Mists of Pandaria Elemental Shaman Guide: 5.2 (mirror) - Page 2

Binkenstein · 10/22/12, 6:39 PM

Originally Posted by Mcblane

Pardon if this was mentioned this already, but does the Heroic Dungeon BiS list incorporate PvP gear?

For example, [Dreadful Gladiator's Ringmail Gauntlets] (These are the 458 ilvl honor point gloves it seems to just not be linking correctly) seem better than [Gloves of Explosive Pain]

I only bring it up because I'm trying to put together the best pieces of gear for Dungeon Challenge Modes, and do not have access to raiding gear.
I think a BiS list for Challenge modes (with or without raiding gear) would be quite helpful, and since all of the gear gets normalized to 463 it would be a unique list from the others posted here.

You're assuming that the socket is worth trading off 110 Int, 89 spirit & 27 haste (not to mention the 45 extra stam). You could use it while waiting for an upgrade, but the heroic dungeon gear will still be better.

Mcblane · 10/22/12, 7:31 PM

Originally Posted by Binkenstein

You're assuming that the socket is worth trading off 110 Int, 89 spirit & 27 haste (not to mention the 45 extra stam). You could use it while waiting for an upgrade, but the heroic dungeon gear will still be better.

I understand that the normalization only works downward, but even with 5 less ilvls, the Gladiator's Gauntlets still seemed marginally better. By adding an 80int160spi gem to the PvP gloves, the totals come to

Gladiator's Gauntlets
957 stam
698 int
505 spirit
425 haste

vs Gloves of Explosive Pain
1002 stam
668 int
434 spirit
452 haste

Meaning the PvP gloves only have 27 less haste, but gain +30int and +71 spirit, discounting stamina. Seems like at least a marginal but noteworthy DPS upgrade to me. The only negative side to wearing the pvp gloves that I could see would be that there is less spirit on them pre gemmed, so that's less to work with if you were reforging them.

Enquillion · 10/24/12, 7:31 AM

It would be terribly difficult to agree on a BiS list for CM's anyway, as there is so much cleaving that crit ought to gain a fair bit of value since there's no Lava Burst to hold it down. You could of course swap out some crit items for haste/mastery for bosses.

I recommend you simply get full 463+, hit cap it, and after that worry more about execution than about minmaxing the other ratings.

Enquillion · 10/24/12, 8:05 AM

On a different note, while talents on cooldown cannot be swapped, Primal Elementalist technically never goes on cooldown, it's only the FET/EET that do. This means you can spec PE, pop the FET during countdown and then respec EB and keep the pimped up elemental.

I've tested that it worked in LFR, and I tested on the dummy after, and I saw no reason not to conclude that I kept the full benefit of the talent, meaning abilities, damage boost and pet bar. The trick might be worth a few 100k damage.

(is this omitted from all three guides due to being a bit of an exploit? I can't be the first one to have stumbled over it)

Regorill · 10/29/12, 4:50 AM

Since heart of fear is opening up this week, and people will start getting their set bonuses I wanted to talk about what impact the 4pt14 may potentially bring to our stat priorities.

Looking at my own logs for a standard encounter, I find that fulmination damage contributes about ~4-5% of my total dps. If the four piece doubles the amount of lightning shield charges by rolling thunder proccs, this (under ideal conditions) would lead to an effective doubling of raw damage done by fulmination. It isn't exactly fair to say that fulmination is now doing 8-10% total damage though, it should be even higher since more GCDs will be spent casting earth shock and less spent on LvB/LB/EB. The effect I believe this will have on stat priorities should be obvious: fulmination damage is not affected by haste nor by mastery. The argument can be made that you will be getting more rolling thunder proccs from more casts / more overloads, but I believe that the situation will bring crit up to be a more valuable stat. Thoughts?

Judgejoebrwn · 10/29/12, 9:35 AM

Crit would definitely become a more valuable stat than it currently is. Haste does effect Fulmination to a small degree in that it lowers the GCD and therefore effectively the "cast time". I could potentially see a haste/crit gearset overtaking a haste/mastery set. I'm thinking with double the charges, a typical haste/mastery build might find itself capping 7 charges prior to the ES CD resetting on single targets now and then (like it does with AoE currently).

It's still hard to say exactly how valuable crit will be with the 4-piece (given LvB's increase in our overall damage), so some testing/simming will need to be done to evaluate it.

Binkenstein · 10/29/12, 8:20 PM

No testing/simming will need to be carried out. As the guide states that stat weights are general guidelines and you shouldn't focus on one stat to the detriment of all others, there shouldn't be a change in your gearing approach.

Note that your L90 talent selection will have a bigger impact on your stat weights than either of the set bonuses.

Regorill · 11/06/12, 1:54 PM

Originally Posted by Binkenstein

No testing/simming will need to be carried out. As the guide states that stat weights are general guidelines and you shouldn't focus on one stat to the detriment of all others, there shouldn't be a change in your gearing approach.

Note that your L90 talent selection will have a bigger impact on your stat weights than either of the set bonuses.

What gear level are you at that you're finding balancing your stats is providing more dps than going mostly for haste? I am at 483, and only recently has reforging out of some haste for mastery been a viable dps increase. I haven't found balancing crit to be useful at all yet.

I can understand the theory behind balancing the stats due to the positive interaction between them, but in practice it doesn't hold up.

Ronark · 11/07/12, 2:17 AM

Originally Posted by Regorill

What gear level are you at that you're finding balancing your stats is providing more dps than going mostly for haste? I am at 483, and only recently has reforging out of some haste for mastery been a viable dps increase. I haven't found balancing crit to be useful at all yet.

I can understand the theory behind balancing the stats due to the positive interaction between them, but in practice it doesn't hold up.

Its all relative. Running sims at i463 earlier in the month had my Mastery worth more per point than Haste (since I had all the Haste/X heroic gear).

You can't put every stat under an umbrella and clearly state that "Here is the breakpoint".

Binkenstein · 11/07/12, 5:30 PM

My best estimate is that for every 1 Crit Rating you need 3-5 Haste Rating and 3-5 Mastery Rating.

Xemnosyst · 11/09/12, 8:01 PM

I'm having trouble understanding the mechanics of clipping Flame Shock during a haste buff. It seems to me it's only worth doing when the buff would fall off if you waited until the last tick, but so far my attempts to model that in simc are showing a dps loss. What am I missing?

In case the error is in my simc changes instead of my logic, here is the original:

actions.single+=/flame_shock,if=!buff.ascendance.up&(!ticking|ticks_remain<2|((buff.bloodlust.up|buff.elemental_mastery.up)&ticks_remain<3))

and here is my modification:

actions.single+=/flame_shock,if=buff.ascendance.down&(ticks_remain<2|(ticks_remain<3&((buff.bloodlust.up&buff.bloodlust.remains<3)|(buff.elemental_mastery.up&buff.elemental_mastery.remains<3))))

notap123 · 11/27/12, 5:43 PM

I was curious when taking primal elementalist/fire ele if I should deactivate Fire Nova on single target rotation or if the damage is worth more than the number of swings within the cast time.

razid · 12/01/12, 2:22 AM

Glyph of Chain Lightning
Advantage: Increases AoE damage from Chain Lightning by adding two additional jumps
Disadvantage: Reduces initial damage by 10%
This glyph is best used when you expect to face 4+ targets, as it's a damage loss when dealing with three targets or fewer.
Advice: Required for AoE

Does this Glyph change the point at which you should which over to AoE (See below)?

Area of Effect

This assumes you have 3 or more targets.
1.Cast Magma Totem before the AoE phase begins. If you have Totemic Projection, use it to reposition the totem for maximum effect
2.Cast Earthquake if there are 5 or more targets
3.Cast Chain Lightning

Would the glyph in fact change the number of targets required for AoE to be effective up to 4, instead of 3?

If yes, then what?

Also, what would the most optimal DPS method be if there is just 2 targets? Normal single target priority? Or the normal single target priority, but with CL instead of LB?

The last question I have is about Hit. Is it more desirable than Spirit? I have seen some websites, where they prioritize Hit over Spirit. That makes little sense to me, since Spirit gives 100% Hit as well as more mana regeneration. If anything, Spirit should be more desirable than Hit, yes?
I have noticed some odd things going on when Reforging. When I would reforge to Spirit and Hit, I would end with the same about of Hit %, but the amount of stats reforged weren't the same. It seemed that a higher worth of stats were needed to be converted in order to obtain the same amount of Hit % when reforing Spirit as compared to Hit itself.
Is this observation correct? And if yes, why is it like that?

Binkenstein · 12/04/12, 4:47 PM

Originally Posted by razid

Does this Glyph change the point at which you should which over to AoE (See below)?

Would the glyph in fact change the number of targets required for AoE to be effective up to 4, instead of 3?

If yes, then what?

Also, what would the most optimal DPS method be if there is just 2 targets? Normal single target priority? Or the normal single target priority, but with CL instead of LB?

The last question I have is about Hit. Is it more desirable than Spirit? I have seen some websites, where they prioritize Hit over Spirit. That makes little sense to me, since Spirit gives 100% Hit as well as more mana regeneration. If anything, Spirit should be more desirable than Hit, yes?
I have noticed some odd things going on when Reforging. When I would reforge to Spirit and Hit, I would end with the same about of Hit %, but the amount of stats reforged weren't the same. It seemed that a higher worth of stats were needed to be converted in order to obtain the same amount of Hit % when reforing Spirit as compared to Hit itself.
Is this observation correct? And if yes, why is it like that?

Having the glyph or not is irrelevant to whether you should use CL for 3 targets or 4.

If you read the original source, you'll see an answer Mists of Pandaria Elemental Shaman Guide: 5.0.5

There should be no difference in reforging Hit or Spirit.

Enquillion · 01/11/13, 2:50 AM

How do you guys handle day phase adds on (heroic) Tsulong? It's very costly to use Frost Shock. I project Capacitor/Earthgrab, I have my TS glyphed for shorter CD and sometimes actually use it to knock adds into other adds to allow cleaving. I have a raid today and I'm considering unleashing Frostbrand too and going back to Flametongue come night phase.