Why no Water Elemental>?

[Netherspark]

Water Elementals are traditionally Mage summons and have been since Warcraft 1.

[Racthoh]

us mages will share our water eles, but you have to give us the fire ele in return

[Deleted]

Hasn't anyone thought that it's because they didn't actually think of a water magic based shaman back there in Warcraft 3? Remember that Thrall didn't have any water-related ability, but Jaina did have the water elemental itself. And I suppose they didn't want two classes to share an ability which was an evident reference to Jaina.

Oh, and I want a fire elemental for my fire mage, too. ♥

[Deleted]

But aside from that; they would have probably been a healing pet, which hasn't really been done that way before. Not undoable, but they went with more controllable CDs instead.

Most people would be happy with Healing Tide totem just being a water elemental. Even if it only lasts for 6s. No real "AI" needed.
At least in my view, druids have the iconic Tranquility snowflakes, and shaman get a renamed Manatide totem animation that heals.

[Alltat]

Well, with Ascendance you get to transform into a water elemental. That's got to count for something? I don't really think we need more cooldown skills, and balancing our "toolbox" should be higher priority than completing "sets" of abilities. One possible solution would be to have Primal Elementalist turn your fire and earth elementals into air and water elementals. That might end up feeling a bit cheap, though.

I suggested this idea in the short Class Feedback forum back before Cata released. A totem that casts a weaker version of riptide and chain heal. Got a lot of positive responses from people who supported the idea, but nothing from Blizzard. I think they should have done this instead of that healing tide totem shit.

Well, to be fair, people have been suggesting a Healing Tide Totem since vanilla. It's also a bit more interesting than a water elemental, as the elemental would need to have a longer duration than the totem to make sense (having it just appear, cast spells for a few seconds and then go away would just be silly). Getting a big healing spell on a cooldown seems more interesting than yet another cooldown (before MoP I would have liked it, but with Ascendance and the new talents we've got cooldowns coming out our ears if we wish it so).

Water Elementals are traditionally Mage summons and have been since Warcraft 1.

This. Water elementals were an iconic mage spell in Warcraft 1 and 3. Shamans didn't do any elemental summoning before TBC. It made a lot more sense for mages to get the water elementals than shamans. Turning them into ice elementals would fit well with WoW's "three trees" talent structure, but would go against what mages used to do in earlier Warcraft games. You can't always have everything.

[Recondition]

Water Elementals are traditionally Mage summons and have been since Warcraft 1.

A lot of classic RPGs (going back to dungeons and dragons, probably earlier) have mages summoning water elementals to do their bidding.

[Wataurenyew]

us mages will share our water eles, but you have to give us the fire ele in return

Give you the fire ele not share it with you?
And didn't we already share Bloodlust with you?
Selfish Mage.

Of course I'm kidding.

[Arinnaya]

I still believe that Shaman should have a tank spec added and then have one dominant spec per element - Fire for Elemental, Air for Enhance, Water for Resto, Earth for new-tank-spec (Earthwarden?) - they could then have 4 elementals, one per element again, each with a slightly different flavour, but with a shared cooldown so you'd have an Elemental you'd want to use most often (e.g. Fire for Elemental, Earth for Earthwarden, Water for Resto etc) but you've got the option to use one of the others for utility in certain situations. Ascendance in Earth form would be damage reduction, slap on a taunt and vengeance and you're halfway done.

[Xuvial]

Well excuuuuUUUuuuuse us frostmages for being completely specialized towards frost/ice attacks, ensuring the water elementals tagged along with us instead of shamans or frost DK's. We also have them out the whole time and not tied to a totem! We are also the true masters of fire (you know, having a tree called fire n' all) so if you don't mind you can pass us the fire elemental :P

You can keep your earth elemental and get an air elemental to replace your fire one. Air and earth are more "natural" and shamanistic elements anyway, leave frost and fire to us

Give you the fire ele not share it with you?
And didn't we already share Bloodlust with you?
Selfish Mage.

Of course I'm kidding.

Hoooo I saw that coming but empowering the raid with a crazy sense of valor/thirst is totally different to warping the flow of time itself!

[Deleted]

I am a fan of each shaman's spec getting his own elemental (Fire - Elemental, Air - Enhancement, Water - Resto, Earth - classwide). That would be so much easier to balance, I guess.

[Deleted]

why not add glyph?
glyph of water elemental - your fire/earth elemental makes place for a water elemental who forms a water wall which gives immunity to magic attacks when you stand behind it or when you or your allies go through it, they gain a healing over time + 1 cleans debuff. the wall lasts 45 seconds or til death/disrupt. the water elemental can't attack but has a large health pool (bigger than the caster) and share the same defenses. the wall is being channeled, it can be disrupted.

glyph of air elemental - your fire/earth elemental makes place for an air elemental dealing ranged nature damage and your electric shield heals you for x% of the dmg it causes. also has an aoe interrupt. the air ancient is stealthed until you command it to attack. cannot re-enter stealth, is summoned in stealth.

[Alltat]

I still believe that Shaman should have a tank spec added and then have one dominant spec per element...

Sounds a bit dull thematically, and the game already has two specs focused on lighting people on fire with spells.

why not add glyph?

Make it a minor one. "Your fire elemental is now an air elemental". Throw in one to turn either elemental into a water elemental as well. There are already models in the game and plenty of spell effects to borrow, so it shouldn't be too much effort to implement.

[Roamingstorm]

@OP

If you haven't played WC3 then you'd know why. A lot of the iconic abilities are based on the abilities that units and hero units had.

Jaina or Mages in WC3 had the ability to summon water elemental.

Now, one thing I wish they would have done with Primal Elementalist is that they would have combined both the earth and fire elemental into one thing.

[Arinnaya]

Sounds a bit dull thematically, and the game already has two specs focused on lighting people on fire with spells.

One DOMINANT spec per element - each spec would still use the other elements (since Shaman are masters of the elements rather than one. And it wouldn't be so much in spell choices but what form their Ascendant takes etc - which is already true for the 3 specs. Essentially I'm just advocating adding a tank spec and using Earth Ascendant for that tank spec, since the three specs currently all have what is almost a dominant element anyway (in terms of what their ascendant form is). So Fire would be Elemental's DOMINANT element but it would still use Lightning Bolt/Lightning Shield/Chain Lightning (Air), Earth Shock/Earthquake (Earth) as part of its normal rotation, as well as using spells of all elements when needed (e.g. Water for heals) and totems of all 4 elements. Likewise Air would be Enhance's dominant element but it would still use Lava Lash and Earth Shock etc.

[angelx7x]

Well, with Ascendance you get to transform into a water elemental. That's got to count for something? I don't really think we need more cooldown skills, and balancing our "toolbox" should be higher priority than completing "sets" of abilities. One possible solution would be to have Primal Elementalist turn your fire and earth elementals into air and water elementals. That might end up feeling a bit cheap, though.


Well, to be fair, people have been suggesting a Healing Tide Totem since vanilla. It's also a bit more interesting than a water elemental, as the elemental would need to have a longer duration than the totem to make sense (having it just appear, cast spells for a few seconds and then go away would just be silly). Getting a big healing spell on a cooldown seems more interesting than yet another cooldown (before MoP I would have liked it, but with Ascendance and the new talents we've got cooldowns coming out our ears if we wish it so).


This. Water elementals were an iconic mage spell in Warcraft 1 and 3. Shamans didn't do any elemental summoning before TBC. It made a lot more sense for mages to get the water elementals than shamans. Turning them into ice elementals would fit well with WoW's "three trees" talent structure, but would go against what mages used to do in earlier Warcraft games. You can't always have everything.

Because things can't ever change. Right?

[Alltat]

Because things can't ever change. Right?

Well, the idea of lore is generally to have some kind of consistency. You can alter it from time to time, but if you constantly change it the lore kind of stops being lore. I'm sure you'd be rather sceptical of shamans getting shadow spells, for example, even if Blizzard made up new lore to explain it.

[Vongimi]

Yeah issue is Water Elementals have always been summoned by mages in Warcraft since warcraft 1. Its kind of iconic to warcraft mages at this point.

[Teriz]

Frost is the offensive version of water magic. Shaman use Frost magic in Frostbrand and Frost Shock.

Anyway, don't really see the need for a water elemental totem. It would do exactly the same thing that the other water totems do.

[Protoman]

Water Elementals are traditionally Mage summons and have been since Warcraft 1.

Yea.... and Bloodlust has been an Iconic Shaman spell for some time now too but they gave Mages that. Eye for an eye!!

We could have a Frost Elemental instead of Water, just replace HTT talent with a Frost Elemental that will heal your raid for the same type of healing, or have a healing rain type aura.....maybe even throw out a watery chain heal every so often. Would be awesome I think, we could use more elemental pets.

And I'd like to see a Wind Elemental too......they could turn "Windwalk totem" into a wind elemental that does the same freedom effect and maybe also ground spells to your group or deflect ranged damage. Could still keep the same 1min cd 6 sec duration.

On that note.....should make Primal Ele turn our totem elementals into actual temporary summoned pet elementals so they don't despawn after outranging the totem and dont' lock us out of other totems in that element.

I still believe that Shaman should have a tank spec added and then have one dominant spec per element - Fire for Elemental, Air for Enhance, Water for Resto, Earth for new-tank-spec (Earthwarden?) - they could then have 4 elementals, one per element again, each with a slightly different flavour, but with a shared cooldown so you'd have an Elemental you'd want to use most often (e.g. Fire for Elemental, Earth for Earthwarden, Water for Resto etc) but you've got the option to use one of the others for utility in certain situations. Ascendance in Earth form would be damage reduction, slap on a taunt and vengeance and you're halfway done.

I fully support this idea, it makes alot of sense thematically since Earth element has always been known as a more protective "tankish" element. We are missing an Earth Ascendant too which would be perfect for a tank, I myself have brought up the idea in the past and the name "Earth Warden" is perfect too. There is alot of potential for a shaman tank and they could make it unique enough to have its own playstyle but still feel like playing a Shaman......at first I thought it would use a 1H and shield but I think it would be alot cooler if it was a DW tank, or a 2H staff tank like Monks (meaning we could use 2H's in some form, yay!).....with a DW tank we could share weapons with Enhance as well as gear making it alot easier to switch between them.....like Mastery would be tank related and based on our unique tank mitigation mechanic, then we could get dodge from crit and parry from haste or something like that.

This would give us Earth>tank, Fire>elem, Water>resto, and Air>Enhance......hopefully something they will consider for the next xpac as shaman are definetly due for a major revamp like warlocks got this xpac and pallys got (in like every xpac lol).

[muto]

I am a fan of each shaman's spec getting his own elemental Fire - Elemental, Air - Enhancement, Water - Resto, Earth - classwide. That would be so much easier to balance, I guess.

I like this concept as well, and was thinking the same thing except I would give Earth Elemental to Elemental only, and not class wide.

My concept would be this:

Shamans:

Elemental = Earth Elemental
Enhancement = Air Elemental
Restoration = Water Elemental

Mages:

Arcane = Arcane Elemental
Fire = Fire Elemental
Frost = Ice Elemental