I am not sure why the other Shaman post after the bad one was also removed, but here we go with a more tempered approach.
I am currently concerned with the current state of Shaman, particularly Elemental, as I do like playing that spec. There were no changes to Elemental Shaman on Alpha. It is currently in a pretty bad spot on retail and in beta as well. The spec tree has a fair amount of 2 point nodes, and makes builds pretty rigid.
Icefury: Has no place in the spec. It is one of Two Talented frost spells. Frost shock in the class tree is needed to take Icefury in the Spec Tree. Two ice spells. Two talent points. And it is just for some filler. The ability doesnt fit in with the flow or playstyle of any ele builds and just has to be forced in there.
Two Builds, Two Hero Specs: No Choice. The Spec tree is cut in half between Fire build and Lightning build. Each has its own playstyle. Which is a good thing. There are some pathing issues, and an abundance of 2pt nodes that need to be addressed.
Stormbringer: Focused on Lightning and Lightning bolt. So this is the hero talent you take to spec the lightning build. The design behind it, just does not feel fun. You have to spend 400 Maelstrom to activate it. That is 5 Elemental Blasts, or 7 Earth Shocks. The talent tree also synergizes with lightning rod, which is a capstone talent. This also means you will path down the lightning side. The spec is based around Lightning Bolt Spam, but with Icefury, there is the talent electrified shocks. Which means you will use Icefury, then frost shock as a maintenance buff for 15% more nature damage. One Cast, One Instant then wait the GCD, just to activate a 9 second maintenance buff.
I just hope everyone understands how clunky this Spec/Hero Talent Combo is. You Cast Icefury Then frost Shock to activate a 9 sec debuff on the enemy. Then you cast 4 lightning bolts, then frost shock again. Then ele blast when you have the maelstrom. Or Focus on Aftershock, and Cast Earth shock then Lightning bolt for extra OL Procs. But thats pretty much it. No offensive CDs. Tempest doesnt change anything about the rotation. Just Keep up the Icefury Maintenance buff and spam LB and Dump Maelstrom.
Farseer: Fire Side. Spam Lava Burst. The issue is without S3 and S4 Tier, This spec doesnt work well, because it needs the cleave of the 4 Piece tier to function well. There is very little interaction here or choice. This Hero tree also requires you to spec deep into the class tree to take Nature’s Swiftness, so that you can then utilize the Hero Tree Capstone that Now becomes Ancestral Swiftness and summons and Ancestor (Only if you have talented into Nature’s Swiftness First. Otherwise it is just Nature’s Swiftness). I am not going to deep dive the other problems with this Hero talent tree, but it appears to rely largely on a tier set we are not going to have to function well in any type of AoE or Cleave Scenario. Or rather there is no AoE component to this tree. You can cast Stormkeeper, then Prim Wave, Then Chain Lightning as synergy. There is one node that buffs Earthquake 8%, but nothing that buffs Chain Lightning. And several that encourage Lava Burst Spam. So without the S3/4 Tier bonus, the spec is pretty much a single target spec.
Now that out of the way, these two Hero Talent Trees were moved to the Alpha very late in the alpha cycle. They were two of the last. Other Hero talent specs saw full reworks before these two went to the alpha. And with the Alpha being over and moving to beta very shortly after these were released, and the blue post letting the Shamans know that the design phase of these trees was done and they are moving on to tuning, it leaves a really bad taste. There was very little time to offer feedback on the trees. Limited testing time. And no iteration from the version that went to alpha to the version that went to beta. With some talents not yet implemented. It does not feel good.
Then there are the class and spec trees. Both have seen little to no iteration or updates during Dragonflight. Most other classes have gotten updates and full reworks. In some cases, a couple reworks. I wont dig into the disparity between Mage updates, changes and reworks and shaman. And it is radio silence on if anything is coming. Waited all alpha for something. Now we are to beta and it was just announced that Hunters are getting significant class/spec changes next week. This leaves Shamans with nothing. Nothing on the horizon. Especially Elemental Shaman. Their gameplay revolved around tier set bonuses, which forced you into one side or the other. The Hero talents change almost nothing about their gameplay and really just act as more mastery in both cases. And with the utter lack of AoE and Cleave on Farseer, that spec will have to do crazy single target to be worth anything.
And then there is the elephant in the room. Elemental Shamans are the only spec in the game, that does not bring a meaningful raid buff or raid CD to the game, by virtue of spec or class. And there has been nothing said on a development end to address that, or any other part of what I brought up.
It honestly feels like they are just punting the Shaman class to a later patch because they either, A: Ran our of time to do an overhaul. B: They dont have a clear direction they want the class/spec to go in. C: Both A and B.
