I've been alternating between Resto and Elemental for years now, and for the first time I've actually switched to Enhancement. After the pre-patch, Elemental is just really, really, really simple and dull, just like this article says. It's really just Flame Shock, Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst on repeat. I'm hoping they'll change it up a bit to make it more interesting and less linear in the future. I'm honestly glad they're doing these consolidated articles, and hopefully Blizzard are reading them to see what the community actually thinks and what they can do better. I'm sure they have a lot on their plate on the official forums as well though.
Right now, the spec is not competitive at all, as myth raider i feel uncomfortable with it.The damage is undertuned as hell and the absence of the Gust of Wind is the real problem with the mobility of the class(just let the lightning bolt castable while moving?), so i hope they're going to fix it in some way.And last but not least, the gameplay. The ele in Legion had 3 type of gameplay (Asce,IF,Rod) all viable and fun to play, now the rotation and all the game style of the class feels so dumb and boring.
Man you guys are right, fun has zero association with how much damage you're doi--*dies to a non-elite mob at 50% health*
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
I agree with pretty much all of this article, but I'm really not happy with the section about "Elemental's Place in a Ranged DPS line up". The reason to bring Ranged DPS is not that binary (i.e. multi-dot and/or soaking), and it's literally the first time I have ever seen high end ranged DPS players argue for this. Secondly, these ideas only apply to raid content. I know most people assumed this, but in M+ Elemental are not lacking, EQ alone is a great reason to bring Ele over other ranged DPS (aside from one shot mechanic problems). I am not disagreeing that Elemental is lacking in raid utility. In fact, I completely agree, and we have all been fed up for 2 expacs for not bringing anything uniquely useful. But with these ideas, you have conveniently managed to make every other ranged DPS spec look useful and Elemental useless in comparison, and everyone will start coming out with pitchforks and complaining nonstop for months to come.
Meh. Sometimes it's nice to just kick back and play a spec that doesn't require much thought. As others have said, numbers aren't everything.But...can shaman have water breathing back? That was fun.
Taking out Gust of Wind was a mistake. It was a great ability and actually gave elemental some decent movement.
I gave up on my shaman when they took away our totems.
The specc just feels lifeless now. I know that may sound like an over-exaggeration but it doesn't have an identity nor anything going for it. In Legion we had a large choice of playstyles to choose from without ever really becoming OP in any situation, atleast in PvE and it felt like the best position Elemental was ever in. To suddenly be placed in this awkward builder-spender immobile class just feels awful. Thank god that the warmode talents for Enhancement make for a fun open-world experience as I'm sure I wont be the only Shaman main who's going to be leveling to 120 then benching the class until 8.1. Why they adjusted flameshock to return to having a CD is beyond me. The specc feels slow, and building up to an Earth shock just feels anticlimactic, in terms of AoE even my Enhancement Shaman does more chain lightnings in the open world/PvP.Why not give them something as visually interesting as the endless bolts coming out of your weapons as Enhancement if they're going to be so dull rotation wise? For example in the BfA cinematic you saw a troll elemental shaman use sundering/earthquakes which made everybody hyped for them. If I was Blizzard and knew that this specc was clearly rushed and wasn't ready in time for BfA why not just make it either a strong ST or AoE class to atleast give it a place until 8.1? Something like give a max maelstrom Earth shock a free earthquake underneath the target to atleast give back the "elemental" feel or atleast that chaotic M+ burst AoE feel that we had in Legion. I don't know how they ended up with the current iteration but it's the most I've ever been disappointed in my class
I think the thing that scares me more is the version they put live early in alpha. That was horrendous, and I am very scared they will try to give us that back and say "look it's better than what you have!".
Hey Sarthorius, I tried using the Earth Shield Talent, I was SOO Freaking Hyped for having it back and in my Ele spec to boot.... and then I tried world questing and stuff, and the lack of mobility felt completely AWFUL. I'm not saying the Ghost Wolf talent is good at all for fixing this, but at least I feel more mobile than I do without it..... x.x
If you watch this video from Preacher:Tank Ranking You can see a party running a BFA heroic, and the ele shaman is the only one who is always dpsing, but he is the bottom of the dps chart.After 10 minutes, they vote to kick him and the ele shaman gets kicked due to low dps.That is a summary of our BFA experience...
Lots of people saying that numbers aren't everything and how fun a spec is to play is more important, and I 100% agree, but honestly that's the worst part about the ele changes from Legion imo. I was an ele sham main throughout the entirety of Legion and the rotation had a great flow to it. The changes they've made, particularly putting Elemental Blast vs Echo of the Elements on the same talent tier and putting a cooldown on Flame Shock again, have stunted it (Ascendance vs Stormkeeper personally didn't help either but I understand why it happened).Your standard rotation now has the exact same feel to it as the resto DPS rotation. I had to take Stormkeeper just to try and fill it out somewhat, because compared to Legion, so much more of the rotation is just lightning bolt spam. It feels slow and boring and severely lacks the rhythm it had. The Flame Shock cooldown and the loss of Path of Flame puts a very stiff 3-target limit on cross-dotting for lava surge procs, and the lack of maelstrom interaction with the duration of Flame Shock just makes that worse.Imo the Flame Shock CD and losing Gust of Wind (god, don't even get me started...) are the two worst parts of the changes, but there's a lot playing into these problems. Even disregarding the feeling you're hitting like a wet paper towel, the spec as a whole just... isn't nearly as fun to play as it was. There's so much less to do. I'd happily take a further DPS nerf in exchange for having at least part of the changes reversed and some of our old rotation back.Ever since pre-patch, I haven't enjoyed playing elemental in the slightest. Disliked it, even. My ele sham has been my main almost since I started playing wow, and it really sucks to have to consider benching him for something that's actually fun to play.