[Elemental] WWS & Gearing help thread - Page 9

Zinth · 01/24/09, 6:10 PM

Patchwerk DPS Post 3.0.8
Armory

For reference, I'm using Glyph of Lava, Glyph of Lightning Bolt and Glyph of Flame Shock. I did not have a Totem of Hex until after Patchwerk that night (this week was good to me, heh) and I was using a slightly different rotation to account for some higher haste. I was also timing the use of Elemental Mastery to combine with Bloodlust as that's where it will definitely shine on Lightning Bolt spam.

FS, LvB, CL, LBx4, ES, LvB, CL, LBx4, Repeat.

Scaling with spell power is a very nice change for us and I am very happy to be out damaging the tanks now.

Hoochiemami · 01/25/09, 12:28 AM

Originally Posted by Zinth

Patchwerk DPS Post 3.0.8
Armory

For reference, I'm using Glyph of Lava, Glyph of Lightning Bolt and Glyph of Flame Shock. I did not have a Totem of Hex until after Patchwerk that night (this week was good to me, heh) and I was using a slightly different rotation to account for some higher haste. I was also timing the use of Elemental Mastery to combine with Bloodlust as that's where it will definitely shine on Lightning Bolt spam.

FS, LvB, CL, LBx4, ES, LvB, CL, LBx4, Repeat.

Scaling with spell power is a very nice change for us and I am very happy to be out damaging the tanks now.

Nice work, and gratz on the new totem...

But why such an ugly gem in your bracers!?!? +19 SP please :P

drock903 · 01/25/09, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by Hoochiemami

But why such an ugly gem in your bracers!?!? +19 SP please :P

i see this all the time it makes me shake my head. he is a jewelcrafter which makes it worse...

he should put the jc only prismatic gems in the bracers and boots. at least he got the neck right.

Zinth · 01/25/09, 12:52 PM

Originally Posted by drock903

i see this all the time it makes me shake my head. he is a jewelcrafter which makes it worse...

he should put the jc only prismatic gems in the bracers and boots. at least he got the neck right.

What you aren't taking into account is the fact that i have been extremely unlucky with getting a Scarlet Ruby from prospecting and I can't really justify paying 150g for one right now.

When i get one, it'll be re-gemmed. But at the time, I needed the blue sockets glowing.

Blueshock · 01/25/09, 5:09 PM

I'm currently wearing [Totem of Ancestral Guidance] and I'm wondering if it would be better to use [Venture Co. Lightning Rod]? Obviously [Totem of Hex] would be superior to both of them but until it drops I'm stuck with either of these.

Thanks for reading.

Mmootimus · 01/25/09, 6:00 PM

Originally Posted by Blueshock

I'm currently wearing [Totem of Ancestral Guidance] and I'm wondering if it would be better to use [Venture Co. Lightning Rod]? Obviously [Totem of Hex] would be superior to both of them but until it drops I'm stuck with either of these.

Thanks for reading.

I feel this is the kind of question anyone could answer for themselves with really basic game knowledge, but anyway...

Ignoring CL for a moment, with all glyphs included the coefficients on LvB and LB are not wildly different. Which means it comes down mainly to bonus damage from the relic VS. how often you cast the spell. Even allowing for the guaranteed crit on LvB. the Venture relic won't come close, and thats before the extra benefit your occasional CLs will also gain. That should make it a fairly obvious choice.

Kakmonstret · 01/26/09, 4:10 AM

So has anyone done any calculations or has any thoughts of what two trinkets to wear of [Dying Curse] , [Embrace of the Spider] and [Illustration of the Dragon Soul] after the patch changes yet?
Especially considering the IDS nerf.

Ghando · 01/26/09, 4:22 AM

IDS remains best in slot even with the nerf. As for the other two, it depends on where your hit is coming from. Most gear setups will make the best use of Dying Curse, some will make Embrace better. An example: in my present gear Dying Curse is better than Embrace, but if I was using the cloth robe from Maly10 Embrace would be better.

Ezareth · 01/26/09, 9:43 AM

Originally Posted by Ghando

IDS remains best in slot even with the nerf. As for the other two, it depends on where your hit is coming from. Most gear setups will make the best use of Dying Curse, some will make Embrace better. An example: in my present gear Dying Curse is better than Embrace, but if I was using the cloth robe from Maly10 Embrace would be better.

I can't see any situation where a Combination of Embrace and TDS are better than Dying Curse and TDS unless you are talking about heroics or trash.

Dying Curse is BIS out of the three, I'm always up for someone correcting me on this but I just cant see it happening.

I listed earlier the items needed to gain a perfect 290 hit with BIS gear. You'd have to rearrange all of your gear, maybe be a JC with +hit gems or something else to hit that without dying curse and to trade a haste proc for a spellpower proc just makes no sense.

Once again I'm open to someone who has done the math, but from the math I've done these two aren't even close.

Chaser · 01/26/09, 1:33 PM

I have the choice between 3 different rings :

[Band of Channeled Magic]
[Titanium Spellshock Ring]
[Signet of the Kirin Tor]

Band of channeled magic has spirit but with everything I looked at, it still seems to be the best choice over the two rings. Thoughts?

Chaser · 01/26/09, 2:56 PM

Originally Posted by Ezareth

[Footsteps of Malygos] have 7 less spellpower, 1 less crit, 5 less int, all for 18 more haste and 10 stamina than [Item not found!]. Are they really better? Yes...barely, and when epic gems come out then no, they'd be equal. If you are a Jewelcrafter these are better right now.

This is not true 100% of the time.

A jewelcrafter shaman that has :

[Bands of Mutual Respect]
[Wyrmrest Necklace of Power]
[Pennant Cloak]

Would be better off with the [Footsteps of Malygos].

I'm hoping they drop next time we do maly.

Mmootimus · 01/26/09, 3:38 PM

Originally Posted by Chaser

I have the choice between 3 different rings :

[Band of Channeled Magic]
[Titanium Spellshock Ring]
[Signet of the Kirin Tor]

Band of channeled magic has spirit but with everything I looked at, it still seems to be the best choice over the two rings. Thoughts?

I agree with you on this, despite the Spi BoCM is best. Like the majority of the discussions in this topic though, we are looking at a very minor difference between the items.

Also fully agree with Ezareth regarding trinkets. I can actually see us wearing Dying Curse for a loooong time, depending mainly on how much hit is on T8.

Daenerys · 01/26/09, 6:10 PM

I just specced Elemental this week, so my armory is a bit ugly (beware the crappy gems!), but we ran a PuG Naxx (guild is strictly 10-man, but we do joint runs with another guild for Naxx 25) last night and it was my first run as Ele. I *think* I did well given my gear, but I'd love to know if I'm doing anything wrong before I develop bad habits!

I was certainly not perfect on most encounters, but I think I stuck to my rotation pretty well on PW: Wow Web Stats

Basically I was doing FS, LvB, LB, LB, LB, CL, LvB, LB, LB, LB, CL, FS... The CLs weren't always done at the same time and sometimes I skipped them depending on what kind of haste I was under, but I did find that with my gear under normal circumstances I couldn't just stick with LB because there was a bit of dead time if I did that. Glyphs are LB, FS, and Lava.

As for gearing, as I said I know it needs some work, but I cobbled together the best set I could after the respec. The first order of business is of course upgrading all my gems, which should help a bunch. I have a lot of options for armor pieces, as I'm a JC (is the blue craftable trinket worth bothering with? How about the titanium spellshock?), and I have good funds to buy BoEs, Undeath cards, etc. with. I also have a lot of 10-man badges and about 70 25-man badges.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, though the biggest thing for me right now is knowing whether or not I'm "doing it right" as far as my actual DPS on a boss. Is ~4k DPS on PW where I should be for my gear, or will I find that even with BiS gear I'm not hitting the high numbers that some of you guys are posting because I'm just not playing well enough? Thanks!

Tezzo · 01/26/09, 6:13 PM

Wow Web Stats

5221 DPS on Patchwerk 3.0.8

<--- can see armory profile there

I think this is about as good as I can get as alliance. I had a nice tight rotation: FS LvB LBx4 LvB LBx3FS LVB.. repeat

Should I keep my current wep and go for the KT mace (passed twice for healers out of guilt)?
Should I replace the titan-shock ring with the purchased kirin-tor one (gold is no problem) or badge one (I will go for the KT ring but it never drops for us...)?

all in all am very happy with the new changes!

Binkenstein · 01/26/09, 7:45 PM

Originally Posted by Tezzo

Wow Web Stats

5221 DPS on Patchwerk 3.0.8

<--- can see armory profile there

I think this is about as good as I can get as alliance. I had a nice tight rotation: FS LvB LBx4 LvB LBx3FS LVB.. repeat

Should I keep my current wep and go for the KT mace (passed twice for healers out of guilt)?
Should I replace the titan-shock ring with the purchased kirin-tor one (gold is no problem) or badge one (I will go for the KT ring but it never drops for us...)?

all in all am very happy with the new changes!

I hear 52/14/0 is a great dps spec, as is running with 8% hit.

/sarcasm

Tezzo · 01/26/09, 9:04 PM

my spec is 57/14
The Wow.europe armory is screwed up and doesn't show for whatever reason.

8% as draenae shmn is fine.
I am using snapper extreme as food to compensate for lack of hit

We have a very tight raid team that always has a moonkin, a retri paladin and 2 shadow priests.

you can see from the wowwebstats I posted from the raid we did last night, that out of 2158 spell hits I had 22 misses from the off-times when either misery or moonkin or retribution was not overlapped.

I have some other bits I can switch out but not sure I really need to. This bases a lot of assumption that your raid members abilities will synergy with yours but as you can see it is possible to miss if they are dead or they let their ability 'fall off' or out of range or whatever reason.
So do you go for the self sufficient and not depend on your raids buffs (over the hit cap is pretty useless in my eyes) or min max to squeeze out all you can?

I appreciate the criticism as this is an interesting topic to me (go with raid synergy or self sufficiency).

Binkenstein · 01/26/09, 9:50 PM

I always go with self sufficiency, as hit is the most valuable stat.
If I rely on Moonkin/Spriests, and they die/screw up debuffs, then my rotation will get screwed up, and reduce my DPS (FS or LvB missing will be a real pain). Damage, spellpower, haste & crit effects will all change how my DPS works anyway, but they will have no effect on how my rotation goes. This is the same reason why I do not want to use hit food.

It's a gearing philosophy choice, really.

Mmootimus · 01/26/09, 9:58 PM

Firstly, the EU Armory hasn't worked since 3.08.

More importantly... @Tezzo
With 8% hit you will never, ever be hit capped. Not with all the buff food and Shadow Priests in the world. I am not sure what you mean about "overlapping" but +hit buffs don't stack. Also. I hate to break it to you but Ret paladins have absolutely nothing to do with giving a +hit buff.

Admittedly with a Snapper Extreme you will only be less than 1% short, but thats still a significant, and entirely avoidable drag on your DPS.

As for your other questions, the mace is a moderate size upgrade over what you have now. I would say both rings you mention are very marginal upgrades over titanium spellshock.

Chaser · 01/27/09, 2:21 AM

Originally Posted by Binkenstein

I always go with self sufficiency, as hit is the most valuable stat.
If I rely on Moonkin/Spriests, and they die/screw up debuffs, then my rotation will get screwed up, and reduce my DPS (FS or LvB missing will be a real pain). Damage, spellpower, haste & crit effects will all change how my DPS works anyway, but they will have no effect on how my rotation goes. This is the same reason why I do not want to use hit food.

It's a gearing philosophy choice, really.

Carrying all that hit is gimping you 100% of the time where misery is up. I don't understand a philosophy that would have you prepare for the worst case scenario. Let me illustrate the way I see that with a rather extreme situation. Let's say your healers are horrible and they get themselves killed all the time. Will you start gearing for mp5 in case you need to start chain healing the raid ?

In a fight where DPS matters. For exemple, Brutallus when people were coming out of BT. Or M'uru pre-nerf. You wanted to maximize every little bit of DPS. If your shadow priest was a retard and got himself killed, it was probably gonna be a wipe anyway. Why gear up for a situation like that ? IMO, if you can't trust anyone you play with in a guild to stay alive and do their job, then there really is little point to min/maxing your gear at all anyway is there ?

Besides there is an easy solution to that problem.

[Haunting Call]+[Ward of the Violet Citadel]

Can be equipped in combat if shit hits the fan.

I definately agree with carrying a set that is hit capped for when the SP/moonkin fail to show up. Also having an extra +hit weapon/oh combo to switch in combat is a good idea. But just gearing up for extra hit in case something bad happens is just a waste IMHO.

Binkenstein · 01/27/09, 3:47 AM

Different strokes for different folks. I'm aware I'm trading off ~95 spellpower to be hit capped by myself, but I think it's worth it. FYI, the hit is worth 155 EP, vs the 115 from spellpower, and given that I have a rather simplistic hit valuation, it's undervaluing the hit more.
And additional to that, I have a combination of special & irregular Spriests & Moonkin to rely on.

Ezareth · 01/27/09, 11:36 AM

Originally Posted by Chaser

Carrying all that hit is gimping you 100% of the time where misery is up. I don't understand a philosophy that would have you prepare for the worst case scenario. Let me illustrate the way I see that with a rather extreme situation. Let's say your healers are horrible and they get themselves killed all the time. Will you start gearing for mp5 in case you need to start chain healing the raid ?

In a fight where DPS matters. For exemple, Brutallus when people were coming out of BT. Or M'uru pre-nerf. You wanted to maximize every little bit of DPS. If your shadow priest was a retard and got himself killed, it was probably gonna be a wipe anyway. Why gear up for a situation like that ? IMO, if you can't trust anyone you play with in a guild to stay alive and do their job, then there really is little point to min/maxing your gear at all anyway is there ?

Besides there is an easy solution to that problem.

[Haunting Call]+[Ward of the Violet Citadel]

Can be equipped in combat if shit hits the fan.

I definately agree with carrying a set that is hit capped for when the SP/moonkin fail to show up. Also having an extra +hit weapon/oh combo to switch in combat is a good idea. But just gearing up for extra hit in case something bad happens is just a waste IMHO.

My thoughts exactly.

Having hit foot on hand and maybe the Ward of the Violet Citadel is fine in the event your shadow priests/boomkin can't show up, but you should GEAR for an optimal raid and expect nothing less.

Let's face it, if your guild is having difficulties with keeping people alive during encounters, having a non-optimal raid composition, or attendence issues, is is kind of pointless to do the min/maxing of your damage to the extent we are on this forum.

That extra 1-2% DPS you squeeze out isn't going to make the difference in Ulduar.

Just my 2 cents.

Daenerys · 01/27/09, 12:01 PM

Sorry to post again, but I'd still like some advice/comments on my post #213, which seems to have been glanced over with the current hit rating discussion. Thanks!

ichigoo · 01/27/09, 1:03 PM

Okay i have to make a decision about the 4p bonus t7 or this legs

So here is the one im using now. With two 32 SP Gems, 50 SP / 20 SPI Enchant And also the 7 SP bonus
[Leggings of Voracious Shadows]

So total
220 SP
61 Haste
50 Crit
For this legs

Or [Heroes' Earthshatter Kilt] With 2x 16 SP 50 SP / 20 SPI Enchant

So total
10% more crit dmg on LvB
167 SP
56 Crit
36 Hit

So anyone could calculate the dps that scales best and how much is the difference etc.? Try to do the calculators as easy as possible as im a little bit stupid :P

Thanks

Ezareth · 01/27/09, 1:04 PM

Originally Posted by Daenerys

I just specced Elemental this week, so my armory is a bit ugly (beware the crappy gems!), but we ran a PuG Naxx (guild is strictly 10-man, but we do joint runs with another guild for Naxx 25) last night and it was my first run as Ele. I *think* I did well given my gear, but I'd love to know if I'm doing anything wrong before I develop bad habits!

I was certainly not perfect on most encounters, but I think I stuck to my rotation pretty well on PW: Wow Web Stats

Basically I was doing FS, LvB, LB, LB, LB, CL, LvB, LB, LB, LB, CL, FS... The CLs weren't always done at the same time and sometimes I skipped them depending on what kind of haste I was under, but I did find that with my gear under normal circumstances I couldn't just stick with LB because there was a bit of dead time if I did that. Glyphs are LB, FS, and Lava.

As for gearing, as I said I know it needs some work, but I cobbled together the best set I could after the respec. The first order of business is of course upgrading all my gems, which should help a bunch. I have a lot of options for armor pieces, as I'm a JC (is the blue craftable trinket worth bothering with? How about the titanium spellshock?), and I have good funds to buy BoEs, Undeath cards, etc. with. I also have a lot of 10-man badges and about 70 25-man badges.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, though the biggest thing for me right now is knowing whether or not I'm "doing it right" as far as my actual DPS on a boss. Is ~4k DPS on PW where I should be for my gear, or will I find that even with BiS gear I'm not hitting the high numbers that some of you guys are posting because I'm just not playing well enough? Thanks!

Some Thoughts:

Totem of the Elemental Plane is Bugged. It has an internal cooldown and is next to worthless. If you don't have the Black Temple +85 spellpower totem, then go with the Venture Co Lava Burst totem until you get a Totem of Hex.

Spend your Valor badges on Tier 7.5 Shoulders + legs.

Put +19 spellpower in your boots, and +16 hit in most of your yellow slots, then put another couple spellpower gems in the slots that put you at around 263.

Your rotation is fine in theory, you just need to practice it more until you don't have to think and it comes completely natural. Then you won't feel you are making mistakes and you'll see an improvement in DPs.

4K DPS is fine for your gear, but you could probably push 4500 or so optimally.

Agash · 01/27/09, 1:07 PM

Originally Posted by Daenerys

Sorry to post again, but I'd still like some advice/comments on my post #213, which seems to have been glanced over with the current hit rating discussion. Thanks!

The first thing I look at on WWS reports is the average time between LvBs. Yours was around 10 secs which isn't bad but could be improved a little. Looking at the rotation you posted (FS, LvB, LB, LB, LB, CL, LvB, LB, LB, LB, CL, FS) I think you have missed out a LB and it should have read FS, LvB, LB, LB, LB, LB, CL, LvB, LB, LB, LB, CL.

I think you would squeeze a little more DPS out if you changed the first LB to a CL and brought your final CL forward to make the rotation repeatable:

FS, LvB, CL, LB, LB, LB, CL, LvB, LB, LB, CL, LB

This would reduce your time between LvB to about 9.75 secs which would be very good.

The next thing I look at is FS up time and you seem to have around 92% there which again is pretty good though making the above change to your rotation would increase it to about 94-95%.

Other than that and the gems etc. you have already mentioned it looks fine.

One point though - if you do stick to a 1 CL per LvB rotation, your mana bar will thank you for putting the CL within 2 spells of the LvB to ensure it gets the mana reduction from CC.