What was ele like in previous expansions?

[Roseby]

So as it goes now, I really enjoy the way the mastery works with Echo of the Elements.

I.E. Buy 1 Lava Burst get 2 FREE! like a telemarketer.

Just for the sake of knowing the roots of the spec I enjoy so much, what was it like in Vanilla, TBC, Wrath, Cata?

[EruptorNZ]

Didn't play during Vanilla and BC

Wrath - It was basically flame shock, lava burst and lightning bolt - for some reason the wrath playstyle appealed to me. I think it was mainly because of how it was so rigid, eg. you would go for haste breakpoints that would allow a certain number of lightning bolts during the 8 second window of lava bursts cooldown.

Cataclysm - It was wrath + fulmination and lava surge, mastery was also added in this expansion. In 4.3 they added the no cooldown for chain lightning.

[Triptych]

In Vanilla and BC, there was no Lava Burst spell at all. That was added later, can't recall exactly when.

In those early days, there were many mobs who were resistant or even immune to Nature damage. So you'd end up zapping them with Flame Shock on cooldown, and battering them with your Flametongue weapon.

We had a cool Stoneskin totem at one point, which gave everyone an armor buff. And there was a Windfury totem also, which shared the same windfury buff with your whole group! Warriors used to love being grouped with a shammy. There were various resistance totems to drop, an air totem that protected you from ranged (hunter) attacks, and of course the legendary/notorious Sentry totem.

Water Shield was generally the shield of choice for Elemental : Lightning Shield was purely a reactive source of damage when creatures or players were actively targeting you, it had none of its current mechanics of Fulmination or Static Shock or anything.

But don't get me wrong, it was great fun! I never raided on my Elemental shammy though, so can't comment on the 'advanced' gameplay stuff.

[Ellger]

We were pretty much buff bots back in tbc, it was really simple, keep your totems down, refresh your water shield once it drops, keep chain lightning on cooldown if grouped with shadow priest and spam that lightning bolt away ;P. Oh and mana potion was the potion of choice back then.

[chezwickcheese]

I didn't play Ele in Vanilla and BC but wrath was pretty fun. I remember 1 shotting fokes in pvp with a massive lava burst crit. Good times

[Thundaman]

This may seem a little bit off topic. but out of wotlk, cata and mop, ele is in its best shape for this expansion.

[Roamingstorm]

Vanilla - We were truly "support" DPS. We were buff bots and assisted healing when needed. You really didn't complain about our position on DPS mainly due to the fact we knew our role was support (also since at the time hybrids were only considered Paladin, Druid, and Shaman.) Also our rotation was pretty simple, spam lightning bolt and that was about it. Totems were also a pain in the arse to deal with since most only lasted 5 minutes and would use a GCD, they were powerful though.

Burning Crusade - Pretty much things stayed the same for the most part. When it came down to it Enhancement got the biggest change more then we did.

Wrath of the Lich King - Came out with class homogenization. That expansion, at least in my opinion, was pretty awful for Elemental. It introduced Lava Burst and Thunderstorm, eventually coming out with the dropping four totems at once ability. What ended up hurting us was the change for Demonic Warlocks when they gave off a similar buff of Wrath (Spell power by 10%, theirs scaled when ours didn't). That, in my opinion, made it difficult to find reason to bring an Ele shaman over a Demo Lock.

Cata - Personally for the most part we finally caught up and were on par with most. Eventually coming out with the talent system and rotation we have now.

[h4rr0d]

Vanilla: there were no elemental shamans. Apart from few lucky ones who were allowed to get Sulfuras and go enh for DPS, rest of shamans was resto. But if you somehow managed to be Ele, then it was just LB spam till the end of the days
TBC: Added water shield for more regen and that's about it, still LB spam for the most part
WOTLK: Things got interesting here with addition of lava burst, still no procs or fancy stuff, just LVB on cooldown, keep FS up and in the free time LB away
Rest was described by Eruptor pretty well.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

For TBC and vanilla they were like vanilla prot paladins.

[Deleted]

Ele in raids was weak. You run out of mana fast.
Almost all of the shaman's spec in vanilla were for PvP. Except for resto which i can a biit for PvE.

[Tolstyj]

WOTLK: Could wear cloth/leather - a lot of main intellect gear had mp5. Had decent amount of buffs for raid. No heavy movement fights.
Cata: T11 was the worst tier content for ele, unleash lighting glyph didn't exist, other caster were getting DI (3%haste 9% damage from dots), heavy movement fights.
End of Firelands: 4p was OP - permanent fire elemental, unleash lighting glyph, shamanism buff, no cooldown on chain lighting.
DS was decnt
MOP: best expansion for ele - developers actually look at elemental performance in raids

[Evect]

Nothing will compare to Firelands Elemental. Comfortably in the top 3 on the fight's that mattered.

[Roseby]

Awesome responses. Thanks everybody!

[whyabadi]

Check Ioneye's video. It was the reason I played shaman since vanilla until today.

[Sarevokcz]

Nothing will compare to Firelands Elemental. Comfortably in the top 3 on the fight's that mattered.

Yea, constantly top 3 on baleroc and constantly bottom 3 on 4 other fights, great time, that FL!

vanilla/tbc were pretty much the same, spam LBLBLB, except in vanilla, you could go OOM, in tBC, you couldnt unless you weaved CLs often, even after the clearcasting nerf, damage was fine the first tier, pretty bad later on in both expansions
WotLK was like the worst pve period dmg-wise, we needed to be buffed patch after patch to be brough closer, just to be decimated the second people got any gear that tier. admittedly, s7/8 were one of the best ele pvp periods since vanilla NAC/ZHC oneshots.
Cata was meh at best, but we got some other good changes, LB on the move was one of them, CL eventually not having CD was the other, aside from baleroc and occasional TS to knock addas away, we didnt really have much to offer whole expansion.
MoP is still clusterfuck, they just cant seem to find the fine spot, where we dont visibly lag behind in pve without being rng oneshot machines in pvp, mastery and our crit multiplier together with LvB mechanics are the main problems, but we cant really expect shaman mechanics to be worked on till atleast 6.0

[Boricha]

I.E. Buy 1 Lava Burst get 2 FREE! like a telemarketer.

I don't know why but this part made me crack up lol

[Evect]

Yea, constantly top 3 on baleroc and constantly bottom 3 on 4 other fights, great time, that FL!

vanilla/tbc were pretty much the same, spam LBLBLB, except in vanilla, you could go OOM, in tBC, you couldnt unless you weaved CLs often, even after the clearcasting nerf, damage was fine the first tier, pretty bad later on in both expansions
WotLK was like the worst pve period dmg-wise, we needed to be buffed patch after patch to be brough closer, just to be decimated the second people got any gear that tier. admittedly, s7/8 were one of the best ele pvp periods since vanilla NAC/ZHC oneshots.
Cata was meh at best, but we got some other good changes, LB on the move was one of them, CL eventually not having CD was the other, aside from baleroc and occasional TS to knock addas away, we didnt really have much to offer whole expansion.
MoP is still clusterfuck, they just cant seem to find the fine spot, where we dont visibly lag behind in pve without being rng oneshot machines in pvp, mastery and our crit multiplier together with LvB mechanics are the main problems, but we cant really expect shaman mechanics to be worked on till atleast 6.0

Top on Ryolith due to Flame Shock > Fire Nova spam on the blobs. Top on Baleroc, Majordomo, Top 3 on Ragnaros. Shannox, Alysrazor and Bethtilac not so good.

[Tomana]

BC was spamming lightning bolt, which made a very exciting "rotation"
Lava burst was added in WOTLK (well, 3.0).

[Ealyssa]

Check Ioneye's video. It was the reason I played shaman since vanilla until today.

The glory oof vanilla. When a mouseclicker with AQ trinket could oneshot you...
So glad this time is gone (even if I also my "HAHAHA WF CRIT U DEAD" fun moments )

[Terahertz]

Wrath was Flame Shock > LvB > Lightning Bolt I believe. In PvP it was flame shock > LvB > Chain Lightning > Frost Shock which would usually end up doing roughly 10-12k in 1 second.

In cataclysm it was flame shock > unleash element > LvB > chain lightning > earth shock for PvP. Difference is that lava surge back in cata would only reset the CD of Lvb, not make it instant. It was a tier set bonus during firelands that allowed lava burst to be instant. LvB also did shit dmg begin cata and it was impossible to stack fulmination because the 4 set pvp bonus wasn't like it is now. They changed that in like 4.1 or something.

Nowadays PvP is like.. flame shock spam, LvB spam and ele blast off CD >.>