So every Elemental Shaman happy now?

[Kalisandra]

I thought that increasing ilevel had finally made my Elemental reasonably robust when doing WQs and the like. Not Prydaz+Roots tough, but not awful and squishy. Turns out I was wrong - it was having three decent defensives on the azurite inner rings. My new pieces don't have the inner rings opened yet, and despite the higher ilevel compared to months ago, and the much higher DPS, my Shaman now gets smacked around again. Losing those azurite traits exposed the crappy underlying design again.

[Jotaux]

I thought that increasing ilevel had finally made my Elemental reasonably robust when doing WQs and the like. Not Prydaz+Roots tough, but not awful and squishy. Turns out I was wrong - it was having three decent defensives on the azurite inner rings. My new pieces don't have the inner rings opened yet, and despite the higher ilevel compared to months ago, and the much higher DPS, my Shaman now gets smacked around again. Losing those azurite traits exposed the crappy underlying design again.

As you increase your ilvl everything else in the world scales. So losing the defensive traits and gaining ilvl actually reduces your character's toughness.

[ZazuuPriest]

Well with storm ele out I'm god, but as soon as he expires it goes back to sluggish mess. My m+ performance on trash has actually worsened. Everything feels so slow, like I'm stirring resin.

Patchwerk fights, scarce as they are, are great.
Cleave fights are alright too.
Heavy movement fights are pure shit.


So the damage is there, but the gameplay feels slow and boring. And still no defencives gained as a tradeoff for being shit on movement. Give grounding field or baseline avoidance please.

40% reduced damage isnt good enough of a defensive? you can soak a pool on blockade yourself

- - - Updated - - -

Nope it is not. Mother is dying in 2nd room now, so there are only small movement windows during the winds, which occurs like 3-5 times throughout the fight, but it's still enough to place us at the bottom of the table.

if youre bottom of the table on mother you suck at playing ele especially if you lust off the rip. Bust your nuts in its face and when you have to move spam fucking frost shock unless you get a proc. Ez, mother should die in the first room on heroic tho

[MiiiMiii]

The problem with Elemental is not the DPS. The problem is the core principal of the Maelstorm resource and Earth Shock / EQ spam. It's incredibly booring and annoying. I am sure some people enjoy it, but it is not at all what Elemental Shaman was all about Vanilla-WoD... It's a completely new spec and for the worse.

Remember in WotLK when we got Lava Burst and it crit for a really fun huge amount? Those were the days huh. Today, Lava Burst is this dumb procc barely worth more than a Lightning Bolt...

[Kalisandra]

As you increase your ilvl everything else in the world scales. So losing the defensive traits and gaining ilvl actually reduces your character's toughness.

The scaling is supposed to me slower than character scaling upwards with gear, and it was in Legion. Mind you, scaling downwards with really poor gear is faster than characters do, which is messed up.

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Remember in WotLK when we got Lava Burst and it crit for a really fun huge amount? Those were the days huh. Today, Lava Burst is this dumb procc barely worth more than a Lightning Bolt...

From what I've seen, assuming competitive numbers, how fun Elemental is and how cool it is in the minds of players is based on two things - how hard Lava Burst hits, and how good Chain Lighting is at lighting up AoE packs. Over the past few expansions Lava Burst has be de-emphasised in favour of Earth Shock and more recently Lightning Bolt, and Chain Lighting has been reduced to a filler that charges up Earthquake (Mastery not being worth stacking doesn't help here, because at least with high Mastery Chain Lighting looks amazing). Thus Elemental is not considered hugely fun by the player base - it doesn't SMASH things with Lava, and it doesn't do a Sithlord impression with Chain Lighting, so what's the point?

[Niwes]

the point is:

- that it takes an infinity to get the Maelstrom to even start your first EQ
- that you do nothing besides LB LiBo LiBo LiBo oh LB proc LiBo LiBo LiBo ES repeat
- or CL CL CL CL CL EQ CL CL LB proc CL CL CL CL EQ repeat
- that the resource itself wether is squishy nor fast nor interesting nor unpretending
- that the base spec variance is literally 0
- that the mobility sucks since loosing Gusts of Wind and get nothing instead
- that its clunky. yes i said it. clunky. and no, its not just a stupid hyped pseudo word.

or in short: its boring. its slow. its simpley not fun.

[Taan]

[QUOTE=ZazuuPriest;50788431]40% reduced damage isnt good enough of a defensive? you can soak a pool on blockade yourself

You missed the whole point of the discussion.

[Ele man]

sim is just a fantasy. It is not reality.

ele currently has no distinct advantages. So ele is not good. I think it is playable.
Blizzard now makes WoW hard to play raids except for some of the best specs.
It is good for enjoying, but it is not enough to perform the best contents like mythic raid.

[HCLM]

sim is just a fantasy. It is not reality.

ele currently has no distinct advantages. So ele is not good. I think it is playable.
Blizzard now makes WoW hard to play raids except for some of the best specs.
It is good for enjoying, but it is not enough to perform the best contents like mythic raid.

Sim is fantasy - so is your brain.

IF ele build is currently one of the best performing range specs in the game.

[Exkrementor]

Ele is fun to play for the first time in BFA. The numbers are fine though warlocks, shadows and druids are still more powerful. But the most important thing is that we can finally use good talents like echo of the elements and icefury again. Storm ele and lighning bolt spam sucks balls.

Storm ele and echo of the elementals is pretty much dead now anyway even if they nerf igneous potential. And its funny how I went from 30% lightning bolt and 15% lavaburst damage to 14% lightning bolt and 29% lavaburst damage literally over night with the same armor.

I really hope blizzard doesnt fuck this up and force us to use boring talents again like primal elementalist or earthen rage. Man, earthen rage is like the pinnacle of bad game design.

Also ele is competitive now in damage numbers so we will probably see a nerf soon because blizzard. Lets hope the gameplay stays the same at least.

[UnknownSoldier]

Ele is fun to play for the first time in BFA. The numbers are fine though warlocks, shadows and druids are still more powerful. But the most important thing is that we can finally use good talents like echo of the elements and icefury again. Storm ele and lighning bolt spam sucks balls.

Sad part is I expect us to be the latest example in a long line of examples of bad balance design choices when they nerf IP. Every time a new unique playstyle pops up due to Azerite actually doing what it was intended to do, Blizzard kills off the offending trait.

[Exkrementor]

Sad part is I expect us to be the latest example in a long line of examples of bad balance design choices when they nerf IP. Every time a new unique playstyle pops up due to Azerite actually doing what it was intended to do, Blizzard kills off the offending trait.

even when they nerf it for 30% or something our build should be the same because echo of the elementals is such crap now.

[Riistov]

Sim is fantasy - so is your brain.

IF ele build is currently one of the best performing range specs in the game.

This is true.

The problem for me is that the spec is punished so severely by movement, and it really brings nothing to the table in terms of utility.

[HCLM]

This is true.

The problem for me is that the spec is punished so severely by movement, and it really brings nothing to the table in terms of utility.

We are the most mobile casters in the game right now due to IF build. We literally lose no dmg while moving. We dont bring much raid utility but we bring dmg.

[Gharld]

Kind of curious, as somebody who doesnt like the IF build and plans on sticking to the Primal Storm Ele build, is Echo still just dead? Like even with no LvB synergy talents should I still just stack IP because its just that strong?

Mind you I'm a total casual (LFR and basic bitch mythics), but I like to "min/max" with gear to a degree each tier, gives me something to aim for.

[HCLM]

Kind of curious, as somebody who doesnt like the IF build and plans on sticking to the Primal Storm Ele build, is Echo still just dead? Like even with no LvB synergy talents should I still just stack IP because its just that strong?

Mind you I'm a total casual (LFR and basic bitch mythics), but I like to "min/max" with gear to a degree each tier, gives me something to aim for.

TBH try to get used to IF. When you learn it, it's fun an interactive spec with a lot of min/maxing potential. If you run SE just go with ER, and yes u can stack IP, then u use instant lvb during SE.

[Gomelus]

Kind of curious, as somebody who doesnt like the IF build and plans on sticking to the Primal Storm Ele build, is Echo still just dead? Like even with no LvB synergy talents should I still just stack IP because its just that strong?

Mind you I'm a total casual (LFR and basic bitch mythics), but I like to "min/max" with gear to a degree each tier, gives me something to aim for.

IP is our best trait by far right now, it's on its own league. You can still go SE/PE if you don't want to use the IF build, for me at least it sims like 0,4% less damage, which make them pretty much the same.
IF is more complex, but it's amazing on movement and priority add damage (which BOD has a lot), plus it's more consistent damage. SE/PE is a massive burst window, but it falls a lot if you have to move during those 30 seconds, and you pretty much have nothing going on outside of the burst window.

Whatever build you chose, you aim to get at least 2 IP to use with EotE (talent). During SE, you cast only LvB surges until 14 stacks of the ele, then you go full sith lord.

[Osangar]

Kind of curious, as somebody who doesnt like the IF build and plans on sticking to the Primal Storm Ele build, is Echo still just dead? Like even with no LvB synergy talents should I still just stack IP because its just that strong?

Mind you I'm a total casual (LFR and basic bitch mythics), but I like to "min/max" with gear to a degree each tier, gives me something to aim for.

You can actually use Echo with IP traits and use PE instead of icefury if you want, it actually sims higher for me due to my stat breakdown atm than Icefury. It also has the advantage of fire and forget. Movement on the majority of fights is not really an issue for us since FS does decent damage, if you dont wanna use IF then PE and Echo is defo viable with IP traits.

[Gharld]

TBH try to get used to IF. When you learn it, it's fun an interactive spec with a lot of min/maxing potential. If you run SE just go with ER, and yes u can stack IP, then u use instant lvb during SE.

IP is our best trait by far right now, it's on its own league. You can still go SE/PE if you don't want to use the IF build, for me at least it sims like 0,4% less damage, which make them pretty much the same.
IF is more complex, but it's amazing on movement and priority add damage (which BOD has a lot), plus it's more consistent damage. SE/PE is a massive burst window, but it falls a lot if you have to move during those 30 seconds, and you pretty much have nothing going on outside of the burst window.

Whatever build you chose, you aim to get at least 2 IP to use with EotE (talent). During SE, you cast only LvB surges until 14 stacks of the ele, then you go full sith lord.

You can actually use Echo with IP traits and use PE instead of icefury if you want, it actually sims higher for me due to my stat breakdown atm than Icefury. It also has the advantage of fire and forget. Movement on the majority of fights is not really an issue for us since FS does decent damage, if you dont wanna use IF then PE and Echo is defo viable with IP traits.

Thanks for the info guys, yea just not digging the IF build, didnt like it in Legion (used the Lightning Rod build instead), still dont like it now.

Side note, IP 3 stacking still doesnt revive Ascendance eh?

[SethRoguen]

I feel like we are doing decent, still not perfect, but decent. So just expect them to nerf IP so hard it crashes through the floor.