8770 beta bulid - enhancement tree

When last we left in Alpha, Koraa gave a few responses to the Enhancement Extravaganza thread. Namely, that Maelstrom Weapon would ~probably~ satisfy our desire for a new attack style, that the first 2 tiers of the tree were being rearranged and looked at some more, and that they'd find a different way to add some pvp mobility rather than stacking onto Shamanistic Rage. I think those things were accomplished.

Flow of the Tree
The standard builds for both PvE and PvP have a little variety in the first 4 tiers of talents, there are choices to be made based on play style and opponent. That's awesome, we like choice. Lets see more choice in the tree!

Tiers 5 - 8 though, are all about uniformity, staying with the crowd, blending in, not standing out. In short, 8 of 10 talents in Tiers 5, 6, 7, and 8 are required for the spec, regardless of PvP or PvE. There is no choice there - this isn't a case of "too much good stuff to pick up" either, these talents are mandatory for play as they define our very viability as a melee role.

Tiers 5-8 could really use some developer loving, possibly combining some talents, adding some new ones in their place that offer new PvE/PvP utility. Maybe add something in these tiers like a complement to the Resto tree's Cleanse Spirit talent (removes curses) and allow the Enhancement tree to remove Magic debuffs. In particular Elemental Weapons is a major sticking point for me, and its addressed in the next post. To reiterate, 8 out of 10 talents (over 20 talent points) are mandatory and offer no choice at all - these talents are Weapon Mastery, Elemental Weapons, Stormstrike and Improved Stormstrike, Dual Wielding and Improved Dual Wielding, Spirit Weapons and Shamanistic Rage.

Spectral Transformation is terrific, but I again raise the issue that Ghost Wolf is no longer a "travel form" for the shaman class as a whole - it is a vital mechanic to our survival in PvP (and sometimes PvE). As such, I think it that it merits that Spectral Transformation (Or improved Ghost Wolf earlier in the tree) should also provide the benefit of allowing Ghost Wolf to be used Indoors, so that it will work in any future indoor arenas, as well as in Instances. Adding the caveat of only increasing the speed by 30% indoors would bring the ability completely in line with the Druid Feral Swiftness talent.

Elemental Weapons
Two Thirds of this talent are effectively worthless to the Enhancement tree (not that the Flametongue or Frostbrand bonuses were ever very good nor highly sought after) because of change to Flametongue and the fact that after 4 years, Frostbrand Weapon is still pretty bad and undesirable compared to Windfury.

The remaining third, the bonus to Windfury, is basically a sham. That talent was specifically added to the tree around the 1.4 patch when Windfury was nerfed by removing some of its bonus so that resto and elemental shaman wouldn't have the same power as an enhancement shaman pre-TBC. In my opinion this talent needs to be acknowledged as no longer needed (no resto shaman in his right mind is going to be swinging a big 2H in a battleground anymore) and fold it back into the base bonus of Windfury Weapon. Replace the talent with something useful like, say, increasing damage done by our Off Hand weapon from Dual Wielding. Or put a pvp talent there? Either way this talent now stinks.

Shamanistic Rage
Still a great mainstay of the tree, early on in the alpha far too much was piled on the talent and those ideas were scrapped. It still presents the odd choice in PvP of either surviving a short burst or having the longevity to continue doing your job later in a fight. Its an odd pairing. I believe we were also told that SR was being looked into because of its streaky mana returns even when fully raid buffed. One of the major issues here is that Haste has a pretty bad effect with Shamanistic Rage, where the rate of mana returns actually drop when the ability is used in conjunction with haste potions, bloodlust, or leather working drums. This aspect of the mechanic should probably be examined especially since every Enhancement shaman is getting another 16% haste from the new Windfury Totem.

Maelstrom Weapon
Its fun, its snazzy, who doesn't like using instant Chain Lightning up close and personal? Current implementation is resetting the swing timer though and that really needs to get fixed, missing out on Windfury and white hits really isn't an option for us.

The problem that I've got with this talent is that the first 4 points are useless. Those talent points are lost to the Void never to be seen again. The goal of the talent is to get an instant cast spell for a tree designed around melee combat and instant cast spells. But we have to sink 5 points into it - nobody will every put less than 5 into that talent, and it won't be because we like it so much, it'll be because its mandatory. Its not like Reverbration, where I can make an interesting talent choice and say "well, 0.5 seconds off Shock Cooldowns is good enough, and that leaves me with 2 points to put over here...." You guys have said that the trees are about choice and individualization (to a point) - well this talent is helping to remove that. Its 5 points in Maelstrom, or no points in Maelstrom - and I don't think you're going to find anyone willing to skip the talent.


Mechanics Changes and Itemization
Specifically the changes to Ancestral Knowledge and the addtion of Mental Dexterity, 8 talent points to enable the use of Intellect on our DPS kit and entice Enhancement Shaman to actually use what has been till now Hunter-esque gear.

I foresee 2 problems with these talents and the mechanics they support.
1) In order to make use of the gear that the developers say they want us to use, I have to spend 3 talent points minimum, but probably the full 8 points because otherwise Intellect would still be slightly worse than taking leather gear with only Agility on it. Regardless, its a little unsettling that we have to spend so many points just to remove some item competition with the leather wearing classes.
2) As it stands I'm not really certain that the Intellect conversion is really going to be enough to turn the tide in the other direction. Remains to be seen as we need to see final itemization on items at level 80 and in the early raid zones to really make an informed decision here. I'm cautiously optimistic though.

Arenas
Its been brought up and elaborated on by people who play better than I do in arena. The spec is viable with several different compositions in the 3v3 and 5v5 brackets and there are many Enhancement Shaman who enjoy success at the highest rated levels. It is a difficult spec to play in pvp though, and dependent on a skilled player and skill team mates as well. There are certainly aspects that could be improved - mobility of course, though this looks to be getting addressed. Totem Macros in particular are the bane of Shamans in PvP (relevant to all 3 trees) and it would be great if there were a solution to Auto Totem Killing Macros.