I am amazed at this. For me aggro has only really be an issue on a handful of boss, all of whom are somewhat aggro sensitive.
- and mind you, I am well above the 24% crit rate aswell

If you are managing to overaggro raid bosses with the gear displayed on Armory, then I dare say you have a tanking problem rather then a aggro problem. I assume you are getting salv?

It amazes me how long that thought of crits causing more threat has hung around. They don't cause more threat. All that matters is damage and damage alone.

This is the case for me as well and threat is only an issue if I jump the gun and go all out too early. It is very difficult for me to even catch up to the tank in most cases unless there is an aggro reset or deaggro.

Others have covered the crit = more threat falsehood but I just want to point out that the 24% crit number is mine alone. It is the number I have chosen that I feel gives me the longevity from clearcast I need. After that I prefer the more reliable DPS boost of +damage.

I know other shaman want closer to 30% base. The way I see it I'm going to be pounding back potions on every cooldown no matter what I do. So long as I last the fight without going OOM I don't need more crit.

I am actually thinking about putting together a haste set and WWS the impact during my raids. Has anyone been able to test the benefits of spell haste for an elemental shaman? We already have a very fast main nuke and I am wondering what would happen if we were to be able to take that down closer to the GCD.

Haste functionality has been built in, I just don't have any +haste items listed (yet).

I thought I remembered the +damage number where LB was > CL was something like 1600 or 1700.

To binkenstein:
I'm trying (and i appreciate ^^) your xls spreadsheet for gear comparison.
there's one thing that is disturbing me, how do you get 1 spell crit = 10 heal???
that seem absolutely wrong for me, and make some silly things happening, like a dps cloth robe being twice as efficient as my healing mail chest...
Just a typo i think, could you correct it if possible?
Thanks in advance.

This is covered earlier in either this thread, or one of the other elemental threads.

LB is 2.0 secs, CL 1.5 secs, therefore LB needs to do ALOT more dmg to be higher dps then CL.
I honestly don't think there is any practical point where dps wise CL will be inferior to LB, even with 4 parts tier6. DPM is another matter.
Sure, with enough haste you could push LB low enough to rival CL, but that much haste isnt practical to have outside of trinket proccs etc.

If I have a shadow priest and mana for the most part isnt an issue (ie. longevity isn't an issue) chain lightning is in my rotation. There really is no reason not to use it.

I didn't see an 'official' Elemental discussion thread so I figured I'd post some questions here.

I'd like to open with a discussion on raid DPS and how to effectively increase it. It looks like I'm hitting around mid to high 800 DPS for most stuff and I'm shooting to break a consistent 900-1k DPS.

First- Cycles: 3xLB 1xCL rotation seems to be considered the standard rotation. Do any of you guys use Flame Shock in your rotations? The only time I ever remember to use FS is when I need to move and can't cast for a few seconds.

Second- Gems: I'm assuming Red = 9 Damage, Yellow = 4 Crit/5 Damage, Blue = 5 Damage/6 Stamina (or their BT equivalents) are the best choices for standard gem slots. Meta gem wise, I personally go for the +3% critical gem, but has anyone else found the others to be worthwhile? Mystical Skyfire interferes with GCD and I personally don't need the mana return on the Insightful Earthstorm meta.

Third- Set Bonuses: At what point is it worth breaking up 4/5 T4 bonus?

--

Here's a WWS parse of a recent SSC clear: Wow Web Stats (I'm Appleseed). This was right before I got the 4/5 T4 bonus later that night, but I don't have a really good WWS parse of me with the set in a raid. Here's my Armory profile: The Armory [edit- Profile might change to PvP gear/spec because of the weekend ><]

We had the spell rotation up earlier, and I believe the concensus was that LB, LB, LB ,CL was the preferred, with FS only being used when you had to move and could not dmg the mob in any other way. Consider that FS only gets 64% of spell dmg(and not nature), does not gain crit from talents, and does not procc LO, and worst of all, requires you to be unhealthily close to your target.

As for gems, I always value Spell dmg > Crit > other stats. Meaning I will take out-of-socket red spell dmg gems if I will gain more spell dmg that way. Others might rather want the crit, but I swear by more spell dmg

As for tier 4, 4 part bonus, I only ever wear it if for some reason I don't have a SP, and on Kazrogal ofc. If you arent running oom, youre gimping your dmg by not wearing better gear then tier 4. You will have to drink mana pots ofc, but that comes with the territory as a raider, and should be of no consquence. - and even so, I often find myself chugging Destruction Pots where a bit more dmg is needed.
The tier 4 2 part bonus is something else entirely, and I am not quite sure when I would want to change that. The tier 6 elemental set bonuses are the kind that makes you cream yourself, so at some point, getting 4 parts of that will definitely be better then the 100 more spell dmg to my party.

The single biggest increase in my dps over the last months have been attention to my stopcasting use, and the difference from when I am useing it and not useing it is huge.

Possibly because when I got smart and put in the Crit Modifier in preparation for handling the 4pc T5 set bonus, I failed to notice that dividing by a decimal will make the resulting number bigger not smaller >.<

Tiz fixed now.

Oh, one other thing.
Can I get a list of "naked" stats for Draenei, Troll, and Orc shaman?

'Naked' stats for a level 70 Draenei shaman:

113 Stam
109 Int
122 Spi
4313 Mana
1% hit rating

If I missed any relevant stats, let me know and I'll be sure to hook you up.

That's pretty much all I needed, cheers.

Also adding a "Changelog" page too.

re: the spell rotation. 3:1 is probably the best, although I was managing almost a 2:1 ratio while pew-pew-ing my way through Kara on Saturday (we had excess healers, so I got to respec ). Oddly enough, I found that by the time my CL cooldown was up, I was halfway through my third LB cast. I should probably add in a "lag" function into the rotation calc I made a while ago.

Right, the rotation calc has been updated, and funnily enough, comes fairly close to what I was getting in Kara too (aside from the odd partial resist, which I am going to attribute to mob resist levels or not having ToW down).

I consider raid buffs to be extras, so when comparing stats it's always going to be unbuffed, but I usually include ToW for elemental stats.

Also: SSC/Eye + some BT loots added

Well yea, I presume thats including talents then however? Or?

Aka, the 10% from call of thunder and tidal mastery.

Does anyone have a link for an armory profile of an elemental shaman geared in mostly pre-kara gear or close to it? I'm curious to see what kind of numbers you can get before you start raiding.

Isn't Call of Thunder 6% or is it just me?

I plan on breaking my t4 4pc bonus when I have 2pc t6, I skipped all the t5. Was hoping to pick up the Fathom-Lord trinket to help compensate if the mana hit was that large, but he still hasnt dropped one in our 10-11 kills and now that were in BT/Hyjal I doubt well see to many more SSC nights. And as far as the 2pc goes, Im gonna have to agree with Dicho above. I probably wont drop that until I can use the 4pc t6 which is a good ways off.

You're correct, my bad.

link

This is my alt, but currently logged out in healing gear. I'll logg out in DPS gear once I get home.
Some info now: I think I have about 20-21% tooltip crit without talents and 720-ish +damage unbuffed. My only Kara drop is the healing mace currently equipped (lacking enchant) so its all questrewards / 5-man drops.
Self-buffed with totem + talents that brings me to about 34% crit on LB and CL if I remember correct.