#1 - Oct. 20, 2016, 5:04 p.m.
Edit: OP of last thread, for ease of reading for a blue, courtesy of Falcinz
Blizzard,
It's no surprise that we are outraged that there are no tuning changes for Elemental coming in 7.1 from what we can see. We have given hundreds of pages of feedback in Alpha, Beta and in the Shaman forums and we have invested 100+ hours into our Artifact weapon. You said that you don't want anyone to feel like they've chosen the wrong spec. Here's your chance to put that statement to the test. We want some communication from your side. We want to know why we haven't received tuning in 7.1 and your logic behind not adjusting our numbers. Let's have a conversation.
1. There is so much information available to you, what are you seeing that makes you jump to the conclusion that Elemental is completely fine in its current state?
2. What is going on internally where the data is showing that our damage is where it needs to be?
3. Are you using the Stormkeeper change to justify no further buffs or tuning to our damage in 7.1? If so, why? We believe it is a net-zero damage increase.
From the outside, we are decent in Mythic+ dungeons but we are having issues in raids. We bring good AOE and the EQ knockdown is very useful. However, other classes bring the same, if not better, damage in Mythic+ with better survivability. These same classes are also outperforming Elemental in raids. Being viable in Mythic+ should not be a valid reason why Elemental is not receiving buffs in 7.1.
From the outside, the better Elementals are parsing in the 99th percentile for Elemental Shamans but are ending up 8-10th in damage done. To most of us playing your game, this seems a bit unreasonable. If we are parsing in the 99th percentile but that low on damage done, it is indicative of a weakness within the spec. A 50-60 percentile Fire Mage parse should never best a 99 percentile parse of any spec, let alone Elemental. But this is not the case, as we see many sub 80 percentile parses that are beating a 99 percentile parse for Elemental Shaman on most fights in EN.
For example: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/HfdFDXLv7kZTGJrV#fight=9&type=damage-done
4. Are public logging sites such as warcraftlogs something that you incorporate into your balancing processes? Do you take into account the aggregate data that warcraft logs collects? You can clearly see that Elemental is one of your underperforming specs when looking at aggregates across all difficulties. Here are some references that might be generalizing as they are total aggregates but they do outline the problem areas of your spec balance:
Mythic: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10#dataset=70
Heroic: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10#dataset=70&difficulty=4
You have given a lot of underperforming specs a bump such as Frost Mage and Frost DK. Elemental is competing with those specs for being underwhelming in terms of damage based on log aggregates taken over the past month. If you believe that Elemental is fine where it is, this means that the specs that were buffed will now outshine Elemental.
Communicate with us. Tell us why you chose to outline many changes for many specs and neglected to change anything meaningful except for Stormkeeper. Tell me why I feel like I chose the wrong spec and my 10 days, 12 hours, 35 minutes and 41 seconds should have been spent playing something else. It is absolutely disheartening to see the spec that I play get zero attention.
I'm not going to go into the good feedback we have given but I will post the two most relevant threads that the Elemental community feels outlines our issues and potential solutions. We don't expect you to implement these but we took the time to write feedback because we care about the spec. Read it, come up with ways tune Elemental and bring us to where we can let our own skill determine our place in the damage hierarchy of our respective raids rather than what spec we chose to play.
http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20748956716
http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20749206703
