[Enhancement] Unleashing Elements, a Cataclysmic discussion (Now with more Fire Nova) - Page 11

Krutsik · 04/23/11, 6:27 AM

Blood fury does not trigger the global cooldown so it doesn't have to be on your priority list. Also it has the exact same cooldown as wolves and wolves scale with your attack power so the best thing to do is to just macro these two together. When to use those depends entierly on the encounter and you should just use common sense.

SmokyBG · 04/26/11, 12:01 PM

With 4.1 coming "really soon to a server near you", I've been thinking about how to spend the points that most of us currently put into Improved Fire Nova, and the options are quite underwhelming:

Seasoned Winds, the replacement talent, seems to be more PvP oriented, at least I don't see it being useful in any normal-mode raid encounter
Toughness, Frozen Power and Earthen Power are all PvP talents, as noted in the OP
Improved Shields sims as a whopping 0.3% DPS gain for two points invested

That leaves us with Totemic Reach, which might actually improve the uptime of Searing Totem/Searing Flames on movement heavy fights, provided it actually works... So, what do we do and what do we recommend to new shaman?

Trucidovelox · 04/26/11, 1:18 PM

Feels like Totemic Reach is a bit underrated, myself I have been using it for quite a while. Where it finds its uses in fights like Nefarian (phase 2), where that talent enables the searing totem to fire at Nefarian from them pillars, out of range without the talent (as far as I've seen). And overall having those raid-wide buffs with an increased range isn't something to quickly discard.

Cochice · 04/26/11, 4:32 PM

Seasoned winds is situational at best, but it does have it's PvE uses. I personally don't put any points in Improved Fire Nova currently, but I will likely try out Seasoned Winds, if only for it's benefit on Nefarion and to a lesser extent, Cho'gall. It will likely end up remaining "optional."

Vhaman · 04/28/11, 8:05 AM

Has anyone considered using glyph of flame shock for AOE-heavy bosses (IE H magmaw, maloriak, halfus) to get more fire novas out as enh? I've been reading things from happy ele shaman w/ 5 fire novas blowing up adds

Shokolate · 04/28/11, 10:28 AM

Personally, I chose Totemic Reach as the extra two talents. The extra range means you can cast your totems less because you don't have to down them whenever a boss moves slightly. Less re-casting of totems means more available GCDs, which means more DPS.

Also, a quick fix to the LUA spam of Shockandawe: shockandawe config -> warning options -> Uncheck Grounding Warning. Longer Fix: ShockAndAwe - 295 - Shockandawe crashing. 4.1 Patch - WoW AddOns - CurseForge.com

Can anyone confirm or deny useful askmrrobot.com is for reforging? Should I use the default weights or ones calculated through EnhSim?

EDIT: Took away stupid comment. I need to read more carefully

Cochice · 04/28/11, 4:47 PM

Originally Posted by Shokolate

Free GCDs allow for our new (lowest) priority, fire nova (cannot confirm with enhsim)!

Why would you put FN on your single target priority? It does zero damage to the nova'ing target.

greenstriker · 04/29/11, 1:31 PM

Even though that 0.3% dps increase from 2/3 shields is so slight, it's still going to be better than totemic reach. I don't see the usefulness in using it for heroic Nef, as you should need those stacks of searing flame for some nice LL damage on the constructs...which at this point is going to be your main priority while your healers' mana rapidly declines :P

For fights like Atramedes and Cho'gall, smart placement of your totems makes 2/2 reach trivial as well. Tbh I let my searing totem/wolves eat at Cho'gall while i'm dpsing down the adherents...since you're only going to get around 3 (4 if dps is lower) LL's on them before they die + your first LL will have no stacks of searing in the first place. (plus damage on Cho'gall is important if your guild is trying to push only 3 adherent phases before p2)

The only fights I can see 2/2 reach useful for are Maloriak for magma (which is a small amount of damage compared to fire nova at this point) or fights with big rooms where bosses are spread (council comes to mind, but again smart totem placement trivializes that) Only other place I could see the usefulness of 2/2 reach is in 10 man for WF if your room is big or dps are split.

TL: DR, smart totem placement trivializes 2/2 totemic reach. The only totem you should be redropping is searing totem, and we actually have tons of opportunities to do that EVEN WHILE factoring in stoneclaw and 2/3/4 maelstrom LB.

Misirlou · 05/02/11, 4:52 PM

hey guys, wasnt elemental devastation affecting special attacks pre-patch? it doesnt seem like it is doing so now. I dont recall seeing this low crit % on my LL dummy test.

Infuria · 05/03/11, 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by greenstriker

Even though that 0.3% dps increase from 2/3 shields is so slight, it's still going to be better than totemic reach. I don't see the usefulness in using it for heroic Nef, as you should need those stacks of searing flame for some nice LL damage on the constructs...which at this point is going to be your main priority while your healers' mana rapidly declines :P

For fights like Atramedes and Cho'gall, smart placement of your totems makes 2/2 reach trivial as well. Tbh I let my searing totem/wolves eat at Cho'gall while i'm dpsing down the adherents...since you're only going to get around 3 (4 if dps is lower) LL's on them before they die + your first LL will have no stacks of searing in the first place. (plus damage on Cho'gall is important if your guild is trying to push only 3 adherent phases before p2)

The only fights I can see 2/2 reach useful for are Maloriak for magma (which is a small amount of damage compared to fire nova at this point) or fights with big rooms where bosses are spread (council comes to mind, but again smart totem placement trivializes that) Only other place I could see the usefulness of 2/2 reach is in 10 man for WF if your room is big or dps are split.

TL: DR, smart totem placement trivializes 2/2 totemic reach. The only totem you should be redropping is searing totem, and we actually have tons of opportunities to do that EVEN WHILE factoring in stoneclaw and 2/3/4 maelstrom LB.

Perhaps 2/3 Toughness is worthy of consideration.

Krutsik · 05/03/11, 5:21 PM

7% extra stamina is roughly 4k hp in 372 ilevel gear. With cata healing being more about mana conservation and less about big damage spikes that need people to be topped off, I think that the little extra hp has even more limited uses than totemic reach or seasoned winds would.

I personally chose totemic reach just for more convinient magma totem range for spread aoe (halfus, maloriak or even some trash packs), but in reality the gain from any possible replacement talents to imp fire nova is so trivial that it's entirely up to personal preference and plays little to no part in actual dps output or survivability.

Shokolate · 05/06/11, 9:49 AM

I think by investing into 2/3 improved shields for a personal dps boost (no matter how small) is a selfish choice. As Krustsik said, totemic reach also gives a dps bonus:

for spread aoe (halfus, maloriak or even some trash packs)

. It's also important to note that a fire elemental is less tethered, and that is a totem which you can't re-drop. More importantly, however, is the utility totemic reach provides for other totems besides fire. For example, I drop earthbind totem on H Nefarian for the Dominion Mechanic. If an earthbind hits someone who would otherwise be out of range, their damage/healing would be increased by that much more. The same idea applies to any fear mechanic that requires the use of tremor.

tl;dr Put points into improved shields if you want your damage to increase. Put points in Totemic Reach if you wan't to kill the boss.

Melosavic · 05/06/11, 4:18 PM

Coming from a 25 man perspective, if a slight range increase of my totems had any effect of the success of a raid ESPECIALLY Nefarian where I can't even use searing totem, I would be worried about the state of my guild.

greenstriker · 05/07/11, 9:24 PM

Originally Posted by Shokolate

I think by investing into 2/3 improved shields for a personal dps boost (no matter how small) is a selfish choice. As Krustsik said, totemic reach also gives a dps bonus: . It's also important to note that a fire elemental is less tethered, and that is a totem which you can't re-drop. More importantly, however, is the utility totemic reach provides for other totems besides fire. For example, I drop earthbind totem on H Nefarian for the Dominion Mechanic. If an earthbind hits someone who would otherwise be out of range, their damage/healing would be increased by that much more. The same idea applies to any fear mechanic that requires the use of tremor.

tl;dr Put points into improved shields if you want your damage to increase. Put points in Totemic Reach if you wan't to kill the boss.

Going to say this again, smart totem placement makes TR pretty much useless. Granted, some of those points are valid...however I wouldn't agree with your last point at all.

I would agree TR is useful on nef/cho'gall/maloriak/halfus depending on what strategy your guild uses...it isn't for mine. On halfus my guild clumps all adds in one location...nothing is spread out enough to make TR useful for me. On Cho'gall, we don't use a fear/tremor strategy for the adherent phase (we spread out)...however if we were I would probably pick up TR because I have to respec into reverb for that fight anyways. On Nef, we usually run with 2-4 shamans and 1-2 hunters...in phase 1, binds/traps are dropped on both melee and ranged...and for p3 we clump together and I drop the totem in the middle of the radius the tank slowly turns him (again this varies depending on strat). Additionally, the earthbind debuff has a 4 second duration, which means if it pulses on the edge of the totem range, it's still going to last for 4 more seconds of slow...it's not like frost trap in that regard.

So in short, yes, TR is useful in some situations. Before you pick it up I would really look over at what strategy your guild uses for every fight and decide whether it's really best to take based off of judgment. If you know for a fact that you can strategically drop your totems in good places every fight, you shouldn't need to pick it up. I've seen a lot of shamans underestimate the placement of their totems so many times and have had to redrop them...but one has to realize it's part of our class to both know and learn the best positions for them on any single fight.

TLDR again: picking up TR is entirely a judgment call on your part (or your guilds part).

Ruga · 05/11/11, 2:35 AM

Quite a "big" change in the new PTR notes:

Darkmoon Card: Hurricane damage done when triggered has been increased by 40%, however, it can no longer deal critical strikes and no longer receives any modifiers to its damage from the equipping player.

Source: MMO-Champion - Patch 4.2 PTR Notes - May 10th Update

I still have to log on PTR to confrim this myself.