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  1. #1
    Grunt oconnellj4's Avatar
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    Unpopular Opinion...Ele Shaman is actually decent with some gear.

    Hey everyone. To start, I know there are issues and things that could be fixed about the class. I'm not denying that. This is more about the actual damage output/overall feel we have.

    I don't want new players or returning players to get pushed away from a fun class because of all the negativity that it gets. As someone who played Shaman for years I get that we need things changed and the class mechanics/feel as a whole need work. Honestly though, I feel like ele scales pretty well with gear if not really well. I'm having no problem's keeping up and the class still feels fun to play. I know a class shouldn't start to work once you hit some mythic gear, but it's better than not working at all.

    I think a lot of the initial negativity were people jumping on the shaman sucks bandwagon or players with no gear saying how horrible it is. While leveling and trying to kill mobs as a fresh 120 it was tough. I just hit 327 ilv (nothing to brag about at all) and can feel a big difference with some decent gear on. I know some people are having different experiences but don't push shaman away just because you aren't top tier dps. Get some gear on you and get back out there. For those who keep saying Shaman is utter trash I guess look at the silver lining. If we're rock bottom, the only way to go is up! Let me know what you think!

  2. #2
    Deleted
    Do u work at Blizzard?

  3. #3
    I don't speak for everyone but for me personally, I feel like I lost my "my time to shine" moments. Our single target was never the best, but our insane AoE made up for that when we had those kinds of fights. Moving to a more sustained dps over burst dps our AoE suffered immensely. The changes made in legion were to help shamans with target switching "flame shock off CD" which worked great. Not even bothering to switch to low health targets was a thing of the past and we became a useful member of the group. But it was reverted back and now I'm back to if the target wouldn't live for more then 30 seconds, I don't even bother switching no matter how high priority the target is. Lava surge proc at the end of it's cooldown does not feel good even with the instant cast. There is a azerite trait that helps with that magnifying the proc rate to not feel as bad, but that is locking us in a passive trait to make our class fun. Making Echo of Elements talent baseline would free us up on the azerite trait choice.

    Numbers wise we are fine and viable in endgame content (unsure about PvP, I'm not that good)

    As for our "shining moments"

    Some sort of interaction between chain lightning and earthquake besides fill the bar with chain lightning cast earth quake. Maybe nerf the damage of chain lightning but increase the targets it hits and mastery proc chance of it.

    Maybe have the leggo ring from legion that gives us ascendance buff base line (obviously nerfed proc rate for numbers tuning)

    TLDR: Filler rotation needs to have less down time...need something else then just a filler rotation

  4. #4
    now play literally any other class and see how shit shamans are even with gear.

  5. #5
    Our dungeon damage is really good, but this is just bursting in m0s i.e. trivial content. Will wait and see what it's like in M+ and Raids where longer fight times make a huge difference on your overall DPS.

    People are massively overexaggerating how bad Ele is, and if your damage is low in dungeons then you're playing them incorrectly. Stop speccing into useless shit like Master of the Elements, Earthen Rage, or Ascendance, and use SK / primal fire ele / aftershock procs as much as humanly possible.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by trm90 View Post
    Our dungeon damage is really good, but this is just bursting in m0s i.e. trivial content. Will wait and see what it's like in M+ and Raids where longer fight times make a huge difference on your overall DPS.

    People are massively overexaggerating how bad Ele is, and if your damage is low in dungeons then you're playing them incorrectly. Stop speccing into useless shit like Master of the Elements, Earthen Rage, or Ascendance, and use SK / primal fire ele / aftershock procs as much as humanly possible.
    the dungeon damage is extremely bad compared to locks, mages, rogues, dh, ret paladins, dks, and boomies. even disc priests beat ele shamans on bosses in mythic dungeons. so not really.

  7. #7
    Ele Shamans lost all burst potential. And AoE is pitiful. I remember in pre-patch doing Antorus trash, on 5 targets I was not even breaking even with my ST damage, where before 8.0 I would do double damage compared to ST damage.

  8. #8
    Threads like these annoy me because people that are saying "listen guys, we're not that bad" usually don't know what they're talking about. They usually only have played elemental and have nothing to compare it against.

    The difference of leveling as elemental or enhance was HUGE. But the people who never tried enhance say "I leveled just fine as elemental" but have nothing to compare against. Most of them don't have an alt like a mage/hunter/warlock etc because if they did, they'd know elemental is a joke right now.

    If you take only elemental alone, sure it does what it's supposed to. It deals damage. But when you compare it against other DPS, it's a joke, not only in DPS numbers, but that they are more fun to play too.

  9. #9
    It's rare when an "unpopular opinion" actually is very unpopular.

  10. #10
    The Unstoppable Force
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    It's not an unpopular opinion; it's factually wrong. Elemental has lost basically everything that made the spec great. It's slightly better than Vanilla and TBC, but compared to any other expansion, it's terrible. Singletarget is terrible, aoe is terrible, maelstrom is terrible, talents have no synergy and are thus terrible, survival is terrible.... And yes, I leveled as elemental, have played the spec since the AQ patch in vanilla.

    Amazing sig, done by mighty Lokann

  11. #11
    Deleted
    I fear this won't fix it for me, atm the mechanics just don't feel like much fun. I'm not sure any amount of dmg increase could fix that. But I'll hold on to any spark of hope I can find, so thanks.

  12. #12
    I still would like to know what positive changes Elemental Shaman saw in the transition from Legion to BfA. I'm curious, anyone who says Ele is good/great now and plays fine should please point out where and how Ele has been improved after Legion.
    MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again

  13. #13
    True, I am also happy with the current dmg output, but not happy with how to class plays and feels. I am currently at 342 and I am not that far behind rogues with similiar itemlevel at the end of a dungeon. Well yes at boss fights I am not first, but most likely second. At the end of a mythic dungeon I am at 11k- 12k overall dps which is pretty okay. I am looking forward to m+ and see if I am still useful, but fingers crossed for 8.1, I am hoping to see some great changes.

  14. #14
    That exact mentality is why Blizzard continues to shit on the Elemental playerbase without the slightest hint to push for fixes. Fuck off.

  15. #15
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Nyel View Post
    I still would like to know what positive changes Elemental Shaman saw in the transition from Legion to BfA. I'm curious, anyone who says Ele is good/great now and plays fine should please point out where and how Ele has been improved after Legion.
    The only really good thing I can think off is the Earth Shield talent, but that's mainly because I'm secretly a old school resto shaman and love ES...

    Other then that the Fire elem and ES changes are sorta nice I guess?

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by kheath812 View Post
    the dungeon damage is extremely bad compared to locks, mages, rogues, dh, ret paladins, dks, and boomies. even disc priests beat ele shamans on bosses in mythic dungeons. so not really.
    Our dps as elemental is so bad my resto spec does more. I'm serious lava burst and lightning bolt hit harder. You have to proc an overload for it to get any higher. Earth shock is the only thing that surpasses my damage in resto spec.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by InsaneOstrich View Post
    The only really good thing I can think off is the Earth Shield talent, but that's mainly because I'm secretly a old school resto shaman and love ES...

    Other then that the Fire elem and ES changes are sorta nice I guess?
    But Earth Shield is so incredibly weak...

    Seriously, I'm curious what all those "Ele is fine" players right now think has been improved since Legion. I really am because I can't think about one single positive change.
    MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again

  18. #18
    Grunt oconnellj4's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SynergyX View Post
    Threads like these annoy me because people that are saying "listen guys, we're not that bad" usually don't know what they're talking about. They usually only have played elemental and have nothing to compare it against.

    The difference of leveling as elemental or enhance was HUGE. But the people who never tried enhance say "I leveled just fine as elemental" but have nothing to compare against. Most of them don't have an alt like a mage/hunter/warlock etc because if they did, they'd know elemental is a joke right now.

    If you take only elemental alone, sure it does what it's supposed to. It deals damage. But when you compare it against other DPS, it's a joke, not only in DPS numbers, but that they are more fun to play too.
    I made this post because I have 3 level 120s and leveled as enhance. My alts are a Affy Lock and BM Hunter, things that are doing way better overall. I don’t think ele is a joke right now. Yea we’re struggling but I think it’s really blown out of proportion because people say how bad they are leveling and apply it to the class as a whole or hit 120 and see other things doing so much better without getting any gear and then trying. I’m not arguing that we need work, I just didn’t want people to not play a class they might like because of the overwhelming negative feedback. Plus raid tuning hasn’t come out yet so we have no idea how things will look in a few weeks.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Odintdk View Post
    That exact mentality is why Blizzard continues to shit on the Elemental playerbase without the slightest hint to push for fixes. Fuck off.
    A bit hard out the gates wouldn’t you say? This post didn’t say we were amazing or didn’t need fixes. I admitted that things were wrong. Also I highly doubt that Blizzard is doing this just to screw over elemental on purpose. We need work but overall with gear I don’t think the spec is trash, you know, like my post said.

    Also to state it again I don’t think we are amazing. I DO know that our class needs work, maybe even a serious rework of things like Fs on a cd and lava burst needing it up. I know resto hits harder but honestly we all know they don’t have higher sustained damage.Cmon. This post again was just simply to tell people to keep pushing a bit. Get some gear and revisit things. I myself stopped at heroics because I saw how awful it was and a buddy pushed me back into it. I’m also a glutton for punishment I guess. I don’t need to be top of the charts. I play this game to have fun. I understand that numbers for some people are fun and there’s nothing wrong with that. Just play how you want to play and be constructive, not a jerk.

    TL;DR- Try and get some gear and revisit the class. Don’t think you have to be on top of a chart to have fun. I’m not a Blizzard fanboy, I just like shaman enough to wait out raid tuning. We need work, but we aren’t a dead class. Play what is fun for you.
    Last edited by oconnellj4; 2018-08-24 at 01:36 PM.

  19. #19
    I actually took alot of the passive talents for leveling like earthen rage because it takes me for fucking ever to shoot out one lightning bolt at 1.8sec cast time! i took stormkeeper and lava lash totem so i could pull a shit load of mobs and mow em down w/ aoe. primal elementalist is a good talent but its a bit overkill for leveling... In my opinion

    Anyway, the total lack of comment yesterday from Ion about elemental shaman just drives me crazy. so many IGNORED posts on forums during beta. it just pisses me off.

    I know that ifi start leveling my fire mage i'll want to stay on my mage so i haven't touched the mage yet... still hopeful for 8.1. lol.

  20. #20
    Yeah, I felt kind of proud when I hit ilvl 340 and was able to kill some tough mobs with only a few hits. Then I turn to the right, and see a frost mage literally one-shotting the same type of mob with an ice orb, then proceeding to one-shot a few more with only ice lances or comet storm.

    Elemental is "okay" relative to the game balance, i.e. we're able to do content at the same difficulty as others. But most other classes have a much easier time accomplishing the same goal. We're not alone, though. Shadow priests, arms warriors and feral druids are also having it rough these days.

    Personally I think our current kit is reasonable for mythic dungeons. EQ has no cooldown, and we can spam CL until the cows come home. Other classes have a greater portion of their AoE damage from cooldowns, while we are good on sustain. Ghost wolf is really great in a lot of boss encounters with fixates, though I really miss Gust of Wind. Tremor totem is only useful in one dungeon so far, on a mob you need to kill two of, so that one's been a complete miss. We really suck at single target damage though, especially if there's even just a hint of movement in the fight. This is something that might get better with increasing haste values, but right now it really sucks. When I need to move, the only thing I can do is refresh totems, spam frost shock and possibly refresh FS (if it's off CD). If you're lucky you might have enough maelstrom to do a single ES too.

    It sucks not being able to dump maelstrom until a very high cap. This also leads to very easy overcaps on AoE packs. If the first stormkeeper charge brings you to 58 maelstrom, you're put in a really awkward position of waiting until you can dump maelstrom through totem / flame shock tick generation, cast a lava burst on the pack, or potentially overcap your maelstrom by a lot.
    Last edited by Unbelievr; 2018-08-24 at 01:39 PM.

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