I think your spell suggestions for ULE are very cool and by tweaking them for each spec are pretty useful. I had a similar thought when I first saw them say they were giving ULE a sprint, thinking it would make sense that Resto/Elem could cast spells while moving during the sprint duration.

The thing is that I actually liked the previous design of a damage+utility ability, our ULE was like a Pally Judgement with better range. You can see my explanation in my first response, but I think ULE should remain the way it was originally designed.... and prob do even more instant damage (instead of 100% wep damage, make it 200%) to compensate for the longer, 15s CD. As a melee class, any active GCD ability we have should do instant damage and it just doesn't feel right that ULE only buffs.

Regarding your ideas.... I DO think that Blizz could just create a NEW ability that would incorporate the current sprint idea plus the extra utility you have suggested. Something like "Spirit Dash - 20 sec CD" which gives you a 6 sec sprint plus the effects you listed depending on what spec you are. This would make ULE a more damage+buff oriented ability we use every 15 sec like normal, and then a separate sprint/utility buff we use whenever we need more mobility. Having a sprint/utility on ULE can cause problems since they conflict with us using it for damage, and esp as Enhance we use ULE on CD every 15 sec which makes timing it for mobility rather clunky.

I would much prefer two seperate spells..... but Blizz is being kinda stupid with insisting that we have less spells, cause it leads to stacking multiple different effects onto one spell which ends up being clunky and hard to use effectively. This is the problem with trying to get rid of ES for Enhance also, as they are trying to make us use FRS for both damage and utility when we need one shock for damage and another for utility.

[Omanley]

Yes, we could get something other as frsot damage, but look at all the work they already did; no frost spell in sight. Very unlikely of them to have it up their sleeve. You'd have to design something new from scratch. ES doesn't really have anything going for. You can easily include FrS in the SS debuff by changing nature to stormfrost damage, and the weakened blows is gone anyway. This "trinity" of shocks was heavily critisized design-wise by many (me on the front), because it didn't not much besides adding ability bloat, annoying restrictions (ele cannot snare reliably if it wants to keep fs up on targets and use fulmination) as well as multiple weak spells. ES was used to interrupt vanilla-mid wotlk, but doesn't do that anymore either. Why struggle to find a use for an ability that was never really "enhancy" to begin with? Doesn't look very impressive either when used.
And yes, it may very well shatter at them not being able to split up the utility of FrS from the dps part. The snare could work the same as the root from my FP suggestion, only working on hitting the ability twice).

@ULE
I guess you mean the varying effects on imbues? So you want to bring imbues back, and having to switch them for different effects? Personally, I've liked the idea initially, but the design was bad from the beginning. To make it work balance-wise would be even harder, especially including enh/ele. adding all the extra effects on UF...

I must admit though, my ULE ideas were rather spontaneous. I tend to throw some extra mobility in 80% of my suggestions anywhere, because we lack it just that much. ULE (or UE as I prefer) happens to have a rather nice cd for a not to high/low utility benefit, and blizz touched on that thought with their UE perk. Wether we get our needed mobility through a perk, baseline or a talent tier though, I hardly care.

... but Blizz is being kinda stupid with insisting that we have less spells, cause it leads to stacking multiple different effects onto one spell which ends up being clunky and hard to use effectively. This is the problem with trying to get rid of ES for Enhance also, as they are trying to make us use FRS for both damage and utility when we need one shock for damage and another for utility.

Yes, the double duty design was also part of Feral Spirits (and will be partly back, as FerS will do more damage again, I believe) and Ascendence (gap closing, damage, selfheal(Ancestral Guidance)), as well as Primal Elementals (less so no, since EES nerf, but again being a thing with primal storm elemental).

On that note: Annoying that SET is a ranged elemental, with it's talented SHORT RANGE aura to increase movement speed. Am I the only seeing the /facepalm in that?