TheWoWDB
Physical
ShamanThe original Primal Strike implementation is to make Enhancement Leveling more viable. Leveling as enhancement, a Shaman is still relegated to hurling lightning bolts like a middle-aged LARPer. Stormstrike is designed to replace Primal Strike at higher levels (once it is obtained), and thusly, they share a cooldown.
The highest voted Wowhead comments for this page. They are community notes, not TheWoWDB comments.
If PS is going to be replaced by SS whats the point? might as well just have SS available earlierIt's not like this is a new development. There are many talented abilities that completely replace baseline abilities. Some examples: Mangle replaces Claw, Scourge Strike replaces Obliterate, Heart Strike replaces Blood Strike, Hemorrhage replaces Sinister Strike, etc.
Claw is another example of an ability where characters of a different spec have little use for it (much like Resto and Elem Shamans will have little use for this ability).
In fact, now that they are moving Mangle to level 10 (for Feral Druids), and you can't Shapeshift before level 10, Claw will become obsolete before you even learn it!Edit: I stand corrected. It appears that you get Cat Form and Claw at level 8 in Cata. So aspiring Feral Druids will rely on Claw for a whopping 2 levels before replacing it with Mangle :)
Primal Strike's damage is dependent on weapon damage, but not in a multiplicative manner. It adds additional damage to whatever your weapon damage is. Stormstrike deals 225% weapon damage, and it adds a 25% crit buff on select abilities. This indicates that Stormstrike will replace Primal Strike as soon as you get it, since by the time you finish all your skills/rotation, the cooldown on Stormstrike will be over and ready for reuse. Keeping Primal Strike in your rotation will actually cause a dps decrease.
Tooltip
An instant weapon strike that causes Physical damage.
Spell facts
SchoolPhysical
Cast timeInstant
EffectSchool Damage
ClassShaman
RangeCombat Range
Taught byShaman (skill 1)
Spell ID73899
Datamined from the current retail build. Numbers that scale with level or stats are shown at their base value.
More Shaman spells
Related
Community notes from Wowhead · 16 comments
Top 3 shown above · 13 more hereThe comments below were written by Wowhead users. They are community notes, not TheWoWDB comments. See them in context on Wowhead.
Seeing as PS is based off of weapon damage, it will do next to nothing for resto/ele. It's just meant for enhance to give them something to hit before they get SS down the line.
I felt pretty dumb at one point leveling my Enhancement Shaman. I early on removed Primal Strike from my action bars for general suckiness, and didn't realise it was going to be replaced by Stormstrike. Around 35 or so I was wondering why I hadn't gotten a new melee attack and I already had Stormstrike.
Also i used this in the Beta and it seems to share a cooldown with Stromstrike, so im guessing that this is used until you get SS and SS replaces PS
8 second cooldown according to MMO-Champion. WoWHead hasn't been showing cooldowns on a lot of the new spells for some reason and some of their info conflicts with other sites making me feel that they are unreliable for making builds with the new talent calculators.
Is it still going to get replaced by Stormstrike in Shadowlands, I wonder.
PS is available to all the shamans so that resto and ele have something to do in melee other than keep on casting through the spell pushback. Think of SS not as a separate ability for level 29, but as "Your Primal Strike now also increases your nature damage on that target by 20% for 15 seconds". Actually, by the wording, make that "Your Primal Strike will now also hit with your offhand and increases your nature damage blah blah blah..."
Primal Strike shares a cooldown with Stormstrike anyway, which means it absolutely can not be in an Enhancement rotation.
I am kind of dissapointed that i allready have a lvl 80 enh sham. It would be rly fun to be lvling in cataclysm from lvl 1.
It's not entirely useless, but its sole purpose as an ability is an attack skill for Enhancement Shamans to use from levels 1 through 29, when you're able to pick up the replacement ability Stormstrike. The added damage doesn't scale very well with level, and being a melee attack skill it doesn't synergise with the Elemental Shaman's general style of play as a ranged caster at all. It's one of the few new skills that are designed to be replaced and forgotten once you acquire the better skill.
Kinda like Primal Strike more then Stormstrike, at least at lower levels. Hit it wait for GCD, hit it again. Hit 20 and suddenly It's Stormstrike with a 6.5sec CD and It just felt like enemies die slower in melee. Could hit Primal Strike, about 4-5 times in the time Stormstrike resets, and do more dmg in that window. Also feels odd at lower levels just Auto Attacking waiting for Stormstrike. I use Lightning Bolt cause doing nothing feels wrong, but that seems like it just detriments my dmg output vs Auto Attacks in melee range.
IMO both talents should co-exist
Yes, Primal Strike is replaced by Stormstrike in the Shadowlands. With the reworked spells, an Enhancement Shaman learns Stormstrike at level 20 and this replaces Primal Strike. For Restoration and Elemental, this spell is useless right now.
No cooldown?
If this is supposed to be an inferior Stormstrike, why not give it a similar, weaker effect? Say ~10% increased elemental damage, and only 1 charge.
It still wouldn't make it part of the Elemental rotation, but at least it'd be a not completely useless ability.