Possible changes to Enhancement Shamans

[Belle Hibiki]

BlizzCon revealed, apparently on accident, some of the buffs that are currently in the works for the Enhancement tree, which is currently hurting:

- 2H Axes and Maces will now be trainable.

- A talent will instead take the place of the previous 2H Talent that reduces the cost of your next Shock by 60% after scoring a melee critical hit. (This seems totally silly to me, as with the right gear you'd NEVER have to pay full price for a shock ever again. Probably will get turned down.)

- Mental Quickness: Mental Quickness will keep its current effect, but in addition will confer a bonus of 10/20/30% of your AP to your spell damage and healing. For example, if you have 1000 AP, you'll gain 300 Spell Damage and Healing. I'd like to say that while this sounds awesome, I think you'll really only see the benefit of this change when you're fully raid-buffed to over 2000 AP. Most enhancers have 1200 AP with the good ones hovering around 1400 unbuffed. At those AP ratings, the most that would be added to a LHW or a Shock would be ~180 damage, which isn't terribly much when your opponent's have over 10k hitpoints.

- Shamanistic Rage: Will have the same effect, but will also reduce all damage taken by 30% for the duration. Holy f'ing S.

All these changes are still in the planning stages, however. I'm glad that the Devs are finally looking at them, though.

[Android 14]

The Mental Quickness change is pretty awesome. Pop your cooldowns, full raid buffed, use Shamanistic rage and go nuts with shocks. You do a butload of melee and shock damage, and your mana bar goes up instead of down. I've seen them reach 3000+ AP when they do that, and at least 2.1K raid buffed normally. It's really quite nice.

[Belle Hibiki]

Yeah, it's nice in raids, but I tend to be more concerned with Arena/small-scale PvP.

[Ashe]

I've been following these changes and discussing it with some friends. I think this will overpower them to an extent... but I'm excited. These changes are exactly what my Shammy needs to make me want to play her again. I'm sick of the issues involving that class, and there is a reason there is such a lack despite it bringing so much to the table.

I also like that they are changing the leveling curve to make it much easier and faster for people to level to 70, so that new people aren't just stuck being left out.

[Belle Hibiki]

I don't think it makes Shamans overpowered; it still has yet to address the issue of Shamans not having a CC/anti-CC.

Shocks add 43% of spell damage, so they won't suddenly turn insane on most Shamans (~1200 AP unbuffed). SR is still dispelable.

Honestly, after reaching 70, I really wish I had rolled another class. I just don't have the will to level another character up all the way... maybe after Blizz tweaks the leveling.

[Android-18]

I've been run through many low level instances, and by various classes. My friend who is an enhancement shammy ran me through RFK and I was shocked by how quickly we cleared the place. It makes me want to level my shaman to 70.

[Belle Hibiki]

Enhancement Shamans do do ridiculous burst on anything pre-60. Actually, we do extremely good DPS even later, and I'm usually near the top of the damage charts in Karazhan and Gruul, even though I have shitty gear.

Enhancement's plight lies in PvP. Where they used to be the absolute kings at 60, a couple things happened when the cap was raised to 70:

1) Hitpoints scaled up massively in Blizz's effort to reduce the power of burst damage. As burst damage was what Enhancement excelled at, it's seen one of its main strengths in PvP dwindle.

2) Most classes have access now to crowd-controls or counters to a Shaman's abilities. I remember at 60 that mages weren't all that tough. Sure, they had an instant or two, but once they started having to use cast-times they were in trouble. Now I just get Skill Lanced to death.

3) No real useful ability 61-70 aside from Bloodlust. We got elementals, but with a 20 minute cooldown they're not really viable for BGs... and obviously impossible to use in Arenas. Bloodlust is awesome, but it's also on a high cooldown (10 minutes), so, again, isn't really useful aside from jacking your Arena team high on speed.

4) Though this is a PvE note, notice how people running Heroic instances are always looking for DPS/CC?

Guess what's the only DPS that doesn't have one.

[Tamsin]

4) Though this is a PvE note, notice how people running Heroic instances are always looking for DPS/CC?

Guess what's the only DPS that doesn't have one.

Wrong. DPS Druids also have no viable CCs PvE-wise. Entangling roots is useless indoors. Cyclone isn`t exactly a viable PvE CC due to it`s short duration. And there are very little beasts and no Dragonkins in instances so no use for Hibernate either.

The reason why people want DPS with CC is beacuse there is a lot of instances in which you need CC. In some cases, like Shattered Halls, it`s actually crucial that you have CC.

But Enhancment Shamans aren`t that poor off...at least PvE wise anyway. They bring a lot of utility to a party and do a lot of DPS. Infact, a friend of mine who plays a Shaman often produces large amounts of threat. During a Nightbane encounter when Nightbane was landing, he killed my Shaman friend first before he actually landed and faced the tank.

But I can`t comment on PvP since I don`t play PvP much. So if what you say is true, I hope their situation gets better.

[Ashe]

Not entirely true. I have a few friends as Fury Warriors and find it nearly impossible to fit them in for heroic runs.

Another issue regarding Shammies is their totem changes. Grounding Totem used to break me as a lock, catching every dot I threw till I realized it and wanded it. Now it catches one, then I have time to cast a full fledged nuke before it will catch another.

Same with Tremor Totem. I used to never be able to fear a shammy away from me b/c they'd just shake it off permanently and never truely leave. Now, it works in pulses, and there is a good chance they'll be out of range by the time it does leaving them actually screwed.

[Belle Hibiki]

Wrong. DPS Druids also have no viable CCs PvE-wise. Entangling roots is useless indoors. Cyclone isn`t exactly a viable PvE CC due to it`s short duration. And there are very little beasts and no Dragonkins in instances so no use for Hibernate either.

The reason why people want DPS with CC is beacuse there is a lot of instances in which you need CC. In some cases, like Shattered Halls, it`s actually crucial that you have CC.

But Enhancment Shamans aren`t that poor off...at least PvE wise anyway. They bring a lot of utility to a party and do a lot of DPS. Infact, a friend of mine who plays a Shaman often produces large amounts of threat. During a Nightbane encounter when Nightbane was landing, he killed my Shaman friend first before he actually landed and faced the tank.

But I can`t comment on PvP since I don`t play PvP much. So if what you say is true, I hope their situation gets better.

There is no instance that you actually need CC for except Shattered Halls, assuming your party members aren't retarded. The thing is that even if people don't need it, they perceive that they do because it makes the game so much easier.

Yeah, Enhancement is great for buffing a melee group in PvE. No doubt about that. That's why I said the problem was primarily in PvP.

And uh. Nightbane wipes aggro in the air before he lands. That's why your Shammy friend got raped. Congrats to him for not letting the MT get aggro back.