Enhancement Shaman do great damage in PVE. No complaints. They are actually extremely valuable to a group, and while they may have some minor issues (such as Unleashed Rage's 5-pt cost versus Abomination Might's 2-pt cost with an additional 2% strength), they're just minor issues.

So why is damage so bad in PVP? And why are Enhancement Shaman just generally inferior in PVP to most other classes?

1) Enhancement damage comes from three major sources: Windfury, Lightning Bolt, and Earth Shock.

1a. Windfury Weapon requires melee range -- something that is difficult to achieve as a shaman. Once there, not only is melee range difficult to maintain, but Windfury is random; we can't trigger it on cue like an active ability. If it doesn't happen, 1/3 of our damage doesn't happen.

1b. Lightning Bolt is only a great source of damage with 5 procs of Maelstrom Weapon. This is yet another random number generator issue. If it doesn't happen, 1/3 of our damage doesn't happen. Furthermore, because most classes right now are putty against DPS classes, our normally subpar survivability is threatened beyond reason at the moment, meaning that any use of a 5-stack Maelstrom Weapon for the purpose of Lightning Bolt sacrifices any smidgeon of survivability that we gain through casting an instant Healing Wave. Unlike other classes, we lose 1/3 of our damage by opting in to use our survival-booster (instant Healing Wave).

1c. Earth Shock has great utility with interrupt. "Why didn't you interrupt that pyroblast?" "Because I used Earth Shock for damage." "Why didn't you kill that guy before he killed you?" "Because I saved Earth Shock for utility (to interrupt)." There's no winning with this ability. If we don't use it for damage, we lose 1/3 of our damage. If we do use it for damage, we lose our utility. If you think that's a fair trade off, also consider that we lose our only snare in the way of Frost Shock (thanks to shared cooldowns across all shocks), and then see 1a again.

2) Shaman, in general, lack mobility. Justify it. I am personally fine with immobility because, unlike the other more mobile classes, shaman fulfill that fantasy of being a huge, slow moving, lumbering wrecking ball. I am not fine with the fact that it goes unjustified. The problem is, we're not wrecking balls -- we're more like wadded up balls of sandpaper.

2a. Unjustified Immobility: Don't give us CC or anti-CC. Seriously. Don't. That isn't what a shaman is all about. Keep us as slow and immobile as we are. Don't make Ghost Wolf break snares; don't make Shamanistic Rage into The Beast Within. DO make us tougher. Make us tough as nails and extremely hard to kill. Make our lack of mobility JUSTIFIED.

2b. See Astral Shift -- that is a step in the right direction. Don't let me break free from stuns/fears/silences -- let me soak it up and revel in it. That's what a shaman is. Now... why isn't it also an Enhancement Shaman?

3) Suggestions: Our damage in PVP is horrible because we have to make sacrifice after sacrifice just to have a chance at getting into melee and staying there. We lose our damage by the time we gain the opportunity to deliver it.

3a. Justify Our Immobility: Like I already said, make our lack of mobility justified. Don't give us more; embrace our unique approach to battle and make us tough as nails.

3b. Take the Interrupt Off Earth Shock: That's right; I said it. Wind Shock interrupts. Let it be our interrupt. Remove the interrupt from Earth Shock and remove the shared cooldown between Wind Shock and all other shocks. To remove any confusion, change the name of Wind Shock -- make it called "Gale" or "Wind Blast" or something. Let us interrupt when we need it; let us use Earth Shock to deliver 1/3 of our damage. Seriously. We need it.

3c. Lower Our Reliability On the RNG: Windfury is cool. When it goes off, it's awesome. However, it is not so awesome that it makes up for all of the times that it doesn't go off. NERF WINDFURY. There, I said it. Tone down the damage on Windfury and up its proc rate. Dramatically. Dramatically. Let us deliver 1/3 of our damage after we fight for our lives to get into melee range. Don't make it so hard for us to get up there only to deny us 1/3 of our damage once we get there. To address the RNG and Maelstrom Weapon: I don't know. I don't have a suggestion for Maelstrom Weapon. You dug this hole, Blizzard. You figure this one out.

In summary:
We can't deliver our damage in PVP. Not reliably; not without great sacrifice to utility and survivability; not without a full team making up for our weakness.
Our immobility isn't justified. I love the idea behind it, but as it is currently implemented, it just isn't called for or fair or... fun.
Let us interrupt and damage; not sacrifice one for the other.

Of all the "help sham in pvp" suggestions i've seen i think i like your's the best. I think i could live with being stuck in place forever if i didnt die instantly, especially since every arena vent starts with "just kill the shammy first" it would be nice to do something besides drop a couple totems pop heroism and maybe get turned into a ghoul. Perhaps change what toughness is, greatly increase the armor bonus and take of the slow effect and swap it with earthen power in the tree to prevent double dipping (i dont see why thats so deep in the tree anyway, prolly jsut cause it was swapped from beta)
Unfortunately, i think blizz feels some sort of guilt about shaman pre BC, so this will join all the other pleas in the circle file.

Well, the majority of Enhance dps is around 30% auto-attacks, so that means 30% of our dps depends on being within melee range. Lighting Bolt can do a great deal of damage, but does come at a great risk, we would only use LB when we have close to or a full stack of 5 Maelstrom Weapon charges and when we do use that LB w/MSW we also require the Stormstrike debuff to be active on the target to do an extra 20% more damage, which it would count for 15% of our dps. This debuff also affect our Earth Shock which is about 20% of our dps, and Windfury Weapon doing a little over 15% of our damage. The remainder of our dps is Stormstrike, Lava Lash, and maybe Lightning Shield. This would mean that once we do get into melee range we would wreak havoc on them, but the problem is getting to them and keeping them there.

Enhance Shaman’s dps is also based off of procs and buffs: Stormstrike debuff, Maelstrom Weapon, Flurry, Unleashed Rage, Windfury, and Elemental Devastation. That’s why if Shamans were able to withstand being CCed and snared it could be justified with longevity and great damage, but just what could we do to accomplish this?

Toughness increases the armor contribution of the Shaman, this is great but to get the max potential from it we have to have a Shield on and any spec that constantly uses a shield benefits from it the most, so if we change the armor to Stamina every spec can benefit from it equally.

Stormstrike will only apply a debuff on the target if we hit them with it and encourages staying on the one target until the CD on SS is up, by making it a buff instead of a debuff so it can be easier to switch to different targets without the hassle of having to be within melee range for each target just so that Earth Shock and Lightning Bolt can have their max potential.

I would like it if Elemental Devastation was more effective in pvp, because it requires us to have enough spell crit to for it to activate over people with resil and when it does activate we have to be in melee range for it to be effective. It would also be great if Stormstrike had a 100% chance to activate Windfury as long as the hidden CD was up. As for Shocks having shared CDs and Earth Shock interrupting I really enjoy it and think it’s fine, if you can’t interrupt it Grounding Totem it, well you wont always have the opportunity to have them both be as effective to where you want it but its really helpful to have it in the first place.

I can't see why blizzard can't make mealstorm a spell that just copies a spell and makes it instant. Each rank lowers the cooldown by 1 second(and the final cooldown being like 6 seconds).

Yes, It removes the flexibility of the spell, being able to use healing wave one stack and then lightning bolt the next.

It does remove the PPM mechanic of it. You will ALWAYS have the spell you choose to copy any time the CD is up on mealstorm. I am also sure people would be able to set up macros to set what spell they want mealstorm to cast, thus giving kindof the same flexibility. ON top of that, blizzard would have alot easier time to balance mealstorm to were they want it.

100% agree with Wind Shock and Earth shock. They need to remove the interupt ability on Earth shock. It is just useless having two spells do the same thing.

Also before people say we have hex for a CC, Hex is not a hard CC in pvp. Hex is just a silence and a disarm. You can do anything you can do when you are silenced that does not need a weapon for. It doesn't even slow the speed.

I don't see why blizzard can't make some of the useless talents for PvE(like unleashed rage in 25 mans), also a PvP talent. It won't increase our PvE DPS if you make it stun resist, or something like that. They could make it that we unleash our rage when CCed; lowering damage taken, breaking one CC effect(with a nice long cooldown), or reflect part of the damage taken.

i think the interupt is fine, you still ahve grounding and tremor totems, we dont need to be able to interupt every cast, we do need to live long enough to do it though

It wasn't all that concise, haha, but it was more insightful and interesting than most shaman suggestions.

I've always liked the idea of improving stun resistance, which I perceive to be the main problem, without improving snare resistance any further.

Windfury is already being buffed by its glyph which will increase the proc rate to 25%. More than enough TBH.

Toughness should be buffed to provide at least 30-50% additional armor from items. This would help tons in the survivability department (mainly against other melee. We have plenty of defenses against casters).

Spirit weapons should receive the mana regen mechanic of shamanistic rage.

Shamanistic rage should have the mana regen mechanic removed and have the damage reduction increased to atleast 40-50%.\

The Shock cooldown needs to be separated by schools of magic. Flame shock and Frost Shock should be on the same cooldown and Earth Shock should be on its own. I agree Wind Shock should be a separate spell altogether so we do not have to choose between interrupt or damage.

Hex needs greater range. 20 yards almost guarantees that either your target is already in your face and ready with a kick or pummel or the target is already out of range.

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Toughness should be buffed to provide at least 30-50% additional armor from items. This would help tons in the survivability department (mainly against other melee. We have plenty of defenses against casters).

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Toughness should probably be buffed a little, but what I think enh really needs is a deep 1 or 2 point talent (or addition to an existing talent) that increases mitigation substantially at about the same time it becomes dependent on dual wielding. I.e. 30 or 35 pts in.

The main problem with enh shaman durability is the fact that it's not carrying a shield. This combines very poorly with its susceptibility to stuns and CC. I think it could use an additional 10% or so mitigation that's NOT available to elemental or resto. (Not to imply that elemental doesn't need further help of its own!)

In addition, still needs some anti-CC attention.

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Windfury is already being buffed by its glyph which will increase the proc rate to 25%. More than enough TBH.

Toughness should be buffed to provide at least 30-50% additional armor from items. This would help tons in the survivability department (mainly against other melee. We have plenty of defenses against casters).

Spirit weapons should receive the mana regen mechanic of shamanistic rage.

Shamanistic rage should have the mana regen mechanic removed and have the damage reduction increased to atleast 40-50%.\

The Shock cooldown needs to be separated by schools of magic. Flame shock and Frost Shock should be on the same cooldown and Earth Shock should be on its own. I agree Wind Shock should be a separate spell altogether so we do not have to choose between interrupt or damage.

Hex needs greater range. 20 yards almost guarantees that either your target is already in your face and ready with a kick or pummel or the target is already out of range.

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Too many instants now, we cant defend as we could against casters. Especially arcane mages. Grounding should spell reflect.

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Windfury is already being buffed by its glyph which will increase the proc rate to 25%. More than enough TBH.

Toughness should be buffed to provide at least 30-50% additional armor from items. This would help tons in the survivability department (mainly against other melee. We have plenty of defenses against casters).

Spirit weapons should receive the mana regen mechanic of shamanistic rage.

Shamanistic rage should have the mana regen mechanic removed and have the damage reduction increased to atleast 40-50%.\

The Shock cooldown needs to be separated by schools of magic. Flame shock and Frost Shock should be on the same cooldown and Earth Shock should be on its own. I agree Wind Shock should be a separate spell altogether so we do not have to choose between interrupt or damage.

Hex needs greater range. 20 yards almost guarantees that either your target is already in your face and ready with a kick or pummel or the target is already out of range.

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I agree with the above, but take exception slightly with the "plenty of defenses against casters." Unless you mean non-mage casters :)

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Too many instants now, we cant defend as we could against casters. Especially arcane mages. Grounding should spell reflect.

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Right here is the truth, there is so many instant spells being casted right now, grounding totem doesn't really help any more.

New rank of grounding totem that asorbs 2-3 spells maybe?

Felichnika, you might be a damn space goat, but I really like how you phrase the problems, and organize your posts, you're a great spokesperson for the shaman, in spite of our archaic design flaws and ridiculous problems with totem mobility, enhance mobility, and flawed design. Especially when it comes to elemental and enhancement.

Thanks for the work you do :}

Well one issue is that we have 2 separate 2 point talents that increase earthbind totem. Earthen Grasp and Earthen Power. If you ask me these should be combined and put in the first Tier to help shaman survivability.

Earthen Grasp: Increases the health of your Stoneclaw Totem by 10/20%. In addition your Earthbind Totem now has a 50/100% chance to remove all snare effects from your party members while increasing its range by a base 3/5 YARDS.

Then where earthen power sits we need a defensive talent.

Natural Shield: Using the knowledge of the elements, you fashion a shield onto your offhand weapon increasing armor by 2500/5000. In addition being struck in melee combat has a 5/10% chance to proc a charge of maelstrom weapon on the shaman. (5 second cooldown to balance maybe and would only work after getting 5 points in maelstrom weapon and would obviously have to scale with level on the armor)

Bumps for great justice!

Actually, I have more to say with regard to mages.

Grounding Totem and instant cast spells is a problem, but it's really only a minor problem when you consider the other issues that currently (and have in the distant past) plagued shaman. WoW recently introduced a new kind of effect with the DK's Anti-Magic Zone; make Grounding Totem do something similar, such as "Absorbs the next 5,000 damage cast at any raid member within range" so as to laugh at instant cast spells.

Increase the CD to 20 seconds, too. Shoot, the fewer reapplications of the same spell we shaman have to make, the better. We have enough as is.

Pretty easy and elegant fix for both enhancement and elemental would be to switch the positions of Earthen Power and Astral Shift. We give a lot of help to both specs just by switching 2 talents that are in the same level in both trees. (Would probably need to make Astral Shift a 2 point talent for this to work).

As the TC said, enhancement shamans at the moment are unjustifably prone to CC given their lack of survivability while crowd controlled. I don't like being so susceptible to crowd control, but I can live with it, literally, if I get some survivability to offset some of my vulnerabilities.

Also, currently there is *no* penalty for crowd controlling a shaman, the class most susceptible to CC in the game. Warriors get second wind if they spec into it, ret pallies get a hand of freedom that removes stuns if they spec into it PLUS a bubble, etc etc. There is no balance in creating a class that is this vulnerable to crowd control without adding some way to survive it.

By giving enhancement shamans astral shift there is finally a "penalty" for crowd controlling a shaman, decreased damage. So now other classes can stun us and do less damage against us or not stun us but do their normal damage.

The reason this change really works is because earthen power is an escape talent while astral shift is a close quarters survival talent. Enhancement shamans need to survive while getting close, elemental shamans need to be able to get away to survive.

Make the change on the PTR, let us test it out. If it creates more problems than it fixes then just don't implement it, but don't let shamans go another patch without a PVP fix!

That boost in survivability is only part of the problem. We still need to be able to deliver all of our damage without making sacrifices. Our PVP damage is less than half of our PVE damage. I know everyone's damage does down in PVP, but seriously... less than half.

If there weren't so many QQ threads, constructive threads like this could actually get some visibility.

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If there weren't so many QQ threads, constructive threads like this could actually get some visibility.

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Q u o t e:
If there weren't so many QQ threads, constructive threads like this could actually get some visibility.

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I know you guys are addressing Enhancement Shamans' PVP problems, but I myself will never engage in any kind of PVP. I can't stand it. I'd sooner drive rusty screws under my fingernails with a hammer than step foot inside an arena, BG or flag myself.

Some of these proposed fixes scare me as a raider, especially the recommendation to remove the mana regen from Shamanistic Rage. I need that in long fights, especially when there's no Judgment of Wisdom to go around, or after I've died, ankhed and need to get back in the fight. I can blow through my mana incredibly fast, especially when I'm lucky with quick Maelstrom Weapon five-stacks. An Enhancement Shaman with no mana in PVE is about as useful as a Retribution Paladin with no mana in PVE; that is to say, useless.

It's easy to get bent-out-of-shape about the pathetic state of Enhancement Shaman in PVP, but please think of the effect your ideas would have on PVE too.