I think it makes the original new Ascendance model make a lot more sense, since ‘a shrieking evil clown with his hair on fire’ is about how I would describe everything about Shaman tuning this expansion.
It’s really not looking good. I made a post that has the Earthshrine theorycrafter’s write up of the impact of the balance changes which has percentages and explanations of the nerfs if you want to get more info.