We’re 5 weeks into the alpha and demonology is on its second rework. Multiple bespoke blue posts about druid, warlock, warrior… Shadow priests getting changes followed by a dev response to the feedback on those changes on the same day.
And yet not a single dev note for elemental shaman. Not one line.
I just want blizzard to be straight with us, so we can stop hoping and coping, thinking SURELY ele changes are coming in the next build. Is Elemental an abandoned spec? Are we on maintenance mode?
It’s not an issue of patience anymore. We went an entire expansion (an elemental themed expansion with somehow no shaman content btw) with zero meaningful changes. A half baked, divided spec tree that feels like two different specs glued together. The most pathetic defensive suite in the game. Two back to back seasons of flagrantly degenerate gameplay in which we ignore multiple core spec mechanics thanks to the problematic feedback loop of pwave and lava burst. And yet not a word indicating that the devs even know, let alone care.
The Elemental playerbase is smaller than it has ever been as a direct result of the lack of developer attention and vision for the spec since the end of Shadowlands. No one even has any idea what blizzard wants Elemental to be, because there has been absolutely no communication. A short blue post simply explaining blizzard’s intentions for the spec would be received by the Elemental community like manna from heaven.
So I’m asking on behalf of all twelve of us remaining ele mains: is there something cooking? Or is TWW going to be more nothing for us?
Looking forward to your unlikely response.
7 Likes
Things aren’t looking great. Other classes have gotten talent tree changes already. A bunch of them have had multiple passes of changes with feedback.
Shaman trees haven’t been touched. Even when/if they get touched there will be less time for feedback and changes to address that feedback.
1 Like
Waiting for the its just alpha chill bro comment.
5 Likes
Obligatory it’s just Alpha chill bro, but now that’s out of the way I’m concerned aswell, it would be nice to atleast receive a Blue post addressing the state of our Class/Specs Tree even if it’s a standard “it’s coming/we are working on it”.
Just a little reassurance goes a long way I think.
1 Like
Judging by the way it has gone past expansions, expect little.
Last time we were going to get an overhaul was the beginning of SL going back to Fulmination charges, which I think we kinda had in WoD but was removed in Legion? Blizz was considering bringing it back but it was very unpopular. Since then, our greatest change was just our Legendary effects from SL being baked into a class tree, which I would also say are some of the most boring things.
Personally, I am a major Echoes of the Great Sundering hater, and Skylords Fiery Demise sounds interesting until you consider Fire Elemental is more of a flavor ability than anything else. Windspeakers has been one of our best powers carried over and its just bland.
That was our last change though, rehashed legendary powers which at least for Ele were very boring overall.
It is kind of funny to think about though, was reverting Ele back to Fulmination charges the last ditch effort by whichever dev was trying to do an Ele rework but since it was so poorly recieved we just have got little to no attention since? Other players of other specs can be vile about something but get it changed. Ele attempts to do it and we are thrown in the basement. I will always wonder if we would have truly been better off if we just took the scraps of the Fulmination rework in SL Beta… probably not but I will always think about it.
Only thing I am personally optimistic for is potential animation changes for Lightning Bolt (and maybe Chain Lightning). If I can at least look cool I can cope.
1 Like
All i rememder was the nerf of storm ele and nerf of earthquake.
Literally zero good news since i pick up ele in bfa last season.
No.
Why would you expect Ele to be treated like other specs?.. or really Shaman in general?
If you ignore a class long enough, their player base will shrink and you don’t have to listen to them whine as much. The shaman life.
4 Likes
And you know what mages are getting a stun in their hero talent tree.
Im not even mad just wonder the reason behind that. It doesnt make any sense to me to give a stun to a class that already have 300 crowd controls and defensive.Hope someone with some game desingning experience can answer my question.
2 Likes
Ngl I want to go back to bfa/legion shaman where I was ripping up the earth around me and sending magma and lightning everywhere.
Current elemental feels way to mono-element.
I can’t believe i’m actually saying this but I miss earth spikes so badly.
4 Likes
Ele can’t even get Flame Shock cd or cap removed…which would actually fix a current bug with LMT sometimes (depending on range and positioning?) consuming SOP, applying an extra Flame Shock, and having the Flame Shock on your current prio target drop unexpectedly.
Think about it - Flame Shock is capped. It has a cooldown. The number of targets you can hit with Lava Burst is capped. There’s no reason - other than keeping the cap and CD there because of Enhance. They’re two different specs with different needs - yet ele suffers because of enh…never to be addressed, years after it has existed.
Imagine if they put a CD on Immolate - how quickly it would be reversed.
Part of the problem is the attitude of “It’s just alpha” and “It’s just beta” and “It’s just season 1” – the other part is the people that play ele up to +5 keys as their alt (because ele is fun at first glance, when you can never really get into the glaring issues) - and people want to say “Oh no, ele is fine. It’s so much fun”.
6 Likes
It’s interesting. I remember seeing all the SL legendary powers available to be taken at once in the DF trees and thinking to myself… ‘man that’s going to be awesome’. I did not see myself getting bored out of my mind with endless lava surge procs and lava burst spam. I guess too much good stuff can make it bland instead of good?
If you have played the whole s3 just pressing lava burst then you wont think that garbage is fun. In my opinion the only ‘fun’ stuff in SL was the fae transfusion lego.
1 Like
The capstone talents need to be rearranged especially if they going to make pwave be a fire go to and having hero talents defined as lightning and fire. Eg, pwave talents and mountains will fall talents need to swap places.
They also need to make it where ice fury isnt in the way. Making Pwave and ice fury feel almost mandatory is aggrevating.
I honestly used to love lava burst gameplay in SL and prior. But between primordial wave, DRE procs, and wind speakers, lava surge procs don’t feel exciting anymore, they feel routine and bland. The damage profile isn’t bursty anymore it’s more just constant. I don’t know.
On behalf of all Stormbringer Ele’s, I agree, please move Ice Fury over on the Farseer side of our spec tree, please. We don’t want it.
1 Like
Ice fury > Pwave.
State of ele just go downhill since the implement of this cancer spell.
On top of what was already mentioned, elemental(and resto) is still the only spec THAT DOES NOT HAVE A RAID BUFF! This is so ridiculous at this point.
I was assuming they would chance windfury totem to a haste buff so resto and ele also brought t the same buff but in the new Totem Hero tree they are making it even more powerful and only for enhance.
Unbelievable
2 Likes
Well you see we used to have the most powerful raid buff in the game solely to ourselves…