Why should I play Elemental in WoD?

[TrumpIsPresident]

(or even buy WoD in the first place)

Admittedly I do not have the time to follow every update and watch every Alpha video but the ones I do catch leave me with the impression that Elemental Shaman will climb to new heights of suck in WoD.

Anybody care to educate me as to why that might not be the case?

[Blithe]

Elemental should feel a lot like it did in Wrath, back when everyone was somewhat equal in the arms race. Cataclysm didn't really do us much justice as all the other casters started using more instant cast abilities while we were still stuck in the dark age of casting, until of course we received our glyph. The arms race was further improved upon in Mists, and I feel as if Warlords will finally go back to how it was supposed to be.

[KCguy]

(or even buy WoD in the first place)

Admittedly I do not have the time to follow every update and watch every Alpha video but the ones I do catch leave me with the impression that Elemental Shaman will climb to new heights of suck in WoD.

Anybody care to educate me as to why that might not be the case?

Much of the stuff being removed are bloated spells/passives or spells that specs have no need for and are just being reorganized. Yes, we can't cast while moving, but the spec will get some moving spells to help. They've taken some blows, but it doesn't seem as bad as all the "remove x spells" seem, IMO. They said they are going to substantially buff their single target dps, so if that does end up happening, a lot of people will more than likely not care as much in the end. Because that's been the real problem for the spec.

[Krulani]

If you truly believe the loss of mobile Lightning Bolt will crush the spec, you aren't a real Elemental fan. You can't compare it to Wrath Elemental because we have a lot of tools (and instants) we didn't have then. Fulmination, instant Lava Burst procs, Unleash Elements (which is renamed Unleash Flame), not to mention Spiritwalker's Grace.

Go play something easier, we don't want "Fair weather fans".

[Chubathingy]

If you liked Wrath Ele you might like WoD Ele. As long as the things you liked in Wrath do NOT include:

Offhealing.
Fancy raid buffs.
Fire Nova / Pancake EQ.
A rotation based on math as opposed to Procs.

[Snes]

I'm sad to see that they gave up on Earthquake and scrapped it instead of just making nature damage. Would have been nice to do something other than spam chain lightning for AoE, also it was nice to be able to mass interrupt big packs of adds by knocking them down at random to reduce damage to the tank.

[Blithe]

If you truly believe the loss of mobile Lightning Bolt will crush the spec, you aren't a real Elemental fan. You can't compare it to Wrath Elemental because we have a lot of tools (and instants) we didn't have then. Fulmination, instant Lava Burst procs, Unleash Elements (which is renamed Unleash Flame), not to mention Spiritwalker's Grace.

Go play something easier, we don't want "Fair weather fans".

It can be compared objectively though. We've gained a lot of tools coming from that expansion yes, but the meta is going back to that era where mobility wasn't as prevalent, casters actually cast their spells and you weren't crowd controlled for 80% of the game. Not to mention a lot of mechanics and systems quality of life changes have been added too.

I sincerely believe that this expansion's PvP will be very similar to S7 and S8.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm sad to see that they gave up on Earthquake and scrapped it instead of just making nature damage. Would have been nice to do something other than spam chain lightning for AoE, also it was nice to be able to mass interrupt big packs of adds by knocking them down at random to reduce damage to the tank.

If they removed the knock-down mechanic, lowered the cast time to 1.5 or 2.0 seconds (down from 2.5 seconds) and changed its damage school from Physical to Nature, people would've actually used it.

It just goes to show how stubborn Blizzard is. We love Earthquake thematically, but it just didn't feel right mechanically and they refused to change that so it ended up getting removed.

[Deleted]

On Topic:

I think Elemental will be strong in WoD because of Multistrike. I'm still waiting to see how it interacts with us, but if it is synergistic with our Mastery then it will be an incredibly good stat. We will scale very, very well as the expansion goes on, something that has notoriously been the opposite for us in past expansions. Our movement issues will come back, but not nearly to the extent they were in early cata/before that.

Off Topic: I think they removed Earthquake because when it comes to AoE Chain Lightning spam is 1 - strong enough and 2 - Feels freaking awesome and fun to do. We don't need it. They tried to make it interesting with the knockdown, but that was either useless (as it ended up being) or just plain stupid to play against (as it was on beta). You could stand in the centre of it on beta and laugh at the weakling melee who could barely touch you. Spamming, AoE knockdowns was a bad mechanic to try and make work, and in the end it didn't.

[Aleksej89]

By what i have seen so far, Shamans are amazing in WoD.

So many issues and useless things removed/resolved, a lot of nice improvements - huge polish of AoE damage and even healing...

Just awesome!

[Chubathingy]

If you truly believe the loss of mobile Lightning Bolt will crush the spec, you aren't a real Elemental fan. You can't compare it to Wrath Elemental because we have a lot of tools (and instants) we didn't have then. Fulmination, instant Lava Burst procs, Unleash Elements (which is renamed Unleash Flame), not to mention Spiritwalker's Grace.

Go play something easier, we don't want "Fair weather fans".

For the entirety of ICC we had instant LvB procs UE and a shock to use while moving. The difference now will be that you can glyph SWG down to a 1min CD with an 8second duration. Also UE as a movement filler can be lost VIA the talent and the shock(Fulm) is actually a rotational ability as opposed to Frst shock in ICC.

I do think Ele will be just as viable as it has been for the majority of the last 2 Xpacs as there will be plenty of room to add blanket % dmg increases since we won't be adding as much raid utility as we have been(in the way of healing).

[Gistwiki]

For the entirety of ICC we had instant LvB procs UE and a shock to use while moving.

Lava Surge was added in 4.0, and did not cause instant Lava Bursts until after it was tested via the original Firelands tier 4-pc bonus in Cataclysm. UE was added in 4.0. Edit: Or it's possible that I'm insane. I feel like I remember being able to get a Flame Shock up to 20 minutes during ICC because of a reset mechanic and the 4-pc bonus that tier but I can find absolutely nothing to support that idea. Maybe it was after 4.0 went live but before Cata release.

The only thing we had in ICC that you're describing is a shock to use while moving. I agree with your second paragraph though. Ele will be as viable as ever.

[Rezhka]

I can't judge how this spec will go at this point. Since alpha is alpha. Its a classic response, i know. But it's true. While ability pruning is still going here and there. EQ being removed yesterday, but it's not guaranteed they won't bring it back later with an upgrade. To me, seeing how ele goes from "nothing on patch notes" until yesterday we finally had some notes added, is restoring my faith on this spec. At least we're not really forgotten that much.

Imo ability prune until the latest notes is fine. What's really concern me is our damage passive lost (7% from FT imbue, 10% from Burning Wrath, 25% from Ele Focus). But since development is still going and damage tuning is also still in progress, i just hope they'll compensate the loss.

[Blithe]

I can't judge how this spec will go at this point. Since alpha is alpha. Its a classic response, i know. But it's true. While ability pruning is still going here and there. EQ being removed yesterday, but it's not guaranteed they won't bring it back later with an upgrade. To me, seeing how ele goes from "nothing on patch notes" until yesterday we finally had some notes added, is restoring my faith on this spec. At least we're not really forgotten that much.

Imo ability prune until the latest notes is fine. What's really concern me is our damage passive lost (7% from FT imbue, 10% from Burning Wrath, 25% from Ele Focus). But since development is still going and damage tuning is also still in progress, i just hope they'll compensate the loss.

I'm sure those'll be baked in like almost all of the passives that were removed.

[Chubathingy]

Lava Surge was added in 4.0, and did not cause instant Lava Bursts until after it was tested via the original Firelands tier 4-pc bonus in Cataclysm. UE was added in 4.0.

4.0 was the Cata patch I think ? So ICC was still the active raid(for like 3 of the 800months worth of ICC anyway >.>).

The original Tier10 4p was "LvB adds 6secs to your FS", if I recall that allowed you to get it up to like 48 seconds per cast or something crazy. It was also the case that Fire Nova spread FS at "full duration" and thus did funny things to it if the fight was cleavy enough long enough.

I could have sworn something gave us instant LvB's... But I am probably mistaken.

[Blithe]

4.0 was the Cata patch I think ? So ICC was still the active raid(for like 3 of the 800months worth of ICC anyway >.>).

The original Tier10 4p was "LvB adds 6secs to your FS", if I recall that allowed you to get it up to like 48 seconds per cast or something crazy. It was also the case that Fire Nova spread FS at "full duration" and thus did funny things to it if the fight was cleavy enough long enough.

I could have sworn something gave us instant LvB's... But I am probably mistaken.

Hey, ICC was great! I'd rather a year of that over what we have now with SoO!

Lava Surge:
Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): Now also has a chance to cause your next Lava Burst spell to be instant.
Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): Added.

Lava Burst:
Patch 5.3.0 (2013-05-21): Now has a 2 second cast time, up from 1.5 seconds, and deals 25% more damage.
Patch 5.2.0 (2013-03-05): Base damage has been reduced by 33% but now always deals a critical strike. When cast on targets affected by Flame Shock, it now deals 50% more damage.
Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): Now an Elemental and Restoration specialization ability.
Patch 3.2.2 (2009-09-22): This ability no longer ever consumes a Flame Shock debuff off of the target.

Flame Shock:
Patch 5.2.0 (2013-03-05): Duration has been increased by 25%.
Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): DoT duration increased from 18 to 24 sec.
Patch 3.3.3 (2010-03-23): The damage-over-time component of this ability can now produce critical strikes and is affected by spell haste.
Patch 3.2.2 (2009-09-22): The duration of all ranks has been increased by 6 seconds.

[whyabadi]

Because Fulmination is going to consume up to 14 + 5 (?)* Lightning Shield charges.
*Thanks Chubathingy

[Chubathingy]

There is a perk for +5 Moar !!

[Oopsmezedya]

Im more interested in ele now not because of the changes to ele so much as the fact they are toning down other casters and making them have to actually CAST to do most of their damage instead of just running around throwing out powerful instants like a ranged melee class, that was always melee niche and i never saw a reason to devote time to ele when they were the only caster who had to turret for most of their damage

But then there's the fact they are cutting ability bloat which for shaman was the worst offender of every class, not having to have 20 diffrent imbues/shields/totems on my bar will already make the enjoyment of playing shaman 300% better, and then if they just buff earthquake im golden

[shamantime]

Im more interested in ele now not because of the changes to ele so much as the fact they are toning down other casters and making them have to actually CAST to do most of their damage instead of just running around throwing out powerful instants like a ranged melee class, that was always melee niche and i never saw a reason to devote time to ele when they were the only caster who had to turret for most of their damage

But then there's the fact they are cutting ability bloat which for shaman was the worst offender of every class, not having to have 20 diffrent imbues/shields/totems on my bar will already make the enjoyment of playing shaman 300% better, and then if they just buff earthquake im golden

They removed EQ in the last build it seems.

[Anzen]

The devs have promised us that Elemental will be competitive and that they are removing the last remnants of the hybrid tax (which everyone claims doesn't exist despite numerous Blizzard devs referencing it).

Now whether or not that will happen is something entirely different.

I'd roll a Mage, one of their specs is always top tier, every tier, without fail.