I’ve never really been bothers by nerfs or buff for the most part. Balancing is a natural part of the game. But I will say this. Blizzard has fumbled elemental shaman this tier and it has lead me to lose faith in the companies ability to provide a fun experience anymore. My subscription will run out in two months, but it won’t matter, because I have already uninstalled the game and this is my feed back as to why.
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Blizzard adds new hero talents and shaman rework in TWW PTR
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Farseer overperforms and they nuke it in PTR, Changing Flash of lightning into a broken talent that forces people into Haste builds and Spams lighting. This was tested on the PTR and brought to the attention of developers and nothing was done.
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TWW Releases and players begin gearing/learning their spec.
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6 weeks after raid launch a rework for ele comes along that removes the Flash of Lightening talent and throws elemental shamans into a frenzy to find new gear, test new builds and learn a new rotation after progression hits.
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Blizzard makes elemental a 3 min burst class now, which works really well with an overpowered and broken trinket (spymasters glass).
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Elemental overperforms for several reasons that are not 100% achievable by the majority of the community.
- 3 Min Ascendance works really really well with Spymasters Glass (which is a broken trinket)
- Ascendance is bugged on ST causing far more burst
- Lightning Rod is bugged causing far more damage
- Several other bugs that are less impactful but still present
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Streamers and top .01% players start pull around this 3 min burst and the class seems far more powerful than it really is in 99% of the playerbase. The 20 mil burst was specific to 6+ adds, procs ready to use, and near max stacks of Spymasters Glass. Normal burst without the trinket was still overtuned but no where NEAR that strong.
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This leads to blizzard knee jerking nerfs.
- First they Nerf Lighting Rod Damage by 50%, before fixing its bugs.
- Then They fix Lighting Rod damage bugs leading to more nerfs
- Then they “Fix” The ascendance bug, but it’s not actually fixed
- They continue to nerf and butcher ascendance even further without actually accounting for the bug not being fixed and the burst coming from a trinket.
- Blizzard buffs Farseer without even understanding that the hero spec is dead since they removed Flash of Lighting. They buff Frost shock? like… this spell is never used and if it’s used it does <1% of our damage. One of the weirdest spell buffs.
Blizzards sequence of events really do show that they just don’t test their work, or they just don’t know how to balance and design anymore and as someone who wanted to main elemental this tier it has been a constant and stressful rollercoaster that will lead to elemental having one of the worst and most useless reworks mid season…
That’s all.
Get your stuff together blizzard devs because you are dropping the ball. Being nerfed into the ground due to developer ineptitude is never fun in a game where power progression is one of the main attractions.
Oh, and Enhancement has been a top performing spec, they made it easier to play, and tickled them with nerfs so that they will continue to be a top performer. They buff classes that are already strong, and don’t touch classes like DK that are basically mandatory in high end content.