Poll: Should Elemental Blast be made baseline?

  1. #1
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    Question Elemental Blast at baseline?

    Quick question, and pretty simply really:

    Should Elemental Blast be baseline for Elemental?

    I’m one of those people who think Elemental has the best caster rotation in the game. Two maintenance buffs, a proc-enhanced nuke, a timed rotational cast and a filler is as convoluted as a rotation really needs to be, and it feels fun when Lava Surge procs and you can fire off your Earth Shock. Yes, there are a couple of niggles (shock conflicts chief among them) but Elemental is an extremely well-designed spec.

    But part of this is Elemental Blast, and instead of trying to “make it work” for Restoration and Enhancement, I’d rather they simply made it baseline for casters and designed a brand new talent in its slot. As great a spell as it is, it appears to stand out as a “terrible” talent because two specs rarely, if ever, pick it up (and even Elemental is starting to leave it behind).

    So, poll time – what do you guys think?

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by Blitzo View Post
    It should have been something baseline, like stampede is for hunters, or colossus smash is for warriors ect.
    Ironically, Stampede is a level 75 talent in Warlords.

    But no, Elemental Blast is a nice talent, it just needs a tweak to be useful in some way to resto.

    Also
    Quote Originally Posted by The Caretaker View Post
    Yes, there are a couple of niggles (shock conflicts chief among them)
    The shock rotation was an integral part of elemental's gameplay style as you had to make a conscious choice when to use each shock, allowing great players to separate themselves from good players. Sadly that seems to be being made a bit easier in Warlords with the 20 charge lightning shield.
    Last edited by mmocc85087d34c; 2014-07-22 at 08:33 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ravensword View Post
    Nearly every Enhancement PVP player I know on Live uses Elemental Blast. http://www.worldofwargraphs.com/stat...0-0-0-0-0.html
    Fair should, I hadn't really considered PvP. It still strikes me as strange that Enhancement would use it at all, but the graph seems conclusive enough in that it does see use.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zeruge View Post
    The shock rotation was an integral part of elemental's gameplay style as you had to make a conscious choice when to use each shock, allowing great players to separate themselves from good players. Sadly that seems to be being made a bit easier in Warlords with the 20 charge lightning shield.
    Fair comment. I don't necessarily manage my shocks that well, but it's certainly improved over the time I've been playing. Skill caps are no bad thing, and the T16 two-piece is an integral part of it. Might be nice to see something like that baseline too but, then again, rather a lot of set bonuses could make that argument.

  4. #4
    you miss a third option, that all people that cry "make elemental blast baseline" do: replace elemental blast for enhance and/or restro with another talent...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nebria View Post
    you miss a third option, that all people that cry "make elemental blast baseline" do: replace elemental blast for enhance and/or restro with another talent...
    That's because it's already accounted for under option 2.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by The Caretaker View Post
    That's because it's already accounted for under option 2.
    hm ok. I read from option 2 "make elemental blast work" not "replace it with another talent"^^

    - - - Updated - - -

    by the way I think there was a post on twitter that they think about how to improve elemental blast for resto. so at least they should get some love which is really needed. enhance might not prefer it but in some situation it is used as far as I know (at least for pvp^^).

  7. #7
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    Elemental Blast is never used by resto and it is used by enh in pvp because of the Stormstrike buff increasing it's crit chance. Personally, i find it a travesty that a melee spec hits and crits harder on top of making it instant via maelstrom, while for ele, this talent is more of a liability in pvp since we need to hardcast it and the reward is just underwhelming when the spell doesn't crit. Elemental Blast feels like a long missing part of ele rotation. The super cool animation, the satisfying explosion sound when it hits the target and interaction with Lava surge and Unleash was my favourite part of ele gameplay in MoP. My vote goes to making it baseline. Enh already has enough unique abilities.

  8. #8
    I think it should become baseline because UF & EB are too similiar as talent choices, both offer similiar gameplay effect (similiar cd) while both are useless for AoE Dps.

    They are simply too similiar in terms of usage for Elemental that there's any choice involved, one of them will produce better numbers and then other one will be forgotten because it doesn't have a unique strength.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    I think it should become baseline because UF & EB are too similiar as talent choices, both offer similiar gameplay effect (similiar cd) while both are useless for AoE Dps.

    They are simply too similiar in terms of usage for Elemental that there's any choice involved, one of them will produce better numbers and then other one will be forgotten because it doesn't have a unique strength.
    to be honest that sounds more like EB should be removed.
    If EB gets baseline why shoud I pick UF then? to have another cd I have to use in my rotation?


    I think all 3 talents are well made for elemental. All three have its usage and I use all three regulary. The difference between UF and EB is one is an instant, the other one not. UF buffs other spells, EB deals direct damage. So when you often switch targets, like Nazgrim, you won't have much fun with UF (or PE), but EB works very well here. On single target fights, like Siegebreaker, UF works very well. You have some kind of movement, no targets where you have to switch to. Also in arneas UF can have some advantages compared to EB.
    In my opinion they should add some effect to EB for Resto or just create a new talent for Resto (and it seems they take a look into it currently). Not sure about Enhance. It has its usage in PvP so it might be fine.
    Last edited by Nebria; 2014-07-22 at 07:32 PM.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Nebria View Post
    to be honest that sounds more like EB should be removed.
    If EB gets baseline why shoud I pick UF then? to have another cd I have to use in my rotation?
    Personally i'd rather have UF removed, simply because of the fact that this talent basically blocks a spell that you are supposed to cast during movement.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    Personally i'd rather have UF removed, simply because of the fact that this talent basically blocks a spell that you are supposed to cast during movement.
    This, thank you.

  12. #12
    No way. I like Elemental's simplistic build/consume and shock management rotation. Elemental Blast just adds more maintenance for buffs and is, like someone said above, a liability for Elemental in PvP, it's a high-risk but, low reward ability. Now if it replaced Lava Burst, kept all the mechanics from LvB(auto-crit,surge procs)plus, it raising your highest secondary stat instead of a random one that'd be a different story, this way Elemental Blast would be high-risk and high-reward because you have the chance to be interrupted and lock you out of all casts completely or get the cast off and get a guaranteed critical hit while simultaneously gaining a buff to your highest 2nd stat.

    For Resto, Blizzard said they are working on EB changes for Resto and I see the following happening, either EB becomes an damage-heal ability or Ele Blast becomes another casted heal for Resto, or they completely give Resto a new talent. EB damage-heal is my worst fear they need to stop giving other healers an atonement style heal, Mistweavers and Discs already have that niche covered and Resto doesn't need it either.
    Last edited by shamantime; 2014-07-24 at 03:39 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Chubathingy View Post
    But anyway it's OK to be jelly of the tallest midget.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by shamantime View Post
    For Resto, Blizzard said they are working on EB changes for Resto and I see the following happening, either EB becomes an damage-heal ability or Ele Blast becomes another casted heal for Resto, or they completely give Resto a new talent. EB damage-heal is my worst fear they need to stop giving other healers an atonement style heal, Mistweavers and Discs already have that niche covered and Resto doesn't need it either.
    To be honest, I hope that's a style they move away from completely; not replicate elsewhere. Doing half-decent damage, but still healing optimally, strikes me as bad design. Essentially, it just makes one healer better for group-play than another (depending on tuning).

  14. #14
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    Atonement healing is not always optimal, disc priests do need to use other spells too. Fistweaving is nowhere near optimal - this actually strikes a pretty good balance between damage and healing and fits the niche perfectly.

    Also don't forget disc is being toned down in Warlords, it's already been acknowledged that it's overpowered, their wonderful healing and DPS capabilities are not by design.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zeruge View Post
    Atonement healing is not always optimal, disc priests do need to use other spells too. Fistweaving is nowhere near optimal - this actually strikes a pretty good balance between damage and healing and fits the niche perfectly.

    Also don't forget disc is being toned down in Warlords, it's already been acknowledged that it's overpowered, their wonderful healing and DPS capabilities are not by design.
    Oh, yeah, I'm not arguing that it's always overpowered; merely that it's a risk. Telluric Currents was enough of a reward for using Lighting Bolt, as it only really gave you a mana-free way of contributing "some" damage. Alas, there have been a few occasions where fistweaving and Atonement have been a bit out of control (again, as you've acknowledged).

  16. #16
    I like Elemental Blast on my Enhancement Shaman. It's very flavorful. I'm a Shaman afterall... I use the elements to aide me.

    Why do you want to take it away from all other specs?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bridius View Post
    I like Elemental Blast on my Enhancement Shaman. It's very flavorful. I'm a Shaman afterall... I use the elements to aide me.

    Why do you want to take it away from all other specs?
    I don't. I'm asking if it's used commonly by the other specs, as it didn't appear to be (and I was only really thinking about PvE). If it's kept, I'd kind of like a Lava Surge-type proc for Enhancement that made it instant cast, or something of that ilk. You know, just to make it more enticing for a melee spec that really shouldn't be "casting" a spell.

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