Talk about clunky!

[jon041065]

Genuine question..what difference will better gear make? How will that make you generate more maelstrom? More haste would mean more auto-attacks, which generate 5 maelstrom. So that's some gain, but I don't think we'll see a huge spike in maelstrom generation with better gear. Unless I'm missing something (entirely probably). But higher haste also means lower gcd and thus more rockbiter spam.

Enhance mastery in legion does what it currently does plus increases the chance for windfury and stormfury. So more mastery means more maelstrom generation from the additional windfury attacks and more stormfury procs will mean more half cost stormstrikes. Stormfury procs will also give you a short duration attack speed buff which will also increase maelstrom generation.

For people that think the spec sounds awful, I suggest watching a streamer actually playing the spec and not just a overview video. I've been watching http://www.twitch.tv/glymic/ and the spec looks a lot of fun despite the full artifact talent set being unavailable in the current build.

[Aggrophobic]

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 don't really have a choice there though. You take what is best and any other "choice" is just not viable.

[Jotaux]

Makes sense that your characters have to spam RB when they have shit gear though?

Well on the alpha I am constantly hitting lava lash to dump maelstrom.

[jon041065]

You don't really have a choice there though. You take what is best and any other "choice" is just not viable.

There's nothing wrong with some specs having simpler gameplay that can still get good results and other specs that have more involved gameplay to reach their potential. People should play what they want to play and if they care about performance then play what they can perform well at.

[Rend Blackhand]

I like it for the most part but with the talents and the artifact bits there will be too much shit to do. I doubt it will all make it into the live game but if it does I'll adapt because I still love enhancement and by Jesus elemental just looks like more of the same boring crap

[Kakera]

Shamans are a joke on live. Enh on alpha is about as complex as a mid tier classes difficulty now. Don't like it? Go play checkers. We don't want scrubs playing this game anymore. Too old for that shit.

[jon041065]

Shamans are a joke on live. Enh on alpha is about as complex as a mid tier classes difficulty now. Don't like it? Go play checkers. We don't want scrubs playing this game anymore. Too old for that shit.

While I wouldnt state it the way you did, I do feel that there should be specs of varying complexity in the game. Players that don't want to track "too many" things then hopefully there is a spec with the complexity they are looking for. I like how enhance is looking on legion and hope blizzard keeps it that way.

[ro9ue]

While I wouldnt state it the way you did, I do feel that there should be specs of varying complexity in the game. Players that don't want to track "too many" things then hopefully there is a spec with the complexity they are looking for. I like how enhance is looking on legion and hope blizzard keeps it that way.

I'm of the belief that each spec should be able to be talented to become simple or complex, instead of forcing a player who wants to play something complex into certain specs. Say I like the aesthetic of the Shaman, the lore and overall theme, but I want something simple. I should be able to play the Shaman and just run all passive talents and have a simple rotation. It goes the other way as well.

I think it would be bad if a player was like I want to play something complex and then suddenly they can only choose Druid, Shaman or Warlock.

It's Blizzard's job to make sure that every choice is completely viable, but I also think if you choose a more complex set up, you should be rewarded with slightly higher potential DPS.

[jon041065]

I'm of the belief that each spec should be able to be talented to become simple or complex, instead of forcing a player who wants to play something complex into certain specs. Say I like the aesthetic of the Shaman, the lore and overall theme, but I want something simple. I should be able to play the Shaman and just run all passive talents and have a simple rotation. It goes the other way as well.

I think it would be bad if a player was like I want to play something complex and then suddenly they can only choose Druid, Shaman or Warlock.

It's Blizzard's job to make sure that every choice is completely viable, but I also think if you choose a more complex set up, you should be rewarded with slightly higher potential DPS.

I completely agree. I was talking about if you wanted to go after the highest theoretical output that a spec can do is through X active abilities to use during a fight and you feel that X-3 or whatever is ideal and most enjoyable for you, then you should find a spec that is like that.

[Aggrophobic]

There's nothing wrong with some specs having simpler gameplay that can still get good results and other specs that have more involved gameplay to reach their potential. People should play what they want to play and if they care about performance then play what they can perform well at.

Sure, sure. But it would not hurt to have a spec that is both fun and preforms well, right?

[jon041065]

Sure, sure. But it would not hurt to have a spec that is both fun and preforms well, right?

What's fun is subjective though. There are posters in this thread that want the number of active abilities dropped to X number. What if you find that the spec is fun with 5 abilities and another finds it fun with 3. Should the spec be cut down to 3 abilities?

My point is that not every spec needs to have the number of abilities (or fewer) that some player named Joe finds to be fun in order to do it's highest dps/hps. As ro9ue said, the talent system should allow those that want fewer abilities the option to do so and yes this usually means less output as that's blizzard's view on actives vs passives and I agree with it. If Joe wants to try to do the spec's highest dps/hps, then he should find a spec that has that magic number of abilities. The game should have variety in there being some specs that have simple gameplay and do well and other specs that take a good deal more to do well.

[nazrakin]

You don't really have a choice there though. You take what is best and any other "choice" is just not viable.

That depends by what is "not viable". For me, theres a huge difference between a "not viable" talent that is grossly undertuned and the min/max minutiae where the "not viable" talent is a few points behind. If its the former, then blizz screwed up royally and they need to fix it. If its the latter then, personally, I'm still going to choose the talent I have the most fun with. If you told me that I could theoretically squeeze an extra 1-2% of DPS out of EM over EoE.. I would not care at all because I enjoy the gameplay so much more with EoE and Im strong believer in the idea that the more someone enjoys what they're doing, the better they will be. I doubt Im alone in that since this thread is about Enhancement shaman, this entire spec has been considered "not viable" for many stretches of time but we've stuck with it regardless.

[Murderdoll]

As long as you are rewarded for complex playstyle with increased numbers, that is fine.

But that also means that it becomes the best spec.

Its really a double edged sword. Yes people can spec into an easier version, but if the numbers arent the same, any heroic raiding guild and above will force them to play optimally. That 2% from EotE or EM may be the difference between getting a prio target down in time. Especially with EM how its on demand.

If the harder/more complex playstyle has no other reward than "fun" well, I dont know how many people will take it up when you throw difficult mechanics into the mix. If someone told me, well you can have double the buttons for no return, but you will be doing more and your fingers will hurt. To me (as someone who really enjoyed the more demanding enhance playstyle) that doesnt sound rewarding.

[Jotaux]

I just didn't find it complex at all. In the raid testing I did make a few mistakes (spamming rockbiter instead of windstrike during ascendance for 1 attempt lol) but it all flowed really nicely.

[Coffeh]

While I wouldnt state it the way you did, I do feel that there should be specs of varying complexity in the game. Players that don't want to track "too many" things then hopefully there is a spec with the complexity they are looking for. I like how enhance is looking on legion and hope blizzard keeps it that way.

I agree with you, but my question would be...should all that extra effort and required skill have a benefit? Should you do more dps than some simpler class hitting a 3 button rotation? Blizzard would never allow that to happen, so it's a more complex class to play that has no real payoff to pulling it off. Unless you just like being challenged, which is a perfectly fine stance.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

Buttons to push is fine but there is a different when a class tickles a mobs balls with several schools of damage to combine to form 'okay' overall damage as a result of all that mashing.

At least now SS is being designed to hit like a truck rather than be another wet noodle in a series of wet noodle attacks.

[Fadewind]

As long as you are rewarded for complex playstyle with increased numbers, that is fine.

But that also means that it becomes the best spec.

Its really a double edged sword. Yes people can spec into an easier version, but if the numbers arent the same, any heroic raiding guild and above will force them to play optimally. That 2% from EotE or EM may be the difference between getting a prio target down in time. Especially with EM how its on demand.

If the harder/more complex playstyle has no other reward than "fun" well, I dont know how many people will take it up when you throw difficult mechanics into the mix. If someone told me, well you can have double the buttons for no return, but you will be doing more and your fingers will hurt. To me (as someone who really enjoyed the more demanding enhance playstyle) that doesnt sound rewarding.

The thing is...2% isn't going to make a difference. It's a rounding error with the RNG all abilities naturally have. Hell, any gain under 5% is pretty much going to be theoretical ONLY. You could have a REALLY good string of RNG with crits and do more damage to make up for the 5% loss or that one talent ends up losing you DPS just by RNG alone. Anything over 10% difference starts to make a huge impact if the playstyles are similar.

Say, Ancestral Swiftness (or w/e the 10% haste and AS passive is) versus Landslide is a 10% upgrade in favor of Landslide. Then, yes a 5~10% difference will make a difference as those playstyles will have minimal changes (as you should be able to weave enough Rockbiters in to keep the buff up). But...for instance, the two choices are two completely different playstyles, then a 5~10% difference won't be enough if the favored ability is something you hate. In theory, it's better, but not in practice. If you have no desire to learn an ability and the difference is that small, you're more than likely to make more mistakes and cost your group damage and yourself DPS by trying to learn something new.

It does start to make a difference above 10~15% when even if you fuck up using the talent, it is still better than the other 2 talent options played at their best. However, at that point, I'd say that Blizzard needs to make a balancing pass as that choice doesn't exist in practice.

The job and point of theorycrafting, simulating, and min/maxing is not to get the best out of your character. In practice, they're supposed to give you a bigger buffer not to fuck up. Don't think of it as you do 10% more damage, but it's 10% harder to fuck shit up. If you're confident that your playstyle gives YOU a better buffer not to fuck up than the theoretical best, then you should stick to your guns. But if the best ability is just THAT much better than it's other options, then that's a balance problem. (Which yes, let's just completely admit that's happened way too much in the past)

[Kithelle]

Enhance mastery in legion does what it currently does plus increases the chance for windfury and stormfury. So more mastery means more maelstrom generation from the additional windfury attacks and more stormfury procs will mean more half cost stormstrikes. Stormfury procs will also give you a short duration attack speed buff which will also increase maelstrom generation.

For people that think the spec sounds awful, I suggest watching a streamer actually playing the spec and not just a overview video. I've been watching http://www.twitch.tv/glymic/ and the spec looks a lot of fun despite the full artifact talent set being unavailable in the current build.

Yeah but we can't know how far that will go...and without reforging who really knows how stats will come out...still will worry about having to spam it constantly when not popping the cooldown based abilities.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

I've actually PLAYED the class on the Alpha and disagree entirely. The only real complaint I had was how little damage Stormstrike did for how much resource it cost. The class, based on very early testing, played quite well over all and still retains that AOE niche they managed to carve.
Honestly, if you feel they are clunky on LIVE you are just unskilled.
Sort of confirmed when you said "it becomes a case of staring at the upper right hand corner of my monitor all the time."
You should look up the addon Weak Auras!

Anyway, compared to other classes, Enhancement is fastpaced on Alpha.
Something like Blood DK literally feels like its missing a rotational ability, yet still manages to be extremely effective.

My recommendation is playing the spec yourself before making judgement though.
I remember everyone panning enhance during the 5.4 PTR (pre-soo) and look how that turned out. I mean there was even that infamous simcraft post where enhance was #20 on the list, yet by the end they were burst gods, topping every chart that allowed for a proper opener.

But obviously you haven't played the spec when it was Stormstrike > Earthshock > Wait for Windfury on your slow two hander.
Now THAT was clunky.

[jon041065]

Yeah but we can't know how far that will go...and without reforging who really knows how stats will come out...still will worry about having to spam it constantly when not popping the cooldown based abilities.

With the gear that's available in alpha right now, the streamer I've been watching the most has been using rockbitter ever 3-5 secs on average according to his logs in dungeons. Then you have other testers state in this thread that they dont feel they are spamming rockbitter either.