[WoW] Battle for Azeroth - Page 458

As the patch 8.1.0 information starts to comes out, we wanted to share the current plans of what is being changed for Elemental Shaman.

Core Ability Changes:
Shifted some damage from Earth Shock to Lightning Bolt.

Elemental Shaman is the only lightning based spell caster. However, over time, Lightning Bolt has gone from being a significant portion of your total damage to one of your least damaging abilities. It should be a powerful and effective spell for you to cast, and not something that feels like a burden to your rotation. Earth Shock will still be your hardest hitting spell, but Lightning Bolt should feel a bit better as part of your rotation.

Lava Burst has had its functionality changed behind the scenes to allow an in-flight Lava Burst to gain a guaranteed critical strike from a Flame Shock cast after the Lava Burst has been cast.

This change should help your initial spells cast against a monster, boss, enemy player, or whatever else feel much better. You can cast Lava Burst before combat, and when it finishes, cast Flame Shock, and the Lava Burst will gain the critical strike benefit from your Flame Shock.

Talent Changes:
The level 15 talent Elemental Blast will now always pick a different secondary stat buff when causing an Elemental Overload.
The level 30 talent Master of the Elements can now also benefit a Physical damage spell, allowing it to increase the damage of an Earthquake.
The level 100 talent Stormkeeper now also increases the damage of your next two Lightning Bolts by 250% in addition to its existing effects. This damage bonus will also apply to the Elemental Overloads of Lightning Bolt from Stormkeeper.

The Master of the Elements and Stormkeeper changes are primarily to help keep balance between single target damage and area damage of the talent rows. Master of the Elements will now affect your next Earthquake spell to keep the talent more competitive when dealing area damage, and Stormkeeper will grant you two really powerful Lightning Bolts that also cause Elemental Overloads when fighting just a single target.

The level 15 talent Exposed Elements has been removed, and the level 90 talent Earthen Rage has taken its place
The level 60 talent High Voltage has been removed.
New talent in the level 60 row: Call the Thunder
New talent in the level 90 row: Surge of Power

When looking at the whole sum of changes made to Elemental Shaman this expansion, we feel that some of the passive talent choices weren’t holding up well, and had no interaction with how you played the game at all. We’re adding some experimental new talents that should allow some additional decision making on how you choose to use some of your abilities. Please keep in mind that both of these new talents, as well as all of the other changes, are still under iteration and may change entirely throughout the patch 8.1.0 PTR cycle.

Just as a quick update, here's the current version of the experimental new talents that will be hitting the PTR soon. Reminder that these are experimental, the PTR is for testing, we'll probably iterate on or completely replace these designs, etc.

Call the Thunder - Your maximum Maelstrom is increased by 30, and the Maelstrom cost of Earth Shock and Earthquake is reduced by 10.

Surge of Power - Earth Shock also enhances your next spell:
Flame Shock: The next cast does not incur a cooldown.
Lightning Bolt: Your next 3 casts will cause an additional Elemental Overload.
Lava Burst: Reduces the cooldown of your Fire (or Storm) Elemental by 6 sec.
Frost Shock: Roots the target in place for 6 sec.