I figured I would post some feedback/frustrations on here in case others are struggling and might appreciate it. I am currently 2783 running ONLY m+. It appears elemental is the 2nd worst single target (simmed) spec in the game, so good luck and god bless to those of you trying to raid. FWIW I’m well aware that I am not in the top .01% and that I still have plenty of room to “get good”.
AOE
Our AoE is still quite strong both in burst and consistent damage potential. The issues I have are twofold:
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Earthquake is a static AoE and if your tank decides to get excited and run the mobs out of this area you are immediately the lowest damage in the group - and potentially even below the tank. This is insanely frustrating
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Targeted earthquake means that if you want to spread lightning rod there is a decent chance that this AoE does not cover the rest of the pack if the mob happens to be on the outskirts. Placing each earthquake is tedious/drastically more difficult/time consuming and to my knowledge nobody actually does this. This means that this “outrageous damage potential” that you see on stacked dummies in Dornogal is highly unlikely to apply in many situations.
Single target
Is terrible. The top end players are using elemental blast which now adds a 1.6 second cast time to your hardest hitting ability. This means that we are drastically less mobile and therefore more likely to have a DPS loss in ACTUAL single target settings. Perfection is always an option. I have no problem with increasing skill ceilings but it seems pretty outrageous for a class that is already expected to use various utility skills, bloodlust, and have significantly higher interrupt counts due to wind shear. JUST GET BETTER BRO! I guess.
Statistically it’s the second worst single target in the game. Full stop.
Survivability
The spec feels insanely squishy. Even while using huge cooldown defensives and health pots there is a decent chance I can die on certain boss encounters depending on the sequence - even if I don’t get hit by anything avoidable. Siege last boss is one example.
Gold
Isn’t WoW supposed to be about pushing difficult content? These days if you have a party pushing exceptionally hard content (wherever that may be for you) it leads to multiple deaths and insane gold costs. This was far more manageable when professions (especially gathering) created significant profits in relatively short periods. This is not the case anymore and it is starting to feel like purchasing real money WoW tokens is intended if you don’t want to spend insane amounts of time farming. KIND OF FEELS LIKE PAY TO WIN BLIZZARD - OR EVEN PAY TO PLAY. NOT A GOOD LOOK.
Overall it feels like this spec:
- Lost it’s direction (mobile skills and speedy CDR/lightning casts was actually fun)
- Is statistically weaker given equal skill/items
- Is less mobile
- Still has outrageous button bloat
- Is by far the weakest of the 2 shaman DPS specs
- The one bright spot is that ascendance windows feel great…every 3 minutes
Add on to all of this that elemental had it’s primary stat changed (I THINK???) mid season. Acquiring haste/crit gear was a huge pain and now to be BiS you really need the spymasters…from raid.
Is it still viable? Yes. Are good players pushing difficult content? You bet. But you better bring your A game in high keys (don’t you dare die on a big AoE pull) because there are more ways to be raged at than you can count.
BRB touching grass