Great to See Shaman DPS DOMINATING.... Finally!

[Valkaneer]

Firelands was only because of the class set that allowed them to have a permanent fire elemental. Makes sense considering it is our home plane we draw power from

Yep very true you needed both the 2pc and 4pc to be rocking top of the meter. Though most classes need their set pc to do the same.

[Stormbreed]

So far, we're always competing in group instances.

Keep the pain train rolling Shamans!!!!

[Hightotemz]

So far, we're always competing in group instances.

Keep the pain train rolling Shamans!!!!

A boss with adds we have no chance as enhancement but pure single target we can compete quite nicely. I think the opposite will be true for elemental. We might need to go resto for High mythic + content.

[Nyel]

Shamans were already top dogs in MoP, especially around ToT, but for some reason shaman community tends to be extra whiny about state of their dps specs. Guess its some kind of left over trauma from vanilla/tbc days.

Oh wow, it's just been MoP were Elemental was actually a really good spec... lol.

[Sarevokcz]

Oh wow, it's just been MoP were Elemental was actually a really good spec... lol.

it took them major patch to fix low damage at the start, but was really good around ToT with versatile toolkit and good damage.... and then they had to butcher it in WoD...

[Ele man]

MoP ele was weakest dps spec. But it was easy to play and the utility was good.
And the final boss, Garrosh, was a very good environment for ele. I call this playable. Competition was possible.

To evaluate the MoP, warlock was so powerful. So warlock dominated the game.
However, Blizzard dev just nerf the playable MoP ele shaman because ele thought it was powerful. This is a dev idea for ele.
Do not have expectations about ele. Do not have expectations about ele. The dev does not fully understand the game, and dev overestes ele.

[Kralljin]

However, Blizzard dev just nerf the playable MoP ele shaman because ele thought it was powerful. This is a dev idea for ele.

It's not exactly that they thought Elemental was strong, it's just the old Blizzard tale of nuking a Shaman niche, then not replacing it, and then trying to fix that removal with bandaid buff midexpansion.

That already happened back in Wotlk, Elemental and Enhancement were in BC not super decent Dps specs, but due Support totems rather viable overall.

Now Blizzard removed unique buffs in Wotlk, which included Shaman buff totems, suddenly specs that bought their raidspots via buffs were suddenly left in the rain because Blizzard horribly undertuned their dps and failed to give anything else to be decent in a raiding enviroment.

Same thing happened in the MoP - WoD Transition, Blizzard thought that casters being able to move while casting is bad, hence they nuked Kil'jaedens Cunning and Lightning bolt on the move, Warlocks still had strong dps and overall class utility to buy their raidspot, Elemental had average dps, no serious utility and a crippling target switch weakness in HFC.
Also the removal of AG+baseline healing tide because they thought dps helping out healers is bad was another thing, an overall design change that turned out to be a real gutpunch for Ele.
The fact that AG is still a talent to this day seems more like a taunting gesture than anything else, at least they removed Nature's vigil and made Vampiric Embrace baseline, the only situation where you take AG currently is if the other two talents are useless, which is not case because Windrush and Nature's guardian are actually useful.

And history once again repeated itself with Gust of Wind, Blizzard doesn't like pseudo Blink spells on casters, so Gust of Wind and Displacer Beast had to go.
Balance could substitute that loss with Wild Charge, Elemental didn't because Frost shock as movement filler is way too undertuned.


You can't just remove stuff out of a (not overpowered) spec because it doesn't fit into your overall design philosophy, then expect it to perform similiarly compared to other specs who did not have a tool of similiar impact removed, it doesn't work.

Blizzard rarely went down and justified these removals and said (Elemental) Shaman is too strong, we need to nerf it, it was a victim of Blizzard changing their design philosophy without taking care what damage it does for Shaman spec(s).

[Ele man]

It's not exactly that they thought Elemental was strong, it's just the old Blizzard tale of nuking a Shaman niche, then not replacing it, and then trying to fix that removal with bandaid buff midexpansion.

That already happened back in Wotlk, Elemental and Enhancement were in BC not super decent Dps specs, but due Support totems rather viable overall.

Now Blizzard removed unique buffs in Wotlk, which included Shaman buff totems, suddenly specs that bought their raidspots via buffs were suddenly left in the rain because Blizzard horribly undertuned their dps and failed to give anything else to be decent in a raiding enviroment.

Same thing happened in the MoP - WoD Transition, Blizzard thought that casters being able to move while casting is bad, hence they nuked Kil'jaedens Cunning and Lightning bolt on the move, Warlocks still had strong dps and overall class utility to buy their raidspot, Elemental had average dps, no serious utility and a crippling target switch weakness in HFC.
Also the removal of AG+baseline healing tide because they thought dps helping out healers is bad was another thing, an overall design change that turned out to be a real gutpunch for Ele.
The fact that AG is still a talent to this day seems more like a taunting gesture than anything else, at least they removed Nature's vigil and made Vampiric Embrace baseline, the only situation where you take AG currently is if the other two talents are useless, which is not case because Windrush and Nature's guardian are actually useful.

And history once again repeated itself with Gust of Wind, Blizzard doesn't like pseudo Blink spells on casters, so Gust of Wind and Displacer Beast had to go.
Balance could substitute that loss with Wild Charge, Elemental didn't because Frost shock as movement filler is way too undertuned.


You can't just remove stuff out of a (not overpowered) spec because it doesn't fit into your overall design philosophy, then expect it to perform similiarly compared to other specs who did not have a tool of similiar impact removed, it doesn't work.

Blizzard rarely went down and justified these removals and said (Elemental) Shaman is too strong, we need to nerf it, it was a victim of Blizzard changing their design philosophy without taking care what damage it does for Shaman spec(s).

The problem of ele is dps. I have been in the top raid team for a long time and various statistics including wcl have shown the worst eps in the top dps group.
The fact that the majority speaks here is about utility, but the biggest reason that ele is not used in the Legion is the ST dps problem.

Luck or anything is not important. If dps is good, the raid team will use ele even if the utility is bad. Good DPS is a utility. OK?

I have played ELE for a long time and have not missed the top 5 ele dps spec of wcl statistics. However, ele was always a lower dps spec. Not in the middle.
ele is strong in AOE. Because of that, it was statistically located in the middle, but this has a big problem with statistics.
AOE is highly overvalued because of its high total damage and ele is the biggest victim. In fact, st damage is the most important thing.

And ele is too bad for 2target DPS, so DPS is worse than good ST DPS spec.
Do you still think the biggest problem of the ele is in the utility?

In reality, ele is weak now. Why do you think this is? They saw the statistics in beta and weakened them because they thought the ele was too strong. This happened in the Legion and WoD. Do you remember the early days of the Legion and WoD? Why are spec like warrior always strong at the beginning of the expansion pack and ele is not?
That's the ele dps standard for dev. Whatever you say here, it will keep repeating unless dev change it.

[Kralljin]

The problem of ele is dps. I have been in the top raid team for a long time and various statistics including wcl have shown the worst eps in the top dps group.

To me, that goes without saying.
And secondly, it doesn't give you much to discuss on a mechanical level.

In reality, ele is weak now. Why do you think this is? They saw the statistics in beta and weakened them because they thought the ele was too strong.

Elemental wasn't strong during Beta, it's bogus.
I'm too lazy to dig out the aura nerfs that happened ~2months before BfA release, only for Blizzard to roll them back during the pre patch already.

My honest opinion is that, first off, Blizzard rather keeps a spec down than make it OP, OP specs cause problems to everyone, underpowered specs only to themselves.

Second, Elemental has no lobby among the developers that mages, rogues and warlocks have (the warlock / mage part is even sort of confirmed).
Elemental (or certain other hybrid specs such as Sp,Feral and Enhance) are simply specs no one in the dev team gives a shit about and so they move down the priority list.

You think it's an accident that rogues,mages and warlocks constantly receive at least one OP spec?
Shaman also has two dps specs, yet a class with three dps specs manages to receive at least one decent, yet Shaman constantly has two bad ones.

[Topaz]

Ele in mop was good, but wasn't the best dps. I think Enhance performed better for most fights even.

I raided with two Warlocks and well.. when our red and blue trinkets procced I could never hope to rival them on the meters.

[shammypie]

BS, shaman were certainly not top dogs in MoP, last time shaman competed to the to of the charts was Cata Firelands, before that maybe vanilla. There burst was crazy in vanilla but I was alliance not Horde and we didn't have logs or charts back then. You're obviously not a shaman so I would put money on it that your class has been top of the charts competitive far more than shaman.

ToT was actually the worst tier to be a resto shaman in mop most of the fights were horribly chaotic and spread out. I remember picking up the crappy riptide talent just so i could spam hots like a broke druid for way less effectiveness. The caviot was that our dps specs were decent

- - - Updated - - -

To me, that goes without saying.
And secondly, it doesn't give you much to discuss on a mechanical level.



Elemental wasn't strong during Beta, it's bogus.
I'm too lazy to dig out the aura nerfs that happened ~2months before BfA release, only for Blizzard to roll them back during the pre patch already.

My honest opinion is that, first off, Blizzard rather keeps a spec down than make it OP, OP specs cause problems to everyone, underpowered specs only to themselves.

Second, Elemental has no lobby among the developers that mages, rogues and warlocks have (the warlock / mage part is even sort of confirmed).
Elemental (or certain other hybrid specs such as Sp,Feral and Enhance) are simply specs no one in the dev team gives a shit about and so they move down the priority list.

You think it's an accident that rogues,mages and warlocks constantly receive at least one OP spec?
Shaman also has two dps specs, yet a class with three dps specs manages to receive at least one decent, yet Shaman constantly has two bad ones.

this is the truth 100%

TLDR; Every time Blizzard changes design philosophy they kill the game just a little more like yuppies.

[Phaty]

To me, that goes without saying.
And secondly, it doesn't give you much to discuss on a mechanical level.



Elemental wasn't strong during Beta, it's bogus.
I'm too lazy to dig out the aura nerfs that happened ~2months before BfA release, only for Blizzard to roll them back during the pre patch already.

My honest opinion is that, first off, Blizzard rather keeps a spec down than make it OP, OP specs cause problems to everyone, underpowered specs only to themselves.

Second, Elemental has no lobby among the developers that mages, rogues and warlocks have (the warlock / mage part is even sort of confirmed).
Elemental (or certain other hybrid specs such as Sp,Feral and Enhance) are simply specs no one in the dev team gives a shit about and so they move down the priority list.

You think it's an accident that rogues,mages and warlocks constantly receive at least one OP spec?
Shaman also has two dps specs, yet a class with three dps specs manages to receive at least one decent, yet Shaman constantly has two bad ones.

Enhance isn't a bad dps though. It wasn't in legion either. If you base it off of pushing world first, there's only 5 good specs in the game at any given time. what is your definition of not being bad? Does a spec have to be miles ahead of every spec to be considered good? No, that's OP.

[Kralljin]

Enhance isn't a bad dps though. It wasn't in legion either. If you base it off of pushing world first, there's only 5 good specs in the game at any given time. what is your definition of not being bad? Does a spec have to be miles ahead of every spec to be considered good? No, that's OP.

Enhance is a melee without any noteworthy utility and niche.
Enhance can do ST and a bit of cleave, that's it.

Also, it probably has the weakest defense of any Melee spec, which is not exactly helpful.

And honestly, the competition for Melee slots is far harder than for ranged slots, with Rogues, Warriors and Monks fighting all over it.

[woopytywoop]

And honestly, the competition for Melee slots is far harder than for ranged slots, with Rogues, Warriors and Monks fighting all over it.

and the mandatory DH for that 5% extra magic damage debuff.

Ironically atm the only reason you'd take a dps shaman is for their dps while "pures" still got a buff to validate their raid spot. Sure we got tremor and sprint totem, but they won't be useful EVERY fight in contrast to a buff/debuff.

RIP class fantasy of buffing class, which was actually the reason I rolled a shaman 10y ago... But yeh I guess blizzard knows better than me that tremor totem should be my ultimate class fantasy and not bloodlust or buffs... can't even have a discount -on the gcd- version of blink as tradeoff for mages having TW...

[Kralljin]

Ironically atm the only reason you'd take a dps shaman is for their dps while "pures" still got a buff to validate their raid spot.

The 5% Damage debuff both Monks and DH have are simply an abomination, period, there is no discussion about that.
They were hamfisted by someone on the dev team that got scared no one might bring DH or Monk to a raid and then went totally overboard with it.

Every single raid buff in this game has a craftable substitute (altough slightly inferior) except those two.


Furthermore, they upset Tank Balance, both Bremaster and Vengeance are extremely attractive if you have no stable WW / Havoc DH in your team.
Paladin,Warrior and Guardian are being extremely shafted by this move, especially if we also take M+ into account.

Lastly, from a class fantasy PoV, they do not fit, especially if you take the history of similiar debuffs into account.

https://www.wowhead.com/spell=1490/chaos-brand

Check the changelog, notice anything?
They used the same spellid for the Chaos brand debuff that was previously Curse of Elements, i don't play Warlock, nor do i think they need CoE back but that is just insulting.

However, one thing i want to add, neither DH nor Monk are "pure dps".
DH is in theory as much as a hybrid as Shaman, it's just that they have a tank instead of heal spec, however most people simply use "hybrid" as filler for "support class".

Warrior was as much as a hybrid in Vanilla as Shaman, the difference is that Warriors Dps specs were focused on Dps rather than "supporting".

Monks are same as Pallies, one dps, one tank and one heal spec, they are a hybrid, but if there are classes that should have a direct tool to boost the raids dps that is unique to them, it should be Paladin or Shaman, because those two are the archetype of support class in WoW.

[kosajk]

Enhance is a melee without any noteworthy utility and niche.
Enhance can do ST and a bit of cleave, that's it.

Also, it probably has the weakest defense of any Melee spec, which is not exactly helpful.

And honestly, the competition for Melee slots is far harder than for ranged slots, with Rogues, Warriors and Monks fighting all over it.

imo we have some impactfull utility to bring into the table
- 24/7 slow with frostbrand and erathbind
- good aoe nuke with talent, and then decent cleave dmg
- purge, bloodlust, really decent extra heals for critical situations
- 12sec cd range interupt
- pocket tank in form off earth elemental
- cc that not brake from accidental minor dmg
- party movement speed buff talent if needed
- self rez every 30 mins that not colide with other battle rezurection spells

wont argue with lacking off good defensive cd, thats our problem from many many years, although utility is good to say the least i cant think about any other class that would have access to so many tools at once

[Kralljin]

imo we have some impactfull utility to bring into the table
- 24/7 slow with frostbrand and erathbind
- good aoe nuke with talent, and then decent cleave dmg
- purge, bloodlust, really decent extra heals for critical situations
- 12sec cd range interupt
- pocket tank in form off earth elemental
- cc that not brake from accidental minor dmg
- party movement speed buff talent if needed
- self rez every 30 mins that not colide with other battle rezurection spells

Without digging through every single point:

A shit ton of the stuff you mentioned is already covered by other classes, Bloodlust for example is useless if you have a 2nd Shaman / Mage / Hunter.

But the argument Hex is a good CC because it doesn't instantly break on damage is hilarious, in PvE hex basically breaks instantly the moment even a slight AoE ability hits the target, the damage cap is insignificant.

One unique (and useful!) support / utility tool > A lot utility tools that are covered by other classes.

[dudu]

I personally think there is room for one utility dps for mythic+ and i do not see anything better than elemental shamans.

Shaman has a lot to offer when shit hits the fan (AOE Stun Totem with reduced CD Talent, Earth Shield Talent, Groupheal on DMG Talent/Movement Totem Talent, Pocket Tank, Range Short CD Interrupt, 2x AOE Slow, Purge, 3-4 Heals on low hp allies, Aoe Interrupt with Stun Totem or Thunderstorm Knock back, Single Target slow)

[prinnybomb167]

My damage as enhance seems a bit lower than I would hope it would be. Even when I get stormbringer procs back to back my damage done doesn't goes as high as I would hope at least compared to sims online (not simming myself, probably should figure that out). Could someone tell me the average DPS on a target dummy w/o bloodlust for like 2-4 minutes, just somewhat curious bc I feel like I get this weird input lag like a small delay in the global cooldown every so often, but its hard to tell, can't really explain it. Everyone is also saying enhance it doing really good damage, which i seem to be okay, but i'm definitely not killing it. Rogues and warriors be beating me quite a bit.

Sorry bit of a rant, just don't feel as strong as people are making it out and was trying to figure out why.

[Naiattavain]

now we just gotta fix rogues spellbooks too.