Ele shaman PvP (flame shock)

I’d like to see a PvP talent that helps protect around half (or more) of ele dps. Generally flame shock can be guaranteed for 1 lava burst - on focus target with pre-cast LB into Flame shock. Once dispelled we either use PW or have to wait for Shock again.

Perhaps a talent “smouldering” or similar that leaves a debuff on the target of dispel. When struck with lava burst the target ignites in flames again and spreads flame shock to one nearby target. X sec internal CD.

Can’t think of many classes that require a single easily dispensable DoT to achieve most of their damage.

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Take example of affli, when flame shock is dispelled the flames erupts silencing dispelled for x sec

Well yeah but homogeneous class design is dull. Offering protection via a similar system would be great though.

Considering flame shock is so integral.

Not only that. Re-applying FS would, most of the time, not even be that huge of an issue but the burst of an elemental shaman also relies on the combination of primordial wave and echoing shock.

I’ve often come across the following situation:
Get out Fire ele, cast Stromkeeper, cast Skyfury Totem, cast Primodial Wave, cast Echoing Shock and FINALLY cast LAVAB… oh… he dispelled my FS… if I re-apply my FS, my Echoing Shock gets wasted on Flame Shock. Welp, alright then…

But seriously, FS having a 6 second CD is stupid given how important it is to do any damage at all as elemental shaman. Playing with an affliction lock solves the issue but that’s just a bandaid…

Idk why but Blizzard has left elemental shamans with clunkiness all over the place.

  • Dispellable Flame Shock
  • 6 sec CD on Flame Shock
  • GCD on pretty much everything leading to really long set ups
  • Astral Shift not usable while being stunned
  • Earth Quake in M+ (topkek)
  • Huge ramp up for certain Legendaries like EotGS (cast ES before casting EQ… requiring 120 MS)

Meanwhile a Ret can kill me with 2 hits during his burst during blinding light, which should, according to its tooltip, break on damage but it does not during his burst, for whatever reason.

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This. Exactly - the PW buff should double cast your next direct damage spell. Or totally ignore flame shock. Mechanically I see no reason why that couldn’t be fixed.

Considering it’s so integral to our burst window.

Either than or make it so when fire elemental is up flame shock cannot be dispelled. Or a conduit to protect it. Elemental conduits are so bad. It’s a small layer of protection that’s needed for core gameplay of elemental in PvP.

Yeah blinding light not breaking on holy damage is a definite troll by the devs. Considering they can hit with pure holy damage.

Echoing Shock should actually just ignore anything that doesn’t benefit from it. Casting Flame Shock twice within 1 second has absolutely no value except in rare cases it instantly gets dispelled but you’d have to predict that. Yeah, maybe it’d also stack up the FS dots duration but whatever… everybody would rather have a second LB than a longer FS.

I have an even better idea for echoing shock - make its use manual.
What do I mean by that? Instead of making it a “selfbuff” that mimics your las spell, just let me press the ability and make it mimic my last spell.

Small but also huge difference here. With this change Echoing shock would basically (visually) be replaced with the latest ability you used on your bar.
You’d have full control over it.

In the example I was describing above, you could just cast lavaburst and THEN press Echoing which then casts another lavaburst (off GDC of course) instead of the other way around, so your Echoing wouldn’t get wasted on FS.

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Yeah. So it would replicate our last used spell. So repeating Rondas last ramp up.

FS dispelled. Cast flame shock. Cast lava, echo (instant casts lava).

Simple yet effective fix that I like.

Yeah, right? It’d be a really simple fix.

I mean ele is really strong at the moment. We have 1 shot potential every minute. But there are these really annoying things which feel so incredibly clunky I can’t help but to think that Blizzard just didn’t think about elemental shaman much.

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Yeah I genuinely think the echo problem has been overlooked. And echo being cast AFTER using a spell makes more sense. Being an echo and all.

Great idea. I’ll make a new post address purely at bliz to make this change! :joy:

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Looking forward to it! :smiley:

On thinking about it this. How does it help at all actually. You cast flame shock. Dispelled - you still have the same basic issue. Lack of flame shock.

Being able to protect flame shock is the core issue. this change would only protect echo from being wasted. Nothing else. Still good.

Dispelling flameshock is the counter play to our burst which is absolutely fine.
Shadowpriests, warlocks and mages offensive cd(s) for their burst is dispellable.

Primordial wave helps in this regard with another source for flameshock.
Problem is it makes every other covenant unviable, blizzard might acknowledge this in 9.0.5 patch where they try hot up convenants for other classes.
We might actually see something but i seriously doubt it.

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Absolutely true, it wouldn’t protect Flame Shock but this change would at least not waste your whole burst because of a 8 second CD (dispel).

Flame Shock being dispellable is an issue. But I don’t think FS will ever NOT be dispellable. FS will at most get a dispel protection like UA has or will it CD have reduced/removed.

This wouldn’t affect the problem of your burst window being destroyed by a mere dispel though. Echoing Shock would, even if FS had a dispel protection, get wasted because you’d have to re-apply FS.

Except for the unlikely scenario where the dispel protection of FS would be something like the next LB still critting on its own and re-applying FS.

Primordial Wave is an integral part of the burst though, not an alternative you can use to FS.

The ideal Burst you can have (assuming you’re going for Primal Elementalist instead of Power Surge) is:

Fire Ele -> Stormkeeper -> Skyfury Totem -> Primordial Wave -> Echoing Shock -> Lavaburst combined with Meteor from Fire Ele -> Lightning Bolt -> (Lavaburst if kill is not secured without it) ->Lightning Bolt.

This already uses Primordial Wave. Since we need 2-3 GCDs before using Primordial, the enemy team has more than enough time to mentally prepare for the potential burst window and to look out for Primordial Wave. If the FS applied by Primordial Wave gets dispelled after you used your Echoing Shock, which isn’t unlikely since you’re trying to get the burst off asap, then your burst window is pretty much negated. Which is far too easy imo.

Ele shaman burst has the potential to be stupidly high, don’t get me wrong. The burst is incredibly good especially when considering it’s on a 1 min CD. But I think it’s too easily recognizable and reactable (because you need 5 GCDs with a 1.x second cast weaved in between) and thus you can shut it down too easily (just dispelling once or dropping a grounding totem). Granted, Fire mage burst, for example, is also easily recognizable, but Combustion lasts for 10 seconds, where you, as an ele shaman, have exactly one opportunity to get it right. If one of those stars (which granted, you do have control over) does not align, then it’s game over for the next minute basically.

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PW is not a flame shock alternative. It’s used solely to double lava burst.

And SP can simply reapply so and lock has UA.

But echoing shock being totally wasted AFTER shock has been dispelled once echo is active.

Exactly, thus my suggestion to also fix echoing shock.

Having to chain 5 globals with a hard cast in between to set up the proper burst window just takes too long for it to be so easily shut down by just dispelling once.

Ele shamans setting up their burst window are so super obvious like a christmas tree in the dark in the middle of the street. If you don’t manage to see it, then it’s really your own fault for being one shot.

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Imagine we pressed echoing shock and it allowed instant cast 100% crit LB for 10sec. CD reduced by Lava burst.

Sounds ridiculous? That’s what combust is.

Now look at the insane prep needed for shaman burst window. Which as has been stated can be interrupted/dispelled.

Very clunky. New idea - make stormkeeper and echoing shock one spell. With both effects.

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I agree, it is very clunky. I do have to admit though, that ele shaman has relevant damage outside of cool downs though, which fire mage does not.

But yeah, we could also just decrease the amounts of GCDs we have.
For example:
Remove FS/PW from the GCD
Remove Totems from GCD
Remove Echoing Shock from GCD

All those combined would probably be too strong because Burst would happen within 1 global but 1 or 2 combined would maybe work well.

This is true. Fire mages outside of combust are CC bots (but very good at it) or as I’ve seen, Power infused greater pyro bots on a good mage.

That being said. Totems and perhaps covenant abilities could do with coming off the GCD. Even as a healer I find it really annoying dropping a totem for refreshing buff on the next 3 heals and having to wait a second. Specially during high pressure.

Yup, the game at is point is so fast paced that pressing a global really feels awkward sometimes.

Like Grounding Totem - idk why this ability is on GCD, it should not.