kaoticz

Why is stoneclaw totem glyph not baseline/merged into the talent at the top of the tree, Earth's Grasp?

And yah, I agree with most of what you said. Elemental Weapons does need a change to benefit Frostbrand. It would be nice if Lava Lash was guaranteed to be a critical strike whenever the Frostbrand Debuff is up on the target, that way we can keep Flurry up a little more to sort of help our problems with dealing any sort of reliable damage (maybe even proc elemental devastation??).

The best part about it is that it wouldn't affect PvE at all since we use Flametongue in PvE and the Frostbrand Debuff doesn't work on boss level mobs.

 

Adrammelech

Let me add that the sheer amount of trash buffs a lot of classes have reduces one of the major benefits of having a shaman around, of any spec. Trying to get freedom off a ret, or a BoP off a priest is laughable.

Further, eye for an eye is a bullshit spell and should be a physical effect like thorns. It almost completely negates the value of grounding.

 

Grundar

Purge used to be pretty powerful, now that so many buffs are immune it is rarely worth the effort

yet for some reason warriors can break bubbles now, maybe the game would have balanced better if purge was allowed to bubble break

from the beginning shaman were supposed to be anti pallys

it makes little sense to give it to warriors, it seems that warriors were in better all round shape anyway but lore wise would have fit very well with shaman

 

kaoticz

QFT

Fucking seriously pisses me off to no extent, that to be able to anticipate an HoJ/Repentance you have to pray Eye for an Eye doesn't eat your grounding totem or you're fucked. I believe it takes just a little bit of the finesse and skill of doing anticipatory actions for when you know whats coming just completely out of the game.

I mean you know whats coming, you perform the counter action to be prepared for it, and then you or someone else on your team crits the pally and he cancels your counter action without having to have done anything whatsoever.

 

Adrammelech

I don't think purge needs to break bubble. Typically priests and warriors don't have much synergy outside of 5's, so there are a variety of team comps that can pop the bubble. In classic Shaman rocked Paladins due to their seal system being a terrible design, and in truth I felt bad for them. I don't know if they were intended to be anti-paladins though.

I'd say the top offenders are Disc, Rets, and Resto druids. Depending on what you're fighting you might need some spell pen to deal with mage's 80 SR passive talents too, but that's a bracket/BG issue more than anything.

 

• Juice

What a ridiculous thing to say.

 

Adrammelech

Yeah, there's a lot of high rated war/priests running around? If you ever even see them together in 3's you typically need another class that's strong at peels for the priest.

To illustrate my point, the top 25 in 2's or 3's on Stormstrike feature zero warriors or priests on the same team. I also checked the top 10 of several other BG's including bloodlust and cyclone, none had the classes together.

 

• Juice

I read that as you saying priests and warriors don't synergize with other classes well (which is patently stupid, as priests and/or warriors are probably on 80% of the top 100 3s teams). I see now that you're saying they don't synergize well together. That maybe true...but who cares. It doesn't even have a place in this discussion.

 

Adrammelech

Perhaps I wrote it sloppy, but my point was with priests and warriors covering the ability to pop blocks and bubbles (and both existing on wildly varied comps) that giving such an ability to shamans would be overkill.

 

Fetzen

Maybe it would be, I think I agree on that. Shamans are extremely flexible through their large amount of totems for about every imaginable situation, aren't they? Maybe I overestimate that because my main is a mage, but I enjoy playing a shaman right because of that flexibility.

The larger the team is the bigger the benefit it gets from a (good) shaman who reacts fast, countering the enemies' teams setup with his totems. That of course counts for enhancers as well as for restos or elemental shamans. Our shocks and the ability to hex or purge enemies add to that, we can be a real pain in the ass already.

If I imagine we got the ability to break bubbles... I am still aware that you guys do have much more expertise with this, but since my rogue-chum and me touched the 1450 I feel like a big boy (well, getting some pubic hair at least, finally). So my opinion is this: The developers would fear that Enhancers get too powerful in 3s and 5s if they make them stronger for 2s. In 2s, the versability and flexibility doesnt help you so much - but if you buff Enhancers while solely looking at that bracket (for example by giving them an ability that can burst Palas bubbles), they might get too powerful in the larger brackets. They could literarily tear every team apart that counts on a Paladin, be it as a healer or as a retri.

And Juice, I would normally not talk back to a guy who... well, to you to be precise. But Hex isn't that crappy. Sheep is crappy, at least in PvP, because that fucker heals your target and breaks with the first point of damage the sheep takes. Of course it can be useful in pvp-situations, but I've really come to enjoy how you can use Hexx as a cc even on already wounded enemies.
How the maelstrom-change helps and/or hurts might be interesting to find out. An experienced Enhancer in the german PvP-Forums had some doubts about it. His argument: You often need the extra-damage from an instant chain-lightning, but will have a good chance of blowing your five Maelstrom-Charges from 3.2 on, as soon as you need to use Hex in the wrong moment. I found that convincing.

And again, to prove that I do at least have some arena-experience as an enhancer: Semmih, EU-Forscherliga is the character. We didn't get to fight matches this week, since my rogue is somewehere in Spain.

"These psychouts are mostly media inspired."
"The media inspires boredom. Not waking up one morning and butchering your kids. That takes something else, man."

 

Xieon

I'm looking forward to the changes, finally seperating Wind Shock is a great step for all aspects of play. Even if you don't personally have to interrupt, many shaman are forced to based on raid composition occasionally. The instant hex is a mixed bag, at first, I thought it would be great, as I often wished for hex on Maelstrom. But the counter is very compelling, Maelstrom 5-stacks are not always easy to come by in a match. Depending on how mobile the other team, there are some matches that I struggle to even build the initial 5 stack. Losing out of the burst from a MW_5 is certianly a concern.

Hex has always been a pain to use in arena for enhance. In general, all of our spells are instant cast, so the most likely cast bar they will see is hex. While I can try to pump fake or use a LHW to try to draw the interrupt, I do so at the cost of pressuring the opponent. Its one thing for a caster to try to fake out the interrupt, but my inabilty to stay on the target while playing the fake out game puts my team at a disadvantage. Putting it on MW is the right way to go.

I'll have to play with it more to offer more of an opinion, I'm unsure of which way it will play. I will like the instant hex, but the question will be if it costs me more matches than it wins for me. Though I'll also be focusing on 3s from here forward, so the dynamics will be different as it is.

 

• Juice

I think you'll have a hard time convincing anyone sheep is crappy, given it's spammable and lasts 10 (or is it 8 now?) seconds. It's not as strong as cyclone, as you point out it heals and breaks quickly and is dispellable, but it has superior range. But this isn't about sheep...

Hex is crappy imo because it has all the negative components of the other CCs in game with few of the really strong components. Look at psychic scream in comparison to hex. Instant cast, AE, faster cooldown, and the characters lose control of their characters. Hex combines a cooldown, very limited range, a cast bar unprotected from pushback while resto, 3 classes can dispell it and one class is immune to it while being able to dispell it, hexed characters retain control of their character, and hex breaks on damage as easily as fear does. Now I'm not opposed to hex breaking on damage, but putting it on the same level of fear is ignoring that hexed characters retain control over their position.

In its current form, Hex needs one (not more) of the follow changes: Remove cooldown. Instant Cast. Physical effect.

Any one of those changes can be supported in precedent based on other CC spells. Psychic scream is instant cast, fear is spammable, and cyclone is a physical effect. I could understand if blizzard didn't want healing classes to have spammable CC because they can neutralize a dps while healing themselves up...but that shit went out the window when druids got cyclone.

Regarding Maelstrom - I don't play enhance so my opinion isn't worth too much. I'd guess that hex is a bitch to get applied properly as enhance even more than as resto or elemental. Thus, having an instant cast option is highly valuable. Against comps with a druid where a CL would do more to secure a kill than a Hex (hots are rolling), it sounds like a nerf.

 

Fetzen

Well okay, point taken, your argumentation is very valid. If I understand you (or the undertones of how you see Hex) correctly, your thoughts are a bit more focused on using it as a defensive spell, shutting an opponent down when you really need to prevent getting you ass kicked (like a priest or warlock would use fear for example). I mostly saw it as an 'offensive' one, hexing a wounded healer and hopefulling bashing his brains out with one or two crits before he manages to turn back to humanoid. I was a bit single-minded there, and of course even in that scenario the cooldown is extremely cruel compared to other forms of cc. Hexing an off-warrior and having that bastard jump between your feet, following you wherever you go with that red gleaming in his eyes isn't a cool feeling either, accepted.

I guess we can be pretty sure that they introduced the spell with this cooldown to prevent it from just becoming another version of sheep in PvE. Another question of PvE-/PvP-Balance I guess - combined with tha fact that opponents keep movement control over their character is over the top.

"These psychouts are mostly media inspired."
"The media inspires boredom. Not waking up one morning and butchering your kids. That takes something else, man."

 

• Juice

Hex, just like sheep, often requires us to apply it to the one member of the enemy team who can dispel it. Against a PMR, the mage gets the hex. Against a resto shaman team, the shaman gets the hex. Against a druid team I most often hex the non druid just as we're about to swap to the druid, to give him no opportunity to dispel and protect himself.

Ideally, I try to hex the healer while we're moving to make a kill on a dps. I consider that an offensive application.

 

Fetzen

I would very much consider that an offensive application too and agree with you.

"These psychouts are mostly media inspired."
"The media inspires boredom. Not waking up one morning and butchering your kids. That takes something else, man."

 

Grundar

I saw in patch notes that mounting time is reduced to 1.5 seconds. I have not been able to find anything that mentions a change to ghost wolf speed or cast time. Is there any point to talenting instant ghost wolf for a minor increase in speed when mounting is so fast for 100% increase?

or am I missing something?

I really like instant ghost wolf for jumping down hills and building.

 

Fetzen

That is what they still have in the Patchnotes for 3.2. And if it is implemented like this it will make instant Ghost Wolf even more important and grant us some extra mobility, either to get away from opponents or get close to them faster. For Enhancers it might be more interesting to close the distance on a Healer, a Frostmage (especially comes to my mind) or a Hunter, but of course sometimes it's as important to quickly pull the finger when you have a Warrior or Retri on your ass.

"These psychouts are mostly media inspired."
"The media inspires boredom. Not waking up one morning and butchering your kids. That takes something else, man."

 

AlexS

I might restate a few things, but these things have always bothered me and probably a majority of you. I'm at 1400 rating with a Ret Paladin. Only seen 1 Enh shaman so far, we won

Frozen Power is a way of making Enh Shamans use Frostbrand on their OH. Now, what Blizzard lacked to do was make Elemental Weapons and Lava Lash benefit from Frostbrand. The suggested methods in this thread seemed very reasonable: Make Elemental Weapons increase chance to proc Frostbrand and make Lava Lash crit if with Frostbrand or decrease healing done by 20% for 10 seconds when imbued with Frostbrand?

With Tremor Totem, Earth Bind Totem, and now Stoneclaw Totem, it is just plain too much earth totem swapping. I have not played on the PTR so I don't know if the new interface makes it easier. Some of the possible fixes mentioned above were either make the shield a talent not a glyph, or the better one, in my opinion, link it instead to Tremor or Earthbind.

Toughness Talent: With the new changes done to Ghost Wolf, the movement duration seems less valuable. It will be very illogical, and Blizzard like, to keep it that way. Maybe reduce stun duration or some other benefit.

The big one HEX. The 5 MSW stacks to get this off is not as good as it sounds. Again, I don't play PTR, but often times I find it hard to get 5 stacks where I need it more for healing and getting the last HP off the target. The only advantage I see to this would be a very carefully timed Hex after landing a powerful crit. And then again, healing instead of casting the Hex could have saved your life.

Ghost Wolfs: Just a personal few things, but in a burst attempt at the begging of a fight, they always jump away from me, and I'm unable to get spirit walk. Increase the range by a little? Also, both the wolfs have a stun, but they both use it at the same time. And, it's always an auto stun. We should be able to manually select when to stun.

Purge: Great skill, yes it's very resistible, but still a great skill. Now, with 10 classes each having their own buffs, it is often hard to tell what is purge-able in the heat of a battle. Having a white outline around the buffs that can be purged will make this skill more used in arenas.(Mages seem to have this white outline around spells they can spell steal)

Browsing other forums, I have found two other suggestions that struck a note to me.
Having Maelstrom Weapon proc off getting hit. Maybe 10% per hit or adding an ICD. An example would be Honor Among Thieves in the rouge talent tree. This would only effect our PvP and leave our PvE damage unchanged.

-----------------------------------------------

That's all I have on skills, now about a strategy. When I am facing a druid healer or Disc priest, my partner and I just /facepalm. These encounters are very difficult as the druid's HoTs are instant and can be easily resisted by purge and LifeBloom heals when dispelled. Not only that, they are immune to my Hex, and my partner's Repentance. The only strategy we found would be save our CC until the druid pops out of tree form to cyclone. Then, we attempt to chain stun and hopefully kill him.

Disc Priests with Penance are almost unstoppable. Even if I have Earth Shock ready, I can't interrupt it fast enough before they get most of their Penance off to heal them up to full HP. We have to make it into a mana game and kill the shadow fiend(if that is what its called) when it gets out. It's hard with the mana burn, but we can accomplish this if my partner applies pressure to the dps while I interrupt/hex/purge shield and other buffs off to keep the priest from casting mana burn. People with a rouge\MS war as their partners find these encounters a lot easier because of the healing reduction.

Can anyone recommend a good strategy against these 2 classes?
Also, can a druid's innervate be purged?

 

Eva

The only (and in my opinion a big one) issue is that, as you mentioned different teams or situations require different totems. Now i know you can set up 3 different totem bars, but just recasting 4 totems because you want an earthbind totem instead of a tremor, or just repopping grounding is going to drain you of your mana pretty quick. It's obviously a great change that in the start of a match you just press 1 button to place your totems, but you still want binds for those totems that won't stay up for 5 minutes.

A nice change would be that whenever you cast a new grounding totem through one of the new totembinds, the server checks which totems are still active and does not replace those. The same can be done for different totems of 1 class. If you have the same air-fire-water totems in your 3 different totembars it would only replace the earth one.

 

Farosarg

Against a healing class it can also serve as a quite nice offensive ability. Think I saw it in someone's signature:

Healer casts healing at 50%, shaman shocks.
Healer tries casting again, Nova stun comes. (If done properly.)
Healer tries yet again, Instant Hex comes.
Healer tries again, shaman shocks.
Healer tries... well forget that. He's dead already.

And no I'm not forgetting instants, HoTs or passive healing abilities because this manouver will only be used when opponent is already pressured, purged clean and you running with cooldowns on. Removing the cooldown or lowering it would help in the matter tho.

In any case the changes that I'm seeing are all quite positive.

On second note: Juice I like Hex the way it currently is. Works ok for finishing opponents and peeling opponents. Only thing I don't like is Druids double negating it. In my opinion other CC abilities that are already quite imbalanced should be tuned down. Especially cyclone.

 

nevermind

I'm currently playing a druid at 2400 in arenas.

Innervate can be purged.

Ret paladins sometimes 100% me inside a HoJ SOLO, so there's definitely potential in killing one. You're playing a weird comp but I'd suggest this:

Open on the druid's partner. Save wolves/wings for later. Let the hots fall of the druid. At <2000 druids won't rebuff hots on themselves very often. Once hots are gone, repent your target and make a hard switch to the druid. Use wolves/wings. Start with a hammer and purge off hots if needed. If he survives he will have no choice but to use NS. You should be able to kill him since his only alternative is to cast channeled heals because hots won't keep him up. Sub 1800 I don't think many druids will try fakecasting your shocks.

Versus DKs, make sure to have grounding down because he will grip you off the druid when the repentance ends.

 

kaoticz

I think when he asked this it is because Barkskin 99% of the time is protecting Innervate if the druid has any clue as to what they're doing.

 

nevermind

If my math is correct, your chance of dispelling Innervate with Barkskin up goes as follows (1 buff = innvervate only):

#Buffs/%Chance to dispel

6/4.67%
5/9.33%
4/14.00%
3/18.67%
2/23.33%
1/28.00%

Without Barkskin:

6/11.67%
5/23.33%
4/35.00%
3/46.67%
2/58.33%
1/70.00%

The trick is to purge off buffs when you anticipate Innervate. I fought a disc/shaman priest and they stomped us - surprisingly. They made sure to dispel everything off my warrior during bursts, which forced me to expend extra mana. Eventually I ran OOM, the shaman purged me to no end. When I used innervate they spam purge/dispelled me and got it off.

 

panny

If you have a Druid in your team, it's far more effective to just Cyclone the Innervate.

SO anyway, I was pretty sick of Enhancement PvP and pretty much switched to my other chars but I started a 5v5 just for points and.... actually did pretty well. We hit 2k in about 140 games with minimal effort with an MMR of 2.2k. More importantly, games are actually fun! Instead of feeling terrrible because we have terrible peels, I can rely on my partners for that and focus on the utility and support. I can even use Hex when there's an opposing Druid if we split the map or CC him. With more than one healer, you're less likely to die one strangulate, the opposing team actually has to coordinate their healer distruption to kill you.

The comp is War/Frost Mage/Enh/Resto Druid/Disc Priest. So far, it seems like a pretty balanced team, with few hard counters. The amount of CC we have makes it feel like a Euro comp. We only have a single defensive dispell, but it doesn't seem to hurt us that badly so far. It seems quite good against tunnel visioning cleavers as if they leave our Frost Mage open, he'll destroy someone with Shatters and if they train him, he tends to kite them fairly well.

I really recommend people try 5s if they're getting depressed with 3s or 2s. You get to play a role that Enhancement is actually good in!

Fix Spirit Wolves not responding to commands.
DK/Rogue

 

kaoticz

Looking forward to the now (live) patch 3.2's changes to us for this season.

Between the changes to Shamanistic Rage, Earth Shock, Wind Shock to Wind Shear off shock cooldown, the base HP increase (meh), and the bug fix to Frostbrand not receiving the correct coefficient, we could be in a very good place now. Oh and I guess the resilience change to some extent.

Let me know how you're liking the changes after getting some games in, I know I'll post my feedback as well.