Ele Shaman Early Beta datamining spellchanges

[Staplecrab]

The idea that gust of wind somehow competes with blink is beyond my understanding, they're completely different movement spells. You can't ignore nearly as many mechanics with a well timed gust as you can with blink. Maybe they'll at least let us cast shocks in ghost wolf.

[Kralljin]

If that's the case then limit the number of hardcasted flameshocks that can be active at once to 3 or whatever (casting a fourth removes the first) and rename the spreaded flame shock from path of flame to something else. Having a CD on flameshock is a massive step backwards for Ele.

I think the idea is simply that if you're in a "target switch heavy" enviroment, you simply pick the lightning based build.

The fundamental issue of Elemental is that it's the one freaking spec where Blizzard mercilessly employs their design philosophies, no matter how hard it impacts their performance, whereas Mages and Rogues get a free pass.

It's just like in Hearthstone, getting balanced cards doesn't make you good, you need broken ass stuff to be competitive.

The idea that gust of wind somehow competes with blink is beyond my understanding, they're completely different movement spells. You can't ignore nearly as many mechanics with a well timed gust as you can with blink. Maybe they'll at least let us cast shocks in ghost wolf.

On the other hand, if Mages get to keep Time Warp, you get another example why this team has an extreme bias for the mage class.

[Psidum]

Watching that alpha footage. It's like seeing all your worst fears come to life

[msdos]

I used to main Ele. They were a squishy stationary turret with 1 school of magic you could lock out of for 3 straight expansions until they added Spiritwalker's and the lightning bolt glyph. Then they took that away?

Now they're regressing again? Is there a reason for the ping ponging development? Why would you even keep playing a shaman at this point. The devs just keep ping ponging.

[Venziir]

Expanding the Maelstrom system via Talents seems to be not a thing for Elemental, aside from bland talents like Aftershock.



Despite the fact that Elemental is currently among the stronger PvP specs, i'd still would think twice before turning PvP on even now.

I can't imagine that anyone beyond some PvP Gank teams, Rogue, Demon Hunters and DK's would willingly commit to World PvP.

Sadly, it remains crystal clear that Maelstrom was never intended for Elemental in the first place.

[Staplecrab]

I think the idea is simply that if you're in a "target switch heavy" enviroment, you simply pick the lightning based build.

Given that fulmination is a debuff on the target and that earth shock has a 6 second cooldown I'm not sure that a lightning based build will be all that much better at target switching.

I wonder what the niche for elemental is supposed to be in BfA? Bursty AoE damage? We don't seem to bring a unique group buff at the moment.

[Kralljin]

Sadly, it remains crystal clear that Maelstrom was never intended for Elemental in the first place.

It basically is what people have been asking since Cata when they implemented the Lightning Shield stacks - Earthquake also consumes Lightning Shield stacks.
The remaining talents like Storm Elemental and Aftershock are an afterthought.

Talents like Ascendance highlight this pretty well, instead of blocking all Maelstrom generation (So you really just spam Lava Burst) or also change ES into something fire related, they just leave it as it and that's it.

One of the things i find rather disheartening, despite the fact that Elemental actually received quite a few new talents, they just plain out ignore the maelstrom mechanic for any optional buttons (Volcanic Rage, Liquid Magma Totem, Elemental Blast).

We don't seem to bring a unique group buff at the moment.

Did Shaman bring one in Legion without gutting it's mobility?

That's the irony of their fetish for class fantasy - the class that defined itself by supporting others has no support tools and the one it has is also brought by others without any potential downside.
Taking into account that currently all Ferocity pets can use Bloodlust shows that class fantasy that benefits the Shaman is an engima to these designers.

I wonder what the niche for elemental is supposed to be in BfA? Bursty AoE damage?

Never heard them mention any other, so yeah, only that.

Guess being bad target switch is part of #Classfantasy now.

[Riistov]

They've never nailed Elemental since they decided to butcher its best version in SoO.

This comment puts into words the sum of my feelings as an Elemental main.

They need to look to MoP Ele for inspiration, looking at these changes, so much feels like a step back.

[woopytywoop]

over all these expansions they stripped away all the unique things shaman had.

what was unique about shamans? totems, buffs, bloodlust, purge, short cd interrupt...
what will be unique about shamans? ghost wolf and tremor totem...

dk's will get offensive dispell and ranged kick. Besides that they do have actually unique spells like AMS, deathgrip or gorefiends grasp (which is pretty much mandatory on aggramar).

it just makes no sense what they are doing. we're going back to an immobile vanilla state without buffs, totems and utility while half the melees have more mobility tools than any encounter would ever require (lol monks in BfA)

I'm very pessimistic about elemental in BfA, it seems it will end up again as a crippled useless spec for the first patches and there will be less than no reason to take one since you'll have a resto shaman anyway with the class buff.

[Bugg]

Well DKs (any melee really) are a pain in PvP nowadays. Without gust of wind and with the new interrupts I really don't want to think about that scenario...

[Staplecrab]

It's conceivable that additional mobility in the form of a gust of wind and/or icefury replacement could be implemented via whatever the honor talents get revamped into. I'm more concerned about Ele's niche in small and large group pve than I am pvp right now, though that could easily change once we see the pvp changes get added to the alpha.

[Mordog]

It's conceivable that additional mobility in the form of a gust of wind and/or icefury replacement could be implemented via whatever the honor talents get revamped into. I'm more concerned about Ele's niche in small and large group pve than I am pvp right now, though that could easily change once we see the pvp changes get added to the alpha.

Honor Talents wont help the PVE guys like me ...

[Hunternation]

I've been playing for over 10 years, so I know not to overreact to spec changes/nerfs. I play nearly every class so I know alot of specs are taking a hit on their mobility/utility but what's about to happen to elemental shamans is insane.

Earthquake change
*Flameshock on a 6 sec CD*
*Icefury Removed*
*Gust of Wind Removed*
*Storm keeper nerfed to 2 charges*
*Earthgrab removed.

Even with tremor totem re-added, at the very least it seems that elemental shaman is getting completely NUKED for pvp.

[Northy]

I've been playing for over 10 years, so I know not to overreact to spec changes/nerfs. I play nearly every class so I know alot of specs are taking a hit on their mobility/utility but what's about to happen to elemental shamans is insane.

Earthquake change
*Flameshock on a 6 sec CD*
*Icefury Removed*
*Gust of Wind Removed*
*Storm keeper nerfed to 2 charges*
*Earthgrab removed.

Even with tremor totem re-added, at the very least it seems that elemental shaman is getting completely NUKED for pvp.

Yeah, Ele PvP is definitely dead. Hopefully significant changes are coming our direction. I'm a dreamer I guess.

[Staplecrab]

Honor Talents wont help the PVE guys like me ...

Yes I agree and that's concerning given the state of Ele on the alpha. At the moment I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, the azurite armour, since there's some possibility it will offer talents and traits that could remedy some of the nonsense changes. On the other hand azurite armour might just be stuff like the +lightning bolt damage we saw on the Blizzcon preview and in that case we'll have to hope that Ele gets some significant changes over the course of the alpha.

[Riistov]

Yes I agree and that's concerning given the state of Ele on the alpha. At the moment I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, the azurite armour, since there's some possibility it will offer talents and traits that could remedy some of the nonsense changes. On the other hand azurite armour might just be stuff like the +lightning bolt damage we saw on the Blizzcon preview and in that case we'll have to hope that Ele gets some significant changes over the course of the alpha.

Super concerning...Whats even more sad is that we go though this every expansion. In the Legion Alpha is was "just wait, they're going to fix some of these issues via the artifact weapon" Instead we got a volcano that appears under your target and an auto heal that does like 5% of our hp. While there were some good talents there, none of them addressed our fundamental issues overall (low st damage, lack of utility, lack of defensives).

These changes so far are extremely concerning. If you're in a Mythic guild, I would plan on playing something else next xpac, at least until they are able to get Ele to a decent state. For reference, that wasn't until NH was released in Legion.

[Lucrece]

Well DKs (any melee really) are a pain in PvP nowadays. Without gust of wind and with the new interrupts I really don't want to think about that scenario...

Mage pretty much shits on all melee and it has always been that way. Occasionally hunter is allowed to also have strong kite/peel tools (though it varies by xpac and is not as consistent as mage) that allow it to cope with melee.

The rest of the casters suffer because of the mage vs. melee mobility arms race.

[Bugg]

My WoW experience is limited to Druid (mookin) and Shammy (Resto and Ele). I was Druid until Mid legion when I switched because my guild had too many of them.
I PvP casually, always without a companion.
As druid when shapeshifting I could clear the ensnares and all that crap, but as shammy it proves harder. Maybe I'm less experienced.
Still. Blink was FAR superior as an escape both in pvp and pve.
Anyway, I'm just a random casual throwing some opinions.

We'll see what BfA brings, maybe they have some sweet surprises for Shammy too, like they did for Demo Locks!

[Valkaneer]

My question here though is how will Azurite gear affect the talents or spells? Could we see a different rotation or perhaps more powerful buffed versions of perhaps LB with the Azurite system? The new system changes our spells won't we have to wait till we actually start to see people obtain the gear before we really know.

I am quite concerned though with becoming more of a turret than we already are especially in PvP.

[Kralljin]

My question here though is how will Azurite gear affect the talents or spells? Could we see a different rotation or perhaps more powerful buffed versions of perhaps LB with the Azurite system? The new system changes our spells won't we have to wait till we actually start to see people obtain the gear before we really know.

No one really knows how the Azerite System works, how these talents / skills obtained via the system looks like and so forth.