Hi guys. I have a 120 elemental shaman. He’s pretty casual.
So my question is - I feel like my elemental shaman does no sustain damage. He’s only 360 but he feels like a “combo minute mage”
Outside cooldowns my damage is garbage but with cooldowns I tend to spike real high.
In PvE raids I feel like my sustain is non existent but my burst is nice. In dungeons I do ok aoe damage but other classes do good burst cleave.
In PvP I literally use my cooldowns and nuke 1 or 2 people down and then I am useless for awhile.
My cooldowns are fire elemental lava totem storekeeper earth shock and surge of power. I explode people but I have trouble doing a sustain / pressure in PvP and PvE
My question is - is that the nature of the special ? Elemental reminds me of legion minute mage.
Well, first of all, I’m only responding here because it’s very late, I’m on the shaman forum reading stuff, and I can’t stand seeing someone’s post go unanswered.
I’m resto. I’ve never played ele. So…there’s that. But here’s my initial thought, and hopefully, some elementals will be in shortly to address you with more educated responses.
First, you haven’t gotten to an ilvl with gear that will let you utilize the best Azerite traits, yet. Sadly, that matters a LOT.
Second, I raid and M+ with an elemental shammy, and he is consistently in the top 3 on raid meter and first or 2nd in dungeons…no matter the length of the fight/encounter. It can be done.
Don’t lose heart for it, yet. As you get into content that will allow you to pick and choose your gear pieces for specific traits, you’ll find your groove. Elemental shamans are capable of serious dps, and they are also capable of sustaining it through long encounters or dungeons with varied pulls.
I wish I knew more, but I don’t. I’m sure the elemental people will be in here before long. Best wishes.
Generally speaking, there are 2 single target builds depending on if you have 2+ of the Igneous Potential traits or not. Some people switch in aftershock for ease of play / not having to worry about losing the totem buff. I do this myself on new raid fights I am learning.
-IF YOU DONT Earthen Rage / Totem Mastery / Storm Ele / Primal Ele / Storm Keeper
-IF YOU DO Echo of the Ele/ Totem Mastery / Master of the Ele / IceFury / Storm Keeper
For mythic+, it can vary a bit more. Typically Surge of Power is rarely used. In m+, aftershock is typically always used. The middle rows provide a bit of flavor, and there are a lot of “right” choices that depend on gear/personal preference.
Start chasing Igneous potential traits.
Other good azerite traits:
-One ancestral resonance
-One Tectonic thunder is great for dungeons
-Natural harmony can also be stacked like igneous potential
-Treacherous Covenant
The post above me has the builds you generally wanna go. With master of the elements, keep in mind you want to be weaving lava bursts between other casts as long as you don’t hold off those casts too long for lava burst. You don’t have to use earth shock immediately either; unless I’m otherwise gonna cap maelstrom, I will always hold off earth shocking until I put a lava burst in first in raid.
Ele sham is veeeerrrry good right now; it just takes practice sometimes master of the elements is a very unique playstyle; it reminds me of legion hit combo monk.
You want to use the MoTE/ IF build for sustained damage. SoP is easy to use but in PvP it is a telegraphed move and your opponent will pop defensive CD’s the instance you charge SK… and then you have nothing as they will cut you down.
It doesn’t have to be bursty, I use an unlimited power build which is sustained damage throughout a fight. There’s a lot of nuance and every talent fits together quite well. It does however require very specific gear to make work.
Using UP wouldn’t mastery azerite pieces benefit more?
Just asking cuz I was a fan of UP when we had access to HV; yet it only really shined when I was >65% mastery which gave HV a 30-32% chance to proc.
I have tinkered with stacking the mastery proc, however i dont have near the mastery level to make UP even close to worth it.
You would have to have 3xNH and 3x AR and 50% base mastery and then I would probably throw ELBlast in there. Not saying it would be competitive but probably a crap ton of fun.
Interesting how HV+UP made us a lightning based caster. Yet blizz removed HV and made other changes to makes us more of a lightning based caster. Now we are a LvB based caster again.
I have three static mastery traits in my 3rd ring, I’m sitting at about 62% in game (armory says 52%). I use triple IP, double ES and a kaldorei haste buff of 700 in my first two rings. LB almost always overload which does about 40k total, ES hits extremely hard with the two traits + master of the elements, I would say on average 33k.
You have an ES up quite a bit and with surge of power you have the choice to double dot adds to go into LB machine-gun mode, lightning bolt for guaranteed haste or LB to reduce your elemental’s cooldown. Generally I prioritize always casting LB if it’s up so it means more elementals, which is more maelstrom, which is more ES, so on and so forth. The biggest thing I think people underestimate about the spec is the passive boost to the speed in which your dots tick, once you get in a cadence LB is almost always up. Since LB and ES are instant it provides more mobility than you would assume. It’s a ton of fun, and at least with my gear very competitive, I’m almost always top 3 if not #1.
I just swapped to Ele for the first time since legion and I can say its 100% LESS cooldown dependent as it once was. Even still the Icefury/Stormkeeper build is fill of short cooldowns meaning there is almost always something to do. This is the best elemental has been in a long time. Just hoping for a new trinket/IP Shoulders and ill be good to go.
master of the elements is a very unique playstyle; it reminds me of legion hit combo monk.