I feel like despite the buffs made this week, Ele is still weak both in PvP and raiding. Now that people are getting geared, you’re pretty much donezo after lava burst, and you’re squishy/no way to get out from annoying rogues or hunters.
Here’s some ideas I had for the class:
PvP
1- Make is so that you also get a guaranteed crit with Lava Burst if you Flame Shock the target while the Lava Burst is still travelling (This will prevent already unkillable priests to dispel mid-cast, rendering the spell useless).
2- Have Earth Shield reduce the spell kickback by 66% instead of the 30% now (This will make the ridiculous kickback and slow cast more playable).
PvE
- Spell damage/fire dmg gear increase damage of fire totems if not done already, if so, then more because it doesn’t feel like it.
For now, I think something is needed for shamans to shine a bit more since clearly the buffs didn’t improve much the performance of the shaman in meters or it’s role as a burst DPS in BGs, they are low tier.
What do you guys think and do you have any cool ideas on what you think we need/would like to see in the future?
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Casters historically have issues at lower levels except in niche scenarios.
They are heavily reliant on talents, eapecially ones deeper in the tree for crit, mana, cast time reduction etc.
You can say that for any class but feel casters suffer the most.
Also a pretty heavy lack of spell damage on gear (outside of bfd) makes it so in og classic they just dont scale outside of talents.
Add in the finite resource of mana as opposed to rage or energy that is gated but ultimately infinite they struggle.
On my lock if it wasnt for lifetap I would oom about 40-45 seconds into a fight.
I have a feeling the next phase (40) when casters get those talents we will be bowing to them as our new overlords
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You’re 100% right for phase 1 and, mind you, I would be okay if they revert or nerf a bit some of those if it turns out that it’s too strong in phase 2.
As far as resources go, Shamanistic Rage has been pretty good for us in PvE I must say, but I find it strange that as less ‘‘gear dependent classes’’, casters are getting destroyed by physical damage dealers in the meters.
Lastly, all the spell damage gear from BFD in the world won’t help if you can only cast 1 or 2 spells per encounter. For example, I am missing 3 pieces to be what I personally consider BIS ele, yet the kickback and the slow casts negates it all.
ele shaman is amazing in pvp at 40+, there is no reason to buff them now. Overload with Lava burst will have people crying for nerfs in later phases - guranteed. You get spell pushback immunity and reduce cast times deeper in the elemental tree, there is no reason to ask for these things at level 25
The only thing to talk about Ele Shaman at 25 is:
Lava Burst rune should buff flame shock range to 30 yards.
Lava Burst cooldown should be 6 seconds.
If Star Surge can be a 6 second cd instant cast, Lava Burst can be a 6 second cd too.
No you don’t. You have to be hit with a critical hit via melee or ranged (not spells) to gain temporary spell pushback immunity, sure, but if an ele shaman is getting trained by a melee he’s likely dead anyway, so you don’t take that talent.
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yea, 550+ damage in a lava burst overload apparently is not enough
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Exactly for the kickback!
I like the idea for the range and cooldown, it could be another option for sure. But I think allowing Lava Burst to crit if you Flame Shock the target while the Burst is traveling is also a must. Otherwise, Lava Burst will never crit against priests or pallies.
Priests need to get taken down in BGs and the only way is through bursting them down.
The problem with p1 is with the new raid weapons in gear it did a ton to fix the melee gear disparity in that range but the spell damage on the caster gear didnt keep up.
Also keep in mind at level 25 a lot of our spells being used are pre level 20 still and suffer a penalty from added spell damage. This was put in during og classic to hurt downranking.
You deal 550 dmg to an Aspect of the Lion hunter, takes him down to 50% hp that’s cute. But then you can’t do anything but to wait and die from the volleys and the pet.
If your pet attacks a Shaman and he tries to cast Lava Burst or Lightning Bolt he will die without casting it. 3 sec casting time being pushed back with every hit, he only can cast that spell almost 10 seconds later.
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My brother Shaman… I will say this. I’ve played elemental on and off for over 20 years. Primarily in vanilla and classic and I event with the runes we have now elemental will be an unstoppable killing monstrosity in phase 2 and 3. Do you have any idea how unbelievably overpowered an elemental mastery chain lightning will be with an overload proc? Never mind coupling earth shock in with that and then a lava burst and that may proc overload as well… add in to spell power weapons with wizard oil and enchants and you’re going to be a literal God.
Phase 2 is going to be insanity for us…
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so what, do you really think your class/spec should kill every other person in classic? lol, BM hunters are countered by every single class but shamans, deal with it
Ellyan, thank you for this reply. You explained the current concern I have in a more eloquent way. We can’t cast anything which is frustrating
Brother Oldstorm I understand, believe me.
But my point is that the buffs of this week we’re intended to alleviate the weakness of the shaman in the here and now, which it didn’t.
We all know Overload will get nerfed in P2, and we will still have kickback issues because EOTS is based on being crit.
Muniz, I get that you’re frustrated because of the recent hunter nerfs. Your class is still topping the meters and very strong in PvP though.
All I am asking is for a little more love for Ele shammies during phase 1, because we are confined to tanking currently.
Once again, I am okay with them reverting or scaling back some of those buffs.
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I understand, casters should receive buffs in their mana management, but not in their damage
Biggest issue I see with ele (other than not having their critical talents before 40) is that Flame Shock and Lava Burst aren’t on the range increasing elemental talent.
Lava burst can chunk all it wants, you still don’t want to run from 36 yards to 20 yards just to apply flame shock, and/or only have a 30 yard range on LvB
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I don’t really care about pet damage, as the last time I subbed was around 6 years ago, I came back just for the Nelf MM spec, too bad blizz made it horrendous if youre not full bis…
Drosul, you’re the second person that mentions an issue with Flame Shock having to be at 20 yds . There must be a lot of shamans that feel the same too. I’d be okay with Balthalor’s idea of making the rune increase it’s range to 30 yds.
But being able to guarantee that Lava Burst crits through casting FS, after it travels, is badly needed.
Muniz, I agree with you that no buffs to damage should be done in retrospect. Maybe just with the kickback in PvP and finding a way, whether through gear disparity as Kallie mentioned, or through casting speed.
I must say Nelf MM looks really fun especially in WPvP and I considered rolling one. I hope they do something to improve their fate, and discussions like these may have an impact.
I know I’d like to see some sort of camouflage/stealth-like spell for Lone Wolf.
Your second post about changes for shaman and this one is even more ridiculous than the first. At least ask for a subtle buff not 20% haste, no spell push back, guaranteed crits, bonus armor. Like what did I miss that you asked for in this change?
Better question: Why do we need flame shock applied at all? It’s not an issue on retail or whatever because of a lot of systems helping that.
But here in classic your flame shock can get resisted. Why are we locked into needing our dot not to get resisted for us to get our guaranteed crit off? Why can’t the spell just always crit?
Where’s our chance for flame shock’s periodic damage to reset the cooldown on lava burst? And also making that reset be instant cast? Molten Blast resets the cooldown, why doesn’t Lava Burst?
Ele Shaman is missing a lot of the systems that make flame shock into lava burst make sense.
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obvious ele issues
spell pushback is insane, i genuinely think the class might be best played as a guy who stabs people with way of earth + uses both shocks + purge spams in pvp rather than casting anything
lightning bolt is not worth casting in pvp, a 3 second cast that deals 125 damage on average (including the overload avg damage) is worthless
lava burst wants to encourage you to flame shock (or else its very very bad), but flame shock has a 20 yard range and is dispellable and lava burst is a 3 second cast, the chances the spell completes are low and if it does, any nearby priest player has a century to dispel the flame shock. Its very clunky to push into 20 yard range so that you can get value out of your 30 yard range spell
obviously, if an ele is casting spells at you at level 40 he is going to delete you, but for now, the shaman class is pretty low tier
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