Are Elemental Shaman weak?

[Kesandri]

Have leveled 3 shamans now, and I have to say the moment I got lava burst it became smooth sailing, and imo nothing has changed this xpac either. If your having problems killing things It surly has to be down to your playstyle? :/
We are not the quickest class at killing mobs but definatly are not the slowest.

[Spacepunch]

I don't know what kind of gear you leveled with, but just going with quest gear, I had a difficult time leveling. If I pulled 5 mobs, guess what? I died! If I pulled 10 mobs, they wouldn't get past half hp.

We have earthgrab,stone bulwark,HST,earth ele,and TS so many tools you must not have used. If you follow the quests as the go in order there should be 0 problems.

[happyzod]

We have earthgrab,stone bulwark,HST,earth ele,and TS so many tools you must not have used. If you follow the quests as the go in order there should be 0 problems.

Its more about dps. Shaman DPS is too low to pull 5 mobs and survive consistently. Yes if you burn the majority of your of cooldowns, you can do it. You must not remember how much HP the mobs had compared to damage we had. Did you level with the quest greens or did you level in DS gear?

[Endus]

Its more about dps. Shaman DPS is too low to pull 5 mobs and survive consistently.

This is absolutely false. I have no idea what you were doing wrong, since it's basically just "spam LB", but elemental AoE is just fine for questing.

Yes if you burn the majority of your of cooldowns, you can do it.

The only cooldown I ever bothered with was occasionally popping Ancestral Guidance if I wanted basically unlimited health for the duration. It usually wasn't needed, it was usually because it was more efficient to do that than to take a few seconds to cast Healing Surges.

You must not remember how much HP the mobs had compared to damage we had. Did you level with the quest greens or did you level in DS gear?

DS gear got replaced before you hit level 90, dude. I was replacing DS gear with Townlong gear, if not Kun-lai (can't recall where the breakpoint was). Definitely by the troublesome zones people are complaining about.

Elemental has issues at level cap, relative to other people's DPS. They do NOT have an issue while leveling. If you're struggling as Elemental, either you haven't been picking up gear as you level for some reason despite the quest dropping gear like candy, or you're playing the spec completely wrong. You by no means have to burn "the majority" of your cooldowns for AoE.

[Kazgrel]

Most of the DS gear I had was replaced by blues starting in Kun-Lai onward. I had no issue if I pulled more than one mob at a time; there are a plethora of tools available to contend with such situations without resorting to big CDs (ascendance, elemental totems, lust).

My mage and warrior are both 89 now, and I see the same degree of slowdown in terms of effectiveness as I did with my shaman. It's not exclusively an elemental shaman issue. It's a scaling issue where we went from a max level with BiS gear to a higher level (requiring more rating per percentage point for haste, crit, mastery, etc) with green/blue gear.

Once the warrior and mage are in 463+ gear, I'll be eager to see how close they are to my shaman (at 486).

[Endus]

Most of the DS gear I had was replaced by blues starting in Kun-Lai onward. I had no issue if I pulled more than one mob at a time; there are a plethora of tools available to contend with such situations without resorting to big CDs (ascendance, elemental totems, lust).

Right. And the issue at hand is pretty simple;

If some people are struggling, and others aren't, and gear isn't a factor (and from Kun-lai on, it's not, since DS gear would be bypassed by quest gear at that point), then it's a difference in the player, not the spec.

The alternative is that players like myself and Kazgrel are magically awesomecakes and better than everyone. I ain't claiming that. For stuff like Elemental AoE, it's "spam CL, maybe retreat a bit to group them and then Thunderstorm for some breathing room if I pulled a crazy stupid number of mobs". I like to think I'm a decent player. Nothing I'm doing is magic, though. Leveling's pretty darned easy.

My mage and warrior are both 89 now, and I see the same degree of slowdown in terms of effectiveness as I did with my shaman. It's not exclusively an elemental shaman issue. It's a scaling issue where we went from a max level with BiS gear to a higher level (requiring more rating per percentage point for haste, crit, mastery, etc) with green/blue gear.

To repeat what I said earlier, I've leveled a Monk and a Druid to 90 in addition to my Shaman. They weren't any more effective. Were they horrible? No. It was just normal leveling.

Like Kazgrel said, a lot of people forget that there's a power creep during an expansion, and you go from blowing things up in full BiS at the end of one expansion, to replacing those with quest greens halfway to the level cap (if not sooner). And then you're performing as well as anyone does in greens; only okay. That's to be expected.

[happyzod]

This is absolutely false. I have no idea what you were doing wrong, since it's basically just "spam LB", but elemental AoE is just fine for questing.

So you showed up in the Jade Forrest with DS (fully enchanted and gemmed, probably with set bonuses) and say its fine, but I leveled in quest gear (384 or below) in the jade forest. I can 100% understand why you said it was easy and you were chain pulling mobs with no problem; because you outgeared the content! I think my experience is more relevant to the OP, unless his shaman is in DS or Heroic DS gear, or he decided to twink out his shaman with the Mists blues.

The only cooldown I ever bothered with was occasionally popping Ancestral Guidance if I wanted basically unlimited health for the duration. It usually wasn't needed, it was usually because it was more efficient to do that than to take a few seconds to cast Healing Surges.

Most likely because you were in better gear?

DS gear got replaced before you hit level 90, dude. I was replacing DS gear with Townlong gear, if not Kun-lai (can't recall where the breakpoint was). Definitely by the troublesome zones people are complaining about.

I'm not talking about just Townlong or Kun-Lai. I'm talking about the every zone from the first. It was a challenge, period. Of course, you didn't have trouble because you were in top gear going in and you outgeared the content!

If you're struggling as Elemental, either you haven't been picking up gear as you level for some reason despite the quest dropping gear like candy, or you're playing the spec completely wrong. You by no means have to burn "the majority" of your cooldowns for AoE.

This is coming from someone who leveled in probably BIS gear. You're out of touch.

[Endus]

So you showed up in the Jade Forrest with DS (fully enchanted and gemmed, probably with set bonuses) and say its fine, but I leveled in quest gear (384 or below) in the jade forest. I can 100% understand why you said it was easy and you were chain pulling mobs with no problem; because you outgeared the content! I think my experience is more relevant to the OP, unless his shaman is in DS or Heroic DS gear, or he decided to twink out his shaman with the Mists blues.

Jade Forest isn't a struggle. The content gets progressively more difficult as you level, both because the mobs scale faster than your gear does, and because itemization decreases in value.

Besides which, if you're starting a new alt, chances are you can buy blues/greens and have better-than-DS gear the moment you hit Jade Forest, particularly if you already have a toon at 90. There's ilvl 390 random green drops, plus all the high-ilvl low-required-level blues that Blizzard added in MoP. My monk had an ilvl 450 weapon and several ilvl 420+ pieces on when they finished Cata, and probably had at least as high an ilvl as my Shaman.

If you are struggling to level as Elemental, you need to sit down and learn how the spec works. Because it's fine. Seriously. If you're not kiting or using your defensives while pulling multiple spawns, sure, you'll probably die. But that's because you're playing badly and have no idea what you're doing, not because Elemental isn't up to snuff.

[happyzod]

Jade Forest isn't a struggle. The content gets progressively more difficult as you level, both because the mobs scale faster than your gear does, and because itemization decreases in value.

Besides which, if you're starting a new alt, chances are you can buy blues/greens and have better-than-DS gear the moment you hit Jade Forest, particularly if you already have a toon at 90. There's ilvl 390 random green drops, plus all the high-ilvl low-required-level blues that Blizzard added in MoP. My monk had an ilvl 450 weapon and several ilvl 420+ pieces on when they finished Cata, and probably had at least as high an ilvl as my Shaman.

So you outgeared the content and call it easy while I didn't outgear it and called it difficult. Yes.

If you are struggling to level as Elemental, you need to sit down and learn how the spec works. Because it's fine. Seriously. If you're not kiting or using your defensives while pulling multiple spawns, sure, you'll probably die. But that's because you're playing badly and have no idea what you're doing, not because Elemental isn't up to snuff.

Yes, I was struggling because I was in gear meant for the content. You need to sit down and get off your high horse. You leveled in BIS slot gear, of course you had an easy time. You twink your guys, of course you had an easy time. Any dps spec who twinks will have an easy time leveling. GO level a fresh shaman without any help from your mains, come back and tell me how you AOE'd 10 guys without using any cooldowns.

[lolshammy]

So you outgeared the content and call it easy while I didn't outgear it and called it difficult. Yes.

Yes, I was struggling because I was in gear meant for the content. You need to sit down and get off your high horse. You leveled in BIS slot gear, of course you had an easy time. You twink your guys, of course you had an easy time. Any dps spec who twinks will have an easy time leveling. GO level a fresh shaman without any help from your mains, come back and tell me how you AOE'd 10 guys without using any cooldowns.

Note that I'm not saying some other class doesn't have it easier; they might, I haven't leveled too many alts this expansion. Ele is definitely not hard to level though.

Between all the abilities you have as ele, it's so easy to pull 5~10 mobs (assuming no cc from the mobs, ranged mobs, or excessive level/gear problems - 384 is more than enough). It's silly to say "without using any cooldowns" because after the mop totem revamp shamans are swimming with cds and these should be used whenever possible.

Things you can do in loose order of how useful I find it.

Ancestral Guidance + chain lightning (glyphed) = ten seconds of unkillability + full hp at the end
Healing Stream Totem + Stone Bulwark Totem = near unkillable on easy/low number of mobs, lots of survivability for harder/high number of mobs
Thunderstorm to give Capacitor time to charge, heal yourself, run, HST&SBT ticks, CL mobs that ended up close
Capacitor Totem = 5 seconds of stun to do whatever, heal/kill them all/let your HST&SBT tick, etc.
Call of Elements to use all the totems again
Earthgrab Totem to run away, buy time for cds, heal, HST ticks
Spiritwalker's Grace to heal while kiting, good with earthgrab
Just stand there and heal, to wait for CDs, etc.
Ghost wolf and run

This is not including the big CDs like Fire Ele, bloodlust, and ascendance which you get at 87, optional cd in elemental mastery (imo you should be running this leveling) all of which should be used liberally when leveling. There's no need to save these for "a rainy day" because you can always get away with earthgrab+ghost wolf if things look really bad.

If you use all of the above it's easily 30 seconds ~ 1 minute to spam CL, if not more. Bonus points for magma totem on 8+ targets. But for sure with fire ele up you should have enough dps to kill all the mobs before all your cds run out.

Also note the totems and TS are on 1 min cd or less, so you can do this almost non-stop for easier/lower number of mobs.

I mean really, even at the last two zones I chain pulled 5 mobs this way all the time. At that point I'd replaced most (all in fact, in dread wastes) of my gear so it's not a gear thing. I've died maybe once because I was lazy and didn't push all my buttons. I'm pretty sure I could have done more than 5 if I used literally all of the cds above but I tend to try to keep it to the 1min cds + one, and rotate my cds that way so I can keep pulling.

Of course, this gets way harder if the mobs are ranged/cast cc or have other abilities, but there's few if any mobs like that in the first two zones, where you are saying it's already hard. Even then, you can pull those mobs like this with good use of fire ele/magma totem/capacitor totem to dps the mobs while you focus on keeping yourself alive.

For single target, all of the above applies but instead you open with pre-cast lightning bolt at safe distance, flame shock, lava burst, then depending on the mob's hp, if its low enough spam instant casts (unleash elements, thunderstorm, sometimes I'm so lazy I wait for shock cd), or lightning bolt/CL/lava burst till it's dead. Depending on your gear it might take a little longer but it shouldn't be past maybe 2~3 hard casts after the opener, obviously the more lvb procs the faster.

[Endus]

So you outgeared the content and call it easy while I didn't outgear it and called it difficult. Yes.

If you go back and actually try reading my posts, you'll see that I was focusing my comments on the Townlong/Dread Wastes difficulty, which is where most people actually struggle, and where I was wearing full quest greens because they'd replaced my DS gear, giving me zero gear advantage. I also leveled to 90 on the beta, where the starter characters at the time had Firelands tier, and thus were decidedly not Dragon Soul-geared.

So no, I geared the same as everyone else, and called it "easy". I was never unable to handle things. It was never especially difficult. If you were really struggling as hard as you claim, you were making some error that you're not coming forward about, and your defensive antagonism and refusal to admit there's any possibility that you weren't doing things right is never going to help you improve your game.

The earlier Jade Forest stuff is significantly easier than the later content, even if you had slightly better gear heading into Jade Forest. Even using the Jade Forest gear, that stuff isn't hard to handle, and if you started any later than the first few weeks, and were totally ungeared, you could've bought some starter greens off the AH to make the transition smoother if you were really all that worried about it.

If you were having issues, it was for reasons other than your spec. Elemental is just fine for leveling. If other people didn't have an issue, and you did, then it's not the shared factor, the spec. It's something else.

[happyzod]

If you go back and actually try reading my posts, you'll see that I was focusing my comments on the Townlong/Dread Wastes difficulty, which is where most people actually struggle

No. Most people struggle at the point where they're in ilvl 300 gear trying to take down the stuff in the Jade Forrest. You did not struggle because you had Firelands gear or DS gear, probably fully enchanted and everything because it was the beta.

So no, I geared the same as everyone else, and called it "easy". I was never unable to handle things. It was never especially difficult. If you were really struggling as hard as you claim, you were making some error that you're not coming forward about, and your defensive antagonism and refusal to admit there's any possibility that you weren't doing things right is never going to help you improve your game.

No. You had a gear advantage over any other leveling class. You started in Firelands gear. You started in DS gear. The content was undertuned for people like you. You need to get off your high horse, again. I challenge you to level a shaman from scratch without any support, like I did. I've had experience with it, you had experience facerolling.

If you were having issues, it was for reasons other than your spec. Elemental is just fine for leveling. If other people didn't have an issue, and you did, then it's not the shared factor, the spec. It's something else.

Again, its not an issue with my play. Its an issue with your perception and total lack of experience leveling a character that a zone is tuned for. You keep trying to suggest that I am not playing my class correctly, but that's because you lack the experience I have. I have leveled a character with the twink gear on my 2nd 90, an OOMking I supported. 415,442,etc fully enchanted. It was a faceroll. I have experience in both sides of the coin, with a character fresh without any support. Leveling with gear the content is tuned for is not a cakewalk like many of you are suggesting.

Just to add, it seems like the shared factor you mentioned is the fact that most likely, you guys leveled your shaman in full DS epics?

---------- Post added 2013-01-04 at 07:17 AM ----------



Your response to a post complaining about the level 88 wall.

Between Overloads, EotE, and Lava Surge, almost nothing ever closed to melee range before dying. Packs were almost as fast to kill as single targets, due to CL.

Just as an experiment, pull 5 Osul Sharphorns in the townlong steppes near the long-yin outpost and attempt to AOE them down without any cooldowns. I did the experiment, and packs were NOT as fast to kill as single target, not even close to an almost. In 490 gear.

Also, in 490 gear, the Sharphorns were able to get into melee range consistently and whack me once at least(if I procced an overload). Rotation is flame shock, lava burst, lightning bolt until proc. You must be really good if you managed to do the 67k DPS in the 5 seconds it takes for them to get to you at that level of gear. I'll attribute it to selective memory.

Another test. Again, trying to kill mobs in the steppes with ilvl 490 gear. I was able to find basilisks that had 229k health that I could kill easily with flamshock->Lava Burst->LB->ES if it kills him. The mantid mostly charged at you so they don't count. The ones I did manage to find that didn't charge had 280k hp, and even with an overload proc on the LvB, they reached me. They were only not able to reach me if I was able to get a lava surge proc.

[beuwulf]

only prob i had while leveling was some of the rares were a bitch to solo, in comparison to my huntard who face rolled them solo.

[Mizanthropic]

First character I leveled when the expansion hit was my ele shaman and it only had some hc dungeon blues from Cata. The only thing that was slowing me down was herbing coz there were too many friggin nodes^^ Other than that the only thing that could kill me was the 90 Panda rares in dread wastes spamming chi burst. I've got 3 other 90's now Hunter/mage/lock and the only one that was even easier was the lock.

[Kazgrel]

ITT: Complaining about under/outgearing leveling content...???

If you really feel like you're being handicapped by gear upon hitting Jade Forest, stop by the AH and pick up some gear, or make friends with a leatherworker/scribe/blacksmith/etc.

[Endus]

No. Most people struggle at the point where they're in ilvl 300 gear trying to take down the stuff in the Jade Forrest.

That's because they're in crap gear. Twilight Highlands quest greens are ilvl 318, and you'd have a few blues that were higher. So sure, if you deliberately use lower item level gear than you should have on entering Jade Forest, you'll struggle a bit more until you get the drops in Jade Forest and replace it, at which point you're fine. Any alt who skips Twilight Highlands and jumps into Jade Forest undergeared is going to struggle a bit until they get the Jade Forest greens.

You're making a point about gear, not the spec.

Your response to a post complaining about the level 88 wall.

Just as an experiment, pull 5 Osul Sharphorns in the townlong steppes near the long-yin outpost and attempt to AOE them down without any cooldowns. I did the experiment, and packs were NOT as fast to kill as single target, not even close to an almost. In 490 gear.

So your argument is "I have no idea what I'm doing and deliberately played badly, and it wasn't effective"?

Why are you AoEing a non-AoE pack rather than single-targeting them like you should be?

Another test

. Again, trying to kill mobs in the steppes with ilvl 490 gear. I was able to find basilisks that had 229k health that I could kill easily with flamshock->Lava Burst->LB->ES if it kills him. The mantid mostly charged at you so they don't count. The ones I did manage to find that didn't charge had 280k hp, and even with an overload proc on the LvB, they reached me. They were only not able to reach me if I was able to get a lava surge proc.

Even if they DO reach you, they don't last long. Plus, are you kiting, or are you standing there and letting them catch you? I stopped kiting a lot because I didn't need to, because things died so quickly. If things ARE reaching you and hitting you, you SHOULD be kiting, and if you aren't, that's player error. I'm pretty sure we're back to "not using the tools you have and then blaming the class for it."

[Spacepunch]

So you outgeared the content and call it easy while I didn't outgear it and called it difficult. Yes.

Yes, I was struggling because I was in gear meant for the content. You need to sit down and get off your high horse. You leveled in BIS slot gear, of course you had an easy time. You twink your guys, of course you had an easy time. Any dps spec who twinks will have an easy time leveling. GO level a fresh shaman without any help from your mains, come back and tell me how you AOE'd 10 guys without using any cooldowns.

At some point we all had the same ilvl, what is the excuse then?

[rakhakash]

How about Flame Shocking everything in the vicinity and spam Chain Lightning? Level 1 - 80 mobs die before you sneeze at them anyway.

[Boramir]

Umm... so your leveling experience was harder/easier than someone elses... what else is new? It happens every xpac. People have different experiences with the next level of content based off of where their gear level was at the end of the previous xpac. Sounds about right to me.

I have played a shaman since BC, but never as elemental. However, at the end of cata, my best gear was my resto set, and with the spirit to hit conversion I figured why not give ele a try. Did I outgear the first 2 zones... yes. Did I notice a significant drop off in my leveling time after I switched out my gear to quest greens/blues... nope! By that time I had already read up on how to play ele and had 2 zones to figure out what I was doing (mostly by reading tips from posters in this forum, thanks Endus!).

While I hear what you're saying about "outgearing the first 2 zones" and can understand your frustration, it does not change the fact that you still have all the tools in the ele toolbox at your disposal to use when needed! The only difference the gear ilvl has is how fast you kill whatever you pulled. If what you pulled killed you, pull less next time you try it.

Seriously though, if you're complaining about how long it takes to level a toon (regardless of the class) and you're not getting it ready to level (enchants, gems, etc.) then why are you complaining. If you're not willing to put in the effort/money to get a toon ready, don't complain that you can't do what other players are able to do because they put in the extra effort. You will eventually hit lvl 90 and then have to gear all over again so get used to it... it's how mmorpg's work!

[Dark_Spirit]

When I leveled my ele from 85 to 90 the only problems I had were:
a, Anything, I mean every other class could gank and actually kill you very easily. (I was leveling in pve gear/talents)
b, Dread Wastes' mobs have too much HP imo, it was a pain to quest there.

Otherwise, elemental shamans are very fine lvling wise, particularly at dungeons. CL spam is a beast.