Legion: Elemental Specific

[kulbaen]

I hope this doesn't seem out of place and I appreciate the previous "all-in-one" thread about the Legion changes, but I'm hoping others would like to have a focused discussion on the Legion changes and how they effect Elemental Shaman specifically as well. I found myself needing to comb through a lot of information about the other specs to find interesting input about impressions on Elemental.

Okay, with that disclaimer out of the way, I wanted to see how others in the Elemental field are viewing the information we've received thus far. I've not yet sat down to focus completely on dissecting what's out there, but so far my first impression seems to be one that not much has changed and Elemental has been stripped down to the bare essentials. So, my peers, tell me what I'm missing and if you've discovered anything interesting so far?

[Nyoken]

Everything is gonna work the same way that it does now pretty much so dont worry!

[scorchmed]

No BIG changes, some mechanics are changed and new resource will be instead of old fulmination. Still called fulmination btw. Most of totems have baseline projection and few cool things like 15 sec cd blink. Also i saw some pvp talent ability dont remember the name but something tells me it will work like shadow shaman's fire net ability in dota.

[Starsha]

Talents overall look interesting, but could very easily turn into cookie cutter. Tier-by-Tier there are a few interesting points (sustained dps vs burst dps vs aoe vs cleave etc), but setting up builds you basically choose to buff elemental damage, or buff lava burst damage. It could very easily end up being you take all of these talents, or all of these talents.
If there's fights where one build is good, then other fights where the other build is good, then that'll be fine. But only time will tell - and could change in the next tier.
Echo giving 3 charges to LvB is actually awesome. That's your target-swap burst damage right there. ES>FS>LvB>LvB>LvB. Especially with all the other LvB buffing talents. AS would probably be the elemental-build talent. Which means poor EB will get ignored for a whole expac again. Hopefully it gets enough raw damage that it can compete with AS in an instance-by-instance situation.
Liquid Magma totem is still random targets....

and Gust of Wind makes me happy.

[bloodmoth13]

Core rotation is Basically the same, just shock system has been reworked.

Shocks no longer share a cooldown, but now share a resource; maelstrom.
Flameshock cost up to 20 maelstrom, increasing its duration depending on how much spent
Earth shock consume ALL maelstrom, dealing damage based on how much spent, up to a HUGE amount
Earthquake also cost maelstrom.

Basically, you can multi dot with flameshock now and rather than spending fulmation on earth shock while chain lightning, you use it on earth quake.

Much smoother rotation! Personally i think it looks really good, some interesting talent choices there too!

[Silvus]

First of all, Nice topic. Couldt see the trees in the forrest anymore in the other topic regarding elemental shaman.

I think only time will tell, but to me it looks promising atleast.

[Seezer]

Why is Ascendance a talent now?

[Zephre]

Why is Ascendance a talent now?

Not to happy about that myself.

[Starsha]

It's not that bad. Current Ascendance is a pretty poor dps cooldown. But with a 1m duration it's intended to be something that can get stacked with herolust warp. It'd be a fairly solid dps improvement when stacked like that.
That said, it's still a fairly poor implementation since you'll still be using MS on earth shock - which doesn't get modified by Ascendance.
Your regular rotational abilities will be balanced around not having Ascendance regularly anymore. At which point Ascendance itself is only competing with the rest of the talent tree.

[Sencha]

This spec being one of the most boring spec in WoD, I was also expecting a big change in the rotation/spells. Not sure the talents will be enough to make it more interesting.

[Nyoken]

It's not that bad. Current Ascendance is a pretty poor dps cooldown. But with a 1m duration it's intended to be something that can get stacked with herolust warp. It'd be a fairly solid dps improvement when stacked like that.
That said, it's still a fairly poor implementation since you'll still be using MS on earth shock - which doesn't get modified by Ascendance.
Your regular rotational abilities will be balanced around not having Ascendance regularly anymore. At which point Ascendance itself is only competing with the rest of the talent tree.

Well... It's gonna be even worse now as we are ele shamans! a whole min of free lava bursts? I mean think of it, not gonna be that powerful im sure.... sure if it was a warlock CD it would be insane... but meh....

[Irisia]

Just noticed we're loosing Spiritwalker's Grace in Legion.

[destero1]

But our LB (might/will) be instant cast. (patch notes say, that it'll be instant, but then again Totemic Fury talent states it reduces the cast time of LB by 50%).

Other thing that puzzles me is the permanent Fire Elemental, but the buff of the elemental is just for the first 15 secs after summoning.

I just think that our rotation is will be a bit too simple. Procs make a bit more dynamic, but the point is that you'll still smash LvB on cd,
keep FS up and cast ES so that you wont waste maelstrom. Fill the gaps with LB.

So basic ability priorities:
1) if time_left(FS) < 5s, then FS
2) if maelstrom >= 90, then ES
3) LvB
4) LB

[Menubrea]

But our LB (might/will) be instant cast. (patch notes say, that it'll be instant, but then again Totemic Fury talent states it reduces the cast time of LB by 50%).

Other thing that puzzles me is the permanent Fire Elemental, but the buff of the elemental is just for the first 15 secs after summoning.

I just think that our rotation is will be a bit too simple. Procs make a bit more dynamic, but the point is that you'll still smash LvB on cd,
keep FS up and cast ES so that you wont waste maelstrom. Fill the gaps with LB.

So basic ability priorities:
1) if time_left(FS) < 5s, then FS
2) if maelstrom >= 90, then ES
3) LvB
4) LB

It's not gonna be instant, maybe for Enhancement.

[Prankish]

One thing that concerns me is the way our new utility was added into the game. Astral Shift and Shamanistic rage are both gone only leaving EET which also serves as a raid CD. SWG is also gone and replaced with our new lvl 30 talents. Much like our defensive's, we were given compensation but that tier also includes what is essentially druids roar. What I'm thinking will happen on most fights is that, although there may be a greater reason to bring Elemental Shamans to a raid, we will be a bit less personally versatile as our only defensive's and movement CD's will be controlled by the RL.

With Astral Shift, Sham Rage, and Nature's Guardian I was pretty much never dead in any fight. I'm very sad to see them all go.

[Menubrea]

One thing that concerns me is the way our new utility was added into the game. Astral Shift and Shamanistic rage are both gone only leaving EET which also serves as a raid CD.

There's no way the mitigation from Earth Elemental is going to apply to the whole raid. 30 % raid mitigation for 15 seconds every 1 minute would be absolutely stupid. You could just stack 4 at that point and have permanent 30 % mitigation on everyone. It's meant to be Elementals version of Shamanistic Rage for sure.

[Deleted]

Well... It's gonna be even worse now as we are ele shamans! a whole min of free lava bursts? I mean think of it, not gonna be that powerful im sure.... sure if it was a warlock CD it would be insane... but meh....

Its also counter intuitive to Lava Surge again yes the next LvB will be instant but makes Surge near useless for a whole min.

[Irisia]

With Astral Shift, Sham Rage, and Nature's Guardian I was pretty much never dead in any fight. I'm very sad to see them all go.

To summarize, they remove our ability to properly off-heal, our healing cooldowns, our defensive cooldowns and our defensive talents, our Wind Walk, Grounding and Tremor Totem.

They add nothing. (Edit: They added a defensive component to Earth Elemental, so that's at least something.)

[Tyze]

Gust of Wind is the only positive thing really

[jimmyolsen]

To summarize, they remove our ability to properly off-heal, our healing cooldowns, our defensive cooldowns and our defensive talents, our Wind Walk, Grounding and Tremor Totem.

They add nothing.

They removed a lot of survival abilities. Most notably, Hunters lost deterrence. Here's what's left

Boomkin: Barkskin (20% for 12 seconds, 1-min)
Hunters: Exhilaration (50% heal for marks, 30% or BM with full pet heal).
Mage: Ice Barrier (spellpower X 5 absorb), Ice Block (talent, same line as Cauterize 3-min cd)
Warlock: Dark Pact (talent, 80% of demon's hp absorb, 1-min)
Shadow: Dispersion (60% for 6 seconds, 2 mins).

Dispersion and Iceblock are both very strong, but Earth Elemental is comparable to Barkskin Pact even before the talent and clearly better after. Gust of Wind gives us Blink/Disengage, so unlike warlocks we can have both an instant movement & a DR at the same time. We also still have ghost wolf for really long movement.

In regards to what we lost:

1) Windwalk was replaced with Wind Rush, admittedly not as good but still something and windwalk wasn't used at all in HFC.
2) When's the last time you used Tremor on a boss fight? In PvP sure.
3) Grounding will a big miss in PvP. For PVE it was a luxury when it worked, because Blizzard tended to program so that grounding didn't work. Resto got Earthen Shield to replace Grounding, which looks like it'll have far more general utility.
4) Gust of Wind is infinitely better than Unleash's speed boost.