Originally Posted by
zenga
Had the opportunity to play some arena last night on the beta as ele in 3s, with and vs players that know what they are doing. And man am I disappointed for solo play but excited for boxing them.
For solo: the damage is low after the big nerfs compared to other casters (didn't play vs boomkin). Mage kills you in 2 globals in a deep, locks have crazy mechanics (dispell UA and 2 people are half health all in a sudden). You can't cast the 40% dmg reduction talent while stunned. The new stoneclaw totem is good in theory but everyone kills it right away. Totemic projection is crap as a talent, it should be baseline. Totemic vigor adds 10% of your health to your totems, but it requires a main glyph. Ghost wolf no longer gives you guaranteed 100% run speed while slowed, you actually need to use a main glyph. Basically you would need 5 main glyphs to take what you need to be viable.
Ele shamans lost stoneclaw totem and 2 talented dmg mitigation talents, so squishy as fuck (still). Self healing is much better though, but the damage ... pff. For people not up to date: they first removed lava burst from the lvl 90 talent that would let a debuff on your target after using unleash elements. So it buffs now only LB. And then they nerfed the lava burst dmg by 25% base.
There is gonna need to be some changes to make it on par with the other casters, but I'm really considering to swap my shaman for my lock or priest in cata for solo pvp, as resto (oom) and enhance aren't in a great place either.
The thing is that it looks really good to stack ele shamans though, so for boxers I'm excited.