#0 - Oct. 23, 2007, 5:41 a.m.
Elemental shaman is basically getting a huge nerf due to a few things:
1. Lightning Bolts casting time reduced by 0.5 sec, which means generally spell coefficient nerf by 14%. Roughly translated, if you had +1000 damage, you will get +714 instead of +857 (ie a +143 damage nerf). Every elemental shaman knows how hard it is to get gear for +dmg, and it really hurts so bad to see all the hard work go to waste.
2. Lightning overload used to be half base damage in the 1st PTR build. Now it is half damage total. This means your LO bolts hit for alot less. Not sure if this is intended, but it definitely hurts our total damage output.
There are buffs that we got:
1. LO is now 20% chance from 5%, and LO bolts have no threat. This helps in raids where you cannot push your DPS due to threat issues. However, in most high-end raids, this is not an issue.
2. Mana spring and water shield improvements mean we last longer in raids. However, bear in mind this makes no difference to most elemental shammies who raid. If you are a elemental shaman who is doing well in raids, you probably have some ways to counter the mana issue (ie shadow priest, potions etc).
3. Clearcasting now reduce 40% mana cost of next 2 spells... which many people consider as a buff in mana for raids.
Now, this said and done.... the nice buffs so far do not add up to the nerf we got. PTR tests and math in many several posts have proven that. In the end, we have gotten something like 14%-16% nerf. This is weird considering our spell coefficient was 'only' nerfed 14%, and with other buffs, we should be getting less than 14% nerf. So there may be something strange (bug or some undocumented nerf) that is causing this. To those who say "well, it's fine, PTR is unstable", i would reply it is not fine. The intent of these changes are made by Blizzard, and if we do not check these, it will go to Live.
End of the day, elemental tree is a nice tree but we don't have many things to bring to a raid. With the DPS and damage throughput nerf, we bring even less to a raid. Likewise, PVP is hurt by this huge nerf in burst.
I propose we protest about this change (spell coefficient nerf) or either that Blizzard must improve the talents to make up for this nerf to make elemental a viable tree again.
- improve the 41 pt talent
- give elemental tree some talent to add a debuff to target (curse of nature?)
- or simply talent to improve lightning/CL damage by 5/10/15%
If you support this, please sign.
