Elemental Future? Nerf? As is?
 

This is kind of a strange thread that I figure wont get far and will more then likely be deleted but I just wanted some opinions


A lot of people in my guild are basically ranting that elemental is WAY overbuffed. Saying that I do far too much damage.


So here is a few questions

1) Do you think elemental is Overbuffed (pve dps wise)?

2) Do you think Elemental will get a nerf soon?

Most of my guildies say that elemental will get nerfed come 3.1, And I'm honesty wondering if it will since elemental is doing intense damage.

I apologize if this is a thread of utter uselessness.

I think it's pretty useless, honestly. Elemental's damage is now competitive with many other classes but I'd like to reference something Ghostcrawler says a lot: gear and skill in a balanced environment are the most important things. You may top damage meters in your guild but the other DPS players may not be very skilled or may not make optimal gear decisions. Look at the WWS parses from top guilds; Elemental Shamans aren't topping the meters in those guilds because all the other players in the raid are so uniformly good. In EJ raids I'm in the middle of the pack, but if you look at <random scrub guild>'s WWS I'd be at the top with the same numbers.

In short, Elemental damage is competitive and I don't think it's likely to be nerfed.

Well yea thats what I've told them, except saying it in a...nicer fashion...aka not say "nomnomnom I'm better then you"


Again Just wanted some opinions from other elemental shamans since I'm alone in my guild as far as elemental goes.

Same thing happened to me and I am starting to get concerned. During our 25man Naxx run on Friday, I got whispers after Patch and Thadd that they have completely broke elemental shaman.

What people say in guild/forums/whatever has absolutely no effect on what Blizzard will do with the class, and what changes will be made.

That's not really true; popular sentiment and arguments made on various forums including this one absolutely have an impact on internal Blizzard discussions and many changes they make are influenced in some way by player feedback. It's not usually a big impact, but it matters.

Anyway, here's the top legitimate Patchwerk parse on WWS: Wow Web Stats

It's pretty much the same as the other top parses. An Elemental Shaman finishes in the top 5 or near it during a fight that was around 2 minutes, had all the necessary synergies for Elemental success and displayed an aberrant crit rate. To be fair, those crit rates are inflated by a high percentage uptime for Elemental Mastery but they're considerably higher than the Shaman would normally get. Still, it shows pretty accurately the current state of Elemental Shamans. We are competitive with other classes, enough to finish within the top 5 and not too far behind anyone else in a really ideal situation. That's fair, and for a hybrid class it's a good situation to be in.

People saying "elemental needs to be buffed/nerfed" will have no impact. Informed posters saying why changes need to be made will have an impact, but the simple buff/nerf crying will not have any impact, and that seems to be all the prior posters are substantiating their claims with.

Fair enough.