Ele shaman... the forgotten spec

[Deleted]

Except Elemental is also in a good place.
I really don't understand why so many people think otherwise. Its like we are playing two different games.

Is it because Enhance is representing so well in raids?
I don't see how anyone who actually plays Elemental to its potential can think a spec with that much utility and burst potential can be in a bad place.

They were MUCH MUCH worse in WoD, let me tell you. ESPECIALLY in 5 mans, compared to Enhance.

Raids usually aren't about burst potential and utility. They are generally about sustained single target DPS and quick priority target damage (which is not the same as burst potential), which is where Elemental is significantly behind other Ranged DPS.

Legion so far is an excercise in utter and complete spec imbalance, the complete opposite of the design philosophy spread around prior to Legion launch where balance and viability ("bring the player, not the class") was one of their key PvE selling points.

Elemental is not as bad as statistics point them out to be, also due to the power shift argument and skewed public perception due to this (similar to Frost Mages). Yet even when looking at Elemental Shamans who are playing near-perfect encounters you still note that they are (way) behind others who perform at a similar level.

The truth, as ever, is somewhere in the middle yet the conclusion still remains that Elemental is undertuned and in dire need of a buff.

Looking at the theoretical toolkit of an Elemental Shaman, we ought to be the strongest class in the Mythic+ environment. Yet we are not tuned to be such and thus are not.

[Dundebuns]

It's very easy to believe the game is perfectly balanced and the divergence is caused by more skilled players playing the stronger specs. Considering they'd justify performance chasms like this and how they continue their PR offensive on simcraft it really wouldn't surprise me if their position was "Ele is fine, the community just hasn't realised it yet".

I guess that would be ok when people are performing within 5% of each other in terms of specs, but aren't the gaps incredibly large?

[Eifel]

Only problem is our real vs potential dmg - almost all our dmg is based on RNG (Great we have 2.5 crit dmg compared to others and have chance to do aditional 75% - 185% for some spells, but our non-crits sucks) and i cant think of other clas with such disparity between min and max Hit.
eg. Ligthing bolt has range of dmg between 50k vs 220k (not counting Artifact and Talents with them our LB range is 50k - 900k, prety nice number right?). Of course if you are praying to RNGJesus everyday and sacrificed your whole family to him you can pull big numbers.

Potentionaly we are gods of DPS. Insted we are Slot Machine...

[Synadrasa]

I don't understand how every expansion ele is down at the bottom

[Deleted]

And again the ele shaman is absent from the patch notes.. shadow priests, fury warriors and protection warriors which are in good place atm get devs attention... really starting to lose faith here. I hoped that something would be said about ele but again.. nothing. Altho they even said a week back that feed back is taken to devs..my faforite class all time.. I give it few weeks and see if i still should sub to this game..

Oh yes. Fury warrior. 2nd to last on sim dps. Not competitive at all unless sevearly more geared/skilled than the rest of the raid. Good place to be all the way at the bottom. I don't get elemental shamans that cry so hard. We are 2/7 mythic guild so it's semi hardcore. Decent players and good players in the guild. Elemental shaman still tops dps when it's the right fight.

"My class is not top dps with 3 buttons. QQ"
Well all I can tell you elemental is in a good spot and enhancment is awesome currently. So instead of crying, watch a guide, look at your gear, practice and git gud. When you sim 5/7 heroic fights in the top 95% of elemental shamans come here and then talk about the current place of elemental shaman. Don't talk from a heroic dungeon.

[Exquis]

Oh yes. Fury warrior. 2nd to last on sim dps. Not competitive at all unless sevearly more geared/skilled than the rest of the raid. Good place to be all the way at the bottom. I don't get elemental shamans that cry so hard. We are 2/7 mythic guild so it's semi hardcore. Decent players and good players in the guild. Elemental shaman still tops dps when it's the right fight.

"My class is not top dps with 3 buttons. QQ"
Well all I can tell you elemental is in a good spot and enhancment is awesome currently. So instead of crying, watch a guide, look at your gear, practice and git gud. When you sim 5/7 heroic fights in the top 95% of elemental shamans come here and then talk about the current place of elemental shaman. Don't talk from a heroic dungeon.

Huh? What?
How is fury being undertuned an excuse not to give attention to elemental shamans in the SHAMAN forum?

As mentioned about a hundred times in this thread already, its not an l2p issue when even the absolute top 1% of the elemental shamans worldwide cant come even close to most other ranged classes in dps. BOTH ST AND AOE.

I'm not here begging for buffs because i'm a frustrated ele shammy, I've been enhance all expansion long. But it really saddens me to see a spec I used to enjoy a lot a few expansions back in such a horrible spot. And to be quite honest I'd love to play it as an offspec if it wasnt so fucking garbage. No serious mythic team aiming for progression would ever bring an ele shammy over a mage/hunter/spriest if they had a choice, that's the problem.

[Deleted]

Huh? What?
How is fury being undertuned an excuse not to give attention to elemental shamans in the SHAMAN forum?

As mentioned about a hundred times in this thread already, its not an l2p issue when even the absolute top 1% of the elemental shamans worldwide cant come even close to most other ranged classes in dps. BOTH ST AND AOE.

I'm not here begging for buffs because i'm a frustrated ele shammy, I've been enhance all expansion long. But it really saddens me to see a spec I used to enjoy a lot a few expansions back in such a horrible spot. And to be quite honest I'd love to play it as an offspec if it wasnt so fucking garbage. No serious mythic team aiming for progression would ever bring an ele shammy over a mage/hunter/spriest if they had a choice, that's the problem.

If you would scroll to the first post there is a complain about tuning of other warriors and spriest.
Can't come close to the other classes top 1% or can't come close to other classes 85%? There will always be specs higher and lower. Compare actual fights and not training dummy. Besides shamans offer stuns, knockbacks, movement and backup healing for the raid if it is a matter of a few % where it can mean the differance between a kill or a wipe. Mages and hunters don't offer anything of that sort except for timewarp witch the shaman supplies as well. Should still git gud. We got an ele doing insane damage on mythic elereth.

[Deleted]

Oh yes. Fury warrior. 2nd to last on sim dps. Not competitive at all unless sevearly more geared/skilled than the rest of the raid. Good place to be all the way at the bottom. I don't get elemental shamans that cry so hard. We are 2/7 mythic guild so it's semi hardcore. Decent players and good players in the guild. Elemental shaman still tops dps when it's the right fight.

"My class is not top dps with 3 buttons. QQ"
Well all I can tell you elemental is in a good spot and enhancment is awesome currently. So instead of crying, watch a guide, look at your gear, practice and git gud. When you sim 5/7 heroic fights in the top 95% of elemental shamans come here and then talk about the current place of elemental shaman. Don't talk from a heroic dungeon.

So basically ele shamans are fine if you live in a bubble where you do 95% percentile and you raid with retards at the 30% percentile.

[Deleted]

I guess that would be ok when people are performing within 5% of each other in terms of specs, but aren't the gaps incredibly large?

They are. I've made a very quick and dirty comparison of Ursoc Heroic, comparing each top spec to the 100th parse. Of course this is not taking into account several variables but gives you a very quick insight into the spec ranks, a certain degree of randomness in the 1st 100 parses and the existing gaps at the highest level.
It's not unreasonable to assume that most top 100 parses on a Heroic boss are exceptional players.

If you could extract an Excel dump of WoWprogress data we could really check the statistically relevant differences between specs.



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If you would scroll to the first post there is a complain about tuning of other warriors and spriest.
Can't come close to the other classes top 1% or can't come close to other classes 85%? There will always be specs higher and lower. Compare actual fights and not training dummy. Besides shamans offer stuns, knockbacks, movement and backup healing for the raid if it is a matter of a few % where it can mean the differance between a kill or a wipe. Mages and hunters don't offer anything of that sort except for timewarp witch the shaman supplies as well. Should still git gud. We got an ele doing insane damage on mythic elereth.

Can you link those logs? I'd love to compare how your other DPS is doing compared to their peers vs. the Elemental Shaman.

I'll venture a guess: the Shaman is performing at a far higher level among Elemental Shamans than your other DPS are among their peers.

[Socialhealer]

Except Elemental is also in a good place.
I really don't understand why so many people think otherwise. Its like we are playing two different games.

Is it because Enhance is representing so well in raids?
I don't see how anyone who actually plays Elemental to its potential can think a spec with that much utility and burst potential can be in a bad place.

They were MUCH MUCH worse in WoD, let me tell you. ESPECIALLY in 5 mans, compared to Enhance.

ignored for being a complete troll/bullshitter.

please don't post in the shaman forums again, you talk bollocks. elemental is currently one of the worst specs in the game dps wise.

look at the above ursoc dps sheet, elemental one of the only specs that can't even break 400k dps, while others have already broken 500k.

HOW IN THE FUCKING WORLD IS THAT A GOOD PLACE? holy fuck.

[Zerek]

As a shaman who plays elemental in mythic raiding, just thought i'd put in my two cents. (Valkyier, kel'thuzad US)

Is ele playable in mythic?

If you parse 90% or higher, yes. Ele's pitiful sustained damage makes the spec awful for progression, but pretty good during farm for its' insane burst. I usually end up very high on our damage meters, but that's because i have to play perfectly in order to come even close to other specs in damage, which obviously shows that the spec is undertuned.

Is ele playable in mythic+?

Yes. However, relying on an ele shaman for burst aoe is not something you should be doing. When i run high mythic+ i always run with one of our fire mages, as the damage of a fire mage and the utility of an ele shaman compliment each other very well. Third dps can be whatever. Ele shines in mythic + 5-7. I dread doing anything higher than 10 on her.

My honest thoughts on the spec is that it is definitely playable, but you need to do near perfect in order to keep up with everyone else. In its' current form, ele can only be viable if you're an exceptional player, which is not fair since most of the people playing will not be parsing at the 90-99% range.

Elemental needs a buff to its' sustained damage. Here are some of my thoughts on how.

-Ascendance talent rework. Ascendance does what it currently does, but also increases all fire damage you deal by a flat % as a baseline.
-lightning rod increases all nature damage you deal by a flat %, in addition to what it already does.
-take damage away from fire elemental and move it into lava burst, lightning bolt, and flame shock.
-take away earthquake and give us back our 50% haste on chain lightning (MoP passive ele had) OR make earthquake deal half of its' damage instantly, and then the other half over 5 seconds (makes it more viable for damage in raids and still gives it the utility it currently has), and change its' damage to nature damage.
-stormkeeper off the gcd, has no cast time, and makes our next three lb/CL instant cast and deal 200% damage. This gives us at least a little mobility where currently we have none.
- Buff earth shock's damage.

What do you guys think?

[Sylfaine]

You shouldnt need 90+ parse to make the dps of someone who play average at best.

[Socialhealer]

As a shaman who plays elemental in mythic raiding, just thought i'd put in my two cents. (Valkyier, kel'thuzad US)

Is ele playable in mythic?

If you parse 90% or higher, yes. Ele's pitiful sustained damage makes the spec awful for progression, but pretty good during farm for its' insane burst. I usually end up very high on our damage meters, but that's because i have to play perfectly in order to come even close to other specs in damage, which obviously shows that the spec is undertuned.

Is ele playable in mythic+?

Yes. However, relying on an ele shaman for burst aoe is not something you should be doing. When i run high mythic+ i always run with one of our fire mages, as the damage of a fire mage and the utility of an ele shaman compliment each other very well. Third dps can be whatever. Ele shines in mythic + 5-7. I dread doing anything higher than 10 on her.

My honest thoughts on the spec is that it is definitely playable, but you need to do near perfect in order to keep up with everyone else. In its' current form, ele can only be viable if you're an exceptional player, which is not fair since most of the people playing will not be parsing at the 90-99% range.

Elemental needs a buff to its' sustained damage. Here are some of my thoughts on how.

-crit adds damage to lava burst as a baseline, not just when using ascendance.
-lightning rod gives lightning bolt and chain lightning a flat % damage increase, in addition to what it already does.
-take damage away from fire elemental and move it into lava burst, lightning bolt, and flame shock.
-take away earthquake and give us back our 50% haste on chain lightning (MoP passive ele had) OR make earthquake deal half of its' damage instantly, and then the other half over 5 seconds (makes it more viable for damage in raids and still gives it the utility it currently has).
-stormkeeper off the gcd, has no cast time, and makes our next three lb/CL instant cast and deal 200% damage. This gives us at least a little mobility where currently we have none.
- Buff earth shock's damage.

What do you guys think?

i'll take EVERY buff we can get, we never get enough we get something to push us to above "the specs no-one plays"

[Menubrea]

If you would scroll to the first post there is a complain about tuning of other warriors and spriest.
Can't come close to the other classes top 1% or can't come close to other classes 85%? There will always be specs higher and lower. Compare actual fights and not training dummy. Besides shamans offer stuns, knockbacks, movement and backup healing for the raid if it is a matter of a few % where it can mean the differance between a kill or a wipe. Mages and hunters don't offer anything of that sort except for timewarp witch the shaman supplies as well. Should still git gud. We got an ele doing insane damage on mythic elereth.

I guess it really comes down to what you decide to consider valuable raid utility. While what Elementals have is useful in many situations, what Mages, Hunters and Shadow Priests offer is generally superior for any sort of progression. All three specs require a lot less healing, since their self sustain/survivability is a lot stronger. Mages also have the ability to completely negate damage/mechanics and even cheat death if they fuck up somehow. Shadow Priests just have generally high self healing, and also have a much stronger defensive CD available on top of it, not to mention mass dispel, which seems to be of high value in EN. Same thing with MM Hunters, who also have the ability to soak vines on Cenarius, which is easily the most difficult encounter in EN.

Shamans have a knockback, RNG knockdown (which in some cases can actually be detrimental rather than beneficial) and a mid ranged interrupt.

When all of those 3 ranged specs have higher single target DPS, 2 out of 3 have higher burst, better cleave and target swap, it doesn't exactly take a genius to understand why the spec fail to compete against other ranged specs on a limited roster.

The fact that you say those other specs don't offer anything just goes to show how clueless you are, when all 3 of them require less healing, do more damage and offer stronger assets/utilities for progressing EN encounters.

[Riistov]

I guess that would be ok when people are performing within 5% of each other in terms of specs, but aren't the gaps incredibly large?

Yes, they are, we are in desperate need of a numbers tuning pass. Even when we have a near perfect run, its impossible to beat similar ranged specs who had a bad one. That's just poor balance.

I had thought the discrepancy would be less as item levels improved, however, its getting worse. We can keep up, but it requires playing to the highest possible level, while other specs can half-ass it and do the same damage.

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You shouldnt need 90+ parse to make the dps of someone who play average at best.

^ This. 1000 times, this.

7.1 can't get here soon enough.

[Menubrea]

Yes, they are, we are in desperate need of a numbers tuning pass. Even when we have a near perfect run, its impossible to beat similar ranged specs who had a bad one. That's just poor balance.

I had thought the discrepancy would be less as item levels improved, however, its getting worse. We can keep up, but it requires playing to the highest possible level, while other specs can half-ass it and do the same damage.

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^ This. 1000 times, this.

7.1 can't get here soon enough.

Unless I've something I'm not sure how 7.1 is going to help us?

[Aurora]

They've said in the Q&A there should be a tuning pass before 7.1.

Though perhaps worryingly in a blue post on the front page today when questioned over class balance with reference to Elemental and Frost as spec examples they specifically acknowledged Frost as a spec in need of tuning while saying absolutely nothing about Elemental. They've also had acknowledgements to share regarding Havoc and Outlaw but still nothing on Ele.
I'd fear they may once again give us some token small buffs while nerfing virtually nothing and giving other specs around us like Outlaw significant buffs.

[Sylfaine]

You feel it we won't have shit ?

[Menubrea]

They've said in the Q&A there should be a tuning pass before 7.1.

Though perhaps worryingly in a blue post on the front page today when questioned over class balance with reference to Elemental and Frost as spec examples they specifically acknowledged Frost as a spec in need of tuning while saying absolutely nothing about Elemental. They've also had acknowledgements to share regarding Havoc and Outlaw but still nothing on Ele.
I'd fear they may once again give us some token small buffs while nerfing virtually nothing and giving other specs around us like Outlaw significant buffs.

Frost Mages? Or Frost DK's?

I think the logs on the first one is entirely because of under-representation and lack of any decent player still playing the spec. Frost DK's could definitely use some love though.

Back to the worrying part, they also mentioned during QA that they thought Elemental was a great spec for M+. Saying that Elemental is fine, as according to them, not every spec needs to be good at everything. Or something to that effect.

[Deleted]

Starting to seem that I picked the wrong speck to play in Legion... I may just quit playing Wow if there is no buffs for the ele in next patch. Really annoyed that I have to work extremely hard for a decent dps..