Rare to forums, but I felt compelled. It’s incredibly frustrating to see a patch release finally introduce a strong elemental spec, only to be followed immediately by a heavy-handed nerf. These knee-jerk reactions are unpleasant and highlight the need for a better testing process.
Ironic, if Elemental just stayed middling like it always is I wouldn’t have been energized to post. The bait and switch did the trick.
This class has turned to … you guessed it
Same boat. I had so much fun last week but now ele feels unplayable. Now I have to be a resto sham healer or something because this new ele is really boring and feels weak.
Some might even say we are… shocked?! 
nothing like being used to 1.2 mil dps … logging in … spending 50k on upgrades, grabbing a nice vault piece… then going to raid and being dead bottom 400k dps less than even week 3. nothing makes a person want to quit more than applying huge gear upgrades only to show up at raid and do significantly less.
So, I don’t play along with all the back and forth gear chasing BiS stuff. I know what’s BiS, I go after it. Item level is mostly what really matters anyway. With that being said, I timed a 10 GB after the nerfs and did 1.3M dps overall. I was declared a troll by all 4 other party members because my dmg was too low. I replied “I thought I did everything I was supposed to do”. They said “yea, except dmg”. Then proceeded to call me trash. The rogue did 300k more than me and the DK did 500k more than me. They were both 8-10 ilvls lower than me. It did feel pretty bad. Then the monk healer told me I was in the wrong spec. The warrior tank said I hit weak and he’s 15 iLvLs less hitting stronger. He was probably foreign I figure. But man, I got blasted on a timed run doing 1.3M dps…. (Before the nerfs and with less ilvl, I was doing 1.8m-2m dps.)
So we got nerfed in AoE roughly by like 10% in AoE and combined with the Single target nerfs it should roughly equate to like a 6% nerf in overall M+ performance. The rotation didn’t change also other than some Pwave shenanigans.
So you going from doing 1.8 mil in a GB to 1.3 mil is WAY more than 6% (or 10% for that matter) indicating this largely due to your own gameplay rather than the nerf. And also going to toss out that people at your iLvl were doing like 2.4-2.7 mil in keys last week so you only doing 2 mil at roughly 627 on a busted spec last week is indicative of bad gameplay on your part since you should have been doing way more. So I think you might need to reevaluate your gameplay and gear especially since you have this idea:
Your stats very much do matter and part of the reason you’re not doing any damage is that mastery is your lowest stat when it is quite literally our best stat now by such a long mile. Elemental with this rework shifted from Haste/Crit to Mastery/Haste till your Haste DRs. Mastery is also stupidly important for single target damage so your stat distribution is literally kneecapping yourself. You also literally do not have ANY crafted pieces or embellishments so I don’t you have any idea what is BIS or have ever looked at gearing guide for Elemental at all.
Do some research and get your stats in order and you’ll find that Elemental in Keys are still doing good and pretty fine in raid except for the 2 single target fights in a 8 boss raid.
@Yeastyholes I love the enthusiasm man, but ele flat out got !@#$ on. Before the rework we were at least middle of the pack. Then we got a small taste of being near the top. Now we are are bottom 4 overall, forcing a complete recraft to salvage even that. I guess they couldn’t have all 3 shaman spec’s be good at the same time, ele drew the short straw.
It’s not enthusiasm, its just not sucking at playing the spec and not being a cringe doomer. It only needs some single-target love since it’s still dumpstering in Keys, and the only fight we’re bad on (that actually matters) is Nexus Princess. We got a good kit for everything else. FotM rats/tourists just need to chill out for a moment.
Overall statistics is bait and is a stupid metric to look at, even at the 95th percentile, because of how much the first 4 bosses are parse cheese fights. Ovinax, we’re one of the best. Princess isn’t too hot, so we need some single-target buffs, but Court and Queen are in the middle of the pack, and our profile makes us more effective at cleaving, which those fights still have a high loading on. I doubt anybody here (myself included) is playing in guilds where it matters what spec we play. That said:
Here’s a funny thing: If you look at Overall stats (95th percentile) for 11.0.5 Week 2 and compare it to the 11.0.0 partition, Ele is literally in the he same spot: Middle pack. So again, we’re in the same exact spot as the beginning of the expac, just with less single target and more AoE. Deff enjoyed last week, and we 100% NEED to get some single-target love, but man, people need to get a grip.
The only bad taste in my mouth is that Enhance and Ele were functionally on par in both M+ and Raid last week, but only Ele got tuned harder. Granted, this happened only because of the ascendance bug fix and not receiving comp buffs, but it still gives a bit of the “why me” feeling. This and them not bug fixing before tunning are my only gripes about Ele right now. But anybody saying it’s dead are doomers/FotM rerollers.
That’s because they dont take ele shaman. You may be satisfied with mediocrity, but some of us would like a spec that isn’t routinely dumpstered by blizz.
They do unless you suck or your guild is stupid. And M+ ele is quite literally one of the best specs in the game. If anything, stupid cringe post people make often influences the community more towards looking down on a spec.
https://mythicstats.com/dps?dungeon=&period=983
Not at all. It needs single target buffs but alot of people are screaming the sky is falling are either players playing at a level where it quite literally does not matter what you’re playing or they are FotM rats. Especially in comparison to other specs. Not being a cringe doomsayer is not saying “lmao the spec fine”. It needs more tuning but don’t be cringe about it.
Stopped reading right there.
You made it further than me, cause I stopped there.
I somewhat miss having consistent damage, aftershock and dre being on top is annoying. Also, there is something to be said when a class with two dps specs just has one of the two made worse for effectively no reason. Enh and ele were close enough before where I didn’t feel compelled to play enh to make my groups easier for my group at large, but now if only for pure single target raid fights, I really should just suck it up and learn enhance because ele isn’t good enough and I have that option. Its really annoying since I geared ele this expac and we still don’t have a leg enchant that works for both.
And I will definitely give feedback that I do not appreciate this kind of tuning. I do not understand how they decided that ele should just lose single target viability because it was overpowered in aoe. I also resent that we had solid use cases for both hero talents before the rework and now even if farseer is bis again I don’t want to play it because the cdr being gone from prim wave/ancestral is going to feel horrible.
Ele has entered the space of other specs that have a superior offspec. And it has been reverted to a casino spec again on top of that.
That’s because they understand that if people voice approval for being a middle of the pack spec then you will ultimately end up near the bottom. That’s just how blizz operates. There is no finely tuned balance, there is only the nerf bat.
Just look at how sweeping those nerfs were just 3 days after 11.0.5. From a balance perspective, I was much happier prior to the rework. Now my single target is trash and I get 15 seconds of glory every 3 minutes. Outside of that the damage is middling at best.
I am much happier with the rework because I enjoy the current gameplay because FoL Lighting Bolt spam is just Meatball spam with a different coat of paint. Not to mention there was no world were they were going to allow FoL CDR to exist past 11.0.0 though much more effort should have been done to Farseer to bring it back up in line. But make no mistake I feel like the rework is 100% spoiled partially by them not offering compensation buffs for our single target after the bug fix. If our single performance gets buffed 5% in these next weeks then nobody would complaining about the spec overall except the crazy people who want their spec to be the literal best spec in the game.
The rework is also further spoiled by Enhance getting tapped lightly and still over performing on a lot of fights.
I wonder if they could buff lightning rod a bunch, but restrict it to one target. It improves single target and funnel capability while also eliminating the annoying tab target gameplay.
AoE would just need to be checked to make sure it doesn’t go down as a result.
Realistically all we need is some collective buffs to Lighting Bolt, Earth Shock/Elemental Blast, and Icefury and we’re good. Literally just buff the pure single target stuff and leave the AoE stuff alone. Keep it simple.
True. I’d rather see those buffs go to spenders so they feel a bit more impactful to press. Also earth shock needs a decent visual.
I do too. I mainly suggested also having some of those buffs to include Lighting Bolt and Icefury in order to spread the power thoughout the kit and not have too much damage in one basket if that makes sense.
Also my shower thoughts this morning came up with the idea to buff MotE to further strengthen single target but I shutter at the terrifying idea of MotE’ing Earthquakes while playing Echoes (not that I think that would realistically happen, just the concept spooks me).