Opinions on 5.2 Elemental pvp

[pkm]

I stopped playing it this patch when I saw healing surges doing no more than 25k in pvp...

[paror]

elemental pvp 5.2: same shit, different patch. Still squishy, no reliable cc, but the worst part: still no damage in rbg/bg. Doing triple damage in half dreadfull/half s13 mal on my boomkin with just spamming 3 buttons.

[Kralljin]

Doing triple damage in half dreadfull/half s13 mal on my boomkin with just spamming 3 buttons.

Multi dotters do more damage on multiple targets than pure single target spec, i'd say this is intended.

[paror]

Multi dotters do more damage on multiple targets than pure single target spec, i'd say this is intended.

And with already having a worse cc, worse survival, worse mobility and worse utility (solarbeam+vortex) I'd say not so working as intended

[Terahertz]

It's basically like WotLK when we were glass cannons, nuke hard and make sure you kill before they can come close to you.

Except during wotlk ele shams actually nuked HARD. Nowadays I don't even consider ele shams really threatening outside of ascendance xD

[Kralljin]

And with already having a worse cc, worse survival, worse mobility and worse utility (solarbeam+vortex) I'd say not so working as intended

Did i talk about the overall spec? i was specifically refering only to the ability to deal damage.

Except during wotlk ele shams actually nuked HARD. Nowadays I don't even consider ele shams really threatening outside of ascendance xD

Then you are doing it wrong, Lvb alone no longer suffices to kill someone.

[SamoTray]

Did i talk about the overall spec? i was specifically refering only to the ability to deal damage.



Then you are doing it wrong, Lvb alone no longer suffices to kill someone.

what elese does Elemental have then?? i mean Ele Blast does some really nice dmg especially if it crits but once that and Lvb are on CD you're jus sitting there waiting for them to come of CD the trade off of lb dmg is not worth the risk of being locked out of all ur spells what so ever. So if you're not killing some1 with lvb what r u killing them with just curious ?

[Kralljin]

what elese does Elemental have then?? i mean Ele Blast does some really nice dmg especially if it crits but once that and Lvb are on CD you're jus sitting there waiting for them to come of CD the trade off of lb dmg is not worth the risk of being locked out of all ur spells what so ever. So if you're not killing some1 with lvb what r u killing them with just curious ?

1. Fake Cast Ele Blast, People know that interrupting Ele blast is a kick in the nuts
2. Don't use Ele Blast on CD, use it smart (after you got interrupted in a Lvb / Lb, also avoids the danger of being interrupted at least in 1v1)
3. Combine Ele Blast, Lava Surge Procs and Fulmination, use Unleash Elements, then Cast Ele Blast (fake cast if Interrupt is rdy) cast Lvb (with Lava Surge up it's very good because Unleash Flame then affects Ele Blast and Lvb) finish it with Fulmination.

This Combo hurts like hell and is hard to predict.

[SamoTray]

1. Fake Cast Ele Blast, People know that interrupting Ele blast is a kick in the nuts
2. Don't use Ele Blast on CD, use it smart (after you got interrupted in a Lvb / Lb, also avoids the danger of being interrupted at least in 1v1)
3. Combine Ele Blast, Lava Surge Procs and Fulmination, use Unleash Elements, then Cast Ele Blast (fake cast if Interrupt is rdy) cast Lvb (with Lava Surge up it's very good because Unleash Flame then affects Ele Blast and Lvb) finish it with Fulmination.

This Combo hurts like hell and is hard to predict.

all these points are good points they're and i do do al these things believe me, but even so what if your're unlucky with the LS proc's and ele blast and lvb are on CD u cant rely on Lb to score a kill 4 u. Fulmination hits hard as well but the best way to generate charges is from taking dmg not from doing dmg >.> Now all your points would be really good if we had alittle bit of mobility, but since we dnt mdps can burst us down pretty much at wil. I know priests hav some of the same moblity issues as we do but there fears are far more effective against mdps then our roots (especially ferals the one class we might as well just roll over and play dead against).

[Kralljin]

Fulmination hits hard as well but the best way to generate charges is from taking dmg not from doing dmg >.>

I think it's pretty even if you would just chain cast Lb / Cl in terms of LS generation but i don't see why it's so bad to generate more charges while being focused, it's not like that happens rarely as Elemental.

Now all your points would be really good if we had alittle bit of mobility, but since we dnt mdps can burst us down pretty much at wil.

You perform any offensive action on the move except Cl, Eb, Non Instant Lvb.

This combo consists of 1 Hardcast as well, 2 if you don't have a Lava Surge Proc.

[shell]

all these points are good points they're and i do do al these things believe me, but even so what if your're unlucky with the LS proc's and ele blast and lvb are on CD u cant rely on Lb to score a kill 4 u. Fulmination hits hard as well but the best way to generate charges is from taking dmg not from doing dmg >.> Now all your points would be really good if we had alittle bit of mobility, but since we dnt mdps can burst us down pretty much at wil. I know priests hav some of the same moblity issues as we do but there fears are far more effective against mdps then our roots (especially ferals the one class we might as well just roll over and play dead against).

No, you can't rely on LB to score you a kill but playing around with stats on Tyrannical gear, depending on how much haste you're comfortable with, you can get about 20% crit. More if you play with a class/spec that has a crit buff. I don't know how much Lightning Bolt will hit for fully geared against full resil targets but if it's say 28k, then we've got a 25% (buffed) for it to hit for 70k. That's pretty good for a filler spell. Plus all your other spells (outside of LvB) will have a 25% to crit. that seems like a pretty good deal to me. If I did that I would use EM. I don't know how it would play out, it might be one of those things that sounds good on paper but reality is different.

Part of shadowpriest success is playing with classes that make up for their weaknesses. They don't have good mobility so they play with classes that can peel for them. So a lot were playing with frost mages, I think they were playing with arms as well, can't remember. If we want to see any kind of success in pvp we need to be doing the same thing. As far as feral goes, we pretty much get screwed 2 ways with them because they're difficult for us to cc and a large portion of their damage comes from bleeds which ignore armor. And their mastery increases their bleed damage.

We have good mobility...for pve. But unless they do something about our weapon imbues and/or frozen power our kiting will continue to be limited.

[SamoTray]

No, you can't rely on LB to score you a kill but playing around with stats on Tyrannical gear, depending on how much haste you're comfortable with, you can get about 20% crit. More if you play with a class/spec that has a crit buff. I don't know how much Lightning Bolt will hit for fully geared against full resil targets but if it's say 28k, then we've got a 25% (buffed) for it to hit for 70k. That's pretty good for a filler spell. Plus all your other spells (outside of LvB) will have a 25% to crit. that seems like a pretty good deal to me. If I did that I would use EM. I don't know how it would play out, it might be one of those things that sounds good on paper but reality is different.

Part of shadowpriest success is playing with classes that make up for their weaknesses. They don't have good mobility so they play with classes that can peel for them. So a lot were playing with frost mages, I think they were playing with arms as well, can't remember. If we want to see any kind of success in pvp we need to be doing the same thing. As far as feral goes, we pretty much get screwed 2 ways with them because they're difficult for us to cc and a large portion of their damage comes from bleeds which ignore armor. And their mastery increases their bleed damage.

We have good mobility...for pve. But unless they do something about our weapon imbues and/or frozen power our kiting will continue to be limited.

You're right about playing with a partner that covers for your weaknesses there is nothing wrong with that at all i mean that is what pvp is all about. However its really difficuly to find a team when u have far to many weaknesses to cover for. Sham rage has really helped alot especially glyphed against mages and priests but now they just silence you b4 they start chaining there other dmg and stuns. I swear i really hate being forced to trink a silence bcuz im defenseless. to a shaman now a silence is just like another stun. Even as enh lol now id much rather b disarmed then silenced lol

[zenga]

Something I had fun playing with on the ptr was double holy paladin with me as ele, resto 4p bonus, totemic restoration, ancestral switfness and prime elementalist. We ran into multiple glad lvl comps who thought wtf is this, to then find their whole team being cc'd for 15s, while I had aura mastery up during a whole ascendance to melt faces. Something died in pretty much every opener. And scoring the 2nd kill was obviously just waiting for the next ascendance.

A gimmick comp, but as ele you have possibilities to do good this patch if you step away from the straightforward stuff. Everyone is so focussed on elemental blast, but honestly I find unleashed fury almost god like vs melee cleaves, and your lightning bolts actually start to do some damage (imbue dancing has become almost a second nature to me, bound to mouse wheel). The 4p resto bonus is so good when you play with a holy paladin and covers half of your ascendance. And even prime elementalist is good. The fire ele hits like a truck, and the earth ele offers a great defensive cd and a very reliable stun.

Yeah rogues are back a big problem, so are dks, ferals ... but they are problems to pretty much every spec. And definitely rogues will require nerfs, as they are simply too good. But that has not so much to do with ele shaman.

[shell]

Something I had fun playing with on the ptr was double holy paladin with me as ele, resto 4p bonus, totemic restoration, ancestral switfness and prime elementalist. We ran into multiple glad lvl comps who thought wtf is this, to then find their whole team being cc'd for 15s, while I had aura mastery up during a whole ascendance to melt faces. Something died in pretty much every opener. And scoring the 2nd kill was obviously just waiting for the next ascendance.

A gimmick comp, but as ele you have possibilities to do good this patch if you step away from the straightforward stuff. Everyone is so focussed on elemental blast, but honestly I find unleashed fury almost god like vs melee cleaves, and your lightning bolts actually start to do some damage (imbue dancing has become almost a second nature to me, bound to mouse wheel). The 4p resto bonus is so good when you play with a holy paladin and covers half of your ascendance. And even prime elementalist is good. The fire ele hits like a truck, and the earth ele offers a great defensive cd and a very reliable stun.

Yeah rogues are back a big problem, so are dks, ferals ... but they are problems to pretty much every spec. And definitely rogues will require nerfs, as they are simply too good. But that has not so much to do with ele shaman.

Sounds like fun. Yeah, as far as UF, it seems like players tend to shy away from things that seems complicated to them. Or maybe its just me. I played with it on the beta but I haven't touched it since. I'm sure I could get used to it though...eventually. I like the idea of primal elementalist but the totems bother me. So I've been sending GC a tweet here and there trying to get them removed or buffed. They have ~155k which is okay but I don't like the idea of a long cd like that being killed since they can be cc'd. Maybe removing the totems altogether would be too much though, I don't know. In an arena you can hide it but thats not always the case in a bg.

At any rate, have you tried Frozen Power at all? What other talents are you using?

[zenga]

Sounds like fun. Yeah, as far as UF, it seems like players tend to shy away from things that seems complicated to them. Or maybe its just me. I played with it on the beta but I haven't touched it since. I'm sure I could get used to it though...eventually. I like the idea of primal elementalist but the totems bother me. So I've been sending GC a tweet here and there trying to get them removed or buffed. They have ~155k which is okay but I don't like the idea of a long cd like that being killed since they can be cc'd. Maybe removing the totems altogether would be too much though, I don't know. In an arena you can hide it but thats not always the case in a bg.

At any rate, have you tried Frozen Power at all? What other talents are you using?

Tried frozen power, but I have a hard time getting used to it with the shared shock cd, and I feel like earthbind totem does nothing half of the time (due to players having a multitude of other slows that dr with it or have some sort of immunity/reduced effect).

As for other talents: I feel astral shift to be quite essential for when a rogue opens on me with garotte. I use Nature's guardian mostly vs caster teams (it's incredible vs deep freeze, if shamanistic rage is on CD). But you really need to know if NG can proc or not, since e.g. it's a waste to shamanistic rage a deep when you know that NG can proc as well. And astral shift all the way vs unholy dk's. SBT is nice on paper, but vs anything that has a fear I prio tremor with totemic restoration.

Earthgrab is my standard pick, but windwalk with totemic restoration rocks if you play with a melee (ele with rogue works really well somehow for me).

Totemic restoration is so good for tremor, grounding and windwalk, that I find it hard to spec out of it for totemic projection. I use totemic projection vs comps where I can't really predict what to ground, assuming they have no fear. But honestly I hardly use capacitor anymore, feel like it's too unreliable for me (which might mean that it's my lack of skill to use it properly of course).

Made the mistake of using EM vs a mage and it got spellstolen. Must admit that I'm starting to like the rng of echo, but mostly playing with AS. The 5% haste and the instant hex/earthquake .... I feel like it's just too good to give up (I guess I'm one of the very few ele's who like the situational use of EQ in arena).

Healing tide all the way for arena.

And as said, a big fan of unleash fury and to a lesser extend primal elementalist (when I play with resto 4p set bonus and a holy pally, feel like it contributes more to my ascendance than an elemental blast does).

And glyphs: I started playing around with glyph of grounding totem with totemic restoration ... and vs some setups it's very nasty (played with a frost mage against an rmp where I reflected the deep ... don't have to tell you the outcome).

I'm genuinely convinced that ele has an amazing toolbox, maybe not a R1 viable comp but I feel like a swiss army knife now, having an answer to pretty much everything in every situation. A player like zeiyo was rank 2 on cyclone in EU prior to the mmr reset to 2.2k (bg that contains stormscale, thus all the top teams in EU) as ele/spriest/hpally and his words back then were: 'ele is amazing, even without a defensive CD'. Meanwhile purge got nerfed, heals got nerf/buffed, silence totem nerf/totemic restoration nerfed/fixed and in return we got shamanistic rage + glyph, which puts us more or less in the same spot. In the hands of a player of his calibre ele is indeed amazing imo.

edit: btw there are situations now where you can gamble as ele imo to not use escape trinket, but double dps ones ... due to shamanistic rage

[paror]

Tried frozen power, but I have a hard time getting used to it with the shared shock cd, and I feel like earthbind totem does nothing half of the time (due to players having a multitude of other slows that dr with it or have some sort of immunity/reduced effect).

As for other talents: I feel astral shift to be quite essential for when a rogue opens on me with garotte. I use Nature's guardian mostly vs caster teams (it's incredible vs deep freeze, if shamanistic rage is on CD). But you really need to know if NG can proc or not, since e.g. it's a waste to shamanistic rage a deep when you know that NG can proc as well. And astral shift all the way vs unholy dk's. SBT is nice on paper, but vs anything that has a fear I prio tremor with totemic restoration.

Earthgrab is my standard pick, but windwalk with totemic restoration rocks if you play with a melee (ele with rogue works really well somehow for me).

Totemic restoration is so good for tremor, grounding and windwalk, that I find it hard to spec out of it for totemic projection. I use totemic projection vs comps where I can't really predict what to ground, assuming they have no fear. But honestly I hardly use capacitor anymore, feel like it's too unreliable for me (which might mean that it's my lack of skill to use it properly of course).

Made the mistake of using EM vs a mage and it got spellstolen. Must admit that I'm starting to like the rng of echo, but mostly playing with AS. The 5% haste and the instant hex/earthquake .... I feel like it's just too good to give up (I guess I'm one of the very few ele's who like the situational use of EQ in arena).

Healing tide all the way for arena.

And as said, a big fan of unleash fury and to a lesser extend primal elementalist (when I play with resto 4p set bonus and a holy pally, feel like it contributes more to my ascendance than an elemental blast does).

And glyphs: I started playing around with glyph of grounding totem with totemic restoration ... and vs some setups it's very nasty (played with a frost mage against an rmp where I reflected the deep ... don't have to tell you the outcome).

I'm genuinely convinced that ele has an amazing toolbox, maybe not a R1 viable comp but I feel like a swiss army knife now, having an answer to pretty much everything in every situation. A player like zeiyo was rank 2 on cyclone in EU prior to the mmr reset to 2.2k (bg that contains stormscale, thus all the top teams in EU) as ele/spriest/hpally and his words back then were: 'ele is amazing, even without a defensive CD'. Meanwhile purge got nerfed, heals got nerf/buffed, silence totem nerf/totemic restoration nerfed/fixed and in return we got shamanistic rage + glyph, which puts us more or less in the same spot. In the hands of a player of his calibre ele is indeed amazing imo.

edit: btw there are situations now where you can gamble as ele imo to not use escape trinket, but double dps ones ... due to shamanistic rage

He was so amazing he never got that rating again after the mmr reset. Come on. Farming rating in the 1week of a season then sitting it. I do think elemental will be alot better in arena, just dont think it's enough

I do like that they buffed totems, seem to benefit from ressilience now, or they got more hp. Atleast they are not one-shotted anymore

[zenga]

He was so amazing he never got that rating again after the mmr reset. Come on. Farming rating in the 1week of a season then sitting it.

Just like every other team ... on a bg that contains most tournament lvl players in EU. Going 50-2 (around that number). While hunters were bugged and warriors god like. And of course, the totem silence nerf kicked in. Think you dismiss that feat a bit too easy.

[HeedmySpeed]

We're definitely better but nowhere near being a desired spec for arenas.
We still suffer from hard casting and our DPS (thanks to PVE) is centered around Ascendance which can be locked down no problem via defensives or CC.

I'm not sure if we'll do well in RBGs yet but at least in 1v1 we can beat bad players with FOTM specs (Locks/Arms/Hunters).
We're still going to fail against players with similar skill level that play Locks, Rogues or Mages.

Just remember a few things:
1. Heal Surge when you have Clear Casting (after a Lava Burst). Heal Surge w/o the buff is too little and the damage gain is only 15%.
2. Unleashed Fury is favorable now since it will boost your Ascendance burst and offers another defensive (Rockbiter) and a speed boost (Frostbrand + Windwalk totem)
3. Swap to Rockbiter weapon even if you don't have the talent against Rogues or classes where you're damage is reduced by being constantly CC'd.

[Kralljin]

2. Unleashed Fury is favorable now since it will boost your Ascendance burst and offers another defensive (Rockbiter) and a speed boost (Frostbrand + Windwalk totem)
3. Swap to Rockbiter weapon even if you don't have the talent against Rogues or classes where you're damage is reduced by being constantly CC'd.

I've never been a huge fan of Unleashed Fury in PvP, the Utility may be nice but the constant Imbue GCD are just a huge pain.

Secondly the Debuff from Unleashed Fury is magical, dispels will hurt you twice with it.

[zenga]

I've never been a huge fan of Unleashed Fury in PvP, the Utility may be nice but the constant Imbue GCD are just a huge pain.

That's the misconception imo: you don't constantly swap imbues. Let's assume you are specced into EB, hard swap on you by a melee. How many gcd's are you going to spend offensive over the next few globals? Or when you get trained by a rogue? Those are the gcd's where you imbue swap and unleash. There is little point imo to swap back to flametongue after the 5s rockbiter effect falls off to swap back when it's available again. Once the opportunity is there to go offensive again you swap back to Flametongue until they swap back to you.

Everyone is stacking full resilience (maybe that might change slightly due to the DR's now) for better survivability. I classify a tool like UE / imbue swapping, sitting in blood presence or defensive stance into the same category (admittedly it was less clumsy for warriors prior to 5.2 and dk's atm).

A genuine question: how many of the people that don't like the talent for some reason have actually put the effort into playing with it enough games, to make sure that it's not just the inconvenience of something we are not used to - that bothers them? Or in other words have played enough games to get used to it