whave

Seems like you have not heard about the new FlS gylph which will prevent LvB from consuming the dot.

 

Lucitron

We have two different scenarios here. If you're focused on having a mana optimized cast sequence then stacking your high mana cost spells after Lava Burst makes sense. However, if you're interested to maximise your damage output, then you want to get in as many casts as possible of your highest damage spell (i.e. Lava Burst) before the target dies.

Of course, there is also another dimension to this, which is that you need to juggle 2 cooldown timers and one DoT-timer. Add to this also the entire chaotic dimension of spell haste, where you might be forced to evaluate if it is better to wait some milli-seconds and do nothing, just so that you can cast that Lava Burst right away when it is off its cooldown, or if you should cast another spell between.

In short, a damage maximized cast sequence will differ between haste values. A mana optimized sequence will be a bit more static. Currently I'm not hurting for mana, while I would not mind to push out damage that rival my fellow casters.


_____________________

Addendum - 29th October:

While it is pretty pointless for me to defend my generalized reply, I feel that I should explain my post a bit further. However, it is nothing profound, so it doesn't deserve its own post, just this edit.

Well, I noticed a post on the WotLK-beta forum where the poster claimed that his testing had shown that the best cycle for 5% spell haste (i.e. Wrath of Air) was a 4xLiB sequence. This would leave a 0.38 sec window, where you could of course cast a 1.43 sec CL, giving a cooldown overflow of 1.05 sec. This got me wondering what was the most optimal scenario. I had some thoughts to start crunching the numbers, or even create some nice program to work it all out. In the end, it was too much problem, so I decided just to play it safe and just write a generalized reply.

Now, if anyone re-reads my post, he/she should know that it is better to cast a spell and not stand still and wait on the cooldown to finish off.

At 7:45, offices are empty. Some could get bored, but I stay calm, I know how to adapt. While waiting for them I have time to take a coffee.

 

tufy

A couple of questions:

1. did you account for the fact that elemental shaman will have some extra spellpower from flametongue while the druid will get extra spellpower from intellect?

2. did you account for the fact that gear is slightly different for both classes? Specifically, T7 for shamans gives more haste and hit, but less spellpower and crit? Set bonuses should be accounted for as well, since they can have a certain impact (though it seems T7 will be fairly weak in that regard compared to T6, so random items may be the way to go).

3. One thing you should consider at balance druid is Moonfire. With a glyph, they can effectively make it last forever when Starfire spamming, meaning that dot will provide constant extra dps without additional global cooldowns wasted, so it should be part of their basic rotation

Note: I'm working on a direct gear comparison for druids vs. shamans right now. It'll basically take the same gear pool and apply it to both specs with specified differences (you can set those to 0 if you want to, they're just there to allow me to easily compare tier sets). Should be ready by the end of the week.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Munorion

While this is true right now, the glyph is going to be changed in the next patch to provide a maximum of nine seconds more duration for moonfire. You can check the last few posts in the Moonkin thread for possible implications for balance DPS.

 

tufy

Ah, I stand corrected then. Checking thread.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Zomglazerpew

No, I haven't seen many of the glyphs past the ones that are currently live. So what would be the best 3 major glyphs then, Flameshock, Flametongue, and Lava burst?

 

Torrential

Bink (and my own spreadsheet) has shown that it is almost always better to fill that ~1 second with another cast even if it means pushing Lava Burst back a tiny bit.

 

Ezareth

There are several variables that make this not so cut and dry.

For one EM makes Chain Lightning crit on all hits, so for that purpose in the event you target 3 targets it would in effect provide more overall DPS than in a single target cast.

Also in order to calculate it accurately you would have to subtract your CURRENT crit rate from whatever benefit it would provide. I'm rusty on all my calculations at the moment.

However EM is also dispellable and in Arena PVP short of NS>EM>CL(Is this still possible? I'm just coming back after a year and a half haitus) it often gets dispelled by good players.

I think Flametongue is the best choice between the 2 for either application really.

 

Ocyr

1 & 2 as I stated previously, I used the gear-stats stated in the OP (and went with a 100% hit rate). Gearing differences are infinitely variable and leads to apple-orange comparisons, I wanted to make the comparison as narrow as possible in order to more accurately assess scaling differences. Once scaling differences are accurately noted, one can more easily compare gear with their appropriate gems and enchants and see which classes / specs / rotations compare the best (eg. the data I have leads me to conclude Druids will want to stack Haste gems and Shaman will want to stack Power gems, and a comparison could be made using those assumptions, though I haven't done such a comparison).

3. That has been nerfed, is my understanding.

edit: and let me clarify, I don't understand the Druid rotation enough to do anything other than mess it up, so I compared the Elemental rotation to 100% Starfire spam. That's what our complicated rotation gets us equal to in my numbers -- a mindless Starfire spam, and nothing else at all.

 

Shkarn

Good point about the CL jumps - I probably should have clarified that I was assuming only one target.

As for your second point, I'm having a hard time seeing how your current crit rate would alter the estimated value of the EM glyph compared to the FT glyph. Regardless of your current crit rate, EM is going to give you 100% crit for one global cooldown, thus my estimated 1% value from above, and regardless of your current crit rate, the FS glyph will give you 2% crit. Wouldn't both of those glyphs result in an estimated 1% crit gain vs. a 2% crit gain respectively?

I do agree that the FT glyph would be better overall (at least that would be my personal preference). Last I tried it, the NS>EM>(CL/LB) combination was still possible, but its been a while since I've had NS in any build.

Finally, welcome back to the game!

 

Darian_TruBlade

The point about the EM glyph is that the more Crit you have the less useful EM is. If you are at 5% Crit, EM is effectively +95% Crit, but if you have 52.5% Crit it's only 47.5% Crit, halving it's worth. The FT Glyph doesn't have this problem.

"A man's IQ, yearly income, sexual prowess, ingenuity, physical appearance and generally every other aspect of his character can be condensed down to four digits: his Arena rating." - Zechsy [70 Rogue - Skullcrusher (EU) - 10/23/2007]

 

Shkarn

Ah, that makes sense now. So raid-buffed against one target, the EM glyph would be worth 0.5% crit or less (estimated). Really, the only thing that glyph is useful for is giving a time reduction on controlling the free crit, allowing for an arguably negligible boost in control.

 

tufy

And that's exactly why I disagree with comparing classes with exact same stats - because we simply scale differently. At the very least, you should include intellect for druids (to determine how much spellpower they would get from it) and use flametongue for shamans on top of "base spellpower" Of course, as you stated, due to different gemming and gearing (empasis on different "main stat" for both classes), the live difference will be even greater. Who's to say that you didn't use "base gear" that's favouring boomkins? So in such a calculation, we should first calculate how both specs scale with different stats, then determine what the optimum gear on same gear level for either would be.

That's what I'm trying to address, because it will ultimately show us what we can realistically expect at a given gear level.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Ezareth

Yeah in order to make that Glyph even remotely comparable it would have to lower the cooldown by a minute or even a minute and a half.

I seem to be critting anywhere from 50-60% these days in PVE and since I'm not having any mana problems at all I really only use EM on multiple targets for the triple-crit like sinister reflections.

2% crit is kind of boring but since it affects all of our spells and we are going to be gemming pure spellpower I'll take all of the "Free" crit I can get.

After thinking about this I think they best way for Blizzard to address our "scaling" issue is by building scaling into Flametongue weapon. Adding it to talents is rather boring since so many other classes have the same thing.

Making Flametongue weapon add 25% of int as spellpower instead of a base spell spellpower amount would be the perfect solution to our scaling issues. The 30% talent would still affect this.

I worked out some rough estimates on level 80 epic gear and we would see another 40-50 spell power in full epics at level 80, and another 20 or so spellpower at 70.

This would also add some flavor to ancestral guidance and make gemming Intellect more viable as well.

Note sure how it would work for enhancement though.

 

Ezareth

<doublepost>

 

Orlgin

The problem with Flametongue scaling with Int is Enhancement. A talent like the one suggested by Ezareth would quickly revert Enhancement back to the Lightning Knives model because the scaling would put it over the top of the slow weapons Enhance uses now. Remember that Enhance would get double the bonus that Elemental shamans would get from this because Enhance has the option of using it on two weapons instead of one.

I would suggest putting the scaling into Lightning Mastery. Put an Int -> Spellpower portion into this talent makes it deep enough that enhance and resto wouldn't take it and makes the talent better for it's position in the tree.

That said, I think the beta forums would be a better place to post this kind of stuff.

One thing I would like to see discussed is what happens if Elemental shamans do what has been suggested and stack spell haste and spellpower to increase damage. Raid buffed, I'm not seeing any mana problems with this, but in 5 man situations, this is a big drain on mana if replenishment isn't available. Having one set of gear for Heroics and a completely different set of gear for Raids would be unfortunate. Thankfully, right now encounters are short, so mana isn't an issue. This can and likely will change.

Edit: grammar

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Ezareth

Well Enhancement would be running on much less int than an Elemental or Resto shaman, which I can't see being worth putting it on both weapons for them in that event.

 

Bruencairn

Hello elemental shammys! Just a quick question:

I couldn't help but notice that the tooltip for Totem of Wrath seams to have changed. It used to be "increases the critical strike chance of all attacks by 3% .." and is now reading "increases the critical strike chance of spells and effects by 3% .."
Now in my mind the term 'effects' could be a little ambiguous... and besides tooltips are often inaccurate as to the spells actual effects.

So here is my question: Is the current wrath totem giving warriors,rogues,hunters attacking targets near the totem 3% crit or was it changed to buff only spell caster dps (and therefore completely overwritten by the pally judgement 3% crit)?

Thanks for your time!

 

Ezareth

The following buffs do not stack.

Increased Spell Power Buff: Focus Magic, Improved Divine Spirit, Flametongue Totem, Totem of Wrath, Demonic Pact

Critical Strike Chance Taken Debuff (All types): Heart of the Crusader, Totem of Wrath

I don't think totem of wrath every increased crit(or debuffed the target to increase the chance of being crit) on anything but spells.

The paladin heart of the crusader is better but limited to their target while totem of wrath affects EVERYTHING within 40 yards of it so it is kind of a trade off.

 

Ocyr

Well, that's an easy question to answer: your question is irrelevant to the facts of my statement (which dealt with scaling interactions).

Because I was able to quantify the behavior of certain stats in certain situations, it doesn't matter what "base gear" favors whom when discussion scaling. You can look at the "best" stat for one class and compare it to the "best" stat for another class, and make a comparative judgement from there.

Anything other than that is just fancy guessing, and it leads to statements that later have to be withdrawn (like Haste supposedly being twice as good as any other DPS stat at 80, which we now know is not correct by a wide margin).

 

Orlgin

Here's the problem with a 25% Int -> Spellpower change to Flametongue. Assuming a Enhance shaman uses two FT imbued weapons, here's the scaling:

A 20 Int gem gives 22 Int if Enhance goes 5/5 AK.

22 Int * 0.5 (2 FTs) = 11 Spellpower

22 Int becomes 22 attack power with Mental Dexterity.

In combat, 22 attack power gets a 10% bonus from unleashed rage: 24.2 AP

24.2 AP * 0.3 (MQ) = 7.26 spellpower

So 1 20 Int gem gives 18.26 spellpower, 24.2 AP, and 0.13% Spell Critical. Not to mention benefits from replenishment and the actual mana itself.

That would be enough to make Int Enhance's best stat after they are hit capped for spells.

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Medicine Man

Another development:

Not shaman specific but still relevant when comparing elemental shaman to other caster class/specs.

 

Storms

Any idea if the old (BC) Sharpening stones / oils will be removed? Classes / Spec's who have something to gain from them will probably keep using them. Something to keep in mind for calculation purposes i guess.

 

Medicine Man

I don't have any specific information about the old oils/stones but my guess would be that they will not be effective for targets above a certain level. That's pretty much how Blizzard rolls when it comes to retiring old gear and consumables.

 

Teenee

Going by the forum post where the Blizz rep posted:

My emphasis. The thread also has screenshots of someone trying to apply a TBC weapon enchant to a LK weapon (and failing to do so "Target is too high level"). This is a very interesting development.