I feel like you are saying “if you ignore 1/2 the tool tip, it was only for spreading FS”
If it was only useful for spreading a second flame shock, it wouldnt be such a big deal it was neutered. It had burst, MS generation, cleave damage.
Its a big deal because it did so much more than just spread a second flame shock.
Enhance over the course of the past couple expansions being given multiple fantastic ways to spread flame shock, while ele has been begging for the same QOL, only to LOSE a FS applicator is beyond frustrating
The reason I put it in on a broad basis across ‘Shaman’ was because I’ve heard a minority of resto sham also displeased with the rework as well (as it was outright removed for that spec) — But yes, what should primarily be addressed is how it applies to the spec of Elemental, as it appears to the main core issue & most popular consensus that the majority of shaman playerbase have with it.
(Thank God for edit, the P didn’t type there and … Well, you can gather what it said lol)
I was originally really looking forward to playing my sham this patch, due to them being a goblin and this patch is ‘Goblin Themed’ and all 
– but the patch’s implemented change made to the design of Primordial Wave for Elemental shaman? 
Yeesh, honestly it makes me want to just hang up my ele-sham & maybe even take a break from WoW this patch altogether.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to undermine your message. I honestly didn’t even consider resto in the situation.
I am biased against the spell as the aesthetic for so long was so anti-shaman, and it supports Lava Burst which has done various types of harm to Elemental over the years, frequently sacrificing the only lightning caster in favor of a third fire user. I sincerely hope this expansion heralds an end to the idea of having a fire varient that risks pushing out the lighting one. I don’t actually even think there should be a fire varient. Elemental should always be predominantly a lightning caster that intertwines the other elements collaboratively.
That all being said the spreading of Flame Shock is objectively an issue and the new iteration of Primordial Wave is entirely uninspired. I actually really enjoy Maelific Rupture, but Ele isn’t a rot caster and, as previously mentioned, FS spreading is absurdly clunky. Even if the spreading issue were fixed it would just be a boring idea for a spell effect.
I really like the idea of lightning leading to fire, and I think Flame Shock could be rolled into LB/CL. Then Primordial Wave could be baseline. You would still have to actually do something with the spell to make it better, but I think just adding back the Lava Burst proc would be a fine starting point. You cast it, it hits the targets that are on fire, which is now easily spread, and then your next LvB cleaves.
My dream change would be something like it would consume all of your debuffs to turn those targets into Primordial Conduits and change LvB, CL, and FS into their Primordial versions. You would get to pick, say, two, or maybe the debuff only has two stacks. Either way these spells would have interactions with the conduits. PLvB would cleave to every affected target. Maybe PCL would evenly split it’s maximum damage between every affected target, which would be kind of a reverse of the former and make PCL a very strong single-target spell, while still being a decent AoE option if you don’t have PLvB charges to last. PFS could then be some fun CC effect like a giga slow. Maybe it starts at 50% and then progresses into a root, like a reverse Chains of Ice.
One can dream.
It feels like ele has to pay an enhance tax as if we weren’t enough already
Worst case scenario, if it was THAT complex just make it a passive that replaces flame shock all together every 30 sec like ice fury for frost shock
That’s okay 
Thanks for supporting the overall thread 
Many others along with myself personally feel the opposite 
Especially since they changed the animation of it (You’ll see it’s now all of the elements hurled together) — Since its former iteration (S1) felt like it awakens power within the shaman player & empowers them.
Now though, it feels terrible to play 
…
Prior to the Undermine(d) patch, it felt great before when you were able to weave flame shocks & then bowl a Primordial Wave and pop off the lava-bursts – It was such a satisfying feeling & tremendously fun to play 
… Unlike it is now 
As I’m sure you can gather from this thread and those listed within the original post, I & many other players are hoping Blizzard change it back. 
I mean the sad fact of the matter is that Ele functionally got completely ignored for this patch. The Pwave change was but one indicator. Considering that Ele was largely bugged for the entirety of the PTR (including during raid testing) with said bugs receiving no attention, the fact Ele did not receive any unique balance or changes for this patch outside of the visual changes to spells and the 80% buff to Healing Stream Totem (still bad). The Ascendance change was applied to Enhance as well, Arc Discharge changed back to being able to stack to 2 for Stormbringer was applied to Enhance as well (which is strange given this was originally changed in order to reign in Stormbringer’s AoE potential after the 11.0.5 rework), the Farseer change to Maelstrom Supremacy where they changed the 8% increase to Healing Surge and Chain Heal to 15% was applied to Resto as well. All specs lost AG.
Resto had Pwave removed but recieved a number of new talents and changes which I assume was to account for its removal.
For everyone saying that the Pwave change for Enhance was a good thing you are 100% right. But you need to recognize that the Pwave change was not done in a vacuum. As part of the number of changes they got, a number of them specific were related to Pwave. They got talent reworks, a flat out new capstone in Primordial Storm (the thing that actually does the damage), and changes to Stormbringer talents. All of those were to account for things in Enhance’s Shaman’s that would be affected with the made changes to the specific spell Primordial Wave. The changes they made to Molten Assault to make Flame Shock spread to 5 targets instead of 4, adding Pwave to the list of spells that can apply Lightning Rod, designing Primordial Storm in way so that it scales with every damage amp in their kit and being compatible with pretty much every build and hero talent, and them baking Primal Maelstrom into Pwave after removing it to make room for Primordial Storm indicates the Devs skill in crafting the game and their insight into the spec and what people like about it. These changes also fix a number of pain points related to Enhance’s Pwave that alot of players have complained about such as the number of unique binds needed, setup, Flame Shock spread, and how punishing it can be if you use it without spreading Flame Shock.
Meanwhile Ele simply received the same change that Enhance got to the specific spell Primordial Wave and thats it. I like to think that the intention was that we would have this change and then also have a number of additional changes and additions to talents and interactions in order to address the different benefits Pwave provided that would lost with the change, especially since it is required full stop in order to play Farseer. But considering the line in the patch notes about Pwave being greyed out if there are no Flame Shock targets available is found only in Enhance’s section of the notes but nowhere to be found in Ele’s section, I truly feel as if nobody even looked at Ele at all during development.
I really hope that they will address this sooner than later. If the intention was to do similar changes like they did to Enhance for Ele to account for the change, cool beans, but given I highly doubt they are going to make those changes at the season start and it is intended for 11.1.5 , I hope they will revert Ele’s version of Pwave to how it was before this change. Not just because it flat makes the spec feel clunky playing Farseer (which is going to be the go to for raid), a straight damage nerf to Farseer and removes the option to play Pwave and LMT in M+ with Stormbringer as an alternative to playing Echos of the Great Sundering, but one annoying aspect about playing Ele in the TWW so far is that every few months we end up changing how we play the spec. In Season 1 alone we did this 3 times in raid with going from Farseer Lightning Bolt spam, to playing Stormbringer with the rework, to then swapping back to Farseer. I’d rather not have to learn and become adjusted to this current version of Ele with the Pwave change only to then adjust to new changes in 2 months time.
There hasn’t been a fire variant since TWW launched.
The lighting variant ele was when TWW launched was just as bad.
Right now, it’s a lot more weaving.
I honestly did not touch PWave again after that one set bonus that forced its use.
I never liked that spell and won’t be touching it again soon.
Also, this. Even when you do spread it (using that lame totem or whatever), your LvB only hits one target anyway.
It feels like a waste in most AoE (3+) over simple CL+EQ spam, only being there for talent interaction.
IMHO, it should BE the thing to apply multi target Flame Shock or spread it, not NEED it.
Similar to a DEvoker’s fire charged cone AoE in a sense.
Like, hit a target with flame shock, PWave (spreads it to all enemy NPCs around the target, large/huge range - 15-30y, cool visual WAVE effect, to match the name), and it should also make at least your next LvB hit all Flame Shocked targets in range (and elemental does need something to make multi target LvB a more frequent thing).
Right, which is… this expansion. I’m saying I hope they’ve finally put the idea of supporting a fire variant entirely to bed. I’m hoping they’ve finally settled into a core vision of Elemental being a lightning-led combo caster. Its development has been schizophrenic for more than a decade thanks to whichever Blizzard employee jerks off to pictures of erupting volcanoes.
“There hasn’t been a fire variant since TWW launched” is something you’d say at the earliest during the second patch of next expansion. Saying it now when it’s the same as saying that this recently-concluded, last patch didn’t have one is kinda silly. The entire last expansion fire dominated the spec, and that Ele was possibly the most degenerate design that has ever existed. We are a long, long way from the prevailing meta being safely considered the entirety of the spec’s design space.
TWW S1 launch ele was equally as bad.
The design at launch was horrible. It was just horrible lightning instead of horrible fire.
They did. They also put to bed the idea of supporting a lighting variant entirely to bed.
I definitely disagree with this pretty heavily. DF Ele was outright degenerate instead of just kinda boring, and I would unironically nominate it for the worst spec design in the history of the game relative to its era. The lit iteration that was closest to being as bad was the one in BFA when the elemental buff stacked infinitely and you basically just spammed LB/CL really really really fast for 99% of your damage.
That being said, which iteration of Ele has been the worst design is neither here nor there. My point isn’t that fire graphics make it physically impossible to design the spec well. My point is that attempting to bifurcate the tree has crippled its development for years, and led to a seesaw of fire or lit dominance since MoP. My sub-point – my hope – is that in the consolidation lightning is a given as the dominant element, and the others are “weave” elements. The variants of Elemental should be a matter of things like how many active buttons you want to press and to what extent you want to weave.
I mean that’s kind of implicit when there’s only two. In 2025 Elemental shouldn’t be a mono-element caster ever, but it’s just realistic that there will probably always be one that forms the skeleton of the rotation. LB/CL forming the absolute base of the rotation as well as existing in the higher priority, bigger moments is still lightning-dominant.
If I were in charge of the spec I would do a top-to-bottom rework though. No generic fall-back spam at all, and instead a base consisting of a spell for each element, which are truly weaved to form the rotation. Blizzard has done a better job of utilizing combo tech, but they’re still ultimately building on top of a decrepit base. It’s preventing them from fully modernizing the game and reaching the potential of their combat system. It’s nonetheless best-in-class and satisfying, but it could still be so much better.
Idk
Personally I liked Ele-sham in S1… 
Or at the least the END of season 1
Gotta say I can’t really recall the start too much, lol – It was a tad chaotic as usual with new expansions
But overall, I LOVED how the spec was before this patch came & ruined it.
Needless to say at this point – but I’m very much hoping for them to change it back (For elemental) to how it functioned in Season 1.
Meh. You just need to make sure you’re targeting a mob without Lighting Rod before casting ES, EQ or Tempest. I wouldn’t call that a nightmare.
Have you considered you don’t like elemental? do you want to make this spec as boring as frost mage? the theme of elemental is to use all of the elements (storm earth fire) what you’re suggesting is a lightning shaman.
I question your reading comprehension.
Except it literally doesn’t have “spam one button and ignore procs and other abilities”. Casting Lightningbolt 3 times because you have no procs, no charges of Lava Burst, no Icefury procs or empowered Frost Shocks, and not enough Maelstrom to spend is not remotely the same thing as either FoL Lightning or Meatball spam. You don’t even spam to build the Storm Ele buff or if you are playing the CDR Stormkeeper talent.
Well given they aren’t going do a top-to-bottom rework on top completely reworking both hero talents days before the next season is about to begin for a spec they literally just reworked pretty substantially, you mind not derailing the thread asking for literally what we already have now but with slightly more lighting spells casted?
Nowhere have I asked for this. I’m chuffed to absolute bits at the state of the spec right now as a personal matter. I would say, from a dispassionate standpoint, it’s lightning-heavy and that is what I would eat into right now to include more combo elements.
You are responding to my own response to another poster who said that there hadn’t been a fire variant since TWW launch, which is literally a single patch. The tree is very much still bifurcated, and unless they’ve explicitly outlined a change in design direction there’s no reason to believe that what is now will be forever. Even if they have done so, it’s a believe-it-when-I-see-it situation, given their history. My comments relate to general design philosophy.
Yeah you aren’t very attentive. I said that “in 2025 Elemental shouldn’t be a mono-element caster ever” because the implication of your comment was that I was asking for a lightning variant in the sense of a pure or mostly pure lightning caster.
Derailing what, rofl? OP awkwardly attempted to make his point, but it was thoroughly clarified 80 posts ago. There isn’t anything else say on the very specific topic he brought up. What I’m discussing is an incredibly, incredibly minor tangent in the context of a shaman-specific thread on the general forums. There’s no Blizzard representative 100 comments deep in any thread, let alone one with a topic as shallow as the new Primordial Wave being bad and why.