Enhancement Shaman Buffs

[Williamson75]

Thats a great idea. Its would help shaman power while leveling and open more options for shaman leveling. Also paladins but all shaman buffs are welcome

[Fishi]

But please as soon as possible switch tidal focus with totemic focus, the fact that i have to waste 5 points of talents on something completely useless just to get some hit is plain unreasonable.

[Premow]

So, as a long time enh player, I think that there could be changes to enable 2h and dual wielding at the same time.

My suggestions:

Flurry (or Elemental weapons) with 5 (or 3) points enables the change to proc an insta cast spell with reduced mana cost or none, this would scale with the attack speed of the weapon if using a 2hander, to make it viable for both. If a shock is used with this proc make it always crit. The change would be fine arround 7-10% for 2 handed an half for dual wielding.

Elemental devastation procs adds 1% spell power to auto attacks.

Weapon mastery, increased damage to 2.2% instead of 2% if its a 2hander, if dual wielding increases 0.7 and increases off-hand damage up to 50%.

Bloodlust now lasts 15 secs instead of 20.

As of racial to fix ele and enh dps:

Taurens as a racial for shaman get increased crit multiplier, like 2.2 in total instead of 2.
Trolls get shamanistic rage, making them sacrifice defenses to get mana back with autos and 5% extra damage for the next 10 autos lasts 10sec with a 1min cd.

[Williamson75]

Fine ideas. Would rather any maelstrom ideas go in place of bloodlust and have that be baseline.

[Fishi]

I kind of feel like while maelstrom is a sort of a copout, it feels very neccessery to have it as enh. I feel like there is no other convenient way to weave spells into the alone sadly underwhelming melee gameplay.
I would make it so that any critical strike contributes to a stack, and around 3 stacks you get one instant cast, or either it could proc based on a balancable trigger, like clearcasting.

[Premow]

Yes maelstrom is key, is that something that really makes enh shaman special you know, windfury might get all the clout, but maelstorm.. Enh shamans can't live without it.

[Nightowl]

Lack of Spell Hit will forever be a giant pain in the ass for Enhancement Shaman, and even for Elemental since the effort he waste on getting Hit Gear could have gone to getting better Spell Crit Gear.

I say take Resto's "Nature's Guidance" talent and move to Elemental Tree, then buff it to 5% melee hit and 10% spell hit or 10%melee and 10%spell. Now elemental only needs 8% Spell hit to hit bosses consistently, allowing the spec some freedom to start working towards crit much earlier than usual, and Enhacement can actually land his Shocks far more consistently than he currently does - 15% miss ratio with spells IS GIGATRASH on a spec where shocks already cost an arm and a leg. This also frees up Enhacement from always rushing that 3% hit in resto which never really allows him to have spread wings in elemental tree.

Some other interesting gameplay ideas that do not cop out with Maelstrom/Dual Wield argument, which was boiled down to Blizzard throwing in the tower of Enhacement's uniqueness, is to actually take a page out of Warrior's gameplay book. Enhancement Shaman always seemed to be like a Shaman who wanted to train himself to be more warrior-like hence why some of his talents were nearly identical to a degree - like Shield Spec, Flurry, Weapon Mastery etc. Why not expand that further?

You can add a Slam Ability (and a talent that reduces it from 2 to 1,5 sec), and a powerful Cooldown that reduces that Slam down to 1 second for like 10-15 seconds on some 2-5min cd. Now Shaman can spam slams with a big-ass 2h and easier proc those windfury procs, on positive note it's also complitely useless in pvp since NOBODY stands there, everyone moves all the freaking time so Slam is effectively useless in that enviorment but a godsend in pve.

Finally, some form of passive Mana-Return would be decent. Like nothing huge that will effectively allow Shaman to sustain himself forever, but something that can allow him to stay in the thick of battle for a while longer if situation calls for it. TBC Shamatic Rage was a decent talent. Alternatively you can add something akin to "each strike has a 10-20% chance to return x amount of mana". Now even if Shaman blows his load he can regenerate some of his mana by hitting things in a raid enviorment. If that's too hard you can cop out by going TBC route, and just add a passive talent that reduces mana cost of shocks by 45-50% because my god is that shit expensive.

None of these changes will catapult Shaman to top tier dps, which he shouldn't be considering his incredible support potential, but at the very least he'll start pulling some more weight as well as having a more interesting fun factor.

[Premow]

It looks like you are just asking for warrior with less attacks and shocks

[Nightowl]

It looks like you are just asking for warrior with less attacks and shocks

Impressive observation skills my friend.

[Williamson75]

Well that's who enhancement shamans learned from. They learned in lore meld physical with elemental. That's what I want to come through.

[Fishi]

How come there is no reply from any dev / community manager / mod on this thread?
I think the passion here for a fixed shaman is obvious, and fixes are desperately needed, especially now with the new patch coming

Don't forget threat. Threat sucks for us, there is not enough for a tank, and there is way too much for a dps. It has to be dealt with.

And just so that i know this suggestion is here too, make t2 3pc setbonus a deep resto talent, so that resto might become a worthwhile tree to invest in

[Kairion]

The server team rarely involves themselves in such discussions, but pretty sure they read much of it.

But that aside, what are they supposed to add here? "Yres your points are valid we turn enhancer into warrior 2.0"? Enhancement as a spec is such an amorphous blob. Things one player thinks are cumbersome about it is what defines enhancer for another player.
If you add dualwield, hes no longer classic shaman but TBC shaman, Same if you add spells like slam. Sure they would add dps, but it fundamentally changes how shaman plays.

The only thing that makes shaman actually playable without changing his spec identity massively is ridiculous amounts of free spellhit.
Edit: And that change doesn't even make him good, it just means he can hit stuff when throwing away his small manapool :D

[Fishi]

Then gib spellhit
But i get you.
I would be happy to see at least an acknowlegement from the dev team, any communication would be nice, even a "no, sorry, shaman is fine, deal with it", so that i can stop investing my interest and hopes into the topic.
I agree with what you say, though, it is an amorphous blob, but it sucks at almost everything its intended to do apart from maybe spamming chain heal and dropping wftotem. There is so much potential in there that could be worked on, it sets my brain on fire.
But also, my apologies for running away with this thought, but isn't the entire point of this thread to drastically change the playstyle of shaman, because either way to play enha is just sucky?
Please do not misunderstand, the last thing i want to see is choices taken away from people. Shaman is an amorphous blob; it should have the capability to meaningfully specialise in what the player enjoys the most from shaman and make that worthwhile to bring to group content. I don't want anything to be cut away from shaman's identity, on the contrary, i would keep the playstyle of shaman to be somewhat unique, but without starting to go in some directions, and experimenting a bit with abilities, I think we will just get stuck in the middle like we have been thus far. Changes can always be reverted. Shaman can still go back to shaman. But it is certain to me that it is lacking something. I don't want warrior 2.0, i'd love a functional melee shaman. I don't want fire mage 2.0, i'd love a functional elemental shaman. I cannot speak for resto. I am too much of a pussy to heal, i simply can't handle the responsibility, to be very honest, especially on HC which i frequent.
On the whole, i don't feel like enhancement shaman has a satisfactory identity. I love the 2h, i love the totems, wonky as they are, i love melee spiced up with some spells, but its sadly underwhelming, and needs a bit of juice. I, like, all of us, am human, and ran ahead with some pretty radical ideas, i don't think most if any of them will get recognized, or that they are any good in particular. But I do hope that we will get some affection that makes us at least functional in more ways than totem twisting, which shouldnt even be a feature, and either spamming chain heal, or bringing dps thats below the tank, or run out of mana halfway through a fight. Sorry for sounding rant-y. Communication is not my fortè.

[Ravenstone]

They probably won't ever respond here. I certainly wouldn't. Too many people would then approach them I think, or demand a reaponse.

It's hard to do anything to any class without completely changing the dynamic and feel of them. I seriously dislike the changes they've done to Paladin because of this. It's much more acceptable to tweak numbers. Shaman however was completely unfinished, and I still can't believe one of the main specs for Shamans in Vanilla was 51 in Resto. That's just terrible.

The number one thing would be to fix their spell hit. Everything else doesn't particularly matter before that. Even something like Stormstrike just guaranteeing your next two shocks hit would be a big boost to their dps.

[Fishi]

That's a much more reserved approach, and i can agree to it as well. And it still leaves many space for lots of potential tweaks and changes afterwards.

[Williamson75]

I am hoping for a separate forum post just acknowledging a small tweak or anything really. I don't care to get some long winded post that lacks passion but 2 sentences like we understand that shaman was unfinished in vanilla and we plan a small change or two. That's it and tack it on to any maintenance post or update post. I mean the new raid looks awesome it really does but I don't enjoy playing my shaman and certainly don't see it being fun for ele with all the nature res that is bound to be there.

[Nightowl]

I am hoping for a separate forum post just acknowledging a small tweak or anything really. I don't care to get some long winded post that lacks passion but 2 sentences like we understand that shaman was unfinished in vanilla and we plan a small change or two. That's it and tack it on to any maintenance post or update post. I mean the new raid looks awesome it really does but I don't enjoy playing my shaman and certainly don't see it being fun for ele with all the nature res that is bound to be there.

The manager class of turtle team operates like wanna-be politicians. They fear each and every potential misplaced word and hence would play extremely safe with everything they say. Nothing negative will ever be showcased or even implied for fear of drawback since....well this is a cutthroat enviorment with shills, gaslighting and groups that wish to put competition in a bad light. You can sort of understand, after all it IS a business. In general private wowservers developer and server admin community is a cesspool of humanity's worst; tons of drama, no team work and people are thrown under the bus constantly. Not saying that Turtle team is like that, but as a rule of thumb I say about 7/10 are like that.

What this means is that they won't particapate in these discussions because someone will get butthurt and then run off to reddit to spam "TURTLE WOW HATES SHAMAN, HORDE, PRIEST AND MICHAEL JACKSON, HERE IS WHY U SHOULD NOT PLAY THERE". Then the competition jumps on that bandwagoon, then some players who enjoy playing Shaman, Priest or listen to Michael Jackson go "well, fuck this shit then I go play somewhere else" and that's a no go on the business aspect. So at the end of the day it's better for them to be silent I guess. It is what it is unfortunately

And again, WoW servers are a business. I suspect that having players constantly online is far more profitable than most are aware of, and as such there's a competition of character/server assassination because then you get new players.

That aside, the nature resistance and lack of nature damage buff is a huge problem for elemental. I suppose you can put some spell penetration talent in elemental tree, but the debuff issue is harder to address. Well.... you can always add nature damage to warlock curse as well. Doesn't make sense that lightning wouldn't hurt you less when you're cursed with that kind of shit, right?

[Williamson75]

Well it's a shame that it's like that but I mean it's gotta make money to keep running. Spell pen in elemental would be ideal and maybe a few items in the new raid on leather caster gear to buff moonkin and shaman. The extra to the curse is another thing that works well

[Fishi]

So, if i' not wrong, in general, broad terms
-add some spellhit somehow ( xtra% melee hit could also xtra% spellhit for shaman, or at least enh?)
-fix the broken talents (and move some around in the resto tree so extra hit is not behind 5 wasted points if you don't heal?)
-make a way to sustain mana in longer fights
-add nature to curse of elements (how was it never in there to begin with? Insane)
-add / change gear and tier sets to be worth picking up even if you dont plan on healing
-add a way to reduce threat
in order to buff shaman without breaking the class identity? I think this list is very reasonable, and I don't feel like it would break the game, but on the other hand obviously I am not a developer.
I would still like to squeeze in totem and weapon imbue scaling, but I suspect that's just my personal fixation

[Nightowl]

So, if i' not wrong, in general, broad terms
-add some spellhit somehow ( xtra% melee hit could also xtra% spellhit for shaman, or at least enh?)
-fix the broken talents (and move some around in the resto tree so extra hit is not behind 5 wasted points if you don't heal?)
-make a way to sustain mana in longer fights
-add nature to curse of elements (how was it never in there to begin with? Insane)
-add / change gear and tier sets to be worth picking up even if you dont plan on healing
-add a way to reduce threat
in order to buff shaman without breaking the class identity? I think this list is very reasonable, and I don't feel like it would break the game, but on the other hand obviously I am not a developer.
I would still like to squeeze in totem and weapon imbue scaling, but I suspect that's just my personal fixation

Mana sustain or reduction of mana costs across the board for enhance would also be nice. Also an enhacement talent that combines totem twisting so that enhancement can actually spend mana on doing damage, but do make it high enough so that it gets hard for resto to double dip value.

Still not positive that it'll make Raid Shaman viable but I suppose it's a fine start

[Ravenstone]

Totem Twisting just shouldn't be a thing, the devs never wanted it, they just didn't bother fixing it because Shamans sucked anyway. Also, nothing would stop Resto's going Enhancement, they can function just fine with 20 points in Resto, as seen by the numerous ones getting Bloodlust.

I've been wondering why Ele Shaman doesn't have something like Warlock's Suppression talent, or any of the other numerous lower resist talents.

"Reduces the chance for enemies to resist your Affliction spells by 10%."

Either just for all Elemental spells, or even just for Shocks if it proves too strong for Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning. Replacing the Reverberation talent with that would alleviate the spell hit problem for Enhancement since it is low enough to get anyway. Ele's are fully spell casters anyway and it wouldn't make a difference in PvP.

[Williamson75]

Honestly its a good point considering every raid hates on ele with nature res

[Ravenstone]

I probably should've written it better. I wasn't suggesting the talent lower the nature resistance of the enemy, it was to lower the chance they resist your spells. Basically a +spell hit talent. Lower resistance should be somewhere else like Curse of the Elements or Stormstrike.

[Williamson75]

It's different, but functionally the same.

[Fishi]

Yeah but as a quick fix please swap the talents in resto and fix the broken enhancement totem talents, just as a band-aid that would be hella nice

[Kairion]

Totem Twisting just shouldn't be a thing, the devs never wanted it, they just didn't bother fixing it because Shamans sucked anyway. Also, nothing would stop Resto's going Enhancement, they can function just fine with 20 points in Resto, as seen by the numerous ones getting Bloodlust.

I've been wondering why Ele Shaman doesn't have something like Warlock's Suppression talent, or any of the other numerous lower resist talents.

"Reduces the chance for enemies to resist your Affliction spells by 10%."

Either just for all Elemental spells, or even just for Shocks if it proves too strong for Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning. Replacing the Reverberation talent with that would alleviate the spell hit problem for Enhancement since it is low enough to get anyway. Ele's are fully spell casters anyway and it wouldn't make a difference in PvP.

Totem twisting is a mechanic thats already existing in the game that makes enhancement shamans useful and gives him an area where he outperforms resto as well as giving him the option to profit from his grace of air when placed into a melee group (the place where he wants to be put)

It is what defines enhancer in pve and fills up all his empty cooldowns into a quite fun rotation.

Why would you want to take that away? He only gets worse and needs more arbitrary buffs to compensate for it if it gets removed. The only reason why its "bad" is because you dont have the mana to do it if you wanna spam shocks

[Ravenstone]

Well, I'm not exactly pushing for it to be removed, but at the same time I don't feel like it should be improved upon when from a design standpoint the WoW devs didn't want it to be a thing. I don't see how any buffs are arbitrary when the spec is just bad. I'd rather actually fix Shamans than lean more heavily into a quirk.

[Fishi]

Well, I'm not exactly pushing for it to be removed, but at the same time I don't feel like it should be improved upon when from a design standpoint the WoW devs didn't want it to be a thing. I don't see how any buffs are arbitrary when the spec is just bad. I'd rather actually fix Shamans than lean more heavily into a quirk.

Agreed

[Gantulga]

It is worth remembering that the talent tree is named enhancement and most of the talents focus on exactly that, enhancing others and yourself.
The supportive aspect of the class should never be diminished in favor of more zug.

[Ravenstone]

I don't think anyone here has said take it away or diminish it.

I said it shouldn't be a thing, but just to make it explicitly clear, I do not want it removed. I fully understand Shamans need all the help they can get right now. I'm just saying it shouldn't be built upon as was suggested earlier in the thread.

[Williamson75]

Yeah building on solely support is what makes a class disappear from the player stats. You will never get the appreciation for it. You will always be the first to be booted. Your a hard cap. Gearing will not be a prio over most other classes. You can preform your function in all green int gear just as well as epic loot. totem twisting is not a good feel for playing a class.

[Fishi]

I completely agree, and support is immensely crucial in what we do, but can we maybe have just a little bit more zug please?
It says a lot about enha that the most desired aspect of it is something that's mechanically broken and feels clunky to me, and even then, we are just about as desired as half a bag of chips someone accidentally sat on.
I'd love to see us not only be able to properly support our teammates, wether they be melee, caster or ranged, but also be able to provide a hefty slap on the side.

[Nightowl]

Totem Twisting just shouldn't be a thing, the devs never wanted it, they just didn't bother fixing it because Shamans sucked anyway. Also, nothing would stop Resto's going Enhancement, they can function just fine with 20 points in Resto, as seen by the numerous ones getting Bloodlust.

I've been wondering why Ele Shaman doesn't have something like Warlock's Suppression talent, or any of the other numerous lower resist talents.

"Reduces the chance for enemies to resist your Affliction spells by 10%."

Either just for all Elemental spells, or even just for Shocks if it proves too strong for Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning. Replacing the Reverberation talent with that would alleviate the spell hit problem for Enhancement since it is low enough to get anyway. Ele's are fully spell casters anyway and it wouldn't make a difference in PvP.

Totem twisting is a mechanic thats already existing in the game that makes enhancement shamans useful and gives him an area where he outperforms resto as well as giving him the option to profit from his grace of air when placed into a melee group (the place where he wants to be put)

It is what defines enhancer in pve and fills up all his empty cooldowns into a quite fun rotation.

Why would you want to take that away? He only gets worse and needs more arbitrary buffs to compensate for it if it gets removed. The only reason why its "bad" is because you dont have the mana to do it if you wanna spam shocks

The entirety of this comment can only be valid on a server where Paladin does not exist in its current state. If they're incapable of buffing classes without making them overpowered, then they might as well buff everyone else to that level.

Totem Twisting grants a minimal benefit to everyone else at the steep cost of Enhancement Shaman's own mana, which assuming he actually had decent stats for spell hit, he could have used for Shocks, or maybe a little bit of aoe. Being a buff bitch is only cool when it does not affect your gamestyle.

Quite frankly your argument is just retarded conservatism stemming from most likely warranted fear of devs accidently buffing shaman through the roof like they did with other classes. To which I say, stop considering this a pvp server. It's dead. Devs want it to be dead because their troon-carebear playerbase will get mowed down by the PvP Apes.

[Nightowl]

It is worth remembering that the talent tree is named enhancement and most of the talents focus on exactly that, enhancing others and yourself.
The supportive aspect of the class should never be diminished in favor of more zug.

Tell that to Paladin class who's currently outputting a lot of "zug" for a support. This argumentation is dead and the changes the devs do reflect that. Also nobody brings buff-bitch shaman to a party if they can get away with bringing someone else and Resto fills that role almost just as well because the talents that buff totems are minimal to begin with.

Enhancement needs to get buffs to damage that do not affect PvP, but since it's the current devs, it ain't happening. Either they're incapable of imagining such buffs, the coding is too complicated or they frankly just don't give a shit because they're PvE carebears anyway.

[Rafale]

I think a good way to improve Enh Shamans would be to improve Stormstrike with an effect linked to your active shield :
- Lightning Shield : Deals damage equal to 100% of the charge to nearby enemies
- Earth Shield : Restores health equal to 50% of the charge to you and nearby party members
- Water Shield : Restores mana equal to 50% of the charge to you and nearby party members

It would make them very welcome as support (not only for melees !) and will help them to compete with a 12 sec instant AOE