nah, not gonna start anything on that. Just theory crafting here. I didn't even play warriors yet. probably like he said I get nuked to death instantly by hunters. I probably give warriors another shot and be done with this expansion.
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nah, not gonna start anything on that. Just theory crafting here. I didn't even play warriors yet. probably like he said I get nuked to death instantly by hunters. I probably give warriors another shot and be done with this expansion.
I asked Vanguard yesterday about ele shamans, then he told me he thought they were in a good spot. He was serious about it aswell. Most people called out: nice trolling there. But defended it by telling us to go check EU ladder. Then I watched Reckfuls stream, and they met Novoz (former 3k rated ele) team. They just sat on him for like 30 sec and he died. They started saying: "ohh, feel sooo sorry for that guy. Ele shamans are in such a bad spot".
This is coming from some of the highest rated people in the US. Blizzard should totaly do something about it! Have only seen changes for resto shamans on mmo-champion, not a single one for ele or enhance.
Starting to think that Blizz is doing this to ele shamans + DKs, so that multiboxers wont get high in arena. I can only imagine the drama it would start if there were several multiboxer teams above 2200 rating.
That hasn't happened since s8.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nikita
But ele shams are only in a good spot in specific comps that can actually burst + heal. Ele/Spriest/Druid, Ele/Mage/Druid namely. LSD is fine as well but not as strong. Ele shams lose to straight melee cleaves and almost always have so the fact that they still do is no surprise. Vs caster/melee/healer they actually do pretty well. Warriors losing blanket silence is going to help a lot too for ele shams in 3's.
With all the changes taking place in 5.1, I suggest people wait and see how it plays out. Might be a good time to reflect on the goals you want to achieve in pvp. All goals are ultimately achievable one way or another.
For me I would like to see defensive cds increased or removed and a increase in the cooldowns for instant crowd control. If they are going to nerf burst without nerfing the defensive/instant control or uping sustained dps to compensate no one will ever die, ever.
I read there will be changes to pvp gear(no rating,less rating?), arena queues(all realm queues like rbgs?) and such in a developer post that is coming soon.
The most important thing is to play the classes or teams that you enjoy the most.
This x 10000Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Tire
If you don't play what you enjoy and just re-roll for success you will ultimately end up enjoying yourself less, not to mention possibly not being able to use the OP whatever to the maximum potential.
I am interested in the rating thing as well - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...5271?page=5#96Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Tire
I would love to see Arena queues to be region-wide for the sole reason that everyone can finally stop stroking their e-peen about what battlegroup they're in. However, I'm not sure if that actually brings any repercussions on you Arena folks.
The single change to make arena queues cross all realms will fix the issues for 5s. we just need enough people to play the damn thingQuote:
Originally Posted by Fat Tire
I'd love to see 5s active to the point that even if your team is gimp at the moment you can still cap out by getting retarded teams, 1v5s and no shows. I used to cap out 2s this way dual boxing (just tabbing) in cata with my t2 DK and an alt that just sat there - with instant queues you could actually cap pretty quickly.
Of course ultimately I'd like faster queues and lots of activity in 5s so I could actually play for real and have good competition. But for now just being able to queue and mess around and still cap would be great.
I love the shaman class, and have so for several years now. But when season after season, and several days played I still cant grasp what Blizzard is thinking. We went from being gods to being top 3 shitty PvP spec. Yes we can/could do insane burst, but in a world where mages, locks, hunters and warriors can do 2-3 times our burst + have more survivability, its just not fair.
I dont wanna reroll just cus Blizz fucked up with tuning other specs. I'll just suck it up and wait (again) for another season/patch. I'm not quitting WoW until I break 2200!
Come to think of it every classes have their OP days. From I can remember
Warriors = now
DK = upon LK release. Blood DK ruled arena for like 2 seasons.
Paladin = once a upon time, Seal of Command procs extra swing. Paladin can kill within HOJ stun. Bubble only reduce attack speed by 50%, not damage.
Hunter = now
Mage = Frost mage in Cata. Still today. I think it is BS mage can proc frost damage from another mage's freeze/nova.
Warlock = The end of LK with Shadow Fury and insane survival.
Rogue = can't think of when Rogues are OP.
Priest = The end of LK with disc healing. and Spriest super damage + mana drain.
Shaman = elemental was god in BC days. I was able to stand there just cast LB against a warrior. and let the warrior interrupt me all he wants. I would kill him with 50% hp left.
Druid = the end of LK, blizzard buffed bleed damage. Feral druid was doing crazy amount of damage in arena. They were getting 5 combo points. Instant cyclone. let energy get full. Burst down after cyclone expires.
MONK = yet to been seen
Here's some fun stuff I remember:Quote:
Originally Posted by remanz
Warriors:
Vanilla: sword proc madness, instagib people left and right. 3k mortal strikes against people with 2900hp
BC: "Skillherald" - look it up if you don't remember
Wotlk: The brostorm era
DK's:
Wotlk: you could use /castrandom in arena and win
Cata: Blood DK's when vengeance worked in pvp. Hard counter all melee. 110k death strikes. Dancing rune weapon necrotics for 40k heal absorb. Yeah it was a gimmick and didn't work against mages, warlocks, or spriests, but still
Rogues:
Vanilla: the real stunlock. There used to be no pvp trinket and you'd die in an actual kidney shot not a blind vanish gouge smoke bomb repeat blah blah.
BC: combat rogues with mace stun. Legendaries
Wotlk: legendaries, FAN OF KNIVES OMG
Cata: legendaries
Mages:
Vanilla: double trinket pom pyro madness
BC: don't remember
Wotlk: shatter combos
Cata: shatter combos and 100 ways to freeze you
Priests:
Vanilla: Shadow priests hit... so... hard. Mind blast mindflay dead. They didn't really have any other spells.
Shaman:
Vanilla: Elemental shaman in tier 2 or higher. Double trinket, chain lightning, earth shock dead. period. Like quad boxing shaman, except this was One shaman.
Enhance shaman used 2h and a windfury proc was an instakill.
Hunters:
Vanilla or BC can't remember: pet enrage, solo clothies.
Wotlk: explosive shit
Cata: ???
Warlocks:
Vanilla: A brief and little known era with extreme spell coefficient on shadowbolt gave you 3k+ crits. Also, seduce+soul fire (there was no trinket so you were either undead, or dead)
others: several times affliction was dot and run. i mean really just run away and they died
Druid:
End of BC, End of wotlk insane bleed damage. Stacking cat bleeds and bear bleeds then running away
The current nature of the shaman spec is that mastery is part of the damage of a spell. If you say hardest hitting ability (which is elemental blast buffed by unleash elements) then you have to factor in the chance to overload (e.g. if a spell hits for 100 with a 50% chance to overload for 75% of the damage then the actual spell deals (100+100+75)/2 = 137.5 damage). Either way if 8x elemental blasts don't kill a target in 1 shot, then you are extremely unlucky that not a single one overloads. or you are doing something wrong gear/stats/rotation wise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ualaa
That particular team hasn't leveled yet.
Just analyzing the damage number people posted, times 8 shaman (which was the plan for the team).
Against the average health of a PvP geared opponent (again, as given in the earlier post, from this thread).
And it added up to, about 10k damage short of someone's full health.
Ah misread it then. Either way the average overload damage should be factored in as it's an integral part of how the spell works.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ualaa
DRUID: ALL of BC as resto for 2v2. Run with a war, rogue or lock, get glad, the endQuote:
Originally Posted by heyaz
The funny thing is that if ele shamans had the stuff they have now back in s10, we would be pretty decent. On par with frost mages and rogues.
Ascendance would have been overpowered in cata.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nikita
Rogue: Vanilla, s2, s3, s4, s7, s9, s10, s11
Mage: Always good, not once were they bad
Warlock: s2, s3, s4 (sl/sl + rdruid), s5 (anti-dk), s8, s10, s11
Hunter: I dont remember them being OP pre wrath but s5 was broken with LnL procs, s6 african turtle cleave, s7-8 beast cleave, s9 KFC, s10 PHD, s11 PHD/thug/jungle/triple DPS, s12 anything
Warrior: Vanilla, s2, stunherald + mace spec, sword spec s3 (shaman+warrior+X wind fury totem cleave), s7, s8, s9, s10 kitty cleave was still good but not OP, s12
Ele shaman: Vanilla, s7/8 LSD, they always had at least 1 viable comp but were never OP, really good in 5's though.
Enhance shaman: Vanilla, s3 (i think, might have been s4), s7-8 beast cleave, s9 turbo cleave, s12 turbo cleave. Any time resto druids have been REALLY strong enhance has been good due to purge and a few other mechanics
Resto druid: s2-4. s7, s8, s9, s12
Feral druid: s2 (may have been 3), s7, s9 (fmp was very very strong), s10 (jungle, kitty cleave), s11 (jungle)
Paladin: s2 (holy), s4 (holy), s5(holy, ret), s6-7 (protret, protholy), s8(smourne ret), s9 (ret), s10 (ret), s11(ret)
Priest: Vanilla spriest, s2 (spriest), s6 (disc), I don't remember s7 priests, s8 (disc, shadow), s9 (disc, shadow), s10 (disc, shadow), s11 (disc, shadow), s12 (shadow)
DK: s5, s7, s8 (smourne), s9 (instant hungering), s10 (smokebomb cleave, scleave, ret/dk/priest, triple dps), s11 (triple dps, ret/dk/priest)
Almost every class and spec has been viable at all times to glad and tons of times where things are stupid OP but above is when i remember things are very very strong.
Yeah with 8 shaman and unleash elements you should get darn close to a 1 shot with lava burst without overload. Without overload, probably not unless you are pulling over 50k lvb which is about 30%+ pvp power.Quote:
Originally Posted by zenga
Elemental blast is kinda lame, but it's something when LVB is on cooldown and you decide you don't want the super elementals. But it has a 12 second cooldown also. You'd expect something like chaos bolt.
- It is not affected by unleash elements
- Has no guaranteed crit or any other interesting mechanic. Shaman fully geared have.. get ready for this - 10% crit (unless you're not reforging any of it and reforging haste back to crit)
- The buff is random to a stat; it doesn't prefer your highest stat, which is irritating
The primal elementals have issues too. They're awesome when they're up, hit decent, stun, annoy the hell out of people, etc. but when you start doing your round robin tremors, guess what, bye earth ele because I dropped a tremor. Fire eles are decent though and you shouldn't have a fire totem overlap.
About the only shaman thing that hits decent right now is Fulmination, but it also has no special crit mechanic, and it's a proc. I've been doing a lvb, lb, earth shock sequence for kills because at least one shaman is gonna get some nasty 60-80k fulmination. You can occasionally get lucky and 4x earth shock a guy down to 30% right off the bat. Then you got no flame shock up though :)
Elemental blast is most definitely affected by unleash elements since it's a fire, nature and frost spell at the same time (which also makes that you can cast it instant with Ancestral Swiftness).Quote:
Originally Posted by heyaz
It costs zero mana, which is not unimportant in pvp.
It can overload.
It provides a random crit/mastery/haste buff for 8seconds.
Taking all those into account, it's a spell I absolutely love and - contrary to you - I find it a very interesting mechanic compared to most spells in the game, a spell which fits the nature of the ele spec pretty well.
On an unrelated note: an Unleash elements/ instant elemental blast combo followed by an instant lava burst followed by a full earth shock ... if the earth shock or ele blast crits and if either the lava burst or EB overloads that is some pretty wicked damage. and not that hard to setup (wait for lava surge prock and full fulmination stack).
The problem of ele for me is their weak defense and lightning bolt hitting for nothing. Their weak defense is mainly because it's impractical (the required imbue dancing for example). Thing is that ele is very competitive in pve atm, and the damage scales really well with gear. So I don't expect any damage buffs soon (the damage I can do during ascendance in my gear on my main is absolutely sick).
What would work for me though:
- glyph for lightning bolt: the dmg is halved and the cast time is halved, and the chance to proc a ls shield stack reduced in proportion. This way it would become a real filler spell, and would have no repercussions for pve ( since haste won't affect it since it's under the gcd). Kinda like mass dispell glyph in cata. currently the risk of getting locked (or the waste of time by fake casting) does not really compare to the dmg it does
- astral shift should workd while in a stun
- ghost wolf glyph should become baseline
- lightning bolt ignores player armor (like chaos bolt)
There are really only a few tweaks needed to turn it from an underpowered spec into a very competitive contender. (talking from a solo pov)
ah, did not realize ele blast counted as fire. in that case I'll try that out. With unleash elements and an insta cast (although I have always been an elemental mastery kinda guy) that's gonna be some sick damage.
On another note, survivability, first tier I can't quite figure out. Astral shift isn't castable in cc and is pretty short. Nature's Guardian is nice being passive but it's really just one more hit from any class and you're dead. Stone bulwark is scaling nicely with gear and (I think) pvp power as well, but... another cooldown to manage, another earth totem to overwrite when you get feared. :/
From a solo perspective (I've been playing the main one a bit) it's not horrible. From a boxing perspective the problem is not even being able to get a cast off or get set up because the cc comes in so fast and comes with damage as well. It's like my worst fear from wotlk - shadowfury but now every class has a much worse variant of it that does crazy damage as well.
I no longer use EM in pvp, it adds little to ascendance, and even less outside of ascendance. Ancestral swiftness provides you with an extra 5% haste buff (stacks with elemental oath) so you can reforge into mastery. with enough haste left for shorter bolts/heals. And every minute an instant hex, heal or elemental blast. Echo is too unreliable for me, just like dragonwrath was. It's hilarious when it procs however.Quote:
Originally Posted by heyaz
Against caster setups I go with nature's guardian, which is basically a buffed battlemaster trinket on a 30s cd. Against melee I prefer astral shift for now, it often make them having to swap during their cds. For stone bulwark totem there is a neat trick if you are only interested for the initial shield (like stoneclaw totem used to work) in combination with totemic restoration. Just make a macro likeQuote:
Originally Posted by heyaz
/run DestroyTotem(2);
Drop SBT, hit the macro that will kill your totem, and the cd resets to 30s.
Either way once warriors, bm hunters and mages get toned down a bit things will look a bit better / less hopeless for the stubborn ele shamam who still pvp's.
Well, EM still has its perks. 30% haste is A LOT, and for 20 seconds. EM+Ascendance is pretty nasty, but that's usually what I save it for.
It affects your healing rain, stream, and tide totems as well, and helps you heal faster if you need to. That being said, I never use EM to heal myself :/
Shame I can't have both that and insta cast. But there are so many scenarios where I need an instant cast and all I have is a lvb or shock on a shaman or two and that's not going to be a kill shot.
How's your team doing btw? I'm assuming you're doing 5s
Yeah. 5's is horrible. My guildies are running warrior/warrior/mage/hpal/rdruid and just facerolling everything since the opposing team is either stunned, snared, cloned, feared, repented, sheeped or rung. All while their entire team can swap to someone during a frost bomb and get a kill no matter what defensives are used.
So fucking stupid.
To anyone who wants to solo-box 3's play a mage... all instant casts (top mages aren't using frost bolt unless their silences/ranged interupts are down and only for burst during deep anyway). Sheep shit to DR, instant ring, frost bomb, deep, nova, blink away... repeat while spamming ice lance lmfao.
I recently respecced into SBT, and that passive thingy where your totems CD is reduced up to 50%. Its helps alot to survive the initial burst, players tend to kill my HTT ,and HST. So having those on a low CD is a must, also grounding feels like spammable since that gets "destroyed" real quick.
My kill combo is AS, EB, ES, Lvb spam. It does take a good chunck of the players health, and you can switch real quick to get that kill. Atleast I can cap my shamans in 5s now, no more 2 hour cap session!
Not pvp'ing atm as a boxer, mainly because my main shamans are on different realms since I progress raid with different guilds. But the fact that I have to farm bg's first in order to get pvp gear kills it for me, since I've changed my stance on boxing bgs and thus refuse to run them. Besides playing solo, I'm focussing on challenge modes with my team where I have one clear goal, but the chances I'll pull it off are pretty small. Still having a blast trying. And lastly, despite all my motivation for this season, all the drama at the end of last season and seeing how much cheating was going on + no mmr reset were a huge bummer as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by heyaz
No MMR reset was stupid... every expansion or even season should reset MMR.
Can't forget the BC SoulLink warlock. That was single-handedly the most broken thing I've seen in wow pvp. It wins over the rest, imo, because it had incredible damage and survivability at the same time.Quote:
Originally Posted by heyaz
I rocked as a solo played SL/SL lock in BC pvp. Grab a healer and go win regardless of gear. 5's i was the first one dead usually, as i was the most dangerous and thus the one focused first most of the time.