Shaylana

But hey, I can still comment on the latest set of patch notes they released. It's certainly had surprises.

First off, it seems that they're looking at DPS mana again. As it stands right now, Eles would regen mana through Rolling Thunder. That is, cast Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning, and get a 60% to regen 2% of your mana. The only time we'd run out is if we spam Chain Lightning on 2 targets. (We Flame Shock them both and run low on mana with Instant Lava Bursts). In a pinch, we Thunderstorm for mana. Or use Sham Rage for the reduction of mana costs.

That's all gone. And I assume that the Glyph of Thunderstorm that removes the knockback should probably be removed as well. All it would do is slow people who are piled on top of you. Not exactly useful.

But don't think they're singling out Ele Shams with this. Shadow Priests lost mana regen from Hymn of Hope, Dispersion and Vampiric Touch. Druids lost Innervate... again... and there's nothing about their mana regen mechanics for Resto or Balance. They're basically giving Shadow Priests and Ele Shams the Destro Lock treatment... just increase the regen and call it a day.

Elemental Shams are now the owners of Earth Shock. It'll be interesting to see if they retain the weakened blows on it. While that is provided by tanks, it was nice in PvP. Losing the ability to switch imbues hurts pvp a little, but all in all, I don't think anyone's going to miss it that much. It's like Chain Heal... I never really used it that often as Elemental, but I will miss the graphic.

Speaking of missing Graphics, I will miss Earthquake. I love that spell, and I love the graphic. While they were initially buffing it significantly, I have a feeling they removed it to reduce the spell clutter. Most PvE'ers will not miss it, but their PvP counterparts will certainly notice it. You could catch stealthers, prevent flag caps, and sometimes knock someone down which really can be significant. So if we're trying to prevent a flag cap, we have to use Magma Totem. Oh wait, that's gone too. We have to Flame Shock, and then hard cast. So we're done on flag watching, we're just offense now.

I was thinking that Multistrike would be our go to stat. I wrote: "There's also something I am really curious about. Multistrike will make DoTs tick a second time. I asked Celestion via twitter if it would proc effects. He didn't answer, but I did see someone else asking that indirectly. He said that it's a case by case basis. So if Multistrike works on the Lava Burst proc, then for sure it will be our go to stat out of Readiness, Accuracy, and Multistrike."

Since then, Celestion has again said that Multistrikes would not proc effects unless it was specifically called out. So I don't think we'll get our wish. However, "New passive abilities granting a 5% bonus to specific secondary stat bonuses received from equipped items have been added for all specializations."

• Elemental: Multistrike
• Enhancement: Haste
• Restoration: Mastery

Looks like they agree. Multistrike will be our go to stat. We're basically BURST machines now. If we get overload and multistrikes, our damage will be very unpredictable. This should really make us shine in PvP if Multistrike shows up on that gear. Otherwise, we're going to be reliant on procs. (A side note for Resto... they haven't given up on the Mastery yet. Good for PvP, unknown how well it will do for PvE.)

Multistrike also became more important in a different way as well: Fulmination now causes Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning damage and multistrike damage to always generate an additional Lightning Shield charge, up to a maximum of 15. Earth Shock will consume any charges beyond 1, dealing their total damage to the enemy target.

So really, if we get procs (Lava Surge) on procs (Overload Mastery) on procs (Multistrike), we could be spamming Earth Shock a lot more often. Burst on burst on burst. This does not bode well for the single target fight, but will be an Arena 3s wet dream.

All in all, our damage keeps getting bumped up some from the reports I've seen. The set bonus, while boring, increases our damage more. Bind Elemental was useful in PvP, but apparently got cut either for PvP or raid designs would have us cheezing mechanics. One change I do like; however, the ability to drop totems without them pulling mobs is awesome. I just hope Searing Totem is still going to be the target of certain mechanics like Mind Spikes leading up to Nazgrim.

The removal of Totemic Recall is a bit sad though, again, more on the PvP front. There are times when you need to cancel your Elemental in order to drop combat and drink. It means we'll have to click off the totem manually, so that's a quality of life issue. No more cheezing mana for Resto Shams.

All in all, I think it's just making us focus away from support and healing, to being direct burst nukers. Turret, fire, and pray for procs. And well, for Totems, we're left with:

Air: Grounding, Capacitor, Windwalk (if Talented)
Fire: Searing, Fire Elemental
Earth: Earthbind, Earth Elemental, Tremor, Stone Bulwark (if Talented)
Water: Healing Stream Totem

I'm actually waiting for the patch note that says HST is only for Resto. While I want Earthquake on a totem, it just feels that Totems are less and less important to the class. Grounding is optional on two PvE Fights (Dark Shamans and Nazgrim), and Capacitor is great on Garrosh. Earthbind on mines for Siegecrafter. Windwalk is useful on a few fights, Protectors, Malkorok, and Spoils if you can't kill the brewmaster fast enough. Otherwise, it's only Fire Totems that seem to be necessary for Elemental.

We shall see. As they say, "It's Alpha right? No need to worry at all.. you'll be fine!" While I'm sure we'll be fine, I'll still be lurking in the shadows watching like a hawk.