Ele Shaman Early Beta datamining spellchanges

[Rezhka]

Turning Earth Shock into Colossus Smash seems like a strange choice. It just further confuses the question "what is Ele's big hitter?"

All the talent emphasis on Lightning Bolt with almost none on Lava Burst feels odd as well. Maybe they should turn Lava Burst into the big, chunky maelstrom spender (reducing the cost of Earth Shock a little in the process) so that we don't end up with a TBC lightning-bolt-only rotation.

It turns out that Ele Blast is Ele's only nuke damage now. I wonder when will they turn the spell into baseline for ele. Some people (if not most) has been asking it for a long time. And yea, it's very likely we're heading toward to LB spamming rotation.

And seeing how ES lost it nuke damage and FS has cd, it's maybe a good idea to turn LvB into our nuke spender instead of ms regenerator. Lava Surge effect can be added with "not spend ms". And maybe also change FS dot regen ms as baseline, while having FE effect to enhance the regen more.

[Kralljin]

All the talent emphasis on Lightning Bolt with almost none on Lava Burst feels odd as well.

Actually, the only real talent that seriously boosts LB is High Voltage, anything else is kinda moot.

Totem Mastery - 5% Overload is not exactly a big deal
Elemental Mastery - Also has a Lvb portion, thereby debatable
Storm Elemental - I think the whole idea of this CD is to spam LB / CL rather than doing anything else, as CD it's a different story anyway
Electric Discharge - Affects Fulmination, thereby won't help to make LB > Lvb


Honestly, Elemental just by looking at things feels very unfinished, not some sort of "WoD unfinished" but that the playstyle actually doesn't make sense.

Baseline Stuff:

Earth shock CD - Makes no sense especially with the Elemental Mastery talent, you can't spam this button as it requires resources anyway.

Earthquake - A spell that drains Maelstrom and has a CD doesn't work as standard finisher for AoE, plain and simple.

Frost shock - I get the idea that we're supposed to use FrS while moving since it has no CD and actually deals a bit of damage (22,5% SP compared to 50% of LB) but the fact that it costs Maelstrom puts me off - ES has the Fulmination mechanic tied to it, thereby makes ES always better spell to dump Maelstrom.

LB vs. Lvb - Unless they nerf LB into the ground, lb will be better than Lvb sooner or later, a spell that benefits from Crit and double dips Mastery is bound to surpass Lvb, may not happen with the first or 2nd tier but i'm quite certain with the current level of Crit / Mastery we have now, Lb would outperform Lvb.

Talents:

Volcanic Rage & Liquid Magma Totem - Do we really need two (fire based) talents that basically "Deal damage in a small area"? At least put them in the same tier.

Fulmination & Ascendance - With the current Fulmination mechanic, you don't have to spend one GCD on an ES to dump Maelstrom but two for LB to put Fulmination to use, using Earth shock during Ascendance feels odd enough, no need to dilute this CD even further.

It turns out that Ele Blast is Ele's only nuke damage now.

Going by current numbers, Volcanic Rage (250% SP) is the hardest hitting spell.

[Staplecrab]

Electric Discharge - Affects Fulmination, thereby won't help to make LB > Lvb

Fulmination in this talent refers to http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/260113-fulmination

So a 75 maelstrom ES will apply a 3 stack debuff that increases LB damage by 120%, rather than 100%.

I think this mechanic is pretty bad honestly, I'd rather just have ES hit hard than have a debuff for LB.

[Kalisandra]

Fulmination in this talent refers to http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/260113-fulmination

So a 75 maelstrom ES will apply a 3 stack debuff that increases LB damage by 120%, rather than 100%.

I think this mechanic is pretty bad honestly, I'd rather just have ES hit hard than have a debuff for LB.

The annoying thing with it is that if they buff LvB so it's worth casting, Surge procs and this debuff will almost certainly conflict adding needless complexity to the rotation. Contrary to what the dev seem to have decided in Legion, traditionally simple specs do not need to be made all complex and fiddly.

I really don't see what was wrong with simply switching ES/Fulminate from Lightning Shield charges to Maelstrom, and then leaving the rest alone - keep FS up, EB on CD (if taken), LvB on CD or Surge proc, fill with LB (or ChL on cleave).

The only thing the classic Elemental needed, IMO, was a clear PvE role for Frost Shock - perhaps as something worth casting when moving, especially as it seems we're not going to be allowed to move quickly any more. It still needs this, and Icefury is not it.

Oh, and bring back the faster cast on Chain Lightning. I want my Evil Emperor ChainL spam back, thx.

[Kralljin]

Fulmination in this talent refers to http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/260113-fulmination

So a 75 maelstrom ES will apply a 3 stack debuff that increases LB damage by 120%, rather than 100%.

I think this mechanic is pretty bad honestly, I'd rather just have ES hit hard than have a debuff for LB.

Yeah, but it won't make Lb > Lvb, as long as you consume all stacks, Lvb will still have a higher priority due Lvb having a CD, generating more Maelstrom and baseline Lvb beating baseline Lb.

Oh, and bring back the faster cast on Chain Lightning. I want my Evil Emperor ChainL spam back, thx.

Only brings back haste scaling issues - no thanks.

Take Storm Elemental if you want that.

[davesignal]

Going by current numbers, Volcanic Rage (250% SP) is the hardest hitting spell.

Aesthetically, "Fuck it, I'm summoning a volcano under your dumb ass" would make a neat big Maelstrom spender nuke.

[Socialhealer]

all i see is elemental forced to not choose pvp shards when doing WQ's it looks immobile predictable and easy to just shut down and free kill over and over

[Rukario]

I just hope they don't keep up the trend of reverting animations bc a few ppl on the forum whiny...the majority of the player base doesn't even come close to them.

[Kralljin]

Aesthetically, "Fuck it, I'm summoning a volcano under your dumb ass" would make a neat big Maelstrom spender nuke.

Expanding the Maelstrom system via Talents seems to be not a thing for Elemental, aside from bland talents like Aftershock.

all i see is elemental forced to not choose pvp shards when doing WQ's it looks immobile predictable and easy to just shut down and free kill over and over

Despite the fact that Elemental is currently among the stronger PvP specs, i'd still would think twice before turning PvP on even now.

I can't imagine that anyone beyond some PvP Gank teams, Rogue, Demon Hunters and DK's would willingly commit to World PvP.

[Lucrece]

I don't understand why they decided to fuck with a perfectly functional ele spec with yet another revamp to earth shock.

[Socialhealer]

I don't understand why they decided to fuck with a perfectly functional ele spec with yet another revamp to earth shock.

they do it every expansion and then elemental ends up DoA and they need another tier to try make it decent again, usually something like 7-8 hotfixes and it's still mediocre at best.

[nordark]

Anyone can confirm Flame Shock in Alpha has cd or not? This is the only question for me to maining Ele in BfA or not. Currently Elemental is by far the most entertaining caster spec for me and having blast in high m+ and raids. Don't want to play unnecessarily ruined spec again like WoD to Legion destro trainwreck..

[Nfinitii]

Anyone can confirm Flame Shock in Alpha has cd or not? This is the only question for me to maining Ele in BfA or not. Currently Elemental is by far the most entertaining caster spec for me and having blast in high m+ and raids. Don't want to play unnecessarily ruined spec again like WoD to Legion destro trainwreck..

I want to say no but I don't have access to alpha to actually test it. If ur looking at the talent calc on mmo it shows flame shock w/ a cd on live and alpha b/c before lvl 10 it does have a cd then at 10 u get spiritual insight which removes the cd. This ability is shown in the alpha and live talent calc.

Obviously we r in alpha so a lot can change.

[Kalisandra]

they do it every expansion and then elemental ends up DoA and they need another tier to try make it decent again, usually something like 7-8 hotfixes and it's still mediocre at best.

It's the same with Resto too, over and over. With Resto, by the time they unf**k it, it's pretty much back to the way it's always been, aside form detail changes. Elemental used to be like that, but this time they've gone so far that the current "it finally works again" version doesn't look much like what we used to have, and if the datamined stuff is anything to go by unless they roll it all back BfA will be worse.

They ruined Ret in Legion to the point where I made my Shaman my DPS main as well as my healer, and now they're wrecking Elemental too.

[Staplecrab]

Flame Shock and Earth Shock absolutely do have a cooldown on the alpha. I really hope that Blizzard are convinced to backtrack on this decision. Earth Shock is already limited by your maelstrom generation and there are ways to limit Flame Shock without making gameplay feel so clunky.

[Socialhealer]

Flame Shock and Earth Shock absolutely do have a cooldown on the alpha. I really hope that Blizzard are convinced to backtrack on this decision. Earth Shock is already limited by your maelstrom generation and there are ways to limit Flame Shock without making gameplay feel so clunky.

blizzard don't want elemental shamans to compete with spriest and affliction and moonkin on multitarget fights i guess because thats happened a total of 0 fucking times.

so i expect warlocks/spriests/boomkin to have all aoe spells removed from their spellbooks in BfA, if elemental cannot multidot those classes should be unable to AoE, of course this won't happen because balance is a name for a druid spec not something blizzard puts in their games.

[Staplecrab]

blizzard don't want elemental shamans to compete with spriest and affliction and moonkin on multitarget fights i guess because thats happened a total of 0 fucking times.

If that's the case then limit the number of hardcasted flameshocks that can be active at once to 3 or whatever (casting a fourth removes the first) and rename the spreaded flame shock from path of flame to something else. Having a CD on flameshock is a massive step backwards for Ele. Though given how little Blizzard seem to care about lava burst maybe it doesn't really matter.

[Socialhealer]

If that's the case then limit the number of hardcasted flameshocks that can be active at once to 3 or whatever (casting a fourth removes the first) and rename the spreaded flame shock from path of flame to something else. Having a CD on flameshock is a massive step backwards for Ele. Though given how little Blizzard seem to care about lava burst maybe it doesn't really matter.

it was a joke even with 15 flame shocks up you're never touching a boomkin/spriest/afflction lock they're just made to multidot, the fact they can keep up or even beat elemental on AoE is just a slap in the face of poor balancing by a clueless idiotic dev team that hasn't learned in 10 years.

[Deleted]

it was a joke even with 15 flame shocks up you're never touching a boomkin/spriest/afflction lock they're just made to multidot, the fact they can keep up or even beat elemental on AoE is just a slap in the face of poor balancing by a clueless idiotic dev team that hasn't learned in 10 years.

They've never nailed Elemental since they decided to butcher its best version in SoO.

[Mordog]

I really dont understand what they try to accomplish.

The Legion Elemental ,generally, was fine in my opinion.

I LOVE IceFury, i like Ascendenz.
I am okay if they replace LighningRod with a new Lightning Talent for a cool LB Build like they now have with the talent "High Voltage"


But why removing IceFury? Why this wried Earth Shok buffs LB shit.

To get more Totems is n1, but why remove Gust of Wind?

I hope they will change a lot, or to be precise, i hope they revert some of the changes.