11.0.5 Elemental Shaman Feedback

In Development The War Within Patch 11.0.5 PTR
1

I’ve been playing WOW since LK expansion, and i’ve started to play elemental shaman on Pandaria. My opinion is definetly not representative of every shaman, but i felt the urge to post here on how the new version for War Within feels so wrong to me that i was pushed to pick a new main for the first time in a long long time.

  1. Lava Burst and Flame Shock feels meaningless. Even with the announced chances for 11.0.5, i believe that this won’t change. The removal of multiple proc chances for flame shocks, together with the low damage on Lava burst ( and now it alsos don’t get CD-free during ascendance… ). I understand that we had some overuse of those skills during Dragonflight, but to make them completely dumbed down and meaningless kinda kills it for me.

  2. Too easy to play. Ele shaman was never one of the hardest specs to play, but we did have some minor adjustments that could set apart new-comers to the spec and veterans. M+ Lightning build is offensively easy to play. I really don’t know how to elaborate further on that, as for me it is completely clear how bland the new version is. Tier sets wont even change this for now since they are very bland themselves.

  3. Stormbringer vs Farseer, where is fire? ice? earth?. Of course you can only have two heroic talents, im not asking blizzard to make a spec for each element. But with these two categories, but i REALLY dislike stormbringer massively forcing lightning. Elemental shamans were supposed to be elementalists, who control plenty of elements, not just lightning. Farseer at least seems a somewhat element-agnostic, but immo Stormbringer should be completely modified, maybe giving space to a Totem focused hero talent tree? I really dont like how Stormbringer tree interacts with default elemental shaman tree. It feels off

Not eveything is bad, i’ve gotta compliment on the changes to ice related skills. But actually, another complaint : changing the mastery AGAIN, please, make up your minds about it. Make it so it ALWAYS overload but the overload damage is modified by how much mastery you have? i don’t know, whatever it is easy for you to balance, but stop making overload underwhelming

For everyone reading, thanks for the patience, i’m clearly not trying to be logical here, just giving a brutely honest and gutted opinion on why i’ve decided to quit the spec after so many expansions. I’m really sad about it, i even played the spec during first week draenor lol (shaman 13k dps, other specs same ilvl 20k dps), i don’t even bother if the class is not top tier, but i want it to be fun again, and this new version seems more off to me than any iteration from the past expansions

2

I’m in total agreement about lava burst and flame shock. On ptr hitting pvp dummy in full conquest gear and using every modifier like flux melting, prim wave, fire elemental, pvp trinket for 8500 int, the max damage lvb is 1.1 mil so on a pvp player it’s more like 600k max. Flame shock damage from lava burst with the new talent hits for about 50k. When all the modifiers aren’t going, lvb goes from 1.1 mil down to about 600k vs target dummy so it’d be around 300k in pvp.

This of course is after the latest update that reduced all dmg by 8% but buffed lvb by 20%.

3

My opinion: I’m happy, 0.5. Now I can make a full Lightning build, Weaver is decent, and Fire is dead. So please, don’t ask to abolish the Lightning build, but instead ask to make the other builds more viable.

4

I dont really think it’s healthy to maintain so many different builds in one spec. Instead, they should just lean into dedicated strengths.

Lava Burst should be the spell we want to hit every time it’s up for pure single target dps. It should not be like DF S4 where it’s constantly available and the default button for aoe either. That just results in shoving our lightning spells out of the way and ends up getting lava burst nerfed to middling damage as a result. Single target should, at its core be Earth Shock > Lava Burst > Lightning Bolt with talents feeding into the strength of LvB for single target purposes. Given that we have two single target builders, lightning bolt can do reduced damage but be a better maelstrom builder to compensate while serving its role as a filler.

Chain Lightning and Earthquake should be the stars of aoe. I personally think the aoe gameplay is spot on right now. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing those chain lightning overloads. Maximizing flame shocks for primordial wave haste buffs combined with spreading lightning rods is good skill expression without it being feast or famine. However, i would love the flame shock spreading talent that enhance is getting, but not ele for some reason. My only other suggestion is to make tempest feel more impactful. I’m jealous of how much stronger it is for enhancement.

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5

But weaver Is alredy up for this gameplay

6

Trying to balance 3 different gameplay loops within a spec is tough. Blizzard would do it for mages, but they dont care enough about shaman to do it well here.

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