5.2 Shaman changes

[zenga]

@Zenga: Well, I've never played ele, so you may be right. I think though that ele needs better kiting above all else to not drop outside of SR.
How does the (ele)buff to UF promote imbue twisting though? Ele will want ft as an imbue even more than before, and enh will have less issues going fb as oh imbue.
Did I miss any buff to fb/rb encouraging twisting?

Two examples of where imbue dancing is viable:

- say you are kiting LoS behind a pillar vs any pet class + melee. Thunderstorm melee of you and LoS the rogue. You can get a 4s sprint when using unleash elements vs the pet if its on you. The globals you spend on swapping flametongue for frostbrand, unleash on the pet for a 4s sprint and then back to flametongue while getting to a safe spot can be really good.
- vs any melee that trains you while you are waiting for your cd's to come off cd ... swapping to rockbiter and unleash it vs a rogue that's gonna dance on you negates 40% of his dmg on you for 5s (every 15s). That is a very strong ability for ele.

The problem on live atm is that it only buffs lightning bolt, and ele damage outside of ascendance being not really stellar, the trade off cost for not taking elemental blast (that besides the dmg component also buffs your next spells) was too high. Simply because lightning bolt dmg is a non factor in arena atm. It hits for nothing and takes 1.8s to cast, so you have to juke a couple of times.

Now with unleash fury also buffing your lava burst damage for 10s, the trade off cost for not taking elemental blast is much lower. You gain utility and it boosts a key spell with a very short cast, whereas on live you pretty much only gain utility. 10% buff to lava burst might seem low, but you have to realize it's up for 10 seconds out of every 15 seconds. During ascendance/EM that is practically 1 extra lava burst that you will gain. Or just think how often lava surge procs and overloads you have every 10 seconds, and count all the extra dmg lvb will do now.

TLDR the buff to unleash fury now compensates for not speccing into elemental blast, while gaining great utility. Rockbiter and frostband imbues are really good utilities for ele, but the amount of globals they take are not worth it on live.

The change slightly improves Conductivity, but it is in no way going to be viable for any spec. ...

For DPS, unless Conductivity is able to do significantly more healing than AG or HTT, the huge DPS loss of having to drop Healing Rain is never going to be worth it.

On a fight like garajal heroic (3rd boss msv) back when everyone was undergeared, it was actually a pretty viable option. You do more dps than a smite spamming disc, and you do more sustained hps then ancestral guidance / vampiric embrace -ish cooldowns.

It allows for a pure hybrid role, thus only a very limited amount of fights are suited for it as ele. On live it requires a very specific mechanic (being stacked on top of the boss), but the new version will make it usable on more fights. But basically a fight where 3 healers will make you hit enrage, and 2 healers can't keep up with the healing; and you'd opt for a 2,5 healer setup, ele will win it from the smite priest, definitely if there is some sort of nuke phase.

[Endus]

Rockbiter and frostband imbues are really good utilities for ele, but the amount of globals they take are not worth it on live.

Honestly, I think they're worth the globals, but you need to be proactive and understand the flow of the match. If you're doing the imbue dance properly, you need to be communicating with your partners and know when you're about to burst a target, so you can pre-load FT. You need to know when the enemy are about to burst you, and whether you need extra defense via Rockbiter or a near-spammable sprint via Frostbrand to keep yourself alive. It's like a stance swap, basically, though a fairly minor version of one.

The big difference is that we didn't have enough burst to give up EB or PE, since UF's burst component was basically useless as burst; we don't cast LB during Ascendance.

[zenga]

Honestly, I think they're worth the globals, but you need to be proactive and understand the flow of the match. If you're doing the imbue dance properly, you need to be communicating with your partners and know when you're about to burst a target, so you can pre-load FT. You need to know when the enemy are about to burst you, and whether you need extra defense via Rockbiter or a near-spammable sprint via Frostbrand to keep yourself alive. It's like a stance swap, basically, though a fairly minor version of one.

The big difference is that we didn't have enough burst to give up EB or PE, since UF's burst component was basically useless as burst; we don't cast LB during Ascendance.

Well yeah that is what I wrote, you are quoting like politicians do! Either way, the underlined part is exactly the problem of ele atm. With so many stuns and instant cc's + insane damage (or gear difference) you almost need to trinket the first stun/deep to be able to use rockbiter, and you die in the next stun. With shamanistic rage that is gonna be totally different, since you can sit longer on your trinket while still swapping to rockbiter. One can argue that currently it takes a ton of skill to imbue dance correct (because you have to be 100% proactive), but on the other hand next patch it will still take skill to make good use of that, the difference is that we have options to prevent death.

[Endus]

Yeah, and I'm totally okay with a skillcap. My issue with Elemental PvP lately has absolutely been that once I eat the first stun, I don't seem to have any way to avoid dying. Even popping a trinket just provokes the next CC, and I'm not going to survive the burst since I have no defenses I can pop, even if I did trigger diminishing returns by popping my trinket.

SR should change that pretty soldily, particularly if you glyph it for the magic cleansing effect.

[Emophia]

So now that Elemental has enhc's Shamanistic rage can Enhc get Lava Burst back?

No real reason, It was just fun to have.

[Stand]

There's no way EM will make it live like that, as people said before, do you guys realize what 30% haste for 20sec every minute means? This is just ridiculously amazing, yeah I'd love to have that but it's just way overpowered. I don't know how they thought the change really. I think they wanted to balance out the 3 talents for Enhance (Enh didn't even look at anything other than EotE), but PE-EM was almost considered a viable, now with the change it'll sure make PE-EM go over UF-EotE for 3 reasons:

1) PE has been buffed for 20% - this is huge considering PE was already better for the time it was up over UF so that will make our burst better
2) EM on a 1 minute CD - again, the sims showed PE-EM had a better burst, they were just not good on a long fight, but EM being on a 1 min CD means it'll be up on every CD we have, this means it can be synced with eng gloves, feral spirits, ascendance and FET. This is huge! Basically on some fights you intentionally delayed Ascendance to use it with other CDs (when you knew you wouldn't use it another time - like on Gara'jal), but now I guess we'll just use it every time. It makes our whole CD management easier, even if it's yet another CD - but it's off-GCD. This will end up being an insane amount of burst. Enh DPS was already very high, it might get higher now.
3) Haste already starts getting some love - I don't have the 4 piece yet, but my latest sims gave me Haste well above Mastery (got 2.16 haste/1.78 mastery), if it stays like that + considering the small Unleashed Flame change... oh man

[Sarevokcz]

On a fight like garajal heroic (3rd boss msv) back when everyone was undergeared, it was actually a pretty viable option. You do more dps than a smite spamming disc, and you do more sustained hps then ancestral guidance / vampiric embrace -ish cooldowns.

The Conductivity itself is horrible, I was running it for two pulls and results were 75% healing done by HR, 5% by HST and 20% by Conductivity, simply not worth it. Dropping HR itself was good enough to cover the needs of constant buffer healing

[zenga]

The Conductivity itself is horrible, I was running it for two pulls and results were 75% healing done by HR, 5% by HST and 20% by Conductivity, simply not worth it. Dropping HR itself was good enough to cover the needs of constant buffer healing

Did you go with unleashed fury? I tested this myself during garajal hc progress and saw 35%-40% conductivity results in my hps. And I saw a blog from binkenstein where he got up to 50% with a simulation if I recall correct.

The big change now will be that chain lightning on AOE pacs outside your HR will significantly boost this, in theory since it always depends on the actual encounter design. I still believe this is a strong, and underestimated option for a 2,5 healer setup.

[Sarevokcz]

Did you go with unleashed fury? I tested this myself during garajal hc progress and saw 35%-40% conductivity results in my hps. And I saw a blog from binkenstein where he got up to 50% with a simulation if I recall correct.

The big change now will be that chain lightning on AOE pacs outside your HR will significantly boost this, in theory since it always depends on the actual encounter design. I still believe this is a strong, and underestimated option for a 2,5 healer setup.

no, without UF. but really, if all you want to do is LB spamming to get to 40% you may aswell take disco.

[Deleted]

I think that:
pve
1)as long for ele and pve its a buff all the way.
pvp
2)as long for ele and pvp its a buff nearly all the way.
but sadly we must wait till last sec before comes live...
blizzard is full of surprises..(bad ones most of times)
3)shamanistic rage it’s a very solid def cd but know makes us to have 2 mandatory glyph
in my eyes..lig.bolt and sham. Rage glyph..
so maybe it’s time to be passive baseline skill the moving but haste reduction l.b
4) the stone b.totem buff is good but it’s still earth totem..so focus dmg reduction with a.s its one way street i think..
5)the e.mastery buff makes elemental blast more attractive

[Kralljin]

Honestly, I think they're worth the globals, but you need to be proactive and understand the flow of the match. If you're doing the imbue dance properly, you need to be communicating with your partners and know when you're about to burst a target, so you can pre-load FT. You need to know when the enemy are about to burst you, and whether you need extra defense via Rockbiter or a near-spammable sprint via Frostbrand to keep yourself alive. It's like a stance swap, basically, though a fairly minor version of one.

The big difference is that we didn't have enough burst to give up EB or PE, since UF's burst component was basically useless as burst; we don't cast LB during Ascendance.

Big Problem about Unleashed Fury is, the Flametongue effect is dispelable.

If your enemy healer dispels your focus you lose FS AND UF effect.

[Omanley]

@Zenga: Sorry, but I kinda dont get it. You said RB/FB on life are not worth the gcds, but aren't they doing exactly the same on life as they do on ptr? I get that the change to UF:FT promises more burst during ascendence, but outside of it, not so much esp with the nerf to lb extra damage.
The way I see it imbue twisting is just as crappy as ever. To much gcds for to low a gain, plus having to talent it.

Oh, and if you use UE for utility every now and then, isn't the compensation part gone? I mean if you have to use UE/F:FB 2-3 times a minute because people cling to you, you wont have any uptime on your lvb buff. On the other hand though, EB is still EB.

[zenga]

@Zenga: Sorry, but I kinda dont get it. You said RB/FB on life are not worth the gcds, but aren't they doing exactly the same on life as they do on ptr? I get that the change to UF:FT promises more burst during ascendence, but outside of it, not so much esp with the nerf to lb extra damage.
The way I see it imbue twisting is just as crappy as ever. To much gcds for to low a gain, plus having to talent it.

Yes the imbues do exactly the same. But the main reason why you don't take unleash fury as a talent is because you gain utility in exchange for damage. With 2 sidenotes:

1) the utility from UF is less viable on live because you pretty much have to trinket to be able to apply the imbue (unless you are godlike and can predict many instant cc's).
2) the damage of ele shaman on live outside ascendance is pretty poor so you kinda go default with elemental blast

now on ptr:

for 1) shamanistic rage (glyphed) gets you out of a hammer, a deep, etc ... so you don't have to trinket to apply rockbiter. That makes the imbue swapping much more viable/attractive (why would you trinket a deep to apply rockbiter when you know you have nothing left for the next 2 minutes, it kinda defeats the purpose)

having a macro like
/cast Shamanistic Rage
/cast [@none] Rockbiter Weapon
/use 16
/click StaticPopup1Button1

and then unleash and you are set

for 2) UF now buffing lava burst for 10s compensates for losing the damage/buff from elemental blast (lets assume for the sake of the example that lightning bolt damage is irrelevant in arena), maybe it's not exactly the same in numbers, but in terms of being usable it is imo. on top of that elemental mastery is getting buffed, so having elemental blast becomes less needed for your damage (buffed lightning bolt fillers during EM are pretty nice as well btw)

Oh, and if you use UE for utility every now and then, isn't the compensation part gone? I mean if you have to use UE/F:FB 2-3 times a minute because people cling to you, you wont have any uptime on your lvb buff. On the other hand though, EB is still EB.

If you are getting trained by melee you won't get much uptime on your dmg anyways, your main worry is to stay alive. Besides quite a lot of ele's use unleash elements in pvp right now to buff LvB when they setup. So the use of UE for ele is nothing new in pvp.

[Deleted]

sounds really good tbh

[Endus]

Big Problem about Unleashed Fury is, the Flametongue effect is dispelable.

If your enemy healer dispels your focus you lose FS AND UF effect.

Yes. It's not a "this is totally better than the other talents" thing. It's a "this might actually be a viable alternative" thing.

@Zenga: Sorry, but I kinda dont get it. You said RB/FB on life are not worth the gcds, but aren't they doing exactly the same on life as they do on ptr? I get that the change to UF:FT promises more burst during ascendence, but outside of it, not so much esp with the nerf to lb extra damage.
The way I see it imbue twisting is just as crappy as ever. To much gcds for to low a gain, plus having to talent it.

The issue with imbue twisting with UF was, as zenga said, not considered viable because it meant you lost a significant amount of burst just in taking the talent, since the UF:FT effect wasn't a boost to controlled burst, where both PE and EB do contribute to our burst. Plus, without the survivability to last through the stuns, it was difficult to get any real benefit out of the mobility or damage reduction utility. We're getting a big buff to survival, though, with an extra stun-friendly damage reduction, and the UF:FT effect will now improve our burst as well as our sustained damage.

The utility and the GCD to swap to them was always fine. The issue was that the damage you were swapping FROM wasn't fine, and we didn't have the survival to benefit from the utility.

Oh, and if you use UE for utility every now and then, isn't the compensation part gone? I mean if you have to use UE/F:FB 2-3 times a minute because people cling to you, you wont have any uptime on your lvb buff. On the other hand though, EB is still EB.

If you're getting hammered by melee and need the additional kiting, or if you're getting burst and want the defensive application, you aren't generally trying to burst someone down, you're popping CDs and self-healing and dropping Grounding and trying to outlast their CDs. UF:FT isn't useful for that, which is why being able to swap to something that would be is beneficial.

As I said, though, you need to be proactive; if you get hit and you're down to half health, it's probably too late to bother. You needed to figure out there was a burst coming and swap proactively.

[Barky]

Why nerf UF for enhancement? makes no sense. I also cannot stand EB or the Primal Elementalist totems due to the bullshit of having to hard cast Ele Blast as its top priority and the totems just being a tacked on change.

[Kralljin]

Yes. It's not a "this is totally better than the other talents" thing. It's a "this might actually be a viable alternative" thing.

Those 10% Lvb Dmg might sound nice for PvE, but in PvP they aren't that much.

It's good for Ascendance, however Ascendance can be easily locked down and it's not that easy to get a decent Ascendance off in PvP.

The big Advantage of Eb remains the fact that he is a multischool spell, altough many people complain about that everything goes on CD if they get kicked into EB realise not the actual usage if this spell in PvP.

You need to use EB AFTER you got interrupted, since it's multischool you cannot lockout it by normal means, which is works very well because everyone wants to interrupt your EB, successful fake casting is likely here.

Secondly, Elemental Burst outside of Ascendance far more dangerous because Ascendance goes often this obvious visual effect and perma lvb.

Those Eb+Instant Lvb+Fulmination Combos are far more dangerous because the enemy can hardly foresee it, mostly because it consists 2 instant spells and requires not much to happen.

You can consider this talent for utility but, if you liked the utility that UF provides you could take it before this buff.

[Nitwit]

No it scales bad. A 100k dps simming has much lower stat weights (my secondary stats are @ 1.9-2.1 dps per stat point, while EB at the same level is @ 1.6).

A large chunk of the difference at higher gear levels is the t14 set bonus.

[Eliot123]

Holy crap, if all this happens, I am so totally resubbing!

[Cishir]

Why nerf UF for enhancement? makes no sense. I also cannot stand EB or the Primal Elementalist totems due to the bullshit of having to hard cast Ele Blast as its top priority and the totems just being a tacked on change.

Uh, if we end up doing more DPS in the end why does it matter? It was a very slight nerf to our overall damage if UF ends up still being best from a UF standpoint, but our tier four got an incredible buff. Also who cares if the totem is "a tacked on change" it is a straight 20% damage buff. I don't understand why you'd be negative, honestly.