Looking for general opinions on how Elemental should play in the BGs. I’m trying to make myself like it for continuity reasons.
How are elemental shaman most effective in BGs? Should I be focusing on utility more so than damage? The damage - to me - seems too inconsistent to matter. And I feel like most players see Elemental as an easy kill.
Any feedback is helpful.
Elemental is extremely good in bgs. You should do damage and use utility.
One of the best kicks in game (lock out isn’t as long as others, but it has shortest CD)
Spammable purge. Very handy.
Excellent burst that has to connect to someone, very hard to nullify in bgs from enemy team. Some might line but all won’t.
Hex is strong in bgs since most won’t decurse or even know their healer is in a hex.
Cap Totem is meh, many melee will kill it, better used as a follow up or to toss onto a group of casters imo.
Skybreakers is amazing.
Frost Shock is good but not great (compared to Warlock or other slows).
Lightning Lasso is amazing. As is Thunderstorm/Grounding/Sky Fury Totem.
Stay on the outskirts and know when to keep distance. Make it not worth it for melee to connect on you.
Then I don’t think it’s for me.
Pretty much what Spirits said above. Some key things to keep in mind:
Elemental has some really strong burst which can be great for locking down kills.
You have a short CD ranged int and purge. These should be used often
You have tons of utility with your totems
Your off-healing is decent, but I wouldn’t focus too much time on casting heals unless it’s really needed. You’ll have a hard time kiting melee as ele, so make sure to fight with teammates so they can help you peel
Yeah, maybe I’ll over-focus sticking near other casters. I just feel like I get Zugged immediately.
I don’t think you are wrong at all, but the amount of Paladins that chased me one way only to be running from me 6 seconds later is astounding. Like a Scooby Doo scene.
Also OP, Thunderstorm isn’t just to knock off cliffs. Any Druid that goes for a Bash/Clone on you is susceptible to you knocking their clone at the end of its cast.
Practice juking. Kind of a must have ability to play caster man. Things to juke include Hex, Stormkeeper and Healing Surge. Pray you get kicked on Fire.
Also, know what exactly you are casting after you get kicked. “I’m going to go for a juke/actual cast. If he kicks this I am going for Fleshcraft.”
“Oh noes, Fleshcraft was kicked. I’m dropping a Healing Stream and casting Healing Surge.”
“I’m kicked on Nature. I’ll Frost Shock and Ghost Wolf away. Perhaps I’ll drop a cap totem.”
Glad to see you are thinking of trying Elemental again.
Just my observation at 51 weeks of playing caster in PvP (pretty new myself) is that the skill cap is way higher/different from melee. You have to play and THINK the game differently. Either stick through the growing pains or don’t, it there is no easy way to start playing caster. You will die a lot and thus you will learn a lot.
I’ve played ranged forever. I just hate the damage profile of Elemental. The “hoping for procs at the RBG casino” is maddening. I like predictable set-ups. There’s already so much variability in PVP that I need something to rely on. Flame Shock management to hopefully get procs feels like crap.
You have major predictable set ups every single 60 seconds. And pretty damn good damage every 30 seconds. But, if you don’t like the damage profile find another class. There is no fix for that issue in my mind!
Yeah, I think that’s the solution. I mean my main love is healing, and so this dude will always be around. Resto has been my favorite healing spec for a long time because of ES and the totems.
I think the solution is to focus on my Lock some more. Even though Affliction is weak, I love the method of putting out damage.
Once you’ve mastered the art of strafing back and forth really fast during lightning lasso, the rest is gravy.
Oh man, I just made an Aff lock (RBG team is not wanting to play with Elemental after 2100, lol) and let me say Affliction isn’t weak at all.
Aff is broken as all get out in BGs/RBGs. I don’t like the play style of Affliction, which makes us possibly diametrically opposed on damage profiles LOL!
I think this is key tbh. The rest is all window dressing.
Drop grounding totem and skyfury on CD
Shear stuff
Lasso people that are in too deep
Drop earthquakes on piles of people
Knock idiots off stuff maybe
Ok but this feels like it’s all utility to me, which I actually enjoy. Including dropping GW and picking up Earth Grab. Do you have success with this, Sovrerign?
Yep.
Yep.
As for damage it’s either throwing stormkeeper chain lightnings into the deathball (after dropping skyfury) or lightning bolts and meatballs plus earth shocks into a priority target. Get flame shocks out on as many targets as possible for meatball procs, too.
I just mention the totem things because in epic bgs they affect the whole team if they’re nearby so very high valaue.
This makes things a lot more exciting IMO. Now if only they could get a better/less random damage output I’d be thrilled.I’ll give this a shot.
For PVPs (as Elemental) I use
I really hoped CoL would make things a little more fun but I haven’t noticed a difference.
Sadly, this is what makes Resto so good and likely better than Elemental (IMO) - I mean Alliance are low on everything anyway, but healers much more so. And HTT with the PVP talent is just bananas (again, imo).
Yes, I’ve been playing mostly epics and mainly as Restoration. Drop my puddle on the raid, drop my healing tide which can heal for like 500k by itself and it’s just a nice time.
Shame counterstrike is so weak, I kind of wanted to play ground/skyfury/counterstrike and just be a totem and puddle bot
Just be aware that if you purge a resto druid his friends will come over and murder you.
If you don’t release, that resto druid will also probably come over and t bag your corpse. This is non negotiable, all resto druids have to do this
Yes. Yes, some Druids have friends that will do just this if you purge them.