Bustadawg

Hey guys, here is my armory: Gear

I know I need some upgrades here and there (like my neck, lol), and I’m in the process of swapping out some gems to potent topazs’ for some more +dmg and crit. I’m still a bit apprehensive to changing my weapon enchant to +40 spell dmg, though it would be a huge dmg upgrade, but I think I need the intel more (same reason I use insightful earthstorm) :\ Our guild is not currently blessed with multiple shadow Priests; 2 just went on a leave so that leaves us with 1, so can’t be guaranteed to be in a shadow Priest group anymore. I think I can do a pretty good job managing my mana w/o a SP, but I’m just one of those people that need to have the extra buffer there just for whatever may happen, lol. I’ll probably end up playing around with stuff and see how it works.

About trinkets, how do you guys feel about Q’s eye? I think it’s great personally, but would LC or Xi’ri’s gift be a better option to crank out more damage?

I’ve also been on a hiatus for about 2+ months and was using ECB, but since my guild (and everyone else) raves about Quartz, I went ahead and upgraded to it. Gonna have to play around with it and get my stop casting down; don’t even know how it really works yet (lol), but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. I know I could be doing a lot more dps then what I do now and I think Quartz might be able to bump me up a bit, as well as re-working some gems and gear upgrades as they come. So yeah, any tips/advice you guys can shoot my way would be great

 

Benjaimn

What do you need int for? +40 dmg and a new meta will help your dps much more then extra mana regen will. Even with out a shadow priest I just have to chug a few more mana pots not a big deal at all.

Now with the haste buff I also can't decided if I will use Quag's Eye over Nexus Horn. I still feel like Nexus Horn will be better.

 

vokzhen

That tiny amount of extra mana won't make a difference compared to +40dmg.
Also, you *should* be guaranteed a shadow priest. Shadow priests should go to mages first, as should elemental shammies and doomkin. The synergy is so high there's no reason that - if you have them - you shouldn't have an spiest/doomkin/shammy/mage/mage group

For trinkets, SimulationCraft - Shadow Priest Wiki :P

 

Kasi

How does that simulator work? I'm curious that it has Quag's eye as so much stronger than Shiffar's Nexus Horn. Is it just simulated on spamming lightning bolt or what?

Because I have this list of trinkets:
Icon
Shiffar's
Quag's
Xiri's

Normally I've been using Icon and Shiffar's Nexus Horn. But that simulation has Quagmirren's Eye as 24 more spell damage. And the level of spell crit rating plus my damage is exactly at what their predictor is. 350 spell crit, 45ish hit and 1000 spell damage with well 950 spell damage, well not 1k unbuffed, but that is still close enough. I'm surprised that a 6 second buff on Quag's is that powerful. I should be going with a shadow priest in raids soon, so I'd like to know if Quag's is really that much stronger for an ele shaman.

 

• Binkenstein

I should be adding Quag's into shamstats soon, now that I'm back at work & all.

 

Bustadawg

Hey guys....so now that the +crit dmg meta gem was changed to just affecting melee, what gem are you guys (the ones that used it) thinking of switching to?

 

Benjaimn

I'll be using the +12 dmg meta from the Spirit Shard turn in. Mainly because I value 12 +dmg over 14 crit rating. And on top of that it will free up some of the slots that I had to put blue gems in to meet the requirements of the Relentless Earthstorm Diamond.

 

Chemdog

I'm wondering why I see so many armory profiles with Gavel of Unearthed Secrets. I know it's a good weapon, but I've seen some profiles with multiple tier 4/5 gear and I've noticed very few M.G. weapons, or even Mindblades for that matter. Is it just one of those last to get upgraded items? I'm working on my Arena pts now, because it's the first piece of gear I'm purchasing.

And quick question for Bink (or anyone who knows) which I didn't notice anywhere in this thread. In your spreadsheet you have jagged talasite listed on the gem sheet, doesn't that only increase melee/ranged crit and not spell crit?

 

Trippy

Its a glaring itemization hole.

The mace from Hyjal will help out, as its an upgrade from anything a Shaman can get outside Naj.

 

Daidalos

Ya I was really happy when I saw the hyjal trash mace then I saw it had hit instead of crit.. so the naj dagger is still better.. oh well. Its only 11 dmg or so updrage from my s2 merc glad dagger making it.."meh". basically i'm hoping all the locks and mages will get the sword from arch and the spreists the mace off trash leaving me the dagger off Naj

With all the hit on t6 level gear I don't really see anyway not to be at hit cap even trying to avoid it. (assuming a standard 41-0-20 spec)

 

Kasi

Merciless Gladiator weapon is very good. But there are certain factors why it's not as sought after for shamans as it is for mages, warlocks, boomkins and shadow priests.

1) For a person playing in the arena competitively, they're going to get armor first. For casters armor is a much bigger part then weapons. Armor gives more resilience, actually raises survivability considerably (especially given how much shamans get focus fired) and is a better use of points.

2) For those doing pve, yeah the daggers/maces pickings are slim, but honestly the S2 weapons are badly itemized for shamans. I certainly don't need the spell hit from it. I don't even consider the S2 weapon to be an upgrade over the mindblade. I gain 22 spell damage, but lose 23 spell crit rating.

But yeah for guilds with bad luck on Mindblades and who don't do Doomwalker, the S2 weapon is very nice.

I would still like some feedback on Quag's eye vs Shiffar's Nexus Horn. I did some testing last night on Dr. Boom, but its really hard to test because crit chances and LO procs really swing the results wildly.

Another question is how much difference is Dr. Boom results from raid bosses results, given that you're at max spell hit and in the same gear for both? I know the spell damage doesn't change vs a 68 compared to a 73 (although partial resists might be more an issue) but I'm curious how spell crit changes against a mob two levels lower. Lets say I get 1k dps on Dr. Boom with just my totems, how does that translate to dps in a raid?

 

Benjaimn

The main problem I have with Boom is that you can not use CL with out greatly skewing your damage since it will hit 3 targets. Besides that I figure it would be very similar. Isn't LB binary so it won't get partial resist? or am I understanding it wrong.

I'm leaning more twords Quag's Eye mainly because I'm not worried about the 4/5 T4 bonus anymore since it was nerfed and that was the main reason I was a tad bit more focused on crit. And on top of that with the haste buff Quag's Eye seems like a much better choice.

 

Bulwyf

What 2nd effect do you think Lightning bolt has?

 

Daidalos

LB is not binary. Binary resists are on spells with snare/stun/interrupt effects like frost shock earth shock frostbolt etc. For exmaple I always see tons of partial resists when I do my netherwing mine dailies way over hit cap on lvl 70 mobs.

For the s2 weapons vs mindblade 22 spell dmg is > 23 crit rating for just about anyone who would actually want either. for 1 crit to = 22 spell dmg your amount of +dmg has to be very very high. For exmaple with 800 spell dmg and 40 crit (with wrath of air and totem of wrath down and after talents) 1% crit is worth about 11 spell dmg. Most people overvalue the dmg crit adds. But its certainly not a huge upgrade and many casters in my guild still use mind blade.

 

Kasi

Yeah I just did some math for LB spam with an average hit of 1500 and a crit rate of 35%, which is pretty close to where I am. First I added 22 spell crit rating and went from an average LB of 2025 to 2040. Then I went with 23 spell damage and went from 2025 to 2052. Makes me wonder how much I should be going after sockets with the copious amounts of blue/yellow gems in shaman gear or whether I should go and stack + dmg.

 

Daidalos

Alot of the time its better to ignore sockets and just put in pure dmg gems if you solely care about dps but crit does help with longevity. But if you ever wonder which is better pure dmg gem or crit and dmg gem the answer is always pure dmg. (In thoery you could get enough +dmg to make the crit and dmg gems break even against the pure dmg gems but the amount needed is absurdly high and not currently obtainable i.e. ~2000+ dmg)

 

Bustadawg

That's what I'm thinking of going to also.

 

Kasi

Yeah I plan to go with the spell damage/run speed one since run speed is great and I won't have to use Veteran's instead of Hurricane for fights I need it and thus can keep the 4 mp5 from vitality.

 

Benjaimn

Right, thank you I mixed up what I thought binary meant.

 

• Binkenstein

Indeed it does *deletes*

With Quag's Eye, I've added it in, but I'm unsure of the cooldown on it, which will of course change the effectiveness of the trinket.

Currently, I'm using a 33 second cooldown (as suggested on wowhead) which (using kara/heroic gear) gives it about 80% of the value of the Nexus-Horn. Certainly better than some of the other trinkets (ranking 9/25) but not the best.

My personal preference is to stay away from haste related items though (TLC, Shiffar's, Sextant would be my picks if you're not mana constrained).

Another note: the mana restore meta may be a good idea as well, depending on mana issues, especially after the T4 4pc "fix"

 

slant

From Eyonix's post in the blizz forums.

The new lightning overload will make up for it, as the extra spell should be affected by your spell damage. But still, LB is no longer the best scaling pure nuke in the game.

The new watershield looks super sexy.

 

Daidalos

The nice thing about haste is how it scales linearly with the rest of your dmg stats.
basically:
Crit scales with +dmg
+dmg scales with crit.
Haste scales with both dmg and crit.

So at some theoretical point I'd guess quag would become one of the top dps trinkets. just doing some quick a dirty math with 2.6% haste ( 6 secs / 45 s cooldown this is what I read in the trinket thread here) would be about 43 dps increase (on LB spam) if you had 1150spell dmg and 35 crit. Ignoring the +dmg already on it. Very very few ppl have that kinda gear though.

Hrm I'm not really sold on that being a dps increae. sustained dps increase def. But for the 5% extra dmg from LO to offset the coeffcient on LB going from .857 to .714. I think you would have to fairly low amounts of +dmg. I'll have to run the numbers to see for sure though.

 

Snow

Yeah, the coefficient reduction is bad for pvp, as the lowered coefficient means our reliable burst is down, even if the chance of "accidental" burst goes up. Someone who's keen on numbers want to see what this all means for pve? I'll get to work as soon as I can find my abacus.

 

Kasi

Currently I have about 1050 spell damage between gear, totem and wrath of air.

Max rank LB is avg of 600 damage. 1050 x .857 = 900. Thus yeah I have an average LB of 1500, 3k crit.

CL right now is 880, with an additional 750 coming from gear, for a total of 1630 average hit, 3260 crit.

Right now I have 36% crit. Thus LB does an average of 960 + 1080 = 2040 dmg in 2 seconds. Similarily CL does 1043 + 1173 = 2216 dmg in 1.5 seconds.

Basically with my spell crit it works out to just multiply my non spell crit by 1.36 which is pretty obvious.

1/20 of your LB or CL cause LO, so you can just I think model this by (going spell dmg + spell dmg x 5% or just 105% of spell damage) 2040x1.05 = 2142 and 2216X1.05 = 2327 damage respectively for the 2 spells.


New model:

LB dmg: 600 + (.714 x 1050) = 1350 dmg, 2700 crit, 1836 avg dmg
CL dmg: 880 + (.571 x 1050) = 1480 dmg, 2960 crit, 2013 avg dmg

LO will now be a 20% chance to get a half damage spell. Simply I think this can just be done as a 10% chance to get full damage. Should be twice as effective. So take those prior values and multiply them by 1.1

Lightning Bolt will now be 1836x1.1 = 2020 damage and CL 2013x1.1 = 2214 dmg.

Unless I'm completely off base here, how the hell is this an upgrade? This is a flat out nerf.

 

Kasi

All these changes seem to do is lower our threat and lower our mana issues. Well if you have salv and a good tank threat isn't an issue. And if you have a shadow priest, which most shamans in raiding guilds do have, mana is not a problem. I'd please like someone to check my math, but according to what I worked out this is a flat out nerf for elemental shamans. All this does is make it easier for resto shamans to farm. I just don't understand. From the WWS I see enhancement and elemental were neck and neck for dps. This is going to drop elemental behind at a time where enhancement is getting buffed.

And I don't even have that great of gear, mostly T4 and S2 pvp. I'd imagine this would be worse for people 100-150 spell damage in front of me in T6 gear.