Flame Shock

There are a few quite specific areas that Elemental Shaman are particularly weak and have been for a long time.

Low-HP adds, target-switching and spread AoE/Cleave are all problem areas for us and we see them come up plenty of times in raids these days.

I've been thinking of a couple of ways Blizzard could mitigate these weaknesses without major buffs or changes to the class, and they mostly revolve around Flame Shock.

Currently, Flame Shock does very little damage on it's own and it's main purpose is to buff Lava Burst and proc Lava Surges. 
It's buff to Lava Burst is vital though so it means a little ramp-up time on every target.  That ramp-up time slows down our target-switching, and often low-HP adds have died before we can really start to dps them.

Kilrogg is a prime example of this in action in HFC.  The bloods (and other adds) have to die quickly, not switching to them isn't really an option.
You can put Flame Shock on the target knowing that it will only tick once or twice but you need that buff or your LvB will hit like a wet noodle.

A great example of the spread AoE/Cleave is Hellfire High Council.  Stack them up and it's Ele Shaman heaven, move them apart and we essentially just pick one and single target it down. 
The lack of damage coming directly from Flame Shock, which is our only DoT, means it isn't really worthwhile to spread it to the other bosses*.

So, a couple of changes that could be made to Flame Shock which would affect these areas specifically to bring us back to the pack without affecting anything else. 
These changes wouldn't make a huge difference and we wouldn't suddenly be topping the meters but we would feel much more equipped to handle these specific situations.

1.  Remove the buff to Lava Burst from Flame Shock.
You could remove it completely and bake all the damage directly into Lava Burst, or have the buff applied to the actual Shaman rather than the target.

Either way, it would reduce the ramp-up time on new targets helping us with target-switching.  We would still apply FS to adds that are going to live a bit longer to proc Lava Surge but it wouldn't be necessary for low-HP adds.

2.  Multiple Flame Shocks proc Lava Surge.
This would actually revert a change Blizzard made in WoD. 
At the moment, only the last FS cast that is active can proc Lava Surge so, any extra Flame Shocks we have up are only for the FS damage itself (not a lot).

If each FS had a separate chance to proc Lava Surge it would go some way to mitigating the loss we have due to the bosses being outside Chain Lightning/ Earthquake range. 
We are still hitting one boss single target but that dps is buffed by having more Lava Surges in exchange for managing more Flame Shocks.

Due to the shock cooldown, shared with Earth Shock, it's only possible to maintain 2-3 Flame Shocks so this prevents us becoming an instant Lava Burst machine. 
Trust me, it never happened on Fallen Protectors.

Why not just buff Flame Shock?
It's certainly tempting to go that way but might push gameplay more towards being a DoT class and I was hoping to preserve the current playstyle.

Also, this could spiral out of control if you factor in the ways we already have available to buff Flame Shock... Unleash Fury, Elemental Fusion and the Archimonde class trinket (if I ever get it!). 
A flat buff to damage then increases exponentially.

So Blizzard, I'm not asking for much**, just a little help to stop me feeling so useless at times.


*  It is actually still a dps gain to maintain 2 FS but because it's so minimal and can interfere with Earth Shock, it's too easy to lose that gain elsewhere.

**  Blizzard, I'm not saying you can't buff us through the roof and make us OP, I'm just not asking for that here.