PTR numbers pass of enhancement

[Oturanboa]

"Beta is for numbers pass"
I removed some gear (down to 72ilvl) and got rid of all procs and stuff to get meaningful numbers in place. For us to discuss over these numbers relatively.

330 total agility
%26 total mastery = %26 elemental damage increase

Got to 205 lightning bolt damage to compare numbers. Here they are:

Storm Strike: 350+175= 525 (740 damage before armor as tooltip says, but i will ofc go with raiding dummy damage)

Lightning bolt: 205
Lava lash : 314 (tooltip says 157 but flametongue will always be applied)
Crash L. : 112
Frost Shock : 263
Flame shock : 114 (746 over 18s) ticks for 103
Ice strike : 377
Sundering : 811
Windury : 34+34=68 double wf damage (49 tooltip before armor)
Flametongue : 15 (tooltip says 12 but always hits 15 no other damage differentiates by %25. Tooltip is bugged i guess)


MSW bug (?) still persist: 5 stacks LB deals 410 (x2) damage 10 stacks deals 615 damage (x3) I hope this gets fixed soon. Also ui is still buggy and show msw and stormbringer wrong. Also i think we can have the maelstrom bar back with new 10 max stacks. I bet there will be a weak aura for it anyway.

With these, here is what i think:

1) Stormstrike will obviously be our biggest hitter. Since it will also see the most frequent use (maybe after shocks), other abilities will be overshadowed way too much.
Don't forget that, there is a legendary to increase it's damage by %100, a talent by %15 and another talent for cd reduction. Having all the power on 1 ability -which resets on chance- takes away all the control we might hope to have. If that loss of control would translate to "imba burst" fine, but it doesn't.

- It needs to have 2 stacks. There is stormbringer and stormfury. These make it horrible to use. It really needs to be 2 stacks to use.

- It's on 7.5s cooldown (6.1 with 72ilvl). Lavalash is on 12 sec cool down (9.8@72ilvl) while dealing nearly half the damage. Isn't it a bit counter intuitive? Cooldown of it should be increased to let lava lash's cooldown to be reduced. Which would make stormbringer procs more powerful while also buffing the ascendance (if total damage is to stay same on damage meter over time)

- Specially after %100 stormstrike legendary, everything else will be total meh... We just can't have this much power on an ability we basicly spam.

- Mind you, stormstrike also doesn't recieve bonus from mastery. So it will be scaled worse than LB with gear.

2) MSW: Increasing damage by %100 is horrible design imo. Base damage of LB and heals shouldn't have been nerfed. Hard casts are pathetic now. This change should be reverted. If 4 stack casts are feared, make it instant on 5 stacks instead of incremental on each stack.

- MSW is supposed to feel like a high point. Moment of "maelstrom". 5 stacks empowered lightning bolt hits less than -base- stormstrike damage. This needs to be increased seriously. We need a burst damage that we can hold back. And i would hope for some msw dmg legendary effects instead of stormstrike.

- I really believe high damage msw will save enhancement for this expension.
For this, proc chance of msw can be reduced or damage/proc of stormstrike can be reduced.

3) Frost Shock: Base damage is too low imo. Even with hailstorm (%175 damage increase) it's kind of low. But real problem is base damage. Shocks are easy sources of damage. No build up no melee range low cd. It used to be a dangerous source. Emphasis on it should be increased imo. We should want to use them every 6 seconds. I would love priority of it to be right under stormstrike. I would suggest it to be a lot higher but hailstorm gives the exact feeling it needs. Just need to be a little higher... For base part at least.

4) Lava lash: If stormstrike's cooldown is to be increased or stormbringer's ppm reduced, lava lash's cooldown can be reduced too. To reduce the gaps a little in rotation. Damage of it is already pretty low to be unimpactful with this change. It could also be lowered even further to make room for shocks or LB damage.

5) Ice strike: Name is placeholder i guess. Damage of it is very anticlimatic for a 15 seconds talent. Resets cooldown of a 6 seconds? (which is reduced to 4 seconds with 72ilvl already) I don't know, didnt like it. I hope hot hands of stormfury beats it.

6) Sundering: I don't know why it was nerfed in alpha. It's on 40 seconds cooldown. Only hits as much as stormstrike? (740vs810) Really? While at it, can they already make it a 5sec stun please? Enhancement really needs this to be in m+

7) Stormkeeper: While this ability is cool, it works weirdly. Since base lb damage is way too low, i want to use it on 10 stacks to increase lb damage by a lot. But than you loose 5 stacks of msw just to buff 1 lb "well" and half buff next only with stormkeeper. Maybe it shouldn't recieve reduced cast time like hex since it's not a damaging spell? It horrible to waste %100 lb damage on a non-damaging 1.2s cast. I would love to hardcast it to have 2 imba lbs. It would be amazing if it would make them also guaranteed crit.

Outro: Since addons doesn't work, i can't fully test it. But still gives us some good info to compare. Will go more into detail after damage meter is in place.

TLDR: Nerf stormstrike, buff lightning bolt pls. While nerfing stormstrike, increase cooldown of it. If rotation feels empty, reduce cd of lavalash.

I know this post may be hard to follow... But for the ones interested, what do you guys think? As it is on PTR, we have no control over our damage and burst is very luckluster if it exists. Without some of these suggestions, rotation usually feels empty while also gets clutted with overlapses. I'm not asking for "tailored rotation" just 2 stacks of stormstrike pls. Keeping SS while casting other abilities will reduce clutter and will help a lot during empty parts of rotation while also making the spec less "twitchy" on procs. 3 stacks of stormstrike would make it even better!

[Kalarm]

I agree with most of this!

SS is in a weird place right now. SB mechanic is great but it competes too much with MSW and indeed makes the stormfury talent frustrating. 2 charges would help it a whole lot. I'm also thinking that although the mechanic is fun, maybe SB should proc a lot less and be more of an "Oh! Nice!" moment. Right now it feels like the rotation depends on procs a bit too much. (more on that later).

LB needs to comete with SS as a nuke a whole lot more. Like pre-legion.

Shocks can stay as low DMG IMO. They were mostly fillers in the past and should still be. The talent is interesting tho but it's DMG competing with LB feels kinda weird and gives us too many "priorities".

Ice strike is way too weird, to be used optimally you need 3 GCD. shock -> Strike -> shock. In a spec where you'll want to SS (And hopefully LB as a priority-ish too) ASAP. I do love the idea of adding more ice to our moves.

Stormkeeper should be instant by default. It's a weird design right now. I don't think it should be casted even with 5s MSW, casting spells during the rotation feels like an error. Yes, I know we used to cast 4 charges LB if everything was on CD but to me that felt more like a "The players found an optimal way to play with it that we didn't expect". It should either be instant or if we want enh to not have too many things to do as an opener, keep it like it is right now but REQUIRE 5 MSW but doesn't actually consume them.

Overall I found our rations pretty... bad compared to pretty much everything pre-legion. We used to have a lot of things to press but not too many at the same time. Now it feels like feast or famine, which is not really good. I think it's partly intended because of SB chains but still, it doesn't feel that good.

Still, I'm pretty happy that they went back to the MSW version of enh! I just think the rotation isn't MoP level yet (or even WoD... WoD was chaotic but with the 10 MSW tier bonus and gear scaled down in challenge mode, enh was incredible to play like that. The actual rotaiton in later raids was too fast tho).

[Oturanboa]

I'll admit msw proc chance isn't as high as i thought. But the impact of it is still incredibly low. I believe it must be much higher than at least base stormstrike... While also keeping base bamage of LB a bit high.

I believe enhancement is lowest on damage meters at shadowlands beta raid as seen on https://www.wowmeta.com/shadowlands/dps-rankings ...don't know how accurate this is but still, i bet there is plenty room to buff LB damage. Even 10 stack msw bug doesn't do enough damage. And people got into those meters with these bugged version of it.

What i liked most about hailstorm is, even if you heal yourself (and you must in even open world against normal thrash) you still can keep damage up with frost shock. Which is
a nice idea imo but again damage is underwhelming compared to stormstrike.

About ice strike... when coupled with stormkeeper and 10stacks of msw, you can cast 2 hailstorm in a row which is kind of a nice burst. I still don't see if it worths the hussle while also comparing to say... 3 stormstrikes in a row. Outside of such combo i don't see the point of it.

The reason i want shocks to be higher on the damage side is: Our uptime on target will be considerably low at pvp. Shocks can be a much better preassure point for us to keep up with other classes. Even tho pvp is just a wet dream for us. Still would be nice in pve to have powerful shocks. I think 1 base shock damage should be as strong as base stormstrike damage for class to have it's ranged preassure point. Without any chance to reset or reduce cooldown. So they can remain as a reliable source.

After (if) MSW damage-healing is buffed, it would be somewhat "nice" to have a talent or conduit or some effect to make shocks produce "1" msw stack -guaranteed-...
Again would be nice for times that we can't stay on target.

[Aurosh]

Well i dont think everything you said is true. I did some testing on my own.

There are builds, where stormstrike can be a lot of damage, but there are builds where Flame Shock is more overall damage than Stromstrike. There are builds where Lightning Bolt is your best spell (a supercharged Lightning Bolt critting for 3800 damage while highest SS crit was 1.1k (probably Mh only, so 2k is possible).

So talents are very distinct right now. There are builds where your fire damage is one third of overall damage.

So there is a setup where LB is 22% of my damage, SS is 20% of my damage and FlameShock is 19% of overall damage. There are still too many bugs though and numbers are heavily off (Lashing Flames buffs FS by 100%, so it's a straight 10% dps increase...).

For AOE Hailstorm is way too strong, while Fire Nova is a joke (on 3 targets it is about 4 to 7% dps increase, depending on how much work you out into spreading FS). At 4 targets, FN is okay'ish if you manually keeep FS on all 4 targets. Whic is quite stressful currently and can be rarely used (you need neraly 20sec rampup for 4 FS - so its rarely useful without FS spreading...). While Hailstorm makes FrostShock 40% of my DPS, hitting for insane amounts and easy to play.

I dont know how much testing is useful right now, considering talents are completely unbalanced.

E.g. talent wise anyone can see that Leashing Flames is too strong (10% dps increase), while Forceful Winds is more like 2% and EB more like 4% at best. So there is going to be a lot of changes, considering they will add legendaries to the mix.

[Oturanboa]

Well i dont think everything you said is true. I did some testing on my own.

There are builds, where stormstrike can be a lot of damage, but there are builds where Flame Shock is more overall damage than Stromstrike. There are builds where Lightning Bolt is your best spell (a supercharged Lightning Bolt critting for 3800 damage while highest SS crit was 1.1k (probably Mh only, so 2k is possible).

So talents are very distinct right now. There are builds where your fire damage is one third of overall damage.

So there is a setup where LB is 22% of my damage, SS is 20% of my damage and FlameShock is 19% of overall damage. There are still too many bugs though and numbers are heavily off (Lashing Flames buffs FS by 100%, so it's a straight 10% dps increase...).

For AOE Hailstorm is way too strong, while Fire Nova is a joke (on 3 targets it is about 4 to 7% dps increase, depending on how much work you out into spreading FS). At 4 targets, FN is okay'ish if you manually keeep FS on all 4 targets. Whic is quite stressful currently and can be rarely used (you need neraly 20sec rampup for 4 FS - so its rarely useful without FS spreading...). While Hailstorm makes FrostShock 40% of my DPS, hitting for insane amounts and easy to play.

I dont know how much testing is useful right now, considering talents are completely unbalanced.

E.g. talent wise anyone can see that Leashing Flames is too strong (10% dps increase), while Forceful Winds is more like 2% and EB more like 4% at best. So there is going to be a lot of changes, considering they will add legendaries to the mix.

Stating things i said are not true would be unfair since i only gave base numbers and opinions

Yes numbers are not balanced and are all over the place. That's why i ask what you guys think it should be? Since they will most likely change.

- Flame shock damage is what it is. I would like it to be unimportant, along with flametongue and windfury but i wouldn't care that much tbh. It's a dot and tied to a ranged skill with relatively fine duration. Space it takes on damage meter, wouldn't effect gameplay for us, as long as it's under the radar of healers to dispell in pvp. (but i'm nearly sure it will be nerfed)

- "Supercharging" a lightning bolt as in casting stormkeeper while you have 10stacks msw i guess? Well it's double dipping into the msw bug (?) with stormkeeper talent.
I don't think its supposed to happen. I too got 3k LB crits compared to 1.1stormstrike crits. But it will probably fixed. Even without stormkeeper, Lightning bolt is up on damage meter with msw bug... If it's not a bug and tooltip will be fixed... Then yea! Cool! that's what i'm advocating! (only with addition base damage buff pls). If base LB damage was buffed by %100 and if msw only gave %50 increase on each stack, we would have same damage which would be cool.

Although i'm expecting more from it... I would love it to see 3k damage w/o the stormkeeper. Since that talent probably won't ever be used. Instant lightning bolts are rare. Compared to other abilities (specially stormstrike). It would only be sane to think it deals a lot of damage. At least more than stormstrike.

What i'm trying to say is this...:
We have capacity to get 2 lightning bolts ready, and keep them in our hands.
If we can have option to keep 2 stormstrikes ready at our hands...
Along with hailstorm...

We can finally have some good combo to be used. We can finally have some control over our burst. Be somewhat reliable... But for this. We NEED a lot of power inside that MSW and hailstorm. If stormstrike is BOUND to be lunatic damage. We NEED 2 stacks on it. Or even 3! Other classes have much better versions of this. I'm not asking for a lot.

This is what all i'm trying to get.

Do you guys have any other ideas for enhancement to get controllable burst damage? Most classes have better "openers" than this so called built up finisher we might hope to get.

[Aurosh]

But you wanna talk about current numbers, but dont wanna talk current numbers?

You just picked the numbers you want to be true and not the numbers you dont want to be true...

If you just test one talent setup and tell us: Flame Shock is 114 damage - well there is a talent buffings FS damage by 100%, so Flame Shock is a real powerhouse currently. In st, it makes up to 20% of our damage, on 4 targets it can be 30% of our damage even.

Lightning Bolt can be 6% of our damage, but it can be over 20%, depending on the right talent setup. I know stormkeeper is a weird talent - but it isnt final yet.

Abd before you talk about double dipping: i tried to not overcap (>5) MSW stacks because the spec is really very slow and i have no addons / weakauras active, so i often use LB at 5 stacks. Now i tried to actively abuse that bug, so i got to 5.5k crit (still max 1.06k SS crit).

I was just going to show you that PTR numbers are very far away from final, so you cant argue that LB is weak.
Stormkeeper btw could be something you cast prepull and in breaks. So Stormkeeper can be situationally really strong. 2 charged instant LBs can be a dps gain over e.g. Sundering (which is 907 base damage vs an average 1k LB. The biggest issue is that it currently isnt instant so it consumes MSW charges. If it wouldnt consume MSW charges, it would be straight at least extra damage of 3 with 5 Stacks MSW (assuming they remove any scaling with MSW charges).

Thats probably the main reason they cant tune numbers right now. Because if they buff or nerf or bugfix anything, it'll screw most of the balancing done, so first bugfix, then tune the numbers.


And what we should never forget: there will be legendaries and soul binds in Shadownlands, one will be buffing MSW stacks by 10% per Stack. So a 5stack MSW now dealing 200 damage will be dealing 250 damage in SL in current tuning. Another one gives Frost Shock a chance to grant 2 MSW stacks ( -> up to 35%). So there is some stuff that might anyways buff LB.

[Oturanboa]

No it's not like i'm not picking number i dont want to be true^^ Of course we can discuss them too sorry

It just seemed to me that flame shock was a bit too strong and a nerf was on it's way. But even if it wasn't i would be glad it didnt get nerfed. It's an easy damage source as i would like shock spells to be. However my main concern is enhancement's "controllable burst potential". Since a dot spell is inherently against that due to its nature, i overlooked it.

But yea sure, it is a little too high. Nerfing it would make room for other spells to be cooler i agree (if this is what you meant or i misunderstood?). Also i wouldn't like to tab+shock every mob in m+... I guess that's gonna be a hussle as well that we won't be able to avoid.

About the ratios of stormstrike and Lightning bolt:

I will use the base numbers i gave at OP.
Lightning bolt is 204 damage.
10 stacks of msw: 204*3=612 damage.
Stormkeeper: 612*2.5=1530 damage.

This is the highest number you can achive with any talent build (excluding earthen spike since it also buffs stormstrike). In this build, lowest stormstrike number you can get is 525. Which brings ratio to 2.9. This is the highest ratio you can get in game atm.

There is no way you can deal 5k LB while you deal 1k stormstrike crits. You probably got overlapped trinket or essance procs to increase your damage by good margins to produce such results. Or just counted only main hand wf. That why i stripped my gear, to get rid of fluctiations.

-------------------------------------------------------

If the blue post are to be believed: Blizzard's intention for fully MSW charged Lightning bolt is 410 damage. Which is a 0.78 ratio (0,68 with elemental assault) . This is what bugs me. If it's to stay like this. We won't have any kind of controllable burst. We'll always need to rely on stormbringer procs.. and keeping msw charges at bay, won't do any good.

Even with stormkeeper: 410*2,5=1025... It's piss damage. Only 1.95 (1.69 with elemental assault) stormstrike damage. After %100 stormstrike legendary. Our every chance at burst will be "meh" compared to stormstrike. Only thing for us to do is wait for stormbringer procs.

Hailstorm is another chance at burst to follow after MSW. 263*2.75=723... It basicly same damage with stormstrike.
Lava lash is laughable even with hot hand. 156*2=312 normal attacks. 312*2=624 hothand proc. Again, very low "talent proc" damage still same with talented stormstrike damage.

So here is our possible burst comparison... Highest numbers you can get against base stormstrike (which can be increased elemental assault and earthen spike)

Stormstrike : 525 (605 with elemental assault) (725 during earthen spike)

Lava Lash (hot hand procced) : 624 damage
Frostshock (talented, fully charged) : 732
MSW LB (fully charged with bliz's intention) : 410

Sundering is a long cooldown along with stormkeeper at 811 damage. "Slightly" better than stormstrike

There is no other way for burst to happen. Passives like Wf, flametongue and flameshock dot are "complementary damage sources" in burst setting like say: A battleground or arena.

Since stamina gain is linear with i lvl: Gear that gives you 725 fully talented stormstrike damage lets you have 10760 hp. THE BEST CASE SCENARIO is you are the luckiest guy on earth and procced stormbringer 10760/725= 14.8 times in a row DURING earthen spike. You need 23 seconds to kill a dude that's standing still w/o any defensives... Even with -full- crits and 7 stormbringer procs in a row (again during earthen spike which will -never- happen). You need 8 globals against a target w/o any defensives... This is NOT cool. Warlocks will be killing you in 3-4 globals. We need a powerful combo that we can keep and unleashe when we want. MSW seems to be the only way. And it needs A BIG BUFF for it to happen.

I was happy to hear msw coming back, happier when i heard it got up 10 stacks. Only to be crushed to see it's just a filler. Fillers can be high on damage meters. Dots can be high there too. But it's the mid-long cooldown burst moves that gives the satisfaction. It is no where to be found for enhancement atm.

[Grimbold21]

I'm more concerned about the absence of FL spreading mechanic meaning that Blizzard wants a Fire based spec to be a single target one.

[Aurosh]

Earthen Spike is a big thing currently. It desls 550 damage every 20 sec for me and buffs nature and physical damage on average by 10% - which should be over 70%(perhaps even 80 with FS nerf, legendaries etc) of our damage in a LB/SS focussed world.

My spirit wolves were pretty weak so for ST, ES should be a winner. Ascendance is hard to judge yet. It feels weird currently. Perhaps it needs some time.

One thing i fear is that the SS legendary is too dominant. You would stack e.g. 8 stacks of MSW, press ES and alternate SS and LB. Everything including talents would be about SS damage. LB damage wouldnt be important.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm more concerned about the absence of FL spreading mechanic meaning that Blizzard wants a Fire based spec to be a single target one.

Well it isnt final yet. Adding a FS spread talent is still possible. Though time is running out. Speculating pre patch will be in september, there will soon be a class development stop when they will do nothing but changing numbers.

The same thing happened in BFA. After prepatch release they just tuned numbers. Even the big 8.1 "rework" was really lazy.

[Grimbold21]

Well after all this Stormstrike focus we've seen in this past, I want to make a Fire element based build, but our current fire abilities seem ST oriented.

At my crappy current ilvl (97 on the PTR) a FL tic is 200 ish and crits for 500 ish, with Lashing Flames talent doubling it I believe. I think Lava Lash can crit anywhere between 1k and 2k atm.

But even our Fire Legendary and Conduit effects leave room to think that they would be far superior, potentially OP, if we had the (baseline) ability to spread Flame shocks.

I mean:

Primal Lava Actuators - Each time Flame Shock deals Periodic damage, increase the damage of your next Lava Lash by 10% and reduce the cooldown of Lava Lash by 0.5 sec.

According to month old Tiqqle video, that can go up to 20 stacks. That's 200%

Magma Fist (Potency Conduit) Lava Lash has an additional 25% critical strike chance against enemies affected by your Flame Shock. and that goes up to 50% chance.

Plus, that 200% gets another 100% from Hot hands.

I'm not sure how viable it would be to wait to get 20 stacks every time, but with a FL spreading mechanic, you're looking at a lot of damage in, say, a 5 mob sized trash pack. Your rotation would essentially come down to FL and spreading it, Fire Nova (depending if it would supplant hailstorm) and LL, with CL and LB coming last.

Out of the top of my head, that would be insane. Not only would you have 5 FLs ticking for double dmg, but the rest of the hard hitting abilities to.
Edit: I forgot, it'd be 320% with the 20 from ES

[Aurosh]

Well the fire legendary wont be as strong on ST. It could be decent if fire builds are close pre legendaries.

But with HH, most LLs will be with 0-2 stacks. Even at 2 targets, with HH proc, LL will have 3 sec CD, so you will get 1 or 2 stacks per FS target. But if you have 3 or 4 targets, LL damage is irrelevant because for AOE, Chain+Crash+SS for MSW + Hailstorm/FN is already filling your GCDs. So Lava Lash even at higher stacks isnt a big hitter in AOE, especially since LL will have a low CD.


And getting the LL soulbind will have opportunity costs. The questiin is: will LL get additiinal 50% crit or 1.5*crit chance (e.g. 10% crit chance, so it goes up to 15%).

[Oturanboa]

Aaaand stormbringer's %25 increased stormstrike damage is back in too...

[Oturanboa]

Lightning bolt is buffed by %35 or something which is quite less than what i had hoped but... Nice i guess :/

Difference between 5 and 10 maelstrom stacks is still there? Is it really how it's supposed to work? Didn't we suffer enough? And don't you guys hate %25 stormstrike damage on stormbringer? Won't it cause this spec to rely to much on procs? We won't ever be able to do our "good burst" without stormbringer. Please remove it and buff stormstrike flatly, or buff something else flatly.

[Aurosh]

Lightning bolt is buffed by %35 or something which is quite less than what i had hoped but... Nice i guess :/

Difference between 5 and 10 maelstrom stacks is still there? Is it really how it's supposed to work? Didn't we suffer enough? And don't you guys hate %25 stormstrike damage on stormbringer? Won't it cause this spec to rely to much on procs? We won't ever be able to do our "good burst" without stormbringer. Please remove it and buff stormstrike flatly, or buff something else flatly.

Well MSW damage will be changed to "per stack consumed', there is a new blue post stating that it is a bug.

SB having extra damage is necessary to make it work. SB on its own isnt strong and 25% isnt that much damage.

[Grimbold21]

At this point, Lava Lash spreading FL seems like a dream. The nightmare would be getting Maelstrom back like Elemental

[Aurosh]

At this point, Lava Lash spreading FL seems like a dream. The nightmare would be getting Maelstrom back like Elemental

Well MSW isnt that different from Maelstrom. So going to a res bar could be made without gameplay changes.

Just think of 1 MSW stack = 10 MS, LB consumes up to 50, feral spirits generate 10 MSW / 3sec uptime...

The big difference is that SS is more like a generator and LB the big spender. Right now the spec has no big spender. You just need some MS for SS.

[Oturanboa]

Well MSW damage will be changed to "per stack consumed', there is a new blue post stating that it is a bug.

SB having extra damage is necessary to make it work. SB on its own isnt strong and 25% isnt that much damage.

Well, in pve: It doesn't matter which ability hits how much. You mostly don't even notice how much your abilities hit. However in pvp. If you cast msw LB with good gear legendary on, following Stormstrike will hit: Lets say 4k instead of 5k. You also can do it twice. If you don't get stormbringer your burst will be handicapped. You will hit 8k instead of 10k. (This isn't really possible w/o SB but it could! If stormstrike had 2 charges!)

It simply shaves your peak. %25 less for the peak is not a small number. Since in pve stormbringer will consist majority of your stormstrikes, removing stormbringer's %25 damage increase could translate to %15-20 more flat damage for stormstrike. Stormbringer's buff also diminishes the value of stormfury talent.

Btw, i too would like to get maelstrom bar back. It's hard to look at buff counts. Some pro dude will probably make a WA for it but i would like to use base frames.

[Kalarm]

Well, in pve: It doesn't matter which ability hits how much. You mostly don't even notice how much your abilities hit. However in pvp. If you cast msw LB with good gear legendary on, following Stormstrike will hit: Lets say 4k instead of 5k. You also can do it twice. If you don't get stormbringer your burst will be handicapped. You will hit 8k instead of 10k. (This isn't really possible w/o SB but it could! If stormstrike had 2 charges!)

It simply shaves your peak. %25 less for the peak is not a small number. Since in pve stormbringer will consist majority of your stormstrikes, removing stormbringer's %25 damage increase could translate to %15-20 more flat damage for stormstrike. Stormbringer's buff also diminishes the value of stormfury talent.

Btw, i too would like to get maelstrom bar back. It's hard to look at buff counts. Some pro dude will probably make a WA for it but i would like to use base frames.

Stormfury is indeed problematic. It just ends up feeling frustrating. Even SB right now is for some reason. I've had a lot of moments where I'm just about to SS and poof, SB proc, so if I'd been just a tiny bit faster I would of had 2SS but now I only have 1. I don't remember having so much of that problem in legion / start of BFA.

When they announced the maelstrom bar, I was really expecting it to be just for easier spell management. Like LB cost 50 maelstrom, CL could cost 40 should they want AoE to be easier for WTV reason (lame example but you get the idea). Or maybe healing spells could cost 30 should we need more survivability in PVP. You could still have abilities like fury of air that uses maelstrom in a more granular way. Have talents that generate X maelstrom. Etc etc. I was really expecting them to make maelstrom our ressource that would just open up new possibilities. Instead, it turned out to be pretty much blue rage. The cool thing with enh was how you were completely functional without MSW. It just made you able to use things you would of otherwise needed to cast but things you could use anyways. Can't melee the boss? You can still spam shocks and LB... The last tier of WoD had the bonus of making MSW stack to 10. I really thought that was a peak into the gameplay that was incoming.

[Oturanboa]

+1 for everything you say

Screw +%x damage. Just make spells instant with x maelstrom. No in betweens. So we don't short cast lb with 4 msw.

Making them require different amount of msw would also be a good addition as a pseudo buff to heals.

I -hate- being bad at hard casting spells as shaman. How can it EVER be abused? Enhancement will NEVER be better at hard casting LBs at range. But being able to hard cast on places u gotta outrange melee was the bee's knees... It wasn't op in ANY way. It didn't get you way ahead at damage meters. It obviously REDUCED your dps... It was just something made you different than other melees. "Somewhat good at range too". Was an awesome feeling.

And ofc... 2 stacks for stormstrike...