Brain won’t stop, can’t go to sleep, you know how it goes. Just putting down some ideas for possible changes/improvements.
Overall thoughts is that our kit needs more synergy with itself and talents.
Abilities
Crash Lightning/Chain Lightning - Increase the target count of CL to 6 so we can alternate CL/CrL depending on procs. For CrL increase the buff from CL to 75-100% per target hit so this actually feels like a good AoE ability, maybe make this bigger damage buff part of crashing storm.
Fire Nova - Make baseline ability, change talent to enhancing it.
Flame Shock - Spread Mechanic please
Feral Spirit - Make the Elemental Spirits buff baseline with weaker buffs as a Rank 2 upgrade or something. Then also add glyphs for it that prevent us from summoning one of the elemental types. Also add an extended tooltip that tells people what the elemental buffs do.
My thoughts on totems.
Talents
Lashing Flames - Weak compared to the others in their niches, needs something extra. Maybe have the debuff also cause Flame Shock ticks to generate a stack of Maelstorm Weapon.
Lava Lash - Change the trigger mechanism, instead of auto attack proc, maybe Flametongue Weapon hits give a stack, after 20ish stacks gain HH for 8 seconds, can’t get stacks while HH is active.
Ice Strike - Resetting the cooldown on the weakest part of our kit doesn’t feel good. Maybe change this to a cast to be a Maelstrom spender to synergize with Hailstorm. Add an additional affect that enhances the next shock used instead of just resetting the cooldown.
Fire Nova - Make ability baseline, swap talent spot with sundering so it competes with crashing storm. Change to passive that reduces Fire Nova cd to 6 seconds and causes Lava Lash to spread Flame Shock. Name, Call of Flame?
Hail Storm - Additional effect when an enhanced Frost Shock only hits 1 target it deals double damage and generates Maelstrom stacks.
Feral Lunge - Make baseline with a 1 miunte cooldown. Have talent reduce cooldown to 40 seconds, add an additional change, and removes it from the gcd. Making it baseline also allows for potential pvp talents for it.
Crashing Storm - With an increased Chain Lightning hit count mentioned earlier, maybe have this talent supercharge the Crash Lightning damage buff from Chain Lightning.
Stormkeeper - Instead of a casted ability for Enhancement, we get a stack of it every 20 seconds in combat up to 2 stacks. With increased target count on CL and Fire Nova changes moved to this row it could make this row very interesting for aoe choices.
Elemental Spirits - Going off earlier mentioned FS changes. Improve the doggo buffs. Add LB/CL/CrL to zappy dog. Frosty pupper gives really big Frost damage boost since we don’t have much of it. Hotdog is in a pretty good spot, maybe have its nips extend active Flame Shocks?
Ascendance - Every spec has an Ascendance talent. Give us a weakened baseline version so we can have cosmetic glyphs for it. Weakened version maybe 10 second duration, with 6 minute cooldown. Have the talent reduce cooldown to 2 minutes, increase duration to 20 seconds, enhance the on use in some way?
Earthen Spike - How has this thing stuck around in its current form since Legion? Maybe make this a powerful spender like Elemental Blast, but 2 charges, 30 second recharge, and additionally it causes the next Stormstrike to deal 100% increased damage as nature damage.
Conduits
Don’t want to gripe too much about other classes, but its kind of silly that some classes have conduits that effectively give a 10-15% boost to half their damage.
Now that we can use up to 3 of any conduit type, we need more options. Also with the existing conduits and new conduits, especially potency, they should have some kind of secondary affect that has some kind of impact on gameplay/rotation rather than just being more/bigger numbers.
Chilled to the Core - Have it also increase the damage of Frost Shock by the same percentage. Frost shock also extends the duration of your Flame Shock by 3 seconds. Alternatively, your Frost Shock consumes up to 4 seconds of your Flame Shock to deal some % more damage and generate 1 Maelstrom per second consumed.
Magma Fist - Additional Effect, Lava Lash generates 1 Maelstrom? Lets Lava Lash trigger Windfury?
Unruly Winds - Additional Effect, extra windfury had an increased chance to trigger Stormbringer, or reduces the cooldown of Stormstrike?
Focused Lightning - Additional Effect, consuming 5 Maelstrom reduces the cooldown of your Covenant ability by 2 seconds?
Thunderous Paws - 25% extra speed for 3 seconds on a minute cd? Really? Two options I see with this one, keep it as extra speed for 3 seconds, but remove the cd. Alternatively, have Ghost Wolf grant 2-3 seconds of Spirit Walk on a cooldown that reduced by conduit level.
Legendaries
Primal Lava Actuators - Redesign. Instead of a stacking buff for your next Lava Lash, you gain stacks, and at like 20 stacks you get another buff that for 5 seconds your Lava Lash is transformed into Lava Burst, dealing 100% more damage, no cooldown, 40 yard range, and guaranteed crits against Flame Shocked targets.
Conclusion
Just some late night meandering thoughts, maybe blizz will read and be in a receptive mood, who knows. Make conduits interesting, more choices. Make glyphs meaningful again. More baseline abilities, less talent abilities, talents more focused on accentuating parts/aspects of our kit.