So, to begin this is about ele shaman. Yes, it came out overtuned, just like everyone else this patch it came out bugged and day one it had vods of ridiculous damage that wasn’t really representative of reality because one day later we got hit by a significant aoe and single target nerf, and had some positive bugs fixed, and those 25 mil vods had aug+hero+40 stack spymasters (why hasn’t this trinket been nerfed yet for real?) Even then some targeted aoe nerfs were appropriate.
Sometime later blizzard announces mass class tuning and ele shaman are apparently just getting gutted in single target set to be competing with aug, and aoe is going down to “you only take us for our aoe, but our aoe is nothing special” levels. Also, it seems we will once again be changing our stat priority despite just having our worst stat (haste>crit>>>vers>mastery) before rework to best stat (mastery>>haste>crit>>>vers) to now (mastery>crit>>haste>>vers) after nerfs. Leading to having to swap recraft and change our gear again or more realistically just straight up drop ele and take advantage of our reworked stats being conveniently close to the spec blizzard historically wants us to play- enhancement.
Most frustrating of all though last week elemental shaman was in a solid place. We did good damage; we had two hero talents that worked in different places and were good enough to be somewhat interchangeable in content ie you could use farseer or stormbringer in m+ and justify it without looking like a clown or a fool. After the rework we were tuned high and had one hero talent to work with its just stormbringer all the way down, the talents that made farseer work were just pruned with the rework. And following the nerfs we are now undertuned, drastically even, with two bad hero talents because blizzard couldn’t help themselves from taking pot shots at stormbringer quality of life passives while they were in their likely very exciting brainstorm session on how to nerf ele into the ground. Within a week ele went from an acceptable and playable spec to overtuned to back to its usual cave because we were reworked AND tuned into a bad spec. And caveat here the rework had a lot of cool ideas and I generally liked some of the changes, aside from the whole doing lots of damage thing, I did lots of damage before and I was having fun before the rework I don’t see myself having fun after tuesday because I don’t like doing negative damage on a character that I have hit gilded crest cap on.
In conclusion I am looking at the class and spec I’ve played most of tww and feeling angry that it was reworked at all because the impetus of ele being brought to its historically low level of value was a rework that happened when we were in a pretty cozy and acceptable spot to begin with that occurred midway through the season. I thought reworks were supposed to improve gameplay, but now my damage profile, my stat weights, are completely different, and in response to a general lack of careful tuning my damage is going too. What even was the point of all that work when you could just auranerf us down 15% if you’d rather us didn’t play ele and save yourselves what is likely a lot of work that could have gone to bravely making bladestorm the first spell with a 4-target cap?
Tldr: Why bother reworking a class and putting resources into a class if you are going to leave it in a place well below prerework levels within a week? It’s insulting to everyone playing this game if that is the standard of class balance we are working with.
Yeah, I think that is the worst part of balancing this patch. A lot of classes came out not working right and we’re already getting a tuning patch despite classes still not working right. I’ve been watching dark ranger mm since the changes were announced and it’s been depressing to watch with half the new stuff doesn’t working correctly, and its entirely dependent on what bugs are and aren’t fixed in what order they are fixed on how usable it is.
They need to have a cohesive kit for elemental. Is it ice magic? Is it fire? Do they use lightning? Earth shock or elemental blast? Is it a pet class? Do they stack mastery or crit or haste?
It feels like such a mess they really should take it and throw it in the trash and start over. Remember when it used to be simple just spam lightning bolt until lava burst is off CD or if you get a proc.
Or they need to just turn it into two different specs. One more of a volcano/earth caster and the other more nature/lightning
It’s pretty telling that we’re getting some sweeping game tweaks like this so swiftly on the heels of another set of tweaks.
Telling in that clearly, they’re playing more reactively when it comes to making changes. More so than usual.
There’s been so many bugs and so many changes already that honestly hope the takeaway is to let these patches cook longer. Do more testing.
All this to say, firing the god damn QA staff was stupid idea and this is only going to make the dumbass investors whom they fired them for realize it was all for a short-term gain.
I kinda like the vision of elemental having all the elements. Being a caster that with one hand throws ice water into the eyes of my enemies, the other hand lighting someone else on fire, and dropping earthquakes and natural disasters like its my bread and butter is a real cool class fantasy.
But class fantasy and effective gameplay don’t always mesh. One of the good parts of the rework is icefury, lava burst, and lightning peripherals being able to coexist to a degree. Frost shock should be able to echo however.
I haven’t even played by Elemental yet this patch and probably won’t bother. I went with my Mage. It went from top 5 to bottom 5. it’s been nerfed into the ground and just isn’t fun to play. I fully understand your frustration. Lots of classes it seems this exp are going through the same thing.
Seems things aren’t being thoroughly tested before being released. I feel like a paying beta tester and I’m not going down that route again.
I want them to give elemental permanent pet. Earth ele for solo content to tank and switch to fire ele for raid or whatever. Idc how it gets done make it happen.
same thing happened to Dark ranger reworked but bugged , nerfed , then fixed dps bug , and nerfed some more…no point in playing it at all. Still not working as intended.
They’ve had some cool elemental iterations over the years. We kind of had permanent elemental before the rework due to a talent they removed, which was part of why we lost our sustained damage profile in the first place aside from everything coming up ascendance.
I miss using fire ele since I’ve never been super fond of the storm ele being “cast more lightning bolts”. I also miss that one shadowlands legendary that gave earth elemetnal permanent earthquake, to an extent it was terrible to play sometimes, but it was fun to meme with.
All of the frustration with potentially swapping stat priorities and builds multiple times in a row, all of which cost lots of gold and irrreversible catalyst charges, aside…
I just hate that we’re almost definitely going from being a solid but not OP spec to a blatantly broken spec to being smacked to the freaking dirt because Blizzard failed to tune their rework properly and they only know how to kneejerk tune.
I’d rather have not had the rework at all and still have the degen lightning build.
A rework should not result in a notable change in performance. It should be a change in gameplay. Blizzard is failing HARD here.
Or, hell, delay the rework. Do it with an x.0 patch. Mid-season reworks are awful for everyone involved. People should be able to expect a relatively stable gameplay and performance experience for the duration of a season. Aura Tuning suffices for mid-season adjustments. If people are going to have to completely change their gear and builds, let them at least do it at a time when EVERYONE is having to re-gear anyway and people historically take the opportunity to swap toons if they’re going to.
Obviously it’s too late for this, but the fact that it wasn’t handled in this way is just developer incompetence. That applies to other reworks happening at the same time as well.
