A serious reflection on the shaman (long)

[jhjh1093a]

As you all know, Blizzard was trying to tweak Elemental Shaman's design in the Shadowlands, giving it up and bringing it back to Battle for Azeroth.
Of course, there was a new Talent called Echoing Shock, but the rest remain unchanged.

As a shaman user who has been playing only shamans since the original time, I devised a way to make use of the personality of Elemental Shaman, which I felt while playing myself, while taking pleasure, choices, and performance.

It may feel a bit like a delusion,

If there is a positive part, it becomes an issue and I hope that Blizzard reflects it even partially.

(Elemental)Shaman's Design Problems and Directions for Improvement

1. Inefficiency of Mastery

Elemental Overload: When you cast Lightning Bolt, Elemental Blast, Ice Fury, Lava Burst, or Chain Lightning, you have an X% chance to recast the same spell on the same target, dealing 85% of normal damage and generating less vortex. .

It's a very attractive and cool ability, but it has two limitations.
The first is that Earth shock, earthquake(and reinforced cold shock) which are powerful attacks using vortex, are not affected by Mastery, and as a result, Mastery does not achieve maximum efficiency from birth.
The second is that even if the Mastery itself rises, there is only a probability increase, and there is no numerical damage increase. Although macroscopically, the result will be increased in proportion to the probability, but in the actual WoW battle that takes place for several minutes This is a tough shame.

If so, what is the solution?
1. Mastery on all shaman's attack abilities-This is the easiest but not fun way.
2. Fixed the probability of activating Mastery and increasing the amount of damage and vortex supply according to the Mastery-You can intuitively check the amount of damage increase according to the specialization.
3. Earth Shock, earthquake, reinforced cold shock damage or crit rate correction value added to Mastery-Mastery's efficiency can be increased by subjecting Mastery to skills that were not affected by Mastery.

2. Flame Shock cooldown and short duration

Flame shock is a key skill in the Elemental shaman's deal cycle.
This DOT skill with a duration of only 18 seconds
The cooldown is a whopping 6 seconds.

Whether there is no cooldown, applied as a small area skill, or the DOT duration is at least 30 seconds long
Shouldn't one of the three be applied?

In fact, this is not a problem only for the Elemental Shaman, but the Enhancement Shaman also needs to apply flame shock to multiple targets in order to use the Fire Nova talent, which is the same as the maximum 3 target limit, so the Fire nova itself is dead.
Like the warlords of Draenor, the lava whip doesn't spread the flame shock applied to the target, so it remains a very difficult trait to find the meaning of existence.
The balance patch related to flame shock cool time and duration is an issue that must be applied immediately.

3. Earth shock's weak damage

Elemental Shaman is a class with two options: receiving vortex through Filler skills, and putting it in a powerful single deal through Earth shock or a wide area deal through earthquake.
However, Earth shock is currently very inferior to such a skill.
Earth shock is not affected by Mastery, nor does it have a critical strike rate correction, so it is applied almost as basic damage, which shows less damage than a single lava burst.
Whether you receive a critical rate correction by Mastery, or apply a basic damage, or if it is not, you need to significantly increase the damage multiplier.

4. Ascendance and basic skill/Talent switching of the Fire Elemental

Ascendance is a unique skill possessed by the 7-TIER talent in all of the Shaman's Elemental/Enhancement/Restore 3 class specialization.
In addition to the intuitive transformation effect, it possesses the ability of a somewhat powerful cooldown period, but it is regrettable that it is limited to use through talent

Enhancement Shaman's Spirit Beasts has already significantly increased its meager effect once in Shadowland beta version (greatly increased combat power application value), but it is still a poor cooldown skill enough to stay at the 3% level of damage in a single battle.
Elemental Shaman's Fire Elemental definitely shows superior abilities than Spirit beasts, but it's a cooldown skill that only works properly through two options: Storm Elemental and Primal Elementalist. (Actually, Primal Storm Elemental is very wierd skill. you need to spend 2 talent to use it)

Overall, it is better to change Ascendance to the basic skill of a shaman in order to secure the weak points compared to the strong basic cool-time skills of other occupations (EX: ignition, retribution fury, etc.).
When Ascendance is changed to a basic skill, Spirit beasts for Enhancement Shamans need to be changed to talent line, and Fire Elemental for Elemental Shamans needs to be changed to talent line.
Enhancement Shamans use 7-TIER's Elemental Spirit to select beasts, and Elemental Shamans change one trait to an Elemental line to give them options such as Fire Elemental / Storm Elemental / Basic Abilities Enhancement. Overinvestment in can be improved.

5. The irrationality of lava burst

Lava burst always critically hit targets with flame shock applied.
Elemental Shaman has a characteristic that has a higher critical damage compared to other classes, and has excellent critical strike efficiency.
Ironically, lava bursts are not affected by the critical strike rate at all.

Only when using the Ascendance skill, it has the effect of increasing the damage of the lava burst in proportion to the critical strike rate, but Ascendance itself is a talent, and it lasts only 15 seconds with a 3 minute cooldown.

Destruction Warlock's Chaos Bolt, which works in the similar way as lava burst, basically increases damage in proportion to the critical strike rate.

This is a very absurd situation.

6. Efficient improvement of Talents line

With the Ascendance story pulled out above, the Talnets need to be modified as well.

Looking at
1-TIER(15)

Earthen Rage / Echo fo the Elements / Static Discharge
The first two have their own merits.
However, Static Discharge is a skill that clearly has no reason to use it.
The coefficient is poor, the method of use is awkward, and there is no advantage at all compared to the previous two.
Earthen Rage adds damage to all abilities,
Echo fo the Elements is a characteristic for maximizing the operation of lava explosion skills
The other one should be a characteristic that can be merit for the lightning bolt-oriented play, which will help shamans choose.
For example, in the case of the'lightning rod' trait that disappeared after being in the Legion, it would be good enough.

One of the reasons why Elemental Shaman's dealing cycle is currently considered the highest difficulty is because it has a lot of useless short cool-time active skills.
Modest active skills like Static Discharge are hard to consider as an option.

2-TIER(25)
Aftershock / Echoing Shock / Elemental Blast
Each feature has enough merit, and it is worth considering as an option depending on the situation.
One thing that is regrettable is that Elemental Blast's cooldown is quite short at 12 seconds, and the duration of the buff is 10 seconds, which is ambiguous.
If it were a skill that had a cooldown of around 30 seconds and a buff of 30 seconds, wouldn't it be possible to simplify the useless complex deal cycle of the Elemental Shaman?

3-TIER(30)
Spirit Wolf / Earth Shield / Static Charge
A trait related to the shaman's utility.
Spirit Wolf is a movement ability and damage reduction ability. This is the best option for most situations.
Earth Shield seems to have a lot of problems. Elemental Shaman's Lightning Shield has the ability to receive Vortex 5 when hit, so it is actually a reinforcement ability that Elemental Shamans must maintain unconditionally.
However, since only one type of shield can be used at the same time, Earth Shield and Lightning Shield cannot be used at the same time, but the developers seem to have missed this part.
In fact, Earth Shield is a difficult skill to use, and if you wanted to give a survival-related utility, you should have given it a different trait. like Ethereal Form
And considering that the Talents of 5-TIER (40) are generally survival-related utilities, even if Earth Shield is sufficiently useful as a survival utility, it makes more sense to change its location to the wind rush totem.

Spirit Wolf / Wind Rush Totem / Static Charge
You can choose from three utilities: increase your survival and movement speed / increase the movement speed of raid members / shorten the stun ability.
Naturally, in 5-TIER, you have a choice among three survival utilities: Nature's Guardian, Ancestral Guidance, and Earth Shield (requires modification).
It seems to be a much more rational option than it is now.

4.-TIER(35)
Master of the Elements / Storm Elemental / Liquid Magma Totem
Master of the Elements is a trait that packs both fun and performance.
Storm Elemental has merit only when taken with Primal Elementalist.
The Liquid Magma Totem is an active wide area with a 1-minute cooldown, but it is an installation type and is rarely used because of its performance.
As mentioned in the plan to change the Summon Elemental skill to Talents above, Storm Elemental is sufficiently competitive if Primal Elementalist is applied by default.
If Fire Elemental gives a strong reinforcement ability to a lava explosion-oriented Elemental Shaman with the effect of increasing the duration of the flame impact and reducing the dot damage tick,
Storm Elemental is an effect that shortens the casting time of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning, and gives powerful reinforcement ability to Lightning-oriented Elemental Shaman.
Although, at present, Talents are almost killed for no specific reason to use Lightning-oriented Elemental Shaman, but its potential is highly valued.

Liquid Magma Totem is a little different,
Currently, tankers rarely tank in place at the wedge, and as they go to higher levels, they use a method of driving several monsters through dribbles. The fixed magma totem in this meta lacks its merit.
Vesper Totem, summoned with the Shaman's Kyrian Covenant ability, can be used again after summoning to change the position of the totem. This can be a solution.
In addition, if the Magma Totem's target is automatically applied with Flame Shock Debuff, even if the Magma Totem does not FULL-HIT for the duration, you can expect quite explosive wide-area dealing just by being buried in a group of monsters for a while. .

5-TIER(40)
Nature's Guardian / Ancestral Guidance / Wind Rush Totem
As mentioned in the 3-TIER Talents above, there are survival-related utilities.
If you just change the position of the Wind Rush Totem that is suddenly stuck, they are good enough options.
It is very regrettable that Ancestral Guidance is so insignificant that it does not help the raid members more than expected.

6-TIER(45)
Surge of Power / Primal Elementalist / Icefury
All three have merit, and two of them are interesting.
Surge of Power is a Talent that gives an additional ability to the next skill to be used after using Earth Shock, and it is fun enough in terms of deal and utility.
Primal Elementalist is a very uninteresting Talent, and it is a trait that strengthens the basic skill, Elemental Summon. In fact, except for the fact that an active skill is added, it is only a numerical experience.
Assuming that Ascendance becomes a basic skill, it is a characteristic that it can be applied and deleted by default.
Ice Fury is a skill that greatly increases the difficulty of Elemental Shaman's deal cycle, but it has a merit in moving deals and is fun to use.

7-TIER(50)
Unlimited Power, Stormkeeper, Ascendance
Of these, Unlimited Power is a skill that is really not fun and has no merit.
If you remember the case where Blizzard decided it wasn't fun and deleted the acceleration 10% Talent, this Talent is really absurd. Isn't that a minor version?
There is nothing the user can do to maintain the Unlimited Power stack, and actually stacking up to 5 stacks is difficult, and looking at the uptime, it only increases the acceleration by a few percent.
It's not funny, not eficiency, not unique at all.
But what if elemental overload adds the ability to cause another elemental overload?
That might be very unique talent. Also It's an ability that fits the name Unlimited Power.

Stormkeeper and Ascendance are good options to consider, but in most situations, Stormkeeper is preferred.
This is because it is a so-called'premature ejaculation' skill that has a cooldown of 3 minutes and only lasts 15 seconds.

In fact, I think Ascendance is a basic skill or not, the cooldown appropriate for a 15 second duration is 2 minutes.
It can be said that a 3 minute cooldown skill must have a duration of at least 20 to 30 seconds to be worth 3 minutes.

So what will happen to the Talents line after applying the changes?

1TIER: Earthen Rage / Echo of the Elements / Lightning Rod
2TIER: Aftershock / Echoing Shock / Elemental Blast
3TIER: Spirit Wolf / Wind Rush Totem / Static Charge
4TIER: Primal Fire Elemental / Primal Storm Elemental / Example : Spiritwalker's Blood (Spiritwalker's Grace is applied for the duration of the bloodlust effect. You gain Spiritwalker's Grace for the duration of your Bloodlust. This effect is not affected by the Satisfaction debuff.)
5TIER: Nature's Guardian / Ancestral Guidance / New Survival Related Talnet (Ex: Ethereal Form)
6TIER: Surge of Power / Liquid Magma Totem / Ice Fury
7TIER: Example: Magma Overload(Your Lava burst reduce the remaining cooldown of ascendance by 2sec) / Unlimited Power (Elemental Overload can cause another Elemental Overload now. ) / StormKeeper

I couldn't speak English fluently, so I used Google Translate
Grammar or words may look weird, but I hope you understand.
Regardless of nationality, as a shaman user, I believe that everyone will have the same love for WoW and shamans.

I may not be able to answer positively.
However, I will check the posts from time to time and write comments as soon as I can afford.

Thank you.

[albogamer]

we suck in aoe fight.... our earthquake in unless if tank or mob move and our chain lighting suck
what we need ?
spell like other classes that do aoe at all enemy in sight like:
BALANCE DRUID
unholy dk
warlock affliction
hunter mm
warrior arms
arcane mage
...
we have a fucking earthquake .... can we have a vulcano that shot magma fragment at all enemy like a balance druid just press 1 button and aoe all
not that stupid thing that is a talent too liquid magma totem
LIQUID MAGMA TOTEM NEED TO BE A BASE LINE ELEMENTAL ABILITY WITH A RANGE LIKE STARFALL NOT A TALENTED ONE IF U AGREE WITH ME PLS BLIZZARD CHANGE IT

[Tantypops]

I've been maining Elemental since Black Temple, quit raiding during Cata, and came back for MoP. Stopped raiding after that, but I have a long history with this spec.

- Mastery
I agree that this should be our "go to" stat along with haste, but due to tuning it isn't. However, it does affect earth shock and earthquake, as overloads generate maelstrom. They could increase the damage and maelstrom gain so it becomes more favourable.

- Earth Shock
It was a design choice to shift damage from ES to LvB, I personally think this way feels better, we didn't need a "spender" mechanic anyway, but Blizz disagreed and half-assed as they commonly do.

- Flame Shock CD
Again a terrible design choice. Flame Shock CD and duration were tuned tightly, it is their intention that we cannot multidot. As for the reduction in Lava Surge proc rate from 18% to 10%, I recommend the legendary that drops from this week's world boss. Spec feels more complete this way, it seems to be our best single target legendary anyway so it's worth crafting at least.

Destro Warlock has a very similar playstyle to us. Flame Shock = Immolate, Lava Burst = Conflagrate, Lightning Bolt = Incinerate, Earth Shock (spender) = Chaos Bolt (spender), EQ = Rain of Fire. Now, Immolate has a cast time but no cooldown, and their AoE talent row has a spell that applies Immolate to an area at 30 sec cd. Additionally, they have Havoc and a better movement kit. Still, their spec feels slower (due to Chaos Bolt having a cast time maybe?). Even their spec cooldown (Summon Infernal) is better than our Fire Elemental, as it generates their resource at a very high pace.

When they added Lava Burst, its autocrit reduced the impact of the crit stat - I don't remember when exactly, but they added the 50% more crit damage to compensate. I kept this view and I am okay with crit not affecting LvB.

What I despise is the cast time of Chain Lightning. It used to be 1.5 sec base. At some point, during the final patch of an expansion (don't remember which) people complained that haste from the gear was reaching 50% and Blizz decided to increase the cast time by 33% to 2 sec, and damage by 25% to compensate. This was forgotten afterwards, now CL just tickles the mobs while generating a very small amount of maelstrom.

I have abandoned suggesting anything to blizzard, as 99% of them aren't implemented and the 1% that they do is done the wrong way. Now, I have a warlock and a hunter that I maintain close to a "main char" level, and switch if Elemental feels unbearable. Right now it doesn't, it's just a bit problematic.

[erifwodahs]

From tank perspective, EQ is very annoying and should be changed.
Fire mages come second to that, but most of their dmg is frontloaded and you can move on freely after that and they have other means to AoE too.

I can see ele shamans as good dps, but they must be familiar with both - dungeons and tanking style otherwise they loose a lot of damage and also they stop the tank in a lot of cases from chainpulling in easier levels/affixes so even if he does more damage, everyone looses efficiency.

[Kalisandra]

What I despise is the cast time of Chain Lightning. It used to be 1.5 sec base. At some point, during the final patch of an expansion (don't remember which) people complained that haste from the gear was reaching 50% and Blizz decided to increase the cast time by 33% to 2 sec, and damage by 25% to compensate. This was forgotten afterwards, now CL just tickles the mobs while generating a very small amount of maelstrom.

This was at the end of MoP. From WoD onwards Chain Lightning has felt slow and weak, because it is slow and weak.

Also, way back in LK (and possibly earlier), Chain Lightning could actually do slightly more ST DPS than LB, but at enormous mana cost, so if you knew the fight was about to end you might switch to the faster ChL casts. In LK at some level of Haste you'd use ChL rather than LB for one of your filler casts between Lava Bursts to avoid clipping the CD.

I think that the fast, spammy, ChL should come back. It seems unlikely we'll hit 50% Haste any time soon outside of carefully stacked cooldowns, and if we do hit it from time to time in a Herolust, well it's not actually that big a deal and if it bothers players they can gear for a bit less haste and more of something else.

I also have no problem with EQ being barely worth casting over ChL spam at two targets, maybe even three (with the lost damage put back into ChL, of course). Make it true AoE, with lowish damage but no target cap. Nothing wrong with being Sith Masters in cleave fights.

[Beingbob]

This was at the end of MoP. From WoD onwards Chain Lightning has felt slow and weak, because it is slow and weak.

Also, way back in LK (and possibly earlier), Chain Lightning could actually do slightly more ST DPS than LB, but at enormous mana cost, so if you knew the fight was about to end you might switch to the faster ChL casts. In LK at some level of Haste you'd use ChL rather than LB for one of your filler casts between Lava Bursts to avoid clipping the CD.

I think that the fast, spammy, ChL should come back. It seems unlikely we'll hit 50% Haste any time soon outside of carefully stacked cooldowns, and if we do hit it from time to time in a Herolust, well it's not actually that big a deal and if it bothers players they can gear for a bit less haste and more of something else.

I also have no problem with EQ being barely worth casting over ChL spam at two targets, maybe even three (with the lost damage put back into ChL, of course). Make it true AoE, with lowish damage but no target cap. Nothing wrong with being Sith Masters in cleave fights.

Actually there is a big problem with ChL spam. It's a boring 1 button rotation. Go play classic if you're into that sort of crap.

[Kalisandra]

Actually there is a big problem with ChL spam. It's a boring 1 button rotation. Go play classic if you're into that sort of crap.

Well, it was player crying that removed magma totem, etc. leaving very little else.

And I'm not sure how adding an EQ every X casts makes cleave more interesting. ChL with FS spread DoTs and the resulting instant Lava Bursts seems like a much more interesting cleave rotation. For AoE it would revert to ChL+EQ. How is this a bad design?

[shamantime]

What if Elemental's Mastery was swapped to crit, so when a spell crits it sends a spell for extra damage equal to our current crit damage bonus. Could be interesting to check out and leave space for new masteries to explore.