I wish I could play enhance

[Jotaux]

chain harvest is literally a better version of chain lightning. It adds nothing but better numbers gameplay-wice, how the fuck the spec doesn't feel complete without it?

The heal on it is insane, its practically a healing cd in plus and even raid.

[Charge me Doctor]

The heal on it is insane, its practically a healing cd in plus and even raid.

Yes, IQD also has incredible healing component tied to it, but people value it not for healing component. It's a glorified earth shield when you take out overhealing of chain harvest. It's not a healing cooldown. You confuse it with Ashen Hallow of paladins - that's a healing cooldown, other healers can just take their hands off the keyboard while it's up.
And anyways, how is that even relevant for enhancement gameplay?

[kosajk]

Yes, IQD also has incredible healing component tied to it, but people value it not for healing component. It's a glorified earth shield when you take out overhealing of chain harvest. It's not a healing cooldown. You confuse it with Ashen Hallow of paladins - that's a healing cooldown, other healers can just take their hands off the keyboard while it's up.
And anyways, how is that even relevant for enhancement gameplay?

there may be better cd`s overall for sure but pala one you brought have 4 min cd + its area of effect so may be problematic in m+ outside off boss fights.
CH is more reactive, if you know your shit right you just use it after big bang and 5 ppls are toped + it`s a lot lower cd reduced some more by crits (90 sec with possibility to get up to -50 sec of it) :P
I hear all the time in m+ "what toped everyone?" its powerful toll if you know what to do with it

Its relevant to enh game play as its working with MSW which make it 2x stronger and instant, other covenants abilities require channel, managing or proper setup especially in aoe situations which may be annoying to say the least, and give mostly similar or worse effects (beside night fay on single target although imo its not worth it as it block our attacks for ~2-3 sec that is worth a loot off dmg to)
Tbh its rather big deal in the end as i love to offspec resto and maldraxus is much better for it imo + for pvp shield is also huge difference

although for sure going for it for off spec like OP want is a bit to far :P

[Charge me Doctor]

there may be better cd`s overall for sure but pala one you brought have 4 min cd + its area of effect so may be problematic in m+ outside off boss fights.
CH is more reactive, if you know your shit right you just use it after big bang and 5 ppls are toped + it`s a lot lower cd reduced some more by crits (90 sec with possibility to get up to -50 sec of it) :P
I hear all the time in m+ "what toped everyone?" its powerful toll if you know what to do with it

Its relevant to enh game play as its working with MSW which make it 2x stronger and instant, other covenants abilities require channel, managing or proper setup especially in aoe situations which may be annoying to say the least, and give mostly similar or worse effects (beside night fay on single target although imo its not worth it as it block our attacks for ~2-3 sec that is worth a loot off dmg to)
Tbh its rather big deal in the end as i love to offspec resto and maldraxus is much better for it imo + for pvp shield is also huge difference

although for sure going for it for off spec like OP want is a bit to far :P

The problem here is that it overlaps healing cooldowns, just like heal sniping used to be back in wotlk-cata raids. Your m+ healer would expect this damage spike, he would burn his cooldown/save powerful heals for that part, and that effort would be wasted, because healer didn't need to use it here, but saved it for this moment (or worse- he used it anyways and it resulted in a giant spike of overhealing). Completely different story outside of pug world tho, in a case when you can just tell your healer that you'll top everyone off with chain harvest on next thrash of a shard of halkias - it's kinda great. On the other hand your tank can just kite him into oblivion, iirc he doesn't thrash when outside of melee range, but don't quote me on that and that's not even the point.

And regarding gameplay, as your rightfully mentioned other covenant abilities actually affect your gameplay - that's my main point, you have to play around these abilities, while chain harvest is just something that replaces your MSW spender and takes away from gameplay, because you don't even have to consider, what you are going to burn MSW with this time (st, aoe, healing, aoe healing - it does everything). The fact that chain harvest requires less interaction from player to be effective and it brings bigger payoff than other abilities is a balancing mistake on blizzards part, and because of that i, personally, tend to ignore these mistakes and pretend that it's not 100% effective in all scenarios. It's a very wrong attitude for min/maxing your DPS (in this case you wouldn't be playing shaman right now), it's not a valid attitude when you min/max your spec (in this case, it wouldn't even be a problem, because you would already be venthir), but it's a valid attitude when you min/max your character. If you are going to play elemental - you are picking whatever is stronger for this spec, and take this "penalty" for having weaker enhancement top DPS.

Just take a closer look at enhancement interactions with covenant abilities. Italic parts that relevant to "what topped everyone?", because it does the same thing - helps by offhealing, point of consideration if you pick chain harvest for this reason. Bold parts are in dire needs of fixing from blizzards side and must be a bug/oversight:
Vesper totem - AoE damage(1/5th of MSW'd chain harvest) keep it on cooldown, be aware of its position, on demand aoe healing (1/6 of MSW'd chain harvest per gcd)
Primordial wave - ST damage (1/5th of MSW'd chain harvest) + extra flameshock, next LB cleaves to all targets with flameshock. Doesn't work with stormkeeper, counterintuitive to use in AoE because of that, synergy talent (fire nova) is undertuned, which hurts this covenant ability even more.
Fae transfusion - Split damage (1,3/1th of MSW'd chain harvest)Channeled skill for melee that roots you, should get fists of fury treatment. Grants MSW stacks. Reactivate for proximity heal (1/2 of MSW'd chain harvest)
Chain harvest - capped AoE damage + AoE healing, works with MSW, relatively low cooldown. Both components should have chain heal/chain lightning treatment with lower healing/damage per extra target hit.

If you look at them all, it's clear that blizzard didn't balanced chain harvest around MSW damage bonus

[Shairamatt]

second and accept the fact that your chose covenant is not that good for your offspec you'll be fine.

[Aurosh]

Playing enhance without chain harvest is so painful, especially if you are doing mythic+. The aoe and the insane healing with 5 stacks of maelstrom is crazy. There are packs where I hold chain harvest just to have it at key times for the heal.

The problem is that by picking chain harvest, you sacrifice tons of st dps. Right now Niya(Night Fae) can be 4-5% ahead at pure st dps.

So yeah, losing that fun spell in m+ and pvp hurts. But night fae is so much better for pure st dps which is way more important in raids.

Also, Bonesmith sims 2% higher than Nadija for me. So with pwave getting big buff in 9.0.5, it will be 3 to 3.5% ahead of venthyr in st. The problem still is aoe (not 2 targets cleave!!!!!). You can basically sinc 18% crit with dw+ascendance, resulting in INSANE burst dps with IQD and pot and blood lust.

So honestly: if you are considering playing multiple specs, are not 100% sure you wanna go allout enhance, just stick to necro for now. It isnt as bad as people claim (in fact, it works quite decent at most raid bosses) and fleshcraft seems to get insane buffs. It is a nice allrounder if you also play ele and resto.

Btw: FaeTransfusion gets a huge buff. 25% more damage, about 87% more healing - and the healing range goes up from 8y to 20y. So FaeT Healing can be insane, i'd say 25k per target. Sadly it costs another gcd to trigger, but you can trigger it desynced of your dps cd. I mean, most enhance tend to use it after a trash pull when everyone is full hp. FaeT can be cast qhen needed and the healing can be used when needed.

Oh and fae healing scales with damage taken modifiers.

[kosajk]

The problem is that by picking chain harvest, you sacrifice tons of st dps. Right now Niya(Night Fae) can be 4-5% ahead at pure st dps.

So yeah, losing that fun spell in m+ and pvp hurts. But night fae is so much better for pure st dps which is way more important in raids.

im rather sure its not that big difference if you consider it`s cd and channel time into equation, it may look a bit better on pure number comparison between those 2 skills on logs although its hard to estimate how much dmg you are losing by not being able to use that 2 global`s (plus autos, proc`s and so on) while channeling ;P
imo 3 MSW stacks are not enough for it
About rest of your post looks solid ;P

[Renaa]

Have to agree with you.

[Ealyssa]

"I want to play a non meta spec but I really need the meta convenant going with it"

The same nonsense again, and again, and again. It just never stops.

And if you really want an answer : go night fae. It's at least good (not BIS meta, good) on every spec in every situation.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Isn't Night Fae better for Ele now anyway?