Thoughts of Elemental in Shadowlands Beta

[Kralljin]

From reading these forums that presently does not seem like a good idea.

Maining Shaman during an X.0 Patch has never been a good idea.

Wait until 9.1, especially considering Blizzard now spent the majority of the alpha / beta cycle on virtually nothing as Maelstrom is back.
Pragmatic decision, because their initial idea wasn't working at all, altough i doubt that they have time left to actually bring Elemental into a decent place.

[Jotaux]

there are two months left to the expansion, now we shaman elemental, we are back as in the live version

Thats not true! We now have a lower duration on flame shock and no more totem mastery.

[Venziir]

there are two months left to the expansion, now we shaman elemental, we are back as in the live version and if in 5 months they have only managed to make mistakes with the elemental, let alone what they can do in just 2 months ...the worst thing is that on the forums this thing is hailed as a triumph, we managed to remove the fulmination, and good assholes, now get the elemental shaman identical to the BFA version

It seems to be worse actually.

[shammypie]

It seems to be worse actually.

welcome to shamans, on the bright side resto is usually pretty decent x.0 with mana tide totem.

[msdos]

This development reminds me of vanilla-WotlK where Ele didn't receive abilities they could actually use in dungeons until WotlK. In BC you didn't get invited to heroics because you had no polymorph and you couldn't use the Elementals because they would just aggro everything in sight. Good times..

[tusker]

Hey there! Long time elemental shaman. I played in BfA and quit a little before flying was available. Is there a summary somewhere of the changes coming in SL? There are bits and pieces from various patches that I’ve read (e.g. talent changes) but I haven’t kept up with the changes through SL development. With the recent “revert” for example (which I’m not sure I entirely follow?) is elemental very similar overall compared with BfA?

[Venziir]

This development reminds me of vanilla-WotlK where Ele didn't receive abilities they could actually use in dungeons until WotlK. In BC you didn't get invited to heroics because you had no polymorph and you couldn't use the Elementals because they would just aggro everything in sight. Good times..

Well you DID have BL, and you did get hex in Wotlk.

[Kalisandra]

And in BC if you were allowed to raid as Elemental (meaning your guild had too many healers, usually), you were there because of your Flametongue totem, not because of your personal DPS.

[Venziir]

And in BC if you were allowed to raid as Elemental (meaning your guild had too many healers, usually), you were there because of your Flametongue totem, not because of your personal DPS.

Flametongue really? Not Windfury?

[Kralljin]

And in BC if you were allowed to raid as Elemental (meaning your guild had too many healers, usually), you were there because of your Flametongue totem, not because of your personal DPS.

Elemental did okay damage early on but scaling was pretty weak in comparison, so by the time you entered BT your dps fell kinda off.

Elemental was still pretty decent despite that, not as valueable as Enhance for Melee but having one Ele for caster group was still pretty good.
And for reference, you dropped Totem of Wrath (3% Crit & Hit) alongside Wrath of Air (something like ~120Spelldamage) in a caster group.

[Kalisandra]

Flametongue really? Not Windfury?

Windfury is why you have an Enhance in your melee group. Putting an Elemental in there is kinda pointless.

- - - Updated - - -

Elemental did okay damage early on but scaling was pretty weak in comparison, so by the time you entered BT your dps fell kinda off.

Elemental was still pretty decent despite that, not as valueable as Enhance for Melee but having one Ele for caster group was still pretty good.
And for reference, you dropped Totem of Wrath (3% Crit & Hit) alongside Wrath of Air (something like ~120Spelldamage) in a caster group.

I'm mis-remembering the totems it seems. I thought the spelldamage one was a fire totem, because you couldn't have it and your Searing Totem or Fire Elemental out at the same time, which was really annoying (and meant that keeping your raid buffed had a direct DPS cost to yourself).

[Kralljin]

I'm mis-remembering the totems it seems. I thought the spelldamage one was a fire totem, because you couldn't have it and your Searing Totem or Fire Elemental out at the same time, which was really annoying (and meant that keeping your raid buffed had a direct DPS cost to yourself).

Searing totem did tickle damage later on, FE had a whole bunch of issues.

From barely scaling with gear, to the FE going OOM and my favorite one: Elemental not attacking at all (which wasn't fixed until MoP).

Honestly, unless we're talking about a short fight where the 2min duration of Fire Elemental could have carried (it had a 20min CD originally btw.), Totem of Wrath would still be at least equivalent even if it just buffs yourself.

[ydraw]

Windfury is why you have an Enhance in your melee group. Putting an Elemental in there is kinda pointless.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm mis-remembering the totems it seems. I thought the spelldamage one was a fire totem, because you couldn't have it and your Searing Totem or Fire Elemental out at the same time, which was really annoying (and meant that keeping your raid buffed had a direct DPS cost to yourself).

Totem Of Wrath was the fire totem, but shamans were really just there for bloodlust.

[Lubefist]

Totem Of Wrath was the fire totem, but shamans were really just there for bloodlust.

No they weren't lol.

[Aurosh]

https://www.twitch.tv/soullscape/cli...=clips_viewing

Well okay.

This one is nice too:

https://clips.twitch.tv/TentativeBla...dium=clips_api

[Nosnogard]

To anyone who might be playing in the Beta - Is elemental still weak at low gear levels while leveling? I wanted to have one of every class at max level, and for some reason on live my holy paladin kills things faster than my elemental shaman does and with less downtime. I'm only at lvl 88 with both atm, but is this a trend that Blizzard has fixed? Both of them use the same amount of heirloom gear, so I doubt it's a gearing issue.

Thanks in advance

[Pum]

To anyone who might be playing in the Beta - Is elemental still weak at low gear levels while leveling? I wanted to have one of every class at max level, and for some reason on live my holy paladin kills things faster than my elemental shaman does and with less downtime. I'm only at lvl 88 with both atm, but is this a trend that Blizzard has fixed? Both of them use the same amount of heirloom gear, so I doubt it's a gearing issue.

Thanks in advance

on live resto shaman not only does more damage than elemental, it competes for top dps while levelling

[zire]

I just tried to get an overview. We losing 8%! Lavasurge proc chance coming from bfa, get reduced flameshock duration and Losung the passive maelstrom Generation from Totem mastery??? Wow... we gain Healing stream, spirit Walkers and echoing shock. Thats all??? I have the feeling every Expansion we lose good stuff. Either being removed (gust, buff totems) or made from baseline abilities to Talents Or pvp Talents (grounding, Echo, ascendance, stormkeeper, Spirit Walkers). Did i Missed something, anything to Look forward to? Or only less Instant lavabursts and a lot mit flameshock casts?

[Nyel]

Elemental is as boring as ever. Shadowlands didn't improve anything and the Covenant skills don't help either. Everything about Elemental is still mediocre at best and very unfun to play, from the horrible talents to the disappointing Covenant skills.

[Beingbob]

Elemental is as boring as ever. Shadowlands didn't improve anything and the Covenant skills don't help either. Everything about Elemental is still mediocre at best and very unfun to play, from the horrible talents to the disappointing Covenant skills.

I disagree. Elemental has its issues, but it's still one of the few fun casters in the game. With the right talent setup we're about at the peak level of elemental enjoyment (echo, echoing shock, master of the elements, icefury and stormkeeper build).

...

Now that we have prepatch though, it's really hitting me how inane Blizzard's decision to not only re-introduce flame shock's CD in BfA but now reducing the duration as well with Shadowlands is. Maintaining flameshock on 3 targets was already a chore; now we have to pay so much attention to the flame shock CD just to maintain it on 2 targets.

OK - Blizzard didn't want elemental to be a multi-dotter, but now we have to focus much harder to maximize our Flameshock in cleave situations, so ironically dotting is much more stressful and attention-consuming as a shaman than a warlock or shadow priest. For those specs the worst thing that can happen is you miss out on a few dot ticks if you somehow forget to re-apply your dots, but for shaman you not only miss out on ticks, you literally can't effectively target-swap AND lose out on lava surge procs if you forget/are too busy to almost use flame shock on CD. Compared to Legion, I am now much more focused on using Flameshock properly for multi-dotting, so their change has accomplished literally the opposite result they wanted.