Totem Talk: Enhancement talents in Mists of Pandaria
by Josh Myers 
Oct 29th 2011 at 6:00PM
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. Josh Myers once only tackled the hard questions about enhancement but has recently expanded his sphere of responsibility to all shaman DPS specs. (And no, two-handed enhancement is still never coming back.)
At BlizzCon last week, Blizzard unveiled its plans for an entirely new talent system in Cataclysm. Designed to try and eliminate cookie-cutter specs, the new talent system includes practically no DPS-increasing talents and focuses mainly on utility. (Don't fear losing some of your familiar talents; those are being rolled into the specs you choose at level 10.)
Part of the problem with utility talents is that they tend to gravitate toward becoming PVP talents, particularly when you reach max level. Sure, Frozen Power or Earthgrab Totem might be excellent for soloing, but at level cap, you rarely do much soloing. And the soloing you do do comes in two forms: soloing old raids, where the mobs would be immune anyway; and dailies and quests, where heightened gear levels will eventually allow you to blow away mobs in a Windfury proc.
That said, some of the tiers look like they will have potential. As a result, I'm going to do my best to keep my doubts about whether or not we'll actually be able to utilize some of this utility in check, and do a tier-by-tier review of the talent tree for enhancement in Mists of Pandaria. Please remember, these are all subject to change ... and hopefully, some of them do. (I highly recommend keeping up the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator in another tab while reading this, as since most of these spells don't exist yet in game, I can't link to them like I normally would.)
The first tier of talents is really nothing special for enhancement. Frozen Power seems the obvious choice. It's a fairly powerful ability for PVP enhancement right now and will be mildly useful while leveling when mobs manage to start running away from you. Repulsion Totem seems counterproductive for enhancement, but I wonder if there will be any way to creatively use it in a corner to keep someone locked down there. Earthgrab Totem could be potent team utility for organized PVP, but I can't see much of a use for it in PVP.
Tier two is one of my favorite tiers in the MoP tree. While I like Nature's Guardian and use it currently in my soloing-old-raids spec, it wouldn't be my first choice. Astral Shift is going to provide some really potent damage reduction and will probably be a no-brainer for PVP. Unfortunately, the 50% damage nerf while active is pretty painful for a PVE damage dealer, and if we still have Shamanistic Rage in MoP, I can't see Astral Shift as worth taking. Stone Bulwark Totem looks like it will be an improved Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem, and I've considered that a required major glyph since Cataclysm hit. SBT will probably be my main choice of this tier, especially if it does what Glyph of Stoneclaw never did: scale with AP or SP.
The next tier is full of situational ability. Both Windwalk Totem and Tranquil Mind Totem seem like very potent raid cooldowns, provided there are encounters with AOE snares or silence effects. For times when those cooldowns aren't needed, Improved Ghost Wolf is always a nice choice, though there generally aren't enough snares in PVE content for it to be too noticeable. The hardest part about this tier will be choosing which ability to use for PVP, I think.
Healing talents
The level 60 talents are my absolute favorite. This is the one tier that I actually really feel multiple compelling choices and the one that I hope makes it to Mists of Pandaria unscathed. Healing Tide Totem will be a mini-Tranquility, an excellent choice for fights with burst AOE damage. Ancestral Guidance is a potent single-target healing cooldown, transferring 40% of your damage done over the next 10 seconds to a nearby friendly target. With some careful maneuvering, this could function as a semi-tank cooldown, though not nearly as good as an actual healer's tank CD.
DPS talent? I thought these were just utility!
The next tier is significantly more mediocre, despite the fact that it's the personal cooldown tier. Elemental Mastery's 15% frost, fire and nature damage increase is nice, but the fact that it only gives spell haste means it will probably stay an elemental-only talent choice. Nature's Swiftness gives a passive 5% melee haste, but we have no guarantee haste will be any less pathetic for enhancement in MoP than it is now. Echo of the Elements seems like the only real choice. It seems nice, but it's not exactly a choice when it's our only option.
Unfortunately, the last tier of talents seems to be the worst of them all. Dealing entirely with totems, these talents seem a lot more suited to elemental and restoration than enhancement. Totemic Projection is something shaman have been asking about for forever but is nowhere near as vital for enhancement as it is for the caster specs. Totemic Restoration is good for PVP, but with bosses rarely attacking totems, I can't see much use for it in PVE. Elemental Harmony will most likely be my first choice, especially if it allows me to keep up Healing Stream Totem and Healing Tide Totem simultaneously.
The nice thing about these talents is that they're supposed to be easily changeable, because there are only two or three of them that I feel like I'd want to have all the time ... which seems fitting with Blizzard's intention. At any rate, I don't totally hate our Mists of Pandaria talent tree, and I'm interested to see what sort of changes it will see when we get into beta testing.
Show your totemic mastery by reading Totem Talk: Enhancement every week. We've got enhancement-specific advice on the latest gear and tier gear set bonuses, and we'll help you dig in and learn to level the enhancement way.Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk, Mists of Pandaria
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Rainstorm Oct 29th 2011 6:08PM
I guess this comment also applies to the other hybrid-class talent analyses done so far...
But, why is there an "enhancement talent" article when there are no more enhancement talents? Isn't the goal of the talent redesign to make all talents (now specific to the CLASS, not SPEC) attractive to all specs? And if not, isn't that a failure of the new system?
Mondi Oct 29th 2011 6:22PM
You could think of it more as a shaman talents preview as seen through the eyes of someone that picked Enhancement as their spec.
There will still be specs and you'll still get abilities depending on what specs you choose, you just don't have to choose them as talent points. Enhance will just be handed things like stormstrike, lava lash, wolves, etc... as they level, and won't get things like thunderstorm.
Diop Oct 29th 2011 6:30PM
There's still an enhancement spec which is going to look at talents with a particular viewpoint. I.e. the talents I take as enhancement will probably differ from the one I take as a Resto, therefore even though the same talents apply to all three specs, each spec will look at them a different way.
As an example, talking about the repulsion totem Josh says "Repulsion Totem seems counterproductive for enhancement" whereas I doubt a ele will think it counterproductive to push hostile mobs away.
WrecklessMEDIC Oct 29th 2011 10:54PM
Honestly, the new talent system is a failure in it's current state. Talents are either only good for one particular spec (ie. not enhancement) or there's one clear choice for PvP rogues, mages, paladins....etc. Trying to get rid of cookie-cutter builds is an exercise in futility Blizzard. Just give it up.
WrecklessMEDIC Oct 29th 2011 11:03PM
And yes, before anyone says it, I know this is just a sneak preview. Doesn't matter. You can't balance 3 different awesome abilities in each tier. 1 talent will ALWAYS be better than the other 2 for PvP.
Jack Mynock Oct 30th 2011 1:34AM
@wreck
Variable PvP specs almost always have more flexibility than PvE specs, so your argument about cookie cutter PvP was wrong before you even got started. The new system isn't remotely a failure because it provides more real choice between talents than the current system does, which is the design goal.
Now, the shaman tree specically? It's terrible, especially as enhancement. I imagine they're going to retool those dps cooldowns to be more attractive across the 3 specs, but at the moment enh doesn't have a good option. The last tier is just awful. Look at some of the other final tiers. The lvl 90 talnets shown here are neither good nor fun. The exception might be Elemental Harmony, but it's hard to tell without knowing the full range of totems we'll have in MoP. I wonder if we'll only be able to have four totems down at a time? Taken at face value the talent implies we could have very totem in our arsenal down at the same time.
WrecklessMEDIC Oct 30th 2011 9:32AM
@Jack
Yes, granted there are currently variable PvP specs. You will most likely have different talents depending on your team composition. That's obvious. But my point is the new talent system isn't going to change that. We will still have cookie-cutter builds dependant on your PvP team.
Blizzard says they want to eliminate cookie-cutter builds or they've failed in this new design. But they can't eliminate them. It's impossible. That's all I'm saying.
Is the new system interesting? Sure. Is it going to be better than our current design? No way to know for sure yet. Will it eliminate cookie-cutter builds? Not a chance. :)
Mondi Oct 29th 2011 6:36PM
I'm trying to stay completely on the fence on these talents, but so far they're just not doing it for me. Maybe it's just my old-timer "Back in my day" attitude shining through but talents were always one of those things that I really looked forward to. I used to have my next 10 or so talents picked out, and love going through the trees thinking about how much I wanted a certain one.
I'm not going to give up on them, and am looking forward to the beta when we can see how it all really plays out, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. Maybe they'll make a new ability for enhancement at level 90 so cool that I won't care at all about talents (Come on Wind Elemental!).
All I know for certain is that I hate playing the waiting game.
Also this new expansion would be a great time to bring back cleansing totem. I miss it so.
Diop Oct 29th 2011 6:47PM
Personally I really don't mind the change, you say you had 'the next 10' planned out but personally for me it was generally "where will I have to stick these 10 effing points to get to the next decent talent I want" kind of deal. This just cuts the middleman really for me.
I really love the concept of these new talents, make them all along a similar theme and you will actually have choice. Now a lot of people have been saying "there'll still be cookie cutter specs" but I really think this is a half truth, i.e. there will not be 1 spec for almost every situation, I really think you'll be swapping talents between bosses in a raid, but for most people of a spec those talents will be the same per boss.
I do hope some of the talents are made more interesting though, but we'll wait and see.
and cleansing totem will probably never return, it was crazily good in a lot of places that it was overpowered.
Mondi Oct 29th 2011 7:01PM
I know cleansing totem is probably gone for good, but the second I stop believing that's when it's truly dead and buried. I don't want to go there yet...
I'll keep on hoping that "Cataclysm was merely a setback!"
relmatos Oct 29th 2011 7:07PM
As an Enhancement Shaman PVE player, the talents really feel useless or that they'd be more useful to other specs.
Except for the ones at level 75, everything else feels that we were completely forgotten, that nothing really fits in the spec and that it really wont make much difference in whatever we choose.
I really dont like this new talent system.
It's bad enough that we always end up feeling like we're getting the Hunter Left Overs in Gear. Hope they change them to something more useful to Enhancement.
Diop Oct 29th 2011 6:40PM
Overall I'm pretty happy with the talents, I feel they achieve their purpose of providing some decent utility options for us which I'll be swapping in a case by case basis on the bosses. The one thing I am disappointed in is how weak the 'damage' tier seems to be for us. Elemental mastery we lose out on half the point of the cooldown in it being 'spell haste', Nature's Swiftness, well haste atm is awful for us though how it'll be in MOP we can't say, but an instant nature spell isn't particularly compelling, and echo of elements only duplicating spells, well LB and shocks aren't a particularly huge portion of my damage.
My main hope is that these are weak for Enhance because we're either a) getting a spec specific cooldown, b) wolves are being made good again and will do more damage in 30s than a good LL crit or c) this is just a first pass and they will be changed to include a 20% haste buff or work with all spells and attacks.
Pyromelter Oct 29th 2011 7:03PM
Compared to some other classes, I would have to agree. I'm with Josh when it comes to the healing tier, that does seem pretty darn fun (although I can't see anyone but resto using the healing rain talent). Choosing between Healing Tide and Ancestral Guidance, now that looks like the kind of "fun" utility that blizz seems to be aiming for. Liking it.
I'd have to imagine that there will be some tweaks to improve the talents for enhancement. Assuming this is just a start, it's a pretty good start. If the final tree ends up looking very similar to this, I'd be disappointed for the enhance spec. The final tier of talents is going to need some tweaking too.
Boobah Oct 29th 2011 7:18PM
Option (c) is clearly in full effect here. Like the talents for all the other classes, it's pretty obvious these things haven't been through any sort of balancing pass; it's more of a 'this is the sort of thing we're thinking about.'
That's almost surely part of why we've got this weird mix of new and exciting abilities juxtaposed with stuff ripped out of the cookie cutter version of a spec on live.
I find it more interesting to think about what they're going to be doing to totems, since the devs said something to the effect that all the long-term buff totems were going away, to be replaced with more powerful, short term things. Which implies something like Strength of Earth, instead of being a 'drop it once, use it all fight' sort of thing, will instead be a DPS cooldown. Watch out for whatever they do to prevent rampant shaman stacking, which might be as simple as totems often only affecting the shaman to some screwy debuff scheme like Bloodlust.
Although if we're going to be constantly dropping various totems, one can only hope many of them end up off the GCD.
Hih Oct 29th 2011 9:03PM
@Pyro: "although I can't see anyone but resto using the healing rain talent"
If that does end up being the case, I'm sure Blizzard will balance the talents. For example, "If cast with full Maelstrom, Healing Rain will refund 3 stacks, and causes your next Lava Burst will deal 10% more damage. (Work with me here, Druid's my main with a Resto Shaman alt. the LaB is supposed to be for Ele)"
Something to ease the pain of casting HR for the DR, but since it IS doing something, you can't expect to take away all the pain, but it also shouldn't be so awful to your dps that you just never want to use it ever.
Jack Mynock Oct 30th 2011 1:45AM
@boobah
Strength of Earth isn't going to be a dps cooldown. Maybe we'll get something like Battle Shout or horn of Winter. Maybe we won't be able to give the str/ agi buff at all (I doubt it, but TBH I don't remember the last time I was the only one able to provide this buff). Most likely the buffs our totems used to provide will simply be passives specific to each specialization, like how hybrid casters passively have 5% spell haste buff or SV hunters and frost dks passively have the 10% melee/ ranged haste buff.
DragonFireKai Oct 29th 2011 7:14PM
I think the real power of Elemental Harmony for enhance is going to be the ability to keep searing totem up while FE is up, or Searing Totem with Magma totem.
Boobah Oct 29th 2011 7:19PM
Nope. The devs have clarified that that talent won't allow stacking fire totems.
CVSoprano Oct 29th 2011 7:17PM
YOU... are writing about... RESTO??? The apocalypse is upon us.
Your humble servant,
Forreststump
matthias2479 Oct 29th 2011 7:38PM
It also is interesting to me from a group perspective when you run into multiple people with the same class/spec. You both can have different and hopefully meaningful utility to bring to the raid that sets both players apart even within the same class. For example 2 Enhance shamans (or really any dps class imo) really would be undesirable for a raid seeing as how it involves a lot of overlapping buffs and abilities, but with the new setup there is enough variance to at least merit another look