Alpha Elemental

[Zhazi]

For you guys in Aplha I have a question.

Lava shock applies Flame shock to the target while we are Ascendance specced. Lets assume I use a Lava Shock at 100 maelstrom to get max damage on Lava Shock. Do this maelstrom use transfer in to my Flame Shock duration so it actually have a duration on (100/20)*30 = 250 seconds. this would give us the opportunity to adjust our playstyle towards current class Trinket if wanted, but I have a feeling this is not the case although it in theory is mathematically correct as we use 4 times the Maelstrom compared to a normal FS.

[Nyel]

TL;DR LvB has much more perks than LB. LvB will still end up on the top our damage meter.

Those perks don't change that much at all (imho).

Lava Burst's damage scaling is just not good at all (the same issue it has in WoD).

Talents like Path of Flame, Echo of the Elements, Elemental Fusion etc. are simply too bad in comparison.

Sure Lava Burst off CD has a higher priority than LB but the results are just disappointing.

- - - Updated - - -

The problem i see with the current implementation of elemental is simply the following: there is too much focus in improving the efficiency of Builders instead of spenders: most of our talents and artifact traits improve damage on lightning bolt and lava burst, while the damage of earthshock (as our main spender) is not modifed at all.

Usually, a builder/spender rotation naturally lends itself to a playstyle with heavy focus on improving the frequency with which we use our spenders. These spenders should also be the main focus of the rotation, having passives and spell interactions further increase the DPET of our spenders.

Blizzard however wants to put a twist in this classic builder/spender playstyle by providing a lot of passives/traits that increase the efficiency of builders, making them do "some damage" as well. The problem that you get with this is that you are no longer really looking forward to using your spender, but focus completely on using your builder with all the temporary buffs you get. Using the spender is no longer a high-point in the rotation, but rather some necessary evil needed to not waste resources.

Blizzard is doing the same to Moonkins as well, and frankly i do not like it a bit.

I totally agree. This issue is also existing in WoD for Elemental Shamans.

The whole Lightning Shield and Earth Shock synergy is just disappointing when you look at the results. You spent so much time to build up those stacks and then you unload them in a massive blast that - at the end of the day - deals ~ 10% of your total damage - yeah wow, very nice.

It's the same in Legion and it's even worse when you consider that Elemental Blast, a talent, will most likely deal more overall damage in your rotation than your actual spender. That's no good class design.

[shammypie]

I don't think you can just compare it from the single damage alone. You have to put another aspects in the account. Now let's compare both perks on both spells.

Lava Burst perks:
+ Always crit with Flame Shock, means Elemental Fury always up and alway triggering Ele Focus as well
+ Path of Flame (10% more damage)
+ Lava Surge (supported with Elemental Fusion)
+ Echo of the Elements (make Lava Surge proc more manageable, means more LvB as well)
+ Lava Surge instant cast LvB = more mobility (while LB not)
+ LvB generate 15 maels (just like you mentioned)
+ Lava Imbued (artifact trait, 10% extra LvB dmg on 3 points; 20% on 6 points if you focus on this)
+ Molten Blast (artifact trait, 10% extra crit LvB dmg on 3 points; 20% on 6 points)
+ Volcanic Inferno (artifact trait, [5+250% SP] per tick dot for 6 secs). While maybe doesn't do as much dmg, but still it's a passive and bonus damage count. Only proc by LvB.
+ Elementalist (artifact trait, reduce FET cd per cast by 3 secs on 3 points; 6 secs on 6 points). Maybe the least perks of all, but still a purpose to cast LvB over LB for those who build for Ele summoner.

LB perks:
+ Supercharged (artifact passive, cause next 3 LB to overload two additional times)
+ Storm Keeper. Artifact mini cd (1.5 mins cd, 1.5 secs cast). Cause next 3 LB (or CL) deal 200% additional damage.
+ Lightning Rod. Mini cd talent (1 min cd). Cause nature damage to deal extra 20% dmg to the target for 20 secs.
+ LB generate 10 maels.
+ Call the Thunder (artifact trait, 10% extra LB dmg on 3 points; 20% on 6 points)
+ Shamanism

Shared perks:
+ Elemental Focus
+ Elemental Overload (mastery)
+ Totemic Fury (if talented)
+ Elemental Empowerment (artifact traits)
+ Master of the Elements (artifact traits)

From the lists above. You can see that overall, LvB has much more perks than LB. That makes me believe, on the real boss fight situation (let it be mobile fight or turret fight) even with bursty LB, LvB will still be our top dps. Because LvB has much more uptime (thanks to Lava Surge), despite it wasn't used to be a filler. Hard hitting LB is applied only on stacked buff, and it's up every 1.5 mins or so. While LvB has constant perks on it.

Tbh I couldn't careless whatever filler we will have later. LvB and LB stand on pretty much the same position as builder. I'd rather have Lava Surge proc any day, than having a bursty LvB (like it glorious day on WoTLK) but no cd reset and no instant cast. I'd play Destro lock instead if I want that so much Chaos Bolt-ish skill.

TL;DR LvB has much more perks than LB. LvB will still end up on the top our damage meter.

i don't have beta but i can summarize research results from others. LvB damage will exceed LB damage due to the following reasons. Note # of perks =/= better. First is that unless you have your artifact maxed with 3 points in all LvB your not seeing the end result.

Lava burst
Base Lava burst damage = 133% SP, crit = 332.5%
base lightning bolt damage = 120% SP, crit = 300%
after artifact damage = 143% SP, crit = 367.5% if molten blast is multiplitive or 393.25%
^ This assumes that buffs to damage get the crit multiplier of 2.5 unless specified as crit damage and work additively.
lb would be 130%, crit = 325%
Volcanic inferno proc = base damage of (250*6) for 1500% sp not including crit/haste
Auto proc of passive for 20% extra damage on next spell. If we take into consideration this will most likely be lightning bolts and non crits (assume mastery/haste build) then it adds an additional 26% SP base to each for total 52% spellpower.
Now not considering rng procs LvB is approx (367.5+52) = 419% damage (444 with path of flame) which is 219% SP dps or 438% SP with lava surge proc.
Lightning bolt is 156% (adding in modifier from LvB) which is very close to LvB although LvB would be 171.6% (439 crit) with a focus proc however this occuring is far less likely than LB due free procs from LvB. Although this is all assuming an additive nature of procs and passives from talents/artifacts, a multiplitive nature would increase these numbers.


Beta Live Scenario:
As from what i have been hearing artifact weapon traits aren't available yet aside from the first one yet (i could be wrong). From what it looks like i think people are forgetting about the focus proc from LvB hence why they are seeing LB crits higher than LvB ones. After filling your weapon out LB should crit for 325/390% and LvB for 367/440%. What people are mostly seeing is LB criting for 390 and LvB for 367 which is why LB looks to crit for more. (unless we are talking about overload procs as well as the other passives, too much math for right now to get into here.

[Jotaux]

With elemental I am finding I am constantly starved for maelstrom. I think this will get better as I get used to the new resource and get some gear but I find it so frustrating.

[pixelated senpai]

With elemental I am finding I am constantly starved for maelstrom. I think this will get better as I get used to the new resource and get some gear but I find it so frustrating.

what? almost every vid ive seen doesn't seem to have Maelstrom building issue, if anything they have to get rid of it all so not to cap and waste resources.

[jimmyolsen]

what? almost every vid ive seen doesn't seem to have Maelstrom building issue, if anything they have to get rid of it all so not to cap and waste resources.

Without the artifact talent to increase CL jumps beyond 3 targets, Maelstrom is slow to build for AoE situations. At 80 maelstrom, EQ is very slow to get running, and if you're trying to run Magnitude and EB as well, it's hard to keep EQ up.

For Single Target in the 680 level 100 greens: 53% mastery - over 100% with trinket/eb buffs, 14% haste (53 with trinket/eb), I would say that maelstrom generation feels good with EB. It occasionally serves as a limiting reagent if you earth shock between EBs, especially right after a Stormkeeper. Maelstrom totem could help with that, but I haven't been selecting it for dummy practice. With Echo, Maelstrom is never a worry on dummies.

In a raid fight, I could see maelstrom being a concern after movement.


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A balance issue I'm noticing is that our mastery % per point is far too high (at least at level 100). At level 100, 1.5k mastery gives about 33%, which means that with the 20% baseline you reach cap around 3.7k mastery. EB grants 1063 at level 100 (3254k at level 110 according to wowhead).

Eventually I'll bother leveling up rather than just attacking a target dummy. If anyone has leveled on the alpha, I'm curious what your mastery values are.

[Kyruze]

I agree that Earth Shock can easily be very boring to build up to and only do a small percent of our overall dps. However, I still wouldn't want to sacrifice too much damage from the builder spells and have a slow ramp of damage then a big burst. I feel this is what the shaman devs would do to fix this. This would make target switching worse imo.

[Rezhka]

Those perks don't change that much at all (imho).

Lava Burst's damage scaling is just not good at all (the same issue it has in WoD).

Talents like Path of Flame, Echo of the Elements, Elemental Fusion etc. are simply too bad in comparison.

Sure Lava Burst off CD has a higher priority than LB but the results are just disappointing.

Idk, maybe you're too focus on the damage alone that you get so dismissive on other utility perks that lead to more uptime or other function. I agree that WoD's LvB is the worst with many times damage tweaking. But you can't simply put aside another aspect that make LvB isn't as bad as you consider. Instant cast from Lava Surge is good for mobility and anti interrupt on pvp. LvB always crit, trigger Elemental Focus later in Legion. That two perks alone is already make LvB>LB to me, despite the damage. I wonder, are you expecting that LvB proc as strong as insta-Pyroblast on fire mage? Not that I complaint if they give us the same damage, tho unlikely to happen lol.

[Nyel]

I wonder, are you expecting that LvB proc as strong as insta-Pyroblast on fire mage? Not that I complaint if they give us the same damage, tho unlikely to happen lol.

I'm not expecting a Pyroblast-like damage for LvB but it used to be our hard hitting spell back in the good old days. And now it's just... meh. I don't know. And sure Lava Surge procs Volcanic Eruption (that seems to be a very strong damage proc) but besides that it's just a mediocre spell.

Just compare it to Pyroblast - I'd like to say Fire Mages will have more Pyro procs than we will have LvB procs and just compare the damage of both...

For me something is missing in that once great LvB mechanic.

[Kuriyama]

Hey, I have a question for Elemental Shaman. I currently main a Ret Paladin in Legion but have zero confidence in Blizz with the way they're looking in the latest alpha build. I mained an Ele Shammy in MoP and it was a very fun spec to play. I felt like a cannon, firing off so many spells with Elemental Overload. Now it's back, I'm really interested in the spec again.

Would I be crazy to go from my Paladin back to my Shaman?

[scorchmed]

Hey, I have a question for Elemental Shaman. I currently main a Ret Paladin in Legion but have zero confidence in Blizz with the way they're looking in the latest alpha build. I mained an Ele Shammy in MoP and it was a very fun spec to play. I felt like a cannon, firing off so many spells with Elemental Overload. Now it's back, I'm really interested in the spec again.

Would I be crazy to go from my Paladin back to my Shaman?

Actually ele is fine even now, but since I have both "alpha ele" and "live ele" I can certainly say - legion ele is awesome compared to wod.

[Jotaux]

Actually ele is fine even now, but since I have both "alpha ele" and "live ele" I can certainly say - legion ele is awesome compared to wod.

Does it get a lot better with more artifact levels? Elemental shaman has been my main since wotlk but I'm finding it hard to keep playing it on the alpha, especially after giving enhance a try.

[Kuriyama]

Actually ele is fine even now, but since I have both "alpha ele" and "live ele" I can certainly say - legion ele is awesome compared to wod.

I dropped Ele at the beginning of WoD when the damage was stupidly low. Dinged Shaman to 100, did dungeons and hated it. The spec was okay but being barely above a tank made me want to die. I'm really attached to my Paladin now but if Elemental is fun and the numbers are good, I'd go back to it since then I won't be asked to be a back-up tank.

[shammypie]

Idk, maybe you're too focus on the damage alone that you get so dismissive on other utility perks that lead to more uptime or other function. I agree that WoD's LvB is the worst with many times damage tweaking. But you can't simply put aside another aspect that make LvB isn't as bad as you consider. Instant cast from Lava Surge is good for mobility and anti interrupt on pvp. LvB always crit, trigger Elemental Focus later in Legion. That two perks alone is already make LvB>LB to me, despite the damage. I wonder, are you expecting that LvB proc as strong as insta-Pyroblast on fire mage? Not that I complaint if they give us the same damage, tho unlikely to happen lol.

this is pretty much true as to the mechanics of LvB. In Cata and before it never was a giant hard hitting ability the whole point was that it auto crits and triggers clearcasting now elemental focus. It's use is the sole reason why eles don't have to gear crit. I do think they should reduce the cast time back to 1.5s base since the initial increase to LB time was due to the giant increase in damage they gave it back in the day. Back then the whole point LvB was a lot better than LB was similar to now along with a shorter cast time for hard casting.

[jimmyolsen]

this is pretty much true as to the mechanics of LvB. In Cata and before it never was a giant hard hitting ability the whole point was that it auto crits and triggers clearcasting now elemental focus.

Elemental Focus is hugely influential. Flame Shocks immediately after lava burst get the full 20% buff on the dot for the full duration (think EF). It promotes the usage of a lava burst just before and in the middle of Stormkeeper+LR if possible (ideally: lavaburst ->SK+LR -> 2XLB -> Lava Burst -> ES, LB, which requires either a surge proc or Echo to pull off)

[pixelated senpai]

Elemental Focus is hugely influential. Flame Shocks immediately after lava burst get the full 20% buff on the dot for the full duration (think EF). It promotes the usage of a lava burst just before and in the middle of Stormkeeper+LR if possible (ideally: lavaburst ->SK+LR -> 2XLB -> Lava Burst -> ES, LB, which requires either a surge proc or Echo to pull off)

Doesnt FS have to be up before LvB procs EF? and when it does why would you waste the 20% buff on FS when it already does so little. I was under the impression FS primary function was to proc LvB and the little aoe artifact procs.

[shammypie]

Doesnt FS have to be up before LvB procs EF? and when it does why would you waste the 20% buff on FS when it already does so little. I was under the impression FS primary function was to proc LvB and the little aoe artifact procs.

the initial hit is weak but the dot as a whole is strong. you need it up for auto crits and the op is referring to act of refreshing the dot. You would want to do so with high maelstrom to get the extended duration

[Jotaux]

the initial hit is weak but the dot as a whole is strong. you need it up for auto crits and the op is referring to act of refreshing the dot. You would want to do so with high maelstrom to get the extended duration

In the alpha I thought they made it so you need flameshock up on the target for it to crit again.

[pixelated senpai]

In the alpha I thought they made it so you need flameshock up on the target for it to crit again.

For LvB to crit FS needs to be up, yes.

I'm still waiting on the patch notes to say FS no longer cost Maelstrom. Aren't we the only spec that has a somewhat minor dot the cost resource for casters?

[Kazgrel]

this is pretty much true as to the mechanics of LvB. In Cata and before it never was a giant hard hitting ability the whole point was that it auto crits and triggers clearcasting now elemental focus. It's use is the sole reason why eles don't have to gear crit. I do think they should reduce the cast time back to 1.5s base since the initial increase to LB time was due to the giant increase in damage they gave it back in the day. Back then the whole point LvB was a lot better than LB was similar to now along with a shorter cast time for hard casting.

Huh? LvB hit like a freight train in Wrath. No insta-cast proc to reset the cd on it, but I'd gladly take that if it mean having a hard hitting spell once again.