r/classicwow • u/ArmJitsu • 1d ago

Forever Beta Feedback Chain Lightning is the iconic spell of a shaman

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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

2.6k Upvotes

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380

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.

67

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.

1

u/Sakkreth 17h ago

Sorry, El Xokas has connections to Blizzard. My fault. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/960321435

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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/Undercosm 1d ago

I understand the intention behind the change to LvB, but its still a stupid change.
You are exactly the problem OP is talking about. The change "makes sense" on paper, but it completely guts the fun and flavor of the ability in the process. Guaranteed crit is cool af, even if it means crit scaling is clunky for ele shamans.

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u/Sweet_Arrival9559 13h ago

It's funny. This is a good example of not thinking about something for 15 seconds and getting it wrong.

Guaranteed crit means to ability has to crit for less than the ability would if it didn't have guaranteed crit to equalize the damage. So, an ability without guaranteed crit actually crits for MORE and has way cooler moments because it feels good to have bigger crits.

This why people that maybe aren't the biggest thinkers shouldn't give feedback on the game.

If you play retail, you will quickly learn that the "guaranteed crit" on lava burst effectively means the ability never crits. Because that is the average damage and it doesn't feel special at all.

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u/Undercosm 12h ago

Why do we need to equalize the damage? Just let it do insane damage. Lava burst on a flame shocked target should be similar to Chaos Bolt, as in nearly one shotting players and instantly spiking threat and dps meters.

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u/Sweet_Arrival9559 12h ago

I actually agree with you there, but I don't think Blizzard likes that.

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u/knowntopown 9h ago

About time, everyone just complains and don’t see the scaling of lava burst. It’s going to absolutely smack. It’s going to be somewhat of a 1 trick pony with it but more frequently. Kind of what vanilla Ele sham was with the old Ele mastery. I hope they keep it like this for release so no one bandwagons it and the spec is over played

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u/iNteL-_- 1d ago

Don't interrupt a good circlejerk with some logic and reason!

-3

u/TempAcct20005 1d ago

These same people are mad that their classic+ game mode with new everything but classic feel is not exactly the same as classic

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u/Skore_Smogon 1d ago

You talking about me?

Because my preference would have been SoD style gameplay with the numbers tweaked down to classic values now that we aren't stuck in the same client as Era and we aren't chasing un-normalised rage DPS warriors.

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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/RizzwindTheWizzard 1d ago

Old ele mastery didn't scale with crit at all though. It was not a good spell for a spec that was designed to stack crit. It needed to change.

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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/blighte 1d ago

how good would be a Classic Ele with infinite mana?

still worse than classic warriors, rogues, mages and warlocks.

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u/Undercosm 1d 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/themoosh 1d ago edited 1d ago

This seems like the obvious solution, so why hasn't blizz done this. There must be a reason

1

u/ValidSignal 1d ago

My hopes are they are really looking at numbers and ideas from the beta.

But if not. Well then shamans will be relegated to heal duty like in 99% of end game in vanilla.

I rerolled in vanilla due to that.

At least its better than druids very early vanilla when you could stay outside combat and run in and combat res them. And then relieve other healers. It was some bad designs early on.

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u/FL14 1d ago

I raided on my alt ele shaman in classic. I min/maxed with consumes and buffs. I held my own on fights, especially fights with cleave, until I went OOM. You fix the mana issues only, and the class is vastly improved

1

u/21brokenbones 1d ago

I never played Classic shaman I only every tried it on TBC Anniversary servers. Holy shit was Elemental fun to play, I also really loved the earth and fire elementals we had. Even though Ele is currently in the trash Im still gonna roll it on my 1st toon in the hopes it gets better. I had way to much fun in TBC.

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u/dragrimmar 1d ago

do you want a single burst every few minutes, even if it means being dead last in dps by a margin?

because thats what classic ele was. spam lightning bolt for clearcast proc, then CL, then repeat until you're oom. then rank 1s until you fish another proc. all that to be lowest dps by a significant margin.

they're balancing ele so that they're at least competitive this time around, and i bet you at 60 they won't be dead last on the charts anymore.

you don't 'fix' classic ele by simplying increasing numbers, because they were already strong in PvP.

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u/Nutnutlad 1d ago edited 1d ago

We must have been playing a different classic, Ele wasn't dead last and was better than all other hybrid specs (except feral arguably) and was competitive with warlocks and hunters in terms of damage. https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/s/FNOgGQ36wW

-1

u/dragrimmar 1d ago

obvious hyperbole, but look at even the best result. warrior is literally 50% more dps lol.

in forever, the design is to have hybrids within 5% dps of pure dps roles. Is that not a win already?

and there's at least 1 more thing to do now than just spam lightning bolt. small win as well.

i'm also not even worried about pvp, a good player will do well with their toolkit; a bad one will complain until their toolkit provides them with the advantage because they lack skill.

1

u/Nutnutlad 1d ago

Well yes, everyone knows that warriors and rouges were overturned in classic, and I am glad they are balancing that this time around.

But I don't think lava burst is the correct approach to this. We have already played with this spell in other expansions, so why not try a new spell? Most shaman do not want to be forced to use flame shock either, as we lose utility with the other shocks. And the playerbase clearly prefers CL over LvB. Why fix something not broken?

Instead, they could give us a spell that imbues a debuff on enemies to increase spell damage. That way we provide a utility that other shaman specs cannot provide. And since it's debuff based, it wouldnt be a crazy upgrade in PVP.

1

u/Plaidfu 1d ago

I mean that’s just a problem with warrior though for the 50% difference.

In classic you were able to add chain lightning and stuff rather than just LB, but to be clear most specs were quite simple. I actually think shaman had some interesting niche because in extremely short fights they could top the meters and managing totems was sometimes interesting.

Now they are different flavor of mage with raid wide totems and CL being nuked. The only difference between classic rotation and forever is you replace CL with lava burst but CL always felt so good in classic I’m disappointed in the change myself.

1

u/Forward-View8335 13h ago

That’s just a problem with how warriors scaled with gear, consumes and world buffs. Ever class was underwhelming in comparison

5

u/rinnagz 1d ago

they're balancing ele so that they're at least competitive this time around, and i bet you at 60 they won't be dead last on the charts anymore.

for sure, won't be dead last anymore because there won't be any Elemental Shamans playing

1

u/Neruzelie 1d ago

They're balancing ele by nerfing both his base dmg (way more than any other spellcaster) and spellpower ratio and just adding a 10% chance overload in compensation and a lavabust that will have to carry all their dmg (spoiler : it won't) ?

1

u/dragrimmar 1d ago

do you want to bet gold or makgora about whether you will be right about this at 60 or not?

we can tighten the definitions ahead of time.

I'll go up to 400g that you're wrong, and i'm willing to makgora you in HC if you play that mode (it'd have to be a mirror ofc).

2

u/Neruzelie 1d ago

Depends if devs patch things till 60.

But actual projected sims based on all datamined spells puts him last of the pack.

Of all the caster specs that got "rebalanced" he's the one that have to reach highest spell power (~500) to reach the damage he had in classic without any spellpower.

Most specs sit around ~200 spellpower. And almost every single caster have had great talents added while shaman just gained a poor man lavaburst and a 10% proc overload (that doesn't even proc on lavaburst).

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u/dragrimmar 1d ago

Depends if devs patch things till 60.

yes, that is the bet.

you're either confident they won't and you'll make 400g. or you're going to owe me 400g if they do.

1

u/Neruzelie 19h ago

Its not like they've adressed any of these issues that have been spotted from the start of the beta build yet, but they gave mage their "rank1 frostbolt" for proc fishing in pvp in less than 3 day.

It does actually feels like no dev is in charge of shaman.

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u/CorrectZombie583 1d ago edited 1d ago

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 spirit of Classic would be class design over spec design so talking about "Ele shaman fantasy" would be a contradiction because there's only "shaman fantasy".

Besides, the reason why they want to make Ele less bursty is to make it viable in raids. Classic always had a thing for some hybrids where, if you had infinite resources for one aspect of combat and limited resources for another aspect of combat (like cat vs balance for druid), then the infinite resources would be better sustained and the limited resources would be better burst (with some aspect of range), at it would make more sense from a class design approach (instead of a spec design approach).

But now the playerbase whines that their "class" is not viable because their favorite "spec" is not viable. So now every "spec" has to be viable for PvE and contend with the "limited resources vs unlimited resources" dichotomy, which naturally pushes the aspects that are limited in resources towards sustain.

And now you complain it's not bursty.

1

u/PhraseAdventurous140 1d ago

Whatever man the “class fantasy” for ele sham was seeing 3 big crits hit at the same time to one shot somebody in gadgetzan. Any departure from that is the wrong direction.

1

u/RizzwindTheWizzard 1d ago

Which is exactly why it had to change because they did jack all in raids. They couldn't just bump up the damage because shamans were already monsters in PvP.

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u/Watercooler_expert 1d ago

Being a slightly weaker mage isn't great either, there's more to the game than damage meters. I don't know why they can't do PVP specific balance like every other version of WoW, they should apply like a blanket 30% damage reduction against players to give them some room to buff damage.

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u/RizzwindTheWizzard 1d ago

Because then people would be complaining that they're breaking from the classic philosophy to make shamans worse in PvP. We both know this sub would be in full doomer mode if windfury got a 30% damage reduction against players.

1

u/Watercooler_expert 1d ago

I meant a 30% damage reduction to everyone not just shamans. This way they wouldn't have to nerf burst across the board due to PVP we can have the old chain lightning, pom+pyro, etc.

0

u/MaleficentOdor 1d ago

It's not just Elemental, every Shaman spec has had their identity ruined by the WoW Forever Team. Enhancment is forced to play as spellhance when the spec identity was always big windfury crits. Resto has had chain heal nerfed to make room for Riptide, which is supposed to buff Chain Heal right? Wrong! Riptide does so much HoT it's only worth using on the tank, who is almost always tanking the mob facing away from the raid out of chainheal range. Anyone who has played resto shaman for more than 5 minutes at end game knows how rarely you get to chain heal bounce the tank. The class changes for shaman are universally bad. It's Classic- for shaman players and Blizzard doesn't see us as anything more than windfury totem bots so they have not stated any intentions to fix things.

2

u/Nutnutlad 1d ago

Ehh, I would argue that spellhance was their identity in classic. Look at the t2.5 and warlord sets - all give spellpower and spell crit, as well as strength and melee crit. When played in pvp, spellhance was just as strong as a pure melee build.

But that's the difference with forever vs classic design. In classic, enh and ele were designed as pvp specs and resto pve, while in forever they are trying to design all specs for both pve and pvp. And implementation of this strategy is pissing off both the pvpers and pvers lol

0

u/a_hundred_highways 1d ago

Hi, random question since I gather you've played a lot of shaman -- how would you feel about shaman totems having base 50 health and +40 per totem spell rank? 

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u/Skore_Smogon 1d ago

Sounds like a bad idea. There's supposed to be PVP counterplay and in PVE it's irrelevant.

A totem like Grounding/Tremor already requires someone to target it directly to remove it so it's up to the shaman to capitalise on it when/if that happens.

1

u/ThatTellarPayer 1d ago

Grounding got changed in the last patch. It now get destroyed if it redirects any damaging spell. Can still survive things like poly and fear though

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u/SuperSizeBeard 1d ago

In my understanding, they made shaman spells weaker but quicker to synergize more with overload.

More spells cast = more chances to proc.

Not saying it's good or bad. I think I'll like the "unlimited power" shaman, but Ele seems to have been hit harder than other casters spell dmg wise.

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u/ureliableliar 1d ago

Sure but the math doesn't add up, they reduced dmg by >50% and reduced cast time by 20%

1

u/SuperSizeBeard 10h ago

Yeah Maybe my comment wasn't clear, but I agree that it is far from enough

1

u/gabo2007 1d ago

With talents, the spells are the same cast time as vanilla but also with a worse damage coefficient. So no they didn't improve them in that way.

Also you need 600 spell power at level 60 just to do the same LB damage as a naked vanilla Shaman.

1

u/Neruzelie 1d ago

And since they also have a lower coefficient, they also benefit less from spellpower (over the 600 cap) than before.

1

u/SuperSizeBeard 10h ago

Yeah I saw the graph Such a shame

1

u/DrainTheMuck 1d ago

Worth noting I’ve seen the math posted here and overload is something like a 5% dps gain, which really surprised me, because spells having a chance to cast a second time sounds really strong (the devs must think so too)

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u/Neruzelie 1d ago

They cast at 50% dmg, and only 10% proc rate.

1

u/SuperSizeBeard 10h ago

In the shaman youtube vid, it was 30% proc chance ...hoping for the change but it might have been an oversight

1

u/Neruzelie 9h ago

Talent tree says 10%. Maybe they'll boost it a little.

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u/SportBoring3533 1d ago

Forever isnt clasic plus. Its just retail minus

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u/Tavron 1d ago

I agree with everything but the EM part. I really think it fits the spec well... if we had the old CL back.