Comparison Elemental Shaman and Balance DruidFollow

I don't know what blizzard is doing anymore, from what I can see Balance Druid will be far superior then shaman at 80 in a pve build.

PvE Elemental Shaman talent build http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=hEh0qsdetMxst0xxco

PvE Balance Druid talent build http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=0xG0uicsIdIVh0uZbxcub

Whats funny is the druid balance tree has so much good in it I wish I had more points to hand out where elemental didn't really have much to offer for pve.

Druids gain all these passive abilities and affects with this kind of build for conserving mana:

Moonglow 3/3 9% mana cost reduction
Dreamstate 3/3 regenerate mana equal to 10% of intellect every five seconds
Moonkin Form 1/1 Chance on critical spell to regenerate 2% of total mana
Intensity Allows 3/3 30% of mana to continue regenerating while casting
Omen of Clarity 1/1 Chance on spell hit to make next spell free

Shamans Gain much less mana management abilities and usualy for more points

Convection 5/5 10% mana cost reduction
Elemental Focus 1/1 When you crit next 2 spell's cost reduced by 40%
Unrelenting Storm 5/5 regenerate mana equal to 10% of intellect every five seconds
Shamanistic Focus 1/1 Reduce mana cost of shock spells by 45%

Ok lets compare, druids get 1% less mana reduction for a 3 point talent compared to our 5 point talent. For mana regen while casting druids get to keep 30% of mana regen from spirit which we dont get and there 10% intellect converted to mana regen while casting is just like ours except theirs is 3/3 ours is 5/5. Moonkin Form offers a chance to regain 2% of total mana which is only a chance on crit but throw in omen of clarity and I think they beat out our Elemental Focus. We do get 45% reduction to shocks but that affects only shocks and really it needed to be this way for us to be any where near viable in expansion with our Lava Burst Flame Shock rotation.

Now if you look at the balance tree again you can also see the tree is cluttered with damage increasing talents everywhere as well as haste and caste reduction. Increase spell power by 12%, increase damage by starfire moonfire and wrath by 10%, 15% of spirit to spell power, gain 20% more spell power for star fire and 10% more for wrath... these are the passive affects, not the procs and extra abilities...

For elemental shaman we get 5% extra damage with all of our spells. an extra 6% with lava burst, 24% more damage with Lava Burst crits, and 50% more damage from flame shock dot... we do have a interesting proc from lightning overload, and a free 450ish spell power from flame tongue weapon and Totem of wrath, but it doesn't seem to me that we will scale well at all.

Lightning Bolt has got to be one of the worst scaling spells at this moment and with a lack of talents to help it scale properly I don't think elemental has a chance of comparing to others in pve dps.

Yes I know shaman is a hybrid but guess what druid is a hybrid too and it seems they will have every thing they need to produce proper damage and compare to the raw dps classes.

I will admit I don't even play right now I am on my break but I am not stupid based on what I have looked up blizzard really has no clue what they want to do with elemental shaman at this point. Just looking at the trees I can see shaman is way behind.

I really miss playing this game but it just seems to me I fell in love with the wrong class cause it at this point is just getting the shaft.

(might be a qq post whatevers)

While I completely agree that Balance Druid > Elemental Shaman at this point, I don't necessarily agree with your comparison. I agree with the ends, but not the means, if you will. Every class in this game functions differently from their most basic tools to their talents. Because of this, you really can't have mirror-image talents in trees belonging to two seperate classes. If you don't custom-tailor talents for the specs of the classes they're intended for, bad things happen to balance. This is a very gray area.

However, there are two very black-and-white issues that you can compare Balance Druids and Elemental Shaman on. One is mana management and the other is DPS. On these two issues Balance Druids are completely blowing Elemental Shaman out of the water, and that is something I can understand some QQ about.

My issue when comparing Elemental to any other caster dps trees is that Elemental is THE ONLY tree that is bloated with bad talents that don't increase dps. Half of the direct dps increasing talents are for Lava Burst which is a spell that has a cooldown (and doesn't account for the majority of single target dps). There are also no talents that would cause elemental to scale with gear. Such talents would include INT to spell power, Spells gaining additional power from spell power, etc. The closest such talent is overload since it casts a second spell at half power that's mana-less (since the first nuke gains damage based on spell power, the overload scales with gear too).

For anyone who doesn't agree, I HIGHLY recommend just going and reading random magic dps trees. Mage, Warlock, balance druid, and even shadow priests all have better scaling than us now.

I don't know much about Ele shamans as I am a resto shaman, and I understand the concern with damage and mana conservation, but what about overall DPS.

I have seen many ele shamans out DPS equally geared/skilled boomkins since the patch. The Shamans cast times on LB and ChL are lower than boomkin spells are they not? I know boomkins have instant spells, but the shocks are all instant with CD that can be reduced through talents.

Blizzard cannot make every class equal or there would be no need to have classes in the first place.

Sorry but I don't see a point in QQing about something like this. If you like boomkin better, then roll one.

I am completely satisfied with my resto Shaman even though I continue to read posts about how resto is gimped because this class got this and that class got that. SO? L2PNUB. I can stay on par (if not out heal) any other healing class in my raid group. Skill > Character. If you feel you are gimped then roll something else so that you can top the DPS charts. However you will probably just cry about something else. This game is supposed to be fun. Each class brings something different to a group/raid. What's sad is when pure DPS classes (Hunters, Rogues, Mages, Locks) can't be at the top of the DPS charts. Thats all they do. They have 3 trees for DPS. Hybrids SHOULD be gimped in comparison simply because they can function in 2 - 3 roles. Druids especially since they can Tank, Heal, or Ranged/Melee DPS.

Oh well. Rate me down if you want. Just stop QQing and enjoy your class for what it is, not what you think it should be.

Edited, Nov 3rd 2008 1:58pm by compgenius

You may wish to check that attitude when 100% of the evidence is against you.

There is almost no way for an Elemental Shaman to approach Balance DPS, for the reasons already stated in this thread. If you have some solid math to back up your satisfaction, do let us know. If you would like to qualify your example of Ele defeating Balance post-3.0 with some specifics, that would also be nice.

Until then, please understand that some 'QQ' is entirely justified, and while I'm glad you like your character that doesnt mean eveyone else has to shut the hell up to preserve your ego.

lol Except that your post was "I'm amazing ... and beat everyone as resto." You do 10 man content... not really hard to beat one healer. You then blindly (and wrongly) say elemental shamans are beating balance boomkins all over. Then you lie in the quote above because your whole post was "everything's peachy with shaman."

PS: Armory seems to work fine for everyone else I've checked. >.> Has updated my gear and my spec (which I changed not that long ago).

Well, a good holy priest can easily pass a resto shaman since 3.0 in healing. On some fights, resto shamans will always be near the bottom in healing. Kil'jaeden, Supremus, Naj'entus all come to mind as fights where shamans don't do well because everyone has to spread out beyond the range of Chain Heal but the range of Circle of Healing and Wild Growth is larger, heals 5 people, is smart, AND is not decaying between targets.

This has little to do with this thread, but yeah... stick to topics you know. You proclaim you know little/nothing about elemental shaman or balance druids but want to say "everything is fine" and then spout nonsense that is contrary to truth. Then tell people to stop QQ'ing when you don't even know the situation.

Go play elemental and see if you wouldn't QQ seeing as how they are doing the same (or less) dps than shadow priests which developers are saying are severely underpowered all while the same devs are saying elemental is OP (even though every parse says the opposite). Go back to pushing brain heal.