Elemental shaman 5.2 ,the changes we may encounter

[BaZiStA]

First and foremost . Long time reader ,first time poster . Just thought I'd share my thoughts on the new state of ele pre 5.2 and what changes I think as a class MAY have to change .

Now there are some big changes to our dps output . Here's my 2 cents

TIER SET BONUS

Both are big winners
-2 peice being extra damage procs or lightning bolt and chain lightning
-4 peice the more lava surge procs we have have higher chance to reset the CD on ascendency (similar to firelands with fire elemental)

GLYPHS / TALENTS / PASSIVE

-Flameshock lasting longer and hiting harder (sounds to me everybody wins from this lol ,no sex pun intended =D)
-Shamanism buffing lightning bolt and elemental focus buffing crit damage . this is to counter the nerf to our lava burst damage ,hopefully it weighs out and were a more sustained dps spec not just a burst class . Let's face it all we had to do was pull the ascendance card and bam !
-Elemental mastery now a 1min cd . This means a massive chunk of haste and if played ,that means a 33% uptime .
-Unleashed fury debuffing target by increasing the damage of lightning bolt by 20% and damage of lave burst by 10%
-Shamanistic rage ! Finally a damage reduction CD we don't have to spec into .

Theres just the quick run down on our buff for 5.2 . But the way I'm seeing things is that this spec is going to have to slight change up .

For example . With ele mastery being up 33% of the time ,plus the bloodlust burn . Is our main priority stat will no longer be haste due to pushing spells under internal CD . Wasted casting time , so that should make it mastery > haste > crit ?

Also with unleashed fury buffing our 2 main spells I feel that will take the place of elemental blast on our dps priority list ( still in the same position)

Finally with shamanistic rage being available to ele will enable us to cross of astral shift from our talents and choose stone bulwark for constant raid damage and natures guardian for burst .

This is from PVE perspective only . Anyone else feel that these changes will make us be #1 of damage again ? Im feeling like its going to be firelands all over again booyah !

[fappen]

Few things:

1) the change to lava burst is not a nerf. It'll deal the same damage the normal way we use it, with flameshock on the mob. However, it will now always crit regardless of if there is flame shock up on the target, so it's actually a buff to that, allowing us to quickly burst a mob down a little better than we do currently.
2) Elemental mastery is actually changed to a 90 second cooldown, not 1 minute. It'll likely be used at the beginning of the tier, however, Once you get the legendary meta, you will most likely move back to echo of elements so you are not under haste cap all of the time.
3) Elemental focus doesn't buff crit damage, It buffs the next 2 spells after you crit, so it's more than just a crit spell buff, which will be fairly nice.

Still not sure about ele blast vs unleashed fury, the secondary stats scale so well and elemental blast can hit very hard, i can't see giving it up, although with lightning bolt hitting harder it's a possibility,

[Deleted]

elemental focus buffing crit damage

buffs all damage not just crit damage

take the place of elemental blast on our dps priority list ( still in the same position)

unless something changed that im unaware of UE was always ahead of LvB in the priority order and should still be there instead of after (EB spot)
considering the 4set bonus, im still very sceptical its a big winner until i can actually test it out, it messes up cooldown alignment with any other spell (especially berserking for me personally) and it makes the spell that contributes the most to our damage even more important instead of throwing something else in the mix which would make the rotation extremely boring in case EM and PrimeEle will be the favored talents to take.
and having a 1min haste CD doesnt look that great if you are a troll with berserking and getting a legendary meta gem that does exactly the same: more haste, i dont quite like seeing spells cast at 0.6 seconds.
i do like shamanistic rage and the change to FS but to me the talent changes are more to bring some of them closer together that we actually consider using them but in no way will it makes us #1 of damage and especially not 'again'. the biggest issue still remains and that is the lack of elemental scaling over the course of a tier.

[zenga]

-Elemental mastery now a 1min cd . This means a massive chunk of haste and if played ,that means a 33% uptime .

It's a 1m30s cd next in 5.2.

unless something changed that im unaware of UE was always ahead of LvB in the priority order and should still be there instead of after (EB spot)

I really wonder where you get that info from? There is an ele guide in the stickies, the same one is over at totemspot and the same one is up at EJ. Never had UE a place in ele's rotation, since the glyph of unleash lightning was introduced. The only situational use was for example on ultraxion where you could macro it together with the alternative button.
Never since MoP was unleash fury a viable alternative over Prime elementalist or elemental blast.

Either way, there is an 82 page topic that discusses the changes for next patch, I recommend checking that one out.

[Deleted]

ofc that was implying the use of Unleash Fury talent, i am well aware it has no place in the regular rotation when taking any of the other 2 lvl90 talents. but the poster was saying UE would take the spot of EB when taking UF as a talent which i was just saying wouldnt be correct. next time read a bit more carefully.

edit:
and since you were so kindly refering to that guide i will go ahead and quote that for you:

1.Cast Flame Shock IF the DoT has expired or has 1 tick remaining.
2. IF you have the L90 talent Unleashed Fury, cast Unleash Elements
3. Cast Lava Burst IF it is off cooldown AND Flame Shock is on the target
4. IF you have the L90 talent Elemental Blast, cast Elemental Blast

and concerning the 'only' use on ultraxion, i do like to use it on sha while getting ported to the shrines

[zenga]

ofc that was implying the use of Unleash Fury talent,

I read it as that unleash fury would now overtake elemental blast, and that you replied with UE was always better than lava burst so nothing really changes in the priority, even if you spec UF over ele blast.

But all good if you didn't intend it like that.

[BaZiStA]

With ele mastery being a 90sec cd ,I don't see it pulling in front of echo unless its fights with constant burn phases . Sad to see that they changed that.

Also lava burst took a 33% nerf due it being so OP in pvp . That's why they countered it with shamanism and elemental focus so were not just a burst class and more consistent dps .

Still not 100% on unleashed elements or elemental blast . UE will make us even more mobile ,were ele blast still chooses stats at random and no primary stat buff like enhance get .

[Keldion]

Also lava burst took a 33% nerf due it being so OP in pvp . That's why they countered it with shamanism and elemental focus so were not just a burst class and more consistent dps.

How did you miss the 50% Flame Shock modifier? That 'nerf' is completely negated by the Flame Shock enhancement, and was done to make the spell stronger when Flame Shock is removed from the target.

[Anonymitylol]

The 4pc can actually have either 0 effect or negative/positive depending on fight length and if used improperly if you have a warrior in your raid. I wouldn't say the 4pc is great.

[Kaliblaze]

Also lava burst took a 33% nerf due it being so OP in pvp . That's why they countered it with shamanism and elemental focus so were not just a burst class and more consistent dps.

Dude you gotta READ. It does the same damage if you have flame shock on the target.....

[Endus]

Also lava burst took a 33% nerf due it being so OP in pvp . That's why they countered it with shamanism and elemental focus so were not just a burst class and more consistent dps .

Yeah, no.

If LvB does 100 damage non-crit, right now you hit for 100, or 250 if you hit a target with Flame Shock (auto-crit).
In 5.2, you do 167 damage auto-crit, or 250 if you hit a target with Flame Shock on (+50% damage).

The ONLY change is to damage on a target without Flame Shock, and it's a buff there. On a target with Flame Shock, there's been no change in damage.

[dreadmist]

Also lava burst took a 33% nerf due it being so OP in pvp . That's why they countered it with shamanism and elemental focus so were not just a burst class and more consistent dps .

I don't know why I see this is misconception so often. Lava Burst was NOT NERFED. It hits for the exact same amount as before on Flame Shocked targets; it just hits harder than before on non-flame shocked targets. It had nothing to do with PvP burst, and in fact it's a PvP buff, since lava burst will hit harder than before when flame shock is dispelled. Overall Lava Burst was buffed, perhaps the wording of the changes and/or numbers are confusing people

[Qrange]

Dude you gotta READ. It does the same damage if you have flame shock on the target.....

"Lava Burst base damage has been reduced by 33% but now always deals a critical strike. When cast on targets affected by Flame Shock, it now deals 50% more damage."

Current flame shock makes LB crit. The new FS will cause LB to do 50% more dmg, but it will still crit due to the LB rework making LB always crit like soulfire. Unless this was changed recently.

[Eruionmel]

Reposting this from the Lava Burst discussion thread:

Did a quick check to make sure the new changes are live, and they are. So I'm headed to a dummy to do another quick test. Will post results shortly.

Edit:

Good news, people. The changes were actually fairly significant. The first thing I'll point out is that LB makes up a much larger percentage of our damage now. Mine is sitting at 30%, with LvB at 42%. What this means is that our sustained DPS during the periods outside of ascendance are going to be more predictable and consistent. It also means that if we have to stop or forgoe casting a LvB because we have to move immediately, our DPS will not suffer as large of a hit because the moving LB will do more damage than it did before.

The second thing is the numbers in general. I pulled 102k unbuffed on the dummy (and actually had to pop BL mid-ascendance because I'd changed a keybinding and popped SR instead of BL; not a big deal, but a small loss). That's very close to our theoretical max DPS on live fully raid buffed. 102k is a nearly 15% overall increase from my live numbers, which is pretty phenomenal. It's exactly what we've been needing and asking for. It's an 8.5% increase from the last buff that they gave us. Not only that, the current T14 pc buffs a spell that is a fairly low percentage of our damage (around 7% on my test with the 4pc; probably around 4% without). The new T15 4pc buffs what is arguably our highest contributing DPS spell in the game, ascendance. It can only get better with the new set bonus.

I told you guys we were gonna be good this tier.

[Deleted]

"Lava Burst base damage has been reduced by 33% but now always deals a critical strike. When cast on targets affected by Flame Shock, it now deals 50% more damage."

Current flame shock makes LB crit. The new FS will cause LB to do 50% more dmg, but it will still crit due to the LB rework making LB always crit like soulfire. Unless this was changed recently.

Lava Burst hits for 30k on live, crits for 60k with FS.
In 5.2 it does 20k non-crit, but since it always crits it will always do 40k, if FS is active it will do 40k + (50% of 40k) = 60k.

[Zues]

Lava Burst hits for 30k on live, crits for 60k with FS.
In 5.2 it does 20k non-crit, but since it always crits it will always do 40k, if FS is active it will do 40k + (50% of 40k) = 60k.

Um...if your Lava Burst is hitting for 60k with FS up, I'm assuming you're level 85 or something.

[Kaliblaze]

Um...if your Lava Burst is hitting for 60k with FS up, I'm assuming you're level 85 or something.

Seriously dude.......he was explaining the change to lava burst using easy numbers.

[Deleted]

Um...if your Lava Burst is hitting for 60k with FS up, I'm assuming you're level 85 or something.

90, the tooltip of Lava Burst reads 30740 damage, Lava Burst really hits like a wet noodle.

[Kazgrel]

90, the tooltip of Lava Burst reads 30740 damage, Lava Burst really hits like a wet noodle.

That's without spell power and other buffs and such factored in.

I'm in the 90-100k range for lava burst crits unbuffed at 494 ilvl, iirc.

[Endus]

That's without spell power and other buffs and such factored in.

I'm in the 90-100k range for lava burst crits unbuffed at 494 ilvl, iirc.

Plus Overloads, which for some reason people never want to include. People like to comment that LvB can't crit, but it CAN Overload, which is just as strong as anyone else's Crit would be, and usually at a somewhat comparable rate. It's like comparing the low damage of LB by looking at a single non-crit strike, and ignoring that not only can it Crit, it can Overload; the average damage per cast needs to include both if you're comparing it to other class' filler.