Back in PvE world...[Elemental recap]

#0 - Dec. 18, 2008, 7:53 p.m.

Elemental hasn't gotten any feedback from the devs since GC posted that he intended to give Elemental Oath a personal buff for the Shaman and change Elemental Mastery from a guaranteed critical strike to a +20% critical strike chance buff for 20 seconds.

Shamanism is not getting Elemental back up to par (as was intended by the devs) but we're also seeing the curious trend of Flame Shock and the "guaranteed crit" mechanic for Lava Burst not making a difference in our DPS, e.g. at the upper limits of availalbe gear we can remove Flame Shock from our rotation with no appreciable change in our DPS:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=13593960700&sid=1

There have been a number of threads on Elemental talents, with the most comprehensive one being here:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=13392285265&sid=1

But to recap, some of the best suggestions I've seen so far are:

- Add a crit %-based DoT to Lava Burst that lasts 8s through the Lava Floes talent
- Ramp up the DoT on Flame Shock considerably through SE&F (on the order of 200%)
or
- Make Glyph of Flame Shock refresh the duration of the DoT after casting Lava Burst.
- Improve Elemental Devastation for Elemental by increasing critical chance by 3/6/10% for both spells and melee after a damaging spell critical hit.
- Make Reverberation 3 points.
- Include all Shock spells in Elemental Reach.
- Change Elemental Mastery into "Increases spell damage and mana cost by X% for Y seconds."
- Implement Big Bad Voodoo (invulnerability totem from WC3) in some fashion.

The biggest problem for Elemental right now is that critical strike rating is to Elemental as strength is to Rogues. Yes, both stats will increase their damage but the itemization points are better spent elsewhere for DPS. Rogues have appropriate gear options available to them; Elemental does not. If all caster gear is going to be homogenized then all our DPS needs to scale with critical strike rating.

With regards to AoE, it's impossible to look at Magma Totem on the PTR as the AoE cap for the spell hasn't been increased from its level 70 value. I disagree with making a ranged DPS class run in to melee range as their only option for AoE (make Thunderstorm trainable, nerf the regen/damage and give Elemental Supremus' Volcano as our 51-pt.) but until the PTR version is fixed I can't comment on Magma Totem.

Ghostcrawler

#2 - Dec. 19, 2008, 12:39 a.m.

Shamanism wasn't intended to increase Elemental's damage as much as it was damage scaling. You probably won't notice a big difference unless you are in a lot of Naxx 25 level gear.

Elemental Oath, Elemental Mastery and the Lightning Bolt glyph were intended to increase Elemental dps however. Don't discount the clearcasting portion of Elemental Oath.

We're looking at Flame Shock. Keep in mind that even if it doesn't compete with Lightning spam against static targets like Patch (and we're not even convinced that is the case), there are very few fights like Patch and anytime you need to shoot and scoot, Flame Shock looks like a pretty nice button.

Ghostcrawler

#7 - Dec. 19, 2008, 1:11 a.m.

Q u o t e:
The Glyph is a problem. You said glyphs were supposed to fundamentally change how an ability worked, not simply add more damage. In short, you didn't want to make them "required" for min/maxing- but that is exactly what you did here. The glyph did not alter the spell in any way- it just made it do more damage. If it is your intent that all Elemental Shaman need this to be competetive, then ramp the spell up by 4%. It won't really affect Resto OR Enhancement.

This has already been asked multiple times. It puzzles me why someone intersted in Elemental shaman concerns wouldn't have already known about it or would have been unable to find it. Usually I conclude the poster is just trying to be argumentative.

But in the chance that isn't the case, I will restate that we compared the benefit that various dps specs were getting from glyphs and found that Elemental was getting the short end of the stick. Rather than nerfing everyone's glyphs, we buffed the Lightning one.

I'm not sure why you'd be complaining about a buff, but I guess it's a nice change of pace. :)

Ghostcrawler

#38 - Dec. 19, 2008, 8:29 p.m.

Q u o t e:
The only issue I have is Magma totem as an AoE solution. I did a Nax10 clear last night and thought Id try using the totem. I have tested it on the PTR and have no issue with the dmg it does however sacrificing our ToW just can't be justified. That and running in and out of melee range is a HUGE draw back. I doubt you will see any true raiders using it.

Some "true raiders" suggested the change, so I certainly hope they use it. It's true you will have to move closer to drop the totem. But also remember that once the totem is up you can cast other spells, while a mage or boomkin has to channel their spell. In a lot of cases, where the group is clearing trash for example, the range isn't even an issue.

Q u o t e:
I was wondering, if you could, either confirm or deny that the developers feel that
1.current(live) elemental shaman are doing dps that is too low. And
2. afther the PTR buffs that elemental shaman will be doing intended dps - (and if that intended dps is on par with other dps classes.

1. Yes, it is too low on live.

2. I can't speak towards the PTR specifically. It takes awhile to create a build, so they are often a few days (or longer) behind our changes. I can say that in our internal testing all of the changes together gave Elemental something like a 10 to 12% dps increase for Naxx 25 geared characters in full raid buffs. Elemental dps should be very close to Balance druid dps, which we used as the standard we wanted to reach.

We discussed several of the concerns that have come up over the last few days and ran some additional tests, but we are still satisfied with the numbers produced by the new changes.