---

Q u o t e:
I can't speak towards the PTR specifically. It takes awhile to create a build, so they are often a few days (or longer) behind our changes. I can say that in our internal testing all of the changes together gave Elemental something like a 10 to 12% dps increase for Naxx 25 geared characters in full raid buffs. Elemental dps should be very close to Balance druid dps, which we used as the standard we wanted to reach.

We discussed several of the concerns that have come up over the last few days and ran some additional tests, but we are still satisfied with the numbers produced by the new changes.

---

I did patchwerk on tuesday. It was a 3 Minute and 23 second kill and I hit 3686 DPS.

http://wowwebstats.com/5tyxobyjedanq?s=144705-173219

Now increase this damage by 10 to 12% and I'll be 4054-4128

Now I'm going to link the WWS parse from a guild on my server whose members I am familiar with.

http://wowwebstats.com/r16zvq4v3n3z5?s=509173-550575

Their Elemental Shaman has the Same DPS as me on Patchwerk at 3664, yet their Moonkin is pushing 5114 DPS which no Shaman I've seen has yet to come even close to reaching even 10-12% of.

I have to disagree that we are "close" to moonkin DPS. Futhermore I think it is somewhat risky to balance once class off another class that is balanced against another class.

Shouldn't all classes be balanced against a single target?

Blizzard has addressed one of the major issues affecting Elemental Shaman, and that is Spell Damage Scaling, however we still need to find a way to balance Crit and Haste Scaling which accounts for 100% of our Non hit/spell power stats.

I started off doing 25 man nax and scoring in the 5-10 DPS range.

Now I can rarely if ever break the #10 DPS range as our guild (and myself) gear up.

I really wish you would revisit these numbers, and instead of making a % based adjustment, make a fundamental change to the class or spell mechanics in general.

Haste and Critical Strike need to scale better with our class or we are going to move further down the ladder of our continued last place in DPS.

Suggestions:

Fixing Haste:

1) Make Haste affect the cooldowns of spells.

This would fix our Lava Burst and Haste spell clipping issue...but could also unbalance other classes so I dont know if this is viable.

2) Make Lava Burst Instant Cast and refresh our Flame shock.

This may not fix the haste completely but due to Lava Burst being so powerful it wouldn't need to scale perfectly with haste if it scale exceptionally well with spell power. The thing that is dragging lava burst down is having to use a glyph and a cooldown on flameshock.

People are already contemplating doing a pure lightning rotation again and skipping flame shock. We really need to simplify this process.

Fixing Crit:

Make Lava Floes increase our spell Lava Burst Critical Strike Damage by 1/3 / 2/3 / 3/3 of our Spell Critical Strike Chance. Adjust Lava Burst Damage if needed.

Crit scales fine with Lightning spells, and not affecting the Dot portion of Flame shock is fine since it affects the DD portion, and the DoT is a relatively minor portion of our DPS.

Having Crit become useless for what now is 30% of our damage after patch makes picking up a lot of gear seem like wasted stats and makes the progression of our character much less exciting.

The devs should be paying a bit more attention to the points Ezareth is bringing up here. The low rate of return elemental shaman get on our stats is a large part of why we looked good attacking targeting dummies and in 5 mans and yet suffered badly in larger raids. If you dump a pile of spell damage, crit, and haste onto an elemental shaman, he gets less output than other casters, and there are few ways for an ele shaman to juice his DPS with skill either. If no attention is paid to the core reason *why* elemental is lagging behind now, then all of the buffs currently in the works are merely deferring the problem until later.

What is worse, most of the theory crafting the community is doing now indicates that the projected effect of the currently proposed buffs is going to be well below what we need in order to catch up to the classes/specs we are supposed to compete with. Increasing our DPS by 10-12% still leaves us 12-15% behind; behind the average DPS classes, that is.

It worries me that Blizzard is once again driving the elemental spec in a certain direction, at odds with what the informed members of the community say is needed. The last time this happened, during WotLK beta, Blizzard ended up proven dramatically wrong, to the embarrassing detriment of my spec. I hope you Devs are not making your decisions based solely on confidence; say what you want about our data, but your data has been proven faulty.

Editorializing now:

I have come to dread this entire process.

Elemental ended up sucking hard despite Blizzard's confidence in the capabilities of the spec. Once the sorry state of elemental was revealed, Blizzard vowed to take action. This is to their credit. If the action(s) they take are not made in full awareness of the factors that created the large disparity between their expectations of the elemental spec and the reality of our performance in raids, then this cycle will repeat in the future; every 4-5 months, I predict.

If you happen to read this GC and care to make any reply, talk to me about this. Do you guys know how elemental ended up so bad? Do you understand why our damage doesn't improve very much when we step from 5 person events to 10-25? Post-patch, are you going to look at how we perform in real raids, rather than placing all your trust in your internal theory craft?

I would like to know, because I don't want to endure this again every 5 months until the next expansion is announced.

I have come to dread this process.

It can not be argued with a 10-12% increase we will be a viable dps class.

There is no grouping of numbers to support this that I can point at and say "well perhaps if this and this and this are true" then elemental will be viable.

If thier intention is to fix our dps they should reall put forth some more increases, anything less than 20% is.


oh you know you want it GC.


" A slap in the face "

ahhh yeah =P

---

Q u o t e:
Suggestions:

Fixing Haste:

1) Make Haste affect the cooldowns of spells.

This would fix our Lava Burst and Haste spell clipping issue...but could also unbalance other classes so I dont know if this is viable.

---

Well It could be that Haste only affects OUR cooldowns. They could even make it a 1 point talent deep in the Ele tree if they don't want to make it affect the other two trees.

As i've said before. Given that we are the haste class, buff wise, It is not a stretch to see us having this ability. It would fix some of our issues while at the same time setting Shamans apart from other classes a little more.

---

Q u o t e:
The devs should be paying a bit more attention to the points Ezareth is bringing up here. The low rate of return elemental shaman get on our stats is a large part of why we looked good attacking targeting dummies and in 5 mans and yet suffered badly in larger raids. If you dump a pile of spell damage, crit, and haste onto an elemental shaman, he gets less output than other casters, and there are few ways for an ele shaman to juice his DPS with skill either. If no attention is paid to the core reason *why* elemental is lagging behind now, then all of the buffs currently in the works are merely deferring the problem until later.

What is worse, most of the theory crafting the community is doing now indicates that the projected effect of the currently proposed buffs is going to be well below what we need in order to catch up to the classes/specs we are supposed to compete with. Increasing our DPS by 10-12% still leaves us 12-15% behind; behind the average DPS classes, that is.

It worries me that Blizzard is once again driving the elemental spec in a certain direction, at odds with what the informed members of the community say is needed. The last time this happened, during WotLK beta, Blizzard ended up proven dramatically wrong, to the embarrassing detriment of my spec. I hope you Devs are not making your decisions based solely on confidence; say what you want about our data, but your data has been proven faulty.

Editorializing now:

I have come to dread this entire process.

Elemental ended up sucking hard despite Blizzard's confidence in the capabilities of the spec. Once the sorry state of elemental was revealed, Blizzard vowed to take action. This is to their credit. If the action(s) they take are not made in full awareness of the factors that created the large disparity between their expectations of the elemental spec and the reality of our performance in raids, then this cycle will repeat in the future; every 4-5 months, I predict.

If you happen to read this GC and care to make any reply, talk to me about this. Do you guys know how elemental ended up so bad? Do you understand why our damage doesn't improve very much when we step from 5 person events to 10-25? Post-patch, are you going to look at how we perform in real raids, rather than placing all your trust in your internal theory craft?

I would like to know, because I don't want to endure this again every 5 months until the next expansion is announced.

I have come to dread this process.

---

Yes we don't need static buffs.

Elemental needs a fundamental change to the class. That is the only way we will every be "balanced" and remain so.

Currently with the changes going into place we are going to move ahead a bit, but still be fighting for last place, and as people get geared out in Ulduar we are going to fall further behind yet again.

For the love of God Blizzard, be PRO-active and not RE-active to this class for ONE time. Just once TRUST your players who have been trying to tell you all along we are in need of serious help here.

How long will it take until you will loosen up and visit this class with more than an incremental change?

---

Q u o t e:


Yes we don't need static buffs.

Elemental needs a fundamental change to the class. That is the only way we will every be "balanced" and remain so.

Currently with the changes going into place we are going to move ahead a bit, but still be fighting for last place, and as people get geared out in Ulduar we are going to fall further behind yet again.

For the love of God Blizzard, be PRO-active and not RE-active to this class for ONE time. Just once TRUST your players who have been trying to tell you all along we are in need of serious help here.

How long will it take until you will loosen up and visit this class with more than an incremental change?

---

Hear, Hear!

One thing I'd like to see examined is the apparent disconnect between Internal Testing and Test Servers/Live for Shaman data. They don't jibe up. They haven't since the big Elemental Focus change after BC went live. Maybe even since BC beta.

A Blue posts mentions "our internal testing shows..." and then practical testing on the Test Server and then on Live refutes it. This has happened multiple times.

I'm not saying that people at Blizzard don't know how to do their jobs, far from it in fact. What I'm saying is that there just might be a bug in the works somewhere that is causing the repeated discrepancies between what GC and other Blue posters say that they see concerning internal testing data on Shamans and what we see on test servers and Live.

Anyone else see this pattern? Or, am I just crazy?

In before a moonking says.. RNG must have helped the 5100 dps Boomkin

THE POINT IS YOU CAN ACTUALLY REACH 5k!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Buff Elemental.

---

Q u o t e:


Hear, Hear!

One thing I'd like to see examined is the apparent disconnect between Internal Testing and Test Servers/Live for Shaman data. They don't jibe up. They haven't since the big Elemental Focus change after BC went live. Maybe even since BC beta.

A Blue posts mentions "our internal testing shows..." and then practical testing on the Test Server and then on Live refutes it. This has happened multiple times.

I'm not saying that people at Blizzard don't know how to do their jobs, far from it in fact. What I'm saying is that there just might be a bug in the works somewhere that is causing the repeated discrepancies between what GC and other Blue posters say that they see concerning internal testing data on Shamans and what we see on test servers and Live.

Anyone else see this pattern? Or, am I just crazy?

---

I've definitely seen it. I'd like to know if they're just running mathematical tests or if they run simulations at all. I highly suspect the dev team runs math tests gets a theoretical dps number spit back to them and they call it a day.

Of course that's just conjecture on my part. But if they do run simulations (I'm considering a simulation basically to be giant bot fight so they can have consistent performance from the 'players' each time) then one has to wonder were the huge gap is in dps numbers coming back from the community and their internal numbers.

Bump

GC you've said you want us to be concise:

Shamanism comes close to changing the fundamental issue that Elemental is suffering from. Anyalyzing base mechanics of the elemental spec, our coefficients need to be increased. Lightning bolt and Lavaburst are simply not hitting hard enough on each hit to increase our damage per second sufficiently.

Simply put, if I am taking 1.75 seconds (hasted LB) to cast a 3k damage spell then the base dps is going to be 1714. Lava burst and LB crits will increase said dps because they hit harder, but ultimately the backbone of our dps isn't doing enough damage. LB coefficients need to be increased or the base damage needs to be brought up as well.

Since Lava Burst will then be weaker by comparison it will need to be beefed up as well.

Alternatively allowing a deep elemental talent that increases our crit multiplier by a percentage of our current spell crit chance is a unique idea, and can solve our concerns as well.

Unecessary information:

I am beginning to worry that I will be sat out of raids soon. If you look back I have not been saying this in the past, but it getting close to the point where I cannot justify my presence there with the numbers i am putting out.

---

Q u o t e:
GC you've said you want us to be concise:

Shamanism comes close to changing the fundamental issue that Elemental is suffering from. Anyalyzing base mechanics of the elemental spec, our coefficients need to be increased. Lightning bolt and Lavaburst are simply not hitting hard enough on each hit to increase our damage per second sufficiently.

Simply put, if I am taking 1.75 seconds (hasted LB) to cast a 3k damage spell then the base dps is going to be 1714. Lava burst and LB crits will increase said dps because they hit harder, but ultimately the backbone of our dps isn't doing enough damage. LB coefficients need to be increased or the base damage needs to be brought up as well.

Since Lava Burst will then be weaker by comparison it will need to be beefed up as well.

Alternatively allowing a deep elemental talent that increases our crit multiplier by a percentage of our current spell crit chance is a unique idea, and can solve our concerns as well.

Unecessary information:

I am beginning to worry that I will be sat out of raids soon. If you look back I have not been saying this in the past, but it getting close to the point where I cannot justify my presence there with the numbers i am putting out.

---

I'm not worried that I am going to be sat out of raids just yet since I'm always prepared with flask, on time to raids, and lack what we term the "Chromosome 21"(downie).

What concerns me (other than the complete lack of enjoyment fighting with AFK'ers and tanks on the DPS meters in boss fights) is the fact I'm getting passed over on loot by our loot council because our council cedes loot to the most productive members of the raid first. Coming in last or in the bottom 25% of DPS guarantees that I'm going to be last receiving any of my major upgrades.....which will further exasperate the issue.

I do NOT want to be the "scapegoat" for my guild in Ulduar when some new patchwerk-type DPS fight falls short of the DPS necessary when I am more skilled and better geared than the majority of the people I am competing again.

GC, there has to be something else done for us before Ulduar.

10-12% DPS is only going to keep us languoring in the cellar of the DPS department before we are finally replaced for a more useful spec/class

Time is running out.

/SOS

---

Q u o t e:

For the love of God Blizzard, be PRO-active and not RE-active to this class for ONE time. Just once TRUST your players who have been trying to tell you all along we are in need of serious help here.

How long will it take until you will loosen up and visit this class with more than an incremental change?

---

As much as they deny it it's hard to not see this as just a simple cost to benefit trade off as Ele Shamans make up around 1.5% of the player base. Given how much work would have to be done to redesign the Spec (which it needs instead of tweaks) it's not hard to see that it's just not worth it to them.

Remember they shipped WotLK with a spec(Elemental) that by their own definition was not viable. Seriously, let that sink in. They knew we didn't have a viable AoE when LK is nothing BUT an AoE fest. They knew from the Beta that our DPS was not competitive.

Instead of coming out and saying 'we failed you, our loyaly and valued customers' we get the spiel about how the Dev team is the best in the world. It seems like they might be listening to their own PR a little too much.

Before you talk to them like they care, Look at the history.

My proposed changes would be this:

Spell
Lava Burst rank 2
10% of base mana 30 yd range
2 sec cast
You hurl molten lava at the target, dealing 1192 to 1518 Fire damage. If your Flame Shock is on the target, Lava Burst will deal an additional X% damage to the target and it will renew the periodic damage produced by your Flame Shock spell.

Talent:
Storm, Wind, Earth, and Fire
Reduces the cooldown on your chain lightning ability by .5/1.5/2.5 sec, your Wind and Earth shock's range is increased by 1/3/5 yards, and successful critical strikes with your Lava Burst ability will increase Nature damage dealt to the target from the Shaman by X//X/X% for the next 10 seconds.

X in both the spell and the Talent can be adjusted to levels that would put us close to Boomkin dps. This would allow both scaling with haste and crit, and it would still force us into a rotation other than LB x forever.

One moonkin in your raid pushing 5k dps does not mean every moonkin is pushing 5k dps and is thus overpowered.

A ret pally in similar gear as me got about 600 or so more dps than me in Naxx-10. OMG RET OP? No, I don't think so. Some people are generally better than others.

Furthermore, that moonkin probably doesn't always do 5k dps; I speak from experience that it fluctuates based on the situation. There's just not enough data to take one look at recount for two completely different players and characters and yell "OP!".

/agree@betterscaling, though.

---

Q u o t e:
One moonkin in your raid pushing 5k dps does not mean every moonkin is pushing 5k dps and is thus overpowered.

A ret pally in similar gear as me got about 600 or so more dps than me in Naxx-10. OMG RET OP? No, I don't think so. Some people are generally better than others.

Furthermore, that moonkin probably doesn't always do 5k dps; I speak from experience that it fluctuates based on the situation. There's just not enough data to take one look at recount for two completely different players and characters and yell "OP!".

/agree@betterscaling, though.

---

Who said this thread was about Moonkin being OP? Seriously, L2comprehend.

Thanks for the clarification, GC.

A complimentary waggle for you.

/waggle

I give it three days before elemental shaman start complaining that they are the most ignored and hated class again.

---

Q u o t e:
This is why I am often reluctant to post actual numbers. I think they end up launching more questions than actually providing answers.

The 10 to 12% number I quoted was the additional amount we wanted to add with the changes post-Shamanism. If you recall, we did two rounds of buffs on Elemental. The first juggled the talent tree a little bit (and introduced Shamanism). The second changed a couple of additional talents (Elemental Oath, Elemental Mastery and the change to the Lightning Bolt glyph).

For an Elemental in Naxx 25 gear, *each* of these rounds should have increased dps by about 10% between patch 3.0.3 and patch 3.0.8, for a total of about 20%. If you are in heroic blues and don't have as much spellpower, then you won't see quite such a lift from the first (Shamanism) round of changes.

Note that the build on the PTR only contains the first round of changes, IIRC.

Sorry for the confusion.

---

Thank you for this information and clarification. I hope they are as helpful as you predict.

I'm wondering how the developers view elemental shamans after these changess go in. A number of issues have been brought up on this forum (arena problems, totems, GCD's and more). Do you expect to make changes to address these issues or do you feel that these issues are just part of shaman mechanics? I'm just wondering and thanks for any information you can provided.