Elemental Should Seem Weak

Classes Shaman
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This isn’t a comment on the current state of Elemental shaman. I’m 116 at the time of writing, so I know I can’t speak to how we perform in mythic raids, etc. (That said, at 116, I feel pretty awesome).

This was just something that occurred to me as I was trying out my shaman: at first, oh good Golganneth’s gravy, SO WEAK. SO LAME. Why do I have to WORK SO HARD for things other classes laugh at?

Then I remembered: this is a SHAMAN. The point of it is: huge, versatile toolkit.

If you have a huge, versatile toolkit, there are only two design possibilities:

  1. You are balanced around that toolkit. You have to use it, if you want to match other classes. Therefore, more work. Therefore, you will seem weak.

  2. You are not balanced around that toolkit, to seem ‘equal’. People who use the toolkit are now massively OP… and down come the nerfs.

Again, don’t know what things are like at max level. I was just realizing, even when correctly balanced, Shaman will seem weaker than other classes.

This may contribute to the perception that Shaman are worse than they are.

Mostly, I wanted to point this out to anyone who is new to Shaman, but is discouraged by all this talk about them being terrible. They will SEEM that way, but once you learn to push all those buttons, they’re actually pretty boss.

(Also, from a LORE perspective… I like that there’s a subtlety to Elemental’s power… even when it’s throwing flaming rocks in people’s faces. The little things make a difference).

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Do /timer. Go resto and kill a mob. Then do /timer. Go Ele and kill a mob. You tell me why ele is better after that.

Also it’s not flaming rocks… it’s meatballs.

I don’t think most of the community is really complaining about the damage on the higher end. It’s more about the super clunky play style.

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Yes we are supposed to be an utility knife type of class. However, in today’s game the game play is dumb down. In vanilla shaman felt like playing a piano however, in live wow I am playing guitar hero. The number of totems that we used to have compared to now is just the most blatant example.
I understand where OP is coming from with the lore perspective. But with the dumb down mechanics at the root core of the game it demands that our damage be buffed to compensate for the removal of utility to be on par with other classes. That or just be behind in viability until we choose to reroll… guess which one blizzard chose. Ironic winky face

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Utility is all good and all, but how often do you hear someone say… Let us take an ele shaman for that sweet utility. Resto in raids to cheese fights (and proper use outside that scenario) Is the only spec I can think of for that actually happening.

They butchered… not pruned. Butchered the utility we once had. We are no longer unique or wanted because of it. So if our damage is capped because of utility that is easily gained by classes like… a mage who is not "utility"based, why bring a shaman?

I think a rework is all you can hope for, since the shaman in general are having identity crisis’s. We can a) go down the utility route and gain UNIQUE utility. The line must be drawn at unique and never given to others. Like how shaman had unique totems (I miss you cleansing totem… and you too mana spring.)

Or B) Accept that a unique utility based class isn’t viable in today’s “dumbed down” world, and find a new identity as a class.

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You’re 116. Nuff said.

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I am okay with the kit and the playstyle. The only thing that truly irks me is how CLUNKY the spec us. Ground target aoe as a vital tool to our aoe rotation? Come on. And the maelstrom build up is super slow. Lightning bolt is underwhelming. Yeah I love my shaman been playing him since tbc but this iteration of the shaman class is painful.

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My shaman btw

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Please hit 120 first, please:)

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Specs are not balanced around utility. If you are a dps spec, you should do enough dps to be competitive with other dps specs. Period. WoW does not have support specs. Right now, Elemental is not good enough. They lack damage and the mobility to deal with modern encounter mechanics.

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(@Quo) Well, I’d definitely agree that a versatile character works less well in a game that grows progressively less versatile. Even from WoD (the last time I seriously played a shaman), I feel more limited in my play options. But we still have more options than other classes… and I just wanted to point out that when you have options, it makes the baseline playstyle seem weaker.

(@ Randomshocks) I wasn’t exactly talking about utility, in the sense that we bring a totem that makes the raid run fast or something. Nor is it that shaman are ‘good enough’ (I led by saying I don’t know if they’re ‘good enough’ or not). It was more basic than that.

I’m leveling a Boomkin at the same time, and in some ways, very similar: range DPS, 5 button standard combat rotation, can turn into an animal to run around.

But at first blush, the Boomkin seems miles ahead of the Shaman. So easy. So fluid. Everything just melts as I prance along.

But… when my druid faces a tough challenge, I pop my single cooldown and use my Fury of Elune, then go back to my 5 buttons. When things go south, I typhoon and run. Entangle if there’s just one. And that’s about all.

Meanwhile, my shaman is setting up sticks and checking available cooldowns to take on those mean looking vultures, because using the standard 5 buttons won’t cut it. But for elites or bad pulls? Earth elemental, fire elemental, bloodlust, magma totem. Not going well? Thunderstrike, capacitor totem, ghost wolf away, kite them with frost shock and slowing totem, use instant procs and Stormkeeper as I can.

My shaman struggles more on basic stuff, but has an easier time in tough situations, once I bring all my tools to bear, and I have more options for how to approach a fight… which lets me pull off some crazy crap, if I work for it.

If my shaman had those options PLUS the druid’s baseline sweetness, I’d be overpowered.

If Elemental WAS properly balanced and tuned, it would still feel a bit weak during normal play, because that’s the class design.

Again, the comment was aimed more at casual shaman, who might come from another class and say, ‘Man, shaman suck’, because they can’t immediately get the results they’re used to.

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People say Shamans are like a swiss army knife. We have a bit of utility for everything. I agree with that.

The issue is the game no longer works like that from a player perspective. Players want a class that has HUGE FRICKEN SHARP KNIFE. They care a little bit about other stuff but mostly they 90% care about how huge is your knife?

Shamans are still a pocket swiss army knife. Nice to have–but isn’t really what is needed as much in WoW 2018 when the first thing people look for is how much burse dmg you do, how much AoE dmg you do, how much cleave dmg you do or how much ST dmg you do. After that is acceptable, then they start to look at utility.

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This guy gets it. As the game as evolved so has the standard of a good class. Right now, everything is boiled down into numbers. DPS and HPS. If you aren’t better at those two things comparative to other classes, nobody is really going to care about your other swiss army utility unless said utility is so overpowered and ridiculous that it’s impossible to ignore. Shamans possess no utility such as that.

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Utility you say?

You must be talking about those elite heals the non healing spec have, surely no other class can heal themselves through solo content outside of healing classes right??? right??

Or the great movement speed buffs only our totems can provide game-wide…

Or our superior survivability through mail armor, and earth shield…

Or maybe it is the age old heroism/bloodlust buff, EXCLUSIVE to the shaman class that its mandatory for every bit of group content…

Perhaps it is the incredible crowd control we have at our fingertips to help tilt the fight in our favor, such as capacitor totem, thunderstorm, and hex, that would be the envy of any other class..

Utility my hind end, man. We have utility, but the game has become so min/max, that whatever specialized abilities we were able to bring before, can be accomplished by other classes, at relatively higher dps. The game has neutered class identity, and simultaneously created a hyper competitive environment predicated on maximizing group content throughput. Shaman specific utility just isn’t as relevant in 2018 wow, as it was 204-2016-ish…

This class could be THE reason to play wow along with druids, but honestly it kind of sucks right now…

Edit: I shouldn’t say it sucks, that’s not right. It does feel lacking though. It doesn’t feel like the shaman is necessary for anything really. I play it because the spell animations are probably the best in the game, and I enjoy the class fantasy of the shaman. Elemental shaman is just not great to play right now.

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I agree on the utility and it’s frustrating. I mean earth shield is a cool idea but in PvE content (raids and M+) it’s not very useful. It sucks to see other DPS classes healing for more than we are able to and they don’t have to stop DPS to do it. Granted, they generally are just healing themselves but it still helps the healer out. There’s of course some benefit to being able to spot heal but it would be nice if we at least had some form of constant passive healing or damage reduction for the group (outside of ancestral guidance).

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I’m just going to toss in my $0.02 here and say that Elemental, as it is right now…is absolutely WORTHLESS.

I raided main on my Shaman during Wrath, all the way through WoD, and during those years, I was absolutely BEAST in damage. Screw the utility, DPS was the name of Ele’s game.

Now…oh my god. Ele is just PAINFUL! I took a year off during Legion and came back and was liek “WTF is this crapola!” Literally timed myself on kills in Vol’dun…took between 20-30 seconds to kill ONE MOB!! Watched every other class kill the exact same mob in less than 15 seconds. Hell, I got out DPS’d by a bloody RESTO SHAMAN!!! There is no universe where that should EVER happen!!

Blizzard has even commented (and I know this is factual because I know someone on the Blizz development team) that at launch of BfA they admitted they had inadvertedly screwed Marksman hunters and that Elemental Shaman needed to be re-worked to get them back where they were and should be. Well…Hunters got fixed, but there is STILL no mention of them ever fixing Ele Shaman. Elemental has consistently been the build that Blizz loves to hate on.

Right now, I almost can’t even play my shaman. I used to kill crap in like 3-4 spell casts, and they would be dead most of the time before they ever got close to me. No…they are in my face, still half alive and laughing at the sheer lack of DPS that I toss at them.

Please Blizz…pay attention to the lightning slingers and lava flingers…GIVE US OUR DPS BACK!!!

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A couple of things:

  1. Plenty of specs have more utility. Utility is not very measurable, so it’s difficult to quantify. But, ele utility is certainly not valuable enough to get them into content on their utility alone.

  2. I agree in theory that you couldn’t have the spec with the highest utility have the highest dps, but that’s not what is happening. Firstly, you will always need some balance of classes as there is diminishing utility in most cases of stacking the same spec. Secondly, as stated, Shaman utility is ‘average’ and damage is among the lowest.

  3. The problem I have with elemental isn’t their damage or their utility. Sure, their damage is low, but I feel it’s viable. More utility is always nice. But, the problem for me is that it is not that fun to play. And there’s just one reason that I think people are not paying enough attention to: Maelstorm Generation is WAYYYY too slow. It’s just horrible and boring.

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About Maelstrom generation… I actually don’t feel it’s all THAT slow (but I main an Affliction warlock, so anything that happens in less than 15 seconds is light speed for me), but I wouldn’t say no to it being faster. More Maelstrom means more instant casts, more damage, more mobility.

I think tweaking Flame shock to deliver more passive Maelstrom would make a world of difference from a very minor change.

Or how about ‘Maelstrom banking’-- maybe a totem that gains maelstrom every time we cast lightning, then we release it, like Cloudburst totem, when we need a sudden recharge?

Also: I think we need the ‘maelstrom gives you instant heals’ option, like enhancement.

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Ya, I like the idea of banking more Maelstorm too.

The problem with the instant heals for enhancement is if you don’t want it instant, there’s no way around eating your maelstorm.

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Yeah, true… though if I need a heal, that’s usually my number one concern. And if I can do it fast, I can go back to generating maelstrom.

Maybe we need a dedicated maelstrom powered heal… I think paladins used to have something like that, with holy power. I don’t get why they decided that DPS hybrid specs shouldn’t be hybrids, and should only have one healing ability…

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It is bananas how slow elemental maelstrom generation is!

The most redeeming quality for enhancement, at least to me, is how many times I get to use my heavy hitters. There are times when I can’t uncap my resource bar because of proc’s chaining together and having a lot of fun things to use.

I am glad we have a huge heavy hitter in Earth shock, but tell me why I can get through some fights without even using it at max value.

One of the traits on the azerite gear increases your crit, mastery, haste, based of specific classes of spell. I think it would be awesome if it was damage increase instead of trait increase.

Have Lightning bolt proc a flame shock. It has a chance to proc an Ice shock, and it, a chance on earth shock. If all 3 shocks proc, it unlocks elemental blast which replaces current earth shock as the spec hay maker.

If I am cycling more of those shocks and weaving some lighting bolts in there with the occasional lava lash, I would find this spec far more engaging and entertaining…

Edit: I have a feeling this concept would be disliked by many, but honestly I wouldn’t mind a turret style caster in the shape of an elemental shaman. Have it play off various totems to place down. Let me throw down a few damaging totems, and let my lightning bolt and shocks, buff the dmg output of the totems. It is just another take on DoT play style but it would be a fresh take on it. sprinkle in my summoning of elementals and I think it could be pretty engaging…

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