Future Elemental Shaman tier set ideas + discussion

[travmang]

Hey everyone. There have been lots of discussion on these forums recently about the state of Elemental and especially the T20 set. I have been thinking alot recently about this, and decided that I'd take the time to theorize some tier set bonuses that are unique and fun to play with. I have outlined 6 sets I believe could be a strong addition to the spec in the following video.

You do not need to watch the video if you're just interested in the sets themselves as I will post them below. However, if you'd like some additional info behind the sets I go into much more detail on the mechanics and the thought process in it. There are also timestamps in the description linking to each set in order.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVvT3kJ21_I

So lets get to it, and please focus any thoughts and discussions on the sets below - both improving them or offering constructive feedback. Try to avoid any negativity involving your opinion on the state of Shamans or tier in the live game.

Some wording may seem a little off, and I tried to keep them relatively tuned. Some may seem overpowered but adjustments can be made.


Raging Elements

2 Set: Elemental Blast is now baseline and it's damage is increased by 10%
4 Set: Damaging enemies with you Fire, Frost, or Nature abilities grants you a stack of Elemental Rage. Each element adds a separate application. When you reach 3 applications of each element, they reset and you automatically cast an Elemental Blast that grants you all buffs.

Notes: Elemental Blast has been a core talent for a few patches now and I personally find it to fit the Shaman fantasy perfectly. With Elemental Blast baseline, you aren't forced into Icefury to proc the Frost stack however Icefury could increase the pace of the autocasted Elemental Blasts. Also, that Elemental Blast visual is top notch and we need more of them!!!


Static Flux

2 Set: Your Lava Burst is now infused with static electricity, causing it to deal both Fire and Nature damage and grants it a 30% chance to apply Lightning Rod to your primary target.
4 Set: Every 10 seconds or when a Lightning Rod expires, it releases an EMP dealing 20% of the total damage it had taken during the past 10 seconds split between all enemies within 8 yards.

Notes: Lava Burst would deal half Fire damage and half Nature damage. Only the Nature damage would cause additional Lightning Rod damage. Being talented into Lightning Rod can enhance the set but is not mandatory for it to be strong.


Incandescent Glacier

2 Set: Your spell critical strikes have a 10% chance to make your next Frost Shock cost no Maelstrom and have it's damage increased by 800%.
4 Set: Casting the empowered Frost Shock causes your next 3 spells to critical strike and causes them to deal increased damage by an amount equal to your critical strike chance.

Notes: This is a Frost Shock themed set. Kinda. More like crit themed I suppose. Regardless, giving a cool proc for a spell that isn't normally used(barring Icefury) seems exciting. I always loved Frost Mages for their Brain Freeze procs. Also, if talented into Icefury the proc would be used individually of the 4 Frost Shock buffs Icefury provides as well as taking priority over them.


Overwhelming Fury

2 Set: Your Elemental Overloads increase the damage of your overloads by .25%, stacking up to 50 times. Lasts 10 seconds, refreshes whenever a stack is gained.
4 Set: Upon reaching 50 stacks, your spells will overload an additional time. Lasts 10 seconds.

Notes: Overloading is a core part of Elemental Shamans so I figured might as well make a set around it! The idea is the extra power from the overloads builds up inside of you over time until it becomes too much and it gets released in a flurry of overloads. Allows for a flowing rotation in which you slowly gain power and then essentially have a 10 second cooldown at the end of it dealing extra damage and aiding Maelstrom generation. I'd imagine kind of like a Shadow Priest building Insanity and using it in Void Form.


Infernal Plume

2 Set: Flame Shock no longer costs Maelstrom and is applied in a 5 yard AOE. Increases the duration of Flame Shock by 100%.
4 Set: Your Lava Surge procs increase the duration of your Flame Shocks by 3 seconds and cause your Lava Burst to deal an additional 30% damage to all targets affected by your Flame Shock.

Notes: This set is weird. the 2 set bonus for ST is very lackluster, only saving you the Maelstrom. I would imagine that the Lava Burst hitting all targets affected by Flame Shock would have the animation of a half sized Lava Burst being cast from your character and traveling to each target at once. Would look awesome. Kind of like Fire and Brimstone for Destruction Warlocks. Could also provide a change in AOE rotation to where the damage from Lava Burst on 5 targets exceeds a Chain Lightning cast.


Thundering Grace

2 Set: Lava Burst has a 15% chance to grant you a charge of Stormkeeper.
4 Set: Consuming a charge of Stormkeeper causes your next Lava Burst to deal 50% additional damage, stacking up to 6 times.

Notes: This was the first idea I had. Max 6 charges(remember that Stormkeeper itself grants 3). This set could provide some extra mobility without needing to change one of the core mechanics or spells that we have. It will also feel nice to get some procs and build up into a strong Lava Burst. Since Lava Burst already feels satisfying to use just imagine the nice buff on top of it!


Hopefully you found these sets bolster the Elemental Shaman class fantasy. I tried to give each a strong theme and synergistic bonuses that do not rely solely on flat damage increases to be effective. Let me know your thoughts. Which you like or dislike as well as any changes you feel should be made to them. Hopefully with a strong backing we can provide Blizzard with solid constructive feedback and ideas that could potentially be used in the future. Thanks!

[Seezer]

I'm not sure I like these ideas. Here. I'll give you some of my own.

2 Set: Bloodlust causes every spell with a cast time to be instant and no gcd on any ability. Bloodlust lasts 1 hour on Shaman.
4 Set: Shaman can no longer take damage

[travmang]

Nice contribution friendo

[Rend Blackhand]

I'm not sure I like these ideas. Here. I'll give you some of my own.

2 Set: Bloodlust causes every spell with a cast time to be instant and no gcd on any ability. Bloodlust lasts 1 hour on Shaman.
4 Set: Shaman can no longer take damage

I could imagine the patch notes afterwards.

Shaman:
Fixed a bug where Shamans were actually half decent.

[Deleted]

I'm going to go thorugh the setboni one by one and give you my opinion about them. Number tuning could always be done, so I'm not going to go in depth into the power level the sertboni have (some of them are blatantly op numberwise)

Raging Elements

2 Set: Elemental Blast is now baseline and it's damage is increased by 10%
4 Set: Damaging enemies with you Fire, Frost, or Nature abilities grants you a stack of Elemental Rage. Each element adds a separate application. When you reach 3 applications of each element, they reset and you automatically cast an Elemental Blast that grants you all buffs.

I don't like this one because of two reasons. First you are effectively robbing us of a talent, which would be really bad design. And i don't mean one talent gets worse, it just vanishes. I agree with eleblast being baseline, but this should not happen via set bonus.
The 4 piece would also HEAVILY force you into icefury. EleBlast currently does ~7.5% of st dmg while being cast every 12-13 seconds without counting buffs. Icefury allows you to cast ~12-14 frost spells in a 40 second window while non icefury will only cast ~3-4 eleblasts. This means you can get up to 4 times the benefit. Together with the additional buffs or the time you spend in ascendance, gaining no nature buffs, icefury would gain 10% dmg, which absolutely would force you to take it, which i - again - find very bad design in a set bonus. The only solution to this on the top of my hat is to make it more like the legendary ring without the extra eleblast cast, but that would be boring.


Static Flux

2 Set: Your Lava Burst is now infused with static electricity, causing it to deal both Fire and Nature damage and grants it a 30% chance to apply Lightning Rod to your primary target.
4 Set: Every 10 seconds or when a Lightning Rod expires, it releases an EMP dealing 20% of the total damage it had taken during the past 10 seconds split between all enemies within 8 yards.

This one has kind of the same problem as the first but with lightning rod instead of icefury. While not nearly as grave in a single target fight, the 4-piece makes lr mandatory for aoe. But then again, it already is anyway, so I don't actually have much to say about these boni, as they are more of a passive dmg buff, your gameplay won't change significantly. Rather bland. I also think the fantasy of "fusing elements" is already there with eleblast and is not really needed elsewhere.

Incandescent Glacier

2 Set: Your spell critical strikes have a 10% chance to make your next Frost Shock cost no Maelstrom and have it's damage increased by 800%.
4 Set: Casting the empowered Frost Shock causes your next 3 spells to critical strike and causes them to deal increased damage by an amount equal to your critical strike chance.

I rather like this one. It makes you use frost shock, which you usually don't, giving you at least some much needed mobility. The 4-piece could be somewhat op combined with stormbringer, but that is nothing number tuning is incapable of fixing.

Overwhelming Fury

2 Set: Your Elemental Overloads increase the damage of your overloads by .25%, stacking up to 50 times. Lasts 10 seconds, refreshes whenever a stack is gained.
4 Set: Upon reaching 50 stacks, your spells will overload an additional time. Lasts 10 seconds.

While there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this one, I know for sure it would annoy the hell out of me personally. You can only semi plan around the 4 piece being active. The dps gain heavily depends on which kind of spells(if any due to movement) you can cast in that 10 second window. You will also have massive maelstrom generation during that time, so you may find yourself spending nearly half the time on spells which simply can not overload. This will make the set bonus extremly swingy. I personally think ele has enough rng already as is. Otherwise a solid setbonus, but nothing too special.


Infernal Plume

2 Set: Flame Shock no longer costs Maelstrom and is applied in a 5 yard AOE. Increases the duration of Flame Shock by 100%.
4 Set: Your Lava Surge procs increase the duration of your Flame Shocks by 3 seconds and cause your Lava Burst to deal an additional 30% damage to all targets affected by your Flame Shock.

This is subjectively the worst of the bunch. Not only does it also mimick a current talent / makes half of that talent completely obsolete the 4-piece gets impacted negatively by you then not taking the talent.
The 4-piece will also do absolutely nothing in an ae situation, for which you seemingly intend it. If there are enough targets for you to want to cast earthquake, you will need the additional maelstrom from chain lightning over the lavaburst cast. Even with the current path of flame talent the surge procs only get used when you really really need to move and cannot cast an earthquake while doing so. Maybe if you made the procs also generate additional 30% maelstrom...That would in turn however mean that chainlighning becomes obsolete if you have enough mobs for lava surge to chain proc.
The 2-piece leaves you with a dumbed down rotation because you only cast fs every minute and don't even have to care about maelstrom. Found it dumb with the archimonde trinket, would find it dumb now.


Thundering Grace

2 Set: Lava Burst has a 15% chance to grant you a charge of Stormkeeper.
4 Set: Consuming a charge of Stormkeeper causes your next Lava Burst to deal 50% additional damage, stacking up to 6 times.

This is basically the same as Incandescent Glacier, but worse. You have a chance at making a spell instant and more powerful, and if you use the buff you in turn buff other spells again. However, this would not change anything in the roation and does not allow you to keep stacks "in reserve" as Incandescent Glacier does. You cannot refrain from casting the next lightning bolt just because you know you need to move in 5 seconds, that would lead to time not spend casting.