Less variables = good.
Throwing extra effects into the mix will just muddy the waters, so to speak, and when doing algebra you can get rid of like factors on both sides to simplify the equation.

Resto/Enh + procs + other stuff vs Ele/Enh + procs + other stuff. So we don't need to consider gear questions like enchants/procs.

I see this as two ways. On the one hand we're trying to just work up a basic set of numbers from which to calculate the differances of the two specs, and thus more variables like on hit procs muddy things. But on the other hand, something as basic as mongoose on your weapons isn't really going to vary between the specs, so if we don't include it in the control as well we may end up undervaluing the extra hit% that resto provides.

As an aside, I just finished working up a nice set of numbers based on the control, mongoose included, when I realized I hadn't checked off Leader of the Pack. So starting over again. It's worth noting that in the ten sets of 10k hours that I ran with LotP on, eight returned a DPS of 1229, with two yielding 1231. So, seems like there's very little variance in the output.


Edit- Finished up running the sim over again without LotP. There was a bit more variance this time, but not much. I did 15 iterations of 10,000 hours. Input used was 1500 attack power, 30% crit, 9% hit, a pair of 97.5DPS 2.6 speed weapons with mongoose, no spellhit, the default 5% spellcrit. Boss armor was set to 4490(7700 armor boss with 5xSunder and FF). Buffs used were Might, Kings, Mark of the Wild, Flask, Haste Potion, 20 strength food, Battle Shout and SoE.

Averaged DPS was 1177.8
The fifteen individual tests returned the following: 1177, 1177, 1177, 1179, 1177, 1178, 1179, 1177, 1179, 1179, 1178, 1178, 1177, 1178, 1177

I'm just confused as to why I got higher results yesterday evening. I ran it a couple of times now and I get about 150 dps less from each spec

Weird, just ignore my previous results then :P. Might have input something funky somewhere while being tired...

Have to consider also that these are simulator based values for pretty much optimum situation. However to get most out of 1sec faster shocks it requires you to be able to shock every 5sec, we got GCD kicking on pretty often, waiting WF cd before using stormstrike, re-dropping totems and if we talk about raids Binks shock rotation won't work due raid eating least second SS debuff. Even with 6sec CD I'm not always able to shock right away if I want to use SS debuff myself or I'm about to wait SS free'd for use.

3% melee/spell hit won't suffer if you can't shock every 5sec. Ele spec is better when you have to move and are out of range so can get more damage with shocks and fire totem.

If simulations will end up showing about same or 10-40 more dps for ele then due things above it'll be waste to spec for faster shocks in my opinion.

This is correct. The resto sim runs should include the 3% hit from gear as well, to be a fair comparison.

I already posted this in a wrong thread, so here the repost. I wanted to keep things simple, so mistakes are easier to point out.

"I didnt find any satisfying reasons as to why Ele/Enh is worse than Resto/Enh.

Asuming just from the Enhance tree w/o any other points spend:
white dmg 40%
WF 35%
SS 15%
Shocks 10%

Restotree: +3 hit to melee/spells:
40% * 1,03 = 41,2% (the hit will increase the white dmg for about 3%)
35% * (1+(0,8*0,03) = 35,84% (about every fifth hit is from SS, so we have 2,4% more hits to procc WF)
15% = 15% (SS is capped w/o restotree)
10% * 1,03 = 10,3% (Shocks will hit 3% more)

41,2+35,84+15+10,3= 102,34% compared to nothing but Enh-tree


Eletree: +5% shockdmg, *20% faster CD
90% will be unchanced
10% *1,05*1,2=12,6

90% +12,6= 102,6% compared to only Enh-tree.

If you factor crit in both examples (which I'm to lazy for, since point is proven for me now), the impact of hit will lessen even more, since in a one-roll system it wont raise the dps by one 1%.


Please prove me wrong, or help me to find a post in this overly huge thread which shows me better math (than my bad try at it)."

Ok, lets use this as our baseline then. Did you happen to write down the breakdowns of AutoAttack/WF/SS/Shock percentages of total damage?

I would not have thought so. However, many of the simulations I've run are showing less benefit from elemental talents than predicted and one reason for that could be that the reduced proc rate of on-hits.

Indeed, with the default stats/buffs, shocks at 20/24 and my procs (WF/WF, Exec MH, Mongood OH, Dragonstrike, Hourglass), Resto (1195) is roughly equivalent to Elemental (1186 + 10 from 15% searing).

Incidentally, when did Yo add in the dps of the lowly searing totem? I love that wooden imp.

You seem to have completely missed the point of this thread and the fact that we specifically have asked not to post this kind of garbage. You've also given yourself away to being misinformed.

This is the sort of ignorance this thread was created to clarify. Shocks are only 15% of your damage BECAUSE YOU ARE RESTO. Once you go elemental, they are substantially more than 15%.

Let's say you do 1000dps. You have more than 12% to-hit. Resto spec.

50% of your damage is white damage (500), 15% is shock damage (150) for a total of 650.

We abandon NG. 500 dps is reduced by 1.03, 150 dps is reduced by 1.03. 485 dps and 145 dps.

Now we activate Concussion -- 5% additional shock damage -- and Reverberation, 20% faster (and thus one assumes 20% MORE) shocks. 145 dps is first increased by 5% to 152.25 then by 20% to 182.

485 + 182 = 664, > 650 without even considering the affect on fire totems. Shocks are now ~18% of our damage, which has increased by 1.4%.

Keep in mind:
- 50% is a high estimate for white damage.
- Removing NG is not a 3% loss of white damage. It's actually less, as crits are unaffected by its removal.
- Stormstrike is unaffected by losing hit.
- On-crit procs are unaffected by losing hit
- Windfury is not directly affected, but the lag between procs outside of the cooldown may suffer slightly due to 3% fewer hits.
- On-hit procs are affected by losing hit, and will have a decreased uptime. Depending on how many of these you have -- and some shaman have a lot -- you may see a flat or even a slight negative by switching to Elemental.
- You probably won't want to totem twist with an elemental offspec. It's expensive and frenetic.
- 11.6% higher damage from Searing Totem is a nice bonus.
- To see an increase in dps demands shocking more times in a minute than you do now. If your play style or lag will not permit more procs per minute, your DPS will go down.
- Maintaining a 6s shock cycle with a 10s stormstrike cycle means you will enter a race condition fairly often, meaning one or the other of SS or a shock will need to wait. A 5s Reverberation cycle, however, can be optimized so that you never enter a race condition. This is harder to codify but should not be neglected -- you will find it easier to shock more and will never have to decide whether to shock or stormstrike.

Ok Katrael's baseline (Enhance talents only) test was 1177 DPS on average.

I just ran the same stats (1500 AP, 30% Crit, S2 wpns w/ mongoose, 9% hit, 0% spell hit, kings/might/motw/haste pots/flask/food/shout) this time selecting Reverbration and Concussion and setting shocks to 24 per 2 min. (I did not select drums, Katrael didn't mention them either way so I'm assuming his baseline test assumed no drums)

My results for the Elemental sub spec at 10,000 hours averaged 1205 DPS, we can call that a 30 DPS increase over the base.
Shocks were on average 20% of total damage in these runs.