Primordial wave- Am i missing something?

[roger400]

Apart from it seeming strong in raids i see no BIG deal in M+ with this ability. Sure it must feel nice to spread 60% of healing wave into all targets every 45 seconds, but to say this is the Strongest covenant ability is an overstatement to me.
And now people are saying this could be used as ST heal, and also praising it so much by applying another riptide.
How on earth can this be a ST heal? this is a pure cleave / aoe heal just like beacon or vivify or renewing mists, and why people are praising the fact that it applies another riptide if, while its decent, its our weakest heal.

in my opinion there are other better builds like a build revolving around the devastation legendary that while dont improve directly our spread healing, buff alot of our stacked heal and incentivise us to do more damage. Also even with a more standard build the red chain heal covenant ability is siming almost as high on hps while also doing good damage and being easier to use without betwen 7 seconds to 12 seconds for proper setup with primordial wave.

[Aurosh]

Dont forget that Healing Wave has been buffed. I am no healer but it helps best in restos toolkit. From what i heard it simply plays best.

[shammypie]

yeah spells have been buffed/nerfed riptide heals for more than hw now
with 0 haste
riptide 302%
hw 300%
PW 367%
vesper 73%
rCH 315%

so on a pure single target basis PW heals for the most (FT is trash)
also with an average tier 1 haste you'll gain about an extra 30% on riptide and PW while you don't get anything with the rest. finally the PW covenant gives a chance for it to instantly reset giving you another use. none of the other covenant abilities are this useful except maybe rCH which is favored in m+ for the additional damage and is really good with our offspecs

[music49]

I know for elemental it makes flame shock much easier to manage on multiple targets, and making fights with multiple targets much more enjoyable, funneling all your damage into the priority target while spreading flame shock as much as possible.

From my experience in beta so far, the bigger issue is the other covenants having better soul binds. Hopefully they balance them a little better, because I do enjoy primordial wave, but Night Fae and Kyrian are performing way better

[oland138]

If you cast it on a target followed by a healing wave on that target, it causes the second healing wave as well. The extra healing waves also seem to be affected by unleash life and undulation - but the extra healing waves is 60% effective baseline.

Also, for enhance it seems awful on paper, but you can get +250% (maelstrom + stormkeeper) dmg lightning bolts on as many targets as you can get a flame shock on. It's actually quite fun, but requires some setup.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

It's an absolute beast for Elemental in M+ in the beta and here is an example why:


-Talent into Surge of Power
-Pack of 4 enemies in front of you
-Flame Shock first target, use Stormkeeper for 2 instant cast Chain Lightnings for Maelstrom build up
-Use Earth Shock to proc Surge of Power, by this time Flame Shock is off cooldown
-Use Flame Shock again, apply 2 Flame Shocks, now 3 enemies have Flame Shock
-Use Primordial Wave on 4th target for apply 4th Flame Shock
-ASSUMING you have the the "Windspeaker's Lava Resurgence" (When you cast Earth Shock, gain Lava Surge and increase the damage of your next Lava Burst by 20%) legendary on, you will have a free Lava Surge proc waiting after casting the aforementioned Earth Shock as well as Primordial Wave making your next Lava Burst hit all targets with Flame Shock
-BOOM 4 Lava Bursts go out


This is just one specific way to do AoE and it does require a bit of setup. Personally I love being able to manage 3-4 Flame Shocks at any time. I end up just using instant-cast-Lava Bursts and Earthquakes for AoE rotations and 90% of the time I'm at the top of damage charts in M+ dungeons for all trash pulls.


I haven't tested out Vesper Totem yet so I could be behind the curve in terms of most optimal abilities.

[Rusken]

It's an absolute beast for Elemental in M+ in the beta and here is an example why:


-Talent into Surge of Power
-Pack of 4 enemies in front of you
-Flame Shock first target, use Stormkeeper for 2 instant cast Chain Lightnings for Maelstrom build up
-Use Earth Shock to proc Surge of Power, by this time Flame Shock is off cooldown
-Use Flame Shock again, apply 2 Flame Shocks, now 3 enemies have Flame Shock
-Use Primordial Wave on 4th target for apply 4th Flame Shock
-ASSUMING you have the the "Windspeaker's Lava Resurgence" (When you cast Earth Shock, gain Lava Surge and increase the damage of your next Lava Burst by 20%) legendary on, you will have a free Lava Surge proc waiting after casting the aforementioned Earth Shock as well as Primordial Wave making your next Lava Burst hit all targets with Flame Shock
-BOOM 4 Lava Bursts go out


This is just one specific way to do AoE and it does require a bit of setup. Personally I love being able to manage 3-4 Flame Shocks at any time. I end up just using instant-cast-Lava Bursts and Earthquakes for AoE rotations and 90% of the time I'm at the top of damage charts in M+ dungeons for all trash pulls.


I haven't tested out Vesper Totem yet so I could be behind the curve in terms of most optimal abilities.

That's cool and all, but have you tried Echoing Shock > Chain Harvest? Absolutely melts packs of 5-10 mobs plus does a good chunk of group healing. I almost don't care about what's more efficient or potent when that specific combo is so much fun to throw out every ~90s.

[rabbimojo]

That's cool and all, but have you tried Echoing Shock > Chain Harvest? Absolutely melts packs of 5-10 mobs plus does a good chunk of group healing. I almost don't care about what's more efficient or potent when that specific combo is so much fun to throw out every ~90s.

Echo doesn't duplicate chain harvest anymore, so that one's a moot point. It was too strong, so no surprise there.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

That's cool and all, but have you tried Echoing Shock > Chain Harvest? Absolutely melts packs of 5-10 mobs plus does a good chunk of group healing. I almost don't care about what's more efficient or potent when that specific combo is so much fun to throw out every ~90s.

Aw damn, I wish I would have tried that before it got nerfed. Primordial Wave does require more set-up for AoE but I like the play style better as it plays with Flame Shock + Lava Burst. Basically another copy of Chain Lightning doesn't seem too fun for me. The combo of Primordial Wave with the Lava Surge legendary is just too fun to pass up.


To each their own I suppose!

[Rusken]

Echo doesn't duplicate chain harvest anymore, so that one's a moot point. It was too strong, so no surprise there.

It absolutely does. Maybe it's an intended change coming? I just logged onto Beta and Echoed a Chain Harvest just fine.

Edit: Looking through all the patch notes and the Shaman changes thread I can't actually find anything that says CH shouldn't work with Echoing Shock. Where are people getting this info from?

[kosajk]

There was been blue post saying its double dipping from dmg + cd reduction by having possibility to double use by echoing shock thus being to strong option, like 2 weeks ago.
Maybe they backed up on this who knows.
Enh is gaining 100% extra dmg from MSW on it to although no extra cd decrease ������

[rabbimojo]

It absolutely does. Maybe it's an intended change coming? I just logged onto Beta and Echoed a Chain Harvest just fine.

Edit: Looking through all the patch notes and the Shaman changes thread I can't actually find anything that says CH shouldn't work with Echoing Shock. Where are people getting this info from?

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...es/490695/1523

Interesting that it still worked for you on Beta, but I would expect that will go away. That's probably a good thing, though the idea's quite fun. It would feel weird to be locked to using Echoing Shock if you went Venthyr.

[Rusken]

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...es/490695/1523

Interesting that it still worked for you on Beta, but I would expect that will go away. That's probably a good thing, though the idea's quite fun. It would feel weird to be locked to using Echoing Shock if you went Venthyr.

RIP. Guess we're all forced to go Kyrian then for any form of competition amongst other well, anything. Glad I've still got my Prot Pally.

[shammypie]

RIP. Guess we're all forced to go Kyrian then for any form of competition amongst other well, anything. Glad I've still got my Prot Pally.

Primordial wave still works for M+ as well. It's a lot of good damage especially in higher keys where packs live longer. The basic setup is to use Surge of Power to spready flame shocks and use PW on the last. You get non stop lava surge procs on live which really blows that the proc rate is effectively halved in shadowlands. Still i was wasting them for the most part. It also works really well with ascendance where you can either chain blast a boss or nuke the pack of adds giving you trouble. Chain lava was like hiting 5 adds with lavabursts over and over. With the skybreaker's legendary you'll be dishing out spicy meatball spaghetti everywhere. It also works for single target fights as well and gives you more variability in talent builds. For example echo shock works well with STK and earthquake but on pure single target you only get STK every other EcS. Elemental Blast however weaves well with Mote and if you get the crit buff paired with ascendance you have a huge nuke cycle. It would be nice if they buffed lava totem as mechanically it's better in m+ with this covenant for on demand AE damage.

[Restors]

I know for elemental it makes flame shock much easier to manage on multiple targets

Serious question, how exactly does it make it easier?

[music49]

Serious question, how exactly does it make it easier?

It applies flame shock to the target essentially giving you two charges every 45 seconds, and with the necrolord conduit it has a chance to reset the CD of primordial wave giving you even more charges.

[rabbimojo]

... For example echo shock works well with STK and earthquake but on pure single target you only get STK every other EcS. ...

Unfortunately, it seems they've made good on the plan to keep Echo from giving you an extra STK charge. I think echo + STK is only maybe valuable now in a situation where the half-second GCD difference might make a difference (e.g. securing a kill in pvp). That seems a bit outlandish, though.

Echo is now for heals, LvB, and earthquake. And I guess Thunderstorm, if you're feeling saucy.

Serious question, how exactly does it make it easier?

Well, it's an extra flame shock cooldown that doesn't share a cooldown with the normal spell. It's like moving maybe 20% towards FS having no cooldown, which would obviously make multi-FS easier.

Sadly, it's still the worst of our covenant abilities for combined heal and damage. Feels like that keeps me from considering it for M+.