here is a question, should I stick with TLC? I don't crit that often twice in a row(I have 44.60% crit with totems), or should I maybe go for ZA spell damage trinket or maybe skull of guldan(dont think it would be right to take it from other casters)?

One thing I don't see anyone mention in this thread is the effect haste has on CL.
Yes, it is a 1.5sec cast and haste takes you under the GCD. But the cooldown starts at the time you finish the cast (when you spend mana on it). So if you make the CL cast time 1.4sec via haste, you effectively make the cooldown 5.9sec and you can recast it sooner.

I honestly don't see the TLC nerf effecting us all that much. Basicly, if the functionality remains the same from PTR to Live this week, the worst case scenario is you lose out on a single charge immediatly following a bolt firing. I doubt the nerf as it stands now is going to have a large effect on how useful the trinket is for us, I believe it was mainly put in place to stop the wide spread use of the item by Arcane mages who were taking advantage of things like Arcane Missle and Arcane Explosion spam to squeeze an un-balanced amount of DPS from this one trinket.

I honestly don't know whether to consider to Skull an upgrade from either the Sextant or TLC, it certainly seems to be an item suited more for other DPS caster classes. My first guess on the ZA trinket would be that its inferior to either the Sextant or TLC, but that would be something someone else would be more qualified to answer.

After reading some of the previous few pages, specificly the discussion on haste rating and its equivalency with spell damage, I was wondering if the formula from the first page is still considered accurate. Is 1 spell damage = .8 haste rating still considered accurate?

AH. That's the point I've been missing when trying to get my head around how haste can boost the DPS of a 3/1 rotation. Brillliant. Thanks.

Thanks for all the good info and theorycrafting so far guys. Helped me out with some gearing decisions.


Going off of what Eyonix announced last night, i'm curious about totems. I know the old (like, 2 days ago) rule of thumb for our spell haste was 47. Now I guess you guys are saying its 5%?

To my knowledge, Totem of Ancestral Guidance is the best totem that we can use for dps. Would Skycall Totem be a decent choice? Probally not better than having consistant haste I assume?


A few pages ago, spell rotation with haste was being discussed. Right now, with a shadow priest in my group, I can do LBx3, CL rotation. When popping heroism, I just stick to LB. Wtih spell haste, CL will obviously be faster than the GCD. Should we still use CL with spell haste?

I think the values will need to be reworked. I've just been busy at work not to mention trying to get everything in order for 2.3 and season 3. I'll try to rework my spreadsheet now that we know coefficients and mechanics that will go live in 2.3

I need to review those figures soon.

Yes and no. I don't think it'll allow a 3/1 rotation with haste
Yeah, ShamScales is the one to check (spell scaleing with stats)

I'm working on that too.

Unfortunately work this week is rather busy, but I should have the changes made by friday

Made some updates to the main posts (1 & 5), #5 includes what I'm looking at adding for my spreadsheets.

I got the [Flashfire Girdle] last night, so now I have to figure this out. I downloaded some of your spread sheets (great job btw!), and i'm looking at ShamScales right now.

On the stats tab I changed the haste and spell crit to match mine. It might be because its early in the morning, but under the "Chart" tab is obviously where LC/CL spam and LB spam meet depending on haste. But, I can't figure out what the number to the left is. The 2,4,6,8,10 etc.....

I'm embarrised to say I can't fully read it.


Edit: Right now, i'm wearing the [Belt of Blasting], and with the sockets I have in it, i'm losing 0.4% crit and 25 Spell Damage. I usually go off of this post here for selecting upgrades, and he has [Flashfire Girdle] pretty high up there. I'm just trying to check if the stat loss is worth the haste. Gotta read the graph! :P

It seems as though TLC was 'fixed' in the last PTR patch to reflect the tooltip description, and from the calculations I've seen so far (mostly done by mages) its effectiveness is decreased by about 30%, at which point I'd value the icon or quag's higher.

If anyone can confirm that TLC does indeed work like the tooltip, please do so. Thanks.

Simple enough. Thanks a lot. Definetly keeping the graphs and charts around for future referance. Appreciate it.

i know you are reworking your values - and thx for that

noticed somthing about one of the items values in Shamstats - Neck: Loop of Cursed Bones from Zul'Aman
doesnt appear to have correct DEP listed - says 53 but when i calculate it myself im getting 90+ DEP which would put it as the 1st or 2nd highest DEP neck

again i kno you will be reworking your values - but i still wanted to bring that up
maybe im missing somthing

*edit* - also noticed that Bracer: Fury of the Ursin (cloth) from Zul'Aman has wrong crit value - listed on shamstats as 27 crit where as the item really has 17 crit . . . im sure that will change the DEP and ranking of that item

*edit 2* - Skycall totem - Does anyone know if this item has a hidden/internal cooldown ? if so does anyone know the cooldown time?

Stats are fine, I didn't have haste adding on to the DEP value there for some reason *fixes*

The bracers fixed too.

If you notice item stats off, use [ item ] tags(ie: [Fury of the Ursine]) just to make it easier to find them :p

OK I have updated my spreadsheet with new coefficients for LB (2.5/3.5 +.08) CL (2/3.5 +.07) as well as new LO mechanics. Before I post dmg->crit crit->dmg and haste->dmg conversions I was wondering what stats I should use before I post. With sudden access to haste gear for everyone not in BT I was thinking of as someone decked out in ZA type gear.

900 dmg base dmg + 55 from relic + 101 from totem
100 haste rating
25% crit before talents (39 after talents and totem)

or should I go with something lower for those looking to aquire this gear?

I can post a few exmples if people want. Maybe one lower end one one higher end one? There isn't a drastic difference but of course as things scale it does affect other values. I could post dps from pure LB and 3LB 1 CL cycles as well.

If people want to use my calculation in their own sheet you can view it at google here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...IWuwb3e2IkuZKw

One other thing. Has anyone posted the average cast times from the ptr (with the server side accepting request while client is casting making so we no longer needing stopcasting)? I ran some numbers a long time back but I know there were several bugs they had to work out. 50ms or 100 ms between casts seem reasonable?

I have been looking around this site for awhile now and cannot find any documentation on how much spell hit rating a Elemental Shaman needs for SSC/TK bosses.

My current stats unbuffed are as follows:

Nature Spell Damage -- 811
Chance to Crit -- 18.26%
Spell Hit Rating -- 100

I am well aware that my "Chance to Crit" is lackluster and I am working on that as we speak.

Should I drop all of my hit and focus on crit?

Thanks for your input.

Well it depends on how you are specced. For one your armory link there doesn't work, I can't find anyone of that name. Please update it if you can.

However if you are properly specced, you have 12% spell hit from talents. 3% from the resto tree, 6% from the threat reducer talent in the elemental tree, and 3% from ToW. Which means you have way too much spell hit rating.

Some hit you really have no choice on. For example our tier gear is loaded with it, and while S2 gear is better than T4 in some slots, once you get to T5 you're pretty much stuck using tier gear unless you start taking cloth. So any hit from gear thats tiered you can't do much about. But never socket for spell hit, in both making bonuses and putting gems. Make sure your rings, neck, cloak, trinkets, etc don't have it. Try not to have it on your weapon, although T6 content pretty much makes it that elemental shamans will have a mace since chances of getting that are much higher than the dagger available.

All you need for hit though is about 55 or so hit rating. Anything over that should be directed elsewhere, although it can be nice to keep a higher hit set for a fight like Naj'entus when you'll be dropping Frost resistance totem.

This is basic spell mechanics if you want specific gear/ playing advice people tend to me "help me" threads. Some real quick advice is if you got all your hit talents and totem you only need 51 hit rating to be capped. Anything more than 51 hit doesn't help.

Yeah it was 51 hit, I believe it is 12.6 hit rating per.

As for those numbers Daidalos, I think the crit might be a bit high for ZA levels. Heck I don't think even I have that much crit myself and I wear 4/5 T5 plus the MH bp. I guess its because my weapon doesn't have crit and I've gone to more dmg trinkets. My crit used to be much higher when I was using Shiffar's + Mindblade. Now I care more about my + dmg.

unless your a draenie, we actualy need even less because of our racial, we get by with about 40.

Edit: Nm, I am wrong, it does work on yourself. You just don't see the buff unless you are grouped. So yeah 40 spell hit is all you need.

So what geared stats would you like to see conversions for? My view is rather skewed since my guild has been in BT for a long time and ele is my offset so i'm not really sure what people want to see.

950 base dmg + 55 from relic + 101 from totem
0 haste rating
20% crit before talents (39 after talents and totem)
?
I'm assuming bink will put this info in the OPs somewhere unless he has his own now so I wanted to have conversionis as close to what most people have or at least what most people have who want to see the conversions as possible.