Enhancement Cage Match: Two specs enter, One spec leaves - Page 11

Toots Hepcat · 01/15/08, 11:22 AM

Hey, whadda I know about pinks, other than they suck at PvP?

Edited.

Disquette · 01/15/08, 12:06 PM

Originally Posted by Binkenstein

You should never ever use frost shock in a DPS rotation. There is no point as both earth/flame both have higher damage than frost shock, without the extra threat loaded in.

I use Flame Shock / Frost Shock on RoS phase 2 so that I don't accidentally throw off the interrupt timing, but that's about the only time I can remember using FrShock consistently.

Hothgor · 01/15/08, 12:12 PM

Originally Posted by Binkenstein

You should never ever use frost shock in a DPS rotation. There is no point as both earth/flame both have higher damage than frost shock, without the extra threat loaded in.

And if you have competent tanks, plenty of threat room, and Winter's Chill is up, you still wouldn't want to do this? The only alternative is to use another Earth Shock, which should never EVER be up at this point. Using another Flame Shock will waste a dot tick.

Malan · 01/15/08, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by Hothgor

and Winter's Chill is up

We discuss our options in terms of optimized raid groups built around accepted standards for raid specs not fringe cases of people raiding with pvp specs or random cases where you'd roll with that spec for survivability. (Not the place to discuss the merits of winter's chill either, this is a dumb argument)

Mox · 01/15/08, 1:15 PM

Originally Posted by Disquette

I use Flame Shock / Frost Shock on RoS phase 2 so that I don't accidentally throw off the interrupt timing, but that's about the only time I can remember using FrShock consistently.

I use it on mother shaz when she does fire resistance/frost weakness aura.

Think thats about it though.

Hothgor · 01/15/08, 1:36 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

We discuss our options in terms of optimized raid groups built around accepted standards for raid specs not fringe cases of people raiding with pvp specs or random cases where you'd roll with that spec for survivability. (Not the place to discuss the merits of winter's chill either, this is a dumb argument)

I wasn't aware there were zero frost mages on any high end raids with 2.3.2 out. Surely the Icey Veins talent changed the landscape somewhat!! But still, couldn't the same argument be said for Misery, Improved CoE and Scorch?

Delita · 01/15/08, 2:04 PM

THey use Icy Veins to decrease the cast time on fireball... Either way, it's irrelevant as you can check the mage thread for their theorycraft. Demo/Destro and Fire are widely considered the best DPS builds for their respective classes and we'll use that standard to provide ourselves with a theory base.

Anyways, that being said, back to the elem vs resto discussion. I'm going to ttry twisting tonight as elem and see for myself what my mana consumption is like for my own gear set and skill set. I'll see if I can get numerous WWS parses for my own stats so I can see what the talent difference is for a T5 equivalent shaman, as I don't think I'll be upgrading any of my PvE gear anytime soon.

doogless · 01/15/08, 2:06 PM

The implementation of Icy Veins made the new hotness Mage PvE spec 2/48/11, not full Frost.

Toots Hepcat · 01/15/08, 2:55 PM

Originally Posted by Delita

I'm going to ttry twisting tonight as elem and see for myself what my mana consumption is like for my own gear set and skill set. I'll see if I can get numerous WWS parses for my own stats so I can see what the talent difference is for a T5 equivalent shaman, as I don't think I'll be upgrading any of my PvE gear anytime soon.

Thanks in advance for the info, it's always appreciated. I myself will NOT be twisting on Nalorak tonight, but I will be spamming my shocks on the CD. I'll have resto numbers for the same fight on Friday.

Further question about mana util -- In a close-to-perfect 10/6 cycle, there are 3 chances every 31s to exit the 5s rule for between .5 and 1s. In a 10/5 cycle there are none.

Do you get a tick back immediately upon exiting the 5s rule?

Moogul · 01/15/08, 3:10 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

We discuss our options in terms of optimized raid groups built around accepted standards for raid specs not fringe cases of people raiding with pvp specs or random cases where you'd roll with that spec for survivability. (Not the place to discuss the merits of winter's chill either, this is a dumb argument)

Winter's chill obviously wont be up in a sensible raid, but what about Curse of Elements? I'm not a shaman so I don't know how the damage of FrS vs ES compares at max level, but wouldnt +10% damage on FrS make it better than ES when stormstrike is on CD?

Daler · 01/15/08, 3:20 PM

Originally Posted by Toots Hepcat

Thanks in advance for the info, it's always appreciated. I myself will NOT be twisting on Nalorak tonight, but I will be spamming my shocks on the CD. I'll have resto numbers for the same fight on Friday.

Further question about mana util -- In a close-to-perfect 10/6 cycle, there are 3 chances every 31s to exit the 5s rule for between .5 and 1s. In a 10/5 cycle there are none.

Do you get a tick back immediately upon exiting the 5s rule?

I believe the difference is only in the amount of mana returned per 2 second tick, not the timing of the ticks themselves. I think it'd depend on the timing of the mana regen tick timer as to whether you slip a tick of full mana regen in the 10/6 cycle.

Toots Hepcat · 01/15/08, 3:54 PM

Can we agree that frost shock is, at best, a situational shock best reserved for nature resistance fights, kiting situations and pulling aggro?

drats · 01/15/08, 3:56 PM

Over the past 2 weeks I ran SSC as ele/enh and enh/resto to see what the difference in dps would be. I haven't really gotten used to the faster shocks, but on average I was doing about 100dps less as ele/enh. I specifically noticed on lurker and tidewalker, since both of these fights are more or less static. I've been unable to keep a totem twisting rotation up as ele/enh without popping pots or having 4 pallies (normally I drop wisdom in favor of might.), so that probably accounts for most of my dps loss. This week I'm going to run SSC as enh/resto without totem twisting and see how that turns out.

Our melee group usually runs with me, 2 warriors and two rogues.

Binkenstein · 01/15/08, 4:06 PM

Originally Posted by Hothgor

And if you have competent tanks, plenty of threat room, and Winter's Chill is up, you still wouldn't want to do this? The only alternative is to use another Earth Shock, which should never EVER be up at this point. Using another Flame Shock will waste a dot tick.

Originally Posted by Moogul

Winter's chill obviously wont be up in a sensible raid, but what about Curse of Elements? I'm not a shaman so I don't know how the damage of FrS vs ES compares at max level, but wouldnt +10% damage on FrS make it better than ES when stormstrike is on CD?

There are two things people are forgetting: Earth Shock uses SS charges (hello 20% damage bonus), and getting an extra 5% chance to crit is not worth the extra threat output, especially when you remember that without Elemental Fury, your shock crits are a 50% bonus.

Even with a 5% crit chance bonus I would say that ES/FS are a better use of mana/rotation than Frost shock.

Originally Posted by Mox

I use it on mother shaz when she does fire resistance/frost weakness aura.

Think thats about it though.

This would be one of those "exception" occasion.

Callmetim · 01/15/08, 4:47 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

If i remember correctly you only need something like 48 hit rating on top of the 6% from the enhance tree talents to hit cap. You can easily get that on 3 pieces of gear.

Yes. It's somewhere in the 47-48 range - according to Wowwiki, 15.77 hit rating = 1% hit, so 47.31, to be exact. You can pick up 1/3 of what you need just from Glyph of Ferocity. (I had to explain to my guild leader why that was a better enchant for his shaman than the Glyph of the Outcast.) So essentially, you're taking Nature's Guidance for 3 spell hit - and at most, 2% melee hit if you have the glyph (1% hit).

The other argument that comes with Ele or Resto subspec is utility, primarily in PvP, but I don't really think that's what we're after here. Ganted, it'll carry some of the PvE viability of each into the PvP world, as is usually the case for most classes / builds, I think.

Come to think of it, if they just took some or all of the mp5 off our PvP and tier sets, and replaced it with spell hit, we might actually be a happier community overall. Less bickering about which is better dps, more about utility etc. - but here I go dreaming.

Sounds like there's lots of work being done, I'm trying some new rotations out, but I think I'll stick with SS > ES > FS > repeat, while weaving my totem drops in on CDs, until I see some solid evidence proving that FrS is worth using - it really doesn't seem worth it, it never has in a dps situation - not at 60, and I'll bet not at 70.