11.1 Primordial Wave changes ruin Elemental Shaman's rotation

Classes Shaman
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Current Farseer Elemental Shaman is by far my most favorite spec in the game, and the most fun I’ve ever had in WoW. The rotation plays extremely well as everything weaves in nicely and the animations & sound effects are top tier.

On the PTR we have received numerous changes that, just like the tank & healing changes going into the expansion, achieve the complete opposite of what you set out to accomplish.

The changes to Primordial Wave were done in an effort to make the rotation less complex, but all it really does is force us to now monitor and re-apply Flame Shock every ~16-18 seconds. This completely breaks the flow of the rotation and also ends up as a DPS loss. Settings up AddOns to track and manage debuffs adds more complexity to an already bloated spec.

The changes to Ascendance are mind-boggling. 100% to 50% effectiveness Lava Burst and Elemental Overload damage changed from +150% to +25% is one of the largest nerfs I have ever seen.

The update to Lightning Bolt turning it from instant damage to a projectile causes ancestors to cast less spells over their duration. This is yet another nerf that has gone by unnoticed.

With all of these changes, I am dealing less damage in fully upgraded Mythic Undermine gear than I am on live with 635 ilvl. This isn’t the worst part - numbers can be tuned quickly. The problem is that you have turned a spec that was near perfect rotationally to a spec that feels extremely clunky and disorganized, while also adding extra complexity to it.

If you were truly attempting to make Elemental Shaman less complex, you should have made Primordial Wave apply Flame Shock for 30 seconds and some minor numbers tuning to bring the spec to a decent level. Everything else should be reverted to the way it was in patch 11.0.7.

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Shaman rotation is a MESS.

Almost every patch, they change the playstyle, the stats, or something else. I am seriously fed up with trying to keep up with these changes. You start getting used to one playstyle, and then Blizz says, ‘Hey, here’s a new one.’

On top of that, the PW change was completely unnecessary. I have no idea what they’re trying to do.

And this is just with Ele/Enh—I won’t even touch Resto. You are not a Resto you are Mozart.

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I can try to understand that the new PW has been modified in this way to be able to better manage the damage of PW and LvB but I don’t understand why PW no longer applies Flame Shock to the target.

The management of Flame Shocks at the moment is the most annoying thing about Elemental because to do it correctly you need WA and it’s a bit uncomfortable.

The simplest solution at the moment would be to modify EotE in this way: Lava Burst and Flame Shock has an additional charge.

It would also be nice to reintroduce Path of Flame: Lava Burst deals 10% more damage and causes Flame Shock to spread from the target to a 6 yards nearby enemy.

Path of Flame could replace Erupting Lava which is a clunky and unused talent.

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I dont understand why a melee aoe (enha) locked behind a ranged spell.

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Just remove PW from the game please, of all the SL skills, you had to choose this one? :stuck_out_tongue: Chain Harvest in 11.1.5 pls :stuck_out_tongue:

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