Does Enhancement Shaman in SL feel good or too clunky?

[Lixo]

Obviously it's the worst spec because he can't pass 1200 rating with it lmao

[hc7]

Enhance is "pretty good" in arena atm pretty much entirely due to its burst, but it has its own significant draw backs. It has strong healing but the self heals(which it should with how lacking its defensive toolkit is whilst pretty much every other spec in the game has a fairly robust defensive toolkit) are very limited due to mana cost and needing 5 MSW for them to be strong as well as instant obviously, and the fact you NEED to be in melee hitting something to get those stacks which can come very fast or slow depending on RNG.

Its biggest drawbacks are undoubtedly a GLARING lack of defensives and ability to mitigate(and sustain, but most importantly burst in this meta) damage outside of its 40% wall that is NOT usable during stuns and on a 1.5m CD. Youre essentially SOL after you use wall, your only other real defensive is the earth ele conduit that acts like a battlemasters and gives you 25% more hp while its up which is nice and all but what the spec really needs is the ability to mitigate or absorb damage. So it has a SINGLE crappy defensive in its base toolkit which is just baffling in 2021 where many classes have a multitude of options in their toolkits.

The other big drawback that has kind of flown under the radar to most people is out of all melee it probably has the worst ability to keep uptime on a target and arguably tied for worst mobility..yes enhance is now more of a wheelchair than even ret. Losing frostbrand weapon was a big deal because now the only way to keep a target slowed is EB on a 30 sec CD(with only a 10 yd range which is a bit crappy) and quite literally spamming Frost Shock on CD because its duration is essentially the same as its CD. Ghost wolf is "nice to have" but when youre trying to get to a ranged that is ALSO slowing you its VERY clunky since you cant do anything in Ghost wolf and it just offers you not being able to be slowed below 100% move speed. Its problematic for enhance since you have to be spamming frost shock on CD every <6 seconds without missing a GCD in order to make sure your target is slowed 100% of the time, then spend a GCD to get into ghost wolf(cant use any abilities) and very soon after, youre needing to come out of GW to frost shock again. Not to mention when you actually do break GW to slow, theyre gaining back some distance because youre no longer being prevented from going below 100% move speed anymore, and this is assuming you dont have to cast a heal on yourself or do something else while chasing them that will cause you to break GW, then have to use another GCD to get back into it. Theres plenty of times I just end up not going into GW because it doesnt even seem worth it. The other issue is with our "sprint" ability Spirit Walk which gives 60% move speed for 6 seconds on a 1 min CD, because it ONLY breaks roots/slows but they can instantly be reapplied, so against a team like Fmage/Boomkin you can easily just be re-rooted on your sprint making it useless.

Dont get me wrong, enhance is still viable and Im doing well on it (although ive been playing the spec since TBC) but it has some CLEAR drawbacks that need addressing and your VERY dependent on your teammates to help you live/enable you in 3s which is why you wont see many enhance's running without a holy pally in higher ratings.

[sponge5307]

Currently questing on a lvl 53 ench shammy and it feels like after every pull I have to heal myself and if I pull 3+ mob prepare to use CD and earth elements. Doesn't feel too good.

[Tumble]

Currently questing on a lvl 53 ench shammy and it feels like after every pull I have to heal myself and if I pull 3+ mob prepare to use CD and earth elements. Doesn't feel too good.

That definitely gets better with gear. However, we are extremely squishy for a class that wears mail, our defensives are terrible, and while our self healing is great, its very short lived and reliant on being in melee range.

I love the spec, it plays really well in raids and dungeons, and it clearly does well in certain arena comps, I just can't stand it in random bgs which is about the only pvp I get to do these days. I've shelved mine for raiding this tier just to see how I enjoy paladin over the course of it because I can only put in enough time to keep one toon at max renown and I enjoy paladin as a whole outside of raids than enhancement.