Elemental PTR changes are horrific and its being ignored by blizzard

AOE becomes even more dumbed down, CDR removal is incredibly damaging the classes defenses, utility, and burst opportunities. The single target info tracking to time Tempest with SoP is incredibly unfun and clunky.

Is it time to panic? 11 days away.

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Has anyone actually crunched the numbers / simmed? From my perspective it looks like a huge buff to ele overall, especially for us Stormbringers. I’m looking forward to overloads actually being relevant again. In terms of burst, Ascendance + Stormkeeper is gonna be nuts.

In terms of lining up Tempest with Surge of Power, you can just keep 55 Maelstrom pooled.

My only issue with the build is that if you are PvP player you still opt to play more Lava Burst oriented build and that forced Stormkeeper feels bad there.

I believe they remove most of the CDR from specs (look at Sub) so that’s why they also removed it from us.

Regarding Tempest - I’d love it replace Stormkeeper instead and also grant it’s effect. It would make more sense and actually make the rotation more logical. These procs after 400 maelstrom spent are sometimes ruining the rotation and are more annoying than helpful. With Tempest being Stormkeeper replacement it would make Stormbringer better in single target too.

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I agree. It’s almost like they are forcing us into a weaver build with SK right in the way.

Also like tempest to simply give us SK but with a dmg modifier. I don’t see why we really need tempest.

I haven’t crunched the numbers but I thought I saw an 8% flat out dmage nerf to ele in the patch notes. There were some other changes to lighting talents that came off as nerfs that I don’t temember off the top of my head without looking patch notes up again.

I’m mostly just looking forward to the new lava burst animations and qol improvements

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It cant be worse than the current play style.

Current lightning build is more brain dead and more degenerate than S3/4 fire builds.

Read this https://www.wowhead.com/news/first-impressions-of-the-elemental-shaman-changes-in-patch-11-0-5-guide-writer-347770#comments

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I’d be willing to explore a semi-reversal of roles for lava burst and lightning bolt.

  • Lava burst would be a single target builder, no longer has a CD or charges.
  • Chain lightning would be the only multi target builder
  • lightning bolt becomes an instant cast ability that procs off of flame shock ticks, and adds flame shock to the target (and does medium damage)
  • Stormbringer now instantly procs and buffs lightning bolt. Leaves chain lighting the same.

Also the cast animation of lightning bolt is gone, and replaced with some cool lightning from the sky thing.

It would also function a lot better with tempest that way for elemental, as there wouldn’t be some weird cast time.

For enhancement spec I mean … I guess that it’s just remain mostly the same minus the animation changes. (As a casted ability)

Even just reversing them animation and damage type wise makes a lot of sense, as then you’d have a non missle ability that procs for instant casts, and feels really powerful

Plus… with the nice new lava burst animation… it’s going to suck using other things like the pixelated lightning bolt animation.

The more I think about it, Removing lightning bolt as a casted ability would smooth out a lot
Of weird things in our tree.

It seems worse imo. It’s the same stormbringer lightning build but you drop some flame shock talents for ascendance and maybe DRE. You now want to use surge of power for tempest, so super fun gameplay of holding maelstrom so you’re not caught getting tempest without a surge first. So same-ish rotations really, except LB/CL casts slower, but you’re major damage is tied to a 2-3 min ascendance cooldown. It also doubles down on the degenerate tab targeting, that everyone LOVES, to spread lightning conduit to be most effective since that is now a MAJOR source of damage.

I just really hate being tied to long cooldowns and pooling resources to account for a bad mechanic, so for me it’s definitely worse. I only dabble in ele so that’s my inexperienced take anyway.

Farseer also seems to be toast, so not a great revamp if you can call it that.

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There will be more weaving, and not just pressing lightning bolt 15 times in a row.

That makes it a ton better.

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Just to add Echo Chamber says it increases the damage of the Overload by 40% on ptr but in fact it does by 10% like on live servers.

The heck? Stormkeeper is now reduced by 2sec for LB or CL, making casting LB only double value compared to now for damage (ignoring all the nerfs everywhere else).

Why would that make you press any other button MORE often?

because while storm keeper is good. and LB will be your main filler other things are getting better. flash of light did not only SK but defensives, ele, interrupt

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Outside of throwing out Icefury Frost Shocks… I don’t see anything else that will change your rotation… though the damage of those is definitely questionable for priority or saving for movement. Given that PW is getting over double the cooldown, Lava Burst might leave the rotation entirely.

Given that Flame Shock will not provide any CDR, the rotation could easily devolve into lightning bolts and earthshocks, while saving Icefury for movement and ignoring everything else.

Sounds… thrilling…

what? lava burst is actually returning to the rotation

currently, outside of movement, you don’t cast lava burst outside of pwave.

you ignore lava surge.

Why? The only change it is getting is a consuming flame shock damage talent which is a tiny amount of damage.

and flash of lightning removal

Herald of the Storm? Flash of Lightning CDR got moved to Herald of the Storm and doubled.

That guts Elemental’s defensives and utility, but it means that every cast of LB is worth double the CDR for Stormkeeper that it used to.

Lava Burst damage got bumped a bit, but it still scales horribly since even its crit scaling during Ascendance got removed.

So yea, LB and ES rotation to maxmize Stormkeeper burst windows and saving Icefuries for movement sounds like a pretty simple rotation… not thrilled about it, but the changes all seem pretty bad.

you realize that FOL did a ton more than SK CDR right?

SK is not why you spam LB now