I've recently experimented with swapping out all my +hit gems and enchants for +SP, and swapped my Sundial of the Exalted for [Mark of the War Prisoner]. I'd keep [Dying Curse]equipped either way. This leaves me 3 points over the hit cap, and in total i swapped out 60 hit for 63 sp, counting only my armor. Swapping the trinkets cost me a lot of crit (83 i think) and the sundial proc, but got me to the hit cap, and also gained me the +sp use on war prisoner.
This also leaves me stuck with my valorous gloves instead of my [Benefactor's Gauntlets] until I can pick up a tier chest piece.
I can't link my wws, because I'm at work where wws is blocked, but last tuesday I pulled ~3800 on patchwerk, and after i made all these changes I pulled ~4200 on KelThuzad on thursday. That's the only boss encounter I have to compare so far.
Were my gear changes the source of improvement, or did is it more likely I paid more attention to my rotation?
Do you think I'd be better off with putting the +hit back on my gear and using the Sundial instead of the Mark?
Side note: our boomkin raids irregularly, and we've only just recruited an spriest over the weekend, so when i made these changes I knew I couldn't rely on their +hit buffs. I may be able to swap my gloves after all, if Benefactors > 4pc.
Looking at your gear, I suspect you should be capable of doing close to 5k DPS on Patchwerk, even taking into account your less than ideal raid group.
Honestly, swapping your trinkets/gems around is unlikely to have a huge impact either way. You are missing some really "cheap" hit rating by not hitting your socket bonuses with yellow gems, but equally getting hit via gear as you have done is a good way to go.
I suspect a close look at your rotation would yield a lot more in the way of DPS gains than further gear tinkering.
Also, remember to take dmg meters in context. Firstly its generally bad to compare one fight to another. Also, there is simple luck to consider. My DPS dropped by 700 on Patchwerk this week, despite using a marginally better rotation, just because my LB crit dropped by 12%. All you can do is work on the best possible rotation, and hope the RNG smiles on you.
Also consider that on occasion, you just won't get as many LO procs as the proc rate says you will, and furthermore, losing crits on the LO procs you do get will yield sub-optimal DPS as well. Elemental is very heavily based off of RNG, compounded by the added RNG factor of crit applied to RNG procs. When you look at it in context, Elemental was the most chaotic damage dealing spec in the game.
As for Benefactor's and the four piece, I'd consider how much damage your LvB is currently doing, average it out, and then take your WWS at the end of a night and knock 10% off of your LvB damage totals, THEN compare the stats you are actually getting above your Valorous. I'm going to imagine your LvB does more damage than mine, but it's hard to beat a free 1200 pts every 8 seconds off a 12k LvB.
As for Benefactor's and the four piece, I'd consider how much damage your LvB is currently doing, average it out, and then take your WWS at the end of a night and knock 10% off of your LvB damage totals, THEN compare the stats you are actually getting above your Valorous. I'm going to imagine your LvB does more damage than mine, but it's hard to beat a free 1200 pts every 8 seconds off a 12k LvB.
Thats not how the 4-pc T7 bonus works. Its not even close to being that good. If you LvB is hitting for 10k consistently, the set bonus will add something like 240 dmg. It effectively takes the crit multiplier from 2.22 (with meta and talents) to 2.274. I've tested it personally, and this also fits with the expected outcome from theorycraft. I don't entirely grasp how these things are calculated personally, but other people do, and its on one of the thread on these forums if you want to look.
Also, being slightly pedantic, but I think you would need to be in absolute top end BiS gear to get a LvB average hit of 12k anyway - although would love to see a WWS to prove me wrong.
Also consider that on occasion, you just won't get as many LO procs as the proc rate says you will, and furthermore, losing crits on the LO procs you do get will yield sub-optimal DPS as well. Elemental is very heavily based off of RNG, compounded by the added RNG factor of crit applied to RNG procs. When you look at it in context, Elemental was the most chaotic damage dealing spec in the game.
As for Benefactor's and the four piece, I'd consider how much damage your LvB is currently doing, average it out, and then take your WWS at the end of a night and knock 10% off of your LvB damage totals, THEN compare the stats you are actually getting above your Valorous. I'm going to imagine your LvB does more damage than mine, but it's hard to beat a free 1200 pts every 8 seconds off a 12k LvB.
Neither of these things are true.
First Elemental isn't very RNG. Lava Burst Crits 100%. Flame Shock Dots don't crit.
Because we have such a high crit rate the amount having a few higher or lower percentage of crit doesn't significantly impact our DPS. It is definately not the most chaotic damage spec in the game.
Mages are considered "RNG" because they have things like Hot Steak that are based off of back to back crits that can cause their DPS to be significantly different or steaky each time.
Your math is also off on the Lava Burst Bonus, although it is what most people assume when reading the tooltip..
Lava Burst 4 Pc would make a Lava Burst that is normally 10000 damage, only 10245 Damage, not 11,000 damage like you'd think.
In this example it would work out to 245/9.5 or about 25 DPS-27 DPS depending on your haste throughout the fight.
The Crit Bonus without 4PC is 1.2208 Base Damage(including Lava Floes, Meta, Elemental Fury).
The Multiplier for crit with the 4 PC is 1.2753.
First Elemental isn't very RNG. Lava Burst Crits 100%. Flame Shock Dots don't crit.
Because we have such a high crit rate the amount having a few higher or lower percentage of crit doesn't significantly impact our DPS. It is definately not the most chaotic damage spec in the game.
There is an RNG element to all dps really. While ours is limited by the lava burst crits, and the small portion of damage coming from our single dot, crit RNG will still affect us.
However, there is the RNG element that is Overload, a 50% chance that's also affected by crit chance. Mages have more things riding on their crit amounts, while we deal with two different RNG figures. I wouldn't say that one is "more random" than another though.
There is an RNG element to all dps really. While ours is limited by the lava burst crits, and the small portion of damage coming from our single dot, crit RNG will still affect us.
However, there is the RNG element that is Overload, a 50% chance that's also affected by crit chance. Mages have more things riding on their crit amounts, while we deal with two different RNG figures. I wouldn't say that one is "more random" than another though.
Yes all dps and healing have RNG elements as there are random numbers involved in both the base damage and crit.
Our class is not considering a "RNG" class in my opinion because 25%-30% of our damage is pretty static(LvB+FS) and the rest of our DPS is only 100% Crit Bonus.
Lightning Overload used to account for 10% of our DPS yet now only accounts for 5%.
Out of every class that can crit we are at the bottom when it comes to random spikes of damage that make a class do a significantly different amount of damage.
You will find that classes that scale really well with crit tend to be more "RNG" than those who do not.
To be honest I've found the term to be way overused much like the word "scaling".
You'll find the top all time patchwerk DPS charts have few to no shaman for a reason.
What would you guys say is the ULTIMATE combo of gear for us, using any combination?
My problem is I have, I think, the best in slot items for everything except the ring from KT and possibly gothik ring from 10 man.... Additionally I have about 6 cloth/leather pieces in bank that were suggested by MAXDPS.COM.... my problems start when I start to think about breaking (or not!) 4 set bonus and/or which 4 of the 5 set pieces to get rid of in favor of a better piece. Please consider that I am a JCer and I have weighted socket bonuses saved from using prismatic gems (blue sockets for elemental = grrr!) so that my bracers/cloak/neck all benefit from using that.
I realize that in some cases it's only a case of 3 spell power or .07 haste and so on but I would like to do all I can to eek out every possible amount of dmg possible.
Your gear is pretty good but, wheres the hit? Even as a blueberry your pretty short off the hit cap.
I logged off playing around with gear. My goal is to:
get as close to exactly 10% (Draenae + Misery for cap). > spell dmg > haste > crit
Besides the 2 rings I mentioned I have all the top items listed on maxdps for elemental. I just need an ideal setup to mix and match them into the ultimate combination. If it means being under hit cap on base and eating snapper extreme for more net haste or spell dmg I can live with that.... any advice would be welcome.
Yes all dps and healing have RNG elements as there are random numbers involved in both the base damage and crit.
Our class is not considered a "RNG" class in my opinion because 25%-30% of our damage is pretty static(LvB+FS) and the rest of our DPS is only 100% Crit Bonus.
Lightning Overload used to account for 10% of our DPS yet now only accounts for 5%.
Out of every class that can crit we are at the bottom when it comes to random spikes of damage that make a class do a significantly different amount of damage.
You will find that classes that scale really well with crit tend to be more "RNG" than those who do not.
To be honest I've found the term to be way overused much like the word "scaling".
You'll find the top all time patchwerk DPS charts have few to no shaman for a reason.
Except the damage output of LvB and FS are affected by whether the prior two spells crit or not, Overload is ~10% of the non FS/LvB damage (so 7-8%), and the reason why most of the top guilds don't have elemental shaman is because they didn't have one in TBC, and haven't found the need to recruit or respec to get one.
<snip> and the reason why most of the top guilds don't have elemental shaman is because they didn't have one in TBC, and haven't found the need to recruit or respec to get one.
This raises an issue I've been thinking on a bit lately: what total benefit am I bringing to the raid as Elemental? Of course there is my own DPS (which is still a decent chunk lower than my pre-3.0.8 Enhance damage - but then again I was in mostly BiS as Enhance, and my Ele set is still a work in progress), but my raid lost no buffs when I specced out of Enh (DKs covering WF and UR), but gained Totem of Wrath and Elemental Oath (though I'm not sure, does EO stack with other classes' +crit buffs, if such a thing even exists?). Is there some napkin-math I can do to figure out net DPS gain based on number/type of caster in my raid?
What would you guys say is the ULTIMATE combo of gear for us, using any combination?
My problem is I have, I think, the best in slot items for everything except the ring from KT and possibly gothik ring from 10 man.... Additionally I have about 6 cloth/leather pieces in bank that were suggested by MAXDPS.COM.... my problems start when I start to think about breaking (or not!) 4 set bonus and/or which 4 of the 5 set pieces to get rid of in favor of a better piece. Please consider that I am a JCer and I have weighted socket bonuses saved from using prismatic gems (blue sockets for elemental = grrr!) so that my bracers/cloak/neck all benefit from using that.
I realize that in some cases it's only a case of 3 spell power or .07 haste and so on but I would like to do all I can to eek out every possible amount of dmg possible.
/salute all my shaman brothers and sisters!
If you read the first few pages of this thread there have been endless discussions of what is and isn't and might be best in slot.
It really comes down to if you are able to obtain cloth, and if you want to wear it even if you can. There are a number of very nice cloth pieces, the problem comes though that in wearing them you lose the majority of the benefit due to losing the T7 bonus.
I may just be personally biased here, as although I have investigated all the cloth drops, the fact I won't ever get them makes it all seem a bit pointless. The bottom line is that I really think you are at best talking about some pretty small gains from an "ultimate" set compared to something more easily obtainable along the lines of 4-pc T7, Benefactors Gauntlets etc.
Originally Posted by Daenerys
my raid lost no buffs when I specced out of Enh (DKs covering WF and UR), but gained Totem of Wrath and Elemental Oath (though I'm not sure, does EO stack with other classes' +crit buffs, if such a thing even exists?).
EO is the (slightly inferior) cousin to moonkin aura, and so they don't stack. If you find it confusing Mmo-champion has a good raid planning tool for seeing how all the class buffs fit into categories, and so which do and don't stack.
Neither of these things are true.
Your math is also off on the Lava Burst Bonus, although it is what most people assume when reading the tooltip..
Lava Burst 4 Pc would make a Lava Burst that is normally 10000 damage, only 10245 Damage, not 11,000 damage like you'd think.
In this example it would work out to 245/9.5 or about 25 DPS-27 DPS depending on your haste throughout the fight.
The Crit Bonus without 4PC is 1.2208 Base Damage(including Lava Floes, Meta, Elemental Fury).
The Multiplier for crit with the 4 PC is 1.2753.
I'll disagree as I maintain there is a fair amount of RNG present considering the filler part of the rotation is accounting for 60% of the total DPS (at least that I'm doing), but on your second point, I will step aside.
I joined here recently because of things exactly like that. The UI is not telling the story, and it can be difficult to tell that from simple meter reports. I'll probably say something stupid and put my foot in my mouth again, so in advance, thank you for putting up with my bone headed comments.
With your help, maybe I can go from just being good at pushing the buttons and actually understand what's really going on and how to best set things up.
This raises an issue I've been thinking on a bit lately: what total benefit am I bringing to the raid as Elemental? Of course there is my own DPS (which is still a decent chunk lower than my pre-3.0.8 Enhance damage - but then again I was in mostly BiS as Enhance, and my Ele set is still a work in progress), but my raid lost no buffs when I specced out of Enh (DKs covering WF and UR), but gained Totem of Wrath and Elemental Oath (though I'm not sure, does EO stack with other classes' +crit buffs, if such a thing even exists?). Is there some napkin-math I can do to figure out net DPS gain based on number/type of caster in my raid?
There is no significant benefit you are bringing as ele or enh that is gonna outweight one spec over the other. Both specs have raid buffs that can be offered by other classes. However as ele there is one situational bonus u can offer and that is the ToW crit debuff. It is the only debuff in its catigory that can be applied on multiple mobs, much like the comparison between improved scorch and winter's chill. There is also the spellpower gain from ToW that is better than anything else of the same category, however once your spellpower is over that 2800 barrier it gets outperformed by demonic pact, something that is going to be the case in uludar if you'r not there already
There is no significant benefit you are bringing as ele or enh that is gonna outweight one spec over the other. Both specs have raid buffs that can be offered by other classes. However as ele there is one situational bonus u can offer and that is the ToW crit debuff. It is the only debuff in its catigory that can be applied on multiple mobs, much like the comparison between improved scorch and winter's chill. There is also the spellpower gain from ToW that is better than anything else of the same category, however once your spellpower is over that 2800 barrier it gets outperformed by demonic pact, something that is going to be the case in uludar if you'r not there already
Our ToW is here to stay.
It has been well proven that the DPS loss of a Lock speccing into Demonic Pact is more than any potential benifits. It is also situational on pet survivability and critical hits, as well as the above mentioned 3% crit debuff (which is brought by Ret Pallies as well)
The Ret Pally debuff is less situational, but still requires a melee to stay alive
Although trash matters less, and we may be dropping magma, it is the only AoE crit debuff of that category.
Except the damage output of LvB and FS are affected by whether the prior two spells crit or not, Overload is ~10% of the non FS/LvB damage (so 7-8%), and the reason why most of the top guilds don't have elemental shaman is because they didn't have one in TBC, and haven't found the need to recruit or respec to get one.
That is why I said at our current crit rate. I don't need to demonstrate the graph of a square, we are already have 80% uptime on Elemental Oath, there isn't much play in there that makes us any more or less bursty.
Our lightning overload proc is only for half damage and only on 70% of our spells, our crits are for 100%(Lava Burst is guaranteed, flame shock dots don't crit at all) and we don't have any non-linear forms of damage.
Sure taking a very small sample of damage we can be pretty bursty but the odds of that actually influencing any encounters final numbers significantly over the course of a few minutes are rare.
The reason I commented on Elemental Shaman not being in the top DPS has nothing to do with "top guilds" and everything to do with the fact that if we WERE bursty(or RNG as people term it) you'd see some crazy shaman with a 6-7000 DPS patchwerk like mages or other bursty classes can reach here and there but never consistently. I've yet to see an Elemental Shaman break 6K DPS on patch... I'm sure it has happened but I haven't seen it. I have seen most other DPS classes break 6K DPS though.
The point is Elemental DPS is going to be pretty reliable and predictable and will usually fall within a few hundred DPS range depending upon gear and skill.
Originally Posted by wonqu
There is no significant benefit you are bringing as ele or enh that is gonna outweight one spec over the other. Both specs have raid buffs that can be offered by other classes. However as ele there is one situational bonus u can offer and that is the ToW crit debuff. It is the only debuff in its catigory that can be applied on multiple mobs, much like the comparison between improved scorch and winter's chill. There is also the spellpower gain from ToW that is better than anything else of the same category, however once your spellpower is over that 2800 barrier it gets outperformed by demonic pact, something that is going to be the case in uludar if you'r not there already
Demonic Pact is being fixed shortly and will soon allow for a Demo warlock to bring more spellpower than totem of wrath.
The only downside is currently it only has an uptime of @90% and on some fights it isn't always possible to keep your demon alive. Currently Demonic Pact is not counting the spirit gained from Fel Armor towards the buff and thus currently it isn't an issue.
In situation with multiple mobs Totem of wrath is going to better, but then in those situation a good elemental shaman will end up dropping magma totem.
In short, our DPS is the only thing that is keeping us viable in ulduar and pretty much nothing else.
In short, our DPS is the only thing that is keeping us viable in ulduar and pretty much nothing else.
That damage is actually pretty underwhelming atm. Like you said, there's no 6k-7k parses for Elemental damage out there. Elemental Shamans top DPS meters in some guilds, but if you look at top parses and top guilds where all the players are skilled and geared they'll sometimes make the top 5. In EJ I'm thrilled to make the top 5 on a boss. Now part of this is what Ghostcrawler mentions; we're comparing ourselves to classes that are performing at too high a level. But Elemental damage, even post-3.0.8, is not particularly high. In a world where no raid buff is unique to a particular class/spec, damage disparities should be smaller than they are. If I'm not bringing anything unique to the table, why should I be consistently 500 DPS behind an Enhancement Shaman?
That damage is actually pretty underwhelming atm. Like you said, there's no 6k-7k parses for Elemental damage out there. Elemental Shamans top DPS meters in some guilds, but if you look at top parses and top guilds where all the players are skilled and geared they'll sometimes make the top 5. In EJ I'm thrilled to make the top 5 on a boss. Now part of this is what Ghostcrawler mentions; we're comparing ourselves to classes that are performing at too high a level. But Elemental damage, even post-3.0.8, is not particularly high. In a world where no raid buff is unique to a particular class/spec, damage disparities should be smaller than they are. If I'm not bringing anything unique to the table, why should I be consistently 500 DPS behind an Enhancement Shaman?
I don't know about Enhancement beating us in DPS, maybe they do but our best Enhancement Shaman is usually a hair behind me.
Ultimately Blizzard's goal is you don't bring a player based upon their class but based upon the player. I felt pre-3.0.8 that I was only brought for my totem of wrath, which was the truth. Without that I wouldn't have been allowed to raid as Elemental. Next patch is bringing us another 60 DPS or so, but I'm brought because I'm consistently in the top 3DPS. With the rest of the balancing going on I'll probably fall to the top 5 DPS.
One good thing to consider is the fact we can use searing totem on some bosses now if there is a demonology warlock present so I for one don't mind being able to drop some "selfish" totems for myself.
The other thing to consider as a raid leader is that most encounters seem to favor ranged DPS to melee DPS. You usually can never have too many ranged DPS. As long as we don't do a U-turn back to our pre-3.0.8 status we should be fine.
In the long run Flametongue Weapon's self buff is going to need to be changed to a dynamic buff to keep our spellpower in the same league as other classes with scaling buffs.
If you aren't Pushing 5K DPS on patchwerk as elemental in a game-clearing guild right now I'd be concerned.
That damage is actually pretty underwhelming atm. Like you said, there's no 6k-7k parses for Elemental damage out there. Elemental Shamans top DPS meters in some guilds, but if you look at top parses and top guilds where all the players are skilled and geared they'll sometimes make the top 5. In EJ I'm thrilled to make the top 5 on a boss. Now part of this is what Ghostcrawler mentions; we're comparing ourselves to classes that are performing at too high a level. But Elemental damage, even post-3.0.8, is not particularly high. In a world where no raid buff is unique to a particular class/spec, damage disparities should be smaller than they are. If I'm not bringing anything unique to the table, why should I be consistently 500 DPS behind an Enhancement Shaman?
That's exactly the question I'm asking myself, and wondering whether my decision to "go Ele to help the raid" was really the right one. I easily dropped ~800 DPS from my best Enhance PW efforts, and while I still have some upgrades left for my Ele set, it's getting to the point where I don't see it making up the difference combined with whatever Totem of Wrath is giving, which is why I asked the question earlier about quantifying that Totem's benefit. My decision was partly based on an assumption that I could at least get close to matching my Enhance output, which based on early Ele testing seemed possible, but now I fear it's going to be out of reach.
That's exactly the question I'm asking myself, and wondering whether my decision to "go Ele to help the raid" was really the right one. I easily dropped ~800 DPS from my best Enhance PW efforts, and while I still have some upgrades left for my Ele set, it's getting to the point where I don't see it making up the difference combined with whatever Totem of Wrath is giving, which is why I asked the question earlier about quantifying that Totem's benefit. My decision was partly based on an assumption that I could at least get close to matching my Enhance output, which based on early Ele testing seemed possible, but now I fear it's going to be out of reach.
If you aren't Pushing 5K DPS on patchwerk as elemental in a game-clearing guild right now I'd be concerned.
So what do you consider pushing 5k? With my current gear should i be concerned? I know i need a better hit trinket and have been waiting for the valerous head piece, also belt and wrist off instructor but other then getting some improvements in gear i feel like my spell rotations are pretty solid.
02/09/09, 10:37 AM
Similar Threads
