I would like to address the current situation of the Enhancement Shaman in PvP today. In my opinion, the specialization is currently in a very poor state and urgently needs a rework to have a place in PvP again.
Currently, Enhancement Shamans feel very fragile in PvP and have difficulty staying on their targets and maintaining damage. Often, there is a lack of mobility and defensive options. Some of you maybe noticed that even one of the best enhancement Shamans (Saul) stopped playing enhancement and is playing now elemental, because of the actual situation of this spec.
To illustrate this problem, I would like to revisit the points already mentioned and elaborate with further details that underscore the need for improvements:
-
Mobility: The limited mobility of the Enhancement Shaman compared to many other classes is a chronic problem that has only worsened over time as other classes have become increasingly mobile. The initial suggestion to reduce the cooldown of Spirit Walk or introduce an additional fast movement ability is absolutely justified. The idea of giving Wind Shear an additional function to increase movement speed would also provide much-needed relief here. It is explicitly pointed out that the lack of mobility leads to poor uptime because the Enhancement Shaman has difficulty staying on their opponents, especially given the increasing mobility of other classes. One suggestion proposes implementing the talent Feral Lunge as a baseline ability with a shorter cooldown of 15 seconds and granting the user immunity to slowing and movement-impairing effects for 3 seconds after reaching the target. Although there are talents like Thunderous Paws and Winds of Al’Akir that offer some mobility, the fact that these have to be chosen as talents indicates that mobility is not sufficiently integrated into the core design of the specialization. This may force players to sacrifice other useful talents to achieve the necessary agility. The current mobility options are even described as outdated and easy to counter. Spirit Walk does free you from movement-impairing effects, but the player is immediately vulnerable to slows or renewed movement impairments from passive effects afterward and it has a very high Cooldown. The long cooldown of Wind Rush Totem also does not help improve the situation. Currently, many players use the talent Gust of Wind due to its low cooldown, which is unfortunately not very useful for Enhancement Shamans because it doesn’t break roots and slows and often doesn’t land you where you intended. The consensus in the community is that a fundamental rework of the Enhancement Shaman’s mobility tools is essential to survive in the dynamic environment of modern PvP. It is not enough to simply add more movement abilities; rather, the existing options need to be more reliable and less susceptible to common PvP strategies.
-
Survivability: The defensive cooldowns of the Enhancement Shaman are often insufficient to survive in dangerous situations. The suggestion to give Astral Shift, for example, an additional effect such as short-term immunity to certain types of damage or a stronger damage reduction is therefore very sensible. Using the ability during a stun or fear would also be a sensible possibility. The healing possibilities are also often too weak in PvP to compensate for the damage taken. Here, one could increase the effectiveness of Healing Surge in PvP or introduce a new passive ability that improves self-healing. The poor survivability of the Enhancement Shaman becomes clear, especially after the loss of Astral Shift as a personal defensive ability. The cooldowns of the remaining defensive abilities are often very long: Astral Shift has a 1.5-minute cooldown with the talent, Stone Bulwark Totem 3 minutes, Earth Elemental 5 minutes, and Nature’s Guardian 45 seconds for Enhancement. The necessity to choose the PvP talent Grounding Totem to achieve any semblance of survivability is perceived as restrictive, as it means losing options for damage or utility talents. Off-healing is also rated poorly because Ancestral Guidance was removed, Stormweaver is rarely chosen, and Earth Shield can be easily removed and requires too many global cooldowns to reapply. Many suggest implementing Burrow and Stormweaver as baseline abilities to improve survivability. Additionally, the idea is raised to grant the Enhancement Shaman the damage reduction effect of Earth Shield that Restoration Shamans possess. The question of whether the Enhancement Shaman remains so vulnerable on the battlefield compared to other classes reflects the general perception. Even the observation that Enhancement Shamans are currently often seen as a “useless spec” (in PvP) and are therefore frequently focused indicates a perceived weakness that leads opponents to consider them a primary target. The long cooldowns of the existing defensive abilities mean that Enhancement Shamans are only truly resilient in limited time windows. Outside of these cooldowns, they are very vulnerable to enemy damage. Unlike other melee classes that have more frequent or passive defensive options, Enhancement Shamans are heavily reliant on their cooldowns, which increases their vulnerability in longer fights. The fact that players are forced to choose PvP talents like Burrow to achieve a basic level of survivability indicates a weakness in the core design of the class for PvP. Ideally, a specialization should have adequate base survivability without necessarily having to invest talent points in defensive options, which limits the flexibility and potential of the specialization.
-
Button Bloat
The last point on my list is the amount of abilities required to deal proper damage. Other classes, on the other hand, need significantly fewer talents to generate the same or even higher damage output with their class. Of course, one could argue that you should just play the other class with fewer abilities, but that’s not the point here. The point is that some things should be optimized and perhaps simplified. For example, incorporating some passive abilities into an active ability, or making a passive ability out of an active ability like Ice Strike (nobody is using the ranged Ice Strike at the moment). For example every 5th autoattack automatically triggers Ice Strike.
Conclusion: It is my firm conviction that with targeted adjustments in these key areas – mobility, survivability, reliability of damage – the Enhancement Shaman could become competitive again in PvP. It is crucial that the specialization finds a good balance and has the necessary tools to succeed in various PvP situations.