Tides of Vengeance Community Opinions: Class Changes and State of Enhancement Shaman

PTR Posted 2018/11/23 at 2:38 PM by Squishei

Please remember that these are opinions. You may not agree with the opinions stated in this article and you are welcome to your own opinion to the state of the class and spec. Please feel free to leave any feedback regarding this type of article in the comments.

Comprehensive List of Class ChangesComprehensive List of Azerite ChangesEnhancement Shaman GuideContributorsEarthshrineEarthshrine Discord

Rusah - Theorycrafter, SimC dev. Twitter: @Addiction_Rusah

Surge - Long time theorycrafter

Wordup - Guide Writer & theorycrafter. Twitter: @von_wordup

Shockd - Consistently High Ranked Enhancement PvP Player. Twitch: Hahashockd

Enhancement Shaman8.1 Enhancement UpdatesTalent ChangesLightning ShieldForceful WindsSearing AssaultCrashing StormFury of AirBoulderfistLandslideElemental AssaultOverchargeStormbringerAura ResetLightning ShieldForceful WindsPvP ImplicationsStatic ClingFeral LungeChain LightningRide the LightningGrounding TotemShamanismSkyfury TotemThunderchargeClosing Thoughts

Wowhead 19th March 2018

Beta Feedback 20th June 2018

Wowhead 23rd July 2018

Reddit Megathreads 17th Oct 2018

Maelstrom and ability interaction is still undercooked

Talents do little to spice up a fairly by the numbers rotation

Lack of a defined niche or specialty both in damage profile and raid desirability

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Comment by Cavalier196This article is very telling in how deep you had to scrape to find something positive in this mess: "They've retuned our damage aura".

Hoo-freaken-ray.Comment by VespasianoSo shamans will rot in a corner holding hands with the protection warrior, bfa class design truly is garbageComment by BreaddudeSeriously Blizzard. Properly fix MM hunters.
No I don't want to play BM, I never rolled a hunter to play BM. I've been MM for years.
You guys ripped the spec to shreds at the end of Legion and still haven't fixed it properly.
We have the worst 100 row in the game.
You changed us from needing to fish for certain azerite armor pieces that stack the same traits in 8.0 to needing to stack new azerite armor traits in 8.1.
Then you nerfed the azerite traits that we needed to stack in 8.1.
You said multiple times "we don't want you to feel like you need to stack certain traits to be good at your class" then completely throw that idea out the window with MM.
We have the most obnoxious cleave/AoE in the game.
It doesn't activate unless you hit 3 enemies and it only spreads up to 5 enemies.
That's absolutely a joke.
The only class in the game that is limited to the amount of adds it can cleave on. And a 2 fight cleave fight you might as well just pick a target and single target cause there isn't even a way to 2 target cleave.
If you are going to keep this terrible design for MM then you need to do a proper numbers pass. There is no reason I should be 3-5k damage per second behind Survival and BM and constantly the bottom tier dps of all the classes.Comment by RankkorEverything about classes in BfA has been a massive disappointment.Comment by PerastusIt's a good start, but I don't think it's enough. I feel maelstrom has little to no place right now as it's so rng dependant. It means nothing if you're lucky and get good procs, or you're cooldown locked and resourced starved if you're unlucky. I say remove it entirely.
Make rockbiter have no cooldown.
Give stormstrike 2 charges with storm bringer.
Lava lash a 6 second cd.
Make sundering baseline on a 30 second cd and replace the talent with something to make flametounge hit all enemies in X range, also applies the searing assault if taken.
Change fury of air to last 4 seconds, 15 second cd and crash lightning and stormstrike increase its duration by 1 second.
With no more maelstrom change feral spirit to deal high single target damage if you don't have the crash lightning buff, or good cleave damage if you do.
You now have a set rotation, sustained aoe, synergy with talents, and cooldowns you have to think for without being relient on procs or worrying about over capping resource. Adjust damage as needed and gg.Comment by hotaru251TBH it isnt just shamans.

the Devs stated they knew the state of the classes havign such huge variances and were gonna work on it..

8.1 looking liek it is goign to have the content of a minor hotfix patch ratehr than a major content patch...

tanks have had little changed to balance the tanking roles (as in bears wont get to the higher keys like BDK even after nerfs to em)

dps is still a joke for some classes.

healing is basically nerfing disc priest and nothing else so wont shake up dynamics much..

BFA is gonna be remembered as the only Xpac to be in beta after release at this rate..Comment by notreesWant to give Blizzard a message they can't ignore? Don't play your shaman.Comment by ElanduraEverything about classes in BfA has been a massive disappointment.Comment by Nythiz Every class can’t be good at EVERYTHING. ARE good at everythingComment by DblbaconatorPersonally, I'd save comments for " class/spec is broken please fix" for more relevant posts than one specifically about enhance changes, but that's just me. If anything, it speaks to the overwhelming sentiment that class design has really taken a downward turn after Legion.

As an enhance main for eight and a half years, I finally unsubbed this past week, and this was after not really playing much over the past couple months. To be fair, part of my reason was financial and part of it was the content not really being all that fun, but when my absolute favorite spec I've ever played has been turned into something that's just not interesting to play, I can't justify continuing to subscribe. It would be one thing if it had good or great DPS to compensate for its boring design, but it doesn't even have that. It feels like the design process for enhance stopped at "remove Doomhammer" and they didn't get around to "redesign class to make up for removing Doomhammer."

Sadly, I doubt we'll see anything approaching a substantial rework anytime soon. I hate to be pessimistic, but when Blizzard seemingly ignored all feedback from the shaman community during beta, then at launch, then after launch, all the way to today, there's really nothing to suggest to me that anything good is coming down the pipe. The earliest we could see something would be 8.2, but I for one am not going to hold my breath on that, and even 8.3/4/X is doubtful.

So, here's to 9.0, fellow enhance shaman. Maybe they'll get it right next expansion.Comment by BlueInfernoEverything about classes in BfA has been a massive disappointment.Comment by deathlavitzsome classes feel horrable to play, its like you can play them on your phone 'cause you know limited buttons to press that do meaningful stuff. you all know about bm hunter, but shadow priest is just like that, press 4 buttons twiddle the other keys here and there.

what can be changed? stuff that isn't based on damage and talents - like utility. Casters have to stop moving to cast, keep throwing mechanics where you gotta move and have nothing to do while moving like an instant cast spell its unfun. How long do you think people will like that and keep doing it?Comment by MenelvagorI don't really play shaman, but I feel for yall. This is just horrible, I don't know what Blizzard thinks they are doing just letting an entire subset of players rot on the vine like this.Comment by kaien9000I've been playing enhance all through this patch, and I don't think the spec is in as bad a place as some people are making it out to be, I think it is a little behind but not massively, the main issue I have with the spec is mainly that sustained AoE is bad for us, sundering is great but if adds aren't grouped properly or you just happen to move slightly in the wrong direction the damage is completely down the drain and you have to wait another 40seconds for it to come back again..absence of a blood dk makes this even more of an issue, and even when you do get them in the right position, you get a quick burst and then after that most other classes wipe the floor with you.

Crash lightning feels too weak atm. I think the initial cast of it should deal much more damage, even if it means a longer cd with maybe more time to cleave with stormstrike - then maybe it wouldn't feel like a waste of a GCD to cast it late if the adds are nearly dead.

I think blizzard is making the right steps in looking into the weaker talents to at least give us more options, since there is not really a great deal of choice there atm, PTR changes are a help but judging by how this article said a "0.5-1%" increase it's clearly not enough of an improvement.

One thing I would like to see with enhance is doom winds back as an ability, or some more bad luck protection for windfury and stormbringer in the form of talent or baked into feral spirits/ ascendance. It's a bit annoying getting to the top of the meters with a flurry of windfury and stormbringer procs on some pulls, and then another pull floundering near the bottom of the table due to bad luck.Comment by RusahThis article is very telling in how deep you had to scrape to find something positive in this mess: "They've retuned our damage aura".

Hoo-freaken-ray.https://i.imgur.com/YCfDt08.pngComment by MightylorddkEnhance hitting like a train in pvp, not to mention their newfound totems and utilities. I am glad to see them suffering.... oh wait. I play surv for pvp now and my net and traps can keep those nasty storm hammer shamans away from hurting me and my friends.

I feel for ya stormy peoples. Blizzard is treating you like a step parent. Shame on them.Comment by AdrianesAnd you only needed to wait 4 months to be able to play your class. BRAVO BLIZZARD!Comment by EfkiusWhile blizz thinks ench is bad Resto still in m+ worst class in raid not even in top3 healer.Comment by SylviaLilliumSimple. A tir 115 talent tree. This tree has the three abilities from out artefact weapon, returning them to us.
Have as a lvl 112 or 113 talent the original artefact weapon main ability.
It flows with the way we lvl up and frees up the talent trees from where things have been replaced to make room for half-baked versions of our original weapons.Comment by DarkLinkUmbreonI played a Shaman alt in legion as elemental and enhancement. With the changes in Bfa i said: Nope! Im tired of delayed class balancement (is this a word?). Same with Feral...

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