Elemental Shammys are good? WTF no wai.

Alteffour

OG
So I love a good shammy thread on this site...always good action.





The last patch changed a spell called Fire Nova for shaman. I wasnt sure exactly how much of an impact it would really make. Well...Fancydala came up with a spec to abuse the new version, and I thought id give it a shot.





wowsers





it actually works pretty damn well





19/11/0 Elemental Spec



Fire Nova Glyph is a must as well.







While Ive only toyed around with it a bit, id have to say that its pretty hot. With improoved survival from reduced CD on stoneclaw, and still nabbing instant GW along with 6% reduction in the ele tree, the build is pretty sexy. It works suprisingly well in WSG as a pure DPS class (Ive been able to keep DPS numbers similar to decent/good hunters in wsg) and is a lot better than I expected even in arena.



When I first saw the spec I thought the guys were just using it to farm Random Dungeons (which it is exceptional at as well) but to my suprise it went beyond that.





Try it out...its fun, and a great break from the scourge of endless spellhance shammys.
 
Imma give a bit of input in this thread, after going vs. a guild shammy last night I whole heartedly approve of this spec, I was a bit confused at first, but after he dropped my war in a few seconds I was intrigued. We did some 3v3 as FUCKIN VOLDERMORT CLEAVE VS MOTHERFUXXXEN DUMBLEDORE CLEAVE and the spec continued to impress.



Deffo going this spec soon on my shaman, i do love resto but this looks mega fun without the whole 1-trick-pony feel <3 shamans.
 
I came up with that spec b4 they even made the changes too :p



No testing yet but I've fought a couple of ele/enh hybrids and as long as they don't get focused by more than one guy they can dish out lot's of damage while surviving anything one person can throw at them.



edit: actually my spec was different, I didn't look too closely at first.



Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft



way better imo
 
Im not sure I agree that 2% more crit is worth 2% reduced damage and 20% less damage on a sucessful crit. But Im sure that the differences are not that big of a deal overall.





Im hoping to get more testing in with this going a higher SP gear set at some point...Feedback on damage numbers would be great. In the fairly balanced set Ive got on Fire Nova crits at around 800...be very interesting to see how much more that can be pushed.
 
Meh 2% less damage is not what the build is about, and 20% crit bonus only counts on offensive spells. 2% overall crit is mellee, offense, and heals. Also my first 5 points are in the 5% damage boost not the mana lamer.



In fact now that I think about it lol.... I know this is sad but it's been a while since that night where I mapped a shaman out till 3 in the mornin - ok here was the ACTUAL original build I concieved:



Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft



Elemental Devestation is what brings it all together in fact. Plays almost exactly like the normal spellhance shaman so melee still a big part of things you just have huge spell crits and the amazing fire nova stun.
 
survival is still a good thing, regardless of spec or damage when you are talking about a PvP spec.



5 spec points for 5% damage is a lot of spec points to spend for 5% damage...the mana reduction gets me further and should give more damage over time as you can cast longer. I know im pretty much mashing my shocks on cd every time.



the 20% crit bonus on offensive spells is big because the build is primarily offensive. Yes it can heal and melee a bit as well, but that vast vast majority of damage is coming from shocks and fire nova. 2% crit (or 1 in your other build) just isnt worth it to me.



Elemental Devistation is interesting, I guess ive just been playing it a tad differently, the melee is good, but not my focus, not enough to spend the talent points into it. Again its trading one thing for the other...and pumping stuff into melee when you can push things further toward spells doesnt seem right to me.





There is no "Amazing Fire Nova stun" anymore....lamer...
 
Balls!



It was too good to be true though...



I'm not trying to say that 2% less damage is bad, it's just not that great imo. For instance compare it to the hunter survival talent gives you 2% less as well as 2% crit to arcane, obv random example but I just don't rank that TP too high up.



About the ele devestation. I envision this build being played almost identical to spellhance, so you're using several weapons with earthliving, windfury and you're basically the most agressive player on the team, scouting ahead agroing, dumping a bunch of instant casts, maybe a windfury, GW out and all that.



Depends on playstyle, I would say the shaman who uses lightning bolt at all would skip ele devestation, while the shaman who's only cast is pretty much LHW would go with it and is the more aggressive player.



Oh and the crit bonus vs crit. Pretty minor obv with just one talent point but still 20% bonus is actually not that much, say you have a 450 shock crit, 20% more crit bonus would make it 480. This is equal to just over a 6% damage increase ON crits, or with an estimated 15% crit, a 1% increase in damage for offensive spells only. Compare that with 1% more crit to all and you see why I choose it.
 
I have a shammy that I based off of Groddie's original Spellhance build, and I have to say, I was tearing shit up in BGs pre-twink segregation (haven't played for a while, unfortunately.



I think Fancydala is just Groddie with a sex change (I always suspected he swung the other way); if it is, I'd pay attention and emulate anything he does, or says is successful with the shammy class.



Groddie's been around a while, and he's one of the many players that hyper-focuses on one class and plays until he perfects specs and can speak on situational tactics and strategies with a great degree of accuracy and expertise.



Soul, if you copied that spec from Grod (and Fancy is indeed Grod), I'd be tempted to finally transfer my shammy over and try the spec out.
 
Fancydala = Grodala yes, he faction changed and xfered to Pro
 
Alteffour said:
Fancydala = Grodala yes, he faction changed and xfered to Pro
Click to expand...



I love that guy, man.



Absolutely love him.



So yeah; i may be xferring and faction changing my shammy [char=Vek'nilash]Weedblayde[/char]
 
I am probably going to catch some heat for this, but i still think pure ele can be utterly devestating when running with a premade(used properly, of course). A full ele shaman in full nature damage gear freecasting in the back of a group of his teamates can turn the tide of the battle so easily. You go oom pretty fast but the idea is to take down individual players quickly even when being healed, solely using lightning bolt. Survivability is terrible, but utilized in a coordinated group, the burst damage from an ele sham is on par with the best in the bracket. You are extremely reliant on your teammates, and you need others taking the aggro so you can freely cast on the enemies. It honestly never gets old seeing those average 1k lb crits.
 
Hmm well whatever the case, I don't think anyone is going to be specing ele and stacking nature damage now.



Wouldn't you say there's many other class/specs that are more effective at dpsing?
 
Outofspace said:
Hmm well whatever the case, I don't think anyone is going to be specing ele and stacking nature damage now.



Wouldn't you say there's many other class/specs that are more effective at dpsing?
Click to expand...



I have a perfect ele set, it's fun, plain and simple.



Not really, to answer your question. Speaking of purely dpsing, LB spam is difficult to beat on a 2sec cast. All I am really saying is that pure ele's damage is hard to match, its survivability and utility are pretty bad. I can only stand ele so much when pugging, as it seems i die in a global cooldown somtimes. Any spec with instant GW is going to have better survival than one without. When I am ele it is very rewarding blending into the background of your teammates and just annihilating the opposing faction with extreme efficiency.
 
You point out most of the reasons why I think pure ele is bad for premades (and in general imo)



Bad survival



Bad utility (well, at least worse than spellhance or 19/11 ele or resto)



Some mana issues over time



Id add also that it has LOS issues on both D and O when in bases, and it is not a very mobile spec so against kiting defenses or in a kiting D it suffers greatly.



Blending in only gets you so far...once the other team sees a nice squishy ele shaman sitting back its pretty easy to take it out and solve the problem.





Granted...ele can burst extreemly well...at range you can time LB chain lightning and a shock to all hit almost exactly at the same time and it can really cause some problems like you said if you can avoid being targeted. But comparing the DPS that full ele can put out to other high dps classes and I simply dont see the benefits of running an ele shaman. Sure it can dps, but what can it do that is more beneficial to your team than other classes/specs?
 
I usually end up healing on my shaman because either people die too quickly to get 2 second casts off or theyre running around their base and LoSing everything.



sometimes i resort to sapper abuse ;D



edit: ele/mage is decent in arena against everything but locks hunters and rogues. You can burst people pretty hard, but hunters put out more damage than you can heal through, rogues do that + lock you out of casting for 5 hours, and its impossible to kill warlocks
 
There was a 39 ele shaman in the EU cyclone bracket who could put out 900 crits, it was totally fucked up. That was at 2k hp, going up to 3k hp and putting out 600 crits on a 1.5 sec cast (?) would still be a LOT of pressure, and pretty good survivability. Think it's viable.
 
Just too gimicky. Blending in and cranking out rapid fire 2s casts is not a unique ability. Any caster DPS can rail the hell outa someone if they are given the opportunity to cast all day. No matter what spec the shaman is, if he doesn't want to be considered a tool he should have a lot of mana and enough HP to avoid being considered squishy
 
Just some quick input on the new fire nova spec.



Fire nova scales terribly with spellpower (on single targets) because it is an aoe ability. So stacking int/stam is going to be more beneficial in most cases, especially arena.



This spec has amazing burst potential but it is VERY mana intensive, if you're fighting any healing classes you'll probably need to watch your mana usage. That's also why I went with convection and I stack at least 3500 mana MINIMUM.



In regards to the talent choices: Most of your damage is going to be coming from shocks and fire nova, the melee damage is not as substantial as a spellhance build (you're lacking a lot of attack power from mental dexterity and windfury damage from elemental weapons). 2% crit is (my math may be incorrect here) a 2% bonus in total damage done, whereas 40% crit bonus to spells with 10%crit (that's where I'm at) is a 4% total bonus in damage, but also it means bigger burst capability which we all know is something to aim for in pvp. Perhaps we could sacrifice 2% damage reduction and get 5/5 elemental devastation and 4/5 thundering strikes, but I've always been a big fan of survivability.



I'm still trying to figure out when to use flametongue and when to use windfury, or whether I should just be using windfury. I haven't been on Fancy much lately so I haven't gotten a lot of testing opportunities.



Hopefully you guys can give some more input and post your experiences with the build.



btw, Hi blayde :)
 
Grodala said:
Just some quick input on the new fire nova spec.



Fire nova scales terribly with spellpower (on single targets) because it is an aoe ability. So stacking int/stam is going to be more beneficial in most cases, especially arena.



This spec has amazing burst potential but it is VERY mana intensive, if you're fighting any healing classes you'll probably need to watch your mana usage. That's also why I went with convection and I stack at least 3500 mana MINIMUM.



In regards to the talent choices: Most of your damage is going to be coming from shocks and fire nova, the melee damage is not as substantial as a spellhance build (you're lacking a lot of attack power from mental dexterity and windfury damage from elemental weapons). 2% crit is (my math may be incorrect here) a 2% bonus in total damage done, whereas 40% crit bonus to spells with 10%crit (that's where I'm at) is a 4% total bonus in damage, but also it means bigger burst capability which we all know is something to aim for in pvp. Perhaps we could sacrifice 2% damage reduction and get 5/5 elemental devastation and 4/5 thundering strikes, but I've always been a big fan of survivability.



I'm still trying to figure out when to use flametongue and when to use windfury, or whether I should just be using windfury. I haven't been on Fancy much lately so I haven't gotten a lot of testing opportunities.



Hopefully you guys can give some more input and post your experiences with the build.



btw, Hi blayde :)
Click to expand...



Hey I was with ya until you busted out the math with the crit and crit bonus. I gotta check that real quick.



About the enhancement to use on weapon. I think that Windfury pretty much wins in every scenario until the enemy lands a focus target and needs to get spammed heals, and then I go with the BoA healing mace +30 sp and Earthlivin. Even one touch with your mace and a possible windfury bonus 200-500 damage is so key for any sort of hybrid fighting imo.
 
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