The state of Elemental in 5.1

[Deleted]

Actually, you'll find that Balance & Shadow are in the same boat, with Elemental a tad behind the other two.

Balance? Balance depends heavily on crit for Starsurge procs and extending the eclipsed dot as long as possible. They do get better with gear once reaching both the Haste cap and a reasonable level of crit becomes less arduous. We don't see that big of an impact on our play style by increasing secondary stats the way Balance Druids do.

I do agree on Shadow Priests. They might be the least gear dependent class in the game.

[Terminal Lance]

OT, it would be nice IMO if we get some sort of execute-like ability without adding an ability; like maybe increasing Fulmination damage when the target's below 20-35% (for Ele) or making Stormstrike hit hard as shit for Enhance at said health range.

[Deleted]

Lightning Bolt on the move should be baseline, not a glyph. I also think that Lava Burst should gain extra damage from our critical strike rating, similar to Chaos Bolt. Oh, and Primal Elementalist pets should be permanent, would be awesome to have a personal tank pet for solo'ing.

[Totaltotemic]

Lightning Bolt on the move should be baseline, not a glyph.

Slightly off-topic, but has anyone else noticed how mandatory Ele major glyphs are compared to other classes? My Monk and Warlock often have to hunt to find glyphs that even affect DPS or healing at all, let alone ones that are required. Ele has a requirement of the Flame Shock glyph for every fight and Unleashed Lightning for almost (with the rare exception of Gara'jal and possibly Feng) just to increase DPS. That leaves Chain Lightning, Fire Elemental, and Purge glyphs that are all useful depending on the fight and sometimes multiple may be desired. For example, Fire Elemental AND Purge glyphs would be desirable for Heroic Spirit Kings, but you literally only have the option of one. This seems rather odd contrasting with my Monk who never even changes glyphs because none of them affect DPS at all, which I thought was the point of redesigning them for MoP.

[Deleted]

I don't see a problem with shaman DPS at the moment. Both Enhancement and Elemental are close until an ability breaking the routine comes in. I'm constantly on top5 on my guild's meters (25m pushing heroic progression). Warlock, Mage and Warrior is what I can compete with.

So you're playing with mostly bads or you're overgearing rest of your guilds DPS. Whoppydoo.

[HatredAU]

I changed my Shaman to Elemental from Enhancement and while at the start I loved the change. Now I just hate the play style all over again. I don't know why I can't get into Elemental. Like I want to like it but I just can't... Not sure why.

I hear you, I love the more involved playstyle of enhance. Guild made me go ele because melee suck this tier

---------- Post added 2012-12-11 at 01:33 PM ----------

OT, it would be nice IMO if we get some sort of execute-like ability without adding an ability; like maybe increasing Fulmination damage when the target's below 20-35% (for Ele) or making Stormstrike hit hard as shit for Enhance at said health range.

This may be possibly the dumbest idea ever, but wouldn't it be cool if below 35% we got permanent 7 stack lightning shield with each lightning bolt buffing our fulminate by 5% (Could be lower/higher)

[n0fe]

My concern is the downtime between ascendance, the dps just goes down to the dumps. I have a real problem with LvB. For one thing, I've had lightning bolts crit more than it which should never happen. The cast time is very low as well. I understand that having a guaranteed crit is great, but I really think increasing the damage and cast time of LvB would be great for both PvE and PvP shamans.

I feel that, since you have access to a cooldown free LvB in ascendance, Blizz has forced themselves into toning it down way too much. Sure, ascendance is fun, but everything outside of it seems bad by comparison. They should just morph lightning bolt into something else and buff LvB to a point where it actually means something.

I also worry about scaling, once LvB reaches less cast time than GCD it really starts to lose effectiveness. I would like to see lava surge mean more than just "hey a free lightning bolt crit". I'm sure I'm not the only one who has trouble on Will, seeing as how its impossible to keep up with dotting and dpsing everything efficiently. I suggest making Lava surge give the next LvB a crit regardless of whether the target has flame shock on or not. This would make it significantly better for quick target switching and would actually make Ele dps much better in a lot of situations, including PvP.

[Terminal Lance]

Can you explain why you think it's the "dumbest" idea ever? Like wat n0fe said, as soon as Ascendance is finished, our dps goes downhill. I'm just thinking it would be nice for Ele to get DPS back up as soon as you hit the execute phase via Fulmination. And it takes atleast 6-10 seconds to get 5+ LS charges (longer if unlucky).

[Deleted]

@execute damage:
With your 4piece t14 it sometimes takes around 1-3 gcd (depending on mastery, luck ...) to get 7-capped but usually it is no problem to reach 7 stacks again with some raid gear. To my mind it would fit better that Elemental starts building up Lightning Charges or sth with LBs which increase the damage of next fulmination (or even LB) by some percent.

@damage/damage distribution:
I agree, we are in some bad shape dpswise (on par with other hybrid casters on single-target, worse in many other cases, numbers have been posted from different sources) and it feels some kind of unsatisfactory after the big boom (Asc) is over. Hopefully some scaling issues known from former add-ons will be addressed with the next tier of raid content.

[Endus]

Hopefully some scaling issues known from former add-ons will be addressed with the next tier of raid content.

It's not a scaling issue.

There's two types of DPS issue. There's scaling, and there's straight power. "Scaling" refers to how we're affected by variables, particularly gear; if we scale poorly, we will start with relatively high DPS, but our relative DPS will fall off as we and others gear up. That's not really the case with Elemental; we're in the lower third overall, but we've been there since the start, and we're not really falling off relative to others, we're sticking to close to the same rank. What we're seeing is a lack of straight power; we're just averaging lower DPS.

Scaling issues typically mean you need to change the scaling values of spells; have LB provide more damage from spellpower or improve our damage from secondary stats, for instance. These are changes that will have a greater relative effect with better gear but less effect at lower gear levels. What I'd say the data shows is that we need straight DPS increases, where you bump LB damage by 5% or so overall, bringing our damage up at all gear levels by about the same relative amount.

[Wunhunglo]

Seriously, no, Top 100 parses is basically completely useless and misleading for class balance discussions. I wrote a blog post about this waaay back when the log collation site in use was stateofdps.com; How not to use stateofdps.com and worldoflogs.com. The specific numbers used as examples are out of date, but it's a post about statistical theory and those numbers are just examples; the same facts hold true today. There's a reason everyone stopped using stateofdps.com and started using raidbots.com (which serendipitously started out around the same time as I posted that; the devs there contributed to the thread in fact). It's because "top parse" models are bad for class balance discussion; it biases things towards who's had the best luck doing gimmicky stunts, or who's got the greater RNG and got a lucky parse to upload, rather than class performance and player skill.

If you want to control for player skill, just look at (H) content; those players are performing well enough to get (H) modes down. Trying to go by top 100 brings in far too many irrelevant factors that cannot be controlled for, factors you CAN control for simply by using "all parses".

Just to double down on this point, top 100 parses often involve abnormal circumstances, favorable strategies and/or bad mechanics. Sure, some of them are attained completely legitimately but consider Protectors in Terrace as a good example. Each boss heals completely when one dies so there is absolutely no point in AOEing the bosses (it is actually detrimental as you are lowering your single target DPS) UNLESS your main goal is pad the meters and try to rank (I have seen many Elemental Shaman CL those bosses in LFR and always /facepalm when I see it). There are other cases where raid buffs are purposefully placed on one character in order to help them rank. Other cases exist where one guilds boss strategy may completely strain your ability to rank where another guild strategy may allow for great DPS numbers.

Then you have fights that favor one class/spec due to buffs or class roles (Alysrazor and Will of the Emperor come to mind). Would you really surmise that mages are a terrible class because they are ranked last on H Will in H25/Top 100? No, they are ranked low because their job is not DPS on H Will, it is crowd control. Alysrazor's Haste buff/Mana Regen buff helped Fire Mages, Affliction Locks, Shadow Priests and Boomkins (along with some other classes) do crazy damage while us Elemental Shaman (who were already almost Haste capped and never had mana issues) got hardly any benefit from it at all!

TLDR: Top 100 is bad data to assess class/spec viability. Always use All Parses and make sure that the sample size is big enough.

[HatredAU]

Can you explain why you think it's the "dumbest" idea ever? Like wat n0fe said, as soon as Ascendance is finished, our dps goes downhill. I'm just thinking it would be nice for Ele to get DPS back up as soon as you hit the execute phase via Fulmination. And it takes atleast 6-10 seconds to get 5+ LS charges (longer if unlucky).

No, I meant my idea for the execute. Your idea is nice, sorry for the confusion lol

[Tinsoul]

The problem I see with an execute is that it could crit, overload and echo. Would likely be too much in pvp.

Best that could be hoped for is a bit of a buff to LB.

[Umira]

Removing the shared shock cd would probably create issues in PvP, but other than buffing LB, maybe just reducing the cooldown on shock spells with a tier bonus in the future could come into play.

You're talking about removing the shared shock cd, but that's in resolve to an issue with the tier bonus providing excessive amounts of lightning charges. In future tiers, the bonus will be different. Then there would probably have to be another change to accommodate. Or so I'd imagine. A small buff on LB and reduced shock cd could be nice.

Tying some of our glyphs into our spec as passive abilities as some have mentioned would be nice as well. And possibly new glyphs. Have just one glyph at max that is essential to have at all times, while having the other two free for specific glyphs for specific fights. As others have said, I have noticed that we seem to be a class that has a wider variety of glyphs that could be deemed essential/mandatory for some fights.

Just some random thoughts. I am happy with Elemental though as it is rather than how it was in Cataclysm.

[binkenstein]

The shared shock cooldown is intended to be part of the "difficulty" of playing Elemental. You'll notice that we still have the 1 second cooldown reduction from Reverberation prior to Mists, which is in part due to the increased shock use we'll see from T14 4pc as well as making the shock selection slightly less punishing.

I don't expect the shared cooldown to be changed.

[Endus]

The shared shock cooldown is intended to be part of the "difficulty" of playing Elemental. You'll notice that we still have the 1 second cooldown reduction from Reverberation prior to Mists, which is in part due to the increased shock use we'll see from T14 4pc as well as making the shock selection slightly less punishing.

I don't expect the shared cooldown to be changed.

Right, there needs to be certain choices being made during a spec's standard rotation, it creates ways for good players making the correct choices to shine over players who aren't. The shared shock cooldown isn't really that big an issue for Elemental.

About the only change I'd like to see for shocks would be to have Frost Shock not such a DPS loss compared to a charged Earth Shock or the damage from Flame Shock. What this results in, in PvP, is that Elemental avoids using Frost Shock, since it locks out both of our other necessary shocks, making us choose between burst for the next 6 seconds, or control. That's a longer lockout than most classes face between control or damage. I feel it could be addressed by boosting Frost Shock's damage significantly, while still leaving it clearly inferior to Earth or Flame Shocks for pure Damage. Something like having Fulmination also work with Frost Shock, but only discharging a maximum of 3 charges. That would give Elemental a reason to use Frost Shock in PvP, but you'd still be contending with the shared shock cooldown; you can still choose control, but it's at a loss of DPS, just not as damaging either way as it currently is, where Elemental Shaman tend to ignore Frost Shock entirely as they can't afford the loss of damage.

[Socialhealer]

Removing the shared shock cd would probably create issues in PvP,

hah what that elemental might last longer than 6 seconds vs a melee blowing all cds, even if you have all Cds up? shocks work fine in pve but pvp they are just stupid, if they was all removed so all 3 shocks had no cooldown at all, elemental still wouldnt be anywhere near overpowered in pvp, just amazing multi dotter in pve.

[Kralljin]

Right, there needs to be certain choices being made during a spec's standard rotation, it creates ways for good players making the correct choices to shine over players who aren't. The shared shock cooldown isn't really that big an issue for Elemental.

I'm fine with the Shock CD, but it is seriously annoying to hit 7 LS Charges without being able to use them.

It's simply not cool to have a Proc but being unable to use it because this proc came up to fast before the CD to use it could finish.

That's something i simply don't like about Elemental, if you have too much Haste or Mastery, you feel throttled because you have casts that go below 1Sec or can't respond to to a capped LS because of ES being on CD.

I'd be fine if you could dump some LS charges with Unleash Elements for example, in general i think that Unleash Elements and Searing totem should be buffed to become something meaningful for Elemental, might be better than buffing LB / Lvb.


And i think this scaling issue with secondary stats shows it's face in later tiers, but currently i am wondering if MoP has only 3 tiers, because i am already sitting at 23% Haste and 41% Mastery, if MoP has 4 tiers, you may reach ICC Values in terms of Secondary stats.

just amazing multi dotter in pve.

Nope, Fs isn't doing that much damage compared to the dots of Dot Specs, also it would take 20 Seconds to multidot 5 targets.

[zenga]

I'd love to see ascendance remove the shared shock cd for it's duration. It might be a dps loss in pve, but the utility it brings for pvp would be amazing.

[Sarevokcz]

I'm fine with the Shock CD, but it is seriously annoying to hit 7 LS Charges without being able to use them.

It's simply not cool to have a Proc but being unable to use it because this proc came up to fast before the CD to use it could finish.

That's something i simply don't like about Elemental, if you have too much Haste or Mastery, you feel throttled because you have casts that go below 1Sec or can't respond to to a capped LS because of ES being on CD.

I proposed months ago the idea of charges stacking more, like up to ten, while ES could unleash up to 6, so we had some way to store the random, excessive procs and have somewhat controlled non-Ascendance burst. Alot of other classes got similar mechanics for them to "store" charges, so I dont know why didnt they give us this, too, especially since they thought t14 4piece was a good idea of tier bonus.