Hello,
Need some help! Any insight appreciated.
I plan on maining either a Shaman or priest, long-term. However, I want the following-
Feel of being “bursty”
Being able to hold my own on solo/world activities
Engaging rotation, but pretty simple with limited keybinds
Overall, just fun!
I feel Shaman is a bit “awkward” and is mobile, but then stationary; if that makes sense? Open to anything!
bursty? ele 100%.
hold your own? spriest, maybe ele if you have the resto ES lego.
engaging rotation? Ele
fun? ele
ele feels very wonky because no cool mobility, but you have lasso and slows, but the casting and meatballs makes up for it.
I’d have to give another vote for Ele. I started the expansion off as Priest because I wanted to Shadow/Disc, which eventually turned into Shadow/Holy (because Disc sucks in pugs).
Then the meta developed, and I leveled/geared my Shaman. I now find both Ele and Resto to be more fun, engaging and rewarding than the Priest counterparts.
Not to mention that the optimal M+/AoE talent setup for Shadow is really clunky and adds a ton of buttons to your action bar. Shaman is notorious for having a lot of buttons, but I actually have more space for active talents on my Elemental Shaman than my Priest.
Bumping this!
Still looking for some more feedback, but a bit more info-
Shaman is always the correct answer
I will say, DO NOT play ele if you are worried about keybinds. i dont think any spec/class has more necessary keybinds than elemental. its just so much.
Spriest is undisputed stronger DPS class than Ele in single target and has much higher burst. AOE however is a different story. I believe elemental shamans are stronger in that respect. Cleave fights likely Spriest again.
I play both Elemental Shaman and Shadow Priest, so hopefully my input is helpful.
Both should serve you fine here, although I personally prefer Shadow Priest since they are far more durable and far less maligned by spellcasting delays from damage intake. Shadow has a large amount of passive leech and defensives, and shadow mend is a more potent self-heal than Healing Surge or Healing Stream Totem.
Elemental is going to serve you better in this regard.
Shadow bursts quite hard when you align voidform and power infusion, and you can enjoy more frequents burst periods when using Shadowflame Prism + Mindbender. But these bursts are spread across 15-25 second stretches, so you don’t spike as hard as other classes might.
Elemental on the other hand is all about that spike with Storm Keeper.
Shadow is one of the highest action-per-minute specs in the game right now, and if you want to excel at it you’ll be juggling various mechanics and ability priorities. It’s fun and engaging, but it’s not always intuitive.
Elemental meanwhile feels comparatively simple, at least while using Echoes of Great Sundering and Aftershock. I enjoy running Elemental in dungeons after pushing higher keys with Shadow to relax, since you have a lot less to think abobut.
However, the more of the active talents you choose (Elemental Blast, Icefury, etc.) the more messy the rotation becomes, but it’s still comparatively a smaller list of core abilities than shadow.
They’re both a lot of fun, so I don’t think you can go wrong here.
To learn they are both equally easy … and Shadow has better defenses than Ele. Every class has better defenses than Shaman .
Would you say shadow is far more effective in most situations in terms of damage numbers than elemental or are they comparative? Pre-9.0.5 shadow pretty much dominated Ele is every aspect, not sure if the changes in 9.0.5 changes that.
Ele definitely has better and more consistent burst in content like M+. However on raid fights which are primarily single target or at least have a prio target, ele is much much weaker with burst compared to spriest. Ele’s the type of dps that bursts for 10k then sits at 7k for 2 minutes. While Spriest will burst for 20-30 single target and then fall back to 7 before another set of CDs.
As far as rotation goes, they are both super engaging, ele a little more convoluted than shadow but still fun. Buttons wise, if you want to play competitively, Elemental has by far the most keybinds of any caster, and probably any dps in the game. It is ridiculous the number of meaningful keybinds ele requires. Whereas shadow has a solid 10 and you hardly deviate from that.
*laughs menacingly as I think of my survival hunter
i cannot imagine any spec of hunter has 1/3 the keybinds as elemental. having cobra shot on 18 different keys only counts as 1
I havent played any Priest.
But at least for me, Elemental right now is very boring. The rotation is very simple and has a low ceiling for good gameplay. I’m mainly a M+ players and just cant really enjoy doing Chain+EQ the entire dungeon.