Binkenstein, the increase of shock dps i calculated was with the rule that you prioritise Stormstrike. If you want to play with WF cooldowns be my guest. I dont even have an addon to see the WF cooldown. I prefer to focus on the boss fight and just press my dps buttons on cooldown.

It has been addressed.

http://elitistjerks.com/595300-post49.html

Several posts have touched on Call of Flame.
post 198, postulating that Call of Flame is nothing to write home about.
post119, lamenting the ability to not be able to directly measure Call of Flame's benefits
post82, postulating that Call of Flame was the straw that would tip the scales in favor of elemental sub spec.
I think most people don't bother talking about Call of Flame, because it's relatively easy to calculate the benefit. Just as important is that no one will argue Call of Flame loses DPS. Even though I get 3 different results from calculations, they're all near each other in terms of realized gains. 10 to 15dps is what Call of Flame is worth to a t6 geared enhance shaman.

WoWwiki = 9.75dps gained: WoWwiki says searing totem hits every 2 seconds for 50 to 66 damage, gets 8% of your spell damage added per hit (is this still true?).
You get 30% of your AP as spell damage, so roughly 2.4% of your AP is added to the average of 58 searing totem damage.
Totem does 29 DPS on its own, each 1k of AP is 12 more dps. Therefore a wowwiki.com Call of Flame at a maximum is worth 4.35dps + 1.8dps per 1000 AP. Theoretically it's 9.75 DPS for an enhance shaman who averages 3k AP and who's searing totem never misses or partially resists.

WWS = 13.75dps gained: WWS says that my guild's searing totem hit on average for 220, every 2.4ish seconds (i had to browse by hand to figure the timing out), without call of flame. Therefore CoF for me would be like 13.75 DPS, for a never missing or partially resistant searing totem.

Yo's sim = 14.25dps gained: Yo's sim determined that normally my searing totem does 95 dps, 15% more of that means CoF is worth +14 DPS to me. I entered zero spell hit in the sim, I'm hoping that Yo correctly models hits, damage and time between searing attacks.


final note: I want to thank the EJ community, I've used your wisdom and math many times to better my character's performance in game. Sorry that I come off like a jackass when I try to return the favor on these boards.

Do those numbers take into account that you have 3% spell hit right now as resto subspec though?

the wowwiki calculations are a theoretical max, 100% hit.
The WWS numbers are also theoretical, 100% hit, but an ad hoc determination of time between hits. I checked timing and it was always near 2.4 seconds... i don't know why. But it was mind-numbing browsing the log file by hand looking for searing totem against supremus. (he's a good boss, because the restos don't get close enough to drop searing, but he sucks to actually damage with searing since he resists an additional 12% of it's damage)
For Yo's sim, i entered my spell hit as zero, yet his simulation showed the greatest increase.

I also editted my post to include that info. And my guild leader has yet to post the damn WWS from when i got to try out ele sub-spec. Which would be great for directly determining how CoF increases the per hit damage of searing. . . but not perfect for determining the time it takes searing to hit the target.

Oops, sorry... guess I just hadn't seen something laid out as nice as your post. The numbers you provide are good. 7.5 DPS may be "nothing to write home about." but at least by my math, it's about equal to the theoretical DPS difference between Ele and Resto subspecs before accounting for Call of Flame. I would wonder how big of a DPS boost you get from Call of Flame if you are dropping Fire Nova every time it's up, "twisting" (not really) Fire Nova and Searing, or at least dropping a Fire Nova in between refreshing Searings at the 1m mark. The first and the last of those three options are both pretty easy to find GCDs and mana for if you aren't twisting your air totem.

I mentioned that the other day. Guess I should have pulled up the link to share, glad someone else did. Good call.

I also think I'm going to redo some of my calculations for clarity. Good stuff all around here.

Yeah, I forget about it because I never see the buff unless there is another shaman in group... apologies for the dumbassnessitude of my post. A little irritating that it doesn't show in the spell section of my char info as well, I hate trusting anyone that tells me something is there I cannot see

After trying both sides (ele/resto) of the same coin (enhancement), i realised some things.

1. Faster shocks are not so important as in both situations (6sec shocks/5sec shocks) you still fit 2 shocks between one stormstrike cooldown. I read this thread in order to see if there is a cycle of SS ES FS that proves me wrong but unfortunately i didn't see something clear.
2. When you are in doubt of totem range you always redrop your totems so that you are certain your group has 100% all the enhancement totems needed. Afterall you are a melee buffer and that is your main priority. So i started playing without 30yard totem talent as when in doubt of 20 or 30yards i reput the totems in the center of my group position.
3. Nature's guidance is important more than 3% hit on white attacks. The difference in glancing hits is significant (i think it affects it alot right?). Also, it is really annoying to see stormstrike and windfury miss!!! at hyjal trash (banshees) when you get the miss debuff and the mages are too far to decurse you fast . Small detail but still :P. Having tried both specs, ele spec misses at stormstrike/wf too if u get this debuff!


My current spec is 3/45/13 and i am quite satisfied as shock rotation still waits for the Stormstrike CD and still just 2 shocks fit in between one stormstrike CD. Maximising your dps by 10 or 20 or 30dps won't really give you a better spot in raid meters, you will always be behind combat sword rogues with similar level in gear.

Has anyone here thought of using a fire nova totem in their spell rotations? And if so, would a build more like 17/44/0 be more viable? (put 2 points to reduce delay on nova by 2sec, leaving 1 point in imp totems) Or perhaps having a 15/45/0 build and using that extra point in the fire nova totem? Perhaps it might mess with your spell rotations too much to be viable, but has anyone tested this?


Windfury cannot miss and I believe SS cannot either (correct me if I'm wrong).

Moved stuff from this post into one above.

No.

Hit Rating has nothing to do with glancing blows. That's a static portion of the hit table that cannot be changed against a boss.

3% Hit on the Banshees in Hyjal isn't going to do anything for you, their debuff is a 66% reduction on your hit. That's going to take you well below the cap on special attacks regardless of having NG or not.

@Bestpike - you are wrong, yellow attacks are quite capable of missing if you don't have them hit capped.

yes i know. but who hasnt?

A lot of good points have come out in the debate, but you guys seem to be missing a major point (or maybe I am). I have a different perspective since I am on the lower end of raiding (kara, ZA, SSC, etc). I find that pretty much on every boss fight I am very threat limited, I even put 2 extra points to improve my WF totem for the tanks to help with threat generation but it never seems to be enough.

For us shaman that are hitting an aggro cap, I shut down the shocks first since the damage they do does not recieve the normal 30% threat reduction that our melee does. I often find myself not using shocks at all and just trying to maximize my melee damage since I can squeze more dps in for the same amount of aggro.

From what I have read it seems that maybe elemental/enhance has a slight advantage over the resto counterpart, but has anyone done any calculations to see how this will effect aggro? Maybe in the end game stuff the tanks are good enough to where this does not matter, but as a lowbie the thought of increasing threat by shifting from melee to more spell damage output sounds pretty silly.

@Bestpike

please don't pretend to be all knowing. You do Stormstrike, 1.5sec GCD, Earthshock-6sec, thenFlameshock = 1.5+6 = 7,5 seconds. You just had it in your mind like the typical riddle with the monkey going up 3 steps in ladder and then 2 steps backwards, if u know what i mean . To keep this rotation up , after flameshock you can stormstrike again but only when shock CD is at 1.5 sec remaining, so that after the GCD (from next stormstrike) to have shocks ready for rotation .

@Malan
I had Stormstrike and Windfury misses when i was elemental/enhancement , with 110 hit rating and with the Banshee curse. I am 100% certain as the 3 weeks i did Hyjal as ele/enha i had misses of these 2 skills.
If you feel like it, go ele/enha and try it. I won't retalent again to a so unstable dps spec (pve wise) just to screenshot this issue. You just have to trust my vision on this or to prove me wrong, you go test it. I am quite satisfied with 3/45/13 and i won't retalent till next friday for my laid back elemental (pve) spec to do ZA and Kara with some real life friends.


making a graph to prove which spec is better and for which reason, which noone has ever thought :P hold on to your chairs hehe

Intentionally choosing to use 5 stormstrikes per minute (every 12 sec) instead of 6 (every 10 sec) in order to get 10 shocks instead of 9 is obviously a choice, but it will result in a little less damage than the "cycle" the mainstream is proposing (ss on cooldown with some flexibility based on wf cooldown). Basically, the worst case damage output for the mainstream cycle will be the same as the best possible output of your 12 second cycle. That'd be a silly choice to make.

Of course you had misses. Malan said you'd have misses. You went from hit capped on yellow attacks to a 50%+ miss rate on yellow attacks. There's no surprise there. Malan's point was that you're not going to notice the difference between a 50% miss rate while cursed (ele/enh specced) and a 47% miss rate while cursed (enh/resto). The 3% from the resto talent isn't going to cause a noticeable change in your hit rate if your decursers aren't paying attention.

Wow Web Stats
5 * wf miss in hyjal trash.
Wow Web Stats
3 * SS miss in hyjal trash.

I have allways got nature guardian.
Dont use SS debuffs if there is elem shaman in raid.
How about you next time show some numbers when you got gutfeeling.

The only issue I see with the "Further Guidance" part is that you are basically giving ele 45 free stat points, since that is what resto saves by not having to get that 3% +hit from gear. The resto stats for the sim runs should be more along the lines of 1546AP and 31% crit with 9% hit.

Sure it's not a big change, but it keeps the item budget the same for both specs and given how close both are in terms of dps it could push it in resto's favor. Or at least make the difference not as big.

This is not news, with the banshee curse your yellow attacks are no longer capped, and will miss.


This thread is turning into the enhancement megathread.

You have a valid point but since the addition of expertise I don't think there are any top end Shaman who can ride a good Warrior or Druid tank on a boss fight. Possibly early on with a bad avoidance string (mitigated by expertise/hit) or with no MD.

On Teron for example I wait untill about 90% to bloodlust and I never have any problems.

On fights with threat dumps (ie Gurtogg) then I do as you have suggested and stop using shocks (except during p2).

I did some "back of an envelope" approximations on scaling (I dont have time to write out the full algebra at the moment but can do so later if requested).

It appears that Ele/Enh scales better with AP than Resto/Enh at all reasonable levels of gear (the conditional came out as +hit%(1+ Crit%)>780 for resto to scale better). It looks as if mental quickness has tipped the balance between the two specs such that ele not only gets better damage up front (assuming you have 9%+hit including IDW), but also scales better with AP than Resto/Enh.

This is something I'd like to expand upon as it's abit of a gripe...

You are assuming person A has enough hit rating to get 9% hit as ele/enhance spec, but then you remove that rating and don't replace it with anything else when you change to resto/enhance???

Additionally, using 9% hit is unrealistic to say the least, I very much doubt any shaman has less than 40 hit rating especially considering the helm enchant. Would it not be much better to assume a ele/enhance spec would have 9% hit and the resto/enhance would have 12% hit as a bare minimum.