Enhancement changes 9.0 Discussion

[kosajk]

Remove Windfury as a passive.

Turn it into an active melee ability that gives us control over when to burst. Retool strombringer to work with reducing the new Windfury cooldown instead of Stormstrike.

Revert Stormstrike to the old version that increased the damage of the next two nature sources by X%.

Rework Lightning Shield to be an actual defensive, rather than doing exactly what flametongue does --- be miniscule damage that takes away power from other abilities. Remove flametongue as well while we're at it...or...

Rework Flametongue to be a short duration buff that turns all our damage into fire damage.

Revert the nerf to healing and make Lightning Bolt do meaningful damage at 5 stacks.

Add 1 more defensive ability: Stoneskin - works like the old stonescale totem glyph (which is now ancestral bulwark, but single target instead of group utility).

Call it a day.

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Literally up until BFA people were still using 2h for pvp, macroing it into Ascendance for stormblasts, then swapping back outside the cooldown. No one cares about 2h for pve dps. It's a pvp burst damage request.

fine post, really like bulwark idea, WF can be just a bit less often and higher dmg to give you some burst spikes that you can wait for and react to, that also would be fine.
Swapping weapons with macro just for one attack is not really an legit use :P For sure not something blizz want in the end
Im fine with getting ascendance baseline with stormblast back cause atm we don`t have any defense and any burst basically but it don`t require 2h at the same time
Would love to see healing from wolfs back or Ancestral Guidance that was been serious utility both in pve and pvp

[wushootaki]

fine post, really like bulwark idea, WF can be just a bit less often and higher dmg to give you some burst spikes that you can wait for and react to, that also would be fine.
Swapping weapons with macro just for one attack is not really an legit use :P For sure not something blizz want in the end
Im fine with getting ascendance baseline with stormblast back cause atm we don`t have any defense and any burst basically but it don`t require 2h at the same time
Would love to see healing from wolfs back or Ancestral Guidance that was been serious utility both in pve and pvp

Its no different then when people had a shield macro to up survivability when being tunneled, then swap back to dual-wielding. It was a gimmick sure, but it was still used at high level pvp play for the stronger burst it did during ascendance. To say otherwise is disingenuous, whether it was intended by Blizzard or not.

Enhance in general has a history of gimmicky and unbalanced and unintended gameplay. In WotLK, there was the nightmare of dual-wielding spellpower weapons with double flametongue for obscene spellpower dmg that was unintended, yet severely outpaced AGI weapons until Blizzard "band-aid" fixed the spec. I myself was part of a server first Malygos kill where we eeked out more dps and healing by running an Enhance/Resto mutant spec (https://wotlkdb.com/?talent#hZbxtcoxdIhuoRdVZVcxzhL) that ran librarian's paper cutter, double earthliving, and spammed chain heal on Maelstrom Weapons instead of a full extra healer. Also not intended. Heck, Enhance and Elemental could tank parts of ICC with enough defense gems...

All gimmick, but things people did, whether intended or not, that need to be considered when speaking about Enhancement.

[kosajk]

Its no different then when people had a shield macro to up survivability when being tunneled, then swap back to dual-wielding. It was a gimmick sure, but it was still used at high level pvp play for the stronger burst it did during ascendance. To say otherwise is disingenuous, whether it was intended by Blizzard or not.

Enhance in general has a history of gimmicky and unbalanced and unintended gameplay. In WotLK, there was the nightmare of dual-wielding spellpower weapons with double flametongue for obscene spellpower dmg that was unintended, yet severely outpaced AGI weapons until Blizzard "band-aid" fixed the spec. I myself was part of a server first Malygos kill where we eeked out more dps and healing by running an Enhance/Resto mutant spec (https://wotlkdb.com/?talent#hZbxtcoxdIhuoRdVZVcxzhL) that ran librarian's paper cutter, double earthliving, and spammed chain heal on Maelstrom Weapons instead of a full extra healer. Also not intended. Heck, Enhance and Elemental could tank parts of ICC with enough defense gems...

All gimmick, but things people did, whether intended or not, that need to be considered when speaking about Enhancement.

not everyone did it as it required special gear and was been fixed rather fast, plaing without ussing of sayed gimmics was been also werry satysfying, if you want to bring 2h back based on gimicks that blizard fixed on first ocasion is going really far from logic ;P tbh i have personally kiled not one guy with 2h in pvp as dual wielding enh that maybe didynt burst that high from time to time but had more constant healing and dmg from faster WF procs so won 99% of such fights at the time
Tbh i would not cry if they would do it in a way that it would do competitive dps in the end, its allways easier to get 1 good weapon than two, but all facts say they will not do it so why bother?

What you are fighting for? Some gimicks mechanics? One shooting ppls? if the later one lets fight for basline ascendance and Stormblast back :P

needing 3+ weapons just for one spec to be ready for all situations is fucked up thing, allredy need 2 sets of azerites and trinkets and so on for resto and enh as i play both pvp and pve alike dont really fan of needing more crap in bags

[Kalarm]

I both like and don't like the idea of turning WF and FT into abilities.

I agree that WF is really bland and an afterthought right now. It used to be really iconic and now it's not really. Even the lackluster graphic represent how boring it is.

The problem I see is that rethinking that would mean rethinking the spec again. Which I don't think blizz is ready to. But let's say that they did, I do think WF should be a "moment". In HoTS, Thrall's WF is an activated ability that makes your next 3 hit hit much faster. I think it might have some bonus dmg or something but I can't find anything on it really. But... It could be cool! A problem I can see is that if it becomes somekind of mechanic to decide WHEN we burst, it means it gotta keep charges or something. Which would do some overlap on maelstrom weapon I think. Maybe just a simple 3 charges ability would do it but if it's all it is, that means it also has to synergies with something. Maybe by giving a maelstrom stack, so you would usually want to use them ASAP but could be used to combo up to LB -> 3 WF -> SS -> LB. It could potentially have something like rockbiter which had a half GCD as to make WF pretty good at being chained together. How WF charges would gather is another question. Tune down the % back to 10-15% maybe? That way it would let it do twice the DMG + advantage of being chained together.

Another issue with all this is enh is getting a bit TOO many important abilities. We got SS, LB, LL to some extent and that would add WF to it. Admittedly, I do think FT could be removed. I like the idea of it doing SOMETHING but it will ultimately always cut DMG from some other ability. The shocks also cut some DMG for... Nothing but it would mean removing both of them since they share CD anyways.

Bottomline is, I do think WF could become so much more interesting. I think FT could be removed, I've already been very supportive of that in previous posts. I like ideas linked to it but I think it will ultimately always be a DMG drain for other abilities. A lot of classes have 1-2 main abilities but enh now has 2 with a potential third with WF. It becomes hard to balance that and make everything equally important :-/.

[wushootaki]

not everyone did it as it required special gear and was been fixed rather fast, plaing without ussing of sayed gimmics was been also werry satysfying, if you want to bring 2h back based on gimicks that blizard fixed on first ocasion is going really far from logic ;P tbh i have personally kiled not one guy with 2h in pvp as dual wielding enh that maybe didynt burst that high from time to time but had more constant healing and dmg from faster WF procs so won 99% of such fights at the time
Tbh i would not cry if they would do it in a way that it would do competitive dps in the end, its allways easier to get 1 good weapon than two, but all facts say they will not do it so why bother?

What you are fighting for? Some gimicks mechanics? One shooting ppls? if the later one lets fight for basline ascendance and Stormblast back :P

needing 3+ weapons just for one spec to be ready for all situations is fucked up thing, allredy need 2 sets of azerites and trinkets and so on for resto and enh as i play both pvp and pve alike dont really fan of needing more crap in bags

I'm simply playing devil's advocate. Most people that advocate for 2h just want windfury to hit hard and chunk (which I agree it should), and the cosmetics of 2hs. They look cool, and although we can equip a lot of them, we don't get to see them...even as Elemental/Resto, because we need a shield for pvp.

Transmog to allow 2H over 1H like how the Holy Paladin artifact weapon works would be great for the people wanting 2h for cosmetic reasons. For the people that want Windfury to chunk, that seems to just be a fundamental disagreement between players and dev vision for Windfury.

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I both like and don't like the idea of turning WF and FT into abilities.

I agree that WF is really bland and an afterthought right now. It used to be really iconic and now it's not really. Even the lackluster graphic represent how boring it is.

The problem I see is that rethinking that would mean rethinking the spec again. Which I don't think blizz is ready to. But let's say that they did, I do think WF should be a "moment". In HoTS, Thrall's WF is an activated ability that makes your next 3 hit hit much faster. I think it might have some bonus dmg or something but I can't find anything on it really. But... It could be cool! A problem I can see is that if it becomes somekind of mechanic to decide WHEN we burst, it means it gotta keep charges or something. Which would do some overlap on maelstrom weapon I think. Maybe just a simple 3 charges ability would do it but if it's all it is, that means it also has to synergies with something. Maybe by giving a maelstrom stack, so you would usually want to use them ASAP but could be used to combo up to LB -> 3 WF -> SS -> LB. It could potentially have something like rockbiter which had a half GCD as to make WF pretty good at being chained together. How WF charges would gather is another question. Tune down the % back to 10-15% maybe? That way it would let it do twice the DMG + advantage of being chained together.

Another issue with all this is enh is getting a bit TOO many important abilities. We got SS, LB, LL to some extent and that would add WF to it. Admittedly, I do think FT could be removed. I like the idea of it doing SOMETHING but it will ultimately always cut DMG from some other ability. The shocks also cut some DMG for... Nothing but it would mean removing both of them since they share CD anyways.

Bottomline is, I do think WF could become so much more interesting. I think FT could be removed, I've already been very supportive of that in previous posts. I like ideas linked to it but I think it will ultimately always be a DMG drain for other abilities. A lot of classes have 1-2 main abilities but enh now has 2 with a potential third with WF. It becomes hard to balance that and make everything equally important :-/.

Why not just 'remove' Stormstrike by replacing it with an active Windfury attack. Stormbringer reduces its cooldown as if it were still stormstrike, and tweak the numbers of the extra attacks so its balanced. Windfury is way more iconic than Stormstrike, even if its been underwhelming for over a decade. That cuts down ability bloat, while maintaining similar synergy/priority, and comes down to tweaking numbers.

[cocomen2]

I would like to see of WF animation back, and some changes to allow people enjoy their 2h fantasy :

a)Change all shaman melee skills to scale from MAIN hand (remove off-hand as prerequirement,to allow 2h playstyle)

or

b)Allow Enhancement shaman to have weak version of titan grip, Now you can equip twohanders in off-hand slot.

And as bonus make WF be 10% proc for two bonus attacks with main hand without any bonus attack power added (so WF would stop being tax on other skills damage).

[Schizoide]

lots of great ideas

All your ideas are fantastic and would immeasurably improve the game, but they won't do them because they obviate the goal of unpruning-- returning those abilities to how they worked in vanilla, whether that makes sense or not.

[wushootaki]

All your ideas are fantastic and would immeasurably improve the game, but they won't do them because they obviate the goal of unpruning-- returning those abilities to how they worked in vanilla, whether that makes sense or not.

Yes and no. The unpruning for Enhancement doesn't seem to be about ability bloat, but rather getting the F off the garbage maelstrom system and back to Maelstrom Weapons, which were fantastic and not needing a change from MoP to WoD. MoP Enhance was legit pinnacle of the spec, then for whatever reason they tried to reinvent the wheel.

[Kalarm]

Yes and no. The unpruning for Enhancement doesn't seem to be about ability bloat, but rather getting the F off the garbage maelstrom system and back to Maelstrom Weapons, which were fantastic and not needing a change from MoP to WoD. MoP Enhance was legit pinnacle of the spec, then for whatever reason they tried to reinvent the wheel.

WoD to Legion* WoD enh was still solid at times. But yeah MoP was really great! Too much DMG on the fire elemental but that could of been tuned. Boy do I miss that guy tho. I think it's in WoD that we got CD reduction from haste? I'm really not sure. That made the spec way too chaotic and gave the need to have multiple SS+LL charges and 10 stacks of MSW. WoD Enh was super fun in challenge modes where iLvl was downscaled to 630.

I don't think enh needs much unpruning in the sense of more active abilities. We always kept that part intact through unpruning. We just... lost a lot of cooldowns, utilities and defensives (PLZ bring back shamanistic rage even though the name really doesn't fit with what it does anymore).

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Why not just 'remove' Stormstrike by replacing it with an active Windfury attack. Stormbringer reduces its cooldown as if it were still stormstrike, and tweak the numbers of the extra attacks so its balanced. Windfury is way more iconic than Stormstrike, even if its been underwhelming for over a decade. That cuts down ability bloat, while maintaining similar synergy/priority, and comes down to tweaking numbers.

Not sure I like that either. Yes WF was more of our thing in vanilla but SS has been there since then too. Unless SS becomes a souped up version of windfury? Brainstorming here but let's say the attack is WF and then you get a stromBRINGER proc which turns it into stormstrike? Could be cool TBH. That would free the space taken by all the DMG done by WF to be a bonus when WF turns into SS. Flametongue weapons could become a higher CD ability that turns your next WF into a firestorm kinda thing? That idea would be hell to balance if WF already turns into SS on procs. Maybe FT could read like "Imbue your weapons with fire, causing your next Windfury Stromstrike or crash lightning to conjure a fire tornado on the target". That version of FT could do AoE or not. I'd think it could interact with lava lash but there is something about Fire + fire that bothers me. Unless it simply buffs lava lash once in a while with a fire effect? Which I find would be boring. Maybe have LL reduce the CD of FT? Which also sounds boring but might cause something interesting to our priority.

I'm going way too deep now. As far as my idea of WF + SS being 1 ability buffed by different things, I'd kinda like it. I think it would fit nicely with the idea that we use the elements to bolster our attacks.

[wushootaki]

WoD to Legion* WoD enh was still solid at times. But yeah MoP was really great! Too much DMG on the fire elemental but that could of been tuned. Boy do I miss that guy tho. I think it's in WoD that we got CD reduction from haste? I'm really not sure. That made the spec way too chaotic and gave the need to have multiple SS+LL charges and 10 stacks of MSW. WoD Enh was super fun in challenge modes where iLvl was downscaled to 630.

I don't think enh needs much unpruning in the sense of more active abilities. We always kept that part intact through unpruning. We just... lost a lot of cooldowns, utilities and defensives (PLZ bring back shamanistic rage even though the name really doesn't fit with what it does anymore).

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Not sure I like that either. Yes WF was more of our thing in vanilla but SS has been there since then too. Unless SS becomes a souped up version of windfury? Brainstorming here but let's say the attack is WF and then you get a stromBRINGER proc which turns it into stormstrike? Could be cool TBH. That would free the space taken by all the DMG done by WF to be a bonus when WF turns into SS. Flametongue weapons could become a higher CD ability that turns your next WF into a firestorm kinda thing? That idea would be hell to balance if WF already turns into SS on procs. Maybe FT could read like "Imbue your weapons with fire, causing your next Windfury Stromstrike or crash lightning to conjure a fire tornado on the target". That version of FT could do AoE or not. I'd think it could interact with lava lash but there is something about Fire + fire that bothers me. Unless it simply buffs lava lash once in a while with a fire effect? Which I find would be boring. Maybe have LL reduce the CD of FT? Which also sounds boring but might cause something interesting to our priority.

I'm going way too deep now. As far as my idea of WF + SS being 1 ability buffed by different things, I'd kinda like it. I think it would fit nicely with the idea that we use the elements to bolster our attacks.

Stormstrike is only iconic because they nerfed windfury. The first incarnation of Stormstrike wasn't even an attack. It just reset your swing timer. I get that it became iconic, but people still chomp at the bit for old windfury 15 years later.

Just combine them into the same thing, put the name Windfury on it, and roll their damage into one ability. It's easier to balance, can still operate off of Stormbringer, and also turns Windfury into active control.

If the loss of the ability is that devastating, add it back as a talent that increases nature damage % of the next two attacks. It'd be better than a lot of the garbage currently on the tree.

But I still think by merging the two abilities, you can make for a hard hitting windfury (or just call it stormstrike but have it do windfury's proc) while reducing the number of places our damage comes from, and allowing us control over our burst.

Sidenote and unrelated: The suggestion for Nature's Swiftness to return as a talent that gives 5 stacks of MW instantly is genius and needs to be jumped on by Blizzard.

[Schizoide]

Yes and no. The unpruning for Enhancement doesn't seem to be about ability bloat, but rather getting the F off the garbage maelstrom system and back to Maelstrom Weapons, which were fantastic and not needing a change from MoP to WoD. MoP Enhance was legit pinnacle of the spec, then for whatever reason they tried to reinvent the wheel.

No, the enhance unpruning has nothing to do with moving off the maelstrom resource. Unpruning is when they add abilities back that were previously removed. For enhance those are chain heal, chain lightning, healing stream totem, flame and frost shock, lightning shield, and the FT/WF weapon imbues. Readding those abilities has nothing to do with the change from a resource mechanic to cooldowns. They could (and should, except perhaps chain heal) have all been left out and still change enhance back to cooldowns.

Now moving enhance back to cooldowns is a reversion for sure, so it's in the same spirit of going back to how it used to be. It just isn't an unpruning.

[Unholyground]

Remove Windfury as a passive.

Turn it into an active melee ability that gives us control over when to burst. Retool strombringer to work with reducing the new Windfury cooldown instead of Stormstrike.

Revert Stormstrike to the old version that increased the damage of the next two nature sources by X%.

Rework Lightning Shield to be an actual defensive, rather than doing exactly what flametongue does --- be miniscule damage that takes away power from other abilities. Remove flametongue as well while we're at it...or...

Rework Flametongue to be a short duration buff that turns all our damage into fire damage.

Revert the nerf to healing and make Lightning Bolt do meaningful damage at 5 stacks.

Add 1 more defensive ability: Stoneskin - works like the old stonescale totem glyph (which is now ancestral bulwark, but single target instead of group utility).

Call it a day.

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Literally up until BFA people were still using 2h for pvp, macroing it into Ascendance for stormblasts, then swapping back outside the cooldown. No one cares about 2h for pve dps. It's a pvp burst damage request.

I think we could keep windfury by attaching a garaunteed WF proc with every storm strike. That could be an interesting way to handle it and allows room for more types of enchants.

[wushootaki]

No, the enhance unpruning has nothing to do with moving off the maelstrom resource. Unpruning is when they add abilities back that were previously removed. For enhance those are chain heal, chain lightning, healing stream totem, flame and frost shock, lightning shield, and the FT/WF weapon imbues. Readding those abilities has nothing to do with the change from a resource mechanic to cooldowns. They could (and should, except perhaps chain heal) have all been left out and still change enhance back to cooldowns.

Its entirely about moving off the maelstrom resource, because the legion spec doesn't work without a builder spender. They reverted the spec to pre-legion, and kept some talents the same.

We have the same number of abilities, except now maintenance buffs are active instead of passive. Legion Rockbiter, Flametongue, Frostbrand replaced losing Earth Shock, Flame Shock, and Frostshock. Its no surprise that REVERTING back to windfury and flametongue active imbues, and removing rockbiter and frostbrand, that we get Flame Shock and Frost Shock back. But since we don't get Earth Shock, are we really unpruning? Searing Totem is still gone...so...seems more like getting rid of a build dump mechanic that no one asked for, and reverting the spec back to something that also worked really well prior.

Unpruning is just adding back abilities. Enhance got a mechanical overhaul this xpac, because it was promised one in BFA and they never delivered.

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I think we could keep windfury by attaching a garaunteed WF proc with every storm strike. That could be an interesting way to handle it and allows room for more types of enchants.

I'd also be interested in a system where Stormstrike is left as is, and Windfury is turned into an active spender built off Maelstrom Weapon stacks that rivals lightning bolt, giving the choice of using Windfury as the spender in melee and lightning bolt as the spender in range, or when magic damage is just better.

[Schizoide]

If you read carefully, I never said enhance didn't get a mechanical overhaul. In fact I directly said it did, on several separate occasions. My point is that wasn't an unpruning. The unpruning was all that other stuff I listed. All of it could have (and should have) been skipped without affecting the overhaul.

Yes, making Windfury an active ability would be an improvement. Anything is better than boring passive effects like we have now, and what we have now is better than pointlessly requiring us to re-buff every 30 minutes. Not a huge deal, I'll use a weakaura reminder and castsequence macro to rebuff, but it's just annoying busywork.

As for the unpruning itself:

Good
- Chain lightning: Spend MW to AE, replacing LB.
- Chain heal: Very situational but why not. Spend MW stacks to instantly help out with healing when necessary.

Shrug?
- Flame & Frost Shock: Pointless, Flametongue and Frostbrand worked fine. Unpruning just for the sake of saying they did it. Doesn't bother me, I'll just replace one button with another, but was anything improved here? No.

Bad
- Lightning Shield: Another annoying maintenance buff. Weak passive damage. Boring button bloat.
- Weapon Imbues: As I noted above, completely passive damage, annoying busywork, unpruned just to say they did it. Should be passives, not active buffs.

Horrible
- Healing Stream Totem: An abomination that should be shot in the head and never return. Boring, low-impact, high-efficiency ability that will always be worth using and always feel bad to use.
- Windfury Totem: It's hilarious that this is party-only. Hopefully they fix that. Even once they hopefully do fix it, it'll be an GCD you need to spend before every pull for the entire expansion. And you'll need to track duration with a weakaura to recast on boss fights. Was even funnier when it had a 12 yard range. Geezus.

[Venziir]

Remove Windfury as a passive.

Turn it into an active melee ability that gives us control over when to burst. Retool strombringer to work with reducing the new Windfury cooldown instead of Stormstrike.

Revert Stormstrike to the old version that increased the damage of the next two nature sources by X%.

Rework Lightning Shield to be an actual defensive, rather than doing exactly what flametongue does --- be miniscule damage that takes away power from other abilities. Remove flametongue as well while we're at it...or...

Rework Flametongue to be a short duration buff that turns all our damage into fire damage.

Revert the nerf to healing and make Lightning Bolt do meaningful damage at 5 stacks.

Add 1 more defensive ability: Stoneskin - works like the old stonescale totem glyph (which is now ancestral bulwark, but single target instead of group utility).

Call it a day.

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Literally up until BFA people were still using 2h for pvp, macroing it into Ascendance for stormblasts, then swapping back outside the cooldown. No one cares about 2h for pve dps. It's a pvp burst damage request.

"Up until BFA"? How on Earth would that have worked in Legion? You'd just swap your awesome Doomhammer artifact, all maxed out with traits and relics, for some two-handed weapon from WoD? I'm calling bullshit on this one.

[wushootaki]

"Up until BFA"? How on Earth would that have worked in Legion? You'd just swap your awesome Doomhammer artifact, all maxed out with traits and relics, for some two-handed weapon from WoD? I'm calling bullshit on this one.

Considering you were only using it for stormblast/windstrike, yes --- weapon swap macro

[Schizoide]

Doesn't weapon swapping still reset your swing timer and incur a 1.5s GCD? They added that like back in vanilla.

[Venziir]

Considering you were only using it for stormblast/windstrike, yes --- weapon swap macro

I simply don't believe you. The dmg difference alone between, say, a 2h weapon from Mythic HFC compared to your maxed out Doomhammer would be reason enough to never do this.

[Trinkie]

I simply don't believe you. The dmg difference alone between, say, a 2h weapon from Mythic HFC compared to your maxed out Doomhammer would be reason enough to never do this.

While Stormblast was current i can imagine it being true, since it was 450% wep damage, but that only lasted 1 expansion. No one would swap for windstrike.

Windstrike did 625% damage on both weapons when you casted it, why would you ever swap into a 2 hander to get rid of the double attack.

[wushootaki]

While Stormblast was current i can imagine it being true, since it was 450% wep damage, but that only lasted 1 expansion. No one would swap for windstrike.

Windstrike did 625% damage on both weapons when you casted it, why would you ever swap into a 2 hander to get rid of the double attack.

Don't know the reasoning behind it. I just know people were doing it, which kept 2H relevant much longer than the initial post I responded to insinuated.