Storm and Fire Elemental
Our elementals have a 2.5min cooldown while Ascendance has a 3min or 2min cooldown
- To sync with a 3min ascendance we would have to hold our elemental
- To sync with a 2min ascendance we must talent both First Ascendant and Surge of Power and consume the buff with Lava Burst, restricting our talent choices. With the current design we want to avoid pressing Lava Burst in AoE, which only makes this worse
Having Primal Elementalist turn our elementals into full pets interferes with our ability to use Earth Elemental defensively. It is a very nice talent for solo content though.
We’re usually stuck playing one elemental for extended periods of time
- We only really swap between them when tuning changes occur
- Fire elemental has lost some of its niche with Storm Elemental now providing haste
- The visuals of the basic fire elemental are beautiful but storm elemental and both primal elementals look dated
Possible solutions
- Give elementals a base cooldown of 2mins so that they naturally sync with 2min Ascendance
- Add a choice node to Primal Elementalist that reduces the cooldown to 1min, without making them pets under our control. Extra points if the new talent also gives us two charges of summon elemental and alternates between summoning a fire or storm elemental
- Change the Lava Burst interaction with Surge of Power to do something else
Lightning Rod
I absolutely love this talent, it’s a very enjoyable way of adding damage to a priority target in AoE situations however I strongly dislike that the optimal way to play is tab targeting to spread the debuff to multiple targets, which is made worse still by the new Charged Conduit talent.
Possible solutions
- Change the debuff to be stacking and overlapping (like Ironfur)
Lava Burst and Lava Surge in AoE
We currently want to avoid pressing Lava Burst in AoE situations unless we’ve just cast Primordial Wave. Lava Burst needs more of a reason to be pressed in AoE, at the very least we should want to use our Lava Surge procs.
- Ignoring Lava Surge procs feels bad and is unintuitive for newer players
- Severely devalues many of our talents in AoE, potentially creating a strong divide between single target and AoE builds (ie the problem affliction warlock had in DF) or those talents are undertuned and never taken, leading to a single build being used in all scenarios.
Possible solutions
- Change the Surge of Power interaction to cause Lava Burst to spread Flame Shock to (at least) two other targets
- Change Lava Surge to cause our next Lava Burst to cleave onto targets affected by Flame Shock
- Change Erupting Lava to spread Flame Shock
Flame Shock
Flame Shock feels very out of place now that the proc rate of Lava Surge no longer scales with the number of targets and trying to maintain it in AoE is unrewarding, at best
- Liquid Magma Totem only applies to three targets and can target the same target multiple times, resulting in less than three Flame Shocks. Using Totemic Recall for DPS is also very unenjoyable
- Liquid Magma Totem’s cooldown is longer than the duration of Flame Shock
- Being unable to maintain Flame Shock on multiple targets devalues Flames of the Cauldron and Magma Chamber in AoE, despite seeming like talents that should be good to use in AoE situations
Possible solutions
- Remove Liquid Magma Totem and make Primordial Wave apply Flame Shock to six targets (would also help with button bloat and Totemic Recall)
- Rework Erupting Lava so that it doesn’t consume Flame Shock, it could spread Flame Shock instead
- Change Surge of Power so that Flame Shock and Lava Burst both have the effect of applying Flame Shock to multiple targets
Icefury
Being able to proc from Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning is nice, but thematically it felt better when it was only enabled by Lava Burst. The animation is dated and now that it’s instant cast the replacing of Frost Shock only to then change the effect of our next Frost Shock is cumbersome and potentially confusing to newer players. Icefury also feels disconnected from the rest of our kit.
Possible solutions
- Make Icefury only activate when consuming Lava Surge, but give it a 100% chance to activate
- Instead of changing Frost Shock to Icefury, then altering Frost Shock simply make the proc buff our next two Frost Shocks
Stormkeeper and Ascendance pathing
In isolation I like the new position of Storekeeper, however having Improved Flametongue Weapon and Power of the Maelstrom stuck behind it and having to take either Stormkeeper or Storm Frenzy and Lightning Conduit to get to Ascendance strongly encourages us to focus on talents that buff our lightning spells. This really closes the door on an alternative build that focuses on Flame Shock multi-dotting and weaving Lava Burst, Icefury and Lava Burst.
Possible solutions
- Rework the pathing
Deeply Rooted Elements
Having this proc from spenders, rather than Lava Burst, is a nice change however the rng makes it a pretty unsatisfying talent, even if the proc rate were buffed.
Possible solutions
- Make Deeply Rooted Elements proc after ever N finishers
Primordial Wave
The elemental damage theme for Primordial Wave is nice, but also feels odd since it otherwise has entirely fire based effects. Granting Lava Surge is nice though, although I’d prefer to see that cleave effect baked into Lava Surge and Primordial Wave instead apply both Flame Shock and the Frost Shock debuff to multiple targets. If it were changed in this way it could have the cooldown reduced (or removed) and replace Flame Shock to help with button bloat.