How can Blizzard fix Elemental?

[unbound]

Shamans have never brought something unique to a raid.

To be fair, that's pretty much true of all classes for the last several expansions, when Blizz embraced the "bring the player, not the class" philosophy.

The problem with that philosophy is what we have today, 3 roles that are supposed to be filled by any relevant class / spec. Tank, healer, and dps (it really doesn't matter if they are all mdps or rdps 95% of the time anymore)...get whatever FOTM is best (takes the hits best, best healing throughput, most dps). This is the con with that particular philosophy.

Sure min/maxing has been around since the beginning, but it was tempered by the need for certain classes and specs...role-based playing in, wait for it, an RPG. It wasn't nearly as horrible as some made it out to be, and it made each class and spec have some value somewhere in the game. You didn't have meltdowns because the mage or hunter wasn't number 1 on the dps charts as long as they did good dps and maintained their sheep or danced the mob back into the trap again. You wouldn't accept bad, but you were willing to accept reasonably competent players...and that is really what made the game great back at its peak.

There was a time when Shaman totems (if nothing else) were actually valuable on certain fights including raids. You could figure out ways around it without a Shaman, but it was still a useful and unique. Sadly, those days are gone.

[TrumpIsPresident]

I'm not sure whether I feel sorry for you because you have become so upset (over very little) or actually its just you're the dumbest person I've ever seen on a forum...

And before you cry cry cry just go and watch ANY good elemental on twitch (Zeepeye/Proccit for example) and you'll find that they are MORE than making the spec work in bgs and arena skirms. Any number buffs will further improve the situation and considering the low dmg we do in PvE atm it's looking pretty likely that Elemental will be in line with quite a number of casters pretty soon in PvP. Stop whining or go back to your knitting club with the rest of the 70 year old women you like moaning with.

That's cute.

I don't feel sorry for you though because I've never given a damn about about the fringe twitch fanboy opinion.

Take a look at all the threads, all the posts, in all the forums.

The nearly absolute consensus is that Ele is dogshit.

And rattleling off a few twitch names (like I give a fuck about e-fame) doesn't change that.

I can do great on Ele too whe I roll with a full party of broken no skill required ezmode specs that support protect and carry my ass.

You're like those people who spent the last half of WOD going around smugly insisting Ele was "tanky" because one moron broadcaster at the bliZ tourney said they were.

That broadcaster, and anybody who believed him, was obviously too dense and ignorant to realize that reason why the Ele sham on that team wasn't dying in the opening burst volley of the match (like 99.999999% of ele's do) was because the warlock and resto druid he played with were so fucking broken.

There was no way anybody was going to get near that Ele sham with the combined 9 different forms of cc (that has basically no dr or cd) which the dru/lock got to pump out with priority because their full smug/healing potential was being met with dots/hots.

Ele is dogshit.

I say that cause I'm a fan ..not a fanboy

[Ollz113]

That's cute.

I don't feel sorry for you though because I've never given a damn about about the fringe twitch fanboy opinion.

Take a look at all the threads, all the posts, in all the forums.

The nearly absolute consensus is that Ele is dogshit.

And rattleling off a few twitch names (like I give a fuck about e-fame) doesn't change that.

I can do great on Ele too whe I roll with a full party of broken no skill required ezmode specs that support protect and carry my ass.

You're like those people who spent the last half of WOD going around smugly insisting Ele was "tanky" because one moron broadcaster at the bliZ tourney said they were.

That broadcaster, and anybody who believed him, was obviously too dense and ignorant to realize that reason why the Ele sham on that team wasn't dying in the opening burst volley of the match (like 99.999999% of ele's do) was because the warlock and resto druid he played with were so fucking broken.

There was no way anybody was going to get near that Ele sham with the combined 9 different forms of cc (that has basically no dr or cd) which the dru/lock got to pump out with priority because their full smug/healing potential was being met with dots/hots.

Ele is dogshit.

I say that cause I'm a fan ..not a fanboy

Easy response to shout fanboi just because i PvP at a decent lvl and watch a few streams...

Keep crying you butthurt moron and do us all a favour and quit if that's your stance. You call yourself a fan yet your the most negative poster on here...

[freddy090909]

Another issue is Earthshock. The damage for an 100 MS spender is just too low. When we compare spenders ES at least needs a 30% damage buff.

I think a large part of what makes our earthshock feel so weak is the fact that we have Elemental Fury (250% crit damage instead of 200%). That passive is forcing our "bursty" spells to be tuned lower, simply so that our bigger crits don't get out of hand.

I really wish that, instead of tacking on a bunch of forced crit scaling, Blizz just made our lava burst scale with crit and that would be that. They gave us LvB gaining an extra multistrike chance in WoD, but decided to remove that with Legion.

[TrumpIsPresident]

Keep crying you butthurt moron and do us all a favour and quit if that's your stance.

Aww, and this is the point where your fringe opinion cant hold up and so you resort to name calling.

[Ollz113]

Aww

So you resort to making out that I'm young and stupid You come on here whining about ele, you are butthurt that the spec isn't faceroll. I've already told you that buffs are incoming and if you played ANY proper PvP at any sort of lvl other than scrub bgs or 1500 you would realise that we have a number of OK comps this season...

[Nyel]

I think a large part of what makes our earthshock feel so weak is the fact that we have Elemental Fury (250% crit damage instead of 200%). That passive is forcing our "bursty" spells to be tuned lower, simply so that our bigger crits don't get out of hand.

I really wish that, instead of tacking on a bunch of forced crit scaling, Blizz just made our lava burst scale with crit and that would be that. They gave us LvB gaining an extra multistrike chance in WoD, but decided to remove that with Legion.

Even with that high crit the damage of ES is underwhelming. I tend to make comparisons with Balance Druids and the difference is quite huge - Starsurge, costing only 40 ressources instead of 100, deals about 70-80% damage of an 100 MS Maelstrom. That's quite a huge difference between both spenders and the clear winner is obvious.

If there would be an Earthshock-Overload things would be different but there isn't.

[Trollfat]

Three biggest problems are AoE clunkiness (what was wrong with WoD?), extremely low floor for single target sustain because of RNG dependence, and the most godawful artifact ability in the game.

[gambit998]

See this is how i would Fix Elemental.

Tier 1 talents - You would choose a affinity to an Element. (Fire, Frost and Nature)
these could effect changes to your shocks for example, if i chose frost Affinity my
Frost - Frost shock allows my Frost Blast (LVB) to Crit at 100 percent.
Fire - Increases Duration of Flameshock, Changes your Lightningbolt to Firebolt, chain Lightning to Lavabeam and turns your earth shock to Molten blast. (All Fire)
Nature - Changes LVB to Elemental Blast.

I am just usuing this as an example. That way they an actually make the talents surrounded around those affinities.
even later in the tiers you get a talent that increases your damage done if you swop damage types around.

(The reasoning behind this it seems that for 1 our PVP isnt in the best state to some people so the 'Frost telent build' would be a more PVP orientated or PVE wise add a Control factor.)

We have 2 PVE builds Fire and Lightning on focused on Burst and one focused on Sustain. this would allow our talents and our artifact to actually be usuable when we take certain talents.
As currently we seem to be forced into 2 different cookie cutter build to be functional.

Just an idea.

[Nyel]

I love your suggestions, gambit998. Would be nice to have an affinity to one of the Elements. Could change the Elemental as well...

[Deleted]

I hate that idea personally.

One reason I love elemental is because we use many schools and call all elements. Love elemental blast being 3 elements swirling together for example.

Other casters like shadow priest and destro warlock have literally all their spells look the same and almost have the same icons on their hotbar. It's so boring. I like mixing my spells up. Also you can't lock an elemental shaman easy (unless you get locked on casting elemental blast).

Nothing personal but I just don't like the idea.

[Deleted]

Just return movable LB, change mastery into something more powerfull (maybe give it +%dmg on lightning abilitys?), remove GCD and buff Stormkeeper and do some minor number tweaking (mainly LB damage).

[Deleted]

sad to see shaman in such a bad spot. I wanted to play one as an alt along with my mage main, kinda like a second spellcaster (i love the oomph! elemental shaman visuals have)

[Nyel]

sad to see shaman in such a bad spot. I wanted to play one as an alt along with my mage main, kinda like a second spellcaster (i love the oomph! elemental shaman visuals have)

Believe me, the oomph! is only bound to the visuals and not to the final outcome of your skills lol

[Funky Kong]

Shamans have never brought something unique to a raid.

Uhhh, how long have you been playing WoW?

[Amunrasonther]

I did a PvP WQ yesterday where we had to kill animals but then we were able to mount the animals and cast while moving. Being on a wolf, running around while casting Lightning Bolts felt amazing!

Forget Spiritwalker's Grace....I want this:

One With the Wolf - 2 min cooldown
Allows you to mount a Dire Wolf, increasing your movement speed by 15% and also allowing you to cast while moving - Lasts 15 sec.

[blehmeh]

Here's my vision for Elemental, I'm sure everyone will hate it:

Make Lightning Bolt instant. (maybe even give LB 3 charges with 3 sec CD to prevent spammy-ness)

Make all shocks builders, including earth shock (ofc damage will be reduced), give them individual cooldowns. Make Lava Burst a spender but free and instant if lava proc, Elemental Blast is now instant cast when used at 100% Maelstrom and damage is buffed to make it hit hard.

Give another healing spell that is instant cast on CD.

Reduce CD on Astral Shift and allow to be used stunned.

Remove the Maelstrom cost of Earthquake, give it a basic CD.

All of this is to improve "damage on the move" and give us more options under pressure. And since most the issues of Ele are fixed movement wise, you can then:

Remove Icefury.

[Windthorn]

Tbh any change would be better than how it is now.

[gambit998]

TBH i just dont understand why Elemental Doesnt have Riptide and Healing Surge, been boggeling my mind for ages now. I mean the HOT part of Riptide is so small that it would probabably keep us up while questing even make it cast like 10 Maelstrom or something to use.

[Siq1ne]

Do they simply need a damage boost or does it require a reworking of abilities/talents?

I switched my main to Shaman for Legion and have been absolutely loving Resto/Enhance but I'd love to have a ranged spec for my guild as well (don't want to have to level a mage or druid just for ranged spec).

Curious to hear your thoughts.

They will always suffer from "Why bring Ele when you can bring a mage?" stigma. The only time they didn't suffer from this is when they brought raid specific buffs but then you almost were forced to bring one and only one. As somebody who has played Shaman since the days of ol, I prefer being important enough to buff the raid. I like having a unique buff but again, it suffers from "well we have to bring one, but only one."

I can't speak for their DPS but if it's that which is causing them to suffer, then just fix that. Otherwise give them a reason to be in a raid now that raid buffs are gone. Enhancement has a raid buff and so doesn't Ret. A bump in DPS and a buff like that may push them a long way. Maybe Elemental Overload gives caster buffs. Better yet make the Elemental pets buff the raid.

As far as playing them goes I enjoy myself but I still main Enhance, always have and always will.