r/classicwow • u/ArmJitsu • 1d ago
Forever Beta Feedback Chain Lightning is the iconic spell of a shaman
Max rank Chain Lightning in Classic hit for 505-564, more than Lightning Bolt. In Forever it hits for 120-134, which is less than Lightning Bolt. It does cast faster now (2 sec instead of 2.5) and costs about half the mana granted
I get that Lava Burst is meant to be the new big hitter, but Chain Lightning is the spell shamans have been known for since Warcraft 3
Give us back the big zap pls
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u/Skore_Smogon 1d ago
They took 3 Big Moment spells - Chain Lightning, Lava Burst and Elemental Mastery - and made them the worst version of those spells we've ever seen.
Chain Lightning is Giga Nerfed in both base damage and coefficient, Lava Burst isn't an auto crit it's just a Warlocks' Incinerate on a 10 second cooldown and Elemental Mastery is like a bad version of Icy Veins instead of a burst damage tool.
So they have actually leaned completely AWAY from the fantasy and history of Ele shamans in Forever.
Not respecting the spirit of classic at all there.
The Plus doesn't FEEL like a plus at all for Ele Shamans in this Classic Plus game.
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u/TotallyRadTV 1d ago
One of the devs definitely got 2-shot by an elemental shaman a few too many times. They're out for revenge.
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u/DontFearFailure 1d ago
Dude took a Windfury crit with the Pendulum of Doom and hit the whole class suffers.
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u/Codeine_au 1d ago
We just want this ay it's not hard. https://media1.tenor.com/m/Sv7L3ubb7NAAAAAd/classic-wow-ele-shaman.gif
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u/Sweet_Arrival9559 1d ago
I mean, the lava burst change is obviously so the ability can scale and hit harder.
People should really look twice at comments that don't understand basic stuff like this.
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u/fiction8 1d ago
LvB scaling is a problem in Wrath too, I agree, but taking away the auto-crit entirely makes it just another spell.
Instead all it has ever needed in those versions of the game is "damage scales with crit chance" added to the tooltip or a talent. That retains the identity of the spell while allowing Ele to properly scale with crit again.
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u/CMAJ-7 1d ago
Ele Mastery will probably be better in PvE with enough crit. Old Mastery = 1 crit, New Mastery = 0 - ~3-4 crits, chance dependent on your stat.
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u/ThatTellarPayer 1d ago
I mean new ele mastery doesn't interact with crits at all. You could say this about spells cast outside of ele mastery... "Its probably better if you get lucky!" Is a horrible argument here
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u/Eccmecc 1d ago
Core question is, how good would be a Classic Ele with infinite mana? Their goal is to make Ele a visable spec in a raid environment. An high damage aoe spell will be problematic in that context.
If chain lightning is part of the core rotation, their single target must be lower than every other class because otherwise they would be just uncontested the best class in all scenarios.
For the 100% crit on Lavaburst. This is really bad desgin because with better gear Lavabrust becomes weaker since it gets no scaling from crit. It is one of the reasons in later expansion Ele would almost always prefer haste and mastery - two stats which doesn't exist in classic.
Elemental Mastery is objective better for raiding. The classic variant was always a pvp talent. Is it fun - yeah, is it problematic - potentially. I don't think many player not from original classic would like the old EM especially as a capstone talent.
The devs are in a tough position with hybrid classes in general. If they tune them wrong, they will really quick be overpowering.
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u/Undercosm 23h ago
For the 100% crit on Lavaburst. This is really bad desgin because with better gear Lavabrust becomes weaker since it gets no scaling from crit. It is one of the reasons in later expansion Ele would almost always prefer haste and mastery - two stats which doesn't exist in classic.
This so called "bad design" is what makes old WoW such a great game. Guaranteed crit still opens up for different itemization choices even without haste and mastery. Maybe ele shamans will prioritize getting pure spell power over crit? What you call bad design is what I call interesting design. Your good design is why retail wow is so boring.
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u/ValidSignal 1d ago
Just up damage on lava burst and reduce crit chance so crit on gear still is worthwhile.
Give chain a decent cool down, but make it hit like a truck and adjust mana so it's good in aoe but not always a go to in single target but rather if you can manage mana for the duration of the fight.
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u/Andvari_Nidavellir 1d ago
Chain Lightning ought to be the zappiest of zaps.
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u/ArmJitsu 1d ago
The equivalent of ash just telling pikachu thunderbolt and the other Pokémon falls over
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u/Remedee90 1d ago
Hard agree, love me some chain lightning ⚡️
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u/BIitzez 1d ago
blizzard could have literally touched nothing with ele shaman except for mana cost of spells and damage scaling and it would have been 10x better than what they did.
they are completely trolling. its sod all over again where they just put zero effort into shaman and spend 90% of dev time on paladin and mage
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u/ArmJitsu 1d ago
That’s really it, a near perfect spec. Just mana
A shame
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u/gubigubi 1d ago
Yeah Enhance and Elemental Shaman players have been telling Blizzard exactly what we want for literally 22 years now and they always fuck it up.
At least Enhance is staying 2h so thats an improvement. Maybe in 22 more years Blizzard will realize Elemental Shaman want to use Chain Lightning.
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u/Defias_Villager 1d ago
I'm convinced one of the devs got 2 shot in 0.5 seconds by an ele in classic (2019) and the result is what the spec has become in WoWF. Has literally any other spec been given the same sort of treatment?
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u/NoSugarGatorade 1d ago
The whole thing reeks of zirene getting smashed in a bg by a batched CL ES combo.
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u/BIitzez 1d ago
its not just that its being ignored, its that its one of like 4 specs that is so awful in vanilla (what is being reimagined here) that you cannot play it. those 4 specs are the ones that people ache to play in vanilla and instead theyre all just still piss, its frusterating
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u/Academic_Truth3244 15h ago
Ele is worse than it was in classic in both PvE and PvP. They could have literally made zero change to the tree and we would be better off just from the changes to resto.
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u/Academic_Truth3244 15h ago
To be fair, SoD Shaman DW tanking was the most fun I had in WoW since 2004.
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u/luffish1 1d ago
You need 654 SP for Chain Lightning to do the same damage as a BASE DAMAGE Chain Lightning in Vanilla btw :-) I wonder what the fuck Blizzard were smoking.
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u/EbinTrolle 1d ago
Whatever they're smoking they need to stop and go back to drinking breast milk. WoW was good back then.
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u/luffish1 1d ago
For those curious, this is calculated from a 0.571 SP mod on CL in WoW Forever + 5% from Concussion talent.
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u/Kind_Reaction_8463 1d ago
think about how the devs in charge of this shit get paid to go to work everyday and come up with this.
just think about that.
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u/DJCzerny 1d ago
They clearly intended to shift Chain Lightning into being mostly for AoE. If the single target rotation is complete without it, then giving big single target burst potential is going to be too strong. I imagine the other option would be replacing lava burst with chain lightning and cutting its bounce power but I don't know if that would be more popular.
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u/Kaguro 1d ago
I would much rather that they remove lava burst entirely and bring back chain lightning to a usable form. Lava burst is a spell from a much later expansion so why is it a core ability that the entire elemental shaman tree is balanced around. They made enh a 2h only spec because that's how it worked in vanilla, I liked that decision but I really wish they had extended that philosophy to elemental.
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u/ayyyfamletsgo 1d ago
For your latter question, I think most people would vote yes. I haven’t really seen anyone throw down for lava burst, but the team is insistent on making it the thing.
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u/Inevitable-Ad-6334 1d ago
i made a post asking for lava burst to be themed lightning 2 days ago and was downvoted to the nerubian realm for that view.
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u/kytackle 1d ago
The bounce power is already weak a 3 target chain lighting does 219% of a single target. It's really not that crazy
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u/whutchamacallit 1d ago
Some of these changes that don't feel good right now are intended so that super end game in WoW Forever still "works". I believe that is some of the thinking here. Whether or not they hit the balance right remains to be seen.
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u/gubigubi 1d ago
Chain Lightning is one of the cornerstone Shaman abilities.
It should be the most important ability Elemental Shaman has.
I think any direction they take Elemental Shaman away from Chain lightning is a huge step in the wrong direction.
It should be powerful.
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u/LodisMtl 1d ago
Chain lightning is iconic, looks and feels so good. It NEEDS to be the centerpiece of ele shamans. Its current state is so disappointing
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u/ThrowingStorms 1d ago
I wish we could straigh up align with a single element. Would love an entirely storm based class
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u/ArmJitsu 1d ago
Or maybe you could go down the ele spec into specific elements! That’d be neat
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u/SirePuns 1d ago
I like the idea it’s like how arms warriors can choose to spec swords, maces or axes.
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u/Turbulent-Current364 1d ago
Yeah would love it!
Lighting/fire = ranged dmg
Wind/air = melee
Water = healingEarth is utility sprinkled in.
But isn’t this what it they did?
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u/Alzzary 1d ago
Yes. And the philosophy of this is that elements are not swappable, they have a specific way of fighting. I think it makes more sense than having an elemental spec for each element, although I liked it in Guild Wars 1 (Elementalist had 4 very distinctive element specs - Air, Fire, Water and Earth)
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u/Queenofashanddust 1d ago
that would be such a cool thing actually. They could do like a prestiege class system. When you hit max level you undertake a long series of quests that let your class go into further specializations, for shamans you could pledge yourself to one specific element.
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u/Steelfyre 1d ago
Highly agreed. I was an elemental shaman in vanilla and part of the reason, the most satisfying one anyways, were big chain lighning crits. Shaman without chain lightning is like a rogue without stealth to me.
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u/Witty_Rhubarb_4217 1d ago
Lava burst will never be as cool as lightning.
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u/Montegomerylol 1d ago
I don't think people would be so up in arms about Chain Lightning if it'd been split into two spells, Bigger Lightning Bolt and AoE Lightning Bolt.
Even if Forever's Lava burst wasn't numerically disappointing, it still wouldn't be as cool as 1.12 jigawatts of elemental fury.
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u/Nutnutlad 1d ago edited 1d ago
Blizzard, I beseech you to quit your cowardice and give the shamans the fantasy we've wanted since WC3 - the lightning lord. Restore the power of chain lightning to its former glory.
We do not want lava burst! We do not want to be forced into flame shocks to do damage. We have no desire to give up the utility of earth / frost shock. If we wanted to cast fire spells, we would play mage or warlock.
Instead, give us forked lightning. That could be our aoe spell! It would reduce our dependence on fire totems to do aoe and could be the filler spell you wish to add for us. Even better, give it a debuff to increase spell damage to enemies it hits, so that we actually have a utility that other shamans cannot provide
I know you want to give us another spell school for pvp reasons - but don't! Let us have that as our weakness in pvp.
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u/Oedipus_TyrantLizard 1d ago
I think flameshock as a tradeoff from Earth/Frost utility to buff LvB is cool.
But I also think Chain Lightning shouldn’t suck.
& I think Chain Lightning shouldn’t suck more than I think Lava Burst should even exist in classic/forever lol.
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u/Bleak1818 1d ago
Nothing like finding the original 24k crit video in WSG in Classic. Stupid little gnome.
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u/No-Party7143 1d ago
Blizzard only knows 1 addtional spell for shaman and its lava lash/burst in every fucking iteration, no understanding thats why retail is a turn off. Where is the windfury/lightning fantasy, its why it so loved in tbc then went to shit again in wrath.
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u/Round_Moose7139 1d ago
Bro fucking lava lash. Fuck that skill. Its animation, sound and damage are ass
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u/ayyyfamletsgo 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah it's like someone got sold on the alliteration of it without ever considering how to back it with proper class fantasy
What the fuck is 'lashing' my opponent with lava? Is lava on my weapon? Has it ever been? Where'd it go afterwards? Does the lava stick around burning/corroding them? Can I see the lava? It just reads as "red colored instant attack no major character ever did"
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u/Ildona 1d ago
I literally played Storm Cleave through all of Dragonflight and War Within because the pure Wind / Lightning Enhance spec felt wonderful to play and hit the fantasy.
In Midnight, they rearranged the tree and made it so you can't skip Lava Lash. So, I skipped Enhancement instead.
Maybe I'm the weird one, but I've literally never enjoyed Lava Lash, and when it's mandatory, I think Enhance feels shitty to play. It just loses my interest immediately. Feels bad to use, often comes with extra bullshit to pay attention to or makes you tab target in combat more, etc... no thanks.
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u/gubigubi 1d ago
Every time I see Lavalash or Lavaburst I don't even want to play the game.
The Windfury and the Lightning fantasy is indeed the greatest part of playing a Shaman.
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u/Grand-Loquat-6434 1d ago
Yeah, it seems like Blizzard for a few specs has implemented the later vision of the spec rather than rounding out the playstyle of the classic spec. It’s the same problem with enhancement.
Similar to elemental, no enhancement shaman wants to chase spell power to support their pitiful lightning bolt, shock damage and nova damage. No one played the spec for that in classic.
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u/ArmJitsu 1d ago
Agreed, big bonks with WF. Leave the SP to ele
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u/Dietberd 1d ago
Was always fun to absolutly delete a mob at first contact with a lucky WF proc + crits.
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u/BIitzez 1d ago
yep. because just like with sod, the work is done for them in retail and they just have to copy it. they are fucking lazy.
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u/a_hundred_highways 1d ago
Going an actually different direction would mean admitting the direction of retail has been wrongheaded for a long, long time...most people are loath to admit they were wrong, but Blizzard devs especially one feels.
They've done this twice now with SoD and WoWF -- start from a base of classic, add some stuff that's new and interesting at first, then just start slotting in things that appeared at some point in retail. They clearly actually like retail best and so their only design instinct is to go that way again.
They literally just do not like classic because it's a giant flaming "YOU WERE WRONG" regarding the past 10+ years of their career working on retail as it's kept shrinking and shrinking. They've basically been forced into doing classic retreads against their will because they just keep fucking faceplanting on every new expansion. If new retail xpacs were still doing reasonable numbers, would there have been any official classic? No fucking way quite frankly.
I don't believe this development team has any sincere interest in classic; in fact I think they resent it & will take every opportunity to make things incrementally more and more "retail-like" because that's they way they're used to playing the game & also because they're bitterly deep in sunk-cost fallacy regarding the last 10-15+ years of work on retail.
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u/Dogballs2020 1d ago
There are only a small handful of totally new abilities in Forever. Off the top of my head it's Strider Kick, the new Arcane mage spell, and maybe Wrack even though it's basically Malefic Grasp. The rest are just officially implementing things that already existed, like druids Shifting Power or the Ret pally Seal ability, or porting over things from retail.
And the things they decided to port from retail are really disappointing. Like, I think most balance druids liked that classic druid was a nature spellcaster. But they brought eclipse, and doubled down on them being an astral spell caster. That direction is already controversial in retail, why bring it back? Same with lava burst for ele. There are already 2 fire themed spell casters, why dilute a spec with an actually unique theme? Havok for destro lock has limited the design space for the spec forever, and has never felt particularly good, but hey, it happened in retail, so we gotta make that their identity in Forever! Maelstrom for enhance? Sure, it's not exactly a well liked mechanic in retail, but it would be difficult to come up with something new!
Blizzard really just doesn't understand what people like about the specs from a fantasy or gameplay perspective, and it's really disappointing.
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u/Grand-Loquat-6434 1d ago
I’m not sure I’d go that far. I just think it’s a rushed development with limited staff. That’s why we’re seeing these knee jerk changes. Like the warrior rage change where we went from normalized rage to 100% rage on crits. Like they understand the issue because they went through it on SoD, but then just totally ignored what they already learned.
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u/ayyyfamletsgo 1d ago
Agreed I think it’s just time crunch, no one playing a shaman and therefore having The Vision like you see rippling through Hunter (the full PvP pet toolkit, in combat traps and mid combat pet swapping with engineering? Come on), and recency bias with how hard they pushed the class in SoD.
At least in P2, they landed on the wrong side of “how to make classic gearing for a Shaman also give you spell power”, they ended up creating machine gun gods 1H storm striking for 1400 crits at level 40, and throwing out free blaster AOE every 6 secs, with wind fury, while also having chunky instant offheal capability, while tanking. They created a hero class and found out oh yeah this is what happens if you just make hybrids able to do what other pure classes do, they ended up doing that++.
They’ve pulled way back from that, but haven’t spent the time thinking of an alternative satisfying / flavorful approach.
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u/Admiralsheep8 1d ago
Honestly this makes little to no sense . The retail team isn’t making this , and the direction they went for pretty much every class rework is not a retail class design
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u/CMAJ-7 1d ago
I love that enhance has spellhance support, but I don’t get the Maelstrom talent. It’s just really, really bad. After getting a full stack on an enemy, you get a lightning bolt that’s a whopping 20% faster.
Wow, .4 seconds off one single target attack that will also interrupt your rotation for doing anything else…auto attacking, hitting SS dodge procs, casting nova, laying totems, shocks, etc.
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u/nebulous-nautilus 1d ago
It stacks 5 times, so the spell is instant. But I agree an instant lightning bolt is pretty lame. Funnily enough if they allowed it to be chain lightning (and it had old spell coefficients) that would be a really satisfying payoff. Or if it was like retail where you could choose an offensive spell or a heal. But as just a lightning bolt? So boring.
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u/Low_Landscape_4688 1d ago
How is the WC3 animation from decades ago so much better than the WoW one.
Chain Lightning visually and audibly feels like a wet noodle. I feel like I'm shooting people with a water gun when I use it.
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u/CompetitiveStaff1196 1d ago
I like how in the DPS interview, they specify warrior is also a hybrid (tank and DPS) so they should have a tax, but they ALSO say the warrior should be hte best cleave dps as their goal too.
Yet if anyone suggests something like shaman or paladin or druid be the best dps under X conditions, it's always shot back with a massive NO for being a hybrid.
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u/DrToadigerr 1d ago
I think most people are more biased when it's a hybrid with a healing spec vs. a hybrid with only a tank spec. Even in Retail, you don't really call Warrior/DK/DH a "hybrid spec" in the same way that Paladin/Shaman/Druid are.
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u/CompetitiveStaff1196 1d ago
"I think most people are more biased when it's a hybrid with a healing spec vs. a hybrid with only a tank spec. Even in Retail, you don't really call Warrior/DK/DH a "hybrid spec" in the same way that Paladin/Shaman/Druid are."
Well yeah, but im saying that is why the whole idea of it is flawed. They can't realistically use their heals during raid fights because their DPS would absolutely tank (and the heal wouldn't even be good) yet they're penalized for this utility. If hybrid just was a thing to call a class that's fine. But it's being used to justify giving them lower damage numbers even in pve where they cant use their utility or their DPS goes way down.
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u/Aethyrianzul 1d ago
Actually you don't wanna be the best at anything, like 1v1 PvP for instance, or else everyone starts sperging the fuck out and trying to get your zero mobility classes one single tool for getting shit off of you so your slow DoTs can tick nerfed into oblivion because it can be abused in some incredibly niche tournament situation.
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u/NoSugarGatorade 1d ago
Fear has been nerfed every single patch of this game since 2004. It's almost canon.
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u/CompetitiveStaff1196 1d ago
If you're talking about fear, this has been a complaint going around since even back in TBC. Probably earlier even i just started in OG tbc
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u/Nessarra 1d ago
If you think fear complaints are valid then complaints about rogue stunlock are also valid. Heaven forbid there's tools out there that classes can use to kill stuff.
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u/Wrosgar 1d ago
I do feel ele shaman has gotten the worst end of spec design out of all the specs in Forever this far. They feel like they're underperforming and lost class identity pillars for abilities that are watered down versions from other classes.
What makes a shaman is still interesting, but I really do hope they make changes to make the ele spec fun first and viable 2nd. I feel they've leaned too far towards viable first and fun, not.
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u/Great_White_Samurai 1d ago
I played an ele shaman in vanilla because of chain lightning. Popping trinkets and EM and blowing someone up was peak.
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u/Ogrinn 1d ago
This point that it casts "faster" is moot. LB and Chain lightning has always had talents that brought down the cast time to 2sec and 1.5 sec. Blizzard just cut the talent in half and lowered the cast time by .5 on each.
This change does nothing but nerf the spell damage coefficient, which makes sense for the changes to enhancement being able to lob lightning bolts.
In no way is it "faster", you still need the talent, it does less damage.
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u/Cadian 1d ago
Warlocks have a better Lava Burst except theirs doesn't have a 10 second cd.
Why do we have to play yet another iteration of Lava Burst? I've been a shaman main for 22 years and still raid CE on one. Can we please just have a beefy chain lightning? Fuck lava burst, CL is iconic and never felt better than in Classic.
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u/DuggerX 18h ago
Please for the love of God blizzard fix this shit. I only enjoy playing warrior and shaman. Warrior rage is normalized and shaman chain lightning is gutted.
What the hell am I supposed to play that feels good anymore in my most played game ever. Ive been playing classic since 2017, leveling and raiding on multiple private servers and classic 2019.
I want a home too like many others.
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u/MegaMcMillen 1d ago
I frankly despise Lava Burst. We already have Fire Mage and Destro Lock spamming fire, we don't need a third fire caster
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u/GhostOfRannok 12h ago
Chain lightning is infinitely cooler than lava burst but the guy that made it can’t admit it
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u/MwHighlander 1d ago
Until Chain Lighting is at least as good as it was in Vanilla, I just have zero motivation to play.
I'm going to suffer leveling up with a broken spec to end game, farm gear, and put all that effort to having Elemental and Chain Lightning specifically suck ass?
Fuck that. Time to go touch grass until the game fixes Shaman.
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u/Troooper0987 1d ago
Chain lighting and chain heal are iconic class moves. Shaman is the LIGHTNING CLASS who dabbles in other elements
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u/StamosLives 1d ago
I mean, when they spawn they quite literally yell "Storm, Earth and Fire, heed my call..."
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u/BaconMarshmallow 1d ago
Literally the best feeling spell in the game for me. The visual, the booming sound, and the big number are so satisfying. I've only leveled a shammy once and I swapped at ~30lvl just to use it while leveling. It definitely deserves it's place as the Ele shaman spell.
Honestly don't even care about the AoE, just make it mainly a single target with some arcs doing less than 100 just to keep the visual flavor. All it needs is to be a button you press off cooldown and it's perfect.
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u/Oedipus_TyrantLizard 1d ago
Preach, thunder brothers! This is such a common piece of feedback that the WoW Reddit community seems to 100% agree on (which is so rare).
I really hope Blizzard takes these posts & opinions into consideration.
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u/One-Flatworm-6838 1d ago
Why do we even need lava burst? I would much prefer a lightning focused spec based around the iconics and shocks. It has a lot of potential buttons to be used already. No need to have more.
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u/Pale-Supermarket3217 1d ago
The funny thing is shamans can have both LvB and single target CL. It would actually make the rotation good instead of flameshock(21sec)>lavaburst(10sec)>lightning bolt filler.
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u/veryniceperson123 1d ago
I have gone from mega hyped about forever to probably not going to play on release. The current team does not appear to understand how to balance abilties or what made vanilla work, and I assume is probably massively understaffed for the ambitious scope. Their #1 priority seems to be nerfing fun shit.
I don't like dooming and I'll still be watching to see if they turn things around but right now it appears completely half-baked and poorly thought out.
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u/AQuebecJoke 1d ago
Give a perfectly balanced spec a bit of mana regen so it’s viable in PvE ❌
Rework the whole spec destroying it’s identity and adding spells nobody asked for ✅
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u/Kabaal 1d ago
Too bad it hits like a wet noodle in Forever.
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u/ArmJitsu 1d ago
Maybe it’s just taking awhile to get used to but I press this button like it’s going to change the course of a fight.. and yeah.. wet noodle
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u/PresidenteMozzarella 1d ago
Literally can not believe they changed it to what it is, don't even play shaman.
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u/slipstick-libby 1d ago
Please give us real lightning like it shows here. Not this blue uncooked meatball that floats its way to the target. Let's unleash some real lightning, which is instant, and is loud AF due to thunder!
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u/Apharial 1d ago
Agreed - getting hit in bgs by shammies was chain in the face . It is not classic if not
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u/Own_Ad2274 22h ago
i personally hate lava burst, and by association, lava lash. i would far prefer them to shift back to LB/CL, and add to that to make it exciting, not shift it into Lava Burst and flame strike.
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u/E_Bjoerkman 1d ago
I really hoped blizzard would stop the noodlefication of spells and stop putting too much power into random procs like overload or passive talents, a direction that has plagued retail design for so long, all in the name of "fairness" so that the spreadsheet dps doesn't get out of hand.
Gutting fun spells for the sake of PvE balance nobody really cares about anyway isnt the right way to go. We need to remember that game design should strictly adhere to a "fun comes first" perspective and its sad they decide to remove some of the most satisfying moments in classic.
It feels like the devs see diversity and unique strengths as obstacles to overcome in the name of "balanced" PvE but they forget that nobody wants challenging PvE nor do they care about who is top DPS if at the end of the day they can join the raids and enjoy their class (and get loot).
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u/Visoth 1d ago
I also want to point out that Lava burst is just a stronger Lightning Bolt with a different animation.
It doesn't play any differently. Use it when its off cooldown to do 30-50% more damage than the other singular ability you've been spamming for past 10+ seconds.
At the very least, Starfire is a longer cast time compared to Wrath, in this analogy, so it has a feel of difference to "Wrath, but bigger!"
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u/Obvious_Mention7207 1d ago
HAvent played Beta - so take this comment with that factored in.
Everything I have seen on duels / threads about WoWF is what I didn't want, but unsurprised it has occurred.
They took vanilla, and "updated" it with retail class/skills. It doesnt seem like they changed anything to new, or updated the old, they just took from future expansions and forced it into this.
Just like this thread is talking about old shaman, in retail (havent played since dragonflight) The shaman I had there was so fuckin boring. Now it sounds like WoWF replicates that shaman.
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u/pfSonata 1d ago
We aren't just being haters when we call it Retail-. That's what it really feels like to me.
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u/Vikingar436235 1d ago
This is my exact worry aswell, like you, i haven't played the beta either, but everything i've seen just screams to me that blizzard is incapaple of doing something ACTUALLY NEW, and just do what has been done in later expansions/retail and force it into wowf.
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u/Obvious_Mention7207 1d ago
Its why I didn't care for SOD.
I thought I would like it, cause like warlock tank etc, but turns out it was just taking existing retail skills and putting it on random classes, but since I dont like the skill... it didnt matter what class it was on.
Did tank shaman, but it was just retail shaman lol
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u/SonOfSunsSon 1d ago
Agreed. Nothing is more terrifying than watching an ele-shaman pop all spellpower buffs and begin casting it.
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u/Silvoan 1d ago
The reason chain lightning had a CD was because of how powerful it was. Now that it does way less damage, why not just remove the CD?
for multi target currently you're still using flame shock + lightning bolt + lava burst as filler between fire nova and chain lightning. Why not just have us spam chain lightning for AOE? Then rework ele mastery to give us increased crit% or something?
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u/ArmJitsu 1d ago
This isn’t a bad solution, especially given the rework to how SP items has more weight on spells
Alright Silvoan you’re hired
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u/Oedipus_TyrantLizard 1d ago
While this is sensible, I think the argument is most would like to see single target viable chain lighting. Which means it should have a CD.
So I think the (better) fix is to restore Chain Lightning’s damage, not remove its cooldown.
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u/Fankine 1d ago
Removing the CD will just remove all flavor, just like retail.
Having CL be a big hit but on cooldown was what made it appealing and unique.2
u/ayyyfamletsgo 1d ago
Agreed, I’d rather they get CL out of the game than see my boy dragged into 0 CD filler territory.
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u/Lowe5521 1d ago
I really liked the system that EverQuest (and I'm sure many other MMOs) used with spells: as the spell ranks up, it becomes more visually interesting. Would be neat to see that in WoW
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u/Dry-Judgment4242 17h ago
I love how united everybody is about Elemental Shaman. It's just the big chungus of specs. Bring back Chain Lighting Blizzard!
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u/Key_Lock_304 17h ago
There's not enough Space for both Lava Burst and CL to be strong ST Nukes, one has to go, I think shamans decided which one, its as if almost everything from wrath was bad for class identity.
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u/hellfurian 16h ago
As a non-shaman player, I wish chain lightning absolutely clapped. It just has all the right fantasy elements of an ultimate spell that people should fear. It’s one of the coolest spells in the game, and it made me respect shamans in pvp. Between stormstrike and CL, shaman burst is essential to the feel of the class for me.
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u/Academic_Truth3244 15h ago
They can make chain lightning do zero dmg to secondary targets for all I care, i just want my big dmg bad ass looking chain lightning.
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u/Electrical_Past9649 1d ago
No brother you're gonna fling meatballs and shoot piss bolts out like in retail where you can spam chain lightning to tickle the enemy. Just like in WC3
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u/iNteL-_- 1d ago
I mean CL is kind of a noodle in wc3 compared to the other nukes lol.
Great point!
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u/snakespm 1d ago
The problem with focusing just on lightning spells is that if you come up against elementals that are immune (Earth and Air) then you can't do shit to them.
I am glad they are letting Shamans, who are the master of all elements, diversify ourselves from being extra large bug zappers.
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u/Diceslice 1d ago
Sure, but it doesn't have to mean that Chain Lightning becomes Chain Noodle. In Wrath Lava burst was the big hitter, but you'd still have a chunky Chain Lightning that felt good to press. That's what I would want at least.
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u/Scary-Cry-5734 1d ago
So what do shadow priests do against shadow immune mobs? This is one of the dumbest comments yet.
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u/Skore_Smogon 1d ago
We had Lava Burst in WOTLK, in SoD and now again in Forever?
Are the devs creatively bankrupt?
Elemental Shaman are cool because they are the class that throws LIGHTNING around like Zeus or Thor.
If we're going to get a 2ndary spell school, why can't it be something thematic that works WITH our Lightning Spells?
We've never had an offensive Water Spell, why not now?
Imagine a Water Bolt or a channeled Water Beam (3 ticks) that did damage left a "Wet" debuff on the target (stacks up to x3).
Every time you hit a Wet target with a Lightning Spell it consumes a stack of the debuff for extra damage and you can put a talent in the Ele tree to also have it stun the target kinda like Mage's Impact or Hunter's Imp Concussive Shot.
P.S. Fuck Lava Burst.
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u/HomelessFlea1337 1d ago
I don’t think LvB will help in that regard considering it has a cooldown.
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u/Akeche 1d ago
Hearing their philosophy for balancing things in one of the podcasts was disheartening. Every spec gets a budget, and if they improve anything they then have to make something else worse. That doesn't sound like good game design in the end.
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u/FTTLegasy 1d ago
It's easily the most satisfying spell in the game and it was completely defining in Vanilla. The fact that it's been reworked into an AOE only spell is criminal.