I started playing elemental shaman more seriously in Shadowlands so I don’t have memories of how it used to be, but compared to SL it feels really lost right now to me. It feels like the bottom part of the tree is extremely top heavy with a lot of borrowed power type things returning and most of them don’t really flow well together. I don’t have enough time to not waste lava surge procs (you should want to use procs in a class, otherwise why have them?) if I play Windspeaker’s with Ele Blast and Primordial Surge, so I’m locked into more cast-heavy playstyles…which is fine, but now I’ll just never take WLR.
I’ll never take Further Beyond because the playstyle is incredibly unfun. Deeply Rooted Elements can be fun, but it’s overpowering and is used in almost all scenarios. Add in Further Beyond, it’s just gambling for good procs and forever trying to keep it up.
I personally don’t like the change to ele blast. It took me a while to realize but not having an instant spender took a lot of the fun out of ele to me. Most ranged classes I play have instant spenders and they feel good (balance, shadow). Ele blast can feel good but it’s just so much better in single target you’ll almost never take earth shock again. I tested on a dummy and my earth shocks are barely better than a frost shock with icefury…and that feels weird.
It just feels like a lot of ele’s talents compete with one another rather than working together, and not just some of them. I’m not a class designer and I know everything can’t work seamlessly together but playing ele never felt clunky to me in SL and it does now.
I rarely see aftershock taken anymore, we seem locked into surge of power gameplay and that’s another less fun talent to me personally.
I’ve never seen elemental get a lot of attention so I hope it does soon. I don’t think I’ll main it next patch (no re-work, the new 2-set seems annoying in raid for reasons people have mentioned in other threads - AND, we’ll loose passive buffs to spenders from the current set which I don’t see mentioned enough)
I personally disagree. I think it’s one of the best versions of it right now in terms of flexibility in playstyles. What you’re seeing with skills “not flowing together” is because not all skills are supposed to be flowing together, and that’s by design.
If I have any real complaint about ele shaman at the moment it’s that the lightning build has too many procs to manage lol. I feel like I’m playing whack-a-mole.
I also LOATHE primordial blast. (I loath any of the abilities carried over from shadowlands that have no class fantasy tho.)
But ppl like it so I’m glad they have it.
I’m also dropping Elemental for Shadow priest. I don’t know what Blizz is going for with this spec, but when our next talent tier set is full on lightning or bust, making half of our tree less impactful, they seem to have lost the script.
Whoever is working on this must think Icefury is the best spell ever made.
I agree about the Ice Fury comment lolol. They are in love with it and incorporating frost shock into the rotation… I don’t know who asked for it 
I absolutely hate ice fury. Elemental had a nice smooth rotation in SL. The dev that decided to cram ice fury into the rotation killed the spec for me. The fire side of the tree is OK, but I just want to spam chain lighting and earthquakes like I used to.
Hard disagree.
Elemental Shaman is the true sorcerer class in WoW these days.
The beauty of the spec is how diverse and versatile the talent tree is. Ele Shaman has multiple builds that are very distinct. Maybe it could be seen by some as lack of direction, but I completely disagree. It’s one of the few classes that are allowed to be free because they know what their lane is.
Contrast it to a spec like Affliction Warlock.
It doesn’t know if it wants to be sustain or DoT damage, ST, Cleave or AOE focused, CD reliant or resource management.
And the worst part is? Regardless of your choice, you always end up speccing into the same capstones anyone. Maybe you don’t take Dread Touch sometimes. That’s it. That is the Affliction Warlock “variety”.
Yeah. Some talents may not be to your liking. Ice Furry? Not really a fan either.
But Affliction Warlock has dull spells too, such as Malefic Rapture, that are mandatory to take. by Mandatory I mean the class wont function without it, not -5% DPS.
I’ve seriously contemplated rerolling to Ele Shaman these past few weeks.
The only downside I can see is that it’s the only ranged spec to the class.
I was interested in SPriest early on.
But when SPriest is like the only spec on Icy-Veins with a video tutorial on the rotation page… count be out. I like a bit of complexity but SPriest is too much.
If they simplified it so I could just cast a few spells, summon void tentacles and void beings, I’d be all in.
i feel the same way. i used to sub-main an elemental shaman all through mop and wod and then parked her. i picked her up again in SL for not even 2 days. just the other day i leveled her up and tried her out again and i cannot put into words the disgust i am feeling with how they feel and play.
ele shaman in mop and wod was godly smooth and fun. now it is just a button bloat ability christmas tree light up proc pick 1 and go nonsense. i just dont feel it. it truly is lost.
I’m actually really loving Elemental. However, I never really played it much apart from leveling.
To be honest, I really enjoy it too. It has its shortcomings, but I still enjoy it.
Just might not be your spec =(
There are plenty of specs/rotations I have never really jived with (Hello Boomkin, BM, Arcane/Fire and Demo). And some that I have loved (Ele, Aff/Destro, Frost, MM, Shadow).
I too am disappointed with how 10.1 is looking only because I don’t like IF gameplay. So I think I am going to play more resto in endgame pugging.
I don’t hate the Spriest idea and if I had more time to play wow and could maintain multiple toons, that would be the first one I would play more. Great class fantasy and despite regular re-works, it has always been a fun spec imo.
Can’t say I asked for it directly but the intent is kind of clear, they wanted to give us something that could be used while moving whose only positive was it can be used while moving which I 100% agree with. Would I have rathered something else, probably, but I can see this being an answer and a way to make something they wanted to keep in for pvp reasons at least somewhat viable in pve.
I like it better this time around than Shadowlands. Especially with all the extras that proc Lava Burst. It’s makes it a meatball machine gun. But thematically it does kinda suck.
Wish it did nature damage instead of shadow.
Yeah and had a color palette change to look more in tune with our spell kit.