As a PVPer back in the days, MoP was the expansion I’ve had the most fun as an elemental shaman, though lacked in selfheal, the spec had massive burst damage, a good defensive kit, and just felted incredibly smooth to play.
Since Shadowlands is bringing back abilities from previous expansions, I would really love to see the follow abilities to make a comeback:
Lightnig Bolt (castable while moving)
This in my opinion was what made the spec such a blast to play, it removes the clunckiness of having to rely on lava surge procs when you get trained by melees, and have a filler spell to always be available to cast will make the feel a lot smoother.
Ascendence baseline
This needs to be baseline, ascendence is like Ret Paladin’s wings but slightly worse since you can get easliy shut down by interrupts, there is no reason for this to be a talent.
Shamanistic Rage
Traditionally elemental shaman never had reliable direct CCs like fear or stuns, so as a trade off it would make sense to gives us more CC breaks.
Spirit Walker’s Grace
This ability should make a comeback in the form of a talent option, since most casters are no longer as mobile as back in the days, this ability should replace Ascendence in the last tier of our talents.
Purge
Purge needs to be spammable and dispell two buffs per cast again, being able to effectively dispell opponent’s benifical buffs has always been apart of our offensive toolkit, it provides player the choice of whether to purge(offsense) or selfheal(defebse) in situations such as when an enemy is hexed.
Nature’s Swiftness
We need some form of instant CCs, I miss this spell because it worked really well together with hex and saved me in many many clutch moments.
In the end here is a video of Ele gameplay in MoP by my favourite ele player Castiiel
That’s good news, but I think it should be a talent so the castable while moving lightning bolt can be brought back, having both would make ele way too mobile compared to other casters.
The logic is so ele is more inline with other casters in terms of mobility, it might not be the best for it being on the last talent row, but that’s not the point here.
Well not many other casters had cds to make their abilities castable while moving what’s your point? I’m talking about the overall moblity of the spec not other caster’s filler vs ele’s filler
That goes for every talent that used to be baseline turned into a talent for no apparent reason.
Stuff like Hammer of Wrath, Ascendance, Lightning Shield etc.
I’d also like to see Elemental representation per spec. Enhance gets Wind Elementals that cast an AoE SS, Elemental gets Fire Elementals that cast Flame Shock on targets and periodically spews Lava Beam and Restoration gets Water Elementals that cast Healing Wave and periodically summons mini Tsunamis that heal in its path.
We don’t have much else outside of stormkeeper and Icefury cooldowns, and let me tell you they just feel bad to use, especially Ice Fury, having to go through 4 GCDs back to back is just plain awkward gameplay.
Lightning Bolt on the move has the advantage of providing reliable and consistent damage that we lack when we need to kite and keeps our rotation simple.
If by “reliable and consistent” you mean filler: sure. I’d much rather keep the (albeit minor) skill in the decision making of when to use SG on top of good positioning outside that CD.
If you love finger twitching awkward gameplay then all power to you mate, just don’t tell me it’s 0% chance coming back because apparently you are not a dev, and frankly I don’t really care if you prefer SK/Ice Fury, because guess what? Just because you are accustomed to the current badly designed gameplay does not make it better.
And by the way we all know damage can be tuned right? Talking about damage when the whole thread has been about class design and mechanics kinda just makes me wanna stop reading your posts.
Moving while casting lightning bolt is not “good designed gameplay” just because you prefer it.
Of course damage can be tuned. So now you are not only asking for lightning bolt to be castable while moving, but to receive a major damage boost?
Any small chance lightning bolt had to be brought back as a castable-while-moving spell would evaporate if they increased the damage enough to make it stronger than SK, IF buffed FrS, etc.
I am completely fine if you want to stop reading my posts because you feel the need to push for things that have next to no chance of happening.
That’s exactly what I meant by “bring back MoP style gameplay”, lightning bolt should be doing moderately good damage on its own, jamming a CD into our rotation just to temporarily buff its damage with SK introduces unnecessary complications to our rotation and it just feels, again awakard to use, and have I mentioned IF?
“Next to no chance of happening” is just your opinion my friend, no changes will ever take place if nobody tries to push for it, and from the look of it devs are listening to the community a bit more going into Shadowlands, so I would like to take my chance.
Dont really get the vehement argument against Lb on the move especially since they are reverting to fulmination, something that was made a baseline passive in MoP the same expac mobile lb was introduced
I am not arguing against it. I am just realizing it won’t happen.
They have stated their design goal for ele sham is to focus primarily on LavaBurst and funneling it via flameshocks on multiple targets. Lightning bolt, per their own statements, is supposed to be filler. It is not supposed to be a significant portion of damage.
So when people are asking for Lightning Bolt to be majorly buffed in both its damage and mobility, you are saying “Hey, I know you just released a design philosophy for Ele Sham for Shadowlands, and you want feedback on that. But I would like you to completely change the entire class into something different”.
Its just unrealistic feedback.
Typically feedback works better if you suggest it within their stated design goals. Or you explain why their design goals should be changed.
