ele shaman

anybody out there an ele shaman? How do you feel about the latest update? Personally I dunno a ele shaman over 1000 unbuffed spell damage so why did they make a change? Is there a possibility of going over 1200 spell damage here soon? I guess if you wearcloth, wtf?

A+ thread, would read again.

A quote from our guild's elemental shaman:

I have a question for the developers. What exactly are their intentions for elemental shaman? Seriously. The changes on the PTR (2.3) are a net DPS loss for any shaman with over 500 spell damage, which is easily 100% of all raid shaman. Presently, end game elemental shaman are regarded as "OK" damage dealers by some guilds and marginal by others. There is a very small population of us in first tier raid guilds. If a DPS nerf is considered warranted for an already marginal spec, I wonder what else the devs have in store for us.

While this is dangerously approaching melodrama, I have to wonder if I am going to have any place in a progression raiding guild when the next expansion rolls out. Do the devs have interesting ideas for my spec? At this point, it would have to be something more than just refunding a portion of the damage we're losing in 2.3 for me to retain any personal sense of progression.

Yes, I know its not a great question, but it is a valid one given the mixed messages we've gotten from our reps.

I did test my ele shaman on the PTR not too long ago, I have just shy of 700 spell damage unbuffed, and I was getting close to 2200-2300 on crits, from my 2600-2700 on live. I did notice an increase in how long it takes for me to run out of mana with the new water shield and mana spring.

There is the change in the LB and CL coefficient that should help, but we'll have to see come tuesday probably to see.

er...

they hotfixed it so that you will do the same dmg up to 1200+dmg

Even with the coefficient change it works out to about 6-10% less damage over an extended period of time for basically any shaman than you would have been doing on live. The better your gear is the less you'll do, so by the time you get up to tier 6 and 1200 +damage it actually becomes extremely noticable. They seem to be trying to make the random burst damage more even to reduce insta-gib type kills in arenas and even out PVE dps, which is a noble goal, but they fell short of the mark. Unfortunately the entire class is set up so that regardless of how you're doing damage (elemental or enhancement) it's random and burst-y. It allows for some laughable kills in PVP at high end, but overall it's mediocre. It's probably just a sign of them trying to balance the absurd amount of damage gear and weapons people will have access to in the next expansion already.

I'm not familiar with ele shaman mechanics, but how would spell haste and/or crit workout with the change? (replace spell dmg with one of the above stats).