With a new Raid Tier comes a new Set Bonus, and for Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible, the Enhancement Shaman set bonuses focus on Sundering:
- 2 piece: Casting Sundering grants 12% Mastery for 15 seconds.
- 4 piece: When Sundering hits a single target, you deal 30% increased Physical damage for 15 seconds. When Sundering strikes 2 or more targets, your next Chain Lightning deals 50% increased damage and refunds 100% of Maelstrom Weapon stacks consumed.
First off to get it out of the way, I’ll openly admit I’m biased against these bonuses (in their current iteration) and I do not like them at all, so take what I have to say here with a grain of salt.
To begin with though, I want to preface this with an important point I have seen. I don’t think there’s a problem with attaching the bonus to a talent (especially one that has been universally a 100% pick rate option throughout the expansion), and Sundering seems like a perfect candidate to do so (it’s a cool button!). The issues arise from specifically what the bonus gives and how often we gain access to it.
The Bonuses
Starting with the 2-piece. This is quite a dull boost and fairly flat in terms of gains (roughly 3% give or take depending on build) if used on cooldown. There isn’t much to say in terms of how it operates, it just further incentivizes using the button as soon as it’s available.
Now, the 4-piece is where the biggest problems lie. There are a number of problems throughout this and I think fundamentally there is so much wrong with it that it may be worth going back to the drawing board entirely. To go through them point by point:
- Enhancement has two builds currently, one leaning toward Physical damage, and one leaning toward Elemental damage. Even with a heavy Physical leaning, it still only deals roughly 40-45% of its total damage through this school, while other builds can be as low as 5%. This makes it an exceptionally low boost considering its cooldown (rough numbers are around 2.2% and 0.5% respectively). It further pushes us into one fairly one-note build, and cuts off a lot of talents we use extremely frequently, hurting the flexibility of what is currently an extremely versatile spec and talent tree.
- The activation methods are convoluted, and in some cases go directly against what some builds are trying to accomplish. In the case of a Physical build, the AoE bonus is effectively worthless, but it may find value from the Physical boost with Doom Winds. Unfortunately, that means you’ll need to fish out a single target to snipe with Sundering, but! One of the best buttons to pair with the Doom Winds window is an AoE Sundering hit to trigger Windfury Weapon (the things that need the Physical damage boost), so it directly blockades that interaction by forcing you to waste one of its activators.
- The AoE boost on its own also breaks the feedback loop of spend Maelstrom Weapon on Chain Lightning -> Crash Lightning to regenerate stacks -> consume Hailstorm or fill -> spend again. Instead we either waste the refund by doing this cycle, or waste the button presses/effects we gain from the Chain Lightning. All roads lead to waste and that’s never fun nor does it make for interesting gameplay choices.
- The Physical boost is too much like the 2-piece – it’s just a second buff gained, for the same duration as the 2-piece but for a different school. It’s not particularly creative nor does it add any meaningful gameplay or decision making, it’s like one bonus was carved into two.
Enhancement’s talent tree is, in my personal opinion, one of the best designed and balanced trees they have ever created (with some wrinkles, looking at you Deeply Rooted Elements), but with that comes an extremely delicate balance when adding new things in. The fact that two builds with separate goals can exist and have done for an entire patch is proof that build diversity can work, and I’d like to see that continue for both sides of the tree. Instead, what this bonus does by directly leaning to one side and doing nothing for the other, is offset that balance entirely and effectively asks the question: “Do you want a set bonus at all, or do you want to play with talents that suit the situation”, which I don’t think is one worth asking.
The Problems
Now, with the specifics of each bonus out of the way, attaching it to Sundering specifically in this way also has something worth noting. By enforcing a “use on CD” approach to the button, it heavily discourages something we use it for extremely frequently, especially in Mythic+: CC. This is one of our (admittedly many) tools to AoE lockdown groups and also shares DR with very few other spells, meaning we often hold it and sacrifice some damage for this bonus. Attaching so much additional weight with no redundancies or extra access to the ability makes that sacrifice sting a whole lot more, and I think that’s a distinct downgrade.
Tuning aside, personally I would like to see increased access to the ability if so much is going to be tied to it, or some redundancy if you choose to hold it. I understand there is a concern with adding even more CC into Enhancement’s toolkit, so if that is the route taken I’d like to see the CC from any procs or additional access reduced or removed to prevent it getting out of hand. A way to trigger Sundering outside of actively pressing it (through a ramping buff that triggers one at a set amount of stacks), perhaps also replacing it with a different spell effect to keep it on theme with the new raid. Alternatively, a second charge to allow us to “float” one, or a stacking increase to the buff or Sundering‘s damage itself the longer it remains on cooldown (with a limit) would all serve this relatively well. While not perfect, it goes some way toward making it less of a downgrade compared to the current live version.
On the whole, I would judge these bonuses as a distinct downgrade from the Vault of the Incarnates set bonuses. While they were also reworked slightly in the lead up to its launch, they were designed carefully to offset any potential leaning to one build or the other while still directly interacting with the toolkit, so much so that I think the 2-piece Maelstrom of Elements really belongs on the talent tree. I understand that’s not easy to do, and they nailed it with both of those, so it’s a shame that philosophy wasn’t carried forward with these bonuses.
