I actually really liked the shield in BFA and then they just made it a generic Thorns with a “gain resource when hit” but you don’t actually ever want to get hit.
Physical is generally refereed to as Storm
The LL / Frost Shock build is generally refereed to as Elementalist
I think Enhance needs a slight rework to have a damage profile that isn’t proc reliant, like meaningful damage meaningful cds etc. Some PvP talents baseline etc.
Yeah I’m strictly m+ so I just do Elementalist lol, couldn’t remember the Storm build. Thanks.
And glad you agree that Lightning shield isn’t good.
Like ooo neat thanks for being .05% of my overall damage
There isn’t much to remember honestly lol.
It’s just stormstrike, lava lash. Keep stormstrike on cooldown always. Frost shock if you get a free moment.
Lighting bolt when you get at least 5 stacks
Stormstrike as much as you can during thorims invocation 
Elementalist build is a little crazy in comparison lol.
I guess i should have called this thread “why is elemental fine?” Because i cant get answers on it and it feels feast or famine.
I absolutely love ele right now. It’s great because it’s one of the few specs that actually has multiple viable build options and playstyles. I still rock the fire build and do just fine in the content i enjoy.
I’ve played ele since cata and it’s in one of the best states it’s ever been. Could just use a small damage buff
Second worst or outright worst HPS healer for raid.
Gameplay revolves around proper anticipation and ramp up of cloudburst totem. Minor hiccup loses major healing.
That is not fine
Thats sad because i like wherw we are in PVP. But youre right, Raiders deserve better.
Eww cloudburst. Healing Stream 4 life
I mean. If you want to do less healing in every way possible.
But saying resto sham healing is fine while using healing stream is even more of a weird take. Since cloudburst is the only thing keeping resto relevant.
Enhancement needs tweaks more than a total rework. It needs some form of guaranteed rotational MSW generation that isn’t gated in the final talent tier. It could use some keybind decluttering such as removing Lava Burst from its spellbook and/or making Elemental Blast have no cooldown, and some clean up like changing Ice Strike’s effect to not be redundant with Hailstorm, and Windfury Totem being changed into a passive aura. It could use Primordial Wave getting a QOL redesign to be one button to directly blast all your Shock-debuffed targets for Elemental damage, instead of the PITA multi-step process just to cast Lightning Bolt once.
Most of all, it needs more ability to compromise between Elementalist’s “juggle these 10 balls that like to randomly rearrange their order,” and Storm’s “spam 1 until 2 lights up; repeat.” The tools are there in the tree to make a midpoint build with more interactivity than Storm, but less overwhelming than Elementalist, but the Physical/Elemental damage split forced on us in this expac by adding those damage amplification effects to Feral Spirits makes any build that straddles that line DOA.
Elemental I haven’t played since it was my off-spec in MOP, so I can’t comment there.
Resto, if any of our specs need a major rework, is probably the one. It’s straddling the line between being a reactive healer without the tools to react, and a predictive healer whose combos don’t live up to the number of binds that went into them, besides continuing to be saddled with a mastery that was designed for a healing paradigm that hasn’t existed since mid-Cataclysm.
My pitch would be to start by changing Resto’s mastery from Deep Healing to a new version of Cloudburst. Make Cloudburst its own separate spell that doesn’t overwrite HST. While Cloudburst is inactive, it collects a percentage of the shaman’s healing based on Mastery up to a limit determined by Intellect, then unleashes it all over, I dunno, ~8 seconds when activated, during which healing collection is paused. Stored healing decays over a short period while out of combat.
Cloudburst is a great idea held back by bad implementation (so, par for the course). The timing element of needing to set up a relatively long collection period that’s just wasted if it was dropped a second too early makes the spell frustrating to use, and frequently feel like it’s doing nothing for you. This change puts the timing fully in the player’s hands, which makes it much more flexible, and the rest of the spec’s kit can then be redesigned around it.
After all that, the class tree needs a serious pass, starting with redesigning it with nodes that change based on specialization. Specifically, Blizzard needs to accept the L on the idea that they can actually design spec-agnostic class trees for healer hybrids. Ele and Enh need off-healing utility in their class tree for personal survivability if nothing else, but any healing talents that are actually worth taking for dps specs are instantly mandatory picks for Resto. Meanwhile, we’ve got crap like Maelstrom Weapon and Flurry sitting in the class tree as nothing but trap picks for nooby Ele and Resto shaman who think they can actually make a melee hybrid build without being Enhancement.
That’s is the problem with this priority system instead of the classic rotation system. Back in the day we could save some buttons by using a castsequence macro. Nowadays, with the procs, we need to use one button per skill.
Static rotations where you can do your entire rotation with 1 button are also not good.
You see, cloudburst is just less healing in PvP so it is indeed icky for me. Rsham has a fine playstyle in PvP. Perhaps they could just buff healing stream in PvE and you wouldn’t need to worry about timing your cloudburst.
We experienced things differently and have come to different conclusions.
I mean. No clue you were talking strictly about PVP. If someone doesnt specifically mention it, my assumption will be PVE.
They buffed healing stream by like 20% and nerfed cloudburst by 33%. And in PVE it still isnt worth it.
Sorry, I don’t think I was paying attention to what thread I was in and just assumed I mentioned before.
I feel like rsham is constantly on the verge of being great or terrible by minor number tunings. Mechanically, it hasn’t changed much this expansion, but it has been a roller coast of whether we are on the top or bottom of healing, and that’s been purely from our numbers being tuned or other healers getting nerfed/buffed.
From pve we have had some decent changes in how we played. We had tidewaters introduced. And the S2 tier set greatly effected the play style.
We went from majoring in chain heal to ignoring it completely. The S2 set had (for pve) us going so hard into PWave/cloudburst combos you sometimes intentionally not heal for a period of time to get large stacks.
The new changes leans into it even more. Chain heal becomes a HPS loss over ST healing.
I suppose for pvp a larger focus on healing wave/surge probably is a bonus.
RSham needs more reliable healing in its abilities outside of totems. A new animation for EWT less healing in HST and more healing into Earth living. Unleash life should have a 100% chance to put Earth living on the target. Put more healing into Earth living.
ENH needs Overflowing Maelstrom removed. Bring the casts back down to 5, while keeping the ability to stack to 10 to bank it. Then they can revert some of the nerfs to MSW spenders, but not fully. Put Elemental Assault where Overflowing Maelstrom used to be. Bake in molten Assault into Lava Lash or reduce it to 1 point and reduce Hot Hand to 1 point. Buff Crash lightning damage by 1000%. It does nothing damage wise currently. Only pressed to buff SS.
Ele needs a rework from what I hear but I don’t play it so I digress.
Static Field Totem should be moved to the shaman tree. Cap totem should be buffed by +1 second to stun. Give lightning shield passive DR like it used to have. Mana Spring is a total failure and getting nerfed in 10.2, fix it. I don’t know any Ele or ENH that takes it currently so nerfing makes 0 sense.
This is from a PvP perspective.
I’d like to see healing rained moved from a ground spell, to an aura of sorts. Call it rain cloud, " cast a cloud of rain on a friendly player that drops healing rain on x players within x yards of the target". Get rid of it’s cooldown but keep the cast time.
I like their healing style, but they could definitely use a proper cheat death single target cd. They definitely don’t need a full rework, just a couple tweaks.
I don’t really like how cloudburst is so much better because I straight up just don’t like using it. I just hate pressing the button. Sometimes you want the healing NOW and not 5-10 seconds from now which forces you to try and anticipate. More staring at addon timers instead of the game so you don’t waste your stuff.
Also the healing rain and how it doesn’t feel that powerful for having a cast time and CD, as compared to resto druid who can reposition it freely and it synergizes excellently with their mastery. I would like an updated mastery for the shaman. You never think about it or notice it very much.
Resto playstyle feels fun but we aren’t really good at anything specific in the way other healers are. Evokers kind of stole our niche and do it so much better and they aren’t sure what to do with the shammies anymore
I’d like if we got chain harvest back cuz that was always such a fun button. Or the SL legendary that casted instant chain heals when we put down totems. Give us better ways to spread riptides, make the healing a bit more mana efficient because when you have to be reactionary and spammy your mana generation can feel pretty bad. I also hate having to refresh earth shield mid fight. I dont know why it even needs to run out, but maybe its a pvp reason.