Returning player, took a break after maxing my monk. Normally I play the melee classes, I was a pally tank for about 10 years. But I really want to main a caster now. I’m not worried about difficulty and FOTM classes change all the time so don’t care about that either.
Out of mage, ele and balance what do yall enjoy the most out of those three? I like the versatility of druids, the burst of mages and the feeling of shaman. I’ve spent the last 2 weeks basically splitting my time between them all and it’s killing my time. I work a lot so I don’t have the time to switch around every night.
Any input is much appreciated! 
Well; you’re asking the shaman forum so…elemental
Yeah, there wasn’t a “all class” forum option so I just picked one
I play enh, but overall I like shaman more than any other caster class. It’s one of the few classes that has a very different playstyle depending on spec.
Have played all 3 extensively.
Ele would be my least recommended of the 3, in mythic+ at least. Too much of our damage is tied to earthquake. As soon as bad tanks or mechanics make them move mobs out, our AOE damage tanks, and it tanks hard.
Earthquake is like half our AOE damage, so this makes pugging extremely frustrating.
By comparisson, the Balance equivalent (starfall) hits everything in combat and within 40yds.
The Fire equivalent is hardcasting flamestrike and to talent into flamepatch. Flamestrike overall is still about 45%+ of a fire mages damage across a dungeon. But the difference is that most of flamestrikes damage is frontloaded (about 30% of fires overall damage), with the other 15%'ish being left on the ground for tanks to use or ignore as they like.
With earthquake - all of the damage goes on the ground. Can’t overstate what a joke this ends up being in most uncoordinated groups.
In terms of damage profiles of the 3 here’s a quick summary:
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Boomy has strong sustain at all times, on any number of targets, for any fight length. It is quite rampy, and depending on targets can take a while to ramp up. It doesn’t need CD’s to do very good AOE damage and decent single target. It has an absolute mega-nuke on a 3min CD (Convoke + Celestial Alignment).
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Fire has relatively weak sustain, and the majority of its damage comes during Combustion windows. It’s all about maximizing your damage in a very fast paced and quite complex 10 second burst window. Then you go back to chilling and doing what damage you can until combustion is back up. Fire gets talents and a covenant that reduces the CD on Combustion, giving it a very low CD. They get to have a lot of fun very often.
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Elemental sits somewhere between the two. It’s not as CD reliant as Fire (not much is) and it doesn’t have anything like the sustain AOE of boomy without CD’s. It’s relatively low sustain, with mini-burst windows every 1 minute (Stormkeeper) and larger ones every 2.5mins (Lighting Elemental). It can still put out very good overall damage with this profile.
As for how movement effects each spec (an important consideration for casters):
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Boomy can cast while moving when Starfal is up, which is basically 100% of the time on AOE. This is huge, they’re basically the BM hunter of casters.
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Fires burst window is all instant casts or things that can be cast while moving. However, they need to stay near their rune of power, so this can add some complication if not planned well.
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Elemental, by comparisson, is basically a turret spec. There’s limited globals to use for movement, and they need to stand still and hardcast on both single target and AOE.
I’d say Boomy and Fire are similarly effected by mechanics on single target, maybe Fire has a slight edge since it can more reliably get its burst off with decent planning. But Boomy is much less affected by mechanics on AOE.
Hope this helps.
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I think if you are looking for a strictly “fun” spec, you want elemental. I know people who play all three, and every single one says Elemental is just the most fun. I myself play both fire and ele and LOATHE how fire feels to play. in pvp or in pve, it just does not feel the same as ele.
To be quite honest, i have not had this much fun playing a spec since cataclysm fire mage during dragonsoul (s11).
Incredibly informative thank you. There is a lot to factor in. Coming from a strictly melee player it’s hard to grasp the nuances of casters right away.
Funny that you ask. According to the latest rankings, Balance druid, Affliction Lock, Elemental Shaman, Shadow Priest and Fire Mage are the top 5 specs, in that order Yeah, that’s right. The specs that are considered as performing the best in Mythic Nathria are all casters.
But for mortals like you and me with real life responsibilities, these rankings mean little.
Do you have time to raid? or will you focus mostly on M+? all of those classes are perfect for both types of content, but I daresay mage and druids have the edge on M+. Ele shaman is great, it’s very fun, but you really need to communicate with your tank about your Earthquakes. It’s no different than a resto shaman telling the group to stack on healing ran for prides.
Once in a blue moon they do it too!!!