Sick of feeling like a punching bag in pvp

[Deleted]

We will forever be burdened by Resto spec, Blizzards golden child.
Our DPS specs are left in the shitter (PvE only) and even then we aren't topping damage meters as often as Mages or Spriests.

Actually enhacement shammies are doing pretty well in arena atm, they are pratically always prefered over a dk, especially with the purge/off-healing advantages. Besides, you were never the only caster spec that get's trained everygame. Boomkins also suffer pretty well, and that wouldn't change even if they got more defensive abilities, since they represent such a threat in terms of cc. Just like boomkins, elementals can be pretty destrutive if you don't control them.

[zenga]

Ancestral Swiftness now has a 1.5 min cooldown, up from 1 min.

First big nerf for ele shamans in pvp.

[Endus]

Ancestral Swiftness now has a 1.5 min cooldown, up from 1 min.

First big nerf for ele shamans in pvp.

It's not a nerf to Elemental Shaman. It's a Shaman talent, and there's three specs. If Resto's chucking off too many instant heals with it, it probably needs to get nerfed for that reason alone.


Calling this "an elemental nerf" is like accusing a friend of assault and battery, because a chip of wood flew off while he was splitting some wood for a campfire and the chip hit you in the forehead. It assumes an intent where there is none.

[Beardlust]

I too feel like a punching bag. Emphasis on "punch" because it's mostly melee who get away with picking on me. Which leads me to a theorycrafting question.

Has anyone tried the Unleashed Fury spec, and tried using Frostbrand or Rockbiter versus melee? I just now tried a bg using FB anytime I encountered melee. As of now, you can use it in conjunction with ghostwolf to get +80% speed. Combine that with the fact if your target is snared, they're snared for -70% (I think: 50% + added 20% bonus snare if they're already snared)

Is the 10% spell damage too much? Any pro players willing to test out some duels?

Edit: Not against me, I'm not pro by any means. I meant for proplayers to try it out with their profriends to get some data on their experience in maintaining proper kiting.

[Rawfury]

Ele pvp is horrible and tbh you should be resto if you plan to pvp. The only enjoyment you will have

[shell]

I don't really feel like that's the way to address Restoration's healing power. I can't really think of any other reason for this change unless it was to address our supposedly over-the-top hybrid healing, but how often does anyone actually use it to heal?

[Deleted]

thats funny, as the only person who have been able to kill me 1v1 in pvp (except for a blood dk simply outlasting me) as BM hunter, is an Ele shamy.

ascendance - laveburst 140k hit - lavaburst 200k hit bam i'm dead, with 51% pvp resillience no less

That's because resil and pvp power don't work in duels. Go do a BG and those lava bursts will crit 40-50k...maybe 80 if you are lucky with a player who doesn't notice you.

[zenga]

It's not a nerf to Elemental Shaman. It's a Shaman talent, and there's three specs. If Resto's chucking off too many instant heals with it, it probably needs to get nerfed for that reason alone.


Calling this "an elemental nerf" is like accusing a friend of assault and battery, because a chip of wood flew off while he was splitting some wood for a campfire and the chip hit you in the forehead. It assumes an intent where there is none.

I'm not a native English speaker, so the last I want to do is argue about semantics in a foreign language. I wrote it's a nerf for ele shamans. And that for does not indicate that the talent was changed because of ele shamans as far as I know. The outcome is a nerf for ele shamans, and since this thread is about ele shamans I didn't found the intent very relevant (since it's pretty obvious that talents are affecting multiple specs).

The impact on ele shamans and why it's a nerf (which should be obvious):

- an instant hex every 1,5 minute instead of every minute is huge, definitely with melee on your ass that will require more fake casting
- same deal for instant earthquake
- same deal for healing surges
- and offensively same deal for elemental blast

---------- Post added 2012-11-08 at 05:29 AM ----------

Is the 10% spell damage too much? Any pro players willing to test out some duels?

Yeah for duels it's a nice. But ... the spell damage loss is only one drawback, the other being elemental blast (both the dmg and buff aspect). So you lose a lot more damage than just the spell damage, and since ele dmg ain't yet the most super one in arena atm, it's pretty hard to justify the damage loss.

But I've specced into it after losing a few games in a row against the same melee cleave (since you can see who you are up against now before the gates open) and it worked out well because of the surprise effect.

[Deleted]

It's not a nerf to Elemental Shaman. It's a Shaman talent, and there's three specs. If Resto's chucking off too many instant heals with it, it probably needs to get nerfed for that reason alone.

certainly not more instants than paladins and druids.

[Pool of the Dead]

That's because resil and pvp power don't work in duels. Go do a BG and those lava bursts will crit 40-50k...maybe 80 if you are lucky with a player who doesn't notice you.

And the award to most stupid post of the day award goes too.. It works both inside BG's and outside in the World. It is only Disabled in instances/raids to stop healers stacking PvP power for huge heals..

OT: Ele seems a bit underperforming if they are locked down by any other class, whereas if they have free roam of spellcasting can be quite an Annoyance.

[warex00]

Reroll enh. Currently on the arena realm. Enh got even higher burst than arms And I have to admit beeing blown up by enh/Melee teams many times as a mage.

[Deleted]

How do you only have 25% pvp power? I don't even have full dreadful gear and I have one Malevolent piece and I'm close to 25%.

This. I've 30% in my resto gear. And that's not PvP Power gemmed.

[Blitond]

It's not a nerf to Elemental Shaman. It's a Shaman talent, and there's three specs. If Resto's chucking off too many instant heals with it, it probably needs to get nerfed for that reason alone.


Calling this "an elemental nerf" is like accusing a friend of assault and battery, because a chip of wood flew off while he was splitting some wood for a campfire and the chip hit you in the forehead. It assumes an intent where there is none.

I think most people understood what he was saying... Blizzard isn't nerfing elemental on purpose or exclusively, but like many times before we eat nerfs because resto is to strong. This is another example of this.

And it likely wasn't because people were using it to heal, it was more for instant hex.

I too feel like a punching bag. Emphasis on "punch" because it's mostly melee who get away with picking on me. Which leads me to a theorycrafting question.

Has anyone tried the Unleashed Fury spec, and tried using Frostbrand or Rockbiter versus melee? I just now tried a bg using FB anytime I encountered melee. As of now, you can use it in conjunction with ghostwolf to get +80% speed. Combine that with the fact if your target is snared, they're snared for -70% (I think: 50% + added 20% bonus snare if they're already snared)

Is the 10% spell damage too much? Any pro players willing to test out some duels?

Edit: Not against me, I'm not pro by any means. I meant for proplayers to try it out with their profriends to get some data on their experience in maintaining proper kiting.

I'm not a pro player, but here is my thoughts, and it's 7% spell damage from flametongue not 10%.

Snares do little to nothing to the following classes: ret, feral druid, warrior with Avatar pre-5.1, rogue that picks Burst of speed, or DK that picks up Deaths. Against an enhance shaman or monk you will make them cry.

The rockbiter unleash only works on 1 target, which means it's less effective in 3's or double DPS 2's.

The Unleashed Fury talent gives you more control, but it has its drawbacks. Either waste a gcd for every unleash elements or lose 7% damage and flamtongue unleash.

I've been playing around with Unleash Fury and Frozen power as elemental. They both add more control, but I feel my damage goes down to much to make them viable verses anyone in full PvP gear.

IMO, the best way to use Unleash Fury is setting up macros to weapon swap (though you still lose a GCD after you unleash).

[Endus]

I think most people understood what he was saying... Blizzard isn't nerfing elemental on purpose or exclusively, but like many times before we eat nerfs because resto is to strong. This is another example of this.

And it likely wasn't because people were using it to heal, it was more for instant hex.

Yes, but my point was, there's a difference between these two statements;

"Fuck, they're nerfing elemental"

"Fuck, they're nerfing resto and it's going to hurt elemental too"

The first implies the intent is aimed at Elemental, which I see absolutely no reason to believe is true. It's a wrongful implication, and that kind of stuff can quickly boil over into posts about how Blizzard hates Elemental and always hoses it, or similar BS. So I tried to head that off at the pass, so to speak.

[zenga]

... that kind of stuff can quickly boil over into posts about how Blizzard hates Elemental and always hoses it, or similar BS.

Saying that blizzard hates ele shamans would be pretty dumb, if that was the case they would remove the spec. But saying that ...

... ele shaman pvp is lower on their priority list than resto pvp ...
... they are less worried about ele shaman pvp than they are about resto pvp
... they care less about a negative effect that a resto change has on ele pvp than they would care about an ele change having negative effects on resto pvp

... seems less odd to me. The impact OP/UP resto has on the overall pvp balance is far bigger than that of an UP ele shaman. It's hard to prove the aforementioned statements, but the amount of resto changes having a negative impact on ele starts to add up. That doesn't imply they don't care about ele in pvp (I can't imagine a game publisher deliberately willing to make a few% of their playerbase unhappy), I just think that if ele is viable in pvp it's rather a lucky outcome of the ele pve/resto pvp combo mechanics than a well thought out & carefully planned ele specific process. And if that outcome is negative for ele, they can live with it given they have limited resources.

[Endus]

Saying that blizzard hates ele shamans would be pretty dumb, if that was the case they would remove the spec.

Look, you might think that, I might think that, but I guarantee I could bring up at least 5 posts from the last few months where people say exactly that.

But saying that ...

... ele shaman pvp is lower on their priority list than resto pvp ...
... they are less worried about ele shaman pvp than they are about resto pvp
... they care less about a negative effect that a resto change has on ele pvp than they would care about an ele change having negative effects on resto pvp

... seems less odd to me.

I wouldn't say the first two are really true. I think it's more that PvP is a secondary, but important, concern for the dev team, where raiding takes priority. And generally, they're okay if classes have a spec or two that's not great in PvP.

As for the third; that's the dynamics of their development process. They nerf first, buff after. If one spec is outperforming, they'll nerf it back, and often wait to see what effects that change has on the other specs, and THEN buff them to make up for that. Especially with regards to utility-type changes; straight DPS/HPS are a bit easier to tweak a buff/nerf simultaneously. They do this because it lets them see the effect of the first change in practice, and THEN respond to that change, rather than trying to predict the change and potentially over/under doing it.

There's advantages to both methodologies, and disadvantages.

[Deleted]

I got 24% pvp power, and my lava burst are hitting for 50-80k depending on resilience. I dont see the problem, its been that way forever as an ele shaman. Turret dps and hope they dont notice you before they die.

Way to list your fully procced and buffed lava bursts that happen once every 3 minutes.

/facepalm

[Deleted]

25% is not really much mate. I have 36.4% at the moment.

[shell]

Way to list your fully procced and buffed lava bursts that happen once every 3 minutes.

Exactly. I currently have 40% pvp power but the only way my lava bursts are hitting for that much (50,000-80,000) is if I've used my spell trinket, clearcasting has procced, and jade spirit has procced. The 50,000 is on enemies who have around 60% resil, the 80,000 is for the rest, since we automatically get 40% resil baseline.

And that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that damage but I'd like to have an ability where I... 1) can count on having 6 secs of freedom from interrupts and silences so I can pull that damage off. And 2) have a reliable way to deal burst damage outside of ascendance. Now that I have my weapon I feel like my damage is pretty good but unfortunately, it's just not reliable.