Sebudai

Here's my attempt at a mathematical comparison between the two specs dps-wise. I will be basing all of the following math off of my own statistics.

Not counting things like Improved Hunter's Mark or Expose Weakness, my raid buffed attack power is about 3035. So Mental Quickness is giving me about +910 spell damage. As far as I know Flame Shock is still benefiting from about 61% of our spell damage, Earth Shock about 43%, and each tick of Searing Totem about 17%. If these numbers are incorrect, please let me know. I'll also be using Yo's! simulator to determine the amount of melee dps I would lose by not having Nature's Guidance. Hopefully it is accurate.

Enhancement/Restoration: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Flame Shock
797 base damage.
+555 damage from Mental Quickness.
+15% from Fire Vulnerability.
+13% from Curse of Elements.
+5% from Misery.
-14% from resists.

Total: 797+555*1.15*1.13*1.05*0.86 = 1586~ damage.

Earth Shock
675 base damage.
+391 damage from Mental Quickness.
+5% from Misery.
+20% from Stormstrike.
-14% from resists.

Total: 675+391*1.05*1.20*0.86 = 1155~ damage.

Searing Totem
58 base damage per tick.
+155 damage from Mental Quickness.
+15% from Fire Vulnerability.
+13% from Curse of Elements.
+5% from Misery.
-17% from resists.

Total: 58+155*1.15*1.13*1.05*0.83 = 241~ damage every 2.5 seconds.

Total DPS from shocks/Searing Totem as Restoration spec: 325~ DPS.


Enhancement/Elemental: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Flame Shock
797 base damage.
+555 damage from Mental Quickness.
+15% from Fire Vulnerability.
+13% from Curse of Elements.
+5% from Misery.
+5% from Concussion.
-17% from resists.

Total: 797+555*1.15*1.13*1.05*1.05*0.83 = 1608~ damage.

Earth Shock
675 base damage.
+391 damage from Mental Quickness.
+5% from Misery.
+20% from Stormstrike.
+5% from Concussion.
-17% from resists.

Total: 675+391*1.05*1.20*1.05*0.83 = 1170~ damage.

Searing Totem
58 base damage per tick.
+155 damage from Mental Quickness.
+15% from Fire Vulnerability.
+13% from Curse of Elements.
+5% from Misery.
+15% from Call of Flame.
-17% from resists.

Total: 58+155*1.15*1.13*1.05*1.15*0.83 = 277~ damage every 2.5 seconds.

Total DPS from shocks/Searing Totem as Elemental spec: 389~ DPS.


Net differences between the two specs after factoring in the melee DPS gained from Nature's Guidance: Improved Healing Wave, Improved Reincarnation, Totemic Focus, and Totemic Mastery vs. Elemental Warding and 35~ DPS.

Other factors:

All of this math assumes the player is keeping Searing Totem up 100% of the time and shocking immediately on every cooldown. Not meeting these conditions certainly favors the Restoration spec.

I did not account for crits. Considering our low crit rate, the fact that Flame Shock crits affect less than half of the spells total damage, and our lack of Elemental Fury, I don't think this changes the math in any major way. But feel free to figure that out on your own and prove me wrong.

Totemic Focus is a requirement for totem twisting on a lot of encounters, even after the patch. If you don't totem twist, then perhaps elemental spec is the correct choice for you. If you totem twist, restoration is the correct choice in my opinion.

Gear has a large affect on these numbers. My math based off of my own statistics can give you a decent idea of the differences between the two specs, but if you want to be hardcore, figure it out based off of your own statistics.

 

Toots Hepcat

Look, this is *the* theorycraft forum for enhancers of all stripes. Most people come here looking to maximize their DPS. Is Elemental a way to do that? Yes.

Ignoring facts is a good way to ensure all arguments here go on for pages. I'd rather try to put this debate to rest (with, "yes, we checked, elemental is x% more dps but friggit, we're going resto because we love out raid") than have it re-introduced and re-dismissed over 20 pages of bad math.

 

Toots Hepcat

Sounds like a good argument against totem twisting, as well.

Anyhow, my point in raising these questions was to get a cogent set of the arguments AGAINST what is from a mathematical perspective justifiable.

It's kind of like the 2.6.2 changes to Water Shield. On paper, you're not gaining anything...but nobody in the real world is refreshing water shields exactly as they pop, there's too much other stuff to worry about.

 

Sebudai

Firstly, I think you should both save the attitude for people asking about how much +hit rating they need. Elemental vs. Restoration is a viable debate after 2.3. How about we all play nice?

Secondly, you're wrong about these dps numbers. I've posted a bunch of WWS in this thread alone. I really don't want to come off as bragging at all because I'm not, but here's just a few WWS from half of this weeks Hyjal/BT clear without any Searing Totem damage attributed to me:

WWS - Rage Winterchill
WWS - Anetheron
WWS - Kaz'rogal (I'm usually 100-200 dps higher on this fight)
WWS - Naj'entus
WWS - Teron Gorefiend

Pre-2.3 through 104 total logged encounters in Hyjal/BT my average dps was 1342. Post patch with a DST and that number is higher. My current average through two weeks of 2.3 is 1448. Teron Gorefiend is not singlehandedly inflating these numbers. If I played better, this average DPS number could definitely reach 1500+.

Once again, I'm not trying to brag. I'm just trying to give examples.

 

rava

Drop a Grace of Air totem while you're at it, because you know that your dps is more important than the raid's. I believe that since the idea was introduced it has all boiled down to playstyle and preference, and nothing has been accomplished except what was already known; the worse your gear the more damage shocks makeup and the more elemental subbing will play a part in your dps, and the better gear you have you will see diminished returns from elemental subbing due to non shock damage encompassing your shock damage.

Your social security check is late! Stuff costs more than it used to! Young people use curse words.

 

Beowolf

No one said to not drop WF totem for your group. The point is that you think the extra 10 yards on your totems will increase your groups damage by more than you could increase your own damage by going a 16/45/0 build. As I pointed out, if the group has to move out of range of your totems, they aren't doing any DPS anyway so it really doesn't matter in 90%+ of the fights.

 

Beowolf

WWS

That parse data doesn't add up. For instance, on Rage Winterchill, going by your damage alone, you DPSd for 142 seconds. Arkadu did more damage, but DPSed only 98% of the time, AND he did less DPS than you did. Whoever uploaded your stats obviously messed something up...

WWS

Same here. Arkadu did less DPS, but out damaged you by 20k damage, and was present for only 1% longer on a 197 second fight, again based off your damage and DPS. Why don't you post some Violation damage parses of your own. That will give us a MUCH more accurate reading of your damage :P

WWS

And look at that. You really only did 15 shocks the ENTIRE 3 minute fight? You could either do a lot more damage, or again the numbers are a bit quirky.... For instance, the fight took exactly 179 seconds by your damage to dps ratio, yet the actual parse is for only 2 minutes of data?

Edit: My own guild mates are telling me that those DPS figures are your maximum DPS, not sustained, which makes sense given that a warrior did 1500 dps on Teron and was present 100% of the time, yet was outdamaged by a lock doing only 1100 dps and who was present for the same time :P

Edit 2: I just got finished messing around with Yo!'s simulator. You would need something like 2800 AP unbuffed, 32% crit, 18% hit, 2% haste and 550 AP with BoK/Mark/BoM/LotP/TSA/BS/Drums/Haste/Elixir/Food and mongoose weapon enchant with 2 100.2 DPS weapons just to hit 1550 dps on a boss with 6200 armor. Would you care to explain how you can seemingly get 1800+ dps? :P

 

◊ Rob

Totem twisting has theoretical returns a lot higher than 0.7% of your DPS. If you're getting GoA that you wouldn't normally be, that right there is ~5% crit or ~3% more damage overall, and that's just for you -- including everyone else in the party might provide benefits equal to 10% or more of your DPS.

On the other hand, if you're trying to argue that GCDs are not problematic, you're completely ignoring that the theoretical DPS increase from going Elemental for 5 second shocks will greatly inhibit your ability to totem twist.

If you want to min-max, the absolute best raid DPS is going to be resto spec with totem twisting. Back-of-the-napkin math is more than adequate to show this. Trying to come up with a rotation for elemental with totem twisting requires the following:
0.0-WF
1.5-GoA
3.0-FS
4.5-SS
8.0-ES
9.5-WF
This should make it clear that if your latency plus reaction time is greater than 100ms, you will not achieve the theoretical gains that elemental offers. (Not to mention every minute you must refresh Searing, and every two minutes you must use SR, trinkets, and refresh SoE/Mana Spring, and probably pop a mana pot to keep up with the twisting+shock spam...)

I think that it's not hard to agree that the absolute best min-max way to go is totem twisting with a resto subspec. On the other hand, if you're like me, and only totem twist occasionally because you find it too hard to focus on your surroundings, maybe Elemental is worth considering... but for me, it's not, because that 0.7% DPS isn't worth it to lose things like imp ankh and imp totem range. I can honestly see speccing Elemental for PvP -- a reduced cooldown on Earth and Frost Shocks would be useful there -- but it's just not the best option for raiding.

 

Beowolf

Totem Twisting is getting fixed in a patch fairly soon. Do you really want to rely on an obvious bug that could disappear in the next patch?

 

Ahindwe

Did you do the math? On the first parse, he was doing damage for 142 seconds. He did a total of 241,567 damage. 241,567 divided by 142 gives you 1701, which is exactly what WWS is displaying as his DPS.

I didn't check the other two, but I imagine you'll find similar results.

I don't have the answer for the small inconsistencies you're seeing, but I think you're just being stubborn at this point.

 

Sebudai

You don't understand how WWS works. Stop looking at Presence and start looking at DPS Time.

The reason Arkadu is dealing more damage than me while doing less DPS is because he's actually attacking the mob more than I am, and WWS accounts for this. For example on Rage Winterchill we move out of Death and Decay, I often take this opportunity to help top my group off, or give people instructions(I am leading the raid). Arkadu gains a little DPS time on the mob each time I do this. Me not doing this would not reduce my DPS in any way, in fact it would probably increase it. If you look at the Rage parse Arkadu has 100% DPS Time while I have 93%. That means that for 93% of my presence in the log I was actually dealing damage.

The DPS number WWS lists is the average DPS the player did over the period of time they were actually attacking the mob.

Did you even think this through? Do you understand how high this number would be if what you were saying was correct?

Do you understand that a fully debuffed boss has half that amount of armor or less in a raiding environment? Also, Yo's! simulator doesn't account for some things like multiple Bloodlusts, Expose Weakness, Improved Hunter's Mark etc.

 

Beowolf

I assumed he was telling the truth and calculated the DPS time off of his numbers. Its everyone elses numbers that don't add up! For instance, going off of Retros damage, who DPSed the whole fight, it actually lasted 159 seconds. If he was present for 92% of that time, he would have dpsed for 146 seconds, while it only shows 142 or 90% DPS time. Now look at Arkadus, he was DPSing 98% of the fight for 1614 DPS. 98% of 159 seconds is 156 seconds, and that means he should have done ~251k, but he in fact did ~264k. Waaaaay to noisy for my liking.

 

◊ Rob

No -- I haven't totem twisted since the patch, and I only twisted before when I was threat-capped and needed TA. But what does that have to do with anything? If we're answering the question "How can I get the absolute maximum raid DPS?" the answer is: spec Enhance/Resto and totem twist. If we're answering the question "What is the easiest way to do respectable raid DPS?" the answer is: spec Enhance/Resto and don't totem twist. Enhance/Elemental gives you more DPS than Enhance/Resto without totem twisting, but at the cost of increased complexity and decreased utility, when you could have just stayed Enhance/Resto and totem twisted if you didn't mind the extra complexity.

 

Beowolf

And if I only attacked when my SS cooldown was up, I am sure I could inflate my numbers a bit too. Still, things do not add up, but I am willing to let it slide. My guild does not use WWS anymore, so I generally rely on my violation numbers. I've always felt that DPS is damage done over the course of the entire fight, not just the times I'm actually damaging so my own 1050 DPS figure is probably lower than what I am doing by your standards~

 

Sebudai

I've edited my reply to you above. I'd also like to add that yes, I really only did shock 15 times on Teron. Imagine how high that dps number would be if I was a better player.

 

rava

That isn't my argument. My argument is twisting will outdps elemental, and it will. If you want to throw it out because it might be fixed in a future patch then go for it. I find it odd that you are commenting on mobility fights when you haven't experienced three of the most movement intensive fights in the game.

The WWS are correct, click on Modrack's name; DPS time : 1mn (62 % of presence), DPS : 1510. Also, 326969/179=1826, accurate? Yes. Independently hosted WWS don't know how to show exact time, so it rounds to the nearest minute. Apparently he does hit that much harder.

Your social security check is late! Stuff costs more than it used to! Young people use curse words.

 

Beowolf

So basically what you are telling me is that if I were to use your standards for DPS time, I am actually doing 25-30% more DPS than what my in game meter is telling me. Very interesting to know for future reference :P

 

rava

Teron DPS presence was 100%, and I don't understand how a comment about being present 93% of rage would equate to 25-30% more dps. You are missing these things on the sim, they are called armor debuffs. Sunder, Faerie Fire, Recklessness, ect make that value lower.

Your social security check is late! Stuff costs more than it used to! Young people use curse words.

 

Beowolf

My argument is that when you are not exploiting game mechanics, Elemental will out damage Restoration. You really can't refute that with anything you have thrown out today!

As far as the WWS parses, I admit they seem roughly legitimate as I crunch the numbers and compare the various times. Unfortunately they are also HIGHLY misleading, as they only count DPS when you are actually fighting a mob, and not when you are doing something else: like getting out of an AE, healing, dropping totems etc. Essentially free time to let your cooldowns refresh to give you that extra burst potential (WF/SS/Shocks). If I trimmed away all the non damage time crap that I do on a fight, I am sure I would come out with similar damage ratios that he has. He only has about 75 more AP and a tad more haste than I do presently!

Edit: I will try to get someone in my guild to run the numbers for Gorefiend tonight and compare notes.

 

Sebudai

Do you realize you were just proven wrong about ten different ways and yet for some reason you're still acting like a condescending douchebag? I mean, do you want me to return the favor? Perhaps me and my guild are just better at dealing damage than you and your guild? Do you really want to get in a dick waving contest with me or something? You're basically trolling at this point, and these aren't the forums for that.

They're not "my" standards, they're WWS' standards, and they're perfectly reasonable and pretty much agreed upon by all of the people that actually know how WWS works. Clearly you're not one of those people since I just had to explain to you some of WWS' most basic functions. Where exactly did you pull that 25-30% number from anyway?

I could very easily not heal my group at all on Rage, or just neglect my raid leading duties and focus more on dealing maximum damage. My DPS would be exactly the same or higher. Not only are those DPS numbers accurate, but they could clearly be higher if I played better. You're just plain wrong about that 1200 DPS number. It's okay to be wrong.

You're completely exaggerating the dps I gain from the way WWS calculates it. It is very marginal at best. Hell, next clear I'll make sure I have 100% DPS Time on every encounter so my guilds parses can meet your demanding standards.

Also, could you give me an accurate armory link? It looks like your pvp spec now, but if you normally use most of that gear in pve, you are in fact quite a bit behind me gear-wise, which would account for some of the difference in DPS.

 

rava

It isn't an exploit, WoW Forums -> Totem Twisting

Later in the thread:

I'll leave the WWS dwellings and gear comparisons alone because I am entirely too lazy to put any effort into it.

Your social security check is late! Stuff costs more than it used to! Young people use curse words.

 

everwatch

First off I saw one argument comparing spec'ing Ele versus Totem Twisting. This has to be one of the stupidest arguments ever. Ele spec can totem twist. You're done. We have so little mana issues now you can still totem twist while being spec'd Ele. Drop that one. Sure resto gets a mana break, but Ele spec'd shaman can totem twist too.

Shock damage. I listed several WWS where Shocks at their low were 13% of my damage and at their high were 19% of my damage. Through my testing I have found shocks to be 16% of my total dmg on average. This is in part due to *MY* playstle since I've seen other shaman with only 10% of their dmg from shocks since 2.3 which really does boggle me, but hey. Whatever. So what this means is that Shock damage, depending on your gear, playstyle, preferences, latency, computer, skill, etc... is likely to range somewhere between 10-18% of your total damage done. I can tell you from personal experience that if you are sharp on your GCD timers that 16% is very achievable. It is not however a static number for everyone. It isn't 15% of your damage, or 10%, or 16%. The previous example of your white damage needing to 7 times greater than your shock damage is a more static and useful tool. Apply that to your personal Shock damage results will yield the correct assumption.

Resto vs Ele. As Malan said about Executioner vs Mongoose, I'd like to mimic him here. They are close enough to not truly require you to spec one way or the other. I have spec'd Resto and Ele both since 2.3 and found the differences to be minimal. It is a playstle preference. Do you like 5 second cooldown shocks for interrupts and dps with Ele Warding? Or do you like faster ankhs/heals and totem range improvements? Whatever floats your boat is the right answer. The dps overage is not enough to say any one spec trumps the versatility of the other.

As to totem ranges nerfing DPS. If you're a shaman worth your salt, then you know when a boss moves to drop a WF totem first, and to do so before the melee makes it into range of the boss. You also know that the WF pulse has a long enough duration to drop another totem near the melee so they don't lose it. Totem range is about "easy mode" or just being lazy about managing GCD's. *AND* if you do totem twist, then drop it because you're dropping totems left and right and can move them around easy. Your dps also knows to stay in range of the stupid totems. There are so few fights where the BOSS will move AWAY from the TOTEMS that totem range being an issue is BS. And if GCD is the issue - and you're worried about the raid dps like you say you are, then don't Shock/SS. Drop new totems. It's simple. *IF ANYTHING* reduced totem range nerfs *your* dps. Because if you're being a good raider, you're putting your totems out before Shocking/SS'ing.

I went Ele and I have noticed the range loss. It hurts. But it just means *I* have to work harder and manage my GCD's not only more often but more efficiently as well. And my melee boys have not once complained about even once being out of WF range. And I've asked.

As to potential Enhance DPS. I personally am a "weirdo shammy". I went full T5 instead of taking the best pieces that I could. Why? Because I dug the way the set looked. Simple. I nerfed my dps in order to look cool. Selfish? Sure. But then it's my game and I play it the way I want to. So speaking as such, I maintain anywhere between 900-1200 dps on average depending on the fight and what is required of me. Also as to how well the group is stacked in my favor. So knowing that, I think it's very reasonable to extrapolate that an "optimally geared shaman" could maintain on average 1200-1500 dps on average. Keep in mind that fights such as Shade/Akama/and a few others see my dps in a range of 1200-1500. I don't speak of max, I speak of averages.


You guys are usually very tight and facts roll out most of the time. Some newer posts have lead to some bickering. I hate seeing that. If you have some new data, back it with some WWS's or SS's. And if you're going to call out a long time respected poster, think about what you're saying and make sure you can back up what you say too.

http://www.skeletonjack.com/

 

Tahirne

Arkadu hacks.
Seb, tell Hakle I say hello. Miss the guy.

Seb, your numbers really are impressive. Goodjob on all the fights.
I personally pull 1000-1100 DPS Depending on the encounter and raid setup.
Seeing 1600-1750 Is a very nice thing to look up to when gear improves.

Now as for the Elemental/Enhance Vs Enhancement/Resto, In my personal opinion I would believe 2/45/15 to be superior, mainly because the argument for Elemental/Enhance is overall more shock damage while those arguing for that tend to ignore the fact that your losing 3% spell hit from specing out of natures guidance as well.

Gaining 3% more shock Damage for the loss of 3% less spell/melee hit - No thanks.

 

Nuala

Hello, I just read this post with great attention and I am sure it will help me gear myself up better.

But I ran a search and did not find any relevant information on fist weapons.

I currently run on 2 Runic Hammers and plan to take a gladiator weapon, with honor points or arena points I don't know yet. I guess I need to choose between better gear and worse weapon or better weapon and lower gear.

Three weapons are available, Mace Axe or Fist Weapon. In the first post, you tend to encourage people to take an Axe if they are Orcs or a Mace, but you do not speak of Fist Weapons.

Tell me if I am wrong but there is no difference in stats or DPS on those three weapons, The only difference I see is that the Gladiator Right Ripper is not as regular a weapon, it has a bigger top damage number and a smaller lower damage number. The damage window is larger wich in turn will lead to higher crits and higher WF procs but also the worse crits and the worse WF procs.

This could be an asset in pvp because high damage is more difficult to heal through (though resilience has seen to that) but you could also end up with very low damage if you are unlucky.
This is a drawback in pve because it adds to the random DPS a Shaman tends to do while he relies on procs.

I am sure I am missing something on fist weapons and why not use them, so I would be thankful if someone could enlighten me with the correct information.

Thanks in advance.

 

Boro

@ Sebudai

Your figures in the WWS parses are very similar to mine for BT but in Hyjal you seem to be doing more dps. But as someone once said (Malan and Rob i think) in an earlier response to one of my posts....WWS is not comparable between different guilds raids etc its such a subjective way to do things. One thing is for sure though that the average dps in your raids across all classes is very high no slackers there for sure :-) Do you tend to run with 6/7 healers these days?

With regards to WWS I see your guild does not use the online service for hosting as the links you show are to your guilds web space. I think you are therefore using the local generation of stats and hosting the results your selves. I would be grateful if you could ask your WWS guys how they manage to get the whole fight for Akama, including the Channellers and other mobs. When you host a BT parse on WWS servers it only shows Akama as a fight from the time he is released. Do your guys trim the logs? for each fight and host them? If so I think this may be a better way to give more accurate and meaningful parses, focussing specifically on each encounter.

I did a raid last night in ZA with the elemental spec 16/45/0 ( thought I would try it out before our Hyjal/BT clear tomorrow) within the first 2 bosses I had party messages from my group asking if WF was down lol. I think you know the reasons why......I ended up totem twisting......but just WF!!