Hello,

first of all excuse me for my poor english (not my mother language)

Though of course, the goal of everyone who's optimizating, is to get the best equipment and best rotation, etc., to be the most effective as possible, there still people out there with no acces to the best equipment yet.
Therefore the best rotation for elem would not be the same for them, right ?
Being part of a quite casual raid, I really enjoy theorycrafting to beat the odds and achieve the best dps possible, finding myself matching up classes more suited for top dps rank.

Being around 2k spell damage, 30% crit and less than 200 haste, I made some calculations and tests for the best rotation for me. Here is what I found.

FS LvB LB*4 LvB CL LB LB CL

I found myself having better result than the priority rotation (FS/LvB/CL/LB) and almost no wasted time.
Starting at 0 haste, you are 0.5 late to keep casting Lava Burst everytime it's up
At ~203 haste you're right on time for Lavaburst but have to wait a little less than 0.5 sec after your 4 LB.

Reading all the thread I never found this rotation so I guess it's not optimal and surely someone will be able to explain me the flaws ?

Another concern : Wouldn't it be nice to have a summary of agreed best rotations for a particular haste range ?

Thank a lot for any feedback

I don't think you have taken into account the 5% haste from your WoAT or the potential haste buff from a Moonkin though it could be that these are balanced out to a degree by delays due to latency. It may well be that yours is the highest DPS rotation for your haste rating but personally, I found it very difficult keeping haste below 450 even with pretty poor luck on drops and suspect that after a few upgrades you will need to recalculate your rotation.

That's right, with WoAT down, I only need as low as 45 haste I think.
And though you'd have a hard time being that low, I remind you I'm talking about lesser stuff case.
Again, since I'm part of casual raid, with no class set up optimization, we have no moonkin, and could also find myself the only shammy, with no guarantee WoAT would be the best choice on a raid point of view.

Clearly sooner or later I'd have to revise my rotation, but that's part of the fun

I tried to make some modifications to my stuff, trading some crit for haste and the best rotation I found was... the one that priority rotation would give me, fitting perfectly to cast my LvB as soon as it's up.

On a flame shock, it gives the following rotation
FS LvB CL LB LB CL LB LvB LB CL LB LB

Finally as I already saw it, the rotation only parameter is how many 1.5 & 2 sec base cast spell you can fit in the 8 sec Lava burst cooldown.
With no haste at all, 4 LB fits perfectly, but you still have to put FS somewhere...

With some haste, you can fit 3* 1.5 spell and 2* 2 sec spell (about ~40 haste with WoAT), giving the rotation I mentionned in previous post as best rotation for me.

With some more haste, you can fit 2*1.5 spell and 3* 2 sec spell (about ~230 haste with WoAT), giving the priority rotation as mentionned above.

I think if you reach about 450 Haste with WoAT, you can fit 1* 1.5 and 4* 2. The best rotation IMHO should then be:
FS LvB CL LB*4 LvB LB*4

After that it's a real mess, since you're far beyond the cap where 2 LB is long enough for CL to be up, and you have to fit 6 spell between each LvB... with all the combination it implies, and probably Earth shock use.

That being said, I just figured out the Totem of Elemental Plane sucks, cos it mess up with our fragile haste depending rotation, silly me.

In practice you will need more than 450 haste to reach your final rotation due to latency. I usually add 0.15 sec per cast to account for lag which means that you need to reach about 700 Haste rating before you really get into the 'messy area'

Also, the Totem of Elemental Plane is bad regardless. The internal CD on it make it worse than 2 or 3 TBC totems even if you do manage to avoid it mucking your rotation up. However, it does demonstrate why people use the priority system rather than a fixed rotation; Bloodlust and procs on totems or trinkets make it very dificult to use a fixed rotation.

I may just be tired; or it may be that I have the flu, so forgive me if I'm missing something painfully obvious.

But, all of these rotations I see mention using LvB and only renewing FS when it is about to expire. I don't understand how this is possible as LvB removes FS from the target.

My typical rotation when I'm Elemental (usually Resto), is as follows:

LvB
FS
LB x4

Repeat...

[Glyph of Flame Shock] is the key thing for Elemental Shaman. Also from your rotation, it is better to use FS first and then use LvB so you get guaranteed crit.

See, I knew it was something obvious.

Thank you.

It seems like it was dismissed last page, but I think we need conclusive evidence of LO proc chance with single target chain lightning.

Or was a definitive answer given and I skipped over it somehow?

No, everything has been conjecture so far.
The ultimate test would be to sit at the dummies, spam LB & CL for a while, and put the log through StasisCL. Repeat this a few times (pref 20+) and then total the results.

I was wondering if anyone has 'hard' numbers on haste plateaus? I did a search and found some old graphs that Binkenstein put up (BIG thanks to you sir for all the info that you're put up here), but everything dealt in percentages. Another shammy in my guild told me that (as ele) if I can hit 550 haste then I would be able to fit 5 LBs in between my Lava Bursts and therefore up my dps (with 3.0.8 I have dropped CL from my priority 'rotation'), but it seems to me like there would be a rather large plateau before hitting 550 where haste would not help very much. Anyone got any numbers or links I can check out on this?

Haste scales pretty much linearly, there's not an absolute value of haste before and after which it's a crappy stat. Just pick up the best gear you can and re-work your rotations as your haste rating improves. No matter your haste rating, you should be able to settle on a pretty tight rotation with almost no wasted time.

This is only true if you have zero losses for latency. This will never be the case. With the latency I usually run with I won't be going to a 5 LB rotation until I have about 750 haste rating. I.e. Not this expansion!

I use the following rotation via castsequence:

Flame Shock, Lava Burst,Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt,Chain Lightning,Lava Burst,Earth Shock,Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt,Chain Lightning

It gets me better dps than Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt,Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt

Is the rotation gear dependant? I have a mix of heroic blues and an epic or 2...still havent replaced my pants yet though.

~325ish haste takes my CL and LvB down to 1.3s and my LB to 1.74s. The first sequence is timed to a little over 18 seconds...as my haste improves, the sequence should get under 18 seconds. As it stands now, there is roughly a half second of down time when the sequence restarts as it waits for LvB to get off of cooldown.

I sit around 2200 to 2400 dps in heroics and naxx/os/vault with raid buffs...

as a side note, my lag is anywhere between 200 and 600ms....

will the second, seemingly preferred, sequence eventually exceed the dps of the first as my gear improves? or am i screwing myself by using castsequence and fitting things inbetween cooldowns?

Just to clarify things....

Running fixed rotations is not the best way to maximise dps whether it be by macro or whatever.

I know this might feel noobish but I'm having a hell of a time trying to think of how to time EM. I guessed its best for starting on a CL cast but is it worth timing it for Hero or to just use it as much as you can?

Quick question, If I understand this thread basically the way to maximize your spell rotation Keep Flame Shock up, then LvB>CL>LB. Looking down at my cast bar to see what is up is distracting and sometimes deceiving. Is there a shammy based add-on that makes seeing what spell is available "more visable?".

Thanks!

Treat it like any other proportional (scaling) damage increase and stack it with any cooldowns you have. If you're not going to be able to use it twice in a fight, use it with Bloodlust and a clicky trinket if you're using one. If you're going to be able to use it twice, try to stack it with a clicky trinket anyway.

I just switched from Enhancement to Elemental to give it a try. As Enhancement, I became really used to (dare I say dependant on) having the great add-on ShockAndAwe. It did a fantastic job at helping to manage the Enhancement priority rotation. So.. i'd also love to know if there is anything like this for Elemental, or if anybody has managed to rig ShockAndAwe to work in such a fashion?

Isn't priority casting in effect rotating? You are casting the same spells over and over again, then rinsing and repeating.

Start with Flame Shock, followed by LvB. Now I have to fill in 8 seconds of cooldown before I can cast LvB again. I have LBs and CLs. Whichever is chosen, 8 seconds worth of casts are made, then LvB again. Then I have 8 seconds to fill again. After that, FS needs to be recast. At this point, you are back to square one...so in effect, you are rotating and casting based on cooldowns.

how is this mentality different than prioritized casting? I understand prioritized casting as casting the best spells available that are not on cooldown. If your rotation is built on what is on cooldown and filling in the gaps with the best possible spells, how is this diminishing DPS? As haste rating improves, the rotation is modified accordingly...

Because as soon as you use heroism, or change your haste value in any way, your fixed rotation is completely screwed.

I have TellMeWhen set up in two rows near the center of my screen (only visible in combat). First row shows Lava Burst, Chain Lightning (when off cooldown) and when Flame Shock is missing on my target. Second row is a little smaller and shows me the current cooldown status of LB/CL along with the duration left on my target's FS. It's a nice addon and quite handy when you need to pay close attention to a couple of different things. It's not as in depth as ShockAndAwe but for a pretty simplistic priority system you can create the same sort of effect.