Best use of caster-buffing classes

Zephro · 01/31/08, 4:38 PM

I have a question about the best use of caster buffs in raids. Our guild usually has access to one elemental shaman, one moonkin, and one shadowpriest. We have plenty of mages and warlocks - too many, in fact, to give everyone the benefit of the buffs. The warlocks are mostly specced 0/21/40 and most of the mages are fire. What's the best way to distribute the shaman, druid and priest to maximise our raid's dps?

We have enough resto shamans that whichever of the mages and warlocks doesn't get the elemental shaman usually gets a resto shaman and, therefore, Wrath of Air. There are no really vast gear differences between the mages and locks.

Apologies if this is the wrong forum, but it seemed like the logical one to ask in.

edit: I know I'm a warlock and this may look like an in-guild argument, but it genuinely isn't. I just want to know how best to do maximum dps.

hypetech · 01/31/08, 4:46 PM

I would probably stack the elemental shaman and shadow priest in a group with 1 mage (maybe one that has gear for -3% hit, already low hit, or just the strongest dps mage) and 2 warlocks, while putting the moonkin in another group with the rest of the mages and warlocks. A paladin healer might love you for that moonkin aura also btw :P depends on whether your raid needs healing or dps more.

Oliria · 01/31/08, 4:49 PM

I might not be the best for answering this, since I plan our raidsetup mostly towards melee groups (Because I personaly think it benefits the overall raiddps most) - but as far as I know, a moonkin is great together with destruction warlocks since they rely alot on crit, can't say for certain if they benefit more from the druid than mages. Shadowpriests are mostly givin to healers in our guild, and the casters don't complain too much about not having them - they still get the shadowdamage debuff on boss.

We used elemental shamans a few times, and though 3 hit/crit is nice, it's not nearly as powerfull as windfury and str totem are for melee. and resto shamans have wrath of air too.

anyway what I mean is shadowpriests are nice for mana, but won't boost the dps by alot in most fights. Moonkins are good, I guess since they benefit the group with 5% crit (equal to the buff a feral druid gives melee) and has insect swarm for melee too. We don't find elementals shamans that usefull, especially because we raid with 3 resto shamans, but they do a good amount of DPS and are surely worth the spot on encounters as vashj because of the boost heroism/bloodlust gives.

Tho again, compare to what an enchancement shaman gives to fury warriors/rogues, none of the 3 can't compete. therefore we raid with 1 ench shaman, 2x feral druids (tanks) - buffing 1 melee group (shaman, 3x war/rogue, 1 feral druid) and 1 ranged (feral, 3x hunters (BM, MM, Surv), rogue)
- We fell that the mentioned setup gives a greater raidDPS compared to running with casterbuffers, like moonkins and elemental shamans. Shadowpriests are always usefull!

Krazen · 01/31/08, 4:59 PM

Originally Posted by hypetech

I would probably stack the elemental shaman and shadow priest in a group with 1 mage (maybe one that has gear for -3% hit, already low hit, or just the strongest dps mage) and 2 warlocks, while putting the moonkin in another group with the rest of the mages and warlocks. A paladin healer might love you for that moonkin aura also btw :P depends on whether your raid needs healing or dps more.

I was under the impression that oomkins need the mana, hence the nickname. Doesn't seem like separating the shadow priest from the moonkin is desirable.

Zephro · 01/31/08, 5:00 PM

Thanks for the replies so far

. I appreciate what people are saying about the value of elemental shamans and so on, but we can't really change the specs people raid with.

As I said, gear is not really a factor - the casters are all fairly comprably geared. What usually happens is all the mages get put in one group and all the warlocks in the other. I suppose what I'm asking is: is the 5% crit aura more important for destro warlocks or fire mages? What about the +damage and the 3% crit totem (we're all hit-capped). And how about the mana regen? I know mages used to have trouble, but I don't know what the situation is the newly buffed gems. If mages don't need a shadowpriest to avoid going oom, then I would assume he'd be better in the warlock group, since life taps mean lost dps.

Krazen · 01/31/08, 5:10 PM

Originally Posted by Oliria

anyway what I mean is shadowpriests are nice for mana, but won't boost the dps by alot in most fights. Moonkins are good, I guess since they benefit the group with 5% crit (equal to the buff a feral druid gives melee) and has insect swarm for melee too. We don't find elementals shamans that usefull, especially because we raid with 3 resto shamans, but they do a good amount of DPS and are surely worth the spot on encounters as vashj because of the boost heroism/bloodlust gives.

For what its worth, spreadsheeting shows that 300 mp5 is more important than 5% crit for me, and probably for any t6 geared warlock. I don't know if the same is true for mages.

dyelynn · 01/31/08, 5:13 PM

speaking as both a spreist and mage...

the boomkin will love you for a spriest. they do need the mana. i'm usually 1 of 2 spriests we have in our raids, and we also only have 1 boomkin and 1 ele shaman. normally one of us spriests will be in a group with the ele shaman and the boomkin, our 1 mage and 1 of our locks (we're really lock heavy).

fire mages get more mana efficiency out of the 5% crit... more longevity, as well as the increase in dps. destro locks... and somewhat affl locks, get more dps from the crit, but will also help increase the dps of the other locks and the spreists in the raid (ISB is up more often). however if you're running more than 3 locks in the raid, isb is probably almost always up anyway.

imho, slap the 3 together and put 1 lock and 1 mage with them. if you have either a lock or a mage a little low on +hit, they'll get better benefit from the ele shaman.

hypetech · 01/31/08, 5:15 PM

You may be hit capped, but for casters that are used to running with an elemental we usually keep some replacement gear with us that can drop us down 3% in hit and increase our spell damage crit. I know the mages and locks in our guild do this.

galzohar · 01/31/08, 5:16 PM

Mages get it even worse most likely, as they will have to go crazy on mana consumeables to not go oom and possibly still go oom on a long fight, while a warlock will just have to tap less.
That said, when you compare an elemental shaman to a resto shaman, assuming the mage has enough mana to not go oom with some potting/gemming, mages and warlocks come pretty close in who gains more out of swapping their resto shaman to elemental that you need to look at the specific mages and warlocks in question.

When you're short on shadow priests, though, the decision is much easier - since mages really need the shadow priest, and so do elemental shamans and moonkins, you put them all in the same group, ditching the warlocks. You just don't have any other options even if warlocks would gain slightly more from the crit buffs, you'd kill the dps of the other casters by mana starving them, while a mana starved warlock doesn't lose nearly as much dps. Of course this is all assuming mages would be mana starved without shadow priest, which is most likely true at least at any progression part of the game.

At the end to REALLY know the answers, you'll have to plug the stats of the specific casters in question in a spreadsheet and see the results, which is quite a lot of work.

dyelynn · 01/31/08, 5:20 PM

Originally Posted by Oliria

anyway what I mean is shadowpriests are nice for mana, but won't boost the dps by alot in most fights. Moonkins are good, I guess since they benefit the group with 5% crit (equal to the buff a feral druid gives melee) and has insect swarm for melee too. We don't find elementals shamans that usefull, especially because we raid with 3 resto shamans, but they do a good amount of DPS and are surely worth the spot on encounters as vashj because of the boost heroism/bloodlust gives.

i'd argue that unless you're threat capped, any time you're not casting a dmg spell, you're losing dps. if you are threat capped, it's irrelevant. therefore, for either a mage or a lock, not having to recover mana as often through gems, potions or life tapping, means more dps. so thinking spriests don't boost dps in any long fight is a bit misguided. you may be underestimating what spreists do for dps casters.

locks and mages and ele shamans love boomkins. and boomkins love spriests.

and if you have enough healers that you have resto shamans dpsing during vashj, you probably need to drop a healer or 2 and pick up more dps.

honestly, other than the difference between the role, the only change a ele shaman makes over a resto one, is totem of wrath. if your casters are not hurting for spell hit... or cannot swap out gear to put up more +dmg or +crit and make use of the totem... it's probably not that important. any shaman can throw down a wrath of air for a caster group and pop BL when the timer's up.

dyelynn · 01/31/08, 5:22 PM

Originally Posted by galzohar

Mages get it even worse most likely, as they will have to go crazy on mana consumeables to not go oom and possibly still go oom on a long fight, while a warlock will just have to tap less.
That said, when you compare an elemental shaman to a resto shaman, assuming the mage has enough mana to not go oom with some potting/gemming, mages and warlocks come pretty close in who gains more out of swapping their resto shaman to elemental that you need to look at the specific mages and warlocks in question.

When you're short on shadow priests, though, the decision is much easier - since mages really need the shadow priest, and so do elemental shamans and moonkins, you put them all in the same group, ditching the warlocks. You just don't have any other options even if warlocks would gain slightly more from the crit buffs, you'd kill the dps of the other casters by mana starving them, while a mana starved warlock doesn't lose nearly as much dps. Of course this is all assuming mages would be mana starved without shadow priest, which is most likely true at least at any progression part of the game.

At the end to REALLY know the answers, you'll have to plug the stats of the specific casters in question in a spreadsheet and see the results, which is quite a lot of work.

^ agreed and more eloquent than what i said

galzohar · 01/31/08, 5:27 PM

Fact is totem of wrath is quite better than improved mana spring and mana tide, however the extra dps gained by swapping those totems needs to be more than the dps lost by inviting the elemental shaman instead of another dpser.

tedv · 01/31/08, 5:28 PM

1 Elemental Shaman
1 Shadow Priest
1 Moonkin
2 Mage

As previously stated, the Moonkin has no hope of being competitive without a shadow priest even with innervate. To a lesser degree the shaman needs the shadow priest (and vice versa if you are still in T5 content). That unfortunately leaves only 2 slots for extra casters, and it seems like mages are still going to be better off than Warlocks, because at least warlocks can life tap. Increasing Improved Shadow Bolt uptime by putting a warlock in the group feels like a waste if you only have 1 shadow priest anyway.

Zephriel · 01/31/08, 5:43 PM

Originally Posted by galzohar

Mages get it even worse most likely, as they will have to go crazy on mana consumeables to not go oom and possibly still go oom on a long fight, while a warlock will just have to tap less.
That said, when you compare an elemental shaman to a resto shaman, assuming the mage has enough mana to not go oom with some potting/gemming, mages and warlocks come pretty close in who gains more out of swapping their resto shaman to elemental that you need to look at the specific mages and warlocks in question.

When you're short on shadow priests, though, the decision is much easier - since mages really need the shadow priest, and so do elemental shamans and moonkins, you put them all in the same group, ditching the warlocks. You just don't have any other options even if warlocks would gain slightly more from the crit buffs, you'd kill the dps of the other casters by mana starving them, while a mana starved warlock doesn't lose nearly as much dps. Of course this is all assuming mages would be mana starved without shadow priest, which is most likely true at least at any progression part of the game.

You hit the nail on the head.

My usual caster group consists of 3 mages, 1 shadow priest, and 1 elemental shaman. (Moonkins aren't common in our raids these days.) The shadow priest and elemental shaman make a night-and-day difference, on the order of several hundred DPS per mage--if you're used to having them in your group, it's easy to forget just how much they do for you until you lose them.

On that note, I have to disagree with Oliria. As a mage, if I don't have a shadow priest, I have to switch to mage armor and chain mana pots/gems from start to finish to avoid going OOM in most average-length (~5 minutes) boss fights. That means no molten armor (+3% spell crit), and no destruction pots or flame caps. Without an elemental shaman, I have no bloodlust for when bosses dip below 20% HP, the "big money" zone for fire mages. Cooldown stacking in the Molten Fury range (which Manly has been right to emphasize here on EJ) is simply vastly inferior without this caster support, and fire mage DPS lives or dies by its cooldowns.

Survivability also takes a hit, because by chaining mana pots and gems, you don't have access to healing pots or healthstones, nor do you have the option to supply your (lower-HP) mages with VE.

Trickykid · 01/31/08, 6:43 PM

Originally Posted by Zephriel

Survivability also takes a hit, because by chaining mana pots and gems, you don't have access to healing pots or healthstones, nor do you have the option to supply your (lower-HP) mages with VE.

Just want to point out that the highest damage increase per pot cd for locks is mana and destro locks turn out to be pretty brittle due to the LTing they need to do.

I can't do the math on the Mage-side (especially counting in your 'execute range' bonuses), however I have some rough lock numbers on group buffs.

The numbers use a 10minute fight (so 1 bloodism-herolust), CoD + SB-spam 21/40, SP as 1200 dps (300mp5) and my "wishlist" gear (this doesn't include re-gearing for ele shaman's ToW):

Group:        DPS-gain       %Gain
Base DPS       2,161            NA
Resto            172          8.0%
Ele              219         10.1%
SP                98          4.6%
Moonkin           91          4.2%
Resto+SP         273         12.6%
Resto+Moonkin    271         12.6%
Ele+SP	         322         14.9%
Ele+Moonkin      318         14.7%
SP+Moonkin       195          9.0%
Resto+SP+Moonkin 377         17.4%
Ele+SP+Moonkin   426         19.7%

As far as investing buffs to casters, locks get quite a nice return on relatively little investment with 1 resto shaman. There are still pretty nice gains from SPs, but I'm sure mages see better returns there. The problem with Moonkins and Eles is I always hear the arguments that they "need" the SP group, which then wastes their buffs on each other. Obviously they still benefit, but less so than a pure DPS mage/lock. Just be careful of making a really really sweet buff-situation for only 2 people...

Copernicus · 01/31/08, 6:59 PM

A mage will run OOM around four minutes without a Shadow Priest. The time on that depends greatly on if they can get a full Evocation in and/or JoW uptime. A lot depends on fight length and movement, downtime, if they sneak in any points on clearcasting, etc. But a mage without a shadow priest WILL run out-of-mana on fights that last longer than four minutes. A warlock can keep casting without one.

I do reccomend having a rotation between the two groups as the best option. I often swap myself out with a healer after getting a heroism when I'm in a shaman/spriest group. Elemental Shaman/Moonkin/Shadow Priest and the last two slots just keep rotation the warlocks and mages.

Zure · 01/31/08, 7:10 PM

Group A: Elem shaman, moonkin, 3x destro locks.
Group B: Spriest with remaining mages and locks.

At 66%, switch shadow priest with a destro lock in group A.
At 30%, switch three fire mages into elem shaman, moonkin group and hit bloodlust.

Lucitron · 02/01/08, 7:15 AM

honestly, other than the difference between the role, the only change a ele shaman makes over a resto one, is totem of wrath.

*ahem*...

Elemental = Totem of Wrath, +20 Spell Damage on Wrath of Air (T4 bonus), DPS
Resto = Imp. Mana Spring/Healing Stream, Mana Tide, Earth Shield, Healing

testthewest · 02/01/08, 7:41 AM

Originally Posted by Lucitron

*ahem*...

Elemental = Totem of Wrath, +20 Spell Damage on Wrath of Air (T4 bonus), DPS...
Resto = Imp. Mana Spring/Healing Stream, Mana Tide, Earth Shield, Healing...

Please forget T4 setbonus. You do not want to base your gear in BT on T4.

Next: Read! He said, apart from the different roles!

and all a Ele brings over a Resto is Totem of Wrath.
A Resto brings Manatide and better Mana Spring as noteworthy groupbuffs.

Compare Enhace to Resto for Melee:

Enh brings unique: Unleashed rage, and a little bit more Str and a bit more bonus AP on WF-hits (IMHO not gamebreaking)
A Resto brings manaflood for Rogues => lol

So if it comes to group buffing it is: 10% AP vs 3% crit/3% hit

galzohar · 02/01/08, 7:42 AM

Originally Posted by Zure

Group A: Elem shaman, moonkin, 3x destro locks.
Group B: Spriest with remaining mages and locks.

At 66%, switch shadow priest with a destro lock in group A.
At 30%, switch three fire mages into elem shaman, moonkin group and hit bloodlust.

Your ele shaman and moonkin will most likely go oom pretty damn fast.

While the only difference between the elemental shaman and resto shaman is totem of wrath at the cost of small amounts of mana (the improvement in mana spring and mana tide). Overall a DPS gain for all dps classes (assuming the mana starved people have a shadow priest or else don't bother bringing them to the raid), however you need to make sure the elemental shaman's personal dps is high enough. An elemental shaman actually has a chance to be up to par here, but moonkins seem to be always too low on this part, although I gotta say not enough good people play moonkin for me to bother actually checking how viable their dps is.

cho · 02/01/08, 8:14 AM

I do reccomend having a rotation between the two groups as the best option. I often swap myself out with a healer after getting a heroism when I'm in a shaman/spriest group. Elemental Shaman/Moonkin/Shadow Priest and the last two slots just keep rotation the warlocks and mages.

Our current caster group setups have been:

G1
Ele Shaman
Lock
Lock
Mage
Mage

G2
Spriest
Resto Shaman
BM Hunter
Mage
Healer/DPS <depending on fight

Our shadowpriest does much better with the resto shaman over elemental, and we haven't found a good boomkin to add to our caster mix up. There is always the random healer/caster that's stuck outside of the group (tree druid, warlock with bloodpact duty). But I agree with Copernicus, I'm usually swapping anyone who is low in and out of the spriest group.

BM hunter for boosting our shadowpriest damage, better there than the mish mash we call our tanking group.

galzohar · 02/01/08, 8:35 AM

You're again buffing 1 class at the cost of many others, which is probably not a good idea.
This would probably deal more dps:

G1
Resto Shaman
Lock
Lock
BM Hunter
Healer/DPS

G2
Spriest
Ele Shaman
Mage
Mage
Mage

Granted you're losing slight shadow priest damage but are gaining massive mage and elemental shaman damage, who would suck without having a shadow priest. This could possibly be further improved depending on what your 3rd group is to get more advantage out of the resto shaman, as he can't buff both the locks and the BM hunter.

Lucitron · 02/01/08, 10:32 AM

Please forget T4 setbonus. You do not want to base your gear in BT on T4.

The encounter that was listed, as you might have read, was an example with Vashj. Going for SSC then there is a quite big chance that you run around with T4 pieces. Further, considering that T4 2-piece bonus offers +20 Spelldamage to the entire party, it might warrant to have 2 pieces of T4 also in MH/BT until you can exchange those with T6.

Next: Read! He said, apart from the different roles!

Yes, I did read that, and I even had that very part in my quote.

However, if I do wish to list an objective and neutral comparison between Restoration and Elemental Shamans, then I think that you need to also mention (once again) that Resto and Elemental shoulders different tasks. It is always good to remind people that you're comparing apples and oranges, and that they should be aware of that.

Compare Enhace to Resto for Melee:

Enh brings unique: Unleashed rage, and a little bit more Str and a bit more bonus AP on WF-hits (IMHO not gamebreaking)
A Resto brings manaflood for Rogues => lol

So if it comes to group buffing it is: 10% AP vs 3% crit/3% hit

Mana Tide totem is obviously wasted on Rogues, like Unleashed Rage is obviously wasted on Priests and Mages. Apples and Oranges. Enhancement Shaman brings Unleashed Rage and Improved Windfury Totem & Strengh of Earth Totems, which if you blindly compare with Totem of Wrath would make Enhancement Shaman far superior.

However, you should try to see the big picture. For one thing, Blizzard's raid developers have a secret crush to create encounters that favours ranged classes. This, coupled with things like that Enhancement Shamans go for gear that greatly reduce their emergency healing output and there are more ranged damage dealers than melee fighters, makes Enhancement and Elemental spec relative equal in strength.

galzohar · 02/01/08, 10:44 AM

You can rotate the shaman to toss a mana tide in a group that actually needs it for minimal dps loss.
Therefore putting a resto shaman for windfury instead of an enhance shaman gives (assuming 3 SPs in the raid):
+ DPS of a "real" dps class (mage/hunter/lock), powered by shadow priest at least if not BM hunter too
+ (IF BM hunter) 3% dmg to that group
+ Less melee in your raid
- shadow priest for the resto shaman
- DPS of an enhance shaman
- mana spring for the party where the resto shaman would've gone to
- WoA/GoA/SoE for that group (depending on group)
- 1Xbloodlust/heroism

Sum all the '+'s and '-'s up and see what's better for your specific raid... The actual skill of your enhancement shaman and the DPSer you'd actually bring in his place make a huge difference here, and the actual need for shadow priest on your healers for the fight matters as well. Also as said less melee can be really good on some fights, and not so good on others (better melee fight => more dps from both the enhancement shamans and the buffs he gives). Overall bringing an enhance shaman VS not bringing 1 is quite a tossup and a tough call.

Krazen · 02/01/08, 10:51 AM

Originally Posted by galzohar

Mages get it even worse most likely, as they will have to go crazy on mana consumeables to not go oom and possibly still go oom on a long fight, while a warlock will just have to tap less.
That said, when you compare an elemental shaman to a resto shaman, assuming the mage has enough mana to not go oom with some potting/gemming, mages and warlocks come pretty close in who gains more out of swapping their resto shaman to elemental that you need to look at the specific mages and warlocks in question.

Can you define a long fight? I'm not convinced that mages have any problems on your 3 minute Gorefiend race, from what I've seen.

A lock chain bolting and using a mana pot, though, goes OOM quicker.