Elemental Shaman: What are your main grievances?

[Deleted]

Elemental PvP is probably worse, everyone focuses you as they know you're pretty much a free kill unless you run for it. Can barely kite any melee at all since MoP. Flameshock CD is basically a big joke. Damage while just stood casting uninterrupted is pretty shit. Shamans used to be a glass cannon, you leave them alone and they'll blow you out of existence. That's no longer the case, pretty much any other caster is scarier than a puny elemental shaman now.

.

elemental is not that bad at kitting, you have a ranged slow, 30s cd aoe root and perma freedom with 20DR and %heal every 2s. What ele really lacks is damage outside of 2 earthsocks with aftershock+azerite trait stacking.

[Kralljin]

elemental is not that bad at kitting, you have a ranged slow, 30s cd aoe root and perma freedom with 20DR and %heal every 2s. What ele really lacks is damage outside of 2 earthsocks with aftershock+azerite trait stacking.

Not entirely wrong, however Earthgrab is Resto only since BfA.

[Deleted]

Not entirely wrong, however Earthgrab is Resto only since BfA.

Oops. I only play resto. I forgot the knockback too.

[Kalisandra]

- Echo of elements should be baseline.

- Reduce cast times of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning. If you are to be a turret spec then let us turret. Reduce LB and CL to a baseline of 1.5 or 1.75 second casts. Even with the buff to the damage of those abilities it's not like we are going to blow the doors off anybody dps-wise. The baseline 2 second casts on these abilities makes us the slowest turret in the history of turrets.

Back in the day Fireball had something like a 2.5s cast, as did Shadowbolt. However, you're right that by today's standards a 2s cast is pretty slow. I don't want LB to go down to a 1.5s cast though - it'll either do effectively nothing, or it will do too much compared to other spells. Leave it at 2s and let it do noticeable damage. Reduce ChL to 1.5s, have it reduce the damage per bounce, and tune the base damage accordingly. Reduce LvB's base time to 1.5s and have it do at least as much damage as a LB - that way it'll feel like a decent button to hit when it comes up. Take damage out of Earth Shock and EQ as needed to balance this (damage coming out of EQ can go into ChL to keep AoE damage up). Lava Burst rotation for ST damage, Sith Lord Chain Lightning for Cleave/AoE, adding Earthquake for big pulls.

I like our Mastery, though it could stand to affect more of our casts (well, Frost Shock at least), and perhaps our elementals as well.

I agree that Echo should be baseline, and I think that Elemental Blast needs to be buffed so it's a decent talent again.

Yes, I'm restating things I've said before - my opinons on this haven't changed.

[notawizard]

Hey don't forget that the ghost wolf slow suppression effect is actually useful in some situations, such as temple of sethraliss orb running.

I just wan't elemental to be either have back MoP mobility, or have it be the best turret spec in the game. you can't have it suck in both scenarios!

So option 1: Lightning bolt and chain lightning castable while moving

-or-

option 2: frost shock damage removed, lava surge proc removed, stormkeeper reduces cast times by 50% instead of making them instant, and then basically buff all spells by 500% or something that puts ele #1 patchwerk by a margin of at least 10%.

[Ragnarocket]

Back in the day Fireball had something like a 2.5s cast, as did Shadowbolt. However, you're right that by today's standards a 2s cast is pretty slow. I don't want LB to go down to a 1.5s cast though - it'll either do effectively nothing, or it will do too much compared to other spells. Leave it at 2s and let it do noticeable damage. Reduce ChL to 1.5s, have it reduce the damage per bounce, and tune the base damage accordingly. Reduce LvB's base time to 1.5s and have it do at least as much damage as a LB - that way it'll feel like a decent button to hit when it comes up. Take damage out of Earth Shock and EQ as needed to balance this (damage coming out of EQ can go into ChL to keep AoE damage up). Lava Burst rotation for ST damage, Sith Lord Chain Lightning for Cleave/AoE, adding Earthquake for big pulls.

I like our Mastery, though it could stand to affect more of our casts (well, Frost Shock at least), and perhaps our elementals as well.

I agree that Echo should be baseline, and I think that Elemental Blast needs to be buffed so it's a decent talent again.

Yes, I'm restating things I've said before - my opinons on this haven't changed.

Honestly if we're going to be a turret I am ok with longer cast times. But I want the damage to be appropriate for that. If I have to sit and cast a spell for 2 seconds it needs to deliver an impact the moment it hits that makes up for it.

Echo being baseline would definitely free up some talent diversity. The problem right now is (and Shaman have been saying this for years) is that while the other talents on that row might be comparable or even more powerful...Echo just makes the game play of the spec feel SO much better.

[Yllana]

I think you can macro that.

#showtooltip
/cast [@cursor] Earthquake

(Obiously also works for Liquid Magma Totem/Capacitor Totem/Healing Rain/Downpour/Spirit Link Totem)

[Kralljin]

Echo being baseline would definitely free up some talent diversity.

Well, one talent has synergy with EotE, Master of the Elements.
The remaining talents have no synergy with EotE or even a negative synergy, such as Storm Ele or High Voltage.

In my opinion, people get too hung up about EotE, without Master of the Elements, i do not feel the need for EotE, neither on the PTR or Live.

Pressing Lava burst doesn't feel statisfying to me, it doesn't hit hard and merely generates 2 more MS than LB, it just feels like a button to push to break the monotomy of spamming LB rather than a "cool" moment in your rotation.

Blizzard cannot make up their mind what is supposed to be a hardhitter in the Ele arsenal, similiar issue as in Legion, there they later on went with ES as hardhitter instead of Lvb, now they suddenly want to make your filler feel relevant.
With 8.1. Ele feels like in a damage triangle between ES,LB and Lvb, all of them are supposed to be somehow relevant and in the end they all just water down each other.

[Hellfury]

Flame shock CD

No ghost wolf at same speed as mount

Echo should be baseline

No Gust of wind.

[Xastin]

Flame shock CD

No ghost wolf at same speed as mount

Echo should be baseline

No Gust of wind.

if these changes were reverted i would probably still be playing shaman.. instead i just dont invite any shamans to group. thanks blizzard for deleting my favorite class.

[Schmilblick]

Just give me back Gust of Wind :/

[Rennegadelawlz]

I like the idea of making mastery baseline and giving us a static value as well, because they can do something just as unique with our mastery that isn’t nearly as punishing to our damage. Because if their logic on our damage is because half our damage is baked into our overloads, then I suggest going back to cata and looking at our values there because statistically that’s the expansion that matches us right now and lavaburst clearly hit like a truck back then as well as fulmination.

[dreaderus]

Just give me back Gust of Wind :/

was there ever a reason given to remove it? it seems absurd lol

[Marani]

was there ever a reason given to remove it? it seems absurd lol

I think it was too blink-like or something, was the explanation given...

I'm missing Gust of Wind, apart from that I find 2-3 target cleave a bit lacking. You would think that we'd be good at it with Chain Lightning as one of our most iconic spells, but it's just really underwhelming.

[Taan]

none of the ele changes adresses the core issue with the class - choice between movement or survivability. At the moment ele has neither. And most of the fights are heavy on the movement, which makes ele do shit dps or gamble with death trying to cast.

What do we want?


Talents and spells


* Echo (and EB) should be baseline
* spell cast times are very high for elemental, especially at the start of each addon. Not untill we get around 20-30% haste can we talk about some mid of the pack damage. This especially shows in conjunction with high movement\avoiding mechanics
* Legion gloves should be added to Ascendance talent
* If elemental is supposed to be a low mobility class - give us something to survive. Baseline avoidance comes to mind. More active CDs. Maybe a stance that roots\slows us, but grounds part of aoe damage and makes us immune to knockback. Sort of grounding totem\pillar of frost effect. With the animation of that debuff from halls of lightning
* Stormkeeper should be baseline and 3charges so we can start with some maelstrom
* Bring back Lightning rod
* Remove FS cd

Cosmetics:


* If you want Lightning bolt to feel powerfull change it's animation to Crash Lightning\Lightning rod proc and reverse the animation of "CastStrongUpRight" and "CastStrongUpLeft" so the shaman reaches for the sky and pulls a bolt down. Like this

* Earth Shock animation should have an upgrade. For a main nuke the little durt thud looks ridiculous

[Xirrohon]

I just came back to Shaman a few weeks ago. I was curious if they gave any reason for the Flame Shock CD? Its just so awkward that if feels like a mistake.

[Skildar]

I just came back to Shaman a few weeks ago. I was curious if they gave any reason for the Flame Shock CD? Its just so awkward that if feels like a mistake.

on many topic you can see an answer to that question. Basically it's to avoid making the ele shaman a multi-dot spec.

[Skildar]

I really feel like blizzard knows what's wrong with each shaman spec, they just don't care to deliver fixes quickly and they maybe want to offer overhaul/rework for next expansion. I might be wrong but after 4 expansions I've finally let go of my shaman and it feels good to play classes that receive some attention and love.
I'll wait and see what's announced at the next blizzcon

[Kralljin]

on many topic you can see an answer to that question. Basically it's to avoid making the ele shaman a multi-dot spec.

Just speculation from players however, Blizzard hasn't given any response.

[Deleted]

1. Lack of Spell interaction.

We have one proc, Lava Surge and that's it. The rotation is simply not fun.

2. Useless utility.

Tremor totem is a wonderful ability that deals with easily avoidable mechanics.
For rest of shaman utilities there's common issue: "Mage does it better and can still blink"

3. Negative community perception.

It's downward spiral: bad class > nobody plays it > no good shamans > noone skilled to show off shaman > less people playing shamans > people not seeing anybody playing shaman > nobody knowing how to play one > extra step > devs stopping to care, because why bother if nobody is here to play that class or give feedback