Enhancement in Cataclysm

Ok, so the preview brings up a lot of class changes only some of which impact Enhancement.

I'll go over them one by one.

Spells

Primal Strike (available at level 3): Primal Strike is a new weapon-based attack that every shaman will learn very early in the game. Our goal with this ability is to make leveling as Enhancement rather than as Elemental more viable, since many key Enhancement talents become available at fairly high levels

This is clarified further along in the thread by a blue. It will be replaced by Stormstrike. So move along, nothing to see here.

Unleash Weapon (level 81): Unleashes the power of your weapon enchants for additional effects (see below). A dual-wielding Enhancement shaman will activate the effects of both of their weapon enchants. Instant cast. 30-yard range. 15-second cooldown. Undispellable.

Here are a few examples of effects we're considering for this ability:

- Windfury Weapon – Hurls a spectral version of your weapon at a target, dealing 50% weapon damage and increasing the shaman's Haste for the next five swings.
- Flametongue Weapon – Deals instant Fire damage and buffs the shaman's next Fire attack by 20%.

Seems to be a straight up dps boost. A much better version of Lava Lash really, actually its more like Stormstrike with a different effect. The description makes it sound like it can be used at range. Either way it looks cool as hell.

Spiritwalker's Grace (level 85): When this self-targeted buff is active, your spells are no longer interrupted by movement and possibly even by your own attacks. This will give shaman of all three specs another way to heal or do damage when it’s necessary to move in both PvE and PvP. Instant cast. 10-second duration. 2-minute cooldown.

How much this is of use to Enhancement depends on that possibly. If it alows you to cast while autoattacking then I can see using this to get off a lava burst, otherwise I'd only see it being used during movemenet phases in PvE. In PvP I see this being pretty big.

Abilities
We're making changes to which classes and specs are able to dispel magic, diseases, curses, and poison, largely for PvP purposes. Shaman will have Cleanse Spirit as a baseline ability, but it will only remove curses. Restoration shaman will have a talent that will improve Cleanse Spirit so that it also removes magic. Shaman will no longer be able to remove poison.

So we get remove curse and lose remove toxins. Not a huge deal especially in PvE

Cleansing Totem will be removed from the game, as we want dispels to be a decision for players, not something done mindlessly. To that end, all dispels will cost slightly more mana, and you will waste the spell if you cast it when there is nothing to remove. (Currently, the dispel is only cast when there is something to remove, which encourages spamming 'just in case.") We will balance PvE dispelling with this new model in mind.

This is a bit of a bummer. It was nice to have as a fire and forget ability when needed on some fights.

Totem of Wrath now will replace Flametongue Totem for all shaman, and dropping this totem will buff the group's spell power by 4%. Elemental shaman will have a talent that lets all Fire totems provide +10% spell power, allowing them to drop Searing, Magma, or Fire Elemental Totems without losing their spell-damage buff. The 4% and 10% buffs will be exclusive with each other and with the warlock's Demonic Pact, so you can't benefit from all of them at once. We're also considering letting Elemental drop Searing Totem at range.

No idea how spellpower will work for us come Catacylsm. Its possible we will be dropping this from time to time if no elemental is in the raid.

We want to free up Enhancement global cooldowns to make the spec more dynamic to play. We're considering, for example, increasing the cooldown of Lava Lash so shaman have time to work other interesting abilities into their rotation.

Lava Lash is already near the bottom of our priority queue. To free up our GCD's a bigger help would be to either increase the duration of Magma Totem, or better yet, increase the single target damage of Searing Totem. Frankly I think we are already pretty dynamic. I dont know that anyone else has as many abilities they use in their standard rotation as we do.

Talents

Ancestral Knowledge will boost mana pool size, not Intellect.

Enhancing Totems will be replaced with Focused Strikes, which will improve the damage of the new spell Primal Strike and Stormstrike.

With the Mastery system, we're also considering removing a number of talents that grant passive bonuses, such as Mental Quickness, Improved Windfury Totem, Mental Dexterity, Call of Thunder, Tidal Mastery, Purification, Nature's Blessing, and others, to allow players more freedom to choose more interesting talents

Its almost pointless to guess at these right now as we have no idea how Blizzard will adress our Int/Mana situation. With Hunters switching from Mana to Focus, Mail likely isn't going to have Int anymore. Mental Quickness and Mental Dexterity will need to be changed. I'd like to see AK moved to either Ele or Resto. Its really doesnt fit with Enhancement. Losing both Enhancing Totems and Imp WF I don't like. It really homogonizes the buffs each spec brings.

Mastery

Enhancement
Melee damage
Melee Haste
Nature Damage : This will provide a passive bonus to the Nature damage dealt by the Enhancement shaman.

Yeah. That looks about right.

Overall its way to early to make any snap judgements. So far the only thing I'm really excited by is Unleash Weapon.