It reduces dodge/parry/block. Mobs can dodge, even from the back. You can take a look at WWS parses to observe this too. (I could be wrong, but I believe it's a 5% chance to dodge, 360 degrees)

Welp, started looking at my talent builds today so I know what to spec tonight, and I'm leaning towards this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I hate the less then 50% filled talents though. I currently run with 5 points in concussion, as the alternatives don't seem to help much in a raid environment. The alternatives usually being totemic focus/anticipation/imp LS.

Here's an elemental hybrid option: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
It's pretty close for me, although I'm still fairly sure the 3% hit from resto will still have it beat by a noticeable margin. The utility of 1 more second off shocks is handy, and possibly on par with the increased totem range. (I view the first 8 points in resto as a waste anyway, so the expensive shock talents come out to a wash in that regard) If elemental had a low tier shock crit option (maybe instead of concussion), Elemental Devastation would be a lot more viable.

That sounds like the lazy man's eckscuse, "they're going to nerf it so I'm not going to bother doing it". There was nothing in this patch to prevent it and I doubt there will be in any future patches until they revamp the totem system. A nerf to the duration/application of the WF buff can't realistically happen because the game in it's current form is balanced around arena.

I hardly consider twsiting a crutch, it's probably the easiest thing that you can do in a raid. It takes little to no attentiveness(hey look a purple bar), and while the "ficksing" of having wf/goa or wf/ta out at the same time will result in a net loss of raid dps I see zero reason to not abuse the system while you can.

As far as the ele/resto subbing, it will be totally playstyle/raid specific. I don't ever see myself putting less than 14 in resto, but I can only think of a handful of times(including progression) where I have ankhd. The only times I really die are when the shit hits the fan and ankhing would be pointless. If you pay attention to threat, your hp, your surroundings, and your potion/healthstone/bandage cooldown survival should be a nonissue making imp reincarnate useless.(imo!)

Hi all,

I realize the ideal shock rotation is the fs/es, but I am running into an issue. My guild leader (an elemental shaman, also reads this thread frequently, so may in fact read this) has told me that I cannot use Flame Shock. It takes up a debuff slot that he believes is more valuable for another class.
Since I try and let him get at least one charge of the stormstrike debuff, my shocks are sort of nerfed. I realize that shocks comprise only a relatively small part of our damage. But I was hoping there could be some logical arguement I could present him with to use Flame Shock.

Thanks in advance.

Shouldn't the argument around elemental/enhance versus enhance/resto revolve around the 5 second CD on shocks versus the +3 hit, more than anything else? Sure the +5% increase in shock damage in nice... I guess. The 10% decrease in mana cost is okay, maybe less important now in 2.3, but the 5 second CD is an increase of 20% in the amount of shocks you can cast. If + melee hit is a non issue since you can get all you need from gear and +6% from the talent. Aren't we only comparing, for damage sake (I know 30 yards is nice on totems), +3% to hit on your shocks versus +5% more damage and +20% more shocks?

If you guys don't want to believe what has been run into the ground please go and respec. Your loosing 6% to hit because you will loose 3% to your spell hit and 3% to melee which alows you to hit cap your melee specials so you can somewhat ignore to hit from equipment and gems. Overall dps is higher with this build. It was before the patch and it is after the patch. They have already run the numbers. This question has gotten as bad as people coming in here and asking what to hit number should they shoot for.

Yes, and we have comprehensively shown, time after time that the 3% Hit is better.

I think I'm doing this right - If shocks with a 6 second cooldown are 5% of your DPS, than a 20% increase from the 1 sec cooldown means that shocks are now 0.05 * 1.20 = 0.60. Take that 6% and increase it by 5% shock damage and now your shocks are 0.06 * 0.05 = 6.3%, a 1.3% improvement.
Take 3% Hit and apply it to your white dmg, typically 50% of your damage and you get a 1.5% improvement, and that's just accounting for the White dps, not the specials and not the 3% spell hit either.

It is not some vast coincidence or conspiracy theory that 90%+ of Enhance shaman are specced into resto.

I'm not saying I'm not on glue here, it's just my damage usually breaks down a little different.
50% white
30% WF
10% shocks
10% SS
1% Romeo Poison

Now this was before I read the first page here. I had 216'ish +hit and only +6% from talents. (I need to do some testing and then I'm sure I'll agree with everyone else.) It's just that I read from here that +hit basically is the last stat to work on and then I read that this patch is all about increasing shock damage.

I too had thought about this spec but I haven't had the time to do the math on it. Anyone else care to test/theorycraft it?

I'm curious if there are any work/predictions on high raid stat weights which are sadly absent from the OP. In eyeballing the changes from low raid to mid raid ratings, it appears like haste rating became significantly more valuable than before.

Of all the gear that gives high raid exclusive stats (armor pen, haste), it appears that only fists of mukoa will actually outshine other high raid alternatives with normal stats like agi/crit/hit/ap.

I'm also interested to know how AP/Str will be weighted now that 2.3 is live. My intuition tells me that crit will be valuable early on, but once you have around 30% crit unbuffed, you'd probably want to favor AP a bit more because of the boost in shock/totem damage.

Based on this intuition, I intend to replace my low end crit based trinkets with AP related trinkets in the near future.

20% increase? I would have thought higher...

The 5 second shocks and 5% damage boost increase your shock DPS by 40%.
5 second shocks allow a 4 shock/20 seconds repeatable attack sequence with Stormstrike
(ie. [in format time/spell] 0/SS, 1.5/FlaS, 6.5/ES, 10/SS, 11.5/FlaS, 16.5/ES, 20/SS, repeat]
With 6 second shocks, the rotation goes as follows:
(0/SS, 1.5/FlaS, 7.5/ES, 10/SS, 13.5 FlaS, 20/SS] as the last shock would slow your SS rotation. (in general, my SS damage is higher or close to equal to my shock damage, so I would put SS as a more important rotation to keep up)
As such, with 6 second shocks, you only get 3 shocks every 20 seconds, on a repeatable attack sequence...
This added to the fact that you are getting 5% extra damage on all shocks means that you're getting the benefit of (105+105+105+105/100+100+100) = 1.4 = 40% extra damage.
Now it would depending on whether your shocks benefit you for more than 7.5% of your total DPS, and also would obviously have a lower effect on people who hold their SS's for when WF is off the cooldown. Yet again, that in itself brings about it's own mixed benefits/losses...

And if looking at a pure comparison of the two specs, then the small static extra bonus of ~10 DPS on searing totem is there too :P