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  1. #21
    Back in vanilla. Anything with a heal effect could only make it as a healer. Only exception was druids who had to get enervate and enhancement shaman if raid leaders knew how to group players. Windfury on the primary weapon of sword specced rogues and warriors was insane because extra swing proccs could procc off proccs.

  2. #22
    Out of MoP, cata, and wrath, I had the most fun with it in wrath. It was a simple rotation, but it was so fun how fast it was. Once I went from machine-gun style Ele in ICC to what it was like in Tier 11, I lost interest and switched to Enh. It was ridiculously slow and you could run out of mana too fast.

    Haven't played lately so I don't know how that compares to now.

  3. #23
    There was a time when you could mix a chain light in on single target in wrath. No one seems to remember that

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Txiv View Post
    There was a time when you could mix a chain light in on single target in wrath. No one seems to remember that
    That used to be so awesome in PvP.

  5. #25
    Herald of the Titans Kuniku's Avatar
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    There was the trinket (I think from kara? was repeated in wrath as a quest green) that let you do extra lightning bolts, coupled with what is now the ele mastery (was just a flat % talent back then) LB's were going off all over the place!

    I was always more of a hancy shaman, but one video from the end of vanilla (Vhaldimari I think, unsure off the top of my head) did blow me away! Syth 3 was also a good video showing all 3 specs!

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Ealyssa View Post
    The glory oof vanilla. When a mouseclicker with AQ trinket could oneshot you...
    So glad this time is gone (even if I also my "HAHAHA WF CRIT U DEAD" fun moments )
    thats NAC/ZHC... BWL/ZG20 trinkets

    and the glorydays of CL pulling rogues out of invis. oh yeah, I want those days back! well not really, but some things from vanilla were fun.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kipling View Post
    There was the trinket (I think from kara? was repeated in wrath as a quest green) that let you do extra lightning bolts, coupled with what is now the ele mastery (was just a flat % talent back then) LB's were going off all over the place!

    I was always more of a hancy shaman, but one video from the end of vanilla (Vhaldimari I think, unsure off the top of my head) did blow me away! Syth 3 was also a good video showing all 3 specs!
    capacitor from illhoof, but overload was back then only 5%, later buffed to 10% since noone took it and rather went 30/0/31 for MTT or 38/23 or 33/28 ele enha. it wasnt that impressive like now the overload madness when you can CL effectively.

  7. #27
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    It was amazing.
    I played Elemental Shaman in Vanilla + Burning Crusade.
    There was nothing called Lava Burst. You only used Lb + Cl and then frost and earth shock.
    'Elemental Mastery' used to be THE cooldown. It was on a 3 minutes cooldown, and when u activated it, it gave your next offensive spell 100% crit. That was a big fucking deal back then. You'd pop trinkets + ele mastery in vanilla with chain lightning (it hit harder singeltarget than lb, but had a small cd) and you could one shot a lot of things...

  8. #28
    Bloodsail Admiral zenga's Avatar
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    For me the most fun pve times, although ele was bottom of the dps spectrum, was during T11 (4.0-4.1 patch). No lightning bolt glyph, only option to move and cast was with spirit walkers grace, and you actually had to prepare movement (and renew flame shock, renew searing totem or use unleash elements). AOE wise you had to try and multidot and get those fire novas up. There was a clear distinction in worldoflogs rankings between really good and averages eles, way more than nowadays imo. I find that same fun now on my affliction warlock since they removed the ability to cast while running. Thinking and preparing your movement is imo a base mechanic of playing a caster, that is slowly fading away.

  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Tomana View Post
    BC was spamming lightning bolt, which made a very exciting "rotation"
    Lava burst was added in WOTLK (well, 3.0).
    You got Lava Burst at level 78

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    Wotlk was the land of being GCD capped. It was never a very complex rotation but it was very methodical and felt insanely fun even tho anyone could do it. In ICC every spell had a 1.0 cast time and you had 70%+ crit with talents. The ToC 4set had to be nerfed because PVP players were using it in Arena, Lava Burst was probably hitting harder than Choas bolt now with this set bonus

    Cata started as probably the worst tier for any class ever. We could hardly sustain mana on single target, using Thunderstorm on CD here was not something out of the ordinary. Not to mention piss poor DPS. Firelands was a gift from the gods and was the Polar opposite of tier 11. This tier I felt like a Mage or Warlock, no one could touch my damage if I played correctly. Our AOE was very clunky and only worked for one fight (Lord Rhyolith) but oh god did we tear it up on that fight. The set bonus had to be nerfed 3 separate times to make players stop using it. I only played for the first 3-4 bosses in DS before I diecied I wanted to take a break from the game. We got our CL CD removed and thus became a real AOE class.

    MoP - We got our beloved Elemental Mastery taken away and got Ascendance instead. Also Lava Burst is sort of a wet noodle spell.
    Hi Sephurik

  10. #30
    In Vanilla ele was not a viable raid spec, but it was so much fun in PVP. I used to go resto Tuesday/Wednesday and then ele for pvp from Thursday to Monday. Globaling people in pvp with lightning bolt + ns + chain lightning was incredible.

  11. #31
    :/ WotLK reminds me so much of the awesomness that were beta LvB and Thunderstorm, LvB nerfed to the ground and then slowly buffed every patch and TS from ah-mazing knockback with high angle and slower speed to pretty bland quick, barely off the ground knockback :/

  12. #32
    My experience of Shaman in TBC was a lot different than now.

    As Elemental, I was usually top dps on the boss fights in raids, or at least top 3 along with 2 other Mages. We had none of this cast while moving stuff, so if Void Reaver threw an arcane orb at you, you had to get out fast and with as little dps loss as possible (I always managed to finish a cast before having to move).

    My rotation back then was spamming mostly Lightning Bolt, and I did the odd Chain Lightning as I recall it's damage to cast time ratio was more appealing than Lightning Bolt. Keeping totems up was our main game, and Heroism had a 5 minute cooldown and caused no debuff; the downside was it was only party-wide so we just stacked the best dps in the group with a couple of Shaman and melted faces.

    Belt of Blasting was something I spent ages farming some stupid fire elementals for, a highly sought after item despite it being cloth... Armour type didn't matter back then, and I didn't shun critical strike rating like I do now, I took any caster stats I could get... Spirit items were disgusting, and determined whether an item was for Ele or Resto.

    2H Enhancement was encouraged at lower levels, as the Dual Wield talent wasn't available until level 39 I think.


    P.S: Miss you Sentry Totem, even though you were never used you for anything serious.

  13. #33
    never played it myself, but (from enh POV):

    vanilla: unpopular in both pve and pvp. in pve, resto was the only viable/wanted spec, in pvp it was all about wf burst
    tbc: not sure about exact numbers when looking back, but I think they were below pure dps by a big amount. shamans were mostly brought for bl, though ele/enh were closer to actual dps than in vanilla.
    vanilla +tbc: lb/cl spam 24/7
    wotlk: addition of lvb and ele making use of flame shock, finally. ft was made a useful imbue as well (or was that during tbc already? not sure). Ele was bottom of the caster barrel though, similar to enh melee-wise.
    cata: addition of mastery, fulmination and using earth shock, flame shock ticks resetting lvb cds. UE added but not used by ele.
    mop: ascendence added.

    apparently ele did/does good in pvp in mop, but from my vanilla=>cata exp, ele was a victim spec always, safe for wotlk, when bl was not banned from arenas AND shaman only, which, coupled with insane lvb damage, made for face-roll wins and high ele representation back then.

    so in pve, it was a steady climb to where pures were from the beginning, whereas in pvp they always lacked in mobility/survivability. As an enh, ele was the easiest spec to beat period, nothing easier to lock down. There is to say though, with the nerfs to interrupts, that weakness was difused to some degree.
    Quote Originally Posted by Angoth
    I'm sorry that Blizzard won't just gift wrap awesome in a cup and let you drink your fill.

  14. #34
    Bloodsail Admiral Kanariya's Avatar
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    In Vanilla, Elemental was a PvP spec. PvE? It was worthless. Actually, out of all classes and specs in Vanilla, Elemental was the most worthless one as it brought absolutely nothing of value to the raid. Enhancement at least brought improved totems.

    Ele didn't really see raiding until wotlk.

  15. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Tuzantar View Post
    'Elemental Mastery' used to be THE cooldown. It was on a 3 minutes cooldown, and when u activated it, it gave your next offensive spell 100% crit. That was a big fucking deal back then. You'd pop trinkets + ele mastery in vanilla with chain lightning (it hit harder singeltarget than lb, but had a small cd) and you could one shot a lot of things...
    I remember how godly I thought it was that the T10 bonus would reduce EMs cool down. And the other one that added time to Flame Shock's dot was nice too. I felt like a badass in ICC. I wish I had stayed in Cata long enough to experience Firelands; sounds like it was a good time.

    I also remember the Shaman community begging for Earthquake for years, then we finally got it! Aaaaaaand now we never use it...

  16. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by Kanariya View Post
    Ele didn't really see raiding until wotlk.
    Ummm no. At one point, somewhere at the beginning of TBC ele was very viable in raids (remember how easily i topped DPS charts in Kara/Gruul/Magy). It came due the fact clearcasting gave 2 next nature spells free of mana, so what eles did was spamming lb-s and waiting for CC proc to cast free chain lightning.

    Ofc, this 'anomaly' was quickly tuned and ele went back again to the spot where DPS is really good till you are OOM (which was about 2 or 3 min after the fight started), and that's why ele wasn't viable as raiding spec in vanilla and TBC, simply cause of mana issues.

    Anyway, was really fun to play PVP in vanilla as ele with t2, ToEP and lok'amir. That was a time where players did much more 1v1 PVP than it is today, and ele shined in 1v1 combats.
    Last edited by bladisha; 2013-10-07 at 01:06 AM.

  17. #37
    I just can speak for Cataclysm:
    I didn't raid anything other than LFR and I didn't get any sets...

    I loved the Mastery and I still love it.
    Especially while I use Chain Lightning. It looked pretty awesome with the wincing lighting jumping all over the world *caught*.

    For me, than and now, the elemental shaman is a lightning machine.

    Before MoP (in Wrath and Cata) they put down their totems and forgot about them. Not really awesome though...

  18. #38
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGKE0Mjmfmk Sham's ele pvp video from Vanilla from a shaman on my server (no idea if he's still playing though), most shamans were enh in vanilla pvp, cus windfury was sick (and depended on luck ofc)

    This is quite early in Vanilla, and you'll see he gets advantages from certain items he's carrying.

  19. #39
    The Unstoppable Force
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    Quote Originally Posted by Roseby View Post
    So as it goes now, I really enjoy the way the mastery works with Echo of the Elements.

    I.E. Buy 1 Lava Burst get 2 FREE! like a telemarketer.

    Just for the sake of knowing the roots of the spec I enjoy so much, what was it like in Vanilla, TBC, Wrath, Cata?
    Vanilla and BC = Lightning Bolt spam with the occasional Flame Shock or Earth Shock if you were feeling adventurous - Wotlk added Lava Burst and Cata Fulmination, oh and of course Mastery, which was basically a talent baked into it, but eh.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Futhark View Post
    I remember how godly I thought it was that the T10 bonus would reduce EMs cool down. And the other one that added time to Flame Shock's dot was nice too. I felt like a badass in ICC. I wish I had stayed in Cata long enough to experience Firelands; sounds like it was a good time.

    I also remember the Shaman community begging for Earthquake for years, then we finally got it! Aaaaaaand now we never use it...
    That's probably because we imagined that Earthquake would be either badass or at least useful - or at least LOOK badass... But noooooooh...

    Amazing sig, done by mighty Lokann

  20. #40
    I never played at a raiding capacity during vanilla, so what classes that I didn't play did was mostly a mystery to me, but as I understand it, during TBC, it was essentially Lightning Bolt spam. If you had the gear to supply the mana, I noticed some would also use Chain Lightning on cooldown (a cooldown which Elemental no longer has anymore). Flame Shock and Earth Shock weren't really worth it. Earth Shock was the Enhancement Shaman's baby, and near the end of the expansion, keeping Flame Shock up as Enhanncemeny was finally worth it (Back then, WITH Flame Shock, Enhancement was LITERALLY nothing but Flame Shock, Earth Shock and Storm Strike, but Storm Strike had to be timed perfectly to maximize double Windfury procs). Lava Burst didn't happen until the Wrath pre-patch, and that's when Flame Shock started being used.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Futhark View Post
    I also remember the Shaman community begging for Earthquake for years, then we finally got it! Aaaaaaand now we never use it...
    That's because Earthquake's been nothing more than lackluster ever since its implementation. It needs to have a decent boost in damage and the ridiculous cast time needs to be re-thought. It's a tragedy, really.
    Quote Originally Posted by Novakhoro View Post
    I recommend shoulder surgery immediately... there's no way you didn't fuck it up with how hard you just reached.

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