This is huge goal post moving but ok. Passive aren’t a bad thing provide they make you play around them in an engaging way. Which Farseer 100% does because if you’re just slamming stuff on CD you’re not going to do well compared to thinking about how things align. Which is entirely the issue.
Don’t cut yourself on that edge
Engaging? I don’t quite understand.
A defined move away from Lava Burst leaves us with Lightning. That’s what’s left. If you’re shooting lightning, that’s the build. Weaving in elements allows us to proc the damage modifiers, giving us more stats, or providing more lightning. That’s the Lightning build.
Yeah it’s weird that Elemental’s two trees are definitely divided across the Lava/Lightning divide, almost exclusively servicing one or the other, but that’s what one of those does; Stormbringer is lightning build.
In what mechanical ways that go beyond what is on the board? I feel like you’d have to be defining new abilities or subverting existing ones. Do you want Ancestors to work with Lightning? Do you want Lava Burst to dynamically become Voltaic Burst?
I’m mostly asking from some kind of illustration of where in the rotation you’re just like zonking out? What’s your design then?
The thing is that Farseer Fire Single Target Build prior to the nerf was way the hell more complex and did the weaving concept way better. Even with DRE procs/Ascendance windows you were still weaving Icefury, MotEing Earth Shock. Now, current Lightning Builds aren’t taking Icefury, and the only reason to hit Lava Burst is to use Primordial Wave.
Farseer Lighting and even Stormbringer builds are quite literally ignoring Lava Burst until Pwave comes off CD or to buff a spender. Farseer You’re not spending Maelstrom until your about to overcap or your Stormkeeper Window. I like it, but Lighting Builds now are basically Season 3/4 Fire Build playstyle mostly.
Not being in the beta, so just seeing the patch notes. Seems like that’s one of the reasons they buffed the proc rate of Power of the Maelstrom from 25% to 60%.
Like we have a family of talents that basically scream, “Weaving modifiers”:
If it’s engagement, then it’s about the incentive to rotate into other abilities for one of those. Either to maintain the damage buffs or interrupting to take advantage of an opportunity.
Are the procs just slow or the incentives just too small?
MotE is still used to buff spenders but you’re only spending if you’re gonna overcap or during a Stormkeeper window. You’ll spend naturally after Lava Bursting to activate Pwave but for context on a 5 minute test with Lust I casted Lightining Bolt 174 times, Earth shock 38 Times, and Lava Burst 36 times.
Basically, it is a dead talent since the only thing that will proc it is Elemental Blast, which no builds are currently taking, and Primoridal Wave, which will basically net you like 25% uptime because the CDR on Primoridal Wave is so high from Lighting Bolt Spam; AoE it’s fine but Single Target its basically a dead talent. Earthan Fury and Magma Chamber will provide a better damage increase over Elemental Equilibrium.
Overload damage is a small portion of your damage, and most of your Overload damage is just coming from the Surge of Power + Stormkeeper combo. Power of the Maelstrom proceeded 19 times in said 5-minute test because, again, you only want to spam Lightning Bolt to get CDR on Pwave and Ancestral Swiftness.
Dead talent for Lightning. You only play this with Fire Builds which are falling off thanks to the nerfs. Not to mention Icefury/Fusion has no use in AoE/Cleave.
Has been a dead talent even when Farseer Fire was the best build on beta and was always taking Icefury + Fusion of the Elements.
I can’t quite stress, you’re ignoring Lava Surge procs. You just spam Lighting Bolt until you need to spend Maelstrom or need to activate Splintered Elements and then and only then you’re hitting Lava Burst.
Also going to throw out there: Stone Bulwak Totem AND Astral Shift get CDR from Flash of Lighting. I was able to get Astral Shift down to basically a sub 1 minute CD with the amount of CDR you get from just spamming the ever loving hell out of Lightining Bolt. There is no incentive to weave. It’s literally spam Lighting Bolt back to back 90% of the time.
Yes, for sure CDR from Flash of Lightning is amazing. Lightning builds should be utility power houses with just more interrupts and totems if given the opportunity to juggle.
The dead talents for lightning could use review FotE and FxM were always more supportive of Lava builds.
Kind of hard to believe that EEq is dead. It’s 15% dmg on the table 33% uptime. Its one of the closest things to a rolling DPS window that we get even if it’s passive and practically uncontrollable after the first. The difference is palpable, and the difference from what you said isn’t too different. Are those from EBs or Flame Shocks though?
Spitballing solutions & approaches.
Maybe if there was a rolling buff?
“You’d be more efficient if you spent these as you got them, but since you missed the last one, you can benefit from it at a discount”
The thing is isn’t damage, its the interaction with the rotation of the whole. And Lava Burst does such little damage that even having it do 60% more damage is not going to outweigh the CDR you’re getting and Grandpa casts.
It only procs off of Elemental Damage. If you’re not specced into Elemental Blast, then it only procs off Primordial Wave, which, at times, you’re shooting off in sub 20-second intervals. Holding Pwave to proc Elemental Equilibrium is not worth potentially losing double grandpa windows since grandpas are doing literally the same amount of damage as your Lighting Bolt. For context here’s a damage breakdown of a random test I did on beta with lust. And this one was with them not casting Elemental Blast via final calling so they should actually be doing way more damage than they are.
https://imgur.com/KTiHyKU
Your goal is to cast Ancestral Swiftness and Pwave together as much as humanly possible. Spamming Lighting Bolt facilitates that. Again, single-target gameplay is basically Season 3/4 gameplay but with Lightning, and it’s not due to the tier set.
The word you’re looking for is “broken”. This is just as degenerate gameplay as Season 3/4 Meatball spam.
Not the idea at all. Spamming one button is dull.
Fire is the third on that list. Description of Elemental from Blizzard. “A spellcaster who harnesses the destructive forces of nature and the elements.” No where in that sentence does it mention fire and nature is called out as the main dmging spell. I like earth shock, elemental blast, flame shock, Liquid Magma totem, Fire Ele. But its the overarching reliance on lava burst. Ele is centered around it not nature. (have to admit the reliance has decreased from that of Dragon Flight)
The more and more I think about it … Other posts on the shaman forum is created with the idea but having tempest perm replace lava burst and let tempest function as lava burst would be the play. I understand the ramifications and how powerful it would be but I think Blizz can make it work. I am sure they thought about it already. There may be reasons why they didn’t execute. Can’t think of why it wouldn’t other than balancing dmg. But either way that would fix it and satisfy a majority of the people that want a lightning build. It would allow lightning to use ascendance and pwave. So win win.
Mind you Ele blast of enhance replaces lava burst, and for ele its a choice node with earth shock. pwave effecting (enh) lightning bolt vs (ele) lava burst. So there is a precedent in how unique things can be.
They are super close. lava burst = pyroblast, lighting bolt = fireball, lava surge = combustion, flame shock = Fire blast + ignite, liquid magma totem = meteor. Agreed on the utility aspect way diff. but they are supposed to be different. That is the point. 
I’m sorry what
Sorry tired. long weekend. I meant Lava surge = combustion. Insta lava burst vs insta pyroblast.
Got bad news for you: thats current lighting farseer build which is currently BTFOing lighting stormbringer builds in single target. And you’re playing Pwave in all of them too.
This is quite literally just wanting the current playstyle but everything as lightning instead of different elements.
You’re smoking crack if you think that description is a declaration of what Blizzard thinks Elemental Shaman should be given we have had a bunch of spells that, and this is crazy I know, aren’t nature or lighting based.
I don’t have beta but prepatch I played around with different type of lightning focused builds. I am not worried about meta builds because blizz changes % of dmg all the time and things change. I care more about having fun then topping meters. (I have played since vanilla, i’ve topped meters before). I do want the spec I play to be in the ball park through. I played with a rotation that doesn’t hard cast lava burst, but used it for its procs and that was fun. It didn’t do a near the dmg as spamming lighting bolt, but that is what I am hoping could be solved with replacing lava burst with tempest. The synergy of all the nature based buffs would apply to tempest that didn’t already apply to lava burst.
Your right it is literally the same playstyle but everything as lightning… Don’t need to recreate the wheel, just give it a new paint job. This is rotation wise of course. There are some new cool features on tempest that helps with spread dmg that isn’t there with lava burst. I already mentioned it but the synergy with nature based spells.
For a new player who creates a shaman and wants to choose between what spec to play their introduction to the spec is that sentence. So no, I am not the one smoking crack. The description is the call out to the player as to what the spec is about. Its the advertisement that says “come play me”. Here is a sample of the spells your going to be casting. chain lightning, fire elemental. So quite literally this is what Blizzard thinks Elemental Shamans should be.
I think you get me wrong in what I want. I can’t speak for others, but I don’t mind casting fire spells in my rotation. For example, flame shock, liquid magma totem, fire elemental are all cool spells to press if there were synergy to be had with them. Heck I would throw in ascendence and pwave. I do like those spells. It frankly comes down to lava burst. Lava burst is the defacto punch em in the face spell. it’s what ele shamans have become known for. Whereas back in the day it was lightning bolt or earth shock (nature) focused where that one lightning bolt would rip you to shreds or you would get KO’d by earth shock. But fire and frost where backseat passangers. By moving tempest to lava burst we get that feeling back as look this is my punch em in the face spell. I not only will get to see if visually but when theory crafting builds. if most builds you are like you said ignore lava burst for the most part. that means your ignoring echo of elements, master of elements, lava surge, etc. I really like that flame shock reduces the cd of storm ele. That is what I am talking about with synergy. This solution is quite literally the best one and easiest to implement.
It would be nice if they put massive buffs to mastery - proc rate and maelstrom if not damage - as a proc in the stormbringer tree somewhere. The lightning overloads are quite iconic and blizz is missing the mark on these.
I personally think lightning builds should be strongest in aoe utilizing big chain lightnings and earthquakes with faster maelstrom generation for a faster paced builder spender pattern.
Fire could have the talents to really buff the damage of elemental blast to make up for the slower generation.
At this point with two distinct builds in the ele tree itself, farseer and stormbringer naturally align themselves with fire and lightning, respectively, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing as I imagine it would be painful to support 4 builds rather than 2 for a spec.
Then you have no idea whats about to happen and have no context for what is going on with this spec like the majority of people who talk it. And it’s cool you don’t care about meta but the vast majority of the game does and having pugged on alts just trying to have fun, the community perception bat hurts still and it’s even worse when it’s your main. And we’re not in a situation where its just “buff this spell by x%”. It’s not about the raw damage its about the interactions the spells have. If they remove Pwave, get CDR from FoL, and buff chain lighting and lighting bolt by 30%, it would still be far behind what current lighting builds are doing.
Not at all. You’re assuming that they would allow this Lava Burst replacement inherents all of Lava Burst’s synergy when its is clear that would not be the case since tempest as it works now does not inherit all of the interactions of lighting bolt despite the overwhelming amount of feedback suggesting that Tempest should benefit from from all of lighting bolt’s interactions.
Except thats not at all whats happened on beta. There is only Lighting Build, whether you are playing Farseer or Stormbringer. Fire builds got shot in the head and this last tuning pass just buffed Lighting Builds. But everything thing they did to remove Fire Build’s strength essentially set Ele up to have a meatball spam playstyle similar to season 3/4 except with lighting bolt.
Thats pretty much how Stormbringer and Farseer Lighting M+ builds are. You’re quite literally playing the same tree in all of them. It’s just Stormbringer gives better punch but we also don’t test Farseer much in M+ because grandpas like to fire random spells at random out of combat mobs which poses some difficulties with testing a build as you would imagine.
If your post comes from a PvP perspective let’s get this out of the way: the class and specs are designed from a PvE perspective focusing how a spec functions in raid, then how it functions in M+, and THEN how it works in PvP.
Balancing dmg is definitely difficult. no doubt. Blizz has data scientists, simulations, spreadsheets, play testing, Quality assurance. lots of different tools to help them balance. I have a lot of faith in the devs’ ability to problem solve.
To say I have no idea or context is an attempt devalue my ideas but I’d admit the proof is in the podding. I’ll be the first to swallow my pride if it turns out to be fun and exciting to play. Blizz hit me with beta and I’ll test it out today. (well in between meetings)
Regarding Lava burst replacement. Of course they can make that work. There are lots of replaces x spells and that spell gets inheritance. (evisorate/death from above, denounce/shield of righteous, etc) Also tempest does benefit its nature. There are lots of buffs to nature dmg + crit + crit dmg. Tempest doesn’t need to benefit from all that lightning bolt has to offer, just benefit from all that lava burst has to offer.
btw referring to pve not pvp, but worded in the perspective of the npc mob. (immersion. )
All the mental gymnastics you’re doing—what I really want is to have a build not just oriented toward lightning, but fully focused on it, and Elemental could achieve this without preventing other players from playing Weaver or Fire.It would only take two simple iterations. For example, reintroducing Fulmination on Lightning Shield, where each charge enhances Electrified Lasso, and making Tempest replace Lava Burst with a cooldown and cast time. It should also interact with Lightning Rod, where each time Rod deals damage, there’s a chance to make Tempest instant. This would provide the option for one of the three builds to focus on lightning while you continue to play Weaver or Lava.
You’re never gonna get that. Even the Season 3/4 Fire build still nessitated you having you cast other spells. And I’m perfectly fine with a lighting build, but if the gameplay is just mindless spam then screw that. That is what we got. Mindless spam.
Quite literally just data on the beta. I’m quite literally telling you all how it is. It’s spam lighting bolt; let your Maelstrom cap, only cast Lava Burst to us, Pwave. Some are thinking that you don’t even do the Stormkeeper combo and just fire the Lightning Bolts back to back.
I hope you enjoy it. I’m not. My fingers literally hurt from this playstyle.
I’m not discrediting you to be mean but if you’re not playing beta, what context do you have for whats going in Beta? I used to do Savage and Ultimate in FF14 but I stopped playing mid Endwalker. My opinion on Arcadian (Dawntrial’s raid series) is about as useful as your opinion on how Ele Shaman plays in TWW. And given the lack of hero talents, pre-patch is frankly worthless for determining how a spec will play given the impact hero talents have on the kit. Its why guides on pre-patch gameplay are bare bones as hell and Sim were never even updated for them. Who literally cares about prepatch.
I apologize; I didn’t mean to say that your points are baseless, and I appreciate your data. I’m just saying that it would be appropriate for the lazy and economical design we’ve always received, compared to Rogue Combat, Warlock Demonology, or Hunter Survival, to be thoroughly reviewed. This would make it possible to achieve the developers’ stated goal of having decent Fire, Lightning, and Weaver builds that aren’t just about spamming one button.
Frankly, its stupid AF they want to segment the builds like that. It’s the same issue with Enhance all of DF. Both specs should just incorporate all elements with a leaning towards one. Instead of this dumb doubling down on spell and leaving the kit out to rot. You then get these issues with varied damage profiles and the inability to specialize for the content you are doing and create these balancing nightmares where one spec is viable simply because the other is undertuned rather than standing on the merits of each.
9… it doesn’t matter. I have an imagination.
10 reasons why my context matters.
In all seriousness. You already admitted to having a one-sided perspective. Is it doing top dps?
Have you tried theory crafting and finding different ways to play other than going with ? If you were to purely do a spec for the enjoyment, the fantasy, the fun, what would it look like?