Shamans are my passion project and as such, I wanna show how I'd redo their enhancement talent tree. This is a thought-experiment, a what if-play, not an actual suggestion, please keep this in mind.
The goal is to have a well-defined melee/support archetype which is viable but has its weak spots.
In the enhancement tree you can currently spend 50 talent points. The talents either help improving your DPS, give you some tanking utility, or give you help regarding general support.
Since 50 points are a lot, I wanna keep the tanking option open.
A disclaimer: The enhancement tree cannot be fully compared to the druid's feral tree. Druids receive a different form for tanking which gives an innate stat boost and gives them abilities instantly. In case of a shaman, this doesn't exist, tank utility has to be solved in a more conservative way.
Making some space:
* I'd make improved ghost wolf a baseline talent at lvl 60. It feels natural for all shamans to have it.
* Would merge guardian totems and enhancing totems. Grounding reduced CD can be nice but the only real difference-maker here at guardian totems is stoneskin and only if you plan to tank. These two could be merged.
* Ancestral knowledge is nice but lackluster. Planning to give enhancement shamans a different way of mana regeneration. Cutting it.
* Would merge spirit shield and ancestral guardian and would scale up spirit shield's armor bonus to 50% (while moving the dodge chance bonus to thunderhead and changing how it works). This is a talent which is taken by tanks and shaman tanks have to survive in mail. Pushing this a bit by adding an additional 20% armor after the shield helps closing up the gap between shaman tank armor and plate user tank armor.
-12 talent points.
Moving into enhancement tree:
* Elemental devastation - The whole talent screams enhancement tree but apparently it is 15 talents deep into the elemental tree.
(Nature's guidance - Enhancement is the only shaman spec which is expected to both melee hit and spell hit an opponent. Will include this buff but I will not include the talent itself.)
+3 talent points.
How it'd look like:
Current first row:
* Ancestral knowledge (5) - Giving +5% mana.
* Shield specialization (5) - Giving +5% block chance and +25% amount blocked.
New first row:
* Thundering strikes (5) - +5% melee crit chance.
* Improved lightning shield (changed original) (5) - Lightning shield also increases your block chance with a shield by 5% and increases the amount blocked by 25%.
This row gives an initial tanking boost to shamans. Same as shield specialization, as long as you have lightning shield on. The other talent works the same way as cruelty does in the fury tree - a first row melee crit buff.
Current second row:
* Guardian totems (2) - +20% damage reduction to stoneskin and windwall, reducing grounding CD by 2 sec.
* Thundering strikes (5) - +5% melee crit chance
* Improved lightning shield (3) - +15% damage to lightning shield
* Improved ghost wolf (2) - Reduces ghost wolf CD by 2 sec.
Guardian totems feel very meh. Improved ghost wolf doesn't deserve to be a talent, I think. It should be a baseline spell at level 60.
New second row:
* Enhanced totems (changed original) (2) (merge of guardian and enhancing totems) - +20% damage reduction to stoneskin, strength and agility totems are 15% more effective.
* Fiery Menace (made-up) (1) - Increases the threat generated by your fire totems and links the threat generated by them to you.
* Hasty strikes (made-up) (3) - Each melee crit reduces the CD of your shocks by 1,5 sec. Can only proc once every second.
This second row adds some utility with the totem merge and allows shaman tanks to build further on their talents by adding aoe-threat to their repertoire. Removed windwall from the enhanced totems talent to make it less bloated. Noone ever uses windwall anyway. Also removed the grounding totem buff because it doesn't feel enhancement-like enough.Hasty strikes makes sure that the shaman can synergize with the added melee crit chance from early on. Can only proc once per second to avoid WF and stormstrike RNG moments.
Current third row:
* Enhanced totems (2) - Strength and agility totems are 15% more effective.
* Thunderhead (1) - Allows lightning shield to be cast on someone else and it's 20% cheaper.
* Ancestral guardian (5) - +10% armor after items, +5% dodge.
Enhanced totems are already in use and thunderhead - while very creative - is lackluster. It's a threat generator to the tank but not reliable at that and maintaining it is a pain. Meddling is required.
New third row:
* Ancestral guardian (changed original) (5) - +10% armor after items, further +50% armor after shield.
* Thunderhead (changed original) (from improved lightning shield) (1) - Every time your health drops below 50%, you get a free lightning shield from the highest rank you have learnt. Lightning shield procs have 30% chance to give you 10% dodge for 5 sec. This buff cannot stack.
* Ancestral vigor (made-up) (3) - Recharges 5% (1,2,5) of the shaman's mana (not base) after a melee or spell crit. Cannot occur more than once every 3 seconds.
* Blasting strike (made-up) (1) - Adds a new talent to the shaman. A raptor strike- or heroic strke-like ability which adds a benefit to the next auto-attack for a low mana cost (low CD). Instead of +attack power it would give +crit chance for auto-attacks or +spell crit chance for shocks, whichever happens first after the auto-attack imbued with blasting strike.
At the third row, shaman tanks receive survavibility. I've put the +armor bonuses under ancestral guardian and moved the dodge under thunderhead. Thunderhead also became a valid tanking talent. It makes sure that you have lightning shield up (as shaman tanks' health fluctuates a lot) and instead of the base +5% dodge the original ancestral guardian gave, the shamans now have a 30% chance to receive a 10% dodge buff for 5 seconds every time a lightning shield orb procs. Ancestral vigor works as the main way to refill your mana and it further synergizes with the crit theme, while blasting strike is a new ability which can make a melee or a shock crit more probable via an autoattack for a low mana cost. Can't be spammed though, has a (lower) CD.
Current fourth row:
* Flurry (from thundering strikes) (5) - Adds 30% haste for the next 3 melee attacks after a melee crit.
* Spirit shield (3) - +30% armor on shields.
Flurry is perfect for the build I'm creating here. Spirit shield means 3 free talent slots, though.
New fourth row:
* Flurry (from thundering strikes) (5) - Adds 30% haste for the next 3 melee attacks after a melee crit.
* Two-handed mace specialization (made up) (3) - Adds 5% weapon skill for two-handed maces and grants 3% added melee hit chance if you have a two-handed mace equipped.
* Elemental devastation (changed original) (2) - Shock crits give you 20 melee attack power for 12 sec. Stackable 3 times.
This is mostly a DPS row. Tanks could use flurry for threat generation but shaman tank survivability mostly comes from shields, two-handed mace specialization is a dead talent for them. This also means that shaman tanks receive no hit chance support in the talent tree, they need to get those through items. Elemental devastation helps to hit bigger.
Current fifth row:
* Improved weapon totems (2) - +30% melee attack power bonus on windfury totem proc and +12% damage via flametongue totem.
* Elemental weapons (3) - +20% attack on rockbiter, windfury weapon effectiveness +40%, +15% damage via flametongue weapon or frostbrand weapon.
* Stormstrike (1) - Well... Stormstrike.
Improved weapon totems are in a weird spot. Windfury scales beautifully because the raiders' weapon through progression scale beautifully. Adding a flat number here helps but it is not very important. From the other hand, flametongue is used only by very niche shockadin and spellhance builds. It feels like not being here at all.
Elemental weapons are interesting but I will tweak them a bit.
Stormstrike has some real potential, though.
New fifth row:
* Improved earth shock (made-up) (1) - Removes the threat modifier from earth shock.
* Elemental weapons (changed original) (3) - +30% threat modifier and +3% spell hit chance on rockbiter, windfury weapon also providing 3% melee haste, flametongue weapon damage buff increases by 10% and is applied to shocks, too (school of damage depends on the shock which was in use) and frostbrand weapon also gives +3% spell crit chance for shocks.
* Stormstrike (changed original) (1) - The same ability except for the debuff it gives. Instead of the current one, applying the 'nature curse' (reducing nature rez by 75 and increasing nature damage by 10%). Works for 12 sec, stormstrike needs to be used on CD to keep the 'curse' on the target. Not stackable. If several shamans attack the same target, the new stormstrike always overwrites the old 'curse'.
* Improved defensive totem (made-up) (1) - Increases the threat generated by your stoneclaw totem, and makes it immune for 2 seconds.
Improved earth shock is for melee DPS, allowing them to use the biggest possible shock burst without worrying of overtaking threat.
For elemental weapons... Made each of them unique on its on way. Rockbiter is strictly for tanking. It lost the added damage. In exchange raised the threat output significantly. Flametongue weapon received a melee damage nerf and a shock damage buff, windfury weapon is +haste now and frostbrand makes sure that your shocks hit more often. Improved defensive totem is a tanking tool. It lets you generate additional aoe threat on a CD. Stormstrike (and enhancement specced shamans who actually intend to hit the target) received a huge utility boost via the missing 'nature curse'. For themselves, they can make it probable that their earth shocks won't get resisted. For the other's... They become a good friend of elemental shamans and moonkins.
Current sixth row:
* Weapon Mastery (5) - Increasing weapon damage by 10%.
Good one.
New sixth row:
* Weapon mastery (5) - Increasing weapon damage by 10%.
* Improved bursting totems (made-up) (1) - Increasing the damage done by magma totem by 10% and reduces fire nova totem activation delay by 1 sec.
Stormstrike debuff will be responsible to avoid your shocks being resisted (most of the time). This talent makes sure that if you give up on spell hit for the sake of melee crit during itemization, your shocks will still feel okay and will hit hard.
Current seventh row:
* Bloodlust (1) - Gives 20% haste for the target for 20 sec on a 5 min CD.
New seventh row:
* Bloodlust (changed original) (1) - Gives 20% haste for you for 20 sec on a 5 min CD. Every melee or spell crit you make reduces its CD by 10 sec.
* Protective shield (made-up) (1) - A new tanking talent. Doubles the armor of your shield for 5 sec on a 10 min CD.
Regarding bloodlust: I would make the spell more selfish. I think that this version of enhancement DPS would feel bad using its ultimate on another pumper while allowing bloodlust to have several beneficiaries (you and target/whole party) might be too strong.
I'd also give shaman tanks a defensive CD. Unlike the warrior's last stand its uptime is very short but in exchange its CD is more convenient, too.
What is the end result as a DPS?:
You are a valid support-DPS with a clear strategy now -> You set up your totems and lightning bolt the approaching opponent. You start with a shock, then punching, keeping up an ability which gives crit chance for your next strike. Melee crit makes shock CD smaller. You shock again, hoping for a crit to reduce bloodlust CD and to increase melee damage. Each melee crit makes the next shock come sooner and with added spell crit chance while flurry ensures that your 2H weapon swings are not that slow. If you are lucky with crits, bloodlust becomes an ability with low enough CD while the shocks come very often.
Is this balanced?
I think so. This shaman could output some disgusting damage comboing on crits but it lacks real CC and is really dependent on its gameplan to move smoothly. You go to PVP and a warrior disarms you. Your gameplan collapses. The opponent is stronger and you want to get away from melee range. No stun, no fear, only a shock with some movement impairment and a wolf form. An enemy interrupts you - your whole plan is a streamline of melee hits and shocks. Being stunned for some seconds destroys the CD bonuses you gathered.
In my opinion this kind of enhancement DPS would be good for PVE (specially for raids with many nature damage-using casters) but would be too dependent on its gameplay in solo PVP - not being able to force his gameplan on the opponent. It only works optimally if the opponent doesn't use CCs and lets the shaman do his thing with the crit fishings. Enhancement DPS would be a very good PVP teammate though, adding the usual utility paired with their raised damage output.
What is the end result as a tank?
20% more armor after the shield. Added threat to rockbiter to make threat-keeping easier. In case of big pulls, fire nova and magma totem generate aoe threat for you. If things go really badly, stoneclaw can be used as a second line of aoe threat. Lightning shields would be responsible for the original shield specialization talent's bonus and they would be reapplied automatically everytime the tank's HP goes below 50%. Instead of a passive 5% dodge bonus you can get 10% but only if you are lucky with the lightning shield procs. There is a shield-based defensive CD at your disposal. Earth shock becomes reliable. BUT! Still lower survavibility than a plate user. Great threat options but no direct taunt. Would be fun and maybe would be viable up until later raids but wouldn't be a challenger of a fury prot for example. Tbh I'd love to see shamans unironically tanking BWL sometimes and these changes might be enough for that.
What about the elemental shields?
These changes would make lightning shield the objectively best option for shaman tanks (as they are now but with a much greater margin).
Melee DPS shamans would have a bigger variety. In PVE they are only supposed to be hit by cleaves and aoe. If it happens, it is up to them if they want to damage the opponent, heal up some of the damage or get some mana. PVP also has some options - there a lightning shield might be the best choice for them.
Resto and ele would ignore lightning shield and go for earth or water.
Elemental weapons
I wanted to balance them out by giving each weapon enhancement a niche. You want to tank? Rockbiter. You miss your shocks too often? Frostbrand (instead of a passive +spell hit talent like nature's guidance, made +spell hit possible via weapon enhancements). You focus on proccing as fast as possible? Windfury. You want to make your procs (including shocks) as big as possible? Flametongue.
Final words:
In this article, I made enhancement shaman more selfish. Most of the talents here synergize with the shaman himself and I have put group utility somewhat to the backseat (except for enhanced totems and nature 'curse' - but even those exist only because they help the enhancement shaman, too). The reason behind this is that enhancement shamans already have enormous utility. WIndfury totem needs no further buff. 99% of the playerbase doesn't care about flametongue totem, it can be skipped, too. Made bloodlust a selfish spell as well. There are many baseline abilities which will always make shamans somewhat of a support class - mostly utility totems, the interrupt and the heal. These are things I could only correct by meddling with baseline abilities and locking some of them behind talent trees (for example not making chain heal available at the baseline or the same with windfury). This is something however which people hate (as far as I see). So I kept the utility core each shaman has and focused on giving them a valid DPS build on top of that.
The existence of totem twisting was an oversight and it stops shamans from fully playing the game, sacrificing GCDs every 10 seconds. In the theoretical world where I made these changes totem-twisting is no more.
