Ideas on a redesign for this ability?
As is, you lose the physical buff for a random elemental buff with highly variable value. The elemental buff ALWAYS buffs ele blast though, leading to a 40% buff to our hardest hitting ability which is problematic at least for PvP.
Like, should this be redesigned around a fire heavy build with fire themed bonuses?
Itâs honestly still hard to say where the numbers will land. I canât say for sure, but I think a lot of the numbers are inflated currently as a crutch for mythic raid testing such that the mechanics are fully tested without undue difficulty and they will make inferences from there as to what amounts to a reasonable challenge.
They may only be focused on getting all specs into a similar relative state without as much concern about the absolute numbers even at this point so late in the beta. So with that in mind, I am bracing myself for a round of sweeping nerfs across all classes before the end of beta or at least the return of PvP auras.
As for Elemental Spirits, if the modifiers are stacking too high and result in too much burst damage in PvP for people to react to, I think something like Molten Weapons applied to all elemental damage types would prevent most one shots while keeping the sustain damage similar. Elemental Blast / Elemental Spirits damage is still a large contributor to fire builds keeping up with Windfury Builds in single target so itâs hard to imagine that delicate balance changing too much; the two actually feel really close even though Windfury builds are usually a little smoother.
I do think Elemental Spirits should still be an option for Windfury builds that want to shift some of their damage to finishers instead of Windfury / Stormstrike for more burst outside of Ascendance however. The current design, however simple, does achieve that much IMO. Itâs debatable how much value you can get out of that last point if not spending it on Elemental Spirits (e.g. Thorimâs Invocation and 1/2 Witch Doctorâs Ancestry or 1/2 Primal Maelstrom), but that says more about two points being tied up in Elemental Assault and possibly Legacy of the Frost Witch more than anything else.
I honestly donât have that much of an issue with the new Elemental Spirits in PvE. Itâs simplified and more thematic compared to the old version (why did the lightning dog buff our physical abilities before?), and the physical buff on the base wolf is a nice way to encourage more build diversity. The only issue I really had was that converting x% physical damage into x% fire/frost/nature damage felt a bit side-gradey for some builds, but it looks like theyâre taking a step toward resolving that (on the PTR build they just pushed they nerfed the physical wolf back down to 15% while leaving the elemental wolves at 20%).
PvP is a different story due to 1-shot potential, but weâre unlikely to see too many design changes at this point that actually require changing tooltips, since theyâre busy localizaing everything for the pre-patch hitting in a couple of weeks. Seems the most likely short-term solution to that will be PvP modifiers (reducing the number of stacks you can consume at once with Overflowing Maelstrom in PvP and/or reducing the wolf modifiers in PvP and/or nerfing EB damage in PvP).
Iâd rather see a PvP nerf to modifiers (other than MSW) then to the base MSW spenders since that seems like it unnecessarily hurts builds that arenât based on stacking as many modifiers on the MSW spenders.
Like make it so that the +40% damage bonus to ele blast from elemental spirits is reduced by 50% in PvP.
And disable or reduce overflowing MSW stock spending or effect in PvP.
Please no, fire is already our most-represented element aside from lightning, to the point that it sometimes even feels like itâs overshadowing our storm theme. If anything Iâm desperate for more elemental variety in our kit, not more fire emphasis.
The most direct thing would be summon 3 wolves, one of each element.
Yeah, it being somewhere between hard and impossible without addons or sims to tell when enough of your damage is elemental over physical to make the switch worth the talent point feels pretty awful.
The easiest fix would be for Elemental Spirits to add the elemental amplification on top of the base physical amplification instead of replacing it, but honestly Iâm kinda⌠totally unimpressed with the utter lack of design creativity in just making the wolves aura buff our damage while active? Like, what is even the thematic logic at play here? What part of âsummon wolvesâ leads to âso they can buff our personal damage outputâ?
Alpha Wolfâs effect feels much more thematic, as it causes our wolves to follow our attacks as a coordinated pack. Something more along those lines would be much more fun than a flat damage buff while theyâre active.
really hate how many modifiers effect core abilities
lavalash for the last 2 years has done absolutely pathetic damage because all of the hothand build modifiers exist which just feels awful
it feels like they recognized how bad that felt when they just last week nerfed hothand and buffed lavalash pretty significantly
just for them to turn around put eleblast on the very top of a similarly unstable tower
so lame zzz
this would be healthy
I think the better use of Elemental Spirits buffs would be to change it from:
-Each dog buffs itâs own Elemental damage by 20%
To:
-Each dog buffs ALL Elemental damage by 10% (20% total per cast), AND, then adds an additional 5% per Dog-type. Example: One Frost Dog and one Fire Dog: 20% Elemental damage from just having the dogs out + 5% Frost and 5% Fire. Results of this example would be: Elemental Blast is buffed 30% per dog cast, instead of 40% as it is now; Fire damage is buffed 25%, Frost damage buffed 25%, nature damage buffed 20%.
It feels bad to press a Frost spell when you have 2 Fire Dogs. It feels bad to press Chain Lightning when you didnât get a Nature Dog. It feels bad to get a Lava Lash proc during you double Frost Dog window.
The above means all Elemental damage gets buffed, period, when you cast dogs. The RNG âelementâ is having dog-related elements being buffed slightly further. Plus it reduces overall Elemental Blastâs potential burst.
How about 5% to all elements + 5% to its own element per dog for a total bonus of + 10% per element and an additional 5% to 2 elements?
That would match the total throughout of the current dogs at 40% total across all 3 schools and would bring the ele blast benefit down from 40% to 20% which seems alot more reasonable.
Make it always spawn 1 fire dog, and 1 nature dog.
I donât believe it to be as problematic in pvp as others are suggesting. Enh sustain dmg that Iâve seen in pvp thus far is on the low end, itâs burst potential is all it really has, survival i would place it as full on glass cannon. Also ele blast fully modified tops out at 120kish non crit on a 250-270k average hp range, and itâs not spammable. Many other classes are also seeing this lvl of numbers like WW rising sun kick or DH hunt.
The one thing I did notice that if I was to nerf something itâs gotta be lightning boltx2 from primordial wave. Currently thatâs hitting like 150k base non crit sometimes. But once weakauras hit retail arena as is the norm the flame shock will be auto dispelled every time thatâs pressed so itâs a tough call.
Overall I feel like enh got a nice lvl of utility, thatâs not broken and fully counterable, (ie, kill a totem or kick the shaman). A big hit with no immediate follow up isnât as hard to deal with as say DH or WW hitting for the same amount than following up with several 50k+ hits and both have a good stun and a healing reduction on top of this. Itâs got the highest âbig hitâ as it did in MoP with ascendance and even than it wasnât an S tier spec. Itâs very tiring to watch enh go from burst machine glass cannon to heal bot every expac, except MoP and watch actual shaman players advocate for it, while equal burst potential classes stay silent.
I donât believe this to be as problematic in pvp as others are suggesting, it tops out at 120kish on 250-270k avg hp pools, but with no immediate follow up. DH and WW hit for similar numbers but also have follow up, instant CC, and a healing reduction.
I have noticed primordial wave lightning bolt being high tho at 150k combined, but once everyoneâs running a weak aura for this youâll see a small defensive or a cleanse on flame shock every time itâs used, as ele does now on live.
Overall I think enh is in a good place in pvp on the beta. Without the current ele blast itâs a utility/heal bot thatâs actually fairly squishy on beta. Basically all glass no cannon. Idk why every time enh sees a A tier rank in pvp you immediately see shaman players advocate against it and trying to put it back into a healing bot state where itâs purely support typically revolving around warrior and nothing else. MoP enh had higher burst potential and still didnât see an S tier slot. DK/DH/X or Walking dead cleave are looking much stronger than anything enh can run on beta, and both counter enh.
with overflowing, wolves, and tier buff?
if you mean itâs 120k with 5 stack and a crit then youâre missing the point entirely
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/989031560730787860/1031683976500367380/unknown.png
crit + wolves + overflowing + tier modifiers are taking a reasonable elemental blast to the moon
we NEED them to nerf the modifiers and NOT the base ability
ele blast SHOULD hit hard, wolves eleblast crits should be a significant hit
if they make ele blast baseline useless where weâre FORCED into overflowing+elemental spirits windows for it to do any damage the spec is significantly worse overall
Iâm not getting these numbers post nerf. Youâre saying this is still doable?
From what I have seen with WW at least, they top out at around 120k RSK with a crit. Itâs semi spamable, but 50% HP hits from any class are not great IMO. Elemental Blast can certainly hit over 300k in PvP which doesnât even allow for a counter. Iâm not saying Shamans donât need an edge in PvP, but 1 shots are not fun for anyone.
I really think just separating the % modifier from Elemental Spirits from the initial hit would bring it back into a reasonable range. Thematically, it would be something like âyour elemental abilities empower your Feral Spirits causing their next attack to apply a stacking bleed to their target for deal 20% of the initial hit (each) over 6 secondsâ.
This would have 0 affect on PvE tuning assuming they implement it as only specific elements empowering each type of wolf (or adjust the numbers for any elemental type) with good sustain damage, while significantly dropping the burst damage down. Maybe that 170k crit will finish someone off on itâs own over the next 6 seconds, but at least there is some counter play there.
Even with the above making it basically a 0% modifier from Elemental Spirits towards the initial hit, Overflowing Maelstrom crits will take you from 75 to 0 pretty easily, but at least they can make smaller adjustments to the base ability or Overflowing Maelstrom if needed from there on.
Just tested in mostly full gladiator gear with 32% mastery (could get 50% with some lower ilvl PvE gear). Normal hits around 160k and 1.75x crits around 280k. PvE crits over 316k without much effort. Iâve seen 400s with Skyfury totem down I think.
I will say that getting a crit with 10 MSW with Feral Spirits down and only 15-20% crit is a relatively rare occurrence and there are more controllable burst combos like EB â Primordial Wave â LB which may take 3 globals but can easily hit the same numbers without crits. Adjusting Feral Spirits may help a little there, but I donât know, itâs still a lot.
Exactly. This is what Iâm afraid of.
Please let 5 MSW spending continue to be strong and just nerf the extra modifiers like overflowing maelstrom weapon and elemental spirits.
Those numbers are not doable post nerf, any team worth their salt is gonna stomp spell crit totem or answer it. Wolve cd comes down as much as 1 full minute or more for me sometimes so ele blast doing dmg around that is completely fine and actually opens enh up to playing beast cleave again lining up well with every trap window. If you wanna be stuck to turbo or niche case WW/enh that Iâve heard ran but never seen ran ever be my guest. Iâd rather enh have the competitive dmg so that without an MS or insane Control it can still branch out comp wise. Spriest/enh and beast cleave plox.
I think everyone wants MSW spenders to hit hard. But a single MSW spender shouldnât 100-0 someone.
Post nerf outside of legit, getting every proc including weapon enchant procs, with skyfury/wolves and on use trinket. It does not do 100-0 anymore. You would need absolute perfection to 100-0. I agree that it shouldnât do this, but I also disagree that any enh above duelist will have skyfury as it will always get stomped or answered, but I support itâs complete removal from enh shaman just to be safe and to protect casuals who wonât react to it. Enh truly does not need it and at enhâs current tuning point itâs burst outside of the perfection I placed above is actually inline with all other classes atm. There is a new burst video out by dalaran gaming that shows this, 3 enhs and only 1 managed to 100-0 by dpsing hunter pets until he got all procs at the same time than blew everything at essentially a target dummy player.
Edit: by perfect I also include, no oneâs pressuring you to use msw to heal, no oneâs using a defensive when you press all of your buttons, no oneâs stomping your skyfury totem.
Are you talking about this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBugeX1pqkI from a few days ago? That clearly shows 161k non-crit (likely over 280k if it crit) on a 270k HP hunter as well as a one shot crit. Sure heâs just standing around, but thereâs nothing special about that setup or simply using elemental spirits whenever you manage to build to 10 MSW (or force it with Primal Maelstrom); if you crit, you win. With 62k overkill the Skyfury totem was not even needed. Another video of 5v5 duels from a day ago was not running Overflowing Maelstrom.
Iâve already conceded that post nerf if you create the perfect situation on a target dummy player yes it can still 100-0 and this should not happen. My suggestion to this: remove skyfury totem. Outside of the perfect situation with skyfury down, enh burst is inline with everyone else in that video.