The Elemental gear problem.

[Yohassakura]

I personally would like to see a talent that transfers mp5 to crit rating, or something similar, the same way that molten armour turns spirit into crit for a mage.

As users on here are from the EU & US, i thought i'd share my thought of what i put on the EU shammy forums to the same topic really, "elemental MP5 item problem 3,2" though i've added a little bit :P
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How about blizzard do several changes to fix ele shammies then...

First of all, to sort out the mp5 problem, they can add a mp5 -> crit conversion, to compensate for this they can make us use a new "shield" like an air shield which converts it for us. (Wind because we already got poopshield, watershield and lightning shield or maybe fire because we don't use much fire stuff and it'll be a close replica to mage's molten armor then i suppose)

This leaves us at 100mp5 less which makes it more interesting as this may lead to a mana issue as it's quite important on some fights to keep it up in ulduar, as they take 5-10mins on average, or like kologarn there's lots of CL ;D. They may also nerf the clear casting effect a bit to help mp5 be more attractive.

Okay so this might be a nerf for the short term, but long term a it will help us scale by giving us a higher crit would mean a higher chance to keep clearcasting up too, which would mean higher overall spellpower.

Because of this change, they could also make Lava Burst look more attractive by taking the 100% chance to crit (when FS is up) off, and let it go by our crit, and then increase the co-efficient to that similiar of lightning bolt. At higher co-efficient levels and higher gear levels, lightning bolt is soon due to pass LvB (for example, i'm at 3200~ spell power raid buffed and 560~ haste) and with heroism and trinket procs, Lightning bolt gets down to around 1 second cast time which is the GCD when fully hasted, which makes LvB and FS less desirable to cast, (FS is instant and LvB's cast time is less than the GCD) especially with the T8 4 set bonus, as one second casts significantly helps the uptime.

Lightning Bolt's base co-efficient: 71.43%
Lava Burst's base co-efficient: 57.14%

This would also mean less Q.Q about crap itemization and also make lavaburst more attractive, without sticking huge chunks of +20% damage on LvB like the possible placeholder 4 set tier bonus is.

[Hattai]

i posted this the other day on the official forums, but add this to unrelenting storm "Increases spellpower by 33/66/100% of your in combat regen." seems like a nice fix to me

Its just too deep in ele for resto's to go chasing after and while doesnt make MP5 desireable, it at least adds some benefit to it

[gringo]

since we gain mp/5 through int, this would also make int more interesting. i like it.

[Hattai]

Yes but luckily you share ret gear with 2 other classes and prot gear with 1 and a half other classes (block aint useful for DK's so they're considered the half ) so holy is your only unique gear type. Not difficult to add one set of unique gear for aclass with available drop slots on a boss loot table.

Shaman have 2 unique gear types (ele and resto) so that's a double the unqiue loot than paladins, at least.

I personally would like to see a talent that transfers mp5 to crit rating, or something similar, the same way that molten armour turns spirit into crit for a mage.

For drops i can see your point, they say they want to avoid bloating boss loot tables but resto's can still make use of items that have sp/haste/crit which are perfect for the hit capped ele shaman, and I don't understand why Blizzard have just flat out refused to even add ele viable badge gear outside of totems. Adding ele badge gear hurts no one, theres no excuse for it and it helps us gear up properly. The same goes for crafted gear, why can't they add some sp/haste/crit LW patterns, I'd love to see some explaination for this, because at the moment I dont see any reason except lazyness.

[highwind01]

i do agree that elementals should have some changes.

No, the class doesnt need any changes, it is good as it is, I would say it is one of the most balanced pve hybrids.

DONT do any changes to the spec just becuase the developers are to lazy/stupid to put in the right items - they were there in naxx25, I dont see any reason why it should now be impossible to implent them again in future instances, ESPECIALLY when there are like 2 or 3 items per slot for resto, items that only THAT SINGLE CLASS/SPEC needs, and NO items for elemental which also only that specific class/spec needs



Oh, and about the mp5-> crit conversion, no, just no !
As said, pve elemental is good as it is, nearly perfect, dont change anything.
If you want to change anything than change Resto, not Ele.
Resto is flawed anyways, change it that Resto can make good use of "ele"-items without going oom in a heartbeat, make all mail spellpower gear "ele"-style -> problem solved

The same goes for crafted gear, why can't they add some sp/haste/crit LW patterns, I'd love to see some explaination for this, because at the moment I dont see any reason except lazyness.

Because Resto surely need alternative items, while ele can be left alone with no items :
this is reagarding to boots, there are mp5 drop boots (vezax I think), there are mp5 craft boots, there arent any non-mp5 spellpower boots.
Pure lazyness, as u said

[Yohassakura]

No, the class doesnt need any changes, it is good as it is, I would say it is one of the most balanced pve hybrids.

DONT do any changes to the spec just becuase the developers are to lazy/stupid to put in the right items

To be fair, i believe balance druids are getting a 5-8% buff with their new eclipse, and we were buffed to their level not so long ago, and it'd be stupid if LvB is only stronger than LB by tier set bonuses (no idea what the requirements would be for LB to take over LvB but sometimes you just get a large variation on your LvB crits :-\).

Not to mention, other classes are moaning at our regen atm... whoa different classes wanting the same nerf to mana regen (although something to scale with regen in return.)

[highwind01]

To be fair, i believe balance druids are getting a 5-8% buff with their new eclipse, and we were buffed to their level not so long ago, and it'd be stupid if LvB is only stronger than LB by tier set bonuses (no idea what the requirements would be for LB to take over LvB but sometimes you just get a large variation on your LvB crits :-\).

Not to mention, other classes are moaning at our regen atm... whoa different classes wanting the same nerf to mana regen (although something to scale with regen in return.)

Well, Im in a 25 man guild who is quite successfull (4 hardmodes downed, yogg downed weeks ago) so I guess the players Im playing with arent "noobs" and there are enough fights where Im doing top5 damage and Im the best "hybrid" on pretty much every fight where I dont have a "special task".

The large variation on your LvB crits pretty much comes from elemental oath (depending if clearcast is up or not), 10% spelldmg contribution for a always critting spell is huge

[SoulPoetry]

i can't see why adding in a 2-3 mail SP badge items without mp5 to keep ele a bit happy is a bad thing. it doesn't take up space on boss loot tables and it gives resto the option of increasing hps without "stealing" ele gear.

[Yohassakura]

Thus why mp5 -> crit would be a good idea.
And i'm sort of in a similiar position to you, yogg down for 2 weeks, but no hardmodes yet :'( not really tried any except for council med + hard which we couldn't do. Been tough on the guild with the summer holidays coming and having some newer people in after some great long time members leaving for various reasons. We seem to be holding up well, but not downing anything because of basic things which shouldn't be happening really.

and indeed, it does depend if CC is up or not, 320~ extra spell power makes quite a difference, but im talking about the big base range with the low co-efficient (due to PvP Q.Q) anyways ^^.

I just feel that if they won't give us the gear they're either going to change us some way with a mp5 -> stat conversion or they'll have to buff us while we stick with some T7+T8 items.

[Tigercat]

One very simple first step would be to add some properly itemized gear from badges. Every time we see new badge gear, it's the same old story: one piece of hunter/enhance gear, and one piece of mp5 gear. Blizzard would be hurting nobody by adding some gear that's actually worth a shit for us to badge vendors.

Secondly, making the raids from here on out use a loot system similar to sunwell's would solve a lot of problems. You can either take Loot A that dropped from the boss and use it, or trade it in along with something that drops in the instance for Loot B that's itemized for a different spec. Doing that allowed Blizzard to fit an absurdly high number of items into 6 bosses in Sunwell, there's no reason they can't continue to use that system.

[Igotrabies]

People give blizzard crap about itemization and I believe they have done a great job. I will concede that something needs to be done for not only Ele shammies but Boomkins as well (especially boomkins cause they share tier with half the raid >.<) 'cause they rely heavily on getting tier pieces to get the neccesary hit to perform.

However, how many times has your raid leader dissechanted not only mail spell power gear but also plate and leather. Healers play a vital role in the game and if they don't have enough gear because they have reduced the amount of gear that drops, progression takes a nose dive.

Remember Feral druids back in BC? There was a serious lack of gear a feral druid could choose from if he wanted to tank (It still makes me twitch). Remember Enhance shammies? We had to fight with rogues to get our BIS and let me tell you, rogues are some of the greediest c**** out there.

Now feral druids share gear with rogues and shammies share gear with hunters. A balance has been established.

[Tigercat]

A "balance" does not ignore an entire's specs gearing needs in blind hopes that it'll go away.

Hell, blizzard would accomplish more by itemizing all mail spell power gear with no mp5 instead of the other way around, since while mp5 is completely useless for elemental, gear with sp/crit/haste but no mp5 is still useful for resto shaman.

Edit: The whole way they approach this just seems to defy logic to me. I'm putting together a few choice words to post in the official forums in hopes of some kind of response.

[zerovampire311]

My thought, just play the paladin card. Throw in a talent that gets MP5 off Intellect, remove MP5 from gear. Hunters and Shaman both benefit off Int anyways, so it'll be better itemized for everyone.

[pfg]

Honestly what would be awesome is to see us get some use out of spirit with a preference to have a talent to convert some percentage to haste rating. Us (shamans) and holy paladins are the only casters to get exactly nothing out of spirit and it means our gear choices are limited. The non-spirit items would still be preferred (as they are by every other caster even if they get something from spirit) but at least there would be some plus from it.

[zerovampire311]

Honestly what would be awesome is to see us get some use out of spirit with a preference to have a talent to convert some percentage to haste rating. Us (shamans) and holy paladins are the only casters to get exactly nothing out of spirit and it means our gear choices are limited. The non-spirit items would still be preferred (as they are by every other caster even if they get something from spirit) but at least there would be some plus from it.

Except that there's virtually no spirit on mail gear....and they're certainly not going to reitemize everything.

[Mataus]

One very simple first step would be to add some properly itemized gear from badges. Every time we see new badge gear, it's the same old story: one piece of hunter/enhance gear, and one piece of mp5 gear. Blizzard would be hurting nobody by adding some gear that's actually worth a shit for us to badge vendors.

Secondly, making the raids from here on out use a loot system similar to sunwell's would solve a lot of problems. You can either take Loot A that dropped from the boss and use it, or trade it in along with something that drops in the instance for Loot B that's itemized for a different spec. Doing that allowed Blizzard to fit an absurdly high number of items into 6 bosses in Sunwell, there's no reason they can't continue to use that system.

QFT

[Highmitsu]

Half of the elemental gear is BiS for holy paladins.
/thread
But seriously, I'm struggling with this. Razorscale's belt. BiS for paladins. Hodir Hm bracers. BiS for paladins.
The list doesn't end there. It's sort of sad that our own BiS list makes us dig into cloth loot.

[Kobrakette]

Does anyone else have a problem with the lack of hit on random drops in Ulduar? Most of my gear has hit on it so if i replace it with gear from Ulduar i fear I may fall below the cap.

Mp5 isn't a huge problem but I do feel it's a stat that could be spent elsewhere.

And as for our gear being BiS for Paladins I should imagine that won't be a problem as long as raiding guilds have their common sense cap on and make class prio in relevance to the armor proefficiency, though blizz BOULD do something to change that, too. But it's alot of hassle for what isn't causing too many problems.

We do fine dps as long as we try, it's not as easy as mage, lock or rogue dps but we're a hybrid class.

[Yohassakura]

Well, i assume that no one here has read the pally changes... long story short, this is what a healer from my guild has said;

basically the 2 options appear to be swap crit for mp5 and continue to spam HL as raid healers, or keep crit/haste gear and swap int for spell power and spam FoL on SS'd tanks as tank healers. I would imagine most people will opt for the former.

So... ele's may be safe for the time being... however would there just be less optimized gear for us because paladins don't want it so much anymore? :P

However, i still don't think that just fixing gear will fix our scaling issues at all, it will only prolong them and probably just make them worse.

[vilebio]

Mp5 on gear is an especially huge problem for me because my guild states mp5 gear gets healer priority. Therefore Elemental shamans only even get to roll on gear (weapons......) if all the healers pass. We don't use DKP or Shroud, just /rand.