Enhancement Shaman Feedback

Classes Shaman
1

Hello everyone, i recently came back to the game and decided to reroll from ret to shaman. I used the expansions level up boost to make my first shaman ever and have been playing it for 2 days. During those 2 days and in the span of 11 hours of gameplay i reached lvl 80 , i dedicated the first 2 hours into dummy training to get familiar with the spec before i set out to level up . The process consists of campaign and delves , no leveling dungeons . After i reached max level i read the enha changes on the ptr to check if whatever feedback i had for the spec is being taken care of before i noted my thoughts. Here is my thoughts of the spec:

  1. Flame shock spread : It is really handy that flame shock has an easy way to spread but some times targets that would normaly feel like they are in a position for the debuff to spread on them they just arent, slight increase on flame shock range required

  2. Voltaic Blaze [(11.1) somewhat taken care of?] : Voltaic Blaze chance to proc feels really random , some times i got 2 back to back procs and some times it takes really long time to get a proc . This defeats the purpose of the talent to spread flame shock in a single global, dont think people use it for damage. Chance to proc should get massive increase or slightly rework to guarantee proc from our rotation

  3. Spenders damage [(11.1) taken care of , may need further reduction] : Spender damage is way higher than builder damage and the spec has a lot of exponential scaling ( will get to it in a bit )

  4. Doom winds : As a new player to the spec i fail to see the design purpose of the spell . It feels like an artifact or covenant ability reiterated 1 or 2 times

  5. Ascendance - Feral Spirits : 2 big CDs should always have a clear differentiation and while wolves seem to be used for its elemental dmg increase at the end of the day it has a similar purpose with ascendance . Especialy in 11.1 with the exponential scale of wolves being reduced it feels like Ascendance eclipses it.

  6. GCD : One of the most important feedback i have . The spec feels really gcd locked and in the new patch it seems even more than now

  7. Frost shock - Ice strike (pending for 11.1 builds) : They feel like out of place entirely on the spec , ice strike can be used for a global but it doesnt feel like it is used on cd and its interaction with frost shock is non existant since the later is never used without hailstorm ( which is a talent we cant affort to get right now )

  8. Primordial Wave [(11.1) take care of] : Not much to say it , right now it feels weird to press but 11.1 makes it a proper spell

  9. Maelstorm weapon [pending for dmg meters (11.1)] : Feel like power should be taken out of maelstorm weapon and given to base dmg of spenders . This will serve 2 purposes , right now even though enha is being considered a battle mage its ranged combat is non existant ( just flame shock ? ) enha definetely shouldnt be powerful out of melee but it needs a lot of more damage than it has now . 2nd purpose is to properly balance the various multipliers the spec has

  10. Stormbringer gameplay : Right now stormbringer feels like it takes the normal enhancement rotation as a hostage. It becomes the main focus disregarding anything else the base spec has to offer. 1st) reduce the power of tempest 2nd) make capstone procs more frenquent but increase the stacks required to gain tempest 3rd) Give a better synergy with shamans other builders that are not stormstrike 4th) Rework most of the talents on the spec . They feel like they just multiply your damage passively. The whole spec can be summarised as the tempest spec and not stormbringer . You just gain tempest and increased damage . Nothing else

  11. A lot of totemic and elementalist changes are being made so i wont share any thoughts on them since i didnt try them yet

For everyone who actualy read the whole post thank you

2

Most of your concerns are already kind of fixed in the next patch, although I prefer they were not at that level.

  1. Yup, I think no one would disagree with a little range bump. It would be a nice QoL change.
  2. Yes, they changed that to PPM, meaning that it will be WAY less random.
  3. Next patch builder damage is the main source of damage. Truthfully I am more worried about ss becoming stronger than spenders, because that playstyle would be awful (like BFA enhance).
  4. Doom winds was nice in SL. But because of all the nerfs (because of talent balancing), it currently has too low of an impact to notice. It would be nice if they moved it down and buffed it with multiple talents, but I won’t hold my breath.
  5. Do not think of them as big CDs. Ascendance is a big cd. Wolves are a small cd you cycle through every 30-40 seconds.
  6. The spec is designed to be close to gcd locked. Every time at the start of the expansions that we have empty globals people complain.
  7. With current talent tree we have enough globals with ss/ll and spenders, so IS and FrS fall abit behind, since the main advantage they offer is filler spells.
  8. As you said, it is changed.
  9. I have no strong feelings towards this. I do not believe it would change much, since we are a melee spec (and not semi melee with ret or survival), and buffing base damage of spells would not change that at all (excluding a full rework).
  10. Ptr has changed that. In 11.1.0 stormbringer damage breakdown has stormstrike to the top of damage abilities. As said above, they might have overdone it with buffing its damage. As for trying to add more abilities, the current stormbringer is built around the “storm” playing, meaning built around stormstrike and spenders. The elementalist playstyle will work mainly with totemic next patch.
  11. As said above, totemic will play with elementalist and as far as i’ve seen, both hero specs are pretty close in ptr.
1 Like
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Thanks for the reply

Regarding 11.1 taking a closer look it is a good start to some pain points enhancement has that even a new player notices

I would still like to see changes to flame shock spread , wolves , doom winds and a bit of ranged damage just so we dont drop to exactly 0 damage when not in range.
As for the spec being gcd locked i am very against this , i was a fury main from bfa to dragonflight and this was a pain point to me always . Just a small break is enough to breath . Ice strike and frost shock are really interesting abilities also i would like them to be integrated into the elementalist build or make room for them in the rotation for both hero talents .

Those are just my thoughts as a new player though , i understand veteran shaman players may have different priorities and likes

4

Heyo
Very long post answering your points:

Flame shock spreading got a range increase in 11.0, which felt amazing.
And then they suddenly decided to revert it in 11.0.5
The hope is that they realize that it was just amazing QoL and give it back to us again soon.

Voltaic blaze is not for easy flame shock spreading.
Its there to make flame shock a part of the rotation.
Its also why you dont take Voltaic blaze and Pwave without taking the Lava lash spreading as well.

Spenders feel extremely weak on ptr currently.
Feels like a byproduct of newer players coming over to Enhancement and they feel “weird” about playing a melee class that has ranged abilities. Unfortunately, Blizzard listened to that feedback.
Lightning Bolt is averaging about 0.8% of my overall in keys on ptr (as totemic)

Doom winds feels weak, but is there for either two things:
To have a window where you generate a lot of Maelstrom Weapon, or to proc as much Windfury weapon damage as possible.

Feral Spirits is a maintenance buff that is going to be much weaker next patch, therefore both builds just play flowing spirits for a passive damage increase that is purely there for ST damage increase (Just Stormstrike and windfury weapon)
For Ascendance:
A) Its just a massive generation of Maelstrom weapon and gives you an efficient way of spending maelstrom. So it just speeds up your rotation. (Stormbringer)
B) Totemic used Ascendance because of all the damage modifiers you could get onto the totem. (150% modifier) While giving you the best way of spending maelstrom to proc Totemic Rebound for more ST damage.
This modifier is practically gone next patch so you probably wont be playing Ascendance atleast in keys.
C) Ascendance is currently “bugged” on ptr. Windstrike (the Ascendance Stormstrike) didnt recieve the 100% buff that Stormstrike recieved at the beginning of this ptr cycle.

Yeah enhance is a very GCD locked spec. Thats just a playstyle thing. I mean this in the most respectful way, go play another spec if Enhancement isnt for you.
Cause this GCD locked Playstyle is for some people.

Yeah i agree that Frost shock and Ice strike needs to be implemented better into the spec. Especially since it was a core part of the spec in Dragonflight. Its just that none of the hero trees enables Frost shock or Ice strike. Well i mean Stormbringer plays them in raid.
I would personally like to see Totemic be removed and replaced with a frost witch hero tree that augments spells with frost damage and makes Frost shock and ice strike a primary gameplay loop, while making lava lash and elemental blast the counterpart of those loops. @Blizzard

Primordial wave:
I am also gonna say this in the most respectful way possible.
The primordial wave rework is the biggest waste of dev rescources ever.
Their intention was to make primordial wave simpler for Enhancement and Elemental.
i will gladly cover them both here.

Enhancement:
It was apparently too hard to manage pressing Pwave and Lightning bolt, so they made it just be Pwave, but then they designed Primordial storm which makes you press Pwave again to send out a lightning bolt or chain lightning based on AoE or ST scenarios.

So they replaced a 2 button gameplay for another 2 button gameplay. But now you gotta spend 3 more talent points to get that 2 button gameplay.
Also Primordial Storm has weird interactions with Windfury weapon so now you gotta set up Pwave around Doom winds timers to get a lot of burst.
Something that will confuse new players even more.

Also this Pwave change makes our already struggling spenders even weaker on the overall.
Which incentivizes ignoring max resources.

for Elemental:
Elemental has been struggling a lot with good methods of spreading flame shock.
Pwave was one of the premier ways of spreading Flame shock.
This Pwave change makes Pwave not put Flame shock on your target, and can also only be pressed if you have a flame shock out.

Also it deals way less damage than it is supposed to, and it doesnt grant enough maelstrom to be worth anymore.
This Pwave change makes Elemental way more monotonic than it already was.

For your 9th point, this feels like a waste of dev time and even harder to balance correctly.
Also elemental shamans are already mad that we use some of their core abilities as spenders so that proposed change is gonna make them even more mad.

for your 10th point, Hero talents in general should be there to augment the base spec, but enhance hero trees are so rotation warping because it introduces so much payoff (In tempest damage, Lightning rod, Free nature wolf etc) (A lot of totem damage)
I think stormbringer should just make your general abilities have passive lightning damage that you can make better by doing some minigame.
But this proposed change is probably something that can be addressed in midnight or something i dont know.
That or they could make the base enhance tree more interesting and powerful and afterwards nerf Stormbringer and totemic.
But please make spenders more powerful again. 11.1 is a mistake for the health of the spec and i don’t really care for another round of “Enhance should be melee (Classic+ TBC) → Enhance should be a battlemage (Wrath → WoD) → Enhance should be melee (Legion + BfA) → Enhance should be a battlemage (Shadowlands → 11.0 TWW) Enhance should be melee (11.1)”
Its an unending cycle it seems. But the battlemage gameplay is way better than the melee gameplay. Every time enhance has been melee, it has been mindnumbing.

for the 11th point, Elementalist is a keyword of the past. And totemic is becoming a slightly worse version of Dragonflight enhance with a weird totem minigame.
it’s unfortunately kinda fun, but can pretty quickly become boring when your rotation is figured out.

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5

Hello,
As a new Shaman player, i can say at start i didnt want to try it out seeing how much dmg spenders did and it looked more like a melee mage, but after trying it i feel like this is he only way it should be, its unique and its what makes a Shaman, well… Shaman no matter melee or ranged, if i want to bonk something hard il play my warr, pala or dk…

Im loving Shaman how it is now, id hate to see it changed tbh…

1 Like
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Agree, maelstrom weapon should be removed. Its trash.

All dps spec is build/spend these days so aside the names its nothing “unique”.