Ok, so before the trolls come marching in, I get it… “Get good scrub, kek, OMEGALUL, play another game, you think your spec is bad, lemme QQ to you, etc…” Now that, that’s out of the way…
Ele is feeling even more squishy than in BFA. I felt the damage in BFA but it seemed as if I could play around it a bit better. Now it’s just unforgiving. We had a fire mage do the same mechanic as me, and albeit, they are alot more mobile with casts to avoid damage, he only took 5% of his health in damage in a scenario that looks like I would take 40%. Having to break hard casts, since we got our lava surge proc rates nerfed only amplifies this, and I find myself having to decide more often, do I eat this damage or get this cast off. . Maybe it’s a conduit not being unlocked thing, but the survivability is tough. I’m feeling it more on Tyrannical. Is this being experienced by other ele shammies? Or is this in my imagination?
I saw in your profile that you’re resto, so I’m assuming that’s your main spec. I’m discussing elemental shaman. For whatever reason, survivability does change based on spec and it’s more apparent on shamans. In BFA, enhance felt the squishiest, now it seems that’s been resolved and address with their “lay on hands” heals from 5 maelstrom stack instant heals. I did play around with the soulbind and I find that running plague master helps out a slight bit due to the frictionless coatinmg that procs if you drop below 20% but it’s not that great.
My only suggestion is try to kite more and hard cast less…frost shock spam and kite in ghost wolf to make space. Ele is squishy but is still in a better spot than enh because it has an instant stun.
Earth shield also feels mandatory for Elemental to feel beefier.
Ele has the luxury of being able to 100-0 someone very quickly, so kiting around your burst combo windows might help out.
In PVE doing raids i had the same experience. I used to play fire mage back in the cata/mop days and did a ton of raiding then, and it was such a benefit for the raid that i could cheese mechanics by soaking huge amounts of damage alone by useage of Iceblock and Cauterize. As a shaman, i just cant do that.
This is legit what Ion meant when he said it requires ‘skill’ to use.
It doesn’t share with battle rezes, and yes it sucks to lose buffs and consumable…but in a pinch it will allow a shaman to soak a mechanic and come back up, if someone else is dropping the ball.
You’re referring to PVE right ? Personally I can’t relate I’m afraid. With healing stream totem, astral shift and ghost wolf to quickly get out of bad stuff / avoid mechanics, I find myself alive most of the time when others are dead.
What mechanics or things are you finding kill you specifically? Genuinely curiosi
I dont know of anything on this raid tier, most of it is all meteor effects, so you just need to split damage with a couple raid members, but if there was a mechanic like Hour of Twilight from Ultraxion (in dragonsoul) that would be something elemental and shamans just are not equipped to deal with.
Switching off Spirit Wolf and Spectral Recovery to Earth Shield and Swelling Waves to synergize with Healing Surge conduit
Nature’s Guardian with Ooze Coating conduit
Just wish they flipped that tree and gave us Ultimate Form first
Just learning when to hop into ghost wolf and popping Astral shift at the right times. Position comes into great play. Ice fury is great when there is part of a boss mechanic that requires movement.
I know how bursty PVP is now and I play Druid/Shaman all specs.
NOTE: there are sacrifices to be made in order to survive longer it is YOUR CHOICE.
Here is all the ways you can make yourself harder to kill:
Nature’s Guardian 20% heal when below 35% 45sec CD, increased by Earth shield effective 24%.
-HUGE BENEFIT: will work while cced so that cheapshot/stun survivability
Astral Shift 40% dmg reduction 1.5sec CD
Earth shield 20% increased healing + effectively a HOT to reduce incoming damage thru healing.
Swelling waves (pvptalent): heal for another 50% sec later with healing surge, Healing is a big part of shaman survivability USE IT, this increases it by 50%.
Spectral Recovery 3% HP heal every 2 seconds in ghost @25,000 it is 750hp every 2 seconds with Earth shield 900 it is some build in passive healing while kiting that could make a difference.
Purifying waters (3%heal on dispell/purge)- Not my personal choice but I could see situation where this gets use.
BattleMaster thrinket for +7500 health gain 120 sec CD effectively almost 30% HP on avg.
Covenants: I understand that this is not for everyone but I wanted to list this if someone wanted to maximize their survivability.
Necrolord:
Fleshcraft 20% shield, this is not all that great but it is a shield non the less on the SHADOW tree so if you get kicked on nature and need a desperate heal you could channel this or bait a kick with it then spam healing surge.
Ooz Frictioness coating: 15% shield when you go below 50% hp
-HUGE BENEFIT: will work while cced so that cheapshot/stun survivability
(combine this with Natures Guardian for 24%+15%=39% EXTRA LIFE even if you are stun locked) then hit battle master +7500 health. potentially aprox 70% HP recovery to survive burst.)
Kyrian:
Phial of serenity 20% heal on 180sec CD will remove poison, disease, bleed, curses effects.
Pelagos -Vial of patience- increases heal of Phial of serenity to 55% but healing now over 10 sec.
Kleia -Valiant Strikes - Up to 20% healing when someone falls below 50% gets charges for each crit strike, each charge 1% healing.
Kleia- Ascendad Vial- Phial of serenity makes you also immune to poison, disease, bleed, curse effects for 8 seconds.
CONDUITS:
Earth elemental- 20-40% increase HP 5 min cd
Earth shield - 5-12% increase healing
Healing surge- 15-30% increase self healing this will stack with swelling wave so amazing synergy + earth shield healing benefit.
like I said CHOICE is YOURS but you can become quite tanky.
EDIT: you cannot compare BFA to SL, everyone feels much much more squishy and defensives dont feel the same unless its invuls like Bubble or iceblock.
I saw a video of people clearing traps in Castle Nathria by having the mage iceblock and then using priest life grip to pull the ice blocked mage through multiple traps.
