Hows enhancement?

[Gachie]

Hey guys, considering rerolling enhancement after being terribly bored with DH, was just wondering how the class plays at 110 with decent gear. I'm a gcd-cap player, meaning I have to constantly press buttons to feel like I'm playing my class effectively. Not terribly fond of being resource starved and having no available spells to use, does enhancement suffer from this at max level with appropriate gear? It's a toss up between this and ret, but enhance seems to be pulling higher numbers, plus 7.1 Crusade talent for rets isn't looking too good right now. Appreciate all insight and opinions!

[tanksin the enhance shamy]

with decent gear it doesnt run out of maelstrom very often so even with the talents that are supposed to make it slower you will still be gcd capped pretty often

[Deleted]

In the optimal spec at the moment, you will not be GCD capped all the time. We are generally running with Boulderfist, which has charges, so there might be occasions where you have nothing to cast or where you are low on MS (and thus, have nothing to cast).

You could go for Windsong or Hot Hand in the first tier of talents, but that is generally a DPS loss compared to Boulderfist. But not selecting Boulderfist is a DPS loss at the moment.

Other than that, damage is great. We are probably going to be nerfed slightly in 7.1, which is fine because we are a little bit overtuned in some situations. And hopefully with that nerf, we will hopefully see some buffs to the talents that nobody uses.

[Azelas]

at around 20% haste you should pretty much be gcd capped at all times, except some rare opportunities when you get no procs. At lower haste you might find yourself waiting on some swings and whatnot.

I don't think enhance will receive a nerf, personally. I think we're definitely good, but not overtuned. Mostly on par with other good dps specs.

[amythist]

with the fairly recent buff that boosted windfury up to a baseline 20% proc chance it has helped smooth out maelstrom generation, that barring horrible luck on procs, you should have very little downtime without some sort of button to press

if you still need to level the class up though I'll warn you now, it felt really squishy to level up with for me, needing to heal quite often

[Deleted]

if you still need to level the class up though I'll warn you now, it felt really squishy to level up with for me, needing to heal quite often

At least it just bursts back as fast as it get taken down, so it's not too bad.

[EooELE]

I know this is out of topic but you seem to know the class well,
if you have for example a SS proc, do you ignore buffing and go for that or do you buff first then go for the proc?

[Deleted]

At least it just bursts back as fast as it get taken down, so it's not too bad.

Use stun totem. It is really important. You wont have big problems.

And i really hope you have the archimonde class trinket. It is sooooooooo strong. You can kill every elite really fast. Just use your aoe stun if youre healing much.

[Deleted]

Go for it, no regrets. It plays really well but running Hailstorm (even with Boulderfist) you'll be GCD capped most of the time, it's not as slow as when Legion launched.

It's a dream to play, especially for world quests. In Mythic+ I still get some negative comments about my class when trying to push higher Mythics, but those complaints disappear fast enough when we're in the instance: we're simply solid. We provide excellent ST DPS, burst and sustain, and ok cleave/AOE. Above all: we're incredibly consistent and provide great utility to the group.

I'm jealous of WW Monk, DH, Fire Mage, MM Hunter AoE DPS, but I wouldn't want to trade with them. Enhancement is simply a lot of fun to play, and you never know when Blizzard gets their shit together and fixes Elemental, then you have the best spec in the game in your back pocket to respec to.

- - - Updated - - -

I know this is out of topic but you seem to know the class well,
if you have for example a SS proc, do you ignore buffing and go for that or do you buff first then go for the proc?

Keeping your buffs up is your top priority. If we're talking in the world though, just use SS, stuff dies too fast to worry about buffs.

- - - Updated - - -

Other than that, damage is great. We are probably going to be nerfed slightly in 7.1, which is fine because we are a little bit overtuned in some situations. And hopefully with that nerf, we will hopefully see some buffs to the talents that nobody uses.

I disagree. Enhancement is in a great ST spot (when we can tunnel), not exceptional, and is nowhere near as overtuned as plenty of other specs when it comes to AoE and Cleave.

We scale really well with gear due to the Haste/Mastery synergy and we have an excellent Artifact. Compare it to Outlaw Rogues for example who have plenty of useless traits on mandatory progression paths on their Dreadblades.

[Norome]

I feel that with getting better gear, it's more and more difficult to stick perfectly to the rotation priorities and keeping 100% uptime on everything.
I rarely have any downtime. In many cases, the issue is with Stormstrike chain-proccing from itself, and by the time it ends and gives me time to re-cast stuff, most of the buffs already fell off. So, either I let them fall off, or re-apply them at appropriate (pandemic) time and let Stormstrike procs go to waste.
I know what the priority is, but with this happening way too often it feels like I'm losing dps because of that.

[unbound]

Hey guys, considering rerolling enhancement after being terribly bored with DH, was just wondering how the class plays at 110 with decent gear. I'm a gcd-cap player, meaning I have to constantly press buttons to feel like I'm playing my class effectively. Not terribly fond of being resource starved and having no available spells to use, does enhancement suffer from this at max level with appropriate gear? It's a toss up between this and ret, but enhance seems to be pulling higher numbers, plus 7.1 Crusade talent for rets isn't looking too good right now. Appreciate all insight and opinions!

Enhancement Shaman is probably the best pick right now for both PvP and PvE. It's top 3 dps spec in 2200+ arena, and top 3 in PvE pretty much anyway you parse the logs.

Elemental Shaman, on the other hand, is bottom of the barrel for both. I feel sorry for them.

[Throdin]

I'm currently 861. 25 traits for Doomhammer. I have 74% mastery, 18% haste and no versatility. I'm also lucky enough to have the legendary chest.

Trinkets are 865 spontaneous appendage and 835 SFF.

On HC Ursoc I manage 308-320k dps. On short mythic bosses I've managed 360k+.

Now look, I'm not a mythic progress raider, my schedule doesn't let me do regular raiding, I have to pug when I can. So maybe that partly accounts for the fact I feel like a freaking demon on most encounters. Our mobility is great, our sustain and burst is superb on single target. I'm lucky so with the legendary chest my cleave is pretty bananas now too.

In Legion, at long last, we scale so bloody well with gear. As our mastery grows, the value of haste gets even higher. Visually and mechanically we're a standout spec.

With appendages, decent haste and a 10% stormbringer proc rate, I'm constantly bombarded by Stormstrikes. So, as a rule, I will never ever let my 3 enhancements drop. The reason why SS is such a strong button is because it has such good synergy with frostbrand and flametongue. If you let them drop you are chucking away thousands of DPS.

So, If I have a proc left and sub 3 seconds on any buff and no heroism (which lowers GCD so you can let buffs get lower.) I will prioritise a refresh of the buff before spending the proc. The thing about SS is that they chain off each other so often, if you have 10 seconds of buffs to play with you can spamstrike to your heart's content. It' might not be the icy vein or method way of doing it. But its working very well for me. If I can I will also try to make sure I'm wasting as few boulderfist charges as possible because it hits way harder than LL without the legendary bracers.

I rarely use lava lash anymore. My top 3 damage are Stormstrike, Hailstorm ~16%, and boulderfist ~9%.

It's a spec that requires some thought and a lot of practice, but is a blast to play. If DH was too simple for you and you like fast & mobile melee, I'd say it's a great choice.

[Deleted]

So, If I have a proc left and sub 3 seconds on any buff and no heroism (which lowers GCD so you can let buffs get lower.)

That's no gain though, at about <4.5s Frostbrand/Hailstorm are in Pandemic range.

[Gachie]

Wow, I gotta say I wasn't expecting this much of a response. Thank you everyone! I'm slightly taken aback by how many people responded to this thread, and how many are so positive about the class. One thing I like about Enhancement is how it's cleave/AoE is tied in with its main ST ability. Coming from a DH where my biggest cooldowns are also my best forms of AoE, this will be refreshing. As for the GCD cap, I guess I'll have to wait till I get better gear.

[Deleted]

You can check performance in Mythic:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10#

It can and probably will change, but right now its like that.
Middle pack is pretty balanced which is fine.
Melees are strong on single target and burst aoe/cleave.
Ranged take over when there are more targets.

[EooELE]

Keeping your buffs up is your top priority. If we're talking in the world though, just use SS, stuff dies too fast to worry about buffs.

I mean in a raid setting with 1 boss for example, i could not use the proc and buff up first but would that decrease my overall dmg and maybe lose a chance of another proc.. still not sure :/

[Deleted]

I mean in a raid setting with 1 boss for example, i could not use the proc and buff up first but would that decrease my overall dmg and maybe lose a chance of another proc.. still not sure :/

You still rebuff them in within the pandemic window, the chances are you might gain a little dps increase or worse case, you lose a lot of dps. The extra seconds you gain from pandemic gives you more breathing room for SS proc trains and Boulderfist so you don't have to spend 3 GCD's for 3 rebuffs and 2 of those being shorter duration because you wanted 2 stormstrike's off