Enhancement Shaman Overhaul

[Skildar]

Hey guyz, I made a post on the official forums, describing a what a quick overhaul of the enhancement shaman could look like :
https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17624572925

Might not be everyone's taste, and that's actually why I'm advertising this. I'd really enjoy seeing what can be criticized about it and what steps can be considered like taking it too far. And sure as hell, let everyone know in your responses if you think it's good or not solving enough of the problems you experienced while playing the spec!

[Selah]

I read through your post. I very much agree with the design philosophy.

"When you're playing this class, you should feel why it is called enhancement! This should not be a question and totems, ancestral powers, and elements should come into play with this feeling!"

I don't necessarily agree on the idea of just changing our how our DPS is delivered. I think enhancement should lean far more into the fact that Shamans are in fact a hybrid class. What I'm about to say is borderline blasphemous but.. what if our DPS was only average but our entire focus was about enhancing the combat capabilities of our allies? Make us a truly invaluable spec and give us the ability to act far more like a support spec.

As it stands we can harness the four elements, totems, and the powers of our ancestors. So, to start keep Enhancement similar to how it is now where we have some abilities, we build Maelstrom. Perhaps expand what we have access to and give us healing rain and chain heal as well. As we spend Maelstrom we gain stacks of some kind of buff (We'll call it Shamanistic Knowledge) at X stacks of Shamanistic Knowledge we can use a full bar of Maelstrom to transform our abilities. When we hit this button we are presented with how we want to alter our abilities and how we want to support our allies.

From there we can choose to either bolster our allies offensive capabilities, or bolster their defensive capabilities, or gain personally improved offensive capabilities, or be a clutch support healer. Depending on what we choose our abilities alter for 15 - 20 seconds, giving us a window to perform whichever role we need to fill.

What does that look like in practice? So, Johnny Awesome hits his Shamanistic Knowledge and chooses to boost his raid's DPS. For the next 15 seconds, Flametongue can now be capitalized on by all of his allies who are gaining additional DPS from their hits. Stormstrike now increases all magic damage taken by an additional X%. Everytime the Shaman uses RB the raid gains X% amount of additional resources for 5 seconds. Capacitor Totem now not only stuns the target but also acts like CS Totem and deals X% of damage being done to the targets by the Shaman's allies.

What if he decided to buff their defenses? CL now gives allies a bonus to Avoidance for 10 seconds, WR Totem now grants a boost to Dodge while allies are under it's effects. ES and LS now is applied to your allies, TT grants a bonus to Vers while it's active.

Healer? You essentially get AG active for this duration, any totem you have also acts as CB Totem(only one totem can serve this function at a time).You get one use of NG that can work for anyone in the party. Instead of SS procs you get procs that give you a free HS, HW, or HR. AP Totem now temporarily brings back all fallen allies for 10 seconds and allows them to fight for that duration.

Then if he wanted to just do more burst damage he can choose to essentially gain Ascendance.

I mean, my ideas are all bad and I should be ashamed but I really do think the idea of just being a Fury Warrior except with fire is just boring and uninspired.

[melodramocracy]

I read through your post. I very much agree with the design philosophy.

"When you're playing this class, you should feel why it is called enhancement! This should not be a question and totems, ancestral powers, and elements should come into play with this feeling!"

I don't necessarily agree on the idea of just changing our how our DPS is delivered. I think enhancement should lean far more into the fact that Shamans are in fact a hybrid class. What I'm about to say is borderline blasphemous but.. what if our DPS was only average but our entire focus was about enhancing the combat capabilities of our allies? Make us a truly invaluable spec and give us the ability to act far more like a support spec.

As it stands we can harness the four elements, totems, and the powers of our ancestors. So, to start keep Enhancement similar to how it is now where we have some abilities, we build Maelstrom. Perhaps expand what we have access to and give us healing rain and chain heal as well. As we spend Maelstrom we gain stacks of some kind of buff (We'll call it Shamanistic Knowledge) at X stacks of Shamanistic Knowledge we can use a full bar of Maelstrom to transform our abilities. When we hit this button we are presented with how we want to alter our abilities and how we want to support our allies.

From there we can choose to either bolster our allies offensive capabilities, or bolster their defensive capabilities, or gain personally improved offensive capabilities, or be a clutch support healer. Depending on what we choose our abilities alter for 15 - 20 seconds, giving us a window to perform whichever role we need to fill.

What does that look like in practice? So, Johnny Awesome hits his Shamanistic Knowledge and chooses to boost his raid's DPS. For the next 15 seconds, Flametongue can now be capitalized on by all of his allies who are gaining additional DPS from their hits. Stormstrike now increases all magic damage taken by an additional X%. Everytime the Shaman uses RB the raid gains X% amount of additional resources for 5 seconds. Capacitor Totem now not only stuns the target but also acts like CS Totem and deals X% of damage being done to the targets by the Shaman's allies.

What if he decided to buff their defenses? CL now gives allies a bonus to Avoidance for 10 seconds, WR Totem now grants a boost to Dodge while allies are under it's effects. ES and LS now is applied to your allies, TT grants a bonus to Vers while it's active.

Healer? You essentially get AG active for this duration, any totem you have also acts as CB Totem(only one totem can serve this function at a time).You get one use of NG that can work for anyone in the party. Instead of SS procs you get procs that give you a free HS, HW, or HR. AP Totem now temporarily brings back all fallen allies for 10 seconds and allows them to fight for that duration.

Then if he wanted to just do more burst damage he can choose to essentially gain Ascendance.

I mean, my ideas are all bad and I should be ashamed but I really do think the idea of just being a Fury Warrior except with fire is just boring and uninspired.

I like a lot of this. The spec seems to have a swiss army knife approach in terms of utility (movement, totems, interrupts, stun, etc) and fairly flat but consistent damage. I wouldn't want to give up the flexibility for the sake of more output personally.

If I had a complaint at all at this point, it's that FoA should cover a slightly wider arc, and could (maybe) borrow a bit of coolness from the D3 monk, maybe trigger chain lightnings or something if strormstrike procs while FoA is active... something like that.

[Kralljin]

I don't necessarily agree on the idea of just changing our how our DPS is delivered. I think enhancement should lean far more into the fact that Shamans are in fact a hybrid class. What I'm about to say is borderline blasphemous but.. what if our DPS was only average but our entire focus was about enhancing the combat capabilities of our allies? Make us a truly invaluable spec and give us the ability to act far more like a support spec.

Thing remains that this simply does not align with Blizzards design philosophy, they don't really want to bring back those support specs.
While they brought back certain support buffs, it's not like they will bring Windfury+Buff totems (or an equivalent) so that spec X is only brought because of the array of support tools.

[Skildar]

blizzard brought back melee survival, they've brought back offensive gameplay of disc priest. They could try implementing a gameplay for enhancement based around improvements to their allies, but that would be very difficult because it would just mean that the spec isn't viable alone and very hard to balance in small and large group.

I personally would much rather have them improve our current style of gameplay rather than a drastic change

[Selah]

I like a lot of this. The spec seems to have a swiss army knife approach in terms of utility (movement, totems, interrupts, stun, etc) and fairly flat but consistent damage. I wouldn't want to give up the flexibility for the sake of more output personally.

If I had a complaint at all at this point, it's that FoA should cover a slightly wider arc, and could (maybe) borrow a bit of coolness from the D3 monk, maybe trigger chain lightnings or something if strormstrike procs while FoA is active... something like that.

Thank you, I'm sure there's plenty wrong with this but the idea of being more of a support role wouldn't only be something unique but I also suspect that would really make Enhancement far more valuable in the long run of the game.

Thing remains that this simply does not align with Blizzards design philosophy, they don't really want to bring back those support specs.
While they brought back certain support buffs, it's not like they will bring Windfury+Buff totems (or an equivalent) so that spec X is only brought because of the array of support tools.

To be fair, their design philosophy has changed and will continue to change over the years. They've back tracked on a lot, they've tried new things they said they wouldn't do. I mean, look at Classic. For many years Blizzard explicitly said they wouldn't do that ever and now we have a demo available next week to play. It isn't design philosophy per say but it is Blizzard changing their stances on something they were adamant about.

blizzard brought back melee survival, they've brought back offensive gameplay of disc priest. They could try implementing a gameplay for enhancement based around improvements to their allies, but that would be very difficult because it would just mean that the spec isn't viable alone and very hard to balance in small and large group.

I personally would much rather have them improve our current style of gameplay rather than a drastic change

I think the first question should be, how are you defining viability in solo play? There's no reason why it wouldn't be able to go out and quest and do everything in solo play we do now. It might not be as fast to kill things as a Rogue but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be viable.

Balancing might be a challenge for sure. How much DPS can they provide to a small group versus a big group? Would the buffing be enough to justify them in all forms of content or would people reject them (assuming the player is proficient with the spec)? How much is too much?

This is of course my opinion, and I highly doubt Blizzard will make any changes on the whole. To me, Enhancement just feels far too much like a Fury Warrior but with fire.

[Kralljin]

I mean, look at Classic.

Thing is, whether Enhancement is a support spec or not is a economical question, Vanilla servers are / were a economical question in the end, Blizzard just doesn't like to say "Yeah, that won't make a profit, so we're not doing it".

[chiddie]

I like a lot of this. The spec seems to have a swiss army knife approach in terms of utility (movement, totems, interrupts, stun, etc) and fairly flat but consistent damage. I wouldn't want to give up the flexibility for the sake of more output personally.

If I had a complaint at all at this point, it's that FoA should cover a slightly wider arc, and could (maybe) borrow a bit of coolness from the D3 monk, maybe trigger chain lightnings or something if strormstrike procs while FoA is active... something like that.

PvP side I don’t know what kind of flexibility you’re talking about.

We are basically dead meat running, when I’m cced with the trinket in cd i basically simply stop doing anything and enter guru meditation until I die (it’s usually fast, at least).

So either make us almost unsnearable or give us something to absorb most damage while incapacitated or buff our damage in such a way that “omg if he touches me I’m dead”.

Nowadays we basically hang around hoping not to be focused (that rarely happens since everyone knows how ridocolous we are) or in some super lucky SS procs (if we can stay close to the target, that can be difficult too).

I still love my class and my spec but PvP (the only thing I do in game besides emissaries) feels really bad.

[sonikmlg]

PvP side I don’t know what kind of flexibility you’re talking about.

We are basically dead meat running, when I’m cced with the trinket in cd i basically simply stop doing anything and enter guru meditation until I die (it’s usually fast, at least).

So either make us almost unsnearable or give us something to absorb most damage while incapacitated or buff our damage in such a way that “omg if he touches me I’m dead”.

Nowadays we basically hang around hoping not to be focused (that rarely happens since everyone knows how ridocolous we are) or in some super lucky SS procs (if we can stay close to the target, that can be difficult too).

I still love my class and my spec but PvP (the only thing I do in game besides emissaries) feels really bad.

PVP feels bad? What the hell man enha's dmg is absolutely insane and the offheals. PVP-wise enha is at the best moment in a while.

[Skildar]

PVP feels bad? What the hell man enha's dmg is absolutely insane and the offheals. PVP-wise enha is at the best moment in a while.

Except a bid nerf happened, and exploded their healing capacity.

Anyway, plz stay on topic thx

[kosajk]

for me all those changes will lead us stright into monk playstyle, just check it its freaking exactly what you describe
just with a bit different theme and with combo points instead mealstrom and energy instead of mana

[Skildar]

for me all those changes will lead us stright into monk playstyle, just check it its freaking exactly what you describe
just with a bit different theme and with combo points instead mealstrom and energy instead of mana

you should probably elaborate because I'm not sure you've read the right post

[kosajk]

you should probably elaborate because I'm not sure you've read the right post

well You want to swap SS and LL in places (giving LL a cd and make SS spamable) stormbringer would still improve SS dmg and make it free, now go to WW monk and try it, its exactly the same mechanic, you have tiger palm (resource builder) that make free blackout kick (weak spender) and raising sun kick(strong spender) have 9 sec cd, i dont find it that good personally but thats just my feeling.

tbh a lot of changes ppls sugest for shaman (tank post couple weeks ago for instance, is copy paste of brewmaster skills without it mastery) are just rip off from different specs, just with different look and some minor changes.

ATM shaman is more flashy warrior, your rework would change it into a more flashy WW monk with MS instead of chi points and mana instead of energy, and i read a day or two ago someone sugesting going DK way with fire, air and so on runes
For me it would be grate if they get back to CD based gamplay we had 2-3 expansions ago, good burst, allways something to press and look for Just keep healing surge on current lvl, keep sunder in current form and AS as deffensive cd on top of that and we are golden.
Making a lot of simillar classes with different animations is not best game design imo... if i want to play some class i can pick it and play it there is no need to reworking us into something else that we have alredy in game.

Not to many ppls are plaing everything, i asume, so you may not even know that we have sugested playstyles alredy in game

[Flurryfang]

I applaud your very in depth rework and it seems like you have thought a long time about this.

I completly agree, that the idea of enhancement should be to "enhance" your weapons with element power. This should be the fantasy around the spec and atm with the SS spamming, it is not really fufilling the spot.

My added note would be to really focus on weapon buffs. I think enhancement is at its best when your rotation is just as much about doing direct dmg as it is keeping up buffs like flametounge and hailstorm. Enchancement shamans should be thought of as a buff class, as in contrast to a dot class, where the point of the battle is to empower yourself as much as possible and turn weak abilities into powerful attacks.

[Skildar]

well You want to swap SS and LL in places (giving LL a cd and make SS spamable) stormbringer would still improve SS dmg and make it free, now go to WW monk and try it, its exactly the same mechanic, you have tiger palm (resource builder) that make free blackout kick (weak spender) and raising sun kick(strong spender) have 9 sec cd, i dont find it that good personally but thats just my feeling.

tbh a lot of changes ppls sugest for shaman (tank post couple weeks ago for instance, is copy paste of brewmaster skills without it mastery) are just rip off from different specs, just with different look and some minor changes.

ATM shaman is more flashy warrior, your rework would change it into a more flashy WW monk with MS instead of chi points and mana instead of energy, and i read a day or two ago someone sugesting going DK way with fire, air and so on runes
For me it would be grate if they get back to CD based gamplay we had 2-3 expansions ago, good burst, allways something to press and look for Just keep healing surge on current lvl, keep sunder in current form and AS as deffensive cd on top of that and we are golden.
Making a lot of simillar classes with different animations is not best game design imo... if i want to play some class i can pick it and play it there is no need to reworking us into something else that we have alredy in game.

Not to many ppls are plaing everything, i asume, so you may not even know that we have sugested playstyles alredy in game

you should probably read more than the first part of my post then... Cause it goes way beyond what you have just described

- - - Updated - - -

I applaud your very in depth rework and it seems like you have thought a long time about this.

I completly agree, that the idea of enhancement should be to "enhance" your weapons with element power. This should be the fantasy around the spec and atm with the SS spamming, it is not really fufilling the spot.

My added note would be to really focus on weapon buffs. I think enhancement is at its best when your rotation is just as much about doing direct dmg as it is keeping up buffs like flametounge and hailstorm. Enchancement shamans should be thought of as a buff class, as in contrast to a dot class, where the point of the battle is to empower yourself as much as possible and turn weak abilities into powerful attacks.

Thanks for the encouragements, I would like it a lot too if we were to maintain one or two more buffs up but you often find yourself feeling like you don't really do that much damage and that your main spenders don't have a lot of impact. Even if it's numericaly on parse with what other classes/specs do.
It might be a good thing I guess to bring back the buff that rockbiter brought as a baseline, it was discrete and yet a nice thing to optimize.

[WorldofWorkcraft]

Your changes seem alright, but are they enough? Will this make the class feel good enough to play? To me, it doesn't seem that engaging, and some of your talent rows seem too polarized for PvP/PvE (though that can be a number thing). This is the reason I think Blizzard hasn't really done changes like this; they seem like a temporary fix to a more core issue, and making these changes would make it harder to adjust the class overall (assuming they have a plan to adjust it, which I doubt more and more each day).

The biggest problem is/was player focus, and how if you're a DPS class, you should be doing competitive DPS. People use logs for that, saying "Look at blah, it's at the BOTTOM of the charts, it needs help!" Because of this, Blizzard has adapted a "Damage first, fun/feel second" mentality. As much as I believe Blizzard is to blame for their inability to understand their own design philosophies, the players are only slightly less to blame regarding the classes and how they've evolved.

You can say "I want Enhance to FEEL like Enhance!" but then you have to take into account a lot more. How many people feel that way? Will you be looking at raid logs? Will you be doing enough? If you do bring enough, is the play style of that 'Enhancing' even engaging enough? Will people recognize that you're bringing enough and even want to bring you to a dungeon or raid? I remember a time Shaman were sued SOLELY for Bloodlust, despite our sub-par DPS. That didn't feel good. And wasn't engaging. Then, when you start to become an 'Enhancing' class, you borderline fall into the territory of a support; which is fine, but then Blizzard has to decide what your label is. Enhance would be more like a Discipline Priest; which hey, sounds good to me, as UNIQUE play styles have gone missing from many classes nowadays.

There's plenty that can be changed about certain classes. Enhancement is definitely in a weird spot (and, let's face it; Shaman in general). You don't really...Enhance much. There's plenty of utility, but not enough interaction with others and yourself. Enhance has an opportunity to do some amazing things with a unique play style, instead of just being yet ANOTHER class with small tweaks to make it feel slightly better.

What if Enhance had an ability that Enhanced others, and utilized them for your own skills? Player interaction, wut?
Frostbrand: (45s CD) "Enhance a friendly target's skills with frost for 30 seconds. Their skills slow their target by 10%. Additionally, whenever they use a skill that does damage, your Frost Shock damage is increased by 25%. Stacks 20 times." Something like this is more an "Enhance" play style, adds an interesting interaction to DPS players, and adds a "when should I use this?" element.

I think we all agree Shamans need updates, and I'd rather wait for an overhaul then have them throw bandaids on that might obstruct their possible current conceptual changes of what is coming. Again, may not be coming at all...but there's always hope.

[Skildar]

Your changes seem alright, but are they enough? Will this make the class feel good enough to play? To me, it doesn't seem that engaging, and some of your talent rows seem too polarized for PvP/PvE (though that can be a number thing). This is the reason I think Blizzard hasn't really done changes like this; they seem like a temporary fix to a more core issue, and making these changes would make it harder to adjust the class overall (assuming they have a plan to adjust it, which I doubt more and more each day).

The biggest problem is/was player focus, and how if you're a DPS class, you should be doing competitive DPS. People use logs for that, saying "Look at blah, it's at the BOTTOM of the charts, it needs help!" Because of this, Blizzard has adapted a "Damage first, fun/feel second" mentality. As much as I believe Blizzard is to blame for their inability to understand their own design philosophies, the players are only slightly less to blame regarding the classes and how they've evolved.

You can say "I want Enhance to FEEL like Enhance!" but then you have to take into account a lot more. How many people feel that way? Will you be looking at raid logs? Will you be doing enough? If you do bring enough, is the play style of that 'Enhancing' even engaging enough? Will people recognize that you're bringing enough and even want to bring you to a dungeon or raid? I remember a time Shaman were sued SOLELY for Bloodlust, despite our sub-par DPS. That didn't feel good. And wasn't engaging. Then, when you start to become an 'Enhancing' class, you borderline fall into the territory of a support; which is fine, but then Blizzard has to decide what your label is. Enhance would be more like a Discipline Priest; which hey, sounds good to me, as UNIQUE play styles have gone missing from many classes nowadays.

There's plenty that can be changed about certain classes. Enhancement is definitely in a weird spot (and, let's face it; Shaman in general). You don't really...Enhance much. There's plenty of utility, but not enough interaction with others and yourself. Enhance has an opportunity to do some amazing things with a unique play style, instead of just being yet ANOTHER class with small tweaks to make it feel slightly better.

What if Enhance had an ability that Enhanced others, and utilized them for your own skills? Player interaction, wut?
Frostbrand: (45s CD) "Enhance a friendly target's skills with frost for 30 seconds. Their skills slow their target by 10%. Additionally, whenever they use a skill that does damage, your Frost Shock damage is increased by 25%. Stacks 20 times." Something like this is more an "Enhance" play style, adds an interesting interaction to DPS players, and adds a "when should I use this?" element.

I think we all agree Shamans need updates, and I'd rather wait for an overhaul then have them throw bandaids on that might obstruct their possible current conceptual changes of what is coming. Again, may not be coming at all...but there's always hope.

You seem to ask a lot of question but not giving much feedback.
Enhancing doesn' necessaraly imply to enhance others. It used to work like that through totem for quite some time, but I think it was primarly a good thing from Blizzard to step back from this design.
Sure I'd like for it to come back a bit, like through the EarthShield I talked about, but it shouldn't be a top priority if they ever rework the spec.

As for talents row that are too polarized for PvP/PvE, I don't really see which one in particular (might be the flametongue row but it's clearly not polaryzed as there are a lot more than just one talent with a slow in the design).

[WorldofWorkcraft]

You seem to ask a lot of question but not giving much feedback.
Enhancing doesn' necessaraly imply to enhance others. It used to work like that through totem for quite some time, but I think it was primarly a good thing from Blizzard to step back from this design.
Sure I'd like for it to come back a bit, like through the EarthShield I talked about, but it shouldn't be a top priority if they ever rework the spec.

As for talents row that are too polarized for PvP/PvE, I don't really see which one in particular (might be the flametongue row but it's clearly not polaryzed as there are a lot more than just one talent with a slow in the design).

Might not be everyone's taste, and that's actually why I'm advertising this. I'd really enjoy seeing what can be criticized about it and what steps can be considered like taking it too far. And sure as hell, let everyone know in your responses if you think it's good or not solving enough of the problems you experienced while playing the spec!

I didn't really see the need to give much feedback as I disagree with the core philosophy of the design as just being another DPS spec (like Lythelia does), and I don't do a lot of current content, but I'll try to explain my thoughts. Granted, I'm also more of a new Enhancement Shaman (been Elemental whenever I did play, but sadboyz). And since you don't want drastic changes and like the design more or less, we can't really see eye to eye on it.

First, it seems like you're swapping SS out for LL and trying to buff them. Obviously you go a bit more in depth, but it doesn't really affect the play style enough in my opinion. As for Mastery, seems to stick with the proc-play style while adding a burst button. /shrug. Utility wise, removing Frostbrand hurts PvP (damn mages...). Ghost Wolf is too iconic as a travel-form to be altered like that (seems like this would be more useful as Elemental, as Enhance doesn't seem to need that kind of movement having instant skills). Healing Surge being instant is why it's used at all for me. Putting a conditional on it makes me really sad, as I do enjoy being able to help out whenever, instead of saving a cool down for it (that probably won't be used in many situations otherwise).

As for talents, a lot seem like "must picks" for me, but that's only at first glance. Because we're a burst class, Hot Hand, Enhancer, Lavatongue, Lightning Addict all seem baseline to me. Might be wrong. Not much to go on other than that though.

Lots of people have different ideas for what could work. This could work. I just don't think, for me, it will change enough to make the class feel fun or different. Keep it up though; the only way things change is feedback [that isn't ignored by Blizzard for the 10020349829384th time..]

[Narwal]

Am I wrong in saying that Blizzard moved away from raid buffing classes long ago? Something about bring the player not the class? Not to mention, in the play-style of wow today, single-player, very few would want to play an under-powered dps class.

[McFuu]

Am I wrong in saying that Blizzard moved away from raid buffing classes long ago? Something about bring the player not the class? Not to mention, in the play-style of wow today, single-player, very few would want to play an under-powered dps class.

Wrath was the end of support shaman. You are correct.