• Binkenstein

Ah yes, good point, I'd forgotten about that, although it's probably easier to handle the calculations without the relics at this stage.

 

Othinn

The addition of the damage totem (Totem of Hex) is interesting in that it basically removes the need to include ES in the rotation and just run with a LvB/FS/4CL/LB rotation (depends a little on gear levels but therotations appear to generate almost identical dps).

 

Duno

Huzzah. From GC today, TLDR version:

LINK

 

Sathyra

From GC, the big post from the link on the post above:
So they r doing some comparisons of their own. I wonder how the gap btw 2000 to 3000 spellpower is btw classes though, so even if we r doing ok naxx geared, how is it going to be on tier 8 gear lvl ?

 

tufy

Duno: I bet they'll change ToW or Flametongue to give less spellpower at T7 than now solo, but based on intellect instead of a static buff.

Sathyra: we're not doing ok. At T7 gear level, we're already at over 2700 spellpower (nearly 3000 spellpower on CL and LB with Totem of Hex) and 15% behind Boomkins (who in turn are 15% behind top dps specs such as Fire mages). The higher the gear level, the more this difference will grow.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

• Dinian

I have faith that GC and crew will not let the current state of affairs in naxx stand. Let's assume we catch up to boomkins or even slightly gain on them since they offer more raid buffs. Then we still need to be concerned about how our performance will be in further tiers.

To be frank, I'm less concerned about our T7 dps or even our T8 dps. I'm sure whatever buffs Blizzard will provide to our output will be sufficient. The real concern is our complicated relationship to haste rating. I used to play a hunter and raided the old world through MC, BWL, AQ, and Naxx as one. The degenerate state of affairs back then regarding hunter relationship to bow attack speeds is coming back full force in my head.

As others have pointed out in this thread, the LvB/CL with LB filler during cooldowns mechanic simply don't scale as well with haste rating as our brethren in the DPS role. Looking at that chart posted above with the "breakout" values where our DPS actually scales with marginal increases of haste rating makes me shudder. Random procs that grant haste rating, potions or future northrend consumables that may grant haste rating, and even slight deviations of haste like the addition of the first retribution paladin may have a near-zero effect on our output.

This simply is not fun. I agree they can't keep every spec unique and have their own flavor while at the same time allowing everybody to benefit from mechanics like crit and haste equally. But they have put a serious effort into dot scaling on crit and shadow priests are scaling far better with haste than they ever did before with the changes haste has on channeled times. Our moonkin brothers and sisters scale really quite well with haste rating even with things like eclipse that give them incentives to move from a shadowbolt-spam rotation to a more diverse one.

I'm going to be watching closely to see if Blizzard's buffs will still leave the current scenario where Lava Bursts are SO important that clipping our auto shots, er... lightning bolts, are worth it in most cases and therefore leave us in a horrible condition relative to haste scaling.

 

Ocyr

That's interesting. In one part of the post, GC seems to say that they think Elemental damage is fine but if scaling becomes a problem down the road, they will fix it -- then in another part, he seems to be saying that they are moving ahead with changes that include scaling talents / talent changes, and AOE. Speaking of AOE, I had heard that there was a post stating Blizzard was leaning towards a Ball Lightning / Static Charge-type AOE but I have not been able to find anything posted. Has anyone else seen or heard this, or is that just another rumor.

01981161040233114

 

Sathyra

the only comparison i could match with lavaburst is to conflagrate, although they r completely different. The factor that creates this complicated haste issue on our rotations is that the control on lavaburst is totally done on its cooldown. While the talent fire and brimstone for locks make it so that conflagrate has more chance of critting if immolate has 5 seconds or less on the target. Im not great on math, but perhaps if we can present options that change the actual mechanic to something with more options and more room for error. Cause for fact i know latency will be hellish to manage with that 18 sec rotation.

 

heliosaff

I have no idea whether or not could be viable, but I was playing with the idea of how much dual weilding weapons with caster enchants and FT could help spellpower and this build happens to benefit from increased stormstrike damage.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

It forfeits Totem of Wrath and Lightning overload, but aside from those, there's not a whole lot at the top end of the elemental tree that actually increases damage, so i'm wondering if the additional spellpower from dualwielding and a stormstrike debuff to feed off of could actually create and interesting melee elemental playstyle similar to the way enhance shamans were playing with spellpower itemization in beta.

 

Torrential

No.

 

Trifle

Keep in mind your stormstrike will be hitting for complete crap, so a stormstrike and 4 lightning bolts at +20% extra damage will most likely be worse than just 5 lightning bolts ...

 

• Binkenstein

The WotLK TTT entry is underway: Elemental Shaman WotLK TTT

I'm writing up the talents in a bit more detail that I did previously (and I'll cover the MD/MQ & DW builds, and why they're bad), then will start working on itemisation. Feedback would be appreciated (just make sure it is a) correct, and b) on the current work (ie: black text)).

 

Agash

I don't think it's accurate to say that Chain Lightning hits faster and hits harder than Lightning Bolt. Although the base damage of the highest rank has been significantly buffed relative to the Lightning Bolt the low coefficient means that unless you are running with less than (approx.) 700 spell power, the lightning bolt hits harder, albeit on a longer cast time. CL does of course produce higher DPS though.

Edit : I was including the T6 set bonus in my calcs. It appears that LB starts hitting harder then CL at around 1350 Spell Power (excluding buffs) without this added in.

 

Kaytikat

It seems to me that an elegant solution to elemental scaling with haste would be to allow the cooldown of LvB to also reduce with haste (similar to the GCD change they made in an earlier patch). I can't think of any spells currently in the game with variable cooldowns though, so this might be a bit of an ask from a technical point of view.

 

JoeHeff

Noticed the typo reading through it... (change = chance?)

On another note, not sure if I've missed it or it's been discussed on another topic, but has there been much/any analysis on which is better between Elemental Warding and Elemental Shields? I know they offer nothing in the way of dps gains other than "dead shaman does zero dps" and that's why they are just filler, and also since Shields is so deep in the tree, it's a tough one to justify taking... But putting those issues aside, is anyone else curious as to which is a more valuable survival talent within the realm of PvE Raiding?

 

Darian_TruBlade

Ultimately, neither.

When it comes to filler, 10% less spell or 6% less physical damage aren't bad options. The issue is that there is one solitary talent point available for filler. Everything else goes directly toward buffing DPS. Depending on how Blizzard fixes our AoE or implements their scaling talent, we may not even have that talent point at our disposal.

Depending on fight mechanics Astral Shift might be the best option for survival, but there's always additional AoE DPS from Improved Fire Nova Totem as well.

"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]

 

Daidalos

Personally I woudn't pick up either for a pure pve build but if you don't have any mana issues at all ele warding would most likely be the better since an ele shaman isn't very likely to be taking alot of physical damaage but will most likely be taking some raid aoe spell dmg from time to time.

Restoration Shaman calculations:http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...IWv3sPmcYnEJUg

 

fhqwhgads

As an aside, should it be "no threat" instead of "no thread?"

 

JoeHeff

Figures in pointing out a typo i missed one that I even quoted here. On that note though (Bink...) I wasn't just proofreading for typos, I was genuinely confused for a second until I snapped out of it and realized it should obviously be 20% chance... Although for that split second I was wondering if I missed some patch notes or something.

 

fhqwhgads

I too was confused for a second. In the midst of this whole evolution of my morphing from a lightning-slinging shaman to a fireball-flinging ShaMage I thought I had missed something new. Changing coefficients and threaded chain lightning or some other new thing to contend with. I am still trying to come to grips with the fact I lost ~9% Hit from talents and spent 300 badges for gear and gems to rejigger things so I could do damage again. I await with breathless anticipation to reach level 75.

 

• Binkenstein

Lava Burst is fun. Quite fun.
I was going LB, FS, LvB and quite often the mob I was attacking was dead or dying (and this was before the new FS/LvB glyphs)

 

tufy

If you want a hybrid build and have no problem dropping top end buffing powers, then a good build to go for would be something like 33/38/0. You'd get Dual Wield, which even with a noncaster offhand would give you extra Flametongue + spellpower enchant (324 spellpower), as well as spellpower from all abilities and buffs that would increase your attack power (basically, strength, agility, intellect and of course AP as well). Played as a caster (just like ele shaman), such a build would produce more dps than an elemental one, but, again, you'd be forfeiting all elemental buffing abilities such as ToW and Oath (and of course you would have shorter range on Flame Shock + no Thunderstorm, but then the idea of the build would be to stand in melee anyway to get SS debuff every cooldown.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Silverhand

 

Phlis

Damn, maybe(just maybe), they'll give us something like Lightning Bolt recieves 10%(or maybe 15, oh, oh, I know, 25%) more from spell damage. That might be something to help our scaling, maybe.


/sarcasm.

 

Daidalos

It is frustrating watching bliz go the wrong way with ele sham then taking so long to finally acknowledge the issue. If we are going to have 1 dps / spell power scaling we will most like need 20-25% (additive) to the LB coef to get those kinds of numbers especially as we inevitably accumulate more haste.

Restoration Shaman calculations:http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...IWv3sPmcYnEJUg