Glyph of Unleashed Lightning Change

[Aleksej89]

Not even a little. That would mean we were taking 10% more damage than anyone else would, without the glyph. We aren't. And even that wouldn't make it a "mandatory" glyph, unless it was reducing your performance, which it wouldn't, unless you were getting one-shot by some ability that everyone else was surviving.
"Mandatory" works for DPS abilities; that's your job. Improving that performance is what you're expected to do. Survival/utility options are not "mandatory", even if they are "useful/beneficial". If you could perform at the top of the pack without the glyph, it is not in any way "mandatory".
It's a great glyph, sure. I'd probably take it for the most part, too. That doesn't make it "mandatory". "Mandatory" translates as "required if you want to perform at the top of your potential". Survival options aren't a factor in that unless you're a tank, or it's literally not possible to survive without them.

Voice of reason amongst a sea of screaming quitters!!!

Anyway, i am really happy Blizz is FINALLY taking a look at Elem/Enha PvP - those specs have been almost dead in PvP for years.

[Venziir]

Jesus christ, it never seizes to amaze me how people can get worked up by the PTR like this... It's the PTR for christ sake....

[Laurean]

"Mandatory" works for DPS abilities; that's your job. Improving that performance is what you're expected to do. Survival/utility options are not "mandatory", even if they are "useful/beneficial". If you could perform at the top of the pack without the glyph, it is not in any way "mandatory".

It might be a bit off topic, but talking from a pve perspective(10 man), I have to disagree.
The only thing that's mandatory is that your raid group gets to kill a boss. And our job, at least my job, is not just maximizing my owns dps but to do everything my specc can do to make sure we kill the latest boss.
Looking back at the first heroic ID, we spent quite some tries on Council and Magaera, but we killed them both. Enrage was not a problem, so dps was not a problem. The key was cooldown timing as a group.
Council: When you don't have any healing cooldowns, you can't really damage Kazra'jin when he is active - that will result in a dps problem, because you can't survive doing enough dmg without dmg reduction or healing cooldowns. We needed another big healing cooldown, AG during Ascendance is one, so I used every Asc except the first only on Kazra'jin to make up for our lack of cooldowns. I used one less than I could have over the whole encounter and basically screwed my dps, but after that change, we didn't have any problems with Kazra'jin anymore. The rest was execution. The following ID, with perfectly trained cooldown timing, we oneshotted Council and killed Magaere on the third try.
Mageara: Not as hard as council, but still, AG during Asc is a lifesaver during intermission phases.

My point is: You can't just look at some of our toolkit, namely damage spells, and ignore the rest when talking about "performing at the top of our potential".
Of course we have to do everything we can to maximize our dmg output, but only to a point that doesn't risk anyone dying; survival > dmg.

That may not be true for you, actually for most raiders, but using everything your specc has to offer, not just dmg spells, is what makes a good elemental a great elemental so that you can kill hard bosses sooner, not just with gear/nerfs weeks or months later.

That is not just true this content, but also for 5.1 e.g. Protectors heroic elite, when you don't have enough interrupts from melees/tanks, guess what ranged speccs gets to interrupt - effectively losing dps but killing the boss.

[Deleted]

I'm pretty shocked how Blizzard is buffing the heck out of Elemental.

What? We're changing one mandatory glyph for another. At best, it seems like we're gaining the 1-1.5% DPS difference when comparing UL to non-UL in a stationary fight. Now we're gaining a 10% DR, which is always nice in PvE, but doesn't solve our current relative DPS performance completely.

It's a buff alright, but 'buffing the heck out of Elemental'?

That's not so much "mandatory" as "almost always a useful passive rather than situational like most glyphs". "Mandatory" usually gets slapped on as a label if you need that glyph to maximize your performance, which was true of the old Flame Shock and the current Unleashed Lightning glyphs.

No serious raidleader is going to let his Shamans get into heroic progression without that 10% DR glyph. There is no other glyph that has a similar, or stronger, benefit and your healers will demand it.
Mandatory is a label that indicates a glyph that outperforms any other potential replacement glyph. Name me 1 glyph that would be better than this one, and don't come at me with 1 niche situation in ToT HC.

"Mandatory" works for DPS abilities; that's your job. Improving that performance is what you're expected to do. Survival/utility options are not "mandatory", even if they are "useful/beneficial". If you could perform at the top of the pack without the glyph, it is not in any way "mandatory".
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Just shows you're clueless about heroic raiding.

[FraQture]

"Old Unleashed Lightning glyph benefit is baked in for Elemental. Cast time penalty just goes away. (Anything can change before 5.3 launch."

[Goradan]

Man am I happy to see this. It's about time that we got some got this buff for LS. eventhout It's way too early to say it's gonna stick. The fact we finally get 10% DR form LS glyph along with eles getting being able to cast LB on the move without Cast time penalty in the next patch is just great.

[rogas]

Everyone needs to stop screaming that the sky is falling every time some change gets posted, particularly a datamined early-PTR change like this. Since GC has confirmed, here, that the cast-while-moving is going baseline.

posting about how you're quitting and the spec is ruined when you do not know the full changes and have not made any effort to find/wait for them to be revealed is not constructive or helpful posting, and it won't be tolerated. It does nothing but make everyone else unhappy, either by convincing people that you know something they don't (and you don't), or by making people upset that you're overreacting.

I'm giving people a pass, this time around, but be warned that this kind of behaviour is actionable. There's ways to be critical without shouting that the sky is falling.

I admit i reacted too hastely and negative. But i think this could have been communicated better. Is it really that hard to write; we gonna remove this glyph, but don't worry we gonna make the ability baseline ... ?

[Seriss]

This is a very cool change.

And it only shows one thing once more: The downsides that many shaman glyphs bring with the improvements in one area are too harsh and/or unnecessary. I'm happy that this is done away with. (They could look into that sort of thing for some resto things too /innocentlook)

[Gibblewink]

With respect to the term mandatory: I don't believe Endus was suggesting people in HC raids not use the new glyph as soon as healers were struggling (which is almost always on progression), but more that we try and establish a more functional definition of "mandatory" than the current version: "Glyphs that I intend to use all the time".
You might be bonkers if you don't use it, but you do so to help one of the other roles do their job - not to do yours better. Splitting hairs, I know but the current use of mandatory isn't very helpful as few agree on what is or isn't.

[Seriss]

With respect to the term mandatory: I don't believe Endus was suggesting people in HC raids not use the new glyph as soon as healers were struggling (which is almost always on progression), but more that we try and establish a more functional definition of "mandatory" than the current version: "Glyphs that I intend to use all the time".
You might be bonkers if you don't use it, but you do so to help one of the other roles do their job - not to do yours better. Splitting hairs, I know but the current use of mandatory isn't very helpful as few agree on what is or isn't.

Yeah, at this point it's like when a glyph isn't entirely useless or does something really useful that might come in handy, it's already mandatory.

But the problem is that there are so many glyphs that are awfully situational and don't really DO anything. So any glyph that we actually find appealing is BAM!!! mandatory! Because we don't swap it out and back in all the time. And it just sits there and it does its magic, never being useless, never being a waste of a glyph spot, and likely not even making you wish you had that glyph spot for something else. Let's face it: At least for PvE, the amount of glyphs that are worth using is very small. And the best 1-2 glyphs will always be considered mandatory, simply for lack of alternatives.

Mandatory today probably means something like "You'd be silly not to take it because it's one of the better choices you can make."

[PizzaSHARK]

Not even a little. That would mean we were taking 10% more damage than anyone else would, without the glyph. We aren't. And even that wouldn't make it a "mandatory" glyph, unless it was reducing your performance, which it wouldn't, unless you were getting one-shot by some ability that everyone else was surviving.

"Mandatory" works for DPS abilities; that's your job. Improving that performance is what you're expected to do. Survival/utility options are not "mandatory", even if they are "useful/beneficial". If you could perform at the top of the pack without the glyph, it is not in any way "mandatory".

It's a great glyph, sure. I'd probably take it for the most part, too. That doesn't make it "mandatory". "Mandatory" translates as "required if you want to perform at the top of your potential". Survival options aren't a factor in that unless you're a tank, or it's literally not possible to survive without them.

I disagree, partially; a DPS class isn't just responsible for DPS in a raid, they're also responsible for minimizing their damage taken to ease strain on the healers (ditto tanks, ditto healers.)

Now, I don't think 10% is going to be enough to make it mandatory... but there's a very good chance it will be viewed that way for the majority of players. I feel like this is a glyph that's just presenting the illusion of a choice; similar examples might be Glyph of Long Charge, Glyph of Ghost Wolf, and plenty of others. They may not be mandatory... but they're so heavily used, it really wouldn't break anything if they just became baseline.

[mjolnrik]

I agree this new glyph does seem mandatory. I know 10% doesnt seem like much but honestly out of all our glyphs how many can actually be used consistently on raid bosses. Like a handful literally. I dont think ive ever seen a reason to change my glyphs around except the chain lightning glyph on a 3 target cleave fight

[Teriz]

What? We're changing one mandatory glyph for another. At best, it seems like we're gaining the 1-1.5% DPS difference when comparing UL to non-UL in a stationary fight. Now we're gaining a 10% DR, which is always nice in PvE, but doesn't solve our current relative DPS performance completely.

It's a buff alright, but 'buffing the heck out of Elemental'?

I'm lumping these buffs with the buffs from 5.2. Considering where Elemental was at the start of this expansion to how it's shaping up in 5.3, Elemental has gotten some very substantial buffs. Granted, some of those buffs were class wide, but a lot them have benefitted elemental a lot more than the other specs.

I'd dare say that Elemental is entering into the top tier of casters.

[Deleted]

I suggested they make it baseline a long while ago :P They really do need to listen to players more often, despite the 100000 QQ posts there is usually 1 out of them that makes sense.

[Aberration]

Now it gets caked into our spec, and we lose the 5% casting decrease, and we get 10% less damage taken. I'm fine with this.

[Deleted]

Not even a little. That would mean we were taking 10% more damage than anyone else would, without the glyph. We aren't. And even that wouldn't make it a "mandatory" glyph, unless it was reducing your performance, which it wouldn't, unless you were getting one-shot by some ability that everyone else was surviving.

"Mandatory" works for DPS abilities; that's your job. Improving that performance is what you're expected to do. Survival/utility options are not "mandatory", even if they are "useful/beneficial". If you could perform at the top of the pack without the glyph, it is not in any way "mandatory".

It's a great glyph, sure. I'd probably take it for the most part, too. That doesn't make it "mandatory". "Mandatory" translates as "required if you want to perform at the top of your potential". Survival options aren't a factor in that unless you're a tank, or it's literally not possible to survive without them.

You're just talking about the semantics of mandatory now. Yes, literally speaking, it is not mandatory as it does not improve our performance in any way (apart from more survivability, but if we die, something else went wrong). However, what criteria you think blizzard is looking at?
1) "Hmm, it seems this glyph is (virtually) always used to increase performance, let's see why and change if needed?"
2) "Hmm, it seems (virtually) everyone is using this glyph and never swapping it out, let's see why and change if needed?"

I personally think it's the latter, and may not literally be "mandatory" no, but if you don't swap it out ever, in my eyes it is. I can't imagine a fight where you'd not want to glyph it. With that I mean all our other glyphs are so situational it would surprise me if you could come up with any fight where you would really need 3 other glyphs. It wouldn't be "mandatory" (in my eyes) if we actually had a lot of decent other choices.
Hell the old unleashed lightning at least had a drawback, and maybe not in this tier but ultraxion for example you had a valid concern that it would hinder your performance and unglyph it. Where would you unglyph the new one? Serious question here (as elemental). Let's say you take no damage whatsoever, so baleroc. 6 minute enrage, so fire elemental glyph is stupid. Pretty sure crystals were shadow damage so hst also not needed. Nor anything to chain light 4+ targets, nor do we need more thunderstorms or longer SWG. Nor purge nor a heal from flame shock.

[Madstrike]

I admit i reacted too hastely and negative. But i think this could have been communicated better. Is it really that hard to write; we gonna remove this glyph, but don't worry we gonna make the ability baseline ... ?

Except that this change was only datamined, not in the PTR patch notes (yet). So the only entity that could have communicated better was MMO-C, not Blizzard.

[Deleted]

I admit i reacted too hastely and negative. But i think this could have been communicated better. Is it really that hard to write; we gonna remove this glyph, but don't worry we gonna make the ability baseline ... ?

Except these were very early datamined changes from MMO-Champ. Nothing official from Blizzard. Hell its probably not even in the ptr patch yet. They shouldn't need to communicate changes early as long as people understand that it is ptr (in very early stages I might add) and everything and anything could change on a day to day basis.

[Deleted]

I like how Blizzard makes changes, which are 100% unnecessary.

[Veyne]

if this is true .... i'm done playing

Lucky for you, you get to keep playing!

Though, honestly, all cast-while-moving mechanics are terrible. Might as well just make everything instant cast. That would be an awful game to play.