Patch 2.3 Destroys Elemental Shamans

Although I haven't tested this yet, theroycraft explains, with pretty basic mathematics, that this is seriously going to lower elementals dmg output, both in PVE and PVP....

Elemental relies on burst dmg to be able to kills its opponents in PVP, and in PVE I already am doing less damage then Hunters & Warlocks and some Mages, and I have pretty damn good ele shammy gear...

Now I understand that the mana work over we'll be reciving is going to be a good buff for us, maybe I wont need to spend 100's of gold on mana pots each week for raiding...

But I plain and simple won't get invites, if the DPS isn't there from my character...

So basically the way the mechanics work is, all your accumulated spell dmg is divided by the base cast time of the spell, over 3.5 seconds cast time, 3.5 seconds being the base rate all spells are divided by, so a spell that takes 3.5 to cast, gains 100% of your spell dmg....

So they have change it to Lighting Bolts & Chain Lighting, are not .5 seconds quicker to cast base time....what this means is....Lighting bolt used to be (3/3.5)* roughly 85% of your spell dmg, now its (2.5/3.5)* which is 71% roughly...

So if I have 1000 spell dmg, only 714 gets added to my lighting bolts instead of 857, now to try and make up for this change, they change Lightning Overload procs to proc 15% more then it did previously, so from 5% to 20% in patch 2.3, which is great, and would have worked, except they have half'd the damage Lighting Overload procs do, so instead of critting for a normal crit of 3k, it will crit for 1.5k....

The problem is who ever decided on these changes, doesn't realise that addition damage provided in your Lighting Overload, doesn't make up for the damage that is lost from the pure elemental damage loss, because of the casting time....

I do realise that something like this had to be done to resto shammys, to allow them to farm easier and level faster, but they need to add a talent that eliminates this for Elemental Shammys, hell if they made the Lighting Overload talent 25% instead of 20%, it would actually be a buff for our damage...

I did the calculations for Lighting Overload/Lighting Overload/Lighting Overload procs, assuming Lighting Overload still procs on top of itself, which we'll probably see alot more off since the change....it still doesn't add up, and that's taking into account the 2nd and 3rd overloads don't do half of one n other's damage....

I don't understand why blizzard keep making the shaman class harder and harder to play, each and every patch there seems to be something in place that makes it more difficult, the are nerfing us continually, while other classes get away with blue murder in my mind...

PVPing as a shaman is extremely hard as is, and this is going to make it even harder...I wonder how much more the shaman community can take, the % of shaman players has already dropped from 10% pre BC to 3%, after BC, and that's including the numbers picked up from all the new Alliance players....without them the Horde numbers would be nearing 1%...

Updated

So I haven't got any screenshots, I was hungover last night and really CBF getting anything prepare, I'm at work now, bored and so figured I'd post about whats been going on.....

My toon now has full Netherstrike Set, the Bracers, Chest and Belt, fantastic set, took me donkeys years to get, I'm pretty sure it was a solid 5 weeks of farming Primals....

The Netherdragon Scales weren't hard to get, the drop rate is quite good, and the respawn rate is also good, they are also worth quite a bit of money, about 30g a stack of 20, which isn't to hard to get, maybe half an hour of farming will grant you this.....But they sell quick, so its a good source of income if your a skinner...

Right, the Primal Mana, they also were not to difficult to collect, I found a terrific spot just outside Area 52, farming Mana Wrath, there was a specific route I took, which gave me, 1-3 Primal Mana in one route, if noone was there of course, it's a questing area, and I'm on a PVP server so I did run into a bit of trouble, nothing I couldn't handle....

One warlock gank'd me while I was farming, even after giving them clear indication I meant no harm, so I got him back, and hadn't burnt any of my cooldowns yet, so after he respawned and I killed him 5 times, 1 Fire elemental, 1 Earth elemental, 1 Bloodlust, 1 Elemental Mastery......etc I continued farming, and he left me alone....

So I collected my 36 Primal Mana and headed off to Elemental Platuea, where I attempted to farm Primal Air, as elemental.....this was a miserable failure, the Air Elemental are immune to lighting bolts, so, I believe I collected 3 Primal Airs, very very very slowly as Elemental and then respeced to a hybrid that I use in these situation....the spec is 29/32/0, basically its Enhancement, down to Stormstrike, and Dualweild, and Elemental down to 4 points into lowering the casting time of Lighting Bolts....

When I'm farming as this spec, I can easily Stormstrike, and Chainlighting for over 4k....I couldn't with the Air Elemental, but at least if another player tryed to gank me up there, I had a shot of killing them....So I farmed away, my I kept my +spell dmg mace in my Mainhand, and have an Offhand dagger that's got 93DPS, and basically put Flametounge on both weapons, which stacks with my +dmg, and just burn them down quickly....

So I farmed away, Primal Airs, although quicker as Enhancement still took ages, but I got them, I also used the area out the back of Shadowmoon Valley to collect them as well, when it was overcrowded on the Plateau....

The next step was collecting Primal Nethers, this step sucked, I kept being out rolled and things when I came to the last boss, but I managed to get them, I won 2 Primal nethers, only because they where guild runs and noone else needed them, and I bought the other 2 with the Tokens I collected over the 7 heroic runs I did....

I got +6mp5 enchanted to my chest, and socketed it with 2x Blue 2mp5 gems, and got Vitality on my boots, which is +4mp5/hp5....My unbuffed mp5 now for the shammy is 120, with AI / BoK / Wisdom / Spirit / Mana Spring & the elixirs and potions I buy each raid now, I have 230mp5 while casting.....my crits now 26.85% unbuffed, and 37.85% lightning....so need less to say I am doing alot better with Mana consumption in in raids.....

Also instead of buying Flask of Supreme Power, I have been buying Exlir of Major Mageblood, +16mp5, Adepts Exlir, and Superior mana Oil enchants for my wepon....my overall dmg in raids is allow higher then it was before, I am sitting 3rd on the dmg meters, with our 2 unbelievable hunters above me, I'm drawing less agro because the spells aren't hitting for an abnormally high amount, and the guild is putting a shadow priest in my groups from now on....

It is unbelievable, on Lurker I had to change my spell rotation, to add Chain Lighting shots in more often, just to go down in mana....

I also made my Hurricane Boots, which are more Mp5, so my wishlist has changed I was aiming for T4 shoulders to get the 4 piece bonus set, which I found out is bugged, the set has chance to proc, that give you 270 less mana for next spell cast within 15 seconds....atm its bugged and it takes 270 mana from all spells cast within that 15 second window...

So it would be lovely to get, but I am not going to bother, the guild still doesnt add DKP for Gruul runs, and with new members outrolling me on shoulder drops I have given up, same for the Mindblade in Kara, no DKP runs are just annoying me, so I am concentrating on T5 shoulders from Void Reaver, which we add & take dkp from, and the Rep for Lower City mace....

All and all that's about an extra 50 dmg, little more crit, more stats and more mp5 again...I think my PVE shammy is coming along very very nicely, I have +705dmg unbuffed nature atm, but a trinket that adds +80 dmg constantly in boss fights, after the first 10 shots, so technically I have +785 nature dmg, with another 50 Ill have +835, and my Wrath of Air alone adds +121, so I'm close to reaching that 1k barrier :D

Ill try to get around to adding picture when I get home....should be able to do it tonight during shutdown :D

New Site

I have renamed my site from Happyshield, to Lightning Overload, considering I'm an elemental shaman, always will be and have been for ages now, it suites the site better.

Also changed the template, and have updated my wishlist, I will post a new pic of Happypappy this afternoon when I get home, and put some posts in about, what's been going on, with screen shots etc....