I feel like we going to eat the biggest 10-20% nerf. Idk what it will necessarily be but I have a feel LR is about to be amputated out back, and when the cops find out Ascendance the Clown did it he is going to get shot too.
Edit, Perhaps PotM will also get a proc reduction.
Ascendance getting its Overload damaged bonus nerfed slightly and Lighting Rod getting tuned down a bit I can see happening but PotM I think is going to be ok. There is rat tech you can do with PotM but its more of a “stars align” rather than a setup sort of thing.
Initial impressions of live after a tired raid night. Feels like the optimization game is afoot. I have no idea what’s great or what’s going on exactly.
"Zuko pokes his head through the doorway to his uncle after the night replaying, "It was nice"
TL;DR: Burst/Opening is amazing, Ascendance AoE has issues. Feels like it’s all upside, just have to get into the groove and take advantage of it
We’re live
There were definitely a lot of changes, fixes, and improvements between the PTR and live that weren’t exactly noted. All of them good, mostly.
Ascendance
Ascendance is a huge throughput cooldown. Lining things up with the minute before it’s ready is critical. It really shows up during the opening sequence and helps to regain ground. I’m on the fence about everything, including whether to enjoy having such large swings in power because the rest of the kit definitely made room for it. But this definitely feels more like an opportunity one learns enjoy than a burdened that one suffers.
The only real problem I’ve experienced so far
Feels like the promised Flame Shock and Lava Burst applications don’t always occur. I’ve been in plenty of target rich environments with multiple enemies directly engaged and they didn’t get hit with FS or Lava Bursts at all (failure to launch), the wrong targets are hit (neutral or unengaged targets).
Real situations I had tonight included raid pve and pvp. The neutral webbed target dummies during the trash of the raid got hit while the 5+ ascended enemies beating on the tank did not. In PvP, the neutral guards that spawned were hit, enemy players not in combat were hit, while enemy players I was in combat with were not.
This feels like the Ancestors targeting subroutines for AoE, which can use some help.
Ancestors
Farseer doesn’t feel bad, at all, imo. Working around 30 second cycles without FoL CDR with 1/3rd to 1/2 uptime is nice.
Icefury
Icefury shows up now and is useful when you’re blasting period, whether with fire or lightning.
The single target damage feels okay. Multi-target damage of it feels inopportune especially when the target count is high. So it feels like its niche is playing with Maelstrom resource generation.
Fusion of the Elements
A dangling points for a 60% Elemental Blast effect seems significant and expensive. Having small cul de sacs capstone talents isn’t a bad thing, it’s cool to have rewarding goals further up the tree.
UX
For both this and Icefury are going to continue to have a ton of demand for WAs to try and help track it. I wish it had a bit of the Mage UX polish like they did for Memory of Al’ar just for reassurances that I’m using it when it’s available. There are moments of dread where I feel like the buffs are sitting there waiting for me, and I’m not using it.
Charges
Usage is even more critical because it feels like the charges are weird. You get fewer of them, they stack kind of, but not more than 2. You can have empowered frost shocks that are locked behind icefury procs.
It’s easy to imagine situations where you need the Slow effect and can’t get to it for multiple gcds or worse a Root from a Surge of Power.
Surge of Power & Icefury
I’m conflicted I don’t think Surge of Power needs to grow the essay larger and interact with Icefury… I don’t know maybe. Icefury effectively overrides Frost shock, and in my opinion it should apply the effects of Frost shock which is to also slow. And by that logic, SoP should recognize Icefury like Frost shock and thus a SoP Icefury should root.
Idk, SoP has always been a complex and fantastic talent. It’s central, it’s dynamic, it’s hip, it’s cool… Who would complain if SoP became a doctoral thesis by 2034? It’d deserve it.
Aftershock & DRE
Tried an aftershock build to ‘fish’ for DREs on Queen and it did not feel like I could find the water. DRE is as fickle as ever, perhaps more so. In my gut, I feel like the duration should 2 seconds longer, there are times I recognize I’m in it, but not enough time for me to do anything. I’m not sure if it’s that’s necessarily a bad thing since you’re generally doing what you were going to do, which is cast more. Except, when you’re moving, where it felt like a very expensive refresh and meatball.
Maelstrom
Generation feels slower. The resource is more valuable than ever. This is probably me being bad. To play with some of the talents, I had to forgo talents like Eye of the Storm and Searing Flames. This can definitely be alleviated with gearing; more haste and mastery.
After playing Ele for hald a day I think… it’s a downgrade. I know it sounds fried after Venruki clips but listen.
It was cool for first hour when people were not aware. You could smoke them 100-0 but once people figured out they play all the time around it. They throw every CC on you and press CDs early. Outside of it our sustain is way lower so the pressure is not there. Considering Ele comps like WW/Ele/H Pala for example it’s weaker.
Yeah Ele is pretty broken at the moment and is doing absolutely insane damage. Its doing great in raid, and is by far the most sought after DPS for high keys right now. 30% higher damage than most specs at least. I’m seeing Ele’s in high keys pushing 20 mil dps for certain pulls.
Its not a matter of if the nerf bat is coming, its how much.
Agreed.My point was, why is there a cast time? It really is nothing to worry about.
It isn’t like a icey veins, combustion etc. Cast time should be removed as it will affect nothing since it doesn’t bring any impact.
I would assume this is an oversight over the years since at one time it had impact but after time and all changed it should be fixed.
Idk, moot point regardless for removing cast time or having it. Why this is still an option to take is puzzling.
I don’t PvE this season but I heard it was a trinket and a bug. Ascendance is absolutely stupid and broken. It should never go live like this.
The issue is though outside of it our damage is in fact lower so I’m afraid after deserved nerf our spec will drop a tier down in PvP too. And it will be a huge downgrade compared to pre-11.0.5
If you load into Ascendance during a 6-8 mob pull, you can live what I term is the AG dream. You can pop Ancestral Guidance and max out the healing on it by doing at least 4.5m dps fairly easily. Outside of ascendance, it drops down pretty hard. It’s also slightly fragile, tank moves mobs out of earthquakes, that’s at least 1/3rd of the investment.
One of the things they’ll need to fix is the FS+LvB to 5 targets thing. I wasn’t aware of it the first night, but as soon as it was pointed out, it’s because all of that gets directed to the primary target. I wish Icefury’d Frost Shock actually did something like that. So whatever bug it is, should be studied by top men, there’s applications for it elsewhere, but it certainly feels like a bug.
With recent tuning Elemental Shaman is already worse than it was pre-11.0.5 in PvP. Less sustain - random one shot potential tonned down. Happy 20th anniversary guys. I told you so.
I wanna say that I really enjoy ele in terms of feeling like a machine gun again. Throwing out constant Lightning bolts, lava bursts, frost shocks buffed by icefury, obviously the non stop chain lightnings and the elemental blasts that you get post icefury make ele really feel like a machine gun more than its been since MoP imo and that was the last expac I really enjoyed ele.
There are definitely some issues, but overall I enjoy the gameplay in pve. Haven’t played it in pvp yet but I hope these nerfs don’t ruin its viability there, the only ones that matter are the asc overload nerf and the echo chamber nerf but they were pretty sizeable.
Further Farseer impressions. Aftershock, Swelling Maelstrom, and Searing Flames seem quite effective for building maelstrom which in turn improves our mobility as you have more instant cast Earth Shocks and Earthquakes. Prim Wave granting Lava Surge now is quite nice since it gives us yet another instant cast and gives you immediate charge of Lava Burst in case you’re out of charges and want to keep weaving.
Trying to maintain uptime on Elemental Blast buffs by running Fusion of the Elements + Ancient Fellowship + Routine Communication. Earthshatter also feeling some synergy as you get the improved Ele Blast buffs + stronger ES/EQ. The more ancestors we can spawn the lower the CD on Storm Ele which we want as only other way to reduce CD is Surge of Power/Lava Burst which we are taking Aftershock.
Weapon imbues are out. No longer turret spamming Lightning Bolt/CL so Thunderstrike Ward is underwhelming. 99% sure that Primordial Fury is better than Improved Flametongue. Enhanced Imbues is also out from the general tree–unfortunately dropping us out of Seasoned Winds but all this opens up four talents you can use elsewhere. Also nice not to think about reapplying these imbues which should be baseline similar to DK runes IMO.
Returning to Aftershock–you’ll get more spenders and more Lightning Rods while requiring less brain power and giving more movement (Farseer Spiritwalker’s Momentum shoutout). There’s less friction too when you have five targets or less and Surge of Power does nothing for Chain Lightning – or you accidentally hit Flame Shock–Lava Burst if Ele is off CD–Frost Shock when movement is needed. Surge of Power Lightning Bolt from 2 to 1 was substantial. We have more uptime on Rods with Charged Conduit talent then can freely spam Chain Lightnings with Stormkeeper on top of multiple Rods.
Other thoughts. Erupting Lava feels awful, give us back Skybreakers. Preeminence over First Ascendant all the time? Please fix Ascendance Flame Shock spread. Will test to see if Mountains Will Fall Overloaded Earthquakes spread Lightning Rod. Running Everlasting Elements + Echo of the Elementals and Fury of the Storm but curious if I would like Herald of the Storms. Think I’ll stick with Fury since pressing more Stormkeepers would feel more jank.
Likely not optimum but finally having fun weaving this xpac and wanting to play this spec.