Should I start BFA as a Shaman our wait till 8.1?

[Palapwn]

I've been planning to wipe the dust off my Elemental Shaman that I haven't touched since MoP for BFA but unfortunately I've only been hearing bad things about them so far and that they'll only be viable after 8.1's fixes. How true is that? My main concerns are how fun is Elemental Shaman's PvE rotation. I've mained a MM Hunter throughout Legion and I'm pretty sick of the bland rotation and animations. I want to hurl Lava Burst crits like I did back in Cata/MoP. I plan to play semi casually, primarily PvE-ing through dungeons and LFR untill I gear up for a normal raiding guild (so min-maxing isn't a huge deal). I also want to dabble in War Mode.

Should I hold off from Elemental Shaman till 8.1 and go with a Fury Warrior instead?

EDIT: ...why did I spell "or" as "our". My apologies.

[Socialhealer]

fuck no don't even try.

MoP elemental is the pinnacle of elemental, it's all it ever was and ever will be.

WoD was the shithole of elemental.

Legion wasn't bad some nice builds and talent choices but compared to MoP no survival, no mobility, no utility.

BfA is closer to WoD than anything else, no survival no mobility, flame shock has a cooldown again, abilities that should be baseline are still choices.

also lava burst is still nothing like MoP it's weak you need a lot of lava surges before you feel like it's a strong spell.

[Palapwn]

fuck no don't even try.

MoP elemental is the pinnacle of elemental, it's all it ever was and ever will be.

WoD was the shithole of elemental.

Legion wasn't bad some nice builds and talent choices but compared to MoP no survival, no mobility, no utility.

BfA is closer to WoD than anything else, no survival no mobility, flame shock has a cooldown again, abilities that should be baseline are still choices.

also lava burst is still nothing like MoP it's weak you need a lot of lava surges before you feel like it's a strong spell.

Gaddam that bad huh.

Do you (and others) think it could be salvaged by 8.1 or is it fucked for the expansion by design? 'Cause I want to go with a caster, but if Elemental Shaman has a chance of being viable at a near point I'll hold off untill then.

[Kralljin]

I've been planning to wipe the dust off my Elemental Shaman that I haven't touched since MoP for BFA but unfortunately I've only been hearing bad things about them so far and that they'll only be viable after 8.1's fixes. How true is that? My main concerns are how fun is Elemental Shaman's PvE rotation. I've mained a MM Hunter throughout Legion and I'm pretty sick of the bland rotation and animations. I want to hurl Lava Burst crits like I did back in Cata/MoP. I plan to play semi casually, primarily PvE-ing through dungeons and LFR untill I gear up for a normal raiding guild (so min-maxing isn't a huge deal). I also want to dabble in War Mode.

Should I hold off from Elemental Shaman till 8.1 and go with a Fury Warrior instead?

For the lower end, you can argue about it being "fine", which it probably will after a first round of hotfixes.
It's hard to argue "how true" is it that 8.1 is supposed to be the saving grace, in my honest opinion, people expect far too much.

There will most likely happening something similiar to Elemental as in Legion:
1.Fix certain abilities (Stormkeeper change)
2.Flat buffs to certain abilities
3.Talent reshuffle

I have honest reservations that someone who doesn't enjoy 8.0 Elemental will suddenly enjoy 8.1 unless they really fix a lot of things.

I also want to dabble in War Mode.

While i'm not going to say that Elemental is bad in PvP, because that would be a gross generalization, but i'm going to say that Shaman is not a good class for beginner in PvP.
Shaman is not a class that kills people just by blowing cd's into an enemy and abuse some easy stun effect.

To be effective as Shaman in PvP you need to understand what other classes can do, how you can counter them and so forth, it requires some training and learning on your side and even despite that some 1v1 situations are barely winnable if the opponent has a slight clue about what they're doing.

You can most likely kill other people in War Mode as (Elemental) Shaman, but unless you're really into PvP and know how to outplay the average player, it's not recommended.

[Swalload]

Keep it up as an alt, don't focus on it, and see after 8.1

[Socialhealer]

Gaddam that bad huh.

Do you (and others) think it could be salvaged by 8.1 or is it fucked for the expansion by design? 'Cause I want to go with a caster, but if Elemental Shaman has a chance of being viable at a near point I'll hold off untill then.

Elemental in my experience always gets decent by the first major patch, but it's so frustrating they need 6-9 months to fix it.

problem is it'll be good after then, but poor scaling will hold elemental down in the final tier and it'll be mediocre to bad again.

- - - Updated - - -

While i'm not going to say that Elemental is bad in PvP, because that would be a gross generalization, but i'm going to say that Shaman is not a good class for beginner in PvP.
Shaman is not a class that kills people just by blowing cd's into an enemy and abuse some easy stun effect.

To be effective as Shaman in PvP you need to understand what other classes can do, how you can counter them and so forth, it requires some training and learning on your side and even despite that some 1v1 situations are barely winnable if the opponent has a slight clue about what they're doing.

You can most likely kill other people in War Mode as (Elemental) Shaman, but unless you're really into PvP and know how to outplay the average player, it's not recommended.

basically befriend a pala and do some warmode, BoP = priceless.

[Eleccybubb]

Meh I'm gonna level as Ele then stick with Resto. Been really enjoying Resto Shaman this expansion and now we got Earth Shield back I love it more.

To be honest at the end of the day play what you enjoy.

I mean if you are just doing Normal raiding then you won't have any trouble finding a guild/group at all since pugs and even guilds that raid Normal aren't that picky about what they take.

[EbonBehelit-]

Haven't done much testing with Ele yet, but what I've seen so far doesn't look good.

I'm still baffled as to why Flame Shock has a cooldown now. It makes the spec much clunkier with multiple targets around, and severely neuters pvp effectiveness since you now essentially have a 3 target Flame Shock cap with which to fish instant Lava Surge procs - and that's if none of them ever get dispelled.

[Kralljin]

basically befriend a pala and do some warmode, BoP = priceless.

Who gives a shit about BoP, the only spec that is seriously affected by BoP that gives me trouble are Fury Warriors.

The rest of Melee Bunch are pseudo spell damage melees that deal half of their damage via spells.
On top of that, with DH's now also being able to dispel magic, that is even less appealing.

Who gives a crap if you're getting BoP while fighting Assa rogues or Unholy Dk, they just don't give a shit.

[Grumpy Old Man]

Well, if you play Horde, I don't see a reason for not playing a zappy boi.

[Eleccybubb]

Haven't done much testing with Ele yet, but what I've seen so far doesn't look good.

I'm still baffled as to why Flame Shock has a cooldown now. It makes the spec much clunkier with multiple targets around, and severely neuters pvp effectiveness since you now essentially have a 3 target Flame Shock cap with which to fish instant Lava Surge procs - and that's if none of them ever get dispelled.

Yeah why they chose a CD over just leaving it alone is beyond me. Bit of a silly move on their part.

Enhance is awesome now though. Can have Lightning and Earth Shield as well as the Totem Mastery thing which I find cool.

Resto... eh Resto is Resto for me. Always fun to play and they didn't fuck about with it that much.

[Dellis0991]

Well, if you play Horde, I don't see a reason for not playing a zappy boi.

I see what you did there and I like it!

[Palapwn]

For the lower end, you can argue about it being "fine", which it probably will after a first round of hotfixes.
It's hard to argue "how true" is it that 8.1 is supposed to be the saving grace, in my honest opinion, people expect far too much.

I have honest reservations that someone who doesn't enjoy 8.0 Elemental will suddenly enjoy 8.1 unless they really fix a lot of things.

What are the main gripes people have about the spec? The viability or how fun the rotation is? or both?

[Kralljin]

What are the main gripes people have about the spec? The viability or how fun the rotation is? or both?

How "fun" a rotation is, is subjective, in my opinion the gameplay in your standard PvE / PvP enviroment is just problematic.

1.FS CD, there is just no fun to be found in this mechanic.
If both EB and Icefury were not that horrible, you could offset this, but they're rather weak and therefore you are pidgeon holed into applying FS almost any target you want to damage, that obviously causes issues in pretty much every enviroment outside of pure ST Encounters.

It's just mind boggling how dead set Blizzard is on this mechanic, Elemental is a direct damage caster but fundamentally bad at target switches due this.
That's like designing a DoT class that can't multi dot.

2.Low mobility.
Always a problematic point, but Shaman lacks other strengths to offset this weakness, they're not terribly tanky, nor loaded with super awesome unique utility.
You could argue that spammable Frost shock is that "niche" but spamming Frost shock is not terribly fun nor seriously effective, you press a button while moving, that's it.

3.Bad Talents.
Elemental tree is loaded with really bad / ineffective talents.
Some examples:
Exposed Elements - just makes your target switch even worse.
Master of the Elements - Good in theory, rather undertuned however and not exactly fun w/o Echo of the Elements or icefury.
Tier 45 - All three talents are just weak, Spirit wolf may be debatable in PvP if you run Spectral recovery, but that's it, for PvE, they're all bad.

The massive issue is here that the only talent(s) that provide some gameplay interaction (Master of the Elements,EB, Icefury) are just undertuned, therefore you mostly choose between passive bonuses.

[WoWnoob]

What about enhancement?

I loved mine in WotLK but have been playing a Rogue for the last 3 expansions.

[Rad1um]

IMO wait until 17.3

[AwkwardSquirtle]

I'd be hesitant just because there are reworks planned. I wouldn't be playing the class even if I liked where it was now because they might turn it into something you don't like.
It depends on your personal capacity to reroll quickly I guess. Will your guild mind? Do you have the time?

[Marrilaife]

Tbh if you want to hurl spells and see big crits, frost mage w/ glacial spike and destro lock are much more suited for that.

Also Fury Warrior is one of the better BFA reworks out of all of them, if you like it, sure go for it.

[Socialhealer]

IMO wait until 17.3

let's not get up hope now.

lets all just go play a MoP private server lol.

[Kaver]

I've been planning to wipe the dust off my Elemental Shaman that I haven't touched since MoP for BFA but unfortunately I've only been hearing bad things about them so far and that they'll only be viable after 8.1's fixes. How true is that? My main concerns are how fun is Elemental Shaman's PvE rotation. I've mained a MM Hunter throughout Legion and I'm pretty sick of the bland rotation and animations. I want to hurl Lava Burst crits like I did back in Cata/MoP. I plan to play semi casually, primarily PvE-ing through dungeons and LFR untill I gear up for a normal raiding guild (so min-maxing isn't a huge deal). I also want to dabble in War Mode.

Should I hold off from Elemental Shaman till 8.1 and go with a Fury Warrior instead?

EDIT: ...why did I spell "or" as "our". My apologies.

Are you calling LFR and normal for “semi-casual”. You can do normal raiding naked. Even heroic are for pugs and casuals

Sorry about that. Keeping to the point I have to say that Warriors look really good in BFA. All specs have great gameplay and especially Fury. I would like to go Warrior for BFA but my guild have enough in the roster, so I’m going Rogue instead. But I would say you should stick to a Warrior currently.