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  1. #521
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Sarevokcz View Post
    any scalling of casttime has basically zero impact on overall dps of the spell. thats why I said "doesnt really scale with haste" as "in any useful way." But hey, if we claimed that CL doesnt scale past 50% haste, you would likely claim it does, even tho you get absolutely zero value out of it, because you have to be so literal.
    I get what you are saying, I just don't agree that haste doesn't scale in a useful way with Earthquake. I think the problem is that your PoV is PvE. In PvP faster casts is certainly scaling in a useful way.

    ---------- Post added 2013-01-14 at 03:09 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by oblivionx View Post
    Hex is a symptom of the overall malaise of the shaman class.

    It's a half ass cc. Just like the overall implementation of most things shaman.

    I've stuck with it forever and I enjoy it (elemental), but really I don't think supporting blizzard in their bad design of the class is anything the resembles a solution.
    I can kind of agree with this. Every elemental thing is with a but, like stun totem. Imo it's not half ass in any way, but just something that requires a lot of skill to pull of and gives opponents more chances to counter you. So I don't agree with that being a bad design, but it gets very frustrating when other classes can do the same, easier and more effective. A mage setting up a kill could be:

    Orb
    Frost Bomb
    Deep (maybe pet nova)
    Frost Bolt/Ice Lance/Frostfire thingie, what ever procs
    Keep spamming procs and CS out of deep.

    Ele shaman:

    Have Flame Shock on healer
    Put stun totem down
    Unleash Elements
    (Preferably have instant LvB proc at this point)
    Hit healer with stun totem
    Elemental Blast
    LvB
    Earth Shock
    Interrupt/root/thunderstorm or possibly follow up with Ascendance LvB spam

    And still I'd say that ele shamans are way easier to counter during this, and probably less effective at killing healers this way
    Last edited by mmoc12dbb41d8a; 2013-01-14 at 02:10 AM.

  2. #522
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    Hex is fine. Maybe it require much more thought and coordination for shaman, but thats fine for me. Elemental and perhaps Enhance could use some improved form (cd reduction) of Hex, but it won't solve our problems.

  3. #523
    Quote Originally Posted by Enaina View Post
    Orb
    Frost Bomb
    Deep (maybe pet nova)
    Frost Bolt/Ice Lance/Frostfire thingie, what ever procs
    Keep spamming procs and CS out of deep.
    The big difference is the fact that Mage switches are very predictable because of Frost bomb, if the mage suddenly casts Frost bomb on you it just tells "Hey blow a Def CD".

    Elemental switch is compared to a Mage switch not as easy to notice, you mostly keep up FS on 2 targets anyway for more Lava Surge and easier switches.

    Secondly, enemies do not always keep track of every single proc you have, if you get a Lava Surge Proc, got 7 LS Charges and cast Eb it's still more subtle than a Mage casting Frost Bomb on you.


    That's why i dislike Ascendance in PvP, it just yells at your enemy "CC me or use a Def CD", old EM was more dangerous in PvP because it's Burst was difficult to predict.

  4. #524
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    Elemental was FotM during Wotlk from S6-S8, LSD was King during this time.

    And Elemental is a free kill for Melees that blow CD's, against Caster i am often able to put up a decent fight.
    Incorrect. They were fotm in s8 alone. When Cata came out, quite literally everything that made the shaman too good was taken away.

  5. #525
    Quote Originally Posted by Dospal View Post
    Incorrect. They were fotm in s8 alone. When Cata came out, quite literally everything that made the shaman too good was taken away.
    In S6 you could play Destro / Ele / Hpally and just kill someone during Aura Mastery because of Pre nerf Conflag and Lvb.

    In S7 many Elemental played with T9 4Pc which increased Lvb dmg by 20%, especially in 5v5

    In S8 you played LSD with Affli because double Healer teams came up with Shadowmourne Warrior, which were a walk in the park with Affli because of UA.

    And Elemental did not receive any serious nerfs during Cata Beta, it was just that Lvb dealt less damage compared to the enemies lifepool as in Wotlk.

  6. #526
    Ele wasn't ever overpowered or fotm as a whole like mages were. They just happened to have a lot of burst at some point, being able to global people the moment they managed to get two casts through.

    Anyone could easily beat ele 1on1 during that time as well. Ele was easily locked down by any melee worth his salt during that time. Only with the relative safety of a 3on3 or 5on5 could ele make something of that one strenght they had (which got cut down in later x-packs).

    Even if enh were able to one-shot everyone I wouldn't be happy, because:
    1) There's no rewarding feeling in pushing two buttons and seeing people die. There's no skill involved
    2) There's bound to be a nerf coming
    3) It will cause people to say: "Well, class/spec x was fine during season y, so no reason complaining" and forget that the basic structure is still weak

    @Endus: I am not redefining or falsefying things; I am categorizing CCs after their characteristics. Every CC ingame is part of these types of CCs, only Hex is some kinda weird-ass chimera, and they used only the ugliest parts of the animals used for creating it.
    Hex is essentially a creature with a mole's eyes, snake ears, and a beak (bird's have no sense of smell).
    Shamans had no "actual" CC before Hex at all, so it would've been to be expected to get one. We got Hex though for w/e reason.
    Shamans had still no actual CC after Hex, so we needed something decent to make up for our still overall weak CC. We got even weaker CPT, for w/e reason.

    Hex and CPT may be fine in a different context (i.e. Warlocks getting a similar aoe-stun, additional to their shitload of other stuff), but not in our situation. If we already had several good CCs like a mage, warlock, druid or rogue, fine. But haven't, so it is not fine.
    Last edited by Omanley; 2013-01-14 at 01:16 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Angoth
    I'm sorry that Blizzard won't just gift wrap awesome in a cup and let you drink your fill.

  7. #527
    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    They just happened to have a lot of burst at some point, being able to global people the moment they managed to get two casts through.

    Anyone could easily beat ele 1on1 during that time as well. Ele was easily locked down by any melee worth his salt during that time. Only with the relative safety of a 3on3 or 5on5 could ele make something of that one strenght they had (which got cut down in later x-packs).
    So what?

    It's not about 1v1 in WoW, so it's stupid to say "Elemental wasn't OP because Melees could kill him", i could kill almost any Caster in 1v1 on the other hand.

    I played Thundercleave, Lock / Shaman / Hpally and LSD during Wotlk.

    The only real viable Melee Cleave in later Seasons was TSG, with any of these 3 comps playing vs TSG meant almost Free win, even if Elemental was weak vs Melees in 1v1.

    They simply couldn't kill the Shaman if he had a Healer in his back, and the Shaman disabled pretty much anything their Pally did with shocking his heals, hexing him, dispelling any Hand spells and rooting those Melees.

    If they were focusing someone else, the Shaman still could peel those Melees with Earthbind / TS and could still shock / hex their pally while doing Insane burst.

    The only way they could kill someone was to train the Warlock and pray the dies before you and your healer can react, because they won't win on the long run.


    Similiar things applies for Resto in Cata, Resto Shaman was pretty much the strongest Healer in Arena during Cata but a decent Melee could still put some pressure on a Resto Shaman while Pally and Resto Druid would just laugh at him.

    A Resto Shaman in Cata died so fast to Melees cleaves, so Resto Shaman was always played with Classes that were excellent at peeling Melees, so most Resto Shaman played with Mage, Warlock or Rogue.


    Shaman relies on Group play in PvP, that has been pretty much the case since BC, which is why the argument "Melees could kill Elemental -> Elemental not OP" is wrong.

  8. #528
    Melee could give ele fits at times during Wrath but that was the time that ele was by far it's best for pvp. Old Ancestral Shift, Lava Burst actually provided burst...good times.

    Anyway, regarding the topic, eager to see how having shamanistic rage as ele will work. Other changes are icing on the cake. Worst case at least we are a bit more durable for PVE now.

  9. #529
    Deleted
    I fail to see which change is being made to Hex in 5.2 to warrant 2-3 pages of bickering about semantics?

    Could we perhaps continue discussing 5.2 changes? We had something decent going before you lot stepped in and decided to change the subject.

    The discussion is interesting, no doubt, but perhaps it could use its own thread?
    Last edited by mmoc112630d291; 2013-01-14 at 07:45 PM.

  10. #530
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Sarevokcz View Post
    any scalling of casttime has basically zero impact on overall dps of the spell. thats why I said "doesnt really scale with haste" as "in any useful way." But hey, if we claimed that CL doesnt scale past 50% haste, you would likely claim it does, even tho you get absolutely zero value out of it, because you have to be so literal.
    Of course EQ scales with haste. It has a 2sec for casttime for X damage. With haste, it's a lower cast time. So the scaling somewhat equal to haste scaling of CL, LB, LvB and so on. It differs from some dots/hots scaling, where haste scaling was totally overproportional.

  11. #531
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    It's not about 1v1 in WoW
    It is about 1v1 as well. In bgs it happens often enough that you end up against a single enemy, where your win about him can prove important for the win of the bg as a whole (enemy manages to cap a base because he wastes you all the time for instance). If you dont have good kiting abilities/CC, you wont make for a decent carrier either against a single opponent. Plus in arena it happens from time to time that only one survivor of each team has to win against the other. Losing in those instance because your spec doesn't cut it in 1v1, because "it doesn't matter" isn't really comforting, it places the blame of the loss on you because you couldn't put up much of a fight.

    so it's stupid to say "Elemental wasn't OP because Melees could kill him", i could kill almost any Caster in 1v1 on the other hand.
    Elemental was a one-trick pony. One target or two were made busy, you pop bl, you cast lvb => target dead. In 1v1 the first part falls apart, because ele cannot keep enemies busy well (lack of CC). If you enemy was dumb and only about who bursted faster, sure you could beat enemy casters, but if they made sure to keep you under control, ele was easily countered by any class with a little knowledge.

    I played Thundercleave, Lock / Shaman / Hpally and LSD during Wotlk.
    The only real viable Melee Cleave in later Seasons was TSG, with any of these 3 comps playing vs TSG meant almost Free win, even if Elemental was weak vs Melees in 1v1.
    All true. So? Doesn't change the fact that ele was not op as a whole. It was still a one-trick pony. It is still a one trick pony. Except that ele burst isn't nearly as dangerous as it was back then. Ele is still easily locked down, showing how few has fundamentally changed for shamans really.
    Blizz doesn't want players being able to global others. That's why ele's burstyness wont return like that, and unless they give super buffs in CC and kiting, ele wont ever again be nearly as succesful as it was back then.

    I played 3v3 during wotlk as well; enh/ rogue/r-druid

    I was as much a one-trick pony as enh as elementals were back then. Bl, purge spam and wolves. nothing fancy.
    Enh had one really viable comp back then: beastcleave. It even managed to beat a tournament. Why? Burst, nothing else.
    Does that mean enh was op during wotlk? Hell no. If you didn't manage to kill your target right of the bat, you were essentially toast.

    Dps numbers change a lot inbetween x-packs. That's why they are no viable form of evaluating a spec's design. Shaman design was bland and everything was riding on bl. As soon as it was banned from arenas, ele/enh dropped from higher ranking teams like flies. That's gotta tell you something.

    A Resto Shaman in Cata died so fast to Melees cleaves, so Resto Shaman was always played with Classes that were excellent at peeling Melees, so most Resto Shaman played with Mage, Warlock or Rogue.
    And every other healer could do the same, only he had additional options. It's like saying "Sure you can be top placed as ele/enh in 5.0, simply go with a warrior/bm mate."

    Shamans require others to compensate for their shortcomings on a grand scale. Try applying that fact on mages, rogues, warriors, warlocks, hunters... who are omnipotent/almost omnipotent. They can run with pretty much any mates, not because they are op, but because they are well designed.
    Shamans meanwhile got designed like a swiss cheese or a sponge: with lots of holes that need to be filled by others. You say shamans are fine as long as they are supported well. But other classes are even better, because they dont need that support, at least not that much.

    If you can fend well for yourself, your options in pvp will multiply like crazy, because you'll be able to
    1) run after someone almost dead to finish him off, because you can be confident in beating an almnost dead enemy and not be completely overwhlemed by his better survivability, mobility, utility and CC.
    2) can actually conclude an arena battle in your teams favor in case both teams have only one left
    3) you can support yourself better, requiring less support from others (who might be busy with something else)
    4) you can support others better
    and so on...

    Shaman relies on Group play in PvP, that has been pretty much the case since BC, which is why the argument "Melees could kill Elemental -> Elemental not OP" is wrong.
    "It has always been like that" doesn't justify "it should stay like that". Rather it provokes the question "why hasn't it changed yet after all that time?"

    Shaman always required a group to shine, where others could shine by themselves. If you dont realise that's a problem, I dont know how else I could help you. I guess it helps getting over the frustrations when repeatedly getting trashed in randoms you repeat your manthra "calm down, we're not supposed to be a challenge for others to beat, just rent a private healer and everythings fine".
    And even then ele doesn't produce good arena results, neither in MoP nor Cata, because the only really good thing that they had that mattered was burst.

    As an enh, I felt redudant all the time, because it came down to wolves/bl and outside of that a little interrupt here and there, and purge spam.
    While my rogue buddy CCed, stunned, slowed and reduced heals, was stacked with utility cooldowns and what not. He made the game essentually, while I was the one with the auto-taunt debuff, provoking a focus on me the entire time as easy-pickings.

    Shamans got new stuff, but neither got mobility (kiting/gap closing) any better, nor did we become much better defensively. Others meanwhile got lots of changes on their weaknesses, but shamans feel like a relic on so many levels, that you have to celebrate when they take care of such an 8 year old issue without nerfing it somewhere else.
    Quote Originally Posted by Angoth
    I'm sorry that Blizzard won't just gift wrap awesome in a cup and let you drink your fill.

  12. #532
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Dekadez View Post
    I fail to see which change is being made to Hex in 5.2 to warrant 2-3 pages of bickering about semantics?

    Could we perhaps continue discussing 5.2 changes? We had something decent going before you lot stepped in and decided to change the subject.

    The discussion is interesting, no doubt, but perhaps it could use its own thread?
    NO!
    This is very typical thing in shaman forum: every thread longer than 10 pages isn't about what the title says or what the OP wrote. BTW: Do you eat mussles? Since you're from Belgium...

  13. #533
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    In S6 you could play Destro / Ele / Hpally and just kill someone during Aura Mastery because of Pre nerf Conflag and Lvb.

    In S7 many Elemental played with T9 4Pc which increased Lvb dmg by 20%, especially in 5v5

    In S8 you played LSD with Affli because double Healer teams came up with Shadowmourne Warrior, which were a walk in the park with Affli because of UA.

    And Elemental did not receive any serious nerfs during Cata Beta, it was just that Lvb dealt less damage compared to the enemies lifepool as in Wotlk.
    In season 8 they received a significant cd reduction on 2 shocks, stoneclaw, and earthbind. Just prior to that the were given windshear. This is when they were able to survive the pressure put on them by other classes. That paired with the insane damage due to gear scaling, they became fotm. Saying they were fotm because other classes prior to that is untrue.

    When Cata came, they lost healing longevity, astral shift, the large reduction in shock CDs along with stone claw and earth bind cd, BL was now gone, and the burst was no where near as threatening.

  14. #534
    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    It is about 1v1 as well. In bgs it happens often enough that you end up against a single enemy, where your win about him can prove important for the win of the bg as a whole (enemy manages to cap a base because he wastes you all the time for instance). If you dont have good kiting abilities/CC, you wont make for a decent carrier either against a single opponent. Plus in arena it happens from time to time that only one survivor of each team has to win against the other. Losing in those instance because your spec doesn't cut it in 1v1, because "it doesn't matter" isn't really comforting, it places the blame of the loss on you because you couldn't put up much of a fight.
    Random Bg's don't really matter anyway, still the arguments stand that you could kill any caster.

    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    Elemental was a one-trick pony. One target or two were made busy, you pop bl, you cast lvb => target dead. In 1v1 the first part falls apart, because ele cannot keep enemies busy well (lack of CC). If you enemy was dumb and only about who bursted faster, sure you could beat enemy casters, but if they made sure to keep you under control, ele was easily countered by any class with a little knowledge.
    Burst is the Main part of Elemental, but saying it's the only thing is a great simplification.

    Playing Shaman vs Caster Cleaves is pretty tricky you got to keep track off 3 people that constantly cast and shock the right one.

    And Shaman in general could easily counter Caster in the past, remember? 5s Wind Shear and 15 Sec Grounding, fighting a Shaman as Caster was a huge pain, there's a reason why Wind Shear and Grounding was nerfed for Resto.

    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    All true. So? Doesn't change the fact that ele was not op as a whole. It was still a one-trick pony. It is still a one trick pony. Except that ele burst isn't nearly as dangerous as it was back then. Ele is still easily locked down, showing how few has fundamentally changed for shamans really.
    Blizz doesn't want players being able to global others. That's why ele's burstyness wont return like that, and unless they give super buffs in CC and kiting, ele wont ever again be nearly as succesful as it was back then.
    Get down from that One Trick Pony trip, just because a Class relies on Burst it's not it's only job within a Match, you need to keep track of much more stuff than just waiting for the opportunity to kill an enemy.


    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    Dps numbers change a lot inbetween x-packs. That's why they are no viable form of evaluating a spec's design. Shaman design was bland and everything was riding on bl. As soon as it was banned from arenas, ele/enh dropped from higher ranking teams like flies. That's gotta tell you something.
    Yeah that's your usual Dps Shaman QQ.

    Enh was strong in early Cata because of mindless Purge spam
    Elemental was strong because of Burst during Wotlk

    Blood lust was a factor but not everything, Bl often ended up being dispelled instantly because of Mass Dispel or the enemy had more than a single dispeller.

    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    Shamans require others to compensate for their shortcomings on a grand scale. Try applying that fact on mages, rogues, warriors, warlocks, hunters... who are omnipotent/almost omnipotent. They can run with pretty much any mates, not because they are op, but because they are well designed.
    Shamans meanwhile got designed like a swiss cheese or a sponge: with lots of holes that need to be filled by others. You say shamans are fine as long as they are supported well. But other classes are even better, because they dont need that support, at least not that much.
    So Resto Shaman are weak according to your opinion?

    Class synergy still exists within WoW, Warlock+Resto Shaman had a great Synergy in Cata.

    Ever seen Comps that like Disc / Lock / X? Outside of 2on2 i've hardly seen that because those classes share no real Synergy (And Dr on CC), similiar to Rogue / Hpally / X.


    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    Shaman always required a group to shine, where others could shine by themselves. If you dont realise that's a problem, I dont know how else I could help you. I guess it helps getting over the frustrations when repeatedly getting trashed in randoms you repeat your manthra "calm down, we're not supposed to be a challenge for others to beat, just rent a private healer and everythings fine".
    Played games like DotA?

    Within these Games, Support Heroes exist and they have a place within tournament matches, they suck however in most public games because the Team hardly ever plays like a team or with a brain.

    Shaman has been always a group guy, or not?

    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    Shamans got new stuff, but neither got mobility (kiting/gap closing) any better
    Which Caster can reduce the Uptime of Melees by a large margin? Frost Mages, any other Class relies on other Stuff can be countered by Melees as well.

  15. #535
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    Shamans require others to compensate for their shortcomings on a grand scale. Try applying that fact on mages, rogues, warriors, warlocks, hunters... who are omnipotent/almost omnipotent. They can run with pretty much any mates, not because they are op, but because they are well designed.
    Shamans meanwhile got designed like a swiss cheese or a sponge: with lots of holes that need to be filled by others. You say shamans are fine as long as they are supported well. But other classes are even better, because they dont need that support, at least not that much.
    Technically speaking this is what every class is supposed to be like. In other words, all classes are supposed to have to rely on others to compensate for their shortcomings. Ghostcrawler literally wrote that it is not their intention for a particular spec to be able to handle all situations on its own. They want for classes to have strengths and weaknesses.

    So the failure in their design isn't that our specs require others to compensate, its that some other specs don't. Those other classes that you and others like to point to as being well designed...in terms of blizzards game design philosophy...those are the ones that are broken. Notice, for instance, that slowly but surely within every patch there has been some sort of nerf to mages and warriors in particular.

    A lot of people like to make comparisons between our class/spec and some other class/spec and say "see, they have what we need...why can't we have that." I would say that what we need are improvements to the things we already have.

    So to get back on topic, what I'm hoping to see for elemental, in 5.2 and beyond, is an improvement in our single-target damage, an improvement in the way we use our shocks, and an improvement in the way we use weapon imbues. I'd like to see where we'd be at, in terms of pvp, if the devs did those 3 things.
    These words in my mouth... where did they come from? I don't think I'm the one that put them there...

  16. #536
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    - The Elemental 4pc does count Lava Bursts cast while in Ascendance.
    Dear, sweet mother of god. Looks like another 4set hotfix for dps. 45-60 seconds off of Ascendance CD easy.
    Last edited by Arctorus; 2013-01-15 at 06:12 AM.

  17. #537
    counting Ascendance casts and Mastery (Echo is up in the air atm), it looks like our 3-minute cooldown will turn itself easily into a 2-minute one moderately reliably. I'd be more than willing to delay trinket use for a couple of seconds to meet up with that every other time, and looking at a 30% uptime increase on our biggest personal DPS cooldown is going to be remarkably sexy.

  18. #538
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    Random Bg's don't really matter anyway
    Try telling that to those actually prefering playing them. Remember there was a time where random bgs where the only pvp outside of world pvp, and they still enjoyed it. Why would it not matter? Because it doesn't give you shiny pvp-points? Why do you play the game? For rewards or a rewarding feeling when playing?
    still the arguments stand that you could kill any caster.
    Sure, and other casters could kill you also. Try wasting a frost mage in wotlk as ele => counter spell, sheep, frost nova, deep freeze and throw in shatter and try telling me a shaman has the tools to prevent that from happening and instead laying the pain down. And that's just wotlk, where frost was way ahead of others. Warlocks got super charged CC as well now, and hunters aren't to bad in that department either. Sure, similar to moonkins a shaman could be a threat if left alone, but only if.

    Burst is the Main part of Elemental, but saying it's the only thing is a great simplification.
    Ele was brought for one thing and one thing only; burst. It's not that they didn't have some other things like windshear, but they weren't brought for it. That's what you call a one-trick pony.

    Wind Shear was one of the few very good shaman spells back then, yeah. It's one of the few cases where caster/melee wishy-washy actually brought about a good result. Sadly, as one could predict, a nerf was imminent not only for resto. Your only cementing my standpoint here, because it shows that ele in losing old wind shear lost even more utility which prevents them from being good. It is one of those "brought in line with others" changes I'd like to be applied to our CC/stuns and other stuff.

    Get down from that One Trick Pony trip, just because a Class relies on Burst it's not it's only job within a Match, you need to keep track of much more stuff than just waiting for the opportunity to kill an enemy.
    Um, I've clashed with caster cleaves as well. No matter on which class you focus, you're gonna eat unhealable damage from either the elemental or the destro lock. There wasn't much finesse in that really. Many caster cleaves simply won through overwhelming damage output. Even dividing damage on the two enemy casters to hinder their burst was often only prolonging the inevitable. Ele was a one trick pony. It could bring some other stuff, but it wasn't noticeable enough to justify the choice of bringing an ele. If not for the insane burst, caster cleaves would've never happened. You couldn't say the same about not having wind shear. That's how broken the burst was.

    Enh was strong in early Cata because of mindless Purge spam
    Elemental was strong because of Burst during Wotlk
    strong =/= well designed. That's basically what we're argueing about. because purge spam was a bad design, they abolished it, same as 5-6sec wind shear. Overpoweredness in a single area doesn't ever make for good design. Baseline shamans lack good design, because it is designed for resto. That's why dps shamans always had it hard. They had their niche spots due to one or two abilities yet to be cut down, but that's it.
    Mages didn't always have insane burst like with shatter, but they always had great control to compensate with, what do shamans have as a timeless plus? Their pluspoints where time and time again nerfed and removed. Homogenisation has benfitted most but hardly us. Buff totems were basically as far as it positively affected us.

    So Resto Shaman are weak according to your opinion?
    My point was that your point about "everyone has weaknesses and needs great synergy as a result" doesn't work everywhere the same. An ele shaman has decent burst, but lacks control, kiteability and survivability, plus has easily counterable utility in the form of totems. That's a lot of minus points to be compensated. Name me three so incredible good and/or unique abilities ele has that really wants you to take one into a high ranking team? You'll have a hard time doing that.
    Synergy can be applied as an argument when comparing different healers with powerful classes like warriors, rogues, mages, locks, hunters, ferals and what else is the rage right now. In most cases the point applies "If there is any other melee(enh) or caster(ele) dps, take him, he's better". Why? Because the base structure is weak, hex/CPT being big reasons for that.

    There are many areas where shamans can be considered the worst or among the worst, but not really any where you'd rank them as number one, but at best okay or good. That's not a really good balance.

    Also resto doesn't suffer as much from lower baseline quality as the other two do, because an ranged interrupt is something special where, same as a low cd ranged snare. Hex by healer standards could be better, because CC usually isn't as highly ranked among healers as it is with dps (though cyclone, scream and repentance are all easily better than hex) by dps standards it is horrible.


    Played games like DotA?

    Within these Games, Support Heroes exist and they have a place within tournament matches, they suck however in most public games because the Team hardly ever plays like a team or with a brain.

    Shaman has been always a group guy, or not?
    Shamans were like that, to some extent. That stopped long ago though. Pures can selfheal now and provide buffs like we do. Our support tools are usually weaker version of other classes' tools. Stuff like tremor and cleansing got cropped for homogenisations' sake. If homogenisation cannot be prevented tohugh, it should at least be thorough. Good kiting as a ranged or gap closing as a melee changed from optional strenghts to requirements. Dps shamans do not fulfill lots of those requirements, that's why they have a hard time now.

    Which Caster can reduce the Uptime of Melees by a large margin? Frost Mages, any other Class relies on other Stuff can be countered by Melees as well.
    Locks? Hunters? Lots of control those two at least. I guess moonkins and shadows are not as powerful in that regard, but still powerful.
    Quote Originally Posted by Angoth
    I'm sorry that Blizzard won't just gift wrap awesome in a cup and let you drink your fill.

  19. #539
    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    Try telling that to those actually prefering playing them. Remember there was a time where random bgs where the only pvp outside of world pvp, and they still enjoyed it. Why would it not matter? Because it doesn't give you shiny pvp-points? Why do you play the game? For rewards or a rewarding feeling when playing?
    You miss the point.

    I was saying that random Bg's don't matter in terms of balance simply because you cannot balance the game around everything, now you have to decide which way you try to balance:

    1v1
    Rnd Bg
    Competitive PvP (RBG and Arena)

    Which would be better for an MMO? Balance it around 1v1? balance it around playing with random people or playing with people you actually talk to?

    They cannot balance one of these properly, not even to imagine if they try to balance all at the same time.

    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    Sure, and other casters could kill you also. Try wasting a frost mage in wotlk as ele => counter spell, sheep, frost nova, deep freeze and throw in shatter and try telling me a shaman has the tools to prevent that from happening and instead laying the pain down. And that's just wotlk, where frost was way ahead of others.
    Not even going into this whole "imagination fight" but all i can say that the Shaman you described is obviously a target dummy.

    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    Ele was brought for one thing and one thing only; burst. It's not that they didn't have some other things like windshear, but they weren't brought for it. That's what you call a one-trick pony.
    Of course they were brought because of Wind Shear, as Shaman you could control a Castercleaves if played properly.

    Conflag / Lvb Combo? Too bad, Grounding.
    Conflag / Lvb Combo again? too bad, Lvb shocked.

    Shaman had to control these Matches especially because they were focused, that's a problem for many Players in general if they get focused, do they try to control the enemy or do they get controlled by the enemy.

    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    Wind Shear was one of the few very good shaman spells back then, yeah. It's one of the few cases where caster/melee wishy-washy actually brought about a good result. Sadly, as one could predict, a nerf was imminent not only for resto. Your only cementing my standpoint here, because it shows that ele in losing old wind shear lost even more utility which prevents them from being good. It is one of those "brought in line with others" changes I'd like to be applied to our CC/stuns and other stuff.
    It was nerfed along any other Interrupt Spell, Wind shear is still strong because of it's shorter CD and Range.

    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    Um, I've clashed with caster cleaves as well. No matter on which class you focus, you're gonna eat unhealable damage from either the elemental or the destro lock. There wasn't much finesse in that really. Many caster cleaves simply won through overwhelming damage output. Even dividing damage on the two enemy casters to hinder their burst was often only prolonging the inevitable. Ele was a one trick pony. It could bring some other stuff, but it wasn't noticeable enough to justify the choice of bringing an ele. If not for the insane burst, caster cleaves would've never happened. You couldn't say the same about not having wind shear. That's how broken the burst was.
    Again at this point?

    Shaman had to prevent enemies from CC'ing them or his mates that you could burst properly, if you let a Resto Druid whatever he wants he starts to cyclone you or your mates which kills your possibility to kill someone.

    Burst is the way for Elemental to kill enemies, Dot Based specs kill people on the long run.


    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    My point was that your point about "everyone has weaknesses and needs great synergy as a result" doesn't work everywhere the same. An ele shaman has decent burst, but lacks control, kiteability and survivability, plus has easily counterable utility in the form of totems. That's a lot of minus points to be compensated. Name me three so incredible good and/or unique abilities ele has that really wants you to take one into a high ranking team? You'll have a hard time doing that.
    Why not turn the tables around? let's name a few cons of Mage in PvP:

    -HoF / WW Totem can disable any serious burst
    -Frost Bomb has a countdown which allows to use CD's early or dispel
    -They have to Hardcast any full CC aside from PoM RoF.

    You cannot name only cons without seeing the pro's.

    And secondly, Shaman has a base set of skills which any Shaman spec has access to, it's not true to say that this skill set is strong for Spec X but not for Spec Y.

    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    Also resto doesn't suffer as much from lower baseline quality as the other two do, because an ranged interrupt is something special where, same as a low cd ranged snare. Hex by healer standards could be better, because CC usually isn't as highly ranked among healers as it is with dps (though cyclone, scream and repentance are all easily better than hex) by dps standards it is horrible.
    To make this clear, the main reason why Resto is so strong in PvP is their Mastery, that allows Resto bring targets from 10% to 80% within a single Cast.


    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    Dps shamans do not fulfill lots of those requirements, that's why they have a hard time now.
    They would have had already troubles in Vanilla with there wasn't something called WF and Frost Shock.

    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    Locks? Hunters? Lots of control those two at least.
    What do Locks have?
    Blood Fear
    Port
    Mortal Coil / Shadow Fury

    That's about 3 Spells to control or escape Melees.

  20. #540
    Merely a Setback Teriz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    Burst is the way for Elemental to kill enemies, Dot Based specs kill people on the long run.
    That isn't necessarily true. SPriests, Balance Druids, and Warlocks have pretty considerable burst spells given certain conditions. Destruction Locks for example have Shadowburn, Spriests have Mental Blast/SW: Death, and Balance have Shooting Stars. Let's also not forget that all 3 of those specs have fairly reliable methods to get out of snares and roots (shapeshift, Fade, Teleport), and they have passive damage mitigation to boot.

    I'm not going to sit here and say that Starsurge, Shadowburn, or SW: Death hits as hard as Lava Burst, but I will say that if I'm in a PvP situation, I'd rather be a Moonkin, Warlock, or an SPriest over an Elemental Shaman. They simply have superior tools overall.

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