The current arguments are now about changing terms and shifting the goal posts.
Button Bloat is now being rebranded as Action Bloat… or some other bs.
For some reason people don’t seem to understand that removing a button from the rotation also means it doesn’t need to be on the bar anymore… not that the class doesn’t have the button in their book anymore.
So Ele shamans just got a flat 30% damage increase.
Was there damage that bad?
remember that blizzard says this tuning is NOT related to the package they are releasing so maybe there is some changes to how elemental plays after this “package” is released which warranted a 30% increase?
Just wanted to drop a massive thank you for the change to surging totem, particularly for Resto Shaman. Both for healing the melee group consistently and making good use of Acid Rain in dungeons, the fact the rain is around the totem helps so much. This is honestly one of the most significant changes i’ve seen for any healer this whole beta test (and i’ve been playing all of them quite a bit), yet it seems so simple on paper. Really great change and thank you for listening to the community on this one.
For ice furry? It f eels weird and clunky so personally I’m fine with it being gone.
For Wave I don’t actually mind it for elemental, but it’s dull af for resto. . I’d love a better more efficient way spread flameshocks.
But yeah I wouldn’t be sad to see either go.
Even after a 30% buff it’s probably sort of bad.
I would just like to add that it would be nice if anytime you apply earth shield to someone else it automatically applies it to you as well.
Warriors got that too. It is Blizzard saying “we’d like testing from your specs and you’re THAT bad that nobody wants to take you”.
Bandaid to let you test things while they work behind the scenes.
I hope they revert it for enhancement, for us it’s now worse. We don’t have a lot of time and luxury to place totems and having to place one every 24s is awful. Before we just hit the button and it would target our target with it’s AOE. Now we have to hit the button and then place it, which obviously takes more time. Even using macro modifiers to drop it you run into situations where it’s not optimal with @player or @cursor. @cursor being in melee you can easily lose your mouse resulting in bad totem placement. @player isn’t optimal if you say want to place it on the way to the target so when you hit melee range you’re not wasting a GCD on totem placement.
Before was perfect for enhancement. Or they could just bring back @target macros. They took them away because of bots, but that clearly didn’t solve the problem so why cripple functionality if it accomplishes nothing.
That too. Anything to reduce the frequency of applying it.
I like all your suggestions except:
I actually like Ice Fury. I’d ideally like them to change it so that it empowers not only your Frost Shocks but also makes it so that your Lava Lash becomes Ice Lash or something.
I play my Shaman with a combination of Fire/Frost and I’d hate to lose that. I just wish they’d add more reasons to use Ice if they’re going to have them in the tree.
I’d like more Ice, Wind, and Earth spells. Or at the very least a happy medium would if a system was implemented where we had a spell (maybe Primordial Wave?) that would empower our next spells with a specific element of our choosing and give them a slight visual difference.
Since maybe the devs are looking now:
Remove the cooldown on Fire Shock - it’s not needed at this point anymore and is just silly.
Update the visuals for our Elemental Shields
Make it so our Elemental Shields are more impactful. I think it would go a long way if we could put them on our entire party. BUT the Shaman should be able to wear multiple.
In terms of Elemental Shields, we should get a new one that would provide a unique raid buff so there would actually be a reason to include Shamans in raids now that everyone and their brother can give Blood Lust.
Please change Stormbringer. It literally feels jarring to use it as Elemental spec where we have abilities for Fire, Ice, and Earth yet Stormbringer is only lighting???
Honestly please bring back some of our totem utility. Our utility was massacred in MoP and we never received adequate compensation for the loss. Some other classes got buffs back in Dragonflight, I’d like to see some of the original totems come back. I picked a Shaman originally BECAUSE they were the king of buffs / utility. -_-
I would say Ice Fury and enhanced Frost Shocks have visual issues that makes it feel weird.
For Ice Furied Frost Shocks, it would be nice if it looks like we are throwing something like Ice Lance? On top of that having it more different if it’s Lava Burst enhancer Frost Shock or nature damage enhancer Frost shock with red frost and electrified Frost Shock.
One of the reasons they removed a lot of the totems in the first place is button bloat. Shamans have a fairly high barrier for entry simply due to the sheer amount of stuff they have. Last time I played in S2 DF it was…what? 20+ different buttons from minute to minute on average.
On top of that, they ended up getting abilities that functioned the same way as totems with less drawbacks (totem stomps by random mob abilities, other players, etc)
I’d be okay with them bringing totems back more so long as they make them less annoying to manage and play around.
True agreed to many macross
Enhancement Totemic:
With the change to Surging totem, placing is as not as bad as it would seem. Sure I would like auto placement back, but with the change, you do gain a few things as well.
You do not have to have pinpoint accuracy, just drop it into the middle of the mobs, or close to where the mobs are. The Tank will hopefully keep them there for a bit, if not, move it!
You can now place the totem as you run into the group, setting up damage on the move. So you can place the totem, dogs, fire shock, then Lavalash to spread, Stormstrike, get the stacks to 10, and unleash the Tremor combo. This can now be done on the move, which is not so bad.
It also seems that Totemic is fully working now. While I admit it is a bit strange to do a few things, but being Elementa for DF, this new style build is fresh to me. I am hoping that Blizzard moves a few talents around, to make it easier and more of a choice to get certain talents in the class tree for Totemic to work optimally. If so, I think Totemic will be fun to play with.
Right? I don’t want a boring 3-button rotation. I like having lots of buttons in my rotation, so this is problematic for me and players like me. Instead of “remove every button I don’t like,” how about we ask Blizz to improve them? (Even though I have no problem with current Icefury.)
I understand this, but my main issue is we went from having totems that were a consistent utility to totems that are on a timer and provide like 15% of what we used to be capable of - unless you’re Resto. Heck, to be honest, unless I’m Resto, I end up ignoring a vast majority of the totems.
On my Elemental Shaman, as a non-PvPer, I have a grand total of THREE totems in my spellbook, two of which I had to use talent points to get. That is ridiculous when you consider totems are supposed to be a huge part of our class.
Could I have gotten more? Sure. I could have used points to get 4 more totems. But spending points to get totems that are just “ok” is not something I want to do. But it’s also funny when you consider that if I didn’t spend points to get the ones I have, I’d have one totem as the totem class, lol. But hey…at least I have Primal Strike in my spellbook! 
I just feel like there’s something not right about the current relationship between Shamans and their totems and it needs to be looked at.
Can you give specific examples of this?
Healing Stream and Healing Tide Totem, which ele and enh used to have and use.