I can't seem to get into Elemental.......

[Popesickle]

My buddy and I just started RAF about a month ago, after taking a year off the game. I have leveled a shaman to 82, mainly doing resto, while my friend tanked. I have yet to try out enhancement, but right now I just can't get into elemental, as much as I want to. I feel like the rotation is really boring, and lacking something.

Am I the only one that feels like shocks should either have there own separate cooldowns, or some changes need to be made?

What about something like when lightning shield reaches 7 charges, the cooldown on earth shock is reset, and/or when you get the instant cast lava burst, the cooldown on flame shock is reset?

Coming from a shadow priest during early cata, I personally enjoy dotting up multiple targets and then having an AoE ability as well. For AoE, spamming chain lightning is pretty boring, even with casting earthquake every time the cooldown is up.

Is there anything that changes at lvl 90 that makes elemental more exciting and/or challenging?

[allevia]

at 90 you get elemental blast, which adds to your rotation, but once you get higher ilvl's it drops down in usefulness when compared to primal elementalist.
elemental really is one of those specs that have very few abilities to use regularly. other than that, just hoping for more instant lava bursts is as much as they get to do.
enhancement however... omg, so many abilities in the priority list.

[Aleksej89]

Elemental's play style is about getting those uber duplicate procs (especially with echo of the elements passive), as well as being able to throw good off-healing and a lot of defensive aoe utility and even a neat AoE Stun Totem + the usual Hex.

If you want a complex dps rotation go for Moonkin druids or Demonology warlocks - Shamans tend to have simple dps rotations with a lot of available utility/healing for skilled players that can focus on DPSing AND providing their raid with the utility/healing that they need.

[thumbwarriordx]

Elemental Blast is a completely optional talent. There isn't a real reason to use it unless you're enhancement. It washes out with Primal Elementalist in PvE, use it if you want it, but burst is more fun to me.

You don't cast earthquake every time it's up. It's not good enough without a seriously high number of targets. Earthquake is like a Balance Druid's mushrooms, something to cast before you can hit your targets. Probably a good threat buffer for anyone living with a warrior tank and good gear.
It's not even optimal to put out a magma totem unless you have enough time left until your targets die.

The Ele shaman rotation is simpler than you think.

Shocks bind perfectly to left-scroll, middle-click, and right-scroll on your mouse. Can't put anything there you need to hit around the same time, but it's a good place to put stances or shocks.

You can run while casting lightning bolt. Do it, it's more fun.

[pkm]

Elemental play-style is repetitive even with the 90 talents but you gotta look at it from another point of view as well. I think its awesome because they wield the power of nature. If the spells were more flashy it would be fun to look at, at-least.

[Txiv]

It is hilarious how much I love running around bosses. Rarely do I stay still if I don't have to lol

The rotation is simple but that will set you up to be the mechanic hero on a lot of fights. I kick in Tortos, I solo ji kun platforms, I celestial on twins. Though my Dps is pretty good I know my guild really values the efforts and I will always have raid spots.

[Grubjuice]

i would not say Ele's rotation is any less simple and boring compared to an arcane or frost mage, ir a Destro lock.

But it has no where near the subtlety of, say a Demo Lock or a Balance Druid.


however, i would say that their spells are poorly balanced, when a single spell makes up 66% of your damage (chain lightning on AoE or LvB on single target) then i think it is fair to say your spells are inelegantly balanced.

[Foogyjenkins]

Defiantly an easier class to play if ur ele, but certain situations will call for min maxing and that's when you can tell a good ele from great. You won't believe how many people ask for help on these forums because there dps is low as ele regardless of good gear. I'd say give it a try and when you start raiding see if you keep up. May be easy to play but do not under estimate it, forget to apply flame shock or use to many lightning bolts past a 7 stack earth shock and you look very noobish.

[Tokas]

yeah we've got it a little easier, and thank god, look at enhancement...

[Krekko]

Elemental play-style is repetitive even with the 90 talents but you gotta look at it from another point of view as well. I think its awesome because they wield the power of nature. If the spells were more flashy it would be fun to look at, at-least.

I agree with your whole statement, especially the final line. I think that elemental lacks the "shock and awe" aspect that many other specs do.

That's not to say that I don't wish things were different, just I also would love to see it progress further visually. I mean, it's one of the coolest conceptual specs in game and it feels too flat.

That said, it's hard to judge how a class would play at 90, and it'd be nice to have a way to "preview" the classes in a basic environment (eternal PTR) so you know how it will pan out.

I'd just wait until 90 to see how you feel. It's not that far off, but you might end up loving it with how it plays out in the long run.

[Popesickle]

I think another thing that annoys me is that I feel like a caster that facetanks mobs, if that makes any sense. If I don't kill something by the time it reaches me, I just end up casting while it beats on me, and then heal up after it's dead. Another issue with shocks sharing cooldown, if I want to snare something with frost shock, then I can't hit it with flame shock. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. When you are on a quest that says "kill x of these guys", how do you typically start attacking? Lightning bolt x 2, flame shock, lava burst? Something along those lines? It just seems to easy, even if something reaches you and beats on you, you are almost guaranteed to have a clearcast proc to cast a heal.

[Sierra85]

I think another thing that annoys me is that I feel like a caster that facetanks mobs, if that makes any sense. If I don't kill something by the time it reaches me, I just end up casting while it beats on me, and then heal up after it's dead.

To be fair, shamans have been face tanking since vanilla.

[CHRONICGODX]

im echo/UF because my rotation wasnt downs enough for me as it was.

[hatchetman240]

If you want a complex dps rotation go for Moonkin druids or Demonology warlocks - Shamans tend to have simple dps rotations with a lot of available utility/healing for skilled players that can focus on DPSing AND providing their raid with the utility/healing that they need.

I agree, but once you start to explore the depth of your utility the rotation gets a lot muddier. The other night I took PE and conductivity on Council and it felt like a whole new class. Multidotting, chain lightning and lava burst provided a very interesting balance. I found it especially useful when Frost King was empowered and the DOT person ran into melee, I could supplement the healing for the DOT with my conductivity (we keep everyone but Kaz stacked up). I almost never actually cast my LvB, just hit the procs between chain lightnings, I wasted a lot of Earth Shock due to keeping multi-dot on 4 targets, but my first two ascendances were something like 1:45 apart and that felt really good. I posted my best numbers of the expansion on council using this method and I was still able to provide some timely healing.

Elemental shaman is brainless if you don't adjust yourself from the cookie cutter. There's some good fights for us out there.

It is hilarious how much I love running around bosses. Rarely do I stay still if I don't have to lol

The rotation is simple but that will set you up to be the mechanic hero on a lot of fights. I kick in Tortos, I solo ji kun platforms, I celestial on twins. Though my Dps is pretty good I know my guild really values the efforts and I will always have raid spots.

Tell me more about your solo platforms. You mean on normal mode, yes? Do you do the whole thing like that (as in all platforms with no help)? Do you go conductivity there? Do you collect the food or just arrive early and dump the platform before the food lands? When you're on the upper nests do you find it better to just do your single rotation subbing CL for LB and then single down the second egg? I want to try this tonight.

[Corixa]

how is moonkin complex? I'm probably missing something in the rotation..

What about something like when lightning shield reaches 7 charges, the cooldown on earth shock is reset, and/or when you get the instant cast lava burst, the cooldown on flame shock is reset?

wouldn't this be more boring? since you wont have to make the decision to flame shock or earth shock.

[Zacc]

As a Elemental Shaman I feel there isn't a very high skill cap on playing an elemental shaman. They can be fun depending on what you like (I really enjoy it), and they can be very useful (I.E. Heroic Durumu). But YES the rotation is very simple and even more simple if you are taking PE as your level 90 talent and there isn't much to the class. Playing long enough you know how to time your shocks, when you should cast Chain Lightning, and when you should be spreading Flame Shocks. But there honestly arnt that many elemental shamans out there and most raid groups are looking for a great elemental shaman.

[papajohn4]

Nothing is bad with a simple rotation...sometimes you want to relax and play an easy class. Not everyone want to play piano on the keyboard And as other said, you have to think yourself more as a support class and help the group with your utility spells and your off heals. Is like the old argument for retri paladins that are simply and boring while nobody have played them on their full potential. So you have the option to play the easy way but you also have the option to make it more complex by changing your philosophy and playstyle to be more supportive than pure DPS

[thumbwarriordx]

Multi-dotting just sucks. Druids are the ones who get to enjoy it. They actually gain damage on their target, we lose damage on our target and it boils down to more cleave. It takes too long to apply the flame shocks, which share a cooldown with Earth Shock, blocking you from burning the fulmination charges that you're generating at a very quick pace. The value of chain lightning is really high, and part of that value is the fulmination charges you can burn. It isn't bad, it's just thoroughly unpleasant to do with flame shock, when it's exclusive with damage from other sources.

Multidotting is a good way to exploit haste procs though, you can get 3 flame shocks out in 11 seconds, if you can get 2 or 3 of them to be hasted, you can consider that investing your trinket proc for more lava bursts later, especially when chain lightning is such a short cast and can get capped.
Multidotting is still a mechanic that helps us but not so much as druids. We can't really justify multidotting Megaera, but if something needs to die eventually and isn't going to get healed to full, go for it.

/cast [modifier:shift,@mouseover,harm,nodead] [nomod:shift,@target] Flame Shock;

[Txiv]

I agree, but once you start to explore the depth of your utility the rotation gets a lot muddier. The other night I took PE and conductivity on Council and it felt like a whole new class. Multidotting, chain lightning and lava burst provided a very interesting balance. I found it especially useful when Frost King was empowered and the DOT person ran into melee, I could supplement the healing for the DOT with my conductivity (we keep everyone but Kaz stacked up). I almost never actually cast my LvB, just hit the procs between chain lightnings, I wasted a lot of Earth Shock due to keeping multi-dot on 4 targets, but my first two ascendances were something like 1:45 apart and that felt really good. I posted my best numbers of the expansion on council using this method and I was still able to provide some timely healing.

Elemental shaman is brainless if you don't adjust yourself from the cookie cutter. There's some good fights for us out there.



Tell me more about your solo platforms. You mean on normal mode, yes? Do you do the whole thing like that (as in all platforms with no help)? Do you go conductivity there? Do you collect the food or just arrive early and dump the platform before the food lands? When you're on the upper nests do you find it better to just do your single rotation subbing CL for LB and then single down the second egg? I want to try this tonight.

i mean normal, it would a little to much for heroic. Platforms without Quils HST is more than enough. Take chain lightning glyph and spam away on all lowers. On platform 3 you can fly just above the adds when the boss casts primal nutrient to get buff, by time they are dead you will have cooldown on feather up. For every quils Sham rage, Stonebulw and hST with about 2-3 healing surges mixed in is more than enough.

Uppers are a little more intensive, you will want glyphed fire elemental on first (using PE). ascendance on second and any other cooldown on third. You should be taking quils between upper plat 4 and 5 and right when you get on 6. Remember you can place totems while flying.

For back up go AG, most damage you might take will be platform 7 when they grow faster than before, but CL and AG are rediculous. At this time our guild has her down to about 20% or less even so ignore the rest. That will depend on your comp.

It is incredibly fun and def worth trying.

[asharia]

how is moonkin complex? I'm probably missing something in the rotation..

it's not :P

people just see all the spells and are intimidated.

-refresh dots
-spam filler