Great, so only one week left now on the PTR, and nothing from Blizzard yet? This is so depressing right now, to see our damage going down 10% where every other class is being buffed or left alone.

Doing some calculations, apparently, to counteract the "nerf" in 2.3, we'll need approx 87 haste, assuming you have 1k dmg & 40% crit.

I think that's attainable with the new gear they are adding in. Haste on gems (blue!) would be interesting as well.

Also, guys, please refrain from the "I think they should do this" posts. Odds are we've covered it already, and this is about what actually is on Live/PTR rather than what we'd like to see. And avoid the whine posts too.

While technically this is true, note that the change comes from new gear. If we had this gear with 2.2 build, we'd be dealing better damage (albeit the gain would obviously be smaller due to different LO).

On top of this, that still doesn't help the LO procs, which are way lower than they should have been. I suggest you use 14% LO proc in your calculations, as most tests have shown a proc rate between 12 and 15% instead of the 20%. Doesn't sound much, but it changes figures around a bit.

There has been no proof of any internal cooldown.
There was a hidden debuff that affected LB casts, but this has been fixed.

I know. In fact, even my own testing has shown that chain LO procs (chain as in one LB cast after another, not several LO procs on one bolt) are still possible on PTR. Quite frankly, I couldn't explain just why the proc chance would be lower, it just was, as if the base chance was simply set wrong.

You're talking about the 50% reduction on next LB? That's like ancient history by now :p

On a side note, one of the guys stated that Elemental Mastery bug has been fixed with the latest push. Since I can't access PTR at this moment, any news on that?

And how do you suggest we get those 87 haste or whatever it takes to make up for the nerf?
Haste doesn't come free, it comes from the expense on other stats like crit and spelldamage.

What annoys me isn't that we are getting nerfed, it is that Blizzard have deceived us with statements like elemental dps will be buffed in 2.3, which is true for a limited amount of elemental shamans that have quite poor gear but completely untrue for the rest.

If Blizzard had instead said from the start that we feel the need to nerf elemental shamans due to they having too much potential burst in pvp or that top geared shamans scales too well in pve it would be a different story.
I would disagree with them but at least I could respect their decision but not when it comes to blatant lying to us as it seems to be the case on PTR. Now, maybe they finally came true to their initial statement and we actually got buffed this latest build, I haven't tested it yet, but build after build riddle with new bugs and no buff in sight has left me pretty jaded.

Instead of grinding badges the last few weeks, I've been levelling my hunter and having quite a bit of fun. It's kind of sad, really, that I will need 360 badges to upgrade my gear. It's even more sad that they still seem to be missing the fact that there was no buff involved in what they did to us. Any chance they will see the err of their ways and buff us back before Tues?

Hey now, don't claim there was no buff. Water shield is 100% pure hotness.

Everybody needs to schwimmer dawn gnaw. Are the changes good? Maybe not. But attention is being paid in some degree and it's not like we're down half our DPS or anything insane. Adjust gear a little, use Water shield's mana to chain lightning every now and then(or in your rotation) and roll with it.

Keep theory-crafting and playing on. Unless you regularly wipe at 1% on bosses I don't think the change is going to adversely effect your raid.

Yeah I'm not sure I agree with haste being the answer to our dps prayers. If we get 87 haste rating for our gear, we are taking it from other pieces and other gear. I wonder what the calculations are for 2.2 with 87 haste rating compared to 2.3 with 87 haste rating? Plus I was never sure if haste rating applied to the base speed of our spells or to the modified speed of our spells. I'll try to work out the calculations for haste later today, but I don't see how this is helping our dps by saying haste rating is the answer. As far as I can tell from just looking at it roughly, haste since its 15.7 in both cases (they fixed melee and spell haste to be the same a while back right?) should affect 2.2 and 2.3 the same.

Edit: Torrential, any changes in mana efficiency for the better are made up for by the fact that to approximate 2.2 dps values one will have to use Chain Lightning much more heavily in the rotation. Thus any mana gains are pretty much marginalized.

Binkenstein was just theory-crafting how to possibly nullify the changes that are about to go live with 2.3. I think he is well aware of the fact that you have to give up other stats when picking haste on items.

Truth is that with the awesome mana efficiency of a 2.3 ele shaman, spell haste becomes a very desireable stat, since more LB in a shorter timespan mean more LO proc-chances in the same timespan.

Sadly, I'm no math genius, so I cannot proof anything with raw numbers, just logics.

Second, throwing in CL on single targets will hardly increase ur dps, but eat up more mana as you continue to use it in your rotation. CL in a rotation is not mana efficient in 2.2 and since both CL and LB get changed the same way in 2.3, I am fairly certain it will remain relatively bad compared to LB in terms of dpm. Still, with the changes to clearcast one might consider using it for CL once in a while, if it doesn't hurt your mana pool too much, go ahead.

To conclude, extensive testing on ptr has proven that using CL in your rotation does NOT magically bring back your 2.2 dps. Again, no math genius, either trust me on that one or test it for yourself (after all, that's what PTR's are for)

I am easily able manage a 3lb, cl in 2.3 through judicious use of mana potions. Once 2.3 goes live, all that will change is that I might save a pot or two. As for the dps output, it does make a difference, and I have always seen a noticeable drop in dps when going just straight Lb spam.
As far as I am concerned, if you have the mana, you should probably be doing it.

As for those of you doubting Storm's Reach, it is without a doubt one the best dps talents in the elemental tree. It raises your dps time, and provides you with the ability to stand at max range, which on certain fights can be very critical when trying to avoid AOE.

As for reverb being needed at any stage of raiding? Absolutely not. It is not needed for strider kiting, and the only argument I could see for it being useful is for interrupting on Illidari Council.

Shadowcaster's Drape - Items - World of Warcraft

ur welcome

The thing is using CL right now is a perfectly valid use of the spell to up our dps. True it's DPM compared to LB is a lot worse, but it is higher dps. I'm not able to do 3-1 unless its a very short fight or one that requires me to move a lot and force regen time (Archimonde, Supremus). I however am usually able to sustain a 5-1 or 5.5-1 rotation though, even for long tank and spanks like Morogrim.

So yes CL/LBx3 (and fire shock I suppose) has always been the best elemental shaman dps rotation. If I went just pure LB spam, with a SP in group I'd probably end up at 75% mana by the end of fights, given my 4 piece T5 bonus and high crit rate. We use CL for the same reason that many mages now use Arcane Blast, because it's high dps despite its inefficiency.

Thus we get back to spell haste. Why would spell haste help an elemental shaman more now than it used to? We were easily able to spam LB for 15 minutes without running oom before. Spell haste just makes CL more unusable. It's true that as we get faster LBs we should get more LO procs. But if we get 5% spell haste, well our spells go in 95% of the time. Given a completely lag free environment, we go from 30 LBs a minute to 31.5 LBs a minute. We get an extra 1.5 LBs. 20% LO proc on 1.5 LBs is an extra .3 LO proc per minute. There is no way that 0.3 extra LO procs a minute from 5% spell haste is going to make up for having 10% less damage. It certainly will be counteracted by that if you use CL, you will have to pause after CL because your GCD will not be up yet due to spell haste.

What else were you going to do with the new extra mana? CL may not hit much harder than LB but if you're stopcasting you can save yourself a half second every rotation. As it is I can CL every 2-3 rotations.

That is 3LB/CL/6LB/CL/3LB/CL/6LB etc. With the extra mana I'll be 3/1 just fine.

And you still are not schwimmering dawn gnaw. :o

Well of course that is what I'm going to do with the mana. But considering people are suggesting that spell haste (and extra LO procs from getting more LBs off) is what is going to recover our dps, I'm not that enthused. Plus someone worked this out on the boards already before. Even if you could do CL/LBx3 every time, you still would not be capable of doing the same dps as you did in 2.2, even with a lesser rotation. The coefficient nerf is too big to overcome.

Regarding the mana buff we will receive, well as I said it is a buff for a limited amount of elemental shamans, those that haven't any access to a shadow priest for an example but for many raiding guilds that isn't an issue.
I have no trouble sustaining a 3/1 rotation atm, in tier 6 granted but my point is that I can't increase my dps next patch by changing spell rotation.
The upcoming patch will nerf me quite severely, having Blizzard claiming that what I receive is a buff is just putting salt in my wounds.

On Another note, the changes to stopcasting might actually be for the better. The blizzard version doesn't seem to be too bad from all reports.

I do appreciate Gurg's post that I saw on the test realm forums. Hopefully that thread will get somewhere. I'm ranking higher than Conando in my guild's dps, but mostly because I think I'm a bit better prepared than most and others have more upgrades to get from T6 than myself. I don't understand that out of 6 or 7 parses there the highest damage is 8th and most is 12th or lower yet it leads to us getting a 10% nerf in dps. I just can't fathom how no one at Blizzard is getting this and how it is going to kill the Elemental spec in raiding. 3% hit/crit is just not worth 300-500 dps, especially with all a Resto brings. Now if I had some ability akin to shamanistic rage that buffs my group when I cast that would be different, but a totem isn't worth that much.

It would be nice if there was some way we could get more feedback from them, but it seems to be pretty quiet other than that one thread on the EU forums. At this point it is looking like this will go live as it currently stands.

Edit: Nm, that threat looks dead now since we've attracted a forum troll. Wish there was a more constructive environment in which we could communicate with shaman gms/devs.

"The thread you are trying to view has been deleted."

I managed to save Gurg's post and will paste it onto the EU forums.

Wow Web Stats

Right now, I'm one of the leading DPS in my guild, but that I believe is more due to my inherent gear advantage over the rest of the DPS (I doggedly pursued upgrades).

Wow Web Stats (Lurker Below) - Excellent Ranged DPS fight.

Compare the mages losing the damage tax, and me taking the coefficient nerf, and I wont nearly be doing as competetively as I was before. 87 Haste rating is slightly more than 5%, but I dont see how that will counteract the coefficient loss.

It won't. Getting that much spell haste will give you about .3-.4 more LO procs a minute, which is extremely minor a buff. Spell haste will scale linearly with spell damage and crit, it is just the LO that will change due to having more spells cast in the same amount of time. This of course for elemental shamans is counteracted by spell haste actively hurting the use of CL in a rotation because it will run into the GCD due to only being a 1.5 second spell.

I have not been able to check it. I've been busy levelling my new shaman (63.8!)

Perhaps I should have said "without losing any dmg/crit" in that comment.
Doing a quick check, I can see only 2 items that would be "upgrades" from T6 gear, these being the new heroic chest (T6 is still an upgrade, but it's less of an upgrade than the other T6 items), and obviously the new trinket.

It's been said so many times, if you have no mana/threat issues, this patch is a nerf.
I wish people would stop complaining about things and think constructively!.