Enhancement PvP Gutted in MoP

Post by Dilbo

Thinking about rolling with enhancement for PvP? Think twice. With the new v5 series expansion a lot of what made enhancement shaman a formidable force has been gutted and I really feel like the changes made the class a lot less fun to play. Here's my take:

1) Wind Shear - 12 sec CD / 3 sec interrupt. The 5 sec CD 2 sec interrupt was fine for enhancement. I don't think elemental or resto shaman need a short CD ranged interrupt, but it was really the bread and butter of enhancement shaman to be able to lay some pressure on a caster.

2) Ancestral Swiftness - Running at 15% was fine; but now our baseline speed is normal, requiring us to settle for a lousy 8% speed improvement enchant. This would not be such a big problem if we still had an earthbind totem that remove snares but...

3) Windwalk Totem - Basically a raid-wide hand of freedom on a 1 min CD. The problem is that everyone has snares now and a 1 min CD is too long. It this were around 25 sec CD it would be fine. Choosing between this and frozen power is tough. Frozen power should be "baked in" to enhancement specialization.

4) Flurry - For years it was 30% and it was NEVER a problem, but now it's 15% plus half of the haste we get from our haste rating. We need a 10% haste rating for flurry to provide the same benefit as it has all along, however haste still isn't a very attractive stat compared to mastery.

5) Stormlash Totem - I like this but 5 min is too long for the CD. Our overall damage is pretty weak, but with totem down it's actually quite competitive. A 5 min CD is too long for an effect that lasts only 10 sec. Cut the CD down to 1.5 mins like mage's arcane power.

6) Feral Spirit - An awesome ability that keeps getting beat down...at one time this ability was an "i win" button, but it was nerfed by not being allowed to scale with relative damage - meaning that it was doing the same DPS at 85 as it did at 80. Today, it seems to do even less damage than it did before the patch. Decoupling spirit walk seemed like a good idea but I liked it just fine the way it was. Put the spirit walk back on the wolfs and give me back earthbind that removes snares.

7) Flametongue Weapon - Rather than dealing occasional fire damage in the 3000-6000 range it now deals very incremental damage with each strike. While a DPS calculator will say it's about the same, in terms of burst it is a huge nerf.

8) Windfury - Does not proc as often. That's all. Totally lame. It used to proc every 1-2 hits for me now I might see it proc once every 5-10 sec.

9) Level 75 Talents - None of these talents are particularly useful for enhancement. Conductivity is the closest to being helpful, but it requires us to drop healing rain and somehow keep the enemy in the healing rain area. Useless when dealing with a ranged class and any player that has half a brain.

I also really dislike the new totems. I really preferred the way things were and it would have been nice if they left that alone and just gave us some way of easily "warping" the totems to our current location.

TL;DR summary:

- We move too slow without the old ancestral swiftness talent
- Without imp. earthbind We do not have a way to clear snares effectively
- Flametongue nerfed substantially; overall damage is gimped
- Burst damage is not what it used to be, and it was never that high
- Wolves have been getting the "michael vick" treatment since their inception
- Stormlash totem is cool but CD is way too high
- Wind shear CD needs to be 5 sec for enhancement
- Windfury seems to proc a lot less than it did before.
- There are no useful enhancement pvp talents on the level 75 tier.
- Totems...where art thou?

Post by Jarkeler

Sure, shamans, and especially enhancement has seen some nerfs, but I still embrace the new changes, and continue to roll enhancement. I shall address each of your points in order to show my stance on the changes.

Wind Shear: Yes, its cooldown has been jacked up there, so it is a bit less useful, however the lockout has increased by one second. This one second can feel like a lifetime in PvP situations. In order to compliment the interrupt, toss down a grounding totem in order to keep pressure off of you and on your opponent.

Ancestral Swiftness: Seriously, I don't really miss it all that much. Sure, it was handy while it was around, but Ghost Wolf is now baseline instant cast, which allows you to run 30% faster. Glyph it, and it shall act like Cata-GW in that snares will not be as effective.

Windwalk Totem: It's cooldown is long for a reason. It affects not only you, but your entire raid for its duration. If you feel it useless in one to one situations, take Frozen Power. The talent itself has been buffed in that it does not require the target to be 15+ yards from you. Combine it with GW form and you'll be next to your target in no time.

Flurry: Well, alright, it's a nerf. There's nerfs and buffs to everything, such as enhance shamans losing the AP boost on Unleashed Fury. Fortunately, all class buffs were nerfed, so that balances out.

Stormlash Totem: Again, this is raid wide instead of just a self buff. If you pop Lust and throw down a Stormlash Totem, you can expect to see a serious spike in your group's damage output in those large-scale PvP bouts.

Feral Spirit: Okay, now I will admit that I'm a bit bummed about this handy ability being nerfed. Yes, it's cool that you can Spirit Walk without the wolves being active, however, they no longer stun, nor do they taunt (Which in a PvP situation, doesn't matter much, besides getting other's pets/minions off of you). Fortunately! We now have a 5 second AoE stun. Who doesn't love that! Paladins, eat your hearts out.

Flametongue Weapon: ...Wut. This weapon imbue never had a chance to deal extra fire damage (Not in cataclysm or wrath, anyway), but instead dealt fire damage with each strike, with its damage dependent upon weapon speed (slower weapon, higher damage per swing). You may be thinking of Frostbrand Weapon, which still is a chance on hit type of weapon imbue. Sidenote: All imbues last 60 mins up from 30. No more embarrassing moments of imbue-less weapons! (Well, less anyway)

Windfury: Can't really say much about this, as I would have to test it out myself.

Level 75 talents: Okay, so they're not that great, and they're centered around healing. But hey, a well placed Healing Tide Totem can spell the difference between victory and defeat.

About the new totems: I actually kinda like them. No longer must we shamans choose between a buff or utility totem. Now, our buffs innately emit from us. So, we can use all of our utility totems however we see fit. Not to mention dropping totems between every. Single. Pull, in a pve situation. This, I think, was dreadful. Now, we can spend less time tossing down totems and more time owning face.

One final note: You try Glyph of Healing Storm and combine it with Echo of the Elements and see how amazing it can be. Trust me, enhancement is as strong as ever.

Post by Dilbo

Ancestral Swiftness: Seriously, I don't really miss it all that much. Sure, it was handy while it was around, but Ghost Wolf is now baseline instant cast, which allows you to run 30% faster. Glyph it, and it shall act like Cata-GW in that snares will not be as effective.

For pvp that wolf glyph is a must-have or you'll be kited to no end. Keep in mind that ghost wolf is a spell, not a shape shift ability, so if you are silenced (as is often the case when fighting mages or hunters) you cannot use it. In the past I would drop an EB totem to remove snares and ancestral swiftness made it easier to get back in range without having to shift into a wolf.

Windwalk Totem: It's cooldown is long for a reason. It affects not only you, but your entire raid for its duration. If you feel it useless in one to one situations, take Frozen Power. The talent itself has been buffed in that it does not require the target to be 15+ yards from you. Combine it with GW form and you'll be next to your target in no time.

I can't see the benefit of a raid-wide snare immunity in pvp nor pve. This should have been identical to pally's hand of freedom, including a shorter CD. For pvp, frozen power is the optimal choice but I maintain that frozen power should be baseline for enhancement.

Flurry: Well, alright, it's a nerf. There's nerfs and buffs to everything, such as enhance shamans losing the AP boost on Unleashed Fury. Fortunately, all class buffs were nerfed, so that balances out.

Right, many classes were nerfed HOWEVER shaman damage was not incredibly high in the first place. According to recount my effective PvP DPS averaged across several BGs is in the 3,500 range. Prior to this patch it was closer to 5,000. That is a substantial drop-off. Meanwhile, mages, hunters and spriests' damage is in the 6000-7000 plus range right along side mine in the same bg situation. Even if I was free to attack within anyone fighting back I could not hope to deal 6000-7000 DPS in pvp as things are now.

Stormlash Totem: Again, this is raid wide instead of just a self buff. If you pop Lust and throw down a Stormlash Totem, you can expect to see a serious spike in your group's damage output in those large-scale PvP bouts.

Even without heroism this gives a substantial boost to damage that but the CD is too long and we have no other real DPS cooldown after the wolves were gutted even more. It needs to be in the 2-3 min range.

Fortunately! We now have a 5 second AoE stun. Who doesn't love that! Paladins, eat your hearts out.

The capacitor totem is virtually useless in pvp. It only stuns within a 10 yd radius and has a 5 sec warm-up time which means plenty of time for anyone with 1/8th of a brain to move away. Compare to mage's ring of frost or death knight's hungering cold...despite both of their abilities having short cast times they are far more useful.

Flametongue Weapon: ...Wut. This weapon imbue never had a chance to deal extra fire damage (Not in cataclysm or wrath, anyway), but instead dealt fire damage with each strike, with its damage dependent upon weapon speed (slower weapon, higher damage per swing). You may be thinking of Frostbrand Weapon, which still is a chance on hit type of weapon imbue.

Yes it did. FT weapon did add fire damage to your attacks and the amount it added was pretty good for burst. It has since been nerfed to a trickle of damage that even weak self-heals can negate. Frostbrand still does big damage occasionally instead of little damage always if you don't mind giving up the 40% buff to lava lash damage.

Windfury: Can't really say much about this, as I would have to test it out myself.

Apparently, and I'm still experimenting here, stacking haste for enhancement causes WF to proc alot more. Unfortunately it is not hitting as hard as it used to so...

Level 75 talents: Okay, so they're not that great, and they're centered around healing. But hey, a well placed Healing Tide Totem can spell the difference between victory and defeat.

I'd rather have more damage than more healing as enhancement.

About the new totems: I actually kinda like them. No longer must we shamans choose between a buff or utility totem. Now, our buffs innately emit from us. So, we can use all of our utility totems however we see fit. Not to mention dropping totems between every. Single. Pull, in a pve situation. This, I think, was dreadful. Now, we can spend less time tossing down totems and more time owning face.

Don't really care about pve and for pvp I had keybinds to call of the elements where you can drop any 4 totems in one GCD. This was fine for me. I would drop other totems as the situation required. I liked having healing stream down all the time giving me an extra 900-1000 healing every 2 sec. Now it's a 30 sec CD that heals better but is not constant. The only totem I "need" to drop now is searing.

One final note: You try Glyph of Healing Storm and combine it with Echo of the Elements and see how amazing it can be. Trust me, enhancement is as strong as ever.

Yeah I've been using this but to be honest, glyph of purge is much more useful in more situations than healing storm.

I'm still playing as my shaman and like I said above, seems like stacking up on haste is the way to go for now. I'm at 15% plus 10% from unleashed rage. My base weapon swing is 2 sec, and with flurry adding 22% they're nearly at 1.5 sec.

Prior to this patch you'd stack mastery after agility for enhance. Right now the best pvp stats seem to be like this:

Agility (whenever possible)
PvP Power to 25% or more (in blue & yellow sockets)
Hit to about 10%
Expertise to 5% (same priority as hit)
Haste to 15%
Mastery around 40% (remaining stat budget)
Crit to or about 25% (we lost elemental devastation; crit is more relevant now but we get this from gear plus agi so don't really need to reforge or gem for it)

That's pretty much what I'm working with right now. My actual stats are a bit higher than the ones I'm suggesting as target values.

Post by totemmunkey

The capacitor totem is virtually useless in pvp. It only stuns within a 10 yd radius and has a 5 sec warm-up time which means plenty of time for anyone with 1/8th of a brain to move away. Compare to mage's ring of frost or death knight's hungering cold...despite both of their abilities having short cast times they are far more useful.

Capacitor Totem + Totemic Projection = win.

Post by 997991

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Post by s8kerglen

You can't judge the class when it's not at it's Max lvl. I'll tell you atm I haven't seen anyone outdps me in pve content. Pvp wise we are much stronger out self healing is higher more DMg reducers more burst in general.

Post by 244253

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Post by Dilbo

Capacitor Totem + Totemic Projection = win.

No, that's still far to gimmicky to be effective in pvp, especially if you are being pressured. If the capacitor totem had that 5-sec charge time but did not detonate until a player was in range this would be more feasible.

If you think this talent was fine then you should be okay with casters getting a disarm on a 5 sec cool down right?

Uhh...most casters have a perma-cc called range along with roots and snares to keep a gap open...that, plus they do not need to hard-cast to be competitive since a lot of spells are now instant.

You can't judge the class when it's not at it's Max lvl. I'll tell you atm I haven't seen anyone outdps me in pve content. Pvp wise we are much stronger out self healing is higher more DMg reducers more burst in general.

Sure I can, and I did...and now that I am at 90 and geared to 460 I stand by my original post here. It's not a complaint; I'm just noting the changes that people who play as enhance will have to adapt to and workaround to continue enjoying this fun spec.

some are just your opinions with little thought behind them.

Hey now, no need to be condescending...

Starting with #4: Wrong, haste is pretty much equal to mastery at 90, sure it's a bit less attractive in pvp than pve but it's by no means a bad stat. Flurry is fine and I think it's great that they actually made haste scale better (in several ways actually, not only through Flurry). Crit is currently the worst secondary stat for Enhance by far.

It's not lost on me that they were trying to make haste a solid stat, but for pvp mastery > haste if you have to pick between the two because mastery yields more burst, especially when you pop ascendance.

Crit should not be written off, especially since they removed elemental devastation. Our non-crit damage is laughable and stormstrike does not make it ok to forego crit...in fact, I'd opt for crit over haste for pvp - especially because we still have unleashed wind.

Haste would actually be excellent for enhancement if they took a page out of the ret paladin's book and allowed it to reduce our CDs.

#7: I agree, the new flametounge mechanic feels a bit wonky for pvp (I'm talking about scaling up with searing totem stacks, it has always dealt damage on every hit, it never worked like frostbrand), will have to do a lot of testing though to see if it's actually worth using over frostbrand any more, I think both imbues will be more situational than ever.

With the pvp gear you can use FB and still have the 40% damage buff. For PVE you will want to use FT because unleashed fury (level 90 talent) places a debuff on your target that boosts lightning bolt dmg by 30%.

#8: Yeah I've noticed this too, don't know how it scales yet so it might get better with gear but it does feel weaker than before.

I can report that they seem to have hotfixed this or something, because it procs more often now than it did when I originally posted this.

#9: How on earth did you come to the conclusion that conductivity is the most useful? If anything that talent is by far the worst out of ALL talents for Enhancement, it just makes no sense in pvp.

How? By actually trying all 3 of them in various situations. Prior to conductivity I have frequently used instant healing rains in pvp situations so I'm already familiar with the feel for doing so. Conductivity buffs the effect of healing rain.

Conductivity works quite well when dealing with melee classes since we can keep them in the AoE. Dropping down a healing rain plus a healing stream totem, along with the bonus provided by conductivity, can provide a substantial survivability boost.

Ancestral Guidance is a decent talent to assist your healer, HTT as well is a big cooldown that heals a lot. Of course both of these can be negated by your enemy (CC or kite you when AG is up, destroying the HTT. This forces you to think before using them though, perhaps use the relocation talent for the totem and only popping AG when you know you can connect) but they're far more useful than Conductivity.

It's a matter of opinion as to which is more useful...and also the situation. Conductivity is practically worthless against ranged classes, but so is AG. HTT would tick for about as much as a healing rain dropped with MW5 and healing storm glyph (about 10K per 2 sec) with a greater AoE then healing rain, but a 3 min CD. None of these are as good as warrior's current implementation of second wind.

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Post by manicmania

1) Wind Shear - I don't think elemental or resto shaman need a short CD ranged interrupt.

That's a bit off base, a good ele pvp shaman knew when to throw his wind shear (every available chance) and it was as much a vital tool to elemental shaman as it was/is to enhancement shaman. Ranged dps hits us just as hard as it does you.

2) Ancestral Swiftness - Running at 15% was fine; but now our baseline speed is normal, requiring us to settle for a lousy 8% speed improvement enchant. This would not be such a big problem if we still had an earthbind totem that remove snares but...

It is clear that windwalk totem was meant to combat this. Why would you pickup earthbind totem rather than windwalker? Mobility is key to a shaman (as is demonstrated in the elementals ability to cast while moving, even now with the 5% debuff on haste.) And as mobility is a keystone to both your defense and offense it stands to reason that windwalker should be the choice in this equation.

3) Windwalk Totem - Basically a raid-wide hand of freedom on a 1 min CD. The problem is that everyone has snares now and a 1 min CD is too long. It this were around 25 sec CD it would be fine. Choosing between this and frozen power is tough. Frozen power should be "baked in" to enhancement specialization.

It would not be needless speculation to say that this will more than likely change. A lot of complaints have arisen from the length of the CD from windwalker on the forums, but bear in mind it's also coming from a class that, as you mentioned before, could remove and place snares at the drop of a hat with little to no cool down.

4) Flurry - For years it was 30% and it was NEVER a problem, but now it's 15% plus half of the haste we get from our haste rating. We need a 10% haste rating for flurry to provide the same benefit as it has all along, however haste still isn't a very attractive stat compared to mastery.
Frankly, this is a point that more enhancement shaman need to be concerned about in a pvp and pve environment both in the realm of haste scaling to other dps increasing stats and the amount we recieve from the proc.

6) Feral Spirit - An awesome ability that keeps getting beat down...at one time this ability was an "i win" button, but it was nerfed by not being allowed to scale with relative damage

This.

Flametongue Weapon - Rather than dealing occasional fire damage in the 3000-6000 range it now deals very incremental damage with each strike. While a DPS calculator will say it's about the same, in terms of burst it is a huge nerf.

I may not be enhancement, but I'm still a shaman, and I know enough about being a shaman to know that you can dress a turd in a pretty outfit, but it will always be a turd. That is the conclusion that should be come to about flametounge.

Post by Dilbo

That's a bit off base, a good ele pvp shaman knew when to throw his wind shear (every available chance) and it was as much a vital tool to elemental shaman as it was/is to enhancement shaman. Ranged dps hits us just as hard as it does you.

True enough, however elemental shaman are ranged classes themselves and hence can continue attacking from range while enhancement cannot, and since enhancement's casting abilities revolve around accumulating MW procs (i.e. banging on something), the argument can be made that the longer CD on windshear makes life for elemental shaman "a bit more difficult" while for enhancement its a sizable nerf.

Most of the windshear complaints were pvp-related and about resto druids - and that is perfectly logical because a healer with a 5 sec interrupt is OP. Both resto and elemental can hard-cast heal themselves without going OOM. Two or three hard-casted heals as enhance and you're out of gas, and healed for maybe 50K.

It is clear that windwalk totem was meant to combat this. Why would you pickup earthbind totem rather than windwalker? Mobility is key to a shaman (as is demonstrated in the elementals ability to cast while moving, even now with the 5% debuff on haste.) And as mobility is a keystone to both your defense and offense it stands to reason that windwalker should be the choice in this equation.

The choice for that tier of talents is:

Frozen Power (frost shock root)
Earthgrab Totem (buffed earthbind with AoE root)
Windwalk Totem

Of these three, Frozen Power is the best option for enhancement in pvp - either of the other two are just too much of a compromise in utility to be viable over frozen power. My assessment was that frozen power should be baseline for enhancement (it's not even necessary for ele or resto) thus making the option between the "earth power" snare cleans, earthbind of windwalk...would be far more logical.

It would not be needless speculation to say that this will more than likely change. A lot of complaints have arisen from the length of the CD from windwalker on the forums, but bear in mind it's also coming from a class that, as you mentioned before, could remove and place snares at the drop of a hat with little to no cool down.

Yes, however show me the threads upon threads of players complaining that enhancement's old snare removal ability was "OP". Ret paladins can now cast "hand of freedom" twice per CD (if they choose the clemency talent), making them immune to both roots AND snares. HoF has a 24 sec CD and 6s duration. If used each time the CD is up, they have 100% root/snare immunity for 12 sec every 12 sec.

Conversely, earthen power only removed snares (slow) not roots, and required that the shaman be within the totems 15 yd AoE. From my point of view I don't think depriving enhancement of this ability was justified.

Frankly, this is a point that more enhancement shaman need to be concerned about in a pvp and pve environment both in the realm of haste scaling to other dps increasing stats and the amount we recieve from the proc.

Right, the tooltip says "50% additional haste from items" which means that my original assessment was off. Flurry is actually weaker than I thought at this gear level, because the passive 10% buff we get from unleashed rage is not "haste from an item", so it remains unaffected by flurry.

My haste from items is about 4% now, which means with flurry up I have:

10% Unleashed Rage
15% Flurry
4% -> 6% From Items
= 31% total

Now compare this to how things were in cata:

30% Flurry
10% Windfury Totem
= 40% Without accounting for any haste on items.

We need 10% haste from items to equal what we had "baseline" in cata.

The positive aspect here is that haste now scales as iLVL increases, though it's debatable how valuable of a stat it is over mastery.

One thing I've been saying for a while is that we need haste to reduce our CDs as it does for ret paladins. That would really make haste the "no brainer" stat for enhancement.

6) Feral Spirit - An awesome ability that keeps getting beat down...at one time this ability was an "i win" button, but it was nerfed by not being allowed to scale with relative damage

This.

Just to clarify; I don't want Feral Spirit to become an "i win" button again; I just want it to bring a little more oomph to the table that one would expect from a 2 min CD.

I may not be enhancement, but I'm still a shaman, and I know enough about being a shaman to know that you can dress a turd in a pretty outfit, but it will always be a turd. That is the conclusion that should be come to about flametounge.

The buffs we get with FT weapon (30% more lightning bolt dmg and a small boost to flame shock) is ok, but in pvp frostbrand is a lot more useful.

As elemental, you may get more mileage out of rockbiter if you choose "unleashed fury", because you'll end up with 40% damage reduction on a 15 sec CD. That's as good as warriors' shield wall ability.

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Post by Dilbo

Are you still of the opinion that enhancement shamans are gutted?

Yes, I think a lot of the changes they made on a fundamental level were unnecessary and detrimental to the enhancement spec, and the additional abilities - while welcome - do not elevate enhancement to be inline with what other melee bring to the table for both dmg and survivability. We also lack an execute type ability which means it can take us a long time to finish off an opponent who can self heal or has heals nearby.

Being less fun to play is understandable but they're definitely not bad right now. Their only real weakness is poor survivability against physical dps. Hunters are already nerfed/getting another nerfbat and warriors will be tuned down. I think enh will be ok once the broken classes are brought in line.

Enhancement has poor survivability period and that isn't something new. Survivability is less now since we do not have GHW and require a valuable glyph spot to buff our heals to a reasonable level. For pvp we really need to use glyphs of sham rage, purge and ghost wolf so replacing any of them with healing storm would really be a handicap.

Enhancement PvP Gutted in MoP

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