Post patch test run of my elemental 5 box. What happened??

[Arryth]

I'm going to report that the shaman is doing 5k DPS more than everyone else at level 80 and that Blizzard said they are going to buff shaman until they're so good that everyone will roll one. Oh, sorry, I have no links. You'll just have to trust me.

Was that strictly necessary? I get the feeling that you are implying that I'm fudging my data. If thats the case, Ill run my experiments again later this week and post the actual numbers and methodology. This is not the general wow forums here friend, we do not as a rule post results in error, or deliberately fabricate. On this forum, a non official wow forum, such would be pointless in any event.
If that was not the point of your post, I apologise for misunderstanding ahead of time.

[Arryth]

Per http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...75297&sid=2000

Lava Burst and Lightning Bolt -- And now for a few words on Elemental damage. One of the things we were trying to do to make Elemental dps more interesting was to have a Lava Burst + Flameshock variant. We also themed some new deep talents to support this play style. The problem is that lightning still seems to do more damage than fire, which in turn makes the new talents feel lame because they benefit fire and not lightning.

Now we think that Lava Burst is doing appropriate damage for its cost and if anything Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning are a little too good. (Remember they benefit from Curse of the Elements and similar spells now.) However, nerfing lightning would make it harder to level as well as making 3.0.2 kind of brutal for Elemental shamans, since Lava Burst is level 75. Hurting lightning would feel like a flat out nerf, and even though you'd partially make up for it at higher level, overall we think this would feel, um, yucky. So no big changes to lightning spells.

We talked a lot about just buffing Lava Burst and a deep fire-based talent or two. This will make Lava Burst too good on paper, but it might work out okay in the game itself. We'll just have to see. We aren't 100% sold on this course of action, so I'll update when we decide for sure.

This ^ is what worries me.. they consider other classes buffs in our dps calculations. This is just plain stupid on the part of developers. How many of you cruise with a spare warlock in your back pocket? How can they justify our loss of dps for an individual shaman, based on the theory that we might have a warlock with us. The more I read on this the more I feel that elemental as a spec is going to get screwed badly in the expansion.

[Arryth]

oh and something I didnt address from TheBigBB, I don't have a problem with people questioning my sources. Not at all, in fact I love that every EJ thread has tons of supporting work and I actually follow the links to make sure people are doing their homework. What I do have a problem with is people taking shots. Seriously did you think making up that post and following up with was gonna make us friends? Seriously? Maybe you should ponder how you are coming across next time.

You took a shot at the Blue posters, which was uncalled for. You don't need to do that to make your point. Just because most of what you are saying is backed by strong support from EJ doesn't mean it's okay to make up that Blizzard is belligerent and unhelpful on this issue. I was very serious about my response, and talking down to me and babying me and threatening to personally insult me isn't going to change my mind or resolve it. I don't care if you're mad that I called you out. I wonder how you would like if I paraphrased your words in another thread to make a serious point about you. Think about it.

Blizzard had a strong track record for allowing inequities between classes run for a unduly long period of time. They also have the track record of not excepting the over or under power of a class, until said class takes drastic protest actions. IE the prayer of mending change, to push it onto a 30 second cool down, and the resulting priest revolt, of which I participated in (I got a 3 day ban, and am proud of it). We crashed multiple servers over a course of a few days in that protest, and it got results, the 30 second cool down was reversed, and lowered to something much more reasonable.
To say that Blizzard has at times been belligerent to some classes in the past is a perfectly fair statement. They have been quite nasty. So the ocasional angry shot at them is fair and justified, especially in light of what Shaman as a class are experiencing at this moment. We really did get hit hard. It looks, though, that we will have no option but to bend over and take it until at least late November when enough real game data from the wild can be accumulated to prove/disprove our point.