Elemental Shaman PvP Suggested Buffs for 5.2

[Deleted]

I posted this on WoWEU forums. Could someone else copy+paste on US if you like this suggested list?

Played elemental since s8 wrath and even though the changes in 5.2 are very much welcomed, it's the same as 4.2, it's simply not even close enough to be on par with the middle-top specs. I had to quit my shaman in 4.2 because it was still so painful to play thanks to sub rogues being gods with cc and mobility and most r1 viable specs are not too far behind their level of CC+damage as of today.

I don't want elemental to be OP in fact I love the spec because it's challenging to play in PvP but I just want to stand a good chance against someone of equal skill and capability. I know Blizzard also doesn't want another season 8 from wrath but we aren't the reliable one shot, unkillable gods with insane offhealing and utility that we were in wrath. We barely have anything outside of completely random burst, the occasional offheal and decent utility/CC. What we lack is passive defense (even with 5.2 although not so much), sustained DPS improvements coupled with DPS outside of casting and some reliable way to escape melee. I've literally seen frost mages win games by hard casting nothing other than frost bomb and polymorph, the contrast to elemental is absolutely massive.

Buffing steady damage of flame shock or searing totem and offering frost shock as an alternative instant cast with about the same damage as ice lance minus the high crit chance would be the absolute ideal way to not only improve PvP damage but also PvE. It's sustained DPS that doesn't cause any issues and I really cannot see any negatives in buffing these abilities. Frost shock might be OP with the talent if shock cooldown is removed but elemental has no escapes anyhow.

List of ideas that could help (* means more important to the spec), any of these within some reasonable buff not to be OP would be nice. Pick any one or any few that you like and discharge the rest. These are simply a list of suggestions and are not indicative to the notion that we need ALL these buffs to be competitive:

- *Lightning bolt needs improving with about a 20% damage buff or faster cast speed.
- *A passive damage reduction is needed to counter melee cleaves a bit more. About 10%.
- **Frost shock needs to be on separate cooldown and deal about 50% more damage (similar to booming echoes in wrath), ele shamans NEED some sort of instant damage that isn't reliant on charges or RNG or shock cooldown, it doesn't need to do much damage either just something to use while moving or locked out of nature.
- Flame shock glyph needs to be 100% heal otherwise its useless or flame shock needs damage doubled.
- *** BY FAR THE MOST CRUCIAL *** Flame shock also needs to punish the dispeller since it's arguably the most crucial DoT in the entire game OF ANY CLASS. Over half of your damage is lava burst in many PvE fights and by far the most in PvP, it NEEDS to be on the target. Either provide lava floes from cata, make the target explode, create a new un-dispellable debuff that deals the flame shocks damage over 6 seconds, whatever idea you come up with it needs to be done because it's absolutely hilarious to just dispel ONE dot and have the ele shaman automatically being incapable of doing anything but cry in place.
- Astral Shift needs a jump up to 8 or 10 seconds or a 60% damage reduction.
- Capacitor needs to charge quicker by about 1 second or have 5% of hp baseline.
- Earthquake needs to have a lower cast time and deal a bit more damage because in 5.2, I can't see any reason for a shaman to cast it, it's literally useless now and that's in the most favorable position possible for the spell, i've never seen it cast in PvP, maybe have it reduce their armor or increase their lightning bolt damage taken by 5% per stack up to 5 stacks.
- Probably OP but fulmination should have a higher crit chance below 20% to function as an execute, around 25% extra chance to crit or fulmination now benefits from overload when a target is below 20%.
- Passive talent or ability for elemental and maybe enhancement. While silenced you can still use your shock spells, totems and ghost wolf.
- Healing surge would benefit nicely with a slight buff, about 15% when clearcasting isn't up. Clearcasting should be nerfed to compensate. Healing stream buff, about 25% would also help as it does less healing I believe than recuperate and is at best only up 50% when nobody attacks the totem.
- 5% hp glyph to totems should either be baseline or increased to 10% because an auto-attack can still pretty much kill them. Why use stone-bulwark apart from the initial shield when it gets killed within 3 seconds? The only way to make them useful is to use the restoration talent.
- Buff searing totem to deal 50-100% more damage, it hits for about 1.5k in pvp each second. A 100% buff is barely noticeable with it being sustained dps which is what ele needs rather than more burst.
- Every caster has some sort of escape cooldown to get away from melee. Even though elemental has it's own advantages, I still believe that since MoP we are lacking in the escape department with so many melee gaining gap closers or CC escape abilities. A 10 yard jump or dash on 3 second duration/60% movement speed or brief immunity to snares and roots, any of these would help on a 30 second or so cooldown since we already have storm.

I will admit some of these buffs could be OP but I believe that some would not only benefit shamans but also benefit the enemies as they are not abilities that would dominate or make them suffer severely at our hands. Most are individually little changes that only improve elemental's dire state in PvP and lack of sustained DPS.

[Northy]

Keep dreaming. So long as Resto is good in PvP don't expect significant Elemental changes.

[shell]

I like it, and I will keep dreaming The thing is they could make most of those changes to elemental without impacting resto. Astral Shift is the only thing that really stands out to me as a no. I'd post it but not subbed at the moment.

[Blitond]

PvP elemental is getting some buffs for 5.2 already.

Most notably:
Shamanistic rage
Chain lightning buff
Lava Beam buff
PvP power healing

However, were also getting a nerf to purge (one of the main reasons for an elemental shaman in RBGs).

Our damage will be stronger in RBGs, but we lose some utility. I think we'll still (and for the foreseeable future) be stuck to RBGs as opposed to arenas.

[Rezhka]

I love most of the idea, especially about the FS dispelling-punishment and Fulmination as execute mechanic.

But for our defensive, i'm thinking we could just simply have our old and first Astral Shift just like on WoTLK. Because silence is really pacify us to the dead now (not even a totem now?! sigh...). And to not having it today is kinda irrelevant with so many class also have been developed a lot to counter the caster.

[walled56]

elemental sham is weak in pvp since cata.
but in 5.2.i will wait and see how elemental shaman does good in pvp.

[Kralljin]

Just jumping on a few points.

- *A passive damage reduction is needed to counter melee cleaves a bit more. About 10%.

I think the major problem is that you have a hard time to peel melees if they got CD's running, 10% won't do much and most Shaman would just laugh about this change.

- *** BY FAR THE MOST CRUCIAL *** Flame shock also needs to punish the dispeller since it's arguably the most crucial DoT in the entire game OF ANY CLASS.

FS is important, but i think Affli locks rely a bit more on Dots.

- Capacitor needs to charge quicker by about 1 second or have 5% of hp baseline.

Melees could still kill even with 5% hp, that's just 18k in PvP gear

- Earthquake needs to have a lower cast time and deal a bit more damage because in 5.2, I can't see any reason for a shaman to cast it, it's literally useless now and that's in the most favorable position possible for the spell, i've never seen it cast in PvP, maybe have it reduce their armor or increase their lightning bolt damage taken by 5% per stack up to 5 stacks.

I don't know why you want to cast EQ in PvP except for unstealthing rogues and protecting the Flag, even with those Buffs, EQ costs tons of mana, which can be an issue for Elemental during long matches.

- 5% hp glyph to totems should either be baseline or increased to 10% because an auto-attack can still pretty much kill them. Why use stone-bulwark apart from the initial shield when it gets killed within 3 seconds? The only way to make them useful is to use the restoration talent.

I don't think that would majorly help Stonebulwark, in PvP i often put down Earthbind / Earthgrab and Tremor, which would cancel Stonebulwark anyway.

And if i need to protect my totems from melees (such as HTT) i just tp them away after i put them down.

[Bobzor]

Remove CD on Flame shock = Spec fixed?
Able to spread flame shock on all players, pets etc which actually makes the glyph useful. Flameshock also does alright instant damage.
It would also give us more time to use frostshock/fulmination

[Kralljin]

Remove CD on Flame shock = Spec fixed?
Able to spread flame shock on all players, pets etc which actually makes the glyph useful. Flameshock also does alright instant damage.
It would also give us more time to use frostshock/fulmination

Don't think that would be okay, you could swap your entire Burst within a Single GCD.

Secondly, i doubt that it would fix Elemental, dispelling FS is certainly a handicap for Elemental but it is not a huge issue in RBG / Arena (with a proper Comp) where so many important magic debuffs are around, you can't spent every Dispel CD on something like FS.

I'd rather see Frost Shock enterily removed from this Shock thing, slap a 15sec on it that it won't be spammed mindlessly to keep a target slowed.

[Deleted]

Just jumping on a few points.

I think the major problem is that you have a hard time to peel melees if they got CD's running, 10% won't do much and most Shaman would just laugh about this change.

If you make too wild of a change, it results in what happened in wrath, Ele shamans being really tough to kill in many scenarios. A passive DR that isn't too strong is probably the best option right now coupled with a gap opener/blink/leap type ability which I mentioned previously. Adding more root, slow, stun, any CC capabilities to peel melee coupled with the changes we get in 5.2 could make us dangerous balance wise. In addition, 10% is more than you might think.

FS is important, but i think Affli locks rely a bit more on Dots.

Is Corruption as integral as Flame Shock on it's own? Probably not but when all 3 aren't on their target I agree but as far as a single debuff goes I would say FS is more important.

Melees could still kill even with 5% hp, that's just 18k in PvP gear

It's less about how much HP it has and just improving the spell in a minor way. If you are taking the glyph (3sec) then a melee would have to make a decision between taking the time to kill the totem or running away. 10% could be a better option but these are just numbers. Even a spell redesign would be a better option but atm we are stuck with what we got.

I don't know why you want to cast EQ in PvP except for unstealthing rogues and protecting the Flag, even with those Buffs, EQ costs tons of mana, which can be an issue for Elemental during long matches.

Less about PvP in this one and more about improving it in PvE. Agreed though, it is pretty useless in PvP but more QoL improvements with the spell may make it useful in catching out stealth classes since atm I don't even use it for that.

I don't think that would majorly help Stonebulwark, in PvP i often put down Earthbind / Earthgrab and Tremor, which would cancel Stonebulwark anyway.

And if i need to protect my totems from melees (such as HTT) i just tp them away after i put them down.

What you're suggesting is cookie cutter here? To solve an issue with elemental, I NEED to take this talent to make my totems useful which only works for melee who give a shit anyway, what about ranged attack like heroic throw, shuriken toss, howling blast? Still doesn't really solve the problem. I don't use projection in PvP, I use restoration as I like dropping Earthbind and recalling to get a lower CD. The totem HP is just one of my lesser gripes, having too much HP makes them "uncounterable" in most circumstances but just having a little bit makes it harder for healers, small attacks like ice lance or a pet destroying them too easily. Furthermore, if they have more HP then this often means that melee would need to expend resources to guarantee a quick kill such as energy, rage or runepower, etc. It only makes the commitment to killing a totem a little bit more rather than just a left click. Overall, I agree though that a HP increase doesn't do too much but it's still more than nothing without being too powerful.

The list of buffs I've constructed is just suggestive. It's not meant to solve ALL of elemental's problems numbers wise simply that they are just base concepts, the numbers don't matter in the long run since they can be balanced. If it takes 10%, 20% to get it to work, so be it. There are many ways to improve a spell, I'm giving my own suggestions without trying to be too biased as the worst thing I hate about playing a class is about how OP and easy they are vs average players, reason why I quit my feral. Thanks for the feedback, most of your comments has it's legislation and further legitimizes that balance is more complex than anyone can comprehend.

[Kralljin]

If you make too wild of a change, it results in what happened in wrath, Ele shamans being really tough to kill in many scenarios. A passive DR that isn't too strong is probably the best option right now coupled with a gap opener/blink/leap type ability which I mentioned previously. Adding more root, slow, stun, any CC capabilities to peel melee coupled with the changes we get in 5.2 could make us dangerous balance wise. In addition, 10% is more than you might think.

Ele has been tough for Melees to kill if he's been just dropping Earthbind (5Sec Root with 10sec CD) and go into GW, there you go, with a healer on your back, you were fine against the worst Melee Cleaves.

And 10% are still 10%, i mean i heard no one during Cata saying "We're fine, we get 15% additional healing!"

Most people complain that they get rolled over by Melees without the chance to fight back because they eat so much damage, a 10% passive reduction isn't that noticeable in PvP.

I am very confused about the demand for a passive reduction since most people said during Cata / Wotlk "f***k passive reduction, we need a Shield wall!"

Is Corruption as integral as Flame Shock on it's own? Probably not but when all 3 aren't on their target I agree but as far as a single debuff goes I would say FS is more important.

I have been talking about Affli Dots in general (Since every Magic / Curse debuff is now removed with a dispel), or how much damage do Affli locks without their dots? Even their Filler Spell works around dots, if there are no Dots, there won't be any dmg from affli.

And UA doesn't seem to do enough dmg currently, if it get's buffed that drastically.

It's less about how much HP it has and just improving the spell in a minor way. If you are taking the glyph (3sec) then a melee would have to make a decision between taking the time to kill the totem or running away. 10% could be a better option but these are just numbers. Even a spell redesign would be a better option but atm we are stuck with what we got.

My main point is, that Melees will likely still kill the totem in a single hit, or at least swing from main+offhand.

What you're suggesting is cookie cutter here? To solve an issue with elemental, I NEED to take this talent to make my totems useful which only works for melee who give a shit anyway, what about ranged attack like heroic throw, shuriken toss, howling blast?

1. Tp has 40yards range, most Melee attacks have 30yards.
2. Since it has a 40yards radius, you will cover a circle with the diameter of 80yards, that's a huge field in which the melee has to find the totem, target it and destroy it.

Not to mention that you plant them close to pillars, that they stack on eachother which makes them even harder to target.

[Deleted]

Ele has been tough for Melees to kill if he's been just dropping Earthbind (5Sec Root with 10sec CD) and go into GW, there you go, with a healer on your back, you were fine against the worst Melee Cleaves.

And 10% are still 10%, i mean i heard no one during Cata saying "We're fine, we get 15% additional healing!"

Most people complain that they get rolled over by Melees without the chance to fight back because they eat so much damage, a 10% passive reduction isn't that noticeable in PvP.

I am very confused about the demand for a passive reduction since most people said during Cata / Wotlk "f***k passive reduction, we need a Shield wall!"

Ele has been tough for melees? Maybe in wrath but certainly not today giving the fact that melee have more ways of CC and more ways to close the gap between the target yet elemental still has not been compensated in some way compared to other casters. Mages got alter time, blazing speed if talented, hunters got lower or more powerful escape/defense cooldowns and readiness, warlocks got a sway of defensive cooldowns, portal and more instant CC in addition they also have passive 10% DR next patch. Spriests got an additional fear, faster dispersion speed, a root. Boomkins got a blink or disengage, ursols vortex, faster run speed if talented, natures grace, etc. Shamans have only gained minor defensive cooldowns that pale in comparison to other classes and healing tide during MoP release. Other classes have lost abilities but most have gained a lot more than what they had previously.

In addition, Cata and Wotlk aren't the same as MoP are they? We had Astral Shift in wotlk which made us extremely durable vs melee in particular. During Cata we weren't competitive at the highest levels unless you were REALLY GOOD and had a specific comp to mask the disadvantages but we still had some optional talents and passives such as the spell reduction talent, increased healing, earthgrab on 15 second cooldown, lower cd hex, totems and unleash usable while silenced and more armor percentage reduction (right now I'm about 44% with shield, in Cata I could reach around 54%).

Furthermore, that "shield wall" is what we are getting in 5.2 so why other than repetition, redundancy or just to be too durable would we need ANOTHER defense cooldown? In Wrath, offheals on ele was very strong so introducing a shield wall would be overkill. Cata I agree it was needed. So far Spriests, boomkins, mages, hunters and even warlocks are moving towards the model of SOME passive damage reduction in addition to their powerful cooldowns yet elemental is still left in the dust and is the weakest of the bunch right now for good reason. 10% DR is significant, it makes training a shaman less effective mixing that with sham rage we can become quite tough to kill. Astral Shift in wrath was 30% DR but only applicable in CC and it turned out that ele was very tough to kill for certain classes (I played a rogue at the time and killing an ele shaman was painful). Having a third of that damage apply always is more than you might think considering the uptime melee have on us right now.

I do agree that 10% DR doesn't really fix the training problem directly but it at least counters it in some way, even if it's minor. The source of the problem is more about the lack of passive DR and mobility/creating distance which is what I mentioned previously. Given that these two factors are present then elemental could become significantly more effective.

I have been talking about Affli Dots in general (Since every Magic / Curse debuff is now removed with a dispel), or how much damage do Affli locks without their dots? Even their Filler Spell works around dots, if there are no Dots, there won't be any dmg from affli.

And UA doesn't seem to do enough dmg currently, if it get's buffed that drastically.

That is true but affliction can still reapply their dots nearly instantly with no cooldown especially with soul swap burn and consider that for every flame shock we use, that is less earth shocks and in some situations, frost shock. This argument is irrelevant however as it's offtopic to my post. Point is, flame shock is at least one of the most important debuffs in the game and since it's dispelled so easily then it almost completely negates all of elemental's damage. At least with unstable it silences and deals damage which could be risky in a close game scenario.

My main point is, that Melees will likely still kill the totem in a single hit, or at least swing from main+offhand.

1. Tp has 40yards range, most Melee attacks have 30yards.
2. Since it has a 40yards radius, you will cover a circle with the diameter of 80yards, that's a huge field in which the melee has to find the totem, target it and destroy it.

Not to mention that you plant them close to pillars, that they stack on eachother which makes them even harder to target.

Again you seem to highlight the fact that Totem Projection is necessary to make totems usable, that's not the case here and talents should not be REQUIRED to make one of our core functions of the class to barely work. In addition, if you plant the totem 40 yards away then if you move out of that radius then the effect is lost. Having to move your totems 40 yds away for them to work properly is absurd since you even mentioned that totems override each other so what practical use does it have when we need it for totems like capacitor if we want them to hit a melee? Like I mentioned, 5% is just a number it can be tweaked. Finally, in what scenario would you want a stone bulwark or a tremor or an earthgrab to be projected around a corner to keep it alive when many of the durations of our totems are so low? The only reasonable option would be mana/healing tide and maybe healing stream since bulwark is overridden by other important cooldown totems. Even if melee have to take their eyes off for a few more seconds to kill a totem, it allows us to create breathing room for us and assess the situation without having a brainless melee whacking away like a pinata.

[Endus]

My own two cents, FWIW

- *Lightning bolt needs improving with about a 20% damage buff or faster cast speed.

This may be too high. We need about a 10% buff, and our sustained damage needs some love, but we also need to be sure Lightning Bolt doesn't change position in the priority queue. That would require testing to figure out, though, and the main intent behind this is still solid.

- *A passive damage reduction is needed to counter melee cleaves a bit more. About 10%.

Seriously, mail armor. It's a big deal. My Shaman has a little over 40k armor, giving about a 47% reduction to physical damage. A druid buddy (minus form bonuses) has about 17k armor, giving a 27% reduction to physical. A mage friend has 14k armor, for 23% reduced damage from Physical. Sure, a large chunk of that is the shield, but that's sort of the point; armor is a big factor that can't be ignored, and provides a significant reduction that is primarily useful against melee.

- **Frost shock needs to be on separate cooldown and deal about 50% more damage (similar to booming echoes in wrath), ele shamans NEED some sort of instant damage that isn't reliant on charges or RNG or shock cooldown, it doesn't need to do much damage either just something to use while moving or locked out of nature.

I totally disagree that we need another instant to rotate in. I've argued in the past that Frost Shock should deal more damage (have it discharge LS charges over 3, rather than ES discharging them over 1, for instance), so it isn't as big a damage loss, but otherwise, it's fine.

- *** BY FAR THE MOST CRUCIAL *** Flame shock also needs to punish the dispeller since it's arguably the most crucial DoT in the entire game OF ANY CLASS. Over half of your damage is lava burst in many PvE fights and by far the most in PvP, it NEEDS to be on the target. Either provide lava floes from cata, make the target explode, create a new un-dispellable debuff that deals the flame shocks damage over 6 seconds, whatever idea you come up with it needs to be done because it's absolutely hilarious to just dispel ONE dot and have the ele shaman automatically being incapable of doing anything but cry in place.

Unlikely to ever happen. They WANT spells to be dispellable, and for dispels to matter. If anything, I'd rather see a return of the beta LvB glyph, that reduced the damage but removed the need for FS on the target.

- Earthquake needs to have a lower cast time and deal a bit more damage because in 5.2, I can't see any reason for a shaman to cast it, it's literally useless now and that's in the most favorable position possible for the spell, i've never seen it cast in PvP, maybe have it reduce their armor or increase their lightning bolt damage taken by 5% per stack up to 5 stacks.

Yeah, it was on the edge of usefulness before, the buffs to CL will render it pointless IMO.

- 5% hp glyph to totems should either be baseline or increased to 10% because an auto-attack can still pretty much kill them. Why use stone-bulwark apart from the initial shield when it gets killed within 3 seconds? The only way to make them useful is to use the restoration talent.

That's really just saying "I don't want to have to choose between glyphs". The glyph has value, as you're mentioning. If it's necessary, you'll take it. If it's kind of eh and you have other better glyphs to take, then it's really not that big a deal, is it?

- Buff searing totem to deal 50-100% more damage, it hits for about 1.5k in pvp each second. A 100% buff is barely noticeable with it being sustained dps which is what ele needs rather than more burst.

I've said the same myself; Searing Totem used to be maintained for the buff our Fire Totem brought, not the damage (that was just why we used Searing rather than, say, Flametongue Totem). Now that that's an aura, it's really, really meh. I don't think just boosting the damage makes it "fun" again, though. I'd probably suggest something more radical, like the old perma-fire-elemental idea (appropriately tuned).

[Teriz]

My suggestion would be to bake in Unleashed Lightning, allowing Elementals to move while casting Lightning Bolt but remove the casting restriction. Increase the Flame Shock glyph to allow 75% healing from FS damage, and buff Ghost Wolf's movement speed and decrease its ability to get rooted.

In general, Elemental is actually pretty close to being a solid PvP spec.

Enhance on the other hand....

[paror]

My suggestion would be to bake in Unleashed Lightning, allowing Elementals to move while casting Lightning Bolt but remove the casting restriction. Increase the Flame Shock glyph to allow 75% healing from FS damage, and buff Ghost Wolf's movement speed and decrease its ability to get rooted.

In general, Elemental is actually pretty close to being a solid PvP spec.

Enhance on the other hand....

No, enhance is actually the better pvp spec for arena. Ele is the better(from 2 horrible specs) for rbg. But neither is what you would call solid. far from atm.

[Mithgroth]

- *** BY FAR THE MOST CRUCIAL *** Flame shock also needs to punish the dispeller since it's arguably the most crucial DoT in the entire game OF ANY CLASS. Over half of your damage is lava burst in many PvE fights and by far the most in PvP, it NEEDS to be on the target. Either provide lava floes from cata, make the target explode, create a new un-dispellable debuff that deals the flame shocks damage over 6 seconds, whatever idea you come up with it needs to be done because it's absolutely hilarious to just dispel ONE dot and have the ele shaman automatically being incapable of doing anything but cry in place.

No.
In Cataclysm your Flame Shock was instantly dispelled.
In Mists, all defensive dispels have cooldowns. And shock cooldown is shorter than dispelling cooldown.

[Deleted]

No.
In Cataclysm your Flame Shock was instantly dispelled.
In Mists, all defensive dispels have cooldowns. And shock cooldown is shorter than dispelling cooldown.

The only way I can't argue against this is when there's someone to cover up the dispel weakness in arena like an affliction lock, spriest or even a mage but why do you seem to assume that the punishment should be severe? All it needs to be is a 30% lava floes buff, a small damage explode equivalent to an overloaded lava burst, make the next lava burst automatically crit without the need for flame shock (10 second buff, dispellable), whatever. It doesn't need to be big, just a minor buff.

Shock cooldown lower than dispel cooldown, yeah it is but how many lava bursts are you gonna get off before the next one is dispelled and so on and so on. Again you need a teammate to get flame shock to work. While 1v1 vs a healer is fine, your flame shock should be dispelled but given that you need a teammate for it to work greatly limits comps for 3v3 specifically.

I've said the same myself; Searing Totem used to be maintained for the buff our Fire Totem brought, not the damage (that was just why we used Searing rather than, say, Flametongue Totem). Now that that's an aura, it's really, really meh. I don't think just boosting the damage makes it "fun" again, though. I'd probably suggest something more radical, like the old perma-fire-elemental idea (appropriately tuned).

Thank you for your response Endus, given me great insight into my propositions but I will agree and disagree with your various points.

I agree that a damage buff to Searing is boring and doesn't change the "fun" factor much if at all but it's something that isn't too radical, straight up sustained DPS that doesn't cause an issue in PvP and is stable in PvE single target. I don't think devs would be ready to try out a revamp until at least the patch after 5.2, I expect this sort of totem revamp in an expansion release. A quick suggestion, stacks up to 5 times and detonates when hit with a lava burst, does about half the damage of lava burst. Could be OP, could over complicate the spec a little but this is why we have PTR and expansion betas.

This may be too high. We need about a 10% buff, and our sustained damage needs some love, but we also need to be sure Lightning Bolt doesn't change position in the priority queue. That would require testing to figure out, though, and the main intent behind this is still solid.

I've mentioned previously that all my suggestions are base concepts and numbers are there as placeholders, they can be tweaked for balance purposes but they do provide a framework from which to work on. 20% like you said would be too much mainly in PvE, 10% seems reasonable but still it might be a little low. As you mentioned, testing required.

I totally disagree that we need another instant to rotate in. I've argued in the past that Frost Shock should deal more damage (have it discharge LS charges over 3, rather than ES discharging them over 1, for instance), so it isn't as big a damage loss, but otherwise, it's fine.

I agree that having another instant in PvE isn't necessary, consider it something like Unleash Flame, not worth the global cooldown. The main point about this is giving elemental the option of using frost shock to some greater effect in PvP. Considering that it's quite difficult to get casts off vs melee in particular, having frost shock available without a punishing shock cooldown makes the spell more useful relative to now. Difficult to decide whether this ability would be OP or viable in PvP but right now I think it needs a little tweak to make it good.

That's really just saying "I don't want to have to choose between glyphs". The glyph has value, as you're mentioning. If it's necessary, you'll take it. If it's kind of eh and you have other better glyphs to take, then it's really not that big a deal, is it?

Good point but taking glyphs that change your entire gameplay and capabilities such as unleashed lightning, purge and ghost wolf (imo) take priority. Having 5% hp baseline isn't too important as you mentioned but it's more of a QoL than a real necessary change, it's one of my least concerns but it mainly ties more into how frail and useless capacitor is in most scenarios rather than the other totems.

Seriously, mail armor. It's a big deal. My Shaman has a little over 40k armor, giving about a 47% reduction to physical damage. A druid buddy (minus form bonuses) has about 17k armor, giving a 27% reduction to physical. A mage friend has 14k armor, for 23% reduced damage from Physical. Sure, a large chunk of that is the shield, but that's sort of the point; armor is a big factor that can't be ignored, and provides a significant reduction that is primarily useful against melee.

That is true but consider that those classes work in damage and defense in different and similar ways to each other:
- Druids have rejuv, bear form ursoc, very high mobility, near immunity to roots (difficult to control), surv instincts for feral, barkskin, natures/predatory swiftness for quick offheals, passive moonkin damage reduction, ironbark, leaps and so on.
- Mages have shields, cauterize talent, massive amounts of CC, very high mobility for a caster and also have the passive reduction depending on mage armors and massive burst pressure.
- Spriests have shields, selfheals, excellent CC, average mobility, strong passive damage reduction and excellent defensive cooldowns.
- Shamans have selfheals, talented shields, ok CC, poor mobility, ranging from weak-average distance creating spells, no passive damage reduction besides armor particularly for spells and in 5.2, strong defensive cooldowns.
- Warlocks in addition to all their positives.

While shamans also have similar abilities, having armor may have meant A LOT in wrath but since cata it isn't too considerable unless the class is pure physical with no significant armor bypasses which I don't think there is one right now. You seem to contradict yourself though. You claim it's significant vs melee yet melee are our primary problem right now since it's so difficult to create significant distance and pressure them into a defensive stance. Casters we may be on par if we play well but melee are difficult to assess in the coming 5.2 patch. Melee are on us too much and too often to the point where even a small 10% passive damage reduction would be significantly helpful.

It's too early to see whether or not we need passive DR since it depends what the 5.2 patch will bring but I do believe that it's the only thing we lack now defense-wise. Just something to fill the gap while we are under serious pressure with no cooldowns and cannot risk a casted healing surge.

Overall, I'm not suggesting implementing all these changes at once and certainly not with the numbers I've provided, they are simply concepts that are open to discussion. I agree on most of my suggestions though, it's not perfect but very few balance proposals are and very few make everyone happy.

Thanks for the critique.

---------- Post added 2013-01-23 at 04:57 AM ----------

My suggestion would be to bake in Unleashed Lightning, allowing Elementals to move while casting Lightning Bolt but remove the casting restriction. Increase the Flame Shock glyph to allow 75% healing from FS damage, and buff Ghost Wolf's movement speed and decrease its ability to get rooted.

In general, Elemental is actually pretty close to being a solid PvP spec.

Enhance on the other hand....

I agree with unleashed lightning. I would jump up the FS healing to 100% since flame shock doesn't hit hard in PvP anyway, just limit it's heal to one target. I don't think ghost wolf needs changing other than the glyph becoming baseline. I would like to see some sort of 40 second cooldown leap ability like travel from wild charge, just to open the gap.

Elemental just needs minor changes, improving burst is not required. We have the damage...just not the right toolset. Just imo passive survivability, mobility and quality of life.

[Devious009]

This is one of my replies to an earlier post I'll just add to it what I also read from some other posters, please take the ideas for what they are, an idea and dont look too much into the balance part that can be changed / tweaked like Kenjix said:

-Weapon imbues off GCD, I would love to see that I really want to try out the play style of swapping imbues and unleashing for their effects, this would open up a whole new different play style.

-EQ instant cast, also make it interact with our spells in any way possible, also I'd love for magma totem to be changed from pulsing damage into a totem that summons Magma from the ground in and 8-10 yrd radius around the totem and standing in the magma deals X amount of damage, this can be tweaked for balance issues.

-New way to discharge Fulmination stacks other than earth shock, like Endus said Frost shock might work but then how would that make sense ? Lighting discharged by Frost ? I could see it if you argue frost could be sort of a "conductor" to electricity, myeah could probably work.

-dispell penalty for Flame shock be brought back, doesnt have to be something significant Although I'd love a 50% slow !

-Improved "SUSTAINED" single target DPS, as suggested 10% seems to be agreed on by many here on LB, might not be enough.

-Remove / rename Frost shock from the "shock" shared CD, I honestly dont care for its damage all I care for is it's utility, I want to be able to slow ON demand from range. Dropping Earthbind then having to project it takes 2 GCDs. Rename it to something like Frost Shear / Blast and put it on its own CD. just make me want to use it without having to give up my DPS from flame shock and earth shock.

-Improved passive defense, either pump our armor from mail or give us a passive through lighting shield, Im not too sure this will be needed though now that we're getting Shamanistic rage in 5.2 but a bit more armor provided from mail wouldnt hurt.

Could probably think of some more I'll post again :P

[shell]

I really wish they would just bring back the glyph from beta so that dispelling Flame Shock wouldn't be as punishing. But maybe its time for the devs to rethink how Flame Shock interacts with Lava Burst. Perhaps, Lava Burst should crit whether Flame Shock is on the target or not. I'm not sure, but I would think that lava surge procs are important enough that the pve rotation wouldn't change from what it is now. I don't theorycraft so I don't know but if it isn't, targets could take 5% more damage from LvB which is what the beta glyph did, it would just be baseline. I suppose it could be argued that I just don't want to use up another glyph spot but the interaction with Flame Shock and LvB has changed over time with lava surge so this type of change wouldn't be groundbreaking. They'd still interact just in a different and less punishing way.

[Kralljin]

Ele has been tough for melees? Maybe in wrath but certainly not today giving the fact that melee have more ways of CC and more ways to close the gap between the target yet elemental still has not been compensated in some way compared to other casters.

obviously yes i have been talking about Wotlk, since Earthbind was never 10sec CD outside of Wotlk.

Mages got alter time, blazing speed if talented, hunters got lower or more powerful escape/defense cooldowns and readiness, warlocks got a sway of defensive cooldowns, portal and more instant CC in addition they also have passive 10% DR next patch. Spriests got an additional fear, faster dispersion speed, a root. Boomkins got a blink or disengage, ursols vortex, faster run speed if talented, natures grace, etc. Shamans have only gained minor defensive cooldowns that pale in comparison to other classes and healing tide during MoP release. Other classes have lost abilities but most have gained a lot more than what they had previously.

See the whole picture.

For example, how many skills had a Balance Druid before MoP to escape Melees?

Nature's Grasp and Typhoon, one is a is just a ~8yards knockback and the other is a root.

Outside of that, they could shapeshift out of snares but that's not really helpful if you lack a reliable slow.

And Sp's, how much do they have before MoP?

Psychic Horror, a Horror+disarm, Psychic Scream is a CC in general, or do we count any CC now?

We had Astral Shift in wotlk which made us extremely durable vs melee in particular.

Nah, not really.

The only Melees that had a serious stun during Wotlk were Rogues and Ret's.

Rets were dying after S5, which left Rogues.

Warriors didn't have a Stun outside of Charge and Dk's had Strangulate, which would trigger Astral Shift as well, but wouldn't help that much because you could still drop Earthbind to keep him away.

Most DK's rather silenced the Healer, since you were unable to trinket a Silence during Wotlk.

During Cata we weren't competitive at the highest levels unless you were REALLY GOOD and had a specific comp to mask the disadvantages but we still had some optional talents and passives such as the spell reduction talent, increased healing, earthgrab on 15 second cooldown, lower cd hex, totems and unleash usable while silenced and more armor percentage reduction (right now I'm about 44% with shield, in Cata I could reach around 54%).

In last Season of Cata i found that Elemental was very much playable, most ppl just played Resto over Cata because it was the best Healer in Arena.

And RLS and such was simply the strongest comp, Elemental Comps were rather mediocore, not essentially bad.

Furthermore, that "shield wall" is what we are getting in 5.2 so why other than repetition, redundancy or just to be too durable would we need ANOTHER defense cooldown? In Wrath, offheals on ele was very strong so introducing a shield wall would be overkill. Cata I agree it was needed. So far Spriests, boomkins, mages, hunters and even warlocks are moving towards the model of SOME passive damage reduction in addition to their powerful cooldowns yet elemental is still left in the dust and is the weakest of the bunch right now for good reason. 10% DR is significant, it makes training a shaman less effective mixing that with sham rage we can become quite tough to kill.

Balance Druid Def CD is Barkskin, a 20% dmg Reduction.

And if they go into bear, they lose any dmg output and the passive reduction from Moonkin Form.

And Displacer Beast gets ripped with 5.2 since it won't put you into stealth anymore, any Melee can easily catch up.


Also, this "passive Reduction" has a reduced effect if other CD's are active, for example Warlocks:
Warlocks get 10% less dmg through Fel Armor, now he activates Unending Resolve a 40% dmg reduction.

0.6*0.9 = 0.54 => 1-0.54 = 0.46 => 46% Dmg Reduction.

So the Fel armor increased the dmg reduction of this Warlock while Unending Resolve is active by 6%.

If you stack % Dmg Reduction, they lose value compared to the usage seperately, a passive dmg reduction is "weakened" by an active dmg reduction, or vice versa.

Astral Shift in wrath was 30% DR but only applicable in CC and it turned out that ele was very tough to kill for certain classes (I played a rogue at the time and killing an ele shaman was painful).

Most Rogues i dueled told me that it is just annoying because the duel takes longer, the result will be the same.

They were pretty right, mostly.

Again you seem to highlight the fact that Totem Projection is necessary to make totems usable, that's not the case here and talents should not be REQUIRED to make one of our core functions of the class to barely work. In addition, if you plant the totem 40 yards away then if you move out of that radius then the effect is lost.

Because personally i consider TP as the skill with the most utility within this tier and it is i think one of the best skills as Elemental, because of the protection it provides to totems as well possibility for offensive use.

If you plant a Totem at max range, you create a new circle with a diameter of 40yards, move at the edge of this circle would work.

To me, such a skill should be baseline, because it doesn't really fit into this tier as well, TR and CotE seem oriented to increase the frequency or improve their effect, similiar to a Warrior T1 for Charge.

Having to move your totems 40 yds away for them to work properly is absurd since you even mentioned that totems override each other so what practical use does it have when we need it for totems like capacitor if we want them to hit a melee?

As for the overriding effect, this mostly applies for Earth totems, since Stonebulwark needs 30sec to take it's full effect, other totems have a rather short duration (Windwalk / Capacitator, etc.)

Like I mentioned, 5% is just a number it can be tweaked. Finally, in what scenario would you want a stone bulwark or a tremor or an earthgrab to be projected around a corner to keep it alive when many of the durations of our totems are so low?
The only reasonable option would be mana/healing tide and maybe healing stream since bulwark is overridden by other important cooldown totems. Even if melee have to take their eyes off for a few more seconds to kill a totem, it allows us to create breathing room for us and assess the situation without having a brainless melee whacking away like a pinata.

First off, i do not consider right clicking a name plate as meaningful distraction.

Secondly, i want that my totems take the some effect, if a Melee destroys Healing tide after a single tick, i could have spent my GCD on anything else.