Consolidated list of elemental issues for WoD

[Irisia]

Also in WoD, Elemental mastery will help with movement, not as good as Lightning Bolt, but that was the point of the nerf.

People need to stop overestimating how much movement will affect our damage in WoD.

On a single target fight with some sporadic movement (like Iron Juggernaut), how much of our damage comes from Lightning Bolt? From what I can see, it's around 35% of our total damage, maybe a little more due to Rolling Thunder. On beta, if you go for high mastery, you can get your mastery to cover as much as 30% of you total damage, so how much exactly are we losing by not having Lightning Bolt to cast while moving? Hardly anything.

Also, if they keep the current T17 set bonuses, we can most likely use the 4-piece to cover most if not all of the smaller movements we need to make during a boss. Reducing the damage we lose while moving even more.

[desert-wind]

People need to stop overestimating how much movement will affect our damage in WoD.

On a single target fight with some sporadic movement (like Iron Juggernaut), how much of our damage comes from Lightning Bolt? From what I can see, it's around 35% of our total damage, maybe a little more due to Rolling Thunder. On beta, if you go for high mastery, you can get your mastery to cover as much as 30% of you total damage, so how much exactly are we losing by not having Lightning Bolt to cast while moving? Hardly anything.

Also, if they keep the current T17 set bonuses, we can most likely use the 4-piece to cover most if not all of the smaller movements we need to make during a boss. Reducing the damage we lose while moving even more.

You're missing the point here, it's not about numbers while moving, it's about play-ability, I don't want to be auto walking during a raid letting my passive damage go off, I want to be using abilities to play as best I can around the movement. Mage's can actively blink + one of sprint / avoid / cast while moving around mechanics, it is engaging and good design. Shaman have auto attack, instants that are part of a cd not readily available (ue being the exception only IF you are not talented) and SWG. (SWG is bad and is optimally used with ascendance 90% of the time) although with the lava burst nerfs it may not be as potent of a cd that warrants this in EVERY situation, still... most.

Regardless of how well they end up contributing to our damage, the gameplay feels clunky and unrewarding.

[Putin-Chan]

We all know that blizz hates us shamans, that's why they are making us be immobile and weak.

[Zixan]

Dude desert, someone needs to take away your "High Overlord" Title..

I don't even know where to start.

SWG >>>> Ice Flows.

Ice Flows only will allow you to cast one spell while moving every 15 seconds. Yes, you have 3 charges. If you'd like to spend all of it in one place, you get 3 spells every 45 seconds. For the former, you could easily use a Earth Shock, Searing Totem, Lava Surge, Flame Shock, or Unleash Flame. Whichever of those 5 benefit you the most at that given time. Keep in mind with Lighting Shield stacking three times as high, it doesn't have to be even half full for it to be a good choice in spells on the move, and with our "Pandemic" like effect with Flame Shock, we have the flexibility to cast Flame Shock with about 9 seconds remaining on the dot, with no loss. For the latter, glyph SWG and you have about 4-7 spells you can cast while moving every minute, depending on your haste. That's a little better. Without the glyph, you can cast constantly for 15 seconds with no penalty. That is absolutely untouchable by Ice Flows.

If you are using SWG with Ascendance solely because it is a DPS cooldown, you're not using it to its fullest potential. If you actually pay attention and look for spots to plant for 15seconds, and not move, you'd be surprised how much of a crutch SWG can be for Ascendance. Right now, it's alright (but not optimal) to always use SWG with Ascendance, because every other scenario is could be less of an increase, therefore seen as "bad." However, in Warlords, this will not be the case. SWG will be a much much more effective cooldown than it is now. And it will require a smart player to utilize well. You yourself said that you want to be using abilities to play as best as you can involving movement. This is that.

You're throwing the word 'clunky' around way way too much. First of all, it's subjective, which means it has nothing to do with how the spec feels to other people. "clunky" is the word people use to dissociate themselves when they say the don't like a spec or ability. You not liking the playstyle has nothing to do with the developers having spent thousands of hours designing the spec. There's a lot of things also that come under the hood to make sure it stays viable. If you just "Buff Lava Burst" than you'll get horrific haste scaling, very little crit scaling, and a lot of rotational glitches, especially once you start getting gear. Specs have to be balanced with each other at every possible gear level. This makes every change a heavily calculated process. Everything is like a house of cards. Changing one things in effect changes its relation with everything else. Imagine playing Jenga, but you can't see the other pieces as easily.

Irisia has a great point. Shamans all around are crying their eyes out, assuming they're going to be dead last in every fight because they have to move. This simply wont be the case. Blizzard took out our movement while casting with Lightning Bolt, and essential put its damage right back with Molten Earth. Its quite hilarious, actually.

[desert-wind]

Dude desert, someone needs to take away your "High Overlord" Title..

I don't even know where to start.

SWG >>>> Ice Flows.

Ice Flows only will allow you to cast one spell while moving every 15 seconds. Yes, you have 3 charges. If you'd like to spend all of it in one place, you get 3 spells every 45 seconds. For the former, you could easily use a Earth Shock, Searing Totem, Lava Surge, Flame Shock, or Unleash Flame. Whichever of those 5 benefit you the most at that given time. Keep in mind with Lighting Shield stacking three times as high, it doesn't have to be even half full for it to be a good choice in spells on the move, and with our "Pandemic" like effect with Flame Shock, we have the flexibility to cast Flame Shock with about 9 seconds remaining on the dot, with no loss. For the latter, glyph SWG and you have about 4-7 spells you can cast while moving every minute, depending on your haste. That's a little better. Without the glyph, you can cast constantly for 15 seconds with no penalty. That is absolutely untouchable by Ice Flows.

If you are using SWG with Ascendance solely because it is a DPS cooldown, you're not using it to its fullest potential. If you actually pay attention and look for spots to plant for 15seconds, and not move, you'd be surprised how much of a crutch SWG can be for Ascendance. Right now, it's alright (but not optimal) to always use SWG with Ascendance, because every other scenario is could be less of an increase, therefore seen as "bad." However, in Warlords, this will not be the case. SWG will be a much much more effective cooldown than it is now. And it will require a smart player to utilize well. You yourself said that you want to be using abilities to play as best as you can involving movement. This is that.

You're throwing the word 'clunky' around way way too much. First of all, it's subjective, which means it has nothing to do with how the spec feels to other people. "clunky" is the word people use to dissociate themselves when they say the don't like a spec or ability. You not liking the playstyle has nothing to do with the developers having spent thousands of hours designing the spec. There's a lot of things also that come under the hood to make sure it stays viable. If you just "Buff Lava Burst" than you'll get horrific haste scaling, very little crit scaling, and a lot of rotational glitches, especially once you start getting gear. Specs have to be balanced with each other at every possible gear level. This makes every change a heavily calculated process. Everything is like a house of cards. Changing one things in effect changes its relation with everything else. Imagine playing Jenga, but you can't see the other pieces as easily.

Irisia has a great point. Shamans all around are crying their eyes out, assuming they're going to be dead last in every fight because they have to move. This simply wont be the case. Blizzard took out our movement while casting with Lightning Bolt, and essential put its damage right back with Molten Earth. Its quite hilarious, actually.

SWG VS Ice Floes
Theoretically Superior vs Practically Superior

To explain SWG with ASc, you do not use swg in a macro with ascendance, you just press it the moment a mechanic targets you and you have to move, because this is the optimal time to use it because you will be chaining hardcasts. A lot of the rest of the time u are either using instants or lower damage spells. The issue is that with such a long CD u essentially can't use it 2 minutes before ascendance because then you won't have it back for when it is most likely going to give you the largest benefit.

Most fights have RNG mechanics like this, so it's not a choice, you just use it if your targetted, if you are lucky then u will have a 1 min window to use it outside of ascendance, but it doesn't work well with out spec because we are proc based and don't hard cast that often outside of LB. IT works in theory because its such a high percentage of time that you can move and cast, but fails practically because it really just isnt that movement, and you only really get 2 globals of movement out of it outside of ascendance.

The rest of your post is just fluff telling me to think differently, the problem is you don't even realise how vastly superior ice floes is to swg in the first place, so your entire way of looking is incorrect. Ice floes gives you a choice to use 1 cast for movment which is actually what you need in most scenarios, and works well for a spec based around procs like frost (or ele), or that is entirely hard casts like arcane. It works in practice when you rarely need more than 1 or 2 casts periodically.

[Nebria]

both have their pros and cons.
pro on ice floes is that you have 3 charges you can activate when you need them. so if you move more frequently only for 1-2 casts it is better cause you have it available more ofthen then swg. on the other side I don't like the usage. you have to activate Ice Floes to get one charge. So it doesn't feel that fluid compared to SWG.

benefit from swg is that once activated you have a fix time (and not only 3 charges) where you can cast as much as you want while moving
this is not limited to LB, LVB and EB you can also use EQ or CL. Imagine CL while moving with an Ice Floes charge system.
the negative side is that is has a long cd and you might not need the full duration. but honestly this is where we can use the glyph for.

however I think it makes no sense to compare both spells because you have to see them together with the playstyle of the class.
mages have so much instants and blink that they don't really have to move a long distance without having something to do.
take aoe for example. a frost mage is using frost sphere and spams instant ice lance, we have to cast cl and perhaps cast eq. a mage can do everything while moving, we would have to use swg. so Ice Floes wouldn't work very well for shamans. on the other side swg would work for mages but they don't need it really.

[Deleted]

As Nebria said, its pretty hard to compare IF and SWG because they serve inherently different purposes. IF is for short movement (step 5 yards to the side out of this puddle), whilst SWG is for extended periods of movement.

SWG *can* be used for the same purpose as IF, but then the cooldown inhibits you. As such, you need to be much more careful with your use of SWG. The upside is that it lasts significantly longer. The glyph for SWG to reduce its duration and CD can be used to mitigate this, but it is still the case. With the *other* glyph that makes you uninterruptable its especially good in PvP because you become a super turret for the duration.

On say Sha of Pride HC I would say SWG is definitely 'better' (I use the term loosely), because the distance of movement required is much larger (going to pick up rifts), but on NM I would say IF is better (only movement really is stepping out of puddles).

tl;dr - Pretty pointless comparing them. They are designed for very different purposes.

[Tyze]

Have they changed anything more in Elementals gameplay? I mean is Lava Burst still pretty good? Or are people only whining over LB not on the move?

[desert-wind]

Not whining over that at all, it just devolved a bit because one of the points is that all other classes have better gameplay and tools when it comes to movement. And mages are a prime example as their baseline movement is better than our entire kit with talents and perks, plus they have a talent tier specifically for movement on top of that.

(they also have better utility / defensives / talent variation and general play ability)

RE: SWG vs Ice Floes; SWG is better in very rare real bosses, elemental plays similar to frost, ice floes is better for both ele and frost because MOST of the time when we move we can either shock, or ue, or searing or surge procs. Similarly frost can use one of its ice lances or frostfire bolt charges. It's likely that at least one of these will be available for each class. Situationally you won't have one of these available, for ele, we either do nothing and move or use swg once for one cast (generally a bad idea // too hard to judge if u will get a proc in the next micro second) where as mage has the choice of blinking if it would be a large movement or using one charge of ice floes.

[shamantime]

Just thought i'd mention that their is a glitch for Ice Floes, idk if it's fixed on the beta but, it is possible to be able to cast 5 spells instead of three. Have one charge active and while you are casting one spell, right before the cast is complete activate IF again and you will still have the charge from before and the one just activated.

[Tharkash]

Repeat: Not every talent needs to be useful for every spec.

So by your logic, shaman deserve to be the only class in WoD where this is true? There may be a few outlier talents in some classes but shaman have 2 complete talent tiers that are, more or less, useless.

[PuppetShowJustice]

why are we the only class without talents mixed ?

You aren't, actually. I get that you mean Ele versus Enhance but that isn't what the word class means. Part of your class is Resto which has 2 alternate talent options made for it in the bottom talent tier.

Death Knight is the class with literally no different talent choices across all three specs.

I do agree that the totem tier is pretty lame though.

[desert-wind]

You aren't, actually. I get that you mean Ele versus Enhance but that isn't what the word class means. Part of your class is Resto which has 2 alternate talent options made for it in the bottom talent tier.

Death Knight is the class with literally no different talent choices across all three specs.

I do agree that the totem tier is pretty lame though.

I know resto got some different talents finally now, but considering we fulfill 3 different roles and we have 1 split in diversity in the entire tier is a bit ridiculous.

Also melee dps is more similar to tanking then melee / ranged / healing are too eachother.

Furthermore DK's are built differently to almost every other class in that all 3 specs use the same resource system, all 3 specs use close to the same abilities, and they were originally designed so that u could play both roles in all 3 specs. So it makes a lot of sense that your talents are useable by all 3 specs.

Having said that, I'm not super up on DK stuff because I don't really care about melee specs outside of enhance, but aren't your talents fairly widely used in various circumstances? Whereas I can't remember the last time I changed talents as Ele outside of CMs.