This bring to mind another topic that doesn't really belong in Shaman forums, but what is Blizzard going to do about the soul-crushing lag afflicting many servers during primetime hours, even months after WOTLK launch? Especially when 3.1 first drops I don't see any way challenging Ulduar encounters will even be playable. Particularly as a class that's hurt more by lag than other classes, even experimenting with different rotations is useless in the current environment. EJ doesn't raid on Tuesdays to try and avoid some lag, but even on Wednesday it's pretty bad. It will be way worse when Ulduar hits.

This is what we've done as well.

Do Archavon/Sarth/Maly on tuesday and save Naxx for Wednesday.

I've been wondering how Blizzard is going to address this myself, but this has been the case since BWL so I guess we should expect it on populated servers.

I'm not quite as good at math as some of you are. So, I'm hoping someone can solve this little equation. I have not seen a post stating the exact ideal haste rating (or %) to obtain for the absolute perfect cast rotation. I want to assume that there is zero lag/latency for this. In preparation for 3.1, I will also assume that CL can be removed from any rotation as it will no longer have a DPS benefit other than being used as a "filler".

My planned rotation would be as follows:

(always assuming that an initial FS is applied before starting your rotation at the beginning of a fight)

LvB > LB * 4 > (ES or CL) > LvB > LB * 4 > FS

The reason for the "(ES or CL)" would be that this would make the rotation without the FS match exactly as the one with given that the ES GCD or the CL would fill the same GCD created by FS no matter what the haste since GCD without haste is 1.5 seconds and the cast of CL without haste is also 1.5 seconds. Determining whether an ES or CL would result in more DPS is another issue and ultimately irrelevant to what I want to obtain here. (This is a bit off topic, but a little tip for other Ele shamans to maximize dps is to use the rotation opposite of the FS cycle for your thunderstorm. Also, if you know the fight will last longer than 5 minutes, you can also use this to start replacing your totems 1 at a time before they expire)

Given that desired rotation, what is the exact amount of haste to fill the 8 sec CD of LvB? This of course would be in addition to the 5% haste given from WoA totem.


Edit: I just realized how to figure this out easily which is to divide the the 8 sec of time I have to cast by the 9.5 sec of casts I want to use resulting in ~ 84 meaning I need 16% haste. I am currently at 22% and the next step which would be to add another LB would require ~30% haste which may not be feasible at this point without sacrificing other vital stats. I think that is the answer, but again not very good at math so correct me if I am wrong.

I know we will have to wait until we get more information about numbers, but the proposed 3.1 change (CL hits 4 targets by default but even lower damage) threatens to move us to a situation of 'haste useless except for certain 'steps' where we get another LB' ... assuming CL is no longer worth the cast time is there any thought of using ES (or even glyphing ES?!) to help keep rotations tight in between say 4 and 5 (or 5 and 6) LBs/LvB?

Edit: scenemaker seems to have beaten me to it ...

I've been running with a 2nd elemental shaman all week and doing some testing with searing totem and fire elemental since I don't have to drop ToW.

Searing totem is adding ~450 dps and Fire Elemental ~650 dps for the 2 minutes its up for me personally, it makes me wish ToW was an earth totem. I'm almost positive about the searing totem number but the fire elemental number I'm a little iffy on. Does anybody any other observations with the fire totems or coefficients for them?

Been playing with rotations lately.

In an ideal rotation, we'd have an average LB count that is not a whole number, and practically this will probably be the case as well. This is where the "LB count ratio" is going to come in.



From this graph, the blue line is the ideal no dot clipped, no lvb time wasted, fractional lb count rotation. The red line is the same as the blue line, except 1 was added to the LB count. Yellow is a fixed rotation assuming no wait time, while green is a max value line between Yellows LB count, and Yellows LB count -1 (ie: the greater of wasting and not wasting time on a fixed rotation).

The dips in Green & Yellow are caused by the last flame shock tick being clipped, and occurs every ~11.5%. The mid point between these dips are the point where it's advisable to add that extra LB cast to your rotation. I guess the name of the game now is to make sure that your LB:FS ratio is as low as possible, while minimising wasted time, but as you can see, the differences here come down to less than 100 dps. Additionally, the lack of T7 4pc appears to narrow the difference, but only slightly (68 vs 70).

From this, it looks like it's not going to really matter whether you go priority or fixed, as long as you keep your ratios solid.
The following is how I would calculate the "expected" LB:FS ratio, although I haven't done anything on adjusting it for fight time/bloodlust yet
although you could use if you wanted to focus a little more on your Lava Bursts, but the differences will be fairly minor. I'm assuming that the LvB:FS ratio will be ~2 (as it should be). I'm going to try to use this to give a bit more rotational options to SIEC, as well as improving CC uptime from math that I posted in the TTT thread.

Well it appears that you aren't taking a large enough sample set, otherwise I would expect to see a more even graph. That said, I think it's been fairly well established that using Earth Shock with the Shocking glyph is a net dps loss, so I'm not sure what you were trying to do here.

I haven't been experiencing any significant lag on Cho'gall for the last few weeks, even on Monday/Tuesday at prime time

It might just be Mal'ganis specifically, or super high pop servers in general

I saw two people ask just about the same question, I was using my data to try to help answer it. I see that the earth shock question has already been answered using your data here: http://elitistjerks.com/1047289-post256.html.

On the other hand, I don't think that having additional evidence ever hurts.

Regardless, my apologies for cluttering the thread.

Eh, you don't need to delete it. It's just a bit odd to see such variance in a graph like that, when it should be a little more linear/predictable. The problem with sims is that you will need a large data set to be able to even out random outliers in the data.

Hey

I have 589 haste rating, that'a 17.96% passive haste. Always raiding with a boomkin.
Including totem and moonkin aura:
LB cast time: 1.6 sec
GCD : 1.2 sec
(including an average 30 ms latency between spells which is exactly the number I have when parsing a 3min fight spamming FS-LvB-LB at fixed haste rating).

The problem is that I'm still using my old level 70 totem that brings me a proc with 100 more haste rating on LB. It does not have any internal CD and its uptime is very good, between 50% and 75% depending on my rotation (and the number of LB I use).

I tried it yesterday, I can not keep:
FS LvB LB*5 LvB LB*4 CL - and repeat.
When the 100 haste proc is up, I'm stuck at the end of the first part with a "Spell is not ready message".

So I had to replace 1 LB in the first part with 2 quick spells.
My new rotation is :

FS LvB LB CL LB*3 CL LvB LB*3 CL LB

It's a symetric rotation: 4 LB and 2 "short spells" between each LvB.

Time from a flame shock application to the next FS use:
* 20 seconds without haste
* 19.3 seconds with haste proc -> I won't ever clip my FS dot

Time from the start of the LvB CD to the next LvB start casting:
* 8.8 seconds Without any haste proc (with a 1.2 casting time: that's a 10 seconds global LvB cycle)
* 8.5 seconds with the 100 haste proc (with a 1.15 casting time, that's a 9.65 seconds global LvB cycle)

Minimum time from the start of a CL CD to the next CL start casting:
* 4.8 seconds
* 4.65 seconds with haste proc (so no problem with the 3.5 sec CL CD)

My first tests on dummy with a moonkin friend where pretty good, except that the manabar goes down really fast without replenish-JoW-BoW... using 3 CL for each FS cycle.


And my heroism rotation:
FS LvB LB*7 LvB LB*6


I will use this in 25-men raid until I get my hex totem.
Then I will try to drop 20-30 haste rating and switch back to: FS LvB LB*5 LvB LB*4 CL

Anyone else having trouble with a little too much haste to keep LvB LB*5 LvB ? and what solution did you find ?


Shaad
The World of Warcraft Armory

hey guys, i'm a long time reader of ej and a first time poster,

with my setup i keep the 4 peice bonus of t7.5 and i gear myself to eat haste food.

my rotation is as follows: fs,lvb, lb, lb, lb, lb, lvb, lb, lb, lb, repeat

fully raid buffed i have about 540 haste with food on and right at 11% hit(just under cap actually with shadowpriest). last night i was able to pull 5700ish dps on patchwerk.
Wow Web Stats

the only upgrades i can see atm are the gloves of granduer and the shield from kt25.

any thoughts on improvements?(other than leggings of the wanton)

Firstly, I am assuming you got your rotation wrong, as you must be fitting in 5xLB between the first and second LvBs.

I am pretty impressed to see such high DPS given that from the viewpoint of commonly accepted theorycraft you got so much wrong. You aren't hitcapped (although luckily none of your spells missed), you are prioritising haste over spellpower and one of your LvBs didn't crit. There is not much to say other than every stat weighting I have ever seen (including my own) noticeably prioritises spellpower above haste. Ignore that at your own risk.

As for upgrades, you have a few to get. The Sapphiron quest neck would be a big upgrade, and Ring of the Fated is nowhere near BiS. The mail belt is also marginally superior to the Sash. Additionally, you will find very few ele shaman using all 5 parts of T7, although none of them are awful.


Edit: Realised after I replied that this isn't in the WWS and Gearing Thread where oldmanreggie's questions and my reply really should go.

To be blunt, your choice in gemming is horrible, I don't quite understand why you have a fetish for haste over spellpower.

Then you do something with your helm that is completely the opposite...you give up a +8 haste bonus yet gem for a +6 crit bonus in your chest.

You should really only use 2 gems. +16 hit yellow gems, and +19 spellpower gems.

For blues depending on your hit needs go either +9 spellpower or +8 hit, the other stats on the blues are irrelevant.

For Helm I'd go 9 spellpower/whatever blue which will also pick up 8 haste.
Shoulder should be 19 spellpower.
Cloak should be 19 spellpower
Chest should be 19 spellpower X2
Wrist should be 19 spellpower
Belt should be 16 hit + 19 spellpower
Legs should be 9 Spellpower/whatever + 16 hit

By doing this you'll keep the same hit, lose a little haste and pick up quite a bit of spellpower.

Ring of the fated is far from BIS, ring of the malevolent is much better, as is the 213 valor token ring with spirit on it. the 226 neck from the malygos quest is also a much better in the neck slot. Picking these up will allow you to drop the 7.5 gloves for Benefactor's gauntlets and the Plush Sash for Recuperation Girdle which you would gem with +16 hit.

Those changes should put you at a near-perfect 290 hit.

Your WWS is high in part due to a short patch kill which left you hasted most of the time and a 25% Lightning overload proc percentage.

alright, first off, yes my rotation is actually fs,lvb lb*5, lvb, lb*4 repeat. just making the post in my spare time at work and my head is in other places. 2nd, how am i not hit capped if i have the hit rating to make 11%. last time i checked cap was 17%, so that's my 11 from hit rating, 3 from talents, and 3 from the shadowpriest with 100% attendence.

and as for the reason of my haste level, if i have my gear right now and a haste food buff my rotation has absolutely no downtime(with about 540 haste after food) once i get the shield from kt/gloves from saph. i figure i can use sp food like the rest of the world and increase it that much more.

as for gemming, i saw no other way of getting the correct haste rating other than to gem for haste/hit. and yes my helm gem is all wrong, thanks for pointing that out.

i mean call me out if my logic is severely flawed with trying to stay at that haste rating. the way i see it, more haste i'm waiting for my first lvb cd, less haste, it's done before i'm through casting the bolt before it. don't you wanna float right on top of the cd?

Hit cap - look at your own armory page. You are admittedly only 4 rating short, and thats not going to have a huge effect on anything, but the fact remains you aren't hitcapped. Anyway, as this is the rotations thread:

Its not actually possible to have no downtime with that rotation. If the first half of your rotation is very tight, the second half is by definition going to leave a gap (or if the second half is perfectly tight the first half is slightly too long etc.) That FlS you are casting instead of that 5th LB will mean one part of the rotation is bound to be ~0.4secs quicker than the other.

With 500+ haste you are to be fair hitting what is one of the easier points to pull off a tight fixed rotation. However that doesn't change the fact that there is no magical spot for haste, and if you take this down to the basic math of the situation there is no good argument for doing what you are doing.

alright, aside from the balancing act of hit cap and haste rating, what are you thoughts of trying you best to never let the flameshock dot fall off? i could see it benefiting you on a short fight like patch, but atually hurting you on prolonged fights where you stay stationary.

looking at the ptr's on hodir, where you never stay stationary for long, it seems that keeping the flameshock dot up would greatly benefit your dps.

just wondering if anyone has done any extensive testing on this theory.

The flame shock dot only does 200-400 DPS, so I don't think it really matters that much if it's up or not (in your case, it ticked for an average of 830 on Patches, which is 280 DPS)

That said, whenever you have to move as a caster you should try to cast an instant so the time isn't completely wasted. If FS is going to fall off in the near future, that would probably be the best spell to go for, otherwise you should hit Thunderstorm, Water Shield, or maybe Frost Shock

The damage of an average Flameshock cast is already very close to that of an average LB cast (normalised to factor in crit and LO proccs etc.) In Ulduar gear, and with Booming Echoes, FlS will overtake it. As such, trying to keep up FlS 100% of the time will never hurt your DPS, unless as a result you do something stupid with the rest of your rotation.

I think the generally assumed position on FlS is:

- Make sure its always up for LvB (stating the obvious).
- Aim for as close to 100% uptime as possible, without "clipping" the dot.
- Except in movement-heavy fights, where re-casting earlier on the move to allow for a better rotation when you have "stand-and-cast" time is preferable.

Thats not intended to be a definite logic chain, but you get the idea.

mmoo, i think you understood my question better than tankenstein.

the only real problem i can even see with this is that eventually if you are trying to keep the dot up as close to 100% as you can, your eventually gonna get to the point in the rotation one of your flameshocks is gonna come up right after a lavaburst, so it will run out before the 2nd lvb on that cycle comes and you'll have to recast, but i'm not sure if that is really a bad thing in the long run.

280 DPS is more than 5%. I think you are on the wrong forums if you think it doesn't matter if it's up or not.

....

The question is not: "is 280 DPS better than 0 ?" of course !
It's not a "free 280 DPS", it costs a GCD to refresh FS.