With offensive cooldowns on chopping block, an interesting change for ascendance.

[Txiv]

I had a thought last night after reading the " offensive cooldowns will be going away" posts. Granted we don't know ascendance is on the way out as a button but if it is what do you guys think about this.

Chance on earth shock/ flame shock to Ascend, giving lava burst no cooldown for 6 seconds and increasing chain lightning damage 10% per jump ( 2 ppm maybe).

We keep the iconic spell at much more random pace, with a long enough duration to get some use out but short enough you have to be on your game to fully utilize. Obviously you would want to tune the proc chance but it would add flavor to ele Dps.

[Shockeye]

I wouldn't want Ascendence to become a proc. Using it well in the proper situation is a skill marker and a boost for the raid, so making it random wouldn't work, especially for Restoration.
For that spec, I'm really hoping the Spirit Link Totem effect is merged with Ascendence since most Resto Shaman seem to macro them together anyway.

[Kazgrel]

The rng factor this idea introduces would lead to rivers of tears from pvpers. That, plus what individual dps cd would shaman have? FE totem and EM (if specced).

Don't see ascendance being cut as part of bloat reduction.

[Deleted]

I understood it that they will CUT cds and since we have 2 offensive cds (Asce + FE) I guess ele won't be affected at all.

[Omanley]

They want to cut down offensive RAID cooldowns. It'll come down to bl/hero, with Stormlash/storm banner disappearing.
Where do you get your point about offensive cooldowns in general from?

[Swiftninja]

Stormlash was removed, were fine. Shadow blades was removed since its a personal version of stormlash, which i guess both spells are just +damage that had no changes to class mechanics much.

[Txiv]

They want to cut down offensive RAID cooldowns. It'll come down to bl/hero, with Stormlash/storm banner disappearing.
Where do you get your point about offensive cooldowns in general from?

He said raid cooldowns would be cut, but he also insinuated personal ones would be reviewed and rolled into other spells or cut altogether. He said the intention was to cut back burst and smooth line Dps. As I stated I don't know if ascendance is going to be cut but if so I think the passive form would be a smoother approach to Dps and add some diversity to the rotation ( which is pretty bland). True I did not consider pvp, I loathe Pvp and this would only work well in pve. And I did not include resto version because it would be clunky, though no more than say the pally talent that gives you 3 holy power randomly when casting spells.

[Swiftninja]

He said raid cooldowns would be cut, but he also insinuated personal ones would be reviewed and rolled into other spells or cut altogether. He said the intention was to cut back burst and smooth line Dps. As I stated I don't know if ascendance is going to be cut but if so I think the passive form would be a smoother approach to Dps and add some diversity to the rotation ( which is pretty bland). True I did not consider pvp, I loathe Pvp and this would only work well in pve. And I did not include resto version because it would be clunky, though no more than say the pally talent that gives you 3 holy power randomly when casting spells.

Ranged and pure magic damage passively would probably be op and would not ad diversity to the rotation. It also would be taking a us back to when we had no controllable burst, which imo is a bad thing.

[Txiv]

Ranged and pure magic damage passively would probably be op and would not ad diversity to the rotation. It also would be taking a us back to when we had no controllable burst, which imo is a bad thing.

Well they want to cut back burst on everyone.

Also curious why you don't think it would add diversity? It would change the rotation randomly to a mini ascendance a few times a min. I can get if you don't like it but it def changes things up.

[Swiftninja]

Well they want to cut back burst on everyone.

Also curious why you don't think it would add diversity? It would change the rotation randomly to a mini ascendance a few times a min. I can get if you don't like it but it def changes things up.

+nature damage doesnt change our priority at all, unless u mean reset SS every so often, then sure sounds cool for PVE, but PVP rng not so much.

[blackblade]

I had a thought last night after reading the " offensive cooldowns will be going away" posts. Granted we don't know ascendance is on the way out as a button but if it is what do you guys think about this.

Chance on earth shock/ flame shock to Ascend, giving lava burst no cooldown for 6 seconds and increasing chain lightning damage 10% per jump ( 2 ppm maybe).

We keep the iconic spell at much more random pace, with a long enough duration to get some use out but short enough you have to be on your game to fully utilize. Obviously you would want to tune the proc chance but it would add flavor to ele Dps.

Consider the following;

Warriors have like, 3 Mega cooldowns (Skull Banner, Recklessness, and Shattering Throw) and some smaller cooldowns(Berserker Rage, Avatar/bloodbath) that are not interdependent (meaning you can burn them all at once)

This has PVP ramifications, because it means DPS is EXTREMELY HIGH for say 25-60seconds and then very average for the remainder of the fight.

Classes like shamans have 2 Big cooldowns (Fire Elemental, Ascendance) and a few lesser cooldowns (Stormlash) Popping all of them don't really give you the same amount of EXTREMELY HIGH BURST that a warrior gets.

So the goal is that classes with a lot of long, powerful cooldowns (also note that none of these cooldowns really impact a warriors rotation like ascendance does,) need to be brought down so that they can put a lid on CD stacking. If you've got two big CD's or tie some kind of utility to these CD's (I.E: How Berserker rage breaks fear/disorient/etc) then they become interesting because it's more about "Do I pop this at the start of the match? Or wait for the priest to fear me, then pop it?" It's less of an issue.

Having one or two potent cooldowns is interesting, as long as there's some mechanic in place that encourages you to not want to hit them on cooldown 100% of the time (charges are awesome for this.)

[Txiv]

+nature damage doesnt change our priority at all, unless u mean reset SS every so often, then sure sounds cool for PVE, but PVP rng not so much.

The post was a passive where elemental shamans would with a chance on Es/ fs ascend for 6 seconds. In this time they could fire lava burst with no cooldown and their cl ( lava beam) would increase with each jump. It would be exactly like current ascendance but a random short proc you would have to adapt to to add some flavor to the lb spam. Not sure what you are referring to

[Kazgrel]

The individual CDs being toned down are all the ones that can be stacked. Example as previously mentioned being warrior skull banner + recklessness. Any warrior with half a brain cell has those macroed together, so what's the point of them being separate buttons?

Shaman example would be if all shaman had EM. More than likely we would all have it macroed to ascendance. Maybe that comes to light in WoD (since we have so much haste from gear now it kills the value of EM).

[-aiko-]

I wouldn't mind Ascendance just going out the door and having buffs compensate. I'm not terribly fond of it.

[Volitar]

If they chop ascendance I will play wow again and raid on my Shaman. Please god remove that awful Elemental Spell.

[Blithe]

I wouldn't mind Ascendance just going out the door and having buffs compensate. I'm not terribly fond of it.

Agreed. Restoration's has always been my favourite in terms of mechanics, though. The visual would be nice if they were changed e.g. Elemental shaman is bathed in flame while ascended (like a Warlock with 4 BE's, and no more cheap ascendant model - so lazy on their part).

I'd still be happy if the ability was removed, though.

[Socialhealer]

removal of skull banner/ascendance/stormlash, basically gives us no cooldowns, no burst, we'll need lightning bolt to basically double in damage to keep up with other classes, so far a huge part of our damage is tied to that burst, and outside it we're probably the lowest single target in the game, basically elemental needs a huge overall with the way our spells currently deal damage, otherwise lightning bolt is going to need to hit so hard even lava burst won't be worth casting.

i already fear 6.0 raiding like dragon soul, removal of skull banners/stormlash will most likely make me drop from 400k+ on iron jugg to like 325k.

[Terminal Lance]

I'm hoping they cut one of the Elemental Totems and just roll its effects to the other. Either the Fire ele will gain the Earth's defensive capabilities or the Rock gets the Fire's damage.

[Blithe]

removal of skull banner/ascendance/stormlash, basically gives us no cooldowns, no burst, we'll need lightning bolt to basically double in damage to keep up with other classes, so far a huge part of our damage is tied to that burst, and outside it we're probably the lowest single target in the game, basically elemental needs a huge overall with the way our spells currently deal damage, otherwise lightning bolt is going to need to hit so hard even lava burst won't be worth casting.

i already fear 6.0 raiding like dragon soul, removal of skull banners/stormlash will most likely make me drop from 400k+ on iron jugg to like 325k.

I should've phrased it properly, but Ascendance as it currently is doesn't feel like a proper cooldown. I'd prefer it be turned into a stance of a less effect, like Metamorphosis or Chakra for example and then compensate us with some other ability.

[Kazgrel]

So what exactly (at least from ele shaman) is it about ascendance that's so despised? I think it's a rather neat cd, being it's not the typical "hurr durr increase damage/crit/haste/etc. by x%" that most all other classes have. Oh no, for 15 seconds we spam one button...hell, we do that more often than not now anytime there is AOE to be had.

From a resto standpoint, I suppose it does pale in comparison to HTT, but I haven't played resto in close to 8 months now.