The Enhancement Shaman DPS priority in 5.2

[HatredAU]

How is there even a problem with MSW 3 LB hardcast? Without any raid buffs (spell haste), and even with the worst amount of haste possible, it's still in the space of a global. It's still the exact same thing as hitting a Lava Lash or Stormstrike, and waiting for your next global to be available. It's not like your sitting there for over a second waiting for a spell to cast.

It's fine gameplay wise, I like how it fills some gaps, I just think that in practice hardcasting is annoying. It's more of a personal gripe of mine than a real issue of the spec.

[nazrakin]

But for maximum enhancement DPS you need to hardcast anyway...

True, but the difference is tremendously small. Personally, I'll only hard cast LB if there is nothing else I can do at the time, and according to simcraft with hardcasted LB at the bottom I'm only losing ~200 DPS on a perfect Patchwerk style fight, and as soon as I start moving (which is nearly every encounter this tier) the difference shrinks to almost nothing.

With EB hardcasting is essential -- the entire rotation revolves around consistently hard casting EB.

[Deleted]

True, but the difference is tremendously small. Personally, I'll only hard cast LB if there is nothing else I can do at the time, and according to simcraft with hardcasted LB at the bottom I'm only losing ~200 DPS on a perfect Patchwerk style fight, and as soon as I start moving (which is nearly every encounter this tier) the difference shrinks to almost nothing.

With EB hardcasting is essential -- the entire rotation revolves around consistently hard casting EB.

And as i told, you nearly always have to hardcast EB because you often have to use a LB to use your stacks.

EB just doesn't fit the rotation with a 12sec cd. It should be eihter say a lot longer cd (say 30 secs) or a lot shorter (6sec) or completely without cd so it completely replaces LB.

All those changes could be made enhancement only, just like the agi procc is enhancement only.

[Raiju]

Last I checked MSW-1 LB was at the bottom of the prio list, personally I find I hardcast a lot even without EB, all EB does is replace some LB's with EB's and slightly shift some timers.

Elemental blast with a 6 second CD would have similar issues to a 12 second CD. If you ar egetting enough maelstroms (you usually would) it's still going to fit into the same place and feel just as "clunky".

Easy solution for those arguing it's clunky, make it 15 seconds cd for enha with 16 sec duration on the buff to compensate (and fine tune for balance). It is now your unleash elements, except it may occasionally have a cast time.

As Klatar and I think others have mentioned, "but hardcast" is not an argument. If you are playing well you will be hardcasting at least once every 10 seconds in most situations anyway.

[PaintOnASign]

As Klatar and I think others have mentioned, "but hardcast" is not an argument. If you are playing well you will be hardcasting at least once every 10 seconds in most situations anyway.

I think hard-casting anything as Enhancement has always felt clunky, and completely out of place as a melee specc. It may be optimal, and of course we (should) do it, but its never felt right to me.

[Deleted]

As Klatar and I think others have mentioned, "but hardcast" is not an argument. If you are playing well you will be hardcasting at least once every 10 seconds in most situations anyway.

IT's not that much hardcasting. LB wth MSV<5 is very low in priority, so we often do have 3 or 4stacks. I don't hardcast with 2 stacks.

With EB, your whole gameplay evolves around hardcasting. That's the problem for many enhancers since you even hardcast when you have stormstrike and LL ready.

You may be okay with that, many others aren't.

---------- Post added 2012-12-28 at 05:25 PM ----------

Now, I only tried EB a little bit at first so Im no sure, but isn´t EB a shorter cast? So even with 2 MW charges it goes off right away? Cause, to use an example, hard casting LB with 4 MW charges is pretty close to instant and at times it feels like a regular 5 cast. Just asking out of couriocity. So it wouldn´t be that big a deal to hard cast it. In my opinion the biggest negative EB has its how it sort brakes the perfectly nice rotation that we have going so far if you go with a EotE + UF setup.

Out of all the talent choices I think EB has the biggest impact on the actual rotation and that has to count for something.

I've tested yesterday again and at first: EB is a 2 sec cast. The real issue is that you lose all stacks with casting EB. Very often, when you have some procc luck or SS ready, you have 5 stacks already after half of the CD or less. So you cast LB. In the 5-6 seconds after that, you perhaps get only 5 stacks very fast and ahve to use LB twice, or you get only very low number of procs, resulting in hardcasting EB with 0 or 1 stack.

On average, you need 6-9 seconds to get MSV*5. That's making you decide: waste MSV proccs to not hardcast EB or cast LB. Sims show not casting EB a big dps loss, meaning hard casting is the best way to play.

[TecPontificates]

How is there even a problem with MSW 3 LB hardcast? Without any raid buffs (spell haste), and even with the worst amount of haste possible, it's still in the space of a global. It's still the exact same thing as hitting a Lava Lash or Stormstrike, and waiting for your next global to be available. It's not like your sitting there for over a second waiting for a spell to cast.

A Lava Lash or a Stormstrike occurs instantly. It occupies no part of the 1.5 second GCD, and in that time, you will autoattack. Hardcasting a 1.5 second spell occupies 100% of the 1.5 GCD time and you will not land any white melee hits in that time.

[Raiju]

IT's not that much hardcasting. LB wth MSV<5 is very low in priority, so we often do have 3 or 4stacks. I don't hardcast with 2 stacks.

With EB, your whole gameplay evolves around hardcasting. That's the problem for many enhancers since you even hardcast when you have stormstrike and LL ready.

You may be okay with that, many others aren't.

What you're ok with has 0 relevance to this discussion. If you are minmaxing you will be hardcasting as low as 1 stack because it will more often than not be a dps increase at the bottom of your prio list.

If you aren't minmaxing you don't need to take elemental blast if you don't like it, just like you don't hardcast at 2 or lower. Your sub-optimal playstyle is not a reason to leave a talent weak.

@Tecpontificates that is why in 4.2 there was discussion about fitting casts right after a mainhand melee swing to reduce the melee damage lost. It wasn't required later on but it is a massive boost to skill cap when present.

[Deleted]

But for maximum enhancement DPS you need to hardcast anyway...

True, but its rare

I just hate that blizzard nerfs, what really doesnt need a nerf at all. Instead of nerfing 1 ability, they should buff the others.
If people enjoy using the current talents, they are getting a nerf.

WHY does that need a nerf? are we OP with these talents? Its hillarius how stupid i find that nerf. Just, DONT touch it, and buff the other talents for enha, so people arent forced to choose 1 talent.

Lets make a lille history.

1 factory sells Pepsi and Coca Cola.

But, Coca Cola sells so much more than Pepsi. What can they do? Ask blizzard. They make the Coca Cola taste horrible, so that Pepsi tastes better when comparing them!

STUUUPID!

[Deleted]

What you're ok with has 0 relevance to this discussion. If you are minmaxing you will be hardcasting as low as 1 stack because it will more often than not be a dps increase at the bottom of your prio list.

If you aren't minmaxing you don't need to take elemental blast if you don't like it, just like you don't hardcast at 2 or lower. Your sub-optimal playstyle is not a reason to leave a talent weak.

@Tecpontificates that is why in 4.2 there was discussion about fitting casts right after a mainhand melee swing to reduce the melee damage lost. It wasn't required later on but it is a massive boost to skill cap when present.

Casting it at 3 stacks and higher is only a 30dps or a 0.025% dps loss. Totally acceptable for a smoother gameplay.

And with EM+PE, it's even a dps loss to cast it at less than 4 stacks.

MAybe you like hardcasting at 1 stack and watch your 1.5 seconds cast. I don't, i try to minimize it and if it means that my dps is 0.0001% lower because of that, yeah, it's a price i'm willing to pay. And I'm surely not the only one who does. Even if the sims could be a little wrong so ot's not unlikely that that miniaml dps gain isn't there in reality. You may just cripple your mobility.

[CHRONICGODX]

pve enhance sounds like it blows to play...

[akro]

pve enhance sounds like it blows to play...

IMO enhance is actually one of the few classes that is actually harder to play in pve vs pvp.

[HatredAU]

I honestly would be fine with it if they removed the cooldown from earth shock, and that was used instead of hardcasting with UF. Elemental Blast needs some tweaks for enhancement though, imo.

[SenSayNyu]

Hardcasting is awful mechanic for a melee, imo.

[Raiju]

I honestly would be fine with it if they removed the cooldown from earth shock, and that was used instead of hardcasting with UF. Elemental Blast needs some tweaks for enhancement though, imo.

These kinda comments I have no problem with - it's understandable people who don't like hardcasting aren't happy with elemental blast being strongest in it's current incarnation, but instead of complaining about the possibility of EB being strongest they mention hardcasting in general is what needs to change. Saying you aren't happy with EB being strongest while happily playing a rotation where hardcasting a lot is how you maximize is nonsensical, play suboptimally if you wish but you are arguing the wrong thing entirely.

Personally I like hardcasting in melee as a gameplay element even though it can be frustrating at times. I remember on ragnaros once a month at least I would get spell locked because I wasn't thinking about the melee range knockback. It can suck having to consider the drawbacks of both a melee and a caster at once, but it also makes it unique to me.

[nazrakin]

These kinda comments I have no problem with - it's understandable people who don't like hardcasting aren't happy with elemental blast being strongest in it's current incarnation, but instead of complaining about the possibility of EB being strongest they mention hardcasting in general is what needs to change. Saying you aren't happy with EB being strongest while happily playing a rotation where hardcasting a lot is how you maximize is nonsensical, play suboptimally if you wish but you are arguing the wrong thing entirely.

Personally I like hardcasting in melee as a gameplay element even though it can be frustrating at times. I remember on ragnaros once a month at least I would get spell locked because I wasn't thinking about the melee range knockback. It can suck having to consider the drawbacks of both a melee and a caster at once, but it also makes it unique to me.

It's not at all "nonsensical". I'm willing to tolerate a little bit of hard casting, but I'm not interested in an entire rotation that revolves around it.

[Deleted]

It's not at all "nonsensical". I'm willing to tolerate a little bit of hard casting, but I'm not interested in an entire rotation that revolves around it.

That's the point. I never hard cast with less than 3 stacks and i often get 5 stacks or at least 4, so 3 is the exception.

But anyways: hardcasting EB fails anyways to be a winner. EB scales badly, so it get's easily outscaled by the other talents ( so it can be only a choice in low gear).

I've ran the sim and i needed to add static 2k agi to make up the difference between UF and EB. The new procc won'T be even close to making that up, since how i understand it, agi will be only one of four proccs, it will have an uptime with less than 20%. Additionally, the dps gain will be only the difference between the agi procc and the secondary stats procc, so it will be only replacing, another, weaker buff. As i see it, it will add to less than 350 static agi gain, meaning it will still be far behind.

Making it an instant cast for enhancement or removing the cd would result in a big buff for enhancement that could close the gap.

And even if they are on the same dps level with the current mechanic (which is stll a big difference) i would still pick up UF.

[Pantsless]

If maelstrom weapon would be an actual resource, like focus or energy, or at least if it stacked to 10 , allowing us to manage/pool MW, then we wouldn't be having this dilemma. I will never understand how is it possible for such an outdated and out of tune mechanic to be ignored by blizz. hardcasting should be an option, not a part of our rotation.
Blizzard has a long history of making design decisions that are hard to understand, remeber Fire Nova back in Cataclysm? And now they falow the trend with EB and hardcasting.

[Deleted]

But taking EB means you are forced to hardcast.

You might ignore most LB hardcasting scenarios (though MSVx4 is not really bad imo). With EB, you are forced to hardcast, since it's your most important rotation button.

---------- Post added 2013-01-03 at 12:31 AM ----------

If maelstrom weapon would be an actual resource, like focus or energy, or at least if it stacked to 10 , allowing us to manage/pool MW, then we wouldn't be having this dilemma. I will never understand how is it possible for such an outdated and out of tune mechanic to be ignored by blizz. hardcasting should be an option, not a part of our rotation.
Blizzard has a long history of making design decisions that are hard to understand, remeber Fire Nova back in Cataclysm? And now they falow the trend with EB and hardcasting.

Enhancement can be happy that they'Re pretty okay right now - but not mechanic wise, they just buffed our single target dps to be competitive. I fear that a big chunk of our dps came from our overpowered set bonuses, When we lose them and get only normal set bonuses, we will fall behind the classes that get ony 2% increases where we get 6%.

[Xanda]

Making it an instant cast for enhancement would result in a big buff for enhancement that could close the gap.

This. It's the only way i could pick this talent over UF or PE.