Shadowlands Enhance Skill Bloat

[Saltysquidoon]

The alternative is one of two things. 1. removing either LL or RB, and making what remains do as little, if not less damage than RB does now and giving it little or no cooldown (in which case you'll just spam it without thinking while SS is on CD), or having an absolute fuckton of downtime in your rotation. Either way, there's less depth.

I'm not advocating for the removal of either.
I was saying having two buttons that do nothing but damage and dont interact with the rest of your kit is bad design. Having to take a talent to make LL 'matter' when it's been such an important part of enhancement for so long is also in my opinion bad design. Having that talent compete with the talent that makes you care about rockbiter is (imo) a compounding issue of that bad design.

There's an option to incentivise players to feel good about pressing LL, baseline interactivity. For example, in Cata it spread flame shock so it felt good in AoE and it synergised with searing totem as while searing was active the target took more damage from LL (which would help the issue of searing also being a button with no interactivity with the rest of the kit unless you take a talent).
My point isn't those examples are good or bad, my point is; buttons you press because it's a button you have to press shouldn't be the primary motivation to press buttons.

[Kithelle]

I'm fine with Shaman having totems back as a fundamental element of the class but couldn't they make them interesting? I mean searing totem is basically a DoT that can be out ranged. That's not fun, that's not interesting, it's basically a button to hit for the sake of having a button to hit.

Well they made it a cooldown instead of a set and forget, so it's a little more interesting? "shrugs"

[Beuargh]

It's not buttons for the sake of buttons... and LL isn't the filler, Rockbiter is... LL does over 3x the damage Rockbiter does (and that's before you factor in it ignoring armor when RB doesn't), and will do well over half the damage of Stormstrike (your primary attack) after you factor in the fact that it ignores armor and SS doesn't.

The alternative is one of two things. 1. removing either LL or RB, and making what remains do as little, if not less damage than RB does now and giving it little or no cooldown (in which case you'll just spam it without thinking while SS is on CD), or having an absolute fuckton of downtime in your rotation. Either way, there's less depth.

ok one spell do more damage than the other.

if this is depth, then IMO it's stupid depth. I don't know if anybody can deny that they are un-prunning because of all the negative feedback they got with the prunning, and IMO there is next to zero thought behind those spells they are giving us back, so it really looks like buttons for the sake of buttons. flameshock? searing totem, seriously? give me some synergy and I'll call it depth. not just spells with a talent for bigger numbers: I call it buttons for the sake of buttons.

what worries me is, if LL is not a filler, and we have SS and 5 stack LB, I can't believe blizzard will let all 3 spells be powerfull. damages will be divided between the 3. if building 5 stack maelstrom doesn't lead to a powerfull nuke, it sucks. if SS becomes even weaker than it is now, it sucks too. without synergy, the weaker of those 3 spells will become a filler, and then what about rockbitter? another filler. a button for the sake of "no downtime, press this button while you wait for something that matter (aka that spell that does slightly more damage while you wait for SS or 5MW LB). also, if I need to trigger 3 GCDs to do the same damage than another class with just one, it sucks! plus WF and searing totem on top of that...

to those who came here to say "ololol not enough buttons/too many buttons lunatics", you just missed 80% of the thread.....

[Schattenlied]

also, if I need to trigger 3 GCDs to do the same damage than another class with just one, it sucks!

Basically every spec has a no or low CD filler that does almost no damage, this isn't unique to you.

[Recovery]

Sorry but what? Totems are not easy to maintain? Pressing one button whenever you leave the range is difficult for you? Another post showing that not totems are the issue here, but people who are too lazy to press one more button from time to time.

I think most peoples' problems with totems are that it feels like a waste of a global. What i mean by waste is that youre pressing a button to drop totems, which are very underwhelming, instead of pressing a button that does damage or heals. Totems arent powerful or rewarding enough to want to press them everytime you move out of range which can actually be quite often. Maybe if totemic projection was a thing and it was not on GCD, it wouldnt be too bad. But imo the best thing to do to increase the popularity of totems would be to make them actually matter / feel rewarding.

[Beuargh]

Basically every spec has a no or low CD filler that does almost no damage, this isn't unique to you.

I know this. problem is, we now have 3 or 4 of them, depending on what you consider searing totem, flameshock, RB and LL to be.

[Kalarm]

Basically every spec has a no or low CD filler that does almost no damage, this isn't unique to you.

The problem is that right now most of the buttons are filler. Flame shock is filler, frost shock is low DMG and not worth pressing, LL is filler, RB is filler, CL is filler if not in AoE. Searing is... not really a filler since it has a bigger CD I guess...

Meanwhile, WoD enh only had frost shock as a filler. Flame shock was spread and used for fire novas, unleash elements would power up your flame shock and give you a LB window. LL was reset by Flame shock ticks. Stormstrike increased your nature spells power.

Having a filler button is ok. 2 can be fine depending on how what the rotation looks like, but 3-4? Nah. The only 2 buttons that mean anything right now is SS and LB. LB can even be debated since it's DMG is low right now (hopefully it's just a question of number tuning).

LL should do something. It should at the very least spread flame shock (even if it doesn't have much use now). I'm a big advocate to remove RB. I'd say to bake in hot hands but I'm not sure if that wouldn't put too much ability resets in the core gameplay. I'd be afraid that we end up at the same place as WoD where we had too many priorities. Maybe bake landslide into base LL instead. If I was a dev I would definitely play with built in hot hands with high end gear to see what the gameplay looks like. Maybe make it a 2 charges ability so it doesn't compete too much with SS and LB. I'd also make sure we dont overflow in priorities. Maybe make MSW stack to 10 like the end of WoD, which would then bring us back to somekind of maelstrom bar (IMO, the idea was good but very poorly done). There is a lot of space for experimentation.

[Schattenlied]

I know this. problem is, we now have 3 or 4 of them, depending on what you consider searing totem, flameshock, RB and LL to be.

Again, LL is not filler, it's your second hardest hitting base ability, Flameshock does right about the same damage, and Searing totem is a 30s CD, hard to consider that filler.

You have one filler, it's RB.

- - - Updated - - -

Flame shock is filler

No, it's a maintenance DoT. It does good damage over time.

frost shock is low DMG and not worth pressing

Yes, it's a 50% snare, did you expect that to be part of your rotation? It's not filler, it has a specific purpose.

LL is filler

Nope.

RB is filler

Yes.

CL is filler if not in AoE

Using AoE is inefficient in ST situations? Who'da thunk it?

Meanwhile, WoD enh

Basically every class had better design by miles before the Legion revamps. I don't disagree there, if I had my way ALL OF THEM would be rolled back to WoD or MoP class design (with all of their glyphs that were "mandatory" at the time being baked in).

The only 2 buttons that mean anything right now is SS and LB. LB can even be debated since it's DMG is low right now (hopefully it's just a question of number tuning).

Funny that you claim LB is not filler when it does less damage than both LL and Flame Shock. They aren't filler.

[Saltysquidoon]

Again, LL is not filler, it's your second hardest hitting base ability

The amount of damage a spell does has nothing to do with the definition of if a spell is filler or not. Shadowbolt is Aff's 4th highest damage source it's ~0.25% behind agony and ~1% above corruption, yet it is definitively filler.

[Schattenlied]

The amount of damage a spell does has nothing to do with the definition of if a spell is filler or not. Shadowbolt is Aff's 4th highest damage source it's ~0.25% behind agony and ~1% above corruption, yet it is definitively filler.

By that logic Stormstrike is also filler.

Filler is what you press when there's no high priority abilities left to press, SS, FS, and LL are all high priority abilities (in that order), RB is filler, LB is maybe filler.

Whether or not something is a filler is about potential damage per cast (including from connected effects, like generating a resource like Combo Points or Holy Power), which determines it's priority, not damage over the duration of the fight. Shadowbolt is 4th highest damage because you spam it a lot, not because it hits hard.

[Kalarm]

Again, LL is not filler, it's your second hardest hitting base ability, Flameshock does right about the same damage, and Searing totem is a 30s CD, hard to consider that filler.

You have one filler, it's RB.

- - - Updated - - -

No, it's a maintenance DoT. It does good damage over time.

Yes, it's a 50% snare, did you expect that to be part of your rotation? It's not filler, it has a specific purpose.

Nope.

Yes.

Using AoE is inefficient in ST situations? Who'da thunk it?


Basically every class had better design by miles before the Legion revamps. I don't disagree there, if I had my way ALL OF THEM would be rolled back to WoD or MoP class design (with all of their glyphs that were "mandatory" at the time being baked in).




Funny that you claim LB is not filler when it does less damage than both LL and Flame Shock. They aren't filler.

You aren't knowledgable of the spec so here I go.

Flame shock will be a filler, the DOT last much longer than the CD. You'll hit that button whenever you got nothing better to do. It won't be a problem to keep up but you'll still want to cast it when you got nothing else to do. It was also the case in BC -> WoD but they often tried fun things with it to make it much less boring. Right now, it's totally a boring filler.

A snare is not part of a rotation. Hence, filler. It has a situational use but otherwise not part of the normal rotation. Also, I said IF they buff the DMG for it to be similar to WoD or Earth shock in prior expansions it would be a filler. Otherwise we will spam flame shock and never use frost shock which would make flame shock even more boring than it already is.

Lava lash is a filler, it will be at the top of the filler's priority but it will still not be a priority nor will it bring anything special. Our priority will be just like it used to be. LB first since you don't want to waste MSW charges, then SS (the question will be, once we got the final numbers, will it be SB -> LB -> SS or LB -> SB -> SS? Or even SB -> SS -> LB... which would be bad). Afterwards comes all the fillers that don't have anything special to make them want you to use them ASAP or combined with something. LL -> RB -> potentially Crash Lightning depending on it's final DMG. From what I can see, right now it hits for 25.6% AP and buffs SS by 5% (Plus chance to proc SB) while flame shock base DMG is 22.75%. So unless the DoT is in need to be refreshed, it seems CL will be priority over flame shock. This section was written after the next paragraph BTW so I hadn't realized how much CL will indeed be part of our ST rotation should the DMG numbers stay the same or some other mechanic are added.

Crash lightning has somewhat of a use to proc stuff, do minimal DMG in ST and buffing SS. To be part of ST rotation on retail it needs the talent, which was the go to in legion for a while and is not the case anymore so it's not as used. Depending on if it can still proc stuff and end up still giving 5% buff to SS, it will automatically be a ST filler since it no longer has a maelstrom cost that would be better used on LL and thus have absolutely no drawback to be used when you have nothing else to press. Depending on the flow and if frost shock stays as CC only, it might replace it in some way (if we got so much to do that we gotta decide every 2 flame shock if we cast flame shock or CL). We used to ES/FS once, then FLS. It is possible that the SL rotation will be crash -> flame -> crash instead of WoD flame -> frost -> flame. All of this depends on if frost shock goes back into the rotation but crash lightning in it's current form will absolutely be a ST filler. It doesn't do enough to be high priority but it's also free DMG.

The damage of LB will be buffed for sure LB was our nuke, if they don't it will be a massive letdown. The base DMG also do more DMG than flame shock which lasts much longer then it's CD. The whole point of this form of enh is to build of MSW charges to cast LB and Chain Lightning. It would be similar to having templar's verdict deal less DMG than crusader strike. MSW needs it's DMG boost component back. Probably even more than the 20% per charges considering it won't be buffed by a SS debuff. The 20% buff per charges would at least make it deal more DMG than LL. If we take WoD as the template, each MSW charges should increase LB DMG by 20% and increase critical chance by 5%. So total of 100% DMG more and 25% more crit. If I remember, unleash element also put a debuff that increased LB DMG further for a few seconds but that may be overkill for now.

[Schattenlied]

You aren't knowledgable of the spec so here I go.

Yes I am, the problem is you don't understand what a filler is.

I will refer you to the post above yours, because by your logic Stormstrike is also a filler, and it's your strongest ability.

[Kalarm]

Yes I am, the problem is you don't understand what a filler is.

I will refer you to the post above yours, because by your logic Stormstrike is also a filler, and it's your strongest ability.

It is not, you want it to be off CD so it can be be reset by SB. LL, RB, shocks and CL can be ignored and the only thing you will lose is some DMG. You won't lose any procs or synergies.

Let's take WoD.

You don't stormstrike, you lose big DMG and your payoff mechanic (LB) deals less DMG.
You don't LB, you lose MSW procs, you lose BIG DMG from your payoff.
You don't flame shock, your lava lash won't be reset and you can't use fire nova and you lose DMG.
You don't lava lash, you don't spread flame shock and wasting reset procs.
You don't unleash elements, your flame shock deals less DMG and your payoff deals less DMG.
You don't frost shock... You lost DMG. (Filler).


SL

You dont Stormstrike, you waste SB procs and lose big DMG.
You don't LB, you lose MSW procs, you lose BIG DMG from your payoff.
You don't lava lash, you lose DMG. (filler)
You dont flame shock, you lose DMG. (filler)
You don't RB, you lose DMG. (filler)
You don't crash lightning, you lose DMG and tiny buff to SS (Close to not being a filler but the DMG difference is so low that it's more of a filler).
You don't frost shock, you lose DMG. (filler) -> If frost shock goes back in the rotation.

[Schattenlied]

It is not, you want it to be off CD so it can be be reset by SB. LL, RB, shocks and CL can be ignored and the only thing you will lose is some DMG. You won't lose any procs or synergies.

Let's take WoD.

You don't stormstrike, you lose big DMG and your payoff mechanic (LB) deals less DMG.
You don't LB, you lose MSW procs, you lose BIG DMG from your payoff.
You don't flame shock, your lava lash won't be reset and you can't use fire nova and you lose DMG.
You don't lava lash, you don't spread flame shock and wasting reset procs.
You don't unleash elements, your flame shock deals less DMG and your payoff deals less DMG.
You don't frost shock... You lost DMG. (Filler).


SL

You dont Stormstrike, you waste SB procs and lose big DMG.
You don't LB, you lose MSW procs, you lose BIG DMG from your payoff.
You don't lava lash, you lose DMG. (filler)
You dont flame shock, you lose DMG. (filler)
You don't RB, you lose DMG. (filler)
You don't crash lightning, you lose DMG and tiny buff to SS (Close to not being a filler but the DMG difference is so low that it's more of a filler).
You don't frost shock, you lose DMG. (filler) -> If frost shock goes back in the rotation.

You literally lose more damage from not using LB and FS than you do from not using LB and "wasting" MSW charges.

[Kalarm]

You literally lose more damage from not using LB and FS than you do from not using LB and "wasting" MSW charges.

I imagine you mean LL and not LB the first time.

That is irrelevant, LB is our payoff mechanic. The DMG will be increased. You also don't need to cast FS all the time since the dot lasts 300% of the CD.

Even if LB ends up doing less DMG than LL, it still won't quite be a filler since you'll still have a condition linked to it and you ain't going to press it whenever. At most it will do like other expansions where you would hard cast it a 4, maybe 3 charges if higher DMG abilities were on CD. And even then, this could happen because of the DMG bonus it had. I doubt we'd want to ever hard cast it with it's current DMG.

[Schattenlied]

I imagine you mean LL and not LB the first time.

Yes I did, my bad.

That is irrelevant, LB is our payoff mechanic. The DMG will be increased.

As it stands now, it isn't being, and because shit so often goes live in the same state it was at during alpha (see: Enhancement from BFA alpha being broke as fuck and launching like that), I will operate under the assumption that it will remain as is until Blizzard shows otherwise.

You also don't need to cast FS all the time since the dot lasts 300% of the CD.

Yes, which is one of the bits that makes it high priority and not a filler, it does reasonably high damage for very little upkeep... Filler is shit like shadowbolt, which is all but inconsequential, does abysmal damage, and needs to be spammed to add up to anything noteworthy.

[Saltysquidoon]

This entire what is or is not filler debate is wholly beside the point in the first place.

The problem with SL enhance right now is before talents the kit is not tied together in any way, you basically press all your buttons because the button exist to be pressed.
Compare how interwoven unholy's (base rotation is) is;

Press outbreak applies Dot, generates RP -> Press DT because you want it on cd before you spend RP -> Press FS to build wounds and use runes, gens RP -> Press SS to pop wounds and use runes, gens RP -> Press DC to us RP and regen runes and also lower DT CD.

Everything is interwoven, everything matters you want to press every button.

Compare to SL enhance;
Storm strike - You want to press this so it can be on CD for the storm bringer resets
LB - You press this so as not to waste maelstrom stacks
Flame shock - Applies a dot you want to keep up because it's a dot
LL - Does damage, you press it to do damage
RB - Does damage, you press it to do damage
ST - Does damage, you press it to do damage
Doggos - Do damage, you press it to do damage

Which becomes;
Doggos because they exist -> ST because it exists -> LB not to waste Maelstrom -> SS no to waste bringer procs -> LL because it exists -> RB because it exists

Yes, talents modify most of these spells, but you should not be picking talents to make you want to press buttons.
Talents are meant to enhance your spec and nudge it in one direction or another depending on your needs or the fight not to make your buttons meaningful.

[Kalarm]

Yes I did, my bad.



As it stands now, it isn't being, and because shit so often goes live in the same state it was at during alpha (see: Enhancement from BFA alpha being broke as fuck and launching like that), I will operate under the assumption that it will remain as is until Blizzard shows otherwise.




Yes, which is one of the bits that makes it high priority and not a filler, it does reasonably high damage for very little upkeep... Filler is shit like shadowbolt, which is all but inconsequential, does abysmal damage, and needs to be spammed to add up to anything noteworthy.

I don't like the "It's just alpha" mentality either but there are things that do get away with that excuse. Number tuning is one of those as it is the easiest part to do. They should at least do a post for each spec and say what they want it to feel like. In the case of enh, we're simply going back to how things were pre-legion so I do think it is safe to assume they will buff LB (payoff) to be an actual payoff. If If they don't, it will be another disappointment. There is a bit of a line that needs to be drawn between "This mechanic is not fun with those numbers" and "This mechanic just isn't fun". If LB isn't a nice payoff, it will be a fail and blizzard will only have themselves to blame. Everyone is already pointing out that the DMG is too low. I think blizz knows they can't afford to screw up gameplay for another expansion. If they don't... We'll, they might never recover financially from this. I'd also like for them to clarify is frost shock will be used for DMG like before or will only be a PVP/CC thing. It would really help if they communicated when we can expect a build with more classes changes. It would be a red flag if they pull the "We will at the end of beta" (specially since they need to have the classes ready so they can properly do Thorgast).

I understand your PoV on it, but the problem with current SL enh is that they basically have 4 shadowball buttons dealing different DMG and which doesn't lead to anything noteworthy other than more DMG. They're just there and do DMG. You press those buttons in an order when you got nothing more important to do. In a way, it could be debated if a filler is something that you use to build your ressource. You use shadowball to get shards so you can do the interesting stuff. The abilities that I am talking do not build anything and that might be a difference of definition for melee characters. It's concerning for me because MoP/WoD enh has had a lot of fun little synergies which are now nowhere. RB can be interesting, if you talent it. LL can be interesting, if you talent it. Why not make them interesting without needing to talent into them? In the case of LL, the hot hands talent is pretty much what it was in WoD (different but similar). Crash lightning is more interesting than LL/RB/FS gameplay wise but deals very low DMG. That's why I/we say they are are fillers. They are there and just serve to fill your gameplay with button presses.

[Schattenlied]

I understand your PoV on it, but the problem with current SL enh is that they basically have 4 shadowball buttons dealing different DMG and which doesn't lead to anything noteworthy other than more DMG.

Shadowbolt does like 25% of the damage that 3 of these abilities do, they are not the same thing.

In a way, it could be debated if a filler is something that you use to build your ressource. You use shadowball to get shards so you can do the interesting stuff.

Only as Demonology, Affliction gets their shards from Agony, they only use Shadowbolt when there is literally nothing else to do and it does absolutely nothing else for them other than a very tiny amount of flat damage.

And no, builders are not filler, they are builders. Builders are by definition part of the core rotation. If you happen to have a builder with no cooldown that you can spam when your more powerful builders are on CD and you don't have enough energy to spend, then you still don't have any fillers, because you don't need any. Fillers are things that serve no other purpose than to fill dead space in the rotation, they do pathetic damage and generate no resources to emphasize that.

MM hunters are a good example of a spec that has no filler, they just have a no CD builder.

The abilities that I am talking do not build anything and that might be a difference of definition for melee characters.

Furthermore, not every class needs to work off of a build/spend mechanic, that's just another form of homogenization. We don't all need to just be another flavor of rogue.

[Oturanboa]

As of now, during BFA: We are in a very particulier place as enhancement. We got geared like hell. Haste soared over to top now all we do is spam stormstrike. We are only using weapon imbues to proc stormbringer. In most calculations crash lightning becomes better choise than lava lash (for single target) because crash lightning procs stormbringer and lava lash doesnt...

Now words like "filler" "nuke" "builder" "spender" doesn't mean anything when you don't even have a system. When all you do is spam stormstrike, you're not really playing a class. There are times you spam stormstrike for straight 15-20 seconds. This is bullshit by any perspective.

In shadowlands. Stormbringer procs should mean something. MSW procs should mean something. This is why people whine about fillers. Stranding 500-600-700 damage one after another without anything affecting one another isn't fun. We don't have ups, we don't have downs. It's like those boring toddler trains in amusement parks compared to warlock/mage deathatron 4000 roller coaster.