Further Elemental Feedback

With the announcement today of the Legion launch date of August 30th it means we’ll probably stop focusing on mechanic stuff soon and go into numbers tuning. Here are some things I think need to be addressed before then.

Detailed Elemental Feedback

• Point One: Adding talent spells to the base rotation
• Point Two: Fire & Lightning
• Point Three: Criticals and Overloads
• Point Four: Pets as Cooldowns
• Point Five: Talent Grouping
• Talents
  • Level 15
  • Level 30
  • Level 45
  • Level 60
  • Level 75
  • Level 90
  • Level 100
• Artifact: The Fist of Ra-Den
  • Stormkeeper
  • Damage Bonus Traits
  • Effect Traits
  • Gold Traits

Elemental Feedback – Legion Alpha

A collection of notes on the Legion Alpha so far, for Elemental Shaman obviously.

Legion-ary Maths!

I’m working on a few things at the moment.

Elemental

• LavaCalcs is a basic rotation/stat weight calculator. I’m not going to go as far as evaluating every talent or set bonus, but you’ll be able to see the effects each has on your output.
• Elemental Legion Math is my experimental sheet, mostly showing graphs for various things like Lava Burst frequency with various Lava Surge chances, Maelstrom generation vs Lightning Shield generaiton in Warlords, and Overload proc behaviour in small windows.
• Guide work will start as we get further into beta, but this won’t be released until Legion actually goes live

Balance

What’s this, you say? Moonkin stuff? But aren’t you an Elemental Shaman Binks? Yes, but my “primary” alt has always been a Moonkin, and I’m going to keep my options open for mains this time around.

• LunarCalcs is a work in progress, based off the Lava Calcs layout.
• Guide? Maybe.

 

Legion Beta Spell Data

Initial stuff, horribly messy.

• Bloodlust debuff lasts until cancelled, probably end of the fight.
• Hex has a 30 second cooldown, but still has a 30 yard range
• Lightning Shield is gone
• Searing Totem is gone
• Tremor/Grounding/Capacitor gone too
• Totemic Fury (talent?): Summons 3 totems, all attack your target. Earth increases Earth Shock damage by 50%, Fire increase Lava Burst crit chance by 100%, Lightning reduces cast time of Lightning Bolt by 50%
• LB/LvB generate 15 maelstrom, Chain lightning generates 6. It says “damage from” so assume per hit.
• Lightning Surge Totem: replacement Capacitor
• Gust of Wind – hurls you forward. Assume Enh only
• Fleet of Foot – for 6 seconds after level Ghost Wolf you move 20% faster (Elemental)
• Wind Rush – increases movement speed by 60% for 5 seconds
• Liquid Magma is now  Totem with a 1 min CD.
• Elemental Fusion – increases lava surge chance by 10%
• Storm Elemental looks the same
• Frost Shock uses maelstrom, slows target by 50% for 5-10 seconds based on maelstrom spent
• Voodoo Totem (Talent) – hexes all enemies within X yards for Y. Enemies can only be hexed once. Replaces Hex.
• Songs of Flame (75 Talent) Greater Fire Elemental is joined by 2 Sonds of Flame who attack your target
• Lightning Rod – 1 min CD (Elemental). Nature spells deal 20% more damage to the target and also deal 500 damage to enemies within 20 yards
• Magnitude (75 Talent) any time a target is standing in Earthquake with Flame Shock gouts of Magma will erupt at their feet dealing extra damage
• Fire Elemental is a 5 min CD, lasts “until cancelled” and causes Maelstrom generation to be increased by 100% for 15 seconds after casting.
• Earth Elemental is a 2 min CD, reduces damage taken by 30% for 15 sec (auto cast or active?)
• Path of Flame (15 Talent) increases Flame Shock & Lava Burst damage by 10%
• Path of Elements (15 talent) cooldown on summoned Elementals is reduced by 60 seconds.
• Echo of the Elements grants 3(!!!) charges for Lava Burst
• Ascendance lasts for 1 minute? (Bad data?)
• Earthquake is now “Earthquake Totem” and is instant
• Molten Earth also shows up in here so data may be weird.
• Spiritwalkers Grace is Resto only

 

A Maelstrom of a Problem

As you may have seen, there’s a blog post on upcoming Legion changes for Shaman. The big problem I see with this is that Maelstrom generation will be too high, and rotation priorities will end up causing conflicts between strong spells.

Warlords of Draenor – Elemental Summary July 1st

I’ll try to do monthly updates of things in the Beta for Elemental. If I’ve missed anything leave a comment and I’ll add it in.

Mana
Yes, there is currently a problem with Elemental mana use after the removal of Rolling Thunder (60% proc chance, returns 2% mana) and Elemental Focus (25% cost reduction via the Clearcasting buff), which should be fixed soon.

Echo of the Elements vs Lava Surge
There have been a number of posts on the interaction of these two buffs. Currently Echo is being consumed first, making the current Lava Burst not trigger the cooldown, then Surge is consumed on the next cast, effectively making it look like two spell casts at once. Echo will need further updates anyway, as a few of the spells it works with have been removed (eg: Earthquake).

Area of Effect Damage
With the removal of Earthquake the question is how Chain Lightning will fill all our AoE needs, or will we stay with the cleave DPS niche. The Chain Lightning Perk (20% bonus to EQ per CL hit) also needs to be re-worked after this spell removal.

Totemic Recall… recalled
Totemic Recall was removed with the comment that totems would no longer proximity agro mobs. Celestalon as since commented in a tweet that it will be reinstated.

PS: To anyone asking why I put a post with a July 1st date out on June 30th, I’m in New Zealand which is GMT+12, so it actually is the 1st of July here.

Lava Surge, Part Two

In the middle of the comments on a post of Lava Burst by Charles (aka Zamir) over at Planet of the Hats, there’s a little gem by Santux. It reads as follows:

What do you think about a Lock and Load type treatment with Lava Surge? *Flame shock ticks have a 30% chance to make your next Lava Burst not trigger its cooldown* Would definately solve the problem of the 8 second window having meaningless Surge procs.

Binks does Beta

Thanks to some kind individual in the WoW.com team who has the “leet hookups”, I now have access to the Cataclysm beta. Thusly, I shall be writing down bits & bobs about what I see in the beta. Some of this will be the 80+ stuff on my draenai shaman, but I’m also going to give the Goblin starting experience a go.