[WoD] Elemental Shaman Changes

[Hybrys 199]

The latest Alpha Notes are out, and they completed their second pruning pass!

 

• Earthquake has been removed.  A replacement for Improved Chain Lightning should be coming in the next build.
• Bind Elemental has been removed.
• Elemental Focus has been removed.  This may be in error, as our spells have not yet been compensated, and a new note in the 'Self-Sustainability' section refers to Elemental Focus' Clearcasting effect.
• Rolling Thunder has been removed, and is now rolled into Fulmination.
• Totemic Recall has been removed, and totem proximity aggro range has been removed.  A totem cannot enter combat with something you're not in combat with.

[Hybrys 199]

Some really big changes coming down the pipeline, including a full redesign of our Mastery!

 

• Mastery: Elemental Discharge - Shaman - Elemental Spec.
  When you deal damage with Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Earth Shock, you have 16% chance to gain Electric Charge. At 3 Electric Charges, a Lightning Strike hits the target for 100% SP Nature damage. When you deal damage with Lava Burst, Lava Beam, and Flame Shock, you have an 16% chance to gain Rising Heat. At 3 Rising Heats, an Eruption hits the target for 100% SP Fire damage.
• If you're specced into Elemental Blast, it offers a 16% chance for BOTH Electric Charge and Rising Heat.
   
• Elemental Overload - Shaman - Elemental Spec.
  You have a 20% increased chance to multistrike. Your multistrikes deal 35% additional damage (to 40.50% total damage per Multistrike). You gain 5% more of the Multistrike stat from all sources.

Again, I'll be waiting for the official notes update to make the appropriate changes.  I'd also expect some numbers tuning to happen on the new Mastery, as it currently shows up at 100% Attack Power.

[nefigah 26]

Some really big changes coming down the pipeline, including a full redesign of our Mastery!

 

• Mastery: Elemental Discharge - Shaman - Elemental Spec.

  When you deal damage with Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Earth Shock, you have 16% chance to gain Electric Charge. At 3 Electric Charges, a Lightning Strike hits the target for 100% SP Nature damage. When you deal damage with Lava Burst, Lava Beam, and Flame Shock, you have an 16% chance to gain Rising Heat. At 3 Rising Heats, an Eruption hits the target for 100% SP Fire damage.

• If you're specced into Elemental Blast, it offers a 16% chance for BOTH Electric Charge and Rising Heat.

   

• Elemental Overload - Shaman - Elemental Spec.

  You have a 20% increased chance to multistrike. Your multistrikes deal 35% additional damage (to 40.50% total damage per Multistrike). You gain 5% more of the Multistrike stat from all sources.

Again, I'll be waiting for the official notes update to make the appropriate changes.  I'd also expect some numbers tuning to happen on the new Mastery, as it currently shows up at 100% Attack Power.

Neat—is elemental overload in addition to the "multistrike attunement" the spec gets? Or is that last sentence merely explaining that attunement?

[Hybrys 199]

Neat—is elemental overload in addition to the "multistrike attunement" the spec gets? Or is that last sentence merely explaining that attunement?

Multistrike Attunement was changed to that passive, so you only get the single 5% increase.

[nefigah 26]

Alright, makes sense, thanks. So hard to keep track of these things ^_^ I wonder if every spec's attunement is going to get wrapped up into a more "flavorful" passive like that

[Hybrys 199]

Alright, makes sense, thanks. So hard to keep track of these things I wonder if every spec's attunement is going to get wrapped up into a more "flavorful" passive like that

It doesn't look like it, or they'd have to pull power from elsewhere.  For example, I'm guessing that our Mastery is going to be significantly less powerful than it's current incarnation, but they're making up for that with the Multistrike passive, which they can use as an easy go-to tuning switch.

[kitsu 55]

procs are way more obvious and awesome looking too.

[nefigah 26]

 

One thing I missed, that I just caught while I was updating the Enh thread...

• Elemental Blast can now increase your Multistrike as well as Haste, Crit, and Mastery.

 

 

But not your Versatility? (I don't like the concept of that stat, just like I don't like "PVP Power," but theoretically the more buffs available => the smaller chance you end up with crit => the more EB will buff single target DPS, right?)

[Hybrys 199]

But not your Versatility? (I don't like the concept of that stat, just like I don't like "PVP Power," but theoretically the more buffs available => the smaller chance you end up with crit => the more EB will buff single target DPS, right?)

That's right, for now it offers no versatility buff.

And yeah, adding multistrike improves the buff by offering something else we want, along with a lower chance at getting Crit.

Luckily, they're doing pretty well at increasing crits effectiveness, via reducing Lava Bursts contribution and changing the Mastery to no longer simply repeat spells. I'm hopeful that it will be on par with Mastery, but Multistrike and Haste will be clear winners.

[SparkSovereign 61]

EB's crit buff got me thinking.  I wonder how much of a temporary crit buff you have to have to make it worth flinging off a Fulminate early (instead of, say, a Lightning Bolt)... naturally this depends on how many stacks you have... I have mathing to do, but first there is sleeping to do.

[Hybrys 199]

EB's crit buff got me thinking.  I wonder how much of a temporary crit buff you have to have to make it worth flinging off a Fulminate early (instead of, say, a Lightning Bolt)... naturally this depends on how many stacks you have... I have mathing to do, but first there is sleeping to do.

The Crit buff wouldn't factor in with an LB vs Fulmination comparison, because they both are affected by crit linearly.

A Fulmination past ~6-7 stacks should outweigh any Lightning Bolt, even counting LBs contribution to your next Fulmination. I think that allowing Fulmination to have that scalable power is another factor in deciding our mobility.

[Hybrys 199]

We're seeing some... pretty odd revisions in the latest build.  

• Mastery: Molten Earth (New) Your damaging spells incite the earth around you to come to your aid for 6 sec, repeatedly dealing [ 80% of Spell Power ] Fire damage to your most recently attacked target. Shaman - Elemental Spec.
• Elemental Blast (Elemental) Harness the raw power of the elements towards an enemy target, dealing [ 164.51% of Spell Power ] Elemental damage and increasing your Critical Strike, Haste, Mastery, Multistrike, or Versatility by 534 for 8 sec.
• Earthquake has been readded.

So our Lightning Overload-flavored mastery gets canned for a... very passive rolling damage increase?  Boring.

 

And then the change predicted by Nefigah coming true, with Elemental Blast now increasing your versatility as well, With five buffs to choose from, does that increase it's effectiveness, or decrease it, by making Versatility and Crit both flavours you want to avoid?  We'll have to wait and see.

[nefigah 26]

When they readded Earthquake, did they happen to make it useful?

 

I agree the Mastery change is a bit odd. The bright side is, the more boring the mastery, the easier it is to balance (and generally the better it is). Looking back at the bulk of MoP, I think it's safe to say that the specs who consistently valued mastery the most were those with mastery along the lines of "increase your effectiveness by X%." 

 

That said, I'm curious--and a little dubious--about the implementation of this Molten Earth one. Even assuming CC will no longer be a "thing" in WoD, there's always plenty of opportunities for "DoTs automatically applied by every attack" to cause bugs/headaches with certain mechanics. Additionally I'm curious what constitutes "most recently attacked target," particularly in AoE/cleave scenarios--and even in non-CL situations, what happens if you switch targets before the 6 second DoT is over? Does that clip the DoT on the old target and restart a new 6 sec on the new one? Or can you get a DoT rolling on multiple targets by tab-cycling?

 

The nice thing about a Versatility buff is it's at least smooth added throughput for the duration, regardless of what spells you happen to be casting in the 8 sec. PLUS LIKE 5% DAMAGE REDUCTION GUYS

[Hybrys 199]

When they readded Earthquake, did they happen to make it useful?

 

I agree the Mastery change is a bit odd. The bright side is, the more boring the mastery, the easier it is to balance (and generally the better it is). Looking back at the bulk of MoP, I think it's safe to say that the specs who consistently valued mastery the most were those with mastery along the lines of "increase your effectiveness by X%." 

 

That said, I'm curious--and a little dubious--about the implementation of this Molten Earth one. Even assuming CC will no longer be a "thing" in WoD, there's always plenty of opportunities for "DoTs automatically applied by every attack" to cause bugs/headaches with certain mechanics. Additionally I'm curious what constitutes "most recently attacked target," particularly in AoE/cleave scenarios--and even in non-CL situations, what happens if you switch targets before the 6 second DoT is over? Does that clip the DoT on the old target and restart a new 6 sec on the new one? Or can you get a DoT rolling on multiple targets by tab-cycling?

 

The nice thing about a Versatility buff is it's at least smooth added throughput for the duration, regardless of what spells you happen to be casting in the 8 sec. PLUS LIKE 5% DAMAGE REDUCTION GUYS

 They did!  Remember the Chain Lightning perk is still in, so depending on how many targets your CL hits, EQ will hit 20/40/60/80/100% harder.  When I was testing it, EQ was ticking for around half of what CL was, and it was hitting every second.

 

Re: Mastery: It's true that it's easier to balance, but I didn't want something that increases our damage by a percentile.  This is because it will get better as a stat the more damage your doing, the same way Versatility does.  So now we either have it as our top stat, or it reaches different usefulness thresholds based on what weapon/trinkets/gear we have.

 

That is a kind of unfortunate problem.  Does it target swap if something dies?  It's not a DoT, you can think of it more like a Searing Totem, so you never actually apply it to the enemy.  Should they reduce it's damage by 20%, but let it cleave?  I know the damage rolls like Ignite/Explosive Shot, so maybe you can intelligently roll your damage on to another target just before the last one dies?

 

Versatility is awful for the current scaling we see, though, and it may end up being worse than Crit.  With 534 coming in, we can expect a 4.1% increase to our damage (at a rate of 130.5 / 1%), and a 2.05% reduction to our incoming damage (at a rate of 261 / 1%).

[kitsu 55]

whatever problems the new mastery makes, the animation is worth it.

 

it is a little odd doing 10k damage with a frost shock and then seeing the mastery crit for like 40k though. i'd imagine thats off a bit.

[Grig 0]

Hybrys nice write up. Quick Question: I am currently in the process of teaching a new Ele shaman to take over my raid spot in WoD. Anything you can tell me briefly about the rotational changes in the beta? (I haven't gotten access yet :*(  ) Thanks!

[SparkSovereign 61]

Assuming they fix the current tuning that makes EQ worth using on single target, the overall structure is basically unchanged.  Maintain flame shock, use Lava Burst when you can, discharge Fulmination when you get a bunch of stacks, spam Lightning Bolt otherwise.  While moving things get a bit more complicated, and I wanna say there's a set bonus or something that makes it worth it to discharge Fulmination at 12 stacks instead of 20, but the basic gist of it appears unchanged.

[kitsu 55]

The new echo is cool and easy to get used to, and you have to throw your level 100 talent in the mix, but until launch we can't be sure about the rotation. One thing is certain, get used to not moving while you cast LB.

[Tassaros 0]

Has anyone thought about stat priority in the process of leveling? I mean since we got the time to select items from SoO heroic, would you go for haste/mastery, crit/mastery or crit/haste combos? Or balance?

 

Not extremely important perhaps, but I noticed in the Beta that the 588 items serve you deep into the leveling process  

[kitsu 55]

on the beta i like to make a max level pvp toon and then sell back the free hunter enchants to get a ton of gold. then you can buy any pvp gear you want, and theres a lot of variety per slot. at the moment im stacking multistrike and going for balance with the other stats, but i'd like to stack versatility on a set soon just to see if it does anything decent.

 

it's tough to get into gearing at this point because i feel like a tuning pass might come soon, and then a few more, and then everything will be different at launch.

[Hybrys 199]

I'm finally back from vacation, and I'm going to be tuning up this guide along with working on some of the posts that have appeared in the last two weeks.

 

For the rotation, I doubt we'll see significant change.  The principles of single target DPS are fairly identical, with Searing Totem being significantly more important than it is now, and with Unleash Flame being a movement/utility ability that sees some use in non-Unleashed Fury scenarios.

 

For leveling priorities, I'm going to be going Haste > Multistrike > Mastery.  Haste always makes going from target to target more smooth, as well as powering up your Earth Shock more quickly for a quick instant kill.

[Tassaros 0]

On the other hand I noticed you can flame shock a mob and move to the next one, FS ticks+legendary back+new mastery do the rest. Maybe high mastery is also not that bad. My idea though was to favor multistrike and haste mainly, haste was since TBC the basic stat till high endgame gear.

[Hybrys 199]

On the other hand I noticed you can flame shock a mob and move to the next one, FS ticks+legendary back+new mastery do the rest. Maybe high mastery is also not that bad. My idea though was to favor multistrike and haste mainly, haste was since TBC the basic stat till high endgame gear.

This is true, but our Mastery is still a little bit too strong on Beta.  I'm assuming we'll see it's power brought down another ~10%, but I'm unsure.  If it doesn't, Mastery isn't a bad option as long as you can judge when you can leave a mob and don't significantly overkill constantly.

 

Another neat thing you can do is use Unleash Flame on a mob just before they die, and then you get the (possible) speed boost, along with your next Flame Shock being guaranteed to kill the mob.

[Hybrys 199]

I've nailed down about half of my first pass of updates.  Lots of changes for the month I've been gone, including PERKS?!

 

I miss them.

[Aniky 1]

Many changes again...Will we have more about theorycrafht? I hope so   ^^   ...and ty for the hard work.