What is my experience with the Class:
I’ve played Enhancement Shaman just during the 9.1 Patch and played only mythic plus until I got KSM. I currently have 248 gs with 28% krit 27% haste.
Additionally, I played around with the tier set and double leggy on the ptr server.
What I like about the class:
For me the look and feel is quite nice. Using the elements to enhance your weapons while lightning strikes your opponent as your weapons swing around is amazing. The storm (and sound) is blasting around you as if you are a juggernaut of elemental rage.
The Visuals and the Sound are really satisfying even though some effects like lava whip could be flashed out some more especially when you have a hot hands proc.
What I don’t like about this class
There are a few things I really don’t like about this class and I will present my case here.
First, I want to talk about the defensives we have Ancestral shell on a 1,5 min cd, earth elemental with conduit on a 5 min cd (if you use the conduit) and everything else is covenant bound.
You could use Nightfae(1,5 – 2 min cd with cast time) or chain harvest (about 1,5 min) to have more healing cd’s.
I think this is not enough for a melee class which is bound to get hit more then other classes.
You could talent into “guardian of the nature” but in raid content you would lose one very strong movement raid cd.
As my second point I want to talk about the damage.
The damage from Enhancement shamans is really low as many know and I want to show you what I think are two of the main factors.
The first and overarching factor is RNG.
Nearly everything in this class is proc based, here are a few examples:
How many extra hits do you do with auto attacks (even more with conduit)
How many extra hits do you do with storm strike (if talented)
How many storm strike resets do you get
How much MSW do you generate on auto attacks
Hot hand Procs (if talented)
MSW regain by frost shock (depends on conduit)
Most basic do you crit or not
Which wolves do you get (if talented)
In 9.2 how many bonus wolves do you get
Each of these points is highly important for this class to work but even if you get mediocre luck with all of those your damage output is not really impressive and stays mostly the same.
Theoretically if all procs as amazing as possible Enhancement shaman could be the one of the strongest class but for that to happen you could rather be struck by a lightning for real.
In my opinion some skills don’t feel very satisfying to use if you look at the dmg.
My favorite example for this is crash lightning as it does about 600 dmg to every enemy before me buffable up to 160% dealing 1k to every mob before me and giving a buff which lets lava lash and stormstrike aoe in front of me for again 600 dmg. This allows the shaman to always be able to aoe but the damage is nothing compared to nearly all the other classes.
In single target 600 dmg is nothing and in my opinion a waste of GCD
Lavalash itself does nearly none of my damage and is only a skill to use for a chance of storm strike resets. Only in combination with hot hands it really shines and for that you have to win a nat 20.
On PTR I had an amazing experience with lavalash and hothands.
While we were fighting dausegne on mythic I got 3 hot hands in a row and had 2 flame wolves out for the whole time which let me do more damage then most. After that I slowly sank back to the middle…
Also on single target to press lightning bolt is not really satisfying
As a second reason the damage of enhancement shamans is looked down upon is because the strongest hiting aoe abilities are either target capped or have a huge cd.
A pro player once said there is no sustained aoe. You want to burst everything down as fast as possible and possibly within you tanks defensive cd’s.
Frostshock with Hailstorm (6 Targets, 6 sec cd and a full MSW spender must be used before)
Sundering (40 second)
Chain Lightning (3 Targets, MSW spender)
Fire Nova (Interesting in 9.2, 6*6 Targets, 15 sec cd)
Lastly a thing I really don’t like is the off times I get rather reliably every 14-16 gcds.
It is especially unsatisfying to not be able to do anything while your dps is at the bottom of the meter.
What I don’t understand:
Why is the class so full of RNG and especially with low proc rates.
The amount of Power you give the group can’t possibly justify for this overarching low powerlvl.
I also don’t understand if you want to have a casino class and why it only peaks this low shouldn’t it go beyond anything if the right procs happen.
What I want to know from Blizzard:
In what position do you (Blizzard) see this class.
Do you think they should deal a lot of funnel dmg or sustained aoe?
Should enhancers just be buff givers with low to mediocre dps so the buffed classes can shine?
What is the Image you want enhancers to have.
What I think could be changed and how:
First I want to talk about defensive options, I would appreciate it if you would implement a conduit that lets you regain 2 or 3 MSW stacks after you healed yourself with healing surge or let chain heal give the same buff to crash lightning as chain lightning does.
It would feel less punishing (especially in aoe) and more cooperative to play with an enhancer.
I don’t know how this might effect PVP as I don’t exactly play it but as Enhancer aren’t a top tier class there either I think it would help them.
Now to the damage components:
Buff Storm strike by 6 %.
For the most used ability of enhancement shaman it does not nearly enough damage and 6% is a good start to.
Reduce cd of Fire Nova by 2 seconds.
On a 15 sec (12 with haste) dealing (with 265 tested) 150066 dmg = 54k (3,6 to 4,5kdps) seems rather low compared to middle class aoe dps giants
Chain lightning + 1 or 2 target
It feels extremely unsatisfying if the tank does a bigger pull and our chain lightning just hits 3 of those for about 2,8k each. With one ore more additional targets it feels and is a lot stronger and subsequently makes another weaker ability stronger which is crash lightning.
Otherwise this could be layed on top of the talent of storm keeper making sunderings line more contested.
Buff Crash Lightning
With constant but low aoe dmg you can’t do much right now.
Now for my crazy Idea:
Don’t make hailstorm hit +1 more target for any MSW more spend but make it 1 yard around the prime target. It would give access to uncapped aoe.
The feedback loop this can accomplish between chain lightning and frost shock is not as extreme as people might think on the first time reading this, because of frost shocks build within cd.
The Rotation could look like chain lightning → frostshock → crash lightning → stormstrike → chain lightning ->….