Personally I think our animations should be update to be sort of like:
Ice Strike: A chunk of ice that is being thrown from our weapon
Ascendance: Instead of looking like some wrapped-up mummy we should turn into a random elemental or allow us to choose which elemental we would like to change into.
Lightning Bolt: instead of shooting from our hands horizontal to the ground have it come vertical from the sky like we are calling down lightning from the heavens and have it make a loud crackling sound when it hits and does damage.
Lava Lash: yeah we need more of a lava look to that like red hot magma is dripping from our weapons and hitting something.
Another animation that needs an update is
Elemental blast: It should look like we are hitting something with all four elements not something that looks like fire and ice.
Primordial wave: Why is it doing shadow damage when it should be doing like raw nature damage or elemental damage and why is it a ball when it clearly states it should be a wave so make it look like an elemental wave almost like an avalanche of elements
Then our totems should be updated yeah its cool that each race has their specific totem look yet the totems are weak. beef those bad boys up.
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frost shock also needs some love!! it is just so lame, putting a debuff but zero animation
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The visual in its current form is nearly unnoticeable. I see it but itās just a small blob ball-like thing.
I agree it needs to look more like a wave animation sorta like this 
Side Note: Iāve stated this same thing about PW being in the shadow magic school for nature-dealing Shamans. They also would not need to buff its damage if it was nature damage thus enhanced by our mastery.
I hope they give an update to the shamans in the next expansion, so much potential here =/
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I believe they are in to process of updating the Primordial Wave visual for 10.2.5 - My fingers are crossed that they do it and itās better looking than the current green blob that is barely noticeable.
They should also change it from shadow damage to shadow flame damage.
The lightning bolt needs to be updated also in 10.2.5 ā the stringy zingy-looking thing is getting more and more undesireable to see now.
Ascendance ā good lord lets get this thing updated or give us back glyph
The Primordial Wave animation looks pretty good, itās like a mini Elemental Blast.
For elemental, it makes me hope they keep the current tierās bonus alive in some way going into the future. At least as it works with the rest of our toolkit, namely Surge of Power.
I think Ascendance updated in some way would be amazing. I know my dream is a bit too complex, which is for the character model to be wrapped up by an elemental whirlwinding around them for its duration in a way similar to Dathea, Vault of the Incarnates. Elemental gets wrapped up in a Fire Elemental, Enhancement Wind, Restoration Water.
If the player actually specs for Ascendance and calls for it, bracers and a gorget could be added to the elemental to emphasize the talent choice over it simply being a proc from DRE.
Just bring back Glyph of Ascendance.
Why did they add it for only one expansion and then immediately take it out at the launch of the next? Holy crap.
So the other day I dusted off my troll shaman that I play as a healer. I think the last time I played him was BFA.
What the hell did they do to chain heal? Itās water now too? No more iconic beam effect? You completely killed my witch doctor and didnāt even keep the optional glyph WTF.
Shaman are spiritualist healers ffs. The slow transition to being water benders is so sad.
And why the hell are they removing optional glyphs from the game. First Glyph of Ascendance and now the chain heal glyph? What the F were optional glyphs hurting?
As always, Iām disgusted by how old the Ascendance model is. Itās literally classic content and it never looked good to me.
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Ascendance memes aside, I think Shamans are one of the better classes in terms of spell animations tbh.
And the sfx on them are legitimately all on point, even if lightning bolt isnāt the most visually impressive spell of all time the sheer sound of it smacks just so damn right.
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Yes, we do have some of the most impressive spell animations out of all the melee. And the sounds are great too.
The new Primordial wave animation is a better sight in terms of matching our class fantasy (elemental power) and thatās a huge plus!
It could have been an actual wave animation or made it a bit thicker (I see it but itās sorta too small and swirly that it just needs a tad more size to notice its presence)
Other than that we are waiting for Ice Strike, Ascendance, and Lightning Bolt to be updated. 
Itās so ugly I refuse to talent into it. Idc about the DPS. Make me an air elemental problem solved.
Going into Season 4 and next expansion
We need our updates to happen. Primordial Wave was updated recently and that was a big plus (Iād say its size needs to be increased and changed from spiraling to wavy)
Here are some abilities that need animation updates:
(See Original Post above for a description of updates)
- Ice Strike
- Ascendance
- Lightning Bolt
Letās keep this going because we Shamans need it!
Any others youād like to see?
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Itās crazy that weāve gone this entire expansion and havenāt seen a Shaman visual update. Look at the suuuper cool abilities and forms the primalists have :-/
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Shaman visuals still need to be amplified or updated:
Ascendance >>>(Out of-date model from nearly a decade ago and arguably the most needed visual update needed ASAP)
Primordial Wave >>> (recently updated sometime in DF season 3 but size should be increased and changed to a wavy motion instead of the swirly motion)
Ice Strike >>> animation is nearly unnoticeable and needs to be updated to show our weapons freezing over to a duplicated pattern of the weapon and then thrown at the target.
Frost Shock - should be amplified/increased in its graphical intensity (the effect nearly unnoticeable in combat)
Lightning bolt - Animation should be updated to show more veiny-like lightning threads (when it is used with PW - it looks good)
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I have noticed:
āThat lava lash shows more lava with the weapon swing
āThat large wind animation from Windfury (correct me if I am wrong about the ability that is creating this)
āPrimordial Wave has a new elemental-like animation that swirls toward your target ā good to see this updated in season 3 but it needs some tweaking. Its size should be increased and motion made to a wavy type instead of a swirl.
Shaman visual updates are long overdue. There is no reason why a game should be visually left behind for so many years like this and then new retail versions of the game are made to include the same skins/visuals present from nearly a decade ago.
----- This needs to change going into War Within and forward.
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Elune above PLEASE Blizz.
Iām so tired of throwing spicy meatballs and barely seeing anything I actually do.
Like to have the original racial casting animations redone and replace the animations spammed across every race.
So I had never done Vault of the Incarnates beforeā¦ just did LFR with the night elf air elemental chick.
OMG her Ascendance form has been in the game this long and shaman STILL have the 2010 twilight cultist form?
Iām so tired of blizzard giving awesome visuals to NPCs but not the players. WTF
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We desperately need visual spell updates, itās unacceptable for a class to be ignored so much as shaman has, Iāve never seen a game where the developers act so spiteful towards one of their classes. So many spells still using effects from vanilla or placeholders that never got replaced.
And it seems most people havenāt even notice that the Earth Shock animation has been bugged for a couple months now, and the Glyph of Primordial Wave is not fully working and is missing some of the original Primordial Wave effects. Or that Gust of Wind has had a different animation every major patch.
Shamans have been losing spell effects to bugs almost every single patch in Dragonflight and no one seems to care. Itās clear there is no one at Blizzard who actually works on our class.
this entire thread exists after what could arguably be considered an elemental shaman expac (short of last patch, anyway).
Nothing new for Shaman when the basically entire expansion was our bread and butter of rousing and raging elements.
Super sad. Tie that to the talent trees that have been HEAVILY criticized for needing updates and virtually no feedback acknowledgement leading into TWWā¦
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Vault of the Incarnates has 2 great options for Ascendance.
They could go with option A, Dathea style, where we are in the centre of the Elemental, be it Wind, Fire or Water depending on spec.
Or
They could go with option B, Kurog style, where we simply get a new transmog/look while in Ascendance based on our spec, Wind, Fire or Water.
Or
Option C, just turn us into actual unique Elementals.
Wind,
Fire,
Water,
Clearly with option C the Elemental we turn into can be more unique via a new model and all but the idea is we become the Elemental.
Literally anything is currently better then Ascendance that we have now. I feel like upgrading Ascendance is such an open book in terms of visual and design yet they never touched it.
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