Hybrid Tax

[Marath]

You realise that if they remove the auto crit this spell is just CL without the AoE component?

If they remove the auto crit there is zero reason to cast it and we will be back to LB spam just like TBC which seems to be the reason that they will never ever remove the auto crit. It is the spell's only unique feature and while it creates problems for gear, makes crit a less attractive stat for us etc etc etc they are never going to change that mechanic during this expansion. Try working within that constraint for a way that they can buff the spell rather than saying "remove the auto crit its hurting us" they just wont do it.

If you work within that constraint there are only a few remaining methods to buff the spell
a) reduce the CD
b) increase the damage
c) add a DoT component to the spell

A & B are out, they tried these and they had a negative impact, reducing the CD clashed with FS reapplication and resulted in a loss of DPS rather than a gain, a simple fix to this would have been to lower the CD further and make the rotation work or... change the glyph of flame shock to include a few seconds on the DoT timer, but no... we end up with this shitty version of the t10 4pc which has the lowest DPS gain of ANY tier set. Increasing the damage failed because the PvPtards got upset that they were taking 9k damage spikes from their 30k healthpool every 8 seconds, apparently it was unhealable... wankers. Adding a DoT component to the spell worked but as they reduced the ammount of damage that DoT did by HALF because the t10 was complete and utter garbage and they had to FORCE us into getting it... people didnt appreciate it.

Everyone cries that crit is a shit stat for us and yet there is this resounding fact:

[i]Crit has ALWAYS been a shit stat for elemental shaman

Our crit from talents is what? 15%? to be effective we need around 40% before stacking haste, most will have well in excess of 50% during raids.

Haste is beginning to hit GCD caps for most shaman now reducing our effectiveness even further. If you stack EM and BL you lose dps compared to if you used them appart.

Spell Power is the only stat that consistently improves our damage, and if we get that too high then that stat its self is going to get QQ from the pvptards

The only way to buff any spell soon is to add a DoT component or an increase that will allow the spell to do increased damage via a removable debuff to the target, this is because of pvp and pvp alone. Blizz decided that spike damage was not fun and completely screwed over the spike damage class in the process. You want to know how to fix elemental shaman once and for all?

STOP BALANCING THIS FUCKING GAME AROUND FUCKING PVBLOODYP

They do that, we get fixed, until then... we are royally screwed.

Things that should/could fix ele

1) A scailing talent (INT > SP would be best but INT > Haste/Crit could work too it just wouldnt be AS beneficial)
2) Increased range on Searing Totem, or allowing us to place the fire totem from range.
3) Fire totems benefitting from haste
4) Adding dispellable additional effects to some of our nukes, they have shown with T8 and T9 4pc bonusses that this is possible, at this point we need to improve our damage WITHOUT getting more spike this seems to be the only way to do that.

[jontaxe]

@ fakestreet: I suck at math. I keep forgetting that 2.5/3.5 = 71.4%, which is indeed out LB coeff. Well... in that case, let me change my position: the .5 sec talent sucks worse than I thought. Note: I'm pretty sure it haste is also calculated off of untalented cast time, so it benefits LB less there, too.

Never ever ever underestimate the power of SP coefficient. It is pretty big, and any time some caster "doesn't scale" that's the first place to look. It isn't always the culprit, but it's a good place to start. Ever wonder why FFB, which ruled supreme pre Naxx sucks now compared to normal fire? Because fireball gets a cast time reduction talent and FFB does not... The end.

You realise that if they remove the auto crit this spell is just CL without the AoE component?

Yeah. You know why? Because it's a bad spell.

If you work within that constraint there are only a few remaining methods to buff the spell
a) reduce the CD
b) increase the damage
c) add a DoT component to the spell

A & B are out, they tried these and they had a negative impact, reducing the CD clashed with FS reapplication and resulted in a loss of DPS rather than a gain,

The only reason their implementation of reducing the cooldown sucked is because they did it by (all together now) A STATIC AMOUNT. If you reduce it by some mechanic that's vaguely based on haste you get rid of the doesn't scale with haste problem. This can take the form of either a random mechanic on LB/CL cast (hot streak, brain freeze, lock and load were the 3 I mentioned) or a non random mechanic on LB/CL cast. (Each LB/CL reduces remaining cooldown on LvB by X. It would, in fact, be a flipping amazing 4pc t10 bonus.)

Fix that and its crap coefficient and I could live with the autocrit. A lot of spells/specs/classes don't get full benefit from all stats. LvB problem is that it doesn't get full benefit from ANY stats.

Everyone cries that crit is a shit stat for us and yet there is this resounding fact:

[i]Crit has ALWAYS been a shit stat for elemental shaman

Nope. TBC shaman stacked crit to ridiculous (by those days standards) rates. Mana was a problem for all casters back then, and going forever with clearcasting up was imba. Clearcasting was nerfed once because of this. Well, sorta nerfed. Also at the time shaman had the highest crit multiplier around, IIRC.

It's pvp that makes LvB unbuffable. It's not pvp that makes it suck.

If it hit 1/3 as hard and had 1/3 the cooldown (and 1/3 the cast time magically not bound by GCD if you want to nitpick, but this is just for example) the arenatards would no longer care about it.

But it would still suck.

[Shylah]

Lawl

Crit was godly in TBC for Ele
especially in PvP :>

Elepvp short ver. in TBC
Crit = Win
NoCrit = Fail

I think Lb can be fixed when it applies a debuff like Conflagrate
dealing x% dmg over Lb Cd Duration
x% = shamans crit (only %crit in the character screen applies, e.g. no totem of wrath etc./master poisener)
shouldn't be to bursty in Pvp
that would increase its crit scalling/ eventually you could consider totem of wrath to scale as well

also i like Lb now
it gives me two guaranteed cheaper spells
and it critz always and does a good amount of dmg
i agree that it should do a better amount of dmg
but well the spell's still cool

[Marath]

Crit was not godly back in TBC... you got to ~40% then stacked haste... same as now shockingly, we got a lot from talents back then too. Our talents now are almost the same, we get 5% more crit now than we did back in TBC from talents.

The way we gear now and the way we gear then is exactly the same.

SP > Haste > Crit... same mantra its always been.

Also, from raiding TBC... mana was really not a problem, chug a pot every 2 minutes but I still had plenty of mana as an elemental shaman and while 1200-1400 dps sounds retarded by todays standards... it was good back then.

I was there for the clearcasting nerf, also for the lightning capacitor nerf... which was never truely nerfed... if you used EM + CL on 3 targets its got 3 charges and let off a bolt... but thats besides the point. I remember at one point they took 1% crit away from a talent just because they didnt like it going 1-2-3-4-6%

lawl all you like, fact remains of the three important stats. Crit has always been the least important for the majority of elemental shaman.

If they remove the auto crit from LvB without doing some serious increases to the spells damage... and I mean giving it the potential to hit for over 20k, its going to fall into disuse as will casting flame shock all together.

[jontaxe]

Also, from raiding TBC... mana was really not a problem, chug a pot every 2 minutes but I still had plenty of mana as an elemental shaman and while 1200-1400 dps sounds retarded by todays standards... it was good back then.

If they remove the auto crit from LvB without doing some serious increases to the spells damage... and I mean giving it the potential to hit for over 20k, its going to fall into disuse as will casting flame shock all together.

You didn't have mana problems because clearcasting was just that good. Other classes sure did, though. Anyway, what happened back in TBC isn't important.

Flame shock's usefulness has nothing to do with LvB, and everything to do with it's total damage. It's total damage has everything to do with the DoT duration (and if it can crit). If Flameshock + DoT = more DPS than Lightning Bolt, you cast it. Otherwise, if it's better than frost or earth shock, you cast it on the move, otherwise, you never cast it. LvB doesn't fit into that.

As far as LvB autocrit: I don't like it, but I recognize that without it the spell is pointless. I think the spell is pointless and would love to see it discontinued forever. But if they fixed it's cooldown and horrible coefficient and made it scale at least with haste and SP, I could live with it.

I dunno. I mean, band aid fixes like shamanism changes effectively bump LvB's coefficient up. And it was more than fine in Naxx, fine-ish in Uld, and only started sucking in ToC. So it works, sort of. I just hate the roller coaster, I hate having to whine and beg and pray for dev buffs, and I hate my DPS being at the whim of blizz looking at some logs and going "oh, crap, they really do suck"

[Marath]

Removing the spell is not the solution, buffing it in a way that will not have an impact on PvP is what needs to happen.

Rather than saying "remove the crit component to make crit a better stat for us" try to come up with ideas that solve the problem within the existing constraints. Look at what you have to work with...

The things that are good for our DPS:

Autocrit
1.5 sec base cast time
High Damage low mana cost

The things that PvPers bitch about:

Autocrit
High Spike Damage

So what we need to do is find a way to buff the spell via other means, something that will make it non spiky and preferably something that will benefit from crit.

-A residual DoT for a % of the spell that has the ability to crit for instance... would be a solution and one that improves the use of crit as a stat
-A stacking debuff that causes the next LvB to do additional damage... would be a solution
-Reducing the CD... would be a solution... but would nerf crit even more
-An interesting and slightly complicated one, a Flame Shock dot tick that crits, causes the next LvB within say... 4 seconds to do an addition % damage. (because of FS being dispellable this could work in pvp quite well... as it would likely never go off)

I am just kinda tired of seeing people complain that this or that sucks and offering no viable solution, LvB reduces the effectiveness of crit for us... we know... but having raided as elemental since creating my shaman I am from the school that thinks crit always sucked compared to the rest of the stats so really LvB autocrit changes nothing significant for me.

[jontaxe]

at the risk of sounding repetitive, it's not the fact that it sucks with crit, it's the fact that it sucks with everything.

You want a solution? "Each lightning bolt crit reduces the remaining cooldown on lava burst by X."

Viola. Crit and haste scaling all in one. Adjust X to balance it. Keeps autocrit, no on demand burst for pvp.

Hell, make X large enough and you can actually reduce the damage of LvB, reducing PvP burst while increasing PvE DPS

[Marath]

at the risk of sounding repetitive, it's not the fact that it sucks with crit, it's the fact that it sucks with everything.

You want a solution? "Each lightning bolt crit reduces the remaining cooldown on lava burst by X."

Viola. Crit and haste scaling all in one. Adjust X to balance it. Keeps autocrit, no on demand burst for pvp.

Hell, make X large enough and you can actually reduce the damage of LvB, reducing PvP burst while increasing PvE DPS

the problem with that is that while reducing the CD it works against crit...

the lower the CD on LvB the less crit is worth, so say you get 3 crits in a row (not uncommon... almost every shaman has upwards of 50% crit in a raid) and each one reduces the CD of LvB by 1 sec your LvB will be coming off CD almost as you finish casting the last LB meaning you cast less LBs meaning crit is worth less...

its hard to put into words but basically that change is contradicting its self.

[greysin]

/agree. His post highlighted the exact major issue with Ele. LvB was really the first major spell caster nuke able to hit 10k this expansion and it will be the only one practically unable to do 20k at the end of it because of scaling concerns. Hell 3 or 4 stacked AB hits for more than Ele's cd nuke. Brutal system.

@op: As far as the Hybrid Tax goes I could see the argument that Shamans pay for it more than the other classes. Paladin's are in a great place with 2 of their 3 specs and a real decent place with Ret, mostly propped up by encounter types though. Resto Druids are fantastic, Feral DPS is difficult but if executed properly is one of the top dps specs. Tanking could be argued as leaving something to desire, but Bears are in a good spot right now. Moonkin is a garbage spec mostly because of its complete reliance on RNG and poorly itemized gear (yay spirit!). Warriors are pretty great across the board. Only spec for Priests that is "lacking" would be Shadow and Disc if you only stare at meters and ignore the actual positive affects of the spec. Enhance is in a great place. Resto is pretty good. Ele is trash.

Can't wait til they move away from the Hybrid tax system in Cat. I feel like they said they were going to at Blizzcon.

spriests aren't gonna be hitting 20k with mind blasts. with 3200sp, i don't hit 13k often

[Omanley]

the argument that hybrids should do less dps is old, outdated and lame.

im enhancement and as hybrid as you can get. but even i dont really have an adventage from it in raids.

in raids i will never heal, so how does the fact that im "able to" 2nd spec actually benefit? i have to get gear first, something a rogue will never have to worry about.

and even if i were to have a complete enh and resto gear, i would never be able to do both at once.

does a resto in arena melee? he doesn´t even do decent spelldmg, worse than a resto druid or disc priest.

as enh, i have to sacrifice maelstrom procs for healing, robbing myself of the damage output of an instant lightning bolt or an instant frog. and even with actually selfhealing in pvp, my heals are so damn horribly weak, especially with ms on me, a big heal will non crit for 2k or so... uuuuh

those who really want to contribute to the raid, bringing more than one spec to the raid, can just as well level up a 2nd character.

what´s the big difference between someone with a resto druid and a moonkin 2nd spec and a resto druid with a arcane mage twink with equally good gear?

the latter spent 4-5 days played to get 80 and a little more time to get geared, and will do much more dmg. and in the end, the only difference is. person one changes gear and spec, the other relogs on twink.

and even with the argument that classes which are able to bring great support should do less dmg is quite stupid.

most buffs are shared between several classes now anyway. as enh i used to be an buffbot. know im a mm hunter/blood dk/frost dk hybrid in terms of support. and after activating the support ( which is more troublesome than it is for any other class except MAYBE for warrior shouts or dk´s horn of winter , because of the short duration ) everyone gets the support, not just the hybrids. after having one enhance, the favor of an additional enhancer versus a rg will go to the rogue, because better dmg.

blizzard should give pure dps classes a little more support abilities so that they shut up about dmg issues, and that´s when things start to become fair.

[jontaxe]

the problem with that is that while reducing the CD it works against crit...

the lower the CD on LvB the less crit is worth, so say you get 3 crits in a row (not uncommon... almost every shaman has upwards of 50% crit in a raid) and each one reduces the CD of LvB by 1 sec your LvB will be coming off CD almost as you finish casting the last LB meaning you cast less LBs meaning crit is worth less...

its hard to put into words but basically that change is contradicting its self.

No, man... All it does is let you cast more LvB (and yes, fewer LBs). Crit will be worth some amount, in a hypothetical situation where this happened we would have to let the smarter kids (Zamir) figure it out.

Anyway... It's all pie in the sky dreaming at this point. There are a dozen ways to fix it, some better than others. If you don't like this one I could come up with 10 more by lunch. But they won't fix it, so...

My initial point still sort of stands, though: It's not movement, it's not that we don't get SP from int (neither do fire mages, and they are fine), it's not itemization, it's not lightning bolt. It's the fact that a good number of elemental talents are relics and fixes from stuff no longer applicable, but most of all it's lava burst and that so much of elemental's talent tree has had talents crowbarred in to prop up such a crappy spell.

Actually, my boss just wandered out. I think I'm going to spend the next hour doing a side by side comparison of fire, arcane, and elemental. I wish I knew jack shit about 'locks, but I don't.

the argument that hybrids should do less dps is old, outdated and lame.

You are dead on 100% right. The ability to heal means jack in raids. I can point GC to a years worth of logs and he can count my total heals cast if he likes. After that the only advantage a hybrid has is that he can scoop up offspec gear in a single raid whereas an alt has to run it twice... That's it. That's the big ole advantage hybrids have. You can respec and heal? Hah! After I collect another 350 badges of frost after heroic lich king is on farm status, yeah, maybe.

The WoW forums are down, so I can't find the exact "hybrid tax" quote, but it's akin to "if hybrids did as much DPS why would anyone play a pure?"

Uhhh... because of play style preferences. If people min maxxed DPS with total disregard to class/spec/playstyle and preference there wouldn't be warlocks, hunters, and mages. There would be only 1 of those in 1 spec. Mages wouldn't be bitching about frost raid viability, and I long ago would have put the shaman up and made my mage my main. (In fact, I still don't have a good answer as to why I haven't done that, other than: "I like playing my shaman better."

To say something like: "Ideally your spec would be a choice" (on the front page right now) is a playstyle issue. You like Sub more than Combat. How that does not extend to "The class you pick to do DPS should be your choice" baffles the shit out of me.

Again, this is a moot point, too. Blizz can't keep classes within 30% of each other, hybrid or not. Let alone 5% of each other. So their talk about "hybrid tax" with DKs currently stomping hunters flat is just so much talk.

"We believe you can't just balance around the best players."

Hey, here's an idea GC... take 25 or 30 of your testers and staff. Have each of them wail away at a debuffed target dummy with every single class for a few hours. Fully raid buff them. Do it again.

Now, just because they are balanced on target dummies doesn't mean they are going to be balanced... But I promise you that if you see a 20% disparity there you certainly have some work to do...

Damn. I do slack off like a bastard when my boss leaves, right?

[fakestreet]

@ fakestreet: I suck at math. I keep forgetting that 2.5/3.5 = 71.4%, which is indeed out LB coeff. Well... in that case, let me change my position: the .5 sec talent sucks worse than I thought. Note: I'm pretty sure it haste is also calculated off of untalented cast time, so it benefits LB less there, too.

Never ever ever underestimate the power of SP coefficient. It is pretty big, and any time some caster "doesn't scale" that's the first place to look. It isn't always the culprit, but it's a good place to start. Ever wonder why FFB, which ruled supreme pre Naxx sucks now compared to normal fire? Because fireball gets a cast time reduction talent and FFB does not... The end.

Oh I know coefficient is pretty much key to scaling. In fact, that's why SPriest and Moonkin got artificially buffed also. MB and Wrath has it as bad as LvB (MB's coefficient is even worse but it's not as big a % of SP's DPS). My whole post was just to show past history of Ele and the reason for the coefficient change 3+ years ago and why it is pretty much outdated now (I mean, who has mana and threat issues in WotLK?).

Personally, I cba to care about what the Devs do anymore. I guess I'm pretty lucky that I don't have to worry about a raid spot and just have to focus on playing the game, however flawed it is.

edit: btw, haste is calculated after talents. So "base cast time" for LB is 2s, not 2.5s.