Enhancement - Talents for raiding?

[Amandi]

Short version; Tempest vs. Overcharge / Crashing Storm vs. Fury of Air / Ascendance vs. Earthen Spike.

I've been trying to decide between these three talents for raiding, and I'm having difficulty settling. Tempest is great because you don't need to worry about anything changing, but Overcharge makes lightning bolt do a lot of damage. Crashing storm is low gain but easier to deal with, whereas I know fury of storm is stronger as a talent, but more difficult to master (I.E needing to pool maelstrom more frequently). Ascendance + Berserking has been a macro of mine for a while now, and it makes great use of each cooldown, but I hear Earthen Spike will equal out to more damage the closer to the three minute mark you get.

So what is everyone else running for raids? Do you find it better to take ease-of-use talents so you don't clog up your rotation? Or do you focus on micro-management talents that can perform better?

[Stormbornsham]

Tempest is a MUST, fury of air its pretty good if you manage maelstrom like messi manages football. Crashing storm its ok for most people.

Then, personally, i prefer earthen spike both in m+ and raiding. Why? A +1mill dmg attack that buffs phisical dmg, with a 20 SEC cd aprox. Ascensions is pretty damn good, but you only use it 2 or 3 times in a fight, plus it is only meaningfull if you stack it with prepot, lust and doom winds and wolves.

Ibe been doing very VERY well with this build, having 4 pieces of the ToS set. In m+ i am doing A LOT better with 930 ilvl than people woth more ilvl and antorus set. In raiding, i hadnt got the time yet to run it full but im positioning. Always in top 5 of 9. Considering that a lot of people has got already 1000 ilvl legendarys, antorus set and 945-950 gear and i dont.

Hope this helps you having the same fun im having right now, and im open to other opinions.

[Amandi]

I've been running around doing tests on things that don't die, I.E Rares. What I'm noticing is that I hate Fury of air. I think it's good, but I hate it, I don't like the visual and I feel like I'm too conservative with my maelstrom with it. If I get below 10 I feel uneasy with it. Maybe if I ever get Smoldering Heart...

Earthen spike is great for roaming. It hurts, it has a short cooldown and it buffs my damage pretty well. My only flaw with it is larger pulls. It's a single target attack that only increases my damage to -that- target. So if my target dies within 10 seconds, I've lost part of the buff. To be fair, Ascendance is only 15 seconds, but it's a personal buff so I take it with my when I switch targets. Macroed with berserk, I can kill a group of four enemies (one of them elite) in roughly half the time it takes for me to do so when I'm using Earthen spike. Earthen spike is more consistent however, because 20 secs versus 3 minutes is no joke.

I need to try Earthen Spike in a raid and see how it works to be sure. It's difficult to judge these things... Maybe I'll go smack a target dummy for three minutes (twice...) and see the damage value difference between Ascendance and Earthen Spike lol.

Edit: I did that thing I said I was going to do. With Tempest, Crashing storm, and Ascendance + Berserking, Spirit Wolves (used once) I did around 711.3k damage to a single target dummy in three minutes.

With the same setup and execution, but replacing Ascendance with Earthen spike on cooldown, I did 764.3k damage in three minutes. So a difference of around 53k dps. Gonna try that with Fury of air now and see if my dps raises.

[Darleth]

Feel free to use Crashing Storm if you have no gloves. The reason why Fury of Air is pretty good is because it gives another chance to proc it, even if it is a low chance. Also, its not that much of a dps loss/increase to use either afaik. FoA becomes more of a "press and forget" skill when you are used to it.
Earthen Spike is super good with gloves and adds a ton of priority burst and is always a good dps increase.

Also most of the time it comes down to your own setup. Best way to find out is simming and trying stuff out yourself. Other than that, the Shaman Discord is usually a good place to go for information on talents, legendaries etc. Also Icy-veins and wowhead have updated guides by Wordup.

[jearle]

You dont discuss anywhere what legendaries you are using. You say you dont have gloves but are you running LL bracers + ring? The lego setup has a good impact on what talents you are going to use as enhance.

Earthen Spike is fun to use as solo and with the typical Gloves setup. But if you are running LL bracers with Hot Hand/Hailstorm then Earthen Spike is more difficult to use in a raid setting since you are hitting LL procs and frostbrand and Ascendance will typically outperform it, unless the fight timing really screws the 3m cooldown over.

FoA takes a little getting use to but is awesome once you have good enough gear and haste levels that Maelstrom gen is a non issue.

[Amandi]

Sorry for the absence, death in the family. Long story short I have no Legendaries and thus didn't comment on it. In fact I was looking into how to even begin farming them, but I've had no luck so far getting anything.

[Darleth]

Sorry for the absence, death in the family. Long story short I have no Legendaries and thus didn't comment on it. In fact I was looking into how to even begin farming them, but I've had no luck so far getting anything.

Try to do all mythic 0 dungeons, all raids in all difficulties if possible (lfr - normal - heroic), do all emissaries, do your stuff on argus (killing rares, maybe get lucky with argunite) and thats basically it. Considering you have no legendaries, argunite might actually be a good way to target gloves and the eye of the twisting nether ring.

[Bubbasider]

Cannot stand Fury of Air. But yeah, ES should pull ahead of Ascend for sustain.

[Xorzor]

Landslide, because the Agility boost should not be passed over.

Feral Lunge for a gap closer.

Lightning Surge Totem for an aoe stun. Helps out in group fights.

Ancestral Swiftness for the Haste boost.

L75 take whatever pleases you.

Crashing Storm for ease of use, or Fury of Air if you can manage your Maelstrom pretty good.

Earthen Spike for a pseudo-Colossus Smash effect.

If you have the gloves legendary, you can get Ascendance that way, if only for a short time.

That's my two copper.

[Jotaux]

Sorry for the absence, death in the family. Long story short I have no Legendaries and thus didn't comment on it. In fact I was looking into how to even begin farming them, but I've had no luck so far getting anything.

Purely anecdotal but I seem to be getting the most legendaries from the invasion portals.

[Ichology]

fury of air its pretty good if you manage maelstrom like messi manages football.

Uh, nah. You just have to keep your lava lash finger under control and it does it's thing lol.

[Darleth]

FoA is fine for raiding. On a boss fight you dont have that much down time so its easy to set and forget once you (as you said) learn to not dump maelstrom like its hot. I still dont like though. For quests and other stuff its just.... annoying.

I have all the enhancement legendaries and even though I could be running the ascendance config, I prefer to go with a lava lash friendly set up. Im just so used to it now that anything else I just botch and I dont feel like re learning the spec again.

Its not even hard to keep up even when you aren't hitting a boss, due to mechanics for example. All you have to do is press Ghost Wolf.
I think a lot of people forget that Ghost Wolf gives you basically unlimited Maelstrom as long as you are in it. There is a reason for "doggy sitting".

Outside of raiding, I agree though, but even there you dont use CL that much and if you do, its mostly for cleaving adds or activating Feral Spirits cleave.

[Deleted]

Tempest all days of the week.
Fury of Air is a must with the Legendary Hands.
Earthen Spike performs better and makes your dps more smooth.

[Wizardhawk]

I couldn't disagree more about FoA being a must with the gloves. Basically you are using FoA then to ensure you don't cap Maelstrom instead of just LL to keep it in line. There is zero cases where I've found it to be of use for that. Pretty much only use FoA on fights that have a lot of tightly formed adds that are up more often than not (Mistress in ToS). To me the risk of going OO maelstrom with bad luck runs still makes it more risky and less stable than other options unless the payoff in AoE is that strong.

Tempest is really the only choice on that tier.

Spike requires more work so it depends largely on how much movement you are doing and other reasons you might miss being able to cast it on CD (times you are away from the boss for stretches like aggramar). Ascendance is less work, but also should be saved up for hero/lust, etc outside of using it at the pull so it might not always rise to the level of spike. It's going to be case by case.

[Tyriama]

Having swapped classes quite a bit in Legion, but never having enough time to delve deep into the legendary pool, I am currently running Uncertain Reminder helm, and Soul of the Farseer ring.

Specced into Overcharge as second 75 talent, as I really like the hard-hitting spell, it fits with my "preferred" playstyle heralding back to Maelstrom days, and it's synching well with my current haste levels.

Running Landslide at 15. It's passive, you'll be using rockbiter anyhow, and it mixes well with Overcharge for that extra damage conversion.
30 is Feral Lunge 8/10 times, unless the encounter has a specific movement requirement for the entire group/cluster of teammates.
45 is Lightning Surge. All day. Erry day.
60 i use Ancestral Swiftness. Again, Overcharge likes good haste levels, so it's easy pickings.
75 is Overcharge and Tempest (From Ring). It's a good setup that grants good sustain and quite good "microburst"
90 is for me Crashing Storm, as it gives me the most control about my maelstrom. Occasionally you will be running "dry" after movement and target swapping with Overcharge and Stormbringer procs, so I can then decide more fluidly when and how to use Crash Lightning.
100 is completely dependant on encounter, swapping between Ascendance and Earthen Spike. Ascendance is godlike if there is one smaller phase of a fight where you have a high-priority target, or a burst phase of a larger amount of adds. If there is no specific reason like this in the encounter, I will go with Earthen Spike most of the time. It fits well in the Overcharge rotation once the CD of LB goes close to 9 Seconds.

I always reccomend playing around with talents. Some people will prefer HotHands at 15. Especially with the legendary bracers, where you'll hit like a truck on steroids.
Unless you're doing Mythic argus and dying to low DPS, it will not matter as much as people think. Playing a playstyle that suits you can often be equal or better than the "best" setup if you hate it, and therefore aren't as involved in the setup.

[Nitwit]

Basically you are using FoA then to ensure you don't cap Maelstrom instead of just LL to keep it in line. There is zero cases where I've found it to be of use for that.

...

To me the risk of going OO maelstrom with bad luck runs still makes it more risky and less stable than other options unless the payoff in AoE is that strong.

How about ... during ascendance, when most of your GCDs are going into maelstrom-irrelevant windstrikes? The whole point of FoA is that it's extra passive maelstrom spending going on in the background when your rotation doesn't permit you to spend as much maelstrom as you're generating. It's not "instead of" lava lash - it's on top of it. There's also no risk of going out of maelstrom. If you went out of maelstrom, then you simply hit lava lash too much, and that's true whether you're using FoA or not.

[Ryethe]

How about ... during ascendance, when most of your GCDs are going into maelstrom-irrelevant windstrikes? The whole point of FoA is that it's extra passive maelstrom spending going on in the background when your rotation doesn't permit you to spend as much maelstrom as you're generating. It's not "instead of" lava lash - it's on top of it. There's also no risk of going out of maelstrom. If you went out of maelstrom, then you simply hit lava lash too much, and that's true whether you're using FoA or not.

To elaborate a bit, maelstrom expenditure is 2 per second higher with FoA than not.