Elemental: Patch 3.1

Patch 3.1 is finally here, and with it more bosses, more items, and more changes. The question is (or at least the one that I will address here) how does this affect Elemental Shaman? As per usual, I shall be covering this from a PvE perspective, as I have little interest in (or skill with) PvP. I'll cover talent builds, glyphs, and a few general gearing issues. There will be a short re-cap at the end.

Firstly, talents. We didn't see many changes to talents this time around, mostly due to the massive re-design in 3.0.8. Overload was changed to 3 points rather than 5, Booming Echoes was added in as a more PvP-centric 2 point talent, and Elemental Mastery was altered to a shorter & weaker crit buff with an instant-cast function. For a general talent build, most people will go for this build, taking the current standard and putting the free points from Overload into Booming Echoes. However, I'll be going for a slight variation on that build, swapping 3 points from Convection (6% mana cost reduction) to Elemental Warding (6% damage reduction). For those that haven't read my blog previously, I have previously discussed mana management, and highlighted the fact that Convection is least useful of the cost reduction & regen talents.

Next we look at Glyphs. The standard glyphs of choice prior to 3.1 were Flame Shock, Lava and Lightning Bolt, and 3.1 introduces Totem of Wrath. The common misconception is that Lightning Bolt was the weaker of the three, as it only adds 4% extra damage, vs the 10% extra spell-power for Lava. However since you'll be using 9 or more LB casts to the 2 LvB casts, it works out that Lightning Bolt is the better of the two. This is also part of the reason why Totem of Wrath is now preferable to Lava, the other part being that Lava Burst loses a set bonus while Flame Shock & Lightning Bolt gain bonuses, skewing things in favour of pure spell-power. Even with hypothetical best-in-slot gear, Lava still only gives 99 dps, vs the 120 from Totem of Wrath (for comparison, Lightning Bolt gives 163 dps) without considering set bonuses.

Speaking of set bonuses, there have also been a few misunderstandings about how the Tier 7 4pc bonus works. The 10% extra crit damage is not the same as a 10% damage bonus. Bonus critical damage is worked out like this:

(1.5*(1+CSD)-1)*(1+Elemental Fury + Lava Flows + T7 4pc)+1 or (1.5*1.03-1)*(1+1+0.24+0.1) = 0.545*2.34+1 = 2.2753 or 227.53%.

If we remove the 10% from T7 it results in 222.08% a loss of slightly over 5%. If you then consider this bonus in the same context as the Lava glyph earlier, you'll understand why this 5% bonus only equates to a 30 dps increase. The Tier 8 bonuses, on the other hand, are very useful. The 2pc bonus allows Flame Shock to crit, meaning that its damage increases by 109% multiplied by the crit chance. Since Elemental crit chances are usually over 40%, this can give a 44% bonus to the DoT portion of the spell (est dps = 134). The 4pc bonus also interacts with the (slightly higher) crit chance of Lightning Bolt, which effectively acts as an 8% multiplier to the crit bonus (Going from 209% to 225.75%) which will give it a higher crit bonus than Lava Burst.

Next, gear in general. There are a few odd gearing choices that have arisen from the new patch. For example, there are no (known) Elemental boots inUlduar , which means that the best item to get is cloth. Generally I would advise against taking cloth items when there are suitable/practical alternatives, or at least when there are others who would get more use out of the items (an example will be Boots of Fiery Resolution). There are also cases where the best gear available is already out. Footsteps ofMalygos are a good example, as the only alternatives are cloth/leather boots with spirit, or Restoration mail boots with mp5 (until you can get the previously mentioned Boots of Fiery Resolution via a Hard Mode). Aside from that, Voice of Reason, Signet of Manifested Pain and Pennant Cloak would be items to keep, mostly due to how they are itemised plus the fact they are level 226.

Lastly, the question of Dual Specs. My recommendation for a second spec would be a Restoration build (I am talking PvE after all) as it's somewhat unlikely that a caster dps will need to swap for a melee dps. Having an extra possible Resto shaman will make things easier in general, and the gear is mostly the same so you'll have an easier time maintaining your "offset".

So, in summary:

• Talents: My Build or a more Standard Build
• Glyphs: Flame Shock, Lightning Bolt, Totem of Wrath
• Set bonuses: T7 4pc = bad, T8 2/4pc = good
• Gear: Skip mp5/spirit, keep some pre-3.1 gear.
• Dual Spec: Go resto, your guild will (probably) love you for it.

Hopefully this will answer some questions that have been asked already (or better yet, those you had not thought to ask!).

Cross posted to StratFu

[update 16th]Copied from StratFu in response to a query on Lava vs Totem of Wrath glyphs
Lava is not 10% damage, but 10% spellpower (ie: taking the co-efficient from 71% to 81%) which means it is not seeing a 10% damage increase (so for 2800 spellpower that means an extra 280 * 1.11 * 2.22 = 689 per spell, 1379 per rotation, but for a ~20 second rotation this becomes 69 dps - a rough example only).

Totem of Wrath, on the other hand, is 84 spellpower, which gives roughly 1.4 dps per point. 84 * 1.4 = 117 dps

These examples are somewhat simplistic, but that should explain why there is that difference. If you want to see a more detailed evaluation of the math, see my spreadsheet: [Elemental] SEIC Spreadsheet - v3