Will Hunters Rule Draenor?

There are a massive number of changes coming to classes in Warlords of Draenor but one that strikes fear into the heart of this Elemental Shaman is the removal of Unleashed Lightning.


Background
Early in Cataclysm ele shaman had an horrendous time maintaining dps if the fight involved any movement at all.  A combination of long cast times and very few instant cast abilities meant massive loss of dps during movement, with the only exception being 15seconds every 2 minutes when Spiritwalker's Grace was available.

This may be applied to all casters but they have other abilities that give them a huge advantage... 


The shadow priests and balance druids could fire off powerful dots which poured scorn all over the lowly Flame Shock (a dot that does virtually zero damage and only serves to buff Lava Burst).

The mages already had more (and more powerful) instant spells, with shorter cast-times in general, and could ally this with Blink - an almighty instant movement ability - to mitigate any movement.

Warlocks had all of the tools above... but they had their own problems at the time so we'll leave them alone.

Firelands arrived in patch 4.2 with high movement in every single fight.  Ele shaman were dropped from rosters across many high level guilds (not just for the movement but that's the focus here) until Blizzard finally realised that some action would need to be taken.

Glyph of Unleashed Lightning was added to the game - this allowed us to cast our filler spell, Lightning Bolt, whilst moving in exchange for a minor extension to the cast-time (5%).
This quickly became mandatory for all fights (except Ultraxion in Dragon Soul) and we gladly accepted the longer cast time.

Current State
During Mists of Pandaria, Ele Shaman continually languished in the lower reaches of the dps meters and we received a succession of buffs.
The glyph (as with most 'mandatory' glyphs) became baseline without the longer cast time.
Chain Lightning no longer dropped in damage with each jump, this (allied with our mastery) made us Kings of AoE... up to 10 targets... if there was no priority target... Kings of Trash!

We were still low on single target though so the buffs kept coming - Lava Burst damage was increased (the cast time was extended by a greater proportion but we were being haste-capped so it was kind of a buff) and Blizzard resorted to their favourite trick when it comes to buffing the shaman... a buff to Shamanism - this translates for Elemental as a flat dps increase to Lightning Bolt!

Suddenly, we were capable of challenging in any fight with high movement as our Lightning Bolt began to hit for a substantial amount.  Added to Spiritwalker's Grace (usually tied to Ascendance), Lava Surge, the viability of Unleash Fire for single target and our lowly shocks, it meant we had a good arsenal of spells to cast on the move.  And more importantly, when we absolutely had to move, we could always be casting something.

Warlords of Draenor
So let's fast forward and have a look at what's to come...

For my dear Ele Shaman, Unleashed Lightning (in whatever form) is being removed.  No more Lightning Bolt on the move. 

What tools does this leave us? 
Unleash Fire/Elements - Long cooldown
Flame Shock - 5 sec cd shared with ES and does virtually no damage anyway
Earth Shock - 5 sec cd shared with FS and only does damage with Fulmination stacks
Lava Surge - RNG reliant and delaying Lava Burst is a massive dps loss
Spiritwalker's Grace - Very powerful but on a 2min cd

These tools were fine when we could cast our filler spell in between but they are all on cooldowns, can't be repeatedly cast, and do virtually no damage on their own.  The Unleash buffs LB and LvB, Flame Shock does minimal damage but buffs LvB. Earth shock does good damage with high Fulmination stacks but they have to be recharged with LB or CL.
We have instant spells but if all they serve to do is buff our main damage spells, what happens when we can't cast those main spells?

The shaman isn't the only class being hit though. 
In fact, all caster classes are being hit in this way to some extent.  Unfortunately, as in Cata, it's the shaman toolset that is the most lacking even down to our one movement speed increase (Ghost Wolf) making us unable to cast at all.

So, due to the long cooldown or rng nature of our instant spells I think we are in a very difficult position when it comes to movement compared to other caster classes but what does this have to do with hunters?

Well... hunters are in the incredible position of being able to cast all of their 'spells' while moving. 
That is their full rotation on the move!

To say this gives them an advantage would be a gross understatement, particularly as they reduce all other ranged classes' ability to cast while moving. 
Looking back over the past two expansions and on every single fight this advantage would be massive with the only exception being Ultraxion.

We don't know how Blizzard will design raid encounters in WoD but I think we can safely say there won't be many (any?) that have the raid stacked in one place, not moving for the entire fight.

This will make it incredibly difficult for them to balance hunters against any of the other classes, melee or ranged.  Any movement, particularly random movement such as being targeted by a ground effect, will give them a huge advantage.
And the more frequently this movement is needed, the greater that advantage will be!

In fact, I can't see any way that hunters can be balanced.  They will have all the advantages of both melee and ranged with none of the drawbacks of either, how can you balance that?

And don't even get me started on PvP...