Legion: Elemental Specific

[Antilurker77]

Lightning Rod is an atrocious talent for aoe. Most of the time I barely even manage to get it onto a second target before if expires on the first.
Terrible design.
I only skilled it because ascendance is now even worse because SWG is not available to elemental anymore. -.-

Stop exaggerating. Even with 0 haste and completely ignoring mastery procs, you only have a ~17% chance to fail to apply a second lightning rod before the first one expires.

[coprax]

Stop exaggerating. Even with 0 haste and completely ignoring mastery procs, you only have a ~17% chance to fail to apply a second lightning rod before the first one expires.

no I mean it, you don't stop the time when the 2nd debuff gets applied but when you cast a lb/cl on the target after that. So add 2 seconds to your math.

[Antilurker77]

no I mean it, you don't stop the time when the 2nd debuff gets applied but when you cast a lb/cl on the target after that. So add 2 seconds to your math.

You should be preemptively switching targets. And even if you didn't, it's still a 24% chance, completely ignoring haste and mastery. No where near "most of the time".

[Starsha]

I'm not the best at reading logs, but lemme see if I get this straight, according to your research, the best talent combo is Earthen Rage, Ancestral Swiftness, Primal, Elemental Mastery and Ascendance?

Depends on the fight type, but certainly yes in some scenarios. It's not too often that you get a boss fight that functions exactly like one of the preset sims.

[binkenstein]

I've got a lot of multi target math in Lava Calcs (on the TC Calcs tab)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

[Deleted]

Lol, where did I say I picked PoF and LM? I simply explained they don't change the AoE rotation in any meaningful way, as UcanDo was mentioning how "our AoE is spread across talents".

Because if you didn't pick them, there's no reason to bring this up. What you're doing here is engaging in an self defeating argumentation. You're saying that our "AoE in theory is still there!" but ignore that it's way more cumbersome aswell as NOT A CHOICE because other talents in the same tier are far superior. You yourself are either admitting that you're taking subpar talents that simply aren't a choice or not taking them. In either case it's not an argument and self defeating.

Tying it to a totem doesn't change the fact that it works very much the same way in PvE. If you're talking about PvP, that's a different matter.

No it doesn't. Not in the slightest.
It went from:
-Instant when hitting 3+ targets with Chain Lightning.
-Not having to dump your resource into it.
-CD not being that much of a factor.
-LoS being the only inhibition.
-Damage being buffed by Chain Lightning.
To:
-Forced to dump your Maelstrome into it. (This is all kinds of terrible)
-Having to cast it.
-Lenghty CD and restrictions.
-Path needs to be available, path often isn't available.
-Damage being subpar

It's a completely different mechanic, the spell retained almost nothing of how it was prior beyond the name and being an AoE. The reason Earth Quake was instant and almost free amongst a bunch of other things was that NOBODY WAS USING IT BECAUSE IT WAS SO TERRIBLE! Can't you get that into your head, is it that hard to understand? They went back on ALL THE BUFFS and made the damage even worse than it used to be but now expect us to invest a resource into it that we need for other things aswell!

That it has a cast time also does not affect PvE in any way, we are once again simply talking numbers here. Sure, it affects us a little with movement. I won't deny our AoE has gone down compared to what it was. But it certainly has not changed drastically in terms of mechanics, and we have gained flexibility in return.

You're flat out lying in almost every single last post. Why? What do you stand to gain from this?

I agree that putting it on a totem is just cherry picking - there's absolutely no difference between a totem and a regular cast in a PvE setting (unless, perhaps, you're using EQ to pull while questing).

There's a thread on this forum about the new totem projection, one in which Miffy was doing the exact same thing he's doing here. Flat out lying and Blizzard PR. When caught and disproven he never admitted he was wrong, instead fleeing the thread. Which is his argumentation pattern for 2+ years running. The totem change is a huge change and a terrible one. There was NO REASON WHATSOEVER FOR IT. It does not benefit the class, it just makes something worse for the sake of "SEE, TOTEMS ARE STILL IN GAME!".

[Nebria]

It went from:
-Instant when hitting 3+ targets with Chain Lightning.
-Not having to dump your resource into it.
-CD not being that much of a factor.
-LoS being the only inhibition.
-Damage being buffed by Chain Lightning.
To:
-Forced to dump your Maelstrome into it. (This is all kinds of terrible)
-Having to cast it.
-Lenghty CD and restrictions.
-Path needs to be available, path often isn't available.
-Damage being subpar

EQ doesn't have a CD http://www.wowhead.com/spell=61882/earthquake-totem
It is true that you have some kind of CD because you need the Maelstrom however in a real AOE situation with say 7 targets you generate so much Maelstrom that you generally do 1-2 CL and then EQ.
You can get 3-4 EQ at the same time where pre legion you can get only 2 EQ at the same time and that also only on the beginning and if you took EotE.

I don't want to say it is better or worse, it is just different. It depends on the situation you are in.

[Deleted]

It's not "just different", it IS worse. They used all the other boni as their carrot on the stick so people would use EQ to begin with. Now we have none of these and have to spend a fairly precious resource on being allowed to us it. Which does count as a CD of sorts where prior it was instant and buffed. I've seen some throw around "10-30 targets!" which made me face palm. You almost never have that many targets for crying out loud.

Even 7 targets is usually a situation where you're clearing out trash. Which other classes can do faster, better and without being restricted in terms of AoE/Movement. Hey, maybe you guys get to sit out during the raid then be brought in between bosses to clear up trash, if there is enough trash to warrant bringing you in. Obviously you're not allowed to roll on any trash drops, those go to the real classes. Enjoy!

[Nebria]

Because if you didn't pick them, there's no reason to bring this up. What you're doing here is engaging in an self defeating argumentation. You're saying that our "AoE in theory is still there!" but ignore that it's way more cumbersome aswell as NOT A CHOICE because other talents in the same tier are far superior. You yourself are either admitting that you're taking subpar talents that simply aren't a choice or not taking them. In either case it's not an argument and self defeating.

Can't you imagine a situation where Ascendance isn't far superior to the other talents?
It always sounds like PE/EM/ASC is the one and only viable build for all situations that can and will happen. I doubt it. It might be the best on paper for a lot of scenarios and in simc simulations, but we do not have simulations for all situations you will meet in Legion, be it raid encounter or mythic dungeons.

So the question is, if you have an encounter where you need high aoe damage, is ascendance still superior or is it better to use Magma Totem.
Will you use EM or is Aftershock better in that situation?
Will all this talent picks increase our aoe damage significantly to make it worth?

- - - Updated - - -

It's not "just different", it IS worse. They used all the other boni as their carrot on the stick so people would use EQ to begin with. Now we have none of these and have to spend a fairly precious resource on being allowed to us it. Which does count as a CD of sorts where prior it was instant and buffed. I've seen some throw around "10-30 targets!" which made me face palm. You almost never have that many targets for crying out loud.

Even 7 targets is usually a situation where you're clearing out trash. Which other classes can do faster, better and without being restricted in terms of AoE/Movement. Hey, maybe you guys get to sit out during the raid then be brought in between bosses to clear up trash, if there is enough trash to warrant bringing you in. Obviously you're not allowed to roll on any trash drops, those go to the real classes. Enjoy!

if you talk about 3 target situation, yes it is worse. eq is out there where before it was dmg source number 1. I guess they don't want us to use EQ in a more or less cleave situation and instead rely on fs and lvb + cl + lightning rod. http://www.wowhead.com/item=137074/e...reat-sundering can help here too.
just bad that it does nothing when you aoe because you won't use ES there...

by the way, does EQ benfit from elemental focus proc?

- - - Updated - - -

EQ doesn't have a CD http://www.wowhead.com/spell=61882/earthquake-totem

and it doesn't have a cast time too...

[Deleted]

Ah yeah, that was rain of fire. A spell similarly gutted. My bad. For some reason they seem to really hate caster AoE this expansion.

[Morg]

What is the actual reason for the hate on the AoE?

Is it that its not all smacked down instantly at takes a few gcd or pre-planning?
Is it that its damage isn't fantastic? because that seems like it can be simply fixed in a few different ways, simple mechanics or straight up damage buffs if they actually agree were too low.
Or is it that its simply different and MMO (especially WoW) players tend to really hate change??

[Deleted]

Or is it that its simply different and MMO (especially WoW) players tend to really hate change??

People DO NOT hate change. It's one of those deadbeat arguments brought up each time something goes astray. People do not on a fundamental basis hate change. People hate changes for the worse. If earth quake had been changed in a way beneficial to the class most people would've applauded this change. Bringing such rhetoric questions into a discussion serves no other purpose but to build a strawmen.

In that way it's similar to the whole "takes a few GCD or pre planning", it's inherently missing the topic at hand and the issues involved in it. For example that the reason they had all these things attached to Earth Quake was that it was so terrible nobody would use it otherwise. Or that the shaman player can't plan which way the tank is going to move the mobs, which quite often is out of the AoE.

[coprax]

People DO NOT hate change. It's one of those deadbeat arguments brought up each time something goes astray. People do not on a fundamental basis hate change. People hate changes for the worse.

Remember when they removed Lightning Bolt on the move? I still hate them for that. They literally removed fun with no apparent reason.

[Deleted]

Remember when they removed Lightning Bolt on the move? I still hate them for that. They literally removed fun with no apparent reason.

Agreed. I didn't hate them for bringing it in. Which disproves that people hate change. People just hate unfun/negative change. If you came up to me and gave me a million dollars that would change a lot, I wouldn't mind it though. If you came up to me and tried to take a million dollars from me, I'd REALLY hate that!

[Odintdk]

I see the shaman forum is still full of dev team apologists, glad i don't post much.

Enjoy holding back your own class/spec from being fixed/improved for yet another expansion. Have fun raiding.

[Omnious]

Can't you imagine a situation where Ascendance isn't far superior to the other talents?
It always sounds like PE/EM/ASC is the one and only viable build for all situations that can and will happen. I doubt it. It might be the best on paper for a lot of scenarios and in simc simulations, but we do not have simulations for all situations you will meet in Legion, be it raid encounter or mythic dungeons.

I'm curious too, what it feels like is there is the Earthshine group of theory crafters and the AMR group.

Historically Binkenstein and that group has always provided the more accurate results and for the current pre-patch they are by far correct with the PE/EM/Ascend setup being top. The grey area is that if you look at the Lava Calcs spreadsheet it states the Lighting Rod is on the "too do" list.

On the flip side as of the legion prepatch if you went to the only public Simulator that appears updated which is AMR ( https://beta.askmrrobot.com/wow/simulator ), (Sim Craft seems to not be updated at least to the public - http://www.simulationcraft.org/download.html ) and do max gear setups of Ascend with Crit/Haste/Vers/Mast vrs LR (TM, AS, EM, LR) with Haste/Mast gear the LR sims higher.

In the end we'll need to probably have to wait till legion hits and they do the first raid week balance patch than see which comes out ahead.

[Vorpalspork]

I have always hated EQ and only used it because they took away the damage from CL so I had no choice. I'd MUCH prefer to go back to having overloaded CL be my AoE and never have to have the stupid EQ on my bars. At least when EQ was actually buffed by CL, we had decent AoE. Now, we have . . . crap AoE that we have to build maelstrom to even use. And if we use maelstrom on it, well, that competes with using FS or ES. This whole builder/spender AoE is awful class design - it results in low AoE with a ramp up required to even do the crappy AoE, while the melee with their instant AoE kills everything. To be fair, they have added this stupid builder/spender model for other caster specs as well - and I refuse to play any of them. Hence, despite some positive changes, I am likely benching my shaman until Blizz gets a clue and fixes this horrible mess of a spec, at least in regards to AoE. I liked blowing up packs of mobs, it was fun, dang it!

[Deleted]

Just to break from the mindless wailing and rivers of tears about how the spec is useless beyond repair (it isn't by the way), has anyone done any thinking re Lightning Rod's viability once artifact perks etc have been taken into account? It feels, at least from looking at the talents (no beta QQ) that Stormkeeper should make LR more powerful, both for AE and single target due to buffed LB / CL damage. I know I was watching Naesam's Mythic +4 vid and he was saving Stormkeeper for when he had a LR proc and, when the RNG gods smiled and he got LR and decent luck with mastery procs, his numbers went through the ceiling on trash packs.

[Kralljin]

Just to break from the mindless wailing and rivers of tears about how the spec is useless beyond repair (it isn't by the way), has anyone done any thinking re Lightning Rod's viability once artifact perks etc have been taken into account? It feels, at least from looking at the talents (no beta QQ) that Stormkeeper should make LR more powerful, both for AE and single target due to buffed LB / CL damage. I know I was watching Naesam's Mythic +4 vid and he was saving Stormkeeper for when he had a LR proc and, when the RNG gods smiled and he got LR and decent luck with mastery procs, his numbers went through the ceiling on trash packs.

Of course Lightning Rod is powerful, the issue with the talent is simply that you need:
1.LR Proc(s), every single LR proc basically increases Cl damage by 40%
2.Stormkeeper, 1-2 LR procs make Stormkeeper with CL pretty insane
3.Static Overload, especially with Stormkeeper.

If you get a Static Overload proc along with Stormkeeper along with Lightning Rod, your Dps goes through the roof.

Problem is, If you have hardly any LR procs, Stormkeeper is on CD, and no Static Overloads to be found, then the talent rather bad.

The talent also decent for 2-3 Cleave with perma tab spam to spread LR, switching is no huge loss because you have to keep up FS on any target anyway.

Elemental AoE with LR just swings betwen godmode and subpar.

[Tyze]

What do you guys do when you need to move seriously? Just run and hope for procs? :P If we now dont have Icefury as talent