zlurp

this is all pure math based on the idea that the hunters and the ele shaman are equally geared!!!!!

i have tested this with a friend (both of us in t5 content) and his wind serpent does 160 dps unbuffed, and im going to say it does 210 buffed, i think thats generous. and he has told me that there is an 80 dps difference between the wind serpent and the next best pet.

my shaman does an average of 1050 dps. in ZA last night my average lightning bolt (reg and crit) for the entire night was 2000 (and yes that includes lightning overload procs) and thats on a 2 second cast. the reason my dps is slightly higher than 1k is because i have hast procs on my totem/trinket.

lets assume there are 2 enhance shamans in the group, that means that there are 4 possible uses of stormstrike every 10 seconds. i cast 5 lightning bolts in 10 seconds (-the haste procs) in this situation 80% of my casts would have stormstrike affecting them. stormstrike on all my casts would increase my average lightning bolt's damage to 2400. a 400 damage increase BUT i have to subtract 20% of that 400 because of that last lightning bolt that wouldnt have SS affecting it. which means my average lightning bolt would go up to 2320 and on that 2 second cas that equals 1160 dps. meaning with 2 enhance shamans in the group my dps is increased by 160.

if there are 4 hunters with wind serpents casting lightning breath every 2.5 seconds in the raid their 210 dps would add up to about the same amount as mine (1040dps and even though some of that is melee i will act as if it was all from lightning breath). so if all of them casted lightning breath as soon as both enhancement shamans put the stormstrike debuff on the target, the total jump in dps for all 4 pets would be 200 BUT they just used up all the stormstrike charges for the next 10 seconds so the increase would actually only be 50 dps total

160 dps > 50 dps therefore shamans will always benefit more from stormstrike.

BUT if there are if the raid has 3 or more wind serpents in it the dps increase that the wind serpents give over the next best dps pet would be more than the 160 dps the elemental shaman gets from stormstrike, so the raid would gain slightly more dps but with 1 or 2 hunters it is better for them to use the next best pet because the shaman's dps increase from stormstrike will be greater than the total dps increase the wind serpents give the hunters. if you really want to maximize dps and you have more than 2 hunters with wind serpents in the raid, put the stormstrike and the ele shaman on one target and the 4 wind serpents on a separate target whenever possible because then you get the ele shaman getting the 160 dps increase from stormstrike and the 4 wind serpents are increasing the raid dps by 320 so you have 480 more dps.

 

Lujaar

Binkenstein -

An enhancement DPS cycle looks something like this:

0.0 WF totem
1.0 GoA totem
2.0 flame shock
3.5 stormstrike

8.0 earth shock (all charges from the stormstrike at 3.5 should be consumed by this point)

10.0 WF totem
11.0 GoA totem

13.5 stormstrike
15.0 flame shock

20.0 WF totem
21.0 GoA totem
22.0 earth shock
23.5 stormstrike

28.0 flame shock

30.0 WF totem
31.0 GoA totem

33.5 stormstrike
35.0 earth shock - consumes stormstrike

(repeat from 0.0)
40.0 WF totem
41.0 GoA totem
42.0 flameshock
...



That's one stormstrike charge consumed by earthshock every 40 seconds. If you're really worried about it you could swap that earthshock for a frostshock. If 1k extra threat every 40 seconds causes you to pull aggro, there's probably something wrong with the tank's threat, and if the enhance shaman is threat-capped then the ele shaman probably is too. There's basically no reason to ever clip flameshock.


And back onto the thread's topic, it's safe to assume that all or nearly all stormstrikes will be consumed by the elemental shaman, assuming only one enhance shaman and assuming that no wind serpents, laser chickens, or envenoming rogues are involved.

 

• Binkenstein

If the Enh Shaman is onto it, that 35.0 earthshock will be a flameshock.

 

Malan

Frost shock has either a 2x or a 3x threat modifier (I forget which) and fully buffed my frost shocks would be hitting for an average of 1,200, so that's really either 2400 or 3600 additional threat which is not mitigated by our Spirit Weapons talent.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Melthar

If Earth Shock's hitting for 1200 that's 1200 threat, and if Frost Shock's hitting for 1200, that's only 2400 threat (or 2400 extra if it's a 3x multiplier) or an extra 1200 over the Earth Shock option. Hence the original ~1k threat every 40s comment.

 

Talithin

The flaw in your reasoning is that you assume 2 enhancement shamen are in the raid which I find to be inaccurate to reality. Rarely do guilds take more then 1 enhancement shamen. Assuming only 1 enhancement shamen in the raid applying 2 charges of stormstike every 10 seconds, we reduce the effective dps increase of an elemental shaman from an extra 1600 damage every 10 seconds to only 800 damage every 10 seconds and so an 80 dps increase: this suggests that you would only need 2 hunters, both using wind serpents, to outweigh the loss in increase of dps for the elemental shamen.

 

KraxisSingular

If we are to assume the one Ele gets 80 DPS from Stormstrike and the WS is indeed 80 DPS better than second best pet (unlikely to me, but I'll play along), then a single WS wins out. Why? Because, however small the benefit is, the WS also gains from Stormstrike, so the 80 DPS becomes something more. Effectively making it the better choice, but a very small margin. And one has to assume the Ele gets a few charges now and then anyway, so perhaps 30 DPS for him. I can only see a benefit from taking a WS then, even a single one.

 

Talithin

Unfortunately I fear 80dps is too high an estimation for the wind serpent dps increase and I would suggest that perhaps 50dps is more of a realistic value. The math attributed to these numbers can be seen in a post I made on the previous page and it shows that although 1 hunter's wind serpent doesn't increase raid damage more than an elemental shaman, 2 wind serpents would.

 

Kordrun

I'll be honest. I have yet to bother reading through all of the posts, so what I say may have already been said. If so, my apologizes.

I've done some comparisons with my WS vs my Ravager in fights against the same boss with the same group and with me in the same gear (Full T6). I don't recall the exact group make-ups now, but generally my group consists of a fury warrior, a surv hunter, myself as a bm hunter, a feral druid, and a resto shaman. Next, with my crit, I usually average around a 1.8 delay between LBs.

So when I did this here are some solid numbers that came about:

VS Anetheron (full dps on Anetheron the entire fight):
WS - 615 dps
Ravager - 491, 510, 491 (hit 491 on two separate occasions)

Since then my WS has averaged just over 600 dps on that fight. So that leaves me hitting just about an extra 100 coming just from my Wind Serpent. My personal DPS between those fights was fairly constant sitting around 1 600ish every time.

So even though lightning breath gains so little from Storm Strike in comparison to any shaman's elemental spell, whether they end up consuming the Storm Strike does not have much of an effect on their DPS, so you need to also consider how much dps would an enhancement shaman gain from using his own Storm Strike debuff? Or assuming the enhancement shaman does not use it, then an elemental shaman should still get 1 of the 2 debuffs, so really their losses should only be considered based on that.

 

zlurp

talithin.. there is no flaw in my reasoning... i SAID 2 enhancement shamans i MEANT 2 enhancement shamans, that is the situation i discussed. if your raid doesnt have 2 i dont care. thats what my raid has, and in my situation that is the breakdown of whats better. so if your raid has a different makeup, explain why the pets are better than the ele shaman for your raid. but im not going to because there are tons of different raid makeups and im not going to spend 3 days explaing how the raid benefits from the millions of possible combinations

 

MontezumaSR

When I am fully buffed(other player buffs, my totems, flask, food and weapon oil) and have all available debuffs(save Stormstrike), I will crit for approximately 4,900 to 5,000 with Lightning Bolt and 4,800 to 4,900 with Chain Lightning. If I am able to make use of the Stormstrike debuff, then I will crit for around 6,000 to 6,100 with my Lightning Bolt and around 5,800 to 6,000 with Chain Lightning. This is a rather substantial increase to the damage of my nature based spells.

If you look at the Brutallus fight, without Stormstrike I have to fight to keep around 1,700 to 1,800 DPS; I just normally cannot sustain even that level of DPS. If I am able to make use of both Stormstrike charges, I can sustain 1.800 to 2,000 DPS.

Currently, my Lightning Bolts cast a 1.89 seconds and my Chain Lightning cast at 1.42 seconds. I do not have any of the new Tier 6 pieces(wrist, waist or boots). I do use the Black Temple trash ring that has haste on it and the Sunwell trash Mail caster dps gloves that has haste as well. I have a Haste rating of 62 or 4.91%.

I cast 3 Lightning Bolts, 1 Chain Lightning and continue with that rotation for every fight. I cannot figure the exact math at this moment, but I will try a rough estimate:

My average cast time without Heroism or drums would be 1.77 seconds([1.89*3]+[1.42]/4 = 1.7725). I "should" average around 5.6 cast every 10 seconds; which means I will easily use up the Stormstrike debuffs before they expire.

As far as the bonus I receive over the life of the debuff while compared to the downtime until the next debuff is applied can vary. I am figuring that I receive between 1,000 to 1,100 more damage per Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning. I figure, roughly, that I will get a 200 to 220 DPS from Stormstrike.

One small comment I would like to just throw out, I would like to see the charges removed from Stormstrike. Having to fight over who is able to use the charges really makes the talent a little underpowered. Since there is not another debuff in the game for nature damage, it should be a little easier to use in raids.

I also wish that Lightning Breathe was considered a DoT to save the charges. I know there was a comment or two about having two hunters in the raid with Wind Serpents and that they might be able to make better use of it over an Elemental Shaman; but that isn't possible. There will always be two charges per ten seconds.



That is incorrect. It does not matter whether you bring one Hunter with a Wind Serpent or 5 Hutners with Wind Serpents. There will only be two charges with the Stormstrike debuff. They can all try to land their pet's attacks on the debuff but they will not all get it.

If the Wind Serpent is a better dps pet, could you turn the auto use of Lightning Breathe and still see a DPS gain over the ravager? If not, then the Ravager will be the better choice.

 

Mearis

There is the non-trivial problem that a lot if times you are completely screwed with debuff slots, so rogues use instant poison in the offhand versus deadly. If rogues are using instant poison, you can assume the shaman isn't getting any of the charges anyway.

 

Talithin

Actually it's right. The point about using wind serpents over ravagers is that wind serpents can use lightning breathe: it is this ability which pushes them over the ravager dps boundary. we are analysing total raid dps here, not just the effective use of 2 charges of stormstirke.

let n = the number of hunters in the raid. (n must be an integer)

let a = the raid dps gain of n hunters using wind serpents instead of ravagers.

let b = the dps difference of 2 arbitrary lightning bolts gaining 20% dmg every 10 seconds as opposed to a mixture of lightning breathes and lightning bolts.

if a > b all hunters should use wind serpents.

if a < b all hunters should use ravagers.

Let us assume that a = 50*n

Let us also assume that an average lightning bolt (without eating a charge) hits for 2100 damage (Highest i could find from the top dps page of brutallus on wws - link).
Let us assume that an average lightning breathe (without eating charges) hits for 210 damage (taken from a recent wws)
Assume that the ratio of lightning breathes eating charges : lightning bolts eating charges is 3:1 (i would suspect this is a realistic value)

We therefore see that, if only lightning bolts are used, 2 of these will have an increased 20% dmg therefore an extra 2100*0.2*2 damage every 10 seconds = 84 dps.
If the wind serpents are introduced and, using the ratio suggested, 1.5 lightning breathes and 0.5 lightning bolts recieve an extra 20% dmg every 10 seconds, we see an increase in damage of ((2100*0.5)+(210*1.5))*0.2 damage every 10 seconds = 27.3 dps.

therefore the value of b is fixed at a constant 84-27.3 = 56.7 dps

going back to the inequalities given we need to evaluate whether a >b or a < b.

knowing now that a=50*n and b=56.7

a > b if n=>2
a < b is n<2

I don't think we can really do any more exploratory math here except by perhaps assuming different values for average damage of abilities or by altering the ratio of lightning breathes:lightning bolts eating charges. Any change to these values is likely to cause very small variations to the above and so I would like to conclude my post, and hopefully this entire thread by stating the following.

Assuming one enhancement shaman and any number of elemental shamen are in a raid:
If 2 hunters are present, both should be using wind serpents, even though they will be eating up the majority of stormstrike charges.
If 1 hunter is present, he should be using a ravager (or any other non-wind serpent pet) so that an elemental shaman can make full use of the stormstrike charges that an enhancement shaman puts onto a boss.

QED

 

Kordrun

Then I don't know what exactly is wrong with you. Our elemental shaman manages 1700-1800 DPS on brut with me using my Wind Serpent. And he had nothing from Sunwell except the trash gloves + JC necklace.

Then, assuming there is only one Wind Serpent in the raid, you will always receive one of the two storm strike buffs, so you need to do all your math based on you gaining 100ish dps instead of assuming that you gain no DPS when there's a Wind Serpent present.

This is NOT about the Wind Serpents making better use of the debuff. That was never the question. It's about the Wind Serpents doing enough damage over the Ravager to prove that having it potentially chewing up Storm Strikes is enough of a DPS increase that they are justified.

Why would I turn Lightning Breath off? That has to be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. That on it's own will not only reduce my pet's DPS by around 120-150ish from the loss of Lightning Breath, then reduce my pet's DPS even more due to not being able to cast Kill Command every 5 seconds on the dot, then reduce my DPS AND my group's DPS due to FI having a higher chance of dropping.



So do your math as follows: You only see 1 storm strike per every time it's up. You gain 100ish DPS. My pet's DPS increases by 100ish. Wow, looks like things balance out. So we decide both hunters will bring their wind serpents. Thus both hunter's DPS increases by 100ish. Things still balance out, except now the Enhancement shaman attempts to make use of his storm strike debuff and gets a few, his DPS increases. Every so often you manage to hit a storm strike debuff, so your dps still technically increases. Wait, I think things just turned in favor of bringing 2 Wind Serpents over one enhancement shaman going emo because his DPS drops a bit.

 

• Binkenstein

What sort of damage does Instant do on a single hit?

 

Squinky001

This is probably a very newb-ish question, but I've not gotten lucky on trinkets and I'm still using Romulo's Poison Vial for the +hit. My question is does the DOT from the vial consume Stormstrike charges? (I'm looking for ways to get rid of the vial as quickly as possible, but it all depends on my luck on trinket drops.)

The reason I'm asking is that I have both a cat and a windserpent as pets. I've been leaving my WS stabled when there are both an enhancement and elemental shaman in the raid, but if my Poision Vial is eating SS charges anyway I could probably safely bring my WS.

 

MontezumaSR

Here is the WWS report line on the damage done by the only Hunter in the raid that has a Wind Serpent. This information is from our most recent Brutallus kill and this information looks to be similar over our last 3 Kills(this covers the entire time he has been in our guild).

Wind Serpent: Lightning Breath (Nature) &ab=121 21 032 3 % 119 84 % 176 226 119 84 % 176 226 22 15.6 % 22 15 % 24 17 % 6.7 % 6.7 %


To make sense of what this information covers, the table below will explain it a little better:

Lightning Breath: Total Damage % of total damage done # of hits Average damage

21,032 3% 119 176



The person that does our WWS has not gotten the reports posted since my recent return. Has soon as those reports are posted, I will gladly share those reports with you. Regardless, I am not nor do not believe I ever will be convinced that Wind Serpents eating up Stormstrike charges will ever be more benefit over an Elemental Shaman being able to use them. After looking over all of the information, I believe that Wind Serpents using Lightning Breath are wasting debuffs when they will result in more damage from another class(Shamans) using it.

It seems that the crits are not enough to make the argument valid at this point. As an Elemental Shaman, I am critting between 48% to 57% of the time.

 

Mode

Romulo's is a proc, not a dot. Yes, it consumes stormstrike charges, the same as all other sources of instant Nature damage such as a rogue's Instant poison.

 

Squinky001

Crap. Well, thank you for the information. Hopefully I can get rid of the fail vial soon.

 

Talithin

You have totally missed the point of this thread and have disregarded the last 5 pages of highly logical maths and arguments. Please consider the difference of a hunter having to downgrade to a ravager if he is to not use his wind serpent. I have already provided the maths to conclude this entire topic on this exact page (2 posts after your last) please read it and if you don't understand something please ask - instead of bringing to the table arguments which have already been dealt with and which have been explained in great detail.

 

Pixen

This.

He's right, you are completely missing the point. The fact that an elemental shaman gets a bigger dps increase from Stormstrike than a Wind Serpent is not only blatantly obvious, it's also completely irrelevant. The issue is whether the increase in dps going from a ravager to a wind serpent (or multiple wind serpents) is greater than the loss of dps from a elemental shaman losing SS charges. If it is, you use wind serpents. If not, you don't. You are ignoring the math that is being presented.

 

MontezumaSR

I have not seen a lot of logical math yet. Things can be written on paper and made to look good in theory, but in real world application they end up being incorrect. I have given numbers that are experienced in every raid I attend and all of the math I have done shows me that Elemental Shamans make the best use of the Stormstrike debuff.

I could have missed it, but has anyone put an average dps gain per Hunter that uses their Wind Serpent(without adding in Stormstrike) over a Ravager? Do they gain over 200 to 220 DPS with that pet? Also, it the gain going to continue to increase as we continue along in raid content? I talked to the Hunters in the guild and they have told me that they do not see that big of a bonus to their DPS to get or continue to use Wind Serpents at this time.

I have one last question, which was just brought up to me by my guild's hunters. With Ravagers using Gore(which is 37-61 damage and a 50% chance to do double damage for 25 Focus), would the Ravagers not be able to use Gore more than Wind Serpent's Lightning Breath? Lightning Breath is 50 Focus and Gore is 25 Focus, so Gore should get more use over the life of a fight. I admit that I have not played a hunter is almost 2 years, so I do not have much first hand knowledge of the newer pets.

 

Hagen

MontezumaSR: Oh please read the posts before you again, everything is already explained there.

If your hunters don't see an increase that is as big as the one mentioned here by using windserpents, where is the problem? They can easily leave there WS stapled.

 

Talithin

I refer you to my second from last post in this thread: link

Which is a mere 2 after one of your posts and 9 before your last. You appear not be reading a lot of the stuff put forward in this thread and so i would ask that you please do so in future to prevent false information such as your last few posts from arising.

 

Pixen

You keep missing the point where this part is completely irrelevant. If you'd actually read the thread, you might get why.