Cataclysm Beta: Enhancement talent preview
by Rich Maloy 
Jul 15th 2010 at 6:00PM
The way things stand now, leveling as enhancement doesn't feel like enhancement until the 30s, when we get Windfury, or 40s, when we currently get Dual Wield. That stretch of 20s and 30s really is rough right now, if you are true to the path of enhancement. Heck, even Faience from Choose My Adventure is feeling the pain of the lack of enhancement in the 20s. But no more! We will be enhancement from the beginning with dual wield plus hit, attack power conversion to spellpower and an off-hand attack!
The talent tree is highly streamlined, but with only 41 talent points to spend, we won't be painting the trees with points. I don't see any tough choices in the enhancement tree, and getting down to Feral Spirit should be easy with something like 0/31/0. The last 10 points could look something like 8/33/0, but that remains to be seen.
Ancestral Swiftness
Ancestral Swiftness will be amazing. On the recent Raid Warning shaman roundtable podcast, Rouncer and Juggy -- two enhancers who I respect a lot -- both emphasized the importance of run speed. We were talking about these things before the revised trees were released; at that time, Improved Ghost Wolf and Ancestral Swiftness were separate talents. They both said they'd max both out, even if it meant sacrificing points in passive damage components. The new combined talent is a perfect example of removing talent tree bloat and making each talent point impactful.
Mana regen
Primal Wisdom will be our big mana-returning talent. With this, we'll be gulping down goblets of mana squeezed from the pain we inflict on our foes. Drink it up, brothers and sisters, drink it up. Will our cup runneth over?
On a recent enhance simulation using the latest EnhSim, I had 110 procs per minute (PPM) for white damage, with 13.44% melee haste from gems and gear, before raid buffs. With a 40% chance to proc, that would give me 44 PPM of Primal Wisdom. Since I'm not in the beta *coughBlizzardinvitemepleasecough*, I'll just use my current mana levels to finish the calculation. I'm at 5,976 base mana, 5% of which is 299, which means at 44 PPM I'll have 13,156 mana return per minute. With no intellect on melee gear, we can expect our mana levels to stay around baseline; thus at those levels, we should be able to refill our mana pools 2.2 times per minute with continuous attacks.
Comparing Wrath to beta is not the ideal way to sim this stuff out, but with Primal Wisdom, Mental Quickness reducing the cost of instant-cast spells and Shamanistic Rage still in full force, our little blue bars should stay full.
Rotation
Our rotation hasn't been simplified yet, though. From all I can, tell we'll still be cooldown-starved at all times. Don't get me wrong, I love that about enhancement; it's one of my favorite things. Even in those rare moments when absolutely everything that could be on cooldown is on cooldown, even then I have something to do: refresh Lightning Shield or Magma Totem.
It looks like we'll drop from our rotation:
- Magma Totem replaced with Searing Totem
- Fire Nova does not work with Searing Totem
And adding to the selection of spells for enhancement:
- Searing Totem, as noted above
- Maelstrom Weapon Lava Bursts
- Unleash Elements
- Spirit Walker's Grace to use on the move
One talent that has piqued my curiosity is Elemental Precision. The spirit portion of this talent is a waste for us, but would the extra hit for fire, frost and nature spells boost our damage more than Call of Flame? It's too early to tell, and no doubt we'll have many revisions between now and then.
PvP
Lastly, I'll speculate a bit about enhancement in PvP, though I am admittedly not much of a PvPer these days. As I'm experimenting with builds, I wonder if Searing Flames and Improved Lava Lash will be worth taking at the sacrifice of some defensive abilities. Also, how many points should we put in Totemic Vigor? Will one point be enough to prevent drive-by totem killing, or will be need a full two points? An enhancement PvP spec could look something like 7/34/0.
Also, did you notice Frozen Power is gone? No more snare? Sure, we'll get an additional slow from Unleashed Weapon: Frostbrand, but we lose the damage buff and root effect. Plus Frostbrand is still not included in Elemental Weapons. This needs more development; I will surely miss the loss of the snare effect.
What do you think of the talents thus far? What would you like to see?
May all your hits be crits!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Delphenus Jul 15th 2010 6:22PM
Will Ghost wolf be usable indoors now?
kazeko.fuuga Jul 15th 2010 6:38PM
Yes.
Alchemistmerlin Jul 15th 2010 7:01PM
Best.
Change.
Ever.
Edge Jul 15th 2010 7:25PM
So much love this. SO MUCH LOVE THIS!!!
Angus Jul 15th 2010 6:36PM
You also didn't point out that Lightning Shield will only need to be refreshed when raid damage causes it to ru out of charges. The new Static Shock fixes that problem.
With GW indoors, I see enhance being a very fun spec again.
kazeko.fuuga Jul 15th 2010 6:41PM
I'll miss Frozen Power, even though I never really PvP'ed with it much =(
It seemed cool, and it was just implemented like last year....such a short run =(
Iirdan Jul 15th 2010 6:46PM
It was a longer run than it would have been, but it snared Blizzard's developers.
*rimshot*
kazeko.fuuga Jul 15th 2010 7:04PM
I see what you did there.
Edge Jul 15th 2010 7:30PM
My offspec on my Enh Shammy was Enh PvP, and I LOVED Frozen Power. Why, why why does Blizzard take but not giveth much to Shammy's? Ok well the thing that came to mind though, was the fact that we now have always available Wolf, and increase run speed. Maybe they felt a root was too much given so much mobility, that a snare would equal it out. Since as Enhance I play a support role, nothing was better than sitting back and rooting people for your DPS while purging them, or just rooting to keep people away from your siege engines. Just seems to me like 2 snares is 1 to many, without some kind of root.
my2cents Jul 15th 2010 9:02PM
GC has been talking a bit about CC lately, mainly about how it has become a sort of arms race. Spec x has a cc, so let's give spec y a counter to that. But soon spec x starts feeling like it lacks a reliable cc, so let's add another one. Oh but now spec z is getting screwed. Better give them a counter to spec x's new cc. On and on it goes. So they're taking out a whole of of the counter-cc's and a lot of the newer "bonus" cc's that were given out to compensate for the abundance of counters. So I wouldn't worry to much about cc and anti-cc talents/abilities at this point. They are still trying to figure out what to keep, and what to change or eliminate.
Wartitz Jul 15th 2010 6:49PM
"Frostbrand Weapon: Imbue the Shaman's weapon with frost. Each hit has a chance of causing 611.73 additional Frost damage and slowing the target's movement speed by 50% for 8 sec. Lasts 30 minutes.
( Unleash Weapon : Unleashing this enchantment deals 807.43 to 938.37 Frost damage to a target enemy and reduces their movement speed by 50% for 5 sec. Increased in effectiveness if the target is already afflicted by a movement-reducing Frost effect. )"
50+50 = 100
So unleashing your frostband on a slowed target is the same as rooting him. Right?
Mr. Clean Jul 15th 2010 7:07PM
300mph - 50% = 150mph
150mph - 50% = 75mph
75mph - 50% = 37.5mp
etc
etc
etc
Edge Jul 15th 2010 7:33PM
He is saying that you get 50% movement reduction from white hits of a frostbranded weapon, and then you unleash it and get the other 50%, equaling 100%. Good question seems like it would make sense considering the wording of the talent, but at the same time, it seems odd to make the root work basically opposite of what frozen power does (root only between 15 and 30 yards, vs now root only when you are within melee range). I'd like to get this clarified.
Stoneybaby Jul 15th 2010 8:23PM
From what I've heard, Mr. Clean is right. Though I'm not in the beta (as noted above BLIZZARDAREYOUREADINGTHIS?!) It's consistent with the way Blizzard does % buff/debuff stacking.
LB Jul 15th 2010 6:52PM
For PvP, I looked around a bit and settled with putting a few points in the Restoration tree (I know, right?) The end result became something like this:
http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#hhZf0GuhfdIu0h
KPB Jul 15th 2010 6:51PM
I expect that we won't be GCD limited anymore. The CD on lava lash has been increased. Fire Nova has been removed (at almost 25% of our mana pool it would be pretty hard to use anyway) and Searing totem has a much longer duration.
Figuring 1 fire nova every 8 seconds it totals to 12 GCDs per minute freed up with only 4 added back in from Unleash Elements. With good amounts of haste we can already get to the point were we are refreshing Lightning Shield or magma totem already so I don't see how 8 less abilities to use every minute isn't going to leave some space in the rotation.
Fallacy Jul 15th 2010 7:03PM
We have taken a HUGE hit there in one very significant way: One of our core DPS-increasing talents from the Elemental tree has become completely inaccessible to enhancement shaman: no more Elemental Fury for us.
Edge Jul 15th 2010 7:36PM
I know nobody ever used it (and people were insulted for using it in some cases) but I also used to love reverberation in my PvP spec, helped to make me more of a support class and keep casters in line and melee at a distance (with wind shear and frozen power)
SaintStryfe Jul 15th 2010 7:42PM
Minor quibble, but if we're going to be using two weapons, could we maybe get an icon without a sheild? Maybe the new Stormstrike Icon they advertised to use so heavily some patches back?
Hollow Leviathan Jul 15th 2010 9:09PM
I could have sworn it was a mask, not a shield. As in, the masks that now adorn the troll totems. It's also dripping blood a la Bloodlust.