Elemental tree question for you

#0 - Nov. 28, 2006, 9:05 p.m.

I've been elemental for two years now.

Through that time I've been a gimped healer for PvE, but that is not too bad since I'm stuck in a group that doesn't usually need healing and I can more than handle it. I even did damage in raids and groups. All in all it was all right.

In PvP I shine. I have many tools to deal with most classes. I have burst damage which is king in PvP. Mana was a huge problem, but I dished damage as fast as I could then died and rezzed with a full mana bar.

So basically as of now Elemental tree is a great PvP tree and a gimped PvE tree (my blue equipped rogue farms elites a lot better than my Tier 1 shaman too). That's all fine though, Elemental had its place.

Now I don't understand the upper tree anymore.

With Unrelenting Storm we are given mana regen which is great and needed!
Elemental Shields and Elemental Precision are great for PvP and PvE in reducing damage taken and increasing damage given. The threat reduction seems to help in PvE also. Great so far.

Now we come to the part I need help with....the top two talents.

Lightning Overload gives us huge bursts of damage occasionally. This sucks big time for PvE. Uncontrolled burst damage will pull aggro and lead to wipes. So LO is NOT something that is desired by PvE shaman. So heavy elemental shaman must be PvP geared again, right?

Then there is Totem of Wrath. Are we supposed to use this in PvP? So we run up and drop a plus hit and plus crit totem whenever we find an enemy? Is that what I'm supposed to do now? Will I notice it? Am I supposed to fight within its radius now? If I join a PUG am I supposed to get the leader to put all casters with me and make sure they follow me? Is that expected by the developers?

What am I supposed to do with this totem in PvP?

It appears this totem is more of a PvE spell. What really confuses me is that I'm forced to take LO which could hurt the raid big time if I pull aggro.

The whole end of the elemental tree looks schizophrenic to me. I need some help understanding this part of the tree.

Tseric

#1 - Nov. 28, 2006, 9:56 p.m.

It might help to keep interpretations of usage looser than saying one tree is all PvP or all PvE.

Yeah, Lightning Overload is big on burst which would lend itself better to a PvP situation. However, that isn't to say that it is completely unusable in a PvE situation. It would be up to the Shaman to moderate their use of lightning to the point where an extra bolt isn't going to hurt things or draw unwanted aggro. The question to ask is 'How much are you spamming lightning bolt?' or 'Do you use lightning bolt as your primary source of dps?'

Now, obviously, threat reduction is going to come into question. Shaman don't have a lot of it and some of the recent changes have added a bit into enhancement, which doesn't necessarily help the elemental tree. This is something we're keeping in mind, should threat reduction become very needed for other trees or the class as a whole. For now, spirit weapons offering threat reduction is one of the things the class will have to choose from, should they want threat reduction talents.

Going back to the question in the first paragraph, melee dps from Shaman has been showing itself to be quite viable in PvE encounters. So, concerns of drawing threat should be taken with the notion that if melee is your primary source of damage, having a spell burst dps boost is not a bad thing, merely situational.

As for Totem of Wrath, it will likely see more potential in PvE encounters. Sure, it would be even more situational in PvP and there are probably other choices a player would make for totems in a battleground or arena.

Perhaps it is best to look at it that any one tree should never be regarded in absolute terms of PvP or PvE. To have talents close to each other that serve different purposes isn't so much schizophrenic, as it is versatile.

edit - I spelled 'lightning' wrong many times and in different ways. O.o

Tseric

#49 - Nov. 29, 2006, 12:41 a.m.

Q u o t e:

Yep, as always, it's lip service and nothing else. I mean, it was a good post and actually went much deeper than most CMs do here, but to say something like that and then not stick around to address the retorts is lip service and nothing more.

Still here, still reading. I like a lot of the commentary provided, so I don't really see the need or point in getting into an argument. Those who want to make good comments have done so or will do so. Those who want to complain will do so as well. I see little need to acknowledge that, however.