Ele Shaman Early Beta datamining spellchanges

[Valkaneer]

Well, that's kind of my point, there are videos out there that go over what kind of things are possible (BellularGaming). I'm not going to be too distressed until I see what the Azurite gear effects. In the meantime though, I'm making sure to have a fallback plan.

[Rezhka]

My question here though is how will Azurite gear affect the talents or spells? Could we see a different rotation or perhaps more powerful buffed versions of perhaps LB with the Azurite system? The new system changes our spells won't we have to wait till we actually start to see people obtain the gear before we really know.

I am quite concerned though with becoming more of a turret than we already are especially in PvP.

With tier set armor go away, I think it should've been covered by the new Azurite feature. I have a feeling that it'd be like runes in D3 skills. At this point, it seems like we are much likely heading to a glass turret (yup, not a glass cannon, merely glass).

About pvp, I can't judge how will ele fare later since I don't know about other class changes. The damage itself is also haven't tuned properly. There will be new adjustment to all class changes, eventhough I don't trust that much to blizzard's term on class balancing.

[Deleted]

They're are really going to remove gust of wind? Man, the best thing elemental got in this expansion imo and they're going to remove it. And the reason is?

I also don't like that we always have to choose between a defensive active talent and a stun-like talent, makes the classes less interesting and with less resources; wouldn't it be funnier to have the new earth shield and the static charge, for example? I don't think it would be OP, or is it just me? I always feel like I have few defensive cd's or ways to survive when I fight against melees, and now, if they remove gust of wind, it would be even harder to survive a warrior or a paladin, for example 8(

[Yhcti]

So far, how does it feel like we're looking in BfA? I'm playing both my monk and Shaman lately trying to figure out what one I'm going to push into BfA. Would love it to be my Shaman but the Monk looks rather good!

[Socialhealer]

if you have anything else DO NOT PLAY ELEMENTAL on release it will be shit, it always has been shit, whenever they make huge changes elemental is just not finished it's released untested and it's like you gotta wait for the DLC to fix and finish the spec

around 8.1 it will be ready to play.

[Venziir]

if you have anything else DO NOT PLAY ELEMENTAL on release it will be shit, it always has been shit, whenever they make huge changes elemental is just not finished it's released untested and it's like you gotta wait for the DLC to fix and finish the spec

around 8.1 it will be ready to play.

Not really. It was Great thoughout all of wotlk, Cata and mop

[Socialhealer]

Not really. It was Great thoughout all of wotlk, Cata and mop

wotlk i was resto at the start so no idea, and every other shaman i saw was resto so can't of been that amazing =/

cata? it was a fucking turret that just disappeared off the dps meter the second you had to move, it gained lightning bolt on the move around the x.1 patch, then with teracgosa and perma fire ele it was amazing, and in DS it gained no cooldown on chain lightning.

my point stand it was crap on release and got better fixing the mobility issues and becoming a beast at AoE.

MoP elemental wasn't so bad but god why not just play a warlock, i believe elemental gained shamanistic rage and healing tide baseline? still a huge improvement from release.

[Rukario]

Well, all i can say for sure by watching how it plays on Alpha right now is that we are being setup to suck again at the start of the expansion.

Elemental's damage is pathetic and it takes a lot of damage too...it has to make an effort just to kill a single mob, if you get more than 2 on you...dead.
Meanwhile other classes just faceroll AoE through everything while healing themselves.

BfA is shaping up to be just as miserable as Legion for elemental...and yes, early alpha...how did that go with Legion again?

[Deleted]

MoP Elemental was amazing.

[Kralljin]

Shamanism Patch history reads like a wall of shame for anyone responsible for balance at Blizzard.

It was Great thoughout all of wotlk

Patch 3.0.8 (2009-01-20): Added.
Patch 3.2.2 (2009-09-22): This talent now provides 4/8/12/16/20% extra spell damage to Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning, up from 3/6/9/12/15%, and 5/10/15/20/25% to Lava Burst, up from 4/8/12/16/20%.

Cata

Hotfix (2011-07-26): "Shamanism (Elemental passive) now causes Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Lava Burst spells to gain an additional 32% benefit from the shaman’s spell power, up from 20%."

Patch 4.3.0 (2011-11-29): Now increases the spell power benefit to Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, and Chain Lightning by 36%, up from 32%.


LB on the move was also added with the Firelands patch, so after the first tier was over.
The only thing that kept Elemental in the "great" area during Firelands was the broken ass 2pc that basically made FE a permanent pet.
The AI however was shit and sometimes the Elemental refused to attack, people made a "Fire Elemental doesn't attack" compilation back then.

and mop

Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): No longer causes spells to have additional benefit from spell power. Now increases damage done by Lightning Bolt by 50% and Chain Lightning by 70%, and removes the cooldown from Chain Lightning.

Hotfix (2012-09-20): "Lightning Bolt damage has been increased by approximately 8%. This also applies to Overload Lightning Bolt and Echo of the Elements Lightning Bolt."

Patch 5.2.0 (2013-03-05): Now increases the damage of Lightning Bolt by 70% (was 50%).

Hotfix (2013-09-23): "Lightning Bolt's damage has been increased by 10%."

Remember

We can't buff Lava burst because of PvP!

We also can't buff LB further because it gets too close to Lvb!

good times man.

Could also add Lvb and go up to Legion, will surely be motivating.

[Venziir]

Shamanism Patch history reads like a wall of shame for anyone responsible for balance at Blizzard.



Patch 3.0.8 (2009-01-20): Added.
Patch 3.2.2 (2009-09-22): This talent now provides 4/8/12/16/20% extra spell damage to Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning, up from 3/6/9/12/15%, and 5/10/15/20/25% to Lava Burst, up from 4/8/12/16/20%.



Hotfix (2011-07-26): "Shamanism (Elemental passive) now causes Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Lava Burst spells to gain an additional 32% benefit from the shaman’s spell power, up from 20%."

Patch 4.3.0 (2011-11-29): Now increases the spell power benefit to Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, and Chain Lightning by 36%, up from 32%.


LB on the move was also added with the Firelands patch, so after the first tier was over.
The only thing that kept Elemental in the "great" area during Firelands was the broken ass 2pc that basically made FE a permanent pet.
The AI however was shit and sometimes the Elemental refused to attack, people made a "Fire Elemental doesn't attack" compilation back then.



Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): No longer causes spells to have additional benefit from spell power. Now increases damage done by Lightning Bolt by 50% and Chain Lightning by 70%, and removes the cooldown from Chain Lightning.

Patch 5.2.0 (2013-03-05): Now increases the damage of Lightning Bolt by 70% (was 50%).


Remember good times man.

I'm not saying that Ele was ever super-duper-majesticly awesome (far from it sadly), but Wotlk to MoP were good times for Ele, compared to Vanilla/TBC, WoD and Legion (launch)

[Kralljin]

but Wotlk to MoP were good times for Ele

Early Wotlk was shit for ele, the fact they had to add a talent like Shamanism shows this, your dps later on was average at best as Ele scaled poorly with secondary stats and Wotlk was secondary stat madness.

PvP obviously different story.

Cata was the same shit, the first tier was ele utterly horrible, hence they added something powerful as your filler spell to be castable while moving.

Rule of thumb: If you add a super powerful effect to a spec and it's still balanced afterwards, it was really bad before.

MoP, kinda average early on, altough got powerful later on, though ST dps still lacked in Siege.

[Yhcti]

if you have anything else DO NOT PLAY ELEMENTAL on release it will be shit, it always has been shit, whenever they make huge changes elemental is just not finished it's released untested and it's like you gotta wait for the DLC to fix and finish the spec

around 8.1 it will be ready to play.

I'll do what I usually do then and roll my Hunter/Monk first and Shaman second!

[Rezhka]

I'm not saying that Ele was ever super-duper-majesticly awesome (far from it sadly), but Wotlk to MoP were good times for Ele, compared to Vanilla/TBC, WoD and Legion (launch)

WoD was like the worst nightmare ever for me. To have LvB damage being hotfixed many times is like the worst dafuq moment in my elemental history. Having Multistrike as a newly introduced stats is also a horrible experience. It felt like my shaman wasn't stripped enough after mages got Timewarp, and then my mastery as well? Multistrike removal is surely a good riddance. But I agree with Socialhealer, early ele shaman in every single expansion is mostly garbage, being a good to mediocre at the end. And still many people love the spec, including me. I wonder.

[Deleted]

It is not hard to understand your concerns about elemental shaman's future. If past have taught us anything, it is that the concerns and issues with the spec need to be voiced and that the constructive feedback will eventually find its way to Blizzard.

However, it is imperative to see these changes in the broad scheme of things. First of all, we are still in Alpha. Anything might be subject to change. Secondly, try not to see the changes made in vacuum. e.g. - why did we lose LB on move after MoP? answer: it was harder to design encounters around the ever-present mobility of all the classes, forcing encounter designers to punish players in different areas. Eventually, every spec played almost the same.

I, for one, have fallen in love with ele in TBC, where there were no proc-based dps "rotations". The game was far less interactive back then, more static and more focused on execution. I loved that. Shaman was fun, juicy LB crits and nothing topped the moment, when you waited for tank to get enough aggro for you to crit, overload crit and die of pulling the aggro.

Going back to elemental roots has always appealed to me (not talking about vanilla WoW). Streamlining ele shamans with Moonkins (cata, Mop and forwards) is disheartening. Legion ele got some of its feel back (after WoD), however the main philosophy of "add more stuff, people need new shit to keep playing the game" has always repelled me, turning the game into one big mess of a clusterfuck of disco vfx. Not the reason I joined the fun, but hey, we are now something like 10 years in and I understand that most of you have probably joined later along the way, therefore expecting the gameplay you fell in love with.

Nothing wrong with that, just... just take the history of the spec and class itself into account, before you dismiss new changes and think that you know what elemental shaman is supposed to be and play like. After all, it is just a game, and it is Blizzard's game with their vision of the future. Enjoy the ride if you can. If you want raw power, you have chosen the wrong class to play.

Just my truly humble opinion.

Zheith aka Blastoize, Drak'Thul EU

[Kralljin]

If past have taught us anything, it is that the concerns and issues with the spec need to be voiced and that the constructive feedback will eventually find its way to Blizzard.

I'm repeating myself by saying that the issue is that Blizzard simply applies two standards when designing specs, a few specs gets mercilessly treated to fit into the philosophy, others get a free pass to be unique.

The thing that is happening with Gust of Wind is the best example, it hurts the class fantasy of mage because it's too similiar to blink.
Okay, you can argue about it being correct or not, in it's own that's a reasonable discussion.

However, Hunters with Disengage aren't hurting the class fantasy of mages (A *ranged* class with an Immunity and a "backwards" blink?), Wild Charge doesn't hurt Mage Class Fantasy seemingly as well.

To go this rabbit hole down further, Take Bloodlust, one of the most iconic Shaman spells since Warcraft 3, to the point where the spell and class icon are identical.
Going by that, you'd think Blizzard would make it unique because it's a centric spell to Shaman fantasy, a point that even the developers in Wotlk realized, which excluded Bloodlust from the new "Bring the player not the class" philosophy, the same philosophy the current devs want to move away from.

Well, both Mages and Hunters having a LITERAL COPY of that spell isn't hurting Shaman class fantasy, but Gust of Wind, a spell that is similiar to blink but pretty much inferior in any situation is hurting mage class fantasy?!

How are you supposed to fit these two decisions together without appearing as total hypocrite?
The current raidwide buffs on Alpha are that powerful that you can easily justify only a single class having Bloodlust, 3% more Attack power via Battle shout (compared to the "drums version") are about as powerful (If not more) as the 5% additional Haste from a Shaman Bloodlust, so the "But Bloodlust is much more powerful" excuse won't work.


Additionally, it has become more obvious with each expansion that this team of class designers has favorites among their specs / classes, those that aren't part of it are very often just bad and if they get good, you can bet that this won't last until next expansion.
You can't tell me it's an incident that both Dps Shaman specs have been historically among the worst specs for high level raiding, that's not a "It's just single spec!" issue, 2/3 of this class are cannot compete against their respective "cousins" by just taking a look at previous tiers.

The toolkit that mages or rogues currently have wouldn't have survived a single expansion on any other class without abilities getting heavily nerfed or outright removed.

I wouldn't complain if it was like a 50 / 50 thing, but the only freaking time when Elemental / Enhance was "good" during the initial phase of an expansion MoP (Or Legion for Enhance), BC is a fringe thing as it's still in the "sort of Vanilla era".

You cannot tell me it's coincidental that a class like Mage or Rogue always end up having at least one top tier spec whereas on Shaman they continously fuck up both specs, i know sounds weird saying that during a time where Ele is fine and Enhance is extremely strong on ST, but that is really just a passing moment.

It is as simple as Ghostcrawler once said "Hard to argue with people who that class".


That long rant being said, a lot of people, including the current theorycrafters reach(ed) out to Blizzard, have written constructive feedback during Betas and it went ignored, due that a lot of theorycraftes abandoned this class because theorycrafters are (but not always) high end raiders and want to be viable, Dps Shaman as actual main has become very rare in these parts.

I don't encourage people to flood the forums or want to insult the devs, but the history here speaks a simple language: You have fucked up, repeatedly.

Wotlk, the expansion which truly wanted to make all specs viable for raiding in terms of Dps will be a decade old this year, on this front nothing has changed since then.

[Staplecrab]

If you're unaware of the changes of the Elemental changes on alpha, or you haven't seen any stream footage, Preach just posted a video going through a dungeon as Ele and commenting on the changes to the spec:

https://youtu.be/OIDJyNbuEj0

[Rukario]

If you're unaware of the changes of the Elemental changes on alpha, or you haven't seen any stream footage, Preach just posted a video going through a dungeon as Ele and commenting on the changes to the spec:

https://youtu.be/OIDJyNbuEj0

lmao...elemental's damage is crap as usual, i can already see it...Legion all over again.

This time i won't be leveling a shaman if elemental starts as bad as it did in Legion.

[Staplecrab]

lmao...elemental's damage is crap as usual, i can already see it...Legion all over again.

While the poor damage is concerning, Blizzard could theoretically tune the numbers and fix that issue at any point in the alpha.

I'm much more concerned with all of the mechanics changes they've made to Elemental. I'd love a dev blog defining their idea for the direction of the spec and the niche it's supposed to fill. Because at present it seems like they've just taken Elemental and made every mechanic worse for no reason.

[Kralljin]

lmao...elemental's damage is crap as usual, i can already see it...Legion all over again.

In Legion the numbers were the biggest issue, Elemental spells simply were not packing a punch.

This footage shows a broken spec.

-Earthquake in it's current on Alpha is just not working, you can't even keep it up for the full duration, due it's cd it makes any movement very punishing.
-Fulmination as mechanic is bad, if you're being flooded with Maelstrom (via talent, procs, high mastery / haste) you can't get rid of Fulmination stacks
-Target switch is even worse than freaking WoD due Fulmination and FS CD.


Unless some Azerite gear makes the Fulmination mechanic "work" (which i doubt as the Fulmination seems to be a "basic" mechanic for ele in BfA), they can buff Elemental numbers as much as they want, the Fulmination is such a fundamentally flawed mechanic that you'd have buff Elemental with a Sledge Hammer to get it remotely viable.


If this mechanic doesn't get heavily reworked until Beta / during Beta, you better shelf Elemental, this mechanic is objectively not fun nor functional.