With Season 4 tier set of ele, we’re pushed into a Lava Burst spam build with primordial wave that often sees us over-capping on maelstrom especially when in M+ where we have a big pull.
Some people might say that overcapping “feels bad” and justify it with that the extra maelstrom generation can’t be spent on spenders like Earth Shock, Earthquake, or Elemental Blast. Generally, it seems like the people saying this are the ones who don’t enjoy this build of elemental.
For the rest of the elemental mains doing their keys, the general consensus is that we enjoy this build, and are not too thrilled about the removal of talents like Windspeaker’s Lava Resurgence and Rolling Magma, which allowed Lava Surge procs after using spenders and getting CDR on primordial wave.
That overcapping is not an issue because of how fast the build is. Elemental builds resource very fast when we have all of our flame shocks out and are able to cleave with primordial wave. It feels almost like a chase. You see your tank pull a big pack, you have your Fire ele out, get out your 6 flame shocks, and then just build and spend as fast as you can. Sometimes you only need to cast 1 lava burst into a spender and can just repeat that. It makes for very fast gameplay, and also shows a bit of a skill difference compared to those who may have similar gear and stats, but just don’t press their buttons fast enough to do as much damage. That is fair.
For those people who argue that they do not like pressing 1-2 button spam, that’s what the Hero talents and Talent Tree changes in TWW are trying to fix. You don’t like spamming lava burst into earthquake? That’s fine, you can play another build, like a Nature build or a hybrid build where you don’t use lava burst as much. The only reason why the Lava burst spam build exists now is because it synergizes well with the current tier set bonus. The first raid tier in TWW has nothing to do with primordial wave + lava burst spam.
I can understand not liking a certain playstyle or rotation of a spec, but the changes to Elemental currently have made Fire builds into less of a “heavy instant cast proc with high mobility” spec, and more into a stand and cast spec which slows down the play style.
Right now, one of the main issues with Farseer is that it leads you to play a Fire build of Elemental shaman, which would be fine, but the way you spread Flame Shock is much slower compared to current season, and you are not generating maelstrom as quickly in order to be able to spend it quickly too. On top of that, the changes to the amount of Lava Surge procs being reduced on multi-target and increased in single target further take us away from not having to cast as much.
Finally, a big point of discussion is the amount of DPS each build will do. If one build is significantly stronger than the other in all forms of content, then that needs to be addressed. Personally, I think it makes sense for the different builds to be similar, but have their niches as well. Maybe the Farseer Fire builds are better at overall aoe and cleaving a pack down evenly, but the nature build with Lightning Rod talented could be better at a funnel scenario. That’ll allow players to choose different talents based on different raid bosses, or maybe some dungeons but most wouldn’t change out of the talents that they enjoy the most regardless of the difference. No spec or build of any spec should always be the top choice for all content, and individual player skill and interest should be accounted for when choosing talents.