Thoughts of Elemental in Shadowlands Beta

[hungrytiger]

First and foremost I love elemental shaman as a class, it has been my main since Siege and I have achieved famed slayer (albeit alliance, lol) with it. I have been spending a lot of time with it on Beta and wanted to give my two cents about the spec and the direction Blizzard is taking with it.

I'll go over the things I like about it on Beta first then talk about the things that I think could use some improvement. However, there is one **HUGE** glaring issue with the spec.

Fulmination and Seismic Thunder Stacks
- Fulmination is a fine mechanic. It gives some priority to lightning bolt which we haven't seen in the past and it seems like it's going to make mastery valuable again.
- Seismic Thunder is a HORRIBLE mechanic. First of all, the duration of the buff is extremely short so forget about prepping for the next pack in dungeons and M+.
- Surge of Power might as well not exist on AoE, will explain this more in depth below.
- On retail, earthquake is our top damage in every aoe situation, even when moved out of because of mechanics or sanguine. Seismic Thunder stacks forces us to cast up to 5 chain lightnings to get a worthwhile earthquake. This will essentially make us worthless for ~5 globals between every earthquake.
- Finally, it creates anti synergy with almost every aspect of our kit. We can't weave in master of the elements buffs because we lose eq stacks. Spreading flame shock takes away from eq. so forget the Maldraxxus covenant. etc.

Easiest Fix
- Merge the seismic thunder buff into fulmination and make players choose how they want to spend their fulmination stacks. Making them two separate mechanics just creates a huge playstyle flaw with the spec.

Things I like
- I am a big fan of Elemental Blast being a resource spender and turning it into a huge nuke.
- Echoing shock, although a little clunky right now, is a fun mechanic to play around, especially since it works with spells in a similar way that our lava burst/flame shock does. (Casting lava burst then applying flame shock while the meatball is in the air)
- Spiritwalker's grace and our offhealing ability. Obviously a cooldown to move while casting fits the theme and is a very welcomed addition to the kit. Healing stream and chain heal are also very beefy heals that help out healers when they need it. Will be nice to have on bursting weeks.

Things I do not like
- Seismic Thunder, as I said before this mechanic just shouldn't exist.
- Elemental doesn't have an iconic class totem. Enhancement gets windfury and Resto gets mana tide totem but Elemental has been left with nothing.
- Lava Burst and Icefury feel like you're being punished for casting them. They do not generate Fulmination and they don't hit much harder than lightning bolt.
- Elemental is now punished for multi-dotting with flameshock. If there is a 3-target fight, you will have to choose to never gain fulmination stacks and focus on lava bursts or sac the lava bursts to keep casting lightning bolt to generate fulmination. After tuning, numbers will tell which of the two is best.
- Echo of the elements is still a talent. Why? This talent got nerfed by not giving us two stacks of healing stream, when honestly, who would have cared anyways.

Suggestions for Fixes
- The change that makes the most sense to me is give ele shams, echo of the elements baseline. In it's place put an updated version of totem mastery (grants 2% haste, generates a fulmination stack every 6 seconds and who knows what else, just examples.) On the second row where totem mastery used to be PUT A TALENT THAT MAKES LAVA BURST AND ICEFURY FROST SHOCKS GENERATE FULMINATION.
- Make Flame Shock a 24-30 second duration instead of 18.
- Give Elemental a unique totem. Skyfury or Totem of Wrath or a version of those. Give us some sort of totem that buffs casters in our group.
- Combine seismic thunder stacks and fulmination.
- Make Liquid Magma totem moveable like vesper totem is.
- If earthquake becomes castable with fulmination, make it cost 5 stacks that way if you cast it with 8 stacks, you're just 1 more spell away from a second buffed earthquake. This allows us to almost double cast earthquake which was a very powerful option we had in our kit in BFA and Legion.

Surge of Power Issues
- Surge of Power has the option to spread flamshock to one additional target. Ideally we would want to use this on AoE or 2-4+ target fights. Well we also want to use earthquake on those sized fights as well. With the current playstyle of elemental, we have to cast chain lightnings before casting earthquakes. This is fine, even on three targets. However, if we spread flameshock and use our Maldraxxus covenant ability (Additional Flame Shock Spread and AoE Lava Burst) we sacrifice earthquakes. We'll also want to use Surge of Power to spread more flameshocks. However, we will never be afforded the opportunity to do this because the only way we can gain a surge of power buff is by casting lightning bolts. If we cast lightning bolts then we are no longer able to cast earthquakes.


I know this is a bit lengthy and I hope to see some changes in a promising direction as we move forward with Beta. If there is anything you take away from this it should be the following:

1. Remove Seismic Thunder stacks and merge them with fulmination.
2. Give Elemental a unique caster totem like windfury for enh and mana tide for resto.
3. Make lava burst and icefury feel good and not like you're being punished for casting them. Can do this with baseline passives or talents.

If you'd like to talk to me more about my thoughts on the spec or share with me ideas that you have had feel free to contact me on Bnet or discord.

Bnet: Turtle#13393
Discord: Turtle#4831

[Beingbob]

You seem to have listed most of the major faults with the spec in Shadowlands, similar to what Bloodmallet has been saying over at stormearthandlava.com. However, why state that Fulmination is a fine mechanic when you then go on to (rightly) show all the issues it presents? The reason why Earthquake can't be saved/prepared for an upcoming pack/AoE situation is because instead of having the old Maelstrom resource that worked fine, we now have this awkward split between Fulmination and Seismic Thunder. The reason Lava Burst and Icefury/Frost Shock feel bad and disentangled from the rest of the spec is because they don't generate Fulmination... if they did, then why even call it Fulmination and not let us keep Maelstrom, if it's just gonna work the same?

In addition, though you don't mention it, we also can't do our good old funnel into a single, priority target by getting lots of Earth Shocks through Chain Lightning, which has for a very long time been a nice little niche we've had.

Honestly, it kinda pisses me off that so many people seem excited for going back to Fulmination instead of having Maelstrom... it's just a cheap appeal to nostalgia that only has negative effects on our gameplay flow by removing interactions between our spells (which already in Legion and BfA was sometimes criticized for lacking baseline, non-talented interactions between our spells), and it doesn't really change anything rotationally - the end goal is still to dump our resource on Earth Shock (or Earth Quake in the case of Seismic Thunder). People seem to think it means we're moving away from a builder-spender style of gameplay that has sort of been a rallying cry when people have complained about homogenous-feeling classes in Legion/BfA, when in reality it doesn't matter whether we have 0-10 stacks of Fulmination/Seismic Thunder or 0-100 resource points of Maelstrom - it's the same resource with a different level of granularity.

Sorry for the rant, but initially I was quite excited for Shadowlands as an elemental shaman, but now it's starting to seem like a downgrade from BfA, which was already a major step down from Legion, imo.

[themaster24]

You seem to have listed most of the major faults with the spec in Shadowlands, similar to what Bloodmallet has been saying over at stormearthandlava.com. However, why state that Fulmination is a fine mechanic when you then go on to (rightly) show all the issues it presents? The reason why Earthquake can't be saved/prepared for an upcoming pack/AoE situation is because instead of having the old Maelstrom resource that worked fine, we now have this awkward split between Fulmination and Seismic Thunder. The reason Lava Burst and Icefury/Frost Shock feel bad and disentangled from the rest of the spec is because they don't generate Fulmination... if they did, then why even call it Fulmination and not let us keep Maelstrom, if it's just gonna work the same?

In addition, though you don't mention it, we also can't do our good old funnel into a single, priority target by getting lots of Earth Shocks through Chain Lightning, which has for a very long time been a nice little niche we've had.

Honestly, it kinda pisses me off that so many people seem excited for going back to Fulmination instead of having Maelstrom... it's just a cheap appeal to nostalgia that only has negative effects on our gameplay flow by removing interactions between our spells (which already in Legion and BfA was sometimes criticized for lacking baseline, non-talented interactions between our spells), and it doesn't really change anything rotationally - the end goal is still to dump our resource on Earth Shock (or Earth Quake in the case of Seismic Thunder). People seem to think it means we're moving away from a builder-spender style of gameplay that has sort of been a rallying cry when people have complained about homogenous-feeling classes in Legion/BfA, when in reality it doesn't matter whether we have 0-10 stacks of Fulmination/Seismic Thunder or 0-100 resource points of Maelstrom - it's the same resource with a different level of granularity.

Sorry for the rant, but initially I was quite excited for Shadowlands as an elemental shaman, but now it's starting to seem like a downgrade from BfA, which was already a major step down from Legion, imo.

I super agree with your stance on Fulmination/Maelstrom. At first, I as excited to hear they were moving away from Maelstrom, as I was interested in what they would do with the spec. However, we've functionally found ourselves having a worse version of Maelstrom and a worse version of what we had before Maelstrom. It's the worst of both worlds. The system could work great, but their implementation of it is so freaking awful it frustrates me. So many things about Ele just seem forgotten and not cared about.

[Kralljin]

Reposting a post of mine from a few weeks ago from another thread, feels like it's relevant to this discussion.

Maybe to add something to the actual discussion at hand.

Over the past weeks i've been thinking about the overall Elemental changes in SL and quite frankly think that there is a rather big hole in Blizzards logic / design.

Blizzard has stated that Elemental should focus on multi dotting Flame shock in order to get a lot of Lava surge procs.

In other words, "funneling" damage into a single target by multi dotting Flame shock.

At first glance, this is nothing new, as this has been a thing for Elemental since 8.1 and Elemental extremely excelled at it in BoD / CoS and EP.
However, crucial pieces will be missing in Shadowlands.

First off, the obvious loss of (rental) power.
With Azerite retiring, you will lose Igneous Potential, a rather massive hit as having this trait thrice on appropriate pieces will ~double your Lava burst damage.
That in itself is already a massive hit, as Lava burst makes up a not too insignificant portion of your damage.

Furthermore, you will lose Lava shock, a trait was absolutely amazing in those Flame shock multi dot situations.

Not only needs Blizzard to compensate the loss of the Igneous Potential trait, but also Lava shock in those situations, if the primary goal is aiming at back to back Lava Surge procs, Lava burst needs to hit for an insane amount.

Second, the Flame shock duration nerf.
In the current Alpha build, Flame shock's duration is 18 seconds, not 24 as on live.
That represents an obvious nerf, now you're only barely able to multi dot three target at most, which also further cuts into the potency of that "funnel" niche, less FS running means less Lava surge procs.

Lastly, the removal of Maelstrom.
Some people call this a good change, but this where the removal of Maelstrom will be a real kick in the nuts.
Currently, it works pretty simple:
You multi dot FS=>gets lots of Lava surge procs=>spam Lvb=>get a lot of Maelstrom=>constantly dish out Earth shocks.

In Shadowlands it (currently) looks like this:
You multi dot FS=>get lots of Lava surge proc=>spam Lvb and...that's it.
You don't generate Fulmination charges via Lava burst, meaning you will rarely press Earth shock as there is currently no passive generation of Fulmination charges besides Lightning shield.
You can generate a few charges if you're unlucky with Lava surge procs and have to weave in Lightning bolt, but that's not really the goal.
(Also, Icefury nor Frost shock buffed by it generate Fulmination charges, so that source is gone as well)

It also nerfs the synergy between the Master of the Elements talents and said "funneling" results in barely any Earth shock(let alone one beefed up with 3x Lava shock).
You still have Icefury and Stormkeeper but they're both tied to a CD and not resource dependant like Earth shock currently.

In general, Blizzards choice of niche couldn't have been poorer, as this entire funneling niche relies on borrowed power via Azerite traits (Igneous Potential and Lava shock) alongside a rather set amount of talents.
Said funneling also barely works without Echo of the Elements, while talents such as Storm Elemenetal and Ascendance aren't synergizing with this at all.
(Mind you, Surge of Power is also not functional unless you can consistently generate 6 Maelstrom charges.)

This entire idea of funneling was the result of a bandaid solution: (the infamous 150% buff to Igneous Potential), yet Blizzard decided to turn the bandaid into a core aspect without realizing that said bandaid will be ripped off soon, while at the same time also demolishing the bit of synergy it had with the base Elemental mechanics (Maelstrom).

The only thing in SL that seriously supports this change (not taking any Covenants abilities into account) is the Fire Elemental change - yet that already had synergy with funneling, as a lot of flame shocks meant a lot of Maelstrom while Fire Elemental is up.
I seriously doubt that this one change will stem the tide against the massive breaking of synergy that is going to happen if those changes go live.

Of course, Legendaries are still to come, but as hinted above already, this "funneling" niche already relies on a certain talent choice, if Blizzard manages to salvage that niche via Legendaries, it will be obvious that those Legendaries will be the mandatory ones, while the other ones need to be straight nuts or remain relegated to be used during AoE or some fringe situation.
In other words, you need to pick certain talents alongside possible legendaries in order to get "your baseline niche" going, that's a bit of a silly situation to say the least.

Overall, that doesn't make me very excited for Elemental, Blizzard intended goal of funneling does not line with the changes they've been implementing - on the contrary in fact.
Unless Blizzard changes things, Elemental might have to rely on benelovent numbers tuning on Blizzards end - which has rarely worked in favour of Elemental during the X.0 Patches.

PUT A TALENT THAT MAKES LAVA BURST AND ICEFURY FROST SHOCKS GENERATE FULMINATION.

They'd be basically reinstating Maelstrom then.
It would be better, but i doubt it's going to happen.

Like, here's the issue: Elemental gets once again thrown under the bus after being actually fine because Blizzard enforces some general idea and Elemental becomes collateral damage to this change.

Here's the history:
Blizzard doesn't like unique spec support => Totem of Wrath gets removed.
Blizzard doesn't like hybrid offhealing => AG nerfed into the ground.
Blizzard doesn't like Casting on the move => Casting Lightning bolt on the move removed.
Blizzard doesn't "blink-esque" abilities on casters => Gust of Wind removed.
Blizzard doesn't like every spec being a spender / filler => Maelstrom gets removed

[Spoonman]

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...beta/590210/10

[hungrytiger]

You seem to have listed most of the major faults with the spec in Shadowlands, similar to what Bloodmallet has been saying over at stormearthandlava.com. However, why state that Fulmination is a fine mechanic when you then go on to (rightly) show all the issues it presents? The reason why Earthquake can't be saved/prepared for an upcoming pack/AoE situation is because instead of having the old Maelstrom resource that worked fine, we now have this awkward split between Fulmination and Seismic Thunder. The reason Lava Burst and Icefury/Frost Shock feel bad and disentangled from the rest of the spec is because they don't generate Fulmination... if they did, then why even call it Fulmination and not let us keep Maelstrom, if it's just gonna work the same?

In addition, though you don't mention it, we also can't do our good old funnel into a single, priority target by getting lots of Earth Shocks through Chain Lightning, which has for a very long time been a nice little niche we've had.

Honestly, it kinda pisses me off that so many people seem excited for going back to Fulmination instead of having Maelstrom... it's just a cheap appeal to nostalgia that only has negative effects on our gameplay flow by removing interactions between our spells (which already in Legion and BfA was sometimes criticized for lacking baseline, non-talented interactions between our spells), and it doesn't really change anything rotationally - the end goal is still to dump our resource on Earth Shock (or Earth Quake in the case of Seismic Thunder). People seem to think it means we're moving away from a builder-spender style of gameplay that has sort of been a rallying cry when people have complained about homogenous-feeling classes in Legion/BfA, when in reality it doesn't matter whether we have 0-10 stacks of Fulmination/Seismic Thunder or 0-100 resource points of Maelstrom - it's the same resource with a different level of granularity.

Sorry for the rant, but initially I was quite excited for Shadowlands as an elemental shaman, but now it's starting to seem like a downgrade from BfA, which was already a major step down from Legion, imo.

I was very much on the boat of keeping maelstrom and that fulmination was completely unnecessary before playing beta. Unfortunately, I don't think Blizzard is going to revert back to Maelstrom. With that said, if fulmination is what we have to deal with, I really was surprised by how fine it plays. It puts a greater value on our mastery and as far as theme goes, which I know Blizz loves, it fits that really well. However, the issues I stated and you mentioned still exist. Lava Burst and Icefury feel so disconnected, but if you allow them to generate fulmination they become too powerful, or so that's the thought.

I also hadn't thought about the niche of chain lightning and earth shock situations which is a very valid point. I agree that just leaving maelstrom the way it is would make the spec more fluid, but we will forever avoid mastery like the plague. This ruins class fantasy which I think is Blizz's biggest issue with it. Because of that, it just feels like a distant hope that maelstrom will remain as it is in BFA.

But seismic thunder is just an abysmal excuse for a mechanic. I don't have all the answers to fixing fulmination working with our whole kit, but at the very, very bare minimum chain lightning and lightning bolt should contribute to the same resource.

- - - Updated - - -

Reposting a post of mine from a few weeks ago from another thread, feels like it's relevant to this discussion.




They'd be basically reinstating Maelstrom then.
It would be better, but i doubt it's going to happen.

Like, here's the issue: Elemental gets once again thrown under the bus after being actually fine because Blizzard enforces some general idea and Elemental becomes collateral damage to this change.

Here's the history:
Blizzard doesn't like unique spec support => Totem of Wrath gets removed.
Blizzard doesn't like hybrid offhealing => AG nerfed into the ground.
Blizzard doesn't like Casting on the move => Casting Lightning bolt on the move removed.
Blizzard doesn't "blink-esque" abilities on casters => Gust of Wind removed.
Blizzard doesn't like every spec being a spender / filler => Maelstrom gets removed

I agree that making a talent that causes lava burst and frost shock to generate maelstrom is a bandaid solution, but my thought process was that aftershock is going to remain the AoE choice. The lava burst/ice fury fulmination generation would be the 2-4 target choice, and with some numbers tuning echoing shock could pull ahead pure single target.

I have no idea if that would work because of the limited bit of testing I've done with echoing, but it seemed like a better solution than what we have currently.

[music49]

need more shaman testers in beta. besides streamers who make videos on all the specs this is the only other information ive seen about shaman in alpha/beta.

I like the idea of fulmination and seismic thunder but wasn't there a build where casting chain lighting on 4 or more targets made EQ instant, I forget what expansion? so AoE rotation would be CL>EQ>CL>EQ>CL>EQ very simple but still feel good placing all those EQ, and with number tuning I think going back to that would be better than seismic thunder for now while keeping in fulmination and still let CL build fulmination stacks

More totems would be nice, but I have to agree with the developers note when they removed searing totem. A click and forget is just ANOTHER CD to worry about and hope targets stay in range. (They could have added some sort of interplay with searing totem and extending flame shock or lava bursting your searing totem to make it hit a little harder? Make it targetable with ascendance build doubling down on the spicy meatball build

Yes, please just make echo of the elements base line already for elemental. Replace it with a fulmination generating talent through lava burst and frost shock and done deal

I'd recommend having elemental blast replace earth shock (make it no CD, but not hit as hard to keep it balanced with the buff it gives?)

Just thoughts from what i've been able to see on youtube videos and shaman posts

[kheath812]

fulmination and seismic thunder are horrible and completely kill any flexibility the class has with maelstrom. you cant aoe into an earth shock on a priority target, and you cant single target and pool resources for an upcoming add wave spawn. its just so much worse than maelstrom i cant believe anyone would actually like it.

[shammypie]

fulmination and seismic thunder are horrible and completely kill any flexibility the class has with maelstrom. you cant aoe into an earth shock on a priority target, and you cant single target and pool resources for an upcoming add wave spawn. its just so much worse than maelstrom i cant believe anyone would actually like it.

i agree, while it flows better for enhancement to be a simple stack system it's very bad for elemental. It made sense when maelstrom could be used for earth shock or earth quake as our spenders but old school fulmination was just ignored in AE with chain lightning spam. I wish they would stop trying to be clever with our abilities and do morphing. When fulmination hits X stacks the next lightning bolt casts 3x or CL becomes a lava beam.

[shade3891]

Fulmination and seismic thunder need to be one and the same buff.

[Beingbob]

Thank fuck they removed Seismic Thunder... Hopefully the spec will feel better now, though I'm not sure it's as good as the Legion iteration still.

[soulearth86]

I don't understand what it means now to play elemental,
First point: the shaman in all three specs uses elements, and perhaps now having played and tested on ptr the elementalist identity is more for ench than elemental.
Two: Having taken a step back in their decisions we find ourselves a specialization, which is worse than live,
Three: They wanted to give more prominence to fs and Lvb but now we are back to charge to shoot ES which do less damage than lvB
Four: New talent at level 15 useless, try it and tell me
Five: In the end we have no identity, we do a little bit of everything and badly

Isn't it better maybe to redesign the shaman from 0?
We have ascertained that all three specializations are elementalist, at this point is it not better to divide the specs following the elements?
Caster = air and wind
meele = earth and fire
healer = water and totem

at least we try to become an iconic class, for years that push us towards the concept of lava and fire, and this brings me frustration because, shit if I want to play a caster that shoots fire I go on mage fire.

Instead we find ourselves playing now in ptr with a class that is almost identical in live, which hasn't changed anything and which has gotten worse.
Can you explain to me why I should use flame weapon?
or the lightning shield? where's the fun? put the glyph at the end it's just an aesthetic thing ...
Do I have to shoot lb lvb to get to shoot ES which do less damage than Lvb?

What are the primary stats to follow now? Haste and mastery
or Crit and Haste?

As always, the designers of the shamans either lack courage or skill

[Kralljin]

First point: the shaman in all three specs uses elements, and perhaps now having played and tested on ptr the elementalist identity is more for ench than elemental.

You tell me.
Whenever i critize Enhancement design for being too caster heavy, i get a swarm of replies with "muh class fantasy".
Despite the fact that it doesn't make a lick of sense, the way Enhancement uses Lightning Bolt / CL serve a very different purpose than for Elemental.

They're filler for Elemental but nukes for Enhancement, which find pretty weird that spells have become a nuke for a melee spec.

shit if I want to play a caster that shoots fire I go on mage fire.

I feel like that talents take a huge blame here.

I think that Elemental should as "baseline" evolve around all Elements: Earth, Lightning, Fire and Water / Frost.
With talents you could then push yourself in a certain direction, want to go more in a Fire direction? Take Talent X, Want to go more for Lightning take Talent Y.
Of course, numbers dictate the "best" option, but i think that talents here should at least try to give some choice where you want to go with Elemental and where you want to focus on.

Instead, it's a random mix of talents that sometimes serve different purposes and often have negative synergy despite not being on the same tier.

Storm Elemental and Ascendance are the best examples here.
There are quite a few talents that have total negative synergy with those talents, like:

Echo of the Elements
Elemental Blast
Icefury
Aftershock

Storm Elemental, Ascendance and Icefury belong into the same row - or better yet, get a rework because they do not work at all with how Elemental plays nowadays.

Ascendance was "kinda" working when this whole Fulmination business wasn't as crucial to Elemental, yet with the heavy tie in of talents and Legendaries, it most certainly doesn't do anymore.

Same goes for Storm Elemental, the idea of the spell is that you simply spam LB, then the rest of Elemental needs to work in way that allows you to spam Lightning Bolt if you've chosen Storm Elemental, instead of throwing procs and whatnot in between that want you to press something else.

Instead we find ourselves playing now in ptr with a class that is almost identical in live, which hasn't changed anything and which has gotten worse.

It plays that way because Blizzard tried to remove Maelstrom and instead simply split it into two seperate combo points system.

Previously, Fulmination were your Single target combopoints and Seismic Thunder you're AoE one.
However, this was completely horrible.

Elemental once again became victim to a change of "general design philosophy", the same way they hated on casting while moving in WoD, they had now an issue with every spec having a resource to deal with.
Thus they removed Maelstrom, but didn't go far enough to actually push Elemental back to a place where Spells like Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning simply carried on their own without any ties to a resource system, but came up with the "combo point" system from above.

Now, they were forced to basically bring back Maelstrom without calling it such, hence it plays worse because it's a halfassed solution.

The entire niche that Elemental is supposed to occupy in SL (spreading FS and funneling Lvb) doesn't work that well anyway because it heavily relied on Azerite traits such as Igneous potential and Lava shock.
With those gone, that niche also falls apart.

Not to mention that it obviously requires certain talents to even work (EotE) and has an anti synergy with other talents (Storm Elemental).

or the lightning shield? where's the fun? put the glyph at the end it's just an aesthetic thing ...

To be fair, it's nice for questing and PvP, since getting hit generates a Fulmination charge.

For raiding however, it's useless.
Not to mention that the "thorns" effect is utterly laughable.
On Beta, Lightning shield does around 19 damage on my fresh 60.

In Classic (!), it does 240 damage when i wear Elemental gear.

As always, the designers of the shamans either lack courage or skill

I think it's like: They know they don't have the time to do every class / spec justice (resource issues on Blizzards part) thus they first work on those they themselves play, then on those that barely anyone on the team plays.

You can't tell me it's a coincidence that always the same specs have serious shortcomings during a Beta cycle.

[msdos]

When I look at the Ele tree and abilities, it looks like a ghost trying to tear its self apart in all directions, literally has no idea where to go or what to be, I looked at it like a confetti cake with rainbow frosting for dinner, no way in hell I'm eating that and that's not even playing it, so I'm not surprised by what I'm reading.

I feel the Shaman identity tries to incorporate spirits and astral projection and shamanistic voodoo stuff (cuz one time there was a Spiritwalker and Witch Doctor unit), but it's toes are being severely stepped on in its uniqueness. For example, it can't be too in touch with ghosts then it feels Shadowpriestish, too much fire usage then it becomes a Fire mage rip off, too much lightning is boring for some people I guess? Too much voodoo becomes Necromancy. Can't have too much Frost crap for obvious reasons. You see where I'm going with this?
Then they gave Druids Cyclone and Typhoon, I mean they basically have more wind spells than Shamans.

What I always wanted for Ele was new Lightning spells. So that means just give them Force lightning from Star Wars. Not sure why it hasn't been done yet. People were asking for Forked Lightning for a long time.
Make it channeled and able to hit multiple things, but do less dmg the more targets it hits, but if it only is hitting one target, builds fulmination quicker or something.

Yeah it's dreaming but whatever.

[Venziir]

When I look at the Ele tree and abilities, it looks like a ghost trying to tear its self apart in all directions, literally has no idea where to go or what to be, I looked at it like a confetti cake with rainbow frosting for dinner, no way in hell I'm eating that and that's not even playing it, so I'm not surprised by what I'm reading.

I feel the Shaman identity tries to incorporate spirits and astral projection and shamanistic voodoo stuff (cuz one time there was a Spiritwalker and Witch Doctor unit), but it's toes are being severely stepped on in its uniqueness. For example, it can't be too in touch with ghosts then it feels Shadowpriestish, too much fire usage then it becomes a Fire mage rip off, too much lightning is boring for some people I guess? Too much voodoo becomes Necromancy. Can't have too much Frost crap for obvious reasons. You see where I'm going with this?
Then they gave Druids Cyclone and Typhoon, I mean they basically have more wind spells than Shamans.

What I always wanted for Ele was new Lightning spells. So that means just give them Force lightning from Star Wars. Not sure why it hasn't been done yet. People were asking for Forked Lightning for a long time.
Make it channeled and able to hit multiple things, but do less dmg the more targets it hits, but if it only is hitting one target, builds fulmination quicker or something.

Yeah it's dreaming but whatever.

The Lightning Lasso PvP talent is kinda that.

[Kalisandra]

What I always wanted for Ele was new Lightning spells. So that means just give them Force lightning from Star Wars. Not sure why it hasn't been done yet. People were asking for Forked Lightning for a long time.
Make it channeled and able to hit multiple things, but do less dmg the more targets it hits, but if it only is hitting one target, builds fulmination quicker or something.

Chain Lightning in MoP was very much this. There was plenty of Mastery available and you'd get these massive webs of lightning. It was grand. Too grand, apparently, because it's never been quite the same since, even when the damage was good.

[Makabreska]

You tell me.
Whenever i critize Enhancement design for being too caster heavy, i get a swarm of replies with "muh class fantasy".
Despite the fact that it doesn't make a lick of sense, the way Enhancement uses Lightning Bolt / CL serve a very different purpose than for Elemental.

They're filler for Elemental but nukes for Enhancement, which find pretty weird that spells have become a nuke for a melee spec.

I feel like that talents take a huge blame here.

Exactly how I feel. Enh seems like a second grade Ele right now, which is especially visible in Thorgast. I don't like Maelstrom with LB/CL spender, feels crappy to have so much Ele kit in melee spec. Goddamn Survival is another not-entirely-melee melee spec, but at least they gave him mostly unique spells. I really don't get it why people anb YouTubers were so happy with half reverting enh back to WoD state.

[Skildar]

I just love how they've reverted the class resource mechanic to wod state and refuse to use the maelstrom bar, when it is visually the best solution rather than using buffs on a class that is known to have way too many buffs on the character, so you can be sure that people will use weakauras to turn this buff into a resource bar...

[Kalisandra]

It would be nice if the Master of the Elements talent actually benefited from being used on a nice big fulminate. Because the fulminate is a separate damage proc from Earth Shock or Elemental Blast, it's not affected by the talent. There goes a decent reward we could've had for playing around the talent intelligently.

[Venziir]

It would be nice if the Master of the Elements talent actually benefited from being used on a nice big fulminate. Because the fulminate is a separate damage proc from Earth Shock or Elemental Blast, it's not affected by the talent. There goes a decent reward we could've had for playing around the talent intelligently.

That talent should be reworked honestly, it's so incredibly boring and doesn't exactly make you feel like a "master of the elements".