Elemental Feedback from you guys please

[kevincuomo]

So i know Elemental damage is low.. i mean my lava bursts hit for like 100K and i see other classes (Like Monk) just hitting for 500k+ and more.

Leveling as Elemental wasn't easy and i feel like we need some serious damage buffs to even be viable in Mythics/Raiding. Also i absolutely HATE the Elemental Artifact Weapon skill...Even with 200% more damage on lightening bolt/chain lightening they still only hit for like 220k max so far.

On top of that why would they make the Artifact skill apply only to the two spells i like casting least? Make it effect Lava Burst and make it instant.. i dont want to raise my weapon to the air for a second and waste time and then be able to cast.

It just seems like compared to other classes/specs the elemental Artifact skill is just really really bad. I really hope they tune/fix it and make lava burst hit harder or something.

Aside from that rant i love Resto Shaman and will probably be playing it as my main spec.

What do you guys think?

[rokkshark]

Honestly, I'm loving elemental. Having no issues with damage while leveling. My own theory is that people are too focused on cookie cutter builds for raiding. I'm running elemental blast and earthen rage, despite them not being on the "approved" talent list. I'm able to move quick and EB gives another burst tool, which is important for leveling since we aren't in sustained fights. My opener is EB -> FS -> LvB. That's usually enough to get mobs down to 20-40% health. I'm currently 106 after having completed Highmountain and Aszuna.

I don't have a problem with the artifact weapon in general. I do agree that an instant stormcaller would make the decision on when to use it a little easier. Our AOE seems a little weak right now. I'm not really worried about DPS though, since Blizzard have said they'll be doing a balance patch shortly after raids. Everyone switching specs or classes over sim stats are gonna be dizzy. I don't feel like I won't be able to compete as elemental.

That said, as much as I enjoy the class, I wish our abilities and stats were more synergistic instead of opposed. Things like crit not affecting Lavaburst outside of ascendance, mastery procs not being able to crit or effect more than 3 abilities... Those parts of elemental kind of suck. But really, I'm having a blast on elemental and won't be changing anytime soon.

[chairmanmao]

I'm currently 106

Oh, I see.

[Elios]

Honestly, I'm loving elemental. Having no issues with damage while leveling. My own theory is that people are too focused on cookie cutter builds for raiding. I'm running elemental blast and earthen rage, despite them not being on the "approved" talent list. I'm able to move quick and EB gives another burst tool, which is important for leveling since we aren't in sustained fights. My opener is EB -> FS -> LvB. That's usually enough to get mobs down to 20-40% health. I'm currently 106 after having completed Highmountain and Aszuna.

I don't have a problem with the artifact weapon in general. I do agree that an instant stormcaller would make the decision on when to use it a little easier. Our AOE seems a little weak right now. I'm not really worried about DPS though, since Blizzard have said they'll be doing a balance patch shortly after raids. Everyone switching specs or classes over sim stats are gonna be dizzy. I don't feel like I won't be able to compete as elemental.

That said, as much as I enjoy the class, I wish our abilities and stats were more synergistic instead of opposed. Things like crit not affecting Lavaburst outside of ascendance, mastery procs not being able to crit or effect more than 3 abilities... Those parts of elemental kind of suck. But really, I'm having a blast on elemental and won't be changing anytime soon.

Thank god we have your Theory instead of you know, numbers and shit...

[Krazzorx]

I'd say we are probably in a good place relatively speaking. We don't do anything really bad. Our dungeon aoe may not be the greatest, but it's not the worst and we provide great tank survivability with interupts, stuns and EQ.

Our pure damage may not be at fire Mage level in dungeons or raids (ATM at least, let's see what tuning hotfixes provide) but I wouldn't call it bad. Would call it average combined with not really a situation you don't want ele. Always an acceptable option to bring one. Compared to say, warlocks which depending on spec can struggle with target swapping or burst. And Boomkins. They're pretty bad ATM.

[Socialhealer]

833 8/8 mythic, ehh aoe is slow if the pack dies fast you'll be below the tank every time, you want packs to survive a good 30 seconds to keep up with other dps.

2 targets you're last on dps behind the tank again, we want 5+ for maximum maelstrom generation.

great burst but it really dies off after and you're dealing with mechanics just watching ur dps drop below others because you don't have the instants or any mobility, like why the fuck is spiritwalkers grace gone? because no-one at blizzard is actually good at the spec i assume.

solo in the world it's slow u don't really want to pull 2-3 mobs without cds, and you'll pray you crit/overload otherwise those mobs will take ages to die.

the the difference between lightning bolt no crit no overload which is like 45k dmg, vs crit+crit overload which is 197k is plain stupid, sometimes you chunk its health the others it takes 3 casts to kill a mob on 150k hp, and that's only amplified when using power of the maelstrom, 115k vs 591k dmg for 1 cast.

[chairmanmao]

833 8/8 mythic, ehh aoe is slow if the pack dies fast you'll be below the tank every time, you want packs to survive a good 30 seconds to keep up with other dps.

2 targets you're last on dps behind the tank again, we want 5+ for maximum maelstrom generation.

great burst but it really dies off after and you're dealing with mechanics just watching ur dps drop below others because you don't have the instants or any mobility, like why the fuck is spiritwalkers grace gone? because no-one at blizzard is actually good at the spec i assume.

solo in the world it's slow u don't really want to pull 2-3 mobs without cds, and you'll pray you crit/overload otherwise those mobs will take ages to die.

the the difference between lightning bolt no crit no overload which is like 45k dmg, vs crit+crit overload which is 197k is plain stupid, sometimes you chunk its health the others it takes 3 casts to kill a mob on 150k hp, and that's only amplified when using power of the maelstrom, 115k vs 591k dmg for 1 cast.

This has basically been my experience.

[Nyel]

Would call it average combined with not really a situation you don't want ele. Always an acceptable option to bring one.

Why should you bring an Ele when you can bring Enhancer or Resto? Nobody would bring an Ele instead of Enh/Resto if they have the option.

And Boomkins bad? Eeeeeh not really.

[Rygore]

My problem when people bring up an argument of ele being so-so, therefore it's okay to take to raids, is that there will ALWAYS be a better choice because despite not really having a weakness (our overall damage will probably be brought up to middle of the pack before raids), we don't have any spot to really shine either. I made a case like this during BRF where litterally every other ranged class had some sort of utility that made it useful, besides just pure damage numbers when looking at building a raid group, and elemental has nothing special about it. There won't be a single raid fight where someone will think "If only we had an ele shaman right now" because they'll always have a better option.

[Northy]

How do I remove the "Hide Enchant Illusion" from my Fist of Ra-Den? The drop-down option disappeared...

I'd like to be able to enchant my weapon again.

[Deleted]

I feel like this spec is utterly destroyed by movement now and no counter measures were put in place other than Icefury to maintain decent DPS. Even with no movement, DPS is lacking considerably and its even worse in PvP thanks to lava surge being gutted.

[ortund]

Oh, I see.

So because he's only level 106, his opinion doesn't count... Or he's not entitled to have an opinion?

This is literally everything that's wrong with the WoW Community...

[Kesandri]

Honestly, I'm loving elemental. Having no issues with damage while leveling. My own theory is that people are too focused on cookie cutter builds for raiding. I'm running elemental blast and earthen rage, despite them not being on the "approved" talent list. I'm able to move quick and EB gives another burst tool, which is important for leveling since we aren't in sustained fights. My opener is EB -> FS -> LvB. That's usually enough to get mobs down to 20-40% health. I'm currently 106 after having completed Highmountain and Aszuna.

This is imo a very important point and one I agree with. Players tend to rush to icy veins, pick a build in a guide that was just selected for general use and not suited to the individual.
It is very important if people are struggling with a class they mix it up and try the alternate talents on offer.
That said....

Elemental as it stands right now pre raids is in a very poor place for solo content, only those that truly love the spec will soldier thru and the average alt levelers will find the experience very poor in comparison to sever all classes.
I have mained ele for 5 years now and have switched back to resto for legion and what really stands out for me is that I am now doing solo content as RESTO because outside of cd's the damage is practically the same (FS,LvB,Surge procs,LB etc) and I never have to worry about survival either often just throwing a self riptide between casts - all in all a much easier way to solo on my shaman.

[Deleted]

I have just done all the mythic dungeons with cookie cutter build and here's some things I'd like to note:

-The damage range on a LB cast is effing ridiculous. LB with no proc/crit does approx 40k and can probably reach 200-400k with everything proccing.
-I couldn't outdps tanks on a single target unless I used cooldowns (Guess that kinda makes sense with the heavy investment on CD talents, but it still feels weak)
-I got completely obliterated on groups with 2-3 targets and on 3+ groups I could be competetive if I got proper ramp up time.
-Usually topped meters on bossfights with none to light movement and still perfoming quite good on more movement heavy fights.

So far the only problem I have with elemental is Stormkeeper being on a GCD and LB hitting some extremely low numbers.

[Nyel]

-The damage range on a LB cast is effing ridiculous. LB with no proc/crit does approx 40k and can probably reach 200-400k with everything proccing.
So far the only problem I have with elemental is Stormkeeper being on a GCD and LB hitting some extremely low numbers.

You're absolutely right. Ele has three big issues:

- Lightning Bolt (and therefore Stormkeeper)
- Damage while moving (=Mobility)
- AoE

Point 1 and 2 could be solved with ease: make LB castable while moving and increase the bonus of Stormkeeper to 300% or 400% and the amount of affected LBs to 5. That wouldn't make LB that much stronger but it would give us mobility so that casting LB feels "okay" (right now casting LB without Stormkeeper just feels useless) and Stormkeeper would be the high burst we really need.

[binkenstein]

Thank god we have your Theory instead of you know, numbers and shit...

[justflayin]

So because he's only level 106, his opinion doesn't count... Or he's not entitled to have an opinion?

This is literally everything that's wrong with the WoW Community...

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but its kinda hard to take it seriously when he hasn't even played at 110 yet.

[Sageless]

I've levelled as elemental and will be maining as resto.
So I started out with getting my elemental artifact filled to the first golden dragon to allow me to do better at World Quests etc. and then fill out my resto artifact.
However at 830+ I still felt weak solo'ing and when I got decent relics/trinkets from World Quests I decided to try out Enhancement.

To be honest I might still play elemental since it's ranged, but the difference is too big to ignore. With basic key bashing (did zero research in how to dps as enhance) and only 1 rank in the artifact I did 25-50% more damage as enhance compared to elemental. Not to mention it's a lot smoother (no idea why the elemental artifact does not do damage as well, feels weird and the duration of the damage buff makes it even worse), it also has all the nice things you miss with elemental (instant heal, walk and cast lightning bolt, etc).

The initial plan was for me to have elemental offspec so if we were dropping a healer I could switch to ranged dps, however with the current status I don't look forward to that.

[Deleted]

I'd be fine if Stormbringer was off the GCD and maybe lasted longer so I can actually use them. I find that a lot of the time, I might get good lava surge procs or have to move and by the time I'm ready to use the buff, its gone.

Issue with LB damage is that where most artifacts add something to the spec, its hard to buff lightning bolt because you inherently buff Stormbringer as well. They just need to limit the range of the damage it does, maybe nerf the artifact ability a bit but buff normal LB damage so that the gap isn't so large as well as doing the above.

Regarding movement, I'm confused as to why SWG was removed if all we have is Icefury and Lava Surge, its pretty ludicrous that other ranged specs get so many tools for movement while also doing better DPS overall while staying still anyway.

[Trollfat]

The more I use Stormkeeper the more I hate it. Right now I REALLY fucking hate it. This legitimately might make me switch classes.

Lava surge and Stormkeeper are not compatible. The following has happened to me SO MANY TIMES I've lost count: LvB on CD -> Stormkeeper -> Lava surge -> lava surge -> 92 maelstrom earth shock -> Lava surge -> Refresh flame shock -> OH LOOK Stormkeeper has 5 seconds remaining to squeeze in 3 lightning bolts between lava burst and earth shock. I hate it. I hate it. I cannot emphasize enough how much I hate it.