witchfire

except with your 33/28/0 build you won't be using maelstorm in off hand since dual wield is a 31 point talent.

 

Kasi

I did it earlier already pickles. For plain LB spam it would be about 150 more dmg on each LB. Thus you gain around 75 dps. Not sure on coefficient of searing, so not sure how much of a boost it will get there. (from getting 500ish more spell damage) I don't think it would be worth using like that for a caster group. But if you are being forced into the tank or melee group, it might be an option. And you have to go 31 in enhance to get dual wielding like they said.

 

pickles133

WOW I apologize for that....I'm...wow....yea scratch my previous post lol. It's been a long day?

 

• Binkenstein

What you are advocating is going to reduce elemental dps, probably to a greater extent than will be regained from the extra group dps from improved totems (most of the group dps comes from the extra WF hits and the party AP bonus of UR)

 

Reikachu

Can anyone confirm whether or not Elemental Precision affects Purge? Logically, it should (Purge is Nature), but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. Does anyone know, either way?

 

BlueGlyph

If you just want the proc chance on LO. Getting Shaman Friend, setting it to alternative method and taking of your TLC-trinket will lead to as close to 100% you can get if you are hitting Dr Boom, or some other stationary target. (Should work with trinket as well, but we all know it screws up things...)

Then you can just count the total number of bolts cast, subtract the number of LOs from it, and divide by the number of LOs. Maybe the one who said 14-16% didn't subtract the number of LO bolts before dividing, that would give a number around 16.7%. Also the target has to be staionary and not die, as every death by a Lightning Bolt leads to a possible loss of a proc.

 

Mmootimus

For whatever its worth, I can pretty much confirm this figure for lightning bolt.

After emptying several mana bars in Dr. Boom I measured highest and lowest hits, and came to a coefficient of 0.795. Both the highest and lowest hits were repeated several times, and the range between them indicates they are likely to represent the true ranges of LB damage. (Full numbers available if anyone is interested.)

 

Moshne

I do appreciate the confirmation. I spent WAY too long working on this yesterday, nice to know it wasn't for nothing.

I also did a bit of theorycrafting on SpellDamage vs. Crit rating with the new coefficient and cam e to 1 spell damage = 1.7 crit rating. I did this ignoring the mana benefit from the crit rating, as I generally haven't had issues with mana when I have a shadowpriest, and we run shadowpriest heavy.

 

Kasi

Umm, why would it reduce elemental dps? This is like Juice said, if you are an elemental shaman stuck in a melee group consistently this is an option. Of course if you're in a caster group then yes go for full elemental, since that helps your group's dps more. But if you are stuck in a melee group and are being forced to drop a different air totem than wrath of air, and of course you are dropping strength of earth, than this spec for now offers signifigantly harder hitting LBs, even including the LO procs you lose. Plus your searing totem would hit a lot harder too. I did the math previously, argue it if you want, but I'm not sure what your problem is here.

 

Moshne

You are losing 12% chance to hit assuming you otherwise would have Totem of Wrath, in your current gear you run 68 chance to hit. 12*12.6 = 158.2 chance to hit for 12% minus the 68 from your gear means you need to find 83.2 spell hit rating to fit into your gear to make the 30/31 build without losing hit chance. From a gemming point of view, which would be the easiest route to do it, you'd have to give up either crit or spell damage for that hit, which would likely outweight the 75 DPS gain you are looking to get from this "new" spec. You would also gain an appreciable amount of threat with the build as well.

Using a conservative estimation on LO (1000 spell damage, 35% total crit, ignoring Chain Lightning in the rotation) you get ~97 DPS.

While I appreciate the thought experiment, I think you are neglecting too many factors.

 

• Binkenstein

Just to get this clear.

You're saying that a 2.3 second LB, with 8% less crit, 6% less hit, no chance for LO procs will do more damage because you've got a spell damage dagger offhand (with oil) plus an "upgraded" searing totem?

Harder hitting, yes, quite possibly. Slower casts, less hit (means you have to get more +hit from gear) and less crit mean lower dps overall, even if you ignore the lack of LO.

Even outside the Min/Maxer world, I think anyone would be hard pushed to use such a build in a raid.

Also, the 0.795 co-eff gives a break even point of 1266 dmg while 0.794 gives 1213.
Based on what Eyonix posted, we may be looking at a 0.792 or 0.793 co-efficent, although I'd believe our testing over what he posts any day.

 

Kaideq

or just visit the trainer for a respec to enhance, pick up some side loot for it.
Far more efficient option

Starchild Spacegoat Shaman in Beta

 

Pitbuller

I play with spreadsheet. DW elemental build is better personal dps build(without searing totem) when you can get 440bonus spell damage from off hand weapon +oil + mentall quickness.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Kasi

No I said a 2.0 second LB if you had read my original post on the matter. 10% threat/6% hit is much more replacable than .3 seconds off the nuke. Did you even read my post on the previous page where I theorycrafted the math for it?

That is very odd that the Maelstrom weapon is the only 1h in the game with spell damage. However you'd not want to go with the talents that lose you casting time on LB. Thats the biggest scalar we have. One can deal with losing spell hit because our gear is loaded with it and you can gem for it. And even threat. But casting time? Nope.

I don't think we'd be able to get a battle shout. But lets say we have 3 paladins. We'd probably want now to get Salv, Might and Wisdom. If we get in a group with a warrior, we would have to lose our Shadow Priest and likely drop a different air totem. So 330 AP + 198 + 220 + gift ~= 800. Multiply that by 0.3 and you get 240 spell damage.

You also get another 270 spell damage from the weapon. So basically this is a 510 spell damage upgrade and you lose any threat reduction and LO and of course spell hit. I'd say you lose a good 50 spell damage from gems and gear choices you need to socket towards hit where you used to not. So 460 spell damage now.

With the numbers I had in last post lets say you were at 1250 spell damage. You are now at 1710 spell damage and 7% less spell crit. (lose 8 from talents, gain 1 from gear) Lets say you're at my level of gear and drop from 36% spell crit to 29% spell crit.

Your average LB hits for (611+.789x1710)x1.05 = 2058. Which is pretty damn nice. A crit at 29% spell crit rate will give you an average damage of 2655.

The other LB would like I showed previously give an average damage of 1844 damage. Mutliply this by 1.36 for the spell crit and you get 2507.

Thus given a 2 second cast, you gain 74 dps. This is nice for your personal damage, but I'm guessing Totem of Wrath as underwhelming at it is gives more than 74 dps to your group. Now if you are an elemental shaman being one of only 1-2 in the raid and they keep sticking you in tank groups and making you drop WF, then this spec might be handy, because buffs from the melee group would make up for losing wrath of air. It also might be an option for pvp, because there are plenty of talents in enhancement that can be pretty damn handy for it. Your survivability goes up, less cooldown on grounding totem, etc. Although not wearing a shield would make you squishy, but it could give you an option when not focus fired

So to answer your questions:

1) Gemming for spell hit isn't really that hard guys, since our T5 and T6 gear is loaded with it. Using the MH mainhand plus full T6 (with the head enchant that gives 14 more spell hit) gives someone 103 spell hit rating. There is plenty of gear out there competitive with T6 mail that one could use to make up the damage without losing much spell hit. Belt of Blasting, the cloth damage bracers from Akama, the spell damage ring from Naj'entus, the neck from Essences. This is why the spell damage loss is very minimal, because many current best in game pieces have spell hit on them, spell hit that is totally wasted for our spec. Hence any damage lost from spell hit is minimal. I modelled it above as 50 spell damage and when looking at the stats I can see that full T6, neck, weapon, ring from Naj, ring from ZA gives you 156 spell hit rating from gear alone, leaving you 45 shy of capped at 201.

2) Threat is not an issue for me currently in raiding, other than gimmick fights like Void Reaver or Morogrim. Most fights require the ranged to move around avoiding aoe anyway. It's like we talked about when discussing this patch coming up. We didn't need threat buffs, we were just doing pretty fine with it already. Getting 10% more threat would not make or break me pulling agro.

3) Check the math Bink. I did it. Even accounting 7% less crit (you can gain back crit from the offhand weapon oil), the total loss of all spell hit (9% from talents, 3% from ToW), the loss of LO, etc you still do more personal damage. It should be obvious why, because you have 500+ more spell damage than you did previously. Spell damage is our biggest scaling stat.

With an increase of 460 spell damage from the weapon/Mental Quickness buff as I showed before, average LB with a 2.0 second cast (you have to take the full talents for reducing time) your average LB goes from 1677 to 2058. There is no way that 7% spell crit, 20% LO chance to proc a half damage bolt and regemming/gearing so that you gain 45 more spell hit (and thus lose some damage) will ever make up 380 damage on every LB. My calculations were conservative even. I didn't assume you got Battle shout or Kings. Just that you got Might, Wisdom and Mark. Fully talented Battle Shout would push your spell damage up another 115 or so, more if the person had the Solarian trinket.

 

Kasi

Umm right, so if you have full T6 elemental you can just have a full set of T6 enhancement hanging around too? I've managed to pick up some enhancement gear, but that was only because it was going to be sharded, and even with that I'm way negative in DKP right now. The point of this is not if enhancement is better than elemental. Parses from T6 should show you that enhancement is far better anyway, since as we know melee dps scales better than caster. Just look at some of Gurg's wws posts for how enhancement blows elemental out of the water in T6 content.

This is for as Juice said, people who are playing elemental but due to things like raid leaders, lack of other shamans, policies on shadow priest usage, MT group shaman usage, etc are geared as elemental but are forced to be in a non caster group where they are required to put down a different air totem than what they would prefer.

I wouldn't suggest this as a spec anyway, because it would be limited to when Blizz realized that the Naj dagger was 1h and you wake up one day to find out they changed it to MH only. I would much rather as an elemental shaman be in a shadow priest group as well. But for those shamans who have the gear and who are forced by circumstances to be in a subpar group, then this is mathematically an option for them. That is all I'm saying and I'm puzzled why some people here are just ignoring the math.

 

Kaideq

I think the re-gemming and general lack of performance , 500 spelldmg is not going to make the difference.
With every hit gem in your gear you are also loosing stats compared to the non DW build, so it's not exactly gains

Also you dont gain that much dmg from the offhand if you factor in all the top gear, you need to substract the crit and dmg from the Archimonde shield.

The real killer here though is imo
You loose the mana regen from a shadow priest and will have mana problems in longer fights even when chain chugging mana pots.
The 500-600 dps from spelldmg is reallly nice but I don't think you can keep up the bolt spamming.

Maybe I am fortunate but I have near full t6 enhance gear, and it wasn't meant as a respec permanently thing, more a if the situation calls for it respec.

Starchild Spacegoat Shaman in Beta

 

tufy

Well, if calculations and tests are correct, the differences between 2.2 and 2.3 are so small that it's practically not worth the notice for 41/0/20 and 40/0/21 builds. The only ones left suffering are builds without LO (like 36/0/25).

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Kasi

This would be true if not for the fact that our gear has tons of spell hit on it. Naj dagger btw is 234 damage better than the shield along with 2 more crit rating. If you use the crit oil its 16 crit rating and 270 more damage. Please stop arguing numbers if you haven't done the math yourself.

As for bolt spamming, yeah you can keep it up. Remember LB's cost is being reduced next patch, mana spring is getting stronger, water shield is getting much better, and the new changes to Elemental Focus are a buff for lower crit rates. Just from personal experience I was able to keep up LB spam for 10+ minutes on slow Prince/Nightbane kills with just potting, consumables and demonic runes. There just really isn't that many long fights left in the game. And many of those fights give you forced downtime.

I think people are mistaking why you'd do this. It would be if you were forced to be in a group that didn't synergize with you. You obviously would rather be enhance or be in a shadow priest group if you could do it, since the dps gains from a shadow priest and far more usage of CL plus of course synergized dps from ToW with mages would beat the individual upgrade of personal damage here.

As for the going to enhance, that really only works if your melee groups aren't full. It's not like you can just bring in 10 melee for Archimonde. While fights now do promote melee usage, there are mechanics that make having so many people clumped very punishing to your raid.

 

• Binkenstein

Oh, Kasi, one more point.

If you're advocating a build like this, then you'll need to take mana use into consideration as well.

Less crit means less clearcasts, and since you won't be in a spriest group you'll run out of mana fairly quickly. Also, when gearing to replace all that +hit you've lost, you seem to lose out on the haste gear that's available.

From doing a quick gear comparison, you could have ~8.3% haste with a full elemental build, but have none with your DW setup.

Ignoring haste though, yes, the LB figures do appear similar, although from the gear comparisons I've made it's about a 1% loss from the full elemental build.

 

Kasi

The spell haste gear is just not better than T6 elemental gear. Simple enough. Spell haste on level 128 or level 133 items will never make up enough damage to overcome the raw stats and dmg that T6 gear has. The only options that are even comparable are the level 141 ZA rings and the lvl 151 BT trash rings. I didn't factor in btw the belt into my spell hit calculations, so one would still be using the Akama belt plus the ZA ring for around 70 spell haste rating. There is very little spell haste rating gear coming out that is superior to the T6 non haste equivalents. Yes spell haste is a better stat for us than Spell crit, but spell damage still trumps it.

And no you won't run out of mana that quickly. Well sure you will if you use CL a lot, but with far worse gear than I have now, less crit, less mp5 I was able to go LB spam on Prince or Nightbane for over 10 minutes straight. Super mana pots and demonic runes pretty much cover all the mana you need.

Anyway lets stop arguing this build and instead look at something more worthwhile. What spell haste gear from 2.3 is worth more than T6 equivalents? And how do we rank trinkets now considering the nerfs to TLC?

I'll chime in on the first for now, by looking at the new gear.

Rings: Obviously the BT ones are great and well worth using. Probably best in game for us now. ZA ring is definitely nice, but the hit is wasted.
Belt: Flashfire Girdle is very nice, but Anatheron's Noose is likely still better.
Chest: T6 obviously, the new spell haste item is nice, but it gives up way too much damage for the haste. I don't even know if its better than T5 or the trash chest drop.
Bracers: New stuff is alright, but the BT crafted clothe ones are probably still best for us. Pure damage wise, S3 wrist beats out the Supremus ones.
Shoulders: New ones are way worse than the T6 ones.
Cloak: New haste one is quite a bit worse than the Illidari Council one, but probably is better than anything other than that.
Neck: Kael neck is better, but the new haste neck is probably second best, so I'll likely pick it up given the trouble getting Kael's orb. Actually S3 neck is also very good.

 

Kaideq

Ah I didn't count the enchant ffs stupid =_+, you are right.

Comparing only LB spam. You will either be using 4/1CL or 3/1CL depending on haste.
With JoW up you will still run oom in 5 minutes assuming very lucky crit rates and max consumables in 2.3. 10 min spam is just bs sorry ^^
I understand the scenario, I don't think it's very realistic to see it happen, not to mention a waste.

Starchild Spacegoat Shaman in Beta

 

Kasi

Doesn't really matter though, since without a shadow priest you wouldn't be able to use CL much regardless. It's not like going 10 more points into elemental is going to make you more efficient. Our efficiency in regards to max dps cycles is still entirely reliant on a SP.

 

Kaideq

Thus making the build useless in any case , just wasting gems/gear
LO crits help a tad on the clearcasting department.

Starchild Spacegoat Shaman in Beta

 

• Binkenstein

I was using 4/5 T6 in my comparisons (swapping out the T6 chest for the heroic vendor chest).

 

Ames_01

rather than discussing some wierd duel wield elemental spec, lets get back on track

some personal calculations using a coefficient of 0.794 for LB (2.5/3.5 + 0.08, which again i am just going from what i have read in different places), im finding that overall the dps nerf is pretty much irrelevant, and tacking on the new meta gem should be a buff

i come out with

Damage 2.2 2.3 2.3/2.2
1200 2490.08 2490.83 100.03%
1225 2522.03 2521.85 99.99%
1250 2553.98 2552.87 99.96%
1275 2585.93 2583.88 99.92%
1300 2617.88 2614.90 99.89%
1325 2649.83 2645.92 99.85%
1350 2681.78 2676.93 99.82%
1375 2713.73 2707.95 99.79%
1400 2745.68 2738.97 99.76%
1425 2777.63 2769.98 99.72%
1450 2809.58 2801.00 99.69%
1475 2841.53 2832.02 99.67%
1500 2873.48 2863.03 99.64%
1525 2905.43 2894.05 99.61%
1550 2937.38 2925.07 99.58%
1575 2969.33 2956.09 99.55%
1600 3001.28 2987.10 99.53%
1625 3033.23 3018.12 99.50%
1650 3065.18 3049.14 99.48%
1675 3097.13 3080.15 99.45%
1700 3129.08 3111.17 99.43%

This doesnt include the new meta gem, or the TLC nerf (which i havnt calculated yet myself)

Come wednesday im gonna experiment with trinkets, but think i will be using Icon + Quags eye rather than TLC anymore. WTS shitty BT exalted trinket, wtf were they thinking not changing that yet