Enhancement - excellent post in damage dealing forum

[raggoo]

Apologies for copy pasting a post here, but I cannot post on the forum it is on.... not sure if against this forums rules to copy/paste? (if so then my apologies again)

Reason for quoting this though is that it is by far the most accurately written and summed up piece I have seen, I think they get this spot on. Only bit I would add is that the fire nova they have introduced is making the spec even more mana intensive.. soemthing we cannnot afford. And the increased ranges of most offensive spells from 30 > 40 yards will further compound enhancement issues imo due to our lack of gap closer, defintely in the caster benefit who will be able to kite us more, and classes like warriors that have a gap closer. I believe this will also lead to the need to drop even more totems as the kiting will be worse...

Anyway Kudos for Wushootaki on the below:

So, MMO-Champ posted a new beta buid...

2 things struck me as interesting

1)Totemic Vigor is gone.

2) Improved Fire Nova is now a Tier 4 Enhancement Talent - Increases the damage done by your Fire Nova by 10/20% and reduces the cooldown by 2/4 sec. has been moved to enhancement (tier 4)

So its safe to assume that imp fire nova replaces Totemic vigor's spot. In addition:

1) Magma Totem base damage increased by 33%.
2) Fire Nova base damage increased by 33%.

This is all fine and dandy, except I'm noticing a trend. There is a lack of synergy for Enhancement. The only real synergy we have is maelstrom weapons to heal.

But lets take a look at these other issues:

1) Searing Flames is not generated by magma totem, because Blizzard does not want us to use it in our single target rotation.

2) Fire Nova does not work off searing totem, as Blizzard does not want us to use it in our single target rotation.

3) Without stacking Searing Flames, our Lava Lash hits for much less than with Searing Flames, making Searing Totem more optimal than Magma Totem

4) Because Magma totem and Fire Nova are now left for AoE trash, its possible that the actual talent of Improved Fire Nova isn't even attractive anymore, since so many other classes can AoE better. On top of that, Blizzard stated there will be less emphasis on AoE altogether and more on Crowd Control.

5) Totemic Vigor was going to be an AMAZING talent for Enhancement Pvp. We constantly have to drop our totems right next to our target, and it was a much needed BUFF to have them survive more than one pet attack or autoswing/wand/shoot.

6) Further lack of synergy can be seen in the talents of Toughness and Earthen Power. One reduces the duration of movement impairing abilities, and the other completely REMOVES movement impairing abilities upon pulse. With the reitemization of gear in Cataclysm, shaman shouldn't have a talent that specs for 10% stamina. It should be WORKED INTO THEIR GEAR. Furthermore, Toughness isn't even in a place where other specs of shaman can get it.

7) Frozen Power makes Frostbrand Weapon more attractive to us for PvP. It increases the damage of our Lava Lash, LB, CL, and shocks by 10% if the target has frostbrand debuff on them. However, this goes directly AGAINST the design of Lava Lash.

Lava Lash benefits 25% increased damage from being equipped with flametongue. 25% =/= 10% therefore we lose out on 15% damage that could be gained by using Flametongue. Not to mention we lose out on the spellpower, but that is made up through frostbrand's 10% to our Cl, LB, and Shocks.

8 ) Searing Flames in PvP takes too long to set up. And without Totemic Vigor its quite possible we will never get stacks to start up as our totems are usually killed the moment we put them down with MOUSE OVERS. This furthermore hurts us, because it makes speccing into Searing Flames AND Improved Lava Lash less attractive because of the time it takes to get enough stacks to do good dmg. In addition to frozen power, and Lava Lash not benefiting from Flametongue in pvp. In ADDITION, to the fact that Lava Lash and Searing Flames were one of the ONLY changes to Enhancement meaning the developers WANT us to spec into this.

9) Maelstrom weapons does not stack well in PvP. Its mechanic requires constant up-time on the target which is just not possible. Enhancement shaman NEED a way to stack maelstroms when they cannot get to their target. While we have some utility with being able to keep to our target (Frost Shock roots and Earthen Power), this is now slightly nerfed with the removal of Totemic Vigor (meaning our earthbind is still wimpy).

10) Mana Inefficiency in PvP.

Primal Focus does not work well in PvP. Its mechanic requires constant up-time on the target which is just not possible. Enhancement needs a way to regen mana when they cannot get to their target. All I keep seeing on Beta is how we can no longer spam totems upon destruction, and Shamanistic Rage is used ON COOLDOWN.

Shamanistic Rage is not being used for its survivability and instead is being worked into part of the regular rotation because mana is so tight for Enhancement.

Furthermore, Static Shock becomes useless in PvP because we are constantly running water shield.

12) PvP vs. PvE talaents -- Toughness, Earthen Power, Totemic Reach, Frozen Power are all PvP talents. I do not foresee anyone taking these in PvE as they don't exactly help maximize your dps. Blizzard stated they were trying to get rid of the PvP/PvE specific talents, yet we still have FOUR that greatly HINDER our ability to get the newly developed mechanic of Searing Flames for PvP ( disregarding the poor gameplay searing flames has in PvP aka slow ramp up time )


So to recap --

Devs worked a lot on improved Lava Lash and Searing Flames, but they are unattractive in PvP.

Improved Fire Nova is unattractive because its no longer part of our single dps rotation, does not work with Searing Totem, and therefore can be seen as a waste of points.

Still clearly distinguishable PvE and PvP talents

Lack of overall Synergy/Flow in Enhancement Tree altogether.

Mana inefficient in PvP.

[Trixxr]

So to recap --

Devs worked a lot on improved Lava Lash and Searing Flames, but they are unattractive in PvP.

Improved Fire Nova is unattractive because its no longer part of our single dps rotation, does not work with Searing Totem, and therefore can be seen as a waste of points.

Still clearly distinguishable PvE and PvP talents

Lack of overall Synergy/Flow in Enhancement Tree altogether.

Mana inefficient in PvP.

It's not that bad tbh dude.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bb3HT1ubtk
Take a look at this link - It'll show you that your concerns with mana being used inefficient is totally wrong, as you only have to press stormstrike.
Further more, why would you ever want to heal yourself when you're oneshotting everyone close to you!?

This thread is stupid

[Foxhoundn]

It's not that bad tbh dude.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bb3HT1ubtk
Take a look at this link - It'll show you that your concerns with mana being used inefficient is totally wrong, as you only have to press stormstrike.
Further more, why would you ever want to heal yourself when you're oneshotting everyone close to you!?

This thread is stupid

Jesus Christ, you better be trolling.

[Xotick]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bb3HT1ubtk

This video is totally valid, so long as we take a time machine 4 years into the past, otherwise an obvious troll.

But it did remind me of the good old days as a shaman in pvp... random 1 shots were great.

[Trixxr]

Jesus Christ, you better be trolling.

Just look at the link and you'll see my point.

[Shmo]

God i miss that video. I remember when it came out, and everyone all of a sudden got up and said "Oh wowsors i needs to zomg plays a shamans now"

And that is why we have terrible shamans in game now.

[psyched]

Jesus Christ, you better be trolling.

This

[Direfen]

You think Totemic Vigor was a good thing? We must be on 2 completely different wavelengths cause I saw it (and Totemic Reach) as useless talents.

However, Imp Lava Lash and Searing Flames I totally agree with. Too much ramp up time in order to do some sufficient damage (especially in BGs where fights don't last long at all).

If what you say is true that we can't use Fire Nova with Searing Totem anymore then Improved Fire Nova's value has decreased a fair bit. A waste of talent points, as you said.

I can't really say anything about mana issues since I don't know how good our mana regen will be with Primal Focus.

Personally I believe Enhancement needs a complete rework. Too many useless talents and not enough "fun" talents.

[keeb]

You think Totemic Vigor was a good thing? We must be on 2 completely different wavelengths cause I saw it (and Totemic Reach) as useless talents.

However, Imp Lava Lash and Searing Flames I totally agree with. Too much ramp up time in order to do some sufficient damage (especially in BGs where fights don't last long at all).

If what you say is true that we can't use Fire Nova with Searing Totem anymore then Improved Fire Nova's value has decreased a fair bit. A waste of talent points, as you said.

I can't really say anything about mana issues since I don't know how good our mana regen will be with Primal Focus.

Personally I believe Enhancement needs a complete rework. Too many useless talents and not enough "fun" talents.

Had you spent as much time Re-dropping Tremor/cleansing while fighting canny 2000++++ rated arena teams as I had. You would know +10% life to totems would have been huge in the PvP arena.

It got soo bad vs some good opponents. I would be forced to blow every second or third GCD preemptively dropping totems. Thats how good some people are at removing our tremor etc.

While I admit , the talent sounds lame. It would have been huge for us in PvP (at least in PvP at a certain elevated rating).


Ohh and, I think OP is right on the money. He clearly understands Enhance potential pitfalls where clear understanding is most needed. In PVP.

All truth.

Searing without Vigor in PvP will be even more difficult to use. (It was already a Huge investment, and very cumbersome). Considering added difficulties. We may not spec at all into Imp Searing/LL for PvP. Though that Armor ignoring large attack will be greatly missed.

And the pseudo redundancy between Imp Earth-bind and toughness. Seems like alot of overlap for 5 point investment.

And 100% right on both counts regarding MW and Mana Regen. Both require being on target (In PvP you are on target at best half as often as you are on target in PvE). Cant they see how right they have it for Ret and how wrong they have it for Enhance???

In all seriousness (and no whinyness). This design team does not seem to have a good grasp on what Enhance needs in both PvP and PvE..

[Direfen]

Had you spent as much time Re-dropping Tremor/cleansing while fighting canny 2000++++ rated arena teams as I had. You would know +10% life to totems would have been huge in the PvP arena.

It got soo bad vs some good opponents. I would be forced to blow every second or third GCD preemptively dropping totems. Thats how good some people are at removing our tremor etc.

While I admit , the talent sounds lame. It would have been huge for us in PvP (at least in PvP at a certain elevated rating).

Well really, we shouldn't have to talent into something as basic as HP for our totems. Should be a passive thing.

I just find it a waste of points since nowadays Enhancement has to burst the other person down ASAP otherwise were goners.

The severe lack of survival skills and bloated talent tree gave us no justice. Were just lucky enough to have found a rather successful comp being 'Beastcleave'.

I get the fact WoW isn't balanced around 1v1, however I feel way to reliant on my allies to get the job done half the time. We need something other than Feral Spirit to keep us alive.

[Sýf]

It's not that bad tbh dude.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bb3HT1ubtk
Take a look at this link - It'll show you that your concerns with mana being used inefficient is totally wrong, as you only have to press stormstrike.
Further more, why would you ever want to heal yourself when you're oneshotting everyone close to you!?

This thread is stupid

0/10.

Go back to trollschool.

[keeb]

Absolutely right. We shouldn't have to rely on talents to make our Totems resistant to Hovercast wand/staff/pet attacks.

Though I have no problem when my Totems die to a Ability. Like a Frostbolt, Stormstrike, shit even a couple ticks of Arcane missile or SWP Id be ok with.

[LyskaWF]

Absolutely right. We shouldn't have to rely on talents to make our Totems resistant to Hovercast wand/staff/pet attacks.

Though I have no problem when my Totems die to a Ability. Like a Frostbolt, Stormstrike, shit even a couple ticks of Arcane missile or SWP Id be ok with.

This is correct. If a lock wants to tab to my tremor totem, cast a direct damage spell once or twice to kill it (probably once) and THEN fear me, it's my own goddamn fault for getting feared.
However, if he can use a pet macro or melee it because it only has five fucking HP, there's not a damn thing I can do when the fear comes at the exact same time or even earlier.

If that talent has been completely removed from the game I'm not sure that I will PvP again. What a joke. I'd bet a large sum of money that the priest/lock boards were flooded with QQ about not being able to remove game-breaking things with one melee swing that costs 0 resources. Honestly, they should combine Earthen Power, Totemic Vigor, and Totemic Reach (or just Earthen Power and Totemic Vigor and make Totemic Reach baseline).

[Deleted]

...In all seriousness (and no whinyness). This design team does not seem to have a good grasp on what Enhance needs in both PvP and PvE..

This design team is actually good at something, which is ignoring whining shammies with a small responses of nonsense/BS. Im glad i rerolled before my eyes would have started bleeding.

[Omanley]

as is said in several other posts, shaman in general needs a baseline overhaul.
shaman in general suck, because we have to rely more on talents than other classes.

a rogue, no matter which spec, will have evasion, sprint, vanish, stuns, gouge, posions, cloak of shadows and stealth at his disposal

as a shaman, we have only casted heals baseline. enh has to sacrifice msw (a pain in the ass to stack ability in pvp) for it, ele (despite having more spellpower) is even worse of
-in terms of pvp selfhealing, earth shield and riptide would be awesome abilities, but alas, it´s deep resto talents

survivability: shamanistic rage is enh only, rooting earthbind is ele only, movement impairing earthbind is enh only, and aside from that, we have a must have major glyph making a otherwise useless ability a 4k dmg absorb *sigh*

buff totems continue being a joke, with blizzards "very helpful" reply: "lesser convienence doesn´t carry the same punch as having a weaker buff." srsly, losing a buff on raidmembers every now and than, i´d consider that weaker. and ofc we´d be op if we could provide pve buffs in arena, right? and im totally loling at blizzards comment that they fear we´d be op if we could plant down tremor/earthbind in raids without sacrificing buffs? that´s just as hillarious as gc saying he fears shamans doing non stop suicide if they´d lower ankh cd.

offensive dispell gets raped as well through higher mana costs and lower mana pools, but do we see improvement in getting a stun, silence, ms or worthwhile cc? nope. hex is still the 2nd worst cc after intimidating shout, and all we get is a elemental only cc which will only be useful in 1 x-pac. i´d have expected more for the elemental-class in the elemental x-pac.

imp ll is a joke as it is. ofc they had to make our burst dependant of a totem... would it have hurt you to simply let flame shock stack that buff? damn....

druids get a totemic ability, mushrooms
everyone gets our buffs
mages ( one if not the most op class in game ) get bl and will be a mandatory asset of every single arena team out there
talent trees get shrunken, and classes like shaman, which get their pvp viability through talents mostly, get shaft through not having nearly as much points as they need.

and cleansing totem is gone, and sentry ( no changes since vanilla, and now, at the 3rd chance to finally make something of it, they remove it ) windwall gone also...

feral, moonkin, ret, fury, all mage trees, all hunter trees, all warlock trees.... so many good options, but i dont see shaman among them.

[Baabinator]

as is said in several other posts, shaman in general needs a baseline overhaul.
shaman in general suck, because we have to rely more on talents than other classes.

a rogue, no matter which spec, will have evasion, sprint, vanish, stuns, gouge, posions, cloak of shadows and stealth at his disposal

as a shaman, we have only casted heals baseline. enh has to sacrifice msw (a pain in the ass to stack ability in pvp) for it, ele (despite having more spellpower) is even worse of
-in terms of pvp selfhealing, earth shield and riptide would be awesome abilities, but alas, it´s deep resto talents

survivability: shamanistic rage is enh only, rooting earthbind is ele only, movement impairing earthbind is enh only, and aside from that, we have a must have major glyph making a otherwise useless ability a 4k dmg absorb *sigh*

buff totems continue being a joke, with blizzards "very helpful" reply: "lesser convienence doesn´t carry the same punch as having a weaker buff." srsly, losing a buff on raidmembers every now and than, i´d consider that weaker. and ofc we´d be op if we could provide pve buffs in arena, right? and im totally loling at blizzards comment that they fear we´d be op if we could plant down tremor/earthbind in raids without sacrificing buffs? that´s just as hillarious as gc saying he fears shamans doing non stop suicide if they´d lower ankh cd.

offensive dispell gets raped as well through higher mana costs and lower mana pools, but do we see improvement in getting a stun, silence, ms or worthwhile cc? nope. hex is still the 2nd worst cc after intimidating shout, and all we get is a elemental only cc which will only be useful in 1 x-pac. i´d have expected more for the elemental-class in the elemental x-pac.

imp ll is a joke as it is. ofc they had to make our burst dependant of a totem... would it have hurt you to simply let flame shock stack that buff? damn....

druids get a totemic ability, mushrooms
everyone gets our buffs
mages ( one if not the most op class in game ) get bl and will be a mandatory asset of every single arena team out there
talent trees get shrunken, and classes like shaman, which get their pvp viability through talents mostly, get shaft through not having nearly as much points as they need.

and cleansing totem is gone, and sentry ( no changes since vanilla, and now, at the 3rd chance to finally make something of it, they remove it ) windwall gone also...

feral, moonkin, ret, fury, all mage trees, all hunter trees, all warlock trees.... so many good options, but i dont see shaman among them.

Dude, we got Grounding totem, and 2 second interrupts every 6(5) seconds! AND we wear mail + have a shield which is obviously WAAAY more powerful then any cooldown is worth - CUZ ITS PASSIVE

Cata 4.0 : Shamans will suck Hardcore in PvP. Elemental's Lava Surge will be nerfed, Overload will be changed to do less damage.
Cata 4.1 : We receive something of tremendous PvP power and something to make Spiritwalker's Grace more useful.
Cata 4.1.1 (hotfix) : Spiritwalker's grace cooldown to 5 minutes. PvP power nerfed to about 40% of it's original strength. Also a change to Unleash Weapon that heavily favors a two-hander instead of d/w.
Cata 4.3 : Magma totem FINALLY stacks Lava Lash stacks, but on a dispellable buff on you instead of on the target. Did i mention the application was RNG?
Cata 4.4 : Sentry totem is back. Stoneclaw totem glyph is finally baseline. We finally have enough resilience (meaning that we stacked until it caps) to prevail in Arena, and people will finally cry and tear about how powerful shamans are.
5.0 Wrath of the Murlocs

Wow...

[Omanley]

haha, cynism can be a funny thing, +3 internets 4 u

[Arteous]

So basically blizzard has no idea how to improve shaman. love how they take a physical dps spec and force it to rely on spell damage then have no real idea how to make it work right. maybe they'll get it right next xpac after cataclysm.

[Baabinator]

So basically blizzard has no idea how to improve shaman. love how they take a physical dps spec and force it to rely on spell damage then have no real idea how to make it work right. maybe they'll get it right next xpac after cataclysm.

They might as well allow us to wear two main-hand caster daggers, give us passive expertise cap, have us gearing the same (or similiar) to Elemental just to make it easier.

The funny thing is, gearing as Elemental while being Enh (with a slow/slow weapon, mind you) is not even THAT great of a DPS loss.

[Gray_Matter]

I think they should give us a glyph which pushes the wolves uptime to 100% but reduces their damage and healing. For PVP it will be much easier to balance around wolves that are always up.