It really does not matter whether the dot falls off or not unless you're suggesting some sort of munching. The dot falling off early would actually be preferable to be guaranteed that the target does not die with unrealized damage still pending.

It does matter if the dot wears off or not, of course that doesn't apply on all fights where it might be neccesary to keep a target alive for abit, at that point there's other things you could do to prevent stacking it up and that's pretty obvious as well.

But as you said it, the 4-set T8.5 would not be worth having, the point of it is to keep the dot stacked up as much as possible but not to the extend where it does lower your DPS instead due to skipping other important things such as keeping FS up and using LvB when it's off cooldown, that's where the point of Blinkensteins post come in regarding when you should switch to a 2-set T9, i'm quite sure you didn't meant what it came out as, but yeh.. i guess you get my point of it.

Hi, I'm a main spec Restoration Shaman but have been filling in as Elemental and my DPS seems low overall.

We run 2 Trial of the Crusader normal raids splitting mains and using alts to fill in to double loot drops so here is the ToC normal fights I was in as elemental.

Northrend Beasts
Lord Jaraxxus
Faction Champions
Twin Val'kyr
Anub'arak Try 1
Anub'arak Kill

Any advice / suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

EDIT: Looking back at what I wrote I was rather vague. Would lag account for the low DPS or am I out of whack with my gearing? I try and cast as many Lightning bolts in between Lava Bursts and tossing in at least one chain lightning per Lava Burst, sometimes I toss in two. I tend to go by feel. Maybe that is what the source of the issue is.

In a bit of Haste vs Crit dilema at the moment if anyone can give any advice.

From what I know, Haste is supposely twice as important as crit, but surely there is a diminishing of return as you stack haste and shouldnt crit have a minimal level that you shouldn't go below?

I am currently sitting on 594 crit rating (26.44%) and 609 haste, and is thinking about getting one of the Triumph badge ring to replace the Titianium ring. My choice now come down to the one that gives haste or crit (and mp5). Haste is important as far as I know but by taking that ring I will drop my crit by another 42 (gain 50 haste instead), whereas if I take the crit ring it will be a pure slight gain (42 to 50 crit and 25mp5) with no loss of other stats.

I am actually thinking of getting the crit ring as it will suffer no stat loss and even thinking about if I need to care more about crit rating when I gem and such, and would like advices/opinions to see if it would be the better approach than the "haste haste haste" approach.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Hey guys. I've been raiding for the last month or two, and just wanted to stop by and maybe get a few pointers. First of all, my server, Cairne, is easily the worst WoW server in existence, especially Horde side. My old guild transferred to Thrall, so I'm currently building a guild, and we're downing most bosses in Uld. I am consistently at the top of the charts, averaging between 4.5-5k+ dps usually. I constantly get raped by good rogues and hunters, but what am I going to do about that?

Anywho, just wanted you to look at gear, spec, glyphs, etc. I think it's all solid, except for my shield and boots which both need to be changed. I also am overhit capped, but it seems Blizzard enjoys putting hit on every piece of gear. It's also impossible to find non-set gear without hit, spirit, or mp5. I'm hoping I can eventually get some 10 man hard modes going, since that seems to be the only place for upgrades as far as non-set pieces.

Also, how should I handle 232 t9 vs. 245? We can down ToC 25 and I suppose I am the top of the pecking order, but should I reserve my emblems strictly for 245/258? And should I stick with the t8 T4 bonus, or equip the resto helm (a lot better than the elemental)?

And one quick note, my roommate who is a destro warlock outgears me by very little (according to WoW-Heroes and be.imba) but seems to create a lot more havoc. In 10 mans, I can usually beat him out, but once we go into 25s, he usually can get a decent lead on me. Is this simply Destro > Elemental or am I perhaps doing something wrong? I vary on priority rotation and FS-LvB-LB rotation, depending on whether or not CL will hit additional targets.

Thanks for the help.

P.S. I suck on Ignis, don't ask why.

I have a gear-related question. Equipping the T9 legs (my only T9 piece currently) leaves me extremely over hit. The only alternatives for this slot are T8.5 legs (giving me 3 pieces) and [Leggings of the Snowy Bramble]. Would it be better for me to equip T9 legs and drop 3/3 Elemental Precision? Or keep the points and the leggings until I can get another couple of replacements to balance out my hit elsewhere?

Armory Link

1. There isn't a large difference in Tailoring and JC...other than probably getting funny looks as a tailor as a shaman. Lightweave is a pretty good enchant. When they nerfed JC to not give socket bonuses out of color it brought it into line with the other professions. Lightweave is the only real variable profession right now because of the way it interacts with the number of spells you use and such to minimize the cooldown time.

The other two you can answer if you download Bink's spreadsheet and use it. You are having trouble because you didn't try. http://elitistjerks.com/blogs/binken...k_changes.html He updates it pretty regularly, and while not perfect, you won't go too far wrong following the suggestions if you take the time to set all the options correctly.

Your armory link is broken, so I will answer given some assumptions.

The [Leggings of the Snowy Bramble] stat differences over [Nobundo's Kilt of Conquest] are:

-12 Int; -12 Crit; -21 SP; +69 Haste (assuming a runed cardinal in the t9 blue slot because your other 2 blue gem bonuses are less than or equal to 7 SP).

Using average gear ratings for someone making this choice, the expected dps increase using the leather legs is about 30. If you are completely 80 over-hit with t9 and the set bonus does not apply, you should use the leather legs. If you still need hit using the leather, you will need to see if the extra hit required elsewhere (gem or other item choice) loses less than 30 dps. (E.g., replacing a runed cardinal for a hit gem loses about 24 dps all else being equal).

Dropping the 3% hit from talents would only be worthwhile if you could make a better (dps) use of those talents elsewhere, and given the optimal Elem spec, that is not highly likely - although I can't see your spec, so can't help there.

--edited for typo

I now have over 1000 haste with the totem proc. Yea I was surprised too.

This is all thanks to a few key drops last night (my 2nd trophy, voa 25 tier 9 gloves, bis leather boomkin pants, and the 232 chest from emblems) i made the switch from t8.5 to t9.5 and i was happy to find out i was only 12 points over the hit cap (which means i can drop the hit/crit boot enchant in favor of speed/stam. debatable) and i now hav 805 haste (+200 with the totem up) giving me a total of 1005 haste. (Also switching from the leather pants back to my 8.5 pants i'm at 14% for when we have no sp/boom in the group instead of before when i had to switch out my whole set)

Now my question is about glyphs. Should i now switch from ToW to Lava or is ToW still better? Should i switch some of my +23 sp gems to 12sp/10 haste gems or just stick with the sp.

I had to go to bed right after i finished gemming and enchanting all the upgrades so i haven't played with the dummys yet. Anyone using 4 piece t9 other then myself and already done some testing?

How am i doing?

I'm also hearing that if i was to get 73 more haste i would be essentially at the perfect rotation, would it be worth gemming for more haste?

Yes, its still worth getting more haste. The "perfect" rotation is entirely theoretical, there is no relevant fight in the game with zero movement, so the Patchwerk style tank and spank rotation isn't something you could live and die by.

Until you start capping out on haste via the 1.0s GCD cap, haste will still be relevant. You will see diminishing returns at 1270 (when your instants, LvB and CL "cap"), but you can't realistically hit the LB cap until well into 2000+ haste.

All that said, you shouldn't be gemming for haste anyhow unless its via orange hybrids, even with our good haste scaling, the item budget on spell power is still better in most realistic gearing scenarios.

I made the switch. Still unsure if it's actually better then ToW tho since I changed so much all at once. But i have a stack of ToW and a stack of Lava so i can change it back and forth. I think I'll need a bit more sp to really notice the difference since i'm just under the 3.2k sp average.

No, I don't think you understand the nature of the T8.5 dot. Keeping it "stacked up" does not give you more damage, but only delays the damage. It's an owed-damage proc. If the dot ticks off completely, you get the damage now, if the damage continues to tick and stack, you get the damage later, but you still get the same amount of total damage. I mention that it would actually be preferable for the dot to tick off is because if it continues to stack very high and then the target dies, then a lot of unrealized damage remaining in the dot goes away along with it. But this is not a mechanics thread, so I'll just leave it at that.

Rawr is fine for 3.2

Ah yeah, true. Thanks.

WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay

I personally feel I have not been performing to my best ability as an elemental shaman, and I am looking for suggestions in either gear/gem choices, or possible flaws in my rotation to increase my dps. I understand the 200 haste totem is in fact a dps increase, but is it worth spending the emblems when I currently have just enough to purchase my last 2 pieces of 245t9(Helm and chest). I have the legs sitting in my bags. Also, if I replace my shoulders with [Pauldrons of the Spirit Walker], and use the t9 legs, is it a large enough stat increase to break my t8 4pc bonus?

Also, since I personally wont see much of 25man ToGC soon, would [Relentless Gladiator's Blade of Celerity] be a good secondary choice to any of the heroic mode weapons?

Quick question for Bink, Moshne and my fellow elems. We all know that there is a severe lack of elemental gear in Ulduar, and even more so in ToC. With my T9 4pc I'm practically over hit cap. With my other pieces it puts me way over (15+%). The giant hitcap is a byproduct of getting gear that is an upgrade. For instance, last night the Pendant of Fiery havoc dropped on FL. I was already over hit cap, however the extra SP and haste was an upgrade over the mp5 neck that I had. With all this extra hit, would I benefit from temporarily dropping some points in elemental precision for other talents, maybe improved watershield (3pts from current 1) due to the increase in mana cost now that CL is back in our priority system?

Armory
For my current build.

I toyed with the idea, but you are better off fine tuning your gear. If you have an excess about of MP5 gear to switch out for Hit gear, your underlying problem is your gear to start off with. Your best bet is to try and shed hit on the t9. If you are wearing all five pieces, you leave very few options for shedding hit as you are going to get it on other slots whether you want it or not. Your jewelry also tends to come with few options, so you end up picking up excess hit there as well. If you can avoid it on other slots, more power to you.

As an aside, you are better off wearing the MP5 gear than switching out of your threat reduction. I can't speak for you, but I'd be a corpse on most fights without it, or I'd be having to attack off until the tanks have threat established (Only fights I can see this being viable is FC (where you don't use CL) and MAYBE Anub.)

EDIT: I just looked at your armory. If you pick up the t9 shoulders, and get the leather legs from Anub, you'll be able to shed 90 hit rating right there. That should take care of most of your problems as that is over 3% missing.

Thanks Moshne and Tarrick.

This clears it up for me, I'll keep the precision. Admittingly, I overlooked the threat reduction because honestly whenever I think of that talent it screams "HIT" at me. I think the excess hit was a result of how I went about justifying the upgrading of a couple pieces like my dagger and cloak, without realizing it.

200 and 226ilvl with mp5 -> 245ilvl with hit

[Guiding Star] to [Blade of Tarasque]

Saying that the trade of mp5 for Hit (even though over the cap already) was outweighed by the bonus 71 spellpower
(I got the dagger in a PUG ToC so it wasn't like I was taking it over a guildie)

and

[Wispcloak] to [Cloak of Displacement]
(I converted from Resto to Elem prior to 3.2)
The upgrades for this one are a little more obvious in justifying the extra hit as a byproduct.

While I agree with what you are saying Moshne, the legs that I would be replacing are 245 (lucky drop from Voa) so I'd much rather keep them since getting the 245 shoulders would be a long way off due to scarcity of trophies. I think for the time being it would be more in my worthwhile to replace my weapon and cloak with ones that have mp5 instead of hit. Also, it gives me the flexibility of not worrying about hit down the road if I get a better weapon/cloak.

I suggested the legs because they won't have much competition. I imagine its you and maybe a token Boomkin that want the leather off Anub. Worst case, do that and buy the 232 shoulders, it would be a large net increase in DPS shedding that much hit for "working" stats until you can replace the other weaker pieces of hit gear.

Its nice to min/max your upgrades and all, but you have to ask which pieces you can realistically get. I have no idea where you stand in your guild dkp/priority/roll system, but I imagine a cloak, weapon and rings are rather hard on competition. (You have a lot of options from 10 man though, if you can do hardmode 10, there are about 3 options for your weapon.)

A few questions for ya'll as a engi/JC ele shaman. Rawr suggests to use Hyperspeed Accelerators or the Pyro Rocket for glove enchanting. First , if using the speed boost, when would be most optimal to blow them? Pretty much as frequently as possible? I bound the rocket to my LBs so it'd always be firing before Rawr suggested the accelerators.

Secondly, my current trinket options are Scale, IotDS, and EotBM. I presently use Scale and Illustration due to Rawr suggesting higher, but when using the above glove enchants, it constantly sets off the scale's CD. Should I be better suited using the glove enchants and EotBM? Or rotate the cooldowns? Or perhaps even replace my engineering glove enchants in lieu of the 28SP?

I usually time the Hyperspeed Accelerators together with a Dying Curse proc and a situation where I don't have to move for a while. I am activating Troll Berserking and Elemental Mastery on the same key press, too.

Isn't it better to separate them out? While they are great together if used outside of BL, I find that activating Berserk during BL seems a bit of a waste as it will take your LB below GCD hence you are actually slowing yourself down, wouldn't it be better if you save Berserk for before/after BL and use BL and EM together?

If you not using BL with it then obviously using EM/Berserk together is a good choice.