How I would change the Elemental Shaman

Classes Shaman
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It’s old news that the new expansion pack for World of Warcraft has been losing a lot of players or the players are bored and are waiting for a fabled patch that will fix the current issues of the game and make the game interesting again. Now I’ll admit that the story (to a point) has been good and the new animations are also a welcomed sight, but those are the only two things that interest me at this point and that’s only because I’m a bit of a fanboy when it comes to Blizzard.

What I personally play World of Warcraft for and what has kept me in the game for a little over a decade was the game play and class design. I was the type of person to level every character and constantly jump between spec to see what each one is like at each level or if I got bored of whatever current one I was playing with. Point is, I enjoyed playing a lot of different classes and specs. But now thats not so much the case, maybe its age and I’ve finally found what I like and don’t want to bother with the other classes but I’ve started to narrow down what I play.

In Legion they focused on class fantasy and that really got me thinking if this were in my hands what would I do. I ended up on the elemental shaman because I’m a fan of nature and I really like the lighting aesthetic because the age old magic spells other games provided, fire and ice, were getting stale. (Arane was my jam on the mage) so now I’d say that I ‘main’ an Elemental Shaman.

Well I did anyway. Legion had some really fun gameplay, the flow of the Elemental Shaman was nice and I didn’t waste much time playing any other class until way later in the expansion. In the past I hear that Shamans always got shafted and its still seems to happen to this day and I think that’s such a shame(an)… bad puns aside the shaman is pretty neat and has a lot of potential that Blizzard seems to be afraid to try.

So with this I want to talk about the flow and how to better improve the shaman without changing too much of what is already in the game. Blizzard already said they like the lighting aspect of the spec so I’m going to try to come up with ways to make the class more engaging so let me know if you think these ideas would be fun to try. For now I’m going to avoid things like Talents and Azerite armor as I’m more interested in the basic playstyle and flow of the class. (Blizzard should really use the PTR to test stuff like this instead of it just being a heads up for what is to come… but youtubers have to make money too)

So with Lighting/Elemental fantasy as the base of the spec here come the ideas. Remember I’m not trying to change too much or make new spells. This does not include Talents or Azerite armor so don’t think about them as you read this, those would need to be reworked with these changes.

Here is what I would change

  • Lighting bolt stays the filler spell we already know
  • Chain Lighting would also stay the same
  • Flame shock keeps its 6 second CD, DOT, but now also generates Maelstrom
  • Lava Surge(Passive) is removed. (I know, bare with me though)
  • Lava Burst now requires Maelstrom to be cast (this would be replacing Earth Shocks current job but it would actually do damage and be a worthwhile spender.)
  • Earth Shock has an 8 second CD generates Maelstrom OR makes the next three lighting bolts instant (Earthshock just doesn’t feel impactful right now so its damage in this form would be low, but you use it for its additional effects)
  • Earthquake is removed
  • Thunderstorm is the new AoE ability with a 30* second CD, Casting chain lighting reduces the CD by 1 second per target hit (it could also require Maelstrom as well as having a CD to reduce the amount of times it can be cast in X seconds)

The reason for some of these changes are that right now Maelstrom generation feels like it takes a long time for little pay off. This would speed up the amount of Maelstrom you generate and by making Lava Burst require Maelstrom I think it will feel better to spend maelstrom, between the cast time and the (hopefully) large damage it would deal.

And depending how much Maelstrom exactly Lava Burst would require may change up the pace of the class, for instance my current thought is that Lava Burst would need 80-100 Maelstrom, give it nice damage and it would feel worthwhile. Or make it 25-50 so you can spit out more lava bursts but lower the damage it does, a noticeable amount above lighting bolt though(so it doesn’t turn into current Earth Shock 2.0)

So what are your thoughts, would these ideas be too much of a change from what we know, would they even work in your opinion, is it worth a try? This is just my first run at the ideas so they are not perfect and I might not have gotten exactly what I’m trying to say written down here. But thanks for reading!

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But I really like Thunderstorm being a KB.

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Hah, yeah it wouldn’t be that fun to lose the knock back. But it could be replaced with an earth themed knock back or make it a totem. I just wanted to make the spec have more lighting spells in its kit.

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No thanks.

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So if you don’t mind me asking so I can get a better understanding, what is it that you don’t like about my suggestions? And/Or what is it that you enjoy about the current 8.1 shaman?

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I get 63k earth shocks in pvp and have hit 100k in pve so idk, it feels powerful. Just they disparity between a crit and non crit jus seems so massive for ele

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make Lb castable while moving again or bring gust of wind and take FS off cd and i would forget bfa version of ele, i mean its powerful right now , but turret mod in pvp is not fun.

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That’s a good point, the damage numbers between crit and non crit are pretty large and can be disheartening. (that might be why I feel like it is weak)

Are you running the Azerite trait where flame shock increases the damage of Earth shock? Because with that yes I have see large numbers with that. I’m trying to avoid Azerite armor because it just fills the holes in the class that were created by the Azerite system to make itself "

And I’m not trying to say that what I’ve come up with is the perfect idea, I’m just looking to try to fix some problems that I’ve noticed.

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Elementals should be permanent companions, with each one having a different role. Fire is damage, earth is tank, water is healing, and air is support

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Please. No. :frowning:

I already strongly dislike using the PE talent because it places such a strong focus on our elementals for damage.

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Pet classes are that way----------------->

If you want to play pet ele, you can theres a build for it. But I dont want to play perma pet ele and forced to do so. I dont want to play pet period. And I dont. Pure rubbish you speak!

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Well said. 3 Hunter spec, frost mage and all three lock specs have perma pets. And most people dislike pets so much in those that BM/Demo is the only specs you HAVE to have a pet.

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No on EQ removal and on Thunderstorm rework. You are basically changing it to EQ and removing a defensive ability, so absolutely not.

LB and CL stay the same, im cool with that.
Passive maelstrom gen on FS is reasonable, I myself have commented in posts about this and I agree with it.

Now to the meat of you changes, LvB/Lava Surge changes. I’ll respond twofold:

  1. In a world with ELE using maelstrom, I like the idea of LvB doing way more damage than any other ability but as a spender it would only feel gratifying with high damage and 30-50 maelstrom. Some people love LvB, their sole reason for playing ELE and to never be able to cast it, or cast so infrequently would remove some player base. Interesting thought on your changes here, without some changes in your proposal, I would have to vote no; with revised changes I would definitely consider changing my vote to a yes.

  2. If we were in a world where ELE doesnt use maelstrom (ie: it was ENH only mechanic) and ELE was straight mana, I think your changes here would be magnificent. You could make ES a strong instant, above LB and FrS which are spammable. You put a CD of say 15 seconds or something along those lines on LvB and make it a high damaging ability, our highest burst damaging ability. No more instants on it so it would have to be casted given more reason for it to be high damaging. Damage while kiting would be fine with FrS spam, ES every 8 secs, and then when you gained distance drop a nuking LvB>FrS>ES (if its off cd) burst window. Sounds really amazing when you think about it, and all 3 spell schools as well. I suppose one can only dream though.

I give you props though, really interesting ideas.